My Personal Favorite Books I Read in 2025
2025 was a weird reading year for me. I found that in 2023 and 2024, I was much more excited about more of the new releases, and I had a lot of new release reads that really stuck with me. I was wondering if this was more an issue with me and my headspace this year, though when I sat down to make this list, I realized that all of my favorite reads of the year that really did set off those sparks for me were 2024 releases with a handful arriving earlier. I think, like I said on my 2025 new release only list that maybe this was just a kind of dip year. I'll happily take the win that fewer 2025 books calling my name made more room for diving into titles I'd missed in the years before. I feel like I've done a good job as a blogger in recent years of letting go of the pressure to be talking about only brand new books and really followed my heart more, picking up what interested me instead of chasing trends.
If you want to learn more about any of the books, click the title to read the full review.
Anyway, here's my favorite books I read in 2025. If you want even more book recs, check out my 2025 New Releases list and the Best Nonfiction list.
9. Rental House by Weike Wang
This was majorly hyped up by the Book Riot Podcast, and I just missed the cut off for reading it in the year it released. Even though I read it in early January of 2025, when I was skimming through the books I read this year for the list, it jumped out to me. The book focuses on a child-free couple navigating relationships with their own parents through various vacations spent together in rental houses. I found this particularly unique in the themes in navigated and particularly exploring those in the approach of middle age.
8. Atavist by Lydia Millet
I haven't seen enough love for this book online or elsewhere really for how great it was. I randomly picked it up at the library towards the end of the summer and was taken by this collection of somewhat connected short stories. While no character is at the center of a story twice, they do recur across each other's stories, and it all takes place in the same LA neighborhood. I loved how this gave a connection point to the collection and allowed it to be read as a highly fragmented novel while still having the breadth that makes short story collections interesting. There are also just some truly phenomenal sentences here.
7. Gunk by Saba Sams
I really did love this one. Another book that I was entirely skeptical about based on premise but fell for in a combination of cover and the reputation of the author (would love to read Send Nudes soon). I'm so glad that I overrode my skepticism and gave this a try. This book is a moving character portrait set in Brighton following a handful of characters in a truly strange and unlikely but deeply human situation. While the ending slipped a little for me, I found myself quite moved by this novel.
6. Thirst Trap by Gráinne O'Hare
This is a classic case of seeing a book and just knowing I was going to love it and having that prediction come true. I'd been counting down the days until I got to Ireland just so I could buy this book. It didn't come out until much later in the US. For starters, the cover is perfection, but what's inside is even better. O'Hare offers a coming of age story for those of us that realize we'll be coming of age over and over until we're dead. It centers on a group of housemates entering their thirties grappling with the idea of the future and how to move forward. It's one of the best, most well balanced novels on friendship I've read. A much lighter pick than my favorites tend to be, but that's a good change. Don't want to believe me? My very picky creative writing professor shocked me by giving this one an adamant stamp of approval.
5. The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine
This was a last minute slide in to the list. I'd wanted to read this one off the immense early praise it had received and my knowledge of Erskine as an already accomplished short story writer, but I was unsure enough about the premise that I decided to wait for my library hold to come in. I received it 4 days before leaving the country on Christmas break, but thumbing through the library copy convinced me I needed to go out to the bookstore and buy it. I read it on the plane ride home utterly blown away. This is one of those disorienting novels that demands the reader work. There's a new narrator with no clear idea of how they're all linked together for the first seventy pages. The plot from the summary doesn't become apparent until halfway through the novel. But the prose is so beautifully but starkly compelling that Erskine easily inclines the reader to trust her. It's an expansive novel that attempts to capture a multitude of voices and people navigating a complex, awful situation, and she does it with grace.
4. Enter Ghost by Isabella Hammad
I read this one at the beginning of the year on the recommendation of Sally Rooney, and I think it was maybe the most impactful book I read in all of 2025 and the most important to shaping my worldview. I will admit that while I'd followed the news about the war on Gaza, I was not very educated about the history of what was happening or the realities on the ground. I didn't realize how longstanding this had been or the extent of the longterm atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Before moving to Ireland, I lived in a place where this was never discussed, so this book became an incredibly important path towards insight. Beyond learning while reading the novel, it is also just a beautiful story about a rag-tag theater group who sets out to put on a production of Hamlet in Gaza and the challenges they face. While the book does take some patience to get into, it's well worth the effort and is one I've revisited in my thoughts repeatedly over the course of the year.
3. Breakdown by Cathy Sweeney
I devoured this novel. I was reading it at one point at a book event and got stopped and asked for my review, so it's definitely out there on people's radar. This is a gripping story of a mother who walks out of her regular suburban life and truly doesn't look back. The book follows her impulsive escape and the aftermath while also diving into her motivations in memories of her family and the expectations put on her before.
2. Writers and Lovers by Lily King
So to address the elephant in the room first, no, Heart the Lover is not on this list or my 2025 list even though I also read it this year. I picked up Writers and Lovers at the start of the year cause I got it for a dollar at the library sale. I had no idea a companion was coming later in the year. I found Writers and Lovers to be everything Heart the Lover wasn't. Quiet, understated, incredibly moving, and deeply sensitive in its portrayal of a loss of a parent. Casey wanders listlessly through life trying to finish her novel post MFA, sustaining herself working in a restaurant. If you're a writer, I hope you find it a quietly affirming read like I did. It's one that I'm already wanting to reread.
1. What I'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma
This was another last minute sweep into first place. I picked up the novel randomly in a Dublin bookstore because the blue cover caught my eye and the prose on the first page was so incredible. This book plays into exactly what I love in a book. It's a collection of these sparse vignettes that assemble into a life, dealing heavily in character and emotion but with a great deal of control. I read the book in four hours. I truly couldn't put it down. It gave me the feeling, finally, in December, that I'd been in search of all year.
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