Ranking My 2025 5⭐️ Reads… Some Didn’t Deserve It

One of the best books I've ever read, period. I read what, 53 books last year and then 50 books the year before, that book has stayed with me. It will always stay with me.

It's a deeply human book about human emotions, how we deal with grief, how we deal with familiar relationships, how family can both be a gift and a curse and how you would never change it for the world anyway. It was so good. I cried multiple times in this book.

The way that she made this brilliant story, brilliant characters. It was not only character-driven, but also plot-driven. Perfectly.

I loved the balance of both of those things and like it has your heart racing the entire time because he's constantly going through battles and you think he is not going to make it multiple times and it felt like a movie for me. I really enjoyed it, but I'm not going to lie to you. I have not thought about this book since I read it and since I had that feeling, but again, I read this the very beginning of January.

And with a book like that, it's so immersive. When he goes through something, you feel like you're going through or you feel like a very close family member is going through it. I'm not joking with you, as soon as I finished this book, I immediately wanted to reread it.

That book had me on the edge of my seat. It was heartbreaking. It was terrifying. It was so clever. It was so creative.

I gave that a 4.5 star just because it was more political and that book was used as a tool to set up the story for the next book. So, it was still amazing, still love the writing, still love the characters, but it wasn't five star material, which is I did not think was possible in the series.

I'm not necessarily in love with his writing, I'm in love with his storytelling, these characters, and the unbelievable twists and turns they go through. I never see it coming and they always have my heart racing.

I love these people. I love this world. I love whatever's wrong with them.

And it was just such a beautiful like redemption story. It was high intensity, there was so much going on, it was violent, it was scary, it kept you on the edge of your seat. It was very, very good.

When I first read Red Rising, I didn't know he could go even further. I didn't know he can be even more creative and devastating. So I said that this was five stars and I'm going to stand beside it.

With that in mind and with me reading the first book and thinking that was a five-star and then reading Crooked Kingdom, this is this is Six of Crows. This is Crooked Kingdom. And I thought this was a five-star?

Oh my gosh, this book is heartbreaking, but funny and clever and it makes you wish so desperately for this kid to have love and understanding and you just root for him so much and you're so sorry for him, so sad that he's going through this stuff. I highly recommend this book.

I've read this book, not exaggerating, at least eight times all the way through. The audiobook is incredible. So, when I say I've read it, I listened to the audiobook over and over and over again from start to finish.

It's satirical, it's funny, it's heartbreaking, it's very emotional, it's inspiring, it's all of these things and it's something that completely, completely took me by surprise because when I was reading it, I thought it was just going to be some fun, quirky literary fiction book. It is so much more than that. I recommend this book to so many people.