psycheoma ꒰ᐢ. .ᐢ꒱₊˚⊹

books I read in 2025

last modified 2 months, 1 week ago

I made this post last year and now I’m doing it again.

Uh, I made a very unwise choice in 2025 to double my previous book quota (from one finished book a month to two). I do not recommend this lol. However, it got me to read a shitton of things, so it was fun :D

Anyway. Here’s basically every serious book I logged in 2025!

✨ Bacchae, Euripides (tr. Robin Robertson)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I started the year pretty strong with this! I got the translation recommendation from a TikTok. Well, it worked out for me, because it was really good… so I feel no shame from it.

I don’t know if I have much to say about Bacchae. It’s older than the Roman Empire. It’s really good! It got Euripides the Ancient Greek Oscar. I really enjoyed the language and imagery of it, I think that’s what clinched the very coveted five-star rating. It succeeded at both being meaningful, complete, and aesthetically beautiful, which are the principal pillars of my rating system.

Maybe I should read more classics. I’ve got Dr. Emily Wilson’s translations of the Iliad and Odyssey downloaded, but I’ve also always been curious ‘bout Antigonick… who knows?

✨ The Tombs of Atuan, Ursula K. Le Guin (tr. spanish Matilde Horne)

Earthsea Cycle #2

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

A friend gifted me a physical copy of this book for Christmas after I finished the first one in september 2024!

The sequel was just as good as the first book in the series. I think I liked the first book a little bit more, but that’s mostly irrational bias (I like stories that span a long time and many different places and characters more than the more restrained pieces like Tombs of Atuan). That said, Atuan’s tight focus meant it was a really sharp and detailed portrait of the one thing it was doing, and it was a really cool thing it was doing. I loved this book!

Speak Gigantular, Irenosen Okojie

⭐⭐⭐

This was a collection of short stories that I think won an award, and that’s where I saw it… A lot of the stories were good, but they generally felt “sketched”, so to speak; maybe by their nature as short stories (though I’ve seen short stories that didn’t feel like this) but they all felt sort of… purposefully incomplete. Like a knit piece that hasn’t had its ends woven back in, you know? But I very much enjoyed this.

I liked the story about the subway ghosts in the back half of the book, the one about the kid with a… tail? (it’s been months, forgive me!), I liked the one about the tourists, there were a bunch of great ones. Pepe too. The one about the photographs was pretty great as well.

All Systems Red, Martha Wells

✨ The Murderbot Diaries #1

⭐⭐⭐

This year I started reading The Murderbot Diaries and I read four whole books of this series. They’re novellas, so they’re easy peasy to read, and they’re also… how could I say it?; comfort food of a very particular kind for me. Murderbot Diaries reads like a western webnovel. It reads like the author had a tumblr account.

The aspects that are familiar to me: the autistic, broody, snarky point-of-view narration from a being who is Systemically Othered™️ in a fantastical way; the twenty-first-century take on a dystopian free-love future, where girlboss capitalism has triumphed so thoroughly that unstigmatized polyamorous marriages composed entirely of nonbinary people have to contend with corporate indentured servitude; the specific type of low-exposition medium-soft mid-low-stakes sci-fi setting; the fandom of it all, with Murderbot itself developing a fannish obsession with human soap operas… and so on, and so on forth.

I never rate MBD books that high because, well, I’ve seen the outline of what they do a hundred times over in any number of tumblr-borne original sci-fi western webfiction (microfiction, short stories, webnovels, etc). But MBD takes it to a higher level and operates it with skill. I can wholeheartedly recommend MBD and the series has earned its spot as one of the best things I read this year — collectively.

