a 2025 reading list
stories that have kept me up at night (in the best way) this year.
As a child and a teenager, I was never without a book. As a daughter of an English teacher, it was pretty much a requirement for the role. I have distinct memories of staying up all night reading, losing myself in fictional worlds and stories – while also keeping an ear out for my parents coming out onto the landing, checking to catch my bedroom light escaping from under my door to tell on me.
It might surprise you, then, to hear that I had a blip of really not reading much at all for a few years. Somewhere between finishing an English Literature degree and diving headfirst into an all-consuming creative career that came with a new city to discover, new relationships to pursue and gigantic stresses to endure, my previously ravenous appetite for inhaling other people’s words got suppressed. I read the odd book here and there, but my ever-growing pile of books just gathered dust.
That all changed when I developed a very pressing need to run away from the various shitshows I was navigating in my life, and into the fictional lives of others. A move to Amsterdam for nine months meant that I had very little suitcase space for physical books, so I downloaded them on my Apple Books app instead and finally found an app actually worth being addicted to on my phone. Once again, reading became a gift of distraction, and it’s now become a joy and a habit once more.
This year, I have whipped through an extraordinary number of stories that have kept me up at night in lieu of the anxieties and stresses of my life. I’ve compiled the ones I’ve loved the most below, along with the books that are currently sat on my To Read Soon pile. I’d love to know if you’ve read any of them too, or if you have any other books you’ve loved that I absolutely need to read.
Enjoy!
PS. All the links to these books will take you to Bookshop, an online bookshop which financial supports local, independent bookshops – not Amazon. I earn 10% on every sale (and Bookshop gives 10% to indie bookshops, too), which is actually very good considering I’ve just been made redundant from my job (again). More on that soon, I’m sure.
THE BOOKS I HAVE READ AND LOVED THIS YEAR
Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Oh boy. I bought this book on the day it came out, and finished it in two days. To say this book is eye-opening is an understatement. I’m pretty sure I felt my eyes pop out, roll to the back of my head and also set on fire on several occasions. As someone who has worked in tech, many of the wild allegations of behaviour and revelations of decisions in this book did not surprise me. But they did shock, disturb and unsettle me – especially given the power that Facebook still has, seven years after Wynn-Williams’ departure in 2018.
So Thrilled For You by Holly Bourne
I started reading this book at around 10pm, and stayed up until 4am to finish it. It. Is. So. Good. It expertly unpicks and lays out the complicated dynamics of female friendships in your 30s, pulling you into the minds and experiences of complex characters you can definitely recognise in your own life. More unreasonable and unlikeable women like these on my pages and screens, please.
Men Who Hate Women by Laura Bates
The contents of this book are so terrifying that I had to restrict myself to only reading it one chapter at a time. It details Laura Bates’ deep dive into the online ‘manosphere’, where she uncovers a breeding ground for the radicalisation of young men online. Vulnerable teenage boys groomed and radicalised into extreme misogyny. Workshops that teach men how to get women’s attention by insulting and abusing them. Incels who worship mass murderers. It's a deep dive into the worldwide extremism nobody talks about, but every woman you probably know has experienced at least once. Like my friend who recently got stalked on the tube. Or my other friend who got inappropriately touched at a pub – in front of a group of friends. Or the countless women who are attacked, raped and murdered every year at the hands of men. Everyone should read this book. Women. Men. Parents. Grandparents. Children. Friends. Partners. Everyone.
Very much a vibe shift from the last book, ‘Green Dot’ is probably my favourite book from this year. From the first page, I was both captured by and drowning in envy of Madeleine Gray’s witty writing and ability to meet the Gen Z and Millennial audience where they’re at – a place of dissatisfaction and disassociation from the sad state that is the world of work right now. The book follows 24 year old Hera, as she embarks on an affair with an older married man at work, desperate to find meaning and connection in her life. It’s messy, frustrating and funny. It’s brilliant.
Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn
This was a re-read, because once you have this book on your shelf, it’s basically a guide that serves as an excellent reminder of all the ways we all love each other – from friends and parents to lovers and partners. It’ll warm your heart and shatter it too. But wherever you’re at in your relationships, it really will leave you feeling hopeful. Promise.
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Dear sweet lord of all that is literary and good in storytelling. Taffy Brodesser-Akner is probably the best writer in the world right now. Her follow-up to Fleishman Is In Trouble (which left me with so much whiplash that I couldn’t pick up anther book for weeks) documents the years, consequences and repercussions that follow for the unbearably wealthy, awful and entitled Fletcher family after their father, Carl, is kidnapped. There is not a single likeable character in this book. And yet, I was hooked. I read it on the bus to the office, at stupid hours of the morning and once in the toilet at dinner with friends. It’s intense, but a masterpiece.
