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I did a book crawl this year around march and really found the love of reading again. I know a lot of it is trash by literature standards but I've enjoyed the escapism quite a bit. My favorite was Moonbound, maybe my favorite sci-fi book of all time tbh. I also enjoyed the House of Salt and Sorrows, Bitterblue, and Sea Sparrow quite a bit.
What were your favorite books?
https://bookshop.org/p/books/a-game-in-yellow-hailey-piper/567aec11eab5b2e5
"A Game In Yellow"
You can click the link and read the description, but it's one of those books that's much more enjoyable if you go in absolutely cold with no knowledge of the plot.
Tanith Lee pretty much created the weird fantasy genre.
Night's Master tells the story of the Demon Prince who travels the world after sunset, seducing or terrorizing humanity
Will check out thanks for the recommendation! Sounds right up my alley
I've been pushing Tanith Lee since I first read her, and Hailey Piper is coming up strong.
I love being able to share books I love with people.
Happy New Year
Me too, being able to share something you love is such a rush. I gave a copy of Moonbound to one of my best friends and one to my wife and they both said it was one of their favorites. I rode that high for at least a month! Looking forward to checking out both Tanith Lee and Hailey Piper when I get a chance. Happy new year!
I don't think I've heard of any of these except the Pratchett!
Do you fancy advertising any of the fantasy titles? I've not read any truly great fantasy for a while (but have read loads of excellent sci-fi)
If you're ok with it being a little YA the Graceling series was great, especially Bitterblue and Sea Sparrow.
I liked the Cruel Prince, very Fae focused fantasy. If you're down for an Arabian nights vibe the Wrath and the Dawn was good.
The House of Salt and Sorrow and it's sequel both caught me off guard with twists that had me yelling at my ereader when I found out that book three hadn't been published yet.
I didn't read it this year, but A Court of Thorns and Roses series is really popular. I enjoyed it a lot but the first book imo is the worst so you need a bit of an investment. Firmly 'romantasy', if you jive with that.
What's some of your favorite sci-fi? I love the genre but have a bad track record with actually liking the writing style of a lot of sci-fi I find (obviously Moonbound was an exception).
I might read ACoTaR, but need to dig a little deeper. I have no opposition to love and smut in my fiction, but the "romance" label makes me think of Barbara Cartland and extremely predictable comfort reads which is not my thing.
Yea I don't think ACoTaR is romance in that way, but if you're really willing to push your boundaries of predicability and comfort you might like the Bone Island series. Personally I hated how it made me feel, but it definitely made me feel something, especially the second book. My initial thought was jfc the author needs to seek therapy. Do you have any love/smut that you do like? I love love, but haven't enjoyed any romance books that come from the pastel covered romance section of the bookstore which is why most of my books lean fantasy romance.
[Edit] You might also like a study in drowning. The book has you questioning the reliability of the narrator in a fairly interesting way and I enjoyed the light romance.
Hmm, sounds like bone island might not be up my street... I read The Fifth Season and sequels but there was just a lot of suffering. Same with the Farseer series.
I liked Kushiel's Dart a lot, that's definitely the most obvious one!
I dont think there is trash literature. I think you should read what you like so just enjoy.
We have multiple books in common :) Fourth Wing series and Curel Prince Series 😊
I'm seeing a lot of stories along the lines of "I read xxx books this year" and, well, fuck me, I don't keep track of that kind of thing.
2026? I absolutely will. I don't know HOW yet, but I'll take notes.
Hardcover is a new website for book tracking that I like right now, Story Graph is a slightly less polished but similar website and Good reads is the most popular one
They all have apps, so I downloaded each of them and, what the heck, I'll try out all four and see what I like! Might be a good thing to add to year end 2026... "Here's what I read and here's how the book apps compare!"
I used storygraph but I'm not really sold on it. Going to look at some of the other alternatives in this thread!
StoryGraph
Another option to check out is Hardcover
I went back through my e-reader in October and checked the last modified times on the metadata file to work out what I'd at least finished in 2025, then went forward from there.
I've tried Fable, and it seems neat, but I'm not currently in the habit of going to an app to tell it I read that day and as far as I can tell I can't say "yes, I read yesterday".
Try Fable?
it's like GoodReads, but actually good.
I read the red Queen series a bit ago. I read North Woods this year too. What did you think of it?
What was your favourite book this year?
I thought the Red Queen series was alright, but didn't end up finishing it. It really reminded me of the Hunger Games for some reason and I just wasn't feeling the vibes. North Woods was fascinating. I read it after seeing a screenshot of the beetle erotica bit. I'm definitely glad I did. It wasn't the character driven narrative I normally go for (unless you want to make the argument that the house was the main character which honestly is a pretty good argument), but I found it charming and mysterious. Not my favorite but fun.
My favorite is definitely Moonbound. 10/10, incredible sci-fi book that blurs the lines with fantasy without getting too Chronicles of Riddick if you know what I mean.
I weirdly don't remember the red Queen series almost at all, which is weird.
I didn't really like North Woods; I think I prefer a classic narrative driving the story.
100% with you on Red Queen. As soon as it was about armies and a revolutionary force and all that it just kinda faded in interest. I think honestly just too YA for me. All I remember is that the people have powers and there's a cool walled city or something?
I totally get North Woods, it was strange. The supernatural bits felt a little out of place at the end. Definitely a love letter to naturalism though.
What are some of your favorite books?
That's such a hard question!!!
I really liked the dark materials series growing up.
I recently read The Constant Rabbit by Jasper Fforde which was brilliant.
I have also loved the Fallen Gods trilogy by Hannah Kaner.
I also have reread Ready Player One a few times.
All of the Hunger Games books I have found to be easy to read and intriguing.
Have you read the opposite of butterfly hunting? It was very out of my normal reading but was brilliant.