How I track film

It’s all about Letterboxd! Late in the year, I upgraded to a pro account, and I got more stats as a result. I’m happy to support them in my small way; Letterboxd brings me a lot of joy, both from direct use of their website and through their short-form videos and interviews. Yes, I will watch an actor I’ve never heard of share their four favorite films, thank you very much.

 

Older films of note watched in 2024

I usually focus this post on 2024 films, but here’s a quick peek at some older films I watched in 2024.

• Jesus Christ Superstar (1973): I’ve seen other versions, but this was my first watch of the older theatrical film. It’s a good way to get the vibe closer to the time JCS was first big, you know? (Yes, this was part of my ALW spiral, as documented in the music post.)
• Weekend: An all-time favorite that is absolutely going to make my four favorites at some point. Love in a weekend! A beautiful, slightly bittersweet queer romance and character study that makes me cry every time.
• Paranormal Activities: I’m pretty sure I rewatched Paranormal Activities 1-4, but I don’t see 1 in my diary? Either way, I have a soft spot for this franchise. Three is my favorite; I watched it twice in 2024. If you watch, I’d stick to 1-3 to get the core story. Four continues it a bit, but it’s not good enough for me to recommend.
• The first three Scream movies: Can you believe I’d never seen any Scream movies before 2024? What a fun time. The first one was my favorite, but I’ve been thinking about three constantly since I saw it. Its specific flavor of meta commentary with Harvey Weinstein as a producer sure was dark.
• [REC]: I don’t scare easily with horror, but I found the end of [REC] actually terrifying. Not bad for a lower-budget zombie horror flick! I know there’s a US remake, but I have zero interest in it after seeing how great [REC] was.
• Perfect Days: This didn’t get US distribution until 2024, so I saw it on both 2023 and 2024 recap lists? I didn’t see it until 2024, but I loved its quieter qualities and wanted to include it somewhere. Gentlest and most cathartic cry of the year, for sure.

 

2024 films I didn’t watch (yet)

It’s as important to know what I didn’t get a chance to see or didn’t want to see in 2024 to gauge how I’m evaluating the films I did see. A selection, pulled from the most-popular films on Letterboxd:

Deadpool and Wolverine, Anora, Alien: Romulus, Civil War, The Wild Robot, We Live in Time, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, The Fall Guy, Twisters, Maxxxine, A Real Pain, Trap, A Complete Unknown, The Brutalist, Babygirl, Kinds of Kindness, Smile 2, Blink Twice, Flow, Immaculate, Juror #2, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, It Ends With Us, Queer, Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Foul, Megalopolis, Saturday Night, Venom: The Last Dance, My Old Ass, Cuckoo, Didi, The Apprentice, A Different Man, I’m Still Here

 

Top 10 films, ranked

Note: This list excludes Oscar nominations for simplicity.

10. Heretic: I didn’t get everything I wanted out of this film—I was hoping it was Mormon-specific horror, but it was more about high-control religion generally and how it dominates your life—but I really liked some pieces of it. The Air That I Breathe-Creep part was my favorite.

9. Lisa Frankenstein: Diablo Cody is hit-or-miss for me, but this was a definite hit. Kathryn Newton was the perfect lead, and Zelda Williams’s direction combined with an acidic 80s look left a real impression on me. I don’t know that I’ll watch this every Halloween, but it’s definitely going in the pile as a possibility.

8. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga: I really dragged my feet on Furiosa because I didn’t see the need for the story, and I thought the action sequences looked like they were done less practically than Fury Road’s, so it didn’t have the same thrill quality in the trailers. I was wrong about the former and partially right about the latter. The parts with young Furiosa in particular were electric. Wish I could have seen this one in the theater.

7. The First Omen: I’m such a sucker for visually-stunning horror, and The First Omen fits the bill in spades. It’s specifically a modern take on ‘60s/’70s horror, which makes perfect sense for the story and series. Some of my favorite shots of the year came from The First Omen. The weird franchise-style ending doesn’t fit the rest of the film at all, but I liked the family elements of it.

6. Love Lies Bleeding: In another year, this would have been number one. I love muscular, bloody lesbians in heightened style existing in a desert that reminds me of the one I live in. I haven’t rewatched it, but that’s only because it left such an impression on me that I can basically play it in my head whenever I want.

5. Daniel Howell: We’re All Doomed: We’re All Doomed was a live comedy show, and this was the filmed version. I didn’t see it live because doomer/apocalyptic thinking can be hard for me, and I think it was the right move. Still, the filmed version was one of my favorite experiences of the year. The way the show itself pokes fun at doomer ideas before turning into an honest look at how damaging that line of thinking is really stuck with me. I particularly love that the show ended up being the way Dan Howell deliberately addressed his own depression and nihilism head on. I saw him (and Phil Lester) live in Terrible Influence in 2024; there will probably be a filmed version released in 2025, and it will probably be in next year’s version of this post.

4. Monkey Man: I could see a version of this list where Monkey Man ranks lower because I had some quibbles with its execution, but the film’s absolute sincerity really stuck with me. I get why Jordan Peele stepped in and got it theatrical distribution. I hope Dev Patel makes a million more movies. (And if he stars so I can stare at his face, so much the better.)

3. Challengers: Welcome back, erotic thrillers! It’s not easy to make a good character piece with this much energy, but Luca Guadagnino made it look effortless. The way the driving score would interrupt moments that other films would make dead silent…I grinned every single time it happened. A movie that tells you it’s gonna edge you with a wink and then does it? Immaculate.

2. Longlegs: I didn’t get many theatrical viewings in 2024 for a lot of reasons, but I managed to see Longlegs that way, and I’m so happy that I did. I love movies that click with me emotionally before I catch up logically with the plot, and Longlegs did a great job of conveying fogginess and dread before sharpening in the end. The look is wonderful, the vibe is perfect, and Nicholas Cage was a good combination of eerie and comedic.

1. I Saw the TV Glow: Forget 2024 releases. I Saw the TV Glow immediately became one of my favorite movies of all time on first watch. I’ve never seen a movie that spoke so directly to both my past experiences and current reality, while conveying a vibe and aesthetic that’s creepy and beautiful. (And I thought We’re All Going to the World’s Fair spoke to a part of me that no one had ever seen before! Jane Schoenbrun, your mind!) I think a lot of people can relate to the weird constructed parts of our lives, especially where gender and pop culture intersect, but man. Do cis/straight white guys always feel this spoken to?

 

Oscar nominees I watched, ranked

If you looked at the list of 2024 movies I saw, you know I didn’t reach my goal of seeing all the Best Picture nominees. It was impossible to do legally; I’m Still Here was completely inaccessible to me. (I wish I had an in for screeners!) Once I realized that wasn’t happening, I decided not to push to see the others if I didn’t want to see them. I would have skipped a couple of these if I had known earlier that completion wasn’t possible. Alas.

Still, I got a sampling of Oscar nominees under my belt, and I had a much better time watching than I did with a completed Best Picture run last year. (Don’t be me and ever watch Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, and The Zone of Interest back-to-back if you want a happy week.) Here’s my ranking of the nominees I watched this season.

9. Gladiator II: This is not a Maestro-in-last-place ranking; this is a I-loved-Gladiator-and-I-was-deeply-disappointed ranking. The film served its actors badly; there were so many people I’ve liked elsewhere and found lacking here. Denzel Washington was absolutely the best part of the movie and still overhyped.

8. Emilia Pérez: What a terrible film. That this movie received a million nominations the same year I Saw the TV Glow released is a real low. The only reason it isn’t in last place is because the La Vaginoplastia song made me laugh.

7. Inside Out 2: Inside Out 2’s ending is astonishingly good. Rylie’s character arc gets better the more I think about it. Unfortunately, the emotions get completely shortchanged by comparison; Joy and Sadness fill out the middle of the first movie, and there’s nothing similar in the second. It’s not the worst sequel ever, but I was disappointed.

6. Wicked: I get that adapting any story will change from format to format, and I get that splitting a story in two means filling in some space. But the good rhythm established in the Wicked stage show was destroyed in the first movie, to the point where I was dying for a musical that I’ve loved for twenty years to end. The way I bounced off Ariana Grande’s performance didn’t help, either. Still, I’m glad audiences liked it. Maybe we can get more big musicals in the future? And Cynthia Erivo’s Elphaba is fantastic.

5. Dune: Part Two: I recently rewatched both Dune entries, both to prep for this post and to see if my opinions on them changed. They haven’t. I think the first movie has worse action scenes with better emotional buy-in; I think the second has excellent pacing with colder distance. Both suffer from extracting the weirdness from its source material. Timothée Chalamet worked for me as Paul until the power switch two-thirds of the way in, and then I didn’t buy him remotely. (That there was a personality switch was totally appropriate to the story! I don’t think he accomplished what he was going for in that regard, though.) I liked it enough that I’ll see Part Three or Messiah or whatever they’re calling it, but I wouldn’t give it Best Picture.

4. Conclave: I find this an extremely competent film with good performances, but I’m turned off by even remotely positive depictions of the Catholic Church. (One of my all-time favorite films is Spotlight, if that gives you perspective.) I keep thinking about the ending in context with the story they were telling and like it better than when I was watching it, though. I want to give this a rewatch with the ending in mind. Maybe later in the year. In the meantime, the memes are fun!

3. The Substance: Finally, a movie I genuinely enjoyed! At times glossy and exploitative in its gaze, at other times disgusting and gory, The Substance is the story of a white woman taking the violence done to her and internalizing it until she explodes. Literally. The story is specific, but the metaphor works on so many levels, from ageism to ableism and, obviously, gendered marginalization. The filmmaking is confident, the performances are fantastic, and I had such a good time with the heightened levels of gore. Not a film for everyone, but definitely a movie for me.

