My favorite books of 2025

It seems readers either love or hate this open-ended story; I loved it, though it's more cerebral than most of the books that make my favorites list year in and year out. In this carefully constructed and compulsively readable experience, Kitamura presents two competing narratives, both from the first person perspective of a talented aging actress who fears her best days are behind her. Then mid-novel, something shifts—along with everything the reader thought they understood about the characters’ relationships. This isn't for everyone, but as someone who's into family dramas, voice-y narratives, and quietly tense novels, I thought this experimental outing was a nerdy good time. More info →

Wilson deftly combines the heavy and the light in this found family story of four scattered half-siblings who meet for the first time and then pile into an old PT Cruiser to go find the father who abandoned them long ago. Wilson’s stories often feel larger than life, yet the emotional heart feels real and relatable. Quirky, warm, and bighearted, with a multigenerational cast and road trip hijinks galore. I don’t want to give too much away, but it’s no spoiler to say I found this coast-to-coast adventure and 2025 MMD Minimalist Summer Reading Guide pick. to be an utter delight. Since I read it in print first, I elected to share it here instead of with my companion favorite audiobooks post, but I also thoroughly enjoyed this on audio as read by Marin Ireland. More info →

My first Mia McKenzie read was so distinctive and fun! Small-town teenager Doris was Mrs. Lucas’s star student before family demands compelled her to drop out. When she finds herself in the family way, she persuades Mrs. Lucas to take her to Atlanta for an abortion, where the two mingle with celebrities she’s seen in Ebony, civil rights leaders like Coretta Scott King, and Mrs. Lucas’s queer Black friends. Their behavior is shocking—her mama certainly wouldn’t approve—except they treat Doris with marked kindness and seem to have good hearts and common sense. Cheering Doris on through her life-changing weekend was one of my favorite reading experiences this year. This was a 2025 Minimalist Summer Reading Guide pick. More info →

This debut portraying love and redemption over four generations of a Texas family captured me from the opening scene, when twenty-something Lillian is reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in the library and is interrupted by Ryan, the man who becomes the love of her life. They are perfect for one another. But Lillian soon learns that the more you love someone, the more they can break your heart. Her new husband desperately wants them to have a baby, not knowing she already has a son. And she knows Ryan is a child of addiction, but never dreams he will soon be swallowed by it himself. Devastating and beautiful: get your Kleenex ready. More info →

Political writer Jong-Fast calls this deeply personal memoir “the story of the worst year of my life.” As she recounts, it was never easy being bestselling writer Erica Jong’s daughter. But in her 40s, Jong-Fast hit a terrible trifecta: her mother was diagnosed with dementia, her stepfather with Parkinson’s, and her husband with pancreatic cancer. As she sees her mother slipping away, Jong-Fast is compelled to make sense of their relationship, which has always been difficult: her mother was alcoholic, narcissistic, and utterly unavailable to her daughter. This is sad, yes, yet I was transfixed by Jong-Fast’s persistence in grappling with her dysfunctional family dynamics and their ongoing impacts. The through line of fame and its dangers was also fascinating—I've found myself talking about this book and the issues it raised frequently since I read it. More info →

I picked up this 2012 release because I've come to love Liz Moore's work and am toying with the idea of becoming a completist. It's been on my TBR list for many years, yet the uncomfortable descriptions of one protagonist's fatness almost led me to put down the book in the opening pages. (I appreciated this interview with Moore, in which she puts words to her own discomfort at how these descriptions were written, and what she would do differently were she to write this book today.) I'm glad I stuck with it, because I was quickly swept up in the story of three lonely and struggling characters who seem to have nothing in common, but who are brought together by fate and circumstance to maybe, hopefully become a family to one another. The title of the book refers to many things: addiction, compulsive behaviors, the burdens we carry, and the near-impossible weight of the burdens placed on us by our parents. But who might help us deal with these hardships, and carry these burdens? That is the question Heft seeks to answer. More info →

In this sweeping platonic love story from the author of The Eighth Life (one of my 2021 favorite reads), four female friends first meet as grade schoolers in a Tblisi apartment courtyard in the late 1980s. In alternating timelines, we see how these women’s lives tangle with and are impacted by their home city and its political upheaval, invasions and civil war, and violence of organized crime over the course of twenty years. This was a hard read—both challenging to me as a reader and utterly heartbreaking—but my time on this 736-page Georgian novel was well spent. Translated from the original German by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin. More info →

