Top 10: Favorite Books of 2025

 My goal for 2025 was to read 60 books, I managed to read 64 books. Of those books, 45 were physical, 19 were audio books. My most read genre was thriller and I read most books by Suzanne Collins, since I reread the original “The Hunger Games” trilogy and I read the prequels for the first time. Of all the books, my average rating was 4 which is really good. I’ve read some really good book this year, I had 19 five star books. Of those 19, there were 3 rereads. I will not add any rereads to my top 10. Here is my top 10 favorite books, that I read in 2025.
 

10. Once There Were Wolves – Charlotte McConaghy
This was the first book I read by McConaghy, but I will definitely be picking up more of her work. “Once There Were Wolves” is a hauntingly beautiful and suspenseful novel that blends and environmental mission with a murder mystery, exploring themes of trauma, empathy, and the delicate balance between humanity and nature. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

9. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
A dystopian book, published in 1985, but still chillingly topical. It depicts a society were women have been stripped of all autonomy, including the rights to read, work, or own property. It’s terrifyingly relevant in 2025 and I think more people should read it. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

8. Wayward – Blake Crouch
“Wayward” is the second book in the “Wayward Pines” trilogy. I finished the series this year, given both of them 5 stars (first one also, read that one last year). It’s a fast-paced, gripping sci-fi thriller that deepens the mystery of the enigmatic town and keeps readers on the edge of their seats with constant twists and a major cliffhanger ending. This entire series is fantastic and became a favorite series of mine. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

7. Somewhere Beyond the Sea – T.J. Klune
The sequel I didn’t think I needed. “The House in the Cerulean Sea” was my favorite book of 2022, to anyone’s surprise, since it’s not a genre I often read. I didn’t know that this book was going to be in a series until “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” was released. I thought it could never live up to the first, but it did. I loved it just as much and I really felt emotionally connected to each characters again. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

6. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin
It is a highly acclaimed, best-selling novel, which lived up to the hyped. Never expected to love it as much as I did, since this book masterfully uses the world of video game design as a backdrop for a complex, decade-spanning story about friendship. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

5. Gone Girl – Gillian Flynn
“Gone Girl” is a pivotal psychological thriller and a landmark of the “domestic noir” subgenre. Known for its razor-sharp prose and masterfully deceptive structure. The novel explores the dark undercurrents of a modern marriage through the lens of a missing-person mystery. One of the biggest twists in a thriller novel ever. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

4. Razorblade Tears – S.A. Cosby
I’ve only read two of his books, by S.A. Cosby is slowly becoming a new favorite author. “Razorblade Tears” is a visceral and emotionally charged novel, that follows two ex-convicts who form an alliance to avenge the murders of their sons. READ MY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

3. Sunrise on the Reaping – Suzanne Collins
My most anticipated book of 2025 and I’m so glad it lived up to my expectations. It even exceded it actually, it’s now my second favorite in the series. “Sunrise on the Reaping” is a prequel to “The Hunger Games”, telling the story of Haymitch Abernathy. Reading this brutal and devastating book makes the original trilogy hit even harder. I cried multiple times. READ MY FULLREVIEW HERE.
 

2. Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reid
I for sure thought this was going to be my number one, but it ended up being a close second. It’s a movig story, well-researched, set against the backdrop of the 1980s NASA space shuttle program. It focuses on the hidden love story between two female austronauts and exploring themes of ambition, sacrifice, and identity. It had emotional depth and compelling characters. READMY FULL REVIEW HERE.
 

1. Het Laatste Verhaal van Jamie Gunn - Thomas Olde Heuvelt
The only Dutch author I read from this year is Thomas Olde Heuvelt and I never expected that this book would be eventually my favorite of the year. It’s a 2025 release and I read it as soon as it came out. Met the author while being in the middle of it. It’s an intense and compelling page-turned, it grabbed me from the first page and I simply couldn’t put it down. This book was personal and I connected with Jamie Gunn on an emotional level too. READ MY FULL REVIEWHERE.
 
Honorable Mentions: 
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
Heartstopper Vol. 4 by Alice Oseman
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean
The Last Town by Blake Crouch

 

Book Review - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

Title: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Genre: Fiction/ Contemporary
Published: 2022
 
Description: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. for a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions of the betrayals of their hearts.
 
Review: In “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” the world of gaming and literature meet. In itself, that seems like a clash of generations and cultures, but author Gabrielle Zevin manages to seamlessly connect those worlds in this novel.
 
Sam and Sadie have known each other since childhood, with videogames being the thing that connected them in the first place. They haven’t seen ach other for nine years, and they meet again. Both still into gaming, they decide to work together. But where Sam and Sadie can lose themselves in a videogame, there is no escaping the real world.
 
We follow Sam and Sadie in their lives together and apart, how they each deal with their success differently, but also with things like grief, love, friendship, depression, illness. It deals with pretty heavy themes at times, but it never gets too heavy.
 
“Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow” is an ode to friendship, with the gaming worlds as its background. I can understand that people who are not into gaming, it might not interest you. I’m not a gamer, at least not like these characters are, but I could relate to both Sam and Sadie at several stages in this story. I understand the hype of the book, I feel it, because this book grabbed me and I was captivated from start to finish. The writing is beautiful and I loved reading about this friendship. But I do also understand people who don’t get the hype.
 
I found a new favorite in “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow””, but won’t recommend it to just anyone who loves reading. Because the theme of the gaming industry will make or break this book for most people.
 
Rating: 5/ 5