Favorite Quotes of 2024

As another collection from the novels I read last year, I present to you some of my favorite quotes. They are my favorite either because they express something in beautiful language, are profound in context or stuck with me throughout.

Enjoy!

 "I remember this: the way she stood and looked at me, half raised her arms and then dropped them as though uncertain of her welcome, and the way I ran towards her anyway, the bright reality of her, and felt such wide white blinding love and relief that all other memories from that day disappeared." - Our Wives Under the Sea, Julia Armfield

"My body is a world full of tectonic inhalation and exhalation, volcanic heartbeats, oceans of blood, electrical storms of nerve endings. And my mind is that world's chief city." - The Odyssey Problem, Chris Willrich in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2023

"... and you breathe in memory. The weight and mortality and the sensible shoes are just costume, falling away, and your real selves rise up, briefly, dancing rosy and naked, in the middle of the subway car." - White Houses, Amy Bloom

"Run isn't quite accurate. Their legs don't move. Their still-twitching feet don't touch the ground." - The Penelopiad, Margaret Atwood

"I like to think of my brain like that, tangled up in my skull. The idea that my brains could be untangled, straightened out and thus refashioned into a state of peace and sanity was a comforting fantasy. I often felt there was something wired weird in my brain, a problem so complicated only a lobotomy could solve it - I'd need a whole new mind or a whole new life." - Eileen, Otessa Moshfegh

"Amber gazes at me. Her eyes are the same waxy green color as the mile marker. 'You're my house, Del.'" - A Bird Sings by the Etching Tree, Nicole D. Sconiers in Out There Screaming

"But here it is, now, and here I am, too. And this train - very real, very concrete and travelling fast - is tearing us together. Close your eyes." - Assembly, Natasha Brown

"I turn back to survey the view. Even up here, I feel it against my skin, the thumping nationalism of this place. I am the stretched-taut membrane of a drum against which their identity beats. I cannot escape its rhythm. Everything awaits Monday - New York, then back in the office. For the rest of my life these Mondays loom loud, thudding and crashing, crescendoing on to me, tearing through -" - Assembly, Natasha Brown

"I remained leaning on the window, with a thirsty longing to plunge myself into the blue-moon mist, this dew and perfume and silence, which seemed to vibrate and quiver like the stars that strewed the depths of heaven." - A Wicked Voice, Vernon Lee, in Weird Fiction: An Anthology

Top 4 novels I did not like that much

I don't want to be so mean on my blog and generally I have positive things to say about the novels I read since I know that just because something wasn't for me, does not mean it isn't for anyone or that it lacks in quality at all.

So, without further ado, here are the 4 novels that I read this year that did for some reason or other did not connect with me.

1. Greenwood - Micheal Christie

 

In a desolate future a woman works in one of the very last forests on earth. When she finds out a forgotten bit about her family's past, the reader takes a journey through family history, step by step from 2038 all the way to 1908, before traveling back to 2038, stopping at the same stations.

The concept is innovative, I'll give the novel that. Also it's beautifully written and touches on worthwhile issues. It's just that from the summary and quotes I assumed it would be hopeful (and I believe that was the author's intent, too) but by god did it feel extremely depressing to me. Almost all the characters lived miserable lonely lives and died miserable lonely deaths, which apparently await us all as the first trees in the last forest, too, become infected. 

2. Dust - Hugh Howey 

 

Dust is the third and final installment in the Silo trilogy, which now has a TV adaptation. In a post apocalyptic future what is left of humanity lives in Silos underground. Over the course of the trilogy the truths the Silo head tells the population are put into question and a rebellion is formed that works to uncover what was kept hidden. In this last novel, the characters must reckon with the lies they were told and find a way forward when their tentative peace is destroyed.

At this point I was just so bored by everything being so very bad all the time. For example, a child character is all but kidnapped and forced into child marriage for a chapter before she escapes. It took me all the way out of the story. I do think the ending is beautiful, though.

3. The Penelopiad - Margaret Atwood

 

Down in Hades, Penelope tells her story. From being chosen as a consolation price over her experiences during the Trojan war and after. 

I usually enjoy these types of perspective shifts, ancient Greek story telling, and Margaret Atwood, but little elements in the way this shift is executed bothered me. The way Helen was portrayed in particular rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that Penelope is an unreliable narrator, trying to position herself as the protagonist of the story, but still, Helen as this manipulative cruel being who causes destruction for the fun of it felt not good to read.

I do like the regular interludes of the maids in different poetic styles, who are killed at the end of the story. Giving those who are not only sidelined but condemned a voice and a humanity is interesting to me.

4. All That's Left in the World - Erik J. Brown

 

In this novel two boys, who lost everyone once dear to them, have to navigate a post apocalyptic society, find safety, find themselves, and find each other.

While I had actual criticisms about the other novels on this list, this one only did not hit me as I thought it would. Likely, I am simply too old for this, as it is a YA story. I truly did like the development of the boys' relationship and their different perspectives on the apocalypse.