All right, so similar to how I wrote a short synopsis of the books I read in 2023 to test my memory, I’m doing the same thing again. Although it occurs to me it would be more of a challenge if I attempted 2023 now, and then saved 2024 for next year. Then I really won’t remember what the hell I read at all. My memory is woefully short. As before, loads of spoilers for what I do remember, and also a fair warning that it may all be wildly inaccurate owing to my fucked memory.

I also realize while looking over my list of reads that I did not read the 4th Harry Potter book. I had planned to read one a year every year until I finished the series, and I just… forgot.

Did I mention the woefully short memory thing yet?

Well, without further ado:

I did finish Loop, which I ended with last year. Can’t remember if I said very much about it. I vaguely remember it twisting the story from Ring and Spiral and making the events of those books part of a virtual world simulation. Sadako becomes a virus that infects the world because of how she proliferates by the end of the second book, and somehow her virtual “cancerization” of the simulation spreads into the real world and causes an untreatable and quickly spreading cancer that threatens the entire world. The main character (who’s name I can’t now remember) goes on a journey to find the origin and the cure, and ends up having to sacrifice himself. It also turns out that he’s basically Ryoji from the previous books. All of the Ring books were a bit harder for me to read – in fact, I kind of found that many of my re-reads were a bit of a slog for me. I don’t know if that means I have changing tastes or what?

The next book I read was part of the Sidequests, if I remember right. I asked a friend for a sci fi story recommendation and read the first book of the Expeditionary Forces series. Earth is taken over by aliens, who basically pull us into an intergalactic war that’s been ongoing for a long time. I remembered thinking it was kind of Mass Effect’y in some ways. Skippy is an AI that pops up halfway through the book and mostly drives the story from that point. It was fun and I might get around to the rest of the story at some point.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor was next. It is the follow up book to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing that I read in 2023. I remember it being not quite as good as the first book – it was still an examination of political divides and the way fame effects people, this time spread across more of the main character’s friends instead of focusing just on her (which makes sense because she’s assumed dead the first part of the book). It’s worth reading to finish out the story from the first book and have an actual conclusion that feels like a conclusion, though at this point I don’t remember too much from it. Rivalry alien intelligences, one trying to help humans and one trying to destroy us because of the events of the first book? Something like that?

I read Birthday next. It’s related to the Ring series as well. It contains a set of 3 shorter novella sized stories all set in The Ring universe, and all surrounding the theme of birth with central female characters. I think one story is set around Sadako’s viewpoint, though I don’t remember it. One is set around the death of the girl that rebirths Sadako in the second book, and shows her thoughts right before she dies. And the third is the love interest of the main character of Loop, who gets to briefly see her lover in the scene that ends out that book. It’s worth it if you’re dedicated to seeing everything related to the Ring.

And similarly, while trying to get that book I also found out there was a newer related book to the series by Koji Suzuki called S – in this book, the main character specializes in CGI and is tasked with determining whether a video that shows a man committing suicide is real or not. I really don’t remember very much of this one? I know it involved Sadako spreading herself again, in a newer fashion. The man has a girlfriend who is pregnant and is being threatened in some way by all of this. I think it follows up the main character from Loop trying to reverse the Sadako cancerization of the simulated world since he lives in it now? But from the point of view of a new character trying to figure out what’s going on.

I also spent some time on some art history. While visiting a Van Gogh virtual exhibit in Tulsa, I picked up Vincent Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings. It was 700’ish pages discussing Van Gogh’s life and works, but I did read it all and found it intriguing. I would have liked it better if the paintings they were discussing were placed closer to the pages that were discussing them – I had to flip around a lot to find the painting in question. I did have a smaller book, so I don’t know if there is a version that aligns it better. I liked the formatting of the book from Taschen, so I looked into some of their other art books and also picked up HR Giger. It was a shorter read, and had the same sections repeated in a few different languages. Less comprehensive than the Vincent Van Gogh book, but there were lovely full page spreads of Giger’s art, which I enjoy.

