everything I read in December
Some very good fiction, some horrendous historical fiction and the best nonfiction read of my year. Let's get into it!
Lately: The weather in St. Louis has been positively spring-like, which is amazing and also a horrendous tease. I’m also grappling with the fact that there’s a five-pound human living in one of my overly enlarged organs, which has prevented me from engaging as much I’d like to with the 65-degree temperatures. I’ve just settled for keeping the door to the screened in porch open during the daylight hours and tricking myself into thinking I’ve gotten fresh air. … I won’t bore you all with my reading stats from 2025, since I count the Spotify Wrapped day as the worst on the calendar, but I’ll share this: I finished 62 books, and I set my goal for 2026 at 50. It’s funny, having no idea how a looming life event will effect literally every single one of your ingrained habits and routines. Maybe I’ll read 100 books while this baby naps (and 30 between now and late February, since reading is one of the few pursuits that doesn’t leave me panting for air). Or maybe I’ll have no bandwidth whatsoever. Hopefully the truth lies between those extremes. We’ll know soon enough, and until then, let’s look back on the last batch of 2025 books …
There was a time in my life, five or six years ago, when I felt like every contemporary novel I read grabbed me by the hand and yanked me into its world. These books weren’t uniformly great, but they were immersive. I felt like I was part of the friend groups and families whose dynamics they plumbed. Maybe the pandemic and the post-pandemic literary landscape was just flush with gems. Or maybe I was picking books better than I have for the intervening years. Either way: By the time I hit page 10 of The Ten Year Affair, by Erin Somers, I was experiencing that most perfect reading sensation.
Was this book perfect? No way. But I loved it, and I loved the conceit the author used, sliding fluidly between reality and fantasy as the main character does and does not consummate an affair with a man she meets at a playgroup for her child.
Shred Sisters, by Betsy Lerner, had not quite as firm of a grip, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a page-turner. The story was somewhat predictable, and I felt the narrator kept me at an arm’s length, which worked at times but sometimes sputtered. Even so, I love nothing more than a book that’s at least partially about childhood, told through the eyes of an imperfect adult.
Also on the theme of sisters, the aptly titled The Sisters, by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, which I actually read right before I picked up “Shred Sisters.” (Nothing like staying on a theme.) This is a Book That Is on Lists. I have increasingly become a Person Who Doesn’t Put a Ton of Stock in Lists. Let me tell you, then: The lists are correct! This is a banger of a book, but please don’t bang anything with this book, because it’s also a behemoth.
I’d try to write something incisive about this book to give you a sense for why you should read it, but I’d never be able to say it better than Maris Kreitzman did in her wonderful weekly newsletter, the Maris Review:
What if The Virgin Suicides was narrated by only one neighborhood boy, and it was more about the boy than the Lisbon sisters, and the neighborhood boy's name was Jeffrey Eugenides?
If you knew me and my media habits when I was 15, then you understand why I adored this book.
