I was able to achieve this year’s reading goal (yay). Since 2023, my reading goal has been the same: read 12 books in a year. This number feels right to me—it’s not too many, but still personally challenging enough.
Here are the 12 books I read in 2025 (with quickie reviews), starting with the ones I liked the least:
LOWEST RATED
I rated these books 2 to 2.5 stars
1. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Annoying kid. Mean boy. Bad friend.
2. The Friend Zone
It started great, then went downhill from there.
3. Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop
• Lukewarm and boring (I struggled to finish this)
• It feels like the author binged a bunch of self-help books and proceeded to create a fictional story around their takeaways
• Had a hard time remembering who’s who half the time
SOMEWHERE IN THE MIDDLE
4. The Art of Spending Money
• Good concepts but severely and annoyingly repetitive
• Understanding and being less judgy of people’s money behaviours
• Reaffirms my kakuriputan (or let’s just say.. frugality 😉)
5. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder
• Page turner
• Sa sobrang wild nung ending, parang naging pilit
• Took away a whole star from my rating for killing that poor dog!
SOLID READS
6. Yellowface
• Intriguing
• Extremely unlikeable characters
• Infuriating on purpose
7. The Graveyard Book
• Magical lore
• Family and friendships
• Creepy in a sort of sweet and melancholic way
8. Show Your Work
• Share what you love and the right people will find you
• Not feeling guilty about your guilty pleasures
• Giving attributions is the respectful and right thing to do
9. The Myth of Normal
• Unhealthy mental patterns (”stupid friends”) are learned coping mechanisms and exist for a purpose—but they are outdated.
• Choosing to respond differently to the “stupid friends”
• The importance of humour and play
10. Wild Dark Shore
• A page turner
• Love how the author writes about the nature setting and how she made it one of the characters
• I need a movie adaptation please!
5-STAR FAVOURITES!
11. The Omnivore’s Dilemma
• We are dominated by corn
• Didn’t expect to be so entertained by farming
• Such a masterful storyteller
12. Born a Crime
• Starting this book in the middle of the night was a bad idea dahil nawala ang antok ko kakatawa
• Trevor Noah is now my crush!
• You have to listen to the audiobook version
With an average rating of 3.63 stars, this was a pleasant enough reading year for me. I liked the variety of my 2025 reads. Siguro kung meron akong idadagdag, nakapagbasa sana ako ng kahit isang classic (I started reading Emma in November pero hindi ko natapos).
To more 5-star reads in 2026!
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Gleniz da Menace 