⏱️ Wrapping Up My Reading Year — 60-Second Reviews of All 31 Books I Read this Fall
Hello, and welcome to pleasure reading. I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and this is a podcast about the pleasure of reading, where I share curated reading lists, author rankings, chats with my bookish friends, and more. If you too take pleasure in reading, I hope that you will subscribe and share the show with a friend. Cheers to your next best book. Hello, and welcome to Pleasure Reading, a podcast about the many joys and pleasures of reading where I, your host, Amelia Hruby, share curated lists of my favorite books as well as recaps of what I have read recently and occasionally chats with my bookish friends.
Amelia Hruby:This fall, I've been pretty quiet here on the show because I was busy launching my own book, Your Attention is Sacred Except on Social Media, which you can now buy anywhere books are sold. There are paperback, ebook, and audiobook editions out in the world. You can also find those on my website at offthegrid.fun/attention. If you're interested in how social media is impacting your life, your work, your creativity, and your attention, I hope you'll get a copy. I think you'll really enjoy it.
Amelia Hruby:Now, while I was busy launching my book, I was also reading quite a bit behind the scenes, maybe a little less than I was reading earlier in the year. But I really embraced the spirit of pleasure reading this fall and let myself once again read whatever I wanted that I was enjoying. So in this episode, I am going to share 60 ish second reviews of the 31 books that I read between September and December 2025. Now I'm recording this on December 30, and I plan to sneak in one more book before the end of the year. I'm reading the most recent book in the Neon Gods series by Katie Roberts right now, and I will definitely finish it before the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve.
Amelia Hruby:But I will not include it in this wrap up since I haven't finished it yet. So that will make, I guess, 32 books read between September 1 and December 31, And I'm gonna tell you about them in this episode. Before I do that, I just wanna say thank you so much for tuning into Pleasure Reading. This podcast is just a fun passion project of mine. It is, I think, my fifth or sixth active podcast right now, and it's the one that I return to when I have time, when I have books to share, when I have a fun idea floating in the back of my mind.
Amelia Hruby:So I know it's probably not the most consistent show in your feed, but I hope that it is a bit of a surprise and delight each time that it shows up. And if it is, I hope that you will leave a five star rating and review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify to help me promote the show a bit more in 2026. So if you have a moment, please do that now. Thank you so much for tuning in and let's get into these sixty second reviews of all the books I read this fall. I kicked off my September reading with If You're Seeing This, It's Meant For You by Leigh Stein.
Amelia Hruby:This was a highly anticipated book for me because I loved Leigh's book Self Care, which was a satirical fiction about the wellness industry and this group of wellness founders that had an app called or a company called RICHUAL, like r I c h u a l, and it was all about how the wellness industry like promises healing and health, but is really just about making money and getting you to buy stuff, and these sort of like grotesque and hilarious underpinnings of that. So I really loved that book. That was one that I was like, I read and then like passed two people because I was like, you have to read this. It's so good. And that meant that I was really anticipating this one from Leigh Stein because if you're seeing this, it's meant for you was a sort of once again satirical fiction about TikTok influencers and TikTok hype houses and what it really takes to succeed in that world.
Amelia Hruby:And so we have a group of influencers at a hype house, and one of them has gone missing. And then a new person like sort of joins the house to try to figure out what's going on there. The influencer who went missing pulled cards and had this sort of like, you know, here's a seven of pentacles, and if you're seeing this, it's meant for you message in her videos. And so that was kind of the premise of the book. I really enjoyed this one, but I have to say, like, it was not a book I was then passing to other people.
Amelia Hruby:It didn't quite reach the heights of self care for me. So if you're really interested in the world of social media, of influencing, if you like a little mystery, if you like a sort of critical tone to your fiction, you might enjoy this. But it wasn't my standout for this fall. The next book that I read was The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black. Now I have not read much Holly Black, and I have definitely not read Holly Black's most popular book, The Cruel Prince.
Amelia Hruby:It is on my list. I think it maybe was even on my list of like twenty five five star predictions for 2025, but I did not get around to reading it this year. So for some reason, I had the darkest part of the forest on my library holds list right when I was going on a trip to the forest, and I decided to read it in that setting. And I really loved this one. So in this book, we have a sort of town where there are humans and fae who coexist, and there is this fae, this like horned boy who is a fairy or a fae in a glass coffin in the woods, And he's just been there for as long as everybody can remember.
