Yearly Wrap-Up and 2025 TBR

As the year draws to an end, I wanted to reflect on the books that I have read this year. I finished my masters, and since leaving university, my love for reading has returned in full force. Does that mean I spend every available minute reading? No, but I've been opening books in my free time a lot more often.

I'll begin with my December wrap-up, before going into more detail on the year as a whole. Please check the content warnings for every book on this list if you are considering reading them, they are definitely worth a read (mostly) but they are also traumatising (mostly).

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi (★★★★.75)

The Centre follows Anisa, who visits a centre for language-learning in order to help her work as a translator (a very poor and brief summary). This book was surprisingly dark and I wasn't expecting it going in, although it literally says it on the cover, but I LOVED it! I listened to the audiobook and the narrator was excellent. I highly recommend checking it out. The only reason that it wasn't 5 stars was due to some of the characters making questionable decisions that threw me out of it a bit. Overall, a good read, and I would love to own a physical copy one day.

I'm A Fan by Sheena Patel (★★)

I'm A Fan follows our narrator as she navigates a 'relationship' with a man whilst being obsessed with his wife as she stalks her social media. Again, another audiobook and I really enjoyed the narrator, but the writing fell a bit short for me. I was expecting it to be dark and eerie and it was, at first. At the same time, it felt very samey at the narrative continued, and again the characters got too annoying (not in a good way), and I was left wanting a bit more. The audiobook version was pretty good, but overall not worth the hype (in my opinion).

The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey (★★★.5)

The Swallowed Man follows Geppetto as he navigates life in the belly of the whale. Another audiobook. Again, loved the narrator and he was a perfect choice for a book like this. It was creepy and Carey presents his descent into madness (kind of, it's hard to explain) really well. It went on a little bit too long for me, and was overly rambly at points, but it didn't draw away from the immersion. I highly recommend the audiobook version of this.

Fragile Animals by Genevieve Jagger (★★★.25)

Fragile Animals follows Noelle as she befriends a vampire on a getaway in Bute. This was the last audiobook of the month, and I loved it. It isn't what I'm used to reading, and it wasn't a horror, but it was a great blend of the every day (Noelle is a poet who attempts to use the escape to hone her poetry for her next collection) and the characters were both wacky and relatable. It was devastating at points, and I would love to own a physical copy because it is gorgeous. The only 'bad' thing about this was the ending. It was a bit flat for me, but I guess that could be the point? Also, the narrator? Fabulous (even though she has a Scottish accent when it literally says that the main character doesn't have an accent even though she's lived in Edinburgh for her whole life).

The Rats by James Herbert (★★★★★)

The Rats, as the name suggests, follows a teacher who helps the government battle a deadly infestation of rats in London. This was perhaps my favourite read of the year, it was so compelling and such a horror classic. I'm surprised I haven't read it sooner. The characters were so stupid at points, but in this case it was kind of believable? (a government full of stupid people isn't very surprising, plus their stupidness wasn't implausible. Good balance of suspense and gore, whilst being paced really well.

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson (★★★★★)

Frankissstein is a dual narrative following Mary Shelley as she creates and writes Frankenstein, and Dr Ry Shelley a trans doctor who befriends Victor Stein (a leading pioneer in the world of AI) and Ron Lord (a man who is in the sex-bot business). I have no words for this, whilst a bit too scientific for me at points, it was a wonderful read - heart wrenching and beautiful but also funny and disturbing. Highly recommend. Also fuck Percy Shelley, they will never make me like you.

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (★★★★★)

Her Body and Other Parties is a horror short-story collection that I should have read sooner. It was moving, disgusting and only took me a day to read. I could not recommend this enough, even if you read it bit by bit. Gorgeous writing, and as soon as Machado releases something new, I'll be there.

