My 18 Least Favorite Books of 2024

Before I start, let me apologize for the fact that I said the next post would be this one, and instead you got 10 Reflections on 2024. I wrote that post first and tried to schedule it for later in January, but I failed to notice that I had chosen the year 2024 instead of 2025, and so it published automatically. Thank you for bearing with me as I figure out how Substack works.

Everybody is sharing the best books they read in 2024. I have that post in the works, but first I thought I’d share my least favorite books of 2024.

I’ll begin with nuancing this to death.

These were all 2 or 3-star books for me. The difference between a 2 and 3 star book is that I found the writing to be lacking. A 3-star book might have fine writing, but it just wasn’t interesting or just wasn’t anything special, in my opinion. Books that were overrated got 3 stars, because I recognize that they are not inherently bad books, but I just didn’t enjoy them (and felt like I was supposed to). Then there are the books…