Twenty books. Four genres. A reading year shaped by voice, clarity, and emotional truth.

Disclosure: This post contains Amazon affiliate links. If you buy through them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

I read widely in 2025, but these were the books that stayed with me — for their voice, emotional depth, and the way they quietly reshaped how I see the world. Many of these titles also appeared on major Best Books of 2025 lists, which only confirmed what I felt as a reader.

---

Biography / Memoir

1. Nobody’s Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice — Virginia Roberts Giuffre
   A devastating and courageous memoir about being silenced—and finally being heard.
   
2. The Tell— Amy Griffin
   A fearless, unforgettable memoir about uncovering the truth that finally sets you free.
   
3. The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life — Helen Whybrow
   A lyrical, deeply felt memoir about life, land, and the profound bonds between humans and the natural world.
   
4. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This — Omar El Akkad
   Cuts deep with its razor-sharp moral clarity.
   
5. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row — Anthony Ray Hinton
   A powerful memoir that turns wrongful imprisonment into a testament of resilience.

---

Nonfiction

1. No More Tears — Gardiner Harris
   True horror. Very difficult to read and also to not put down.
   
2. Everything Is Tuberculosis — John Green
   An eye-opening look at how tuberculosis exposes the human cost of global inequality.
   
3. Things in Nature Merely Grow — Yiyun Li
   A heartbreaking, deeply human testament to living with parental pain that never leaves.
   
4. Yonder Come Day — Jasmine L. Holmes
   A devastating and necessary portrait of slavery told through the people who actually lived it.
   
5. No Right to an Honest Living — Jacqueline A. Jones
   An illuminating study of pre–Civil War Boston, where freed slaves forged community and leadership amid shifting social and economic pressures

---

Fantasy

1. Katabasis — R.F. Kuang
   Holy hell—Kuang didn’t just write a book about descending into the underworld; she built a new one, and I honestly think future authors will be measuring their hells against hers.
   
2. The Antidote — Karen Russell
   At its heart, this hopeful novel is about memory—lost, uncovered, and newly made. It is a deeply moving and transformative read.
   
3. The Shining — Stephen King
   A masterfully eerie, psychological horror that turns a lonely mountain hotel into a chilling exploration of fear and unraveling sanity
   
4. The Dream Hotel — Laila Lalami
   A sharp, unsettling tale of surveillance that reaches into the unconscious. Once you read it everything is The Dream Hotel.
   
5. I Who Have Never Known Men — Jacqueline Harpman
   A deeply affecting story that questions identity, isolation, and what makes us human.. It’s a slim book, but its impact lingers long after the last page.

---

Fiction

1. Sisters in the Wind — Angeline Boulley
   A haunting, page-turning story that deepens your understanding of identity, resilience, and the real stakes of ICWA for Indigenous youth.
   
2. The Correspondent — Virginia Evans
   The kind of book that makes you want to send letters just for the excuse to buy fancy paper.
   
3. Wreck — Catherine Newman
   Every page rings with emotional truth, tracing motherhood, family bonds, and grief with rare clarity.
   
4. Wild Dark Shore — Charlotte McConaghy
   A haunting, beautifully written page-turner about love and survival against a brutal natural world.
   
5. Time of the Child — Niall Williams
   A lyrical, deeply moving portrait of love and quiet miracles in a small town told as only an Irish writer can!

---

These top twenty books didn’t just fill a reading year — they shaped it.

I read 112 books this year, and I keep a running list on Goodreads if you’d like to follow along.

If you’ve read any of these, I’d love to know which ones stayed with you, too.