Books read in 2025

 I read 33 books in 2025, a good amount for me.

Churchy

I leaned into Mormon stuff this year, most notably with Mormon Enigma, a biography of Emma Hale Smith. I read it through the summer and thought about it the rest of the year. Highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand church history from a less common perspective. 

At Last She Said It is written by the hosts of the podcast of the same name, which has been a must-listen for me the last few years. 

Brigham Young at Home, an obscure book that was written by one of his 57 children. A church friend loaned it to me, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this slice of life (while still remaining a thousand percent disgusted by polygamy).

A Short Stay in Hell is Mormon-adjacent. It's written by a church member, and the main character is a church member, but that's where it ends. The guy gets to the afterlife and learns that everything he thought he knew is wrong. This is the bleakest thing I read all year, besides current news articles, of course.

Took a minute to get going, but really stuck the landing

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (cry emoji)

Hamnet (double cry emoji)

Delightfully messy

Margo's Got Money Troubles, Everyone Is Lying to You, Leslie F---ing Jones

My high hopes didn't pan out

The House on Mango Street, The Library Book, The Liar's Dictionary

Nonfiction that made me think (and seethe)

Careless People, The Turnaway Study, Girl on Girl

Romance

The best of my five contemporary romance books was Back After This by the wonderful Linda Holmes. Of the others, two dealt with the logistics of caring for aging parents and one dealt with setting boundaries on a complicated/manipulative parent. Emotional labor abounds.

Biggest surprises (both about plagues!)

Wish You Were Here is a story written during and about the height of the covid pandemic, and it blew my mind in a good way. Pathogenesis made me feel like an insignificant speck in the sweep of thousands of years of human history, but was somehow also life-affirming.