-Vetil-

The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates (audiobook)

The book is made up of three intertwining essays. The first is where Coates discusses his reflections on visiting Africa (Senegal specifically) for the first time as a Black American man. Then, he discusses visiting South Carolina where a (white) high school teacher's job is being threatened because she was teaching one of his books to her class, and also discusses the south's history of the confederacy. But the bulk of the book and the basis of its focus comes in the last essay which discusses Palestine and Coates' experience when he visited. I won't try to explain everything Coates goes into, but the overarching theme is the idea of nationalist myths and how destructive they can be. Coates is an incredible writer and I think just about everyone should read (or listen, in my case) to this. I rated it 4.75 stars.

Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green (audiobook)

If you ever want to get angry about global health inequality this book will certainly make you feel that. Green discusses both tuberculosis' long intertwining history with humanity and how our views and methods of treating it have changed over the centuries, but also he focuses on the reality of tuberculosis today in the form of Henry: a boy Green met while he was visiting Sierra Leone. It was fascinating to learn just how much of our world was influenced by tuberculosis in some way or another, and infuriating to realize how there is really no reason tuberculosis should be taking the lives it still takes today. But as angry as this book will make you, John Green imparts a sense of hope that things not only can be better, but they will be. I rated this 4.5 stars.

Crisis in the Red Zone by Richard Preston (physical book)

I had to read Preston's nonfiction book The Hot Zone when I was in high school for a class, and that's the book that made me fall in love with epidemiology. I always wanted to read more of Preston's work so I was thrilled when I was able to find this one. Crisis is a nonfiction book chronicling the experiences of some of the very brave frontline workers during the West African Ebola epidemic in 2014, which was the deadliest Ebola outbreak in history. Preston shows you just how little supplies these healthcare workers and lab scientists had at their disposal during the outbreak, and how vastly overwhelmed they were by its surge. The novel jumps between the perspectives of many different people working to control the epidemic, from local doctors and nurses to epidemiologists to the lab scientists trying to develop a vaccine for one of the deadliest diseases we know of. Be warned: many of the descriptions are very graphic. I rated this one 4.5 stars.

The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush (physical book)

So to change off the topic of health inequality and general injustice for a moment, this book talks about climate change. Specifically, it's the experience of Elizabeth Rush when she went with a crew of scientists to explore and study the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica, which is also known as the Doomsday Glacier. While on this research ship, Rush also reflects on the fact that she and her husband have just started the process of trying to get pregnant, leading her to question both herself and the scientists she's with how anyone, especially scientists who are studying climate change, can justify having a child in the wake of imminent climate disaster. I really loved Rush's writing style. I loved how she wrote about Antarctica, her descriptions and the way she discussed what it means to specifically be a woman in Antarctica. I just really loved all the topics Rush explored with this, and although it didn't sugarcoat the reality facing us with our changing climate, Rush doesn't try to make you despair about it. I rated this 4.25 stars.

The White Album by Joan Didion (physical book)

Now time for a very sharp mood change: Joan Didion. White Album is a collection of essays Didion wrote in the late 60s/early 70s that examine the cultural zeitgeist and psychological landscape of the country at that point in time. Personally, I really enjoyed this because Didion talks quite a bit about southern California specifically, so it just felt more personal to me in that way. But overall I love her writing style and her voice. I loved the observations she made and just really enjoyed getting an idea for what the general mood of the era was. I debated putting this one or Slouching Towards Bethlehem, which is another collection of essays of hers more focused on the 60s as a whole because I really loved both of those. I liked White Album a bit more, but consider this a recommendation for both of them. I rated White Album 4.5 stars.

Honorable Mentions

On Immunity: An Inoculation by Eula Biss (audiobook)

I actually listened to almost all of this in a single day when I had to drive to San Diego and back on Christmas Eve. This book goes over the history of vaccines. It's a look at how our societal attitude towards vaccination has shifted over time, and where the rising trend of anti-vax rhetoric is coming from and how anti-vax movements tie into classism and white privilege. This was published in 2014 so it was well before the pandemic, but this just means that all of Biss' observations are even more true today. I rated this 4.25 stars.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (physical book)

Human Acts by Han Kang (physical book)

I've talked about Human Acts a few times on this blog already but this was the only book I ranked 5 stars in 2025 (I am very stingy with my 5 star ratings for books) so I figured it should be the first one I talk about. this was the second book I read from Han Kang (the first being The Vegetarian which I actually didn't enjoy that much) so I was absolutely blown away by this book. To say it's a brutal read is an understatement. It's an incredibly raw and gut-wrenchingly real portrait of Korean citizens whose lives were forever impacted by the massacre the South Korean government enacted against its own citizens for the Gwangju uprising in 1980, while South Korea was still under a dictatorship. while the characters the novel follows are technically fictional, the events that occurred both during the uprising and the aftermath are all too real. reading this after President Yoon attempted to declare martial law in South Korea back in Dec 2024, only to be met with immediate and major resistance from both citizens and politicians, really put so much of it into context. be warned: this novel is heartbreaking and very difficult to get through at times.

