My Favorite Books of 2025

Happy New Year! How is it already 2026? 2025 was wild and crazy and the thing I said the most was probably “You cannot make this shit up!” So much happened that so many of us probably thought was not possible. I read a ton this year, probably to avoid reading the news.

I finished the year off reading 117 books and as I always do here is the list of my favorite books of the year. 

Memoirs + Books on Life:

1. Be Ready When the Luck Happens (Ina Garten)

2. Mailman (Stephen Starring Grant)

3. Hold Nothing (Elena Brower)

4. The Tell (Amy Griffin)

5. I Am the Cage (Allison Grant)

6. Life is a Lazy Suzy of Shit Sandwiches (Jennifer Welch, Angie Sullivan)

Novels:

1. In Five Years (Rebecca Serle)

2. These Summer Storms (Sarah MacLean)

3. It’s Different This Time (Joss Richard)

4. PS: I Hate You (Lauren Connolly)

If I had to pick a favorite from the books on life it would be “Hold Nothing” by Elena Brower. If you want to start a practice in 2026 of letting go of who you thought you had to be and embrace who you want to be, pick up this book.

It is truly a tough decision to pick from the list of novels, but if I could only bring one book, then read: “PS: I Hate You by Lauren Connolly”. Just bring the tissues because you will cry. Otherwise, read all four, they all have very different stories, but each sucked me in and I could not put them down.

What were your top books of 2025?

Here are more lists in case you want to see my favorites from 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 or 2020.