Hoarder Penny’s Favourite Books Read in 2025

I’m sitting here wondering if I should lead with the books I loved most this year, or talk about the audiobooks first? My reading year was an okay one with a smattering of great ones, but those really felt few and far between. It was mainly the audiobooks I listened to that gave me a huge boost to my reading year. That is why I’m doing a separate post on my favourite audiobooks for 2025. I have a lot of good things to say about those.

And I’m not sure on how I want to organize my “best of” list this year. I could just list the books I loved best, but for the most part I’ve already pretty well written about the majority of them. There has been just a few more since my older posts though. I guess I’ll just put them here and see how this falls out…..

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. While I didn’t rate this one 5-stars, it is a book that started my reading year and is one I haven’t forgotten about, one I still mull over from time to time in my head. I’ve been thinking of it more because I found it somewhat similar to what I read in Chris Whitaker’s All the Colors of the Dark (feels weird to spell colour as color!), a book I just finished. All the Colors was one I didn’t care too much for outside of its tremendous characters, (especially Saint) and Whitaker’s writing. But it was the slow-burn of both of these stories, and what I feel may be the misrepresentation of them by the publishers that has me linking them together. Both of these books were marketed more to be “thrillers” and both were anything but (in my opinion). These firmly sit in the literary fiction / character-driven novel category. There just happens to be that element of suspense and/or mystery to them. At any rate, The God of the Woods was one of the first books I read in 2025 that has stayed with me and would be the one I liked the most to choose from the two. I say as well because when I was looking through the list of books I’ve read this year I was shocked to find some titles listed there. Some books I couldn’t even recall reading at all?! I couldn’t even begin to tell you what those books were about! * shrugs *

The books that I did not care for seemed to outweigh the books I loved this year, sadly. It seemed to plague me throughout the year too. I’ll just get those out of the way right now. Those books ranged from “completely not enjoyable” (Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa to name just a few, because there were quite a few to list) to some that left me perplexed at all the love being given to them, well maybe not perplexed, it’s just that they did not connect with me the way they have with so many others. The one where I am most especially astonished at, for I could not stand this couple, could not stand one more moment reading about them and their incredulous idiocy, and one where I hurled the book back to the library was, A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst. WHY? And unfortunately, for me, I failed to see the hype over Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Both of those books were so well hyped and well loved by so many too, but they just weren’t for me. It happens. Not every book hits readers the exact same way, and that’s perfectly okay.

The biggest disappointment this year belongs to The Hallmarked Man by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling). A hugely anticipated book for 2025, but holy cow that was a tremendous, rage-inducing disappointment. I cannot even begin to number the text messages flying between me and Hoarder Elizabeth while we read/listened to simultaneously. (Me reading, Elizabeth listening.) I’m still not over it. Elizabeth’s Goodreads review of it is wonderful where mine just raged about Rowling wasting her devoted readers of this series’ time. In a nutshell, this was an incredibly convoluted story that was close to 1,000 pages and one where the relationship between Strike and Robin took on an even greater high-school level of immaturity. I wrote about other highly anticipated books I bought this year, but didn’t reach for them due to the fear they would fall flat on their faces like The Hallmarked Man did for me.

Okay, let’s get ourselves on track here and talk about the really bright spots in my reading! There were a “decent” number of those, so let’s get our focus back on the positive.

Books That Made Me Cry

At some point during the year, probably after finding myself finishing just another “okay” book, I put a request out on my BlueSky account for recommendations of books that would make me cry. Preferably ones that would make me hide away and sob uncontrollably. I was in that kind of mood. I also asked to not be given the usual recommendations of Nightingale by Kristin Hannah and A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I’ve already read those ones and I wanted something completely out of the box. I got a few great suggestions, and one I went out and bought because it really was out of the box, and that was Shark Heart by Emily Habeck. A husband slowly turning into a shark? Yeah, that’s out of the box for sure, and it’s going to make me cry? I still have yet to read it, and I did almost consider pitching it to my book club to read, but it still sits there waiting to be read. I didn’t pick it up right away because right after I put that request out, the library (finally) brought in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans. (This is a book I now need to buy so it can live permanently on my shelf.)

When I first heard this book was an epistolatory novel I immediately added it to my TBR. It was also everything I was looking for and it was everything I expected and wanted. This was a wonderful, wonderful story told through letters written by Sybil and yes, I cried at the end of it. So this replaced my need to start Shark Heart. This book is also appearing on many “Best Of” lists and it’s well placed there and well deserved and it’s also a debut novel! It’s just lovely. What’s even lovelier is this video of Virginia Evan’s grandfather finding out she’s in the Wall Street Journal. (I do hope you can see/watch this video.)

