Worst Books of 2024
It’s the most wonderful time of the year, even though I only make this kind of post every couple of years. In 2016, I was annoyed by The Glass Castle and The Dead Ladies Project. In 2018, I was exasperated by Sick and American War. In 2022, I was bored by The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas and Cold Enough for Snow. This year, I’ve been annoyed, exasperated, and bored by a new crop of books:
Nonfiction that tricked me with clever subtitles:
- Code Dependent by Madhumita Murgia: I love a bit of tech skepticism, and the subtitle “Living in the Shadow of AI” seemed to fit the bill, but it was written in a very stilted manner and failed to connect any of its stories about people affected by AI. I could almost see the “[insert humanizing background story here]” at the beginning of each chapter. I wanted to get to the nitty gritty!
- Pause, Rest, Be by Octavia Raheem: The subtitle, “Stillness Practices for Courage in Time of Change,” must have caught my eye in March, while I was emerging from survival mode after a house fire. The “practices” part was pretty good; there are detailed instructions and pictures on how to achieve restorative yoga poses, which would work for newbies and yogis alike. The narrative, however, is a mishmash of new age and Christian woo woo, and relies on the same tricks many other self-help-ish books use to seem substantial and profound, like repetition and a lot of white space.
- Wintering by Katherine May: Another subtitle that got my ass! “The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times” echoes Pause, Rest, Be, and I read these almost back to back, which was a big mistake. Wintering pissed me off so much. The big reasons (the maddening vagueness about what exactly was making the times so “difficult,” the blithe manner in which she flaunts her staggering privilege, the lack of understanding or curiosity about what actual winter is like in northern climates) are dwarfed by something that’s so silly, but she’s basically a bitch eating crackers at this point (I can’t find a good link to what this means, iykyk). She recommends going to the grocery store right before Christmas as a self care strategy. Or more precisely, something like going to the “green grocers” for “jams and jellies,” and I laughed out loud. I can’t think of anything I associate LESS with “rest and retreat” than venturing out in -20 temps, driving on icy roads, battling the crowds at Walmart, and spending hundreds of dollars on inflated groceries. Not to gatekeep, but I don’t think you should be allowed to write a book about winter if you live in a place where the average winter lows are above freezing.
Short translated works, reviewed shortly:
- Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi tr. Geoffrey Trousselot: One day I’m going to accept that I like weird Japanese fiction, not cute Japanese fiction. And this isn’t even cute, unless you find rigid gender roles and vaguely anti-choice sentiment to be cute!
- The Premonition by Banana Yoshimoto tr. Asa Yoneda: This started out more promising, no cuteness here, but revealed itself to be a lot of YA-style wish fulfilment and Holden Caulfield-style complaining about phonies.
- Undiscovered by Gabriela Weiner tr. Julia Sanches: This is literally a personal essay, and not a very good one, but somehow got longlisted for my favourite fiction prize?
Lastly, and worstly, this one would fit under “nonfiction”, but, it doesn’t have a subtitle on the North American edition (the UK edition, inexplicably, does, “On Being Critical,” which, lol.) The author is a literary it girl known for her negative reviews, and more recently, for a novel that flopped: yes, it’s Lauren Oyler’s essay collection No Judgement. I wanted to write a full review, but sort of felt like it’s all been said. So let me take a moment to say just a little more.
The worst thing about this book is Oyler’s withering disdain for the reader, and it permeates every single essay. I mean “reader” in both senses: the particular reader holding the book, and the class of people who merely read, and aren’t writers themselves. This is pretty rich from someone who’s bibliography consists of a mediocre novel and a widely-panned essay collection.
While most of the essays are simply self-important and wanna-be edgy, it’s the essay about Goodreads that broke me. It’s not just cringy, it’s wildly inaccurate, in ways that are immediately obvious to us lowly readers in the Goodreads trenches. Kathleen Hale and Lauren Hough are uncritically presented as victims of “review bombing,” and this is stupid enough, but it’s also like… this is all drama that happened five to ten years ago. Who cares at this point? Is she just mad that Fake Accounts has an abysmal 2.83 Goodreads star rating? I cannot fathom what else could have sparked this essay in particular, or the book as a whole.
