Let's Get Literate! 2025 Reading Recap

[renay]

2025 was the first year my reading started to feel less like a miracle and more like, "oh yeah, reading! I do that without struggling." I read 78 books, although a lot of them were rereads. I'm happy to reread The Murderbot Diaries and a bunch of my favorite romance novels a few times a year. The brain craves familiarity.

I have elevenish favorites this year (I combined books in series, because I make the rules). My top book, which is no big secret as I've been shouting about it for months, is the only one ranked; the rest are here in alphabetical order.

Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch

This is the second book in the Romance & Royals series; the first book is The Nightmare Before Kissmas. There was too much bad-dad energy in that one for me to develop any fond feelings for it at all, but the second one, which follows the brother from the first, hit much better. These are very silly in their conceits, which masks the fact that they're about serious familial abuse issues and are potentially heart wrenching if you have any deep family feelings at all! The romance in this one, complicated and facing serious hardships, worked much better for me.

North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher

In a year where generative AI came to the forefront of creative discussion, it was fascinating to read this book, about Nakharat, where there's a different type of artificial intelligence at play. This is a series of interconnected short fiction, jumping forward through time and social change on the planet. I haven't read enough mosaic books to know how well this one holds up as an example of the form, but once I found my footing I was hooked. The last story in particular was excellent. I'm very excited to see what Whitcher does next.

The Practice, the Horizons, and the Chain by Sofia Samatar

This was the first Samatar I ever read (I know) and I didn't know what to expect, but I came through loving it. The beautiful thing about this story is that it's using a familiar framework—academia and social class—to tell a story about reclaiming collective power over individualistic power. But because Samatar is so good, it becomes applicable to anyone who has ever felt trapped in a sick system. It feels very much like a fable, part of a story being passed down.

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

I read Ring Shout because it was on a reading challenge list I made, but last year it got a (deserved) bump with the release of Sinners. People recced it all over as having similar vibes to Sinners, although Ring Shout is coming to the monster conversation from a cosmic horror angle. Ring Shout goes harder on the fantasy of it all, too, which was my favorite part. My main takeaway was "wow" and "I wish there was more of this", because Maryse has all the makings of an epic hero.

The Singing Hills Cycle by Nghi Vo

2025 was the year I finally dived into the series from Nghi Vo after friends telling me on repeat for years that it was excellent. Surprise! It's excellent. I have the whole series listed here, for completion's sake, because each entry deepens the world Vo is building. My favorites from the series are The Empress of Salt and Fortune and Mammoths at the Gate, both very different but also about changing friendships due to shifting power imbalances. I haven't read A Mouthful of Dust yet, because it just came out, but I feel confident that it will also be good. It looks like we're getting another book this year, A Long and Speaking Silence, that's more of a prequel.

Sorcery and Small Magics by Maiga Doocy

When romantasy comes up, this is the book I want to shove in everyone's hands even though it's not, technically, romantasy. Yet. It's a rivals-to-friends story, set in a magical school where the main characters are set against each other due to drastically different personalities and approaches to education. Leo acts down to the expectations people have of him and Sebastian is hyper focused due to [Plot Development]. So of course they clash, over and over, until they accidentally run into some forbidden magic and must team up to solve resolve the consequences of the spell. There are supportive friends, a creepy forest, and a helpful witch, but the focus is on these two men and how their different lives have shaped them. The creepy forest part was very effective. It's like if VanderMeer's Area X met a Studio Ghibli forest.

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson

I had this book on my TBR for years, and then, inspired by Jenny's love for it, I slurped it up in a few days. It definitely leans more literary, with a focus on the characters rather than the technology at its core. The way it explores class and privilege was excellent, too. Although relationship between Cara and her handler, Dell, was great, the thing that has stuck with me since I read it was the deep desire for non-toxic family connections. Also, the great sub thesis: billionaires suck.

The Tainted Cup & A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett

The first and last book by this author I loved was City of Stairs, and I loved it all the way through the end where it utterly lost me. I didn't finish that series (although people told me it was good, but I take this type of betrayal seriously), and I haven't revisited this author since. I probably wouldn't have, either, except The Tainted Cup ended up on the Hugo ballot. Reluctantly, I read it! I was fully prepared to rank it under No Award if there were any more specific shenanigans. There were shenanigans, but not that bad kind, and I ended up loving the world here, the creeping horror of giant monsters that can not only destroy everything but turn people and the countryside into grotesque biological terrors with the power of their fluids. Also, I love a reluctant team up that is actually going to be great, but one party is all, "Ugh, I GUESS." about it. The sequel didn't top the first book—it felt too slow at the start—but was still a great continuation of the things I loved from the first book, with deeper character connections and the hint of growing trust between Ana and Din. There were also no specific shenanigans in the second. But I've got my eye out. Fool me once, etc.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

When I was making my list for the year, I was surprised to find this book at the top of my rating scale (I use a very nerdy system with five categories, which I then add up and average to get the rating). I'm hit or miss with Kingfisher's horror, but I thought this was a delightfully creepy remix of the original "Fall of the House of Usher". The character work was excellent; if you're a fan of rogue mushrooms, I highly recommend this. There are two sequels already out (I've only read one; it didn't top the first for me), so it looks like this may become a longer running series.

