The Ten Best Books I've Read in 2025

2025 blew chunks. It's not exactly a shocking claim to make given that this year was just a nonstop ride of one shitty incident after another. But hey, at least I read some good books that helped get my mind off the rapidly gaining collapse of society as a whole. But what were my favorites of this year? The ones that made things more bearable than other books did? Well, let's find out. We covered some books that earned high marks this year, including two that made it to the rarified A+ territory. So let's look back at the best of the blog for 2025. 

#01: WELCOME TO THE WICKED WAX MUSEUM

We were back on the Give Yourself Goosebumps horse this year. And of all the ones that were covered, none landed as incredibly as this one. A twisting and turning book about evil wax museum scientists and one of the best villains in Goosebumps in Sybil Wicked. Both adventures being quite thrilling and fun. But what makes this book one of the best I've ever read for the blog is the endings. The selling point of GYG is the bad endings that the player can encounter. And this one has to many freaky ones. There are two that stick with me like hot wax. The first has the player awakening and noticing their eyes are ten feet apart. They see the ear of their friend Liz and other strewn about facial features to which they realize their faces have been torn off and weren't used for Sybil's experiment. That might be one of the rare Goosebumps twists that could generate real nightmares. And then the book tops that by having the player and Liz get put in the Deboner machine, with the player awakening to realize they're now nothing more than skin rugs. This is some Gein level fucked up shit for Goosebumps and I love it. The biggest flaw of Goosebumps is that it rarely pushed the envelope on horror and sometimes when it does you get some good dark imagery from Stine. And for that, this book deserves all the praise in the world. Proof that Stine can try. 

#02: CAMP OUT

We entered the world of New Fear Street this year. Though it's not really NEW Fear Street so much as it had to change publishers. And the second book in the series gives us a solid thriller in the mountain as Maria and her friends deal with two murderous teens, while also having to worry if another teen, Bret, is somehow more evil than they are. He isn't, and he saves the day, but I dunno. You start the book swinging an ice ax at someone it's hard to take you seriously as the hero of the tale. This story isn't the most fresh idea, especially from Stine, but I still really enjoyed it. I think the setting being outside of Shadyside helped as we don't get too many Fear Street books that involve the mountains and the woods. So as a survival thriller it does what it needs to do and does it quite well. Not well enough to feel like NEW Fear Street, but still well enough to make for an enjoyable read. And that feels like an equivalent enough exchange.

#03: THE DEPARTURE

This book had a lot of weight on its shoulders. It was the first book following the mess that was In the Time of Dinosaurs, and also focused on Cassie, who up to this point had okay books but not a book that really highlighted her character in a strong manner. And this book passed with flying colors. It also is the first book to really look at the Yeerks from a different angle. That for as evil as the book presents them, they aren't incapable of change. In the case of Aftran, a Yeerk who infests a little girl named Karen, she wrestles with if she should keep Karen controlled or free her and lose the ability to see and experience the world outside of her Yeerk form. And it requires Cassie making a major sacrifice. One that ultimately is nerfed by the end with an asspull, but an asspull I can forgive when the book is so strong in story. It's proof as to what makes Animorphs such a good series. It has major stumbling points, but when it's good it's really good.

#04: GOODBYE STACEY, GOODBYE

Say what you will about Ann M. Martin, she knew how to take risks. To remove a beloved main character thirteen books into a popular book series was a risky move. Stacey moves back to New York and with her departure is the first true sense of a status quo shift in the series. It's one of those things I wish I was able to experience in real time because I'd love to know how readers of the books in the time when they first started releasing truly felt about this. Martin never intended this to be the end of Stacey's story in the series, and clearly she wanted to involve her New York adventures more into the series, but it never fully panned out, and by the end of the twenties, Stacey was back in Stoneybrook. But for her sendoff, we thankfully get a strong book out of it. How the club handles it, how Stacey's favorite kid to sit Charlotte Johanssen handles it. You get this real sense of how important these girls are to one another and to the kids they sit for. It's a fun and somewhat emotional sendoff, though thankfully not the end for everyone's favorite diabetic. 

#05: THE ENCHANTED ATTIC

Shivers hit the backburner this year hard. Not intentionally so much as the amount of books to cover is starting to dwindle and access to some of them is getting trickier. Might soon be one of those "wing and a prayer they're cheap to get on eBay unlike certain other series (COUGHFEARSTREETCOUGH)" situations. But I did cover the first book in the series at long last and I really like this one. There's some solid creepy atmosphere, the dynamic between Nicole and Casey is better than I feared going in, and the curse and the evil dolls that come to life in the darkness are freaky scenarios that do work in terms of horror. Granted, you're not getting one of the wilder books in the Shivers line, but what is there still makes for a good horror book and one of my favorites in the series. 

