Reading chart for 2024. Last updated on 12/06/24.
At the start of 2023 I decided to start keeping track of the books I've read in an excel sheet, partly to encourage myself to read more, partly because my sense of time is just abysmal. It worked very well and I met my goal that year! So I modified my chart a bit and started a new one this year. To make it easier on myself, I'm not counting visual novels/webcomics/etc in the official count, and will give them a seperate section down here. I have also separated the manga.
Feel free to add me on Goodreads, where I occasionally review things I read in a little more depth.
Keep in mind that I won't be adding content warnings for most things and enjoy a variety of 'dark' subject matter in addition to more lighthearted things. Use your own discretion and research before reading any reccomendations if you are sensitive to certain topics.
| TITLE | AUTHOR | STARTED | FINISHED? | NOTES |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Wasp Factory | Iain Banks | 1/3/24 | 1/9/24 | Last chapter pissed me off so much that I forgot every facet I initially liked in the book. My GR review. |
| Camp Damascus | Chuck Tingle | 1/4/24 | 1/17/24 | Fun, short, easy to read. |
| The Gallery of Miracles and Madness | Charlie English | 1/4/24 | 11/13/24 | --Picked this back up from the library recently (11/8) after initially returning it unfinished. Re: Hitler's war on modern art. Very informative. |
| Wuthering Heights | Bronte | 2/5/24 | 3/6/24 | Switched to an audiobook after the first part; baller quotes but a lot of the prose got tiring especially the constant switching of names that I couldn't keep track of; it was easier with voices attached. Overall good, lot of class/gender issues that could be dived into, would have been fun to have read this in a class rather than on my own. |
| The Assasssination of Fred Hampton | Jeffrey Haas | 2/15/24 | 3/6/24 | Too much about Haas in comparison to how little he wrote about Hampton. Very in-depth on the trial itself. Overall good. |
| Plain Bad Heroines | Emily M. Danforth | 3/25/24 | Abandoned | Could have done away with the modern timeline entirely, the 1902 timeline was the only interesting part and sadly only a fraction of the too-slow story. Not enough horror, as well. Did get me to read Truman Capote, though. My GR review. |
| The Twisted Ones | T. Kingfisher | 4/11/24 | 4/18/24 | Horror wasn't pushed far enough for my tastes, but I appreciated how creepy the vibes were. Dialogue was kind of trite and characters weren't particularly interesting, excluding Anna and Cotgrave. |
| The Picture of Dorian Gray | Oscar Wilde | 4/19/24 | 5/13/24 | Not as compelling as I thought it would be. Finished the last few chapters via audiobook. |
| Exquisite Corpse | Poppy Z. Brite | 5/14/24 | 5/26/24 | WE ARE SO BACK BABY. A bit distasteful to base so heavily on then-recent serial killings, but overall, hard gay gore for sickos. My GR review. |
| Mother Night | Kurt Vonnegut | 5/21/24 | 5/26/24 | Stellar. Never misses. "We are what we pretend to be." |
| Are You Loathsome Tonight? | Poppy Z. Brite | 6/3/24 | 6/5/24 | Collection of his short stories I sought out after reading Exquisite Corpse. Not that stellar. Perhaps not as back as previously thought... |
| In Cold Blood | Truman Capote | 6/12/24 | 7/13/24 | True Crime. Shockingly sympathetic. |
| Cuckoo | Gretchen Felker-Martin | 6/18/24 | 6/22/24 | Nice. Conversion camp, alien body-snatcher horror. |
| A Botanical Daughter | Noah Medlock | 7/17/24 | Abandoned | Cool concept, boring execution. The characters had no chemistry with each other and the plot moved so sluggishly I gave up around 120 pages in. |
| The Book of Bill | Alex Hirsch | 8/2/24 | 8/3/24 | Very fun. Wish they could have gone even harder with the upped rating but alas, still Disney. |
| White Trash Warlock | David R. Slayton | 9/28/24 | 10/7/24 | Though this would be a fun little book, had to force myself to finish it. What a drag. GR review. |
| The Sluts | Dennis Cooper | 10/8/24 | 10/9/24 | What can I say but jeeeeeeesus christ. GR review. |
| The Hobbit | JRR Tolkien | 11/15/24 | 12/2/24 | Thumbs up, though definitely more sparse on details than I expected. |
| Frisk | Dennis Cooper | 12/5/24 | 12/5/24 | Some stylistic choices that really threw me out of it at times. DC might be too rough for me, but I appreciate his devotion to macabre obsessions and the line between fantasy and reality. |
Manga
| Dungeon Meshi | Ryoko Kui | 1/5/24 | 2/8/24 | Vol 1-14; slow at first but I loved this |
| La Pomme Prisionniere | Kenji Tsuruta | 3/3/24 | 3/3/24 | Short surrealist manga. Awesome art |
| Ayashi Akayashi Akemi-chan | Aoto Yukiko | 9/15/24 | 9/15/24 | Oneshot manga about two lonely girls that can see spirits. Loved the art style, overall a nice little story. |
| Makoto no Momoko | Arai Sumiko | 9/20/24 | 9/20/24 | Oneshot manga. “A love story between two frustrating adult women.” |
Other things I've read this year:
Malcatras' Maiden, a kinetic visual novel about a pathetic puppygirl maid. "You're not a bad girl. You're just a stupid girl who doesn't know what's good for you."
DRAMAtical Murder. You know what this one is I'm sure. Visual novel with multiple routes. Read years later than everyone else.
Tuesday's Child, demo chapter one of a kinetic visual novel. Relationship between a psychiatrist and his troubled young patient in the 1950s.
The Grief Complex, chapter one of an ongoing indie graphic novel about two brothers and psychic parasitism that utilizes a unique format.
What Happens Next, a comic that captures the early Tumblr era very well, very painfully. The internet is cruel and life is crueler.
Inside The Lines, a webcomic about a young author that takes in his nephew after his parents' deaths, despite being largely unequipped for raising a kid. Family drama, dark comedy.