50 Books Challenge 2025 Part Three

[Southeastdweller]

Welcome to the third thread of the 50 Book Challenge for this year.
The challenge is to read fifty books (or more!) in 2025, though reading fifty isn't mandatory. Any type of book can count, and please try to let us all know your thoughts on what you've read.

If possible, please can you embolden your titles and maybe authors as well of books you've read or going to read? It makes it much easier to keep track, especially when the threads move quickly at this time of the year.

The first thread of the year is here and the second thread here.

I’ve finished my first Women’s Prize book and I’m really undecided about it.
29 Birding by Rose Ruane
The book tells two separate stories of two middle-aged women set in the same dilapidated seaside town. Lydia is a middle-aged woman scraping by on the royalties of a couple of hits from when she was in a girl band in the 90s. A man from her past apologises to her in the wake of the ‘me too’ movement and makes her reassess her past. Meanwhile Joyce lives with her mother who is domineering and has a nasty streak. The two dress and act the same. The two characters are a bit off the wall yet their issues were relatable and I cared about them both. The book is very overwritten and stylised and yet it has some great insights into these characters and the issues women in general have to deal with. It’s certainly not a bold but it’s I liked it more than I would have expected from the beginning. I’m going to wait and see how much it sticks with me before I make a full judgement on it.

I have already read The Safekeep and All Fours last year and don’t intend to reread and I’m. Currently listening to Crooked Seed which took a while but I’m getting into it now. Next up for reading is A Little Trickerie

@MegBusset I read Fever in the Heartland the week of the US elections...wouldn't recommend that experience but thought it was a really important book.

34. Over Sharing - Jane Fallon

Picked this up yesterday morning from the station bookshelf and finished it yesterday too. It's been years since I read a Jane Fallon - they usually have some kind of romantic revenge element and this one did too.

Iris is 44, reluctantly sharing her London flat with a lodger after a divorce from Tom 4 years ago. Just as the couple were going through IVF, Tom cheated on Iris with Maddie and she's never forgiven either of them.

Maddie is now a 'mumfluencer', married to Lee with twins Ruby and Rose, producing family singing videos and with a book coming out on fun family times.

When Iris comes across Maddie on Insta, she is filled with jealousy... and ends up down a rabbit hole of following her... which leads to the discovery that all is not well with Maddie and Lee.

Honestly, all the characters in this are rather bonkers, but it was an entertaining read and rattled along nicely.

9. Wellness by Nathan Hill. Jack and Elizabeth meet in their early 20s in Chicago. We follow them over the next couple of decades as they build their careers - Jack as an artistic and academic and Elizabeth at an organisation called Wellness - and have a family. Hill also looks back at their childhoods and how these contributed towards their attraction to one another.

This was smart and funny. Hill gently pokes fun at most of the common and less common pleasures and pitfalls of modern middle class life, including pop psychology, over investment in children’s education, the need to prove one’s worth at work, social media conspiracy theories, and alternative medicine. At times it felt a little too glib, but insights from Jack’s childhood in particular were tender and moving. Although for quite a long book the ending felt rushed.

31 My Favourite Mistake – Marian Keyes (Audible). Watermelon was the first Marian Keyes that I read. It was a present from a friend just after my husband had left me (although our child was 5, not new born). So the Walsh family have been in my life for around 27 years. 2025 marks 30 years since Watermelon was first published and I find that hard to believe!

MK has decided to write follow up books for all five of the Walsh sisters, Again Rachel, being the first one. This is the second one and its Anna’s story. Anna, daughter number 4, the quiet one who lives in New York. You know where you are with MK, its like slipping on a comfy pair of pjs. I galloped through this. MK reads it herself and I enjoyed it.

My next Audible is When We Were Orphans. I hope not to start another BBB fight 😊

@Tarragon posted: MK has decided to write follow up books for all five of the Walsh sisters

Eek, that means I'm going to have to reread the first book for each novel - but I think this time, it will be before reading the sequels, and in order of the sequels rather than the originals. Or I'll forget everything again. So I've reread/read the Rachel stories. I have all but one Marian Keyes novel on Kindle, including all the Walsh novels (after discarding paperbacks previously).

Has she definitely said she’s going to do a sequel for all 5 sisters? I’ve seen her speak recently and she said she’d never planned to do sequels but had good ideas for Rachel and Anna. She didn’t mention any plans to do sequels for the others though. Interestingly, she has said that The Break was originally meant to be Claire’s sequel but Marian decided she couldn’t break up Claire and Adam so she changed it to completely new characters.

I have wondered if she might do some of the next generation of Walshes - Kate seems like a good place to start!

Oh man! I'm now looking for the source and I cant find it! I thought it was a Guardian article, but no joy. I'm pretty sure I didnt make it up, but who knows.

@elkiedee maybe hold off just now until we find out if I made that up lol

I love Marian Keyes! I think I've read most of hers, but I'd definitely want to read them again. I've read Again Rachel, I'll look up the new one.