As for All Systems Red in particular, well, it was good. It was predictable, if anything, but once again, I found that comforting. I don’t think being predictable is a wholly bad thing… I think it set up things really well for the rest of the series, because even four novellas in, I can still look at the characters and go “they’d react like this and that, based on previous evidence” and then the series proves me right. (See? It’s not bad to be predictable, because sometimes it just means your characterization is consistent; god knows I can’t do that, everyone I write is beholden to the whims of my inner multitude…)

I recommend the MBD series to anyone who enjoys character-focused sci-fi storytelling with nonbinary people in it that isn’t put off by MBD being predictable. Those words might seem tautological, but I’m selecting a very specific profile of people; key to this is “character focused”, “nonbinary people”, and “isn’t put off”.

Artificial Condition, Martha Wells

✨ The Murderbot Diaries #2

⭐⭐⭐.50

Another one, thank you!

I initially liked Artificial Condition more than All Systems Red, but in retrospect, Artificial Condition is a lot less memorable than its predecessor. Its real highlight is the character of ART, or Asshole Research Transport. It’s so fucking great, man. I love ART. Genuinely, it hasn’t shown back up but it’s my favourite character in the series. Actual MVP. My GOAT. Possibly single-handedly brought about that .50 on the ratings scale.

My other favourite character is Dr. Mensah, by the way. My feelings for characters in this series depend entirely both on how funny they are and on how good they are to Murderbot / how much Murderbot likes them. Mensah and ART are both extremely fun and also establish beautiful connections with Murderbot, so I gotta stan. I still like ART a little more than Mensah because it’s way fucking funnier. At least, on purpose.

Gaijin, Maximiliano Matayoshi

⭐⭐.25

This was a book about a ten-year-old(?) japanese boy immigrating to Argentina on his lonesome after WW2. It was… fine. It was terse and uninspired prose-wise, and it was kind of a very cliché coming-of-age story, but it also had some really good moments. If you like coming-of-age stories and despise purple prose, you might like this one a lot more than me. I dislike coming-of-age stories and I love purple prose, so it just didn’t really click. Far from the worst thing I read this year, though.

✨ Dragon Bones, Patricia Briggs

Hurog #1

⭐⭐⭐.50

I read this one ‘cause I found it on TvTropes and thought it looked very much up my alley, and it mostly was, with some hiccups (worsened significantly in the second book in the duology). The things I liked: an emphasis on politics and planning and logistics, an absolutely fire core pitch (at least to me, as an elder sibling; I love any story that’s about an older sibling protecting their younger siblings from their parents), DRAGONS, the thorough exploration of domestic and parental abuse and how it affects the victims after the fact, the feminist attitude towards abuse and sexuality, and Oreg (I love him) (he was The Character of All Time).

What I didn’t like… Well, it lapsed into therapy-speak several times, but I could forgive it because the entire book was about doing DIY therapy after your bitch dad died. It also… this got a lot worse in the second book, but incest is a mad ick for me. And —between the first cousin marriage, the vibes with Oreg, etcetera— it just kept coming up a little bit too much for my liking…

Uh, and there's also what I didn’t mind, but you might: the focus this series has not just on physical and verbal abuse, but sexual as well. I’m not sure if it was well handled, necessarily; I’m not great at judging this specific thing. But it was consistently supporting the victims, understanding them, meeting them where they were at, etc., and I never felt like it was for titillation; or at least, if it was for titillation, it was the sort of “noooo, poor guy!” titillation you get from whump, and not like… “look, they’re naked, isn’t that hot?”

Also, the premise (“boy pretends to have a cranial injury-induced intellectual disability to avoid abuse and suspicion”) can read as ableist to people sensitive to the subject. They for sure engage in some clichés about portraying intellectual disabilities; it’s in the context of protagonist Ward acting out those clichés and taking advantage of people believing in the stereotypes to pretend to have an intellectual disability, and not all of the consequences of his very real cranial trauma are faked, but… I’d still rate it at “iffy” on the “Flowers for Algernon Scale of Don’t Portray Your Fellow Human Beings Like That, Man”. It’s not complete Oscarbait Stereotyping, but it’s less than ideal.

