25 Books I Loved in 2025
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2025 flew by! This year, I launched a podcast called It’s a Lot, where we dive deep on social media, parenthood, and things that are a lot. I had a blast interviewing 15 different guests about the complex, weird, and wonderful things that are a lot in their lives. If you’re reading this blog post because you’re a bookworm, don’t miss my episode with Ella Dawson, author of But How Are You Really or my interview with Kristen Felicetti, author of Log Off.
This year, I celebrated 6 years of Serve Me the Sky Digital, gave a talk about a book I love at the local library, was in conversation with author Kristen Felicetti at Writers & Books, taught writing for digital media at Nazareth in the spring and two sections of my social media course in the fall, had two author visits at my book club, and worked with several new clients, all while raising a very active toddler. Every day is fast-paced, fun, and tiring. Somehow, I managed to read 109 books (as of this writing). Many of my favorite reads this year were ARCs! I’m grateful to the publishers who send me advance copies of books so I can rave about them to the world.
Let’s dive into 25 books I loved in 2025! I’ve organized them into categories so you can easily find your next read.
Will the horrors never cease? (in a good way)
1) Hum by Helen Phillips
Fast paced and tightly written, this novel is a wild ride. The world Phillips crafted feels alarmingly close to our own. There’s a relentless surveillance state, the cost of living is astronomical, you can’t escape being advertised to, there’s a massive gap between the rich and the poor, and no matter what you do, you feel like you’re not a good enough parent. It’s written in three parts and each part is distinctly horrifying. The ending is powerful.
2) Tell Me Yours I’ll Tell You Mine by Kristina Ten
This story collection kept me engaged the whole way through. There are horrors mundane (not having any friends at summer camp) and surreal (being able to make copies of yourself with glue that eventually start to peel away at your own corporeal being). And there are eerie and all-too-relevant horrors, like controlling governments and impossible-to-navigate healthcare systems. The final story had me especially shook.
we had so much fun discussing tell me yours i’ll tell you mine with author kristina ten!
3) The Thick and the Lean by Chana Porter
If you love speculative fiction that feels strikingly close to our reality, then this one might be right up your alley! There are many timely, relevant themes in this novel about a world in which abstaining from food brings you closer to God and eating delicious food is unholy.
4) Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez
An unsettling read about the horrors of female friendship. Mayra is set in the Everglades, with two old friends staying in a peculiar, endless house that keeps changing to meet their innermost needs. If you’ve ever had a friend that made you feel inferior in big ways and small, this might be for you.
Could not put it down
5) All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles
I love everything KJ Charles writes, so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of her newest queer historical romance novel. Even better? This one is a gothic mystery too! The vibes are immaculate, and it also features a (highly relatable, to me at least) protagonist with ADHD. The romance, the twists and turns, the lines that made me literally laugh out loud, and that ending? Perfect. No notes.
6) Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa
The narrator of this short, punchy novel is very funny. I never knew where the story was going next. Both the protagonist and the author have a disability called myotubular myopathy, and it’s portrayed in a vivid, visceral way. The ending is shocking and worth discussing with a friend or book club.
7) The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe
Last year, I read and adored Margo’s Got Money Troubles. I picked up another by Thorpe and this poignant, heartbreaking novel blew me away. The narration reminded me of a Nabokov novel. It’s a story about formative friendships that follow us through our lives, but it’s also moving and oddly sweet despite the painful shit these two go through.
8) Welcome to the Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, the Blockbusters that Supercharged the World by Barry Hertz
For something lighter, I raced (ha ha) through this informative and entertaining look at the Fast & Furious franchise. The author makes great points about how much multicultural representation these movies had before everyone started prioritizing diversity. You also get a close look at some of the behind-the-scenes action (and drama!) of the franchise.
9) Needy Little Things by Channelle Desamours
I’d highly recommend doing the audiobook for this one; the narrator is incredible and got me immersed in the story. Our protagonist can hear the needs of everyone around her, and she gets migraines if they’re not satisfied. The story has many twists and turns, and centers on how the media doesn’t care when Black girls go missing but will turn the world upside down when it’s a young white girl.
10) If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You by Leigh Stein
I loved Leigh’s novel Self Care and was delighted to receive an ARC of her new book! While hype houses are kind of old news, the concept of a hype house Gothic novel was creative and fun. This book has everything: a tarot reader influencer, a nepo baby, a creepy older guy inviting a younger girl to his mansion because he loves her art, accidentally breaking up with someone through a Reddit am I the asshole post, a rabbit, and revealing your trauma on TikTok while crying and doing a sexy dance.
