2025 Reading Year in Review

I started doing a specific "Reading Year in Review" post in 2020. I figured that since I was doing an overall year in review post (which includes some book information anyway), and a blogging year in review post -- and since keeping track of my books is a big thing I normally do on my blog -- my reading life deserved its own year-end wrap-up post too.  :)  

(Note:  I have not linked to all the books mentioned here, but they are all reviewed on this blog.) 

How did I do?  

I increased my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal from 36 books in 2021 to 45 books in 2022, kept (and met) that goal for 2023, and retained it for 2024 & 2025 -- although, unfortunately, I was not successful in reaching my goal in either year.  

• My Goodreads 2025 Year in Review report tells me I read 38 books with 12,413 pages (versus 37 books with 15,320 pages in 2024, 48 books with 16.980 pages in 2023 and 50 books with 17,047 pages in 2022). That's one more book than I read in 2024, but still 7 books below my goal of 45, or 84%.  (My best result ever: 59 books in 2021.) All the books I read this year were reviewed on this blog and tagged "2025 books." 
• The shortest book I read was "Peter West" by D.E. Stevenson (130 pages);  the longest was "A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel (772 pages).  
• Average book length was 326 pages (down from 414 pages in 2024, and 353 pages in 2023). 
• (Note that one of the books I read in 2024 was "War and Peace"...!)
• The most popular book I read ( = most shelved by Goodreads readers) was "Yellowface" by R.F. Kuang  (2.3 million readers);  the least popular was this one, a memoir written by my dear late friend R. (42 readers).   
• The highest-rated book I read was "I'm Sorry for My Loss" by Rebecca Little & Colleen Long (4.38 stars). 
• My average Goodreads rating in 2025 was 3.8 stars (lower than the 4.2 from the previous three years).  
• In 2021, I also started tracking books on The StoryGraph, which provides slightly different stats (and even more, with a paid subscription -- although I don't have one of those!). 
• StoryGraph reports that I read 38 books with 12,688 pages (slightly more than Goodreads recorded). 
• Average book length according to SroryGraph was 334 pages (slightly more than Goordreads reported). 
• Average time to finish a book: about 20 days. (This would be in good part because of the readalongs/slow reads I take part in...!) 
• Fastest read/least time spent:  "Peter West" by D.E. Stevenson (3 days).
• Most time spent:  "Anne of Windy Poplars" by L.M. Montgomery (143 days = not quite 5 months, part of a chapter-by-chapter readalong and discussion with my Montgomery Readathon Facebook group). 
• This year, StoryGraph provided a "mood map" of my reading during the year:  you can see a steady upward trend in the moods of my books over the year. 
•  The top/most dominant mood of my books was once again overwhelmingly "emotional" (value: 15 vs 16 last year), followed by "funny" (12), "reflective" (11), mysterious (8) and dark (7). 
• Like Goodreads, StoryGraph logged the longest book I read as "A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel (768 pages), but the shortest according to StoryGraph was "Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" by Mary Seacole (200 pages).   
• The vast majority of my books were medium-paced (69%). 19% were slow and 11% fast. 
• 53% of my 2024 books were 300-499 pages;  45% were less than 300 pages and just 3% were over 500 pages. 
• Most pages read/finished:  1,852 in October. 
• 84% of my 2024 books were fiction;  just 16% non-fiction. This is a big change from recent years! (I credit the many book clubs I take part in, which mostly focus on fiction.)
• My most-read genre in 2025 was historical (value: 13), followed by literary (9), contemporary (7), mystery (5) and thriller (5)(similar to 2024).     
• StoryGraph also tracks the format of your books, but selects print as the default. The majority of my reads this year -- 76% -- were recorded as digital, vs 24% print.  (Note that some books do not have a "digital" option, in which case I choose print.) 
• Most-read authors in 2025:  D.E. Stevenson (7 books) and Richard Osman (3).  
• Average rating 3.81 stars (vs 3.8 on Goodreads, and 4.06 last year).  
• 5-star reads in 2025:  "I'm Sorry for My Loss" by Rebecca Little & Colleen Long and "The Impossible Fortune" by Richard Osman. 
• My highest average ratings came in June (4.25); the lowest was in August (3.38).
• Most shelved book:  "Yellowface" by R.F. Kuang (445.598 users). Least shelved/popular: this one, a memoir written by my dear late friend R. (1 user, i.e., me!  lol).  
• Highest rated:  "I'm Sorry for My Loss" by Rebecca Little & Colleen Long (4.43 stars;  my rating was 5 stars). 
• I explored the work of 22 new authors, read 10 books that were part of a series, and revisited/re-read 5 books. 
• I read 6 books in October, my most prolific month, and just 1 in July. 
• I continued to take part in several online book clubs/groups/readalongs, which provided me with lots of reading/discussion pleasure, and helped boost my 2025 reading totals: they were responsible for 25 of the 38 books I read in 2025 -- more than half!   
• Sadly, the L.M. Montgomery Readathon on Facebook, which began with "Rilla of Ingleside" in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, concluded earlier this year with one final book, "Anne of Windy Poplars" (review here). (The group still exists on Facebook, and members still post Montgomery-related content there, but we are no longer doing readalongs together.)  
• I continued to co-host the Childless Collective Nomo Book Club, where we read & discussed a book a month together ( = 12 books).  
• My D.E. Stevenson fan group read & discussed 3 DES books together in 2025, chapter by chapter (currently on #4). (I read each book first myself, and then counted our group read as a re-read.)
• I initially thought I would repeat one or both of Footnotes & Tangents' 2024 slow reads ("War & Peace" by Leo Tolstoy and Hilary Mantel's Cromwell Trilogy) -- but I soon realized there were lots of other books calling my name, and abandoned that idea. Perhaps someday... I do highly recommend the experience, especially if these are books you've always wanted to read!  
• I did take part in the 4 other slow reads offered by F&T in 2025, including "The Siege at Krishnapur" by J.G. Farrell, "A Place of Greater Safety" by Hilary Mantel, "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Adebe and "The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald.  