So, yeah. If you like whump fanfiction that gets real dark but has a happy ending, and plotty stories about shifting the political status quo, and DRAGONS, and siblings unionizing against shitty parents, and if you don’t mind the above, I can recommend the Hurog duology to you— with a single caveat that we’ll get to when we reach the second book in the series.

Rogue Protocol, Martha Wells

✨ The Murderbot Diaries #3

⭐⭐⭐

ANOTHER ONE.

I don’t actually remember much from Rogue Protocol at this juncture… much like Murderbot itself, ayeee!

I think this was pretty good, though. Again, MBD is a consistent 3/5 (or 7.5/10) for me, and I’m kind of a harsh judge, so there’s plenty of people for whom this will be a consistent 8/10 series. The development in Rogue Protocol was great. I liked seeing Murderbot upset and regretful and unsure, and I really enjoyed Miki and the story of the ~entertainment bots. Really fun stuff.

Dragon Blood, Patricia Briggs

Hurog #2

⭐⭐.25

Okay so. Two things.

This book did get to do a lot more politically than Dragon Bones, which I enjoyed. I really liked the stuff about the evil as fuck abuser king, the asylum for political dissidents labeled as mentally unfit to dispose of them (which I think was a fun parallel for/continuation of Ward’s head injury stuff), I liked the Large Cat, I loved Garranon. Garranon’s whole deal was the highlight of the book.

However… it ramps up a lot of the stuff I did not like about the first book, like the “not really worrying about incest” thing (that’s how I’d phrase it, rather than there being an outright incest thing, if it makes any sense lol). And it also ramped up a lot of the stuff other people might not like, such as the depictions of sexual assault and abuse (again, they’re from a victim-supporting stance, but I can’t tell you how tasteful it was).

But the worst part of it was the ending. It was… really anticlimactic and rushed. I did not like it. Actually I kind of hated it. I don’t remember the specifics of what pissed me off, but I remember it was a significant inconsistency in the stakes of the plot, and my notes on this book include “the more I think about the ending the more pissed off I get”, so maybe it’s for the best that I don’t remember it…

well, whatever. Again, not nearly the worst thing I read this year. And I really did like Garranon!

✨ The Vegetarian, Han Kang (tr. spanish Sunme Yoon)

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This won a Nobel Prize for Literature, and a family member heard that and bought me a copy, and then I read it, and indeed, it deserved to have won a Nobel Prize!

The first two parts being horror stories about this weird unexplainable woman from the perspective on men in her life who are horrible to her, and then the third part being from her sister’s perspective and being a tragedy because she actually loves her sister… yeah no, banger, banger tweet. Loved it.

The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (tr. David Wyllie)

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

Do I need to tell you that Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was sad as fuck? That’s what it was. Sad as fuck. I felt so compelled to reach in and rescue Gregor Samsa from his shitty bitch bastard family, man. I would have scrubbed his carapace with pet shampoo and cut him appy slices. Don’t try me like this again, Franz. Really really good.

✨ Ludluda, Steve Beard and Jeff Noon

The Chronicles of Ludwich #2

⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read the first book in this duology last year and really, really loved it. I liked this one a bit less, mainly because of how Brin’s character developed; I felt like it was really out of left field. I also don’t like how a core emotional pillar and supporting character of this book is a guy who’s introduced partway into this book —that is, over halfway through the duology— and who you think is just going to show up and disappear… Like, he was fine, but his introduction was rough and I think he just kinda played a role in the story because he was there.

The entire duology felt very much like a fever dream. This second book felt like a fever dream in a worse way than the first - things that didn’t quite make sense, or that made too much sense and felt magic-less. Going into the other city felt very “oh god, why” in that certain way where like… y’know when you sign up for something very fantastical and then the author has to remind you about the real world like you even care about it? Dude, I’m on elf time right now. Don’t show me this shit.

But I still love Cady and the robot man. I think they should’ve made out with tongue.

