My 2025 Longlist

in 2025 i read 165 books - here is my Booker dozen.

The year I turned twenty-six, I decided that my life would be dedicated to literature. I had been orbiting books long before this choice, but it was within that period that I started trading in more and more of my downtime to reading.

In many ways, my dip into the book community started there. I owe everything to the insatiable version of myself, leaving the library with stacks of books and sitting on the floor of used bookstores, convinced that I could figure out who I was and what I wanted out of life within those pages.

Every year since, the amount that I read increases. So, too, does the likelihood that I’ll love what I am currently reading. But there are always a handful which exceed any expectations that I might have had, going in. These are what I refer to as my god-tier books — the ones which alter the way that I see the world, or remind me of something that I thought I had lost. I spend every day of my life hoping that what I pick up next will hit that hard.

In the vein of the Booker Prize, here are the twelve books…plus one (which felt both impossible and obvious to list). All marked me, completely shook me up, during the year of 2025.

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Good Girl, Aria Aber:

I knew I had to read this from the mood board that the author, a renowned poet, posted, leading up to publication. Those first few lines captivated me. You know, immediately, that Aber just gets it. It’s a glittery, fractured thing, perfectly encapsulating how coming-of-age feels through the lens of girlhood.

“But of course there could be no holy place on earth; our life here was purgatorial and meaningless, and God had forgotten about us.”

A 19-year-old Afghan woman named Nila, who recently lost her mother, navigates the grief that consumes her, through the haze of the Berlin underground nightlife. Early on, she meets an older man, a washed up American author named Marlowe. His presence in her life marks a shift, a change in trajectory for everything to come after. This is a novel about survival, finding your purpose and is completely soaked with raw, vulneral beauty. Aber’s writing style reflects her experience as a poet, with sentences which feel both familiar and hard-won.

Soft Core, Brittany Newell

Before diving into Soft Core, I stumbled upon an interview with the author in which she claims that once she knew the story she wanted to write, it flew out of her. She wrote the first draft in six months—a detail which sparked immediate envy and admiration. But, as you flip through the pages, it’s wholly believable. Some books feel fully-formed, like they sprung out of an author’s heart and into their tightly clenched fists. This is one such novel.

“I carried a broken heart in my purse like a taser; I’d been doing it for so long I forgot it was weird. And yet, on the surface, my life seemed normal. She couldn’t sense my decline, my divorce from reality.”

Ruth, who goes by Baby at her place of employment, is a dancer at a strip club. She lives in a drafty Victorian with her ex-boyfriend, Dino, both of whom are trying to find a New Normal after a mutual parting of ways. She spends her days brain-rotting to mindless television and regretting her master’s degree, while at night she becomes larger than life—Baby Blue, a seductress and enchantress.

When Dino goes missing, Ruth’s tether to reality is cut. She falls backwards into a life where nothing feels real, unsure of if she’ll ever see him again. It’s utterly hypnotic, perfect for anyone who embraces ambiguity.

A Language of Limbs, Dylin Hardcastle

A shining star of a book. I read this while in the middle of a slump and finished it greedily, unable to put it down, tears in my eyes. I loved the play with form, the homage to queer history, all of the hard questions it asked of me, my story, my choices. And, most notably, I loved how deeply earnest it was. In the age of cringe, I find myself seeking out artists who embrace total vulnerability. It’s the only way to make anything that matters, which will extend beyond you or I, as well as our lifespans.

“This is our game, of subtle gestures, a language of limbs written like words in sand. We toe the shoreline between rock and ocean, between what you see and what we are underneath…”

Two limbs, two lives, each marked by the point in which, when presented with an impossible choice, they make a different one. And then we, the reader, weave back and forth between the two, watching how one decision can unspool an entire life. All of the ways we differ from those points and all of the ways we are the same, too. And love, the undercurrent, connecting us all.

Let the Bad Times Roll, Alice Slater

Alice Slater writes my favorite stories centered around obsession. There’s no one doing it like her. Her books are incredibly atmospheric—these perfectly tangible things. You can truly taste everything, see everything, feel it in your hands.

“You can do whatever you like, be whoever you like, sleep with whoever you like. It doesn’t matter. You might be a different person next week, so what does it matter what you do today?”

Starting with a dinner party, we learn that the guest of honor, a man named Daniel, is missing. His sister Caroline, who has been meticulously planning the event, falls apart at the news, which came from a phone call saying that items of his were found where he was last seen—in New Orleans, with a tarot card reader named Selina. Desperate for answers, Caroline gathers the group together with a surprise addition…Selina!