Amelia Hruby:And so like teenagers go out there and like party around him, and all of these things sort of happen. And we have these two siblings, Hazel and Ben, who have different relationships with this fae in a box. And somehow, which I won't spoil, the fae gets out and it sort of creates this entire adventure mystery that our main characters, Hazel and Ben, have to unravel and resolve. I love a standalone fantasy novel. I really liked Holly Black's writing here, and it was fun to read in the forest even though there were no glass coffins full of fairies in the forest that I was at.
Amelia Hruby:Up next, I read The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi. This is the first book in a fantasy series, and it's set in nineteenth century Paris at like the World's Fair sort of. And we have this group of magicians, experts, people who have these special talents who are hunting down a like sacred artifact that's supposed to be there. I really loved the setting and the characters on this one. I enjoyed this book a lot, but not quite enough to continue on in the series.
Amelia Hruby:That's been a big thing for me this year is like, what does it actually take for me to want to finish a series or honestly even start a series? And I found that like if the first book isn't really at least like a four star for me, I don't necessarily wanna keep going, especially with fantasy series where these books are often, you know, over 400 pages long. So if you like a sort of historical fiction setting, if you want to be in nineteenth century Paris, if you like groups of people with different powers, I think the Gilded Wolves would definitely be for you. And who knows? Maybe I will pick up the other two books in the series someday.
Amelia Hruby:After that, I wanted to step out of fantasy land and read some romance. So I read Dream on Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake. Now Ashley Herring Blake is kind of best known for her series of the so and so doesn't this. So we had Iris Kelly doesn't date, Delilah Green doesn't care. I think that's the first one.
Amelia Hruby:Astrid Parker doesn't fail. And so I loved the first one of those, but wasn't so into that whole series. And I wanted to try more Ashley Herring Blake with a new series that she's starting. And the first book in that was Dream on Ramona Riley. In this one, we have a small town waitress and a Hollywood star.
Amelia Hruby:And they actually had a sort of chance meeting as teenagers. But now the Hollywood star has come back to the small town where our waitress lives and is filming a movie there, and they're gonna meet again and we'll see what unfolds. So I really enjoyed this. I think Ashley Herring Blake has a really distinct writing style. It's like very I'm trying to figure out how to describe it.
Amelia Hruby:It's like super clever. It's always like packed with description and funniness and comfort. And sometimes it feels a little, like, dense and intense for me, but with this one, it really worked. And I really enjoyed Dream On Ramona Riley. Up next, I read Bittersweet in the Hollow by Kate Pearsall.
Amelia Hruby:And this is another sort of fantasy book, I suppose. So in this one, we have four sisters who live in a secluded, like Appalachian town. And these sisters have different abilities based on the senses. So some of them can see things or hear things or smell things. And in this first book, we have a sister who can taste other people's feelings.
Amelia Hruby:And when the book opens, we learn that a year ago, the sister, her name's Linden, had disappeared into the forest that surrounds the town. And when she got back, she didn't remember anything that happened. And so this book is really about her recovering her memories and trying to figure out what happened. And I and it also, like, if you know anything about some of the lore in different Appalachian towns, there's a bit of Mothman lore in this one that I really enjoyed as a horror lover. So I definitely recommend Bittersweet and the Hollow by Kate Pearsall.
Amelia Hruby:And there is a sequel as well about one of the other sisters, believe. So maybe we'll get more in this series. Next up, I read The Compound by Aisling Rawl, which I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly, but this was a very buzzy book this year. And it's a literary fiction slash maybe a little bit thriller that tracks this main character who has arrived on this compound to film a reality show. So she shows up there along with nine other women.
Amelia Hruby:They just arrive. The place is a mess because I guess the way this show works is that, like, you kind of have to stay as long as you can to win. And then once the final people are gone, they just drop a whole new cast. And so there are nine women there, or maybe 10 of them total, who have to like clean up the compound and get it ready, and then there are 10 men who've been dropped somewhere in the desert, and they have to make their way to the compound. And so basically, this is, you know, I think, like a sort of Love Island esque deconstruction and dystopian deconstruction at that.
