2024 in Review
So Much Art! Music, Films, Books, and More
Time is a construct… but let’s still pretend I wrote and published this on the first day of the month instead of more than halfway through. This is quite long, and better viewed on your internet browser rather than in your email.
At the end of 2023, I was feeling a little panicked about how quickly time was passing. I combatted that anxiety in 2024 by filling the months up with so much art, films, books, music, and travel to see friends and family. Looking back at the year, I’m extremely grateful to have been able to experience all that I did, and to have encountered so much art — in so many various forms — that fed and continues to feed my writing.
In March, I cohosted the open mic at StAnza International Poetry Festival. That was also my first time reading at an open mic since the fall of 2019, so it was a bit nervewracking. Later in the spring,
published my poem “February” in their Spring issue. This was the first poem of mine to be published in the UK, so that was all very exciting.Living only a (long) train ride away from London has been great, and I visited my favorite city four times in 2024. Two weekends (one when my cousin Sam visited and one for my birthday with my parents), one 24-ish hour stopover (since flying to London was half the price of flying to Edinburgh in June), and one long week spent visiting a childhood friend who now lives there.
I went to many museums, sometime for specific exhibitions, and some for the first time. I finally saw the Scottish National Galleries’ collection of watercolors by Turner. I saw a few of my favorite paintings in person at The National Gallery and Royal Academy galleries, both in London. One of my favorite museum experiences in 2024 was at the HMS Unicorn in Dundee, where I attended a two-part writing workshop. I’ve written three fully drafted poems from the notes and memories of those workshops, and I’m looking forward to polishing up those poems in the coming months.
Having family visit was a great excuse for sightseeing around Edinburgh and Scotland. When my cousin Sam visited in March, we did a day-tour with Sassenach Historian, visiting various Outlander filming locations. Sam is the one who got me into Outlander, so it was a perfect day, doing that together. In November, my mom and sister visited, and we packed a lot into that week: Edinburgh Castle, the Palace of Holyroodhouse, St Andrew’s Castle, a tour around Perth, and multiple museums.
I feel very lucky to have gotten to see the Royal Ballet’s production of Swan Lake twice last season. In March, after getting my swan tattoo in the morning (thank you
!), my cousin Sam and I saw Fumi Kaneko and William Bracewell in Liam Scarlett’s Swan Lake and I was actually overcome with how much joy this performance sparked in me. William absolutely blew me away and Odette/Odile is the perfect role for Fumi. I think she might have danced my favorite interpretation of the role that I’ve seen. In fact, this performance was so stunning, I just had to see it again. I managed to get rush tickets for another of William’s performances at the end of April, and I went with my friend Julia. It was great to take two close friends to their first ballet performances as adults, and to share my love of ballet with them. That second performance of Swan Lake was just as wonderful. I’m hardly ever speechless when it comes to ballet, but William’s dancing during his solo in Act III had my jaw literally on the floor.I went to a few really great concerts. I saw Lizzy McAlpine with my twin sister and our cousin, and it was great to spend time with them. Seeing Maggie Rogers at her hometown show in Maryland was a huge joy, and especially because I went with my sister and our two childhood friends from home (also twins) exactly five years after the four of us graduated from high school together. Maggie’s shows are among the most precious memories I have, and I’m very glad I was able to make it to one of her shows in 2024, and to see The Japanese House finally was such a treat.
My parents are The National superfans, and when I said I didn’t think I was going to go to their show in Edinburgh because the logistics were complicated (this was before I moved), they said “nope you absolutely have to go,” and they very wonderfully helped me figure out an overnight situation and bought me a ticket. I’m not usually a spontaneous person, but making those last minute plans to see The National was such a good idea. It was my first time seeing the band without my parents (I’ve gone with them to three previous concerts) so it was a little bittersweet. It was a beautiful concert with the backdrop of the castle, the sunset, and the rising moon. They played Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks to end the show, the last of the summer tour. Bess Atwell was the supporting act, and I’ve loved her music for a while, so it was great to see her as well. The National always have the best openers, and that’s how I’ve been able to see Lucy Dacus, The Beths, and Soccer Mommy in the past.