2. Nosferatu: The gothic Dracula lover enjoyed a Dracula interpretation? Everyone’s shocked, I’m sure. I haven’t seen any Nosferatus before, so people who like the Nosferatu line of the story might not like it, but this Nosferatu gave me a level of brutality and sexual directness that I found really refreshing from the Dracula side of things. I love Robert Eggers as a director, and how he’s less inclined to play to modern sensibilities than following his world’s internal consistency to its full conclusions. (I respect it even with films like The Lighthouse, which I couldn’t finish.) There’s so much I could talk about here; I might have to write a full essay about Nosferatu later. Where I’ll leave it for now is that the sequence where Thomas gets sucked into the castle is my favorite of the year…outside of a lot of the next film, that is.

1. Nickel Boys: I went into Nickel Boys only knowing about the camera work as a conceit, and I can’t recommend doing that enough if you can. (If you need to look up trigger warnings, you absolutely should, although the movie does a good job depicting the after effects of trauma without directly showing the causes.) I’ve never seen a film convey the experience of living and remembering more than Nickel Boys does. It’s a drama with a lot of heart and beauty.

Note: Out of the above, Nickel Boys, Nosferatu, and The Substance would make an overall top-ten-of-the-year list, although I’m not sure how I would rank them.

 

The end(?)

My movie post(s) are usually the end of the 2024-in-review posts. This year, I have the beginnings of a long- and short-form video post, as well as some outtakes from this post that I could group together with my reactions after the Oscars. If I write either or both of these posts, they’ll go live in the next week or two. If I don’t, I’ve decided to move onto other projects.

If you liked this post:

• Consider subscribing to my Patreon for a bonus year-end post on productivity tips and tricks in 2024.
• Times are tough, so if this isn’t a paid-content time for you, you can still join my Patreon for free and read my off-the-cuff series, starting with my initial Oscar nominee reactions.
• Catch up on my 2024-in-review series on Egregious and read my TV recap, my video games recap, my music post, and my book post.
• Thanks for reading!

How I track reading/what I read

I use Storygraph to keep track of my books these days. Still, I don’t review/star on there like I do on Letterboxd. I’m way less likely to finish a book under three stars than a movie, you know? Much less time investment with film; much more to talk about with most books.

Earlier in the 2020s, I had focus problems that made audiobooks the easier way to experience books. In 2024, I read a lot more than I listened. Like previous years, most of my reading was done through library check-outs in Libby, with some purchased audiobooks to bridge availability gaps. It made for a good year!

Stats gathered by Storygraph

• 85 books read: This counts quick reads like graphic novels, but it doesn’t cover DNFs. If I pushed, I could probably do 100 books in a year. I don’t push because I’d end up prioritizing quick and easy reads, and I like to leave space for more challenging books.
• First book: Captive Prince and Shortest book: Fence #2 by C.S. Pacat: Because I ended 2023 having a lot of feelings about C.S. Pacat’s Dark Rise series, I reread the Captive Prince trilogy (Captive Prince, Prince’s Gambit, and Kings Rising) in early 2024. I also read two volumes of the Fence comic mid-year, which was all my library access would grant. I wish I had a way to finish the series!
• Last book and Longest time spent with a book: How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe (363 days): Here’s a great example of how much harder audiobooks were for me in 2024! I literally spent the whole year trying to get through How to ADHD (extra ironic) and finally pulled it off as my last finish of 2024. I liked the book, but I think I would have taken in more information through text than audio.
• Longest book: A Dragonriders of Pern omnibus by Anne McCaffrey: I don’t technically count this as one book because it was actually three (Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon). Still, this stat lets me talk about how much Anne McCaffrey I reread in 2024. I also reread the Harper Hall trilogy (Dragonsong, Dragonsinger, and Dragondrums, although the last one isn’t in my books for some reason) and the Crystal Singer trilogy (Crystal Singer, Killashandra, and Crystal Line). Both my house growing up and my hometown library were stuffed with Anne McCaffrey books, so I’ve read and reread a lot of them over the years! Crystal Singer and Harper Hall are probably my favorites.
• Shortest time spent with a book: I Survived Capitalism and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt by Madeline Pendleton (1 day): One big shift for 2024 was getting book recs from TikTok. A lot of what was suggested ended up either in my DNFs or my library holds, so they might be a bigger presence in 2025. Still, I Survived Capitalism was a memoir/advice book from leftist business owner Madeline Pendleton, who shows up in my FYP not infrequently, and Slewfoot by Brom was a frequent Halloween recommendation. I wouldn’t call them my favorite books of the year, but it felt good to stretch out of my comfort zone.
• Most shelved: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang: Yellowface wasn’t my favorite R.F. Kuang—The Poppy War left a huge impact on me, and Babel was one of my favorite 2023 reads—but it was as readable as her other books and found a broad audience, so I’m glad to have read it!
• Least shelved: Just Friends by Ana Oncina: One of my favorite kinds of books to read is queer graphic novels, and my access to the Queer Liberation Library has been great for finding less-mainstream entries in the genre. My favorite of the year was Mimosa by Archie Bongiovanni, which captured the vibe of an over-thirty queer friend group well. Some other 2024 standouts (from QLL, my local library, and the Japan Foundation) include the I Think Our Son is Gay series by Okura, Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Princess Princess Ever After by K. O’Neill, Homebody by Theo Parish, Roaming by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki, and Liberated by Kaz Rowe.
• Highest rated: The Bakery Dragon by Devin Elle Kurtz: A nice children’s book by an illustrator I’ve long admired!
• Read 41 new-to-me authors this year: Don’t trust this stat too much! I haven’t filled Storygraph with every book I’ve read, and I know I did a lot of rereading in 2024. Still, since I read a lot more new authors now than ever, I thought I’d include this.
• 48 books were part of a series and Most popular authors: Tamora Pierce (7 books), Alice Oseman (7 books), Garth Nix (6 books): Rereads and series are a great way to add books without making reading too much harder! I already said I like to leave myself space to read more challenging books, but I also like to progress through books regularly. (This balance is why I don’t set a formal reading goal each year.)

Notes on the most popular authors

Tamora Pierce: I revisited the entirety of the Immortals quartet (Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage, and The Realms of the Gods) and the first two Song of the Lioness books (Alanna and In the Hand of the Goddess). I purposely reread all of Immortals because I usually reread my favorite, Wolf-Speaker, and call it a day. I wanted to know if I would see the series the same way as an adult. The answer is…yeah, pretty much. I like Wild Magic, love Wolf-Speaker and Emperor Mage, and find The Realms of the Gods a bit of a let down.

With the first two Song of the Lioness books, I loved In the Hand of the Goddess as a kid and liked Alanna a lot, but it’s switched as an adult. I think Alanna the closest thing to a perfect YA adventure book that exists. I remembered liking the last two books a lot less than the first two as a kid, so I wasn’t rushing to revisit them, but I won’t rule out going back later.

That’s six books. The seventh was new to me: Tempests and Slaughter, the first of The Numair Chronicles. I wasn’t expecting much, especially because I also read the alternate-perspective Kushiel’s Dart in 2024 and found it underwhelming. I shouldn’t have worried! Tempests and Slaughter took an important character from the Immortals quartet and used his POV to add complexity to a well-explored universe. I also felt the shifts in YA over time; Alanna almost feels like a middle-grade book in comparison. I can’t wait to read more in this series as it’s published!

Alice Oseman: Most of this was a Heartstopper reread. (I do those a lot.) I also picked up a couple supplementary books in the series (as in, not the main graphic novels). The most notable part of my Alice Oseman reads was a first read of Solitaire, the novel that was written before Heartstopper and follows Charlie’s sister Tori. It’s a lot more dramatic than the usual works in this universe, but I enjoyed it (and the glimpses of Charlie and Nick through Tori’s POV). I doubt much of this will get folded into the Heartstopper show more than we’ve seen, but I liked reading it.

Garth Nix: Sabriel and Lirael were two of my favorite books as a kid, and I figured a full-series read was in order, since I hadn’t read beyond Abhorsen. My favorite book was Clariel, which was a prequel to the Sabriel-Lirael events by a long time and showed a potential path for villains in this universe. The necromancy worldbuilding and dark tone of the series were my favorite parts as a kid, and that’s still true today. I was getting pretty sick of the way romance was written by the end of it, though.

A few more books I want to talk about

Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson: A memoir by someone who escaped the MLM ecosystem. It was a fascinating read because the author was great at describing her experiences, to the point where you could see she hadn’t fully deconstructed what happened and had more of a journey ahead of her. I sincerely admire people who can be honest beyond their own self awareness.

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud: Possibly one of the best books on craft I’ve ever read. It’s philosophical in a way I’ve never seen from any book like it. I want to reread and do a full analysis of Understanding Comics later, but for now, I highly recommend it.

Andrew Joseph White books: I read Hell Followed With Us, Compound Fracture, and The Spirit Bares Its Teeth for the first time in 2024. Trans YA horror is right up my alley. I thought The Spirit Bares Its Teeth was the best of the bunch—unsurprising coming from me, since it’s gothic—but an online mutual pointed out that the author’s content note neglected to center race, and that killed a lot of my love for the story. Quote from the book:

…The Spirit Bares Its Teeth was inspired by Victorian England’s sordid history of labeling certain people “ill” or “other” to justify cruelty against them. Threats of violence enforced strict social norms, often targeting women, queer and disabled people, and other marginalized folks.

It took me about five seconds of searching to find Victorian medicine shaped modern concepts of race for this post. Using “other marginalized folks” as a catch-all to hide racism is a dangerous oversight at best. I hope Andrew Joseph White proceeds more thoughtfully in the future.

