Tier Ranking the 31 Books I Read from October to December 2025 📚👀

I'm second guessing myself because this is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. Does this go and permanently alter my brain chemistry or just no notes? I think Priory goes in no notes because my favorite book in the series is actually a Day of Fallen Night, the 500 Years in the Past prequel.

I just felt like this one missed the mark. It was it felt very rushed and it didn't feel like it had as much heart as the past books.

This wasn't absolutely not for me. I had a very bad time.

I liked all the characters. I liked getting more from them. I did feel like this book could have been longer.

But Assassin's Apprentice for me was a very respectable four. I really had a great time with it.

Both Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest were five star reads for me and I think they both go into no notes. I loved them both so much.

I just think this book was incredible and it's really stayed with me on such a fundamental level. I loved this book so much.

And I loved this. This is my favorite Steven Graham Jones book to date. Really, really fantastic.

I really liked the first part of this but the second half didn't work as well for me. I do love that it feels like the true horror here is this messed up family dynamic and how much they all hate each other and throw each other under the bus, even though there is other stuff going on that's horrifying.

I loved this book. I thought it was fantastic.

And this one was a disappointment for me. I had really high expectations and this one just it was fine.

I think that they are a really talented writer and they were so vulnerable in telling their story here. And I just thought it was really, really moving and very emotional and it was also very cool to learn about Goss Hawks and to sort of see the process of that training as well.

one of the last couple installments was my favorite of the whole series, which was which was this one, Lost in the Moment and Found. This was my favorite.

It was weird. I think a lot of people maybe won't like this book because not a huge amount happens and it is very sort of ambiguous and it's very odd and it's much more about the oppressive atmosphere than anything else.

I thought this was really good. For the most part, I did not like the ending.

This book broke me into a million pieces and I just thought it was so well done. It's very visceral. It's terrifying.

I loved this so much. Not to spoil my best books of the year video, but this was my favorite book of the year.

And I love this book. This is a favorite classic of mine. I think it's so readable.

Emma Donahghue, who is also an awesome author, I really enjoyed her book, Room

Both Royal Assassin and Assassin's Quest were five star reads for me and I think they both go into no notes. I loved them both so much.

I just think that the way it was executed was very repetitive and just the same dynamic again and again. It was just a bit one note, I guess, and like I said, a bit dragged out for the premise.

I liked the ending and it made sense to me, but I wish we'd had a little bit more time for the sort of emotional resolution of our protagonist's arc there, but I really liked it. It was weird and I like weird.

I feel like the pacing was a bit off for me personally. I felt like the ending was a bit rushed after a very drawn out beginning.

I thought the writing was really lovely. I loved the depiction of the five girls and their sisterhood, their various relationships in that dynamic.

I really liked the romance. I really liked the world building. It was very cool and especially the way that religion is handled.

It's amazing. Highly recommend. Sappic, dragons, politics, incredible worldbuing and incorporation of religion in such an impeccable way.

I read the reformatory which was incredible fantastic five stars. Go read that book.

I thought that this was way too focused on shock value and trauma porn and just suffering for suffering's sake. I didn't think it made a lot of sense.

I didn't think it was well- handled jumping between the three. I feel like every time I started to get into one of them, we would jump to another one.

I don't even know if people who don't have nostalgic goggles would like this book and this series at all, but I love it. It will always be close to my heart.

I liked The Will of the Many quite a bit. I did have a lot of qualms, but overall, I really liked it.

I really liked a few of these stories. Really hated a few of these stories and thought some of them were fine.

I'd read a collection of essays by Helen McDonald, Vesper Flights, which I loved and gave five stars to.

The humor didn't work for me. I found it to be trying too hard and gross just to be gross and I found the harm towards children too much to take personally.

And it's very weird. It's very odd, but also dives much more into the Bunny's internal dynamic in a way that I found really engaging. I also thought it was funny.

It tried to do all the scary things at once and include so many different tropes and callbacks to famous movies and it just was a little disjointed or chaotic. I think I think it would have been more effective if it was a little bit more focused, but I did really like it.

I loved that the characters were very complex. I loved that their relationships were messy and realistic.