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Mae's Top Reads of 2025!

I wanted to put together a little highlight reel of the year's reads, so here it is!

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson: This series is is all fantasy politics. There's no magic or fairies or prophecies, just Seth Dickinson's invented world and the titanic machinations of Empire. And it is electric...Baru herself is the epitome of ruthlessness. Her goals are noble—her desire to free her home, to end the tyranny of the Masquerade—but she will do anything to achieve those goals. She is a truly fascinating character, calculating, controlled, brilliant—and constantly tormented by the need to weigh her choices and the potential futures ahead.

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin: Le Guin captures truly great sci-fi because this work is so imbued with curiosity. Le Guin is asking questions at the heart of any great sci-fi work: What defines humanity? What can we achieve, and how is it done, and what does that mean for society? What is society? What does it mean to be alone? What does it mean to be part of a whole? To me, sci-fi can't be truly sci-fi without a measure of philosophy, and The Dispossessed has this in droves.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield: Armfield's writing beautifully illustrates this journey, and she does a particularly good job of doling out information a little at a time, so that the reader often share's in Miri's confusion and muddled state of mind.

The Originalism Trap by Madiba K. Dennie: Dennie does a great job making this book accessible to everyone...She doesn't stop at "here's what's wrong" either--she has proposal and suggestions for how to counter the outsized influence of this once-disfavored theory and what we as citizens can do to push back against it.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter: The book is obviously well-researched, and Hofstadter does a thorough job of documenting his sources and influences, as well as recommending additional reading on a broad range of topics touched on in his own book. So much of what he establishes here makes perfect sense when looking at modern American society. He so neatly threads the needle between where we started and where we are now that at some moments, it felt like the fog was lifting on something I should have seen ages ago.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez: Jimenez's writing is beautiful and vivid—for good or for ill, as there are some gruesome events that take place—and really sweeps you up in the events of the story. He also does a wonderful job capturing the emotional mindsets of the characters. In particular, I thought the way he handled the relationship of the two main protagonists, Jun and Keema, was very realistic given who they are, and the emotional payoff of his taking the time to work through that was so worth it.
And for the haters among us, below the cut are my most disappointing reads of 2025.