In Which I Say Goodbye To 2025 (Featuring a life update and my book highlights)

It’s raining as I write this.

I will never not love the rain, I think. There’s something so calming and beautiful about it. I’d be happy if it rained every day.

This year has been… well. It’s certainly been. Joyous and sorrowful and full of laughter and tears and successes and disappointments. In other words, life. When I think about everything that’s happened, I see God in my life and I’m thankful. He’s good and everything will turn out right because of Him.

This season in my life is particularly difficult. I’m in the process of auditioning for major music schools across the country, and it takes a lot of dedication and no small amount of time. So if I disappear from the blogiverse for an extended period, it’s probably because I’m off somewhere practicing my tail off. 

Yet despite the difficulty, it’s still good. I get the chance to pursue a career in the thing I love doing most in the world. Hard things are worth doing. Perseverance.

But somehow I’ve also managed to read a good deal this year (thank the LORD!) In no particular order, I’ve compounded a list of my most memorable books of 2025. Enjoy!

1. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott*

3. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery*

4. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery*

5. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen*

6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

7. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

8. That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis*

9. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien*

10. Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

11. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett*

12. Echoes of a Silent Song by Amanda Wen

13. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis*

14. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis*

15. The Book Jumper by Metchthild Glaser

16. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë*

17. The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

18. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

19. What Comes of Attending the Commoners’ Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown

20. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

* = re-reads

Happy New Year!

Hannah