I haven’t done this in a few years and I miss it! This annual survey is hosted by the incredibly talented Jamie @ The Perpetual Page Turner.
2025 Reading Stats
Number of Books You Read: 120 (as of the time of recording my podcast episode)
Number of Books You Re-Read: None!
Genre You Read The Most From: Definitely romance!
1. Best Book You Read in 2025?
I think I’ll have to go with Breathe With Me by Becka Mack, the book that I am STILL thinking about, over a month after I finished it.
2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?
The third book in the Devil’s Backbone series by Tate James – I still loved it, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had been able to jump into it as soon as I finished the second one, but it was also a really busy work week when it released.
3. Most Surprising (in a good or bad way!) Book of 2025?
I’ll go with Shari Lapena’s She Didn’t See it Coming – I’d read two of her other books before and really liked them, but this one absolutely sucked me in, and I’m ending the year with more of her backlist off my shelves.
4. Book You “Pushed” the Most People to Read (and they did) in 2025?
Sparrow Falls by Catherine Cowles – READ IT IF YOU HAVEN’T READ IT YET!!!
5. Best Series you Started in 2025? Best Sequel of 2025? Best Series Ender of 2025?
In an attempt to not repeat what I’ve already said before, for series starters I’ll go with Alive and Wells by Bailey Hannah because I FLEW through that series! Best sequel, I’ll have to go with King of Envy by Ana Huang because I have been WAITING for The Serb’s book since the beginning of this series. Best series ender, hands down, goes to Rewind it Back by Liz Tomforde – Rio’s story was everything that I had hoped it would be!
6. Favorite New Author You Discovered in 2025?
Kay Cove! I loved Camera Shy and meeting Kay at Books by the Lake was one of the highlights for me, so much that I bought the rest of this series and I need to read it soon!
7. Best Book From a Genre You Don’t Typically Read/Was Out of Your Comfort Zone?
Morning Glory Milking Farm was such a good book, and monster romance is definitely outside of my comfort zone!
8. Most Action-Packed, Thrilling, Unputdownable Book in 2025?
The last half of The Women by Kristin Hannah – I absolutely DEVOURED it while the boys were at a chess tournament, and sobbed my eyes out in a rec centre lobby!
9. Book You Read in 2025 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?
Honestly, I’m not sure what I plan to re-read — especially since I didn’t do any re-reads this year at all!
10. Favorite Cover of a Book You Read in 2025?
Just LOOK at that cover. It’s perfection in book form.
11. Most Memorable Character in 2025?
Helene from An Ember in the Ashes – iykyk.
12. Most Beautifully Written Book Read in 2025?
Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab – the way she writes is something else.
13. Most Thought-Provoking / Life-Changing Book of 2025?
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I’ve loved all of her books, but I never thought I would love a book about astronauts as much as I loved this one. Until I read Breathe With Me, this book was my favourite book of 2025!
14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2025 to finally read?
You Were There Too by Colleen Oakley – Dany recommends me so many books when we go shopping together that I have an entire shelf of books she’s influenced me to buy, but I loved this one so much that it reminded me I need to pick up her recommendations more often!
15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2025?
I need to be better at actually writing down quotes, but there were some phrases in both Atmosphere and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil that were so pretty!
16.Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2025?
How I did this: Went to my read books on Goodreads and sorted by page number and just looked for what I knew I read this year that was the shortest and longest.
Longest — The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King by Carissa Broadbent (626 pages)
Shortest — Space Vampire by Ruby Dixon (Goodreads says 2 pages, which I know is wrong but it’s a novella so I know it’s short!)
17. Book that shocked you the most?
I know I said I wouldn’t repeat books, but honestly Catherine Cowles shocks me with her endings EVERY SINGLE TIME.
18. OTP of the year (you will go down with this ship!)
Cara & Emmett in Breathe With Me
19. Favorite non-romantic relationship of the year?
The siblings/found family in Sparrow Falls
20. Favorite book you read in 2025 from an author you’ve read previously?
It had been years since I last read a Jennifer Weiner novel, but I thoroughly enjoyed The Breakaway.,
21. Best book you read in 2025 that you read based SOLELY on a recommendation from somebody else?
It wasn’t a forever favourite, but I read (and listened to) Under Your Scars by Ariel N. Anderson because of how hyped it was online — it was good, but not the devastating ending that I had hoped for.
