We couldn’t close out 2025 without a Best Books of the Year episode with my “real life book club” members Yasmin and Steph.
Since I closed the 10 Things To Tell You podcast this summer, I’ve decided to post this annual year-end conversation on Secret Stuff, free and public for all to enjoy just like you did on 10TTTY, but now in a different spot.
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It was a weird reading year for everyone, as you’ll hear us discuss, which led to an uncommon mutual favorite novel, and also some differences of opinion on some of the picks. This conversation felt like the best parts of book club, gushing over a shared love and dissecting our differences of opinions on a different title.
Of course, we also couldn’t help but talk about the books we didn’t like in 2025 in a bonus conversation for Secret Stuff members only.
If you're a bookworm, make sure you check out:
2026 Secret Stuff Book Selections
SLOW READ: The Stand (which starts January 1!)
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Favorite Books of 2025:
Mutual Favorite:
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Yasmin’s Favorites:
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir by Molly Jong-Fast
The House of My Mother by Shari Franke
Steph’s Favorites:Heart the Lover by Lily King
Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
Laura’s Favorites:
What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown
Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik
The Names by Florence Knapp
Also Discussed:
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
A Woman of Independent Means by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Writers and Lovers by Lily King
Colored Television by Danzy Senna
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
The Knockout Queen by Rufi Thorpe
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
The Measure by Nikki Erlick
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
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