I inhaled this enemies-to-lovers workplace romance just out in October in the U.S.; it managed to be emotionally aware without feeling so very therapy-heavy as have so many books I've read lately. Bel and Connor work together in a Manchester newsroom. She’s an investigative journalist and podcaster; he’s the intern who quit his fancy finance job in the City and is now in search of work that might be of actual value to the world, unlike his old gig. Bel's been given a tip on a huge story, but the stakes are sky high. She needs ironclad proof before she can run anything ... and in her attempts to go undercover to get the evidence she needs, she gets herself into a jam and spontaneously involves Connor in her scheme—as her fake boyfriend. Whether they're alone or pretending to be involved in public, these two are super cute together and so funny. I loved spending time with them on the page, even as they navigated their tricky investigation and their respective terrible—and, for Bel, downright dangerous) exes. I loved the Manchester setting and my one regret was that I couldn't listen to the audiobook—I had such curiosity about the accents and wish I could have heard them performed. Maybe on a re-read? (Open door.) More info →

I was emotionally hooked on this story even before the opening line, thanks to the perfect epigraph from a Rilke poem. This is the unlikely love story of two people who never should have met. Una Everlasting was a medieval lady knight, legendary warrior, and patron saint of the nation of Dominion. Owen Mallory is a tweedy scholar obsessed with Una’s legend. But then Dominion’s new chancellor sends Owen back in time to meet Una and write her definitive tale, so that the story may inspire the beleaguered nation. When he first meets her, he’s in awe and can barely believe she’s real. But then he falls in love with her—with disastrous consequences for them both. I don’t want to say too much—but I was completely entranced by this emotional, epic, and achingly intimate love story that unfolds across time and whose outcome will determine the fate of a nation. I’ve loved Harrow’s work in the past, but this is my new favorite by a mile. This is the place where I get to share my favorites, but I have to say—if you loved The Frozen River and are on the hunt for something with a similar feel, take a close look at this one: SFF may be the last place you'd think to look but for me it hit those history, mystery, and especially married-love-story notes. More info →

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” A daughter’s late-night question to her father sets this story in motion, and quickly takes us back to the gritty East Side of 1970s NYC and the night Eddie would regret for the rest of his life. The implications of that night ripple through the rest of the novel, which unfolds as a series of interconnected short stories laden with themes of abandonment, betrayal, and mercy. In rotating points of view, Silber takes us into the minds of a half dozen people directly or tangentially connected to Eddie’s biggest regret, exploring how both our decisions and pure coincidence entwine our fates with others. I inhaled this in an afternoon; it was one of several titles I read on a very enjoyable Silber kick this summer. More info →

This crime novel was outside my usual wheelhouse and I'm glad I took a chance on it! If you’re a Mercurio, crime is in your blood. In 1961, patriarch Ray and matriarch Lillian fell in love in Vegas—at the scene of a crime. They marry and have five children who they bring up in the family business. Across fifty years, in Oklahoma City, Vegas, Hollywood, and even Moscow, we see how each child is shaped by their criminal upbringing and then comes to struggle against it. Don’t get me wrong: this noir-ish literary suspense is plenty gruesome in parts—but it reads as unexpectedly lighthearted and tender, with ample moments of welcome humor, and I was surprised by how hard I was rooting for these characters by the end. More info →

This late September 2025 release is both follow-up and prequel to King's 2020 novel Writers and Lovers: here we see Casey, during her college years, first discovering she wants to be a writer, and then again many years after the events of Writers and Lovers, so we can see where life has taken her. The first line in this first-person narrative is, "You knew I'd write a book about you someday;" the "you" is her first love. The tone is reflective and compassionate as Casey—having received jolting news that sends her mind barreling back to events from decades before—reflects on old friendships and a formative romantic relationship, past decisions that altered the course of her life, and the potential to both give and receive forgiveness. This felt wistful and wise as Casey examines the issues that matter most to her, and incidentally, to me—partnership, parenting, calling. Bonus: so many books are referenced in these pages; I loved that it inspired me to read so much under-the-radar literature. More info →