We Do Not Part by Han Kang (audiobook)

Considering I already spoke about Human Acts, I figured I should talk about this book next. Kang herself has said she considers both this book and Human Acts to be a "pair" but I wasn't aware of this when I started listening to the audiobook for this. I picked this book because it's the most recently published work of hers, and I thought the concept sounded interesting. on the surface, you wouldn't guess that it covers similar ground thematically to Human Acts, because the plot that forms the basis of the book is about a woman named Kyungha, an author who has been dealing with severe depression and migraines. She's contacted by an old friend of hers, a woman named Inseon, who is in a hospital in Seoul after getting in an accident. She can't leave the hospital, but begs Kyungha to get to her home on Jeju Island to try and get water to her pet bird before sunset, or else her bird will die of dehydration. This book is far more dream-like than Human Acts was, and also has a touch of magical realism to the plot. As Kyungha makes her way through snow-covered Jeju Island to try and reach Inseon's home, dream and reality start to blur, and Kyungha learns what Inseon's parents (and all other Jeju residents) went through during the Jeju Massacre of 1948. I actually enjoyed the unreality/magical realism elements of this more than I expected, and I really love that besides the focus on the atrocities committed on Jeju Island, there's also a strong focus on the bond Kyungha and Inseon have with each other. I rated this one 4.75 stars

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (physical book)

I actually read three Sally Rooney novels this year, and this is the only one I'm going to put on this list. If I hadn't read Intermezzo I almost certainly would've put Normal People on this list instead, but Intermezzo just blew me away. This novel is primarily focused on two brothers: Peter, a lawyer in his early 30s, and Ivan, a chess prodigy in his early 20s after their father has just died. Alongside trying to hide his severe mental health struggles, Peter is also torn between two relationships: one with a college student in her early 20s, the other with his ex-girlfriend who he is still desperately in love with. At the same time, Ivan gets involved with Margaret, a woman in her mid 30s who is separated from her husband. The novel switches between Peter, Ivan, and Margaret's POVs, and one of my favorite aspects of the book is how Rooney's prose style changes for each of these POVs. Also, way this book tackles grief, coming into one's own sense of self, and complicated sibling relationships is just so wonderfully done. The writing is just gorgeous and I loved this book so much. I rated it 4.5 stars (although it was a hot debate between that and 4.75 stars).

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (physical book)

I wasn't necessarily surprised by how much I loved this book because I'd heard incredible things about it, but man it was such a ride. The book follows Cyrus, an Iranian-American poet who is struggling to find a sense of meaning in his life. He becomes obsessed with the idea of martyrs and martyrdom, reflecting on his own mother who died after her plane was accidentally shot down by the US government, and hears about an ongoing art exhibit being held by an artist named Orkideh who is dying of terminal cancer, and is staying in the museum to allow anyone to come speak with her. Cyrus decides to go see her. But the novel isn't just about Cyrus, it's about his entire family. The chapters switch POVs at random to his father, his uncle, and his mother. There's also a chapter featuring Lisa Simpson (literally the cartoon) as a character. This novel jumps all over the place but is written in such a beautiful way that it somehow all makes sense. I rated it 4.75 stars. The only reason I didn't rate it 5 stars is because I have a bit of a gripe with the ending, but it's based off my very personal and subjective tastes with books and I understand it was an authorial choice, it's just one I didn't vibe with personally. Nearly perfect book to me though, it was so good

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (physical book)

Of course this book had to be on here. This was actually my first foray into reading Le Guin (except for the time I had to read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas for a class in high school) and it absolutely did not disappoint. The book focuses on Genly, a human ambassador who has taken up residence on an alien planet called Gethen in an attempt to convince the citizens—who until this point were unaware that there were other people in the galaxy as they had not unlocked space travel themselves—to join an intergalactic planetary alliance. The unique thing about this planet is that the people who live there aren't necessarily male or female. Every individual is completely androgynous, and will only express 'male' or 'female' sex characteristics once a month for a few days before returning to an androgynous state (and it is usually random which sex an individual will present as each month, it is not the same every time). The book also focuses Etraven, a Gethenian who is the prime minister of the nation on Gethen that Genly is residing in at the start of the novel. The plot is a mix of the tense political situation on Gethen between the two major nations, and Genly's struggle with trying to convince the Gethenians that he is in fact from another planet, and also his own struggle with trying to comprehend the concept of a genderless society. Not only was this book incredibly ahead of its time for its discussions on gender and identity (given that it was published in 1969) but it's also just a really great sci-fi novel. Le Guin's worldbuilding is absolutely incredible and so heavily-detailed. Genly and Etraven are both such nuanced and complex characters and the relationship they develop just left me in awe. It's a bit difficult to get into the novel because of how dense the worldbuilding is, but I promise it's worth the effort. I rated this 4.75 stars.

Honorable Mentions

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (physical book)

I don't know why this book stuck with me so much but it did. The characters are just so real and the relationships felt so true to life and even now, nearly a year after I read it, I still find myself thinking of it all the time. Read it for platonic soulmates and nuanced characters.

Among the Burning Flowers by Samantha Shannon (physical book)

Yeah I definitely couldn't make this post without at least mentioning a Samantha Shannon book. This is the latest release in the Roots of Chaos world and it had me just as riveted as A Day of Fallen Night and The Priory of the Orange Tree. This book is a prequel taking place immediately before the events of Priory and it's much shorter as a result. It talks about the fall of Yscalin to the dragons and how that all went down and I could not stop reading it. The only reason I rated it 4.75 stars instead of 5 stars is because it felt a bit too short to me and that one of the POVs didn't really get a full story, but that's just me being nitpicky and spoiled by Shannon's usually gigantic books.

Fledgling by Octavia Butler (audiobook)

Disclaimer: this book is actually not written very well, at least not as well as Butler's other novels are. It's very exposition heavy and feels closer to a draft in some parts than others, but despite all of this I was absolutely sucked into the story. I loved how Butler made her vampires have a sci-fi twist and really adored the worldbuilding. Also, this book is literally layers upon layers of fucked up erotic dynamics in so many ways and I really loved dissecting that. Be warned: basically every romantic relationship in this book is 'problematic' in at least 2 separate ways. It's fucked up and meant to be so. I love when Butler gets weird with it. I rated it 4 stars.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir