Hi and welcome to my 2025 wrap-up!
Looking back at 2025, I feel like it was a big year, somehow. Some important decisions to make, many things to discuss in depth. It was a year of fatigue, illness and a health scare, but it was also a year of love and laughter and a near-perfect near-fatigue-free summer.
Bookwise, and certainly blogwise, I struggled quite a bit. Writing reviews often felt like pulling teeth and blogging in general felt like the umpteenth chore I had to complete. At one point I decided that 2025 was going to be my last bookish year in stats, I am still keeping the spreadsheet, but I will be posting my bookish stats of 2025 next week and that’ll be the end of that. However, seeing as it’s the final one, I wanted to go out with a bang and pull out all the stops for my geographical challenge. Which means I struggled through quite a few books I would have DNF’ed in a heartbeat otherwise, or I wouldn’t even have picked up at all. Which had me teetering on the edge of a reading slump more than once but when I look at my map now I really do feel it was worth it 😂
Looking ahead to what 2026 might bring, I know this much: I’ll be reading for fun (no challenges, no goals, although I do want to read more Spanish cos I’ve been sorely neglecting that) and I’ll be taking an indefinite break from blogging. I’ve cleared my NetGalley shelf (watch out for the reviews later this month) and I have no pending review commitments. I might succumb and accept a widget or go browsing on NetGalley, but for now, I really do need to take a step back.
In numbers 2025 looks like this:
2025
I read 68,309 pages across 209 novels, novellas and short stories
I listened for 640 hours to 102 audiobooks
But out of these books, what were my favourites, what are the books that kept me glued to their pages and made me forget all else?
Let’s start with a shout-out to the series I discovered (or rediscovered) and binged in 2025 that helped shape my bookish year:
And a shout-out to a book I read and loved but will be published in 2026:
2025 brought fantastic new instalments to some of my favourite series, so do check these out if you haven’t already:
And these fantastic reads are my 20 of 2025:
Thanks for joining me today! Seen any of your favourites among mine? I wish you all a fabulous 2026 and here’s to a whole new year of book love 🥂
What a fab bookish year, and well done for struggling on with that map challenge! xx
Thanks Nicki xx
Hope you enjoy your step back from blogging, Kelly. I guess in a few months time you’ll know whether this step back is just temporary or forever (say it isn’t so!! LOL!) Whatever you decide, there will be a new Philip Ye book waiting for you in 2027, or maybe 2028, okay so possibly 2029….LOL! Hope you are taking some photos of the kittens frolicking in the ice and snow!! And I hope there are the same number of chickens after Xmas as there were before….LOL!
By the way, that was a joke!! I know you wouldn’t eat your own chickens LOL! During the war, when my mother was a young girl, they kept chickens in the garden as food was scarce and there was rationing. And this was in the city! Because no one in the family could bear to hurt the chickens, it was my mother’s job to take the selected chicken down the street to an old woman who was known as the ‘chicken-killer’. Everyone on the street took their chickens down to this woman. OMG, I’m not sure quite why I have told you this story. Well, you read enough Gothic horror so I am sure you can cope LOL!
I’ve heard worse but I don’t want to repeat it 😂
Thanks Laurence! Time will tell ☺️
You had better not make me wait another 3 years!
The cats don’t seem to enjoy this weather 😅 Especially Lola is being a little princess, preferring to keep indoors 😂
Still 5 chickens and a cockerel, but believe me, I know which chicken I’d pick for the pot if need be! (The one that insists on sleeping on top of her hen house instead of inside, yes, even in this weather 🙄)
I totally understand you because I had the same struggle but look I’m still here (though I’ve gone from blogging twice a week to once every 14 days) so I do hope we’ll see you back! I’m really going to miss your updates not to mention the amazing reviews you write and letting me know what I really need to read. 209 books is a crazy number, it’ll only be more in the future I presume! Thanks for all the inspiration in your top 20, I’ll be reading some of these!
Aw thanks Inge 💜 We’ll see, I’m keeping all my options open ☺️
Please don’t leave us for too long! 🥺
Joking aside, I hope that this year is kinder to you, and that you do come back to blogging feeling refreshed and invigorated after your hiatus.
Thanks Jo 💜 I hope so too!
Totally understand. I struggle with the reviewing and life is becoming more demanding. Big hugs x
Thanks Claire 💜
I hope you will enjoy the break, although we will miss you! <3 I understand the feeling though… I've taken a full social media break for months now and only blog hop once or twice a week, and it has taken away some of the stress. Scheduling posts has also been my best friend for some time now. I've been tempted by a full break more than once though! I will be looking forward to your 2025 stats and that map of course, and I guess I'll have to keep publishing the stats for the both of us in future. 😉 Fingers crossed 2026 will bring you lots of wonderful things!
I love your list of favorites by the way… Some books we share (Blood Like Mine, In The Blink Of An Eye, Black As Death, The Bones Beneath My Skin, We Are All Guilty Here), and others are books I can't wait to read in 2026. I also can't believe I hadn't spotted that new Tracy Sierra book yet! Nightwatching was fantastic, so that's going straight to my most-anticipated list. xx
Thanks Yvo 💜 I’ve tried slowing down and posting less but even then it felt like a chore. I feel I’m already enjoying reading more now I can read whatever Fickle Frieda is in the mood for without having to think about deadlines or reviewing 😂