2025 Reads Recap
In 2025 I have read more great, life-changing books, compared to 2024. All my 2025 favorites are featured in this post!
I discovered a new favorite author, Alexandra Rowland, whose character-driven, slow-burn, and sexy romantic-fantasy-comedies made me kick and scream and cackle. I read 3 books from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, all of which made me a new person, but especially The Dispossessed.
On the flip side, I feel like 2025 new releases were more disappointing than those published in the past couple of years. I gave in to FOMO and read 3 lady knights books: I gave a 2⭐️-rating to one, and DNF-ed the rest. I also read a couple of disappointing sequels with a marked drop in quality compared to the previous books.
Here’s to reading engaging and enriching books in 2026!
Stats
83 Books and novellas
2 Short stories
44 Comics and mangas
37,338 Pages in total
Top 12 books
- When Among Crows - Veronica Roth
- A Drop of Corruption - Robert Jackson Bennett
- A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles
- A Taste of Gold and Iron - Alexandra Rowland
- The Rachel Incident - Caroline O'Donoghue
- Tadek and the Princess - Alexandra Rowland
- The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin
- Sihir Perempuan - Intan Paramadhita
- The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins
- The Salt Grows Heavy - Cassandra Khaw
- Yield Under Great Persuasion - Alexandra Rowland
- The Word for World is Forest - Ursula K. Le Guin
Honorable mentions
- The Spear Cuts Through Water - Simon Jimenez
- Running Close to the Wind - Alexandra Rowland
- Guardian: Zhen Hun - priest
- Ink Blood Sister Scribe - Emma Törzs
- The Corruption of Hollis Brown - K. Ancrum
- Gokurakugai - Yuto Sano
Favorite 2025 Releases
- A Drop of Corruption - Robert Jackson Bennett
- The Corruption of Hollis Brown - K. Ancrum
- To Clutch a Razor - Veronica Roth
- Among the Burning Flowers - Samantha Shannon
- A Theory of Dreaming - Ava Reid
- Water Moon - Samantha Sotto Yambao