My reading year 2025

I had an excellent reading year. I set out an ambitious goal of 250 books on Goodreads Reading Challenge and ended up reading 260 books. Of those, 47 were novels and 209 were manga that I actually finished, on top of which I reviewed four novels that I didn’t completely finish, for whatever reason, which brings the total to 260 for the challenge, 256 for my personal tally.

A little over half of my reading was reviewing copies, 138 titles in total. Manga came mostly from Edelweiss and novels from NetGalley. Much of the rest was manga too, mostly online, and the rest were novels either from a library or purchases. I’ve reviewed the novels on this blog, with monthly recaps of the rest, until September when publishing of Season to Be Witched took my attention and I didn’t pick up the habit later.

Most of my reading for pleasure was Chinese BL romances, which there are finally plenty of on offer, and I’m woefully behind on them. But there were other novels too that made an impact. There were two new additions to Katherine Addison’s The Goblin Emperor world, a surprise novella The Orb of Cairado and The Tomb of Dragons. Both were excellent like always.

Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki’s Conjecture by Mikage Sawamura, light novels and manga both, kept delighting me as well. There was a new series starter from Anne Bishop, Turns of Fate, which might be my new favourite from her, and a great historical crime novel with gay romance from KJ Charles, The Copper Script. But the true gems were missing from my reading this year.

From the abundance of manga rises some titles, like Sanctify by Godsstation, which was in three volumes; Otaku Vampire’s Love Bite by Julietta Suzuki, of which I read vols 2-6 this year, the excellent Solo Leveling by Chugong & Dubu, of which I read everything from vol. 4 onwards online, and also binged the anime on Crunchyroll. I binged the entire I Ship My Rival x Me by Pepa online, which is good, because the official publication keeps pushing back. 

There were vols 5-10 of The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity by Saka Mikami, which is always delightful—and now also an anime on Netflix. I also binged Monthly Girls’ Nozaki-kun by Izumi Tsubaki, 13 vols so far. The whole long series is silly and fun. But my absolute favourite manga this year was The Apothecary Diaries by Nekokurage and Natsu Hyuuga, 15 volumes so far. Also available as an anime on Crunchyroll. On top of these come the numerous review copies and online series I didn’t have energy to review.

I’m trying to read a bit less next year, especially review copies, mostly because the deadlines keep stressing me out, and I’m always behind. But I’ll be definitely reading for pleasure. That’ll never change. And I’ll try to keep you up to date of my reading on this blog.

 

Blind Date with a Werewolf by Patricia Briggs: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Blind Date with a Werewolf by Patricia Briggs

This is an in-between story to Briggs’ Alpha & Omega series and follows a side-character Asil Moreno, aka The Moor. He’s an ancient werewolf who has all but lost the ability to control his wolf and has lived with the Marrok’s pack for years so that the alpha can end his life should his wolf get free. He’s basically expected to die ever since.

But his ‘concerned friends’ think he has more to offer than hunting rouge werewolves. They’ve set a challenge for him and made it so he can’t easily refuse. He has to attend five dates of their choosing, with certain requirements about the duration of the date and number of bodies allowed at the end of it, which is zero.

The book consists of five short stories depicting each date. Some are new, some published earlier. I hadn’t read any of the latter and I think they’ve been reworked a little to form an organic whole for this book. Asil’s friends have been very creative in finding suitable dates for him and he can expect pretty much anything. He goes with open mind to each, so when one woman turns out to be a man—a prank by the boy’s friends—he’s not fazed and simply sets out to create a lovely evening for them both.

But one after another, the dates turn to some kind of carnage. There are vampires that he has to kill so they can’t prey on innocent people, black witches who have a reason to kill him, and damsels in distress to save. By the fourth date, he’s fairly sure there are larger forces in play than merely his concerned friends trying to liven up his life. And too many seem to have some kind of connection to his greatest enemy, his late foster daughter Mariposa who destroyed his life. Everything culminates in the final story, which puts him against a powerful vampire from his past.

But it’s not solely a carnage for him. The dates lead to a truly unexpected result: a woman whose mere presence calms his wolf. It makes him hope for the first time in centuries that he might not lose control of it, and that he might have a lovely future ahead of him still. If the vampire doesn’t kill him first.

This was a delightful, fairly fast read. All dates were interesting, except the second one which gave us only the aftermath. Asil turned out to be an intelligent and wryly amusing character who was a victim of his complicated past. The love-story suffered a little from the short form, as did the epic battle at the end, but that was only a small issue. All in all, this formed a great whole and a fun book.

I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.