Here once again is my annual best books list, curated purely on vibes as always.

Best Book Club Book
A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

The reveal in this is wild and I’m so glad I went in having no idea it was coming. The main character is the most likable unlikable character I’ve read in a while and I really enjoyed it. The writing is lush and full of gorgeous descriptions of food. However it is also full of gore that’s recounted vey straightforwardly so this will not be for everyone. But if you like horror and you haven’t read this, definitely pick it up.

Best Audacious Book Club Book
The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

This was the April book for Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club, and I was hoping to see it longlisted for the National Book Award. No such luck, though. This was so compelling, with great characters whose actions were very believable. But it hits close to home right now so consider whether you’re up for reading a story about profiling and “pre-crime.”

Best Recommendation from TBR
The Compound by Aisling Rawle

TBR is a paid service from Book Riot, where you get three book recommendations each quarter. This book is set on a compound where a reality TV show is filmed. I am not a reality TV person, but this book was so riveting it had me up late reading a few nights.

Best Book in a Series I’m Already Reading
Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn

This is the second book in a series about retired female assassins and it was such a fun read! The chemistry of the group is great and it’s awesome to read a thriller like this with a mostly-female cast. I enjoyed the various settings this one took place in, and the food descriptions were a nice interlude.

Best Book in a New-to-Me Series
Winter’s Orbit by Everina Maxwell

I had a hard time choosing for this category, but I went with Winter’s Orbit because I hadn’t heard anything about it until my physical therapist mentioned it. We were talking about cozy fantasy and I mentioned that I hadn’t really come across any cozy sci-fi, and she immediately recommended this. I could not put it down. The romance isn’t particularly convincing and I’m not sure how much some aspects of the plot would hold up under scrutiny but wow was this entertaining, propulsive, and heartwarming.

Best Book That a Friend Recommended or Mentioned
Heartwood by Amity Gaige
Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

I just started tracking this category this year, and overall it was a really strong one: 9 out of 12 were 4 stars or better for me. So, you’re getting two here, both of which were recommended by my platonic life partner.

Heartwood is compelling and well-paced. It’s about the search for a missing hiker, but also about the lives of the folks looking for her and who she met on the trail. It’s less a thriller and more of a character study, but still very plotty.

Beautyland is lovely and weird. It’s beautifully written and has so many insights into the human condition sprinkled throughout. It’s also very sad, but somehow doesn’t bring that reader down with it. 

Best Book I Bought
The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

I was really looking forward to this release and it did not disappoint. This was really good, beautifully written and carefully crafted. The characters are so well-developed, and it happens very naturally over the course of the story. Don’t let the time-travel aspect put you off. It’s magical time-travel, and it’s clear how it works from the jump. Plus there are a couple of reveals about it late in the book that are pretty excellent.

Best Book I Read in Print
Idle Grounds by Krystelle Bamford

I loved the third person plural POV — I saw someone else describe it as “choral narration” — and the writing is so, so evocative of a certain time and place and mood. Granted I was a kid in the 80s running around the yard and woods semi-unsupervised with my cousins (not as many though) so perhaps this just played into my nostalgia. But whatever! It was great!

Best 2025 Release
Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis

I read 70 books published in 2025. That’s almost 40% of all the books I read this year! This one was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and I don’t understand why it wasn’t on more best-of lists at the end of the year. (According to Lit Hub, it made it on 5.) It took me a bit to get into, but it once it got going I really enjoyed it. The subject matter is so serious, and yet the people are still so funny.  There are some things that are a little far-fetched, but also you wonder…there must be some truth there? How much?

Best Backlist Title (2023 or prior)
Greta & Valdin by Rebecca K. Reilly

This is actually another recommendation from my platonic life partner. It took me a bit to settle in, but the further in I got the more I enjoyed it. The main characters felt very real and I enjoyed the chaotic scenes with their family. 

Best Audiobook
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

I listened to a lot of great audiobooks this year, but the one I want to recommend on this list is Stone Blind. The story organizes itself around Medusa. It’s told from many perspectives, and follows other related paths, but it always comes back to Medusa. One thing I really enjoyed about this was how exasperated pretty much all the women were (goddesses and demigoddesses included) at one point or another. It’s read by the author, who also does live performances related to the Classics, and she did a phenomenal job portraying that exasperation plus all the other emotions throughout.

