Books in 2025

Hello again friends. I’m back again with my annual Books in Review post. I’ve already shared a brief flip through of my 2025 reading journal spreads on my YouTube channel, but I wanted to write a bit more in depth about my favorite reads from last year.

To no one’s surprise, for the fourth straight year, romance was my most-read genre, specifically historical romance. I definitely read less, both in general and in the HR genre, than last year, but still found myself revisiting old favorites (Lisa Kleypas’ The Ravenels series and Cecilia Grant’s The Blackshear Family series) as well as picking up a few new-to-me authors: Elizabeth Kingston’s The King’s Man or Judith Ivory’s The Propostion. About half of the 97 books I read this year were new-to-me authors (49) and part of a series (44). I rated 18 books five stars this year, but only choose to highlight a few in the collage of favorites in my reading journal.

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love – isthisselfcare

aka DMATMOOBIL, or to fans: BATMOBILE

Yes, this is a Harry Potter fanfic. Yes, it is a Dramione fic. I had never read any Harry Potter fanfic, let alone a Dramione one before (Harry is my favorite character, and apparently this is an unpopular opinion in the fan world?). I still don’t consider myself a Dramione shipper, but I am a fan of isthisselfcare’s writing and this canon-divergent world she built. It’s set fifteen years after the end of the last book (minus the epilogue), and our characters are well established in their careers. Hermione is a healer/reseacher/professor extraordinaire and Draco, now an Auror, is assigned to protect her. I loved the banter between the characters and the author’s in-depth research into obscure topics and locales.

Anyway, I first started this story in December and I’ve already read it three times. 🙂 I feel lucky it’s available to me for free every time I open up my Kindle. I think it’s officially become a comfort read for me.

Speaking of fanfic, I thought this discussion in Emily Henry’s Glamour interview about the origins of BookTok in Fanfic was interesting

Let’s talk about Booktok. Do you think it has changed the industry? Definitely. It has also changed the way books are marketed, which I think is a trickle-down effect. I think the way TikTok talks about books came from the fanfiction world. Right, there’s a lot of fanfiction DNA in BookTok, where books are described based on tropes or categories, like “friends to lovers” or “forced proximity.” It’s tricky because people refer to novels in that way in marketing now, as you say. Do you find yourself doing that too? I find myself using the shorthand sometimes because I know it’s easy and people understand it. But the thing about the tropes is they really don’t matter without character. The thing with fanfic is that the character, to some extent, is prebuilt. Their world is prebuilt. You already love that character if you’re going to choose to read fanfiction about them. So you can think to yourself, I want to see these characters I love in this really specific situation. I want to see them where one of them is sick and the other one’s taking care of them. I want to see them where there‘s only one bed.

Wild Reverence – Rebecca Ross

This is a standalone book set in the same world, but before the events of The Letters of Enchantment duology. I enjoyed the first book, Divine Rivals, well enough. Speaking of tropes, the premise of an epistolary romance with hidden/mistaken identity (think You’ve Got Mail with enchanted typewriters) was enough to grab my attention. Its sequel, Ruthless Vows, on the other hand, was not very memorable. I remember thinking the world of the gods was better explained (one of my issues with the first book), but not much else left an impression. Since ambivalence was my last memory of this series, I almost didn’t get to Wild Reverence, but I am so glad I decided to read it before my loan was due.

Wild Reverence is an epic love story between Matilda, a goddess, and Vincent, a human lord. The magic system is much clearer than in Divine Rivals, and I loved the twists and turns that were so surprising in the moment, only to realize they were set up all along. I think I remember Brandon Sanderson saying something to that effect: the best twists should be surprising, but then the reader will look back and realize that it was inevitable. Themes of the power of writing, of vows and promises and prayers lay the foundation for this very atmospheric read. You really feel you’re in this fantastical plane where the world of the gods intertwines so closely with the world of humans.

Throwback – Maurene Goo

Throwback was such a fun, time-traveling romance YA read. Samantha, a high school student, who keeps butting heads with her first-generation Korean-American mom, Priscilla, is suddenly thrown back in time to the 90s and high school with her teenage mom. I loved the nostalgia of the 90s and felt like I was receiving second-hand therapy as Samantha and Priscilla worked through their relationship. I am so glad this book exists not just for fully grown me, but for immigrant kids and kids of immigrants to see their stories reflected in the books they read. More books by diverse authors!

Tiny Worlds of the Appalachian Mountains – Rosalie Haizlett

I already mentioned this book in my June Changing Seasons post, and it made it to my favorite reads of the year. Tiny Worlds is an artist’s illustrated journal of the nature in the Appalachian mountains. She spent time along the trail as a hiker, camper, artist-in-residence and documented the smaller flora and fauna she observed along the way: moths and mushrooms and more. I’ve always wished I could stick to a regular nature journaling practice, and this book just made my heart ache more to be more in nature and draw what I see.

Hunt, Gather, Parent – Michaeleen Doucleff

Not much of the non-fiction I read this year stood out to me, but I did quite enjoy this parenting book. The subtitle is ‘What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans’, and it was a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love tour of parenting practices in different cultures from Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. It was enjoyable to read out of anthropological curiosity, and hopefully practical for parents too.

A Fine Romance – Susan Branch

I have a draft blog post titled ‘The Wonderful World of Susan Branch’ in the hopes that someday I will write about this lovely author I discovered in 2025. A Fine Romance follows Susan and her husband’s travels throughout England (from the US via cruise ship!) through journal entries, photographs and illustrations. I adore Susan’s illustrations, and her newsletter is one I always welcome and read immediately. Susan has been an anglophile her whole life and it was lovely to read about her travels to her dream country. The book has a lot of the elements I love in self-published, illustrated travel journals: personal writing, illustrations and not-too fancy photographs. In other words, the kind of book I’d like to make some day. A Fine Romance is extra special because all the text is hand-written in Susan’s distinctive hand!

If you’re curious about EVERYTHING I read, here are the monthly pages from my reading journal. (The writing may contain spoilers, so zoom in with caution!)

And if you’re a nosy goose like me and want to know what my reading looked like five or ten years ago, here’s the backlog of my Books in Review posts:

2024 | 2023 | 2022 and 2021 | 2020 | 2019  | 2018  | 2017 | 2016 and 2015

Did we read any of the same books? What were your favorite reads from last year? I’d love to hear about them.

Until next time, be well, friends.