What A Way To Go by Bella Mackie
There’s a part of me that feels bad when I whip through a book in less than a day, because of how long it takes writers to write, edit, rewrite, re-edit over and over again until their book is this good. This is yet another tale of a utterly horrendous multimillionaire meeting their downfall (do I have a type, maybe?), when he’s murdered at his own 60th birthday – then sent to the afterlife until he uncovers exactly what happened to him and why. It’s very funny, very addictive and very satisfying to once again, despite every character that comes your way.
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
I acquired this book from a bookswap shelf in a hotel in Texel, an island at the north of the Netherlands, last year. Pre-dating Nobody Wants This and Too Much, this is a love story that gives the reader what they want – instead of placing pointless plot hurdles for them to jump over and crash through. It follows a comedy sketch writer on a fictional Saturday Night Live who’s all but given up on romance, until the very famous, very hot (according to my imagination, anyway) musical guest shows up and changes everything for her. It’s cute, it’s warm, it’s funny and it makes the unrealistic feel real. I also really love how Curtis Sittenfeld writes dialogue.
Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves by Sophie Gilbert
In a similar vein to Laura Bates’ Men Who Hate Women, this book is a pretty intense look at how women’s relationships with ourselves (and to an extent, other women too) has been shaped by a millennial pop culture that’s been fine-tuned to appease male desire, heavily influenced by the rise of porn. Sophie Gilbert shares a deep analysis for how female sexuality became both a superpower for women, yet also a weapon to be used against us. Sad, despairing but important.
From the Corner of the Oval Office by Beck Dorey-Stein
This was another re-read, downloaded on my Apple Books app. I read this memoir when it came out in 2018 and I still love it so much. It follows Beck Dorey-Stein as she applies to a random job posting on Craigslist in 2012, which leads to her becoming one of Obama’s stenographers at the White House. The book details all her wild adventures with her microphone and recorder as she accompanies the president on trips all over the world, her misguided affair and her eventual departure when the first Trump administration comes in. It really is so good, and now pretty emotional to read and remember what it was like to have Obama as the leader of the free world. Btw, I lent my physical copy of this book to someone ages ago and I can’t remember who. If it was you, please post it back to me.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Ugh, I just loved this book so much. It was like a time capsule of all the stupid things you did and felt and thought in your early twenties, all tied together and complicated by the glorious love you have for the friends you find who finally feel like your people. It follows two best friends, Rachel and James, in Cork, who become best friends after meeting in a bookshop and embark on a sultry heist to help Rachel execute an affair with her married professor. It’s nostalgic in all the right ways, heartbreaking and political in parts, too (hello, reproductive rights in Ireland). It felt like the Irish version of my own Welsh life, and made me want to go a bit easier on my past self.
Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman
And speaking of Caroline O’Donoghue, her podcast
is pretty much the only one I listen to right now, and the source of many of my thoughts and opinions. So much so, that on a solo train ride from Cannes to Marseille, I listened to her episode with Ella Risbridger on His Dark Materials: Northern Lights (which forms part of her summer fantasy book club) and got so wrapped up in the nostalgia of my favourite childhood book that as soon as the episode was over, I immediately bought it on Apple Books to re-read again. That’s influence, baby.The His Dark Materials series was the main culprit for my late night, might-get-in-trouble-for-staying-up-this-late-on-a-school-night reading sessions. My love for Lyra Belacqua, the book’s protagonist, has never faded and my heart still breaks for her and the decisions she has to make and the courage and bravery she finds within herself for others. In case you don’t know it, the story is one that takes orphaned Lyra from her home in Jordan College, Oxford to the world of ice bears, gyptians, witches and awful, awful people on a mission to rescue kidnapped children, and to understand a phenomenon called Dust. It’s a book about secrets, betrayal, messed up families, religion and other worlds. It’s probably my favourite story of all time.
This was the first book I read this year, and the story punctuated my honeymoon in New Zealand. On one particular day, my husband and I met one of our friends out there for a very steep hike in very silly heat, and after 15 minutes I abandoned them to walk back down the hill and sit in the car for five hours reading this book, sustained only by Pringles and warm water. And guess what? I made the right choice.
I’d seen the Netflix series of Rivals before I read this book, but it was such a joy to dive deeper into all the characters and uncover all the back stories and travel back in time to the glamorous, sexy and spiteful world of 80s showjumping. A very fun holiday read.
