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BEST READS OF 2025

FICTION
I See You‘ve Called in Dead
Heart the Lover & Writers and Lovers
Wreck
Razorblade Tears
Woodworking
The Garden
So Far Gone
The Correspondent
Run for the Hills
All the Colors of the Dark
Wild Dark Shore
Buckeye
The Sign for Home
The Emperor of Gladness
Eddie Winston is Looking for Love

MEMOIR
Awake

NONFICTION
Everything is Tuberculosis

POETRY
Lord of the Butterflies

#bestof2025

Connected to Heart the Lover, this focuses on Casey‘s romantic relationships and her struggles as a writer while grieving her mother‘s death. It‘s a chaotic, overwhelming time navigating her early 30s. King‘s writing is stunning. She captures the anxiety and frustration of decision making when you‘re poor and banking on a dream that hasn‘t yet come true. But there‘s enough humor and charm that you keep hoping Casey will make it through. Loved it.

This was adorable. Life affirming happiness. A grief stricken twenty-four-year-old woman is befriended by a 90-year-old man and their friendship becomes the impetus for change and growth for them both. I had read and loved Cronin‘s earlier novel about a cross-generational friendship, One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margo. Hope she writes some more!

Jane and Dan have been married 19 years and are in a bit of a rut. They go to an anniversary dinner at a very fancy, exclusive mountaintop restaurant and end up in a hostage situation. This was a fun, entertaining, quick read. Nice palate cleanser.

A book about love, friendship, and the relationships that mark us for life. King writes so evocatively about the intoxication of first love and how huge and impossible life choices loom when one is young. And then how the consequences of those choices follow you into adulthood. An exquisite novel.

This eerie apocalyptic novel feels like an old school Shirley Jackson story. Two elderly sisters have spent their adult lives within the walled garden of the family‘s crumbling estate. A life they have accepted. But eventually the outside world breaks in, initiating a series of events that force the women to confront a new reality. It‘s good old fashioned storytelling, with a few surprises that took me off guard. A tad creepy, a bit dark. So good.

A book for readers. I resonated with some reasons more than others, but so many felt spot on for me. Loved the humor, all the book references, the stories from Reed‘s teaching career. Just made me happy to be a book nerd.

A beautiful sweeping novel about two families and the connection that binds them together. The prose is lovely, the story slowly unwinding over decades. A tale of secrets and lies, love lost and found, and grief endured. Great book.

A twisty YA thriller with a smart, determined teen female protagonist. I could predict most of the twists and it was a bit too melodramatic for me, but I‘m not exactly the target audience here. It was good, just not really my thing.

A character study of two very different dads with unsavory pasts that join forces to avenge the deaths of their sons. But this is SO much more than a revenge story. It is a relationship-driven tale that reckons with racism, homophobia, and what healing and justice look like. There‘s also lots of vigilante violence, so be ready for that. This was my first Cosby and I will absolutely read more. This was just fantastic. The audiobook is perfection.

Vera is a delightfully pushy Chinese mother, runs a tea shop, and solves murders on the side. She sticks her nose in everyone‘s business and has a soft spot for lonely people who need a grandmother. This is a fun series.

A soft pick. A coming-of-age story set in a small village in Ireland in the early 90s. Lucy is in high school, falling desperately in love with her girlfriend Susannah, and struggling to deny her sexuality and pursue the life expected of her. It is intense and full of angst, totally capturing the obsessive nature of those tumultuous teenage feelings. We see Lucy unable to embrace her authentic self and the toll it takes as she tries to fake it.

Green, as usual, makes nonfiction engaging and compassion-driven. He does a deep dive on tuberculosis treatment over the years. And he explains how this very treatable and curable disease is still destroying lives because of healthcare inequalities. How colonialism, racism, poverty, and corporate creed keeps tuberculosis from being globally extinguished.

This is historical fiction based on fact with a whiff of romance. It‘s about the Donut Dollies, who drove trucks along the front lines during WWII, serving donuts, coffee, and comfort to American soldiers. The author based the story on his mother‘s service. It is good to learn about the lesser known ways that women served our country during wartime. I just don‘t love the writing. It‘s fine; historical fiction in this vein is just not my thing.

