Reading Round-up: December 2025

I always feel bad for all the books I read in December, especially around the holiday. Usually they come in too late to be considered in my best of, and yet too early to be a 2026 read. This year I’m just going to give them their own special list. So buckle up, you’re going to be here for a minute.

Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

This first book is a novella that is a delightful mediation on grief and the ways we transform through living and through dying. I very much enjoyed it. This is part of the Singing Hills Cycle, and every one of these books is remarkably different but a really fun read. (Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

The Bride of High Hill by Nghi Vo

You may be noticing a theme if you’ve skimmed this list already, but I read a lot of Nghi Vo in December. Here the next book in the Singing Hills Cycle, which had a surprising amount of horror elements. Be warned. (Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

The City in Glass by Nghi Vo

This might be my favorite book of the year. I am not sure how to describe it. It is one of those really cerebral works that also remains deeply compelling, a long tale of a demon and an angel and the harms and helps they heap upon one another. I was enthralled, and also enthralled by the city where the scene is set. (Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

This was an interesting book that offered a lot of reflections on found family and choosing hope. A novella, I felt that the ending of this story was a little unresolved, but overall it worked. It’s sort of a hard read to read at this moment in time, because the proposed near future seems a little too close to home, and it really made me want to eat noodles. (Science Fiction)

Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell

This is a very uncomfortable retelling of the Labors of Hercules featuring two POVs: Heracles, a naive and kind demi-god; and Hera, his evil step-mom. This book is about family, inherited trauma, abuse, forgiveness, and also the unforgivable. It’s not an easy read. It made me feel really raw and sad, actually. But it’s ultimately a kind book, which is the best kind. (Mythology, Retelling, LGBTQ+)

The Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

And yes, we are back again with another book by Vo. In this historical fantasy, the studios of Golden Age Hollywood are also places of fae-esque bargains where what you gamble can be everything you are. Into this treacherous landscape comes a child of immigrants from Chinatown who forges her own path forward into stardom. Our main character is not precisely likable, but she is an inspiration. Fans of old movies might really enjoy this book. (Historical Fantasy, LGBTQ+)

The Folded Sky by Elizabeth Bear

The White Space novels have been a really fascinating journey for me. This particular adventure builds off of the events in the first book, though the characters have changed totally. There is an ambitious academic and her nemesis, several cats, two teenagers, a cobbled together space station next to a dying star, a pirate siege, a near-murder-by-microbes, interdimensional hijinks, and a lot of other wild elements based on some fun cutting edge physics theories. (Science Fiction, LGBTQ+)

The Cautious Traveler’s Guide to the Wastelands by Sarah Brooks

Did you know there used to be a train that connected Moscow all the way to a city in China (name currently escaping me) that, while not Beijing, is pretty close? The Chinese connection was abandoned in the early 1910s, but the existence of this train is the inspiration for a fantastical history that feels as if it most deserves comparison to Jeff Vandermeer’s Annihilation. Though this is marketed as historical fantasy, the horror elements are strong, with a surreal and sentient landscape being a focal point of the tale. (Historical Fantasy)