What I read (books) and recommend for 2025

Total Read 2025: 214 books

I actually read more than that, closer to 250, but the other ones weren’t recommendations on my part, so I don’t really want to count them.

You can click here to see every ‘What I read’ post from 2025, and browse each of the books by month, and a short review of each.

Here are all of the books in total for the entire year (slideshow):

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Overwhelmed?

Here are my top 10-ish books* in each category

*I cheated a little because some are starter books and then you HAVE to read the sequels of course ;), and some are more than 10 because. c’mon now. Let’s be real. I also created extra sub-genres so I could squeeze in more books lol

General Fiction

1. The Stationery Shop: Marjan Kamali
2. The Paris Apartment: Lucy Foley
3. Mrs Quinn’s Rise to Fame: Olivia Ford
4. Stone Cold Fox: Rachel Koller Croft
5. The Retirement Plan : Sue Hicenbergs
6. The Silver Star: Jeanette Walls
7. Ask again, yes: Mary Beth Keane
8. Confessions of a Forty-Something F**K up and its sequel (More confessions..): Alexandra Potter
9. The Leftover Woman: Jean Kwok
10. Cross Current: Christine King
11. The Henna Artist: Alka Joshi

Patriarchy-Fighting Fiction

1. The Partner Track: Helen Wan
2. The Boys’ Club: Erica Katz
3. A special place for women: Laura Hankin

Historical Fiction and Non-Fiction

1. The Briar Club: Kate Quinn (Fiction)
2. The Glass Ocean: Beatriz Williams (Fiction)
3. Empress Dowager Cixi (Non-Fiction)
4. Antoinette’s Sister: Diana Giovinazzo

Classic Literature Spinoffs

1. Emma of 83rd Street: Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding
2. Elizabeth of East Hampton: Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding
3. Pride & Premeditation: Tirzah Price
4. Sense & Second-Degree Murder: Tirzah Price
5. The Secret…Sherlock Holmes Series: June Thomson

Chick-Lit

1. Just for the summer: Abby Jimenez
2. Great Big Beautiful Life: Emily Henry
3. Maybe Someday: Colleen Hoover
4. The Bookish Life of Nina Hill: Abbi Waxman
5. Just haven’t met you yet: Sophie Cousens
6. One Last Stop: Casey McQuiston
7. One night on the island: Josie Silver
8. Say you’ll remember me: Abby Jimenez
9. A Winter in New York: Josie Silver
10. One Day in December: Josie Silver
11. Happy Place: Emily Henry
12. Meant to be: Emily Giffin
13. Things we never got over: Lucy Score

Mystery

1. The Phoenix Crown: Kate Quinn & Jamie Chang
2. The Forgotten Garden: Kate Morton
3. The Broken Girls: Simone St James
4. The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard: Natasha Lester
5. Where are you Echo Blue?: Hayley Krischer
6. On a quiet street: Seraphina Nova Glass
7. The Price of Inheritance: Karin Tanabe
8. Nothing Ever Happens Here: Seraphina Nova Glass
9. The Vanishing Hour: Seraphina Nova Glass
10. The Vacancy in Room 10: Seraphina Nova Glass
11. The Lost Story: Meg Shaffer

Young Adult Fiction

1. The House in the Cerulean Sea (and its sequel Somewhere Beyond the Sea): T.J. Klune
2. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place Series: Maryrose Wood

Fantasy Fiction

1. The Crimson Crown: Heather Walter
2. Kingdom of the Wicked Series: Kerri Maniscalco
3. An arrow to the moon: Emily X. R. Pan
4. The astonishing color of after: X.R. Pan
5. Dance of Thieves (and its sequel Vow of Thieves): Mary E. Pearson
6. Powerless Trilogy: Lauren Roberts
7. Caraval Series: Stephanie Garber
8. Heart Trilogy: Stephanie Garber
9. The Night Circus: Erin Morgenstern

Time Travel / More Science-y Fiction**

**Surprisingly, time travel as a subject of fiction this needed its own section..

1. The Unmaking of June Farrow: Adrienne Young
2. The Ministry of Time: Kaliane Bradley
3. The Seven Year Slip: Ashley Poston
4. In Five Years: Rebecca Serle
5. Atmosphere: Taylor Jenkins Reid (this one is more Space)
6. The Ten Thousand Doors of January: Alix. E. Harrow
7. The Two Lives of Lydia Bird: Josie Silver

Legal Thriller

1. The Outsider: Alex Finlay
2. The Good Lie: A.R. Torre
3. The Ties that Blind: Jake Fox

Assassin / Mafia Fiction

1. Ruinous Love Trilogy: Brynne Weaver (read with caution, some descriptions are pretty gross/)
2. The Family: Naomi Krupitsky

Mental Thrillers***

***Aside from almost anything Frieda McFadden writes of course. I read pretty much her entire anthology, and loved 99% of it.

