Of the 30 books I read this year, these are my favourite reads of 2025. I made an effort to read some longer books this year and also revisit some authors that I love, while discovering new favourites too.
The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue
Warm, funny and ultimately about friendship and love, I think this was my favourite read of the year.
Rachel is a college student working at a bookstore in Cork when she meets James and it’s love at first sight. Only not the romantic kind. The pair move in together and become inseparable, eventually drawing their romantic partners into overlapping love triangles that force them to compete for each other’s attention.
Rachel has a crush on her (older, married) Victorian Lit professor, but this isn’t a typical student-teacher affair scenario. It’s James that he wants and inevitably gets. Meanwhile, Rachel is drawn into an all-encompassing relationship with Carey who is mad about her but agonisingly inconsistent. As James puts it, Carey “would walk over hot coals for you, but he won’t commit to lunch plans.”
The dialogue bounces off the page as you’re drawn into a world of inside jokes and shared language that only comes from the closeness and chaos of stumbling through your early twenties and figuring it out together.
“Lady Gaga would come on the iPod speakers and the two of us would dissolve into our own world, leaving whoever was with us on the fringes. We sang ‘bedroom ants’ instead of ‘bad romance’ because it was summer and the whole house was riddled with them.”
The crippling insecurity of that time of your life is at the heart of the book, Rachel is trying on so many different versions of herself and constantly second guessing herself and her relationships, “I never thought that someone could have an insecurity that I myself hadn’t thought of. James was sure he was an unlovable person.”
It also touches on class divides, with Rachel being from a middle-class family and James the child of working-class parents. While Rachel’s been bubble-wrapped and lacks basic life skills, James’ childhood was violent and his father is an addict. Her privilege becomes a source of contention between the friends. However, when Rachel finds out she’s pregnant, it becomes clear that privilege can only get you so far in Ireland in 2010 when abortion is still illegal.
Touching, funny and full of twists and turns, this was a gorgeous read and I hope the upcoming TV adaptation does it justice.
Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth
Another piece of great Irish fiction, Sunburn is a sapphic love story and coming of age novel. Set in the early 1990s, in a small Irish farming community Lucy is falling in love for the first time. Always on the outside of conversations between her friends about boys, her fascination is instead directed at her friend Susannah.
Seeped in shame from her traditional, conservative upbringing Lucy tries to stick to the narrative that’s been written for her – she’s ‘meant’ to be with best friend, neighbour and nice boy Martin – and begins living a double life. One where outwardly she’s doing everything she should be, while inwardly she’s wrestling with herself and secretly dating Susannah.
For a book that’s entrenched in misery, as Lucy torments herself and everyone she’s involved with intentionally or otherwise, there’s also lots of lightness. The dynamic between the girls is fond and familiar, at an age when your whole world feels small and close-knit.
Never Let Me Go by Kazou Ishiguro
I reviewed Never Let Me Go earlier in the year, but it’s a book that’s stayed with me. Deeply dark and disturbing, the story is set in late 1990s dystopian England. Kathy, our narrator, is now thirty and works as a carer. She reflects on her memories of attending boarding school, Hailsham, and her friends Tommy and Ruth. It’s slowly revealed that in this world humans are raised as clones, and kept segregated from society in boarding schools, before they go onto have their organs harvested in young adulthood. The children gradually learn of their fate as they grow up and become carers for others donors, all while awaiting their own call up.
Go as a River – Shelley Read
Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash lives with her father, brother and uncle on the family peach farm in mid-century Colorado. Her family are difficult and she lives, essentially, as their housemaid. Until she meets Wilson Moon while walking home and falls, instantly, in love. Her resilience against the hardship and harshness of both her environment and circumstances is compelling. It also reads like a love letter to the Colorado landscape, with vivid descriptions of the countryside and mountains.
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde – Tia Williams
Two artists falling in love in New York? Yes please. Ricki comes from a wealthy and powerful family, but she’s not like them or her socialite sisters. Instead, she takes a chance, leaving it all behind for a ground-floor apartment in a Harlem brownstone where she starts her own florist.
This is a love story with a twist, as all is not what it seems with the Ezra, the mysterious musician Ricki meets one evening. Be prepared for some magical realism and leaps in time between the 1920s Harlem Renaissance and modern day.
I loved Seven Days in June and I loved this, the perfect book for getting out of a reading slump.
Other highlights:
- Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok – An emotional survival story about a family who immigated from Hong Kong to New York.
- You are here by David Nicholls – A funny, heartfelt romance.
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami – A classic Murakami full of dream-like twists and turns.
- A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin – The fantasy novel, one that’s been on my list for a long time.
What are you reading this year? I’d love to know.
