a very bookish reflection of 2025
(and a holiday gift for you inside) everything i read in 2025 and all the feelings, good and bad, that came along with them
hello quiet readers, i’m back from a little substack break to tell you about all the books i read this year. this is a very detailed post that is too long for email, so get a hot drink and a blanket at the ready.
christmas is right around the corner and although i’m not feeling the most christmassy, i still want to share some holiday cheer with you. so i’m giving you 25% off paid subscriptions until the end of the year, so you can read this post in full and gain access to subscriber-only posts, including the seasonal mini magazine! you can also buy me a festive coffee oat milk tea here if that’s easier for you.
this is also my way of saying thank you to all of you who read this newsletter. we’ve grown so much this year, i appreciate you all <3
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okay, let’s get into the lists.
winter
the city and its uncertain walls by haruki murakami
i deliberately started the year with my favourite author. i heard his new book was due to be released the previous november and marked it on my calendar like i do for friends’ birthdays. when the 19th came around, i left my work laptop on at home and ran in the rain to the nearest bookshop.
i wasn’t completely blown away by part one but it wasn’t long before i was pulled down deep into the ocean of magical realism and mystifying worlds that murakami is an expert at creating. soon enough, i was breathing underwater and the tale of a man searching for his lost love’s true self, who is stuck inside a walled-off world had completely drawn me in. there’s an image that’s still stuck in my head to this day nearly a year later, of the two of them walking through fields of tall dewy grass: “wet blades of grass were pasted to your wet calves, wonderful green punctuation marks.” this book was beautifully rich. i will definintely read it again someday.
we’ll prescribe you a cat by syou ishida
then, because i wasn’t quite ready to let go of japanese translation just yet, i picked this book up. reading this was like throwing a blanket over your shoulders and warming your hands with a hot cup of tea, something i was doing countlessly at this time of year. i can’t remember now, but i think this book made me cry. if i was in my luteal phase at the time of reading, i definitely cried. how could you not when you’re reading about cats in little prescription bags, teaching characters how to ease their worries about life?
this book reminded me that humans have a gift (or a curse) to see what they want to see in any situation. the cats in this book aren’t magical in any way, they don’t talk and they are not anthropomorphised. they are just cats. and yet, each character walks away with their life changed for the better. it’s just like when we read a book or watch a film and we see hidden messages as if they were placed there just for us to see at just the right moment. a wonderfully cosy read.
white nights by fydor dostoyevsky
snow was falling outside while i pried open the small pages of this classic book and looked on the prose with fear. i am not much of a classics person. like a lot of people, it wasn’t taught to me correctly at school, and i have developed an aversion to it. but while reading this, i was also reading the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde and surprisingly had enough thoughts that i felt the need to annotate as i read. so i thought perhaps i could take a little peek at white nights too. and i’m so glad i did. this is a very layered story about loneliness, desperation and the choices we make because of them. i really enjoyed this one.
spring
the garden party by b.p. walter
i was in the mood for something twisty and fast-paced and i got exactly what i was looking for, and a little more that i wasn’t expecting at all. this story is about a family full of terrible secrets and one character’s mission to expose and get revenge on them all. my heart winced, my jaw fell open more than once and my stomach flipped at least twice. i had a great time. i also met the author at a signing, and he was very kind! he definitely does not look like the type to write a book with the sort of themes that come up in this, which made the story all the more wild if i’m honest.
in the miso soup by ryu murakami
one wild ride after another it seems. this was a very eerie story about a tour guide, kenji, showing an american tourist the sights of japan’s nightlife. but kenji suspects this man is a serial killer and works to keep his suspicions at bay until all hell breaks loose and this becomes one of the creepiest stories you’ll ever read. i read the majority of this while on an escape from our city life to norfolk with my partner because real life was starting to get a bit too much. the juxtaposition of the tranquil countryside views outside of my window and having a mind full of graphic depictions of murder scenes made that trip a little more surreal in memory. perfect for spooky season, not so much during spring. still a great read.
the picture of dorian gray by oscar wilde
admittedly, this took me a very long time to finish (it’s a running joke on my youtube channel) but i’m really glad i stuck with it. this is a densely rich novel about a beautiful dorian who wishes his portrait would age instead of him and quickly realises the consequences of said wishes. as i said above, i annotated this while reading and found i had so many thoughts to write down in the margins of this novel. this will definitely need a second and maybe even third read from me, as i feel there is still so much that i missed. this was my first proper read of a classic, and it has certainly given me the confidence to pursue more.
summer
the new neighbours by claire douglas
i honestly don’t have that much memory of this book. again, when i’m in the mood for a quick read, i’ll pick up a thriller and they usually get the job done. this one is about a woman who is almost certain her new neighbours are planning some sort of devious crime and she just can’t mind her own business and obviously ends up right in the middle of everything, endangering herself and her family. claire has written better books i think.
the days of abandonment by elena ferrante
this was a very interesting and insightful book to read. so raw and unafraid of peeling back the layers to reveal something quite ugly underneath. this is the story of a woman who has been abandoned by her husband for another woman and is forced to confront ugly thoughts, including some about her own children, the harsh new reality she lives in and how she will get through to the other side. i did stop reading this for a while with only 50 pages left, as i was finding it a little hard to get through. i also found the ending to be a little underwhelming for reasons i won’t spoil, but looking back, that may have been an intentional decision that said more about the protagonist. my first elena ferrante too, i’m not running for her other books, but my interest in her has been piqued.
everything i love about literary fiction.
under the paywall: thoughts on blue sisters; miranda july scarring me for life; the best book i read this year and maybe ever; dragging some more thriller books and the book that inspired me to start a short story of my own and take my fiction writing seriously.