Amelia Hruby:And we follow our main character as she, like, tries to win this game. And there's sort of like a war in the background outside the compound, like in the quote unquote real world that's happening. It does that sort of thing where it feels like 70%, maybe even 90% our world and just like a little bit otherwise. And I think that it did feel like watching a reality show, and I found myself just wondering what would happen and thinking more and more about if I would ever go on a show like this, which I think the answer is no, but especially after reading this book, honestly. After that, I read The Girl You Know by L.
Amelia Hruby:Gonzalez Rose, and this was my foray into dark academia for the year. If you have been listening to the podcast, you know that I have done multiple episodes on dark academia, and I think that I am the only person who cares. I feel like that was like a really big trend for a minute, and it's falling off. And as someone who went to boarding school, I'm often interested in it. But what I found this year is I'm just a little less interested in reading about high schoolers than I used to be, and that will come up with a few other reads.
Amelia Hruby:And so I don't know. This one was fine for me, but let me tell you what it's about. The Girl You Know is a dark academia thriller, as I've said, about our main character, Luna, who has just lost her sister Selena. And Luna wants to figure out what has happened because even though the police said Selena's death was an accident, Luna doesn't believe them. So she like infiltrates this school to figure out what has been happening.
Amelia Hruby:As with much dark academia, this has themes of classism, sexism, racism, and I thought it was great. I would definitely read from this author again, but it does kind of fall in with many of the common dark academia stories. Up next, I read two romances from Julie So to. I read forget me not and then not another love song. Forget me not is about a wedding planner who has to work with her florist ex on a very, very high profile wedding.
Amelia Hruby:And so we have a sort of like second chance romance here. They come back together. What's gonna happen? Who knows? But it is a romance, so in some ways, you will know.
Amelia Hruby:And then Not Another Love Song takes place like in the same world. But in this instance, we have two musicians. One, I think plays cello and the other plays maybe it's violin, maybe it's viola, something like that. But the guy who plays cello is like one of the best players in the world. And this woman, Gwen, who's our main female character, she is like in the same orchestra as him, but has been sort of in the background of it.
Amelia Hruby:And she is offered the role of first chair, which he had wanted for some very complicated reasons, And they sort of have this, like, sort of enemies thing going on, and it sort of becomes an enemies to lovers romance. But you'll have to read it to see how that unfolds. I really enjoyed Julie So to's writing. I thought both of these were good romances. I don't know that they make my, like, all time faves list, but I did enjoy them.
Amelia Hruby:And I enjoyed them enough that I actually ended up reading Julie So to's new book, which is not a romance. It's more of a thriller, almost a dark academia thriller, to be honest, about these high schoolers whose friendship unravels after the mysterious death of this other girl at their school. And it's full of drama and suspense, and I also really enjoyed that. But I think that the Thrashers was the book where I was like, okay. I think I'm done reading about high schoolers and their high school drama.
Amelia Hruby:Even in these, like, dark academia settings, I was like, okay. I think I'm I think I'm just finished with this for now. But I really loved that I read all three of those Julie So to books this year, and I definitely highly recommend her work and her writing. Next, we got into spooky season, and I read Rachel Harrison's new book, Play Nice. Rachel Harrison is one of my favorite horror writers because she has such a great and specific, unique to her tone.
Amelia Hruby:She can get you really scared while also being laugh out loud funny. She writes some of these most ridiculous scenes, but I'm totally there with her in them. So in Play Nice, we meet Cleo Louise Barnes, who is a stylist and influencer, but she grew up in a haunted house or a house that her mother claimed was possessed. And Cleo's mom was like so convinced of this that she wrote a book about her experience in the house. But after she dies many years later, Cleo and her sisters inherit the house.
Amelia Hruby:And Cleo decides that she wants to go back there. She wants to stay there and clean it up. She's gonna make content about this like house renovation, and then she's gonna sell the house. And while she's there, she starts to experience things. She reads the book, and we sort of move into this haunted house story.
Amelia Hruby:So I really enjoyed this. I like all Rachel Harrison books, as I've said, and I thought this was like a really nice addition to her canon, which I was especially happy about because that was one of the books in my nine new releases for a cozy, sexy, spooky fall episode. And so it's always nice when I put something on the list and I read it and I love it. Another book that was on that list that I read and loved this fall was Dragon Fires Everywhere by Hazel Beck. So I have loved Hazel's witch lore series, which started with the book Small Town Big Magic in 2022, and then there's been a new entry every year.