Twisting back and forth between London and New Orleans, this was a sensory delight with not one but TWO twists I didn’t see coming. More, please!

Disappoint Me, Nicola Dinan

When I say that I adored this book, I mean that I was so deeply enchanted by it that I snuck a copy onto my phone and was reading it before my commencement ceremony. It’s that rare combination of funny and poignant, sacrificing neither side for the other.

“You can fall in love with an outline, you can even make a home with one, but there will come a time when you can’t deny the bones their flesh. No person is fewer than two things.”

A 30-year-old trans woman named Max is plagued by dissatisfaction. Though she knows that these should be the best years of her life, the ones she looks back on, she can’t help but look over her shoulder, wondering shouldn’t it all feel different?

Then she meets Vincent, and everything changes. Despite understanding that the people in Vincent’s life probably didn’t see him dating a trans woman, she has, finally, found what she used to believe only existed in fairytales. But Vincent comes with his own baggage—secrets which will eventually ask Max what forgiveness requires of someone. A brilliant book, really. I couldn’t believe how much it made me feel. Like my heart was falling right out onto the floor.

If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant For You, Leigh Stein

The rarest of gems is when a novel manages to be many things at once. When you discover such a book, one which makes you laugh, gasp, cover your eyes—well, then, you shirk all responsibilities to read it!

Leigh Stein has one of those crazy cool brains that I’d love to dig through. She has a way of observing the world around her, quietly, until she’s ready to show you what she’s discovered. Her books are always sharp and compulsively readable.

“Did we remember that Oprah said women can have it all, just not all at once, and could we admit that we stubbornly believed we were the exception? Yes.”

After an extremely public breakup, a 39-year-old woman named Dayna accepts a business opportunity from a man she hasn’t spoken to in 20 years. She’s been tasked with helping him transform his crumbling mansion into a successful TikTok hype house.

On the other side of things, a 19-year-old woman named Olivia joins said-hype house, under the guise of wanting to start a career as an influencer. But she has ulterior motives. A former member of the house—a tarot card reader named Becca, with whom she believes she shared a connection—has disappeared. Olivia believes she can figure out what happened to Becca, and she’ll stop at nothing to do it. Set aside a whole weekend for this one!

Ghost Fish, Stuart Pennebaker

This one gutted me. Really ripped my spine out from my back. I underlined so many pages that I lost count and finished it in my backyard, covered in that feeling you get when you know that you’ve just read a perfect book.

“I wondered if it was possible for beauty to be contagious. That, perhaps, some of it might rub off on me.”

A young woman named Alison moves to New York after the loss of several family members, feeling completely adrift and needing a fresh start. One night, while walking home from her job as a hostess at a restaurant, she believes that she sees the ghost of her sister, in the form of a fish. A ghost fish. So she bottles her up in a (clean) pickle jar and tries her best to not let her disappear from her life, again.

The writing in here was divine. Every book I open is one in which I hope to find exactly what I did within these pages. Gorgeous, fluid writing, characters you can step into and zip yourself up inside, a home in the shape of a novel.

Wild Dark Shore, Charlotte McConaghy

Can you believe that I hadn’t read any of Charlotte McConaghy’s books until this year? I read them in order and it felt like insanity to choose just one for this list. But Wild Dark Shore feels the most timely—built upon the errors we are currently making in regards to climate change. As such, it hurt very badly to read this one. I cried a lot, wiping messy tears off my face every few pages. It’s a brutal book, is what I’m saying. Necessary, too. I know that word is overused, but this one is, by definition, a necessary read for anyone who feels overwhelmed by the state of the world and our planet and yet remains desperately hopeful, too.

“But here is the nature of life. That we must love things with our whole selves, knowing they will die.”

A woman washes up on the shore of a remote island, where only a man and his family remains. Once a storage and research facility, they are now tasked with choosing which seeds they will take with them before leaving the island, themselves. When everything is in the process of being lost, what holds the most importance? The arrival of this woman, who does not know how she got there or why she came, drudges up anxieties and uncertainties, changing everything. You must read it…and you’ll never be the same!

The Dry Season, Melissa Febos

At every point in my life that I needed it the most, I have discovered a book by Melissa Febos. Her writing is incandescent.

In this memoir, she covers the period of her life where she abstained from romantic relationships of any kind, in an attempt to explore why she chooses the people she does, and what to do with that information. I finished this during my last few weeks of living in Chicago and tandem read the audiobook so that I could listen while riding my bike along the lake. Divine. I have rarely felt so seen by another person.

