We’re back, baby!
It’s a new year.
Hilary Duff is putting out new music.
The NHL is pretending to like gay people.
Smoking is cool again.
One of my credit cards is going to expire.
Change is in the air!
Before I can embrace 2026, I must honour my Millennial heritage and post a recap of 2025.
I don’t make the rules, sorry!
Tell Orpheus to buckle up, because we’re looking back at my favourite reads of the year.
Turning the page on 2025
This year, I read 56 titles across 16 genres. There is no easy way to distill this year of books. It was pure chaos from start to finish.
I read about: Mother-daughter cannibals, Harriet Tubman as a hip-hop artist, anthropomorphized depression monsters, vampire death tournaments…
I’m curating a Kobo library so unpredictable, so unsettling that every celebrity book club is quaking in fear!
From the pile, six (mostly normal) titles rose to the top.
Of course, these aren’t all of my 5-star reads. I tried to narrow the scope to books published in the last five years, and spanning a mix of genres.
Picking favourites is hard, but it must be done! That’s parenting 101…
🙅♀️Rejection, Tony Tulathimutte
A collection of interconnected short stories that have moved me, changed me, completely tore apart and rebuilt my understanding of the world.
Coming in at #1, Rejection is a Millennial fiction masterpiece. I simply cannot comprehend how Tony conceptualized and executed this level of satire. From the first page to the last, I was transfixed. This is genius. This is perfection. Tony, you are a mastermind! I bow down to you, my literary king!!!! I can write no greater review than the one you’ve already given yourself:
⚽️ Spectacular Things, Becky Dorey-Stein
Contemporary fiction about sisters, soccer, and sacrifice.
A rare title that Reese and I agree on. Don't be fooled by my freak-forward writing! I am a softie! A certified cry-baby (behind closed doors, obviously).
With Spectacular Things, Becky Dorsey-Stein ripped my heart out and dribbled it across the field. I adored everything about this: the family dynamics, the writing style, and especially the nods to real women’s soccer stars. “What a gift.”
🪦 I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy
The holy grail of mommy and food issues, written by a former Nickelodeon star.
I know I’m late to the party on this memoir, but holy moly was it ever amazing. That opening??????!?! Jennette, are you kidding???!? I plowed through this audiobook in a day, clocking almost 30,000 steps so I could keep listening. I gasped. I cringed. I paused to stare into the void and process the most horrific mothering I have ever read about. Yikes.
“Well, sweetheart, if you really want to know how to stay small, there’s this secret thing you can do… it’s called calorie restriction.”
🍩 I Hope This Finds You Well, Natalie Sue
A depressed employee accidentally gains access to her entire workplace’s private emails. Hilarity ensues.
Another sentimental book made it on the list! Maybe I’m losing my edge, but this witty workplace romantic comedy had me giggling and kicking my little feet the whole time. I Hope This Finds You Well was a scathing portrait of corporate culture, yet somehow humanized your most annoying, microwave-fish-for-lunch colleagues. If you’ve ever felt personally victimized by working in a cubicle, bump this to the top of your inbox!!
🏚️ Model Home, Rivers Solomon
A modern haunted house about racism in American suburbs
Of the 16 horror novels I read, this is the only one that made it to the top of my list! If you’re into stories about trauma and ghosts, this is worth a read. The writing is beautiful, the premise is topical, and the cover is 🤌
🥂 Local Heavens, K.M. Fajardo
A cyberpunk retelling of The Great Gatsby
I mean, what else do I have to say??? This is a debut novel that made me appreciate a classic even more. That’s pretty damn hard to do! Especially since Fajardo changed the entire genre to sci-fi, but still somehow retained the Fitzgerald feeling… Crazy work. This book was also gifted to me by my writer pal Emily Thompson (so go give her some love)!
Honourable mentions
These were not 5-star reads, but were too memorable to leave out! I’ve broken my picks into two categories: books with heart, and books that are batshit crazy…
Starting with the
🐀 We Could Be Rats, Emily Austin
A story split between two sisters — one contemplating suicide, the other grappling with her sister’s mental health.
Obviously, I picked this one up because of the title, but I’m so glad I did. No spoilers, but this completely caught me off guard in the best way. For that surprise (and also because this book is a crisp 256 pages), I’m recommending it to everyone. Scurry over to your local bookstore now!
Also, if this passage isn’t my brand, idk what is:
“If I could have picked what I was born to be, I would be a fat little rat at a fair. I would ride the Ferris wheel all night. All the carnival lights would reflect in my happy, beady eyes. I would feast on candy apple cores, discarded peanuts, and melon rinds. I would spook the ladies and carnival workers for kicks. When the lights went out, and the gates were shut, I would scurry around on the ground, rummage through the trash cans, and squeak happily with my rat pals. I would live to be about two years old, which is as long as most rats live. I would get my money’s worth out of my little rat lifespan, and I would leave the earth happy to have been there.”
Might as well be an excerpt from this newsletter…
🧀 When The Moon Hits Your Eye, John Scalzi
One day, the moon turns to cheese.
What a premise! Kafka crawled so John Scalzi could moonwalk! When The Moon Hits Your Eye was beautiful, moving, and crafted like a collection of short stories. I laughed. I cried. I Googled things about the moon. I was reminded of the hopelessness of lockdown. The uncertainty of …well, everything, right now. I added cheese curds to my grocery order. 10/10 reading experience (and 15/10 cheese puns)
Now for the unhinged books…
Ya. The airplane porn book is here. What are you going to do about it????? Unsubscribe????1
✈️ Sky Daddy, Kate Folk
For this one, I must use the actual synopsis:
Linda knows that she can’t tell anyone she’s sexually obsessed with planes—nor can she reveal her belief her destiny is to “marry” one of her suitors by dying in a plane crash, thereby uniting her with her soulmate plane for eternity. But when an opportunity arises to hasten her dream of eternal partnership, and the carefully balanced elements of her life begin to spin out of control, she must choose between maintaining the trappings of normalcy and launching herself headlong toward the love she’s always dreamed of.