Amelia Hruby:And Dragonfires Everywhere is the fourth and final book in the series. So the gist of the series is essentially that we have this small town in the Midwest where there's this confluence of rivers that makes the magic there really powerful. And so we have witches and, you know, not the non magical, the civilians alike living together, and the witches are uncovering some really problematic things that have been happening there, and that's changing the town and messing with the magic. And in each of the books, we meet a sort of different young character who are sort of like the next generation of witches. They've come through school and they're like trying to find their way in the world and change their town for the better.
Amelia Hruby:And so I don't know that I thought this fourth book in the series was the best one, but it was a great close to it. And I do highly recommend the entire Witch lore series from Hazel Beck. After that, I read another spooky read, When Ghosts Call Us Home by Katya De Becerra. This had a premise that felt like it was just made for me. So we have a young girl who has made a horror movie with her sister in this house that their parents were renovating when they were growing up.
Amelia Hruby:And this horror film became a cult classic because people think there are real ghosts in it. And they're like, is this real? Is this a real haunting? What is happening? And so this cult classic film has sort of like grown up with these sisters.
Amelia Hruby:And then one day, the older sister who directed it goes missing. And the younger sister wants to find her, but doesn't know where she is, can't find her. And so the younger sister starts like trolling these message boards that have been set up by lovers of the film to try to find her sister. And she ends up going back to the house because she's been invited there by this director who wants to, like, make a documentary or re sort of remake the film around her. And so she goes back to the house because she thinks it holds the secrets to finding her sister.
Amelia Hruby:And let me tell you, it was spooky scary. Definitely got creeped out by this one. I really enjoyed reading it. And if that sounds like your sort of thing, I think it does live up to its potential. So that is When Ghosts Call Us Home by Katya De Becerra.
Amelia Hruby:After that, I read Mate by Ali Hazelwood. This is the sequel to Bride, which was her werewolf vampire romance that came out last year. I won't say much about this book because I do feel like it has a lot of spoilers and the plot for what happened in the first one. But if you liked Bride, I definitely recommend Mate. And if you want a paranormal romance series that is very sexy and smutty as Ali Hazelwood does, you will enjoy this book.
Amelia Hruby:So if that's your thing, go read Bride and Mate immediately. After reading Mate, I took like a hard left and read, I think my only non fiction book of the fall, which was One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad. I have been on the wait list at the library for this for months and months and months and months. And I finally got it this fall shortly before it won the National Book Awards. So this is now a very like lauded book, and I can absolutely see why.
Amelia Hruby:This is a book about Palestine and Gaza. Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian American writer, and he traces the sort of deep flaws and faults of the West, and the inherent complicity of Americans specifically in the genocide in Gaza. And what really, really struck me about this book is its moral clarity. I feel like he did not pull any punches. He was not trying to make people feel good or better by reading this.
Amelia Hruby:He was really trying to hold a mirror up to the reader and say, how do you conceive of yourself? And are you living out your values and your morals in, like, your understanding and actions of our global political world? There's some really standout quotes in this one. I actually got it from the library and then bought it because I wanted to be able to highlight things. So I thought I would just share a few here that just completely struck me while I was reading.
Amelia Hruby:So here's a single sentence that really stood out to me from page 45. The afflicted don't need comforting. They need what the comfortable have always had. And then one more from much later in the book. In time, negation becomes all there is.
Amelia Hruby:To walk away from this system is to speak the only language the system will ever understand. And that was something else I thought this book did so well. It really interrogates language and the things that we say versus do, especially in conversations and actions around Palestine. And so this is just such a powerful book. I was very glad it won many, many book awards, although it's also there's a bit of irony there because the latter part of the book is very critical of book award culture.
Amelia Hruby:So definitely worth reading. If there is one book from this whole episode that you put on your TBR, I think this could or should be the one, and that was one day everyone will have always been against us by Omar El Akkad. Following that brief foray into non fiction, and by brief, I mean, was just one book, but also it's not a very long book. So you could definitely read it in a sitting or a weekend if you can sort of handle the intensity of it. But after that, I went back to spooky season, and I read Hex by Thomas Old Hoybelt.
Amelia Hruby:This is a book that I had checked out multiple times before and never quite gotten around to reading, but the premise of it is so creepy that I really had to get to it this year. So in this book, we go to a town in Upstate New York where there is a witch that has always lived there or lived there since colonial times. And the residents of the town can just see her, and she just like wanders around and shows up in places. She'll show up at the foot of your bed. She'll show up in your pantry.
