It’s been a long year. Whether that is from the news cycle (the worst dystopian fiction I’ve ever read), the barrage of AI slop that literally makes Mars sound like a vacation, or from the sheer number of visits made by my in-laws this year, my January reads feel like five years ago, not one. But I will attempt to summarize this journey nonetheless.
In 2025, I read 74 books. I just realized, tallying up my numbers, that I beat my record of 66 from last year. I found myself reading as an escape more than anything, and perhaps turned on my audiobooks with more than a bit of desperation every time I got in the car.
Toward the first half of the year, I voraciously consumed non-fiction that spoke to history, the state of our world, and our social norms. I only read five non-fiction books in 2024, but I reached 15 this year. Among them is How to Hide an Empire, which gives a bigger picture to American conquest and domination that most of us have never been taught. For the Love of Men is such a fantastic read that breaches borders of our typical feminist discussions, with well-researched information as well as compassion. Mediocre and Rage Becomes Her speak to the inequality and mistreatment women face and why.
One I did not include as a favorite, but needs to be noted, is One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. This was not necessarily as informative as I had hoped, but it is an important, gut-wrenching assertion nonetheless.
Now, here are my 12 favorite reads of 2025, and why they made the cut:
Non-fiction:
1. For The Love of Men by Liz Plank
This is a must-read for everyone. And particularly anyone who considers themselves to be a feminist, anyone who thinks they support men’s rights, and anyone who thinks men and women have set roles by nature.
I’ve always felt men’s socialization was what most needed our attention as feminists. Toxic masculinity is the heart of sexism and we teach men all the wrong things so they grow up to continue to embody those norms. Liz Plank finally put words to this and so much more.
A few fascinating topics include that men are more likely to die younger because they are socially isolated from friendships for the shame of being thought gay. They are more likely to commit suicide because of this as well as how they are taught to repress all feeling but those of anger and aggression. They are socially bullied into taking risks, into staying quiet about workplace hazards and injustice, into not following passions considered feminine. They are more likely to receive better medical care but are less likely to seek it because of those norms. Men are angry because women’s roles are changing but we haven’t broadened the definition of what it means to be a man except for being a provider and protector, and no wonder they have clung to it to retain identity.
This whole book is amazing, backed by research and studies, written with love and empathy for men, women, and the intersectionality between and across gender.
2. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Kimmerer is a brilliant, poetic writer, whose prose threads itself into you, finding the pieces that you forgot from childhood: the wonder, the connection, the curiosity of nature. I enjoy nature writing but never have I felt so invested in my own relationship with the earth, reawakened by the small truths that are innate to all of us made up of water and carbon.
The ideas of reciprocity, which are a uniting theme throughout the book, make so much sense and it feels like understanding this is the key to understanding existence. We are not made for endless growth, consumption, status, or to solely live for ourselves.
It is difficult to describe the highlights of this book because I felt them so deeply. It left me with a renewed appreciation for the earth, our neighbors, and what it means to truly be an inhabitant of this world.
3. How to Hide an Empire by Daniel Immerwahr
How to Hide an Empire provides so much important history that you have never heard in a classroom or as a US citizen. I am a military child and I had no idea there were more than 800 US military bases around the world. Nor the subjugation of its territories. And this book also explores the fascinating ways the US colonizes other facets of our global community, such as language, standards of materials like hardware, and cultural and economic power from bases around the world. This is an engaging, informative, and vital book that you will need more than one read to absorb.
Contemporary Lit:
4. Assembly by Natasha Brown
The way Brown puts feelings and concepts to words is like a surgeon with a scalpel. The bare story here is mostly a vehicle to describe these feelings and experiences that plague both women and black people in western culture. There is little plot but the daily bits and pieces of injustice and dismissal that, accumulated, can cause an explosion. Brown so clearly describes injustices women and black people so often feel but have not thought to, or have been unable to, put to words. For that alone, it’s worth a read.
5. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
If you’ve been on Booktok, you have likely seen this one. But unlike most books popular online, this one was first published in the early ’90s and sorely overlooked until it’s republish in 2022. This dystopian novel follows a young woman who is captive with 40 other women in a bunker guarded by men. She doesn’t have any recollections from before the bunker as the other women do and therefore has a different perspective and fearlessness that spurs their group onward and into the unknown. Everything about it is beautiful and wonderous.
It leaves a lot of unanswered questions about the world the women find themselves in, but I found this to be an advantage in a story that is about human love and resilience. Its unfamiliar surroundings allow the reader to be as curious and uninformed as the characters, and allows them to put it aside as the women do, to see the real wonder of the story.
6. The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
The Berry Pickers is a lush text ripe with beautiful character interactions, grief over people and futures lost, and feelings of belonging and isolation. The story follows a Native American family that migrates every summer from their home in Canada to Maine in order to work picking berries. The smallest child, Ruthie, disappears and we see her grow up as Norma, a girl with vivid dreams about another mother than her own and a family that is not hers.
While the typical missing child narrative might seek to solve the who, what, why, etc, this book is more interested in the human connections and misery that come from loss. And it’s all the more interesting for it.