This book has appeared on at least five different ‘Best of 2025’ lists, so no, I’m not crazy. Or, at least, I have like-minded company.
Sky Daddy is more of a dark comedy than its description lets on. What I thought would be uncomfortable object-based erotica was actually a sweet story about a troubled woman making friends. The story is anchored by a healthy recognition that her sexual fixation is abnormal, and we’re slowly given enough backstory about her childhood (aka daddy issues) to make it make sense. While bizarre — a major plot point is the protagonist’s belief that her quarterly vision boards are altering the universe — the story was also heart-warming??? And, more importantly, it was hilarious!
I figured none of you would trust me on this, so I pulled quotes…
Sky Daddy has witty workplace commentary:
“It was unclear whether we were meant to eat the bagels or if they were merely the mascots of the meeting, and so they remained untouched.”
Honest interiority:
“And Judy, with the long neck.”
“Judy’s my best friend from high school.” Karina paused. “I don’t think her neck is that long, is it?”
“I suppose not,” I said to be polite, though Judy’s neck was indeed freakishly long.
Incredible depictions of envy for a female friend group (@Ashley Tisdale IYKYK)
“I emptied my bladder into Esme’s chic black toilet. The dimmer switch was turned low. A cone of incense burned on a ceramic plate set on the toilet’s tank. Beneath the sink sat a metal wastebasket the size of a juice glass, within which lay a single, seemingly unsoiled cotton ball. The sight of the tiny trash can filled me with self-loathing. Compared to the women of the VBB, I felt like a soiled tissue deposited in a seatback pocket. The universe had shone favourably upon them, bestowing them gifts like this condo and Nikki’s robust infant. I hoped the secretion of their success would ooze onto me.”
Visionboard criticism that genuinely made me lol:
“I noted they didn’t directly ask for higher salaries— overt material requests must have been considered gauche. Instead, their boards featured items like the satisfaction of helping younger coworkers, learning from their mentors, or, in Nikki’s case, revamping her business website. All of these seemed like tasks that could be accomplished without the collaboration of an infinitely powerful universe.” 1
Philosophical thoughts on flying:
“Flight was suspended animation, a period in which a person was exempt from obligation, cut off from the grounded world.”
And, if none of that convinced you that this book could be worth a read, this blurb from the author’s acknowledgements really says it all:
“Many books and sources contributed to the writing of this one. Foremost among them is Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, with which Sky Daddy is in casual conversation.”
Kate Folk, I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on, but please keep taking them. Because of you, I will never board a plane the same way again.
💻 Several People Are Typing, Calvin Kalsuke
A work-from-home comedy told entirely through Slack messages.
The plot starts when an employee accidentally uploads his consciousness into Slack. That sentence alone should be enough for you to buy this book. This was delightful! Weird!!! Existential!!!
Calvin wrote a novel for the girlies who gossip in side Slacks. This is for anyone who’s had futile conversations with Slackbot (a pivotal character). This is for professionals who’ve bullshitted their way through a directionless brief. This is for anyone who’s looked at their computer screen and felt like it would be better to howl into the void than spend another day online.
The only reason Several People Are Typing isn’t in my top six is because of a body-swapping plot point that I didn’t love, but am willing to overlook for the sheer joy this story brought me! :dustystick:
🏩 All Fours, Miranda July
A middle-aged woman leaves her family to find herself on a cross-country road trip, only to spend two weeks unravelling in a motel 20 minutes from home.
This book was complete and utter mayhem from top to bottom. At every turn, the main character made choices from a place of incomprehensible lunacy. The woman had a tickle trunk full of terrible ideas, and I could have stayed in her delulu mind forever! That other characters could follow her fabricated fantasies was mindboggling to me. We should all be so lucky to have friends and romances that allow us this level of creative depravity (ie, renovating a hotel room as a nest for an affair, FBI telephotographer role-play, open source menopause advice, interpretative dance social media posts as love letters, street trash graffiti as a proclamation of devotion…). Not to mention the applicator-less tampon foreplay or marriage breakthrough over dog poop…I thought this book was hysterical and fascinating, but it lost points for the overuse of shock value and the glamorization of open marriages.
Anyway, here’s how I imagine Miranda July writes books:
My next chapter
2026 is all about the library!
I’ve renewed my card.
I’ve placed my holds.
I’ve already wrestled one rubber band off a plastic-coated spine, and I’m ready to be a force of good in my community.
Bring on the neighbourly small talk!!
Bring on the non-commital head nods of recognition!!
This year, I’m waving to local residents, learning names, and finding out where to buy this t-shirt:
Epilogue:
With everything happening in the news, writing this newsletter feels a lot like this:
Some of us are called to serve.
Some of us find God.
Some of us have undiagnosed mental illnesses….
Thank you for being here and indulging my madness! My Sundays are sacred because I spend ‘em with you 💕
Please don’t!
you are a treasure! this line had me howling: "Kate Folk, I don’t know what kind of drugs you’re on, but please keep taking them."
so happy Local Heavens was a hit for you! 🥂🫶🏻 here's to staying weird at the public library in 2026!