Books I read in 2025

Happy New Year’s Eve! One of my favorite end-of-year rituals is this book roundup. I get so much pleasure from taking a look back at my year in reading. I know my other bookworms get it. I read 148 books this year, which is pretty similar to the amount I’ve read the past several years. Hardcovers, Kindle, audio, library loans, fiction, nonfiction, poetry—I love it all. It’s very hard to narrow down my favorites, but I made my best attempt here. 

Here’s the full list of titles! I would love to hear your favorite reads of 2025. I’m always adding to my “to read” list.

Fiction:
Like Mother, Like Mother — Susan Rieger
Black Light: Stories — Kimberly King Parsons
The Road to Tender Hearts — Annie Hartnett
The Bee Sting — Paul Murray
James — Percival Everett
Headshot — Rita Bullwinkel
Beautyland — Marie-Helene Bertino
Jane and Dan at the End of the World — Colleen Oakley
Too Soon — Betty Shamieh
This Is a Love Story — Jessica Soffer
The Heart of Winter — Jonathan Evison
Three Days in June — Anne Tyler
The Most — Jessica Anthony
I Who Have Never Known Men — Jacqueline Harpman
A Sea of Unspoken Things — Adrienne Young
The Unmothers — Leslie J. Anderson
We Are Made of Stars — Rochelle B. Weinstein
Crush — Ada Calhoun
The Last Animal — Ramona Ausubel
Little Rot — Akwaeke Emezi
Counting Backwards — Jacqueline Friedland
A Mother’s Guide to the Apocalypse — Hollie Overton
Rabbit Moon — Jennifer Haigh
Wild Dark Shore — Charlotte McConaghy
Famous Last Words — Gillian McAllister
All the Colors of the Dark — Christ Whitaker
Sea of Tranquility — Emily St. John Mandel
Tell Me Everything — Elizabeth Strout
Colored Television — Danzy Senna
Tilt — Emma Pattee
Penitence — Kristin Koval
Next to Heaven — James Frey
Broken Country — Clare Leslie Hall
The Ministry of Time — Kaliane Bradley
The Names — Florence Knapp
Heartwood — Amity Gaige
Blue Sisters — Coco Mellors
Run for the Hills — Kevin Wilson
Sleep — Honor Jones
Darling Beasts — Michelle Gable
The Möbius Book — Catherine Lacey
The Uproar — Karim Dimechkie
What Kind of Paradise — Janelle Brown
Doll Parts — Penny Zang
The Probable Son — Cindy Jiban
Seven Days in June — Tia Williams
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar — Katie Yee
Soldier Sailor — Claire Kilroy
The Death of Us — Abigail Dean
All the Other Mothers Hate Me — Sarah Harman
Blob: A Love Story — Maggie Su
Speak to Me of Home — Jeanine Cummins
Everyone is Lying to You — Jo Piazza
The Original Daughter — Jemimah Wei
Slanting Towards the Sea — Lidija Hilje
So Far Gone — Jess Walter
Sister Snake — Amanda Lee Koe
The Emperor of Gladness — Ocean Vuong
A Novel Obsession — Caitlin Barasch
Culpability — Bruce Holsinger
Finding Grace — Loretta Rothschild
The Slip — Lucas Schaefer
The Antidote — Karen Russell
Loved and Missed — Susie Boyt
Days of Light — Megan Hunter
The Mad Wife — Meagan Church
Lilith — Eric Rickstad
Ordinary Love — Emily Rutkowski
Heart the Lover — Lily King
Daytime Moon — Kerri Schlottman
Her One Regret — Donna Freitas
Atmosphere — Taylor Jenkins Reid
Discontent — Beatriz Serrano
The Compound — Aisling Rawle
Listen for the Lie — Amy Tintera
Nesting — Roisin O’Donnell
The Lightbreakers — Aja Gabel
The Return of Ellie Black — Emiko Jean
The Missing Half — Ashley Flowers
Some Bright Nowhere — Ann Packer
My Husband — Maud Ventura
The Satisfaction Café — Kathy Wang
Loved One — Aisha Muharrar
Catalina — Karla Cornejo Villavicencio

