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Retirement has done wonders for my reading time — I finished a whopping 115 books in 2025! As usual, 50 were for the Popsugar Reading Challenge, and I’ve included links to my reviews on my obscure website. Next year, I plan on adding additional reading challenges, because I just can’t get enough books!
Here are my 2025 fiction reads. Next week I’ll give you the nonfiction. Classics: Frances Burney, Evelina, or, A Young Woman’s Entrance Into the World Wilkie Collins, Little Novels Elizabeth Inchbald, Lover’s Vows Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat Jack Kerouac, On the Road Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho Susanna Haswell Rowson, Charlotte Temple Upton Sinclair, Wide Is the Gate John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions Reading Jane Austen’s Bookshelf opened up a whole new literary world for me. I’d thought of 18th-century literature as stuffy and moralizing (and Charlotte Temple definitely fits that description). Instead I found vibrant, entertaining and sometimes funny works by authors who Austen admired and learned from. The Mysteries of Udolpho is the ultimate Gothic novel (and Austen delightfully spoofs it in Northanger Abbey). Lover’s Vows is the “scandalous” play performed in Mansfield Park (not terribly scandalous by modern standards, alas). And Evelina has a plucky heroine learning the ways of the big city — and has a remarkably relatable subplot around sexual harassment. I remain addicted to Upton Sinclair’s Lanny Budd spy novels, about an art dealer who infiltrates Hitler’s inner circle by pretending Nazi sympathies. Three Men in a Boat was mostly a comedic version of the author’s travels, with one jarring tragedy. On the Road was likewise fiction that drew on the author’s life, but the misogyny was laid on so thick that I couldn’t enjoy it. The Moon Is Down is set in an unnamed town under Nazi occupation. It was banned in Nazi-occupied Europe — mostly, I suspect, because of the explicit instructions for handling dynamite. Mystery/Thriller/Crime Fiction: Kashana Cauley, The Payback Agatha Christie, Passenger to Frankfurt Janet Evanovich, Now or Never: 31 on the Run Carl Hiaasen et al, Naked Came the Manatee Spencer Quinn, Dog on It Marcie Rendon, Where They Last Saw Her Helen Tursten, An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good I tend to like my mysteries mixed with comedy. Now or Never appears to have resolved the 30-book love triangle in this volume, after Stephanie accidentally winds up engaged to both her men. Dog on It is the first book in the Chet and Bernie series, narrated by the detective’s dog. Naked Came the Manatee has 13 chapters written by different Florida authors, and it’s….very Florida, in a hilarious way. The Payback is an outstanding dark comedy, where 3 women plan a heist to wipe out student loan records. Where They Last Saw Her is a thriller about missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Agatha Christie may be the queen of mysteries, but her attempts at spy novels lack the believability and cause-and-effect that make for a satisfying plot. Passenger to Frankfurt starts with a ludicrous premise, meanders around looking for a story direction, and is generally an inferior version of The Big Four, which was also ludicrous but at least had Poirot. Romance: Emily Henry, Funny Story Talia Hibbert, Take a Hint, Dani Brown and Act Your Age, Eve Brown Courtney Milan, The Countess Conspiracy, The Suffragette Scandal, and Talk Sweetly to Me (from the Brothers Sinister series) Suzanne Park, So We Meet Again Sara Raasch, The Entanglement of Rival Wizards Lenora Woods, Roll for Romance The one queer romance I read this year was The Entanglement of Rival Wizards, which was a delightful enemies-to-lovers story. Imagine Red, White, and Royal Blue set at a wizarding college in Philadelphia. Courtney Milan writes historical fiction about women with backbones. The Countess Conspiracy was inspired by multiple women scientists who had men take credit for their discoveries. The afterword to The Suffragette Scandal notes that she’d originally planned to have the male lead be an anti-suffragist converted by the heroine — then the author realized that her heroine deserved a man who respected her from the start, and there were plenty of other ways the story could include conflict. Funny Story is a fake-dating romance that starts with the narrator, Daphne, getting dumped by her fiance for his female best friend, so Daphne moves in with the guy that the friend dumped. I loved that the exes were ever-present in the story, and sooo hateable. Science Fiction & Fantasy: Catherine Butzen, The Forger of Faces Grace Curtis, Floating Hotel Namina Forna, The Gilded Ones Roxane Gay & Ta-Nehisi Coates, World of Wakanda. (Graphic novel illustrated by Alitha E.Martinez & Roberto Poggi.) Cait Gordon, Speculative Shorts: Stories That Fell Out of My Brain L.A. Guettler, Vacation on Planet Glor N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth trilogy) Mary Robinette Kowal, The Spare Man Ann Leckie, Translation State Anne McCaffrey, Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern Starhawk, City of Refuge H. Claire Taylor, Cluster Luck Sheri S. Tepper, The Gate to Women’s Country Catherynne M. Valente, Space Oddity Martha Wells, All Systems Red, Artificial Condition, and Rogue Protocol (from the Murderbot Diaries series) Finally read the Broken Earth trilogy. I like Jemisin, but I’d been warned this series would break my heart. It did. Well written, but really grim. I always enjoy science fiction mixed with comedy, and Space Oddity was a hilarious follow-up to Space Opera. Once again, a newly discovered species must save their planet by competing in a Eurovision-like battle of the bands. Vacation on Planet Glor was also very funny, an adult choose-your-own-adventure book. Cluster Luck was a comedy, but took a much darker turn than the first book, Lucky Stars, which didn’t work for me. Translation State is set in the same universe as the Imperial Radch series and Provenance, but dealing with other species. Wildly original and occasionally disturbing. The Gate to Women’s Country was apparently intended as dystopian feminist fiction, but completely didn’t work for me (multiple spoilers in review). A better (if overlong) utopia/dystopia contrast is City of Refuge, Starhawk’s sequel to The Fifth Sacred Thing. Like all of Cait Gordon’s books, Speculative Shorts has an optimistic vibe, with disabled characters as the protagonists, never the sidekicks. Young Adult/Children: Dahlia Adler, Going Bicoastal Edward Ormondroyd, David and the Phoenix Eric Smith, Don’t Read the Comments Don’t Read the Comments is a romance set among video gamers, and it was clearly inspired by the infamous harassment campaigns against women in gaming. That part of the plot is done well, but as a romance I found it kind of unsatisfying, because the couple doesn’t get together until the very end. Going Bicoastal uses the “sliding doors” trope, two parallel stories depending on whether Natalia chooses to spend the summer with her dad in NYC or her mom in LA. General Fiction: Naomi Alderman, The Future Kwame Alexander, The Crossover Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye Percival Everett, James Louise Erdrich, The Sentence (reread) Matt Haig, The Midnight Library Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List Leslea Newman, Girls Will Be Girls Pittsburgh Pat, Psychic Hang Gliding Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children Sarah Waters, Fingersmith Fingersmith is a 19th-century lesbian crime story that makes fantastic use of unreliable narrators, pulling the rug out from under the reader twice. James was billed as Huckleberry Finn from the escaped slave Jim’s point of view. But it’s far more subversive than that, giving us dark humor, the harsh realities of slavery, and a hero fighting impossible odds. Schindler’s List is officially a novel, but the author stuck as close as possible to the known facts of Oskar Schindler’s life. The Future, by the author of The Power, is about billionaires activating their plan to retreat to their fortresses when the apocalypse hits. things do not go according to plan. Apparently I wasn’t into stories of midnight this year. The Midnight Library was predictable and a bit preachy, and Midnight’s Children just confused me.
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