2025 was stressful. Therefore, 2025 was the year I read more books than ever. In 2024 I read 38 books and this year I nearly doubled it. I ended the year reading 64 books, far too many to write a short blurb about (like I normally do). So instead, I’ll remark on some reading trends I went on this year, highlighting specific books that fit that trend.
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Trend 1: Things Got Dark
While my list spans literary fiction, thrillers, romance, nonfiction, and classics, the ongoing theme was clearly psychological thrillers, dark literary fiction, and emotionally heavy or morally complex stories.
Books like Bunny, Small Things Like These, None of This Is True, The Silent Patient, The Maidens, Breath, Eyes, Memories, and The Sentence demonstrate the literary elements I love. Those include unreliable perspectives, morally ambiguous characters, and suspense driven by action or plot.
Trend 2: I Worship Stephen King
I read 11 works by Stephen King this year, including some shorter texts and collections of short stories. I’m trying to read his full list of works, but despite reading 32 titles I’m not even halfway there. This year’s full list includes:
- Full novels (Firestarter, Doctor Sleep, Rose Madder, The Long Walk)
- Novellas (The Mist, Elevation, The Life of Chuck, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, Apt Pupil)
- Short story collections (Different Seasons, You Like It Darker)
Trend 3: I Got Bored, Then Creative
In the fall I saw a reel of someone putting their TBR list onto a random chooser. I love The Wheel of Names for classroom use, so I devised my own version of this. I pored over my bookshelves and cataloged every book that I owned but had not read. When I felt bored, I would spin the wheel and read whatever the it chose. A few rules I instituted is that a book can be skipped once, but if it’s skipped again I have to give it away.
So far this year I’ve read 11 books because of the Wheel of Books (and gave away four). Those books included a few of my Stephen King titles, some nonfiction like A Walk in the Woods and Dry, Edwidge Danticat’s fantastic Breath, Eyes, Memory, and the full novel version of Flowers For Algernon. I love the Wheel of Books and how it’s helping me shave down my TBR pile!
Trend 4: I’m Selective About My Romance
Something people hate about me: I despise Hallmark movies for their terrible writing. I can’t even enjoy most romantic comedy movies, to be honest. Because of this, I never thought I’d enjoy romance novels.
However, there is a new genre of romance-comedy novels that focus on emotional introspection, character-driven stories, and realistic characters. These authors include Emily Henry, Christina Lauren, and the odd title by Abby Jimenez and Ashley Poston. They might not be “literary,” but these titles act as palate cleansers when I need to really escape.
Trend 5: Narrative Nonfiction ONLY
I will not, I repeat, will not read self-help. I read strictly to escape, not to reflect or learn. Therefore, nonfiction sometimes feels like a closed door. However, I devour narrative nonfiction. My newest side quest is reading about shipwrecks and sailing adventures. This year I loved, The Good Nurse, In the Heart of the Sea, The Gales of November, and Billon Dollar Loser, as well as Augusten Burroughs’ memoir, Dry.
Trend 6: Thrillers Reign
I know that as an AP Lit teacher, I should read dense, literary fiction most of the time. But the truth is that I prefer suspenseful thrillers. My first “big kid” book was by Mary Higgins Clark, establishing a thirst that I has never been quenched.
Some titles that fell into this category from this year include:
- The Midnight Feast
- None of This Is True
- First Lie Wins
- The Teacher
- Do Not Disturb
- The Couple Next Door
- Society of Lies
- That’s Not My Name
I don’t anticipate much changing in my trends or tastes for 2026. While I don’t devote much space on this blog to my reading tastes, I share a lot more on social media. Be sure to follow me on Instagram for frequent updates and book recommendations!
Here’s the full list of what I read in 2025, minus 1-2 children’s chapter books that I read alongside my son. I’ve bolded my favorites from the year.
The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (Stephen King)
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
Bunny by Mona Awad
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Weyward by Emilia Hart
None of This is True by Lisa Jewell
The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (Audiobook)
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston
Mrs. Poe by Lynn Cullen
First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston
The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
The Teacher by Freida McFadden
The Rose Code by Kate Quinn
The Sentence by Louise Erdich
Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry (reread)
That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally
Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating by Christina Lauren
Society of Lies by Lauren Ling Brown
Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
Doctor Sleep by Stephen King
I, Iago by Nichole Galland
Ground Zero by Alan Gratz
The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
James by Percival Everett
Apt Pupil by Stephen King (novella)
Different Seasons by Stephen King (collection)
The Mist by Stephen King
You Like it Darker by Stephen King (collection)
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (reread)
Part of Your World by Abby Jimenez (audiobook)
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
The Sirens by Emila Hart
Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
The Light Between Oceans by M. L. Stedman
Elevation by Stephen King
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Life of Chuck by Stephen King
The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
Firestarter by Stephen King
The Crash by Freida McFadden
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides
Breath, Eyes, Memories by Edwidge Danticat
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson
Rose Madder by Stephen King
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl (audiobook, DNF)
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder by Charles Graeber
Dry by Augusten Burroughs
The Gales of November: The Untold Story of the Edmund Fitzgerald by John U. Bacon
Billion Dollar Loser by Reeves Wiedeman (audiobook)
I think you would enjoy Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark and We Begin at the End.