Is Intermezzo overrated? My 2024 end-of-year book tag
A reading year filled with hits and misses
I know everyone says this at the end of every year, but how is it December 2024? More than ever I feel like this year has just flown by.
2024 was definitely the year of discovering new reading formats. First of all, I finally caved and bought a Kindle. If you would have told me this a year ago I would have laughed in your face. For years I proudly declared that I would never, ever, be the kind of person who read ebooks. I eventually ended up deciding to give it a go because of two main reasons: Firstly, I was tired of always taking way too many books with me on holiday. Before every trip I would convince myself that I HAD to pack ten books in case I ran out, to then only end up reading two, which is just such a waste of suitcase space and weight you need to carry. Now I can take hundreds of books on one light-as-air device. The second reason is that I am simply running out of space on my bookshelves. I figured that if I could get to a place where I only buy physical books when I really want to own them (a favourite author, a beautiful cover etc) and I buy the others on Kindle, that will save me a significant amount of space and money.
I also started listening to audiobooks! Another thing I never thought I'd say. I’m very picky with the kind of books I will listen to though. So far I find it works well for memoirs, non-fiction and maybe the occasional thriller, but when I read literary fiction I want to shut everything else off, focus on that story and take in the prose. When I’m listening to an audiobook I’m usually also doing something else, even if it’s just walking, so I do think that it’s a very different kind of activity.
At the time of writing this I have finished 54 books, which makes 2024 one of my better reading years. Of course not all books were winners, so I thought it would be nice to wrap up this year with a book tag! I collected some questions that I found on different websites and Reddit threads.
Let’s dive in!
Are there any books you started this year that you need to finish?
David Sedaris is one of my favourite authors, but earlier this year I started reading his diary collection Theft by Finding and I have to say I find it such a drag to get through. It’s massive and it’s the kind of book you read a couple of pages of at a time, but I haven’t touched it in months and I’m not sure I will be able to finish it. I definitely prefer his essays.
What are three books you want to read before the end of the year?
I still have quite a few books on my autumn/winter tbr and although I’m trying to get through all of them by the start of spring, some that I hope I will get to read soon are Boy Parts by Eliza Clark, The Silence in Between by Josie Ferguson and Salt Slow by Julia Armfield.
Have you already started making reading plans for 2025?
Earlier this year I came up with a new way of picking my next reads and I’m LOVING it. At the start of the season I go through all of the books on my Kindle and physical tbr and I select about 30. Then I put those names in a bowl and pick my next read that way. It’s the perfect way to make sure I have a nice mix of new titles as well as books that have been sitting on my shelves for years. I have already read so many books that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have touched for another couple of years.
I do have my selection for this winter already, so that will take me into 2025, and then I will make a new one for spring!
Book that made you cry?
In Memoriam by Alice Winn. Such a beautiful story.
Biggest disappointment?
Arrangements in Blue by Amy Key. I thought this memoir would explore why we as a society treat romantic love like the most important type of relationship you can possibly have, and I thought it would challenge those beliefs and show how you can live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life without a romantic partner. Everything about this sounded like the kind of book I would love. Instead this was a story of a woman who, at the end of the day, is still very sad and quite bitter that she doesn’t have a romantic partner. Of course that’s absolutely fine if that’s the author’s experience, but if you market a book as ‘A love story of being alone’ with tag lines like ‘Maybe a life without romantic love isn’t so bad’ I’m not expecting a book that, if I had read this as a happily single person, would have left me feeling more sad about my relationship status than before reading it.
One Day by David Nicholls. I have ranted about this more than enough already. I’m still baffled that people call this a love story when I have rarely met two characters who I wanted to get together less.
A book you can always reread?
Everything I know About Love by Dolly Alderton. I reread it this year and loved it just as much as the first time.
Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding. This book is a literary masterpiece and I will happily die on that hill.
Biggest surprise?
Paris The Memoir by Paris Hilton. I would feel a bit weird reviewing the writing since this was written by a ghostwriter, but this story had my jaw on the floor and Paris Hilton deserves all the credit for even sharing this. If you’ve ever been even a little bit fascinated by Paris Hilton, the ‘It girl' phenomenon or celebrity culture in the 2000s, you need to read this book. I was expecting a juicy behind-the-scenes look into her life, but I got so much more than that. Her experiences as a victim of the ‘troubled teen industry’ are almost too much to process. This is another great reminder that you never know what somebody is going through.
Oldest book you read?
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1817).
A book that was overhyped?