#06: JESSI'S SECRET LANGUAGE

We ran through a lot of BSC in the second half of this year. That was by design honestly. It feels like a fun project to do with quick and simple books to cover. And while Jessi's first appearance book wasn't too great, her first lead book was really good. You could chalk this to feeling like a "very special episode" in book form given that the story involves Jessi sitting for a deaf kid, but the book smartly doesn't try to treat Matt's deafness like a true handicap, making it clear that he's a normal kid despite. But what sold this as a top book was Haley, Matt's sister, who has conflicting issues when it comes to her brother, loving him but also wishing he wasn't born because she has to be the one who has to take care of him so much. Which is believable. You don't really get the emotions and feelings of the siblings of someone with a disability, so to add dimension to Haley like this is smart writing from Ann M. Martin. It's also just a cute book, and the finale with the ballet is up there in terms of my favorite mega happy endings that this series provides.

#07: THE SECRET PATH

Christopher Pike and kids horror seems like a recipe for disaster given how he handles his teen horror. But the inaugural Spooksville story is really good. Granted, it suffers from being a first book in a serialized story, meaning that we spend a lot of the book building Springville/Spooksville and its eccentric characters. Adam is a solid lead and Sally and Watch strong secondaries. As for the story itself, it works in terms of a horror adventure and does give some great scary imagery like with the skeleton hands for example. The witch is an interesting villain that I do wish we got more of an answer about, but then again, this is the first book. So color me intrigued to see how this series plays out. Hope to be back to it soon next year to continue the story, but for now, this is a strong first showing.

#08: ATTACK OF THE BEASTLY BABY-SITTER

This book doesn't make the list so much for the content within, even though it's still a solid Give Yourself Goosebumps book. It makes the list for the fact that it does what I feel many of the books don't do that well. Feel like a gamebook. So many branching paths require mini-games. Whether it be mazes in the book itself, or needing certain items to continue the path in one way or another. Rolling dice, pushing a coin on a flat surface, a whole frigging path that requires melting ice cubes. It actually feels like Stine tried with this one. And while the main Fun Zone path isn't as strong, the Dare path is, giving us one of the more unique villains in the franchise with a very unique design of living tattoos that disappear each time he loses a challenge. So while not the book with the deepest story, it's still a book that feels fun to run through, which makes it stand out as one of the more memorable books. 

#09: HAUNTED

R.L. Stine is not a great mystery writer, but you know what they say about a broken watch. Haunted is one of the more interesting Fear Street books because it does feel like Stine tried with the mystery at hand. How Melissa is being haunted by the ghost of a boy named Paul who hasn't even died yet, but blames her for his inevitable death. And as the story progresses we learn that Paul wasn't a good person, so much so that even his ghost realizes it. And it doesn't become a story about trying to change fate, what has to happen still happens. I also like how the book addresses class issues. How the rich treat the poor, even though Melissa doesn't act like her friends, Paul still thought of her as being just as cruel. It also leaves you wondering if Paul earned his redemption. Because the living Paul, for as much as you could see his issue with class, still was an abusive drunk prick. So if by having his spirit see the errors of his life, does that truly absolve him? Should we the reader forgive this abuser? See? This is how you write a book about a spirit seeking forgiveness. You don't have them be the reason for a genocide. We don't often get that spiritual with Stine's writing, so it's always appreciated to see him try and actually succeed at something. Also no annoying gotcha stingers so yeah, this earns points for that alone

#10: WHY I QUIT THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB

Bone Chillers won the best of the 2025 by a landslide. I really feel of all the GB-Likes, they remain the most consistent. Rife with some of the best nightmare imagery. And this might be the strongest book in the series that I've covered so far. I love how the mystery of the baby builds. How Rosie has to keep dealing with the strange things surrounding the Pendreds. How more and more the book builds to how the baby might not be human. Even down to the dark origin of how the baby was kept alive after being ran over. And then boom, the book reveals that the baby was a dog this entire time. A dangerous dog that Rosie has to try to survive. And if that was all this book had to offer, it would still be a top book. But it's the climax that makes this book one of the strongest. Because Rosie discovers the Pendred's corpses in a car accident. Which is such a dark turn that I honestly love it. And the finale of having to electrocute the dog to kill it is also wonderfully dark. This feels like a book that could have worked as a movie. A mystery strong enough to keep interest and horror and action that satisfy. Bone Chillers continues to win for me. Which is why it sucks that it'll no doubt take forever to get to the others. Unless someone wants to give me 600 bucks for a copy of Killer Clown of Kings County (Don't do that actually for the love of god). 

And that's 2025 for the blog. It's hard to look at the bitter with the sweet, and this year was super bitter. But as the world continues to go to hell, at least I had some fun enough distractions with these books. 2026 doesn't look to be any less bitter, but hey, maybe I'll find ten books that at least made living through another year of super hell worth it. Time will tell, I guess. I just hope you stick with me for the ride.