The Great Believers – Chrys Buckley

cover of The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

This book was recommended to me by my instructor for my final book design course. Throughout the term, I’d gotten to know that our tastes were pretty similar in that we both loved Tana French and Liz Moore’s The God of the Woods. So I was already tuned to Elaine’s recommendations. Plus, I’d already read one of Rebecca Makkai’s books, I Have Some Questions For You, and loved it. So I put a library hold on The Great Believers.

The library hold came through right as my spring term was ending, and after a slow start from post-term exhaustion, I devoured this book in two days. I couldn’t put it down. There are two parallel timelines and two main characters: Yale in the mid-1980s and Fiona thirty years later. Both timelines explore the impact of the AIDS epidemic on one close-knit group of friends and their families. Oh, and there’s really cool art shit in there, too. The interweaving of so many different threads is done in a way that feels both cohesive and seamless.

In my particular circles, I would highly recommend this book to narrative medicine folks for the illness aspect and how humanly it’s portrayed. That’s what sets this book apart: how real the characters feel, full and alive and struggling and flawed, complex and messy. I loved living in their world, even when it was heartbreaking.

~Chrys

cover of Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell

This hasn’t been a banner year for me in number of books read. Grad school will do that. So will managing two departments of a press. So will having your own book in the works—I’m pretty sure I reread my book 9 times this summer for editing purposes. So will the state of the world.

I didn’t read as many books as I typically would. But, in all the chaos (internal and external) and busyness, I did read some excellent books. It was a banner year for quality, so I thought I would highlight some favorites.

My original intention was to post about books as I was reading them. I had that “I want to tell everyone in the world about how great this book is!” feeling, but then the list of books I wanted to post about but hadn’t found time for grew and grew. My next intention was to get a big Best Of list together by the end of 2025…and that obviously didn’t happen either.

So, time for a next next intention. I’m announcing it so I have to do it, this thing I’ve been wanting to do for months now. I still really want to share and exalt the great books I read and tell as many people as possible why I think they’ll love these books.

Over the next several weeks, on Sundays, I will post about my favorite 2025 books by category—completely made up by me—and write up about book in the gallery at the top of this post. I want to give each book its due, and share my excitement for each one.

In all cases except for one, these are books that I read in 2025, regardless of when they were published. Some of the books came out this year, and some definitely didn’t.

The order that book covers appear in the gallery at the top is randomized so that I wouldn’t play favorites with my favorites.

See you next Sunday!

Chrys

P.S. I also read some great manuscripts last year in my role at Ooligan Press and in independent editing work, books that are on their way to being out in the world but aren’t yet. Maybe that will be the next post series after this one because there are some incredible books in the pipeline that I think you’re going to want to know about.

Image Description: A gallery of book covers displayed in a 6×2 grid in randomized order: Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai, Who Killed One the Gun? by Gigi Little, Blazing Eye Sees All by Leah Sottile, Imagine a Door by Laura Stanfill, Reading the Waves by Lidia Yuknavitch, Cekpa by Leah Altman, Where We Call Home by Josephine Woolington, Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, The Winter Sister by Megan Collins, The Likeness by Tana French, and The Love of My Afer Life by Kristy Greenwood.