The Ten Best Books I've Read in 2024

2024 was intended to be one with more output, but it ultimately petered by the end. Due mainly in part to the Archive hack that took the site down for a month, but also a lack of energy that I had in the last few months. But we got a bunch covered this year and a bunch of books blogged. And of the book bunch blogged, there were some winners. Stuff that I really liked, and stuff that I felt was good enough to be considered for the top ten of stuff covered for 2024. Before 2025 sucks away my will to live, let's get one last look at the stuff that I actually enjoyed from last year.

#01: BILLY BAKER'S DOG WON'T STAY BURIED

So I did two books about undead pets. One that was bad, one that was really good. And the winner for best dead pet book was Spinetinglers, which offers a book that feels more epic than it had any right to be. Billy's pet dog Howard gets killed thanks to his shitty neighbor Mr. Calhoun. But also their town is under the control of the Church of the Kingdom of Resurrected Pets, which believes that Howard will rise up from his grave and lead the undead pets. Which indeed happens, only these pets are out for blood, seeking revenge on those who wronged them, and just any one else who gets in their way. So what you get is a book not just about a town dealing with a crisis of killer undead pets, but also a town under the thumb of a religious cult, which has sunk its roots deep into the corrupted police force in town. It gets resolved with the pets resting in their graves and their graveyard being paved over to stop them from escaping, but Howard might still be out there.

What makes this one of my favorites this year is that I think it uses all of its plot very well. There's not as much goofiness once the pets are revived and it always feels like a horror story. With everyone, even kids, being mauled and attacked by the pets. How the hospital is full of injured people, how tensions continue to boil over as the town panics, and how corrupt both the church and the police are, which even causes Hannah, the daughter of the head of the church, to have a crisis of faith. But what sold this one on being one of my absolute favorites is the ending. The time skip and how Billy and his family move and try to live a new life, but Billy always has this worry that someday Howard will find them and this will all start again. I need to read more Spinetinglers in 2025 if this is an example of the quality of the series. Because this might be the best actual sense of horror in any of these kids horror stories. That, and you know, it doesn't piss me off like Night of the Pet Zombies did.

#02: NIGHT OF THE LIVING MUMMY

I think Stine's mummy content is almost always his best stuff. And House of Shivers continued on that. Giving us a story that's actually one of Stine's better structured stories. As it's also two tales in one. One about a really mummy obsessed kid named Happy, and the other being about an ancient Egyptian prince named Raman. Which, given Stine can be sloppy with stories in different time periods, it's refreshing to see him do well with both of them. Giving us enough reason to like Raman as a young kind who doesn't deserve to be killed like he is, and one you want to see get his revenge on Vathor. And the stuff we do get with Happy and Raman (in Happy's mind) working together. 

If anything didn't work for me, it is that Vathor is very poorly executed in terms of motivations. He gets this powerful amulet that can destroy the world and... travels to the future to become a history teacher. I mean, okay then. I wish there was a big more of an explanation to that, but it didn't damper what I felt was one of Stine's better books recently. House of Shivers has been decent so far, and this year was proof of that, as we'll talk about a bit more later.

#03: THE SNOWMAN

Stine's Point offerings are frustrating at best. They often fall into my least favorite works of his. Hell, I opened 2024 talking more about how bad The Babysitter III was. So going into The Snowman, I didn't expect to like this book. But, fucking hell, Stine actually succeeded in making one of my favorite Point books from him. Maybe just below The Hitchhiker as my favorite. Plot is straightforward. A girl named Heather Dixon has to deal with her shitty uncle James, who is her guardian after her parents died and also won't give her any of the inheritance she's owed. This makes Heather so angry that she dreams about killing him. In the midst of this, she meets a boy known simply as Snowman who she falls for, and who also deals with the crap of Uncle James. Eventually, Snowman gives Heather what she wanted by killing Uncle James. However, he also blackmails her and makes her life worse until she eventually manage to defeat him.