Men Have Called Her Crazy by Anna Marie Tendler: I’m probably one of the few people online who enjoyed this, but I also had my expectations adjusted. I get a lot of value out of reading memoirs from people in mental health settings, and the voice here, while unpolished, felt authentic to both Anna Marie Tendler and her experiences at the time. I’m glad I read it.

Raw Dog by Jamie Loftus: Want to know about hot dogs and what America was like in summer 2021? Raw Dog was one of my favorite reads of 2024, and I want more people to read it. The mix of personal narrative, cultural analysis, and historical moment made for a compelling experience.

The Third Gilmore Girl by Kelly Bishop: I had no idea that Kelly Bishop’s life was like Miss Patty’s stories until I listened to this memoir. (I recommend audiobook over reading because Kelly Bishop reads it herself, and I love her voice.) Listening felt like seeing a one-woman show. I laughed, I cried, I made a mental note to watch A Chorus Line (even if Kelly Bishop wasn’t in the movie).

More to come!

We’re in the final stretch! I’m hoping to get my movie post out tomorrow before the Oscars starts, and my video post at some point this week. In the meantime, if you liked this retrospective:

• Consider subscribing to my Patreon for a bonus year-end post on productivity tips and tricks in 2024.
• If you’re not interested in paid content, you can still join my Patreon for free and read my off-the-cuff series, starting with my initial Oscar nominee reactions!
• Catch up on my 2024-in-review series on Egregious and read my TV recap, my video games recap, and my music post.
• Thanks for reading!

How I counted music (and what I missed)

Quantifying what I heard in a comprehensive way is difficult. I didn’t listen on Spotify for a bunch of reasons, so that’s one musical source eliminated. I did a lot of listening on YouTube, which didn’t give me a year-end wrap-up because I turned off my history. (No regrets.) Apple Music was the main place my music listening came from, but it doesn’t have artists I watched obsessively on YouTube, and it doesn’t have any of the music other people played around me. There might be some gaps because memory is not reliable, you know?

Also, despite a lot of these songs/artists using unique capitalization, I standardized a lot of it in the interests of finishing this post at some point before 2026. I tried to keep accents and unique characters, though.

The Grammys kind of covered it???

I’ve never been able to use the Grammys as a shorthand for what I thought was good in the previous year, but I largely agreed with the televised awards this year. Quelle surprise!

• Record of the year, song of the year: Not Like Us, Kendrick Lamar. (59 in my top 100 songs, but played a lot more via YouTube.) I don’t need to add to the large numbers of words and filmed minutes dedicated talking about Kendrick Lamar in 2024/2025, but I will say this: Not Like Us is a banger, and I was awake when Meet the Grahams dropped. What a time.
• Rap album: Alligator Bites Never Heal, Doechii. Admittedly she’s been more of an early 2025 artist for me, but if you haven’t listened to Denial is a River or Nissan Altima yet? Run, don’t walk. If you have twenty minutes, her NPR Tiny Desk concert is a great place to start.
• Country album, album of the year: Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé. This is actually the Beyoncé album I’ve probably clicked with least since before Self Titled, but it definitely deserved its wins, and I really like 16 Carriages (67 in my top 100 songs).
• Best new artist: Chappell Roan. I think Good Luck, Babe (11 in my top 100 songs) was immediately one of the greatest pop songs of all time upon its release; I’ve never heard that kind of queer heartbreak captured so well in song form before. It was Chappell Roan’s only official new release last year and it shot her into the stratosphere. (Hence why I think Best New Artist was a perfect Grammy for her to get.) The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess was my ninth-highest album of the year, though, and Chappell Roan was my sixth most-listened-to artist overall.
• Pop vocal album: Short ‘n’ Sweet, Sabrina Carpenter. Sabrina Carpenter isn’t super my thing—I bounced off her Coachella performance—but I can’t deny I listened to Please Please Please a lot in 2024, even if it didn’t make an impact in my Apple Music stats. Her sense of humor is really good.
• Pop duo/group performance: Die With a Smile, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga. Bruno Mars had a couple good features in 2024, and I’m really hooked into Lady Gaga again after Disease-Abracadabra. Die With a Smile is probably my least favorite of all of these, but it’s still great; I bet it kills as a group sing-along.
• Runners up. I had a bit of a Brat winter (Von dutch was 75 on my top 100 songs in 2024) and liked a couple songs off Billie Eilish’s album (Chihiro made 64 on my top 100), so those are worth mentioning despite a relative dearth of awards. It isn’t that those things were bad; it was that music in 2024 was so good that the competition was tough.

100 new-to-me songs in 2024

My fun goal for last year was deliberately trying to listen to a bunch of music last year and make a playlist out of my 100 favorites. I ended up hitting 77 songs on the playlist, but the general goal was to expand out of a musical rut. Achieved!

I’m continuing the playlist idea this year without the number requirement, along with a companion bring-it-back playlist for songs that reenter my sphere, and I want to listen to albums more in 2025 as well. Not sure how to make that happen, but I’ll figure it out.

A couple highlights from the playlist that probably won’t make it into another other section:

• Kesha’s Joyride (10 on my top 100) was a big part of my year, but she used AI for her single cover and hired someone gross for the official video, so this is my Kesha mention and we’re moving on.
• Hozier was throwing out some real bangers that didn’t make his already-great album Unseen Unearth! I loved Empire Now (17 on the top 100) and Nobody’s Soldier (66 on the top 100), but yes, I also listened to TikTok smash Too Sweet (71 on the top 100). He was my second most-listened-to artist in 2024, and considering I have a ticket to see him this summer, another top 10 entry for him in 2025 seems reasonable.
• Damiano David’s Born With a Broken Heart left an impression on me, probably because it seemed a bit Harry Styles-like. Interesting way to go while on break from Måneskin.
• I had a bunch of Megan Thee Stallion on this playlist, but I mostly listened to her/watched her on YouTube. Hiss! Mamamushi! Bigger in Texas! I could keep going.
• I cut my TikTok section for length, but rest assured the app’s musical stylings made an impact. The highest song from TikTok on the top-100 list (that wasn’t Jungle) was icantbelieveiletyougetaway by aldn, at number 54.
• My number one song of the year, Lizzie McAlpine’s doomsday, was a discovery I made after trying some of Apple Music’s discovery features. I promptly stopped using those features and listened to this song way more than the 35 times Apple Music recorded, since I watched on YouTube and could put it on my Halloween playlist. Thanks, Apple Music.

The Terrible Influence Tour pre-show playlist

My best live musical experience was a touring show from YouTubers Dan and Phil, despite it largely being a comedy performance? I won’t get into spoilers for the show right now, but Dan works very hard to curate a pre-show playlist every time, and this one was full of hits: Lisa’s New Woman, Lithonia by Childish Gambino (78 on the top 100), This is Why by Paramore (which got me feeling old because apparently Paramore is more millennial and less Gen Z).

There was a pre-show announcement that broke up the playlist, and the end was basically a kick in the chest: Rush by Troye Sivan, Von dutch by Charli xcx, a group-dance-along to Hot to Go by Chappell Roan (22 on the top 100), Chk Chk Boom by Stray Kids, and a little bit of Toxic by Britney Spears. Killer.

The song that stuck with me most, though, came from my (spoiler) movie of the year: Starburned and Unkissed by Caroline Polachek (42 on the top 100). I don’t really have words to describe how it felt to hear that song in that room at that time. Or ever? If Good Luck, Babe is WLW longing, Starburned and Unkissed is trans longing. The way the words “come home” stuck to me upon first listen and never left. Phew.

ATEEZ present!

I entered 2024 with the goal to learn Korean in conjunction with exploring more in Korean music and TV/movies, and…the language learning/watching didn’t really happen. But a lot of my friends love K-Pop, and I really latched onto ATEEZ at the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. I’ll take a partially-achieved goal!

ATEEZ exemplifies my favorite parts of K-Pop: they have an interesting overall concept, their choreography is super fun, and the way a lot of their earlier songs end with an intense moment gives the best kind of pop-music rush. (Searching “break the wall fanchant” gives you an idea of the energy that happens between artist and audience in this regard.)

All this meant ATEEZ dominated my Apple Music replay: they were my top artist (659 minutes listened to), took six of my top fifteen most-listened songs of the year (from top to bottom: Guerilla, Halazia, Inception, Wonderland, Deja Vu, and Bouncy), and my first comeback (Golden Hour Pt. 1) was number three on my albums of the year. They took more titles, too: top artist specifically in January, March, and June; top songs in January (Inception) and May (Blind), and the aforementioned comeback was my top music in May. It was a good time, all around!

The year of K-Pop (kinda)

But it doesn’t end there! I took some recs from friends and followed my ears and generally had a lot of fun with K-Pop artists in 2024. Including:

• Blackpink solo artists: Lisa is my favorite, so she popped up the most. Rockstar (both song and the Y2K-flavored video) specifically was my favorite, reaching number 12 on my most played songs of the year and being the most played song in July and August. Rosé’s APT (see also: a Bruno Mars collab) hit my radar a little via TikTok and really clicked with me in January 2025. I first listened to Blackpink around Couch Coachella 2023, so it was fun to see that impact stick.
• Red Velvet: For years, my two favorite K-Pop idol groups have been Red Velvet and Dreamcatcher. I’ve fallen a little behind with the latter, but Red Velvet’s Cosmic (and associated Midsommar-esque video) were absolutely sublime in 2024. If Chappell Roan hadn’t existed, Cosmic (13 out of my top 100) probably would have been my song of the summer.
• Taemin: Basically everyone I know who likes K-pop from the last decade loves Shinee, and Taemin is a standout. I only listened to Guilty in 2024, but it was my seventh most listened-to song of the year. The choreography that goes with it is a fun mix of sexy and silly (the hand going up the shirt move makes me giggle).
• Seventeen: I watched their performance at Glastonbury from last year, and their 2024 album release had some great songs! Maestro made my new-to-me playlist, but the song that really stuck with me was Clap (24 on my top 100).
• OnlyOneOf: Their concept has more of a taboo, queer edge (for K-pop, anyway), so naturally, their US audience seems to be mostly lesbians? A lot of this knowledge is secondhand, so grain of salt, but I can say that Gaslighting made an impression (79 out of my top 100).
• Stray Kids: Easily the most popular idol group amongst my mutuals that isn’t BTS. I started dipping my toe in at the end of the year after receiving a bunch of recommendations from one of my best friends; Thunderous squeaked in at the end of the new-to-me playlist—I love its heaviness—and Red Lights immediately went onto my favorite music videos playlist. They might make more of a 2025 impact; a bunch of my friends are seeing them on tour. We’ll see!

