In my Favourite Books of 2025, I teased about the audiobooks I listened to and how they gave me a huge boost to my reading year. Here’s where I tell you which ones gave me that boost.
Where to start? Maybe I’ll start with saying 2025 seemed to be the year of my return to audiobooks. I wasn’t listening to them as often as in the past few years. There were a few reasons for that, and maybe the biggest one was the return to work but that came with the addition of my kids joining me on the commute. So this meant not much availability to listen them. But this year, I was back on my own, but still didn’t return to audiobooks until April. I was still building my library with Audible credits all along, but I wasn’t listening to any of them.
To keep this post focused, I’m only going to talk about the audiobooks that were my absolute favourites. There were a few others that were good, but these ones were the best. I truly feel audiobooks provided some (or most) of my best reading this year, and also, I’m going to point out that I listened to all of them from start to finish in audio. I rarely finish the full audiobook and always reach for the paper version. This was not the case with these audiobooks!
I came across this “BookTok” video (again, I can’t remember who it was that made it. I’m sorry. I need to pay better attention to that going forward), where he talked about how much he enjoyed John Scalzi’s Starter Villain. He said it was about this guy that has to take over his uncle’s villain business after his death, and that it’s unusual because it had talking cats and dolphins but it was its message that made this an excellent book. The way he talked about it made it sound so interesting, and seeing that it was narrated by Wil Wheaton, I just impulsively bought it and began listening to it right away. I really do need to thank that person for suggesting this one. This was fantastic! Wil Wheaton’s narration was brilliant. There were many moments where I busted out loud laughing. There is this scene in the funeral home where I was almost bent over from laughing so hard. But the message inside? It really is a great one. Actually, there are many messages inside it. Scalzi is taking on billionaires, politics of war, the importance of recognizing your employees for their contributions, respecting their worth, but also that your work is not your sole purpose in life (This was a theme I found in a few of my reads this year). There was one part I was listening to while out walking that stopped me dead in my tracks just so I could fully absorb what I was listening to. It did indeed have talking cats, dolphins fighting to unionize, along with all sorts of wonderful characters. This is not a book I would normally have reached for at all. Nothing about it would normally have appealed to me. But this turned out to be one of the very best books I read this year! I could not stop recommending it to everyone. I talked about it to everyone at work. You really must to listen to it too – it just wouldn’t be the same without enjoying Wil Wheaton’s performance!
Again, I need to pay closer attention to whom I’m getting these recommendations from. Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau was one I saw reviewed on Litsy. She wrote this was a book so filled with nostalgia she absolutely loved it. This was also one where the audiobook enhanced the reading experience for me. I was immediately drawn into this one as soon as I started listening, and often just sat and continued listening, or drove in circles, or took the longer way home just so I could continue listen to Mary Jane’s story. Caitlin Kinnunen’s narration was completely perfect and so very well-suited for the 14-year-old Mary Jane. This is a fantastic coming-of-age story told over the course of one summer in 1970s Baltimore. Mary Jane comes from a home that is tightly controlled and is very conservative and traditional. She is offered a babysitting job to a 5-year-old Izzy in the Cones’ home where she discovers a very different way of life. Her mother allows it, feeling it is very respectable since the father is a doctor. (He’s a psychiatrist and I doubt Mary Jane’s mother thought he was that kind of doctor.) Messy, bohemian and wildly free is what Mary Jane finds in their home, and over the summer she experiences a great awakening due to her time in the Cones’ home. It was definitely the audio that helped deliver this wonderful story. Kinnunen performed everyone’s voice perfectly, but it was Mary Jane’s that I loved hearing the most. She would often become introspective and contemplative about her awareness and awakening and how she was feeling, and this is where Kinnunen made this story sing. And singing is a good descriptor since this book is filled with music and includes an added treat at the end with the recorded song, “Mary Jane”.
