On the Same Page鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

Go to previous year

2024

35,590

pages read

104

books read

On the Same Page

The Throme of the Erril of Sherill by Patricia A. McKillip

Shortest Book

pages

The Golem and the Djinni by Helene Wecker

Longest Book

646

pages

Average book length in 2024

342

pages

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

Most Shelved

4,297,837

people also shelved

Not Evil, Just Misunderstood...and also evil by Jason Willard

Least Shelved

people also shelved

On the Same Page鈥檚 average rating for 2024

3.8

Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by M貌 Xi膩ng T贸ng Xi霉

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

4.63 average

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

On the Same Page鈥檚 first review of the year

really liked it

CWs: (view spoiler)

The Empire, the world. One and the same. And if they were not yet so: make them so, for this is the right and correct will of the stars.

I put off this book for a long time because, based on how people were talking about it, I expected it to be a pretty complex hard scifi. But it really isn't. I would say it is hard scifi, but I was surprised by how readable it was. The concepts are all adequately explained without it feeling like infodumping. There are a lot of new terms, and there is a comprehensive glossary that explains all of them, but I honestly never referred to it. Everything I needed to know was explained within the text, or easy enough to guess from the context.

I think it also helps that the story engine is familiar and simple: a murder mystery instead of something that relies on knowledge of the world to understand. And through the investigation into the murder of an ambassador, we discover how the empire works, and what the politics entail. I thought it was incredibly effective.

So perfectly imperial, to have messages made of light and encrypted with poetry, and require a physical object for propriety鈥檚 sake. Such a waste of resources. Time and energy and material. She could wish it didn鈥檛 delight her.

The concept of the imago-machines was a really good hook, and it also served to immediately make me feel sympathy for Mahit, who finds herself in the midst of the political games set up by her now murdered predecessor, without the tools she expected to have on hand to deal with it. It's easy to care about her and Yskandr, as well as Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea, whose existing friendship, complete with cute nicknames and banter, made them easy to like.

Even though they are colonisers.

Empire was empire鈥� the part that seduced and the part that clamped down, jaws like a vise, and shook a planet until its neck was broken and it died.

I think that's the only thing that was really lacking for me in this story. Both Mahit and Yskandr have a love for Teixcalaan, even though they know that the Empire will always want to expand, and consume everything in its path. The Empire considers them to be barbarians, which they are fully aware of, but it doesn't change their desire to belong there and be part of the empire instead of falling outside of it. I was hoping for more pushback against colonisation鈥攖here are parts that hint at it, and it's not that Mahit isn't aware of it, which makes her personal struggle interesting and compelling. It's something I hope the author explores more in the sequel. ...more

ON THE SAME PAGE鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

Highly Suspicious and Unfairly Cute by Talia Hibbert

The Secret Service of Tea and Treason by India Holton

The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

it was amazing

it was amazing

The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

Dark Star Burning, Ash Falls White by Am茅lie Wen Zhao

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed

it was amazing

Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love by Huma Qureshi

The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafah

All the Horses of Iceland by Sarah Tolmie

Didn't See That Coming by Jesse Q. Sutanto

it was amazing

Four Eids and a Funeral by Faridah 脌b铆k茅-脥y铆m铆d茅

Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

it was amazing

The Soldier's Scoundrel by Cat Sebastian

it was amazing

The Summer Palace and Other Stories by C.S. Pacat

My Throat an Open Grave by Tori Bovalino

The Sins on Their Bones by Laura R. Samotin

it was amazing

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

Case File Compendium by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou

it was amazing

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

A Wizard鈥檚 Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher

Emily Wilde鈥檚 Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

it was amazing

The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas

it was amazing

Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower by Tamsyn Muir

A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

it was amazing

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

The Disabled Tyrant's Beloved Pet Fish by Xue Shan Fei Hu

On the Same Page鈥檚 last review of the year

really liked it

CWs: (view spoiler)

Atwater always finds a way to suck me into her stories. I will admit that I wasn't quite sure which direction the romance would take, but the way she subverted the traditional beats of the Cinderella story really worked for me. It takes a while before the story really gets going, but I didn't end up minding that too much.

But there was a subtle, terrible energ

...more

What did you read this year?