When the Cranes Fly South by Lisa Ridzen. Oh now this book made me cry. I sobbed when I reached the end of this one. It sits on my shelf proudly because it is one I bought, almost on a whim, but more than likely because I wasn’t willing to wait for to be available from my library. I’m really glad I bought this one – it is definitely worthy of a re-read. Bo is nearing the end of his life, his beloved wife is living in a care home due to advanced dementia and his son is wanting to rehome the only thing he has left in his world – his beloved Elkhound, Sixten. This book is sprinkled with notes left by Bo’s home-care team and it’s all about Bo remembering his life. These memories are being shared through “conversations” he holds with his wife, in his head. He’s also wishing he could find the ways to tell his son with whom he’s had a rocky relationship with, that he loves him and is proud of him. Sobbed at the end of this one. I do hope you reach for this one! Beautiful story.

Of course Fredrik Backman made me cry. My Friends had me almost sobbing from the very beginning pages. While I ended up not quite giving it 5 stars, this book had everything Backman gives his readers. His poignancy and impactful statements just blow me away, always. There are sentences that stop you in your tracks with how powerfully written they are. His writing about art, friendship, love, family, violence, abuse and most of all, his writing about men in this book was exceptional. He’s such a beloved and important author (those statements, those thoughts, those sentences!) and it’s left me bereft hearing this is going to be his last book (hopefully for just a little while!!). He says he will still write, it is just the exhaustion he’s feeling from the expectations of publishing, touring, speaking in public that has him saying he’s taking a break. I hope he gets his well deserved rest, but please Mr. Backman don’t keep your gift from us for long. What gives me joy is that I still have, sitting there waiting for me, is his first novel, A Man Called Ove. Can you believe I haven’t read it yet?

I See You’ve Called in Dead by John Kenney. Like Kenney’s book, Truth in Advertising (a book I read in 2012), this book had me laughing out loud and then sobbing uncontrollably by the end of it. I couldn’t believe how much this book made me cry. I had to mop my face from all the tears that were falling down it. The message inside? We all die, there’s no getting away from it, but it is the life you live now you need to focus on. You must find happiness in your life and share often with those close to you what they mean to you. Bud Stanley is lost, he’s not happy and he’s sleepwalking through his life. His wife has left him, he’s not caring about his job as an obituary writer, he hides his unhappiness under his self-deprecating sarcasm. He’s also currently being fired from his job following a drunken night where he sarcastically penned and published his own obituary. So, he begins attending funerals and with the insistence of those closest to him, begins awakening to finding meaning, more purpose and happiness in his life, and confronting his past experiences that have led him to his lost state of life. This book is filled with fantastic characters, heartbreaking moments, and plenty of humour. Loved it.

Books To Make You Think about Your Purpose in Life

A nice segue from I See You’ve Called in Dead, would be a book I felt left you thinking about true purpose and what is important in life. I still think about this book and the characters in it and the message inside. What you are looking for is in the library by Michiko Aoyama was a 5 star read for me. I think it found me at just the right time. I can’t really articulate how wonderful this book was, but for me it hit really me with its quiet, yet deeper meaning. It’s a highly recommended read because I felt it really put into perspective that your job/work is not your entire life, should not be the most meaningful thing in your life and not your entire purpose. This message I found present in other books I read this year too, but you’ll find out about those in the audiobook post. I’ve since bought another book by Aoyama, The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park.

Book Series I Finished

Last year I noted my disappointment in Stephen King’s two remaining books in the Mr. Mercedes series. This year I completed his “Holly Gibney” series and loved every single instalment. If It Bleeds is a short story collection (with one of the best short stories I read this year, “Mr. Harrigan’s Phone” LOVED IT) and with the novella, If It Bleeds, which features Holly Gibney. I will say you do need to read The Outsider (Holly #1) before you read If It Bleeds, and I also believe you must read that story before getting into Holly. Both Holly and Never Flinch received 5 stars from me. This made me happy since I own both the hardcovers for these so they made that investment worthwhile! I read Holly and then jumped immediately into Never Flinch. In both cases as well, the Afterward or Author’s Note enhanced these novels tremendously, elevating both to those 5 stars. Both of these books contain horrific elements to them, but there are no supernatural elements inside (Unlike The Outsider and If It Bleeds). They are very much police-procedural/detective stories and that could very well be a part as to why I really loved these ones. In Holly, there is some horror, and that’s due to the horrific people Holly is trying to track down.