While it's a very straightforward story, I think that helps. Mainly because everything works much cleaner than many of Stine's other efforts. You feel bad for Heather and even with her constant dreams of wanting to see Uncle James die, you can believe that she didn't actually want him to be murdered. Especially in a manner that would see her be blackmailed for everything. You get a decent villain in Snowman, who you can see why his motivations are the way they are and his eventual heel turn doesn't feel so out of the blue, but more a case of Heather's naivety not grasping the situation she's putting herself in. Stine's thrillers can be a mixed bag at times, but when he actually puts effort into something, you can see that he's not that bad of an author after all.

#04: THE TALE OF THE BLUE MONKEY

We're getting to the final throws of Ghosts of Fear Street, and as we reach the final batch, the ones we read this year were all decent. And yes, I know people don't like that I gave Attack of the Vampire Worms a B-, but while I really liked the concept of that book, there are a few logic gaps and a real feeling of rushing a quick fix that didn't win me over. But if any book from Ghosts that I read did win me over, it was the take of a very creepy monkey doll. But the main reason I liked this one so much is that it does what, honestly, not much of Ghosts of Fear Street did, and that's tie itself to the history of the Fear Family and Shadyside as a whole. Aside from, like the woods and the cemetery, and a couple trips to Dalby's, you really don't get that feeling of Fear Street from this series. So having the story involve a cursed toy monkey that belonged to an evil witch who seeks to get it back, really works. 

It also handles the curse idea better than stuff like It Came From Beneath the Sink did because we don't have the added "if you go too far away you die" thing, that Stine didn't really elaborate on too well, and when he did, he told someone to get a life, and I don't think Elizabeth Winfrey would have been that straightforward. It's also the most Goosebumps-ish one of the bunch which also works in its favor. Just a solid conclusion as well with one of the sillier endings I appreciate. Great stuff as we circle towards the end of Ghosts.

#05: THE HAUNTING HOUR: CHILLS IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT

So, I foolishly blogged this one first before The Midnight Hour, meaning that I did the second book first, but even with that blunder, I think this is one of Stine's better multi-story books. With really no bad stories in the bunch. Hell, two of them I gave A+ to, those being Are We There Yet? which perhaps has Stine's best twist ever put to paper, and My Imaginary Friend, which I felt did a better job at the idea than Good Friends did back in the original Tales to Give You Goosebumps. Even the weaker stories still feel effective. Can You Draw Me? feeling like a sloppy yet interesting sequel concept for Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, or Revenge of the Snowman which uses its short page count to execute a very effective twist. All while containing some really amazing art that sells the horror of each story incredibly well. I'll definitely be covering the first book of this saga next year, but even if I fouled up and read the sequel first, I'm kind of glad I did because I found a compilation that really wowed me enough to call it one of my favorites of the year. 

#06: WEREWOLVES DON'T GO TO SUMMER CAMP

I swear I didn't intend for only one Bailey School Kids blog again this year, but thankfully the one we read was probably my favorite so far. Yeah, I've only done a whole two of them, so that's not an impressive claim. But i do like how this book builds its concept. Setting our kids in Camp Lone Wolf with the very "could be a werewolf but absofuckinglutely was someone's gay awakening" Mr. Jenkins. And a lot of the stuff he does does give off that vibe that there's more to him than just very hairy dude who likes raw meat. To the point that he does feel like a threat and the hike at the end does feel like something that could either be nothing, or could be more sinister than it looks. I like that. It also does a better job fleshing the kids' characters better, so there's that as well. I continue to be impressed by Debbie Dadey's series and hopefully for real and for serious 

#07: NIGHTMARE ON PLANET X

It's time for the obligatory "really late game addition" pick. We got a ton of Deadtime Stories done this year, and a lot of them were ultimately just okay, one bad book in particular notwithstanding. I think I like it because it works as the POV of a character ultimately revealed to be an alien who is visiting Earth for the first time in his attempt to escape from being dissected. What you get is a solid adventure, with protagonist Nicky trying to find his parents and escape the planet, all while his annoying sister Zoe tags along, and the pair are accompanied by Rachael, the one alien that can help them. The twist is somewhat predictable, being another Camp Nightmare-esque "we were getting the POV of an alien" swerve, but better than other attempts. 

