This is the End of Year tag I invented last year when I couldn’t find one I liked – you can see my 2024 answers here!
How much did you read?
I read 234 books in 2025 – more than 2024 (214) but not quite as many as 2023 (241). I’m satisfied, though! 234 seems perfectly respectable to me.
Discounting books I only tried a page or two of, I DNFed 141 books (OH MY GODS). That is MILES more than last year, when I only DNFed 80. WTF. That’s…kinda terrifying, not gonna lie. WHY SO MANY DNFS, SIA?!
Which means I attempted to read 375 books (read + DNFed). And that I DNFed 37.6% of everything I tried. That’s up from last year’s 27.11%.
When we count books attempted, the numbers were 295 in 2024, and 298 in 2023. So in 2025, I attempted a LOT more books than usual!
Does that make up for DNFing so many? I really don’t know. On the one hand, I would guess that attempting more books will net you more DNFs; on the other hand, I don’t think that should automatically mean that the percentage of DNFs jumps 10%. It seems likely that I either ran into more books I didn’t want to read, or I’m DNFing more easily than I used to. (Which my Unmissable stats also seemed to suggest.)
What did you read?
Aka, my excuse to make All The Pie Charts! This year I used Draxlr, which was very convenient. (Not sponsored or anything, just recording it so future!Sia can go straight to it next time, instead of not remembering what she used before and going through half a dozen terrible options before finding a good one!)
Yet again, Fantasy dominates. I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked! Draxlr wouldn’t display all the genres properly so I had to lump Science Fantasy and general Speculative Fiction in with Other, but even allowing for that, that segment is still a tiny bit bigger than last year, as is Sci Fi. Whereas Fantasy and Horror just barely shrank to accomodate them.
This is the stat that always makes me cringe hardest every year. Which you would think lead to the stat getting better, but it hasn’t yet. Urgh. Even allowing for some wiggle room – because there were a handful of books I read this year where I don’t know for sure what the author’s ethnicity is – this is still terrible. A tiny bit better than last year, but only by two percentage points.
For the first time this year, I tracked how many of the books I read were from new-to-me authors, versus authors I already knew. Turns out – I didn’t try very many new authors! Eek. (I wonder how different this would look if I included DNFs?)
I suspect this stat and the previous one go together; if I’m mostly reading authors I already know, and there aren’t many BIPOC ones (which I think we can take as read)…then I’m not trying new BIPOC authors. Which is the main problem, surely?
This year for the first time, I kept track of how many of my reads were traditionally published, and how many were indie. (For my purposes, I counted self-published books and books from independent presses both as one category.) I am not displeased! I’d like for the indie slice to grow even bigger, but a quarter of my reading? That’s not bad at all.
Again for the first time: how many of my reads were 2025 releases, and how many weren’t? (Most of the ones that weren’t were backlist, but a few were advanced reading copies of 2026 releases.) I’m actually pretty happy that two thirds of my reading wasn’t new releases! Although I do wonder how many were rereads, versus ‘real’ backlist reads. Let’s see!
All right, I’m pretty okay with this! New reads massively dominated – I think I’d like a fraction less rereads in this slice next year, maybe get it down to around a quarter rather than a third. But not bad!
% of 5 star reads
Of the 234 books I finished this year, I gave 110 five stars. That means 47% of my reads were five stars! This is very close to last year both in numbers (107) and percentage (49.77%), which is interesting.
But if we count books attempted instead of books read, then the ‘score’ drops to just 29.33%, a fair bump down from last year’s 36.27%.
If about half of the books I finish are five-star reads, that suggests to me that I’m not totally terrible when it comes to judging whether a book is worth finishing. But clearly I’m much less good at judging whether a book is worth starting. Which isn’t surprising, since we already learned I DNFed 40% of everything I tried last year.
Coolest Covers
My preference for illustrated covers continues! A lot of unusual visuals in this year’s selection – Cinder House with its woman-shaped house (house-shaped woman?), a plant-snake on Hemlock & Silver, the human in a mecha’s hands on Cosmic Color, Blood Slaves holding the White House in a shackled Black hand… Mercy Makers and Queen Demon are both just objectively stunning, Grimoire Grammar School Parent Teacher Association makes me grin like a twit whenever I look at it, and I love how the cover of When the Tides Held the Moon matches the aesthetics of the story’s time period!
First book that blew you away
If short stories count, then it’s Undercover by Tamsyn Muir; if we’re not counting shorts, then Foreigner gets the spot. MAGNIFICENT. BOTH OF THEM. FREAKING MAGNIFICENT. In such wildly different ways!
Last book that rocked your world
I picked this up at the last minute, wanting to see if it should go on my Best of Year list – and I’m so glad I did try it, because yes, it is EASILY one of the best releases of 2025, oh my GODS. It is absolutely as incredible as everyone has said it is (and how often do I say THAT?!) The horrors of colonialism and Native American genocide mixed in with some uniquely horrific vampires (by which I mean, I’m going to have nightmares about how you kill a vampire in this verse, FUCK). Lots of really fun play with who or what the real monster is, the vampire as metaphor for white people colonising North America…with how much of evil is laziness. It left me with much to think about, which I appreciate.
