#202: My Favorite Books of 2025

I’m sharing my favorite books of 2025 — the ones that stayed with me, challenged me, comforted me, or simply pulled me through a heavy season.

This year, I read 55 books (and counting), and today I’m narrowing it down to the 13 books I loved the most. These picks span fiction and nonfiction, parenting, faith, health, and pure escapism — a true snapshot of my reading life this year.

December feels heavy. The sun sets early. Everything feels like effort. And yet, there is nothing like a really good book. This episode is for anyone craving depth, distraction, or nourishment through reading.

Books Mentioned in This Episode (in no particular order):

1. God of the Woods by Liz Moore
2. The Wedding People by AlisonEspach
3. Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy
4. Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5. The Bright Years by Sarah Damnoff
6. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer
7. The Rational Bible by Dennis Prager
8. Good Energy by Casey Means
9. Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz
10. Is She Really Going Out With Him? by Sophie Cousens
11. What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella
12. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
13. All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

www.daraboxer.com

Transcript

Gratitude And Year-End Mood

Dara Boxer 0:14

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode. We are we are here. We are in the home stretch for 2025. And as we close out this year, I think we should all really take a moment to stop and just feel really grateful for all of the wonderful blessings and everything that we have, even if we are in the middle of a very hard season. December feels very hard this year. Um, as I think I've mentioned before, I'm leaning into one pot, one sheet pan meals pretty heavily. The sun is like done by 4:30. It's just a hard stretch. And so, with joy and gratitude, there's nothing like a good book, right? Like there's just something so delicious and yummy about curling up with a book that you cannot put down. Like just one of those page Turner books that you just like have to finish and get to the end of. And I feel like I've read a handful of really good books this year that I wanted to share with you. And so, as always, I'm going to go ahead and recap and let you know my favorites of the year, what I read, why I loved them, and why I think you should read them as well. And I am proud to say that in the year of 2025, I have read so far 55 books. I'm probably gonna close out the year with about 57. I'm in the middle of two books that I'm almost done with, um, but I don't think that they're going to make it into my favorites of the year. So I feel confident with this list that I'm gonna share with you. So these are in no particular order, they're just listed. So let's dive right in. The first one is God of the Woods by Liz Moore. This book was so good. This book felt like going to summer camp in the 70s and again in the 60s. It I loved the different point of views that we had. I loved how complicated all of the characters were. It was just a really well-done story. I thought the pacing was excellent. There's so much about this book that I love. Um, it's also really taken off this year. It's made like a lot of the lists. Go ahead and add it to yours. Number two, and I've talked about this book a lot this year, is The Wedding People by Alison Spock. I loved this book. Oh my goodness. I it just it had everything for me. Like it made me laugh, it made me cry, it was beautifully done. The characters were just amazing and funny and just perfect. I loved this book. This is probably my one of my favorites that I read this year. Number three is a parenting book. It is a nonfiction, Good Inside, by Dr. Becky Kennedy. I love Dr. Becky Kennedy. I listen to her podcast every now and then. Uh, you know, couldn't resist her book. I don't totally subscribe to everything she says. I feel like some things are, you know, don't quite fit for me and my family. I also, one of the critiques I have with Dr. Becky is I feel like a lot of her lessons and like the way she parents like works really well if you have like one child. But when you have a baby strapped to your hip or like a toddler crying, or another one that you know accidentally wet himself while he was trying to go, like you don't like you don't really have time to kind of like take a step back and like let's talk about this, right? Like, so I don't know, like there's a lot of goodness in her book. Um, so we're just gonna take what I like and leave the rest. Um number four is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed. That I just I love a Taylor Jenkins Reed. I don't think I've ever read one of her books and be like, mm, that didn't work for me. The this was no different. It was set in the 80s, it was about space, like it was just it was just a great book. Like loved it. Obviously, like weeped like a baby at the end. Um, it was it was delicious, it was beautiful. I loved it. Uh, book number five is The Bright Years by Sarah Damnoff. And I feel like every single one of these books that I've had, I have had an actual book club episode about. So if you wanted to dive further into that, you can just, you know, go search that. Um, but The Bright Years was no exception. I really loved the book. It was told from a couple of different points of views, um, pretty consistent timeline, a few a few flashbacks, and it was just a really powerful story about redemption and forgiveness, and it really touched home for me personally. So I I felt like I connected with it on a different level, but it was just it was a really, really beautiful story. I enjoyed it a lot. Um, number six is another nonfiction. Uh, this is not my first time reading it, and this is definitely not my first time talking about it, but it is The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. This is