Snuff, Terry Pratchett

Discworld #39 (City Watch #8)

⭐⭐.75

Man I Love Discworld. Pratchett is another of my “comfort woke foods”. He’s like, “As a white englishman I think racism and apartheid are bad and you shouldn’t do them”, and I go, “hell yeah, Terry.” Hamfisted as fuck, but in a sincere and loveable way; think One Piece Fishman Island arc except written by Douglas Adams and you’re about right on the tone. World’s first antirracist cop.

Apart from that, really very funny in that really stupid british Douglas Adams Terry Pratchett kinda way that many try to ape (unsuccessfully). (One of these failures is Joss Whedon, I’m pretty sure, so Douglas Adams and his cohort is to “he’s right behind me isn’t he” what Alan Moore and his cohort are to the Dark Age of Comic Books. Do with this knowledge what you must).

I still ranked it less than 3 stars because it just. Failed completely to wow me. Pratchett’s done all of this before but better, to be honest... The earliest and latest Discworld book suffer from swinging too far in one direction or another; the earliest are too unwoke, and the latest are too soapboxy. The best ones are in the middle: comfortable enough to be sharp and biting and not go on rants about human rights several times throughout the books, but woke enough to still believe in human rights and show this belief rather than tell it (and also, like, not have as overt police brutality jokes… geez that was a moodswinger). Night Watch is maybe objectively one of the best Discworld books I’ve read so far and it’s the perfect example of what I’m talking about here lol

Uh, book highlights, I liked the storybook lady and the Evil River and also the dumb Jane Austen joke and all the bits about posh brit nobles. Pratchett is great at doing bits about rich people. Lowlights: racism solved with opera. I wish, man

Carpe Jugulum, Terry Pratchett

Discworld #23 (Witches #6)

⭐⭐⭐.25

It was good but it didn’t quite wow me. Another one of Pratchett’s problems is that many of his main characters undergo mythologization creep (it happens so quickly to Vimes that it will cause you whiplash). You’d expect that the mythcreep wouldn't be so bad with Granny Weatherwax, since she's been a little mythologized from the beginning, but the “you’ve been Weatherwaxed” twist still falls a little flat for me for reasons I’d link to this... mythcreep issue. I don't have a better word for it.

I’m very happy Agnes and Perdita got a W, though. They were sorely missing that W last book. Maskerade, you will NOT see the gates of heaven for what you’ve put my girls through!!

The greatest highlight of this book for me was actually Mightily Oats - and part of this is just because he was a great character, but part of it was also because, uh... I’ve been reading Discworld out of order! So I actually read Unseen Academicals before reading this book!! So my impression of Mightily Oats was “eight feet tall and carries a battle axe”... AND IT TURNS OUT THAT THIS WAS INCORRECT. LOL. But I loved to see him turn into the guy I’d met in UA, it was great, best character in the book. And the De Magpyrs were fun villains too.

The Double, Fyodor Dostoevsky (tr. spanish G. Levachov)

⭐.50

I could not fucking stand this book man. I think this was on purpose but good lord. Hate. Let me tell you how I’ve come to hate every single character in this book. Annoying as shit. If this is what passes for comedy to Dostoevsky then I get why he was depressed.

I recommend this book to anybody who enjoys cringe comedy. If there is such a person in this world.

✨ Breakfast of Champions, Kurt Vonnegut (tr. spanish Cecilia Ceriani, Txaro Santoro)

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

Made me genuinely cry. Incredible work of fiction and metafiction. Probably improved a thousandfold by the fact I was reading it translated; I think in the original he straight up says slurs, which would for sure worsen the reading experience one billion times. If they just CTRL+F the slurs away I think this is peak fucking fiction though. Absolutely amazing. Made me cry, did I tell you it made me cry?

The Yellow Wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Yeah, this was good. Man I was so mad reading this. The fight for equality will never be over until people are in control of their own healthcare, death to all conservatorships, free Britney, never get married, always open your own bank account, remember these things...