Gary Sinise reads Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and was the reason I chose to listen to it. Now, mind you, I struggled a little bit in the beginning to put the voices of Forrest Gump out of my head, (Lieutenant Dan! Ice cream Lieutenant Dan!) but settled in nicely once it got going. Gary Sinise does a brilliant job narrating this one. Everyone had a very distinctive voice and of course it was all well performed. I had only a little left to listen to, I knew where it was going, I knew how this was going to end, but I still made the decision to finish listening to it while at work. This is an impactful story with exceptionally well-drawn characters (no surprise from Steinbeck) expertly performed by Gary Sinise.
(I’ll very briefly mention The Ghostwriter here by Julie Clark. This book seems to have divided her readers with many saying it wasn’t her best one. I think because of the audiobook narrated by 3 different narrators that this one was a very good one for me.)
Okay, now we’re down to the last two and the very, very, very best audiobooks I listened to this year, and maybe my very favourites ever. I mean, Starter Villain is up there too, as noted above, but these left me bereft after finishing them – I never wanted either of them to end.
Oh my, Britt-Marie. I’m still not over this one. If you need a picture to sit next to the definition of a “book-hangover”, the cover of Britt-Marie Was Here is the one I would use. As usual, Fredrik Backman destroys you with his books, and I mean that in the very best way! I think Britt-Marie Was Here is his best. Now, I’ve owned this audiobook for ages and that’s because of Hoarder Elizabeth. Every time I said something about searching for an audiobook, Elizabeth was there with “Britt-Marie”. Did I listen? No. But I did buy it based on her recommendation? Yes – it was there waiting for me all this time. I decided to finally listen to it while waiting to start our buddy read of Backman’s My Friends. Holy cow. This book. This book broke me many times and I adored it, loved it, never ever wanted to be away from Britt-Marie or the people living in Borg. The people, oh how they crushed my heart and oh my – the narration by Joan Walker. Exquisite. The ending. Oh it broke me. What those kids did for Britt-Marie still makes me tear up. My recovery will be forever now that I’ve finished this book. It will definitely be one I revisit. I believe the tremendous hangover I had from the loss of leaving everyone in this book behind was the reason why I didn’t quite feel as much love for My Friends as I thought I would. That’s how powerful this hangover was for me.
Boy’s Life by Robert McCammon. An audiobook that is 20 hours and 4 minutes long. Perhaps one of the longest audiobooks I’ve ever listened to. As I mentioned above, I rarely listen to the full audiobook before becoming impatient and switching to the paper version so I can read it faster and reach its end. Not the case with Boy’s Life. Again, I found myself driving around in literal circles just to keep listening. I listened to every second, every minute of those 20 hours and 4 minutes. I couldn’t get enough of it. 5 stars – no where near enough to give this absolutely wonderful and epic work of storytelling. When asked why I love to read / why I love to read fiction, this book is one to use to answer that question. The audiobook narration by George Newbern also cannot just be described simply as “bringing this story to life”, because it is not praise enough. I was glued to this book and Newbern’s narration. This book is an absolutely incredibly written southern gothic coming-of-age story with just a hint of horror. No, there is no gore or hacking and slashing kinds of horror inside. This gives just the right amount of supernatural-like events as well as the discovery by a young boy of the horrors that lurk behind closed doors, in people’s behaviour, and attitudes. Those are the elements of horror found inside. All I know is that I miss terribly Cory Mackenson, his stories, and the people, and the events that took place the year he turned 12 in Zephyr, Alabama. I cannot recommend this book enough. I cannot recommend the audiobook more. I also own this book so I truly do want to go back and read it again – this time in its paper version to see if the experience is the same as it was in audio. I can’t imagine it wouldn’t provide a tremendously satisfying reading experience. It’s such a great story! It should be made into a movie.
Overall, great audiobook listening this year! I hope it positively influences or carries over into next year’s audiobook choices!
We’re so close now to the end of 2025! Let’s hear it for a fantastic and completely different new year for 2026! Happy New Year! My next post might be what I want to choose to kick off a new reading year. I feel that is a super important and impactful choice to make. Any recommendations?
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