📚 My 5-Star Reads of 2025

This year I seem to have gravitated toward speculative fiction. These are books and short stories that bend reality and question social systems. Whether dystopian, psychological, or quietly surreal, they offered me more than plot: they gave me perspective. Because of their unique stories and characters, these are my five star reads of 2025.

✨ Speculative fiction standouts  

- All Systems Red — M. Wells

- 1984 — G. Orwell  

- The Yellow Wallpaper — C. Gilman  

- I Who Have Never Known Men — J. Harpman  

- We Used to Live Here — M. Kliewer

💫 Unique romance with heart & humor  

- Good Spirits — B. Borison  

- The Fall Risk — A. Jimenez

🎨 Historical fiction that felt like art  

- Girl with a Pearl Earring — T. Chevalier

🚆 Psychological suspense  

- The Girl on the Train — P. Hawkins

If you love speculative fiction and stories that quietly whisper long after you finish reading them, then you may enjoy these too.
 

I hope to finish one more book but overall I'm very pleased with my reading this year.

Good Spirits: Love Knitted Through Every Stitch in Time

 

** Slight spoilers: 

Good Spirits is sweet and full of heart. I was pleasantly surprised. B.K. Borison transforms the Ghost of Christmas Past into a romantic lead who brings some wonderful Christmas magic to life for Harriet. Nolan’s presence is warm (for a ghost) and sincere, while Harriet’s journey from self-sacrifice to self-discovery feels relatable. Their connection is tender and cute. The way Harriet and Nolan step into and witness each other's histories make their connection believable despite the short timeline. Now, where are my knitted mittens?! ;) 

"I Who Have Never Known Men" - Between Captivity and Infinity

 

This book isn’t for everyone. It won’t tie up loose ends, but those answers aren’t the point anyway. 

The novel has no chapters, and in its 188 pages, you plunge into a place where time isn’t measured as we know it. The story is rich, quick, and deeply thoughtful. What does it offer most? Witness. A strange intimacy. The power of the mind, dignity, resilience.

Some of my favorite quotes are below:

“Perhaps you never have time when you are alone? You only acquire it by watching it go by in others.”

 “For a very long time the days went by, each just like the day before. Then I began to think, and everything changed.”  

 “I am writing… for some unknown reader who will probably never come… But if that person comes… my story added to their mind will become part of their thinking.”

A Year of Wishes: Inspired by Snow White (Dec)

My Wishing Well Jar

Across cultures, people make wishes in different ways. Examples range from coins cast into fountains to ribbons knotted on trees, from blowing out birthday candles to dreams whispered to shooting stars. 

This month, I am reflecting on Snow White. She's a character who is associated with innocence and kindness. The Brothers Grimm tale and the Disney’s version are quite different. Disney softened the darker edges of the original tale, giving us a young teenager who at one point sings her wishes into a well as she hopes to find her forever love. That image of Snow White has become iconic. 

When people revisit Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs  today, they often dismiss her as naïve and outdated. But if you set aside society’s bent towards criticism and look at her simply as a teenager, this moment at the wishing well becomes strikingly authentic. At fourteen, wishing for "love" to find her is not foolish but deeply human. Disney’s Snow White sings about her hopes with sincerity and playfulness. That act of naming what she longs for mirrors the way many of us, especially when younger, give voice to our dreams. Her wishing well scene is less about naivety and more about the courage to hope openly. And this challenged me. 

In response, I created my own "wishing well' or jar so I have a space for my wishes and little seeds of possibility. Each slip of paper will become a reminder of what I longed for in the moment. I had AI help me with prompts!

For several years I've kept a ‘Good Things’ jar and filled it with positive moments which helped remind me how much good happens in one year. Check an example out here. This wishing well is different. It honors the act of hoping itself. At the end of 2026, I’ll revisit these wishes to see how they shaped my life, even if they unfolded in unexpected ways.  

Some may wonder about the difference between a wish and a prayer. To me, a prayer is a conversation with God, rooted in trust and relationship. A wish is lighter, more symbolic, and a way of naming desires or dreams without demand or expectation. One is about faith and the other is imagination.

I think this project is simple, but carries some quiet power in the way it can capture a bit of youthful magic again and give my hopes a home. 😉 If you want to do this project or something like it, below are some prompt templates. I plan to cut them out, draw one every few weeks and complete it to get me into the habit of wishing again. Enjoy!