Happy New Year, friends! To honor the end of the year, I compiled a list of some of my favorite media from the last year. Some of these movies, shows, and books will be very familiar, and some might be new, but I enjoyed all of them very much.

To set the mood, let’s begin with one of my most listened-to songs from the year:

The late Cat Janice went viral for her hit song “Dance You Outta My Head,” which is a cute bop, but she has a few other songs in her repertoire that deserve a listen. I’m partial to this one!

My Favorite Movie(s) to Debut in 2024:

Dune: Part Two

Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of the second half of Frank Herbert’s novel was released earlier in 2024 to rave reviews, including my own. Despite the movie’s extensive run time, I was captivated by the incredible visuals and rich storytelling. The movie makes several changes from the source material (specifically involving Chani’s character) that I think help to make the story more approachable as well as clearly demonstrate Paul’s gradual descent from a heroic protagonist to a complex anti-hero. Also, as a long-time fan of classic science fiction, I loved the homages to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Akira.

Literally So Many Monster Movies, including “Lisa Frankenstein,” “Your Monster,” and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

If every movie to debut in 2025 was about a human woman and her romantic relationship with a monster/alien/creature, then I’d somehow manage to be happy, despite the horrors of the coming year.

My Favorite Movie I Watched in 2024 That Didn’t Debut in 2024:

The Magic of Ordinary Days (2005)

My intense obsession with this movie proves that I have entered my Hallmark era and have no intention of leaving (though I should clarify that this is a Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie, which means it has a higher budget and better writing and acting than most Hallmark movies). The gentle love story between Livy Dunne, the educated but disgraced pregnant woman, and Ray Singleton, the good-looking farmer who simps for her, captured my heart earlier this year, and now I’m anxiously awaiting a sequel. Seriously, Hallmark, you have the money to finance a sequel and Skeet Ullrich is still hot, so what are you waiting for?

My Favorite Show to Debut in 2024:

X-Men ’97

If you know me and are surprised by this answer, shame on you, because this show (and the fan response) single-handily ignited a hyperfixation I thought I had left buried after the gross disappointment that was “X-Men: The Last Stand” (and again with “X-Men: Apocalypse“). I think there are many reasons this show succeeded, but given my distaste for 20th Century FOX Films’ obsession with Hugh Jackman as Wolverine (no shade to the actor, but the character is a dead horse that’s been beaten into glue), I think the show’s focus on other characters like Cyclops, Storm, Rogue, Jubilee, and even Jean Grey, made all the difference.

My Favorite Show to Return in 2024:

Resident Alien (2021)

Okay, technically, I didn’t start watching this show until this year, but it had been on my radar for a long time. Ever since “People of Earth” was greenlit for a third season and abruptly canceled, I have been seeking out anything that can fill the hole its absence left in my heart, and this show has done a pretty spectacular job. “Resident Alien” is the story of a technologically advanced alien who finds himself stranded on Earth. Despite his obnoxious tendencies and emotional ineptitude, the town begins to embrace him as one of their own, and he begrudgingly starts to feel the same, which is a problem, because this alien is tasked with exterminating the human race.

My Favorite Books from 2024:

I’ll be honest with you all: After watching “The Magic of Ordinary Days,” I read a bunch of fanfiction, followed by the book, followed by another book by Ann Howard Creel, followed by a series of books from this subreddit because I was looking for books with similar plotlines (and hopefully with more graphic content, because of my aforementioned crush on Skeet Ullrich, who I would visualize as the hero). None of them, aside from the books by Ann Howard Creel, were really all that good, so they didn’t make it to the list, but they did occupy an unfair amount of my mental space from June to November.

My Favorite Books from 2024:

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

“The Goblin Emperor” is about the neglected fourth son of the emperor who suddenly finds himself heir to the throne after several members of his family are assassinated. The world of Osreth is dense and elaborate, so full of language quirks and unique characters that the book has a much-needed glossary at the beginning that I kept having to flip to so I could make sense of the universe. However, I found the work very much worth it because the resulting story was so satisfying. The author of this book asked the question, “what if a really nice, if somewhat simple, guy was forced to be emperor, and slowly made the world a better place because of it?”

The Peaches and Honey Duology by R. Raeta

In this series, a trickster god gives the gift of immortality to a young woman, believing that she can be a source of goodness amongst humanity. Throughout the next 800 years, the two cross paths, slowly forming a friendship and eventually romance. In the second book, the main characters must deal with the fallout of their actions and the rot poisoning the remaining immortals.

This series is available on Kindle Unlimited, but I was thrilled to find a few paperback copies at “Meet Cute Romance Bookshop” in San Diego, so you can purchase these books in stores.

My Favorite Non-Fiction Book from 2024:

The Heat Will Kill You First by Jeff Goodell

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Planet Earth is in a crockpot and is only getting hotter. If we want to help save at least some of humanity, we need to begin collectively looking into solutions to stay cool. I’m personally a fan of architecture designed with passive cooling in mind, but I have a ton to learn about the ever-changing environment.

My Favorite Unhinged Romances from 2024:

I know where my bread is buttered.

Deal of Shadows is something of a modern continuation of Kathryn Ann Kingsley‘s previous series, the Maze of Shadows, in which the evil Unseelie King relentlessly pursues the good-witch-turned-Seelie Abigail. In this book, a desperate singer makes a deal with a handsome (but creepy) fae to evade homelessness. The stakes are ramped up in the second book. The whole series feels a bit like “if Beetlejuice was a handsome fae from Tír na nÓg instead of a disgusting undead demon.”

Cold Sweat by Vera Valentine

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I have no excuses for this one, except I saw the cover and thought it looked hilarious, and I was right. “Cold Sweat” is about the mounting sexual tension between a young woman and her stepbrother, who is also a parody of the Kool-Aid Man. Don’t read this book and then get mad when it isn’t “Anna Karenina,” okay?

My Favorite Musical from 2024:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention “EPIC: The Musical” by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, which finally debuted its last saga on Christmas Day. “EPIC” is a musical inspired by Homer’s “Odyssey,” in which Odysseus, the clever King of Ithaca, struggles to make his way home after the end of the Trojan War. Rivera-Herrans does take a few liberties with the story, so if you have a problem with that, then you may need to set those feelings aside if you want to enjoy this project. The musical spans the 10-year journey, beginning with the sacking of Troy through Odysseus’ return to his kingdom. The musical is composed of 40 earworms that are nearly impossible to stop listening to, which was extremely frustrating when you think of how the last saga was released almost two years after the first one was released. It’s been a long journey, but Odysseus is finally home.

My Favorite Blog Posts from 2024:

I wrote a lot in 2024, albeit inconsistently (sorry folks, I had a thesis to crank out), and some posts were better than others. While I’m thrilled the internet has so far enjoyed my take on Silky Gem Crystal Candy (they are not yummy), I had a few other posts I wish had received a little more love, so I’ll share those below:

1. Give Us a “Starlight Express” Movie, Cowards
2. School Spirits is Okay, But It’s Not Good
3. No Tears for Rosaura?
4. “Remember It” Broke My Heart, So This Fan Content Is Helping Me Put It Back Together
5. The Magic of Ordinary Days Has Me in a Chokehold (this one actually did okay, but I want it to go mega-viral so that we can get the sequel we deserve while Skeet Ullrich is still a snack)

If you want to give any of these posts a comment or share, I would be so appreciative. In the meantime, I’ll be keeping an eye out for new and weird content to shower upon you all.