The year comes to a close. Well, 2025 is over already. Time to look back. Last year I said one of my favorite things to do is “reading and books” and “looking back”. It is still a favorite but this year was hard as a reader. I dont think I have ever DNFed as many books as I did this year. Weeks and weeks of picking up the wrong books. Nothing interesting. Everything took so much effort to get through. Boring books. Busy mind. No focus. A scattered brain that only was able to follow cheesy romance novels that are all the same but a commitment to not make romance novel the majority of read books. A struggle. And while it wasn’t a perfect reading year there are still my favorite books of 2025 to talk about. And for fun I throw in a whole lot of shenanigans again.
Get yourself some hot beverage, the remaining Christmas cookies, snuggle up and let’s drown ourselves in book talk.
A quick reminder of my reading goals (mainly for myself because I have no clue what I set out to do in 2025. Might have consulted that in-between. I wanted to read a total of 80 books and 20,000 pages. My reading goal in 2025 included a list of books 25 specific books I wanted to read. I managed to read only 7 books of that list and tried 2 more I DNFed. Which is underwhelming to be honest. I barely managed the 80 books I set out to read in 2025 and am 4,219 pages short of my aimed 20,000 pages.
All that said, let’s dive into my favorite books of 2025.
Best rated books this year: I have fifteen books that received a 4.5, 4.75 or 5 star rating. They are:
I who have never known man by Jacqueline Harpman ● Remarkable bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt ● Über den Wolken wohnen die Träume by Meike Werkmeister ● Danke, Deutschland! by Bahman Shahozaini ● Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid ● The Greatest Polar Expedition of all Time by Markus Rex ● Hello, is anybody there? by Jostein Gaarder ● Shield of Sparrows by Devney Perry ● The Last Goddess by Kateřina Tučková ● The Great Passage by Shion Miura
Most Favorite of them All: I who have never known man – this was such a good book. Maybe it has been too long since I picked up a book that was well written, interesting and different. I loved it and found the overall concept of not knowing the world as everyone else does very intriguing.
→ Read my review.
Best cover: The Great Passage was a chance pick when I had the Kindle unlimited promotion for free. And I might have picked it just for the cover. But it was so cute and smart and cozy. I am developing a taste for Japanese literature. This was a close one for top book this year.
→ Read my review
Longest book: This is a bit of a surprise as I was not aware that “Über den Wolken wohnen die Träume” was the longest book I read. It’s a wonderful summer read (only in German) and every book by the author is a win.
→ Read my review.
Disappointment of the year: I know for many “The ministry of time” is high on the favorites list but I found it utterly disappointing. I stand by my initial review: just because you put an historic figure in a different time period it is NOT a time travel novel. Also the FMC was so entitled. Waste of time on money in my opinion.
→ Read my review.
Struggle of the year: This book was on my TBR for years and had hoped to get it for Christmas a few years. When I saw “Das Weihnachtshaus” at the library I obviously picked it up. It has only 105 pages or so. But you will not believe that it took all of December to read. If this wasn’t book 80 and only hours in the year I probably would have DNFed it.
→ Review to come
Oldest Book (written): In 2025 the oldest book was also my gavotte book club book and the award goes to “The Blue Castle”. I liked it and it was even better that we read it as a blog book club. What’s the next castle book we read?
→ Read my review.
Under the Radar: The Last Goddess was another chance pick. I admit I had expected something different and more on the magical realism or fantasy side but instead it was woven into historic fiction and depicted real archive material form the socialism area. I want my mom to read it as she is an expert on that time but it has not been translated to German. Sad.
→ Read my review.
Surprise of the year: A friend of mine was raving about Devney Perry and say it will get me out of the book slump. So when I saw she has fantasy/romantasy I picked “Shield of Sparrow” up and was pleasantly surprise. I plan on reading it again before the sequel is released in April.
→ Read my review.
The worst book: “Black Keys” is the most horrible and racist book I have ever read. It was like an accident you are unable to look away from. I kept reading and reading not believing it can get worse. Absolutely DO NOT RECOMMEND.
The best non fiction: Of course one of the many arctic books needs to be my top Non fiction. And “The Greatest Polar Expedition of all Time” is just perfect to get the title. Interesting, exciting, important and making me so happy I will get to see some part of that planet.