Books that made me feel less alone
11) Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley
If you’ve ever been outraged about the lack of research on women’s health, how little education we receive on how to get pregnant when you actually want to, or the way some doctors dismiss literally every ailment as “pregnancy is just weird, it’s probably just a pregnancy thing,” then you must read this graphic memoir. So much of what Knisley talks about resonated with me. It was informative, funny, and had me rooting for her the whole time.
12) The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom by Nancy Reddy
As a new mom, this was exactly the book I was looking for. Reddy traces the history of bad ideas about motherhood and how many are founded on crappy science. She argues that the idea of what it means to be a good mom in our society largely comes from white male researchers who were mediocre (at best) dads who ignored the women around them when they tried to share their insights on what being a parent is actually like.
13) Go To Sleep (I Miss You): Cartoons from the Fog of New Parenthood by Lucy Knisley
Any new parent will feel seen with this sweet and funny collection of comics. This isn’t saccharine or cringe, it’s just honest, relatable, and funny.
Romance with heart (& heat)
14) Ladies in Hating by Alexandra Vasti
Another excellent ARC I was lucky enough to receive! There was lots of backstory between our two female main characters, and it’s also a gothic novel with a light mystery element. One character starts to realize she struggles with letting herself be loved because she grew up with an abusive father; the author handles her trauma with care, particularly within the context of the relationship.
15) A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander
Pining! Yearning! Trans characters in a historical romance! This one is surprisingly funny and is a total delight to read.
16) Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
I’m here for more trans joy and love in romance novels! This isn’t the spiciest book, but it’s full of healing, a sweet relationship, community, and learning to receive love (clearly a theme among some of the books this year).
Beautiful graphic novels & memoirs
17) Journey to Tomioka by Laurent Galandon
Mark your calendars—this gem comes out on June 9, 2026! Reminiscent of a Miyazaki movie, this beautiful graphic novel is about death, grief, and struggling to move on. There’s a quest, there’s yokai, there’s a man riding an ostrich. What’s not to love?!
18) I Am Only a Foreigner Because You Do Not Understand by L. Nichols
Told in vignettes, this graphic memoir about being trans in the rural south is powerful and engaging. The bite-size stories make it easy to devour in a single sitting.
19) Displacement by Kiku Hughes
This powerful story focuses on a modern Japanese American girl displaced in time to relive her family’s experiences at incarceration camps in the 1940s. Ultimately, it’s all about epigenetic trauma and how the harm caused to one group of people doesn’t solely affect them, it affects all the generations that follow. It’s a timely reminder of the power of memory and the importance of speaking out against civil rights violations under a fascist regime.
Wholesome YA coming of age stories
20) With Love, Echo Park by Laura Taylor Namey
Sometimes YA novels can have a touch of melodrama that I find annoying as an adult. This sweet coming of age story didn’t have that! It’s all about a young Cuban girl figuring out her identity, learning family secrets, trying to save local businesses from gentrification, and falling hard for her irritating but hot neighbor.
21) Throwback by Maurene Goo
A fun time travel story that’s a little bit Freaky Friday and a little bit Back to the Future, this does a great job illustrating intergenerational trauma without being heavy or depressing.
22) Frizzy by Claribel Ortega
I loved this story of a young girl fighting with her mom over her hair, learning from her tía how to care for it and wear it naturally, and navigating how to talk to her mom about their shared grief over the loss of her father.
Funny characters & writing
23) One of the Boys by Victoria Zeller
A trans girl returning to the football team to play her senior year because they need her back so badly?! Hell yeah. This author wrote football in a way that felt cinematic and approachable. The characters felt real and alive, and there’s lots of funny dialogue throughout the book. I loved rooting for Grace and her amazing, ride or die friends.
24) Metallic Realms by Lincoln Michel
This incredibly original novel satirizes the literary fiction community in a fresh and funny way. It feels Nabokovian in its meta and unhinged approach, particularly with our very unreliable (and unlikable) narrator, whose name is quite similar to the author. The ending was deranged and unexpected; I loved it.
25) We Love You, Bunny by Mona Awad
I can see how diehard fans of the OG Bunny might not like this addition, but I adored it in the end. Much of the book is narrated from the perspective of Aerius, the Bunnies’ first creation, and it was hilarious. I found him sweet and endearing. I never knew what was going to happen next in this wild, surreal novel, and that’s just the way I like it.
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