It’s that time of year again!

If you want to see how my answers have changed over time, you can see them here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020.

How Much Have You Read?

122 books! That’s a good bit more than last year’s 91! In 2023 I’d read 120 books by the end of June, and in 2022, 114. So there was a drop last year, but now I’m back to my normal/average point!

This is very reassuring, since I’ve been convinced that I haven’t been reading as much as I used to. But clearly that’s not the case!

What Have You Been Reading?

Sorry my pie charts are lame this year, I had to use Canva because my beloved meta-chart made them illegible. I think it’s been abandoned, sigh.

Surprising no one, I’m sure, Fantasy has the largest slice of pie! But even though it’s still the biggest category, it’s dropped a lot; last year Fantasy was 70.2% of my reading. This year, only 59%. That’s a not-insignificant drop!

We don’t have to look hard for the answer, though: last year the Sci Fi slice was only 11.7%, and now it’s 22.1%! Almost exactly doubled! This pleases me; I’ve been trying to read more sci fi for ages now. Nobody should expect it to take the biggest slice any time soon, though!

This year I have a Nonfic slice for the first time, mostly because the hubby and I have found that my reading him nonfiction is a great way to get him to sleep. The Historical slice is new too; I probably tucked those reads under Other in previous years, but I think if you make up 5% of my reading you deserve to be your own category!

On the other hand, I didn’t bother with a Horror category this year, because I know I’ve read barely any.

Sci Fan, aka Science Fantasy, is basically unchanged; 3.3%, compared to last year’s 3.2%. I blame the publishing industry for not GIVING me science fantasy: I would read more if I could find it!

Almost the same amount of 5 stars as DNFs?! YIKES. If we compare to last year, it looks like the DNF slice got bigger and the 5★ slice got smaller, which I guess helped them balance. I DISAPPROVE! THERE SHOULD ALWAYS BE LOTS MORE 5★S THAN ANYTHING ELSE!

I think this does show that I continue to DNF more and more casually. I’m not very bothered by this. If anything, I should maybe be DNFing more: last year my 2★ and 3★ segments were 0.8 and 8.4% respectively; this year, they’re up to 2.9 and 10.5%. I’m a bit confused by the maths of this, but I’m pretty sure I ought to be DNFing books that are going to end up 2 or 3★ rather than wasting my time on them!

At least the 4★ segment is also bigger: from 21.8% to 24.6%.

Yay, I got WORSE. Last year 18.7% of my reads were by BIPOC authors, which was already terrible, and now it’s 15.6%.

I am really really really bad at this, and having a 400-book collection of BIPOC authors on my ereader is apparently not helping.

Unknown = books where I had absolutely no clue, as in several MG novels; N/A is mostly for things like my nonfic reads. More queer MCs than straight ones! Yes good excellent. Although it could be more more.

I almost scrapped this chart this year, because I’m not sure if it ‘counts’ if you’re reading BIPOC characters from white authors – isn’t the goal specifically to support BIPOC authors? Like yes, reading about people who are not like you is good for all kinds of reasons, but I’m pretty sure when we talk about diversity in publishing, we really mean who gets to write, not who they write about?

But I guess this chart is some kind of useful re how much diversity there is in the kinds of books I like. Or something. Regardless, it does not reflect well on me!

Best Book/s You’ve Read So Far In 2025

Sometimes I’ve had 3 books for this section, sometimes 20, but even if there aren’t so many of them, these 8 WOWED me! I managed to review The Mercy Makers, The Raven Scholar, Incandescent, and The Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association, and have been TRYING to get my feels about the other three put into words for MONTHS! Like. Gods DAMN, it’s going to be difficult for the next half of the year to top these, I’m not kidding. (Links take you to reviews!)

Best Sequel/s You’ve Read So Far In 2025

I hope it goes without saying that these are also among the best books I’ve read this year; they’re only in separate sections because this one specifies sequels!

Saint Death’s Herald was incredible, and an incredible sequel; if by some evil mischance we don’t get another Lanie book, Herald will make a wonderful conclusion. Point of Hearts turned out to be one of my favourite Astreiant books yet, and Soulstar just…wrecked me and put me back together again better than I was.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To

Does this need much explanation???

Most Anticipated Release/s For the Second Half of the Year

Or this? You’ll find most of these on my Unmissables list if you want details! (The ‘cover to be revealed’ stands in for The Shipwright and the Shroudweaver, which STILL HAS NOT HAD A COVER REVEAL, GOLLANCZ, QUIT TORTURING US AND REVEAL IT ALREADY!)

Biggest Disappointment/s

To be clear, I think A Drop of Corruption is a great book! I was just massively disappointed when I realised it was functionally a standalone – that this trilogy isn’t going to have an overarching plot. And I was disappointed by the worldbuilding – I loved the empire, but this book is set outside it, and I thought the new setting was really dull and basic, especially given that Bennett is excellent at creating new settings so my standards for him are very high! And to be blunt, I think he undercut his attempt at writing an anti-colonial story. If anything, Drop of Corruption seemed to be pro-colonial, which is a pretty big blunder when you’re trying to write the opposite.

The rest of these, though, were disasters. I mean, Mutual Interest was mostly great, but then had a wishy-washy, pathetic Lit Fic ending that retroactively ruined it for me. The other four – Enchanted Lies of Celeste Artois, Gryphon King, Antlered King, and Amplitudes – are all objectively bad and you can fight me about it :) (links go to my reviews for them).