Best Shortlisted Book
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother)
by Rabih Alameddine

Over the course of the year I read the nominees for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and Best Novella, the nominees for the Nebula award for Best Novel and Best Novella, the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the shortlist (plus most of the longlist) for the National Book Award for Fiction.

The True, True Story… was a joy to read. Kirkus described this as “peculiar but lively,” which is very apt. Raja’s exasperation with his family and their unbothered acceptance of him felt like a very realistic dynamic. The ending is completely gutting and I’m surprised I didn’t cry. This is the kind of book that I hope to find when I’m reading through an awards list.

Other Books I Want You to Know About, In No Particular Order

• The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst: Delightful cozy fantasy with some great characters.
• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid: I kind of resisted this for a while, but then I was chatting with someone online about it and she recommended the audiobook, which has two narrators. It was so, so good but be aware that you will be SOBBING for the last 30 minutes.
• Floored: A Woman’s Guide to Pelvic Floor Health at Every Age and Stage by Sara Reardon: File under things they don’t teach you in health class but really, really should. Super informative and helpful.
• Julia by Sandra Newman: Fantastic re-telling of 1984 from Julia’s perspective. I re-read 1984 before reading this, which was a good thing. (This is way better.)
• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz: Post-apocalyptic story featuring robots that just want to feed humans tasty food. A delight.
• Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab: A fantastic vampire story. This got a lot of hype this summer and there’s a reason for that.
• Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter: A really interesting story about someone who can make extra physical space.
• Moderation by Elaine Castillo: The characters and their relationships to one another were great, as is the writing.
• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens: Yet another one recommended by my platonic life partner, and with multiple narrators for the audiobook. It was really compelling.
• A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher: This is a story about magic, told from the POV of non-magical people who are just trying to figure out WTAF is going on.
• The Sirens by Emilia Hart: Lovely and haunting, with a perfect ending.
• Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell: I almost bailed on this audiobook due to the narrative style, but it works really well for the POV character and actually contributes a bit to the character development. Anyway this was so charming and weird, I loved it.
• Cinder House by Freya Marske: This is so much more than just a Cinderella retelling.
• Saltcrop by Yume Kitasei: This was great. The first chunk of it is so strong that the ending lets it down a bit, but don’t let that stop you.

This year I had planned to read all 10 of the nominees for the National Book Award for Fiction ahead of the award ceremony. I didn’t think too much about this beyond assuming that the longlist would include one or two books I’d already read. In the end it didn’t include anything I’d read, and as of the announcement date fully half of the longlisted books hadn’t even been released yet, but I forged on anyway.

At this point I’ve read 8 of the 10 nominees, including all of the shortlisted books, which is where I’m going to stop. I’ve had a big stack of other books sitting on the table taunting me, including a re-read of Bunny so I can fully enjoy We Love You, Bunny, which I hope will be equally as unhinged.

Here’s my take on the shortlisted books.

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), by Rabih Alameddine: This is one that was already out when the longlist was announced, and once I finished it I was surprised I hadn’t heard anything about it. Kirkus described this as “peculiar but lively,” which is very apt. Raja’s exasperation with his family and their unbothered acceptance of him feel like a very realistic dynamic. I’d love to see this one win the prize.

Palaver, by Bryan Washington: This was a really lovely read. Even when folks are struggling to connect with one another — to the point of being sharp or mean — there’s still a tenderness. You can feel how the characters want to do better but are stuck in their ruts and struggling to lift out of them. I’d be happy if this one takes the award.

A Guardian and a Thief, by Megha Majumdar: This is beautifully written but so sad. You know it isn’t going to end happily but even then I didn’t expect what happened at the very end. I liked the parallels between the characters and how the concepts of “guardian” and “thief” are interwoven throughout. This one is also award-worthy.

North Sun: Or, the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther, by Ethan Rutherford: Compelling and beautiful, but brutal. (Gory scenes of whalers butchering their catch and some child sexual abuse to boot.) The structure of vignettes works really well and contributes to the strangeness of the whole thing, but I’ll be disappointed if it wins.

