March 2025 Reading Recap

A little swerve into young adult romance and a review of my new Mount TBR.

The second half of April isn’t too late to do a March reading recap, right? Right. No reason for taking so long, just the state of the world and busy weekends and life being life. But reading in March felt really good — lots of cheery stuff, romances, young adult, and a couple of awesome literary picks. Let’s go!

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📘 Threads That Bind and Hearts That Cut by Kika Hatzopoulou

A fantasy duology might be my new favorite format? It lets a story breathe a bit, but doesn’t seem to suffer from the “middle book” problem of just feeling like a bridge to the conclusion. In this pair, Io Ora is one of the descendants of the Greek Fates. She uses her ability to follow and sever threads as a private investigator, comes across a gruesome series of crimes, and is forced to pair up with her fated soulmate to solve them. I thought the main characters of this duology were super charming, and I loved the way powers from various gods across cultures and religions were woven into the world. It was a really fun read!

🎧 Back After This by Linda Holmes

Despite her reservations, audio producer Cecily Foster agrees to be the host and main character of a new podcast about her dating life. But right before the show starts, sparks fly with someone else, creating a whole mess of complications as Cecily tries to pursue the life she really wants. I loved both of Linda Holmes’ previous books (Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo), but this one fell a little flat for me. I didn’t find the main character quite as compelling as the others, and most of the plot about podcasting and the audio industry didn’t grab me. Even so, the banter was great and an average Linda Holmes novel is still a treat.

📘 Dating and Dragons by Kristy Boyce

After starting at a new school, Quinn hopes that joining a D&D game will help her make friends. She meets a charming boy and is excited to find out he’s part of the group, but then learns he’s off limits because the group has a no dating policy – shenanigans ensue! This book was very cute, which is all that I was hoping it would be.

📘 Anatomy: A Love Story by Dana Schwartz

Hazel Sinnett wants to become a surgeon… but of course society won’t let her. Jack Currer is just trying to survive by stealing bodies and selling them to physicians who need them. After a chance encounter, the two team up to help Hazel learn enough to pass a medical exam and pursue her dream. This book is dark and weird and feels like it straddles many genres — but also it’s a lot of fun! Hazel is a delight, Jack is charming, and the historical details about early surgery are interesting. There’s a touch of magic to the whole thing that I also found fun. I’m glad there’s a second book in this duology!

📘 All the Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

Whew, this book was a doozy! The jacket copy describes it as “a missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story,” which I was surprised to discover is totally accurate. It follows several characters from a kidnapping and murder in 1975 to the aftermath years and decades later. I don’t want to say more, because I think some of the joy of this novel is the paths the story takes over time. It’s long, but with short chapters and many threads, I thought it flew by pretty quickly. I really liked this one!

📘 Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

I love this book so much. June Hayward and Athena Liu were friends, but have drifted as Athena became a literary star and June struggled to break into publishing. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her just-finished novel about Chinese laborers and passes it off as her own… taking on the ambiguous name “Juniper Song” in the process. From there, the whole book just pokes at the entire literary establishment, from media to publishers to social media, in a way I found hilarious. And it asks some really good questions about diversity and cultural appropriation, in a way that isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. Like I said, I loved this one.

📘 Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo

The women of the Marte family all have a little bit of magic. When Flor, who can predict when someone will die, decides to throw herself a living wake, her sisters, daughter, and niece all have questions. The book follows the three days before the wake, but also weaves back and forth in time to explore their lives, stories, and secrets. I started this one as an audiobook, but struggled to keep the various characters and narrators straight. I switched to print and fell in love with it. Every character is compelling, and their stories navigate some challenging and wide-ranging experiences. It’s a beautiful read!

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Final Thoughts

Three months into the year seems like a good time to do a quick check in on my two goals for the year:

Reading — My goal is read every book that I purchase. At the end of the year, I want to have not added any titles to “Mount TBR.”

I’m doing pretty well on this one so far. I’ve purchased 13 books so far this year and read five of them, so I’m only plus eight. I’ve also read eight books owned before 2025, so overall my number of unread books has stayed flat.

Things will get a little worse after Independent Bookstore Day later this month, but I still feel like it hasn’t entirely gotten away from me. We’ll see!

Behavior — My goal is only to buy books at bookstores.

This one is also going pretty well. We’ve mostly stopped buying things at Target, which was one of my weak points, so that’s certainly helped. I’ve purchased one book from Amazon for my book club, but that’s the only place to buy it so I don’t feel too bad about it.

Overall, not to shabby! I’m a little concerned that “2025 Mount TBR” is close to being out of control, but we’re not there quite yet. And only purchasing from bookstores has generally been easier than I thought — I’m so lucky to have easy and convenient access to a ton of great bookstores. That’s not something I take for granted!

How are your reading goals for the year going? What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2025?