Our favorite books we’re reading in 2025

It was the kind of year that seemed to last 100 years, so who could blame us for turning to a little escapism? Some of us buried our noses in books in 2025, and luckily there were plenty of good reads to get lost in. Here are some of the Engadget team’s top picks of the year.

Dark and wild shore by Charlotte McConaghy

Dark and wild shore achieves a magnificent balancing act in telling an intimate and personal story coupled with an impending climate disaster as a backdrop. A father and his three children live on a remote island near Antarctica and tend to a vast seed bank that was part of an abandoned research facility. They literally try to stay above water for a few months until they are bailed out of the island with as many seeds as they can save before they sink when a woman named Rowan washes up on shore. She survives, is cared for, and begins to bond with her rescuers and their mission – but at the same time, she has unexpected connections to the island and the former research team that lived there and that she keeps to herself.

The magic of this book is how Charlotte McConaghy builds tension from numerous sources throughout the book; you feel a lingering sense of discomfort, waiting for the other shoe to drop even as Rowan grows closer and closer to family. This itself is a small-scale story, but with the backdrop of impending disaster, the stakes feel extremely high. And McConaghy is a master at putting these feelings on the page in beautiful prose. As she showed in her previous work Migrationshe has a real talent for realistically describing future climate catastrophes, but Dark and wild shore raises the personal stakes in a visceral way. — Nathan Ingraham, Associate Editor

Lunar flow by Karella bitter

This book is a chaotic and deeply strange roller coaster ride that gave me whiplash on several occasions, and I loved it. Be careful, this is not for the faint of stomach. It’s horrible, hilarious, nauseating and somehow both a really good and a really bad time. Lunar flow is told through two narratives, one following Sarah, a trans woman and mushroom seller who has found herself in dire straits, and the other following the henchwomen of a deranged cult who have taken up residence in a cursed forest. After Sarah ventures into these woods in search of the King’s Breakfast, a rare mushroom believed to grant divine understanding to those who consume it, all hell breaks loose.

Karella’s writing is immersive, and it’s the kind of book you can see, feel, hear, and smell, for better and for worse. Every person in this book is like a caricature of someone I’ve encountered at some point in my life, and the names of the cult members are just… chef’s kiss. Some of them made me scream. It’s completely unpredictable – except in the few moments where it seems like the author wants you to know Exactly where things go just to make you dread the inevitable. While reading Lunar flow was a visceral and unforgettable experience. — Cheyenne MacDonald, Weekend Editor

Simplicity by Mattie Lubchansky

Another one about a sect, except this sect rules. I picked up Simplicity knowing nothing about it, except that everyone on the internet seemed to be praising it and was thrilled to find out that it takes place near me, in New York’s Hudson Valley, in a future version of the Catskills. And here in the Hudson Valley, I often feel like I’m one or two innocuous decisions away from accidentally joining a cult, so there was an immediate connection. In SimplicityThe year is 2081 and New York is a high-tech dystopia run by a billionaire. North of the city, however, various communities have settled off-grid, including a group called The Spiritual Association of Peers.

Lucius Pasternak, a trans man, is sent on an anthropological mission by the mayor to SAP’s Simplicity compound, and it doesn’t take long for their uninhibited lifestyle to begin to grow on him. But Lucius soon begins having strange dreams, and a series of violent attacks shakes up the community. Through his mission to understand the people of SAP and later find and stop the entity targeting them, a beautiful story about homosexuality, identity, belonging and the fight for what is important unfolds. This looks like the kind of book that should be handed out among friends who have just get itand I imagine many readers will feel incredibly seen as I do. -CM

The buffalo hunter by Stephen Graham Jones

Or that of Stephen Graham Jones Interview with the vampire. The buffalo hunter blends historical fiction and horror to give us one of the most impactful vampire novels of our time – a novel that serves as an uncomfortable but necessary reminder of the atrocities committed against the indigenous peoples of the United States by white settlers. It begins with the discovery of a ruined diary that purports to contain the confessions of a Blackfoot-turned-vampire named Good Stab, as told to Lutheran pastor Arthur Beaucarne. What follows is a harrowing chronicle of massacre, heartbreak, and revenge. It’s a classic in the making. — CM

Island by Allegra Goodman

Historical fiction is how I trick my brain into possibly learning something. And because the endings are set, the author must involve you in the drama with more than just the peril of an unknown outcome. I fell deep into Wolf Hall although I knew whose heads Henry VIII cut off. I thought Island could be just as rewarding.

It tells the story of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval, a young French noblewoman who was intentionally abandoned on an island off the coast of Canada in 1542. The story is based on historical documents, so you know the plot won’t follow safety regulations. formulasbut my GodI wasn’t prepared for how hard things would be for Marguerite.

Her problems began long before she found herself fighting for survival on a wild, uninhabited island with harsh winters. From birth, almost every happiness has been compromised by more dominant forces, but woman has never stopped moving forward. Fortunately, Goodman draws the character of Marguerite not as a tired, plucky heroine with grit and a wink, but as a perceptive and pragmatic being who also gives in to her impulses and doesn’t have everything figured out.

Island is beautifully rendered, from the stone castles to the creaking ships and raw abundance of the island. Although the story takes place over 400 years ago, nothing seems dated. Human versus universe is an unfair battle, but I had Marguerite’s back on every page – and those pages turned quickly. — Amy Skorheim, Senior Reporter, Buying Advice

Old soul by Susan Barker

This was one of the first books I read this year and it really had an impact on me. Old soul travels through time and across the world, through multiple storylines to trace the devastating impact of a mysterious woman who seems to defy the rules of mortality and always leave tragedy in her wake. Barker writes Old soul draws the reader in and doesn’t let go. It’s a slow, unsettling burn that did a great job of getting under my skin. — CM

Meet me at the crossroads by Megan Giddings

If a door appeared out of nowhere, would you walk through it without knowing what lies beyond or if you would be able to return? In Meet me at the crossroadsseven doors open one day across the world and, unsurprisingly, people are captivated by them. Ordinary people tempt fate, the ultra-rich plan exclusive excursions through them, religions form around their mystique. Ayanna is a teenager who grew up in one of these religions. She is also a twin and has a sister named Olivia from whom she was separated after their parents separated. When it comes time for Ayanna to walk through one of the doors as part of a ceremony, Olivia makes a last-second decision to accompany her. What follows is the continuation of this decision. Meet me at the crossroads is a haunting and emotional journey. — CM

Woodworking by Emily St. James

I’m a middle-aged white cisgender man, so the experience of learning and accepting a different gender identity is something I will never fully understand. But woodworking, the debut novel by Emily St. James, is a hilarious, tragic, and ultimately hopeful look at two trans women going through different moments of acceptance in their lives. Erica is a recently divorced 30-something high school teacher who has just realized that she is trans, which no one else knows about her at first. His student, 17-year-old Abigail, is his opposite: she proudly displays her identity in an unusual and dangerous way in her busy small South Dakota town.

Their paths cross and Abigail finds herself in the uncomfortable and somewhat unethical role of helping Erica find herself. After all, she’s confident and unafraid of who she is – but she’s also still a teenager, dealing with major trauma herself. The dual perspective of these two protagonists, each with sections of the book told from their own point of view, gave me a vivid picture of the different challenges, emotions and dangers trans people face. But the unexpected community that develops around the two characters clearly shows the value of living as yourself in a way that (hopefully) everyone should be able to relate to. -NEITHER