Time to continue our 2024 wrap-up! Let’s take a look at my favorite Kara Thomas books that I read in this past year, regardless of whether or not they actually released in 2024. As long as I read it for the first time (or had a transformative re-read), it’s fair game. I’ll also be including series into a single entry on this list, like last year.
Let’s get into it!
Honorable Mentions: Out of the Ashes (Kara Thomas), That’s Not My Name (Megan Laily), The Bad Ones (Melissa Albert), Silent Sister (Megan Davidhizar)
10) Wonder Woman Rebirth ~ Greg Rucka
Just like last year, I read another DC Universe Rebirth comic series, and also just like last year, I had a lot of fun doing so! There’s just something satisfying about reading an arc of a comic book from start to finish. Comics are infamous for being crazy and hard to follow along with, but they can be really interesting if you’re able to catch an entire run. So I enjoyed the chance to partake in reading my first ever Wonder Woman comic, and I recognized a lot of familiar faces and plot beats from the Wonder Woman movies, and also just some other general DC knowledge that I have. It certainly made me want to read more comics, but that also just happens anytime I go down a comics rabbit hole!
9) Disturbing the Dead ~ Kelley Armstrong
Kelley Armstrong is no stranger to my list of favorite books, and this third installment in her Rip Through Time series continues to be extremely enjoyable (even if it’s not quite as perfect as book two was). Something this book did that I really liked was that it connected with the present day timeline and answered some burning questions of mine (since this entire series is about a woman who accidentally travels back to the past, leaving her present-day life behind). I still have some curiosities about a few things, but it was nice to see the story delve into that aspect a bit. Otherwise, this was another solid entry, even if the central mystery was a bit predictable. The characters and premise have always been the strongest point in this series anyway!
8) One Of Us Is Lying Trilogy ~ Karen McManus
I’d heard the name of this series thrown around a lot, but I’m glad I put off actually taking a look at it until the entire trilogy was complete. I’ll preface this by saying that, on a book-to-book basis, these aren’t exactly groundbreakingly amazing YA novels. Their strength is in the characters and the strikingly palpable sense of nostalgia (I can’t think of any other way to put it). There’s just something so comforting about these books, and how each one follows the same cast you fell in love with, but expanded in new ways. So while the mysteries might not be amazing (though the third book’s mystery is pretty good), the books are just so dang fun. Really interesting core hook too, that makes these books really bingeable.
(Also, just as a side note, I was so happy and surprised to see how these books accidentally catered to me. I finished the first book and went ‘I hope to see Character A some more in the next book‘, only to find out she was a POV protagonist in the second book! Then I read the second book and went ‘I really like Character B, hope she comes back‘, and then she became another main star in book three! It was funny.)
7) The Reappearance of Rachel Price ~ Holly Jackson
The genius behind A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder comes in swinging with yet another certified YA classic. Of course, it’s hardly surprising given her track record, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this novel. I even picked up a special edition that had some behind-the-scenes goodies included, which was a neat bonus. Regardless, this is a standout YA novel with a really compelling central mystery, and some fun characters. It’s not often that I’m left guessing my allegiances and trust-levels in characters for so long, but this novel utilizes a really clever storytelling device to keep you guessing all the way until the end. It’s a pretty beefy book too, but super bingeable, so the pages fly by. It’s a standalone too, unlike A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, so there’s no big investment barrier to giving this book a read!
6) The Darkest Corners ~ Kara Thomas
This year was the year of Kara Thomas for me (if you didn’t already notice one of her works in the Honorable Mentions section above), and oh what a year it was! This was my second Kara Thomas novel I read in 2024, and it’s a really good one! Kara Thomas just has this certain spark to her writing that really makes her work stand out, and since this was her debut novel, it’s amazing to see she nailed her style from the get-go! I will confess, my absolute favorite thing about this novel is the last thirty pages. I’ve never be so stunned by a dramatic narrative pivot before. Right when I thought things were wrapping up, the story takes a sharp turn that is so unexpected but so perfect, and the subsequent ending still manages to be awesome and wrap up all lingering plot threads. Super thrilling stuff!
