2025 Reading Wrap-Up, and 2026 Reading Goals!
2025 was the year in which I started reading like I did when I was a child. My nose constantly in a book, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, followed my curiosity, and indulged in the first great love of my life…books. It was a joyous adventure, and it’s book so, so good for my soul.
Some statistics:
- I read 243 books, totaling 92,612 pages
- I DNF’d 18 books - which is about average for me.
- 11% of my books were 500+ pages, 72% were between 300-499, 17% were under 300
- 99% of my books were Fiction - I only read 3 nonfiction books
- Fantasy was my top genre, with romance being in 2nd place
- 59% of my books were digital, 28% were audio, and 13% were print
Best Books of the Year:
I rated 56 books 5 stars - which can mean that either it’s a masterpiece of writing, or that I really just enjoyed it that much. Here’s what I liked best. Just to be fair, I’m only including new books in this list - 5 star rereads of beloved books don’t qualify. Also, I really, really tried to just do one book/month….but that wasn’t always possible. And some month’s favorite books were better than others. lol. This was a hard list to put together!
- January - Onyx Storm
- February - For She is Wrath
- March - The River Has Roots
- April - A Letter to the Luminous Deep
- May - A Forty Year Kiss, Immortal
- June - Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil, We Are the Stars
- July - This Princess Kills Monsters
- August - The Raven Scholar
- September - We Live Here Now
- October - Alchemised, A Dowry of Blood
- November - The Everlasting
- December - Katabasis
- Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
- We Are the Stars
- Alchemised
- Ali Hazelwood
- Samantha Shannon
- Carissa Broadbent
- Emily Henry
- Grady Hendrix
- Elsie Silver
- Seanan McGuire
- Ashley Poston
- Lana Ferguson
- V.E. Schwab
- Having fallen into Romance novels late in 2024, this is the year where I really discovered how much I love the genre. Guaranteed Happily Ever Afters are absolutely something I’ve needed this year, and I find the concept of a genre focused on women to be refreshing. I apologize for ever looking down on the genre. That was silly of me. As I’ve read more romance I’ve come to really see the value in the genre.
- The 20 book/month thing was ridiculous. It was never a real goal in the beginning, but after it naturally happened for a few months it became a fixation…and not a particularly healthy one. Happy to let that go.
- After more than a dozen years of reading primarily in digital format, I’m starting to swing back to print. Why?
- Concerns about censorship and the lack of permanence with digital libraries
- Yep, I’m a sucker for a pretty book
- We’re going to be building bookshelves soon, so I’m collecting books I’ve really enjoyed
- More trips to excellent independent bookstores - including Skylark, The Novel Neighbor, and Under the Cover.
- Signed books. Love them.
- Thanks to the Novel Neighbor, I’ve started attending author events, and they are truly a joy for me. The fact that I got to see Alix E. Harrow an V.E. Schwab - two of my absolute favorite authors - was life changing!
- Returning to a reasonable 10 books/month goal
- Continuing on with collecting books for my new bookshelves
- Reread some old books, including Robin Hobb and Freda Warrington
- Dive into more series and/or longer books - I’m missing deeper stories
- Work through my TBR shelf, which is much larger than it’s ever been, to the point where it’s stressing me out a bit. Currently have 100+ books that I’ve purchased but haven’t read yet.
- Attend at least one author event quarterly
- Start an Instagram Books page? Seriously thinking about it…..
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