It’s unfortunate that Oyler’s best writing, her scathing reviews for Bookslut, are lost to the sands of time and bit rot. We needed the push back against Roxane Gay in 2014. We don’t need any of this in 2024.
Whew! Now, I haven’t done one of these “what about you” kickers in a while, but truly, I want to know what your worst books of the year are. Hit me up in the comments.
Reading in Bed 
Haha! I agree on Before the Coffee Gets Cold, it was annoyingly twee and very stereotyped. Wintering was another I just could gel with. I know people that have loved it but there is a tone about it which is off for me. Makes me feel patronised ( and I live in a country where there are still the odd greengrocers and yes it’s nice to go there to get chutneys and jam).
My own least favourite books from 2024 are Yellowface, which was a bit too cringey and in-your-face for me; and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow which did not come even close to its hype. Surprised at all the plaudits for something which seemed to me to be so poorly written. Novelty, I guess.
Maybe 2025 will deliver worse, who knows?
***Could not gel with*** Wintering. I should read before I post 🫢
Haha I got it, don’t worry! Patronised is just the word. I’ve been wary of Tomorrow and Tomorrow etc, it feels like I’m just the audience for it, but something feels off. I would not be surprised if 2025 is worse at this point!
I didn’t mind Before the Coffee… (though I wouldn’t seek out the sequels) but I kind of see what you mean about it – I suppose the Japanese gender war so far barely qualifies as a skirmish, maybe not even a baring of the teeth. But I’m glad you read all these titles so I don’t have to even consider them!
and there are so many sequels! I don’t get it.
Totally agree with you with respect to your opinion on Wintering. I had been quite excited to read it hoping to pick up some helpful information and tips to enjoy winter more but ended up DNF’ing it instead. The author doesn’t have a clue of what a real winter in parts of Canada is like (I live in Regina). So disappointing.
Yep, I’m in Edmonton and I’m like…. this woman wouldn’t last a week here in January 🙂
Giggling away at comments about Oyler, whom I have never read but who is known to a former colleague of mine who absolutely could not stand her, and obviously for good reason.
I don’t like to throw around the word “toxic” but…. that’s the sense I get
Thanks for the delightfully scathing warnings, Laura! I’ll be sure to avoid these like the plague.
I’d nominate Democracy in a Hotter Time as my Worst Book of 2024. It’s ostensibly a collection of essays about the relationship between climate change and democracy – an important topic for sure. But the essays are mostly dull academic works devoid of hard data and workable proposals. Even the Afterword by Kim Stanley Robinson was lame.
That is disappointing! You reminded me, I need to finish Fire Weather, which I was loving but got distracted from. I’m not sure if it’ll tie in to democracy but it’s definitely good on climate change.
Hahaha. Great post! I love a good burn. The worst novel I read was Valeria Usala’s A Woman in Sardinia, which was pitched as this amazingly insightful feminist novel, but was so full of cliches and dire writing I don’t know why I continued reading to the end. I also found Anne Michaels’ Booker-listed Held SEVERELY disappointing.
Oh I’ve heard very mixed things about Anne Michaels. I feel like I need to read her as a Canadian but, yeah, I don’t think she’s going to be for me.
Ah, I love critical reviews! I also thought Code Dependent was disappointing (much of the best material seemed to have already been mined for articles) and am so glad to see somebody else pointing out the misogyny in Before The Coffee Gets Cold. That Oyler piece also enraged me. Goodreads clearly has its problems and review bombing (though not against those writers!) can be an issue but I’m continually impressed by the quality of reviewing and discussion on the site, far superior, at its best, to anything you find in the professional press. This feels like a replay of the old furore against bloggers.
My least favourite novel this year was Harriet Constable’s The Instrumentalist. My rant is here if anyone is interested. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6756162390
Thank you for the link, you know I love a scathing review 🙂 It’s so hard to write a novel about another art form, and so many try it – music, painting, dance, sculpture… seems like it fails more often than not!
Ah, I’ve read lots of brilliant novels about dance and visual art, in particular, but this was… not good.
If you’re looking for some more interesting Japanese literature I could recommend Breast and Eggs by Meiko Kawami.
Go see my latest “best books” post, it’s in there 🙂 I love Kawakami!