What stayed from Couch Coachella

I usually watch at least one weekend of Coachella streaming at home every year. (If you’re subscribed to my Patreon, you can read my initial reactions over there.) Obviously, Chappell Roan was one of my standouts, and ATEEZ did a great set on weekend two (weekend one’s stream had some technical issues, but they were great); who else really stuck across the year?

• Reneé Rapp: The first half of 2024 was a Reneé Rapp period for me; she kept showing up on TikTok, I watched the Mean Girls musical movie for the first time toward the beginning, and her Coachella performances delighted me, especially on weekend one when she brought out the cast of The L Word to intro her. I love the way she uses musical theater training to belt it out on pop songs. My favorite track of hers is Snow Angel (38 out of my top 100);”I’ll make it through the winter if it kills me” is a vibe and a half.
• Hatsune Miku: I’m just as surprised as you are! My understanding is that the Coachella version of the show didn’t give the full impact of what an actual Hatsune Miku show is like, but the live band killed it. My favorite of the songs was Hyper Reality Show (34 out of my top 100), which has a hard rock/metal edge to it; I listened to it on and off all year.
• The Last Dinner Party: Probably my third-favorite performers of the festival were The Last Dinner Party. (Number one went to Brittany Howard, who is just as electric solo as she was in Alabama Shakes.) A rock band with women is an easy enough sell for me, but their songs are also extremely good. Sinner (39 out of my top 100) was my top listen of the bunch even though I remember Nothing Matters more, since it was in my YouTube fave music videos list.
• Jungle: I caught their set while I was waiting for Jon Batiste (second-favorite performer of the festival) and knew Back on ’74 via TikTok, but their vibe is kind of the perfect background music? I don’t say that as an insult; it’s the perfect balance between energetic enough to get the blood flowing, but chill enough to keep anxiety low. I played their music while I did chores in the latter half of the year, and it added up; they were number four on my Apple Music artists of the year (227 minutes played), and Busy Earnin’ was my fifteenth song of the year. They won September as my top artist for that month, too.

More background favorites

Again, not an insult! If you’re an artist that makes it into this group, chances are you’ve been in here other years and might be a favorite over decades. You’re around while I write, fold laundry, take a shower, go for a walk, calm down before bed…honestly, you’re probably in my space more than most people I know.

• Goldfrapp: Definitely a decade-spanning favorite. Goldfrapp’s great because there are some fun uptempo albums if that’s your vibe, but it’s always the background albums that make it in the long term: Felt Mountain was album four for the year, and Seventh Tree was album six. Not too shabby considering the most recent of those albums was sixteen years old in 2024! Goldfrapp made it to my third-favorite artist of the year on Apple Music because of it. Imagine having that kind of long-term impact on anyone. These albums are slightly on the sleepier end—I have playlists where I use them to fall asleep—but again, not a bad thing.
• Massive Attack: Mezzanine was my seventh most-listened to album of the year, and Massive Attack was my fifth artist of the year. I didn’t listen to the album for the first time until long after its release, but it came out in 1998! The longevity!
• Portishead: Portishead are actually a somewhat newer addition to this list in terms of album presence (I’ve listened to Like a Fool specifically for a long time, though). That’s why Dummy was my number two album on Apple Music this year; the combination of familiar trip-hop with songs I hadn’t heard before made for a potent pair.
• Radiohead: It’s probably strange to say OK Computer is actually a good background album for me, but it is. There’s a wide variety of Radiohead opinions out there, and mine boil down to “I could listen to OK Computer probably every day for the rest of my life, with an occasional In Rainbows swap to keep things fresh”. Radiohead was my tenth most-listened to artist of 2024 in Apple Music, OK Computer was number five in my albums, and both artist and album won October 2024.
• Woodkid: Woodkid’s more writing music than anything else, perfect for singing breaks and bringing up emotions. Woodkid made it to eighth on my Apple Music top artists, and s16 was my 10th most-listened to album in 2024. September seemed to be s16 time.

Andrew Lloyd Webber spirals

I can tell I’m not feeding my inner theater kid enough when I have big Andrew Lloyd Webber flare-ups. I had two of them in 2024! Wicked came too late, and I didn’t latch onto this version! (I did an Elphaba Halloween costume around 2006ish. I’ve been there.)

The first resurgence of ALW was an obvious choice: Jesus Christ Superstar around Easter. My preferred production is the live TV version they did in the last decade with John Legend as Jesus, so that version was number eight in my top-listened-to albums and claimed April. Superstar the song was my top-listened to song in April; it’s also my favorite in the show.

The second makes the most sense when you realize one of my all-time favorite Madonna songs is You Must Love Me, which won the Oscar for Best Song the year she starred in the film adaptation of Evita. I was on a bit of a Madonna kick mid-year and only just realized that stage version of Evita added the song later, so I found the Broadway revival that included it (unfortunately, it was the one with Ricky Martin) and listened to it a lot. To the point where it was my top album of the year. I’m not proud of it, but look. I’m scared to confess what I’m feeling. (Sorry.)

We did it!!!

I had a draft of this post over 5000 words that seemed like it was going to crest 10,000 before I was done. I can talk a lot about music! Maybe too much? Either way, I’m relieved I managed to trim things down.

If you like this post:

• Consider subscribing to my Patreon for a bonus post on productivity tips and tricks in 2024.
• If paid content is beyond you right now, you can still join for free and read my upcoming off-the-cuff series, starting with my initial Oscar nominee reactions!
• Catch up on my 2024-in-review series on Egregious and read my TV recap and my video games recap.

A new tool

The year ended with a new tool in my video-game arsenal: a Steam Deck! (Basically, imagine a Switch, but it’s heavier and you can play a lot of your Steam library on it.) Still, almost none of what I’m going to talk about happened on the Steam Deck. The large share of this was on my desktop computer, with a little streamed/played on phone or tablet, and one notable game played on an Xbox.

 

Non-Steam highlights

1. The Sims 4 (but especially Life and Death), EA app: My complicated relationship with this game continues, but in all honesty, 2024 was a good year for The Sims 4. I liked the temporary events they built into the game, and the new Life and Death pack is one of my all-time favorites in the game, from any year! It changed death from a solid ending and into a transitional process, with a bunch of after-death gameplay and the potential for reincarnation. It’s a must-have for people who like to play with their Sims throughout a life, and even moreso if you play legacy saves with multiple generations. (Cemetery lots were also my number-one wishlist item, so of course I was happy!) I haven’t played with Lovestruck too much yet, but while I don’t like it as much as Life and Death, a lot of the date interactions are really fleshed out and fun. Still way too many kits I’m not buying, though.
2. PopCap Games (versions of Peggle and Zuma’s Revenge), Xbox and EA app: This one is entirely Jacob Gellar’s fault; he has a Nebula-exclusive video talking about how good Peggle is, which left me with the realization that I had never played it. So I did. (My dirty secret is that I often turn off sound/music on games, which does mess with the effect Jacob Gellar mentioned, so further experimentation might be in my future.) I also replayed some of Zuma’s Revenge while I was there; the aesthetics are a bit wince inducing, but the mechanics are rock solid.
3. The beginning of Kingdom Hearts 2, Epic Games: I bought this on deep sale from the Epic Games store because the Roxas opening is one of my all-time favorite game moments…and then the games went up on Steam, and I was mad that I had spent money on a platform I like significantly less and lost my momentum. The second this reaches a reasonable price on Steam, we’re so going back to Twilight Town.
4. Threes+, Apple Arcade: Remember 2048? Very similar. If my hands were free for a second in 2024, they were playing Threes. It’s more like a physical stim than a game, but I played so much, I have to count it.
5. Dress to Impress, Roblox: There was a good month in late summer/early fall where I did nothing but assemble outfits for bad scores on Roblox. I had a great time, though, and I think it helped me build on-theme outfits in The Sims, too. Did you know there was a Brat (like, Charli XCX Brat) promo period on Dress to Impress, a game ostensibly for children? I did because I’m a full-grown adult who plays on Roblox.
6. Speed Draw!, Roblox: Basically Dress to Impress, but with drawings instead. I liked the practice I got doing speed doodles in color, but I only played it for about a week before I got bored.
7. Epic Party, Roblox: I participated in several group plays on a private server with family. I wouldn’t call myself the biggest fan of this game, but playing on a digital gameboard with minigame breaks certainly does eat up a few hours, if that’s ever a problem.
8. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Xbox: I’ve played this franchise ever since Origins first dropped, and despite serious misgivings about the art styles and Veilguard’s relationship to the franchise’s greater canon, I found myself deeply sucked in, to the point where I’m on my second playthrough on Steam Deck. The antagonist at the end of Inquisition took center stage for Veilguard, and delving into his psyche and making friends with your companions was oddly compelling, aided by really good combat if you’re playing as a rogue (although I will note, I was playing at the absolute easiest level so I could get through faster; the challenge dragons were the only real challenge for me). As the tags on this spoilery essay say, “datv is a good game but a bad dragon age game”.