As I said, I'll probably just read the earlier Walsh books in preparation for the sequels when any sequels appear. I've read both Rachel books recently, and I will reread the first Anna book before I read My Favourite Mistake.

I didn't know that The Break was originally intended to be about Claire but when you say it, it does make a lot of sense, they do have stuff in common, though middle aged Claire as Rachel's big sister in Again, Rachel sounds a lot more glamorous than The Break's Amy.

For all the Marian Keyes Walsh fans - there is a TV series coming out soon based on the books 😍

Just finished 11. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, which has been sitting on my kindle for years. Ten strangers are invited to a house on Soldier Island off the Devon coast and one by one they get bumped off by someone who wants to make them pay for their past crimes. I read this in two sittings and it's a definite bold from me.

I've reserved three of the WP longlist from the library, The Artist, Birding and Nesting. Thanks for your earlier review of Birding @ÚlldemoShúl and I'm looking forward to others' reviews of the WP books.

39. The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes was a bit like an Irish version of Blue Sisters. I enjoyed it, but there was something missing for me. I didn't love Blue Sisters!

I'm bringing out the big guns and reading 40. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood next. I've seen the TV series so that's what I'm picturing when reading this - not ideal! I rarely read anything if I've seen it on a screen. I'm having the same challenge with my slow read of Wolf Hall.

Wishing you all a fab weekend of reading!

@InTheCludgie I’ll be interested to hear how you get on with Birding. I have t seen many reviews of it yet.

Finally finished book ten! Double figures at last.

after finishing the Silo trilogy I wasn’t sure what to go for next. For some reason I decided I hadn’t had enough post-apocalyptic stuff so went for Station 11 by Emily St John Mandel.

this is a post-apocalyptic book which spans the years immediately before the deadly Georgia flu and the 30 years after. With a mortality rate of approximately 99% and a time span of 2 days of infection to death the Georgia flu takes the world by complete surprise and reeks absolute devastation. We are introduced to characters at both ends of the timeframe and gradually their worlds contract and diverge.

there is absolutely threat and peril but this isn’t a typical fight for your existence end of the world thriller.

This is a book of nostalgia for the present, loss and the importance of art. The descriptions of dusty, perfectly preserved homes in a world where one day all the lights went out and electricity stopped but the travelling symphony walks from settlement to settlement playing music and Shakespeare.

This was a bold for me. In a very, very busy couple of weeks, the slow start had me regretting me choice. I didn’t pick it up at all for about four days and considered abandoning it as I wasn’t hooked. I am so glad I stuck with it. At points I considered that the post-apocalyptic life was an enviable one. Once the panic and the trauma passes and the reality of “this is it” for the survivors, what is described seemed rather reassuring and peaceful. There were parts I found difficult to read and I was struck by the horror of it. But then by the end I found myself reasoning that as long as I had my kids I would be ok. It was quite a journey. Beautiful, haunting and one that will stay with me

Right. Off to catch up on roughly two weeks of thread!!

10. How to build a boat - Elaine Feeney I listened to this on audible - I'm a sucker for an Irish accent! Jaimie's Mum died giving birth to him and he's been brought up by his dedicated Dad. He doesn't quite fit in at his new secondary school but is taken under the wing of two different teachers. A bold for me.

Madam Ataturk Ipek Calislar trans by Feyz Howell

I’m doing quite well on the non-fiction front this year. This is a biography of Latife Hanim, who was married to the first President of Turkey at the founding of the republic. They were only married for two year, when she was,it seems, summarily dismissed and lived a reclusive life until 1975. However, those two years were formative years for the country and she was present and pivotal in shaping the role that women should play in the new society. She was educated, confident and acted as an unofficial aide de camp. This was a good addition to my knowledge of this part of Turkish history, which is ok but the ease with which this can be read makes it very accessible, even for someone who knows nothing. The original in Turkish contains about 150-200 more pages, that the author explained weren’t needed for an English translation. In Turkey she had to qualify her points much more robustly to avoid prosecution for a statements that might have seemed to insult Ataturk, and by association Turkey. She was under investigation for 5 years. The most compelling thing is that this version compelled her to have consulted many more Western newspapers etc which enhance the narrative about Latife, and that Latife Hanim left two safes worth of papers behind, which are in the care of a historical association but sadly still closed - these papers are possibly a bit of a game changer for the story of the early republic. Likely a bold, but I’ll see at the end of the year.

@IKnowAPlace The HM’s Tale is excellent. You’re in for a treat.

