Here are my favorite books of this past year. In no particular order because I don’t think I truly liked one more than another. Cop out as that may be, it’s how we are rolling.
The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater – Historical fiction but with Maggie’s signature magical elements. Set against the backdrop of WW2 in a luxury hotel in West Virginia. Instead of their normal clientele, they are serving the diplomats of the United States enemies.
The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh – I do love a good Vampire book, and this one is no exception. As soon as I finished, I had to go to my library to get the next one.
The Dark Mirror by Samantha Shannon – This series just keeps getting better and better. Fleshing out more of the world to include outside of Scion, and for once, a hopeful ending.
Accomplice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer -This series is so funny. I can’t help be amused by the whole premise and story. So glad to find out that it isn’t a trilogy and more books to come because I am not ready to say goodbye to these characters.
Red City by Marie Lu – The complicated world we live. Nothing is black and white. What would you do for family? Power is addictive, but it is also destructive.
It never fails. You have a couple of books on hold for months at the library, and they become available at the same time. This was one of them. It’s been all over BookTok for a couple of years now. I finally thought it was time to read it, only be number 168 on the waitlist. Let’s see if it was worth the hate and the hype.
This is actually the third YA author making their adult novel debut that I have read this year. If you think about it, it makes sense. They have all been writing for over a decade. They are growing with their readers, who at this point are adults themselves. I have read many of Lu’s books in the past, and they have all been very different but still grounded in reality. Red City is no different. It follows Sam and Ari, who meet in high school and find themselves on alternate sides of a turf war. Sam is an immigrant who came to Angel City with her single mother. They have struggled to make ends meet until Sam gets an offer to join the Grand Central syndicate. Sam is a resourceful girl who can remember everything she sees and reads, but her real ability is that she can move through the world almost invisibly. People don’t seem to notice her or forget her as soon as they turn around. Ari is also an immigrant who was brought to Angel City by the Lumines syndicate after being noticed. He is always noticed. It doesn’t matter what he is doing, people always watch him, notice him, want to be his friend or more. They bond over their own loneliness and the opposing ability, not knowing that each are alchemist. In this world, Alchemy is a real ability that people possess and is mostly run by the syndicates and organized crime. Diamond Taylor and her husband discover the Philosopher’s Stone and use it to create a new drug called sand. From this, Grand Central was born. Sand heightens a person’s best and worst qualities. It makes a beautiful actress more beautiful, but it also makes someone who is depressed more depressed. Sand is only made through alchemy, hence why organized crime pretty much only employs them. Years after Sam and Ari graduate and have gone their separate ways, they reunite only to find they are on opposing sides of the sand distribution fight. A true Romeo and Juliet story. They still have feelings for each other, so you can imagine how much they struggle with their new situation. As things start to unravel, they have to figure out who they are, but also how far they want to go. I truly love how morally ambiguous Sam is. She knows she has done some pretty terrible things, but she also can’t deny that she kind of likes it. The power she gets from her position is something that she has been looking for in her own life. How can she leave? Ari is more of a compromised hero. He didn’t choose to join the Lumines the way Sam chose to join the Grand Central. He was brought to the US for a new life and a better life for his family. It does make for an interesting dynamic because the roles are usually reversed. I didn’t know it was a series until after I started reading, and I am glad. There is so much to explore with these two characters, and if the first book is any indication, we are in for a ride.
The end of 2025 is coming soon. (Thank Goodness!) It’s that time of the year when Kate and I start thinking about the books we liked the most this year. Before we post our lists, we were wondering, what our your favorite books you read in 2025? Drop them in the comments and let’s see which ones we all liked and which ones we need to add for 2026.
This book started off so intensely and then lost steam. Holland is a graduate student. I can’t even remember if she is pursuing her Master’s or a PhD. I don’t think they even say what for. Only something to do with myths and urban legends. Her professor teaches a secret class about urban legends that may be true, and Holland is her best student. One night, she decides to go down a shady alley in search of one of the legends and brings along someone she is dating. The next day, she is called in to meet the new professor, Adam Bishop, who tells her that Professor is no longer her mentor and is a liar. Then the guy she was dating dies at the exact time the legend tells him, and she only has 24 hours to live. She can prolong her life if she finds the Alchemical Heart that no one has ever seen or knows what it looks like or knows where it is. Enters Gabe, a random guy who deactivates her car and says her twin sister sent him to protect her. They start to follow clues that lead them to a mysterious bank that is also part of a legend from her class. She finds out that her professor runs the bank and needs her to give her the heart once she finds it. Oh, and Gage may have killed his wife for powers. So she runs away from Gabe and runs into Adam, who also says that he was sent by her sister to protect her. And off they go following clues until the big reveal at the end. It’s roughly around the time that Holland starts searching with Adam that I felt the lack of urgency that was in the first half of the book. I can’t say why, I felt that way, but yeah. Things start to slow down for me. Not to spoil too much, but the resolution left some questions. It never really answered why Gabe was looking for the heart or what happened between him and his wife. Like, why bring it up and all? We never find out which one her sister sent to help her, if any, or what her sister’s role is in all of this. She is obviously part of this world, but it feels like she is pulling more of the strings than anything else. It wasn’t a bad book, but it just left me unsatisfied. It started out so good. I just wish it could have kept up the momentum.
This month’s theme is Fall into Family. I’m stretching the theme a bit because this is only kind of about family, since the Mob is a family, right? You never go against the family? Anywho, this is Marie Lu’s adult novel debut. I’m sure it’s going to be as good as her YA novels.
I am so glad I found this series because it continues to entertain me. It is funny, charming, and all the characters are so damn likable. I can’t get enough of the back and forth between Evie and Trystan. I cheered when Becky finally kissed Blade and then immediately ran off. lol. I am glad that we got more of Kingston and his story. It was just a treat to read. We begin not that long after the last book ends. King Benedict has taken one of the Guyvre’s needed to fulfill the prophecy, and Trystan’s magic is going haywire every time he is around Evie. Evie and Lyssa are coping with the return of their once-thought-dead mother. There are a lot of feelings going around. As there should be. A lot has happened to our beloved Villain and his crew. It still amuses me that he runs his villainous empire as any other corporate company with HR and finance teams. He may be the Villain, but he does know how to take care of people. Something that Trystan is just discovering he has been doing all along, but now he is discovering he actually cares. To save the magic, they must figure out the prophecy that they don’t know, but King Benedict does. Hijinks ensue. Twists and turns happen, and oh boy, did we get a fun ending. I thought this was a trilogy, but we are getting at least another book. Which is great because I am not ready to leave these crazy characters.
In the ultimate sacrifice, Mische saves Asar, making him a half God and starting off an eternal night. Of course, they are the only people who can fix it. This time, they have to find God artifacts above ground and well, they are sort of successful. They make many more enemies. I do love the chemistry between Mische and Asar. They just fit each other. It was also nice to get some time with Raihn and Oraya. The couple that started this whole thing. The pacing of this book was a little inconsistent. The last section, at first, felt out of place to me, but I eventually saw what she was doing. I thought this was the last of the books, but apparently, there are more. They didn’t fix things as much as they created more problems for everyone. Not to mention the Gods of the White Pantheon are kind of dicks. Fun book. A good bridge book to the next installment of the series.
2 Women, So Many Books 