 

Games I didn’t play (or play much) but that I heard about a lot

1. Starscape, Roblox: I’ve maybe played five seconds of Starscape, a space exploration sandbox kind of game, years ago, but I heard a lot about side quests and factions and so on in 2024. Would any of that translate to direct personal skill? Not remotely. But I would feel remiss not mentioning it on a list because its presence in my life is undeniable.
2. Factorio, Steam: Factorio released a giant DLC called Space Age later in 2024. The main game takes place on a single planet and ends when you launch a rocket off that planet. Space Age picks up after that point. I’ve played maybe an hour of Factorio and found it not to my tastes—I prefer a farming game to this kind of base building or resource management—but I will say, seeing a giant ship flying through space in a game previously unequipped to handle it was a delightful experience.
3. Doors (and similar games), Roblox: Doors is a survival horror escape kind of game, apparently inspired in part by Spooky’s Jump Scare Mansion (an indie game I have played a bit, if not for a long time). Very popular with the young horror-loving crowd in my household. I enjoy the fanart that serves as my lockscreens the most.
4. Among Us, various: Not just played by controversial figures currently in the media! (Which is why those stories were so funny.) I heard many a tale of group Among Us outings in 2024, played by nine years olds and people over sixty and by all ages in between. The diversity in map options, and different cosmetic options, keep this game fresh many years past its popularity peak. I hope it continues getting refreshes in 2025.
5. Baldur’s Gate 3, Steam: I spent late 2023-early 2024 trying to get hooked into this game and failing (which is really funny considering I’m on my second Veilguard playthrough, which is nowhere near as good). But others in my household had a great time with it and its many modding options. My favorite mod I saw over a family member’s shoulder allows you to fully customize your companions if you want! I enjoyed seeing Wyll with long locs.
6. Dwarf Fortress, Steam: I have never played Dwarf Fortress, but I find its depth surprising every time I come across it, and it’s come a long way since its humble ASCII beginnings. The score is really good, too; Craftsdwarfship is my favorite.
7. The Half Life franchise, Steam: Gordon Freeman lives! My household is more of a Portal household for sure, but there’s something about that crowbar that’s still irresistable, especially in Half Life 2.
8. Astro Bot, PS5: Game of the Year 2024 was not unheard of in my household! It sounded more difficult than Astro’s Playroom, and I’m never a platformer person, but it’s hard to deny those little robots are adorable, and the controller integration seems really fun.
9. Boyfriend Dungeon, Steam: I let a family member play this on my Steam account a couple months before I figured out the family sharing system, and lost the chance to get a bunch of the achievements myself. Whoops. Still, charming mix of dating sim and dungeon crawler.

 

Steam highlights

1. Dorfromantik (35% of total playtime, 423 sessions, 21-day streak): Speaking of games that are almost like stims, we come to long-time favorite Dorfromantik! It’s a tile-placement puzzle that’s easy to learn and difficult to master. I’m over 1000 hours in Steam total, and I still have four achievements left. I did get a couple achievements in 2024, which took a lot of time and effort, and I’m very pleased with my results. I’m also pleased that it’s a game that I still enjoy playing without the drive for achievements. Some of my gametime numbers are due to the fact that I play it when I’m likely to be interrupted, so I’ll walk away from the computer and leave it running accidentally. Considering I’m in an era of life where I get interrupted constantly, a game this easy to pick up and put down is a necessity.
2. Balatro (Started in April, 23% of total playtime, 171 sessions, 17-day streak…and also on Apple Arcade, with stats I’m ignoring for my own sanity): Easily my game of the year as far as 2024 releases go. Balatro is a poker-based deck-building roguelike, which is a gamer way of saying “I play a lot of two pairs and flushes and start over again when I inevitably die”. As with Dorfromantic, it’s easy to pick up and extremely hard to 100%. Unlike Dorfromantic, if I’m not careful, I can start a Balatro game, blink, and miss a week of my life completely with dozens of runs in my wake. When the time change and seasonal depression hit hard, I set a Balatro embargo for my basic wellness. I’ve started playing it again and have managed to keep a balance, thankfully, but that 100 million chips achievement isn’t getting any more achievable. I did manage to get the gold stake achievement in between starting and finishing this post, though!
3. Stardew Valley (10% of total playtime, 33 sessions, 8-day streak): Another all-timer! Stardew Valley is the indie farming sim of my heart, and another one where the last few achievements are super hard to get. I wasn’t pushing too hard for completion in 2024, though; I was exploring the new, free update that dropped and expanded the game even further, as well as doing my usual “I love finishing the community center in as close to the first year as possible” runs. I’ve also played on Apple Arcade and Switch in the past, but 2024 was solidly a desktop Steam year because it took the update so long to expand to other platforms.
4. Coral Island (9% of total playtime, 34 sessions, 9-day streak): I’m pretty sure I also played Coral Island through Xbox in 2023, but it’s not in my recap for last year. Oh well! I got it on Steam in 2024, and it was a delight to revisit. Coral Island is another farming/life/dating sim like Stardew Valley, but with its own unique identity. (Mermaids are a huge part of the game, for one!) I maybe like the characters in Coral Island better? Certainly, the art style that renders them is beautiful. I feel like there’s plenty of ground to cover in its dev cycle and plenty of game I haven’t played, so don’t be surprised to see Coral Island reappear in 2025.
5. Regency Solitaire II (3% of total playtime, 10 sessions played, 4-day streak, also paired with Regency Solitaire): The Regency Solitare games card-based play with an overarching narrative for structure. They’re short, sweet, and easy to 100%. I love a game where I have to think of strategy and gasp over people going to Scotland to elope. Eat your heart out, Bridgerton.
6. Immortal Life: A farming/life sim built around Chinese fantasy! I had a delightful time at the beginning of 2024 pretending I was an alternate version of Wei Wuxian in a different cultivation setting. (If this makes no sense to you, try searching MDZS or The Untamed.) Sadly, I hit a major game-breaking bug on my first playthrough, and I was frustrated enough that I put the game down for a while. Now that there have been a couple updates, and it’s Steam Deck playable, it might be time to give Immortal Life another try.
7. Lethal Company: I only played Lethal Company, a online co-op horror game with satirical/comedy elements, in January of 2024, but it left a huge impression. One of the monsters you encounter in a tougher part of the game kills party members and mimics them, including in voice chat, and it led to one of the scariest moments I’ve ever had in a game. It was also hilarious? It straddles the line between horror and comedy with deceptive ease. What a game.
8. Portal: Revolution (and Portal 1-2): Happy one year since Portal: Revolution’s release! (I was literally checking Steam to figure out how to describe Lethal Company when I saw that Portal: Revolution had a one-year anniversary update.) The original duo of Portal games are a household staple, and while I think Portal 2 especially holds up well to this day, Valve’s always encouraged fan games, and that’s been an important way to keep the legacy alive. I’ve played other fan games—Aperture Tag, Portal Stories: Mel, and Portal Reloaded, for instance—but Portal: Revolution is one of the better iterations of the puzzle-solving gameplay. I just wish fan games would get better voice actors.
9. Cult of the Lamb: Another not-new game with a decent update! Cult of the Lamb’s base-building action roguelike added a two-player option in 2024 that has decent couch co-op, a wildly undervalued option in modern gaming. Granted, couch co-op is better on a console than on PC (even with controllers), but even with a slight in-person clumsiness factor added, Cult of the Lamb is largely a better game with two people. This is true on a mechanical level—I find some of the gameplay clunky—but also because the humor’s irreverent, and it’s fun to laugh with someone else who’s right there.
10. Fields of Mistria (early access): I saw my friends were playing Fields of Mistria, a farming/dating sim with RPG elements, and gave it a try. I like what I’ve seen so far, but it entered early access in late summer 2024 and still has a pretty long way to go in development. I’m mostly putting this one aside until either it’s a little more fleshed out, or until I desperately need a game to play that won’t cost additional money. Still, promising!
11. Buckshot Roulette: My only real contender against Balatro in terms of 2024 game of the year. This was less true when it was a single-player game, where you were giving a digital gun and a certain amount of live and blank rounds, and it was all mental math to survive against an NPC. I certainly liked the combination of its mechanical simplicity and deliberately grungy vibe in single player, but adding multiplayer to the mix really kicked off what this game can do. Have you ever played a game with a child that involves shooting them and finding yourself hesitating? I certainly did! Adding a human element to your competitors gave the game an added dash of uncertainty that really took things to the next level. I imagine I’ll play more of this in 2025.
12. Lil Gator Game: It’s funny that I spent a lot of 2024 playing games with kiddos because, beyond the Roblox mentions, very little of my list would reflect that. Lil Gator Game is probably the only real kiddie game I played, and it was chill and adorable in exactly the ways you’d want in a game of this kind: easy puzzle solving, playful mechanics, general “I’m on break and want to play with my friends” vibes. The devs behind the game just announced a DLC as well, which I’ll almost certainly play when it comes out.
13. Disco Elysium: After years of on-and-off play, I finally got to one of Disco Elysium’s many endings. I can definitely tell why it’s one of the all-timers! Dense philosophy in an RPG format with a wicked sense of humor and zero interest in looking away from the harsh cruelties of life. Ultimately, the best review I’ve seen is one on Tumblr: “in another timeline, Disco Elysium was a completely untranslated Estonian Fallout 2 total overhaul mod that blew the minds of likes 12 communists on an forum that hasn’t updated visually since 2008”. If that sounds good to you and you’ve never played Disco Elysium, now is always a good time.
14. Hades II (early access): A game that doesn’t have an ending should not be this good and this playable. (My first playthrough had placeholder art, and I could barely tell!) I got it early so I could enjoy the vibes and see firsthand how development for the sequel to one of my all-time favorite games would look, and I never thought I would get as sucked in as I did. Supergiant’s done it again, folks. I’m a bit behind on updates, and I was mostly going to wait to start over until 1.0 launched, but…come on, of course I’m going to go through more of it now that I have the Steam Deck. Death to Kronos!
15. Little Kitty, Big City: Another indie game I enjoyed that also had a major game-breaking bug. Luckily, Little Kitty, Big City is contained enough (and cute enough) that restarting was painful but not a complete dealbreaker. As adorable as I found the cats, what really stuck with me was how effectively they captured the vibe of Tokyo as I remember it. Apparently, little kids and cats have a lot in common! I still have three achievements to unlock, so I will probably pop into this game again briefly in 2025.
16. The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: This was a Halloween-season play for obvious reasons, but The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood is a really unique game in a way I find difficult to describe. Saying that it’s very story rich, character rich, and deep with worldbuilding doesn’t get it, you know? I could talk about other games that tick those boxes, but I can’t think of anything with a similar mood. (The closest comparison that comes to mind is Steven Universe, but even that is designed for a completely different age group.) One of the big mechanics is designing your own tarot cards, and you get into a groove once you figure out how that works, but it’s nothing like any tarot cards I own (and I have a collection of a dozen or so). I don’t often see singular games, but The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood might be one of them.
17. Paint it Back: I took this old nonagram game I’ve had around for a while and got 100% of the achievements in 2024. I love achievement hunting so much; not only is it a game within a game, getting trophies/badges/achievements helps provide structure and conclusion in spaces where those things might not otherwise exist. For Paint it Back, it would make more sense to probably have an achievement for 100% puzzle completion, but I’m glad there wasn’t one. I didn’t want to finish the 2016 election nonagrams.
18. Sudoku Universe: Another old puzzle game, but sudoku! I’m two achievements away from 100%. If Sudoku Universe had a slightly better interface, I’d probably have them already; sudoku is something I’ve been doing regularly since college, and I’m pretty good at it. Still, unless I forget, I should leave 2025 finished on this one.
19. Webfishing: This game is exactly what it sounds like: you fish online! Fishing minigames are my mortal foe in farming/life sims like Stardew Valley, but Webfishing is really online companionship paired with something to do with your hands when you’re waiting for a reply. I’ve only played in groups with my family, but it’s a nice way to inhabit digital space together.
20. Spirit City: Lofi Sessions: If you like the lofi girl on YouTube but wish there was more customization, Spirit City might be what you’re looking for. Unlocking the little creatures is delightful, as is making your own character, and I found the built-in productivity options really useful. Maybe it’s more of a glorified screensaver than a game, but like Wallpaper Engine, I got it through Steam, so what does it matter?

