11 Books I Loved in 2025

I read about fifty-six books in 2025. That’s a record for me, and I’ll try to reach sixty in the year ahead!

Over the years, my “books read” list has increased substantially. I credit my own concerted effort paired with the inspiration of the annual Goodreads Reading Challenge for the increase. I love a challenge, and I enjoy keeping track of my accomplishments—the reading challenge checks both of those boxes.

Two years ago, I started writing my thoughts about each book I read in a Reading Journal, which has proved to be surprisingly enjoyable. It’s not a book of reviews, but a place where I jot down my honest, unfiltered thoughts from a writer-reader’s perspective.

If you’ve never kept a Reading Journal, give it a try! If you’re a writer you can use it as a learning tool. Write about each book’s character arcs and how the author handled story structure and whatever other writerly things strike you about the book. Doing so can help make you a better writer.

Kim’s Favorites from 2025—all highly recommended:

 + The Good House by Ann Leary: Hildy Good is an awesome realtor almost at the top of her game. At sixty, she’s also an alcoholic and an unreliable narrator, so the alcoholism part doesn’t seem like much of a problem until some serious stuff starts to happen. I found Hildy and the way in which she exists in her world fascinating. The story kept me interested, and the writing kept me happy.

+ The Correspondent by Virginia Evans: Another feisty older woman main character, Sybil Van Antwerp is regimented and curmudgeonly, but also loveable. A single woman in her upper seventies, she is going blind. She’s been writing letters to friends, family, famous authors, and someone anonymous for most of her life. Her letters help her make sense of the world and the experiences she has lived through—some of which she finds herself returning to and diving into more deeply at this later stage in life.

+ Vicious by V. E. Schwab: This is a superhero story, and I admit that I’m not a fan of DC or Marvel, so it seems odd that I would give it a try.  I only cracked it open because I like the way author V. E. Schwab writes. The two main characters, Victor and Evers, and their early goal of nearly dying in order to become super powerful beings solidly hooked me, and their polar opposite personalities pulled me through the entire book. I was never sure of how far either of them would go, and whether they were “good” or “bad,” and that propelled me to the end of the plot.

+ Life After Life by Raymond A. Moody Jr.: This book showed up in my little free library, and I borrowed it right away. It makes sense that we (the living) can learn about life after death from those who have been there and done that, and that’s what this book, first published in the seventies, is all about. I found it surprisingly comforting.

+ Sandwich by Catherine Newman (and not as much, the sequel, Wreck): First, I love the title Sandwich and the way, as many mothers do, there is a lot of sandwich making that occurs in the plot. We follow Rocky, her husband, and her adult children and aging parents on a family vacation. The writing and the voice are fresh, very today, very right now.

It might come across as surprisingly blunt for some readers who are not accustomed to the younger generation’s ways of living and speaking. The mother-daughter struck me as particularly familiar due to having my own twenty-year-old daughter. The book poignantly depicts being in midlife with our own mixed bag of issues while trying to help adult children and aging parents navigate theirs. The sequel, Wreck, takes place a couple of years after Sandwich.

+ The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult: This is a big book. An ambitious, well-told multigenerational tome. As a writer, I stand in awe. How did Jodi Picoult bring it together, make it sing through 478 pages? Sage is a struggling baker, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. She befriends an elderly man who confesses that he was a Nazi SS Guard and asks her to help him die. In my review on Goodreads, I wrote, “It’s like a living-breathing entity.”   

+ A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles: Count Alexander Rostov won my heart. Once an aristocrat, he’s been sentenced to house arrest in Moscow’s Metropol Hotel. There he lives in a room the size of a closet, becomes a waiter, befriends the hotel staff, and even risks his life for a child that is not his own. He is a pleasant, well-educated, charming man, and I enjoyed the time I spent inside this book.

+ Abscond by Abraham Verghese: One of the best short stories I’ve read in a long time because it felt as fulfilling as a novel. Ravi has dreams of becoming a tennis star, but one day all of it changes, and he is faced with a new family role. 

+ Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree: The cover caught my attention. What was this illustrated picture of unusual, nonhuman beings? Why did it not look like all of the other books? The answer was, and is, “Because it’s not like all the other books!”

If you like fantasy characters at all, you’ll love this comfort read. It’s what readers call a low-stakes fantasy. Unlike so many other book series (mine included), the characters are not out to save the world from perpetual doom. And yet the plot is still interesting. Viv, a once-fierce orc barbarian has taken measures to retire and open a coffee shop. That’s it. How refreshing, I thought. I said yes to the audiobook, which is read by the author, Travis Baldree, who happens to be a professional audiobook narrator who is amazing at his job.

+ Summer Frost by Blake Crouch: This short story is my first Crouch read ever, and I found it entrancing. Not only is it very science fiction-y—it’s about a game developer and an AI that gains sentience—but it’s also about characters who find themselves in an intensely emotional circumstance. Exactly my cup of tea.

+ Slow Time Between Stars by John Scalzi: Another short story, this one expands the mind. By that I mean it had me thinking about time and space in a whole new and expanded way. It’s about an AI on a vast, interstellar journey. While this being travels, they reflect on their mission and existence in general. Eye-opening! (If you love science fiction, you have to check out the Kindle Forward Collection of which both “Slow Time” and “Summer Frost” are a part.)

Please note that there are no self-pub books on this list because I shared a list of my favorite indies earlier in the year. More to come in 2026!

Books that my subscribers loved this year:

+ Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall. I listened to the audiobook version, and Hattie Morahan did an excellent job, but I think the book itself is really well done. —Jennifer W.

+ Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott —Jim P.

+ Conn Iggulden’s series on Nero—Zoe R.

+ Books by J.M. Dalgleish—C.V. Alba

+ Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. I cannot believe this was her first novel! I loved her character development, especially her unique octopus character. I recommend it for its grounded characters, a relatable storyline that explores the hurts and anguish and fears we carry, but most especially for Marcellus, the super special giant Pacific octopus.—Katy K.

+ The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. It warns of the dangers of smartphones and social media to young people, and I believe every parent and teacher especially should read it. —Laura B.