1. The Heiress: Rachel Hawkins
2. All the colours of the dark: Chris Whitaker
3. First Lie Wins: Ashley Elston
4. The Last Mrs. Parrish (and its sequel The Next Mrs Parrish): Liv Constatine
5. The Nanny: Gilly Macmillan
6. The Ex-Husband: Samantha Hayes
7. The Night Shift: Alex Finlay
8. Before she knew him: Peter Swanson
9. The Wife Upstairs: Rachel Hawkin
10. The Advocate’s Daughter: Alex Finlay

General Non-Fiction

1. Is Gwyneth Paltrow wrong about everything?: Timothy Caulfield
2. Empire of the Elite: Michael M. Grynbaum
3. Crunch: Natalie Whittle
4. Same as Ever: Morgan Housel
5. Braving the Wilderness: Brené Brown

Non-Fiction Memoirs

1. Tales from the Back Row: Amy Odell
2. Careless People: Sarah Wynn-Williams
3. Gwyneth: Amy Odell
4. Jackie Chan: Zhu Mo
5. This American Ex-Wife: Lyz Lenz
6. The Kingdom of Prep: Maggie Bullock
7. Empresses of Seventh Avenue: Nancy MacDonnell
8. Big Mall: Kate Black
9. Rebel Chef: Dominique Crenn
10. The Audacity: Katherine Ryan

FAQ about my reading

I get these questions a lot here, and also via Instagram, etc so:

What else have you read?

A lot of the books I read, I interspersed into the things I bought or watched. I finally started separating it out in 2019.

If you are feeling rather brave, here are my entire archives from years past.

If you’re lazy like me, here are my YEARLY book roundups from each year.

How do I read so quickly?

I don’t know either. I’ve been reading books for as long as I can remember. I feel like my sibling is the one who patiently taught me how to read one book, and from there, it exploded.

So, lots of practice? I have been reading for so long that words come easily to my brain, it’s like I see a picture of the word rather than reading the word individually. So “disastrous” would be a word that you read “dis-sas-trous”, but in my head it’s disastrous“, just one word, meaning imprinted. Makes sentences go a lot quicker.

Save for my parents, my entire immediate family is a family of voracious readers.

We read while eating, we read while walking, we read in bed… I guess I just followed what my older siblings did as they always had their nose in their books, and a few going at the same time (you know, the disrespectful way we read through half a book than leave it half open facing the table, spines cracked, no bookmark?).

I used to read 30+ books from the library a week – all young adult, easy stuff. I can read 2-3 books of young adult fiction in a current work day to give you an example, and as a child I had way more time than I do now, so I burned through books like a firestorm.

Our partners remark that they’ve never seen a family read so much, and I guess it’s true.

Where do I get my books?

A lot of you have asked and I generally don’t buy books unless they’re secondhand and in ebook format, for many reasons – price, environmental, space, and even then, I don’t buy books. I borrow them.

I read them on my Kobo ereader (also secondhand), and check out books from the library from Overdrive. If the book isn’t there, I generally don’t read it, UNLESS.. it is a book I REALLY REALLY want to read, then I MAY consider buying it if I cannot wait for it or find it. So far, I have only done this for Harry Potter and The Hunger Games. Libraries are a gift, and we pay for them in our taxes yearly even if you don’t personally use them, so thanks.

How do I know what to read?

I don’t. I see recommendations and make notes, or put it on my Wishlist / On hold. I sometimes go into bookstores and browse, then decide if it is worth getting from the library. Or in secondhand stores, I pick up or buy books only if they’re photography / style-related where pictures and colour are a MUST (the one drawback to an e-reader).

I purchased only two physical books in 2020 that I couldn’t / didn’t want to buy in e-book format: Distinction (it was cheaper secondhand than the e-book), & Scoff (not available in ebook format at all).

Don’t you prefer physical books?

Who doesn’t!?

Aside from the cost, the space they take up, how heavy they are (we have a small bookshelf, most of it is Little Bun), I find them heavy to hold and hard to read in rooms unless there is bright daylight or very strong lamp light (I suffer from aura migraines and I’ve noticed dim light or lack of light triggers it when I am reading). I really like that the ebook illuminates the book.

I’d rather carry my entire library around with me in an ebook reader, plus be able to read with a backlight on.

I am currently considering a library option however only because we plan on buying a larger home in the future and I could allow a small library in my closet, perhaps.

Likely, it will only be filled with photography and style books however. Those are the only books I really want in physical copy and ebooks won’t suffice.

Where do I find the time to read?

I just make time for it. I have no other answer…

I’ve noticed if I am not watching TV shows, or aimlessly browsing on Instagram, I seem to have plenty of time to read if I am able to foist Little Bun off on my partner and/or keep him occupied otherwise.

I can go through a lot of books in a short amount of time if I am both interested, reasonably well-rested (or in a good mental state, not in limbo or stressed out) and the book itself is engrossing.

I read while brushing my teeth as you need to brush a full minute to two minutes (I have the reader on a stand), and I read while eating or drinking tea, I read while Little Bun plays or reads…. I read every time there is a spare moment.

Otherwise…