The Best Audiobooks of 2024 (So Far)

By Dustin Rowles | Books | June 12, 2024 |

By Dustin Rowles | Books | June 12, 2024 |

I Hope This Finds You Well, by Natalie Sue (Read by Nasim Pedrad) — I Hope This Finds You Well is the debut novel of Persian British Canadian writer, Natalie Sue, and it’s also the first full novel that former SNLer Nasim Pedrad has read, and I hope she narrates many more. Granted, she had a great novel with which to work: I Hope This Finds You Well is about an office worker who hates her job and her co-workers until she inadvertently gains access to all of their emails because of an IT snafu. Knowing that they are not all how they appear brings her closer to them, which eventually allows her to create a community within the workplace, only it’s built on a lie. Funny and warm, the tone is similar to Fredrik Backman’s brilliant Anxious People and Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. It is, so far, my favorite book of 2024.

The Women by Kristin Hannah (Read by Julia Whelan) — This is not Whelan’s only entry on this year’s list, but at least here, there’s no doubt that Hannah’s historical fiction is worthy of Whelan’s talents. With this and The Four Winds, among others, Hannah has displayed a real knack for illustrating the importance of women during eras otherwise mostly dominated by men. Here, she centers her story on a nursing student who follows her brother to the Vietnam War only to end up in a struggle similar to the one faced by the men who returned from that war, except that no one took the contributions — or the trauma suffered — seriously because she’s a woman. Hannah is one of the most engaging writers around at the moment.

James by Percival Everett (Read by Dominic Hoffman) — James is my first stab at a Percival Everett novel, and it will not be my last. James reimagines the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, the slave in Mark Twain’s original work. It’s harrowing to see that world through Jim’s eyes, but it is at times also heartbreakingly funny, especially the way that James has to hide his ability to read and write from Huck Finn. It’s engrossing, brilliant, and surprisingly action-packed in a way that reminds me of another reimagining, Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead.

A Funny Story by Emily Henry (Read by Julia Whelan) — This is my first Emily Henry novel, and I’ll be honest: I probably liked it a lot more than I otherwise would because of Whelan’s performance. It’s a fun and often steamy romance between Daphne and Miles, the man whose girlfriend ran off with Daphne’s fiancé. It’s a little too long and almost wears out its welcome, but the combination of Henry and Whelan gives it a cinematic rom-com feel, and as long as those two continue to work together — as they have in Henry’s previous four novels - I’ll probably continue to listen to all of her future works.

The Fury by Alex Michaelides (Read by Alex Jennings) — Michaelides may never reproduce the success of his bestselling debut novel Silent Patient, but The Fury is much improved over his sophomore outing, The Maiden. It’s about an ex-movie star whose trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder, and it kind of reminds me of a murder-mystery version of a Taylor Jenkins Reid novel in a good way. It’s my first experience with narrator Alex Jennings, but he sells the hell out of the story, which has a twist that I didn’t see coming until right before it was deployed.

The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue (Read by Tara Flynn) — For those who love the romance novels of Emily Henry, O’Donoghue’s The Rachel Incident is a slight step up in terms of writing ability, or at least the Irish accents left me feeling like it was marginally smarter. As is often the case in these relationship novels aimed at heavy readers, Rachel works in a bookstore where she falls in love with her married professor. But the married professor has other desires, which generates a lot of chaos between Rachel and her closeted best friend, James. It reminded me of Dolly Alderton’s fantastic Good Material, which would have made this list had it not been released at the end of last year.

The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins (Read by Dan Bittner, Eliza Foss, John Pirhalla, Patti Murin)— I feel like there is a group of women who are dominating the mystery thriller genre at the moment — Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, and my personal favorite, Catherine Steadman (whose next novel is out in July) — but Hawkins’ latest is my favorite among them this year (while I was not at all enamored with Ashley Elston’s otherwise well-received First Lie Wins). The Heiress is one of those ensemble productions about Camden, the adopted son of a wealthy woman who inherits not only her fortune but all of her secrets. It’s lightly gothic, twisty, and a lot of fun with an ending that pleasantly subverts the tone.

After Annie by Anna Quindlen (Read by Gilli Messer) — I’ve never read a Quindlen novel, but I love Ann Napolitano, and for whatever reason, I got it in my head that Anna Quindlen is a similar type of author. She is, sort of, although After Annie — which is about how a family deals with the sudden death of a young mother and wife — was neither as heartwarming or as heartbreaking as I thought it would be. It’s good, but more restrained than I might have liked, more similar to a minor Anne Tyler novel, which is maybe slightly better praise than After Annie deserves.

The Hunter by Tana French (Read by Roger Clark) - I genuinely think that Tana French was one of this era’s best detective novelists, and she could be again. I loved the early Dublin mysteries. I think, however, that French got so successful that her editors stopped editing her. Each novel seems to be more long-winded than the last, and The Hunter — the second in the Cal Hooper books (and the first wasn’t great) — never seems to end. French is a great writer, but not every detail needs to be expanded upon and then rehashed. This was a 16-hour audiobook, and it easily could have been half of that. It really tried my patience.

Come and Get It by Kiley Reid (Read by Nicole Lewis) — I liked Come and Get It, I did. But even though it’s mostly set at my undergrad alma mater, the University of Arkansas, it was a letdown compared to Reid’s first novel, Such a Fun Age (longlisted for the Booker), which I absolutely adored. Come and Get It — about a resident assistant who gets mixed up with a visiting professor and some annoying dorm students — is another novel that should have had a couple of hours edited from it. It’s not that the characters are unlikable; it’s that they’re not that interesting. Reid is a great writer, but it feels like a novel that was 75 percent written before the author realized she needed to scrap it but was too far down the road to do so. I can’t wait to see how she rebounds, however.