Just when you think you’ve seen the worst human beings have to offer, you find out you’re wrong. There’s no end to evil.

In Never Flinch, the ending has this little haunted twist that was absolutely fantastic to finish the book with. This one was definitely more of a straight up detective-style novel and has two parallel stories running throughout. King is taking on religious fervency, its misogyny and the wrapping of their hatred of women under their anti-abortion guise in one of the stories and a serial killer in the other. I mused that I may have loved Never Flinch just that little bit more over Holly, but both of these books were fantastic reads for me.

Books with Triggers but Ones I Loved

Like I found at the end of King’s books, the Author’s Note and also the Epilogue in The Attic Child helped to elevate this book to a 5 star for me. So many times this year, the Author’s Notes at the end have deepened my appreciation and enriched the reading experience of what the pages before it held. That was definitely the case for The Attic Child. This is a heart-wrenching story and tale of sadness yet it’s an excellent piece of storytelling. I fairly ripped through this one and recommend it. This is a dual timeline story about two children trapped in the same attic, almost a century apart, bound by a shared secret.

The Names by Florence Knapp. I really loved the structure of this one and when I first heard it being compared to Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, I ran out and bought it. I’ve also heard it compared to Paul Auster’s 4 3 2 1, which I own, and now really need to read since finishing The Names. Many have said Auster’s handles this concept better, so I’m definitely interested in finding out if I feel the same. A very clever debut, this is about what happens when a son is given three different names, then we’re presented with three different versions of life for this family, and the consequences of the decision from that chosen name. This book contains a domineering, controlling and abusive husband, but it is because of him that the different names are chosen, and because of his reactions to those names that gives the trajectory of their lives. I thought this concept excellent and I’m sorry if I haven’t described it clearly enough. What made this unforgettable as well was the feature at the end of the book. All the character names and their meanings are listed. You then realize just how carefully chosen everyone’s names were in this story – it just added so much richness to this story and its concept.

The Elements by John Boyne. Boyne is at his best here! I said that it may seem odd to say but Boyne writes his best stuff when he’s writing about trauma and abuse. He pulls no punches in this one and it can be quite disturbing at times. But he expertly ties the elements into these stories. Water, Earth, Fire and Air are so well illustrated and developed throughout these connected stories. A secondary character in one story will then become the main character in the next and so on, until all are connected at the end. There were times when I don’t think I exhaled while reading these stories of how trauma and abuse impact the lives of the victims and those surrounding them over decades. This is the same concept in All the Colors in the Dark by Chris Whitaker but Boyne handles it much better, in my opinion. Perhaps it was because I read The Elements first and immediately followed it with Whitaker’s that meant I didn’t enjoy Whitaker’s as much as I had hoped. It is just that Boyne handled the concept of the impacts of trauma and abuse over decades so much better and did it with a tighter writing style over Whitaker’s rambling version.

The Elements is probably going to be the last novel I finish before the end of the year, and is probably one of my very favourites, so I’m comfortable in posting this list now.

Books Loved but Posted About Previously

There were earlier books that were favourites of mine this year as well, but I already posted about them, so I won’t repeat here. Certainly the CanLit I read were wonderful additions to my reading year, which I wrote about here. Elizabeth and I also embarked on a Buddy Reading exercise this year and kicked that off with Lonesome Dove. I didn’t write about my experiences with it, but Elizabeth did – and after a rocky start for me, it ended up being a wonderful, wonderful book with incredible characters, and I’m still thinking about so very many of them to this day. (I could probably move this into the category of books that made me cry too because there were times I may have a shed a tear!) I’ve also said I would need to go back and reread it so I could put aside my negative feelings about its beginning and just settle into it better. We also planned to buddy read My Friends by Fredrik Backman this year and two others, and we did read My Friends (as noted above), but will have to carry over into 2026, Larry McMurtry’s Terms of Endearment and Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo.

So there’s a peek into my reading year for 2025! I must say I’m quite anxious to be rid of 2025 and genuinely hoping for a new year filled with far more moments of joy, understanding and peace. It’s been a difficult year in my opinion and the need to lose myself in books was something I deeply needed and appreciated.

As always, thank you for reading with us, we appreciate it greatly and do wish you a wonderful holiday, Christmas, and New Year filled with happiness, joy and celebration and many quiet moments to read.