Books that are supposed to be funny usually make me wildly uncomfortable. However, Everyone In This Room Will Someday Be Dead did just the opposite. This book felt light-hearted and deep simultaneously, and is definitely the best written representation of OCD that I have ever come across. Not to mention, but I was extremely satisfied by the ending. That doesn’t count as a spoiler, right?

So much happens in this book. It was hard for me to believe that I would love a book about video games, but after Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was recommended to me a thousand times, I finally read it, and it ended up being one of my favorite books I read in 2024. I think the most impressive thing about Zevin’s writing is the way that she articulates feelings surrounding death.

I was immediately drawn to Laughter in the Dark after reading a GoodReads review that said “Laughter in the Dark walked so Gone Girl could run.” This book is the blueprint to all scandalous novels ever written in its wake. not to mention, I love the lore of Nabokov insulting the translator of this book, rejecting his translation, and ultimately translating it himself. A true diva.

There are very few things that I find more entertaining than fictional celebrity gossip from last century. I read this book shortly after taking a class in which I read all of the Brontë’s, and I couldn’t help but think of this book as a more gossipy Jane Eyre. Not to mention, L’Engle was a resident of my humble hometown and even shouts out the Merit Highway in this very book.