Amelia Hruby:She will show up in the town square. She will show up at the library. She just appears. Once a week, she walks the same route that they don't totally understand why. She, like, comes out of the woods and she walks down this one street and she goes and stands in front of this other building.
Amelia Hruby:Like, she's just a known entity in the town. And her eyes and mouth are stitched shut, and she's really creepy. And the residents of the town do not love having her around, but the problem is that if you try to mess with her, then people in the town die. And so they try to keep the witch a secret. There is like a military base nearby that knows about her, but they have a whole system set up, so they track wherever the witch is, and they keep visitors to the town away from her because they don't want outsiders to know about her and then try to research or mess with her, and then it causes harm to the residents of the town.
Amelia Hruby:And why don't they just leave, you might be wondering? Well, once you move there, you cannot Like, you can leave, I think they say for like five days or something. But if you're gone for like longer than a week, you start to experience this like deep existential dread, like so extreme that you don't wanna live anywhere else anymore. And so this book is about what happens when some teenage boys start to have problems with the witch. It's about a lot of secrets.
Amelia Hruby:It's not told like a mystery or thriller. It's written more like a literary fiction, and actually, it was written by a Dutch writer in The Netherlands and then translated into English and sort of relocated to Upstate New York for a US audience. And there were definitely moments when I thought it was kind of dragging. It wasn't like a five star for me, but I still think about this town and this plot regularly. So if you wanna be creeped out, highly recommend Hex by Thomas Old Heuvelt.
Amelia Hruby:Two more creepy books that I read this fall, which I think will be my last horror of the year, were The Haunting of Ashburn House and Where He Can't Find You by Darcy Coates. Darcy Coates is an Australian horror writer whose name I have seen like all over the horror recommendation lists that I look at from time to time. And these were the first books of hers that I've read. So The Haunting of Ashburn House is a pretty typical haunted house story. A woman moves to a house that she inherited from a sort of long lost dead relative, and this house is on a hill overlooking a town.
Amelia Hruby:There's no power. There's no water. She has to like figure this out. She is also, of course, broke. So she's trying to make it work on no money, and her being broke kind of keeps her in this house even when weird things start happening.
Amelia Hruby:So I thought this was a really well done haunted house story. I was definitely scared, and I liked it enough that I read it, like, in bed under the covers on my phone. So probably also why I was scared because it was dark and quiet and reading this haunted house book, but I really enjoyed The Haunting of Ashburn House by Darcy Coates. I wanted more Darcy Coates after that, so I read a pretty different book of hers called Where He Can't Find You, which is about a small Australian town that is sort of haunted or even cursed by the stitcher. And the stitcher is this sort of like known entity or they think it's this one person in town who kidnaps people and then does some horrific things to them, which I won't describe in case you're not a spooky scary reader.
Amelia Hruby:Personally, I found this book to be very scary. It had some just like very like mundane human evil as well as supernatural elements, and I think the way those were threaded together was really well done. And it reminded me a bit of the It story from Stephen King or the films. I'm actually watching Welcome to Dairy, which is a new TV show based on It right now. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, oh, this feels a little bit like Where He Can't Find You from Darcy Coates.
Amelia Hruby:Okay. One more horror book, and it will be done with all of our spooky reads of the season. And my last spooky read this year was Infernal Parade by Clive Barker. I did not intend to read this book. It was actually like just on this book of very short reads at my library.
Amelia Hruby:It's under a 100 pages, and it's just these different vignettes. I had been meaning to read Clive Barker, is also another very, very popular horror writer, but I hadn't done it yet because some of his stuff is kind of long, I hadn't found the right way in, but this felt like the perfect thing to pick up to get a sense of his writing, and let me tell you, it truly was. The sort of loose story of the infernal parade is that we have a man who has been sentenced to death, who through that process is sort of conscripted to lead this parade of hellish creatures. And so we meet him in the first story, and then we meet these different other characters who are being brought to the parade or to join the parade. And again, it's less than a 100 pages.
Amelia Hruby:It's pretty creepy or like, to me, this didn't fill me with like a sense of dread or fear, but the descriptions were pretty grotesque and intense. And I was like, wow, Clive Barker is doing a lot here. So I'm definitely intrigued to read more of his work next year. Maybe I will make my way into some of his longer books. Okay.