 

Steam stats (from Jan 1 through Dec 14)

• 47 games (+7 from 2023, Steam median was 4)
• 323 achievements unlocked (-446 from 2023, Steam median was 13)
• 192-day streak (+133 from 2023, Steam median was 6)
• 33% of games played were 2024 releases, 54% were released in the last 1-7 years, 37% were released 8+ years ago
• My busiest months were May (14% of gameplay), March and July (12% each), and August (11%)

 

Bonus!

If you like this post:

1. Consider subscribing to my Patreon for a bonus post on productivity tips and tricks in 2024
2. If paid content is beyond you right now, you can still join for free and read my upcoming off-the-cuff series, starting with my initial Oscar nominee reactions!
3. Catch up on my 2024-in-review series on Egregious and read my TV recap.

 

Stay tuned for more in the near future, including two movie posts, a look back at books, and more!

2024 recap posts

Another year in the books! I moved these posts over to Egregious last year so they would be more broadly accessible, and I liked it, so here we are again.

I don’t have much to say about this series of posts yet—I’ve only written the TV recap as of its posting—but feel free to check my main Oscars post from last year to see all the links to 2023’s recaps (with a bonus Oscars-recap post if you feel like wondering how it went down). I went with TV first because I had to pull the TV shows I watched from memory, versus most other kinds of media, where I had some kind of externally-constructed recap to help me out. (Plus, in 2023, I was diligent about logging and rating every episode of TV I watched in Notion. I was less diligent in 2024. Oops.)

TV in 2024

I can’t talk about last year in US movies/TV without mentioning the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes from 2023. The echoes can still be felt in so many ways. Practically, movies have a bit more cushion where that’s concerned; bigger blockbusters can be pushed back, and there will always be indies to fill the gaps. (Plug “2024 movies postponed” in a search bar and see how many articles you find.) TV shows following the old network format, with seasons and airings every year, have less flexibility. TV following the streamer format in a good year can disappear into the ether, and while I was hoping more would be able to stand out in a quieter year, that doesn’t seem to have happened.

On a more conceptual level, the strikes happened in large part because the big money in Hollywood is bad at their jobs, and that problem hasn’t gone away. It existed before streamers—I could always name more unsatisfying, canceled TV shows than successes—but the disposal model from tech companies has made it so much worse. US TV is low on my list of media priorities these days because of it. A bad Netflix movie eats two hours of my life. A bad Netflix show, or a good one that gets destroyed or canceled because of bad decisions, can be twenty hours or more.

Despite everything, I have a list of fifteen shows I watched this year. (The actual number was a little higher, but there were a couple shows I basically don’t remember at all.) A lot of the TV shows are old. It’s for the same reason people marathoned the USA show Suits a couple years ago; why bother with anything new when likable, consistent TV already exists? But I did try to keep up with some shows, and there were a couple of new surprises as well.

Old favorites

Friends (full), The Office US (a couple episodes), and various background sitcoms

I do my best with TV when I watch with other people, whether in-person or online. Sara is the person I watch TV with the most these days, and she’s always watching sitcoms. A lot of TV I was around this year wasn’t even anything I was actively watching; I was in Sara’s office while it played, or in a nearby room while others watched. Shows of this nature include Community, Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, and probably more that I’m forgetting.

Friends was the one I watched actively the most. (Sara wrote a horror novel based largely off of it. It’s sick and twisted and I love it!) I don’t like a lot of the writing on Friends, but it stays consistent basically until the last season (at which point it falls off a cliff), and the ensemble is so good, they elevate what’s there. Plus, Chandler and Monica are one of my favorite fictional romantic couples of all time, basically? I get pumped to rewatch the show so I can watch them fall in love all over again.

(Everyone who thinks Friends is too white is absolutely right, though. No excuse for that.)

2024 was also the first year I watched any part of the US version of The Office. The type of comedy is too cringe for my tastes, but Sara showed me a couple full episodes at the end of the year, and I enjoyed them a lot. I’ll never seek it out on my own, but I won’t leave the room if it’s on, either.

Mad Men (full)

I actually watched the bulk of Mad Men as it aired, but not for Don Draper; Mad Men was always about Peggy and Joan and Betty and Sally and most of the actresses who ended up onscreen. (I talked about how much I liked Dawn once on Twitter, and Teyonah Parris liked my tweet!) It had been a couple years since I rewatched, and I had access to AMC for Interview with the Vampire, so I gave it another pass. I wasn’t sure I would enjoy it because of what I learned about the behind-the-scenes environment, but again, the female characters were really compelling. It’s also always really interesting to see something years down the road; I was closer to Peggy’s age then, and I’m closer to Joan’s age now.

A partial rewatch of the early Simpsons

At several points in the year, I needed a show I could watch without worrying too much if kiddos walked in. The Simpsons was one of those choices. Not only did I rewatch a few Treehouse of Horrors around Halloween, I bounced around this list of best-ranked episodes. It seems silly to ask, “Hey, did you know The Simpsons was really good once?” when I was a child of the 90s raised on The Simpsons. Still, I always seemed to catch the same handful of episodes in reruns during that period, and I got to see some new-to-me ones this year that really knocked my socks off. For example: “Bart on the Road”, when Bart takes off on a road trip with Milhouse, Martin, and Nelson, featuring a cute sideplot with Homer and Lisa.

I’ll definitely continue with the list in 2025. Older TV like this is really good for random, short watches, and maybe I’ll see more episodes I haven’t before.

Gilmore Girls s1-6

I have a real love-annoyed relationship with Gilmore Girls. I initially watched the show in reruns with my mom and older sister, and chatting with family and having opinions over characters is exactly the way to watch this show. The early seasons are so solid, too; one through three has good teen moments and passable adult relationships (I think the Lorelai/Max thing dragged on way too long), Stars Hollow is a large presence in a way that feels natural, and the mood is just right. I like seasons four and five less, but having Paris go to Yale and the initial Luke/Lorelai relationship mostly keeps things going.

I honestly meant to quit this watch after season three, but I wasn’t ready to let go. I honestly didn’t mean to watch the show at all in 2024! I just read Kelly Bishop’s memoir—and I highly rec the audiobook, which she read herself—and I got a real urge to watch Emily Gilmore being her messy, complicated self. The way Kelly Bishop and Lauren Graham play off each other in particular! Can I retroactively throw Emmys at people?

The show after season five declines pretty hard for me. I really don’t like the Rory-steals-a-yacht storyline, but getting a resolution to it usually keeps me watching past the point where I’m having fun. (And I admit, the part where Emily and Richard find out that Rory has had serious boyfriends and not remained a virgin is so funny to me.) The switch to season seven, though? It was easy to bail out, despite finding the Rory/Logan relationship pretty worthwhile in that stretch.

I briefly considered writing an essay about the class fantasy behind Gilmore Girls, but I just watched a Princess Weekes video that covered a lot of what I thought. And her opinions about Rory’s romances (Dean getting thrown under the bus for being more blue collar, Logan being the guy who meets her where she is) are very correct, although I disagree about Max. Really, looking back, I wish Lorelai had met anyone better.