“So many people fantasized about romantic love that would sweep them away, obliterate their agency and release them from accountability, a “tormenting, self-heightening pleasure, like a hail of hot stones,” as I had. But no other human could exert that kind of power in love. It was a storm that rose from within, and which we projected onto a lover.”

An urgent piece of nonfiction, which reads like a dream. And to circle back to what I said earlier, completely aligns with my journey to merge my soul with earnest art.

Flashlight, Susan Choi

Flashlight was my choice for winning the Booker Prize this year. I read it while on vacation with my family, often having the tear myself away. Despite how dense it could be at times, it was still a very approachable book. By the end, all puzzle pieces clicked into place, I was left astonished by the scope of the story that I had just finished.

“Love is, perhaps, the sensation of expertise that erupts out of nowhere, and as time goes on accumulates enough soil at its feet to be standing on something.”

One summer evening, Louisa takes a walk with her father along the breakshore. He is carrying a flashlight and cannot swim. Later, Louisa is found alone, soaking wet, and has no memory of what transpired. Her father is gone, presumed dead.

We weave through time and memory, examining a family affected by this event, as well as everything which came before. It’s a jaw-dropping book, full of unlikeable but understandable people.

The Slip, Lucas Schaefer

It’s the summer of 1998 in Austin, Texas, and a teenage boy named Nathaniel has just arrived to spend a few months with his Aunt and Uncle. The hope is that this time will help put him back on track, after appearing to suffer from an extreme lack of confidence. By the end of the summer, Nathaniel has disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

“We’ve all had the urge, haven’t we? To float our palms too close, too long? To see what will happen if we actually do it. To find a way to say, the things we’ll never say.”

When the book opens, we learn that it’s been ten years and his Uncle receives a shocking tip, which prompts him to look back into the case on his own, hoping to finally figure out what happened during that summer.

This was a book where not a word was wasted. It’s centered around a mystery and so it’s definitely a propulsive read, but the characters in here are what really shine. There’s a lot beneath the surface for every person that the reader comes into contact with - for better or for worse! And, in terms of the mystery, I will say that this was one of the rare times in which I didn’t figure anything out until the literal second before.

Bread of Angels, Patti Smith

Bread of Angels is a feat! A poetic reflection on time, memory and loss - and by far Patti’s most intimate memoir, yet.

“God whispers through a crease in the wallpaper.”

I read it during threads of encapsulated moments.

In my backyard, hair still wet from a shower, water dripping onto the pages. Curled up on my side in bed, long after I told myself I’d go to sleep. I read it with one hand while cooking dinner, going back and forth between the pages and what I was doing. And countless other small snippets of time.

Patti takes us through her life as an artist— starting with a poverty stricken childhood in Chicago, leading into a period of grief, after the loss of her husband, and so many other beloved friend and family members. We see her as a young bohemian, newly in love, a mother, discovering her voice as a writer, and so many other precious memories, all written with poetic prose and deep vulnerability.

Sparkling with wit and grunge, Bread of Angels reflect the life of a true artist, rebellious to their bones. Patti has always been punk rock, this only further cements it.

Minor Black Figures, Brandon Taylor

Over the course of a summer in New York, a Black man named Wyeth explores what it means to be an artist during increasingly political times. Early on, Wyeth meets a man named Keating at a bar, after attending a gallery showing. Every time they meet up, he and Wyeth hold these deliciously fluid conversations about art, religion, personhood — anything, everything. We learn the most about the world the two of them exist in, as well as who they are as individuals, through these conversations.

“But then, that was why some people had God—what was faith if not negotiating the abyss?”

Something which stuck out for me while reading is that the writing does not seek to be perfect, or to “age well”. Taylor allows his characters, and this novel, to exist within the world it was created in. The people we are introduced to have ideals, they hold difficult conversations in which they may or may not completely agree on something.

In this way, it pushes up against the digital age, where there is an increasingly panicked attempt to never fuck up, to judge those who do, to raise the standards of what it means to be a Good Person to impossible heights. And the payoff is huge.

You, as the reader, are given so much to sort through, to hold, to be challenged by.

Minor Black Figures feels like a novel that people will look to, years from now, when asked what it was like to live through 2020s life, Post-Covid. It’s honest, funny, emotional, and queer in a way that shimmers. Beautiful beyond measure.

…and now, onto 2026!

It has been an honor to read and therefore share my time with so many talented creatives this year. My hope is that one of these becomes your new favorite — or, if they already are, we can celebrate them together! Cheers!