Read u Wrote u now u know I Read u

Ah, books, the spice of life. It’s the end of the year, and so it’s time for my long-winded and long-planned book wrap-up! 2025 seemed like quite a long year—as expected, I read quite a bit of YA for work, but I also spent time returning to some old YA favorites. Am I slightly worried that my job has reverted my reading skills to those of a 14-year-old? Yes. Must we press on? Also yes. I read just about as many books as last year, 33 titles (and a half if we are counting!) and 11,774+ pages.

American book trends continue to focus on escapism, a quick, easy, reading pace, and yearning/romance to distract from the… everything else. Although reading has been considered “under threat” since the invention of the telephone, the publishing industry continues to fight an uphill battle against AI and the continued interest in the “scrollable narrative”—readers want something that feels instantly exciting and addicting, but books often require a bit more buy-in than what the current readership would like. I’ve noticed this tendency in myself—even when I’m not reading YA, I tend to pick books off the shelf that I know I will like; a version of a story, a character, or a relationship that I have already read. I am hoping to expand my horizons a bit in 2026, and read about new people, places, and perspectives.

With that, it’s on to the main event: Top 4, Mid 3, and Bottom 2 of 2025! I’ll try to keep it short and sweet :)

Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton-4/5

Mira Bunting’s undeclared, unregulated, sometimes-criminal, sometimes-philanthropic guerrilla gardening group is underwater. Their efforts to plant crops where no one will notice and truly live off the land is exhausting, and Mira is flailing for answers. When she meets Robert Lemoine, an enigmatic American billionaire, they enter into an unlikely and mutually beneficial agreement—she and the Birnam Wood collective will grow on the land he has recently purchased, and he will be able to build his end-of-times bunker while all the attention on the land remains on Mira and her farming. She agrees, despite her ideals and ideologies. Lemoine can’t be trusted, but as she and the Birnam Wood collective begin to rely more on his offers, they must decide who they can trust and how far they are willing to go to break even.

My thoughts: If you’ve asked me for a book recommendation this year, there’s a 95% chance I told you about Birnam Wood, a literary thriller that is brimming with tragically flawed characters, and surprising turns. Eleanor Catton tackles the complexities of the moral high ground, of a reliance on capitalism, and of complicity in the world as we know it. The fact that this isn’t a Limited Series yet astounds me, and when it gets made…I’ll gladly say I told you so.

Set against the lush New Zealand landscape, this book’s stakes just get higher and higher. The first half of the book moves a bit slow, but it is worth holding out so that Catton can set up the pieces for a fast-paced and twisty end. The crown jewel is how Catton captures the multifaceted interiority of each of the characters—nothing is one note. This book has easily made Eleanor Catton a go-to-read for me, and I’m excited to dive into her other titles— The Luminaries got a lot of buzz, and I am surprised by how little I hear people discussing this one.

Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki-4/5

In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying, but before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century, in her diary. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami, including Nao’s writing.

My thoughts: I picked this up directly after reading Birnam Wood, and reading one 4-star book after another gave me a reader’s high :). Ozeki’s writing has so much depth and emotion, with a plot that I couldn’t dream of creating.

The book is divided between Nao’s dark teenage experiences (told directly via her sardonic diary), and the reflections of Ruth, who is stuck in her life and work. The juxtaposition between the two women in such parallel times of life (both stuck, unmoored, stubborn, unsure) is poigniant, and the woven thread of the two lives is fascinating. It’s a slow, contemplative read with a touch of magical realism—this isn’t a book you are going to steam through, but the more I read, the more I enjoyed it. I couldn’t help thinking: how do people learn how to write like this?! Reading this made me feel like a real adult, intellectual, melancholy, and reflective. Worth diving into.

Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser Akner-4/5

Recently separated after 13 years of marriage, Toby Fleishman is suddenly, somehow surrounded by women who want him: women who are self-actualized, women who are smart and interesting, women who don't mind his height, women who are eager to take him for a test drive with just the swipe of an app. But Toby's new life – liver specialist by day, kids every other weekend, rabid, somewhat anonymous sex at night – is interrupted when his ex-wife suddenly disappears.

My thoughts:

This is a well-beloved book for a reason: Taffy Brodesser Akner manages to craft a very readable, funny, juicy divorce story that also delivers a perspective-shifting look at communication, partnership, wealth, and the strength of a narrative. Toby’s voice is crystal clear, slightly unhinged, and very funny, and…that’s all I really want you to know before reading it. This is one of those books that works best if you go in pretty blind and trusting, as I did—it reads as if a close friend of yours is telling you their deepest darkest gossip and showing you their worst, and you have no choice but to ride it out and see where it goes.

