One of the reasons I read is to learn about other lives that are very different from my own. This post is full of examples of that!
Book #83 of 2025 was Wild Dark Shore, by Charlotte McConaghy. This near-apocalyptic climate fiction is readable and relatable, since it's about love and loss. But it's also about a very different world from where I live, since it's set on an island near Antarctica, and it's full of shivery descriptions of cold weather. It's also fast-paced and suspenseful. (I want to read another McConaghy book, Migrations, that's about Arctic Terns, so I'm putting it on my wish list.)
Book #84 was Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World, by Bob Goff. This was my first Bob Goff book, and I picked it up because my Bible study group was discussing some videos he'd made. He has lots of great stories to tell, and since he's spent some time in Uganda, many of them are of special interest to me! Goff has such an open, enthusiastic style and I enjoyed his voice in this book.
Book #85 was Mad Honey, by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan. I don't want to say too much and give away the surprises of this story, but suffice it to say I was curious enough to find Boylan's memoir She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, which became book #86. I also read Boylan's new book Cleavage: Men, Women and the Space Between Us (book #87). Boylan writes well and these books gave me a lot to think about.
Book #88 was The Likeness, by Tana French, as I continued to read the Dublin Murder Squad books. Also from this series were book #93, Faithful Place, book #97, Broken Harbor, and book #99, The Trespasser. These books are so absorbing and full of twists and turns.
Book #89 was a book club pick, The Alice Network, by Kate Quinn. Spies, torture, Nazis: this isn't for the faint of heart.
Book #91 was a sequel to a book I read back in 2015 (and reread this year as book #90), Orbiting Jupiter, by Gary D. Schmidt . I recently found out that the sequel existed, and I waited weeks for a copy from the library. Once I got it, it was a quick read. It's called Jupiter Rising. Like the earlier book, it's a YA book with tough themes. I'm a big Schmidt fan, and I keep hoping he'll win the Newbery some day.
Book #92 was Awake, by Jen Hatmaker. This book has been getting a lot of attention since it came out recently. It's about the end of Hatmaker's marriage, but it's also about much more: her Christian upbringing and the way it affected her, her struggles with codependency, how she managed to start a new life after everything she knew fell apart. I'd like to discuss this one with a group. And speaking of codependency and discussion, I hadn't decided whether to read book #95 or not, having read lots of reviews of it. It's All the Way to the River, by Elizabeth Gilbert. While I dithered, a friend asked me to read it so that we could talk about it. Whew! It's intense, and full of extreme and illegal behavior. One of the reviews I read kind of mocked Gilbert's efforts to present her story as relatable to everyone, but it is true that we all are looking for what she says the recovery movement calls LAVA: love, appreciation, validation, and acceptance.
Book #94 was Now is Not the Time to Panic, by Kevin Wilson. I read Wilson's book Nothing to See Here, back in 2020 and here's what I wrote about it then. This one is weird, too, and hard to categorize.
Book #96 was Say You'll Remember Me, by Abby Jimenez. While at first glance this seems way lighter than most of what I've written about in this post, since it's a rom-com, it also deals with difficult issues, like remembering and forgetting, and how aging brings both into focus. And then it was right back to murder and mayhem with If We Were Villains, by M.L. Rio (book #98). This one is about a drama school and the Shakespeare-obsessed students who study there. Lots of substance abuse, unhealthy relationships, and oh yeah, murder.
Book #100 of the year was a book club book, The Fisherman's Gift, by Julia Kelly. This one was so sad; I cried. But there was a lot of hope and healing in the last few pages. Our next book promises to be a lot more fluffy, so tune in for my next Reading Update if you want to know what it is.