22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2025?
Let’s go with Red from Seeing Red by Bailey Hannah.
23. Best 2025 debut you read?
Broken & Torn by C.N. Ruby absolutely blew me away – I loved how mental health was handled in this book, and I’m so excited to read the next one in the series!
24. Best worldbuilding / most vivid setting you read this year?
Even though I didn’t love the second Nyaxia book, the world building in this series is so cool.
25. Book that put a smile on your face / was the most FUN to read?
If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia – the whole book is small town 90s vibes and feels a lot like Gilmore Girls, and it was so much fun, especially while buddy reading it with Dany!
26. Book that made you cry or nearly cry in 2025?
UGH – SO MANY BOOKS. The ones that immediately jump to mind are Breathe With Me, Atmosphere, The Women and most of the Sparrow Falls series.
27. Hidden gem of the year?
Drowning by T.J. Newman – I’m not sure that I’ve ever given a thriller five stars before, but this one was such an epic story with incredible storytelling.
28. Book that crushed your soul?
I know, I know, I said I wouldn’t repeat books but how can I pick anything but Breathe With Me? The book took me an entire week to read because I kept putting it down to let the heaviness lift from my heart a bit before I could keep going.
29. Most unique book you read in 2025?
I have to put this book on the list somewhere – not a book I’d specifically recommend, and I wouldn’t say “unique” in a good way, but Ghost Dick by Kinsley Kincaid is certainly unlike any other book I’ve read! So much so that I was unable to even put a rating on it – in some ways it deserved a higher rating because I read it in one sitting (although it is short) but in other ways nope because it was so much ick.
30. Book that made you the most mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?
I don’t know if this made me mad exactly, but the only book that I finished that I actually wasn’t enjoying was Golden by Shannon Mayer – it was short and I was on vacation where I had a goal of trying to read seven books in seven days, so I pushed through, but it was a dud for me.
1. New favourite book blog/Bookstagram/Booktube channel you discovered in 2025?
My bestie Carrie made a Bookstagram this year after we attended BB4E and her posts are all so lovely! Check her out here.
2. Favourite post you wrote in 2025?
Probably sharing my first podcast episode – the support has been so lovely!
3. Favourite bookish related photo you took in 2025?
I finally jumped on the bandwagon with our tropes!
4. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?
Yes and no! I did reduce my overall physical TBR, but also still bought a lot of books. I didn’t read all 25 books on my 25 to read in 2025 list, but I did check off a bunch of other goals, and overall I’m still happy with my reading this year.
1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2025 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2026?
Silverborn by Jessica Townsend – but I think I really would like to reread the first three books, and then the new one, so we’ll see if I can do that in 2026, or if I wait until there’s news for the next book.
2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2026 (non-debut)?
So many! Across the Vanishing Sky by Catherine Cowles, Fever Dream by Elsie Silver, In Her Own League by Liz Tomforde, and The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez.
3. 2026 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?
I haven’t seen any that caught my eye yet…
4. Series Ending / Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2026?
King of Gluttony by Ana Huang for sequel and Come What May by Corinne Michaels for series ending.
5. One Thing You Hope to Accomplish or Do in Your Reading/Blogging in 2026?
Be intentional with the books that I add to my shelves, and continue to reduce my physical TBR. I’m really happy with the progress that I made this year, and I know that I’ll never have no books on my TBR (nor would I ever want a TBR that small) but my ideal is still that it’s around 50 books. I also plan to mood read the crap out of 2026!
6. A 2026 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend to Everyone:
I’ve been super, super selective about what I request on Netgalley – and I’m ending the year with only four books left to read, but all of them are 2025 releases, so I actually haven’t read any 2026 books yet!
If you filled out this survey, please leave me a link to your post and I’ll stop by! Thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking the time to visit my little corner of the internet.
Writer Grrl Reads 