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.