The next book I read was FantasticLand. I read something somewhere that compared it to Lord of the Flies set in a theme park that’s been isolated due to a severe hurricane, told in a World War Z fashion of an interviewer compiling the events from different POVs. Wow, that sounds great. But the result was a kind of chaotic slog that never really grips the way that either Lord of the Flies or World War Z does. It lacked the shock and violence that makes Lord of the Flies question human decency, and it lacked the pathos and humanity that World War Z manages. It might be interesting to someone, but I disliked reading it.

Next was one of my BOTM picks. I’ve been holding off on reading them because I want to hit 30 books for their reading challenge this coming year, so I’ve been building a backlog. But I figured I would go ahead and read Annie Bot anyways. A little high brow so if that’s not your thing you can skip it, but I found it fascinating. Annie is a robot, and as she becomes more aware and learns more about herself and the world around her, she becomes more uncomfortable in her position and her relationship with her owner/boyfriend. And the more realistic and personlike she becomes, the less her owner seems to really enjoy her. It’s an interesting examination of power dynamics and relationship ideals. I remember really liking it, and it wasn’t very long so it was a quick read.

Next I read Shit My Dad Says. You remember the early days of twitter when someone would post some short funny thing that went viral and eventually they got book deals and TV shows and such? Shit My Dad Says was basically a twitter feed that blew up. The book tells different stories from the author’s life in regards to his relationship with his dad, mostly funny, and then kind of attempts a poignant end to wrap things up. It’s a fun read at least, especially if you ever enjoyed that twitter feed. But if you did, you’re very old by now. You’re welcome.

After that, I decided to give in and read one of the romance fantasy novels that are so popular lately. I started with Fourth Wing. The writing style was very easy to read. While it was a fantasy world, a lot of their speech and other things had a very modern manner, so it’s not quite hardcore fantasy – it’s like fantasy-lite, which makes it very accessible for people that aren’t super into fantasy novels. There were a few things that seemed kind of silly, but it wasn’t bad and I do plan to read the other books eventually. The main character, Violet, is forced to enroll to become a dragon rider, which is a school/life path that is considered especially dangerous and results in the most deaths/failures, despite having spent most of her life preparing for a different path. She stubbornly insists on completing and manages to win 2 dragons. There’s a love triangle and a kind of enemies to lovers thing. The book has very sexually open minded characters but there’s only one spicy scene, which was a bit disappointing since the entire sell is that these are supposed to be smutty? (Is it me? Am I the perv?)

I read another BOTM pick after that, The Husbands. This one was a lot of fun. The main character is a single woman who comes home after a bachelorette party with her friend only to find a stranger in her house who claims to be her husband. As she adjusts to finding out that she’s apparently married and that her house and everything in her world reflects that as a truth, he goes into the attic for something and then another man comes down. After that, she goes through a series of husbands, her home and her life changing each time to reflect the differences in each life. Every time a husband goes into the attic, a different husband comes down, and it’s like she ends up in a different universe. She eventually meets a man who has been going through a similar thing – when he locks himself into a space, he comes out to find he’s married to a different person (male or female, he’s bi). They decide they’re not for each other and continue to search for a perfect spouse separately. It’s a story that makes you think about all the possibilties and life choices that we make and where they lead us.

In the end, she realizes she becomes too obsessed with finding perfection and realizes that pattern has to stop. After confirming that certain things that she can’t lose in her life are present (her niblings, her sister being safe, and that she’s not in an abusive relationship), she sends her husband on an errand out of the house before she can see him and make any snap judgements about him, and then she burns down the flat so that she can proceed with living her life. It was an interesting way to finish the book – she has to live with the choices, and can no longer keep slipping in and out of husbands and different lives. I liked it quite a lot. It was also well written and despite the subject doesn’t come across as high brow at all.

Speaking of high brow, I read Roundabout next. There were a few bits that made me laugh out loud. The entire novel skirts around using the letter E at all, which allowed for some creativity but also made it very strained and obvious what it was doing in some parts. I could read some bits quite quickly, and then the rest was kind of a slog.