Nonfiction:
Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West — Blaine Harden
Into the Great Wide Ocean: Life in the Least Known Habitat on Earth — Sonke Johnsen
Wifedom: Mrs. Orwell’s Invisible Life — Anna Funder
Almost Everything: Notes on Hope — Anne Lamott
The Secret Language of the Body: Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, Free Your Mind — Jennifer Derryberry Mann and Karden Rubin
For the Love of Men: From Toxic to a More Mindful Masculinity — Liz Plank
Sex and World Peace — Valerie M. Hudson, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Mary Caprioli, Chad F. Emmett
Smile: The Story of a Face — Sarah Ruhl
The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas About How to Be a Good Mom — Nancy Reddy
It Begins With You: The 9 Hard Truths About Love that Will Change Your Life — Jillian Turecki
The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen By Proxy — Andrea Dunlop, Mike Weber
Democracy in Retrograde: How to Make Changes Big and Small in Our Country and in Our Lives — Sami Sage and Emily Amick
They Came for the Schools: One Town’s Fight Over Race and Identity, and the New War for America’s Classrooms — Mike Hixenbaugh
Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger — Soraya Chemaly
Making Time: A New Vision for Crafting a Life Beyond Productivity — Maria Bowler
Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women — Kate Manne
Letter to My Daughter — Maya Angelou
How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion — Yung Pueblo
Attack From Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America — Barbara McQuade
The Let Them Theory — Mel Robbins
Abundance — Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me — Jason B. Rosenthal
Foreverland: On the Divine Tedium of Marriage — Heather Havrilesky
One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This — Omar El Akkad
No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce — Haley Mlotek
Hello, Cruel World!: Science-Based Strategies for Raising Terrific Kids in Terrifying Times — Melinda Wenner Moyer
Things In Nature Merely Grow — Yiyun Li
Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny — Kate Manne
I’m Glad My Mom Died — Jennette McCurdy
Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays — Nicole Graev Lipson
What Love Is and What It Could Be — Carrie Jenkins
Boys Will Be Boys: Power, Patriarchy, and Toxic Masculinity — Clementine Ford
Who Deserves Your Love: How to Create Boundaries to Start, Strengthen, or End Any Relationship — KC Davis, LPC
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism — Sarah Wynn-Williams
A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck — Sophie Elmhirst
I Don’t: The Case Against Marriage — Clementine Ford
Who Cooked Adam Smith’s Dinner? A Story of Women and Economics — Katrine Marcal
Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers — Caroline Fraser
The Tell: A Memoir — Amy Griffin
Amsterdam Red Light District: The Future of Our Past — Mariska Majoor
The Leaving Season: A Memoir in Essays — Kelly McMasters
Amsterdam Exposed: An American’s Journey Into the Red Light District — David Wienir
The Undocumented Americans — Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
I Want to Burn this Place Down: Essays — Maris Kreizman
The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom — Shari Franke
The Program: Inside the Mind of Keith Raniere and the Rise and Fall of NXIVM — Toni Natalie
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History — Elizabeth Kolbert
I Was Told There’d Be a Village: Transforming Motherhood through the Power of Connection — Melissa Wirt
All the Single Ladies: Unmarried Women and the Rise of an Independent Nation — Rebecca Traister
Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women’s Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours — Corinne Low, PhD
Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope — Mark Manson
What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life — Allison Daminger
Push Back: Live, Love, and Work with Others Without Losing Yourself — Tonya Lester
A Truce That Is Not Peace — Miriam Toews
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir — Molly Jong-Fast
No Ordinary Bird: Drug Smuggling, a Plane Crash, and a Daughter’s Quest for the Truth — Artis Henderson
Solito: A Memoir — Javier Zamora
All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy — Soraya Chemaly
Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net — Jessica Calarco
Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice — Virginia Roberts Guiffre

Poetry, plays, and other things:
You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World — Ada Limón, editor
The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal — James Crews, editor