I didn’t set out to read the most books I’ve ever read in a year. But 2025 has been a doozy of a year and I found so much escape and wisdom in the pages of books. I tried to get outside for a walk nearly every day this year and audiobooks kept me great company on those outdoor refreshers.

I also switched my book reviews from my normal Instagram feed to their own account: @emilycrallreads I don’t post for the likes or follows, but because it’s a way for me to keep track of my favorites over the years and why I loved them so much. When I read a lot of books, some can tend to blend together and this is a way for me to make sure the best ones don’t do that. You can also find me on StoryGraph.

In no particular order, here are my favorite 30 books from 2025. You can find previous year-end favorites here.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

This book is what reading is all about. I wish I could read this all over again for the first time. I read the entire book in less than 24 hours and now I’m sad that it’s over. 10/10 no notes. It’s perfect. That’s all you need to know. Just pick it up and start it. You’ll see what I mean.

107 Days by Kamala Harris

“My God, my God. What will happen to our country?” 

The timing of this library hold becoming available one year later (and while the government was shut down—again—and SNAP benefits expired and healthcare premiums skyrocket and masked agents are disappearing people from the streets) was…I don’t know, ironic. 

In many ways, just hearing Harris talk through her first-person perspective of all that happened during those days leading up to the election was healing and cathartic. In other ways, I cried several times from the PTSD of it all. (Who else was part of the 3 AM Club?!) The November 5 chapter broke me. I thought I was ready, but I wasn’t. Reading a non-fiction book when you already know the devastating ending and are living in the results of that is really, really hard. 

The tears I wept on November 6, 2024 turned out to be the most valid heartache I’ve ever had. “My God, what will happen to our country?” Because we knew. We saw the blueprint; we heard the rhetoric; even our worst imaginations have already been surpassed in the first 11 months. 

But, as a wise woman who should have been our first female President said, “Our spirit is not defeated.” 

Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

What happens when a one-night stand turns into being lost at sea together on a houseboat? This book is very action-packed (low supplies, storms, leaks!) with such a brilliant and original storyline. Absolutely loved it!!

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I hate three things: 1) that this book was published in 2007 and school shootings have become more frequent and 2) that school shootings are strictly an American problem because 3) guns laws and access have gotten more and more relaxed in recent years. 

When there’s danger, you typically try to find the source and make changes. Shocking how the government thinks that adding more fuel to the fire will put it out. 

Jodi Picoult is such a writer. Every single book she writes is deep, thought-provoking, and makes you contend with several viewpoints that make you uncomfortable. Do you want to feel bad for a shooter? No. Do you want to feel any sadness for a bully? No. Do you start to understand there are layers and layers to every single decision and moment? Yeah. 

In this book, we have both the event (a high school shooting) and the aftermath (the trial) plus a whole smattering of backstory leading up to the event and the trauma afterwards. It’s a large book on an (obviously) heavy subject, but it is a book that I will recommend to everyone.

Seven Days in June by Tia Williams

Tia Williams takes a second-chance love story and manages to capture within it an entire spectrum of Black spirit, joy, humor, and redemption. Sometimes a books own summary manages to say it best: “With its keen observations of Black life and the condition of modern motherhood, as well as the consequences of motherless-ness, Seven Days in June is by turns humorous, warm and deeply sensual.

Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker

This is Jen Hatmaker writing at her very, very best. It’s honest, funny, raw, and painful. If you follow her on social, you saw bits of the falling apart from an airplane vantage point, but this is a deep, up close and personal look at what happened and, importantly, how one moves forward to ultimately find joy again.

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

This is an absolutely beautiful book all put together from a collection of written letters between Sybil Van Antwerp and people in her life (her brother, her best friend, the president of the university who will not let her audit a class she really wants to take, Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, her daughter, and, delightfully, even a customer service rep). It is practically perfect in every way. It might even inspire you to sit down and write a letter. 

(Also, the audio has a full cast (!!) and Maggi-Meg Reed, voicing Sybil, sounds so much like Julie Andrews that I had to go see if, in fact, it was Julie Andrews. She is exquisite.)

The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett

An instant favorite. I put it easily in the top 5 of the year for me. It gave A Man Called Ove + The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83¼ Years Old vibes. It’s somehow both incredibly sad and equally funny. 