New to me

Doc Martin (full)

I had never seen this British classic, featuring a doctor with a blood phobia living in a remote, coastal town, but the group I watched it with ate it up. For good reason! Doc Martin is a show that is largely kind to its characters, has some delightfully silly moments, and has a long-running romantic relationship at its heart. Despite my complaints about TV in 2024, watching Doc Martin and yelling about the episode’s mystery or the latest relationships was easily one of the high points of the year, with any media. I could watch it all again and be just as delighted a second time.

The Boys and Gen V (both in their entirety)

I have a lot of familiarity with a different Eric Kripke show: Supernatural. (The show way outlasted his tenure as head writer, but he certainly left a legacy behind.) That familiarity plus knowing the crass levels of The Boys left me a little cold on the concept of watching this show in its entirety. But Sara really likes it, so we did a full watch of The Boys and Gen V in 2024. And…I liked it too? No one’s more surprised than me. I know a lot of people thought the latest season wasn’t as good, and I get why, but watching it all in one gulp made it a little better.

I don’t know that anything in the last couple years with a wider reach portrays the relationship between people and large corporations/large systems as well as The Boys has. More importantly, I don’t know that anything with a wider reach is as honest about how violent large systems are against regular people, both within and without. (Excessive levels of gore gets the point across very well.)

Quick shoutout to Jack Quaid for being a part of two of my favorite TV experiences this year. Nepo babies can have rights!

We Are Lady Parts s1-2

I really enjoyed Nida Manzoor’s film Polite Society in 2023, so it seemed like a no-brainer to pick up her TV show in 2024 as one of my kids-can-walk-in activities. Turns out, “Muslim women in a punk band” is even more to my tastes than “Muslim women in an action movie”! I played the show’s songs a lot throughout the latter half of 2024; I think Bashir With a Good Beard was in my top-played songs of the year? (Check in again whenever I write the music recap post.) More directly relevant to the show, season two got more visually experimental, and I loved that it did. I hope there’s more episodes of this eventually, but the end of season two wrapped up nicely if there aren’t.

Returning favorites

Star Trek: Lower Decks s5

I hate that Lower Decks ended, but having a firm end on it means I can say that it’s not only one of my favorite Star Treks of all time, it’s one of my favorite shows of all time. Lower Decks managed playful poking at the sillier elements of Trek with sincere love for its roots, and, in the penultimate episode, balls-to-the-wall fanservice that was also a critique of the bigoted side of Rick Berman’s tenure in the franchise. This was a Trek that loved its starships, loved its shenanigans, and loved its characters and viewers most of all.

I’ll probably still watch Strange New Worlds, and maybe I’ll catch up on Discovery if I get bored, but I’m really mourning the lack of a new Star Trek that understood Star Trek. Paramount didn’t know what they had! (Or maybe they were too broke to keep it. Either way.)

Interview with the Vampire s2

This isn’t the hottest take of this post, but it is probably a hot take in the fandom: I liked season one of Interview with the Vampire better? Having said that, though, season two was basically better than almost every other show in 2024, and despite having to take some time to get used to the switch in location, it really achieved greatness once it settled in. I loved the end of the season in particular. Very few shows are good at payoff, but Interview with the Vampire definitely is.

I love all the cast—special shout out to Delainey Hayles for doing the tough job of taking over an already-established Claudia and making the role her own—but Jacob Anderson did something I thought was impossible; he made me love the character of Louis, despite all his foibles! (I tried rereading the book in 2024 and had to bail out because I can’t stand book Louis.) As much as I’m a forever-Lestat person, I’m actually a bit wistful that we’ll be switching to a Lestat focus in the near future. Wild.

Heartstopper s3

I was curious how the Netflix adaptation of Heartstopper would cover this part of the story before it happened. (I read the comic long before a real-life adaptation was on anyone’s radar.) Practically, I thought they did a decent job! I didn’t like it as much as the last couple seasons, but when everyone’s aging and Netflix is tight-fisted, it’s hard to keep things consistent. The balance in the ensemble’s stories felt a bit off, but not in a way that turned me off from the show as a whole. This is also just a tough segment of the story to cover, with one of the lead characters going through a serious mental-health crisis.

Still, if we don’t get any more of this show (I never trust Netflix), I think it ended in a good place, with the core group starting to age into adulthood and heading off into uni, and the relationships evolving to match the maturing characters. I’ll be interested to see how the comic ends, too!

Pleasant surprises and disappointments

Disappointment: What We Do in the Shadows s6

I thought the quality of What We Do In The Shadows had fallen off decently in season five, but there were still arcs and important character moments happening. (Guillermo’s arc ended in a particularly satisfying way.) Season six basically gave up on telling a story entirely, which would be fine if the comedy was funny. And it largely wasn’t. I was left wishing they had used a season five episode to wrap everything up, and the finale was so full of nothing that I felt mostly dead inside watching it (which, surprisingly enough, is not how you want a comedy to end). Oh well, it’s over now.

Pleasant surprise: X-Men ’97 s1

I loved the original X-Men animated series from the ’90s when I was a kid. It really formed my tastes in so many ways; subtextual leftist queer melodrama, but everyone flies around and uses powers to fight? Yes please! I didn’t have any hopes for the reboot show, so I was shocked when Sara was like, “No, you really need to watch this.” And I did. And she was right. It took everything from the ’90s show, made it less subtextual, and grew it for an aged audience. What a delight!

Special shout-out to episode 1×05 for being one of the most devastating (in an earned way) fortyish minutes of television I’ve ever watched. Just thinking about it gives my skin goosebumps and brings tears to my eyes, and it’s just an echo of what I felt actively watching it.

Disappointment: Bridgerton s3

Honestly, I’ve never been a huge fan of the Bridgerton show. The reason I picked up season three was because I usually find it a baseline level of watchable, and I really liked the chemistry of the season 2 main couple. I waited until all of the episodes dropped (I’m not playing this half-season game, Netflix) and went through them quickly. And I did manage to watch the entire season—not a bar every show cleared this year—but I found it pretty boring. The books are solid regency romances, but the show is trying to be both sexy and melodramatic and don’t really pull either of them off. It’s a shame because I really do like Nicola Coughlan, but the Lady Whistledown stuff in particular was a complete bust for me. Still, the queer threesome made me laugh with its weird timing, so it wasn’t a complete waste.

Disappointment: Umbrella Academy s4

Another show that I feel like I never fully clicked with—and, sorry to Gerard Way, but I’ve never fully clicked with the comic either—but wow, I kind of want to apologize to earlier Umbrella Academy because at least it wasn’t this.

I could complain about the structure and decisions made in the season as a whole, but the finale had one of the most abhorrent end messages of any show I’ve ever seen. When the premise of your show is “traumatized siblings in a dysfunctional family try to make their way”, going out of your way to say that it’s better that they didn’t exist in a way that didn’t even make sense in the universe? Terrible. I’ll be avoiding anything this showrunner makes in the foreseeable future.

Surprise and disappointment: Part of The Acolyte s1 and part of Andor s1

Let’s close out with my hottest take, possibly ever: I liked what I saw of The Acolyte a lot, and I found Andor boring and overrated.

Both of these surprised me, but it meshes with my personal tastes. The Acolyte was a critique of the Jedi; the only part of Star Wars that I am bulletproof interested in is the Jedi Order, their mishaps, and how Force users can exist in that system and outside of it. The Acolyte had a lot of actors I like, and good fight scenes (with women; I am so cheap for female-led action). I only watched the last few episodes, so if there was anything dragging at the beginning, I didn’t have to worry about it! Manny Jacinto was hot, there was a bunch of Force witches…what more could I ask for? (The only thing I didn’t really enjoy was the shoehorned “look at this legacy character” in the end, and that was a blip.)

It’s so funny to say that my favorite modern Star Wars entries are The Last Jedi, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Acolyte. Oh, and the Jedi video games (Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor). See what I mean about liking Jedi?

Andor, on the other hand, was a no-powers prequel to Rogue One. It’s not an automatic bounce off my tastes; I liked Rogue One quite a bit. But while Andor looked good, the story was boring at best, and annoying at worst. Some of the ideas Andor had were interesting, but I didn’t like the execution, and I finally bailed out at episode six. I’m absolutely not watching the next season.

Bonus!

If you liked this post, consider subscribing to my Patreon and reading a bonus 2024 recap post talking about productivity tips and tricks. Either way, thanks for reading, and there’s plenty more 2024 recap posts to come!

I don’t track my video games super closely, but I’m playing them a ton, so here’s some quick notes cobbled from memory and my Steam Year in Review!

Non-Steam highlights

1. Fortnite Battle Royale (and one random Creative level I spammed for XP): I gave up on the game right before they did a reboot, but it’s impossible to talk about me gaming in 2023 and not bring it up. I loved playing with a squad and the battle pass system, if not the microtransactions baked into the whole thing.

2. FTL and Into the Breach: I got these through free Epic Games claims years ago and clicked with them in 2023. (I then bought them in Steam so I could do the achievements there, and so I could throw Subset Games a couple bucks.) FTL is a great game, but a bit outside of my comfort/skill level? Into the Breach is way more playable.

3. Starfield: I played this through Xbox…or I tried, anyway. I gave it about twenty hours of fighting glitches and general problems before giving up. Maybe I’ll try it again in five years, after the modding community’s had some real time with it.

4. Vampire Survivors: I’ve never not had a big year with Vampire Survivors since it came out, but I got it on Switch for the first time in 2023 and got to play co-op with family members! In regards to the Steam version, I also got the Among Us DLC at the end of the year and was somewhat underwhelmed…for Vampire Survivors, which meant I still liked it better than most existing games.

