The Best Books of 2024, According to Glamour Editors

This coming-of-age novel follows Catalina, an Ecuadorian-American student in her senior year at Harvard, and her experience as a DACA student. As someone who's also Ecuadorian-American, and who was undocumented until my mid 20s, there was so much in this book that hit home. And it's so relevant to today because of how complicated immigration policy is in the US.

It's a quick, fast-paced book that dives deep into how political your identity can be living in the United States when you're not a citizen, the fear that comes with it, not just for yourself but in the case of Catalina, for her grandparents. I really loved Catalina's personality; she's bright, bold, and quick-witted. But in the end, she's just a student trying to navigate boys, friendships, and campus life. —Jenifer Calle, senior commerce editor

Oh my God, Rejection. How to describe this Gremlin of a book that taps into the interior lives and minds of undersexed, extremely online, infinitely rejected sadsacks? The title is the central theme, brilliantly and often shockingly rendered via a series of lightly connected stories that mine the depths of defeatism, nihilism, and alienation. The people in this book are pathetic—palpably so—but Tulathimutte's writing is so sharp and incisive, I left each story wanting pages upon pages more about each character as opposed to feeling weighed down by pity for their circumstances. —Perrie Samotin, digital director

I'm fully on board the Emily Henry train, so I knew going into reading Funny Story that I would probably like it. I didn't expect it to become my favorite of hers to date. Henry is really good at leaning into all the romance novel tropes you want—there's always a meet cute, you can expect a happy ending, etc.—while still putting subtle twists on the genre. And Funny Story does it exceptionally well.

The book follows Daphne and Miles, who become unlikely friends and roommates after their respective partners—childhood best friends Peter and Petra—realize they're in love with each other. The jilted lovers start their own love story as a way to get back at their exes, but soon the lines get blurred.

You can guess what happens from there. It's witty, it's fun, and more than once I found myself smiling and kicking my feet over their banter. It was a total bright spot for me in an otherwise heavy year. —Anna Moeslein, deputy editor

Shocking, sexy, cathartic, and wildly funny, this audacious novel (which, it would appear, took liberal inspiration from its author’s life) grants us permission to live outside the confines of the normal.

When its narrator sets off on a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York, she almost immediately exits the highway and decides to move into and renovate a motel room 30 minutes from home—without telling her husband and young child, of course.

It’s better to go in knowing nothing else; let July’s bizarro and deeply relatable plot wash over you, freeing you from the expectations of what domesticity or a career or even sex should look like. Be warned, though: You might just be convinced to blow up your own life, too. —Jake Henry Smith, commerce editor

Sarah J. Maas may be wildly popular—she's the most-followed author on Goodreads, if that tells you anything—but her Crescent City series is divisive among even her most devoted fans. The world is a little more modern, the plot a lot more convoluted, so I can see why some find it harder to dive into than the Beauty and the Beast-inspired A Court of Thorns and Roses or the Cinderella-adjacent Throne of Glass books.

I, however, am firmly in the Team CC camp and was excited for the release of House of Flame and Shadow, the third in the series, earlier this year. The previous book, House of Sky and Breath, had left us readers on an insane twist that ties in Maas's other universes. It was so compelling, I couldn't wait to see how it all played out.

I wasn't left disappointed. There's a lot going on in House of Flame and Shadow—arguably too much at times—but I could never say I was bored. —A.M.

A satisfyingly realistic coming-of-age novel, In Tongues tracks the shifting relationship between a gay transplant to New York City and the older art-world couple (also gay, duh) that hires him as an assistant slash eye candy. It’s a novel of firsts that’ll resonate with anyone who’s ever been young and aimless in a big city. The punches, when they come, are brutal, as is the realization that not everyone is meant to be someone with a capital S.

But what makes the read worthwhile, especially for a book club, is its focus on our protagonist’s best-friendship with his roommate. It’s these meditations on what it means to be a friend—how we support and fail each other, then eventually make up and grow older together—that ring most true among a novel littered with impersonal sex and a whole lot of class anxiety. It’d all make an incredible Luca Guadagnino movie. —J.H.S.

I had a hard time getting Night Watching out of my head. Not because of the seriously terrifying home invasion plot, but the social commentary Sierra intersperses about what it takes for a woman to be believed.

We are dropped right into a nightmare scenario. An unnamed woman wakes up suddenly to a bump in the night, and realizes there is an intruder in the house she shares with her two young children, and he is trying to hurt them. The plot ricochets back and forth between the immediacy of the intruder flashbacks that reveal the series of horrifying scenarios that led the family to this exact moment.

The novel is both thrilling and enraging, entertaining and horrifying. It's the type of book more women should read, and more should write. —S.M.

At no point did I have a clear idea what this book was about. Art? Feminism? Class? Mortality? And yet I read it cover to cover in a few days, coasting purely on vibes.

It was honestly a great time. If you're a fan of Rachel Cusk, whose subversive, laugh-out-loud writing has made her a literary darling, you need to pick up Parade. —Sam Reed, senior trending news and entertainment editor

Sarah Chapelle writes eloquently and incisively about the way Taylor Swift has used her clothing over the years to emphasize or obfuscate different parts of her persona, intentionally telling a story every bit as specific as those in her lyrics. Celebrity is a juggling act, and many feel that style is one ball Swift has let drop from time to time (I’ll be the first to admit she doesn’t always slay). But her mistakes and strange choices confirm that she—not a stylist (though she does work with them)—is the ultimate arbiter of her image.

Chapelle offers keen insight in her translations of those choices, and has been doing so for years; she runs @taylorswiftstyled, the ultimate Swift clothing-identifier account. This book is not only a gorgeous object but an essential resource for any Swiftophile to pore over. —Elizabeth Logan, contributor

From the first page you know you’re reading a true original. It’s at once funny, biting, satirical, and brilliantly insightful about the woes of modern relationships, dating and marriage, with a bit of sci fi thrown in. I devoured it in a couple of days and could happily have read it again. —Natasha Pearlman, executive editor

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Message is a unique departure from his previous books, reading more as a diary of self-reflection than a strongly held viewpoint. In The Message, Coates starts off with an introspection of his African American identity while visiting Senegal, and the unique differences and similarities between Black Americans and African people living on the continent. In the second part, he travels back to America— to North Carolina where a school district is trying to ban his books in an effort to eradicate “critical race theory.” He reflects on the impact and power that his books like Between the World and Me have on America’s past and white supremacy.

In the last entry, he visits Occupied Palestine— and finds contradictions with his famous Atlantic article “The Case for Reparations." During his time there, he observes what it’s like to live as a Palestinian versus an Israeli Jewish person— making strong comparisons to the Jim Crow era in America. As it pertains to the last part, the most controversial part, he doesn’t claim to see both sides. However, he is content with still learning and trying to figure it all out. —Monique Wilson, editorial assistant

When I enthusiastically recommend The Wedding People, the number one adjective I use is “delightful.”

It tells the story of Phoebe, a college professor who has hit her rock bottom after her last fertility treatment failed, her marriage ended, and her cat died. On a whim, she decides to go to a luxury hotel in Rhode Island, where she unwittingly gets swept up in an extravagant wedding week for a bride and groom who have issues of their own.

The book, although it deals with some heavy topics and asks tough questions, is ultimately about the healing power of community and human connection—something we need now more than ever. —S.M.

Did you hear? We at Glamour wrote a book, too! Glamour, An Extraordinary History charts our journey of chronicling the lives of women over the past 85 years, and is the perfect read for anyone who loves magazine journalism.