While I went to only a handful of concerts this year, I went to more theater productions than I have in maybe all the years combined since 2021, when I took a theater criticism class at Queen Mary, University of London and it was my homework to see a show every week. In March, I saw Sweeney Todd on Broadway, and like my sister, it’s one of my favorite musicals. It was my first time actually seeing it on the stage, and with such a cast — Aaron Tveit, Sutton Foster, Joe Locke — it was an incredible performance. I remember when I was buying the tickets, I told my dad, “if I don’t go see this show, I’ll regret it forever.” Dramatic, but I’m glad we’ll never have to find out if I was right. In the UK, I made it to a performance of Bluets, just before it closed. I saw Much Ado About Nothing at The Globe on my birthday, and it was a perfect way to celebrate. Later in the summer, I went to both the preview in Dundee and the closing night in Edinburgh of the National Theatre of Scotland’s production of The Fifth Step by David Ireland. Jack Lowden was an absolute star.
I also got to see my favorite Shakespeare play (maybe favorite play ever actually) this year. After quite a bit of stress in May, I managed to get tickets to see the Sam Gold production of Romeo + Juliet on Broadway for December. I’ve seen a few different productions of Romeo and Juliet on stage, and have never been particualrly impressed or happy with the performance. Well, this version was absolutely everything I had been waiting for. When this version was announced, many friends texted me about just how “claire-coded” this show was, and it’s true. Romeo and Juliet with movement by Sonya Tayeh and music by Jack Antonoff, with Kit Connor as Romeo? Absolutely. With such high hopes, I was nervous I wouldn’t love the show. No need to worry though, it was easily the best theater perfomance I saw this year, certainly in my top 5 ever. Rachel Zegler was luminous, and her singing has sparked a resurgence in my love for Bleachers. Gabby Beans’ Mercutio was thrilling, and Gían Pérez made me actually care about Paris’ character! Also Taheen Modak, who plays Benvolio, had a brilliant turn as the Apothecarist in that tiny but important scene when Romeo buys a bottle of poison. It’s hard to believe this was both Rachel’s and Kit’s Broadway debuts. They were both so vivid and earnest and believable, and I think those last two are crucial for Romeo and Juliet to be a true tragedy.
I love this play so much, and I was hanging on the actors’ every word. The Circle in the Square is a small, intimate theater, and I adored how much the staging and choreography used the whole room, having the actors running in and about the audience, even breaking the fourth wall a few times. Also shoutout to the costume designer Enver Chakartash, fabulous work! I would’ve been back in the audience every night if I could’ve, but unfortunetly, I never won a pair of the lottery tickets (heartbreaking). Yes, the ticket prices for this show are bonkers, but it was absolutely worth it.
I’ve nearly finished my “2024 in Review” spread of pages in my journal, and I thought I’d share my highlights.
Between goodreads (which I’m testing switching away from), Spotify, and Letterboxd, my year in review journal pages have gotten a lot more detailed than they used to be. I constantly say I’m not “a numbers person” but I do love a good statistic.
Books:
Hands down, my favorite book I read in 2024 was In Memoriam by Alice Winn. Her writing is vivid and stunning and gut-wrenching, and I loved the newspaper inserts throughout. This book also happens to sit at the intersection of so many of my niches — poetry, The Great War, queer stories — so it felt as if the book was crafted especially for me. And I loved it. And I hope all other readers one day find a book as perfect for themselves as this one was for me. I’m already starting 2025 off with a slow reread of In Memoriam (since the first time I read it was in under 24 hours, as I literally could not put it down).
The author I read the most in 2024, as in 2023, was Mary Oliver, to no one’s surprise. I read four volumes of her poetry last year, and my favorite of those four was Blue Horses, which is a beautiful little collection that I think everyone should read, whether you are a fan of poetry or not. I also really liked The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón, Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss, and Ocean by Sue Goyette.
