Throughout 2024, numerous long-anticipated books from countless genres were finally released.
Several prized authors released new texts while newer authors asserted their success in the literary world. Looking back on the literary releases of 2024, here are a few reads that stood out to me.
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
As a long-time fan of Irish fiction author Sally Rooney’s work, I can confidently say that Intermezzo lived up to the high expectations I cultivated after reading her earlier works over the years.
Most famously known for her coming-of-age fiction-turned-television series Normal People, Rooney has a talent for writing about all the relationships in our lives in a unique and captivating manner. While her earlier texts, namely Normal People and Conversations with Friends, mainly surround characters in their twenties navigating romantic love and daily life, Intermezzo takes a different path.
Following the tumultuous lives of and the relationship between two brothers Ivan and Peter after their father’s passing, Intermezzo explores how grief can infiltrate every aspect of one’s life and can sometimes be even more isolating when it is shared.
As the grief shared between the two brothers draws out the underlying issues in their own relationship, Ivan and Peter are forced to confront the unsatisfying truths in their individual lives to make amends with each other.
Rooney’s blueprint style that appears in all her novels, wherein she covers several perspectives of the same event by different characters then diverges into their daily lives, works especially well in Intermezzo as it displays just how deeply grief cuts into one’s experience of social life.
Intermezzo was a highly anticipated book release this year, and despite its mixed reviews, it was a notable read for me.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
Two years after releasing her first novel Cleopatra and Frankenstein, 2024 brought the release of Coco Mellors’ Blue Sisters.
Another story of grief and family, Blue Sisters follows three estranged sisters navigating the unexpected death of their fourth sister as they respectively struggle with addictions, losses of control and personal defeats.
Contrasting from Intermezzo, Blue Sisters has a closer focus on familial struggles and sisterhood. The novel explores how the depth of one’s personal struggles can quickly become entangled with the relationships to those closest to them.
Throughout the novel, the three sisters must deal simultaneously with their shared grief and the differing chaos in their respective personal lives to collectively find resolution.
I had been anticipating the release of Mellors’ second novel since I read Cleopatra and Frankenstein in 2022. Mellors has a talent for writing personal struggles and emotional undoing in a manner that is not corny but entirely raw.
My admiration for Mellors’ novels roots less within her stories and more within her signature vivid writing style that Blue Sisters maintains.
Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik
As an avid reader of Joan Didion and a relatively new fan of Eve Babitz, Anolik’s biography Didion and Babitz had been high on my reading list this past year.
The biography looks through the lens of Babitz to present an image of how Didion was perceived and discussed throughout the era in which they wrote, ultimately revealing more about the two literary figures in the process.
Though Anolik has an obvious admiration for Babitz, having authored Hollywood’s Eve before venturing into the relationship between Babitz and Didion, my personal interest in the two figures made the biography still as enjoyable and intriguing because of the new perspectives it shed light on regarding the relationship between the two women.
Didion and Babitz faced criticism for Anolik’s account of Babitz and Didion’s relationship solely relying on the word of Babitz, thus approaching Babitz with praise and Didion only through the veil of Babitz’s perspective. As a fan of Didion’s, I can see where this critique is coming from, but the author’s personal interest in Babitz made the biography insightful to me as a reader who was less familiar with her perspective on this era.
However, I would agree that the biography focuses more on Babitz and how Didion fits into the era she wrote within.
Ultimately, Anolik’s Didion and Babitz was a memorable read for me in 2024 as a faithful Didion fan and recent Babitz reader.
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2024 brought the release of several fantastic books from all sorts of genres. Although this list includes only a few of the great books released this year, there are countless others that left an impact on their respective genres and the broader literary world.