Here is my annual list of books that I rated at 9 or above. I rate most books I really enjoy as 8, but since that list would be over 100 books, I feel the need to limit myself. I do find it very curious that I rated so many more of my adult reads highly than my middle grade reads – maybe I’m just more critical of the middle grade because I read more of it, or because I’m trying to evaluate things for the Cybils even when I’m not reading directly for the awards? I also didn’t want to duplicate the already-lengthy list of books I shared in Cybils 2024: 15 Middle Grade Spec Fic Books that Got Away, or the excellent selection 2024 Middle Grade Speculative Fiction Cybils Finalists my fellow judgees and I put together. Despite loving so many other books, I reviewed only two of those adult favorites, and none of the teen favorites. In any case, here is a small selection of the books I loved last year. 

Here is my standard disclaimer about rating books:

“I have never liked doing a public scale rating of books – the librarian in me would rather describe what’s in the book and let you decide if it sounds good for you. But I do give books number ratings on my own private spreadsheet. I shamelessly borrowed the Book Smugglers’ 10-point rating system for this, where 0 is “I want my time and my money back”, 5 is “meh” and so on. For my purposes, 7 is a book I enjoyed, 8 is one I loved and 9 is one I really, really loved. 10 only gets given out retrospectively to books I find myself re-reading and thinking about a lot – a true personal classic.”

Middle Grade

• Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell. Illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie
• Puzzleheart by Jenn Reese
• Benji Zeb is a Ravenous Werewolf by Deke Moulton

These are all my favorites from the Cybils Middle Grade Graphic Novel finalists of last year.

• Things in the Basement by Ben Hatke
• Mexikid by Pedro Martín
• A First Time for Everything by Dan Santat

• Simon Sort of Says by Erin Bow. Read by Will Collyer
• The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly (the cover image hasn’t updated yet, but it did win the Newbery Award as well as being a National Book Award Finalist.)
• Accidental Demons by Clare Edge. Read by Karissa Vacker.- I still need to write up a review of this, but it was both one of the Cybils finalists and one that my teen and I listened to together afterwards and has their approval as well.

Teen

I read this whole trilogy and didn’t have the words to express how much I loved it. I literally screamed out loud (to the shock of the teens in my house) when book 2 ended on a cliffhanger and I couldn’t start book 3 right away.

• Thorn by Intisar Khanani. Read by Shiromi Arserio.
• The Theft of Sunlight by Intisar Khanani. Read by Shiromi Arserio.
• A Darkness at the Door by Intisar Khanani. Read by Shiromi Arserio.

• In Limbo by Deb JJ Lee
• The Bone Spindle by Leslie Vedder – the first in a trilogy. I enjoyed the whole thing, and am listening to the first with my son (slowly, as he can now drive himself.)
• Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

Adult

• Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by R.F. Kuang
• The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
• Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty. Read by Amin El Gamal and Lameece Issaq

• Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers
• Bookshops & Bonedust by Travis Baldree. Read by the Author.
• System Collapse: The Murderbot Diaries, Book 7 by Martha Wells

• Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett
• Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
• Marriage of Undead Inconvenience by Stephanie Burgis

• Diary of a Young Naturalist by Dara McAnulty
• How to ADHD by Jessica McCabe
• The Essential Guide to Raising Complex Kids by Elaine Taylor-Klaus

Rereads

• Greenglass House by Kate Milford
• Ash by Malinda Lo