The Antidote, by Karen Russell: This is the third book by this author that I’ve read and not enjoyed, so I think Karen Russell is just not for me. Anyway, this is dense and the balance of vibes to plot needed to lean a bit more one way or the other. Some of the characters also needed more development. I can see why this is shortlisted, but personally I’ll be irritated if it wins.

I recently finished reading the Hugo Award nominees for Best Novel and Best Novella. As with the Nebulas, I hadn’t originally planned to read the novellas, but half of them were also on the Nebula list, so I figured why not. Here are my personal rankings:

Best Novel

A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher: A Regency-ish novel of manners featuring magic and an older, snarky heroine? Sign me up. One of the things I particularly liked is that this is a story about magic told from the POV of non-magical people who are just trying to figure out what’s going on.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell: This was so charming and weird. There were some gory moments but since they’re presented through the monster’s POV they worked well and weren’t too gross, more matter-of-fact. It was hard for me to choose between this and Sorceress for my top pick, but I listened to both of them on audio and I think the cadence of the narration in this one might put some people off. Once I reframed it as part of the performance, it worked and stopped bugging me.

It’s interesting that my top two from the Hugo list were also on the Nebula list. Someone You Can Build a Nest In won the Nebula, so hopefully A Sorceress Comes to Call will win the Hugo.

Service Model, Adrian Tchaikovsky: This was so fun and funny, especially given how much I enjoy Regency/Edwardian/Victorian settings. But the plot starts to feel repetitive and the ending felt rushed. But it made me laugh out loud more than once and there are several scenes that vividly pop to mind when I think about this book.

The Ministry of Time, Kaliane Bradley: If you have to pick one genre to categorize this book, it isn’t sci fi or romance, which is what the marketing would have you believe. It’s literary fiction (whatever that is, but that’s an opinion for another day) with elements of sci fi and romance. Anyway. I love the concept but there’s a bit too much going on, and not enough time spent on certain elements of the plot. But, it does hang together and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky: I have Feelings about an author having two books on the list in the same year. I’m not questioning the process, but I also don’t have to like it. Anyway, this was another interesting world, but there were long stretches where nothing really happened. But if you like books that go deep into alien biology, this is the book for you.

The Tainted Cup, Robert Jackson Bennett: Great characters and an interesting world, but there are too many long stretches of exposition and not enough action. If you like the Sherlockian thing where the Eccentric and Wise Solver of All Mysteries explains how it all went down, then you’ll enjoy this. If you just get irritated, skip this one. This was on the NYT’s list of best sci fi and fantasy from 2024, (gift link) so when it came up at my last book club meeting at least two people who’d been planning to read it took it off their TBRs. Take that, NYT Books.

Best Novella

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed: This is a dark fairytale that I thought was really well-done. The descriptions of the creatures were great and the ending worked well.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, Sofia Samatar: This one does a good job of only explaining what’s necessary, and not explaining a key, but fairly obvious, element. I appreciated that.

What Feasts at Night, T. Kingfisher: This is the second book in a series, and since they’re novellas I read them both. I liked this one a lot more. It was more humorous, which I think worked really well for the scenario and characters. There was also more time devoted to helping you understand the characters, where the first one spent that time on worldbuilding. Which honestly…I’m not sure was really necessary, especially in a novella.

The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler: I got a bit confused in the opening of this and had to stop and read the synopsis to figure out what was happening. I also think there were maybe a few too many perspectives here, but it does work.

The Brides of High Hill, Nghi Vo: This is 5th in an existing series which I did not read, as it’s more of a standalone. I do think it works as a standalone, but I could tell I was missing a lot from not having visited the world before. Anyway, I couldn’t tell you what this book was about. I’m not sure if I missed a key moment (I listened to this) or if I just didn’t pick up on something, but the ending came out of nowhere and made no sense to me.

Navigational Entanglements, Aliette de Bodard: The main action of the plot was good but this needed more character development and less of the repetitive interior monologues.