Enchanted Lies I actually soft-DNFed first – and at the time, I was very happy with it; I didn’t DNF because I hated it, I just drifted away from it the way my ADHD brain does sometimes. But I did come back to it, and I did finish it, and it was SO BAD. Should have been about a third as long as it was; the entire Russia plotline should have been cut; and the story should have been wrapped up before WW1 started, OR, it should have been part of the book from the get-go – shoving it in at the absolute last second was a terrible call.

Biggest Surprise/s

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I spend a LOT of time looking forward to new books. But there’s always ones I didn’t know to anticipate, like A King’s Trust and Pagans, that end up SOMERSAULTING onto my favourites shelf! Or, this year, books I had previously DNFed, which I tried again on a whim and then UTTERLY CONSUMED ME: see CJ Cherryh’s Foreigner (I blew through almost the entire series in Q1 of this year!) and Fire Logic, which was basically a galaxy-brain moment in book form!

New Favourite Authors (Debuts or New To You)

Antonia Hodgson for sure – Raven Scholar was her Fantasy debut, though she had a few historical fiction novels before that. I don’t think I’ve seen a single review for Raven that wasn’t glowing! It’s an incredibly impressive start to what I hope is a VERY LONG SFF career! SE McPherson, also, has catapulted onto my auto-buy authors list after their wonderful King’s Trust, which I picked up on a whim with no expectations at all; plus CJ Cherryh and Laurie J Marks, both of whom I am very late to, but am proportionally obsessed with!

Underrated Gems You’ve Discovered Recently

…I am just now realising that these are all indie or self-published, which is probably why they’re not as well-known as they deserve to be! Let me pitch them each to you, in the hopes that you might pick some of these up!

Nine-Tenths by JM Frey: a Coffee Shop (not-)AU, in a contemporary fantasy setting, with (shifter) dragons, is definitely a (queer) romance, but has a magical mystery which is also a capitalist conspiracy, the resolution of which is probably going to be world-changing within its setting. Plus, it’s alt-history with anti-colonial themes!

A King’s Trust by SE McPherson: a polyamorous fantasy romance, with an auADHD prince struggling when he suddenly becomes the crown heir. Intrigue, lots of glittery Feels, extremely validating for me as an auADHDer who is sure I’d do as badly in a court setting!

Little Wolf and the Witch by Wendy Palmer: minimal-magic fantasy, wherein an ex-Viking gets tricked into a marriage that obligates him to try and slay a monster. Intrigue, awesome personal growth for all involved, characters acting like Actual Adults, omg.

His Secret Illuminations by Scarlet Gale: would probably be called romantasy if it was published today; fantasy romance about a cinnamon roll of a monk trained in healing and magic who gets swept up into adventure with a very badass woman-warrior. Kinky, very sweet, surprisingly meaty commentary on religious factionalism and access to medical care. (The sequel was also great!) Mini-review here!

The Iron Below Remembers by Sharang Biswas: a Neon Hemlock novella, which should be a recommendation all by itself! In a UK that was colonised by a fictional East Asian empire, superheroes are very real and our professor MC writes a lot of footnotes!

Pagans by James Alistair Henry: what if the Normans never conquered England? Gritty crime novel where England is a barbaric backwater, Africa is the global superpower, and North America was never colonised. (None of those things are the focus, but I found them all extremely cool.) Mini-review here!

No Such Thing As Duty by Lara Elena Donnelly: another Neon Hemlock novella! A bisexual spy dying of consumption attempts to convince a vampire to get a British asset out of the path of the Germans in WW1.

A Bloomy Head by J Winifred Butterworth: historical romance where a trans surgeon falls for a widowed cheesemaker, and honestly her whole family as well. As excellent as the cover is terrible. Check the trigger warnings before jumping in.

Rereads This Year

Fewer rereads than usual, which I have no strong feelings about; I’m not sure number of rereads means anything? Well, I guess it actually implies good things about my mood and concentration, because usually a lot of rereads means I’m not up to dealing with something new, and/or want the comfort of something familiar. So yay!

Book/s That Made You Cry

Not unhappy tears, to be clear! But my gods, this was so intense and poignant and beautiful that I’d be surprised to hear ANYONE gets through it without carrying at least a little! It’s not often that the last book in a series is my favourite, but Stormsong was so much better than Witchmarked, and Soulstar blew them both out of the water!

Genuinely can’t believe I didn’t read Stormsong and Soulstar until this year. IF YOU HAVEN’T EITHER IT’S HIGH TIME YOU DID!

Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought So Far This Year

That’s a terribly tough call between the illuminate edition of The Raven Scholar OR their edition of A Song of Legends Lost – both are absolutely STUNNING! My taste doesn’t often line up with illumicrate’s choices, but when it does–!!! (Links go to vids on instagram where you can see the books!)

What Books Do You Need to Read By the End of the Year?

All my Unmissables, obviously, and all my arcs! ‘Caus that’s definitely for sure gonna happen, yep

Other than that: everything in the ‘new releases you haven’t gotten to yet’ section, duh, aaand…wow, too many books I still have not gotten to! (But isn’t that true for all of us???)

These are just a few from my seriously-sia-sit-down-and-read-it shelf…

I thought about adding a question to go over things like, how many reviews have I written, how many non-review posts…but nah. Maybe next year!

How’s YOUR reading been going???