I pledged to read 125 books in 2025 and I did (more than that actually, but many were short novellas). Before January 1, 2025 dropped, I knew I needed an escape and otherwiseworld to sustain the chaos of the national political scene and these incessant Klan rallies that you find on every app, street corner, and government/campus meeting. Escapes are not a make-believe land though; they let you recharge and reimagine your current conditions with inspiration and creativity. I always read a lot of academic articles and non-fiction for the classes I teach every semester, so I don’t count that in my 125 goal. These 125 books were a mix of pure foolishness, pleasure, creativity, and divine inspiration. Yes, historical fiction (especially if it has a speculative twist) calls my name, but if BlackBookTok, BlackBookStagram, BlackAFReaders, ReadingAppCousins, or my BookClubFam started hyping any messy, dramatic, foolish, WTF-Did-I-Just-Read typa title in 2025, I MOST DEFINITELY read that book! What I didn’t get to, I stored in my TBR for 2026. My 2025 list is petty and hood and bougsie and triflin and edumacated all at the same time. Even though the rest of the U.S.A. might be out here struggling to read and comprehend basic words, BLACK WOMEN IS OUT HERE R.E.A.D.I.N.G. up a storm.
Quiet as it’s kept (for those not paying attention), reading has made a big comeback. The Black Romance Festival alone sold out its 2000 seats immediately when 7000 readers, mostly Black women, hopped online and tried to grab a ticket in the first fifteen minutes of sales, myself included. This culture of Black reading is all over BlackBookTok, BlackBookstagram, and the reading apps and I am here for it.
And it is a culture. There are TikTok/IG lives where folx just come to read as well as meet-ups in the park/bar/mall. I watch so many monthly reviews and monthly posts about books from Black content creators that I can’t keep up with it all. There are villains and bookbaes who I talk about as if I know them. I am on a first-name basis with every author I have read this year (the authors may not know me, but I’m their homegirl nonetheless). Young Black folx in school do deep-explaining on where they sneak time to read for pleasure. The book apps clock what I read, track my yearly targets, curate my faves, link me with dope book-friends, take stock of the genres and authors I’ve read most, and collect my reviews and fave quotes.
The BlackBookTokers I follow will read the same book across multiple modalities: hardcopy, audio, ebook, and then another hardcopy or paperback if a new version has a beautiful spray. You will get jealous of all them bookcases lining every wall with the most comfortable loungers and pillows nearby, all cozied up with an ebook page turner, ebook holder, and/or fabulous bookmarks. Issa LOT! Just extra to be extra… and so beautiful.
The posts— on every app— are hilarious. I fall out laughing everytime I see a sistah dogg out some dude tryna slide in her DMs when sistahgurl BEEN sayin this account is only ABOUT BOOKS. Some of these posts have entire playlists to match a book’s vibe. Some books got BlackBookTok out here dancing and I mean gettin real low too. The diss tracks on the ableist folx who say audiobooks are not real reading are priceless. The diss tracks on the unlovable folx who say romance books are trash, especially books showing Black love in a time of unmitigated anti-Black hate, are unrelenting. And you better not go on any corner of the internet and criticize smut or hood books; you gon mess around and get WHUPPED worser than the goofies and opps in urban fiction! Any BookToker who never read BIPOC but got online to commemorate the death of MAGA’s favorite 2025 white supremacist got dragged and dropped in grand ceremonial style. It ain’t about canceling; this is called CONSEQUENCES. Some call their kindle their plug and give them names. I just ordered my paperwhite for 2026. Her name is La’ Kindela (yes, the apostrophe is necessary), a title gifted to me by one of my book club members (who, despite being the sweetest person, stay reading and loving serial-killer-fiction!!! It’s wild our here!) Dope book suggestions, great book community, real good reading, and absolute outrageousness! Reading saved me from the doom of 2025.
My favorite read of 2025 was The Reformatory by Tananarive Due. If you are an educator and/or historian of Black education or if you just like Black speculative fiction, you must read this book! It will blow your mind. I will never forget it.