I recently finished reading the shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which will be announced on June 12. Here’s my ranking:

Fundamentally, Nussaibah Younis: The subject matter here is so serious and kind of heavy, and yet the whole thing is so funny. Some of the characters seem like the should be caricatures but somehow are not. This was great.

The Safekeep, Yael van der Wouden: This is one of those books that I was glad I read but not sure I enjoyed. A lot of the themes are only dealt with obliquely because of the main character’s temperament and it left me wanting a little more.

All Fours, Miranda July: The protagonist here is so messy and unhinged, and I really thought I wasn’t going to make it through this. But about halfway through things started to shift and it held my attention a bit more. There are a lot of themes explored here but this is definitely not a book for everyone.

The Persians, Sanam Mahloudji: This is very well-written but swings back and forth from being very plotty to being mostly a character study, and I think that unevenness is working against it a bit. It’s also told from five POVs, which worked pretty well except there’s one that I think eithe rneed to be expanded or omitted.

Good Girl, Aria Aber: The prose is beautiful (Aber is a poet) but this is mostly vibes and the the protagonist seems bewildered by her own life. I always find that kind of character hard to read.

Tell Me Everything, Elizabeth Strout: I did not like this one. It’s a book about relationships and is the 5th in a series, so I think this is more for folks who’ve read the previous books. The audiobook which was narrated at very slow pace and the emphasis makes it seem like the narrator is constantly incredulous about whatever they’re describing.

I recently finished reading the Nebula Awards nominees for Best Novel and Best Novella. I hadn’t originally planned to read the novellas, but for both lists I’d already read two, so it felt manageable to me to finish them both in time for the announcement on June 7. Here are my personal rankings:

Best Novel

A Sorceress Comes to Call, T. Kingfisher: A Regency-ish novel of manners featuring magic and an older, snarky heroine? Sign me up. One of the things I particualrly liked is that this is a story about magic told from the POV of non-magical people who are just trying to figure out what’s going on.

Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell: This was so charming and weird. There were some gory moments but since they’re presented through the monster’s POV they worked well and weren’t too gross, more matter-of-fact. It was hard for me to choose between this and Sorceress for my top pick, but I listened to both of them on audio and I think the cadence of the narration in this one might put some people off. Once I reframed it as part of the performance, it worked and stopped bugging me.

Asunder, Kerstin Hall: This was really compelling from the jump, and the world building was wonderful. The characters are interesting and I liked how the group came together.

The Book of Love, Kelly Link: The structure and the writing makes it feel very dreamlike, which I enjoyed. But I also started to get a bit impatient with it by halfway through. I appreciated all the room we had for snippets of different perspectives and to learn more about the characters’ inner lives, but I do think this would have been improved with a pretty big edit.

Rakesfall, Vajra Chandrasekera: The writing is great and there were sections that were really compelling. But I could not follow the thread of narrative from one part to the next, and I’m not sure if it’s due to the complexity of the narrative or due to gaps in my own cultural knowledge.

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory, Yaroslav Barsukov: I didn’t finish this. I had trouble keeping the side characters straight and by a quarter of the way through I didn’tdon’t really see why I should care about whatever the author is building towards. 

Best Novella

Lost Ark Dreaming, Suyi Davies Okungbowa: There’s a lot of world building packed into this, and it’s compelling from the start. I also liked the chapter interludes – a mix of poetry, journalism, and reports – which I thought added a lot of depth.

The Butcher of the Forest, Premee Mohamed: This is a dark fairytale that I thought was really well-done. The descriptions of the creatures were great and the ending worked well.

The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain, Sofia Samatar: This one does a good job of only explaining what’s necessary, and not explaining a key, but fairly obvious, element. I appreciated that.

The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui: There’s just enough world building here, and I loved the angry, unreliable narrator.

The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler: I got a bit confused in the opening of this and had to stop and read the synopsis to figure out what was happening. I also think there were maybe a few too many perspectives here, but it does work.

Countess, Suzan Palumbo: I did enjoy the story, but it’s trying to do too much for a novella. I think it needed to end earlier, in part because I didn’t feel there was enough character development to underpin the final section or two.