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Ever notice how least-favorite lists light up the room? I lean into that energy and break down ten books from 2025 that didn’t land for me and why. Not to dunk for sport, but to get curious about craft, genre, and expectations. Some titles offered powerful insight with limp storytelling; others promised thrills but disappeared into pacing, lore dumps, or glossy advice that never turned into action.

I start with the fascination behind “worst” lists and the validation they spark, then move book by book. Fruit of the Drunken Tree delivers urgent history but loses steam in its length. Big Magic inspires faith in the muse, yet my practical creative brain craves steps over slogans. In romance, The Sound of Us brushes close to green flags but falters with cringey smut that mistakes intensity for intimacy. True Biz opens a crucial window into Deaf education and cochlear implant ethics, even as the plot feels thin. Sci-fi shows its seams in Mickey7’s lore-heavy detours and Hitchhiker’s brand of British humor that never gelled for me.

I also call out advice that works better as an article than a book in La Clave de la Confianza, and examine how a perfect-on-paper premise can still bore in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. The countdown ends with The Monster of Elendhaven, where edgy style overshadows intent and leaves meaning behind. Through it all, I keep the door open: if you love these books, keep loving them. My aim is honest critique, not joy theft.

Listen, argue with me, and sharpen your own reading lens. If this resonates, follow the show, share with a bookish friend, and leave a quick review telling us which pick you’d defend—or ditch.

All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share

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A top ten list only works if it tells a story, and this one starts with quiet middle grade courage and ends with a blockbuster prequel that cracked my no-tears streak wide open. I’m counting down the books that stayed with me in 2025—titles that challenged me, healed me, and sometimes made me argue with myself in the margins.

I move from the sharp empathy of Out of My Mind to the cross-country ache of The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise, where grief rides shotgun on a converted school bus. I pause in court with Helen Garner’s meticulous This House of Grief and step behind the velvet rope with Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear, unpacking belief, power, and how institutions hold their people. Then it’s fiction’s turn to bruise: Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting coils family secrets into a tense, open-ended crescendo, and Let the Right One In turns loneliness into a haunting, human bond that lingers like a bruise.

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous offers a letter that reads like a life, mapping queerness, migration, and memory in language that glows. Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel examines chosen childlessness, prognosis, and friendship without flinching, giving space to hard choices too often reduced to clichés. And at the top, Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins did the impossible: I knew the ending, looked it up on purpose, and still cried—hard. Continuity quibbles aside, the emotional calculus is undeniable, the character work devastating.

Along the way, I also admit something unexpected: four of this year’s picks came from the Dua Lipa Book Club after a previous year where those choices rarely landed for me. Taste shifts, curation sharpens, and when a list delivers, I’ll say it. Hit play to hear why each book earned its spot and where I think the debates will spark.

If this countdown gives you a new favorite—or a title you want to fight me over—share the episode, leave a review, and tell me your personal #1 for 2025. Let’s build a reading list worth arguing about.

All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share

Connect with me: Instagram | Threads | Bookshop | Goodreads | Blog

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Imagine a country so desperate for unity that it turns survival into a national spectacle. That’s the engine powering Stephen King’s The Long Walk—published as Richard Bachman—and the 2025 film adaptation that brings its brutality into the present. I unpack how a grim endurance contest for teenage boys becomes a mirror for war, propaganda, and the price of being cheered on while you fall apart.

I start with the rules and the promise: keep the pace or get shot, win anything you want for life. From there I trace the political undercurrent—how the novel reads as an anti-war allegory steeped in post-conflict America—and how the film updates the world, trims the field to fifty, and alters key characters to sharpen momentum. The crowd matters: the book surrounds the walkers with onlookers who gawk, collect souvenirs, and make suffering public; the film’s quieter roads isolate the boys, delivering a colder dystopia that puts the system in stark relief. I dive into Garraty’s motives, McVries’ moral gravity, and Stebbins’ bleak lineage, showing how each version changes who we root for and why.

Violence becomes the central argument. The movie’s graphic executions demand you look; the novel’s restraint lets your mind do the damage. Which creates empathy, and which creates numbness? I wrestle with that question while exploring the story’s most human details—bathroom breaks, humiliation, and the steady erosion of dignity. Finally, I compare climaxes: the book’s haunting ambiguity versus the film’s cathartic revolt. One leaves you walking into darkness; the other fires back at power. My verdict crowns the novel for its lingering chill and crowd psychology, while saluting the film’s performances and bold ending.

If this conversation made you think, tap follow, share it with a friend who loves book-to-film debates, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find this podcast. What ending felt truer to you—and why?

All episodes of the podcast can be found on our website: https://booksvsmovies.buzzsprout.com/share

Connect with me: Instagram | Threads | Bookshop | Goodreads | Blog