Amelia Hruby:Spooky, scary reads are done. No more horror in this episode. I have jumped around a little bit. So let's go back to some of my reads from my nine new releases for a cozy, sexy, spooky fall episode. We already talked about Play Nice by Rachel Harrison and Dragon Fires Everywhere by Hazel Beck.
Amelia Hruby:I also read Arcana Academy by Elise Kova, which was the first book in a new fantasy series where the magic in that world comes from tarot cards. Not pulling and reading them, but drawing them and casting them as spells. This book is very long, but I did really enjoy it. I thought that this tarot magic system really worked with my understanding of the cards. I liked our main character who we meet in the beginning of the book because she's landed in prison and is trying to find her way out because she needs to get to this Arcana Academy where her sister has been sort of there as a student, but also a double agent.
Amelia Hruby:Because the sisters aren't supposed to be able to draw or wield these tarot cards, but they can, and they want to bring this power to more people. So if you love romantasy and you love tarot cards, I think you might enjoy Arcana Academy, but do know that this is the first book in an unfinished series. So if you don't want to, like, read 500 pages and then you have to sit on it in your brain, you might wanna wait this one out until the rest of the books are released. Next up from my nine fall reads list, I also read The Bewitching by Sylvia Moreno Garcia. This is one of my most anticipated books of the fall, and I was really excited about it because it is a book within a book magic story.
Amelia Hruby:We have three generations of main characters. There is a graduate student who's writing her thesis on the work of a female horror author, and that author is also one of our characters. And then the student's grandmother who is from Mexico and has a pretty storied past there. Those are the three main characters, and we unravel this sort of mysterious, haunting, and maleficent spirit that seems to be tracking and impacting all of them. I didn't think this was a home run.
Amelia Hruby:I could never decide if I wanted it to be longer or shorter. There were some moments where I was like, this feels slow, and then others where I was like, wait, this happened way too fast. But I always think that Silvia Moreno Garcia just like gives us such rich scenery. Like, I love where she sets her books. I love the people she includes in them, and maybe it's just like, I'm gonna keep reading even if I am not quite sure if I love everyone.
Amelia Hruby:So that's The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno Garcia. And then the last book from my fall new release episode that I read was A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandana. And I loved this book. I cannot say enough how much I loved this book. I loved it so, so, so much.
Amelia Hruby:And it surprised me a bit because I actually didn't read the first book by this author because I couldn't quite get into the prose, but this one really hooked me. So we meet our main character, Sarah Swan, who was once an extremely powerful witch in Britain, but she lost her powers after she resurrected her great aunt Jasmine from the dead, and doing that took all her power away. So now she's like a kind of outcast. She had to leave the school that she was training at because no one's supposed to bring people back from the dead, and she's kind of mourning the magical future she used to have, and she's missing her magic. She's missing that power and sense of self.
Amelia Hruby:And so she has been trying to find ways to get her magic back, and she thinks she's uncovered a book that might help her, but she's gonna need the help of this super mysterious, gorgeous, grumpy historian who she just happens to meet driving down the road by her home. And that's the beginning of the adventure. So if you love cozy magical romances, I highly recommend A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping. And sharing that means that I actually did read five of the nine books that were on my TBR of new releases for a cozy, sexy, spooky fall. The other four will probably just get pushed to next year's fall reading list.
Amelia Hruby:But, know, honestly, when I make a TBR, it's very aspirational. And if I finish more than half of it, I feel really good about myself. So I did finish half of my fall TBR. Now you've heard about those books. You can go back to the episode if you want some more fall reads to take you through the winter.
Amelia Hruby:But let's move on into the last 10 books that I read in 2025. Up next, we have Red City by Marie Lu. This is another book that's the beginning of a fantasy series. Marie Lu is the author of Legend, which is an incredibly popular You series, but this is her first adult book. And in Red City, we meet two children, I guess, essentially, who go to the same school.
Amelia Hruby:And they both have a certain relationship to magic and power, but they can't tell anyone about it, especially not each other. I really like this book and I will definitely continue on in the series when the next ones are out. So I do highly recommend Red City by Marie Lu. After that, I read another fantasy duology that was recommended to me by my dear friend Nick, and that was The Courting of Bristol Keats and The Last Wish of Bristol Keats by Mary e Pearson. These books were super fun.