Everything The Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca (★★★.5)

Everything The Darkness Eats is a dual narrative that follows Malik, a detective (I think, and his husband Brett who move into a new neighbourhood, and are the victims brutal homophobia and hate crimes. The narrative also follows Ghost, but I can't describe his part of the narrative without giving everything away so just read the blurb. Every time I read his part, I imagined House from the hit T.V. show HOUSE MD (not relevant to my rating of the book but food for thought). I loved the writing in this and the gore was particularly 'good' (it's hard to describe), but the narrative itself was not particularly my thing. Not bad, just not what I'm used to in terms of his writing. I feel like focusing on one storyline would have made it better for me, but it was still a good read and only took me a day. I am still an Eric LaRocca fan and I WILL be buying his next novel when it comes out.

I'm also currently reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk, which I am really enjoying and I also plan on reading one or two more Eric LaRocca books before the year ends. (I'll include these in January's wrap-up either way)

Now I'll give you a glimpse of my reading statistics for 2024, courtesy of StoryGraph (as well as a breakdown of my books by their rating). My goal for this year was 30 books, and I achieved that easily, and managed to get 42 books (so far) in this year. With those 42 books, I read 10,259 pages and each book took me an average of 6 days to finish. 23% of the books that I read were fast-paced, 53% were medium, and 25% were slow. I mostly read shorter books this year, with 83% being under 300 pages, and 17% were over 300 but under 500 pages. An overwhelming majority were also fiction books (93%) but I did manage to sneak in 3 (17%) non-fiction books. My most popular genre was Literary, but Horror, Contemporary and Short Stories were all quite popular. As far as format goes, I read 76% print and 5% digital (7,814 pages total) and listened to 57.18 hours worth of audiobooks (19%). My most read authors were Eric LaRocca, Emma Glass, Shirley Jackson, Eliza Clark and Margaret Atwood. Finally, my average rating was 4.13 stars, with my lowest being 2 and my highest being 5. Now onto the ratings (looking back I would probably change a few but oh well):

★★★★★

Bunny by Mona Awad

Vibrator by Mari Akasaka

Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson

Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto

Send Nudes by Saba Sams

The Rats by James Herbert

Mother for Dinner by Shalom Auslander

A Darker Shade edited by Joyce Carol Oates

★★★★.75

Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

Mary's Monster by Lita Judge

Little Judge by Rebecca Watson

★★★★.5

Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite

The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood

She's Always Hungry by Eliza Clark

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca

This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca

★★★★.25

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

The Tooth by Shirley Jackson

★★★★

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Sick Girl Screams by S. J. Townsend

★★★.75

On Writing by Charles Bukowski

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

★★★.5

Tampa by Alissa Nutting

Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca

rest and be thankful by Emma Glass

Hagstone by Sinead Gleeson

The Swallowed Man by Edward Carey

Fragile Animals by Genevieve Jagger

Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again by Katherine Angel

★★★.25

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

★★★

Peach by Emma Glass

We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets

★★.5

The Invisible Hotel by Yeji Y. Ham

★★

Bestial Mouths by Brenda S. Tolian

I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel

DNF books:

Waiting for Ted by Marieke Bigg

Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh

Fears edited by Ellen Datlow (lost my copy :()

The Hills Are Stuffed With Swedish Girls by Richard Happer

A Certain Hunger by Chelsea G. Summers

I've set my goal for 2025 to 50 books. Ambitious, I know. For 2025, I have a list of books that I NEED to get to. Will I? Who knows. They are as follows:

The Glutton by A.K. Blakemore

Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol

The Birds Nest by Shirley Jackson

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson

Blood on Satan's Claw by Robert Wynne-Simmons

Negotiating With The Dead by Margaret Atwood

Rouge by Mona Awad

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Diving Belled by Lucy Wood

Feeding the Monster by Anna Bogutskaya

Small Pleasures by Claire Chambers

Diary of an Oxygen Thief by Anonymous

Glue by Irvine Welsh

Ecstasy by Irvine Welsh

Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

Phoebe by Paula Gooder

Fifteen Modern Tales of Attraction by Alison MacLeod

Am I in the Right Place? by Ben Pester

I hope you enjoyed seeing my stats for this year, and may 2025 be a good year for reading!

All the best,

Talia