best books of 2025 !!

The first book is called A Psalm for the Wild Built and it is about a future where robots live in the woods because they decided to not want to work for humans anymore.

And the winner... is Annihilation by Jeff Vandermir. To all of you who have been telling me to read this book for years, you guys were right.

Then we have atmosphere for repressed lesbians in the8s. I'm sensing a theme here. Except this time they are sad and in space.

We have bear because not having anyone believe you when you point out danger is a very girly experience. And having a psychosexual bond with a bear is weird.

The next nomination is for Blood Over Bright Haven for having a first chapter that vice gripped my attention and didn't let go until the end of its epic anticcolonialism fantasy story.

And finally, the last nominee is a bluette, which is not exactly a weird book, but they are philosophical musings on the sadness and lovelessness of the color blue, which I think will appeal to weird girls.

We have a business engagement, which is a typical '9s romance full of workly sexism, harassment, and extremely toxic relationships dynamics. And then also daring to not even be like a funny bad book but just a boring one.

I also nominated Carmela. Basically, I just think that this book would have been better, more gothic, more lyrical, more vampirically erotic if it was written by Mary Shel.

Then we have discontent for its funny critique on middle class corporate life, jobs, and the age of performance on social media.

Empire of AI by Karen Hoe has been one of the many AI books that I've been reading the past year and this one was definitely the best one. You should read this if you're not only interested in like the impact of AI on this world.

We have Feast While You Can. Does this one have a horror element or an old house? This one has a horror element because the main character has a monster inside of her, which definitely doesn't stop her and her love interest from having a weird obsession with each other.

I've nominated Fourth Wing mostly just for the crime of making me enjoy it. Like it's so poorly written and so over the top and yet it got me at the edge of my seat the whole time and it deserves Jill just for that alone.

I have nominated here great big beautiful life Emily Henry. If you're gonna try to be Taylor Jenkins Reed, at least try to take as much time as she does with writing her books instead of pumping out a mediocre celebrity romance a year after your last publication.

Next nomination is Jobs, the book that aptly shows how we'd rather pay people to do nothing than redistribute wealth equally.

We have the new age of sexism which discusses how changes in the internet, virtual reality, and AI are hurting women disproportionately. And no one seems to care about it because innovation over security. Am I right?

Orbital was the winner of the Booker Prize in 2024 and it is about astronauts going to space, but it's also not really about that at all. You will like this if you like a more conceptual lyrical piece of literature that is not so much a story as it is more following the thoughts of these characters.

If you enjoy reading about just a weird tension and obsession between two characters, in this case, our main character and the girl that she starts living with, if you like weird houses... If you love that kind of underlying, slowly building tension all while wrapped up in this distant weird writing style, you're going to love this.

Best sci-fi book I read in 2025 is Prayer for the Crown Shai by Becky Chambers. This is the second book in a duogy.

Quicks. The book that I still find hard to give a summary for because this book truly feels like it was just every fantasy romanty book story line smooshed into one.

Next, we have Sunrise on the Reaping. 14-year-old me would send me straight to the Hunger Games if I didn't nominate this Hayitch prequel.

I mean, for being the blueprint of modern European fantasy and making me want to run away and become an adventurer hobbit. You will love this if you love fantasy because it makes you disappear into this beautiful magical other world.

We have hunger. Have you ever loved another person so much that when they died, you decided to eat them?

You will love this romance specifically if you love a romance where the female character is not some kind of helpless little girl like she can take him down in a fight. You will love this romance if you love the yearning.

This gorgeously, gorgeously written book, it takes place in the Netherlands in the 60s and follows the slowly growing romance between the girl who lives in the house and then the girlfriend of her brother.

I never thought I would say that I enjoyed a female empowerment self-help book, but this one goes against all the standard independent woman girl boss type of tips and actually had a lot of helpful things to say about how to figure out what you really want and how to ask for it.

Now I do genuinely recommend this book to people who love just weird crazy fantasy with like cool concepts... But very specifically, I would only recommend this book if you like plotbased books with a fast pace.