Good Material by Dolly Alderton
If you’ve ever gone through a breakup and sat with your friends wondering, ‘I can’t even imagine what version of events my ex could possibly be telling,’ this book is basically the answer you were looking for. Told from a freshly-broken-up-with Andy’s side of the story, we follow him as he tries to work out why his ex-girlfriend, Jen, stopped loving him. He’s frustrating, desperate and blind to his own flaws. He’ll probably remind you of someone you or your friends once dated. But the story is universal in the way it looks at how it feels to wake up one day and realise that your world moved on without you while you were too busy thinking about yourself. It’s so good.
My dad clearly knew I’d love this book – so much that he inadvertently bought it for me twice: once in hardback for Christmas, then again in paperback for my birthday.
The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand
Oh look, another book that kept me up all night. I really do have a thing for stories where the lives of the rich and awful get publicly shattered and humiliated. And this is a very good one. It’s a proper ‘whodunnit?’ that twists and turns and points fingers in every direction, spilling cans of worms over complicated family dynamics, dark secrets and bad behaviour. I would’ve liked to have read this on a beach, so you should probably try to do so.
BUT. I read this before the Netflix series came out, then watched it with my husband, excited for his reaction at the final reveal only to find that the TV series had been given a completely different ending with a completely different culprit??? Insanity. I’ve read countless articles comparing the differences between the story on the page and the story on the screen, and I still can’t figure out why they did it. Weird.
Lessons In Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
I just didn’t want this book to end! It soothed me, enamoured me, enraged me, upset me and surprised me. Set in the early 1960s, it follows chemist Elizabeth Zott as she navigates working at an all-male team at Hastings Research Institute and falls in love with a Nobel Prize-nominated scientist. Along the way, she discovers that like science, life is unpredictable. Elizabeth is forced to leave her job (hello, vile, misogynistic boss) and finds herself as the unlikely star of a new cooking show, where she shares her science-led, revolutionary cooking techniques that teach the women of America so much more than how to cook. It’s brilliant.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
Literary professor Phoebe Stone has just been left by her husband of 20 years (asshole), after going through unsuccessful IVF treatments and miscarriages (double asshole). She finally reaches breaking point and leaves her house with only her best green dress and uncomfortable gold heels, setting off for a hotel she once saw in a magazine. But upon arrival, she discovers that by way of an administrative error, she’s the only guest at the hotel who isn’t there for a ‘perfect’ wedding. During a run-in with the bride, Lila, Phoebe accidentally reveals her real reason for being there: to kill herself with pills in the ocean-view room she can’t afford. But Lila won’t have Phoebe ruining the wedding, so she makes her a bridesmaid and invites her along to all the activities, too.
This book is so much fun and so much about wow solving other people’s problems can help you work through your own and start over again. My mum read it immediately after me and loved it too.
Okay this book was so brilliant that it gave me whiplash and I couldn’t read anything else for days. The story follows a 45-year-old perimenopausal woman who is meant to be embarking on a solo drive from California to New York, but ends up not leaving the state and having an extramarital affair instead. Her lurking desire for change leads to a sexual awakening and a sad, mad (but in parts, also funny) journey of female and maternal self-discovery. Who knew that that tearing your life up in your 40s could be so miraculous and freeing?
Emily Henry is becoming another Taylor Jenkins Reid for me, by way of always delivering on relatable, flawed characters getting into unrelatable scenarios – but navigating them in relatable ways. This was a very fun, very speedy holiday read that I could not and would not put down until I found out the ending.
Again, I whipped through this one too. The premise is that the two main characters, Daphne and Miles, have just been dumped by their exes, Peter and Petra, who are now dating. Wild. Daphne has nowhere else to live so moves in with Miles, and the two navigate their shared but separate heartbreaks together by becoming friends and addressing their own flaws and bad decisions head on. It’s very fun, very easy and one to inhale on a good holiday – or as an escape from your bad job.
Have you read these books? Did you feel how I felt about them? Did you feel differently? Tell me everything.
THE BOOKS ON MY ‘TO READ SOON’ PILE
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The Safekeep was a great read! I have LOVED the story so badly, and Emily Henry is my new Sophie Kinsella. Her books are like a nice palate cleanser in between more demanding titles. Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors is on my list as well, along with Blue Sisters, which they told me to be super nice too.
Recently, I have been obsessed with a new app that allows me to add all my TBRs, read books, and track books I want to buy. It even has a nice cute randomiser that can give pick up for you among your books what to read next if you do not know exactly what to pick or if you are in a specific mood for something, it even has a small test to try and help you out and can suggest the next reading from either the books you have or based on what you are in the mood fore. It's called Fable, 100% recommended!
The Course of Love is one I've re-read several times!
Great lists here - thanks for sharing 📚