Best Books of 2025
– B2-C1 (intermediate to advanced) –
Practice Your Listening Comprehension
Practice Your Reading Comprehension
Every year, one of the most popular international platforms for authors and readers, Good Reads (available as both a website and free app), gives out awards to various books that have come out that year. Voting is done by the international public and takes place over the course of a few weeks in November. Come early December, the winners are announced. There are several categories for the awards, but here are a select few for you to check out. You never know… Maybe you will find something that you’re interested in so that you can practice and improve your reading skills and vocabulary in English.
2025 Winners of the Good Reads Choice Awards
BEST FICTION
“My Friends” by Fredrik Backman, translated from Swedish by Neil Smith
GENRES: Contemporary Fiction
SUMMARY:
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an aspiring artist herself, knows otherwise, and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant seaside town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their bruising home lives by spending long summer days on an abandoned pier, telling silly jokes, sharing secrets, and committing small acts of rebellion. These lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream, a reason to love.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be placed into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. She embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn how the painting came to be and to decide what to do with it. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more nervous she becomes about what she’ll find. Louisa is proof that happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this stunning testament to the transformative, timeless power of friendship and art.
“My Friends” image courtesy of Good Reads.
BEST MYSTERY/THRILLER
“Not Quite Dead Yet” by Holly Jackson
GENRES: Murder Mystery / Crime / Thriller
SUMMARY:
In seven days Jet Mason will be dead. Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.
Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.
She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.
Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.
She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:
Jet is going to solve her own murder.
“Not Quite Dead Yet” image courtesy of Good Reads.
BEST ROMANCE
Emily Henry consistently wins consumer awards for her new releases. As this book is a Reese’s Book Club pick, it is likely going to be adapted to film in the future.
“Great Big Beautiful Life” by Emily Henry
GENRES: Romance / Contemporary Fiction
SUMMARY:
Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.
When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.
One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.
Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication
Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.
But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.
And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.
“Great Big Beautiful Life” image courtesy of Good Reads.
BEST SCIENCE FICTION
Personally, I do not think this book belongs in this category. In my opinion, there is nothing related to science fiction in this book. That being said, however, it is an intriguing dystopia/thriller; think reality TV meets Black Mirror.
“The Compound” by Aisling Rawle
GENRES: Dystopia / Thriller / Literary Fiction / Speculative Fiction
SUMMARY:
Lily—a bored, beautiful twentysomething—wakes up on a remote desert compound alongside nineteen other contestants on a popular reality TV show. To win, she must outlast her housemates while competing in challenges for luxury rewards, such as champagne and lipstick, and communal necessities to outfit their new home, like food, appliances, and a front door.
The cameras are catching all her angles, good and bad, but Lily has no desire to leave: Why would she, when the world outside is falling apart? As the competition intensifies, intimacy between the players deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between desire and desperation. When the producers raise the stakes, forcing contestants into upsetting, even dangerous situations, the line between playing the game and surviving it begins to blur. If Lily makes it to the end, she'll receive prizes beyond her wildest dreams—but what will she have to do to win?
“The Compound” image courtesy of Good Reads.
RUNNER-UP FOR BEST SCIENCE FICTION
Coming in second place–though arguably it should have come in first–this book has all the science fiction elements you’re looking for in a tale of time travel.
“The Book of Lost Hours” by Hayley Gelfuso
GENRES: Science Fiction / Magical Realism / Historical Fiction
SUMMARY:
Enter the time space, a soaring library filled with books containing the memories of those have passed and accessed only by specially made watches once passed from father to son—but mostly now in government hands. This is where eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy finds herself trapped in 1938, waiting for her watchmaker father to return for her. When he doesn’t, she grows up among the books and specters, able to see the world only by sifting through the memories of those who came before her. As she realizes that government agents are entering the time space to destroy books and maintain their preferred version of history, she sets about saving these scraps in her own volume of memories. Until the appearance of an American spy named Ernest Duquesne in 1949 offers her a glimpse of the world she left behind, setting her on a course to change history and possibly the time space itself.
In 1965, sixteen-year-old Amelia Duquesne is mourning the disappearance of her uncle Ernest when an enigmatic CIA agent approaches her to enlist her help in tracking down a book of memories her uncle had once sought. But when Amelia visits the time space for the first time, she realizes that the past—and the truth—might not be as linear as she’d like to believe.
The Book of Lost Hours explores time, memory, and what we sacrifice to protect those we love.
“The Book of Lost Hours” image courtesy of Good Reads.
BEST YOUNG ADULT DYSTOPIA
Like the previous four volumes in the Hunger Games series, this book has been adapted to film and is scheduled for a 2026 film release.
“Sunrise On the Reaping” (book 5 of the “Hunger Games” series) by Suzanne Collins
GENRES: Young Adult / Dystopia / Adventure
SUMMARY:
As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.
Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.
When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.
“Sunrise On the Reaping” image courtesy of Good Reads.
What was the best book that you read this year? What is it about? Are you interested in any of these award-winning books? Practice your English by sharing your answers with me in the comments below.