probably one of my favorite nonfiction books. I listen to it probably twice a year, like every six months or so, and I feel that pull of like life feels crazy and chaotic, and I really need to slow down. I feel like we could all use some John Mark Comer in our lives, and I am saying this as an observant Jew. Like he, I just this book is like my my like shining star. So anytime we just feel like that pull of life, and just like things are just like insane, and like what is happening, I will just turn to this book and just like like just like soak and take a bath in it. Like it's just I love it so much. So it not just of you know 2025, but this is like one of my favorite books, period. So highly recommend it. Um, on the complete opposite spectrum is another nonfiction, and it's The Rational Bible by Dennis Prager. And I finally got my hands on a copy of The Rational Bible. I decided to start with okay, so quick backstory. Dennis Prager, he has written translations and commentary on four of the five books of Moses. He originally started with Exodus, even though that's the second book of the Torah, because he strongly believes that if every single person were to simply observe and follow the Ten Commandments, the world would be a much better place. And so he kind of, and because the Torah the Ten Commandments was given in the book of Exodus, like that's the one he felt most strongly and passionate about, and that's the one he wanted to start with. I actually ended up reading Genesis his Rational Bible, Genesis first, just because um, I don't know, I mean that's the first book of the Torah, like I wanted to go and order. Um, and I was sold. It's a very heavy book, and the commentary is like very thick. I mean, it's we're talking like a nearly a 600-page book, and I read it in a week. Like I couldn't get enough. I had a highlighter out, I had a pen out, like taking notes, and it actually inspired a little Torah project of mine that I'm doing on the side. And so, I mean, this book was just a game changer for me. I felt like he his commentary and his translation opened up the Torah and the Bible in a way that I've never really been able to fully understand or grasp, or I mean, I it just it just changed everything for me. So I'm very much a fan of the rational Bible. And I a point that I wanted to make and a point that Dennis Prager makes um very strongly, like right off the bat on the first page, is his translation of the Torah is not just for Jews. He, if anything, he is talking to the atheist and he is talking to the Christian. Um, he is talking to every single person across the spectrum. And I just love that so much. And his he just he just wants people to like believe in God, not so much like God of the Jews or you know, God of the Jewish people, but like God, like the God of the Bible, God. Um, so the book is not just solely, like you'll totally understand it. And in fact, it this book has you know really taken wave across the Christian communities, and so again, if you're interested in the Bible, his translations and commentaries are just incredible. Um, so I started with Genesis, I worked my way through Exodus, and now I am on Deuteronomy. He did not do Leviticus because that's like a really heavy one, and I don't blame him. Leviticus is like a really intense um book of the Bible, it happens to be the shortest one, but still, so I'm on Deuteronomy and it's just fabulous, and it inspired just like a lot of other things. So, okay. Um, book number eight is another nonfiction, and it is good energy by Casey Means. I really like Casey Means and her, I love her whole theory and philosophy on the body on the body, and how everything is working together and just talking about the medical industry in of itself and how we are really there just to kind of cure uh or or treat symptoms, not really cure the actual disease, get to the root cause of it, and how like so much of our metabolic dysfunction can be broken down into sleep, your daily movement, and what you're putting in your body, right? And you know, of course, of course, there are like lots of other factors, like you know, genetics and uh, you know, other toxins and whatever out there, but for the most part, you can really control a lot of your own factors and take control of your own health by sort of assessing where you are and just kind of like a lot of her examples for like eczema and headaches and random aches and pains, like none of that is really normal. And it's your body's way of saying, like, hey, our cells are overworked, and here's why, and here's how you can you what you can do. And um, it really inspired me to look at my own health and get certain blood work done, um, requesting certain markers being tested just to kind of see where my levels are. Um, something you should know about Casey Means is that she was a Stanford educated surgeon who, after several years in the medical industry, realized that no one was really getting to the root cure because again, profit over patient, like 100%. And it's unfortunate, but this is like how our medical industry has evolved over the last, I don't know, 50, 70, it's just it's not going in a very good place. And if you don't take control, like no one's coming to save you for your health. And so if you're not proactive and taking care of yourself and your body and protecting your sleep and your daily movement, like you're you're kind of cooked because like no one's saving you, like it's certainly not the medical industry, and you know, as I'm in my mid-30s and it hasn't taken me very long to become like completely disenfranchised by the disenchanted by the medical industry, like even just go uh, you know what? I I have so many stories, it's just infuriating, and I'm not alone here. Like, we all know it is broken, like I don't need to go on and on about it, but um, I am planning on having a Casey Means Book Club episode about this book um later on, so stay tuned for that. Okay, so number nine is Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz. I love an Anthony Horowitz, he has been one of my favorite writers for over a decade now. I have read almost all of his Atticus Poond novels, and this is another one. I just in his Susan Ryland, um, I his Daniel Hawthorne series, like it's just they're just so good. They're so good. I love them. Sometimes when I find myself in a reading slump where I've just read like terrible book after terrible book, I will find myself going back to an Anthony Horowitz just as like kind of a palette cleanser, and so uh Marble Hall Murders was no exception, and it was really enjoyable. Like I feel like I fly, his books are very lengthy, they're usually over 500 pages. But what's neat about them is you always get a book within a book because we're talking about a writer writing, and like you get to read the manuscript of the fictional book within the book. Like it's just so cool, like there's so many like layers and complexities to it, and so you get to solve two murders in one, like it's really fun. I I just I'm a huge fan of Anthony Horowitz. Um, okay, so number 10 is something much lighter, and it's Is She Really Going Out With Him? uh by Sophie Cousins. And this was just a really fun, easy breezy rom-com that I found myself um, you know, buying impulsively, and I really enjoyed it. Um, I I don't really remember much of it other than that it was fun and enjoyable to read, as all of her books typically are. Okay, number 11. I accidentally purchased because I saw, okay, so it's Sophie Kinsla's What Does It Feel Like? And I got confused because I thought that was the same author as is she really going out with him. I thought that I thought it was Sophie Cousins. I didn't really like put it together that these are two different authors, but whatever. It's like their cover art looks identical. Like they both are of Sophie. Like I just I was like, okay, great. Um, so this is sort of inspired on this author's uh brain cancer diagnosis. Um, she's fine now, but it was you know really scary. So this is sort of like a work of um it's not fiction, but it's also not nonfiction. But it it's a very short, very easy, like 133 pages. I read it on half a flight um earlier this summer. It was just so good and well done, and I'm just really thankful for this author that she's healed and she's going to survive. And so, yay, or at least last I checked a few months ago. I don't please don't hold that against me if like something terrible ended up happening to this woman's health. But it was a really good story. Um, I I just I really liked it. So yay. Um, it turns out that Sophie Kinsla is the writer who wrote uh like something shopping addiction that like blew up and turned into a movie. What was it? It's like confessions of a shopaholic. I don't know, whatever. Anyway, okay, number 12 is Gone Girl and I by Gillian Flynn. I ended up finding this in a little library um a couple weeks back, and I had originally read Gone Girl when it first came out in 2012. So it has been a hot minute, and I loved it. I felt like I understood it on so many more levels. 12, 13 years later, it was just a married person now. Like I wasn't married when I first read it. Um, and so yeah, it was just it was so delicious. I burned through it. It was one of those books that I just like found myself taking time to like actually sit down and read it. And I feel like that's a no you have a good book on your hands when you like actually carve out time to read, as opposed to like the book that I'm reading now that's just like sitting on my nightstand, and every time I look at it, I'm just kind of like I could pick it up, but I don't really feel like it. So uh yeah, just gone girl. Oh gosh, it was so good. I remember watching the movie with Ben Affleck when that came out as well, and like loving it, but I just rereading it. Um, I mean, I remember like the big overarching tone of the story, like I remember like the big plot holes, but I didn't remember any of the details, so it felt like reading the book with fresh eyes. Like it was, oh, it was so good. So if you also had read Gone Girl in 2012 and you haven't read it since, because like you know, why would you? I highly recommend doing it. And it it it's making me wonder like what other books would be just like extra delicious now over a decade later, right? Like, you know how there are some books that you you read and like they're great, but then you just forget about them because like why would you reread? And so I don't know, it's making me think of what other books that perhaps would you know spark a new level of like appreciation and understanding. Um, okay, and lastly, and I was sort of debating not putting this book on my list just because I was really angry with the ending, but it's going to be all the colors of the dark, and I really loved this book for so many reasons. Like I thought the writing was gorgeous, it was set in Missouri, it was so like nature-driven and heavy and just beautiful, and it was it was there's so much about this book that I loved. It was like short, punchy chapters, like really interesting, compelling characters, and then the ending was just garbage and made me like the whole thing unraveled for me. And I was like, What, like, what are we doing here? But you know what? It was a good enough book, and I enjoyed reading, I would say 90% of it. So I am gonna add it to my list, all the colors of the dark. And I'm probably going to be an unpopular opinion on my critiques with this book. It has blown up and like taken the internet by storm, so I'm just gonna say, like, I'm putting it on my list, but I'm not happy about it. How about that? Okay, so that concludes my baker's dozen of 13 books that I loved reading in 2025. I hope this list inspires you to pick out a couple of really good reads and happy new well, no, I shouldn't say happy new year. We still have a couple weeks left. I'll see you back here next Thursday. Thanks for tuning in.