In 2025, I read across a wide variety of genres — from literary fiction and dystopian speculative novels to heart-warming contemporary stories, reflective memoir-style nonfiction, and sociological explorations. My reading journey this year was particularly shaped by character-driven narratives about personal transformation, community, and identity, alongside thoughtful nonfiction that broadened my view of society and human experience. I also gravitated toward books that combined emotional depth with social insight, whether set in near futures or rooted in real-world complexities. The image below is an AI image I created. It illustrates sentiments of the beautiful books I am mentioning below as my reading highlights of 2025.
In no particular order:
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is a deeply humane dystopian story about memory, friendship, and what it means to be truly human. Narrated by Kathy, who recalls her upbringing in a seemingly idyllic school that hides a stark reality, the book explores ethical and emotional questions about exploitation, identity, and the fragility of life. Blog here.
The Second Chance Book Club by Stephanie Butland
Stephanie Butland’s The Second Chance Book Club is a moving tribute to books, kindness, and the way reading communities can support people through hardship. The book follows September Blythe, a working-class woman from Leeds who inherits her biological aunt’s home and discovers her aunt’s book club, diary of kindness, and life story—leading her to reconsider what belonging, family, and meaning can look like. Blog here.
Starter for Ten by David Nicholls
Starter for Ten is a coming-of-age novel that examines class, belonging, and social insecurity through the experiences of a working-class student entering an elite university environment. The book captures the emotional awkwardness of youth while revealing how social structures shape aspiration, shame, and identity. Blog here.
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim
The Enchanted April is a novel about emotional renewal, independence, and the quiet transformation that occurs when social expectations are temporarily left behind. Set in Italy, the story follows four women whose shared escape enables reflection on friendship, autonomy, and self-worth. Blog here.
The Vanishing Bookstore by Helen Phifer
The Vanishing Bookstore is a blend of magical realism and historical fiction focused on memory, loss, and healing. Through interwoven timelines, the novel explores female solidarity, inherited trauma, and the enduring emotional impact of books and shared stories. Blog here.
The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams
The Reading List is a gentle novel about grief, community, and connection formed through shared reading. The story highlights how books function as emotional bridges, bringing together individuals across generations and cultural backgrounds during moments of loss. Blog here.
Mr Skeffington by Elizabeth von Arnim
Mr Skeffington is a critique of beauty, ageing, and female social value within patriarchal society. Through Fanny Skeffington’s life, the novel explores how identity shaped by appearance becomes fragile over time, revealing the emotional cost of social expectations placed on women. Blog here.
Love by Elizabeth von Arnim
Love is a stark and unsettling exploration of loneliness, emotional neglect, and parallel inner lives that never fully connect. Through restrained prose and shifting perspectives, the novel exposes how the absence of care and miscommunication can be quietly devastating, along with societally imposed beauty and ageing standards, which can devastate lives and relationships. Blog here.
The Royal Secret (The Love Letter) by Lucinda Riley
The Royal Secret is a historical novel that blends romance with political intrigue and constrained female agency. The story examines secrecy, loyalty, and personal desire within rigid royal structures, highlighting the emotional consequences of power and silence. Blog here.
Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler
Back When We Were Grownups is a reflective novel about adulthood, regret, and the re-evaluation of life choices. Through its quietly introspective narrative, the book questions whether identity is shaped by responsibility or by the paths left unexplored. Blog here.
Wayward by Emilia Hart
Wayward is a powerful intergenerational story about female resistance, autonomy, and inherited trauma. Moving between historical and contemporary timelines, the novel reframes rebellion as survival and solidarity rather than transgression. Blog here.
The Echo of Old Books by Barbara Davis
The Echo of Old Books is a literary mystery connecting past and present through unfinished stories and lost love. The novel reflects on memory, truth, and the enduring emotional weight of books as vessels of unresolved lives. Blog here.
The Garden of Memories by Amanda James
Amanda James’s The Garden of Memories is an emotionally rich story about friendship, community, and the healing power of nature. Centred on Rose, a newly retired nurse grieving her husband, the blog describes how a garden becomes a space where strangers form bonds, share life stories, and work through difficult experiences—including different forms of domestic and emotional abuse—through “memory plants” that honour people they have lost. Blog here.
Looking back on my reading in 2025, I notice how strongly I gravitated toward novels that foreground emotional interiority, memory, and the quiet ways relationships shape identity over time. Many of these books sit within literary or contemporary fiction, often privileging atmosphere, reflection, and social context over fast-moving plots, and I found myself returning again and again to stories about care, ageing, belonging, and moral responsibility. A lot of it is influenced by two book clubs, and then I carried on looking for more books from authors I discovered in book clubs. After reading Lucinda Riley’s book, I realised that I have read very few thrillers and historical novels—two genres I continue to enjoy and that have always been my favourites, so I will be returning to those genres more in 2026.