2025 wrapped
some of my favorite media from the past year
Hi. I hope you’re doing well.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that it’s 2026. It may have something to do with the fact that I’ve been rotting in my home since Christmas Eve and am only vaguely aware of what day of the week it is.
This is my third year in a row taking the time off between Christmas and the New Year and I still don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand, it’s nice to finish out the year with a break where I don’t have to think about work. However, this is the kind of time off that encourages hedonistic lazing. For the last week and a half, I’ve been entirely fueled by decaf coffee, Christmas sweets, and the occasional breakfast sandwich. As I’m sure you can imagine, there’s not a lot going on in the ol’ noggin at the moment, so I figured I’d put together my second annual write-up of media I’ve enjoyed throughout the year.
2025 in books:
Honestly, 2025 wasn’t a stellar reading year for me. I read 24 books, many of which I certainly enjoyed, but there weren’t very many standouts. There were, however, a couple worth mentioning:
Heaven by Mieko Kawakami – This was my favorite book of the year and the only book I’ve rated 5 stars on Storygraph since I started logging books at the beginning of 2024. It was a quick read but it absolutely gutted me. My review of the book immediately after reading it was that it “ripped my heart to shreds for 173 pages and managed to put it back together again in the last 2.” It’s a story of two students who are bullied by their classmates that explores the idea of whether there is meaning to be found in suffering.
“I wasn't crying because I was sad. I guess I was crying because we had nowhere else to go, no choice but to go on living in this world. Crying because we had no other world to choose, and crying at everything before us, everything around us.”
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa – This deeply unsettling dystopian fable follows an unnamed woman on an unnamed island where things regularly disappear. Once those things disappear, they are entirely forgotten by nearly everyone. The few who remember become targets of the Memory Police. It’s not a plot-forward book by any means. It explores memory and loss and the grief of it all, but it’s also so much more than that. It was a truly fascinating read despite it leaving me with more questions than answers by the end. My immediate thought upon finishing the book was that its unsatisfying end was satisfying because of its lack of satisfaction.
“A heart has no shape, no limits. That’s why you can put almost any kind of thing in it, why it can hold so much.”
2025 in music:
I genuinely didn’t think 2025 could possibly top 2024 for new releases in a single year, but I think it did. In addition to some killer new releases, I revisited a lot of my old favorites throughout the year. Despite the fact that I’m a certified Playlist Girlie™ (to the extent that people ask me to make playlists for their events), I made it a point to listen to more full albums in 2025. These are the ones that defined the year for me:
I Love My Computer by Ninajirachi (2025) – The first time I heard this album I knew it was going to be my album of the year. It’s a electronic dance record that’s crunchy, catchy, and cohesive and it sonically tickles my brain in all the right ways. No skips, songs that flow into one another, and a killer closing track? What more could I ask for?
Favorite Tracks: All At Once, All I Am, Battery Death, Delete, Fuck My Computer
LUX by Rosalía (2025) – This might not have been my album of the year but it was definitely the album of the year. This is a very close #2 for the year. Admittedly, I was not familiar with her game until listening to this album. It’s absolutely incredible: she pairs lush orchestral instrumentation with catchy pop vocal melodies, and does it in over a dozen languages.
Favorite Tracks: Magnolias, La Yugular, La Rumba del Perdón, Reliquia, Divinize, Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti, Jeanne
Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party by Hayley Williams (2025) – Miss Williams did it again. Honestly it was kind of diabolical how she originally released this entire album as singles before it officially became an album. I loved that we, the listeners, could arrange the songs however we’d like and essentially build our own album with them. I kind of wish she’d kept it that way, mostly because my only real complaint about this album is that it felt too long and thus some of the tracks on the back half fell flat for me. But there is phenomenal songwriting on this album and plenty of tracks I know I’ll be coming back to again and again.
Favorite Tracks: Parachute, Mirtazapine, Ice In My OJ, Hard, Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, Good Ol’ Days
Breakfast in America by Supertramp (1979) – I’ve loved Supertramp since I was little—my parents had their greatest hits album The Very Best of Supertramp and I listened to it a lot growing up. It wasn’t until I was in my early 20s that I actually listened to Breakfast in America in full (I believe my parents gave me their vinyl copy of the record after I got my first turntable). The vibes? Immaculate. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to feel sad while listening to this, and bringing it back into the album rotation has been such a joy for me.