Amelia Hruby:They star, as you might say, Bristol Keats, who is a young woman who is living with her sisters in this small town called Bow's Keep. And there are three of them, Bristol and her two sisters, and their parents passed away a few years ago, or their mom left a long time ago, their dad just died semi recently, and they're trying to just make it work in this small town. And Bristol has started receiving letters from an aunt that she's never heard of before who promises that she can help them. And they really need money. They really need to find a new way forward.
Amelia Hruby:So Bristol ends up going to meet this aunt. And when she gets there, she discovers that this place that her aunt is asked to meet is full of monsters and fairies and gods even. And so Bristol is kind of pulled into this world of magic when she makes a deal with the fae leader, Tigon. And she goes to the fae world to try to help him with this magical quest that he is also on to save the world of the fae, as you might guess. And when she gets there, there are some secrets she does not know that are being kept from her and she has to uncover them.
Amelia Hruby:And so this is definitely a romantic y series. There is a big romance in it. There is a lot of magic and adventure and mystery, and I really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend this duology. It's a great winter read from Mary e Pearson.
Amelia Hruby:After reading those book recommendations from Nick, I actually went to visit them and read two books while I was there, And then another book that they recommended when we went on a little bookstore trip together. So the first one I read was The Housemaid by Freda McFadden. I read this because my partner JJ wanted to go see the movie because they love Amanda Seyfried, especially when she's playing a kind of problematic character as she does in the movie. And so I was like, if we're gonna go see the movie, I'm gonna read the book. And I have to say, the book is not good, I think, by most standards.
Amelia Hruby:The writing is not that great. It has some really problematic, like, fat phobic narratives, and the plot is pretty, intense for a domestic thriller. There is a cool twist in the book, and I thought I think that's why so many people like it, in my opinion. But I don't know. I don't know that I I don't know that I recommend you read this, but I did read it and I saw the movie.
Amelia Hruby:So that was part of my fall reading. But after that, I read First Time Caller by BK Borisen. This has been a very popular romance this year. It was my first BK Borisen read. And I read it because I found it in a free little library, and I was on a walk with Nick.
Amelia Hruby:So this is a romance about a radio show host who hosts a call in show about romance and heartbreak and love. And one night, he gets a call from a 12 year old girl who's calling in because her mom seems lonely and unhappy, and she wants to find someone for her mom to date. And so the mom ends up becoming a recurring character on the show. She gets to know the host, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It's very charming, and I thought that the sex scenes were very well written in this.
Amelia Hruby:I'll be honest. The plot was a little slow or predictable at times, but I kept going because I liked their chemistry and where the romance was headed. So that is First Time Caller by BK Borisen. I followed that up by reading Good Spirits by BK Borisen, which is her first holiday romance, I believe, and the beginning of a new holiday romance series that she's writing. And I thought this was fine.
Amelia Hruby:That was kind of my takeaway. We have a main character who runs an antique store and is estranged from her family, and she loves Christmas and wear wears all these funny Christmas pajamas. And one day, this guy just like shows up at her house and claims to be a sort of Christmas haunting, very like Christmas Carol, ghost of Christmas past vibes, and he has to take her to her past memories to figure out what is going on and what she needs delivering to, sort of, like, to go from her past to the present to change her life. And then they have a thing. I won't say more than that.
Amelia Hruby:It is a romance, you can expect they have a thing. It was a nice read. I read it literally on Christmas day and did enjoy it. Up next, I read two thrillers. The first was recommended to me by Nick, or rather was not so much recommended as when we saw it, they were like, this book fucked me up.
Amelia Hruby:And I was like, great. Now I have to read it. And that was We Were Liars by E Lockhart. I don't want to spoil anything about this book, so I'm just gonna read you the very brief synopsis from the publisher so that you can get a sense of it without me messing anything up. So here it is.
Amelia Hruby:It's not even full sentences. A beautiful and distinguished family, a private island, a brilliant damaged girl, a passionate political boy, a group of four friends, the liars, whose friendship turns destructive. A revolution, an accident, a secret, lies upon lies. True love, the truth. We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from New York Times bestselling author, National Book Award finalist, and Prince Award honoree, e Lockhart.
Amelia Hruby:Read it, and if anyone asks you how it ends, just lie. So, yeah, you should read it. It was great. I really enjoyed how it was written. Like, the style of the book has that very, like, quick sparse prose, which I think for a suspense novel or a thriller like this, really, like, makes it propulsive.