Newman created these characters in her book Sandwich and then brought them back for Wreck. I adore this family, maybe because I recognize the realness of them - their inside jokes, weird snacking habits, and inherited anxiety disorders. I loved seeing Rocky again as she faces an unknown illness and a fraught situation with her son. Newman writes about the ecstasy and agony of parenting in the most beautiful, profound, and hilarious ways.

When a longtime elderly substitute is found quietly passed away in the faculty lounge in a Texas high school, it kicks off what is to become a year full of challenges. Through the eyes of teachers, administrators, and staff, we walk through the year‘s events, both personal and professional. Funny, touching, and very in-the-moment as we get a glimpse of teachers lives.

Soap opera high drama in the ice skating world. Count me in! Was it a tad too long? Yes. A few too many near death overly dramatic moments? Absolutely. But who cares. It has sabotaged skating competitions, Olympic scandals, romantic upheaval, and a lot of ruthless, ambitious women doing whatever the hell they want. And you MUST listen to the multi-voice audiobook. Ice diva Johnny Weir voices a flamboyant, snarky journalist and he‘s fantastic.

A lovely roundup of several lesser known figures from American history set alongside a few names you‘ll recognize. It could get a tad confusing as to who was being highlighted at times - there were some meandering tangents to follow - but good to remember those who helped settle, educate, and work to improve our country. It‘s a light read, with lots of personal asides from the author. Almost feels like YA nonfiction.

A man has raised his daughter isolated in the Montana wilderness. But now she‘s a teenager. She has questions about their past and her mother and the wider world. It started great and I was really on board. But once Jane gets out of the woods the story seems less assured. The explanations are a bit more contrived, the characters more flat, less nuanced. Still an enjoyable read, but just didn‘t quite finish off as strong as it started.

“What you do to children matters. And they might never forget.” This quote gets at the heart of the book. The characters are seeing the effects of childhood trauma play out in their adult lives. We watch and wonder if they can change the trajectory they are on. Morrison creates vivid, complicated, startling characters. Such a riveting storyteller.

Excellent book. Walker covers so many aspects of trans existence - transition, healthcare, art, trans parenthood, and more - with humor, honesty, curiosity, and sharp insight. Balances good old fashioned journalism and witty commentary while covering lots of interesting topics. Also, the cover is amazing.

A surprising and bizarre book. The main character and Folk‘s writing are so unique, so unexpected. It‘s a truly odd story about friendship, belonging, and embracing your own weirdness. And of course, being romantically and physically attracted to planes. If you want to try a book that‘s a bit out there, give it a whirl.

Hendrix writes some weird-ass books. Some employees at ORSK (an IKEA knockoff) are recruited to stay overnight with their boss to see if they can catch someone that has been vandalizing the store. It turns into quite the nightmare. The story is a commentary on modern work and consumerism, but turns creepy and bizarre. It‘s spooky enough for a scaredy cat like me and has some good laughs too. This is my fourth Hendrix and my favorite so far.

I love this series, but this one was my least favorite. A bit long winded and the mystery didn‘t quite work. The last one had so much depth, so maybe #5 just pales in comparison.

Did not love this. It was all over the place and never really settled on any tone or vibe - is it supposed to be quirky, funny, deceptively serious? Then it ties up quickly with a “life lesson” and ends.

A 74 year-old serial killer thought she was done with that old life, moving on to retirement and bingo. But then she gets lured back into the killing. The story is a lot about aging actually. Hauling dead bodies is rough when you have arthritis and your memory issues make it hard to keep track of your lies. I would have liked a bit more humor. But it‘s a clever premise.

The book is about the disintegration of the Hatmaker marriage and the rebuilding of her life. But it is no salacious tell all. Instead, Jen examines the troubled foundations under that relationship and her own part in its demise. With honesty and candor, she talks about digging through the rubble to understand the faulty building blocks and then how she began to start anew, with a stronger sense of self and healthier relational habits. Fantastic.

I absolutely adore Gibson‘s poetry. It‘s joyful and fierce and vulnerable and bursting with love.

This is a follow up to Boyne‘s Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, focusing on the boy‘s sister Gretel through her long life after the events in the first book. It is compelling and engrossing, although I questioned some of the historical possibility of some plot points. I truly hated the ending, so that was a bummer. The narrators on the audiobook are stellar and I highly recommend it if you want to read this.