While I completely agree with you that the author is supremely self-indulgent and selfish, made clear in how much she whined about her husband’s burst appendix ruining her September beach picnic, I’ll make the case for Wintering by saying it’s not really about the season and how to enjoy it, it’s more about how to weather difficult times through an understanding of the cyclical nature of life. It’s not my typical reading matter, self help books usually get my goat, but I got a fair bit from it when I read it. Including some extra grit for my British class system shoulder chip.
My most hated book of 2024 was Leslie Kern’s Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. The book blurb promised all kinds of things but delivered none of them. It was Kern talking to herself about how hard her privileged life is and presented no solutions to the bigger issues she pretended to discuss. She’s a professor of Geography and Environment and Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at the university where she teaches. I found it telling that her students have branded her approach to geography ‘Kernography’ and she has embraced this with utter delight. In her own classroom she has her own type of geography based on how victimised she feels by urban spaces, everyone! Go Leslie!
Thank you for introducing me to the concept of a bitch eating crackers, by the way.
Yes, and I think that message is a good one – cyclical nature, different seasons of life and all that. Unfortunately, the tone and the things that annoyed me so much I couldn’t appreciate it. And totally understand that you don’t need to live through a -40 degree cold snap to write about winter, I was being silly 😉
That is unfortunate about Feminist City! I would have been interested, I work for the municipal government here (though not in urban planning) and I’m always looking for public washrooms (I see that’s one of her issues), it’s dire since covid!
I know you were being silly, you made me laugh, especially with how irritating you found its author. There were many, many times I wanted to tell her to get a grip!
Oh dear, I like May’s other books but haven’t got to Wintering yet. It can be miserable in our grey winters, but yes, they’re not winter-winters as such in the slightest!! I showed a picture of our last white Christmas to a Finnish client/friend and he said, “Ah, that’s the kind of snow where we say, oh, at least it snowed a little on Christmas Day”! I have hated things this year but I’m struggling to remember what now. Oh, I really disliked Lola Akinmadé Akestrom’s novel “In Every Mirror She’s Black” which was particularly annoying as I’d won the sequel or prequel on NetGalley and it just read like airport fiction somehow! I tend to DNS rather than DNF and have put a few things aside as I’ve lost interest. Anyway: great post!
This made me laugh when it first dropped into my inbox, but I forgot to come and comment until now. I loved Wintering when it was first published (I reviewed it for the TLS) but I can see how, objectively, the Canadian prairie is a much more demanding experience of winter! I’d add to Jan’s defence above, however, that I struggle with British winters much more than I ever did with the mid-Atlantic U.S. ones of my first 23 years because 1) it’s darker here, 2) it’s wetter here — making for a seeping, bone-chilling cold, 3) the houses I’ve lived in here are impossible to keep properly warm [but at least consume less energy than inefficient American houses], and 4) we don’t even get the compensation of snow! I’m reading another Wintering wannabe at the moment and no doubt it would earn your bitch/crackers disdain 😉
That Yoshimoto was a swift DNF for me, and the Oyler sounds just awful.
Just casually mentioning that you wrote a review for the TLS 🙂 Is there any way I can read it without paywall? I saw the review, as I was looking for other perspectives, but not sure if I can get a free article or what (or is it worth subscribing?)
I did 24 pieces for them, some of them dual reviews, between 2017 and 2023 but the work was always sporadic and I had to keep reminding various editors that I existed, otherwise I would never have been sent any offers. Like a lot of my opportunities, it’s dried up, sadly. You can read most of the text of my review (which was 400 words in total, I think?) here: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-features/in-brief/wintering-by-katherine-may-book-review-rebecca-foster
It’s unfortunate that many people have become victims of scams, and some are facing challenges accessing their Bitcoin wallets. However, there’s excellent news! With Chris Wang, you can count on top-notch service that guarantees results in hacking. We have successfully helped both individuals and organizations recover lost files, passwords, funds, and more. If you need assistance, don’t hesitate—check out recoverypro247 on Google Mail!
What specific methods does Chris Wang use to recover lost funds and passwords?
Are there any guarantees regarding the success rate of the recovery services offered?
What are the initial steps to begin the recovery process with recoverypro247? this things i tend to ask