Goals for 2026: 

• As noted above, I ended the year with 38 books read. I did not reach my Goodreads Reading Challenge Goal of 45 books (nor did I come anywhere near equalling my 2021/best-recorded total of 59 books, when my goal was 36).  I initially thought I'd keep my goal of 45 books in 2026 -- but, given the recent events in my life, reading has taken a back seat for the time being (sadly, I have yet to start a book in January).  So I've decided to downsize my 2026 goal slightly to 40 books (and hope to do better than that...!). It's still a "stretch" goal, based on the past few years, and still works out to 3-4 books per month on average). 
• While I'm grateful for my book groups and the boost they give to my reading totals, and while I intend to keep up with them in 2026, I'm hoping to be able to read more of my own choices this coming year too.  :)   

2025 Highlights:  

• It's always very hard for me to pick a single book as "the best" that I read in any given year. I read some really good books this year, a few really great ones  and very few "meh" choices (3.8 stars on average.)  A few of my favourites, listed in the order I read them (I haven't linked to them here, but they're all reviewed on Goodreads, StoryGraph and this blog): 

• "Yellowface" by R.F. Kuang. I still find myself thinking about this one! 
• "The Mermaid of Black Conch" by Monique Roffey.  A lovely surprise. :)  
• "The Wedding People" by Alison Espach. A depressing-sounding premise that evolved into something absolutely delightful, especially as a childless-not-by-choice reader!  
• "I'm Sorry for My Loss" by Rebecca Little & Colleen Long. Both infuriating and validating.  
• "Rules for Visiting" by Jessica Francis Kane. This one grew on me as I read it! 
• "Kills Well With Others" by Deanna Raybourn, So much fun!!  :)  
• "Mania" by Stuart "Woody" Wood. I enjoyed reliving my days as a teenaged Bay City Rollers fan through the words of my favourite band member. 
• "The Ministry of Time" by Kaliane Bradley.  Love, love, loved this one. If I had to pick just one favourite book from 2025, this might be it.  
• "We Solve Murders" and "The Impossible Fortune," both by Richard Osman. Osman does it again -- both of these were pure delight.  

Did you meet your reading goals for 2025 (if you set any)? What great books did you read this past year?