I was surprised by the way the story unfolded (although I do think that the audiobook helped with my surprise), and I think it should be on a longlist of “required reading before marriage”. If you’re looking for something steamy, biting, and quick, this is a good one to try.

Writers and Lovers by Lily King-3.5/5

Blindsided by her mother's sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she's been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more.

My thoughts: I do feel like I have read almost every quiet and contemplative quarterlife crisis book known to man, so I picked this up expecting to be underwhelmed, and I was pleasantly surprised by how delicate and well executed it was. This is a light and deft example of the literary fiction genre that I feel has become so classic to readers of a certain (22-35) age, and I think it would be a great place to start for a reader looking to expand into literary fiction without giving up too much readability or plot. I was worried that the parts about Casey’s writing life, her editing, creative struggles, etc. would bother me, but instead I found her and her efforts heartwrenching and heartwarming.

This is a book about grief—for loved ones, for waning relationships, and for opportunities. It is also a book about the hope that we may find those things again, and when I finished the last page, I was left with a buoyant feeling in my chest, and a sparkling hope: there is more good love to find and more good life to live. Worth reading for a literary-fic fan, for a literary-fic newbie, or maybe if you just are feeling a bit stuck.

Mid-Tier

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer 3/5

Where the hell have you been, Loca?

My thoughts: Who would have thought that I would be ranking two YA dark romances in 2025, and that the less problematic of the two would be Twilight? Not me! I read this in an effort to return to some old classic YA favorites and was pleasantly surprised by the amount I enjoyed this. The last time I read Twilight was in the 5th grade—I was your classic G&T reader, sneaking off into the teen section and picking out salacious reads that seemed interesting even if a lot of the details and stakes of them went over my head. I remembered nothing from the story (save for the obvious vampire love interest of it all), and was surprised when classic movie scenes were nowhere to be found.

What is there to say that hasn’t been said? Meyer’s writing is stilted and overstylized, Edward’s interest in Bella is creepy given his age, and Bella’s personality is one-note, with a serious lack of agency and lack of interest in being an individual. The romance is instant and nonsensical. And yet.

Looking at this as a former teen and a current YA professional, I can appreciate the addictive nature of this story—it was altogether more romantic and dramatic than I remembered, and takes the ennui and fear of teen love and teenagehood seriously. I think you could argue that Twilight is the book that launched our current book market in many ways—the readers who loved this series are now returning to their roots with romantasy. Reading this 20 years (20!) after it was published really offered an interesting perspective on the way genre has changed over the past two decades.

As a reader, I was mildly underwhelmed, but I didn’t hate the experience—I’m not buying a Team Edward t-shirt, but I do think this book has merit as a YA book, just so long as readers are also pushed to think critically about the portrayals of gender, power, age etc.

Also. Vampires playing baseball.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 3/5

In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is finally getting his big career break—but as the art collection begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying, and the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon, the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter, who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter.

My thoughts: Rebecca Makkai’s writing is lovely, and the story she tells is heartwrenching, but there’s something about this title that didn’t quite click into place for me. Maybe it was that I could see the twist coming from a mile away, or that the dual perspective slowed the pacing down in a way that I didn’t love, but this isn’t one that rose to the top. What I did appreciate about The Great Believers was the humanness of the characters. Among other things, this book captures the way that an era of trauma can define your life, and how the AIDS crisis, specifically, devastated the queer community. I was particularly struck by Fiona’s perspective—the way the trauma of losing her friends and family reverberated through her life was thought-provoking, but I thought that her perspective wasn’t well integrated with Yale’s.

Makkai successfully avoids being one-note and overwrought about AIDS, but perhaps her efforts at diversifying the narrative make her novel a bit slow and unwieldy. I would read her work again, and would recommend this if someone was looking for an emotional book club read, but it wasn’t perfectly composed, in my opinion.

Alchemized by SenLinYu 3/5
In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile undead creatures helped to bring about their victory. Helena Marino is a prisoner of war. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed. Helena’s inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture makes her enemies wonder if she is truly as insignificant as she appears. To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning.

My thoughts: To be honest, I really enjoyed reading this book, but the story itself was flat and pretty bloated. If I had more self-respect, I probably wouldn’t tell the world that I read a reworked Handmaid’s Tale/Draco/Hermione fanfiction in the year of our lord 2025. I am nothing if not honest to my loyal followers. Think of me kindly.