PJ Halliday is a winner of a million dollars in the lottery. (He has the sweatshirt to prove it!) One would think this is the dream, but PJ has had a number of tragedies in his 63 years, including the loss of a daughter, a divorce, and a drinking problem.

When his estranged brother’s family dies, he is given responsibility for his great-niece and nephew. With the children in tow, as well as his daughter, Sophie, a young woman who can’t find herself, they set off on a road trip with a “borrowed” car to Arizona to find his supposed long-lost love at the Tender Heart Retirement Home. Also, along for the escapade is Pancakes, a cat who seems to perceive death. 

It’s a motley crew and with PJ, a man who has seemed to never grow up, it’s a trip that has its highs and lows. Blowing through his lottery winnings with drinking and a stupid spirit of generosity, PJ starts to realize what he is. He is lovable, stumbling, and never facing up to what life has given him. 

It’s a heart warming story with a lot of mishaps along the way.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo

This book had me spinninggggg (no pun intended). There was just no way to predict anything that would happen and the shocking moments just kept hitting so hard. 

It is a Wuthering Heights retelling by Layne Fargo, but I also thought from the very beginning this book had big TJR’s Carrie Soto + Daisy Jones energy while also managing to stand completely on its own, a feat! I simultaneously couldn’t put it down and also wanted to savor every last word. This is so high on 5 stars that it’s basically off the chart. 

Audiobook is a must on this one. It’s a full narration cast (including figure skating’s own Johnny Weir! Casting him was Fargo’s idea, “one she assumed was ‘completely delusional,’ but she threw it out there since the character he reads for was based on him.”) and it is so well done!

The House of Eve by Sadeqa Williams

“Knowing about racism and being abused by its wrath were two different things.”

This book still haunts me. It’s set in Philadelphia and Washington DC in the 1950s and the chapters alternate between Ruby and Eleanor, two Black women and the decisions they make that change the arc of their lives in unexpected ways. It explores a lot of the hardships women, but Black women in particular, had to go through in order to just survive. To have a decent life. 

In Philadelphia, seventeen-year-old Ruby has a strong chance of being the first in her family to attend college. A risky love relationship could quickly dash her hopes and keep her in the depths of poverty her family has always known…

In Washington DC, Eleanor attends Howard University where she meets William Pride who’s from a wealthy Black family. As they fall in love and marry, Eleanor struggles fitting into William’s family and hopes a baby will secure her place in the life she’s reaching for…

Historical fiction stories hardly paint a pretty picture but I don’t think that’s ever the aim. Much of American history, after all, is quite ugly. “The House of Eve” uncovers facts and faces realities and, as a consequence, it’s a heartbreaking story to read. 

After the Last Border: Two Families and the Story of Refuge in America by Jessica Goudeau

Wow. This true story of two refugee women in Austin, Texas undid me. It switches back and forth between Hasna and Mu Naw’s stories and includes facts about the history of refugee resettlement in the U.S. and the human toll taken by anti-refugee sentiment from the top down in recent years. It reads like two main characters in a fiction book and I say that with so much respect because I feel like non-fiction books can tend to be a little boring sometimes (for me, at least). This is not one of those.

In our current climate, I think it’s more important than ever to really try to understand the perspectives of those who are most challenged by our stripping away of rights, laws, and safety; in this particular case, refugees. But even more than the legalities, it is vital to understand how absolutely devastating negative sentiment is to real human beings on the other end of it. 

“The welcoming and acceptance of immigrants and refugees have been central to America’s identity for centuries—yet America has periodically turned its back in times of the greatest humanitarian need. After the Last Border is an intimate look at the lives of two women as they struggle for the twenty-first century American dream, having won the golden ticket to settle as refugees in Austin, Texas.”

The Love Haters by Katherine Center

This book has everything. A houseboat. A fake relationship. A huge rescue dog. An amazing matriarch. An annoying brother. Childhood trauma. A journey of self love. A career on the line. A natural disaster. A helicopter rescue. 

I mean, Katherine Center really said “I want it all.” And it is a delight!!!

By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult

“Even if you do not feel the shade of the tree you planted, others will.”