✨ The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Reading about a one-sided war waged on normal people without sci-fi tech by unfeeling monsters who have ways to bomb the surface of the earth from high up in the sky felt different this year. Can’t put my finger on why, though 🍉

That was the highlight of the book, by the way; the portrayal of modern war, that is, war as man-made un-natural disaster that one-sidedly assails a population with no refuge but exile, from the sky and the sea and the land below. The confusion and panic such a thing causes, people running off in every which direction, refusing to believe anything is happening…

There was a long segment about two thirds or three fourths of the way in that I didn’t like, the whole time the protagonist spent stuck in a house with a guy I didn’t care lived or died. The book immediately slowed down to a tortuous crawl when it begun and immediately picked up after that segment ended. Apart from that, of course, generational banger. Bless

A Doll’s House, Henrik Ibsen (tr. E. Haldeman-Julius)

⭐⭐⭐.75

NEVER GET MARRIED. MEN AIN’T SHIT!!! Women’s rights and women’s wrongs!! hashtag DIVORCE

✨ Otaku: Japan’s Database Animals, Hiroki Azuma (tr. Jonathan E. Abel, Shion Kono)

⭐⭐⭐.75

Absolutely incredible nonfiction philosophical/social commentary work on fandom. Genuinely changed my entire brain chemistry, my life, and my perspective on the phenomenon that has consumed most of my life. I now comprehend fandom as database consumption and everything makes so much sense suddenly. If you only read one book from this list, make it this one.

Also, I love that the last chapter was like, “I want to pick apart this terrible 90s hentai visual novel using Hegel”. Fire. Flames. Pics that go hard. Dudes rock, etc

✨ Those Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula K. Le Guin (tr. spanish Aníbal Varela, Josefina Herrero, Carlos Gardini)

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

This was a short story compilation titled after the famous short story, by the way. Obviously “Omelas” was a highlight, but nobody talks about the time travelling space princess short story and I loved that one just as much, if not more (“Omelas” is a lot more philosophically weighty and meaningful, but the princess story felt so fanciful and fantastical that I yet remain obsessed with it). (Actually, “Omelas” kinda reminded me of Invisible Cities, or of Borges, or a combination thereof, but these comparisons mega turbo undersell it lol).

Uh, I don’t know how to feel about the living forest story. I think about it a lot but reading it was suffering… IDK. But this was great lol.

✨ Paradise Logic, Sophie Kemp

⭐⭐⭐⭐.50

This book was made for me in a laboratory. They wrote it for me. She’s literally just like me for real. I love that they kept asking what the fuck was wrong with Reality. Her whimsy went so hard that it became mental disorder. I love autistic girls. Weaponized autism of mass destruction, this one.

Lost the plot pretty significantly at the tail end, but recuperated it enough to stick-ish the landing. The highlights are for sure before Reality takes that plane. Actually, my favourite part was the time period she spent pre-meeting her boyfriend. I guess that says something about the boyfriend, huh?

Incredibly funny in such a stupid way too. If you read this book and your immediate reaction is “what the fuck is wrong with this woman” you’re interacting with it wrong. The correct mindset for Paradise Logic is the pjackk mindset. Lock in to the dadaism. You need to become absurder NOW!

Sparkling Cyanide, Agatha Christie (tr. spanish Guillermo López Hipkiss)

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

I think I got the ending for this one spoiled for me before, but it was so long ago before reading the book I only halfway remembered. I think I still would’ve guessed the murderer correctly, though. I’m pretty good at picking up on the murderer of a story just based off, like, what character would it be most satisfying if they were to be the killer. Like, who’s conspicuously absent of red herrings but has tons of motive? It’s usually this guy. It sure was this time.

Obviously, everything Christie is classic for a reason. This was definitely classic too.

✨ No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai (tr. Donald Keene)

⭐⭐⭐⭐.75

Yeah I wrote about this one. I liked it a lot. He’s just like me fr.

