2025 Reading Wrap Up + 2026 Reading Goals

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2025 Reading at a Glance

I can't believe 2025 is already over! After a (long) holiday break, I'm excited to finally share my 2025 reading wrap up and hopefully lots more book reviews this year! 

Quick Stats

  • Total books read: 153

  • Pages read: 39,202

  • Average book length: 256 pages

  • Average rating given: 4.3/ 5

  • Shortest book read: The Market Basing Mystery by Agatha Christie (25 pages) 

  • Longest book read: Little Women by Lousia May Alcott (777 pages)

  • Most read authors: Agatha Christie (16 books) and Janette Oke (13 books) 

  • Average number of books read per month: 12.4

  • # of fiction books read: 106 

  • # of nonfiction books read: 47

  • # of DNFs: 6

2025 Favorite Books & Honorable Mentions 

Some of my favorite novels/series of the year (not in any order): 

~ Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. An absolute masterpiece, I greatly enjoyed my first time reading this and can't wait to revisit it again soon! 

~ Emma by Jane Austen. Very readable, funny, and thoroughly entertaining. 

~ Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Yes, another Austen book. This one was one of my top favorites by her-- very witty and satirical. 

~ Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Aside from some moral problems with the plot, I thought this was a brilliant, breathtaking, unforgettable novel. 

~ North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Such an interesting classic with a really sweet ending! 

~ The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower. This 8-book series (and counting!) was completely addicting; incredibly hilarious, with some deep moments sprinkled throughout as well. There were some things in some of the later books that I didn't care for, but I'm still looking forward to the release of the 9th book!

~ The Secrets of Ormdale by Christina Baehr. This series was so unique and fun! I was so invested in the storyline and cannot wait for the spin-off series to be completed! 

~ All Manner of Things by Susie Finkbeiner. This book...😭 Beautifully bittersweet, real, and raw. A remarkable book, to say the least. 

~ A Lady's Guide to Marvels and Misadventures by Angela Bell. Whimsical, quirky, humorous, adventurous, and touching, this story was everything I'd hoped it would be 🥹

~ Little Women by Lousia May Alcott. Roughly my 5th or 6th time reading this beloved classic. It will forever be the most beautiful, perfect story 🩷


Some of my favorite nonfiction books of the year (not in any order): 

~ Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson. An almost poetic book all about making something beautiful in this broken world. 

~ Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die by John Piper. An excellent, rich little book! I will certainly be rereading around Good Friday every year. 

~ The Heavenly Man by Brother Yun. An incredibly powerful and intense autobiography of a man whom God used mightily to display His power and advance the Chinese church. Highly recommend! 

~ Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot. A missionary classic that is now one of my favorites! 

~ God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew. Another powerful, riveting, and convicting missionary autobiography that I could not put down.
 

Honorable Mentions: 

~ The Story People by Heather Kaufman. Super sweet and funny contemporary Christian romance! 

~ The All-American by Susie Finkbeiner. Just like "All Manner of Things", this book was so raw and heartfelt, and a perfect read for summer. 

~ Vivid by Ashley Bustamante. This was actually really fun and entertaining! The rest of the series I liked a little less, but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. 


Least favorite books: 

~ Assorted Agatha Christie mysteries. There were some that I liked, but a lot weren't really my thing. 

~ Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazo Kawaguchi. I just really disliked the writing style and thought it was kind of strange. 

~ The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This was a reread for me, and I thought the same as when I first read it: This story is weird and dark and pretty unsettling. 😳

~ A Bride for Donnigan by Janette Oke. While this wasn't actually a terrible book, it was definitely my least favorite that I've read by the author, and there were a variety of things that I didn't like about it. 

~ The Atlas of Untold Stories by Sara Brunsvold. Though I gave this like a 3 or 3.5 star rating at the time, I've realized after the story "settled" with me that I really didn't like it much at all. Contemporary fiction is not my thing, I thought the faith content was a little weak, and certain characters were just SO annoying through the whole book. 

A few of my 2026 reading goals 

☆ Read 150 books

☆ Read at least one book in my second language, Spanish

☆ Read the unread books I own 

☆ Read the following classics: 

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 
Villette by Charlotte Bronte 
War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy 
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky 
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 
Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan 
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 
The Odyssey OR The Iliad 

Bonus: 2025 included the following stats for the Boundless Bookshelf...

☆ Nearly 10,000 site views 

☆ 23 new followers + other newsletter subscribers 

☆ 73 bookish posts 


...and that's about it! Thanks for reading!! 

If you enjoyed this content, please consider following The Boundless Bookshelf!


Bookishly yours, 


Lottie M




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