These were my other top favorites in 2025, books that deeply inspired me for their sociohistorical content, ancestral connections, and/or divine writing style: Black Girl Unlimited by Echo Brown; The Day God Saw Me As Black by Danyelle Thomas; Empire of AI by Karen Hao, Ring Shout by P. Djélí Clark, Son of the Morning by Akwaeke Emezi; and Zeal by Morgan Jerkins.
Monday’s Not Coming by YA author Tiffany Jackson was also a 2025 favorite. This book wrecked me and had me crying like a baby. I read all of Jackson’s books this year and fell in love with The Weight of Blood, Let Me Hear a Rhyme, Grown, Allegedly, and Storm: Dawn of a Goddess. I actually liked all of her nine books (and will read #10 as soon as it is released). If you don’t read YA novels, Tiffany Jackson is your sign to start. I saw the hype on her on BlackTikTok and followed it.
The King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby was another favorite. I read all of Cosby’s books in 2025, but I started with King so it will always be most memorable. I don’t really read crime-horror-thriller like that, but this one blew my mind. Sumbody go check on that man! How he got stories like this just in his head?? This is another author where I saw the hype on BlackTikTok and followed it.
And lest folx think I’m playin about my love of urban fiction, one title also made my all-time fave list: Demon’s Dream: An Expected Love by Elle Kayson. Elle did that– all 750 pages! So many people got unalived in this book, I don’t even know where to start, so I’ll just say: Damien and Smoke don’t play (if you are the pearl-clutching type, this book is not for you because the spice rack in this book is HOT AF!) Even for my old ass, these are my bookbaes for LIFE!
Here are all of the other books that I read, categorized according to my self-defined genres. This year’s reading categories for me are: A) “The People Could Fly” ; B) V.W.A.s, Haints, and All Our Hoodoo Cousins; C) A Black “Love Supreme”; D) D is for Drew Collins University; E) Poetics & Aesthetics; F) “Brickhouse”; G) WTF Did I Just Read? But… I Like It; H) “Baby, I’m a Doggggg, I’m a Mutt” Romantasy.
CATEGORY A: “The People Could Fly” | These are Speculative Black YA novels that intersect with schooling. I talked about these in a previous post (click here) related to my fall 2025 course, “Freedom School: Rhetorics and Histories of Black Education.” Because this category encompasses almost 50 titles (many of these books are series), this was almost 50% of my reading in 2025. I refer to these books as “The People Could Fly” to highlight the fact that the Black Speculative Imagination under white settler colonization begins with Black Diasporic Oral Traditions, often relayed to children, not with trendy academic theories in white university departments (click on the arrows below for the books I read).
CATEGORY B: V.W.A.s, Haints, and All Our Hoodoo Cousins | And just what is a V.W.A.? Vampires wit Attitude! BlackBookTok calls them viggas. Sinners ain’t show even half the stories that are out here. This was a big category for me this year, matching the speculative YA that fascinated me. There are so many BIPOC authors getting their lick back with BIPOC shapeshifters,haints, vampires, and conjurers that I give it is own category. For my 2025, these included: The Bewitching by Silvia Moreno-Garcia; Blood Slaves by Markus Redmond; The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones; Brothers Unholy by Nastee (yes, that’s the authors name! hey, may as well be true to you!); Chosen by a Vampire by Wynta Tyme (yes, that’s the authors name! cuz it’s cooold out here!); This Cursed House by Del Sandeen; The Dark Thirty by Patricia McKissack; The Deep by Rivers Solomon; Fang Gang 1, 2, AAAAND 3 by Cyn; The Good House by Tananarive Due; Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairytales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton (a repeat reading for me); Khan’s Choice by Tacarra; Moaning Bones: African American Ghost Stories by James Haskins; The People Could Fly: American Black Folktakes by Virginia Hamilton (a repeat reading for me); Root Magic by Eden Royce; The Visitors: A Louisiana Paranormal Short by De’Andrea.
CATEGORY C: A Black “Love Supreme” | These are the Black romance books that I danced with this year. For my 2025, these included: Black by Joan Vassar; Christmas with the Steeles by Brenda Jackson; Elbert by Joan Vassar; Emancipating James by Joan Vassar; Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory; Spilling the Tea by Brenda Jackson. This category will be infinitely larger in 2026, cuz I’m already makin my list and checkin it twice.