7. The Wall by John Lanchester
I’d had my eye on The Wall for years, but never saw it come up on Bookstagram or prominent display shelves. But the premise stuck in my head and I’m so glad it did.
This is a brilliant, sparse dystopian tale that does not take a great stretch of the mind to believe. Great Britain is a fortress, keeping out refugees from the flooded world beyond. And everyone has to spend at least one year on the Wall guarding its borders.
The world is never fully explored, but this makes for an intimate point of view. Our protagonist, Kavanaugh, is young and doesn’t seem to know or care a whole lot about the world other than being upset he has to spend time on the cold, unforgiving wall. But the glimpses of this future society and the hate and propoganda against the “others,” who desperately try to get into the country are truly chilling. The story is both a page-turner and a rich text of power dynamics, xenophobia, and totalitarianism.
Sci-Fi/Fantasy:
8. Do You Dream of Terra-Two? by Temi Oh
This is arguably the best book I’ve read all year. This gem has been on my list a long while because it’s about inhabiting a new planet, but it’s not about space or sci-fi as much as it is about its characters. This is a similar concept to my book, focusing more on the lead-up to a space mission and the complicated interpersonal meaning of going to a new planet.
Terra-Two was a page-turner. It’s rich in character detail that makes their internal wants and needs feel external. It also makes the bit of action in the book feel loud and terrifying compared to the steady, interior nature of the narrative. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a highly readable book rich with meaning and hope for human nature.
9. The Will of the Many by James Islington
I loved this book and had a hard time deciding whether I should be giving it five stars. It is engaging and clever, the world building intriguing and vast. But the main character, Vis, is lacking in character and overburdened with surprise talents we learn about throughout the book.
We don’t really get to know Vis so much as his world and the tight confines of the hierarchy that cares less about people as humans than they do as batteries to power their world. You get a good sense of the brutalities of his world a short way in, and this is really the core power of this book. It is often compared to Red Rising (which is my favorite scifi/fantasy series) and I can see why. The clever world-building and character intrigue is propulsive and though I’m not a big fan of Vis, I can’t deny it’s a fantastic story.
10. The Daughter’s War by Christopher Buehlman
I didn’t expect to put this on my favorites for the year, but Buhlman’s writing is lush and captivating. It was not the type that I couldn’t put down, but it was one I could always get a few interesting lines from everytime I picked it up. The descriptions, character development, and depth of world-building took this story to the next level. There were warm and fuzzy moments and heart-wrenching moments…and, eventually, moments of pure fire of rage.
Buehlman made the goblins truly horrific, so that by the time our heroine, Galva, finally meets them, we already fear for her life. And yet, they are so well-concieved that it makes the horrible foes truly intriguing as well as repulsive.
Horror:
11. Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes
Dead Silence blew me away and I spent several late nights blazing through it. Fantastic atmosphere, complex character development, evil corps doing what they do, and…ghosts?!
Due to her past, the main character has already felt like a screw-up, a liability, and someone who just doesn’t belong. Her stabilizing factor is her job, which is coming to a close, but not before she and her crew run into a legendary luxury ship that has been missing for decades.
While it is plenty scary, Dead Silence delves deeper into the human psyche and human connection. The characters who die are not just horror fodder, they are pillars of the story. The main character is not just scared, she’s balancing the lives of her crew and her own shaky trauma with the opportunity all of them stand to gain. It’s not just a good scare, but also a well-crafted story.
12. The Weight of Blood by Tiffany D. Jackson
This fabulous Carrie retelling centers race as a catalyst for a small town to reckon with their true nature. Jackson has a way of making both the characters and story vivid. Her writing sucks me in. The characters are believable and sympathetic, even those without the best intentions, and their interactions are so interesting that it’s hard to put down.
Another book I wanted to include in this list is Jackson’s White Smoke, which was also beautifully done, full of nuance, racial tensions, and otherworldly threats. I can’t wait to read more of Jackson’s work.
Oops two more:
I read books from two of my writing friends and cannot stop thinking about how talented and clever they are. The first is published and the second is currently working with an agent.
13. The Barefoot Followers of Sweet Potato Grace by Megan Okonsky
The Barefoot Followers is a coming of age story of a closeted young woman named Pinky Swear who lives in small-town Texas. She’s giving a eulogy at her cat’s funeral when a van of barefoot hippies crash her speech. This is just the start of the quirky, hilarious story, written with twangy turns of phrase, a love of Texas, and queer joy.
I loved this book. Despite its punchy phrases and silly moments, the heart of the book is Pinky’s poignant journey of self-discovery and learning that she shouldn’t have to sacrifice her truth to make other people comfortable. This book made me feel a wide range of emotion, but never failed to feel like a warm hug.
14. The Last Gate by Anna Alsup
I can’t get this dang book out of my head. It is an alternate-universe dystopian horror. Seventeen-year-old Lyra and her younger sister Donnie fall through a gate to a water-saturated alternate version of Central Texas, where the rain is poisonous and eating delicious-smelling blue mold will turn you into a zombie. And they are quickly picked up by a gang of violent and possibly murderous boys. Who are also the only ones who can help them survive and get them back home. This was such a page-turner with a complex female lead and fascinating world-building. I can’t wait for it to come out so everyone else can read it too.