The authors note alone at the end would have been mind-blowing (absolutely fascinating!!), but the book as a whole was completely and wholly capturing. Do I have a whole different view of Shakespeare now? Yes. Do I love that I now know the name Emilia Bassano? YES. What a story!!

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

This was not what I was expecting at all (astronauts? outer space? constellations?), but then again, I feel like TJR simultaneously never is and is always exactly right. The research that goes into her books blows me away every time; so well researched that each book feels genuinely REAL. 

I loved it, I loved it, I loved it. Look at how my tears ricochet. 

(Also, Barbara is the actual worst and I hate her. It must be said.)

Not My Type: One Woman vs. a President by E. Jean Carroll

For the life of me, I will never, ever understand how people could hear with their own ears the Access Hollywood tape and still put their stamp of approval on that man. The spoiler here, in 2025 with all the additional things we know, is that he is so much worse than anyone could have imagined. But the tape, (among honestly a hundred other things) should’ve tanked his reputation before we got to here.

Nevertheless, this book is not about the tape. It’s about a rape from years ago in a dressing room at Bergdorf’s. (As part of the trial, it also includes the testimony of multiple women recounting their own sexual assaults by Trump.) As one reviewer wrote, “This week [June 2025], while Trump was busy telling America one of his cringy penis jokes, E. Jean Carroll released a memoir titled ‘Not My Type.’ It’s a shocking and shockingly hilarious account of one woman’s fight for justice against a sexual predator who moonlights as president of the United States.”

E. Jean Carroll is a character and it’s a pleasure to spend time in her company, despite the reason I was there. At the outset of the audiobook, Carroll claims she’s no professional narrator. “I tried practicing and, at one point, I even gave up and cried out, ‘Bring in Ellen Barkin! Bring in Meryl Streep!’ But despite my flaws as a narrator, regardless of my stomach growling like a bulldog, my laughing and my weeping and my inability to read a single sentence without a mistake, this is my story, and, by God, I’m going to be the one who tells it.” By God, does she ever.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

This book was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement and is a powerful YA read. I’ve had it on my list for a long time, but finally grabbed it in October for the banned books reading challenge. 

Starr Carter, sixteen years old, is in the car with her friend, Khalil, when they get pulled over by a police officer and Khalil, unarmed, is murdered in front of her. His death quickly becomes a national headline and everyone wants to know what really happened. The only person who can answer that is Starr. With both drug lords and cops threatening her and her family, what she says or doesn’t say will have a big impact.

“What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?”

I loved the family dynamics in this book. It’s one of the most real examples of family life I’ve read in a book in a while. The siblings picking on each other while also being fiercely protective. The parents madly in love while also not always getting along. But the strongest aspect of this book is its social commentary and political criticism. This is the kind of book that should be teens’ hands, making them aware of current issues, educating them, and encouraging them to get involved to create change. It poses many important questions about racism, police brutality, discrimination, and prejudice while also answering them in a comprehensive and inviting way.

It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War by Lynsey Addario

“If you weren’t close enough, there was nothing to photograph. And once you got close enough, you were in the line of fire.” 

I think one of my first introductions to @lynseyaddario ’s work was shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. I was captivated by her raw, genuine portrayal of Ukrainians; of the reality of war. I don’t need to see photos to believe it’s real, but let me tell you that photos make it unforgettably real and, in a world that is somehow so connected and also so singularly focused, this is important. 

In fact, Lynsey herself said in the book in regards to a series of photos from Iraq that were pulled by the Times before publication: “I wanted to make people think, to open their minds, to give them a full pictures of what was happening in Iraq so they could decide whether they supported our presence there. When I risked my life to ultimately be censored by someone sitting in a busy office in New York, who was deciding on behalf of regular Americans what was too harsh for their eyes, depriving them of their right to see where their own children were fighting, I was furious.”

This book includes some of Addario’s work, but do not get it expecting a photo album. This is a memoir about consistently running into war and conflict to document reality. It’s about a woman figuring out how to be not just a woman in a field dominated by men, but a women doing her job in countries that do not give their women a voice or even sometimes a face. It’s about a photographer often documenting the invisible: what remains after a war and the women who “were casualties of their birthplace. They had nothing when they were born and would have nothing when they died; they survived off the land and through their dedication to their families, their children.”