I re-read House of Leaves. It’s an interesting experimental novel that tells a couple of different stories, although the one that always sticks with me is the haunted house portion. There’s also a frame story about a drug addict obsessing over the story as it was “researched” by an old man that had recently died. It’s not as scary as they say – there are a lot of hidden messages, most of which I have never bothered to hunt down myself although I notice the patterns enough to tell they’re there. It runs a bit overlong to me in some places and can be easy to put down, but what it attempts is very impressive and I do kind of love it.

I also decided to re-read the Animorphs books, but only got through the first 7. In the Invasion, the group of kids meet an Andalite who gives them the ability to change into different animals if they manage to touch them. They’re given this ability so they can attempt to stop the secret invasion of Earth by an alien parisitic species called Yeerks, which are slugs that take over and control bodies. In The Visitor, they investigate one of the Yeerks they know about to try to continue their mission, by using their morph ability to sneak into their Assisstant Principal’s house. I can’t quite remember the Encounter – I think it involved them finding where one of the Yeerk ships source their fresh water from, and they try to infiltrate that ship. Then in The Message, they have a shared dream that leads them to finding the last living Andalite on Earth and rescuing him, only to find that he’s a kid that’s as lost as they are. In The Predator, Marco almost quits (again) until he finds out his Mom (disappeared presumed dead) is actually alive in space as one of the Yeerk leaders. The Capture involves Jake almost being caught by a Yeerk, but his friends manage to starve it out of him – it turns out it’s the same one that inhabited his brother previously as well. The Stranger introduces the Elimist, if I remember right?

In general, the kids are fighting a guerilla war, attempting missions with very little resources or information or back up. They often aren’t fully successful, only managing to be nuisances to the Yeerks, and suffering from PTSD as a result of a lot of the things they go through.

I actually really loved reading the books as a kid, and only finished collecting the entire series as an adult. I’ll probably read them a bit between BOTM books next year.

After that, I re-read The Hobbit, for Hobbit Day. It always surprises me how much I forget from that book, but it is a classic. Very much a child’s introduction to the world that Tolkien created, but still quite fun to read.

Another BOTM pick was The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden. I didn’t really care for the characters that much, and at first it seemed the story would be pretty basic, but the end twist was really well handled and turned around what I felt about the book. Which is what a thriller should do, generally. It was a pretty quick read as well.

The next BOTM pick that I decided to read before 2025 was Again and Again. It was a little hard for me to tell whether I hated or loved this one – it is poignant, a bit on the high brow side. I liked parts of it, and there were parts that didn’t quite make sense for me. When the character finally comes clean and tells the true story of his life, it feels so tragic and empty, and when he finds out what legacy he has left behind, it doesn’t feel full so much as like more tragedy. There is still a bit of a sense of hope to it, I guess. It was a good read, but I could see it being hard to get through for some.

After that, I got sucked into the Dungeon Crawler Carl books by Matt Dinnaman. So far I like them quite a lot. They blend humor and drama well, and the two main characters are a lot of fun. The world is taken over by aliens who are there to harvest a certain element from it, most of humanity is killed and the remainder is offered a chance to enter a dungeon. This dungeon is set up and run like a game show where people across the galaxy watch the participants on a live feed. Carl ends up in the dungeon with his ex girlfriend’s cat, who ends up becoming sentient and acknowledged as a fellow crawler. Together, they’re attempting to survive the dungeon. Donut the cat is fun and smart allecky, and Carl has plenty of attitude as well. I’ve finished the first 6 books and I’m working on the 7th right now. They have just entered the 9th floor, out of a possible total of 18(?) floors. Each floor has a different challenge and environment. The entire game is run by an AI system that is becoming more aware and belligerent (and really into Carl’s feet) as it develops.

Although there are fantasy elements because of the dungeon environment, there is a heavy sci fi undertone. In each book, you learn more and more about the reasons why Earth was harvested/targeted and how the galaxy is run and some of the inequities of the system in place in the outside world. So far, I’m really enjoying this series, and I’ll definitely pick up each book as soon as it’s immediately available.

Which catches me up on 2024.

And into 2025.

Happy New Year!