Viget’s Favorite Books of 2025

Another year, another favorite books roundup! These aren’t necessarily books published in 2025 — just books that we read and enjoyed this year. Without further ado, our 2025 favorites:

The Burning Stars

Bethany Jacobs

I read These Burning Stars because of a glowing recommendation. What hooked me? "Sci-fi space opera" and "morally grey characters, a.k.a., 'let women do evil things!!'" That pretty much sums it up.

Recommended by Lexie Hull

The Favorites

LAYNE FARGO

The Favorites is a frothy page-turner set in the world of elite ice dancing. This Wuthering Heights-inspired tale follows Kat and Heath from their early days as childhood sweethearts to their run as ice dance champions and ultimately the demise of their partnership at the Olympics. It unfolds through a series of documentary interviews that make the drama leap off the page — you’ll have to remind yourself that these are fictional characters. The audiobook is exceptionally well done and features a full cast which really brings the documentary aspect to life. You won’t want to put this one down.

Recommended by Laura Sweltz

Howl's Moving Castle

DIANA WYNNE JONES

I've finally gotten around to reading Howl's Moving Castle, which, yes, inspired the movie. I like to think of the book and the movie as separate stories, since they're pretty different. It's witty, whimsical, and of course, magical. The book has characters that are flawed but fun to be around, and dives deeper into who Sophie is as she wades through her magical misfortunes. If you want a lighthearted adventure, wizard combat, characters that can be selfish but also sincere, or you just didn't know the movie was based on a book: this one's for you.

Recommended by Jackie Yu

Moloka'i

ALAN BRENNERT

This book had been on my to-read list for years, but when my mom moved to Molokai this summer for work, I knew it was finally time! Starting in 1866, anyone who showed signs of leprosy (Hansen's disease) was exiled to the island of Molokai for lifelong quarantine. This policy, along with the stigma surrounding the disease, lasted until 1969, even as scientists learned more about the disease and its actually very low transmissibility. This sweeping historical fiction follows a girl sent to Molokai as a child and takes you all the way through the 20th century, teaching you so much about Hawaiian history along the way. It's heartbreaking but focused on resilience and the question of how to continue living.

The leprosy settlement of Kalaupapa is located on a spit of land surrounded by the highest sea cliffs in the world, isolated from the rest of the island (where there's a lot more history and communities beyond the settlement). The geography wasn't something I could fully comprehend while reading until I got to see those cliffs in person from a tiny plane while visiting my mom last month. Molokai is a fascinating place in so many ways, and this book was a great read!

Recommended by Natalie Dixon

All Fours

MIRANDA JULY

I've never encountered a book that had me laughing out loud one moment while cringing with the truthful pain of a deeply human challenge the next. Irreverent, honest, and surprising, this book follows a semi-famous artist (a thinly veiled version of Miranda July herself) as she announces her plan to drive across the country from California to New York. Though she doesn't make it further than 30 minutes from her own home, she goes on a very different kind of journey, one of self discovery and creative and sexual reinvention. Exploring themes of aging, motherhood, parenting, partnership, and how it's never too late to mine a different seam of the self, this book was so wonderful I immediately flipped it back over and reread it.

Recommended by Liza Chabot

The Correspondent

VIRGINIA EVANS

This is a beautiful life story of a woman who had both a wonderful and heartbreaking life, but the twist is that it's all told through the letters she writes and receives. She writes to her friends and family, but also authors and screenwriters. She even has a teenage penpal, who's the son of a former colleague. We learned she started her letter writing early in life and has continued it because she finds it's a better way of communicating than the more modern ways like texting or emailing that many - most - others have adopted. The storytelling by interweaving the letters was quite well done, and the nuggets or pieces of stories Evans left really carried through the book. I zipped through this one in a couple of days, and found myself longing for the days of penpals and letters in the mailbox.

Recommended by Kara Sassone

Cutting for Stone

ABRAHAM VERGHESE

Cutting for Stone is a deep and complex novel that I had trouble putting down. Its narrative in beautiful prose follows the members of an ever-growing family in the tightly knit community of the "Missing" Hospital in Addis Ababa, across multiple generations. It combines the relatively recent history of Ethiopia and Eritrea with medical/surgical cases that get a little graphic, and which I might not recommend to the overly squeamish.

While I wouldn't describe it as a light or easy read, it was enjoyable in how engaging it was. It elicited a wide range of deep feelings and kept me on my toes. I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of medical drama (Grey's Anatomy without the soap-opera aspect?) and historical fiction with an intellectual twist.