There’s been some discussion in the circles of the internet where I live about reading goals and whether or not people should set them. Personally, I’m a fan of (achievable) reading goals, mainly because there are literally hundreds of books I want to read, and yearly goals help motivate me to make a dent in that very long list. Last year I finished 60 books, and only 7 of those were rereads. I reread a few favorite poetry collections (Burying the Mountain by Shangyang Fang, The Carrying by Ada Limón, Dog Songs by Mary Oliver, Crush by Richard Siken), and one of my favorite novels: Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss (who has become a favorite author of mine in the last few years). I read more fiction than I had recent years, including Cassandra Clare’s Sword Catcher, which I had started at the end of 2023. I finally finished reading Dune, exactly a thousand days after I started it in 2021 (yikes!), and it took me the whole year to finish reading the third Outlander book (which is where I think I’ll stop for now). Cold Earth by Sarah Moss was another great novel, as was Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor, which I enjoyed listening to on audiobook during one of the days I took the bus to and from St Andrews. Another audiobook I liked (which I finished in a day) was The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown — and I was surprised by how much I liked that one, since I haven’t read many biographies, but I was pleseantly surprised by how narrative Brown wrote (justice for Joyce oh my god, the film adaptation did her and Joe’s story such a disservice). If you’re not on Libby, you should be. In terms on nonfiction, I lean more towards memoirs and essay collections, and in December I finally got around to reading Rob Sheffield’s Love is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time. Heatbreaking and yet so full of life, I enjoyed Sheffield’s casual tone and he made me (not for the first time in my life) really want to bring back the cassette mixtape. Sadly, I don’t have my boombox and cassettes with me in Scotland, so Spotify playlists will have to do for now.
Music:
I listened to music on Spotify for 46,413 minutes (which is in the top 6% of users worldwide, yikes). That’s 1,215 more minutes than in 2023, which makes sense, since I did not have access to my boombox and cassette collection for the majority of the year. Taylor Swift was still my most listened to artist and I’m still in the top 2% of her listeners. My top song of her’s was one of the vault tracks from her 1989 rerecord, “Is It Over Now?” “Slut!” also made it into my top 20 songs of the year. I was definitely in my pop-girly era in the second half of the year, as “Please Please Please” came in at number two and the acoustic version of the song at number thirteen on my top 100 listened to tracks. Despite listening to a lot of The National in past years, this was the first time they appeared in my top five artists, coming in at number three. The albums I listened to on repeat the most were: Bewitched by Laufey, Older by Lizzy McAlpine, Trouble Will Find Me by The National, Short n’ Sweet by Sabrina Carpenter, First Two Pages of Frankenstein by The National, and Charm by Clairo. My top song, despite it only coming out at the end of September, was “Pushing It Down and Praying” by Lizzy McAlpine, which I listened to 115 times. That puts me in the top 0.005% of listeners of that song. I am so mentally well.
Movies:
In December, my mom convinced me that subscribing to the Pro version of Letterboxd is worth it, and she’s so right (as usual). Most of my favorite films of the year are ones I saw in the cinema, and I can’t stress enough just how much better it is to see movies on the big screen (even in smaller theaters). Most of the time, I go to the cinema by myself, which is something I do love doing. Even so, it’s nice going to the movies with a group of friends, and in June I went with a pretty big group of friends to see The Bikeriders at the New Picture House in St Andrews, which was a really great experience (especially since the friend I was sitting next to is a huge fan of Austin Butler; it was fun seeing her reactions).
I saw three of my favorites of the year at the Jacob Burns Film Center, my favorite movie theater. In January, I went on my own to a screening of All Of Us Strangers. In March I saw Dune: Part Two with my family, and again on my own in St Andrews before the New Picture House closed down for renovations (that’s a whole can of worms). At the end of the year, I went back to the JBFC on my own to see a screening of Queer, Luca Guadganino’s second release of 2024.
I saw La Chimera for the first time at one of the Curzon cinemas in London, a few hours after seeing Bluets. I left the cinema in a bit of a trance after the film ended, overwhelmed a little by the beauty of the shots and the message of the film.
Of course I need to mention Wicked, which I saw a few days after Thanksgiving with my mom and sister. Wicked was the first Broadway musical our parents took us to see, way back in 2009 (I found the playbill while I was cleaning up my room last time I was home). I’ll admit I didn’t remember a whole lot of the plot, but a few of the songs — “What Is This Feeling?,” “Popular,” “Defying Gravity,” and “For Good” — and the “toss toss toss” details stayed with me. I loved the movie and found myself getting choked up a lot, especially at the very end.
