My Top 5 Books of 2025

 2025 was an extraordinary year for me in growth, transformation, and reflection. Along with personal and professional development, I found myself engaging with novels much differently than I used to. I've been branching out to different genres and have found myself not satiated by the books that used to be my bread and butter throughout school. While the pandemic heightened the sense of an overall slump I had been feeling in general, sometimes it is the slow and steady, bit by bit, incremental progress that we don't notice until we look back. The important thing is to just keeping moving, just keep swimming. Here are my top 5 books of last year: 

Daughter of the Deep by Rick Riordan 
At the beginning of last year while browsing through local library shelves, I was delighted to find that Rick Riordan had published a standalone adventure/family drama novel with a young female protagonist in a naval/oceanographic academy for gifted future seafarers. I loved reading the Percy Jackson novels, and that Percy was a child of Poseidon and had supernatural water talents. Picking up this book while I was in the midst of submitting graduate school applications for maritime archaeology sent my mind reeling with dreaming of Mediterranean Sea archaeology and scuba diving. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn 
Listened to this as an audiobook, which made this experience even better and worse than if I had the text version. This is the first fiction novel where I found myself truly horrified, disgusted, and completely intrigued to find out how the story would progress and how the characters would ultimately live with the actions of Amy. So glad I held off watching the movie until I finished the book, because Ben Affleck and the script adaptation make Nick actually somewhat sympathetic, whereas the novel isn't afraid to pull punches (after a few chapters) on what really goes through Nick's mind. The author expertly wove a tricky psychological balance of two despicable characters, Nick being an average horrible guy as the relationship progresses and it becomes obvious that he can't be bothered to care, and has inherited his father's vitriolic misogyny, if a bit more subdued. 

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter 
I LOVE Ally Carter's novels, and the mystery and atmosphere she spun in her holiday caper has set an itch to pick up an Agatha Christie novel and delve deeper into the mystery genre. Only regret was not reading it in the winter time for the first time.

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang 
This was a cover I kept seeing a lot throughout the years, and the way one of my favorite booktubers covered this novel in one of her videos made me want to read it. Two for two, like with Gone Girl, I found myself horrified by our protagonist, but also kept flipping the pages so fast because with every development that pushed the situation, I had to find out how she was going to keep getting away with it or if this was the moment that would make it all come crashing down for her. The way this novel explored themes of jealously, uneasy friendships/rivalries, cultural appropriation, thievery, collaboration, posthumous editing, and social media's effects on mental health and mob mentality. 

The Blonde Who Came in From the Cold by Ally Carter 
Another Ally Carter novel, this one the followup to The Blonde Identity, instead following the other twin who is actually the spy. This felt like a return to form with the Gallagher Girls series but all grown up. Loved being back in the world of cinematic covert operations, and Carter writing for the adult audiences allows her romcom sensibilities to shine. The danger is real, but there's more than enough light moments and quips to keep it from feeling too heavy. Paralleling between present day and past developments heightening the film atmosphere and kept the pacing tight and flowing. Looking forward to another installment in this line or anything in the adult realm from Ally Carter <3 

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