December Reads 2024
December Reads 2024: 5 Books I Read this Month
By: Brittany Shields
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! It’s hard to believe we’re done with 2024 isn’t it?
This month was about me trying to miraculously finish my Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge. 4 of my 5 books counted for different prompts. My fifth book was one a new release I had on my shelf and it was Christmas-themed so I needed to read that during the Christmas season!
That leaves me with 10 books left in my challenge. I guess I’ll be starting my 2025 with 2024 wrap up. Which will feel good to complete, but I also have a ton of books I’m looking forward to reading in the new year and I’m wondering how I will ever do it.
My goal for this year had been 90 books and I fell about 10 books short so looks like I underestimated my time this year and I have a feeling I’ll do it again next year.
That’s okay, though. The goal of these reading challenges is not necessarily to complete it but to let it guide your reading and pick up things you wouldn’t normally read. The goal is to get as far as you can!
If you are into reading challenges, be sure to check out Shelf Reflection’s 2025 Reading Challenge that I just launched if you want to start planning your books. I have a lot of other reading challenges to choose from (linked below). I also created a Kids’ Reading Challenge if you want to get your kids involved in the fun.
I’ll also be sharing my end of year posts like my 2024 Wrap-Up, Best Books of 2024, and Most Anticipated Books of 2025 soon, so keep an eye out for those!
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1. Thieves’ Gambit (Thieves’ Gambit #1) by Kayvion Lewis
Genre: YA
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a heist’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
[This book was nominated for the ‘Best YA Fiction’ category of the 2023 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge ]
“Know your exits, pick the best one. That was my thing, wasn’t it? Always knowing the best way out.”
“I was stealing my own future back.”
This was a fun read! It was Ocean’s Eleven— the youths version— mixed with… I don’t know, like Big Brother or something. I was going to have a better comparison than that but then I decided to stop thinking about it.
It’s basically a heist competition between a bunch of high school thieves that are part of big family thieving conglomerates. Winner gets one wish.
I could definitely see this as a movie because it was action from start to finish. And it takes us all over the world from the Bahamas to Cannes, France, to Cairo, Egypt to the British Virgin Islands.
With likeable characters, a light but suspenseful plot, this was a great read!
Check out my full review to get more plot details!
2. Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions by Gregory Koukl
Genre: Non-Fiction/Christian Living
[Fulfilled ‘A book with a plural one word title’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“If we disqualify legitimate discussion, we compromise our ability to know the truth, and error can thrive without restraint.”
This is an excellent and very practical book that I think every Christ follower should read because this book is about finding out the truth in any discussion. Even some people who claim Christ may not be able to say why they do so this book is not only for how to talk to others but helps us ask questions about our own beliefs to determine if what we believe is based on good reasons and sound rationale.
We don’t always know how to explain our beliefs or how to talk about them with people. We get flustered and don’t know what to say. Perhaps the other person becomes hostile or denigrates our character and we don’t know how to respond. Maybe they completely change the subject and don’t acknowledge the points we are making and we don’t know how to get the conversation back to the facts.
We worry about not knowing what to do or say so we just decide not to talk about our convictions. After all, we don’t want to force our beliefs on other people.
But we should be talking about Christ with others, so we might as well know how to do it well! Koukl’s advice in this book is super helpful and practical.
Read my full review to see some of his strategies, some of the topics he brings up, hear my thoughts on other people’s critiques of this book, and get a link to some other related apologetics books.
3. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Genre: Memoir
[Fulfilled ‘An #OwnVoices book’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
[This book was the winner for ‘Best Memoir/Biography’ category of the 2021 Goodreads Choice Awards Reading Challenge]
“Within 5 years, I lost both my aunt and my mother to cancer. When I go to H Mart I’m searching for memories. I’m collecting the evidence that the Korean half of my identity didn’t die when they did. H Mart is the bridge that guides me away from the memories that haunt me… it reminds me of who they were before, beautiful and full of life.”
This isn’t a new release anymore, but I remember when it was. And I remember how popular and hyped it got. Here I am, years later finally reading it for myself. And I gotta say… I’m a little disappointed.
It’s not a bad book, but it’s not really one I could see myself talking about and saying- ‘You gotta read this!’
Michelle is very honest about the complicated relationship she has with her mother and shares a little of her grief journey and how losing her mom changed her perspective on who her mom was and how she related to her. She also shares some of her experiences and struggles with being biracial.
Korean food was a big connection point between her mom and her and so the book also has a lot of stories and descriptions of food.
Read my full review to get more of my reflections on why this book fell short and how I review memoirs in general.
4. Recursion by Blake Crouch
Genre: Science Fiction
[Fulfilled ‘Book with a flower in the title’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
[Fulfilled ‘A book with time travel’ prompt as part of Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
[Winner for ‘Best Science Fiction’ category of the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards]
“What do you cling to, moment to moment, if memories can simply change? What, then, is real? And if the answer is nothing, where does that leave us?”
This book has an intense start.
The first thing is a woman jumping off a building because she has what has been deemed ‘False Memory Syndrome.’ The memories she has of her little boy are said to be false memories; he doesn’t exist. And she can’t handle living this life without him.
Then the main female character, Helena, has a mom with Alzheimer’s and is losing her memories.
Then the main male character, Barry, is reminiscing with his ex-wife about their daughter who would have been 26 that day if she hadn’t died in a car accident as a teenager.
Welcome to Recursion. It’ll give you some feelings.
While Dark Matter— which I liked better than this one— explored the multi-verse, Recursion explores the idea of déjà vu and a changeable timeline.
What if déjà vu is actually a remnant memory from a previous timeline?
It seemed a little harder to wrap my mind around compared to Dark Matter but it was still a good and interesting read.
Read my full review for more plot details, to see some of my reflections on new technologies, read some quotes from the book that I thought were interesting, get some of my thoughts on time travel and perception, and get a recommendation for another related book if thinking about our interaction with technology is something that interests you.
5. Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (Ernest Cunningham #3) by Benjamin Stevenson
Genre: Mystery
“A woman covered in blood who doesn’t remember how it got on her. And a man decapitated… by a piece of paper.”
Earlier this year I read Stevenson’s book Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone and really enjoyed the ‘Golden Age’ fair play whodunnit mystery. It was clever and funny and I enjoyed his writing.
This Christmas mystery is the third book in the series— I’ll have to go back and read the one on the train next year— and was the same good experience.
It definitely had the Christmas vibes. Stevenson even cleverly organized the clues like an advent calendar where you could read one chapter each day and solve it by Christmas.
In this book we have the same first-person narrator— Ernest— who has at this time now solved a couple mysteries and has made a little name for himself.
He is brought into this case by his ex-wife Erin who has been accused of murdering her partner Lyle. After all, she was caught, literally, red-handed. With his blood. And no recollection of doing anything.
The setting is a theater run by recovering addicts and is the location of a second murder.
It’s an enjoyable mystery that’s perfect for the Christmas season.
Read my full review for a few more plot details, a picture of the advent calendar, and a couple Australian phrases I learned.
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