2025 Read List
My 2024 goal was to read 100 books. I ended up falling a bit short (I made it to 89), but I was proud of my effort nonetheless.
A third of the way through the year, I hit a bit of a block, and I found I wasn’t really enjoying the books I was reading. I was just reading them for the sake of hitting my arbitrary number.
Using that as a learning experience, I decided to set a more realistic goal for myself in 2025.
I wanted to read books that I actually enjoyed from start to finish. In the past, if there was a book I wasn’t particularly enjoying, I would plod and power my way through until the bitter end. And I would be so mentally tired afterwards that I didn’t want to read anything. While I’ve wholeheartedly embraced not finishing books I am not enjoying, I can’t help but still feel like I’ve wasted valuable reading time. I won’t mention the books that I started and never finished since there are legions of fans for those books. For every book I read and loved, I’m sure there are people out there who hated it and didn’t finish it, so there’s no need to get into the weeds there.
With that being said, I set a goal to read 50 books. I feel like I definitely started 50 books, but I only ended up finishing 30 of them.
For this next year (2026), I have set a goal to read 30 books that I really like — and hopefully some nonfiction as well!
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the list of every book I read in 2025 in chronological order.
(The books in bold are ones I particularly enjoyed)
Vienna’s 2025 Read List
Not in My Book by Katie Holt
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
Blood over Bright Haven by M.L. Wang
Fatal Intrusion by Jeffery Deaver and Isabella Maldonado
In the Blink of an Eye by Jo Callaghan
A Very Bad Thing by J.T. Ellison
Deep End by Ali Hazelwood
Riley Thorn and the Dead Guy Next Door by Lucy Score
First Time Caller by B.K. Borison
Kills Well with Others by Deanna Raybourn (Killers of a certain age #2)
Serial Killer Games by Kate Posey
The Soulmate Equation by Christina Lauren
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
Artificial Condition (Murderbot #2) by Martha Wells
The Medusa Protocol by Rob Hart
Rogue Protocol (Murderbot #3) by Martha Wells
The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths
The Magician of Tiger Castle by Louis Sachar
Head Cases by John McMahon
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
The Dark Lord's Guide to Dating - and Other War Crimes by Tiffany Hunt
Just Stab Me Now by Jill Bearup
The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
The Last Dance by Mark Billingham
The Wrong Hands by Mark Billingham
We Had a Hunch by Tom Ryan
Nerdplay by Annabel Chase
The Impossible Fortune by Richard Osman
Kill the Beast by Serra Swift
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