CATEGORY D: D is for Drew Collins University | And in a category all on her own is the indie author who goes by Desiree and Granger! I have an admissions certificate and sweatshirt from her fictional school, Drew Collins University— “a privately owned HBCU for Black mythical and magical beings and creatures” featuring all kindsa xxx-rated shenanigans. For my 2025, these included: Mortal Affairs; The First Family; Saint and the Queen; When a Wolf Loves the Moon; the Secret World of Maggie Grey.
CATEGORY E: Poetics & Aesthetics | Poetry books conjure words about the world’s horrors in ways that seem to surpass language, so I always read a few. Closely connected are large, Black art books for me (what foolish folx call coffee table books as if coffee needs a table) that visually take you to other worlds. For my 2025, these included: Camo by Thandiwe Muriu; Gumbo Ya Ya by Aurielle Marie; How to Survive the Apocalypse by Jacqueline Allen Trimble; If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar; Nana Akua Goes to School (a picture book but I’m counting it here); The Unboxing of a Black Girl by Angela Shanté.
CATEGORY F: “Brickhouse” | These fiction and non-fiction titles come with big and well-deserved acclaim so I had to read them. These writers are like that Commodore song: “awwwe, she’s a brickhouse/ she’s mighty mighty/ just lettin it all hang out… ain’t holding nuthin back.” For my 2025, these included: Ace of Spades by Faridah Ábíké-Íyímídé; Black Networked Resistance by Raven Simone Maragh-Lloyd; Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah; Dominion by Addie Citchens; Junie by Erin Crosby Eckstine; Lone Women by Victor LaValle; No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull; Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (a repeat reading for me); Race and Digital Media by Lori Kiddo Lopez; Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs (a repeat reading for me); We Tried to Tell Y’ll: Black Twitter and the Rise of Digital Counternarratives by Meredith Clark. And, of course, I must never forget Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers and Vera Wong’s Guide to Snooping by Jesse Sutanto. I laughed so hard and need Sutanto to do a Vera Wong series for Netflix so bad (or at least hurry and give us book 3 and 4 and on and on)!
CATEGORY G: WTF Did I Just Read? But… I Like It | Look, if you a dude out here playin women, do NOT let Octavia Grant or any of the Black women writers in this category get holdt to your story. You will never be the same (or alive). For my 2025, these included: Cut Throat and Dear Vicky by Octavia Grant; Hood Holiday with a Chicago Menace by Dominique Nikail; My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Brathwaite.
Category H: “Baby, I’m a Doggggg, I’m a Mutt” Romantasy | And in a category all by itself is romantasy. My 2025 romantasy dive centered Tessa Stone and Eva O’Hare. I saw the hype on them on BlackTikTok and followed it. Many of us are still on Amazon via Kindle Unlimited because of its vast publication of Black women indie authors (there is NO other reason to be buying books from them). Tessa Stone’s many, many novellas feature shapeshifters— mostly werewolves (hence, the Leon Thomas song reference as the title of this category), who have their own self-sustaining community in Michigan. These fine-ass Black men will tear you up if you try and come for one of their fated mates. The Black women in Eva O’Hare’s novellas go even further, literally: to other planets. For my 2025, I read Tessa Stone’s 13, first-published novellas and I read 5 novellas by Eva O’Hare. Again: if you are the pearl-clutching type, these books are not for you because the spice racks in these books are HOT AF! I had a 3-week run this summer where I was reading a novella per day by these two women. I just couldn’t stop. Black women can do anything (which we always knew) and this includes making wolves and aliens real fine and lustworthy. They out here turning Amazon out!
And now… it’s time to get ready for 2026. Let’s see if I can read 126 books this year so that I can sustain my mind and soul again! Television is getting whiter and so are movies and so are school curricula and so is Twitter and so is Nicki Minaj and so is GenAI and etcetera. As the elders would say: all you gotta do is STAY BLACK. I’m reading my way onwards.
