Hi! I’m Jacob, and this is Fslur.
Today, my 2024 Fslur Unwrapped. I was bumping Charli, Troye and Chappel all brat summer long, which Spotify’s AI diagnosed as my pink pilates pop princess strut era (I do strut sometimes but have never done pilates).
Before I get to my year in books, I should touch on the most important piece of media to impact me in 2024, the blueprint for art-as-culture-study, truly the most AOTY album of the year (per the Recording Academy), Cowboy Carter. Honestly, I lost hope after they gave the Grammy to Harry’s House over Renaissance. Think on that. They passed up Beyoncé for HARRY STYLES? Unhinged. So to honor the long-denied win, as well as my obvious AOTY for 2024, here’s my Cowboy Carter unwrapped:
Fslur anthem: II MOST WANTED (an out-loud celebration of lawbreaking in love and an escalation of the deep sapphic slow burn Beyoncé and Lady Gaga ignited with ‘Telephone’ in 2011)
Fslur ethos: Shaboozey singing, ‘Keep the code, break the rules,’ and really his whole verse on SPAGHETTII (Shaboozey just has me feeling like an fslur, honestly)
Fslur obedience training: Beyoncé hollering, ‘GIT to the dancefloor,’ on the TEXAS HOLD ’EM Pony Up Remix (this always has me clutching my belt buckle)
Fslur-in-the-mirror moment: Beyoncé singing, ‘How long can he hold his breath before he steps?’ in DAUGHTER (this line scared me when I first listened, as if she was there pointing at me)
Fslur least wanted: the nationalist and religious imagery and language threaded throughout the record, particularly bodied in the opener and closer AMERIICAN REQUIEM and AMEN, further blurring the space between subversion of and conformity with standards of country music and American identity (much more has been and could be said on this, just calling it out to add some critical awareness to my fan-service)
Okay, I’m sure that won’t be the last time I rave about Beyoncé for Fslur. Let’s leave it there for now and talk books.
I read 42 books in 2024. I’ll spare you the full list, which includes all the major novels of Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell (recovering from my Brit lit ladies era, which started with a George Eliot fixation back in 2023). Just taking out those titles brings the total down to 29. For the record, my list does not distinguish between physical books and audiobooks. Say it with me, audiobooks count as reading.
Last year, I finally checked off a few classics that I should have read already. Possibly most embarrassing among these was Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which despite the hype somehow exceeded my expectations. Also worth mentioning, Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë (a deeply underrated entry from another Brit lit lady), Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (Audible has a delightful audiobook narrated by Sandra Oh) and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (overrated, but Audible has an insanely homosexy audiobook starring Ncuti Gatwa and Theo James). I’ll also throw in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, which best embodies my PVSSYBOY fslur ethos.
Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn almost aren’t worth mentioning, except to set up Percival Everett’s James, one of my top reads of the year. If you somehow missed the release of James, it retells Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, an enslaved man seeking freedom and self-determination. The storytelling in James is superb, its language so clean and its subversion of Twain razor sharp. Last year I also read Everett’s Erasure and I Am Not Sidney Poitier, all of which cemented him as one of my favorite writers working today, and I plan to continue reading through his backlist.
I read everything queerly, but appreciated a few titles last year which challenge and expand my ideas of queerness. I already mentioned Orlando. More recent releases in this group include:
Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which follows a really diverse cast of characters each figuring out their queerness while surviving a hostile hetero-patriarchal world order (and an alien invasion capitalizing on the power structures of that world order) — for fans of Stephen King’s It.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera, the quietly but deeply queer story of a student, assassin and unwilling heir to a political movement who rewrites the world order he chafes against — for fans of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire.
The New Life by Tom Crewe, a retelling of the real history of writers seeking to move the needle on public opinion of queerness amid the intense attention on Oscar Wilde’s sodomy scandal and trial — for fans of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (obviously).
Fellow Travelers by Thomas Mallon, recently adapted as a Showtime miniseries with Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey, the lives, careers and queerness of two men in politics who really can’t have it all (honorary mention for Tim, the biggest fslur of my year in reading, yes even including Orlando) — for fans of Project 2025.
The Seep by Chana Porter, which takes the cake as my most fslur read, a calmly unhinged story in which anyone can be anything, so everyone is queer (of course) and radically accepting, except for one cranky trans lady with a gun (I love you Trina FastHorse Goldberg-Oneka) — for fans of trans liberation (this one is so genre-bending and unlike anything I’ve ever read, I really can’t place it).
These stand in no particular order as my favorite reads and top recommendations from 2024.
For diversity, I’ll plug possibly the least queer book I read last year, and definitely the least queer romance I’ve ever had the patience for, Colton Gentry’s Third Act by Jeff Zentner. The story starts with an incident of gun violence, a subject some of my own work engages with, before pivoting hard to kitchen workplace comedy à la The Bear. Between endearing male friendships, a striking dynamic between the love interests and Zentner’s writing, I actually enjoyed this read despite the cishet romance of it.
That leaves 13 books unmentioned, including a queer romp and a queer romance I didn’t particularly love or hate, two modern ‘classics’ I found extremely tiresome, two books on writing, a literary biography, three books of short stories and a handful of others which didn’t quite make the cut for this piece. Hit me up for the extra tea.
That’s a wrap on my 2024 Fslur Unwrapped. What was your most fslur read of 2024? Please drop your recommendations, and maybe I’ll shout you out in my 2025 Fslur Unwrapped (assuming I haven’t been sentenced to hard labor for sodomy by then).
Thanks for reading! Do you have thoughts? Do you know someone else who might? Please pass me around, and don’t hesitate to hit me up with comments, questions and fresh ideas. Catch you next time!
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