The best audiobook: I was glued to “Remarkable Bright Creatures” and loved every minute of this book. It was wonderfully narrated and I stopped things and just listened. Meike’s review gave me the final push to finally pick it up. I do not regret.
The best memoire: I dove into memories during the summer when I was in a reading slump and memoire audio books felt more like podcasts. The “Demi Moore” ones was just available. I haven’t much cared about her. But the memoire showed me such an interesting, vulnerable person with flaws and so much humanity.
Book related shenanigans
Favorite books are just one part of my book review for 2025. I love me some statistics and numbers. Here are a few fun facts when it comes to books that represent my year of reading.
- Best reading month: Were April, May and October with 9 books each. Lots of holidays in the spring and lots of escapism in fall. The month I read the most pages though was March with 1,802 pages which is 579 pages lower than last year’s best month.
- Slowest reading month: make that plural as I had a total of four months with 5 books. February (short month, vacation), July-September (book slump, lots to do, migraines) and November (hello NaBloPoMo).
- Pages read overall: I read a total of 15,781 pages read according to Storygraph (Goodreads is off again by a lot) . My overall goal of reading was to read 20,000 pages. I didn’t manage that goal and read 4,219 pages less than last year. That is an average of 43 pages a day which doesn’t sound too bad.
- Average book length: 280 pages. a decrease (last year was 308 pages). When did I start reading short books? I love long fantasy tombs.
- Average time per book: 13 days – which seems a bit high but not surprising. Reading didnt feel light and quick this year.
- Average book rating: For storygraph it is 3.44 stars. It’s a decrease by 0.3 points. Not too many great ones.
- Top three genres: I had hoped for more historical and fantasy but I just couldn’t manage this year. December romance novels pushed the romance to the second spots before that I was good with literary on second.
- Number of books read for my Read around the World project: I check of seven new countries this year. But read eight more that are neither German nor USA/Canada/Australia/Britain. I am not counting audio books here.
- Audio book vs physical copy vs ebook: A third of my books have been audiobooks. 68 percent have been read. eBooks are my go to book of choice. It is just so convenient to have it available at all times and anywhere. I had to make an effort to pick up physical books this year – mainly because I know once read they will be put into a free little library.
- German books read: 24 German book which is 30 percent (last year it was 28 percent)
- English books read: 56 German book which is 70 percent (last year it was 72 percent)
- Books I didn’t finish: I started thirteen books/audiobooks that I quit at some point because it was just not for me.
- Author split: I read and listened to 50 books by female authors. That is 63 percent of books and a little less than last year (77 percent). 36 percent have been by male authors and 1 percent written by a divers authors.
- Number of books bought: 9 books – 3 – kindle books | 7 – physical books
- Number of books gifted to me in 2025: 4 books
- Number of book freebies snatched: 25 kindle freebies
- Number of books borrowed: currently five books from my parents – same as last year (shame)
- Books swapped: none
- Books found in Little Free Library: two both Isabelle Allende – none read
- Books from publishers/authors: none
- Months of kindle unlimited: 3 months promotion – no costs
- Books read through Kindle unlimited: 19 books
- Total of new books in 2025: 38 books – includes bought, freebies, gifted and swapped books
- Number of unread books on my shelves: 91 books – includes borrowed books. The TBR is stagnant (last year 92 books)
- Number of unread books on my kindle: 648 books (last year was 625) – please don’t judge…
- Available book budget: I started out with the book budget of 35€ (based 10€ library fee, 15 € voucher from San and 10€ just because) I admitted myself additional budget of every book I sold in 2025 which was exactly 0€. I received a 30€ gift voucher in summer.
With that my book budget this year was: 65€ - Budget spent on books: I spent 58.29€ in total. This includes all the bought ebooks and paperbacks. I am proud to be leaving this year with money in the bank (6,71€) for the third year in a row.
And this is the reading review – my favorite books 2025 and everything else I came up with. Did you have a favorite book in 2025? How was your reading year in general? Which of my favorite books will make it to your TBR? Is there a book you already read and cannot get behind with my review?
If you are interested in my previous book round ups you can have a look here: favorite books of 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020 and 2019, favorite books of 2018 part I and part II, favorite books of 2017 part I and part II and favorite books of 2016. Also let’s be friends on Storygraph (or Goodreads).