The last two favorite films on this year’s list are Laufey’s A Night at the Symphony: Hollywood Bowl, which my sister very kindly went with me to see, and A Complete Unknown. I got my whole family out to the movies to see A Complete Unknown on Boxing Day, and I absolutely loved it. I think it’s fairly common knowledge that I have been a fan of Timmy since January 2018, when I saw both Call Me By Your Name and Lady Bird in the theaters, and the whole time I just kept thinking “wow, he really is a movie star now!”
(The only reason The Outrun (2024) isn’t on this list is because I didn’t manage to see it while it was cinemas. A week ago I watched it on the plane back to Edinburgh and it was so beautiful, so well done, and it’s definitely a favorite watch of 2025!)
Some quick stats (thank you letterboxd): I watched 118 films in 2024, that’s an average of about 10 per month, and a total of 276 hours. Sundays and Tuesdays were my most active movie-watching days. Of those 118 films, 18 were released in 2024, 55.9% were rewatches, and I gave five stars to 28 films. Challengers and Dune: Part Two share the spot of my most watched film (three times each). My most watched nanogenre was “Action, Epic, Emotion” (think Dune, LOTR, Narnia), followed by “Feelings, Gay, Sex” (lol; CMBYN, And Then We Danced, Another Country, etc).
TV Shows:
When I wasn’t leaving Criminal Minds on in the background, I did turn to a few other shows. In the crime-solving genre, I really enjoyed Unforgotten, Killing Eve, and Black Doves on Netflix, The Day of the Jackal and The Capture on Peacock, and Slow Horses season 4 on Apple TV. I timed my use of a three-month free trial of Apple TV solely so I could watch the new season of Slow Horses. Of course, I rewatched the first three seasons in order to lead right into the new episodes. Slow Horses is easily one of my favorite shows, and how Jack Lowden is not winning awards for it left and right is beyond me. Gary Oldman too. Also on Apple TV, I enjoyed Masters of the Air (great cast, great costumes, great set design). I’m still making my way through season three of Heartstopper (this season gets a lot heavier, as the books do), but watching the first two episodes at the Edinburgh early screening was really wonderful and a highlight of the year. It was really great to watch those episodes in a theater with a big group of fans.
One huge highlight among TV shows has to be the limited series Fellow Travelers. I even paid for a month of Paramount+ so that I could watch it! Absolutely worth it. So tender and heartbreaking and beautifully acted. Episode 7 had me sobbing profusely. Matt Bomer is fantastic. If you’re a new fan of Jonathan Bailey after Wicked or Bridgerton, I urge you to go watch Fellow Travelers (and if you want another Bailey rec, Broadchurch is one of my favorite shows and he’s great in that too).
Things:
Okay, not to be an influencer but… while I’m sharing favorites from 2024, there are a few item I want to mention.
Firstly, my maroon corduroy shearling Levi’s jacket that my mom found in the sale racks of a Macy’s in Atlanta this summer. It was $35 and brand new, which is an absolute steal. It is a size XL, but that means even my chunkiest sweaters fit underneath it comfortably. And pockets! Love the pockets.
I’ve been a Glossier fan since, oh, 2015? 2024 was the year I perfected my daily makeup routine, and Glossier’s Ultralip in Cranberry has been my daily go-to. I also replaced my Glossier lip gloss over the summer (because lip glosses don’t stay the same over — eek — six years!). Can confirm that I do in fact like the Glossier lip gloss formula, and I’m going to do my best to get through the tube before it turns tacky this time. My favorite lip gloss is still the NARS lip shine, and I keep a mini one in my purse at all times.
I’m a bit of a stationary nerd, and my favorite pens for the last year or so have been the Ferris Wheel Press “Carousel” fountain pens. They have a few good everyday inks (I like “Steeped Umber”) but my favorite ink are by Jacques Herbin. I’ve mostly been using the black shade, “perle noire,” but I’ve just aquired a larger bottle of “bleu des profondeurs” (a slightly blue-r shade of navy) and have been writing with that color in my Ferris Wheel Press “Roundabout” pen (their fountain-pen version of a ballpoint).
If you’ve read all the way to the end of this very long and very late year-in-review, thank you. I’m planning on being a bit better about consistently posting on Substack in 2025. I’m feeling a bit icky about the more mainstream modes of social media lately, for obvious reasons. In 2025, I’m aiming for more reading and writing on Substack. Till next week!