Year in Review — 2024
Unbelievably, it's the end of the year again. I always end up feeling a certain way around this time of the year: nostalgic, contemplative about what's happened; excited, optimistic towards what's coming. For years, I've had this comic strip taped to my wall:
I've faced my fair share of setbacks, of difficulties, but it's hard not to feel like better things are coming. I've got a new job that's going well so far, and my partner and I have the biggest change of our lives, moving abroad, just on the horizon. I'm back in a groove writing, each day watching the word counter click up; tangible steps towards my goals. The path is becoming ever slightly more clear.
I'm proud of what I've done. Back in the Spring, my partner and I sat and talked about the sort of life we wanted, where we wanted to be, and what we wanted to do; an extension of an exercise, a way of thinking, I'd been following for myself since the start of the year. Once we decided on a direction, we start making progress towards that future. We've just started to harvest the fruits of that labor.
That said, this was more of a transitional year, for me. I found the job, we decided to move, I restarted work on my manuscript; but much of that has still yet to *arrive*. 2025 is shaping up to be a big one.
With all that in the past, and everything more that's coming up, I've been looking forward to a break. I hope to spend the last two weeks of the year relaxing, reading a lot, playing some video games, and just reinvigorating myself for the year to come.
Over on Refrakt (sign up now so you don't miss it), I'm going to write a bit about my creative year in review, but here I wanted to write a bit about the the things that resonated most strongly with me this year.
Best book of the Year:
I read a lot of books this year (but always less than I want to?), but the one that resonated the most with my was probably Chronicles of a Village. I was lucky enough to speak with the translator, Quyên Nguyễn-Hoàng for my column over at CHIRB, "The Translator's Voice."
Quyên being so thoughtful and warm in our conversation definitely affected my view of the book itself, but it's a deeply poetic, metaphoric book, whose lines still echo throughout my head.
As a runner up, I read Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Murakami Haruki for the first time this year, and loved it. Has a humor some of his other early works lack, and there's a tightness to the narrative that some of his later works lack. I read the original translation, not the new one, and while I'm a big fan of Jay Rubin's work, the idea of adding back in 100 cut pages seems hard to image resulting in a better novel.
Best anime of the year:
Pretty good year for anime, but it's got to be Dungeon Meshi. I still have not read the manga, but the anime accomplished something I think is near impossible to do: the narrative only becomes deeper and more nuanced as the story unfolds. It's easy to "get the gist" of certain stories, whose schtick wears off over time. And maybe this is a matter of my low-ish expectations going in, but what seems on the face like a goofy story about cooking and eating fantasy monsters reveals a kingdom below the surface.
In silver, bronze, and below, I also loved Kusuriya no Hitorigoto, Look Back, and Make Heroine ga Oosugiru!
Best game of the year:
This is cheating perhaps, since I only finished it yesterday (at the time of writing), and didn't really play all that many video games to completion this year, but I loved my time with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. The first game in the series that lets you play as the eponymous Princess, Echoes of Wisdom is a charming adventure, borrowing the art style from the Link's Awakening remake, and utilizing entirely new gameplay bringing a new take on the Zelda series. The story is surprisingly more heartfelt than I expected, and like most Zelda games, I was sad to finally see "THE END."
I also finished The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom this year, which was a blast. Still playing Persona 3: Reload, and really looking forward to checking out Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Best album of the year:
This year has been a year of rediscovering my love of discovering music, and there was no album I was happier to discover than Frail Body's "Artificial Bouquet."
Frail Body is a local(ish) band, hailing from Rockford Illinois. I'd heard none of their music going into the year, but have listened to all three of their releases now. "Artificial Bouquet" feels like the best culmination of their sound to date, with beautiful melodies and searing vocals mixing perfectly with crushing riffs and breakdowns. It's an emotional record, and gives me some of the same vibes as Deafheaven's seminal "Sunbather."
I want to thank everyone who read my work this year. Of course, 2024 was the year I got back into regular blogging, regular newsletters, and it's been great to hear from all of you, and see which pieces resonate most with others. It means a lot to me!
From Chicago with Love,
— I