5. Storyteller: Did you know that Netflix has app games on mobile? I’m not sure I recommend it because a lot of the games are available through other means, but I got to play Storyteller for the first time through there, and it’s a great play with a touchscreen. And it’s quick! If you have a quiet weekend and don’t know what to do with it, Storyteller’s a great choice for simple puzzles in a fairy-tale style.

6. The Sims 4: I wish I could quit this expensive, buggy mess. Alas, I love it. Growing Together was a great release, I liked the new lot type in For Rent, and I’ve used build items in Horse Ranch basically since day one. Maybe one day, I’ll finish a 100 baby challenge, but 2023 was not that year.

Steam highlights

1. Cookie Clicker: I went on an achievement-hunting tear in the later part of 2023, and I’m sure I’ll be picking up a couple throughout 2024 as well. 505 achievements earned in 2023 while only playing Oct-Dec!

2. Super Life RPG: I got completely blindsided by this one. It ate my life Feb-Apr until I forced myself to stop playing.

3. Star Wars Jedi Survivor: Made Starfield look downright functional, but I loved the story and love the characters, so I don’t regret playing it. I do regret paying day-one prices for it. I might go back later and see if it plays any better; it would be fun to hunt achievements.

4. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals: The ambiance of this series is unmatched. I think I liked the first game better, and I wish I’d known going in that there were multiple possible endings, but it was overall a worthwhile sequel to a very good game.

5. Payday 2: A deeply silly game of cops and robbers where you play as the robbers. The over-the-top slapsticky quality, combined with a generously low easy mode, is the real winner here. Definitely not free of stereotypes and bigotry, but it’s nowhere near the level of, say, a Grand Theft Auto. (I also tried Payday 3 through Xbox, which was serious and harder. No thanks.)

6. Don’t Scream: I watched a Let’s Play of this and bought it nearly instantly; the realistic found-footage look is fantastic. This is still definitely an early-access game, though—I didn’t get a lot of the scares that the Let’s Play had—and it seems like the development is going to get bigger going forward. I’ll definitely be revisiting it in Halloween season this year.

7. Graveyard Keeper: A cozy-style game with a darker aesthetic. Think Stardew Valley with graves. I found the learning curve very steep, but I will definitely be jumping in again when I get the cozy-game itch (and if I’m not playing Stardew Valley or this year’s early winners, Coral Island and Immortal Life).

8. Baldur’s Gate 3: I feel like the toe I dipped in here in December was a prologue for gaming in 2024. I played some twenty hours, much of it co-op, and felt like I barely scratched the surface of a behemoth. My deepest wish for 2024 is to get a quiet week and just dive in. Maybe late winter!

Steam stats (from Jan 1 through Dec 14)

-40 games played, 769 achievements earned
-New releases got 15% playtime, games over 8 years old got 19% playtime, games 1-7 years old got 66% playtime
-November was my busiest month, with 32% of my gameplay for the year
-I played 12% of the time with a controller

Like with film, all my book tracking goes in one place (follow me on Storygraph!). Unlike with film, I don’t do a lot of reading specific to the release year, so this is a general look back at the books released in any year I read during 2023. But I think my stats got messed up somewhere; despite doing the large majority of my reading digitally, print seems to have won the pie chart, and apparently I read 6000 pages in June? Either way, there are some general trends to coax out.

General stats

1. First book finished in 2023 was a reread of Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour. Last book finished was a first read of Lee Lai’s wonderful graphic novel Stone Fruit.

2. My biggest genre of the year was LGBTQIA+, aided largely by access through Libby to Queer Liberation Library, although my local library has some decent offerings in that direction as well. My second biggest genre was graphic novels. I’m sure the overlap between the two genres was not small.

If I wanted to give a quick genre overview, I would go with queer, graphic novel, SFFH, memoir, pop culture. Most of my reads in 2023 are two or more of these put together. I think YA and middle grade also show up a lot in my reads, but that’s less personal preference and more because queer lit and graphic novels (and both put together) tend to have a lot of overlap within those age ranges.

3. My most-read author of the year was Alice Oseman, with nine books. I believe that’s five Heartstopper volumes and four stand-alone novels (Loveless, Radio Silence, I Was Born For This, and Nick and Charlie).

4. There’s a pie chart to reflect the moods of the stories I read, which is fun to see, but three moods take up about half the chart: emotional, reflective, and lighthearted. 2023 was a transitional year, after a couple years doing the large share of my reading through audiobooks. Going with a lighter mood and reading a lot of graphic novels makes sense in this context.

This also extends to pace, which is largely medium (49%) and fast (42%), and page number, where books fewer than 300 pages (64%) won the day.

5. I largely read fiction in 2023 at 76%.

Honorable mentions

-I Think Our Son is Gay 1-4: A manga series from the point of view of a mother watching her eldest son on a journey of self-discovery in his high-school years. It’s such a kind series, both for the son and his mother, and highlights one of elements of being an adult that I find joy in: watching younger people’s specific journey through life.

-It Came From the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror: Great anthology of essays tying lived queer experience to horror movies. For better or worse, horror is often better at reflecting marginalized experience than other genres, and even when I hadn’t seen the movie in question, I resonated with a lot of the essays here. (Definitely look up content warnings if this sounds good, though.)

-Hi Honey, I’m Homo!: Matt Baume’s excellent look at US queer rights through mainstream Hollywood sitcoms. If you’re a member of my Patreon, you can see a list of Baume’s video essays you can watch without the book here, but I recommend his YouTube channel as a whole.

-Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag: This comic’s look at pregnancy, queerness, and gender feels like a window into queerness of the past in so many ways, and a massively useful one.

-Taste: My Life Through Food: This was a good year for me and celebrity memoir, to the point where this would have probably made the top ten in another year. Stanley Tucci painted a lovely picture of the stages of his life through food (or the lack thereof; he had mouth cancer that limited his ability to eat at the end of the narrative). Definitely one to listen to in audiobook form.

-Pageboy: Another celebrity memoir (from Elliot Page) that would have made it to the top ten in a different year. If you’ve ever wondered what gender dysphoria is like, read this.

-Where Are Your Boys Tonight?: The Oral History of Emo’s Mainstream: I’ve been a longtime fan of My Chemical Romance, and I’ve made friends with a lot of people by piecing together stories of the band through video and magazine interviews. This book filled in a lot of holes for them (and other bands of interest) while ignoring other spots in favor of dry business analysis. Didn’t super enjoy those last bits, but still, very useful to me personally.

-The Magic Fish: Trung Le Nguyen’s graphic novel blended fairy-tale elements and reality beautifully. I’m putting the book on my to-buy list because I loved the art so much!

-Normal People: I read this so I could watch the miniseries that went along with it…and I never got to the miniseries because I kept thinking about how much I liked the book. Note to self: look up more contemporary Irish lit.

Top ten

10. Stone Fruit by Lee Lai: As mentioned above, this was my last book of the year, and it was wonderful. Beautiful ink-wash look; resonant story about when to stay connected to family despite messiness and when to disconnect. I love the metaphoric imagery of letting loose when you’re with your young relatives.

9. Loveless by Alice Oseman: Good coming-of-age story featuring a character discovering her aromantic and asexual identities, and how your friends can be the primary focus in your life. The UK university setting made the story feel more alive to me.

8. The Woman in Me by Britney Spears: Kudos to a celebrity and their ghostwriter for writing a harrowing memoir with gothic elements (part one). The language in this was simple, and the narrative moved briskly, which is exactly what something this dark needed. I’ve followed Britney’s life and career somewhat, and I was still surprised by some of what happened in this.

7. Spare by Prince Harry: Kudos to a celebrity and their ghostwriter for writing a harrowing memoir with gothic elements (part two). I rec the ghostwriter’s perspective on cowriting the memoir and the aftermath, too. Claustrophobic read; I can only imagine how much more claustrophobic the reality was (and still is).

6. Babel by R.F. Kuang: It seems to be a bit of a trend right now to set fantasy in real-life Western universities (I have Leigh Bardugo’s Hell Bent on my to-read list, after failing to read it while I had it checked out in January). Babel’s historical fantasy is set in Oxford and uses translation magic as metaphor for the abuses of white imperialism. Big tear-it-all-down mood.

5. Burn it Down by Maureen Ryan: Read this toward the beginning of the WGA strike in the summer, and it was a perfect time to do it. While Burn It down covers a lot of the toxicity in Hollywood from multiple direction, it had a heavy focus on TV writers’ rooms. Even though both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have ended, we’re gonna feel their impacts on media for the next couple years, so I rec this book for a perspective on why things need a shake-up.

4. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner: Intense memoir about culture, food, and the death of a parent. I cried buckets over it, as I will cry at the movie adaptation that is in development if it gets made. This is also a celebrity memoir, as Michelle Zauner is part of Japanese Breakfast, but it’s very different in tone from the other two on the list.

3. Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat: I read both books in the series (so far) this year, and I’m still not sure if I liked the first one, which felt more like a setup for its ending than a story on its own. I have no such reservations about Dark Heir, which I read in a four-hour burst. Its use of reincarnation and magic in existing systems as metaphor for generational trauma is fantastic.

2. Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman: As someone who has a hard time journaling consistently, saying “this book got me to journal for months in 2023” sums up my experience reading it. A good look at an actor I admire obviously trying to work through life and better himself, without shrinking away from his flaws. My only regret is that this was published posthumously because it means he couldn’t read the audiobook. I did listen to the audiobook, though, and the narrator does a good job with a dry British tone, even if it isn’t the specific Alan Rickman flavor.

1. This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: The summary is relatively straightforward – epistolary time-travel novella with agents on two opposing sides falling in love. But the experience of reading (or listening, as I did, which I do rec) is rich and complex while still being extremely familiar. Thanks, Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood!