My favourite books and comics/ graphic novels I read in 2024!
Mostly queer romance and/or fantasy recent releases (the first 3 are 2021-23).
My health problems mean I listen to prose whenever there’s an audiobook available (using libro.fm, who have an extremely good selection). That means the non-graphic novels I recommend almost always have a great audio version too.
Graphic novels I’m more up to date on, and all came out 2024.
Favourite prose (words) books
This year I felt very lucky to read a few books I absolutely loved. These main three are all historical, fantastical and/or mythical-feeling books with queer characters. They’re probably at the more literary end of what I usually read, but you don’t need to know anything about the settings to get into them. They all had lines, concepts and imagery that really stayed with me, and felt like the writers were masterfully executing bold and challenging visions.
Three recent books I was absolutely obsessed with:
WHEN WE LOST OUR HEADS - Heather O’Neill
Set in 1870s Canada from opulent parties to factories and brothels, this book really revolves around two girls (named after Marie Antoinette and the Marquis de Sade, though it doesn’t really come into it) who are passionately, psychosexually obsessed with each other. Early on, one takes the blame for a murder the other committed, and things get dark and weird.
Told like a TALE in a very unique way, this just goes really hard and I loved the prose style. The ideas and class thoughts felt so elegantly put. Un-squeamish, sometimes horrible and sometimes exuberant, inspiringly bold and dramatic.
THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS - Vajra Chandrasekera (audio: Sid Sagar)
I was just obsessed with the prose in this book which blew my mind, and was made even better by an incredible narrator.
This is a difficult to describe, winding mythic journey through a complex, vibrant but caste-divided, violent-bureaucracy-hell of a city, and the quarantine/prisons and hinterlands beyond. Spans big-scale politics and religion while written from this personal view of someone caught in it all.
The world is very South Asian (drawing on some Sri Lankan & Buddhist stuff particularly) but my very patchy knowledge there didn’t stop the book feeling incredibly resonant, extremely real and bitingly funny. It has these perfect absurd moments that describe the awful reality of terrible things and predatory systems incredibly well.
SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN and He Who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker-Chan (audio: Natalie Naudus)
‘Politics with battles’ genre slight-fantasy in 1300s China with THE most emotionally devastating and amazing character writing. The first book (of the duology) won all the awards in 2021 and I’m not sure why it took me so long to read. I believe the author said they wanted this to feel like a very queer addictive Chinese historical drama and they really succeeded.
It has these incredible, agonising portrayals of desire, grief, and the layers in the way people act, often against their own interests or surface thoughts. The explorations of repression, gender and connection are probably more raw and interesting than anything I’ve ever read - viscerally showing the relentless punishment these very different people are enduring from a world of unyielding gender roles. A lot of complex, horrible characters - tragic but relentlessly compelling.
Most fun read 2024:
SWORDCROSSED - Freya Marske (audio: Omari Douglas)
I just LOVE this author’s prose. For me, it’s a delicious treat to read this kind of queer romance - with moments of intense chemistry and luxuriously described, well-written intimate scenes - along with a low-fantasyish-intrigue plot moving along in the background.
It’s not a book with magic worldbuilding, wide political statements or a big fantasy finale, so the character-focused primarily-romance stakes might not be for all fantasy fans. But if that’s your thing, the character writing at its heart is really fun and absorbing (enough to even get me on board with the fairly detailed wool industry plot.)
(Side note, I was also EXTREMELY FLATTERED the author recently recommended my new book on Instagram?? Very surreal… I love your work, Ms Marske… thank you…)
Favourite YA prose 2024:
ICARUS - K. Ancrum (audio: Kirt Graves)
An incredibly emotionally closed-off teenage art thief falls in love with the son of the person he’s supposed to be robbing, who’s literally called Icarus: getting too close will be the MC’s downfall.
This slightly unusual book combines a real-world modern setting with a VERY dramatic fable-like premise and aching romance, all brought to life with a really economic, poetic prose style that I just really loved. The heightened teenage emotions feel very real and well-drawn, particularly the explorations of the MC's relationships with others. The themes of people coming together to help peers through a crisis really hit, and I teared up at the author’s note and some descriptions of the MC finally allowing himself these small moments of closeness.
Favourite reread:
SABRIEL and Lirael - Garth Nix (audio: Tim Curry)
I loved Garth Nix’s sometimes-grisly ancient-magic books as a kid (which possibly explains a lot about my personality and tastes.) I’ve really enjoyed revisiting this trilogy by gradually listening to Tim Curry(!!) read the audiobooks with my partner this year.
In some parts it feels clearly from an older generation of stories for young people - often in ways I like - but wider story elements, like nationalist politicians treating refugees as disposable, feel depressingly still-relevant 20 years on.
Most of all I just love the largely-deliciously-unexplained magic, horrifying dead creatures, dangerous libraries, and whole mysterious world beyond the wall. Something about the voices of the different ominous necromancy bells - that want to be rung and can cast you far into the world of death - has always been enormously evocative to me.
I don’t own these, but also discovered Tom Arnold did some extremely cool special edition covers for Daphne Press - these are his illustrations for Sabriel & Lirael.
Graphic novels & comics
While I personally find prose YA pretty hit and miss, I absolutely love a lot of what’s going on in YA graphic novels, especially with queer creators or storylines.
Apart from Bunt, which is mostly here because it’s extremely fun, the ones I’ve particularly highlighted here (in no particular order) are ones I found most emotionally moving - conveying a coming-of-age, but in a grounded way that more broadly evokes big life changes, or the feeling of becoming yourself.
(More queer GN recs & longer reviews for Bunt here, Ash’s cabin and Brownstone here.)
5 favourite YA graphic novels 2024:
LEAP - Simina Popescu
Most emotional
A small-scale story about two friends at a very competitive dance school in Bucharest. I don’t know anything about dance and wasn’t sure what to expect, but this story was so direct and accessible and sucked me in.
The pressures on the characters are explored in such a grounded, nuanced way - school pressure, creative exploration, and whether to be out and to who in a changing but previously very conservative environment (both the dance world and Romania). The focus is small, but the emotions feel so big and I just found it so moving.
BUNT - Ngozi Ukazu & Mad Rupert
Most fun
To secure a scholarship, a college student has to put together a softball team and win one game with a team of art school nerds.
This is so fun, explores great themes, and comes from this incredible experienced team who both clearly know exactly how to make a great comic. The cartooning is so spectacularly good and dynamic it’s just fantastic, and very entertaining to read. So well-told it made me genuinely really care about a sports plot.
ASH’S CABIN - Jen Wang
Most evocative
Ash, a teenager who feels like they’re the only person who cares deeply about the climate, researches and (self-destructively?) runs away to face the harsh reality of survival in the wilderness.
Doesn’t end with a single strong ‘answer’ or wrap-up, but this melancholy watercolour story feels very real, raw, and beautiful.
BROWNSTONE - Samuel Teer & Mar Julia
Favourite art
A young teen spends the summer with the Guatemalan side of her family she barely knows.
Gorgeous drawings by one of my favourite comic artists ever, evoking a fantastic story with these beautiful moments about people finding ways to connect, which made me cry.
THIEF OF THE HEIGHTS - Son M. & Robin Yao
Favourite SFFH
Character-focused futuristic / dystopian story that centres class and disability in a way I found so emotionally engaging.
I especially loved the art of the emblematic world: a city with bright, expensive homes of the elites above, in stark contrast with the gloomy, atmospheric depths you and the characters are immersed in from the start. It follows the characters’ survival through illnesses and disability those higher up never have to deal with - and decisions about what it’s worth to them to ‘ascend’. Hopeful, chilling and really well-executed.
Favourite graphic non-fiction 2024:
THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES - Peter Wohlleben, Fred Bernard & Benjamin Flao
Truly gorgeous, expressive, large-format adaptation of a book famous a few years ago.
If you’ve already read a lot about forestry or tree science, it won’t necessarily be new information or wildly radical (it’s focused on the author’s experience in Europe, and doesn’t link with indigenous peoples’ movements, for example). But it links together topics wonderfully with art that truly enhances it, and a biographical story that makes it particularly accessible.
Overall the witty, understandable science writing and energetic ink and watercolour really conveys the writers’ passion and wonder at the natural world.
Favourite indie/ online comics 2024:
THE VOW - Arden Ripley and Julian Cormac
(300 page, 18+)
Nonbinary enemies romantically/ sexually obsessed w each other, snow, fantasy monsters. Stumbled across this online and really enjoyed it. Just really fun and readable, with off-the-charts chemistry and a compelling dark fantasy romance plot. Even when it’s a genre I don’t often read in prose, I loved it.
Everyone please support indie comics so people can keep making amazing weird stuff like this.
Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage - Spire and Eve Greenwood
(Currently coming out as a free webcomic here)
Forbidden love at a monastery where nobody's allowed to look at each others' faces.
I (excitingly) got to give a blurb quote for this comic, which is probably more eloquent than anything new I’d be able to write:
Thanks for reading (this, and generally)
If you’ve read any of these or have other similar recs, I’m always keen to hear and add to my unreasonably ambitious TBR - you can find me @haridraws, especially on bluesky right now.
You can find my goodreads here,
and a (free!) blog about the books I’m working on / what I’ve been up to in 2024 here.
Lastly, a big thank-you to readers who’ve been recommending I Shall Never Fall in Love since it came out last month. I’m very honoured it’s been on a few ‘favourite queer/ trans historical fiction’, graphic novel, and ‘Top YA of 2024’ lists including Waterstones(!!) - and although I’ve failed to post about it yet, on the January Indie Next list in the US, too. A huge thanks to all the readers and booksellers including the book on their own lists of 2024, it really does make a difference and you are enormously appreciated.
