I’m writing this in early January 2026, kids napping, in little chunks here and there, little mental breaks as ICE and the Trump administration run rampant over this city that I didn’t even quite realize how much I loved, in my bones, until now. So, um, yeah. Here’s everything I read over the final third of 2025: September 1 to December 31. And fuck ICE, and please support Minnesota. Thankssss.

The list is roughly in the order in which I read these. Green books are ones I loved and recommend. Purple books are ones I disliked (and either didn’t finish or wished I hadn’t.) Black books are somewhere in between!

• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler (F) – A quiet contemporary novel about three complex, ordinary, emotional days in the life of a woman in her older middle-age. Really enjoyed the main character, and the writing.
• Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister (F) – A fun twisty lil thriller.
• The Compound by Aisling Rawle (F) – Gripping “literary thriller”, let’s call it. Fascinating. Fun. Kind of scary.
• Holes by Louis Sachar (YA) – I do not remember what provoked me to re-read Holes, but something did, and I did, in about a half day. But what a great book, dude. Holds up pretty well.
• The Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley (F) – Another murder mystery/thriller, and another exploration of wealth, class, and capitalism invading rural areas. A fun quick read.
• The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley (F) – I loved this book. Novel that tracks several pregnant and new-mom teenagers in small town Florida. The characters are so wonderful and fierce and smart and their friendships are so real and complicated and loving and I loved the ways it talked about pregnancy and mothering.
• Back After This by Linda Holmes (F) – A funny, lighthearted, pleasing little romance / insight into the making of podcasts.
• I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin (F) – Big chunks of this book feel like they’re just actually someone’s relatively well-written Reddit posts, but I really liked this book. Optimism in a productive way; fascinating plot; characters I started liking a lot.
• The Last One by Will Dean (F) – Unmemorable, not terribly well written thriller.
• Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (F) – Funny contemporary novel about origami, marriage (and infidelity) and parenting.
• Endling by Maria Reva (F) – Found this book fascinating but actually did not finish. I would still recommend, especially if you’re interested in Ukraine, snails, environmentalism, or what it means to be hopeful in the face of mass extinctions and climate change and war. (Mini-spoiler alert, but about halfway through it turns out the plot you’re following is actually a different character’s half-finished manuscript, and I hate that sort of thing in books. For some reason, finding out that these characters aren’t just fictional, but fictional characters created by another fictional character, turns me right off.)
• The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (F) – This was a re-read for me, on a couple days where I had absolutely nothing else to read and this was available on Libby. I think I loved it the first time I read it, and this time I found the writing a lot more lacking. But it’s still a fun, clever mystery.
• Matrescence by Lucy Jones (NF) – Fantastic memoir/sociology piece on the process of becoming a mother or parent, comingled with some beautiful ecological writing.
• Here One Moment by Liane Moriarty (F) – Fun, cozy, wholesome read with some good twists and turns and lovable characters. I think it even made me cry but that’s kind of embarassing.
• Mansion Beach by Meg Mitchell Moore (F) – A not terribly well written beach read kind of book, also about murder / wealth / class / capitalism invading rural areas. Got more boring as time went on and had bits that didn’t actually make any sense.
• The Author’s Guide to Murder by Lauren Willig, Karen White, & Beatriz Williams (F) – A murder mystery on an island in Scotland. Dragged a little.
• Care and Feeding by Laurie Woolever (NF) – A really well-written poignant memoir about life in food in New York, working with Anthony Bourdain and Mario Batali, pregnancy, and dealing with addiction.
• All The Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman (F) – Funny, decent adventurey thriller.
• What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown (F) – I really liked this book. I cannot decide how to summarize it, so here’s what the NYT said: “…a father-daughter duo live off the grid in remotest Montana. Something isn’t quite right in their tightly controlled world; Jane, a perspicacious teenager, begins to realize that her father isn’t who he says he is. When she makes a courageous break for freedom, we find ourselves embedded in the early dot-com boom in San Francisco. If the Unabomber had a daughter, this could be her story.
• Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman (F) – A very enjoyable travel murder mystery tale with the kind of spare writing I especially like and a likable, unusual main character for these sorts of things.
• Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson (F) – 2025 was my year of discovering that I love everything Kevin Wilson writes, and this is a fave.

Other books I started and Did Not Finish over the second half of 2025:

• The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali (F) – I really wanted to like this, but I couldn’t get into the writing at allllll.
• Once Upon a Tome: The Misadventures of a Rare Bookseller by Oliver Darkshire (NF) – The first couple chapters were fun, but then I felt like I’d really gotten the gist and the author started to feel slightly insufferable.
• Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld (F) – I’ve loved other things by Sittenfeld, but this one was too magical realism, characters too unlikeable, writing too boring.
• The Singles Game by Lauren Weisberger (F)
• The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller (F)
• Cue the Sun! The Invention of Reality TV by Emily Nussbaum (NF)
• Weather by Jenny Offill
• There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension by Hanif Abdurraqib (NF) – Would actually really highly recommend this one for anyone who knows about basketball.
• I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself by Glynnis MacNicol (NF)
• Greta and Valdin by Rebecca Reilly (F)