The Books I Read in 2025

Reading is fundamental. Plain and simple. And yet, just "19% of American adults did 82% of the country's reading" last year; a grim statistic.

Reading fiction lets you walk the proverbial mile in someone else's shoes. In a previous post, I quoted Trevor Noah: "Travel is the antidote to ignorance." Ergo, if reading fiction is a little bit like traveling through life via proxy, then reading fiction is also an antidote to ignorance.

I won't go into a diatribe about the life-benefits of reading fiction, right now. Just know that I absolutely believe it to be a skill that must be learned, honed, mastered, and used continuously.

And so that's something I try to exemplify in my personal life: live by example and everything, right?

Below is an image made by the great StoryGraph app. About two years ago or so I left GoodReads and moved to the StoryGraph and haven't looked back.

I've gone back and forth about whether or not to go through each book one-by-one or just sing the praises of a select few. I think I'm going with the latter...

The ones worth mentioning:

Dungeon Crawler Carl Series by Matt Dinniman
I don't even know where I heard about this. All I know is I read about how funny and well-acted the audiobooks were by Jeff Hays. And every single person was right. And I am right when I say that these book are hilarious, fun, adventurous, action-packed, nerdy, violent, dramatic, light-hearted, AND exquisitely narrated by Jeff Hays. At first I thought the audiobook was a full cast production, but no - Hays is the fucking man!
The books are about a man named Carl who survives a cataclysmic, world-ending event only to find himself part of an intergalactic RPG gameshow with his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut.
If you can, get the audiobook and let Hays's vocal versatility tickle your eardrums.

Redemption Road by John Hart
This was Hart's... redemption... for me. I had previously read "The Last Child" by him and loved it. Then I read the sequel to it, "The Hush", and was left flabbergasted by how much I didn't like it. At all.
A man named Adrian is serving time for the murder of a woman named Julie Strange. More than a decade later, a woman's body is found killed in the same way Strange was; either it's a copycat, or Arian didn't kill Strange. To top that off, Strange's teenage son learns that Adrian is set to be released from prison and vows to get revenge for his mother...
Good stuff. Very good stuff.

"It is in suffering that we are withdrawn from the sway of time and mere things, and find ourselves in the presence of profounder truth." - John Hart

Beasts of the Earth by James Wade
Wade's writing style demands you pay attention to it. His use of language establishes a sense of place that is both realistic yet somewhat removed from the world with which we are familiar - it is a necessary tool for the Southern Gothic. There's a rhythm to words he utilizes; a cadence to the way characters talk and narration flows that feels almost archaic. His focus on language shows a preference not just on the story he tells, but how he tells it. Wade hypnotizes me with his command of the English language.
This is a mystery that asks: if one is born unto evil, can one escape its clutches?

"The world was not made for the weak, but it was not made for the strong, either. It was made for the living, and the living are defined by their suffering." - James Wade

Beartooth by Callan Wink
Much like the characters in his novel, Wink's writing is somber and exhausted by the strife of life; every damn day it's something. For the two brothers in this novel, their father has just passed away and they are left picking up the pieces of his business; wavering between selfless duty and selfish desire.
The book takes place on the outskirts of Yellowstone National Park. It's a crime novel... maybe "rural noir"? The author makes some bold narrative choices that, were it a movie, I just know the typical audience would not like at all. But in the book they work.
There's reflections on isolation and loneliness, brotherhood, family, motherhood, morality versus legality, the past... I loved it.

"He said that, as far as he knew, 100 percent of the folks who died preferred to stay that way. Death had a perfect record. Not one unhappy customer. It couldn't be that bad." - Callan Wink

Saint of the Narrows Street by William Boyle
This is the kind of book that, once finished, you think to yourself: I've gotta read everything this writer has ever done.
StoryGraph describes this as a "kitchen-sink noir" and I love that. It's about home; the neighborhood, the dangling sword of duty and family. It's about working-class folk trying to get by and the lasting, permanent damage caused when we act on impermanent feelings; how sacrificing your morals even once can create a black hole of consequences that follow us to the end of our days.

"The tragedy of life is we punish ourselves with the weight of regret because we want to believe life is about choice but we’re forced to see it’s about chance." - William Boyle

Going Home by Tom Lamont
For the first time in my life, I burst into tears when this book ended. Not necessarily because it was that good or sad or anything, but rather it was the right story at the right time in my life. Or it just caught me off guard. The closing scene is just... I wish I felt that way about my dad. I wish he felt that way about me... There were so many times in my life where I just wanted him to see me, to try and understand me. The effort counts for something, you know?
I never had a good relationship with my father; his alcoholism made sure of that. And this is a book about fathers: those who unwillingly become father, those who choose to become fathers, those whose fathers intrude; fathers who fix and ruin, fathers who are there when you don't want them to be and who aren't around when you need them most.
It's about seeing others. About being seen by others.
It's about how family is a verb. Love is action - not a feeling. Family is love.

"We men develop. We get hurt and we learn to avoid the hurt the next time... And we never mention that hurt again... We tuck it away nice and deep." - Tom Lamont

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus
and the hook: this book is one sentence long. It gets away with it by being a run-on sentence where every paragraph starts with "and". No pause, no relief, no respite... just as in war. Loved it!
and the premise: a team of soldiers find what they believe to be an angel in No Man's Land during WWI.
and the question: if you were truly able to make a deal with God ("if you do X, I'll never do Y again!"), would you actually do it?

"he’ll be goddamned if he’s going to start believing in miracles here in hell..." - Daniel Kraus

Banal Nightmare by Halle Butler
Goddamn. Behold suburbia, ye millennials, and despair! Butler distills the millennial experience and presents us with her manifesto via narrator Moddie Yance.
This book has everything: hashtag MeToo, performative progressivism, millennial disillusionment, frenemies, yearning, thinking life is lived by just checking off sequential boxes of accomplishments, judgmental jerks, being fucking fed up, being fed up with fucking, losers, artists, artist losers, MTV's Dan Cortese... ok maybe not the last one.
Deeply cynical. What other response is there to... ::gestures around to everything::
This is Daria grown up.
You know every single character in real life. You hate every single one of them. You're terrified that you're Moddie when you start agreeing with everything she says...
Banal. Nightmarish. Life.

"The boredom was like a cheese grater run gently over her heart, constantly, and sometimes she felt she would give anything to leave her own mind for just one second." - Halle Butler

Honorable mentions:
*Playworld by Adam Ross
*King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
*What About the Bodies by Ken Jaworowski
*Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger
*Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson
*Never Far Away by Michael Koryta
*Murder on Sex Island by Jo Firestone

Ones to maybe avoid because they weren't that good:
*This Vile Thing We Created by Robert P. Ottone
*We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

Yearly re-read because it's on of my all-time favorites:
*The Hellbound Heart by Cliver Barker

Until next year's round-up... happy reading!