After a week in Germany, discussing only Romantasy trends, and seeing this on the bookshelves of every single store…I caved. I admit, even though I have never read Manacled, the Draco/Hermione version of this title, I was curious about what the “darkest ever fanfic” would turn into when fed through the American publishing machine. So… I bought this 1,000 paged monster and read it in one fell swoop, across the span of 3 days, inducing that special kind of fanfic-reader-psychosis.

I would be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the primal experience of carrying around a book bigger than my head, but obviously, there are some big issues here. First, this is a doorstopper romantasy that relies heavily on you being okay with romanticized rape and war crimes??? While I did believe the characters’ feelings for each other I can’t say that the plot sat well with me. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if I hated this book? Has the dark romantasy world cooked me so thoroughly that I can’t see clearly through the haze of tropes? Probably.

Also, the first 200 pages (200!) drag terribly—SenLinYu was forced to scrub all Harry Potter out of this. Without pre-conceived notions of the characters or world, the start of the book was dry and flat— I found it incredibly difficult to care about the world-building details, especially because I could tell the story and the author didn’t care either.

I spent the first 5th of the book trying to match Alchemized characters to Harry Potter personalities, but once we got to the part where Hermione and Draco Helena and Kaine were together in his gothic mansion, I was finally able to sink my teeth into this morally corrupt, dark, twisted, and genuninely mid book with the reckless abandon of a 14 year old.

The only way to read this book is to put aside the years you’ve earned, your morality, and regress. Would I recommend this to anyone? No, probably not. Those who will like this book (guiltily or not) already know who they are.

The Bottom 2

Strange Pictures by Uketsu 2/5

A pregnant woman's sketches on a seemingly innocuous blog conceal a chilling warning. A child's picture of his home contains a dark secret message. A sketch made by a murder victim in his final moments leads an amateur sleuth down a rabbit hole that will reveal a horrifying reality. Structured around nine childlike drawings, each holding a disturbing clue, Uketsu invites readers to piece together the mystery behind each and the overarching backstory that connects them all.

My thoughts: I feel like I wasn’t the reader for this group of short, interconnected mysteries. I struggle with Japanese books in translation generally—I always feel that I am missing something—and Strange Pictures was not, unfortunately, the exception to this rule.

I can imagine reading this aloud at a camp bonfire as a kid, and getting that spine-tingling scary story feeling, but it was absent as an adult. The beginning of the book was so simple that I considered DNF’ing completely, but after making it through the second vignette, I was intrigued enough to continue, if only to figure out the rest of the interconnected mysteries. By the end, I needed a character tree to map the murders and connections, and I was moderately satisfied by the twists, but it certainly didn’t live up to the hype of being “chilling”, or if I’m honest, even remotely scary.

Matched by Ally Condie 2/5

In the Society, officials decide. Who you love. Where you work. When you die.
Cassia has always trusted their choices. It’s hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is the one…until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path no one else has ever dared follow—between perfection and passion.

My thoughts:

If you were a reader in the early ’00, this book probably has a strange imprint in your mind. It was the height love triangle fiction. Our palms were sweaty. Peeta and Gayle both seemed like good options, and the idea of a utopia with a dark underbelly had us all in a chokehold. I remembered this as a shining, bestselling example of what was popular in genre fiction as a kid, so I was excited to return to it, and was pretty disappointed with what I found.

This book matches Lois Lowry’s The Giver pretty much beat-for-beat, but removes the intellectual and profound emotions in favor of a shallow love triangle plot that makes the book read as a pulpy and cringy version of an originally good story.

The main character, Cassia, has little to no personality and is, frankly, pretty stupid. Her interest in questioning the society that literally kills people as a form of population control only blooms out of her interest in the “bad boy” of the neighborhood. While that might be forgivable in a YA novel, the way Condie writes makes me feel like Cassia must have been hit on the head with a rock.

This is the equivalent of a so-bad-it’s-good movie: It was honestly pretty funny, and I wish I had been reading it with someone so we could have laughed together. I do think it offers some insight on how book trends can spiral outwards, and did scratch a nostalgic itch in my brain but…I would suggest re-reading The Giver instead.

Next on my list to read is Sunburn, by Chloe Michelle Howarth, and The Museum of Innocence, a doorstopper by Orhan Pamuk that I am 400 pages through already! I am looking forward to a full year of books, and maybe even some more book reviews….no promises.

I’ll leave you, as always, with a 2025 playlist — this one is a compilation of our website songs of the year.

Smell you later!

O