As I mentioned last year, I have been trying to re-establish a steady reading habit since 2020 now. I was an avid reader from fifth grade all the way through high school. I’d devour books in a single day. But once I graduated, fell into the daily grind of a job and every adulting task that comes with growing up, I lost that spark. Or maybe I just lost the time and energy for it. Since then, it’s been a struggle.
That struggle has seemingly come to an end.
I had set my standard low goal again for 2025, hoping this would be the year. Aiming for twelve books in total, or a “one book a month” average.
With the biggest twist of fate, I surpassed that goal by three hundred and seventy-five percent. 375%! Who even am I right now? I read a total of forty-five books in 2025. Forty-five! Believe it or not — I surely can’t — I even managed to keep that “one book a month” goal. I didn’t have a single month in 2025 that was bookless. I achieved every little banner goodie on Goodreads for the first time ever. I’m ecstatic about that fact. Forty-five books!? I would have never in a million years imagined I would accomplish that kind of number. You know what that means though? It means this year my recap list is going to be a lot looooonger. I still love the extra stats and look into what I’m reading from StoryGraph that Goodreads doesn’t provide, but I still find Goodreads to have more books listed because of its connection to Amazon. So, I’m still using both apps.
What did my 2025 Year in Books look like then?
Completed Books of 2025:
- Livina Press: Spring: Issue 8 by Livina Press & various authors (including myself from 2024!)
- Ghost Station by S.A. Barnes
- The Big Four by Agatha Christie
- The Mystery of the Blue Train by Judy Agatha Christie
- Peril at End House by Agatha Christie
- Lord Edgware Dies by Agatha Christie
- Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
- Three Act Tragedy by Agatha Christie
- Vilest Things by Chloe Gong
- Death in the Clouds by Agatha Christie
- The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
- Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie
- Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie
- Murder in the Mews: Four Cases of Hercule Poirot by Agatha Christie
- The Games Gods Play by Abigail Owen
- Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie
- Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
- Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
- When Among Crows by Veronica Roth
- Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie
- Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
- Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
- Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie
- Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
- One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie
- Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie
- Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie
- The Hollow by Agatha Christie
- The Unfortunate Side Effects of Heartbreak and Magic by Breanne Randall
- The Labors of Hercules by Agatha Christie
- Taken at the Flood by Agatha Christie
- Don’t Let the Forest In by CG Drews
- The Under Dog and Other Stories by Agatha Christie
- Mrs. McGinty’s Dead by Agatha Christie
- Cold Eternity by S.A. Barnes
- Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
- After the Funeral by Agatha Christie
- Hickory Dickory Dock by Agatha Christie
- Dead Man’s Folly by Agatha Christie
- Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie
- The Clocks by Agatha Christie
- Third Girl: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie
- Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes
- Hallowe’en Party by Agatha Christie
- Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie
I find it funny that the total pages read between both apps is different, so we’ll just assume that number was somewhere around thirteen thousand pages. My best month was by far March, with eleven books read! June and July tied for my second-best months with nine books each. Though, let’s be honest, a lot of these high-count months were because I was breezing through Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot series like lightning. I didn’t finish any non-fiction books this year, though I had every intention of trying to broaden my horizons a bit more. I did start a non-fiction book, Save the Cat Writes A Novel by Jessica Brody, but I didn’t finish it. I’m a little surprised I found myself so invested in mystery books this year. My go-to is typically fantasy, but I only read seven fantasy books in 2025. I even have five romance books included in this year’s total, though I can attest that the majority of them were not strictly romance. I had an average of nine days per book, which I consider pretty good. I explored eight new authors to me this year.
I obviously had a thing for Agatha Christie mysteries again this year with a whopping thirty-three of hers alone, and I feel like that trend is still going to continue into 2026. I have one book left in her Hercule Poirot series, then who knows, but I feel like I’m not entirely tired of her yet. It’s difficult for me to choose a singular favorite book for 2025. More than one got an immediate five stars from me as I threw tantrums at the end of their pages. The favorites tie for Hannah Nicole Maehrer’s Assistant to the Villain series and Abigail Owens’ The Crucible series. I hated having to wait for their sequels to release this year, and then I didn’t even snatch them up right away because the last half of 2025 kinda kicked my ass. My least favorite book was When Among Crows by Veronica Roth, which also happened to be my lowest rated book. Oddly enough, StoryGraph shows that my reading mood went way up in the middle of the year, but it eventually started coming back down to my normal darker tales.
Overall, this is the best I’ve done with reading since high school. Literally. Forty-five books might actually top everything I’ve read since I graduated high school, which is more than a decade now. I’m not kidding. There were years where I wasn’t reading at all. More years where I was lucky if I read five books a year. Forty-five still blows my mind.
So, what’s my 2026 Reading Challenge goal going to be then, you ask?
Well… Lol. I have some big shoes to fill after 2025. I’m no longer aiming for my coveted “one book a month” goal that I’ve had for the last few years now that I’ve shown I can in fact blow that out of the water and across the damn globe. I would, unrealistically, like to aim to beat forty-five, but that seems like a stretch considering a lot of the books I read in 2025 I could read in a matter of four to five hours tops. (I’m looking at you Agatha Christie.)
Realistically, I think I’m going to double that original goal and aim for two books a month at the minimum. Twenty-four books in total for 2026. It’s doable if I don’t end up with a second job that sucks all my time and energy like partway through 2025 did. It might also depend on some other life decisions, but that is what I’m going to aim for. I do like waking up in the AM with nowhere to go on the weekends, picking up that book and just chilling for a couple hours. I need to continue reading before bed, too, when I don’t go to bed too late already that is. My #WhatchaReadinWed segment did alright in the first half of the year before life got busy. I’m going to try to keep that going across Twitter, Bluesky, and Facebook, too.
How did your 2025 Year in Books look? What was your favorite book of 2025 that you read? Do you have a book for 2026 that you’re most looking forward to reading? Share with me your goals below! And if you have any secrets you’re willing to share on how you juggle the reading love with the daily grind, I’ll take those, too.
Here’s to a new year full of more books!
