Books I’ve Read 2025

This year, I read a total of 17 books. That’s three more than last year. Here’s the list: 

• The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste
• A Blade So Black by L.L. McKinney
• A Dream So Dark by L.L. McKinney
• A Crown So Cursed by L.L. McKinney
• Ruin Road by Lamar Giles
• The Family Lies by Angela Henry
• Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
• Still See You Everywhere by Lisa Gardner
• Children of Vengeance and Virtue by Tomi Adeyemi 
• The Corruption of Hollis Brown by K. Ancrum
• We Don’t Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry
• Apocalypse Still by Leah Nicole Whitcomb
• King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
• Children of Anguish and Anarchy by Tomi Adeyemi
• The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
• Bones at the Crossroads by Ladarrion Williams

I did not keep up with updating my currently reading page. I will work on that next year. I did accomplish my reading goals which were to finish two series, The Nightmare Verse by L.L. McKinney and The Legacy of Orisha Series by Tomi Adeyemi, and read The Poisons We Drink by Bethany Baptiste. I reread the first two books in both series and read the third ones for the first time. Both series ended in ways I didn’t expect, but I definitely liked A Crown So Cursed more than Children of Anguish and Anarchy. A Crown So Cursed’s story made more sense as an ending than Anguish and Anarchy. I won’t get into all the details since overall it was a decent book; I just didn’t like how the series went from book two into book three. And The Poisons We Drink was so good. I wish Baptiste was doing more in that world. It was so interesting.

I usually narrow it down to three books, but I can’t so I won’t. The books I would come back to are: 

• The Poisons We Drink
• Ruin Road
• Sunrise on the Reaping
• The Corruption of Hollis Brown
• We Don’t Talk About Carol
• Apocalypse Still

I was most surprised by Sunrise on the Reaping and The Corruption of Hollis Brown. I thought I knew what to expect going into Sunrise as I’ve read the Hunger Games series, but it still caught me off guard and there were a lot of tears as a result. The Corruption of Hollis Brown is a young adult novel. It has some spooky vibes. There is body horror so if that’s not your jam, I don’t recommend it. It’s also a weird, lovely read. Again, if you don’t like weird stories, I don’t recommend it. But I loved it. It was well-written and had a lot of beautiful lines in it. 

I’m doing my reading goals for 2026 similar to what I did for 2025: listing specific reads. I want to read The Wilderness by Angela Flourney and Eternal Ruin by Tigest Girma. A lot of books by Black women authors are coming out next year so I really want to read The Great Wherever by Shannon Shanders, Kin by Tayari Jones, and The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman by Deesha Philyaw. There are probably some other books on my TBR (to be read list) that I want to knock out, but I’ll just stick with these for now. 

Tell me about all the weird and wonderful books you read this year. I’m always looking for recommendations. And let me know if you’d read any books on my list and what you thought. Happy reading and happy new year!