The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis (tr. spanish Miguel Marías)

⭐.75

This was the worst fucking thing I read this year, maybe (actually, The Double was worse, but Screwtape is more recent in memory). I cannot fucking stand C. S. Lewis, he is so god damn preachy. It would be fine and just boring if he simply didn’t go after materialist atheists and agnostics (like myself) and left wing bitches (like myself). He keeps talking about good and I go “right, right, I agree that this is good” and then he goes “and also you have to be catholic or you go to hell” and I just want to throw the book out of a window. Can I get like, one fucking gram of religious freedom? Man

Highlight of the book: I liked the idea of hell as corrupt bureaucratic cutthroat capitalistic nepotism nightmare forever. Really good handling of the idea of demons that are actually evil and sucky. That’s about the only highlight

✨ The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson

The Masquerade #1

⭐⭐⭐⭐.50

Have you ever wanted to be emotionally devastated by doomed yuri hardcore lesbianposting Woke Game of Thrones? Read this book. Have you ever wanted to hate and love a protagonist so fucking bad you just wanna choke her out but also think she’s the best thing put to paper since sliced bread? Read this book. Have you ever wanted to read a book about lesbian sex and desire that you cannot in good faith ever recommend to a lesbian on the basis of its portrayal of lesbian sex and desire? Read this book. I finished it and went “this was so good but I’m never reading the sequels” and now I’m actively planning on reading the sequels. Fuck my life. Ms. Baru Cormorant is like a drug I can’t quit. I owe lesbians everything.

Also, go in without knowing the big plot twist. For maximum emotional devastation. I did that. Lol. Lmao, even

Exit Strategy, Martha Wells

✨ The Murderbot Diaries #4

⭐⭐⭐.75

I rounded out the year with MORE MURDERBOT!

This book was a great capstone to the previous three books. They could’ve honestly been one big novel rather than four novellas, but novellas are fine too; I don’t think it loses out on much for being separated like that. I appreciated the return of Mensah and also (quote mine) “everyone being so normal … about Murderbot not wanting to be a robot slave”. Like yeah if you went somewhere and realized they’re operating on slave labour, you would probably be moving like Mensah and company. That sounds about right…

I haven’t been talking about the action in Murderbot, but I like it. It happens in this book and previous ones. I really like how Units are a serious threat in these books. I also enjoy the aesthetics of Murderbot —aesthetics are super important for me—, I like the CamelCase Dystopia stuff it’s got going on. Very utilitarian, very grey, felt really believable and realistic despite being very soft lol.

I needed a pick-me-up after Baru Cormorant, and also after a disastrous attempt at reading a nonfiction book I DNF'd. Murderbot scratched the itch very nicely.

There’s a really good chance I’ll kick off my reading year in 2026 by consuming even more Murderbot, so… look forward to that!

I read other things in 2025, too — I read two whole volumes of the Apothecary Diaries light novels, the Legends of Localization: Undertale book, and also a butt ton of manga, webtoons, fanfiction, etcetera. I also started the upwards trek of reading Lord of the Mysteries, a promise to Kami of Kami's Corner fame. It’s been going for sure (I’m about 50 chapters in at the time of posting) (my favourite character is probably Audrey, though I’m also fond of Alder and Leonard, who is gay). (Hilariously I’m fond of both Alder and Leonard for gay reasons; Leonard is gay so he’s my representation, and Alder is kinda……………..)

Bonus track. Here's some mangas I read this year that were good:

There's probably more, but these are the ones I remember and recommend. I also kept up with a bunch of other manga; One Piece was crazy this year (if you know you know). I also read some more famous manga, I'm pretty sure I caught up to SPY x FAMILY this year?, but I can't be sure immediately and anyway you don't need me to recommend you SPY x FAMILY. Okay, weeb moment over.

Uh, I also wrote a lot this year which was fun... so I guess that too. Yay. :)

I am about done with this post, this is just the listicle... I'm a little worded out. Read these books and manga. Or don't. That's cool too

And as always,

thank you for reading!

P.S.: Xaya I promise the next one will be the language post. I swear. I need to get it out of my drafts!!

#2026 #listicle #media #review #🌕