A book more people should know about
The Wiz Duos series are books that each contain two unrelated novellas – by which I mean, they were written separately, and then the editor’s at Wizard’s Tower Press paired them. Wiz Duos 3 contains The Sheltering Flame by Ruthanna Emrys and Walking a Wounded Land by Andrew Knighton, and they’re both very unique takes on magic and community and activism, and they’re both GORGEOUSLY written and hella queer, and I love them passionately. I am really excited to go read the rest of the Wiz Duo books!
Favourite reread
I think this one might win the spot, because the first time I read it, I was kinda bored? AND THIS TIME, I FREAKING ADORED IT. Very traditional British folklore type fae, and the human smiths who (try and) fix things when humans have trouble with them!
New-to-you authors now on your auto-buy list
The Iron Below Remembers is an amazing novella about magical archaeology and superheroes and is very, very gay; Ocean’s Gidori is Korean futurism with delightfully retro vibes; and Architects of Memory took me aback with very silky prose and very alien aliens! Audition For the Fox had magical time-travel and using trickery to fight fascists; A King’s Trust was very queer, very neurodivergent fantasy romance that made me SO HAPPY; and The Wolf and His King lived up to my every hope for queer lycanthropy-as-chronic-illness rep!
And all of them won their authors spots on my auto-buy list!
Books you didn’t get to
I wanted to reread the first two books of the trilogy before tackling Faithbreaker…and I did not manage to do that, so I never got to Faithbreaker either, alas. Hopefully I manage it in 2026!
Biggest Letdown
This one is purely an issue of mismatched reader expectations, because taken as what it is – a Paranormal Romance – it’s not bad at all. My problem was that I was expecting Emezi to write something surpassing the genre conventions. Instead…they wrote a Paranormal Romance. You know, exactly like they said they had! Nothing else was promised, and so there’s no one to be mad, except myself, for assuming things. But it did mean I was massively disappointed.
Biggest (positive!) surprise
This was on my radar, but the blurb it originally had on Netgalley (which is where I first saw this book) made it sound so conventional and predictable that I wasn’t interested at all. FRIENDS, IT IS NEITHER OF THOSE THINGS. I am STILL in awe of how deftly Ayinde manipulates the expectations of experienced Fantasy readers – with her DEBUT! – to constantly flip the tables on us. I SAW ABSOLUTELY NONE OF IT COMING! The cast is incredible, the worldbuilding is LAYERED with secrets and mysteries, nothing is what it looks like – SUPERB! I’m halfway through my second read of this now, which should tell you all you need to know!
Best ambush predator book
An ambush predator book is what I call a read that comes out of NOWHERE to wreck me. The vast majority of what I read was at least on my radar before I picked it up: ambush predators are the ones I haven’t heard of at all beforehand.
Despite Rachel Neumeier being one of my favourite authors, I had no idea she had a non-Tuyo fantasy in the works until she announced it on its release day! And then I pounced, of course, and it blew me away – such GORGEOUS worldbuilding, multiple dimensions that are all strange and wonderful, a world where everyone has multiple souls and some have MANY more than others, marvellous dragons…it feels so brilliantly indulgent, like Neumeier poured all her favourite things into one book, and I COULD NOT APPROVE MORE! Love, love, LOVE!
Book of the year
I went into detail on all of these, and more, in my Best of 2025 list!
Review you’re most proud of
Either my review of Saint Death’s Herald, or of Mercy Makers. I poured my heart out in both of those. (Why is it always the reviews that feel most personal that I’m most proud of? I suspect a causation…)
Non-review blogger thing you’re most proud of
There are a few contenders for this spot this year, which makes me so happy!
I reached my 1000th post, which naturally I made into a rec list. I still can’t believe Every Book a Doorway has been going for long enough to reach (AND PASS) 1000 posts!
Another rec list was for Self-Published Fantasies, which I’m really proud of because I badly want to be boosting more indie books.
On a complete whim, I made a No-Romance SFF rec list, and got really wonderful responses to it!
And of course there was this year’s Every Month Is Pride post, listing queer Adult SFF releases in the second half of the year. I went much harder at it this year, it ended up much longer than any previous Every Month Is Pride post, but it paid off: again, really wonderful responses, and it’s had visitors every day since it went live! Easily one of my most popular posts ever.
5 star predictions for 2026
No surprises here, I’m pretty sure I’ve already talked about most of them on the blog already. You’ll find them all on this year’s Unmissable list, anyway, if you want blurbs and links and things!
Feel free to use these questions yourself if you feel like it – just link me to your version so I can come check out your answers!
I also tend to make up my own end of the year tags. I just know what books I want to talk about!
Queen Demon was on my TBR last year, to be carried over to this year, whenever I can find time to pick it up!! I love the covers for that series. Illustrated covers are always the best, imo
That makes such a difference, doesn’t it? When there’s specific books you want to ramble about!
I hope you find the time to read it soon! I think I ended up enjoying it just a smidge more than book one, even! (And yes, illustrated covers are ALWAYS best!)