The Witch Roads & The Nameless Land by Kate Elliott

Speaking of rogue mushrooms, The Witch Roads duology was a terrific epic fantasy and examination of empire across a land plagued by a sentient fog, called The Pall, filled with Spore. Spore will attach itself and turn any living body into a obscene, zombie-esque creature there's no hope to save. Elen, our protagonist, is a deputy courier, walking the empire to carry messages but also to root out Spore before it can grow out of control and erupt, turning entire towns into rampaging nightmare creatures. This is the backdrop of Elen getting caught up in the court politics of the empire at the same time that her past comes back to haunt her. Oh, and there's a actual haunt and unfortunately for Elen, he's hot (emotionally). I keep wanting someone to write an essay about how the Pall/Spore in this world is analogous to climate change/disaster, but alas, no one yet has. This specific duology is complete, but there's another book set in this world, specifically inner empire, with new characters coming in 2027.

The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson

Given how much I have shouted about this epic fantasy that came out of nowhere and knocked my socks off, it's not much of a surprise that it's my favorite book of the year. It beat out The Witch Roads by a hair because it immediately shot past "this is a five star read" to "this must be rated on the bananas scale only". It combines a peaceful transition of government power with a series of games, except whoops: one of the contenders is murdered and our main protagonist, Neema, must work to solve who did it. Also, she's not sure she didn't do it, since she and the Raven contender were not friends and she was, regrettably, drugged to the gills during said murder. Any time there's a potential direction for this story to go, it swerves another direction entirely and jumps off the cliff I didn't know was there. My favorite parts are the second chance romance and that Neema is coded to be autistic. This changes the way she interacts with the world in all the logical ways without demonizing her. She's young, ambitious, ethically rigid, sometimes deeply unlikeable, and makes terrible decisions, and I love her, your honor.

Reading Statistics

Books Read: 78
New Books: 51.3%
Rereads: 48.7%
Pages Read: 18,823
Audio Listened: 88:34:00
DNFs: 3
Fiction: 95%
Nonfiction: 5%
Longest Book: 648
Shortest Book: 100
Average Rating: 4.13
Best Reading Month: December (13)
Worst Reading Month: February (2)
Adult Books: 98.7%
Young Adult Books: 1.3%
Women Authors: 78.2%
Men Authors: 20.5%
Non-binary Authors: 1.3%
White Authors: 82.1%
Black, Indigenous, & Global Majority Authors: 17.9%

This is the first time in years that I've tracked my reading statistics. I was pretty pleased, except that, as I feared, my habit of falling back into rereading and being in a reading slump has meant reading mostly white authors! Bad habits have returned! I'm going to improve this for 2026. Hilariously, I can probably manage it with all the books I've purchased, but not read (because buying books and reading books are two different hobbies).

One of the things I wanted to do last year was start looking at the origin of what I was reading. This came up anew after Tor kept sweeping award categories, and since awards are the primary place I get book recommendations, I'd like to be aware of how bad the damage is. I tried to split things by publisher and imprint. I did my best, but there's probably some miscategorization still.

Publishers & Imprints



Macmillan, predictably, makes up 38.5% of all my reading because they're doing The Most. RBMedia, the next largest, is the publisher for the The Murderbot Diaries audiobooks. My goal this year isn't so much to get the Macmillan number down—hard to do when you read for awards when Macmillan dominates—but to get other numbers up. Also: increase small press publishers!



When we break the big Macmillan number down, the bulk of my reading is definitely Tor Books and Tordotcom. I thought Orbit would be higher but it turns out, that only works if you read the books you buy from an imprint. :D


Reading Structure



I didn't think I had become as much of a digital reader, but my stats this year prove me wrong! My audiobook reading is all digital via the library or libro.fm.



Digging further into the data, I didn't do too bad using physical material at my city library. 24.4% is good! In 2026, though, I plan to double down on using my city library. After serving on my Friends of the Library board and seeing how expensive the ebooks/audiobooks are, I want to use physical media as much as possible to take some stress off their licenses.

My secondary library is a shared login from a pal with access to a massive library network. It makes my library's digital access look like a gnat, even thought I have state-wide consortium access. I don't feel bad about using their licenses, because unlike my city, their library hasn't been defunded (yet...it's wild out there).

I also want to get books I own (the personal library category) higher than 19.2%. I'm shamed. >.>

The one little slice that has no label is for paper ARCs. I don't get many of those unless I request them and this year I read one, for a whopping 1.3% of my total.

That's a wrap on 2025! If you read any of my favorites and have readalikes, I'm always hyped for recs. If you wrote a favorites post for your SFF reading, I'd love to see it (and then link it in Intergalactic Mixtape, haha).

Comments

[anne]

Small presses and queer authors: Duck Prints Press just came out with an anthology of Melissa Scott's Astreiant series. Six m/m fantasy mysteries set in a world where astrology works and women are in charge. He's a pointsman! He's a royal guard! Together, they fight crime!

Scott also has two m/m books in a Victorian-ish world where magic is done by means of melting ink tables of various colors, available from DPP. (Now I want to reread them all, yep. Melissa Scott is just so reliably good!)

[renay]

I have the Astreiant series on my TBR! I am very excited about it.

[ursula]

And if you want a tighter reader/writer connection, I did a podcast analysis of my favorite Melissa Scott book:

https://ancillaryreviewofbooks.org/2025/10/06/a-meal-of-thorns-34-burning-bright-with-ursula-whitcher/

[anne]

YES, it's so good!

I adore all of her books except the first one...which was a perfectly fine story, it just wasn't as good as her others. I spent the whole time waiting for the queerness to show up!

[goodbyebird]

I always love seeing these from you <3 (let's not talk about how many of them are already languishing in my TBR *koff*)

[renay]

Being ON the TBR pile means one step closer to being read one day! I'll take it. :D

[goodbyebird]

You can comfort yourself with how your effusive recommendation means I have the physical edition for The Witch Roads ;)