The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo

This is a book of many characters so, for me, it took some time to settle into it and get to know them. Once I did…! 

It’s a multigenerational novel based in Chicago that jumps through decades of life. We see everything from Marilyn and David first falling in love all the way to their four now-adult daughters (Wendy, Violet, Liza, Grace) and their own families and lives. Jonah’s arrival upends all of their lives and we get to see how they work through that individually as well as wholly. 

“Lombardo’s debut explores the triumphs and burdens of love, the fraught tethers of parenthood and sisterhood, and the baffling mixture of affection, abhorrence, resistance, and submission we feel for those closest to us.”

My Friends by Fredrik Backman

How is a book so heavy and simultaneously hilarious?!? I laughed out loud multiple times throughout this read. I adore them all so much. So much. Louisa. Ted. Kimkim. Joar. Ali. Christian’s mom. My gosh, these people who survived so much unimaginable pain and brutality and found joy and family in each other. I want to read it all over again just to stay close to them. 5 ⭐️!

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder

An incredibly timely read. 

“I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.” – Hannah Arendt

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawson

Martha Ballard. Wow.

First of all, I had no idea, until the end in the authors note, that Martha Ballard was a real person, a midwife who delivered over 800 babies (with an incredibly low mortality rate at that time of 2.5 per 100!) in the 1700s. The fact that she was literate and kept a diary, both things basically unheard of for a woman in that day, is quite literally why we know about her today. 

And while Ariel Lawhon specifically states that “The Frozen River” is not a biographical work, but fiction, she also notes that many of the diary entries, people, and events actually were true. She condensed some timelines and added context to made this book, a novel, and shortened the rape scene to two men and one occurrence instead of what really happened (three men three times in one week). 

What loved perhaps most of all about this story was the relationship of Martha and her husband, Ephraim. You don’t often hear of feminist men from that age and I love how much Ephraim adored Martha and valued her opinion and autonomy.

Husbands & Lovers by Beatriz Williams

If you love a dual timeline kind of story, this is for you! 

In the present day: Mallory. Her son faces a health crisis and needs a new kidney, but his father doesn’t know he exists. Mallory never told Monk that he had a child, and there’s a reason why. Trying to find a donor for her son means she needs to dig into her mother’s adoption to find her birth family and, hopefully, a match. 

1951: Hannah. She takes us on a ride of intrigue as she navigates a revolution with two different men. 

How do these two stories connect? What is the meaning of the cobra bracelet? What happened that made Mallory disappear from Monk 13 years ago? I could not put this down!

The Girls at 17 Swann Street by Yara Zgheib

Trigger warning: eating disorders

There’s so much authenticity in Yara Zgheib’s writing that it feels similar to taking a punch to the gut. At times, facing Anna’s reality is uncomfortable and deeply sad, but also eye-opening and honest. The book is told almost entirely from Anna’s perspective, with additions of medical notes/progress reports.

The book doesn’t pull any punches. You see exactly how hard it is to fight this disease and how not all manage to do so. You also see how vital it is to have someone fighting alongside you, a person who cares and is important enough to keep going. 

“Anorexia is the same story told every time by a different girl. Her name does not matter; mine used to be Anna but anorexia got rid of that. And my feelings, body, husband, life.”

The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

“The Lion Women of Tehran” is a story of the friendship of two young girls of different economic statuses growing up in the turbulence of Iran. The story takes place in 1950s Tehran and continues up until present day. It is a coming of age story as Ellie and Homa make life-changing decisions and the conflicts they encounter as a result. It’ll make you want to both weep and burn things. Brilliant.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

“Love isn’t something you can cup in your hands, and I have to believe that means it’s something that can’t ever be lost.” 

I adore Emily Henry so I anxiously sat on the waitlist for this one. Two writers competing for the job of writing a biography of the daughter of one of most famous families of the 20th Century. 

It took me a bit to get into Margaret’s story, but then I became wholly invested. Alice and Hayden are wonderful lead characters and I loved their chemistry. The twists hit hard (dangggg) and the concept of a story within a story was new for EH. I genuinely loved it!

