I’m Currently Crushing My Reading Goal!
At the beginning of this year I decided to set my reading goal with the intention of focusing on quality over quantity. Instead of setting a numerical goal I wanted to prioritize the books that were really calling to me. So I decided that as long as I had two 5 star reads each month, I’d be happy. If you're wondering why I decided to make that my reading goal this year, you can read all about it here!
I'm happy to report that with the exception of July and August (I've been in a huge reading slump the past couple months that I'm just now coming out of) I've hit or surpassed that goal each month! So this is kind of like a three quarters of the way through the year check in. I'll share the entire list of my 5 star reads for the year so far at the end, but I thought it'd be fun to highlight one of my favorites from each month. So here we go!
January:
My favorite (or maybe most notable is a better word) 5 star read was When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill. This book was unputdownable! I'm a huge sucker for the mystical realism genre as well as female rage and Barnhill delivers that in spades. The book follows the story of a family in 1950s America. It also throws in files from case studies, court hearings, and entries from a scientist stripped of his credentials all pointing to a confounding event known as a mass dragoning. This event shaped our protagonist, Alex’s, life from a very young age. The more you read the more you realize how much of Alex's past has been kept in the dark and how much more she refuses to shed a light on. This book has all of my favorite things. Magical realism, themes of found family, queer love, and dragons! It will simultaneously warm your heart and rip it out all on the same page.
February:
This was a bit of a surprise for me because I'm not a huge fantasy reader anymore even though I REALLY want to be. So if you have fantasy recs that are along the lines of The Magicians by Lev Grossman I would love to hear them! This is a trilogy very obviously inspired by the Chronicles of Narnia series (which I also loved as a kid.) It follows the main character Quentin Coldwater who is the angstiest, most full of himself, prick of a teenager. He gets admitted to a college for magicians that changes the trajectory of his life forever. I personally enjoy an unreliable or unlikable narrator, but a LOT of people who wrote reviews for this book did not. So take that as your warning that this may not be the series for you if you want a main character you can root for.
March:
This is a contender for my all time favorite book of this year! And that was Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by one of my automatic read authors, Grady Hendrix. This book follows 15 year old Fern who was dropped off at Wellwood House in St. Augustine Florida. Everything is decided for these girls at Mrs. Wellwood's Unwed Mothers home. The summer air and atmosphere of this story is thick with humidity and perhaps something more sinister. When Fern and her friends get their hands on a copy of How to be a Groovy Witch given to them by the mobile librarian that comes to the home once a month, strange things begin happening. The girls realize the book and themselves hold immense power, and maybe just maybe they can turn their bleak situations around. This story is full of spells, body horror, girl power, hope, and heart break.
April:
This was a great month for me and I had a total of five 5 star reviews!! Of these five my best book from this month was Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. I listened to this on audio and let me just say the narrator was fantastic. The Caribbean accent had me hooked from the first chapter. I LOVE a family drama so this was an easy read for me. But what really hooked me on this book is the way it jumps around from different POV’s and timelines to give you the full picture of this family's life and secrets. If you like the way the TV show This is Us drops you into the middle or end of a story line and lets you figure things out from there you'll love this book! I laughed, cried, and felt the longing to swim in the open ocean while reading it.
May:
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski is one of the few books I've re-read and May was my second time reading it. This book never fails to disappoint. It's informative, fascinating, heartbreaking, hopeful, and also rage inducing (after reading it you're going to want to take a sledgehammer to the patriarchy.) Nagoski is a fantastic science communicator who makes even the biology heavy chapters easy to understand. While the book is geared towards people who were assigned female at birth, there's really great information in here that can be applied to people of all genders and sexual orientations. If you're someone who's ever wondered “am I normal?” This book is for you!
June:
This was another great reading month for me. I read a total of 9 books in June, and the one that I'm still thinking about and recommending to people is The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp. This is another story with an unlikable and possibly unreliable narrator. And to sum up this book for you in the best way possible I'm going to give you the except I first came across on StoryGraph that had me clicking “Borrow” immediately on Libby. Buckle up cause this one will take you for a wild ride.
“...It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he'd already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account…”
July:
Alas… We have reached the first month I fell short of my goal of two 5 star reads. And honestly the more I think about it the more I'm okay with not hitting my goal this month. I was coming off of one of my biggest reading months of the year, having read nine books in June and five of those being 5 star ratings. It was also the peak summer season. I was busy gardening, swimming, doing yard work, and spending time with my family and friends. Things got busy and I got into a bit of a reading slump and that's okay!! Giving myself grace always helps me get back on the horse faster.
Anyways I did have one 5 star review from July and it was A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Have you ever been reading Bridgerton or another regency era romance, and you're enjoying it but you wish it was queer? I have the book rec for you! This book follows Viola Carroll who lived most of her life having to hide her true self. So when the opportunity for freedom comes along at Waterloo she takes it. But her actions have consequences and she had to give up everything to love authentically. When word comes from her best friend (the Duke of Gracewood’s) sister that the Duke is not doing well and she's concerned about him. Viola has to contend with her choices, secrets, and perhaps new found feelings for her old best friend. It's a masterpiece!
August:
This was the first month I didn't reach my goal at all and had zero 5 star reviews. I also only read three books in August due to being in a major reading hangover. I was mostly reading non fiction books that I'd heard about on the Financial Feminist podcast and decided to pick up because they sounded interesting.
September:
As I'm writing this post it's currently September 23rd and with only one week left of the month I'm feeling pretty confident about being out of my reading slump. I've been inspired by the impending spooky season to start picking up some thriller and true crime novels. One that I just finished up and was left feeling thoroughly creeped out was I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara. Her obsessive and meticulous writing on the subject of Joseph DeAngelo Jr. (aka The Golden State Killer as McNamara dubbed him) ultimately kept the cold case in the public eye and led to his arrest and conviction. It was a little disjointed due to the fact that McNamara passed away before the book was finished and was pieced together by several others. I don't tend to shy away from a timeline that jumps all around. I felt it contributed to just how disorienting this case was for detectives who this criminal evaded for decades. There were several times where I had to turn off the audiobook and read something else because it got so anxiety-inducing reading the accounts of the attacks.
Breaking down this year by each month and looking at if I reached my goal has been so much fun and allowed me to reminisce about some of my favorite books of the year and also share them with y'all! We still have 3 months left in 2025 and I'm excited to see how I found out the year. Let me know in the comments what your reading goal was this year and if you're on track to hit it!
My 5 Star Reads So Far:
The Road to Roswell by Connie Wills
Honor by Thrity Umrigar
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill
The Magicians (Book 1) by Lev Grossman
Flamer by Mike Curato
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping (On a Dead Man) by Jesse Q. Sutanto
Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
Come as You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski
You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson
I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Ian Ried
The Last Days of Jack Sparks by Jason Arnopp
The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee
Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang
You Are Here by David Nicholls
A Lady For A Duke by Alexis Hall
King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby
The Art and Science of Connection: Why Social Health Is the Missing Key to Living Longer, Healthier, and Happier by Kasley Killam
I'll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
