The 12 Best Books I Read In 2025
Out of 52
One of my personal goals this year was to read 52 books. That averages to a book a week. Last year, I naturally found myself having read 48 books, so I thought this year I’d aim for 52. (Next year, I’ll probably have no goal, because I value balance and flouting the rules even when I’m the one setting them.)
If you know me, it’s probably not surprising that I have ambivalent feelings about quantitative goals when it comes to reading—on one hand, I love goals and I think goals can be a great way to encourage movement toward a larger trend, which is why I set the goal of 52 books.
On the other hand, in the Bookstagram/Booktube/Booktok communities, there is also this element of reading as purely consumption based—no shade to books that bring people joy, but when someone is mostly mainlining romance novellas to try to hit a goal of reading 150 books or forcing themselves to read books they hate for some kind of online challenge, I think we’ve lost the plot.
Here are some of the best books I read this year! Did you read any of these? Let me know what you thought!
(Note: If you’re a sensitive reader, I encourage you to look up content/trigger warnings before diving in to some of these!)
Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy (2022) - horror
In Mary, readers follow the deeply misanthropic protagonist of Mary, an older woman who has a string of shitty things happen to her—losing her job, losing her apartment, and being called by an old aunt she doesn’t like—that land her back in her hometown. Mary’s memories are of being bullied and terrorized, but the longer Mary stays in her hometown in Arizona, the more it seems she might not remember things quite as they were.
I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston (2022) - YA
If you read queer contemporary books, especially romance, Casey McQuiston (or CMQ, as their name is frequently abbreviated) is royalty. I like CMQ’s work, but I have not been the biggest fan—part of it is just genre, because romance is often kind of a let-down for me. It’s just not my thing. But I found CMQ’s young adult novel pretty fun, if you do put aside some of the ridiculous plot stuff that most young adult novels are rife with.
In this book, a young woman is kissed by one of the most popular girls in school, Shara Wheeler, just before she seemingly disappears, and just weeks before high school graduation. Our main character teams up with Shara’s boyfriend and neighbor, who have their own complex history, in order to figure out where she went and why Shara kissed her in the first place.
House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (1999) - fiction
I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls for the first time, and this was one of the books that Rory waves around. I’d heard of it before, so I picked it up from the library and became completely enamored.
House of Sand and Fog is a literary fiction/psychological thriller-like novel that follows a Middle Eastern family who moves to a small California town. The patriarch of the family has gone from being a high-ranking military official in Iran’s previous government to being a humble construction worker who struggles to satisfy his wife’s desire for their past life of luxury. Unknowingly, they move into a house that a poor white woman was just evicted from, just after her husband has left her. The novel tracks the relationships, and complications of these two individuals, and it’s stunning.
Sarahland by Sam Cohen (2021) - short stories
Sarahland is a collection of short stories that follow people named Sarah. It’s hard to put a full description on this collection, but every story is very Jewish, queer, and unpredictable. From toxic relationships based on Buffy The Vampire fandom to that weird time of living with people post-high school and being lost, this collection is so full of vibes that speak to me as a 30-something and features wild moments that really stuck with me.
Memory Piece by Lisa Ko (2024) - fiction
I was lucky enough to read this right when it came out, and, boy, this might be my #1 novel of the year. Memory Piece follows three young Asian-American women who first meet living in suburban New Jersey, and it tracks them over the course of their lives: one becomes a performance artist, one becomes a programmer, and one becomes an activist. As they float in and out of each other’s orbits and time moves forward—into the near future of our current time—they explore sexuality, gender, technology, and the ideas we have about ourselves when we’re young versus who and how we end up living.
Carrie Carolyn Coco by Sarah Gerard (2018) - memoir
When I first started reading this book, I wasn’t sure I liked it—it’s a difficult start. Formally, it’s a strange mix of memoir and personal history, and that gives the beginning of the book a sort of chaotic quality that I found irritating, but I also couldn’t put the book down. The author, Gerard, basically follows the story of Carolyn, a real young woman who she was acquaintances with in New York City, who is then murdered. Gerard finds herself shocked by the events of the murder and the circumstances surrounding it, which are indeed strange, and she begins to investigate what happened. In real life, Gerard is both a writer and private investigator, and you can feel it in the writing. As someone who doesn’t read lots of “true crime,” or investigative work about murder, I found this compelling and have recommended it to friends.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (1937) - fiction
Zora Neale Hurston’s classic novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an astonishing work. I can’t believe it took me this long to read it, but in some ways, I’m glad, because I think if I’d read it much earlier in life—like in high school, though my high school would’ve never taught something this book—it would have been somewhat wasted on me. The language is lush, the narrative is compelling. It’s a book I hope to revisit annually or at least every few years. It’s a masterpiece and a classic for a reason.
I both read this book in a physical copy and listened to the audiobook, narrated beautifully by Ruby Dee, which I also highly recommend—it definitely enriched my experience.
How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis (2020) - nonfiction/self-help
How to Keep House While Drowning is a mix of self-help, memoir, and general how-to. Davis talks about how she struggled during the onslaught of the pandemic with a newborn baby. It explores ideas of shared labor, help, and how to make housework a manageable thing—and where to kindly “give up” on standards for mental health reasons—and shares some tips in here that I still find myself going back to. I’m someone who both struggles with the morality of cleanliness and constantly aspires to it, while also having depression. I really found this helpful and affirming. It’s great as an audiobook, too!
Interesting Facts About Space by Emily Austin (2024) - fiction
Okay, so, I hate the cover of the US edition of this book—so if you hate it too, please don’t decide not to read it just because of that. I read this for a book club, and I loved it. Our main character is a confused queer woman dealing with paranoia and can’t tell if she’s actually being followed or if she’s really struggling with her mental health. She has an obsession with true crime and a phobia of bald men, a strong desire to be in love while pushing those around her away, and she isn’t sure how to move forward in life. This book is funny, unusual, and the main character is very specific in a way that I think is actually pretty rare. Darker than it seems from the cover/description on the book jacket.
Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979) - “sci-fi” speculative historical fiction
Kindred was a TV show for like a year somewhat recently, but whether or not you’ve seen it—or whether or not you like “sci-fi”— you should read this book.
A Black woman moves into a home in California with her white husband. All seems well, except she starts having these strange fainting spells where she…goes back in time? And in order to return to the present time, she has to deal with what she finds in the past. I don’t even want to say any more, you should just read it.
Inverse Cowgirl by Alicia Roth Wiegel (2023) - memoir
Alicia Roth Wiegel is an activist and intersex person. In Inverse Cowgirl, she writes bravely about her work helping to advocate for LGBTQ2SIA+ people in Austin, Texas, where she lives and the journey she went on to know herself. This is a very accessible memoir that also explains the complex needs of intersex people, especially regarding how they are treated medically—many people born intersex have sexual organs removed without their consent as children, and often sometimes even without parent’s knowledge—and overlooked in society.
My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell (2020)
I always feel like I’ve just read this book, even though I started it about this time last year (but it’s really long, so I did 90% of my reading in January ‘24). This novel explores a woman’s life as she looks back on a formative relationship she had with a mentor, a high school teacher of hers. As #MeToo reigns, this woman finds herself refusing to consider certain aspects of what happened to her as a young woman. My Dark Vanessa is a great foil to novels like Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov, and it’s an incredibly complex exploration of what it means to claim your power, acknowledge trauma, be a victim, and sitting in the complex truth of your experiences.
What good books have you read this year? Let me know! I always love a recommendation!