Hey, everyone! So, 2024 has not been a big year for blogging. I let this slide, and I regret it, because blogging is a way to keep me scheduled and responsible and it is a way to keep what people read it updated on my life. It’s also how I keep track of the things I’ve read, watched, or listened to over the year, and in part my lack of blogging is what made formulating this year’s Top Five Stories list so difficult. The strikes impacted the movie release schedule, and that was certainly felt, but more than that—a combination of the stress and doldrums and swings of this past year affected my ability to connect with stories. Some shone through, though, and gripped my imagination in new and exciting ways. They are still owed their due, and I am happy to round out the year reflecting on them and preparing for a, hopefully, more consistent 2025!
5- The Wild Robot
Needless to say, I am still a fan of animation, and the animation in Chris Sander’s 2024 adaptation of Peter Brown’s book The Wild Robot is nothing short of extraordinary. I know it is almost expected at this point, in a post-Spiderverse environ to expect great animation, but it is worth stating the sheer vivacity of the visuals in this movie. What is more, behind the bright and emotive exterior lies a profound story about nature versus nurture, adoption, and parenting which rang uniquely true with me. Lupita Nyong’o delivers a riveting performance as the titular robot, Roz, and plays wonderfully well against Pedro Pascal’s clever fox, Fink, as they undertake to raise a gosling Roz accidentally orphaned. While certain elements of the story remain comfortable, if predictable, the performances and moments of sincere existential horror and brevity are frequent enough to slide this heartwarming and surprisingly introspective story into one of the most memorable media experiences of the past year.
Top Quote: “We talked about this: dead things don’t have to explain why they’re dead. Now we’re going to get killed for real.”
4- The Enigma of Room 622
I have a friend with a certain knack for selecting books they know will destroy me, and this was no exception. Joel Dicker’s novel about an author protagonist who winds up investigating a murder in a Swiss hotel linked to a banking corporation’s power struggle held me from the beginning. There’s a melancholic air which pervades the book—the plot of which leaps back and forth between the present day wherein the author and his new companion, Scarlett, investigate the murder taking place in the previous timeline—and gives one the sense of if Wes Anderson directed an Agatha Christie novel. Culture seeps through the pages, the wide host of eccentric characters play their parts perfectly, and the ruminations on what defines success, how one processes grief, and how far a person will go for love made for a deeply engrossing romp through the monied world of the Hotel Verbier and environs beyond.
Top Quote: “Are you heartbroken? Is that why you write?”
3- Epic: The Musical
It brings me a sheepish bout of pleasure to admit that three of the five top played songs on my first ever Spotify Wrapped came from Jorge Rivera-Herrans’ Epic: The Musical. While not first encountered in nor beginning in 2024 (a breach of my own rules, yes), Epic nevertheless concluded in 2024 and delivered my favorite songs from its sagas in this time period. A concept-album musical based entirely on Homer’s Odyssey, Epic plays fast, loose, and beautiful with the key moments, tropes, and verse of the Greek epic while also fully losing itself in the power and awe of the gods, monsters, and men Odysseus faces on his journey home. With a range of musical stylings, outstanding vocal performances, and endless YouTube animatics, Epic offers endless inspiration. Its songs grace my writing playlists, its lyrics have leaped to the top of drunken karaoke, certain songs have helped explorations of my own identity, and I cannot thank enough the creative explosion its existence ushered into my life.
Most Sung Line: “There’s been a misunderstanding! We never came here to steal. But now that I see we’ve done some damage, maybe you and I can make a deal. I’ll give you our finest treasure so long as we leave alive: you can keep the world’s best tasting wine.”
Top Quote: “When the witch turns men to pigs to protect her nymphs is she goin' insane? Or did she learn to be colder when she got older, and now she saves them the pain?”
2- Forgottenness
More times than I can count, I had to set Tanja Maljartschuk’s novel down and let it crash into my heart and soul like a wave. Some of this was due to the immaculate translation of the prose by Zenia Tompkins. The rest was the sheer weight of the story and its questions hitting into me. What begins as a progressively more anxious and invalid narrator discovering and researching the life of Ukrainian poet Viacheslav Lypynskyi comes an exploration of identity, belonging, legacy, and determination unlike anything I have read recently. Forgottenness certainly stands as one of the best books I have read in years, and it struck me as being immaculately topical. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine hanging large over anything remotely Eastern European inspired (my own work included) being able to read and understand a Ukrainian voice crying out against the absorption of their culture by its neighbors and establishing an identity linked to a shared past but diverging in recent memory was touching in a way I don’t know I can entirely describe. But as an adopted child who often feels at odds with the culture he was adopted into and yet without one of his own, so to speak, the questions Maljartschuk explores in her deliciously detailed and utterly heartrending book linger on in everything else I consume and examine. With luck, they will settle into whatever I write next. Would that I could be so lucky.
Top quote: “And when she did exit, like some medieval Polish princess under the escort of frivolous suitors, Lypynskyi would freeze, accepting her crushing glance with gratitude, like a mercifully tossed bone. After that, he would remain in that very spot for a long time, not having the strength to take even a step, until the university janitors would ask him to move aside in order to sweep up his dignity, splattered against the wooden floor.”
1- Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End
I think we all knew it would come to this. What was 2024 if not the year of Frieren? The reasons why are self-explanatory, and explained further in my blog post earlier in the year on the matter. 2024 was a year of grief, of growth, of rest, of magic, of creation, of beginnings after endings. Frieren is a testament to all these things—a monument to moving forward while honoring the past. There is no piece of this show, or its manga, out of place. Everything from the voice acting to Evan Call’s music to the animation to the messaging comes from a place of earnest care, respect, and charm. There is within the story of an elven mage retracing her old adventuring steps a wellspring of wisdom, comedy, heartbreak, maturity and immaturity, and the flows of life. I wrote earlier that this was the show which made me believe in magic again, and I cannot help but think that were it not for discovering this show in the dead of winter and joblessness, I would not be in the position I am now. I would not have written the things I wrote, or tried the new experiences I tried, or believed enough not only in myself but in those around me who love and support me to press on against the headwinds of the world and emerge… not unscathed nor unchanged, but determined that I would live to see a world in which everyone could use their own kind of magic.
And, if not, I would do what I could to make that world a reality.
Top quote: “Did she ever tell you what her favorite spell was? One that created a field of flowers.”
Honorable Mention: Ice and Snow
Top Quote: “A god’s a god, a girl’s a girl, and witches bridge the gap. Beware the cost of magic: how spells and tales entrap.”