Favorite Tracks: Take The Long Way Home, Goodbye Stranger, The Logical Song, Breakfast In America, Child of Vision
Music From Before The Storm by Daughter (2017) – I think I listened to this for the first time in early 2020. For some reason, it reminds me of this long weekend trip my husband and I took to Lincoln City when we still lived in Oregon. It’s a soundtrack for the video game Life Is Strange: Before The Storm, which I know absolutely nothing about. But this album is beautiful and ethereal and just a wonderful listening experience all around.
Favorite Tracks: The Right Way Around, All I Wanted, Voices, Glass, Flaws
Honorable Mentions: Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie (2008), K1 by kmoe (2025), Addison by Addison Rae (2025)
Singles/EPs: Sunshine When It Rains/See The World by Olēka, House feat. John Cale by Charli xcx
2025 in movies & shows:
I’m not a TV or film buff by any stretch. I said it in last year’s recap and I’ll say it again: I tend to favor rewatching the same things over and over again over watching things that are new to me. I’m not entirely sure why I’m like this, given that it’s not the case for me with any other type of media, but I digress. I will say that this year was pretty eventful as far as TV goes. Here were some of my notable watches of 2025:
The Summer I Turned Pretty (2021-2025) – When I first found out that Jenny Han’s book series of the same name was being adapted into a TV show, I lost my freaking mind because a much younger version of myself absolutely adored these books. So naturally, I was locked in for the much anticipated release of S3. As fun as it was to flame the show’s protagonist, Belly Conklin, for making painfully terrible decisions that led to her getting tangled up in a love triangle between brothers for the first two seasons, I loved watching this last chapter (or so we thought) of her journey unfold. Like Belly, I once was a Messy Girl™ so I really resonated with her character arc and coming of age story (as well as her questionable decision making). This show’s third season also happened to be one of many pieces of media that contributed to what some are coining the year of the yearner. (After all, who among romance enjoyers doesn’t love watching a fictional man pine?)
Marry My Husband: Japan (2025) – I’d already read the Webtoon and watched the K-Drama adaptation in 2024, so when a Japanese adaptation of the show dropped, I was all over it. This show follows a woman who, after discovering her husband and best friend are having an affair, travels back in time and tries to change her fate. I loved this adaptation and (this might be a hot take) prefer it over its K-Drama counterpart. This version felt grittier and more raw, which I liked. There were some changes to the story that I felt elevated it, which was great because it made a story that was pretty familiar feel new in some ways. What else I found interesting about this adaptation is that it actually acknowledges the pandemic and its impact, which is so rare for media that has been released since then.
Moneyball (2011) – My husband loves this movie and has been trying to get me to watch it for years. Unfortunately for him, I’m the kind of person who is less inclined to watch something the more people insist on it. I always knew I’d get around to watching it eventually. When that day finally came, all I knew about this film was that it’s about baseball and statistics: two things that I don’t care very much about. I ended up really enjoying it. I love an underdog story, after all. A bonus for me was that the film used my favorite song off a post-rock album I’ve loved for many years—The Mighty Rio Grande by This Will Destroy You—as part of its score. It’s the kind of song that works really well in amplifying emotional moments. All in all, a great movie.
Heated Rivalry (2025) – I genuinely thought The Summer I Turned Pretty was going to be my big show of the year until Heated Rivalry came crashing through the proverbial wall a la Kool Aid Man. The last month and a half has been such a blur that I genuinely have no idea how I came to be aware of this show, but as someone who has been in and out of the slashfic trenches since 2013, I had a feeling that a show about gay rival hockey players who fall in love would be right up my alley. I went into it with low expectations and was absolutely blown away by how well done it was, considering the show’s low budget and short filming time. The haters will tell you it’s little more than gay porn, and sure, the show does initially lure in viewers with graphic sex scenes that leave almost nothing to the imagination. But what hooked me and kept me watching was how lovable and real the characters were, as well as how beautifully the romance between the main characters unfolded throughout the show’s six episodes. (It’s the yearning, y’all.)
One of my favorite things about going into a new year is the possibility of it all. There’s such a feeling of wonder and excitement that comes from knowing that there are so many undiscovered songs that could become my new favorites, films and shows I’ve yet to watch that’ll make me cry, and unread books profound enough to completely alter my brain chemistry.
This year, I’m very much looking forward to finding out what some of those are.