Pagonis shares how they came to discover during college that they were intersex and reflects on the difficulties growing up, knowing they were different but not understanding why. They also recount their move into activism and advocacy work, eventually helping to stop unnecessary surgeries on intersex children at the very hospital where multiple procedures were performed on them throughout childhood. Very eye opening.

3 1/2 stars. Amy Griffin tells the story of remembering long-repressed memories of childhood sexual abuse and how she has moved towards healing in the aftermath of that discovery. Very interesting to hear about that process, and of course heartbreaking as well.

3 1/2 stars. A haunting novel about family secrets. This was good, but a bit confusing as the story jumped around in time. (I listened to the audiobook so it may be that the breaks were more obvious in print.) I discovered O‘Farrell when I read Hamnet and have been making my way through her backlist since then. She‘s a solid go to author for me.

An Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing in Maine and a search and rescue team is deployed to track her down. We get the point of view of the hiker and the main warden in charge, as well as the family and various leads they are following as the days tick by and survival odds wane. Interesting to see what that process looks like. Good book.

This is a beautiful, complex, queer coming-of-age story about Tom and Ming, a young gay couple. We see their relationship grow, shift, change as Ming comes to understand she is trans and begins to transition. It is a nuanced and honest look at the many joys and challenges that come with transition. My only complaint is that it really needed some tightening up - so many overdrawn descriptions of sitting, eating, walking. it is a great debut though.

Just discovering the poetry of Andrea Gibson after their death last month. I can see why they were so treasured by the LGBTQ community and beyond. A fantastic collection. So sad Gibson is gone but grateful we will continue to have their wise and powerful words.

Beautiful 🌈

I just loved this. The initial humor makes room for more depth than I was expecting. Bud is an obituary writer. And after a botched blind date he drunkenly pens his own obituary and manages to publish it. Put on leave from his job, Bud has some time to spend with friends, start a funeral attendance habit, and examine his own life. The question: in light of your own mortality, how does one make a meaningful life?

I try to read classics periodically and I‘d never read this. I tried to be excited. It was fine.

I‘m not sure how a book about a couple stranded at sea for four months could be dull, but this one actually was. A bit of a slog.

Great audiobook. A movie exec falls for a screenplay, and a cinematographer she thought she hated. A lovely, grown-up, not too sticky sweet romance.

Vuong‘s prose is vivid and heartbreaking and full of longing. His main character Hai wants love and family and meaning, and he finds it in an unexpected friendship with an elderly woman with growing dementia. They save each other and find a home with each other for a time when they are both in crisis. And he also finds connection within his small, wildly diverse crew at the chicken restaurant where he works. It is just a beautiful book.

The story unfolds in a single, life-altering day. Annie is 37 weeks pregnant and is shopping for a crib at IKEA when a devastating earthquake hits, leaving her to navigate the crumbling city alone. We follow her throughout the day as she talks to her unborn child, recalls memories of her life before, and struggles to survive. It is a compelling premise, but the overall narrative felt somewhat disjointed to me. But definitely worth a read.

Rhys Kinnick has spent several years living off the grid, abandoning his daughter and her children. But when his grandchildren are suddenly thrust upon him, he is pulled back into reality. This book tackles dysfunctional family dynamics against the backdrop of Christian nationalism, political division, and social upheaval. Walter injects a lot of humor and warmth, focusing on the clumsy attempts to bridge the emotional gaps between his characters.

Fun little cozy mystery. Good on audio.

Nailed it.

What a terrific debut! A trans high schooler befriends her still closeted trans teacher in this funny, sharp, compassionate novel that highlights a variety of trans experiences through an ensemble of fantastic, fleshed out characters and complex relationships. It champions the importance of solidarity and joy within the trans community despite the challenges that come with living in a society that often lacks understanding. I just loved it. 5⭐️

This was fun and creative and ridiculous. Even being completely clueless about D&D-type gaming and whatnot, I had a good time, but I‘m not sure I want to read seven more of them. (I‘m not quite the target audience for this haha.) Very entertaining though.

Got about halfway through this and I‘m just sort of bored. I think I‘m just going to move on.