2025 Book List

a comprehensive list of worth-the-read books

YOU GUYS. You really outdid yourself with this one.

If you didn’t see it, I asked both on my Instagram and right here:

“What book(s) would you do ANYTHING to read again for the first time???? Page turners. Thought provokers. Mind benders. Tear jerkers. The ones where you fall in love with the characters. I need ‘em all.”

AND MYYYY MY LET ME TELL YA — YOU CAME THROUGH. There were seriously so many I am not even sure I got them all.

This convo sparked because I am currently on the last book of the Throne of Glass series — and I am depressed. I am reading so slow, forcefully pacing myself because I don’t want it to end. I was worried I am about to enter a reading rut because I have fallen so in love with this plot and characters — but fear no more. I am now excited for all of the amazing reading I have in front of me.

I have gone through a few different phases with reading — got back into reading during covid times like most people through the booktok books: Taylor Jenkins 7 Husbands, Colleen Hoover’s Verity, etc….Lots of romance, and then I fell deep into the hole of psychological thrillers. I would read those in a couple of days or less and wouldn’t sleep in the process because I needed to know what was happening. Then against all odds I fell in love with fantasy. Started out with Sarah J Maas’s ACOTAR and now onto Throne of Glass. I have linked some of my favorite books here & here.

Who knows what phase 2025 will bring — but I am ready for it. I already know you all have good taste, so I am so excited to report back on my favs & thoughts.

So alas — Here is a long and lengthy list of reading recommendations, organized by genre, built by you all: (thank you.)

Historical Fiction

• The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

• Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck

• All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

• Shanghai Girls by Lisa See

• Morning in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

• Before We Were Strangers by Renée Carlino

• The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

• The Alice Network by Kate Quinn

• Lady Tan's Circle of Women by Lisa See

• The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer

• Atonement by Ian McEwan

• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

• The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

• The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

• Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

• A Painted House by John Grisham

• The Wedding People by Alison Espach

• The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

• The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See

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Fantasy

• Circe by Madeline Miller

• The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

• Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

• Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati

• One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

• Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

• The Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent

• The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

• The Night and Its Moon by Piper CJ

• The Gild Series by Raven Kennedy

• The Celestial Kingdom Series by Sue Lynn Tan

• The Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson

• The Kushiel Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

• From Blood and Ash Series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

• Once Upon a Broken Heart Series by Stephanie Garber

• Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

• The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

• The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

• The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman

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Science Fiction/Dystopian

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy

• Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

• The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis

• Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

• Recursion by Blake Crouch

• Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

• The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

• The Green Bone Saga by Fonda Lee

• The Red Rising Series by Pierce Brown

• Zodiac Academy by Caroline Peckham and Susanne Valenti

• The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick

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Contemporary Fiction

• Normal People by Sally Rooney

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

• Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

• Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

• The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

• The Push by Ashley Audrain

• The Measure by Nikki Erlick

• The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

• Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

• The Paradise Problem by Trevor Torres

• The Winners Curse by Marie Rutkoski

• Phantasma by Efthalia

• Talking at Night by Claire Daverley

• Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

• The Guest by Emma Cline

• The Girls by Emma Cline

• Daddy by Emma Cline

• Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner

• Beartown by Fredrik Backman

• A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

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Romance

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry

• Archers Voice by Mia Sheridan

• Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

• Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

• Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

• Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes

• Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

• Normal People by Sally Rooney

• The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

• Rachel’s Holiday by Marian Keyes

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Thrillers/Mysteries

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt

• Bunny by Mona Awad

• Lock Every Door by Riley Sager

• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

• The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

• The Winter People by Jennifer McMahon

• The Sundown Motel by Simone St. James

• Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

• The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller

• The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman

• Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

• Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

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Memoirs/Biographies

• Educated by Tara Westover

• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

• The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

• Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey

• Nowhere for Very Long by Brianna Madia

• Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan

• Just Kids by Patti Smith

• Educated by Tara Westover

• Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

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Classics

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

• The Stranger by Albert Camus

• Roots by Alex Haley

• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

• Gunnar's Daughter by Sigrid Undset

• A Painted House by John Grisham

• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

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Self-Help/Philosophy/Religion

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

• Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés

• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb

• The Bhagavad Gita

• The Holy Bible

• Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

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Non-Fiction

• Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

• The Art Thief by Michael Finkel

• Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

• The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

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Young Adult/Coming of Age

• A Fire in the Sky by Aline H. M.

• Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

• They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

• Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

• Daughter of No Worlds by Carissa Broadbent

• Delirium Series by Lauren Oliver

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No reading ruts for us. I already have The Nightingale by Kristin Hanna on the way. That was probably the one that was most recommended repeatedly. 2025 is the year for good books, and good reading!!!! I am so excited to read with you all.

PS: Last year we did a book club which I cherished. If this is something you are interested in again this year please comment below what book you’d want to read together! If there is enough interest I definitely want to do it again.

Also if there is a book missing on this list — Let us all know in the comments!!!

Love you guys!!! Thank you for the recs <3 XO - Ella