And it comes down to how Nicky describes the people and landscape. It makes Earth feel more alien. And the end twist of Nicky's family being aliens and the lead alien being sent there to blow up Earth because we suck so much is a solid enough way to end this story. We're not even giving Earth a chance to defend itself like Bruce Coville would have. Nah, let's blow this sucker up and move on. For being one of the better attempts at this style of story, and never really feeling like it spins its wheels too much, this ends up being, at least to me, the book that I really wish Earth Geeks Must Go! was. Fun alien adventure with less annoying characters and less holding the story back for so long with added annoyances. 

#08:  A WAKING NIGHTMARE

Shivers didn't piss me off this year. I didn't end up reading anything that was too terrible. No forgiving genocidal racists, or pure insanity like Weirdo Waldo's Wax Museum. A very "safe chamber in the Russian Roulette" feel to everything. That doesn't mean a year of lackluster stuff, as I did like a few books enough to give them A- ratings. And the one that shined the most was A Waking Nightmare. And I think the reason why is because the overall message is one you really don't see done like this. And that's the concept of how blaming yourself for everything can turn you into a monster. And, in the case of this story, it literally turns Martin into a monster. And even for the shit he did, mainly having his younger brother take the blame for his parents' divorce, but managed to mend fences, he still felt bad about it. 

And that guilt manifested into turning him into a monster. Yes, the logic of how he can turn into a monster is super silly, but it still works. Not as goofy as Puppet Cells, but still memorable. It also gives me one of my favorite scenes from any book this year. Where Martin's dad holds the mirror and forces Martin to look at himself and stop blaming himself for this. It's a message that I do think is positive for kids to get. It even gives us probably the most overly cute endings ever. When a book ends on kittens that don't get killed, then it's worthy of addition to best of the year.

#09: GOBLIN MONDAY

Hey, what do you know, both Goosebumps books this year were pretty good. I wouldn't quite call them the top of the pile in terms of the entire Goosebumps series, but both ended up working really well. Which given we're still very early into House of Shivers is something we desperately needed. Goblin Monday offers a story that does feel like it veers into a sort of Girl Who Cried Monster story, as Mario is brought up to Vermont by his "friends" Todd and Jewel, and discovers strange things going on, especially with their Grandpa Tweety. Ultimately it boils down to some pure insanity, where it's revealed that everyone but Mario are goblins and that he's actually a goblin hunter, sent to hunt them down. 

It does give us a bit of protagonist stupidity that he never assumes Todd and Jewel to be goblins, but given it does give us one of the darker endings we've gotten in Goosebumps in a while, it's fine. I will say the main flaw is the inconsistency of Grandpa Tweety telling Mario that goblins are real, then 180-ing that later in the story. But I think the book as a whole doesn't suffer from too much wheel spinning and there are some creepy enough visuals, like Tweety eating the birds and the whole bird feet room. So while I'd say Night of the Living Mummy wins out in terms of strongest of the two, this is still a solid continuation to the consistent decency of House of Shivers. Don't ask me why but I think that trend dies with Say My Name! Say My Name! next year

#10: TRAPPED

As I reach closer to the end of OG Fear Street, with merely a scant few left to cover that are easily available (God I want to read Cat because I know it's gonna be shit), I figured that I may as well cover the final mainline Fear Street book since it was available. And Trapped turned out to be pretty good. Mainly due to it feeling like a different book than what we usually get from these types of stories. Instead of your normal misadventures with murderous teens, we get a bunch of kids in a tunnel having to deal with a deadly mist created by the ghosts of kids who were trapped in the tunnels under Shadyside High. 

So what you end up with is a book with a lot of adventure and one that's more harrowing than usual. It's also the most supernatural feeling book, at least of the mainline ones I've read, which given that I wish Fear Street leaned more wacky supernatural more often, gives the book more points in its favor. Given Stine has a history of some of his series kind of burning out badly (OG Goosebumps for example) it's refreshing that Fear Street managed to get one that satisfies just enough.

And that's 2024's offerings in a nutshell. A year that gave me more memorable books (in a good way) than I would have thought. 2025 is up in the air for what the fuck it's going to look like. But as long as I can hold on, I'll be here to offer up some silly fun. Even with the book count dwindling, I'm sure I'll get ten more books worth calling great/good next year, so I hope you're still with me when that happens.