5) The Cheerleaders ~ Kara Thomas
The sequel to this novel just released, and I haven’t quite managed to read it yet (I only recently secured my copy). Nevertheless, it’s a distant-future kind of sequel (set several years after this one), and not some direct continuation with the characters, so I still feel totally fine placing this incredible novel here on my list! This is Kara Thomas’ most famous work, and it’s not hard to see why. It hits all the right beats for an addicting and engrossing YA mystery, and though I find the cast size just a bit too big, it’s a fantastic novel. Even if it had more flaws than that (which it doesn’t), I’d still rank it high on this list on the merits of how emotionally devastating it is. It hits you with a really solid gut punch near the end that has still stuck with me, and I sincerely hope that the sequel manages to be even a fraction as incredible as this one is.
4) Please Don’t Tell ~ Laura Tims
Okay, so, I’m going to give a full disclosure for this book before you consider running out and giving it a read yourself: It’s a pretty depressing book. It’s also a fantastic book, so of course it gets my recommendation, but things are not all sunshine and rainbows in this gripping YA mystery. It’s a pretty tragic tale about two sisters and something that happened at a party one night, and Laura Tims doesn’t hold any punches when it comes to hitting hard and fast with some depressingly timely subject matter. It’ll put you through the wringer just as much as it does to our main heroines and their fight to scrape out a semblance of a happy ending, and I was on the edge of my seat for the entire last twenty pages or so. Definitely a book that sticks with you, and it’s influenced my own recent creative writing endeavors a fair bit.
3) Soulfire Saga (Books 1+2) ~ Matthew Ward
Matthew Ward is the writing wizard behind the phenomenal Legacy Trilogy, so I knew his next series would be fantastic, I just didn’t think it would be this fantastic! Honestly (and I can’t commit fully to what I’m about to say because the final installment isn’t out yet), but there’s some ways in which I think this series is shaping up to be even better than the Legacy Trilogy. Matthew Ward has proven himself the king of the Epic Fantasy genre, and the characters and action scenes in these two books are some of the best around. I was especially blown away by a massive twist in the first book that left my reeling, and reevaluating every little plot detail up to that point. A very solid, exceptionally high-quality series with compelling…well, everything.
2) The Bound Worlds ~ Megan E O’Keefe
I mentioned this series last year (it ranked at #5 of the books I read last year), and the final installment in the trilogy released this year. I’m happy to report that this fantastic romance/sci-fi series utterly nailed the landing with one of the best and most satisfying trilogy conclusions I’ve ever read. Seriously, I had such a profound sense of catharsis reading the final pages, supremely pleased at the fantastic ending to it all, but also sad at leaving this world and its characters behind. Megan E O’Keefe demonstrates such a deliberate understanding of character writing that anytime I thought to myself ‘oh, it’d be really cool if this or that happened‘, it would then immediately happen! The love story at the center of everything is gripping and poignant, and I sincerely hope this series is remembered as an all-time sci-fi classic. Or heck, even as a romance classic. If you can get past the heady sci-fi worldbuilding (and I’ll admit to it not being the easiest read in the world), you’ll adore this series.
1) Little Monsters ~ Kara Thomas
Kara Thomas simply doesn’t miss when it comes to writing certified amazing novels, but even that level of praise still doesn’t feel like it does Little Monsters proper justice. This relatively unassuming book as the third Kara Thomas novel I read this year, and I went from ‘oh, this is fun‘ to ‘this is absolutely placing super high on my list of favorite books ever‘ by the time I reached the final page. It delivered practically everything I’d ever want to see in a book, and then some. I love literally every single thing about it, and it’s been difficult to not just re-read it multiple times this year to catch new details.
This book’s biggest strength is, somewhat unexpectedly, in its understated horror. This is legitimately one of the scariest books I’ve ever read, but not in a ghosts-and-monsters sort of way. In a ‘oh, this is so messed up, and it could totally happen in real life‘ sort of way. The mind-blowing twists in this novel (of which there are multiple) deeply resonated with me, and seriously broke my brain for several weeks as I re-contextualized little aspects of my life I hadn’t considered before. It’s been another hugely influential book on my writing style, though I’d never dare to say that my own writing could compare to the fantastic and jaw-dropping twists and turns that happen in this novel. I can still vividly remember the look of awe on my face when I reached a certain moment in the story.
This genuinely might be my new favorite YA novel of all time, and whenever I finally get around to doing that Top 10 Redux ~ Favorite Books article, you can bet this’ll be on there, and ranked quite highly too. Supremely amazing book!
But hey, that’s just my opinion!
The Contrarian Corner 