I’ve wanted to make a blanket since as long as I can remember. In high school, I tried multiple times to crochet one either as granny squares or one long blanket, but those projects never stuck. Late in 2024, I saw people posting their book blankets on social media where each square represented a book they had read, and I was inspired. The idea of wrapping myself up in last year’s reads was irresistible, and I caught the crocheting bug.
So much has changed since then – people have come in and out of my life, I quit my fulltime job to work freelance and unexpectedly became a social media influencer.
But the blanket has been with me through it all. I usually write a post about the best books I’ve read every year, and I was blessed with the opportunity to review a good number of the books I’ve loved this year.
Including my end of year column about sophomore novels at Rooted. On January 31st, I finished the book blanket. It’s not an exhaustive list of the books I’ve read or even reviewed in 2025, but it comes pretty close.
To commemorate my accomplishment, my friend and software engineer, Isaac Lo helped me create this interactive photo of the blanket to show what book each square goes to. Feel free to click on any square to see the description/what book it corresponds to. I hope you find it as cool as I do!
Here are my top 5 books of 2025:
- Homeseeking by Karissa Chen – full review here at Rooted
- Good Soil by Jeff Chu
- Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel – full review at Midbrow
- Katabasis by R.F. Kuang – full review
- Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – full review here
For the materials I used or to check out any of the books, you can look at my shop on Benable here! These use affiliate links which means that if you make a purchase, I will get a commission at no additional cost to you. If you’d rather make a Bookshop.org purchase, the top 5 books are linked for you above.
Here’s a full list of the books:
- What a Time to be Alive by Jade Chang – full review here at Rooted.
- Better Ways to Read the Bible by Zach Lambert
- My Body is Not a Prayer Request by Amy Kenny
- Lightbreakers by Aja Gabel – full review at Midbrow.
- I’m laughing because I’m crying by Youngmi Mayer
- Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou
- Meet Me at Blue Hour by Sarah Suk
- All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall, High Heaven by Joshua Wheeler and After Color by Malaika Favorite were all included on my science fiction panel at the Louisiana Book Festival!
- Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic
- Biting the Hand by Julia Lee
- Good Soil by Jeff Chu
- I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue
- All about love by bell hooks
- Here in the Dark: A Novel by Alexis Soloski
- Make Your Way Home: Stories by Carrie R. Moore – full review at the Advocate.
- Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Kelly Hayes, Mariame Kaba
- Culture Creep: Notes on the Pop Apocalypse by Alice Bolin
- Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life by Tish Harrison Warren
- The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang
- Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe
- Good Dirt: A Novel by Charmaine Wilkerson
- Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy
- Daughters of the New Year by E.M Tran
- Just My Type by Falon Ballard
- Work Won’t Love You Back: How Devotion to Our Jobs Keeps Us Exploited, Exhausted, and Alone by Sarah Jaffe
- The entire Divergent series by Veronica Roth
- Divergent
- Insurgent
- Allegiant
- Four
- The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick
- Goddess Complex by Sanjena Sathian
- Our Last Wild Days by Anna Bailey – full review in the Advocate
- Ten Incarnations of Rebellion by Vaishnavi Patel – full review in the Advocate
- We Could Be Rats: A Novel by Emily Austin
- Misbehaving at the Crossroads: Essays & Writings by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers – full review here
- Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins
- Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe
- My Friends by Fredrik Backman
- Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
- The Hunger Games
- Catching Fire
- Mocking Jay
- James by Percival Everett
- The Real Americans by Rachel Khong
- How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
- Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair by Danielle Sered
- Black in Blues by Imani Perry – full review at the Advocate
- Julie Chan is Dead by Liann Zhang – Q&A here at Rooted
- When the World Tips Over by Jandy Nelson
- Katabasis by R.F. Kuang – full review
- Rental House by Weike Wang
- Authority by Andrea Long Chu
- The Family Recipe by Carolyn Huynh – Q&A at the Advocate
- Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez
- Work in Progress by Kat Mackenzie
- The Girls I’ve Been by Tess Sharpe
- Homeseeking by Karissa Chen – Full review here at Rooted
- The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan – Full review in the Advocate
- Restaurant Kid by Rachel Phan – full review at Midbrow