Best novels: top books to read this year

Some of the most engaging novels of 2024, from Hum by Helen Phillips to Rosarita by Anita Desai

Book covers
(Image credit: Penguin Random House / Pan Macmillan / Hachette UK)

Hum by Helen Phillips

Helen Phillips's "unnerving" third novel is set in a "near-future dystopia" where humanoid robots – "hums" – have taken over most jobs, said Olivia Ho in Literary Review. May Webb has just been made redundant from her job in AI. With two young children to support, and a poorly paid "gig worker" husband, she decides to become a guinea pig for a company that's developing a procedure to reconstruct people's faces so they can "elude facial-recognition software". With some of the money she earns, Webb takes her family on an "expensive getaway to the Botanical Garden, a green refuge in the barren city". She makes everyone leave their AI devices at home – a decision she'll "later regret".

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