On New Year’s Eve, 2024 I chatted with some strangers in a restaurant about books and one gave me a copy of Funny Story by Emily Henry. If she’s reading my post this year, I’d like to tell her, “Thank you! It took me a year to get to it, but I DID enjoy it.” Story is based on a well-worn romance trope, but with a unique and charming execution. Since I ended the year with a romance, it seems fitting that I started 2025 with one too! The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center, is a book that pokes fun at rom-coms as two screenwriters pair up to work on a movie project and debate what falling in love actually looks like. (To be honest, my favorite romance offering of the year was actually the smutty AND swoony series, Heated Rivalry on HBO!)

Last Chance Live by Helena Haywoode Henry is a heavy book, but excellent. In a sadly believable future, young adults on death row compete on a reality show to win the chance to live. If America votes you out of the house, you’re immediately executed. For a total 180 in tone, check out the charming The Romantic Tragedies of a Drama King (by the very funny actor and writer Harry Trevaldwyn) about Patch, who’s on a mission to find his first boyfriend with the help of his divorced mom’s self-help books. As a former theatre kid, I couldn’t help but love this one!

Comedian Zara Garg deserves to be rich and famous, simply because she’s worked her ass off for it! In her memoir, Zarna Garg’s This American Woman: A One-In-A-Billion Memoir she shares her journey, (with some stories that are more shocking and sad than hilarious) showcasing her hustle, determination, and sense of humor. What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Weirder and Harder to Relate To by Twin Cities radio royalty Mary Lucia will probably piss you off. In her three-year nightmare dealing with a stalker, she is let down repeatedly by the system, (and of course, Minnesota Public Radio.) I am forever Team Looch.

Moonsick by Tom O’Donnell is a thrill ride that felt to me like a cross between The Purge and Ginger Snaps. The book takes place in the wake of a worldwide werewolf pandemic, where the queen bee of high school gets exposed to the virus and goes on the run. Will she eat her self-absorbed jock boyfriend? Fingers crossed! I also really enjoyed the ghost story, And the River Drags Her Down by Jihyun Yun. Soojin is haunted by the death of her sister Mirae, but has also inherited a special ability to bring things back to life. However, as we learned in Stephen King’s Pet Sematary “sometimes dead is better.”

Two series stood out to me this year, both very different. The first was the Crimson Moth Duology by Kristen Ciccarelli. The first book is called Heartless Hunter about a witch vigilante (!) named Rune who is hiding in plain sight from a witch hunter. She’s unmasked in book two, Rebel Witch and things get even more complicated as she and the hunter fall for each other. I also finished The Shadow series by Lila Bowen that combines the supernatural (vampires, gorgons, and dragons, oh my!) and the Wild West in an adventure that spans across four books: Wake of Vultures, Conspiracy of Ravens, Malice of Crows, and Treason of Hawks  (Would it have been better served as a tightly-edited trilogy? You bet. But it’s still a fun ride.)

The Reformatory by Tananarive Due is an outstanding book, set in Jim Crow Florida about a boy sent to a segregated reform school. It’s based on the life of the author’s family member and the infamous Dozier School for Boys. This book is a tough read, but also infused with a mystical element that adds beauty to the story. I didn’t realize The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon was historical fiction until I got to the end. It’s based on the real diary of renowned 18th-century midwife Martha Ballard who was drawn into the investigation of a crime and the ensuing court case.

I enjoyed Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab a lyrical mediation on immortality that deftly spans hundreds of years while maintaining a solid narrative through-line. Go into this one blind, I promise it’ll take you in unexpected directions. I also liked The Raven Scholar (the first book in the new Eternal Path trilogy) by Antonia Hodgson. This book follows a heroic and nerdy librarian (you had me at “nerdy”) as she tries to solve a mystery AND compete for a seat on a throne which she has no interest in occupying.   

My favorite non-fiction this year was Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space by Adam Higginbotham. As a Gen-Xer, of course I can tell you where I was when the disaster occurred, but there is so much more to the story and the events that happened afterwards (things of which I had no memory) that this was a page-turner for me. I was also fascinated by A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst, an incredible story told in such detail you almost feel like you’re shipwrecked on the same raft. But is this recounted story factually correct? The author shares some details late in the book that may challenge your earlier assumptions.

My pics this year tackle different approaches to the end of times. In Dead of Summer by Ryan La Sala (which could also be classified as horror) the end is gory and quick. This is the first book in a new series about an unusual and highly original outbreak that essentially zombifies people. A fearless crew of teens fight to stay alive under the guidance of the most heroic drag queen ever, Wendy Pretendy! In Happy Bad by Delaney Nolan, the end is a slow disintegration of the environment, which causes scorching temperatures that force staff at a residential treatment center for teen girls to evacuate. The race is on to get the girls transferred to Atlanta before they all detox from their mood stabilizer, the fictional wonder drug “BeZen.”

Let me start by saying that Detour by Jeff Rake and Rob Hart kind of pissed me off. It’s the start of a series (which I’m sure will be great) but ends on a pretty serious cliffhanger just as things start humming! This book—about a group of people who go on a mission to outer space and return home to an Earth that feels…um…let’s just say, “off”—reads like a movie (and will probably become one someday.) I impatiently await book #2. I also found UnWorld by Jayson Greene to be hauntingly beautiful, taking place in a future where lines have blurred between visceral and digital, human and machine, real and unreal.

I adored  Sally Hepworth’s Mad Mabel about a cranky octogenarian living a quiet life, until secrets about her past are revealed. Is she an infamous murderer in hiding? The book alternates between the past and present, and is ultimately less of a story about crimes than it is about women who speak their minds. Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, opens with a shipwrecked woman washing up on an Antarctic island only inhabited by a caretaker and his three children. She’s looking for answers and they’re hiding something and the clock is ticking as the sea quickly rises, forcing their evacuation.

This year I was lighter than usual on thrillers, but I did enjoy Home Is Where the Bodies Are by Jeneva Rose, a tightly-wound family mystery where clues are buried within old VHS tapes. (That book cover was a nice touch!) What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown follows a girl raised by an anti-tech father in an isolated cabin in Montana. After things boil over at home, she goes on the run searching for answers in Silicon Valley at the dawn of the Internet age. This is probably more “mystery” than “thriller,” but it certainly has more teeth than that cover would have you believe.

I loved Taylor Jenkins Reid’s gorgeous Atmosphere This fictional account of a female astronaut (who’s a ringer for the real-life Sally Ride) is another slam dunk from one of my favorite authors. I also enjoyed Life and Death, and Giants by Ron Rindo about a boy born with giantism who’s raised by the Amish, has a special bond with animals, and becomes a star. Don’t worry. This isn’t a tall tale, but rather a gentle story about faith and finding your purpose in a world you’re not made to inhabit.