We may be a little tech-savvy here, but the team at Engadget sometimes indulges in low-tech activities like reading. Well, some of us read on e-readers or our smartphones, but you get the idea — books are great, and we read some great books this year that deserve praise from everyone. These are some of the best books to read in 2024.
After World
After World is Debbie Urbanski’s debut novel and, wow, it’s awesome. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since reading it in January. Simply put? This book describes a climate-based apocalypse from the perspective of a (potentially) sentient AI.
It follows a young woman named Sen, the last human on Earth, whose final experiences are being cataloged as part of an archival project. The narrator is an AI that wanders around Sen’s life as it wishes, often repeating anecdotes in a slightly different way as it re-examines its subject and humanity as a whole.
Since archival practices are so integral to the story here, the chapters also include near-future news articles and essays discussing the final decades of the human race. These are really well done and, unfortunately, very clichéd.
I have just one warning for future readers. This was the most emotionally devastating book I read this year, even if there are a few light-hearted things here and there. However, I can almost guarantee that it will get stuck in your throat.
I Was a Teenage Slasher
I read a lot in 2024, and I was lucky enough to enjoy (mostly) all of the books and comics. This might have made it hard to pick a favorite when thinking about the year, but there was no question in my mind which book I loved the most, because one book absolutely shook me up, ripped my heart out, made me laugh, made me cry, etc.: I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones.
Now, I Was a Teenage Slasher wouldn’t seem like a story that would make you cry about the power of love and friendship if you were judging a book by its cover.
The slasher genre isn’t exactly known for emotional depth, so if you went into reading this thinking you were just going to be treated to a classic revenge killing spree with some teenage antics, I wouldn’t blame you. And you wouldn’t be totally wrong – this book really does have all of those things.
But the supernatural slasher elements, despite being a major part of the plot, feel secondary to the rollercoaster coming-of-age story that’s really at the heart of it.
Tolly Driver doesn’t want to be a slasher, but he is. It’s in his blood, thanks to a series of strange events that align in exactly the right way to seal his fate. Amber, his best friend and truly ride-or-die, has a lot of knowledge on the subject and essentially becomes his guide on this perplexing journey.
I Was a Teenage Slasher tackles a lot of tough topics, such as the grief of losing a parent at a young age, something I instantly related to, the pressure of trying to do right by your loved ones, and the terrifying reality of growing up and growing into yourself. But it’s also funny a lot of the time, which helped to downplay all the bloodshed and tragedy.
This is the second year in a row that a Stephen Graham Jones book has topped my list, which isn’t surprising as I’m a huge fan of his, but I Was a Teenage Slasher is really on a whole other level. It’s not just one of my favorite books of the year, it’s probably one of my favorite books of all time. I wanted to read it again as soon as I finished it, but I couldn’t because I was crying so much.
The Final Cut
Charles Burns’ The Final Cut is less bizarre than some of his other works, though it’s still a very surreal ride as we see the world through the strange and often confused lens of an aspiring filmmaker, Brian. Brian is obsessed with classic sci-fi horror films like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and he takes his own craft extremely seriously.
He’s also very fixated on Laurie, who is the star of a movie he’s planning. When Brian and a small group of friends go on a weekend trip to a remote cabin to shoot a film, his yearning seems to grow stronger than his grip on reality.
There are many moments in this book where the actions of these characters feel so real that they were almost hard to read – I wanted to shake them, tell them to just stop talking. Those moments of reality are balanced with a gloomy dreaminess in the book that makes everything feel a little unsettled.
Burns’ illustrations are breathtaking, and really bring to life Brian’s mental state and the uneasy dynamics of the situation. It’s a beautiful, gritty exploration of mental health and obsession that would be hard not to connect with on some level.