Ejaculate Responsibly: A Whole New Way to Think About Abortion by Gabrielle Blair

What started out as a Twitter thread became this best selling and incredibly thought-provoking book about abortion and pregnancy. Gabrielle Blaire does a terrific job creating a new narrative that is supported by data. (We love data! We love science!) Ultimately, it boils down to this idea: with men actively involved and responsible for how and where they deposit their sperm, we can significantly reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions. The abortion debate needs to be moved away from controlling and legislating women’s bodies and, instead, focus on men’s lack of accountability. 

“Once we recognize this disparity in fertility, it becomes crystal clear that pregnancy and abortion are not ‘a woman’s issue.’ Men don’t play a minor or supporting role in pregnancy. Men’s lifelong continual fertility is the central driving force behind all unwanted pregnancies.” 

Blair builds her case by walking readers through 

• the basics of fertility — Men are 50x more fertile than women. A woman’s body produces one fertile egg for approximately 24 hours each month. An 80 year-old woman who menstruates for 40 years will have 480 total days of fertility in her life. Compare that with an 80 year-old man who will have 24,208 days of fertility once he achieves puberty. Every time a man has sex, he can potentially impregnate someone because he is always fertile.
• the unfair burden placed on women when it comes to preventing pregnancy — 90% of the birth control market is for women. Men can locate condoms everywhere. Grocery stores, gas stations, etc. No appointment, no insurance, no prescription needed. A woman, on the other hand, needs a prescription from a doctor so that means making an appointment + getting an exam + having health insurance + waiting weeks for an open appointment slot + taking time off work for the appointment… All of this money, time, and mental gymnastics for the equivalent of something men can get at a gas station.
• the wrongheaded stigmas around birth control for men like condoms make sex less pleasurable or vasectomies are scary and emasculating. Get out of here with this nonsense.
• the counterintuitive reality that men, who are fertile 100% of the time, take little to no responsibility for preventing pregnancy.

It is a book that every human, adolescent through adulthood, should read.

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

Roxane Gay’s review is perfect: “This is a very charming novel. It is a juicy red apple. It is a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. It is, and I mean this in the best possible way, a Hallmark movie, but with richly drawn characters who are imperfect and interesting. Evvie Drake’s asshole husband has died but no one knows he was an asshole and so she has to deal with her community’s expectations of how she should grieve as she tries to be who every one in her life wants her to be. Or who she thinks they want to be. And then there is Dean, a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Yankees who has come to a small town in Maine to hide from the life he can no longer live. He rents a room from Evvie and they become friends and lots of fun things happen. This is a sweet romance novel. The beginning moves slowly in ways that were frustrating but the payoff was well-earned. I can’t wait for the Hallmark movie.”

The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren

There are a few authors I will always read and the Christina Lauren duo is one of them. 

There was something about the concept of a data-based dating app and a 98% match that hooked me on the chemistry between Jess and River! Jess’ relationship with her daughter was also so cute. Overall, an absolutely adorable romance.

A Bit Much by Lyndsay Rush

Am I typically a poetry reader? No. Do I adore Lyndsay Rush, i.e. @maryoliversdrunkcousin? YES. SO MUCH.

I could’ve just highlighted the entire book, but here is a peek at some of my favorites instead.

Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai

Malala! The woman you are! 

This memoir is incredible, overflowing with so much wisdom, heart, and humor. The name Malala has so much elite weight to it–Nobel Peace Prize (at age 17!), she’s in every kids book we have about smart, strong, women in history, an education advocate for girls–but in this book, she is just so relatably human. It reads like a letter from your best friend. (She voices the audiobook and I cannot recommend that version enough!) 

I particularly loved reading her views on marriage and the struggle between what was expected of her (and the consequences that her decisions would have on her parents’ lives) and what she wanted. (Which, spoiler, was to never get married. Ever.) Asser is the GREENEST of green flags in the history of green flags. Walking that journey with her of falling in love and Asser’s kindness and their patience and then, ultimately, their joint decision to marry was so beautiful. 

In reference to patriarchal marriages, I loved when she said, “…to announce my marriage as the true partnership that it was. After all, these rules weren’t handed down by God. If people create culture, they can also change it.” 

(When I posted my review of this book on Instagram, Malala herself commented and I’m still riding the high from that.)