Statistics! <3 I love doing statistics on my own reading, but I hadn't thought to check several of these. Looking only at my new-to-me books, I had 43/86 new-to-me authors, so precisely half. Indie books is the metric I want to improve the most–only 5 or 6 indie books last year!
If you want tips, I can share how I increased my percentage of BIPOC books read. In the past 5 years, I've landed in the 40% to 50% range (again, looking at new-to-me books. My rereads took longer to catch up, as you'd expect.)
A bunch of these were new stats for me too! And WOAH, half new authors is INCREDIBLE, well done!
I would immensely appreciate any and all tips! Last year several wonderful people suggested short story collections, which I have assembled on my ereader, but have gotten through very few of them. 40-50% is EXACTLY where I’d love for my stats to be on this, so I am extremely impressed!
I actually need to do fewer new authors–I have a terrible habit of starting a series, loving the first book, and then moving on to something totally different. So then I forget everything about the book I know I loved, so I’d have to reread the first to continue the series, but there are always such shiny new things… etc. etc.
I am happy to share! The biggest thing for me is diversifying every single stage before the moment when I am looking at my book piles and picking up a book to read. I keep a lengthy digital TBR of everything that sounds interesting to me. When I’m browsing books online, if I’m on the edge of whether to add a book to my TBR list, I will add it if it’s a BIPOC author. Basically, I’m introducing conscious bias to counteract unconscious bias! I also look up lists of new releases for the year specifically for BIPOC authors (or Black authors, Indigenous authors, etc.). Then, when I’m buying books or picking up books at the library, I give BIPOC-authored books more weight if I’m on the fence about what to get.
When I started consciously diversifying my reading, I wanted to make sure that reading BIPOC books never, ever felt like “eating your vegetables”–that I was just as excited about all books, regardless of author. So diversifying all the book browsing online was great, because it means more time spent reading lists of books, which I love! And it means that now I have a well-diversified stock of unread books on hand and books I want to read but might grab at the library instead, all of which I’m excited about.
I also keep tabs on my reading stats throughout the year. If I notice I’ve read a few white-authored books in a row, I will pick up a BIPOC-authored book for my next read.
This is very tailored to my own reading habits, but I hope it helps!
I do that too! Though even worse, I often do it IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK, rather than waiting to finish it. I blame the ADHD XD
Thank you so much for writing such a long comment explaining! I’ve reread this a bunch of times now, trying to put your advice into practice. I’ll be honest, currently it does feel like ‘eating your vegetables’ for me. I have a huge collection of BIPOC-authored books on my kindle – literally, years ago I started putting them in one collection, so I could find them easily – so I have that diverse stock of books, and have had for ages. But nothing in there thrills me (if it did, it probably would have been read by now).
That being said, maybe the vegetables feeling is something I just have to work through, because plenty of the BIPOC books I’ve picked up just because I felt like I should have ended up wowing me! So maybe if I keep that up long enough, I don’t know, some part of me will reset and it won’t be veggies any more. That’s what I’m hoping!
One issue I’m having is that most of the books I buy tend to be self-published or indie (trad-pub I get from the library). And understandably, a lot of tiny authors like that don’t have photos or their ethnicity in their bio. And it seems REALLY ick to, you know, message an author and ask! Because on a pretty big level it’s none of my business, is it? Especially because they’ve not chosen to put that info online. I’m genuinely not sure how to resolve that, so at the moment, I haven’t really changed my spending habits very much.
I think diversifying the browsing stage is probably going to be the most helpful thing for me, but wow, it’s made me realise that I am NOT the only one with this problem! I spent December looking for anticipated releases lists for this year, and it’s so hard to find ones that are specifically BIPOC! (So, if you know of any, PLEASE link me, I would love to see them!)
And obviously the year’s only started, but I’m trying to follow your suggestion and keep track of author ethnicities as I read – so if I finish a few white authors in a row, it’s time to switch. But I tend to read 12+ books at once, so it’s a tricky thing to juggle XD I really do think it’s helping already, though!
stunning Sia!! love to see it and i must try The Mercy Makers again Ax
INDEED YOU MUST!
I also haven’t finished Hannah Kaner’s trilogy (I only read “Godkiller”). It seems both “A Song of Legends Lost” and “The Raven Scholar” (not mentioned here) were the “surprises” of 2025, and I missed reading both books in their release years; hopefully, I’ll get to read them in 2026! Last, I’m impressed that you keep track of all of your DNFs! To me that sounds harder to track because I know I wouldn’t try to keep track of them.
I hope you do get to Song of Legends Lost (which I’m actually rereading right now) and Raven Scholar, because as is obvious, I thought they were excellent, and I think you might think so too!
I do a round-up of all my DNFs every month – so basically every time I DNF something, I enter it into the draft post I have ready for that month. So keeping track is pretty easy, I just go back and see how many were in each monthly post. I do it because, you know, it IS reviewing – but I DNF so many books I think it’d be very depressing to make each one its own post. If I did that, any subscribers would just be constantly getting ‘I hated this, and I hated this too’ almost every day!