Recommended by Carolyn Hack

The Last Sun

K.D. Edwards

The Last Sun, the first of a series of books (three written, more promised), offers excellent writing, a consistent first person voice, lots of sarcasm/dry humor, fantastic plot twists, and a great alternate timeline premise: Much of Human mythology, but most directly the Tarot deck, originate as rumors escaping the very real magical society of Atlantis.

Forced in the 1960s to unveil themselves to humanity, the Atlanteans did so by starting and immediately losing a war with Humanity, since it doesn't matter how powerful you are if you are outnumbered a-million-to-one.  Forced to integrate, after a fashion, into the Human world, they discovered that magic can be a very lucrative profession, if you do it well.

The actual story follows the heir of a fallen Atlantean noble family as he and his BFF-since-birth try to navigate a distinctly unfriendly world of politics, intrigue, and violence, along the way somewhat unintentionally saddling themselves with a boyfriend, a gaggle of uniquely-challenging adopted kids, and some pretty nasty enemies.

This book - and indeed the entire series, so far at least - ranks among my top half-dozen favorite book series of all time. I am very optimistic that the author will keep the story going . . . and if he doesn't, each book ends well, so he won't leave us hanging if he wins the lottery and retires.

Content Warning: this book/series does explore plot lines involving abuse/assault (sexual, physical, and mental, both past and present), violence, and drug addiction. While handled with respect and in no way gratuitous, these heavy topics can for short periods make for VERY uncomfortable reading. If you find these topics challenging or triggering, this book/series might be a pass.

Recommended by Matt Sontag

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

GABRIELLE ZEVIN

Outside of the characters and story, I love how it transports you back to older technology and the relationships we had with that hardware and even with the limited limitations compared to now they had still were incredible. 

Side note, discovered that the title comes from Shakespeare's Macbeth, reflecting the monotonous march of time, but in the novel, it also suggests the endless do-overs and possibilities found in the world of video games.

Recommended by Dan Allen

I Believe in Everything: A Memoir of Illness, Motherhood, and Magic

JEN DARY

I had the absolute honor of receiving an advance copy of Jen's debut memoir, I Believe in Everything: A Memoir of Illness, Motherhood, and Magic, which will be released January 13th, 2026. I Believe in Everything is a story about impossible magic and everyday courage. It's pages are full of grace, wonder, inspiration, humor, and in true Jen Dary style, transformational leadership lessons. 

Recommended by Aubrey Lear

Everything is Tuberculosis

JOHN GREEN

This is not a boring, depressing book! John Green is an adept story teller and humble narrator (he's the author of novels like The Fault in Our Stars and Turtles All the Way Down). This is a quick and accessible read that helps you see connections between things you'd never realized before. It's also a wake-up call. 

As Green explains the surprising role tuberculosis has played in culture, history, and science, he also shows us how inequity and injustice operate across the globe. TB is a preventable and curable illness, rare in the US; yet it kills 1.25 million people each year. The way he weaves surprising scientific details in with the story of an individual person's health journey left me engaged and activated rather than despairing.

Read this book and learn the history of TB. Help diminish the stigma of poverty and illness, and advocate for global research, prevention, and treatment.

Recommended by Emily Bloom

Team: Getting Things Done with Others

DAVID ALLEN AND EDWARD LAMONT

I've been a strong advocate of David Allen's GTD system for years, with varying success, but tried to get back into it for real last year. After re-reading "Getting Things Done" and "Making It All Work" I went into the audiobook of Team with a healthy skepticism that there would be anything new, but found tremendous value in the expansion of the GTD personal productivity principles (inboxes, project lists, next action lists, calendars, etc.) outward to the work done both by and within groups. I feel like this book made me a better teammate and consultant, and hope my peers agree.

Recommended by Max Fenton

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

JOHN GREEN

I finished The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green almost exactly a year ago, and honestly? It's exactly what I needed heading into 2025. The whole premise is that Green reviews random aspects of being human. He talks everything from Canada Geese to Sunsets (my personal favorite essay) on a five-star scale, which sounds kind of gimmicky... until you realize it's actually this incredibly thoughtful meditation on paying attention to life. My take away going into 2025 was how hopeful he was at a time when I admittedly was not. When he writes about anxiety or climate change or loss, he doesn't pretend everything's fine, but he also shows you how finding meaning in small, weird, beautiful things is its own kind of resistance. He shares that gratitude isn't about pretending everything's perfect, it's about choosing to notice what matters anyway. If you want something that'll recalibrate your perspective without being preachy, pick this up. Five stars, no question.

Recommended by Bre Corn

If you’re interested in purchasing one of these books, we encourage you to order it from an indie bookstore. If you don’t already have a go-to indie, you can check out some of our favorites here. Feel free to share your favorite books from 2025 in the comments. Happy reading!