Look, when I read crime or thriller novels I am not expecting the most beautifully-crafted prose I have ever read. I want to unwind and ideally be spooked a little. But still, I have read a couple of thrillers that are so hyped up and I just don’t get it.
I read The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. I actually thought the plot was okay and I would have enjoyed this story so much more if I had not hated the writing so much. My biggest reading pet peeve is when authors assume that readers cannot think for themselves and explain everything rather than showing it. I have never seen that more than in this book. For example, one of the characters would often say one thing and then say the complete opposite a couple of days later in order to mess with another character’s mind. This was very obvious as a reader, but every time this happened the narrator would provide us with this big explanation of Remember how they said [repeats initial statement word for word] on this day [repeats the entire context in which this was said even though this was three pages ago] and now she’s saying something else. That’s weird, right? Do you understand that that’s weird???’ On top of that I also could have done without the idea of ‘Woman wants to make herself less attractive so she does the obvious thing that will make anyone repulsed by her…gain weight’.
And whilst we’re on the topic of overhyped crime novels, I also read The Guest List and The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley. If I had just one of these I would have thought it was quite good, but after reading both I felt like the story and the characters were almost identical. Seriously, if the title and the characters’ names had not been different I would have sworn that I had read the exact same book twice.
Maybe I’m just not a crime reader? Although I did read None of This is True by Lisa Jewell this year as well and really enjoyed that! So I think this genre especially is just very hit and miss for me.
A new favourite author your discovered
Am I cheating if I’ve only read one novel by this author so far? I read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and immediately bought another one of the books (My Cousin Rachel) and added everything else she has ever written to my wish list. Rebecca is in my top two books of the year. I was so blown away by how immersive this writing was.
Current read?
The Complete History of Jack The Ripper by Philip Sugden. This book is thicc and contains a lot of information, so I am slowly but surely making my way through it. It was published in the 90s and some of the language is very outdated and the author does not let a single chapter go by without reading other Ripperologists to filth which comes across as quite petty, but it is probably the best and, like the title suggests, most complete and truthful book on Jack the Ripper out there.
Least favourite book?
There is only one book I gave less than three stars, which was The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. I listened to this very short audiobook on the Eurostar and although it initially sounded promising, I didn’t vibe with it at all.
My three stars reads:
The Manningtree Witches by A.K. Blakemore: I really wish I liked this more but I think the writing style was just not my thing.
Will I Ever Have Sex Again by Sofie Hagen: The premise of this book sounded great, but many of the anecdotes that were shared were sad and desperate and it felt like the author wasn’t too distanced from them yet to really see how messed up those situations were and the part they played in them. There were also other parts that were a bit too preachy for me.
Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino: I don’t know why but it took me forever and a day to get through this essay collection. Some essays were very interesting but with most of them I had no idea what the point was.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden: See above.
Essays in Love by Alain De Botton: See post earlier this year.
One Day: I will shut up about this now.
Favourite book of the year?
Of course the year isn’t over yet, but I think I can safely say that two books stood out to me. The first one I mentioned earlier: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. The other one I read in April and the second I finished it (or actually the second I started it) I correctly predicted that this would be a highlight for me. It’s The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey. The premise of this was so unique and I just loved everything about it, from the time period this was set in, to the lovable characters. You can read my full review here.
Other five star reads:
Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters by Rick Riordan.
Mongrel by Hanako Footman
The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Rewitched by Lucy Wood
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
Bridget Jones’ Diary by Helen Fielding
Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton
Is Sally Rooney overhyped?
As a literary fiction girlie I feel like I cannot finish the wrap-up without mentioning Intermezzo by Sally Rooney. I bought and read it immediately when it came out and I gave it 4.5 stars, so I really enjoyed it, just like her other three books. But when I saw all the anticipation of this book online, bookstores that opened earlier on release day, and just how everyone and their cat was talking about it, part of me wonders…would people like it as much if there wasn’t so much hype around this? Before I get absolutely annihilated, I LOVE Sally Rooney’s books. I love reading about ordinary people’s mundane lives, so everything she writes is right up my alley. I just wonder, if this book was by anyone else, or let’s say by a writer I hadn’t heard about before, if I would I still think the writing is unlike anything else that exists in the literary fiction genre? I honestly think the answer is no. It’s just interesting how external factors definitely influence us whether we’re conscious of it or not.
That’s it, the biggest hits and misses of my 2024 reading year! Let me know what your highlights were.
Thank you for reading!
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