5 books I can't wait to read in 2025

HELLO, and happy end of December! I have no idea how we got here, but 2024 is indeed coming to a close. I don’t know about you, but I am READY TO TURN THE PAGE. I accidentally typed “restive” instead of “festive” to a friend the other day, and these are the vibes I want to bring into the new year!

My year in reading

This year, SO FAR (yes, I’m still saying “so far,” we have four wholeass days until we can close the book on 2024!), I’ve read 91 books. 81 of those were published in 2024, and 75 were in audio form! '

I wrote about my 10 favorites from 2024 in last week’s newsletter, and I had a truuuuly delightful conversation about them on my friend Traci’s podcast The Stacks.

Because I can’t help myself, I also compiled this list of some of the books I really enjoyed but didn’t get a chance to properly shout and flail about. This list is in alphabetical order and includes a somewhat unhinged series of words to describe each one!

• The Most, Jessica Anthony: A woman won’t get out of her swimming pool! She has secrets!!!!!!!

• Banal Nightmare, Halle Butler: Millennial angst! Earnestness! Messiness! Snark!!

• The Rom-Commers, Katherine Center: Romance!!! Rom-com script writing!

• Four Squares, Bobby Finger: Queer! Sweet! Cozy!

• Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space, Adam Higginbotham: TRAGEDY!!!!!! SYSTEMIC FAILURES! IS NASA THE AMERICAN DREAM OR AN AMERICAN NIGHTMARE?????

• The Arizona Triangle, Sydney Graves: Queer private eye! (Not for the weak of heart! The ending is bruuuuutal!)

• The Prospects, KT Hoffman: A lovely sweet trauma-free trans baseball romance!!!

• Oye, Melissa Mogollon: Teenage angst!!!

• How to Leave the House, Nathan Newman: Ennui!!!!!!!!

• Greta & Valdin, Rebecca K. Reilly: Warm weird family! New Zealand!

• Big Fan, Alexandra Romanoff: Political strategist + former boy band heartthrob!!!

• The History of Sound, Ben Shattuck: Weird New England short stories!

• Nightwatching, Tracy Sienna: A solid thriller!!!

• Lifeform, Jenny Slate: Weird weirdness from one of the best weirdos!!!

• The Skunks, Fiona Warnick: Skunks!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 books I’m most excited about in 2025!!!

photo courtesy bookshop.org

With the new year comes a host of NEW BOOKS, and there are already so many I can’t wait to read! Here are the five I’m most excited about:

Jan. 14: Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor

Nnedi is amazing and the premise of this one is really intriguing.

Feb. 25: Back After This, Linda Holmes

Linda Holmes writes sweet, lovely, SMART rom coms and I can’t wait for this one.

March 11: The Antidote, Karen Russell

Karen Russel is the first person I ever interviewed at a live bookstore event and she will always have a special place in my heart.

May 13: Run for the Hills, Kevin Wilson

I will follow Kevin wherever his wonderful novels take me!!!!!

June 14: Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, V.E. Schwab

The phrase Victoria keeps using to describe this one is “toxic lesbian vampires” and I’m HERE FOR IT.

A couple of upcoming events!

• I’m super excited to get to talk to Nnedi Okorafor about her new book with Bookends and Beginnings on Wednesday, Jan. 15! Here’s a link to tickets.

• I’m doing a virtual event with comedian Michelle Buteau on Thurs Jan. 23!!!!!!!!!!! Sign up for it here!

• Speaking of Zoom!!! I’m hosting a crafty zoom happy hour on Saturday, Jan. 25 at 5pm CT. If you’d like to come, email me at gretamjohnSEN@gmail.com!

• And it you want to talk about Sally Rooney’s novel Intermezzo with the GRETAGRAM book club this Sunday, just email me for a link! gretamjohnsen@gmail.com. We start at noon Central!

All right, that’s it for this week. Hope you’re all managing to have some restive times!

P.S. Do you like this email?! Spread the delight and forward it to a friend! (Or spam an enemy, lol!)