Amelia Hruby:I read it, like, all in one night, and I was so happy that I did. So that was We Were Liars by e Lockhart. And that takes us to my last three books of the year. My next read was recommended to me by my friend Taylor, and it is Everyone is Lying to You by Joe Piazza. This is a thriller mystery about trad wives and influencers and the sort of culture around them and the controlling nature of the patriarchy.
Amelia Hruby:So we have two main characters who used to be best friends in college, but had not spoken for years. One of them is now a very popular influencer with millions or at least over a million followers. The other is a journalist and writer for Modern Women magazine. And the influencer reaches out to the writer to ask if she'll come to a sort of influencer conference to write a story about something new that she is launching. And so the journalist flies out, they reconnect at the conference for like one great night, and then the influencer disappears and her husband is dead.
Amelia Hruby:So it's a great mystery. It did not fully stick the ending for me, but if you read it, I'd love to know how you feel about how it went. Again, that is Everyone is Lying to You by Joe Piazza. My penultimate read of the year was The Long Game by Rachel Reid, and I read this because I watched heated rivalry like many people have. And I was obsessed with Shane and Ilya's romance, and I needed to know how it ended.
Amelia Hruby:Like, I was not I didn't need to go read the book that I just watched the show about. I needed to know where their story went. And luckily for me, Rachel Reid had written the conclusion to their story in this book, The Long Game. So I literally, on Christmas day, the final episode of the show came out at midnight, or for me, it was at eleven central. And so I watched that episode from eleven to midnight, and then I bought this book, and I read the whole thing.
Amelia Hruby:It was up until like 03:30 in the morning to know what happened for Shayne and Ilya. So anyway, I got very into it. It was a very fun sort of wrap to my holiday season, and I do highly recommend watching Heated Rivalry or reading the book or reading all six books in this game changer series from Rachel Reid. And finally, the most recent book I have finished is the book of Luke by Laval Holder. This is one that I saw on a table at that bookstore that Nick took me to, and I was intrigued because it's a book about reality TV, which is something I often enjoy.
Amelia Hruby:I did read The Compound earlier this fall and really enjoyed that. And in this book, our main character is a reality TV winner, has won a game that seems sort of like the challenge or road rules, maybe mixed with a little bit of in there. And he won this a long time ago and then ended up marrying one of his fellow contestants, and that contestant went on to become a politician. And they're both men, they're gay, but the politician is a republican. And so they have this sort of like really rough public image together.
Amelia Hruby:And very early in the book, it's uncovered that the politician has cheated on his perfect reality star husband, and that leads to the series of of events where the reality star husband goes back on the reality show for the twentieth reunion, and a lot happens from there. So if you like complicated, complex, messy, sometimes unlikable queer characters, and you like reality TV behind the scenes, I think you'll definitely like this book. I read it in a day. I really enjoyed it. And that is the book of Luke by Lavelle Holder.
Amelia Hruby:And that's my reading year, friends. As I mentioned, I am wrapping the year with the new Katie Robert Neon Gods book, which is called Tender Cruelty. This is a 10 book series, and this is book number nine. Book number 10 will come out in 2026. I'm not ready for the series to end.
Amelia Hruby:It is so smutty and so good, and I'm really enjoying Tender Cruelty so far. But that brings my 2025 reading to, I think, a 123 books. That's how many books I read this year. It is a little less than last year. I think I read a 130 something last year.
Amelia Hruby:So this year I'm coming in at a 123. Honestly, I intended to read even a little less. I definitely followed my whims this year, just read whatever I wanted and I did enjoy it, but I wish I remembered a bit of it more. So next year, one of my reading goals is just to slow down and enjoy it. Continue to enjoy it, but also remember it.
Amelia Hruby:Maybe I'll get a reading journal or something to help me with that. So thank you again so much for listening to this episode of Pleasure Reading. You can find all of the books that I mentioned here linked in the show notes. I've made a bookshop list full of just these fall reads. And if you make a purchase through that link, I will receive a small affiliate payment that I take as thanks for the book rec.
Amelia Hruby:I do plan to make at least one more sort of end of the year, start of the year episode about my reading plans for 2026. But otherwise, can expect that the podcast will be here on an uneven timeline to surprise and delight you in the year ahead. I wish you a beautiful, beautiful new year if you're listening when this comes out. And otherwise, here's to your next best book.
