everything I read in 2025
GDLP
I really only became a reader after zm + I wrote Poor Artists, and ever since then I haven’t been able to stop. here’s my reading for 2025. reading is not an endoresement by any means lmao, see the notes at the end.
2025>
📕: reads like a book 📙: more memoiry 📊: actually non-fiction 📗: comic 📒: poem
JANUARY
🛢️ Crude by Sally O’Reilly (2016) 📕
👥 Döppelganger by Naomi Klein (2024) 📊
🐎 Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan (2022) 📕
FEBRUARY
🦎 The Cabinet by Un-su Kim (2021) 📕
🐦⬛ It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken (2024) 📕
🥊 Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel (2024) 📕
🍜 Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021) 📕
📇 Things I Don’t Want to Know by Deborah Levy (2018) 📙
🦉 The Cost of Living by Deborah Levy (2018) 📙
🐇 Mary and the Rabbit Dream by Noémi Kiss-Deáki (2024) 📕
🍋 Poor Artists (audiobook, 2024) 📕
MARCH
👂 The Hearing Test by Eliza Barry Callahan (2024) 📙
☎️ Thank You For Calling the Lesbian Line by Elizabeth Lovatt (2024) 📊
🌙 Ootlin by Jenni Fagan (2024) 📙
👺 Goblinhood: Goblin as a Mode by Jen Calleja (2024) 📙
APRIL
🐑 Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh (2022) 📕
📚 The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (2020) 📕
🇩🇪 Romeo & Seahorse by Nikolaj Tange Lange (2022) 📙
MAY
🐒 Monkey King by Wu Cheng’en & Julia Lovell (2021) 📕 19th
🍆 Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (2024) 📕
📲 You Can Vibe Me On My FemmePhone by Kamala Puligandla (2021) 📕
JUNE
🤰 Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham (1957) 📕
🩻 Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa (2023, translated by Polly Barton, 2025) 📕
JULY
💘 Orlando by Virginia Woolf (1928) 📕
AUGUST
🏡 People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen (2020) 📕
SEPTEMBER
🎀 Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (2017) 📕
💻 Keisha The Sket by Jade LB (2021) 📕
🐺 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter (1979) 📕 (28)
OCTOBER
🚪 Intruders by Adrian Tomine (2015) 📗
🐕 Intervals by Marianne Brooker (2025) 📙
🫁 Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova (2023) 📕
🔥 Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell (2016) 📕
🚙 Nevada by Imogen Binnie (2023) 📕
NOVEMBER
🐎 Bright Dead Things by Ada Limón (2015) 📒
🪄 Katabasis by R.F. Kuang (2025) 📕
🐇 The Safekeep by Yael Van Der Wouden (2024) 📕
DECEMBER
🧊 Ms Ice Sandwich by Mieko Kawakami (2013) 📕
🔔 Sabriel by Garth Nix (1995) 📕
🦥 The National Telepathy by Roque Larraquy (2020) 📕
👻 Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (1955) 📕
🦊 A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing (2026) 📕
🐻 The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke (2024) 📕
2025 DNFs
🌺 Flowers by Ed Atkinson
🌒 Y/N by Esther Yi (2023)
❓Will There Ever Be Another You by Patricia Lockwood (2025)
THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS HEHE
this year taught me I like small books the best – Kick the Latch, Hunchback, Pedro Páramo, Nevada, Headshot, It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over. I don’t browse bookshops because Idk how you are supposed to pick. But honestly next time I go to a bookshop I will pull the skinny books off the shelves and see what they’re about.
I really enjoy a devastating book (see crying in h mart, intervals, a beast slinks towards beijing)
The Midnight Library is so shit I feel ashamed to have it on my list icl It was so bait, so trite, so thin. I have to warn everyone off it.
I tried the Deborah Levy books because Zarina loves her but I thought they were boring middle-class diary entries. Zarina are you okay
I didn’t like The Cabinet at all. so dull. I should have given up but I was really ill the day I read it so the bad mood had me feeling crazy
did a re-read of the Bloody Chamber after not having read it since A-Levels and it was a slog. should have bailed. More bailing in 2026.
/
roughly 7 chapters into writing a new book, I have a big appetite these days for fiction that features someone encountering a weird creature. taking recommendations if you have any!
I began two different books in Spanish and only got halfway through them but they’re not going on my DNF list because it’s not the book’s fault, I was just so overwhelmed with my lack of vocabulary. I’ll try again this year.
I reviewed a bunch of these books -> see Mary and the Rabbit Dream, The Hearing Test, Lapvona, Monkey King, Katabasis if you want to hear more
I also finally listened to the audiobook of Poor Artists this year. I don’t know. I was too scared last year? But I really enjoyed it. The Cilla Black impression was so funny. And I’m glad it wasn’t a young person reading it because it felt like Quest’s older self reflecting on everything that went on before she got her head screwed on, yanno?
ok
MORE SKINNY BOOKS 2026
MORE DNFS
MÁS ESPAÑOL