Getting in touch with my inner child at Visions Video rental store in downtown Northampton, MA

2025 was… a year that happened. Even in the midst of a chaotic year, I read some wonderful books and watched some great movies. I joined a book group at the local library and got out to the movies more often. Here are some of my favorites of the year that was.

Favorite graphic novels

I’m kicking off with favorite graphic novels first this year because I read so many good ones. The Ghostkeeper is probably my unexpectedly favorite book of the year. The kiddish cover does not convey the depth and nuance of this book about the toll of healing work. If it weren’t for my book group, it would’ve totally missed my reading radar.

Plus, new work from Alison Bechdel AND Lee Lai in 2025? Maybe this year wasn’t all too bad after all.

Favorite fiction

Feels a little odd that my two favorite books of the year were not recent releases. But I guess it’s not terribly surprising. They’re both by authors of two of my all-time favorite books, I’m Thinking of Ending Things (Iain Reid) and The Hours (Michael Cunningham).

We Spread is my favorite flavor of “how did we get here?” kind of horror. And A Home at the End of the World was another book club read that probably would’ve missed without my book club. Go book clubs!

Favorite nonfiction

Love in a F-cked Up World began my year of reading in the category I’m now calling “books I read to try to better myself and the world”* and it continued to be the most useful to me in this particular moment of life. I’ve been recommending it to nearly everyone (probably obnoxiously so). And Both/And was just a treasure.

*Some other books in this category that I read this year of overwhelm and trying to make sense of it all: Mutual Aid also by Dean Spade, Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Be a Revolution by Ijeoma Oluo, Let This Radicalize You by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba, and What It Takes to Heal by Prentis Hemphill.

2025 was also the year I read Ikigai and promptly decided I needed to start drinking jasmine tea and doing daily calisthenics so that I can live forever.

Favorite Movies

I fulfilled my 2025 goal of going to the movies at least 10 times! I didn’t have a goal to cry in a movie theater twice, but alas, that happened too! Welp! One of those movies was Flow, my favorite movie of the year. A band of unlikely animals working together to survive a devastating flood? Flowing tears. This is the real film about community resilience that we needed!

Overall I watched 39 movies, excluding some animated short films I saw in theaters. I was so grateful to get to the movies more often this year. One of my favorite movie memories of the year was watching Secret Mall Apartment in a sold-out theater at the local indie Amherst Cinema.

Favorite older films I watched at home included Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001) and Pride (2014, and the basic title of it does not do it justice).

This year I also watched the saddest movie I’ve ever watched in my life! Which happened to be All of Us Strangers (2023). Didn’t cry at that one, though. Is it possible for a movie to be too sad for tears? The other tear-jerker I saw was Sorry, Baby, which I saw because it was filmed partially where I used to live in Ipswich, MA.

And naturally I had to watch KPop Demon Hunters just to know what the hype was about. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would! Good year for movie-watching (and emotional release) all around.

Favorite TV Shows

2025 had me crying at the movies, and the final season of Stranger Things had me crying at home in front of my TV. Crying because of a TV show is a new experience for me. Stranger Things is one of my all-time favorite TV shows and seeing the growth of these characters who I’ve been with for 9 years was just so emotional, what can I say!

I started watching Couples Therapy because writers at a conference kept talking about it as a great source of inspiration for storytelling and conflict. Usually not my go-to type of show but I must say, it was riveting. I need Doctor Orna to psychoanalyze me (but not in front of the television masses please).

2025 is the year I also unexpectedly started watching Star Trek?! What a plot twist. I always felt like it was too late for me to get into the lore, that I’d have no idea what was going on or why they were flying ships through space for whatever reason. I started watching the contemporary Star Trek show Strange New Worlds and it was a little confusing at the start, but now I’m suddenly obsessed with Spock. I want Spock to be captain and have his own show! “I would like the ship to go. Now.” I felt that.

Reading and watching intentions for 2026

Read more fiction by authors outside the U.S. (and/or books in translation). And watch more international movies as well. I don’t really have a solid reason for this goal besides broadening my horizons and learning more about the wider world via the stories coming from places and cultures outside the states.
Keep showing up to the monthly queer book group I joined in 2025 (last year’s intention), because they’re awesome and they pick great reads.
I’m carrying over last year’s goal of going to the movies more often. Even if the movie is meh (hello Tron: Ares), I almost never regret going out to the theater. Aiming for 10 movie outings this year, and my stretch goal is 12 times (once a month, depending on what’s out and good).