This post is a follow-up to Books I read that were published in 2024 and contains mini-reviews of books published in 2024 that I read in January 2025 (and a couple in the first couple days of February).

To answer the inevitable question, I read this much because I listen to audiobooks at somewhere between 4x and 5x speed (and also many of these are novellas or short novels). And the reason I can do that, is practice. Anyone can learn to understand audio that quickly, it’s a matter of listening a lot and slowly increasing the speed.

Comedy

• Red Side Story by Jasper Fforde - Maybe not the best subgenre label, but it’s deeply a parody of teenage post-apocalyptic fiction. Both book 1 (Shades of Grey (not to be confused with the other book)) and its long-awaited sequel (this) are fantastic.
• The Stars Too Fondly by Emily Hamilton - I had so much fun with this one! It’s very silly and the plot doesn’t really make sense, but I enjoy silly and I found it excellent. I highly recommend the audiobook if you decide to read it, because the VA did a great job of conveying silly light-hearted fun.

Cozy

• The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong - Almost a perfect novel, except for one plot point that truly did not make sense where the MC learns something that should deeply affect her but then forgets about it by the next page. Other than that, it’s lovely and wonderful.
• The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst - Not enough of a plot to hold up the cozy elements.

High fantasy

• The Silverblood Promise by James Logan - Filled to the brim with tropes, and a weird shift from one POV to multiple POVs partway through. Debut, so some slack, but it was published by Tor (as opposed to being self-published), so I was pretty disappointed with this one.
• The Color of Revenge by Cornelia Funke - I read Inkheart as a kid and loved it, this one felt a little flat in comparison (plus I’m not a kid anymore).
• Relics of Ruin by Erin M. Evans - This is the sequel to Empire of Exiles, and I’m very glad to say that the audiobook narrator toned down her enthusiasm a bit between books. I really enjoyed both of these, particularly with their portrayal of anxiety and found family.
• The Bone Harp by Victoria Goddard - I love her Nine Worlds books, but I did not love this one. The prose is slightly unbearable and it leans very heavily on an internal mythos that doesn’t precisely make sense to me. I think the MC is supposed to be one Fëanor’s sons crossed with Sauron, on a journey of redemption, but it just wasn’t quite all there for me. Maybe someone who knows Tolkien better than I do would “get it” better.
• Kindling by Traci Chee - if Metal from Heaven didn’t work for you, maybe try this one! It’s also about an oppressed group of people in the face of technological advancement (in this case “hand cannons” (guns)), and it’s also a bunch of lesbians sharing a house for a month, but the pacing is significantly better and the genre doesn’t change abruptly partway through. It even also features second-person narration! Kindling is the better of the two.

Historical

• The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden - WW1 war story that’s not as emotional as The Women, which I read very recently, so it didn’t leave quite the impression that it could have. But, still pretty good.

Horror

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken - This one won the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize in 2024 but is definitely listed as 2024 pub not 2023, which slightly confuses me but I guess it was published at different times in different places? Doesn’t go hard on the horror aspect (which is why I read it) but it’s a very heartfelt zombie apocalypse story from the POV of a zombie.
• The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed - It’s, fine, but I expected incredible and it wasn’t incredible. Eerie atmospheric journey through scary woods.

Literary

• The Other Valley by Scott Alexander Howard - This has a decent chance of being the most interesting book I read all year! It’s one of the best time travel novels I’ve ever read. I have some spoiler-laden theories that I’d love to discuss with anyone who’s read this.
• The West Passage by Jared Pechaček - This book is 50% Piranesi and 50% The Spear Cuts Through Water. If you liked either of those you’ll probably like this, and if you liked both you’ll love it.

Mythology

• Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson - Not sure how to categorize this. The author is Jamaican and I’m not sure how directly this is inspired by Caribbean traditions, but it’s very clearly non-European, and if you’re looking to read fantasy that departs from standard Medieval Europe-based worldbuilding, I’d recommend this one! Due to a large number of conlang words interspersed through the narrative, I would suggest reading it in print/ebook form, not audio by itself (I used both).
• The Last Phi Hunter by
  Salinee Goldenberg - Thai mythology monster hunter story. If you like monster hunter stories you’ll like it, if not you’ll probably find it pretty boring.

Not spec fic

• Interesting Facts about Space by Emily Austin - FYI, the title of this book is now capitalized wrong if the publishers are following the Chicago Manual of Style but it was correct at publication (haha! Don’t we all hate title case!). Regardless, I thought this was terrible and the facts about space were not interesting.
• The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr - This book is WRONG ABOUT JIGSAW PUZZLES (and also wrong about other kinds of puzzles too but I’m only qualified to talk about jigsaw puzzles). I wrote a long rant about this. It was not good.

Queer

• Metal from Heaven by August Clarke - The reason I’ve categorized it as “queer” is that it doesn’t really stay in any single genre for me to categorize it any other way. When I learned the author was heavily inspired by Harrow the Ninth my opinion went down a lot because it’s not nearly as good as the “original.”
• Talio’s Codex by J. Alexander Cohen - I reviewed this on its own, it’s excellent and the book that Blood Over Bright Haven should have been.
• Tadek and the Princess by Alexandra Rowland - A beautifully bittersweet novella that serves as both a prequel and sequel to A Taste of Gold and Iron. Everything I’ve read by Alexandra Rowland so far has been 5 stars, including this one.

Romantasy

• The Naturalist Society by Carrie Vaughn - For fans of Marie Brennan’s A Natural History of Dragons. Not as good, but still quite excellent!
• Swordcrossed by Freya Marske - I quite enjoyed this! And I’ve heard it’s not as good as A Marvellous Light¹ which has been on my TBR for years, so I’m now extremely looking forward to that!
• I Ran Away to Evil by Mystic Neptune - Super fun litrpg romantasy (yes, it’s both of these genres). Originally published on Royal Road, now indie published by Podium.
• I Ran Away to Evil 2 by Mystic Neptune - Yes, Podium did 2 volumes in 2024. I did not like this one as much, but I’m still looking forward to the third (and I believe final) volume.
• The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love by India Holton - Excellent romcom, a lot of meta humor present. Emily Wilde is definitely a comp title, but I liked this significantly more.

Science fiction

• Lady Eve’s Last Con by Rebecca Fraimow - Fun scifi/romance/con story. Appreciated the Jewish representation with plot relevance!
• Ocean’s Godori by Elaine U. Cho - A journey of self-discovery for a Korean space pilot and her found family on the crew. Not as many Firefly vibes as you might expect from this description.

Still TBR

• The Navigator’s Children by Tad Williams - OK I read fast, but I don’t read this fast, especially because I hadn’t even started Last King of Osten Ard at the beginning of the year (though I read Memory Sorrow Thorn last year).
• This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman - waiting for audiobook (this month!!!).
• The End of Time by Trudie Skies - no audio and omg it’s so long, but I started it and I’m actually pretty excited for it. But I can’t read it in the same month that I have any kind of other reading goal, it’s gonna take me an entire week to get through.