13 Annie Bot - Sierra Greer
Much reviewed on here already. I took my time reading this (mainly due to having to make an elaborate world book day costume for the youngest this week) but also because it’s uncomfortable in places. Enjoyed isn’t the right word but I certainly will remember it

15 The House of Fortune - Jessie Burton The sequel to The Miniaturist, set 18 years later and following the same characters as they battle money worries and the judgement of fellow Amsterdam citizens - the same themes as the original book but with a very different story. I liked The Miniaturist but I absolutely loved The House of Fortune - it flowed beautifully, the characters felt so real, and I really cared about the outcome. Only my second bold of the year! I have another book by Burton waiting for me on BorrowBox and I’m very happy to dive straight into it.

42. The God Of The Woods by Liz Moore (Spotify)

Someone on here recently said this was rubbish and I thought hey great that's on my TBR!

I tested this out as a freebie on Spotify and really liked the chosen narrator and so decided to go that way with it.

The Van Laar family are wealthy landowners whose property is used for a children's summer camp. In 1975, the Van Laar's daughter Barbara attends the camp and then goes missing

Adding to the mystery she is not the first Van Laar child to go missing her brother Bear has not been seen since 1961 and no one knows what happened to him.

The narrative/POV is split between the children's mother Alice, camp counsellor Louise, and Judyta the investigator amongst others,

I really enjoyed this and really looked forward to listening to it every night. I didn't solve it myself either so the mystery side of it worked for me. This is probably a bold, funny how two people can read the same book and have completely opposing views isn't it?

And having just said that about completely opposing views, I spy a review for that other thread divider Station 11 hated it absolutely hated it LOL

12. The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey

I raced through this one. It is about a girl and her friend trying to catch the Yorkshire Ripper back in the day. It evokes the late 70s well, and covers domestic violence, racism, sexual abuse and the way the world was changing. It is very Yorkshire, so would probably particularly resonate with anyone from that part of the country.

It is deceptively simple but deeper than it looks - I'm not giving it a bold because it was pretty formulaic and everything was neatly tied in a bow at the end, which I hate.

But an interesting enough read.

I'm really behind with my reviews again! Problem being that I then forget what I did/ didn't like/characters names etc
But here we go.

49. Artificial Agent. J.W Jarvis
    This was almost a bold. An ex navy SEAL (I think) is patched up using AI technology. And then war stuff happened. It was really good. But I have a terrible memory!

50. A Portion of Malice. Lloyd Jeffries
    Part one of a series based on Cain from the old Testament. His punishment was to have to live forever. So naturally he tries to take over the world. I really liked this, it's got 5*s on Amazon, but wasn't a bold for me because some of the language was really annoying. One character always says non instead of not, or no. But other than that it was fascinating. It was set in various time periods, including BC, the crucifixion and the modern day. Obviously heavy on the biblical stuff, but actually makes God seem like a bit of a bad guy.

51. Because You Asked. A.E Bennett
    Part of the Serrulata Saga. This book centres on 2 women who realise they are lesbians in a world where that isnt allowed. They are also performing illegal abortions in the basement. A quick little read.

52. Gone in the Storm. B.R Spangler
    This is book 12 in a series, and the only reason it wasn't a bold is because I haven't read the previous 11 and feel like I missed some back story. Other than that it was a fantastic crime thriller.
    A bunch of teenage girls are showing up dead. Police are convinced it's the boyfriend of one of them, but Detective Casey White is sure they are wrong.

53. Lost Soul. Theresa Van Spankeren
    Honestly can't remember what this was about, but I know I only rated it 3*

54. The Curlews Scream. Annette Leigh
    Another crime novel. Ex cop turned Novelist, Andy Yates is living in paradise. Until she hears that her ex has disappeared after being accused of stealing millions from his company.

55. Edith's Story. Edith Velmans
    I applied for this on NetGalley, and then realised it was a republication of a book I'd read 20 odd years ago. It's the true story of Edith Velmans, a young Jewish girl from The Netherlands who went into hiding, and survived the Holocaust. She was a similar age to Anne Frank, and kept a diary. A bold for me.

56. Mother Of The Bride. Quinn Avery
    This is listed as a standalone, but it's the 3rd book about detective Jo Kelly.
    15 years ago, Melody was found covered in blood, her husband dead on the floor. She somehow escaped prosecution, claiming she was sleep walking. In the present day, Melody's daughter is getting married. A dead body once again turns up, and Melody has no idea where she was that night. Plenty of twists, and the case wasn't as cut and dried as it seemed. Really enjoyed this.

57. A Measure Of Rhyme. Lloyd Jeffries
    Part 2 of the same series as A Portion of Malice. Time periods for this one include 1945 and the present day. Another almost bold but not quite.

58. The Hunt for The Peggy C. John Winn Miller
    The Peggy C is a tramp steamer in the 1940s. The crew is a random assortment of men, who navigate around collecting and delivering contraband and selling it to the highest bidder. They end up smuggling a Jewish family out of Amsterdam and promise to take them to Palestine, although there's no guarantee they will be allowed in. The captain of a German U-boat chases them around.
    I've made that sound so boring and it wasn't! I don't particularly like boats, but it was really good!