Immersive reading, top 5 books I've read in 2025 so far

Out of 24 reads, I picked 5 books I would recommend to anyone now!

Hello and happy Sunday!

An octopus reading a book in its natural habitat - AI-generated

I wrote last week about the book I was reading, Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. I am happy to report that the book delivered everything it promised, and then some. I happily rated this book with five stars and would recommend it as one of the best books I’ve read this year.

I didn't properly get into it until about 20% through. I feared the promise was not going to live up to the hype, especially when your narrator is an octopus, but then the story shifts quickly to a sad woman who's grieving her husband's and son's deaths. There was a rollercoaster of emotions in the first few pages, and I was unsure that I could stomach it.
Yet, the book delivers big time. The octopus Marcellus becomes central to the story, and he is so full of wisdom that it's refreshing. Beautiful writing. Such a joy to read!

My Goodreads review

I still can’t believe I am writing this, but this is the 24th book I have finished this year. I have had an incredible reading pace since January, thanks in great part to a little trick that I know is not available to everyone: I have been listening to the audiobook version of the book while also reading the written words. This is not something I invented myself, but rather a trend (I didn’t know this when I started doing it) called “immersive reading.” Some people get specific and add “with audio.”

The reason why I started doing this was due to an anxiety tendency to fidget while reading: I had trouble sitting still for too long with my Kindle or book, or even if I did sit still, my mind would wander and I found myself having to reread entire pages, because I had zoned out. I am a highly auditory person, and I can’t ignore sounds. This has been a curse for most of my life: I can’t ignore bad songs in cafes or restaurants, people talking around me, even if it’s in a language I don’t understand, I can’t focus with chatter or noise around me. But it works in my favour in conversations, classes, and when taking in audiobooks. So while listening to the audiobook and reading, I feel less pinned to the chair: I can get up, move around, maybe even do chores while the narration continues in my ears. When I sit down again, I flip through to however far I’ve got in the audiobook.

I haven’t done this with all books this year, but it has been a trick that has helped me get unstuck.

As I usually do, when I lifted my head from my own habits, I realised there is a whole trend out there, and booktok is obviously at the centre of it. Here is a guide on Audible and Kindle books, and here is the ultimate guide to immersive reading.

One of the most significant advantages of reading and listening simultaneously is the substantial boost it provides to reading comprehension. When you follow along with an audiobook or spoken content while reading the written text, you engage multiple parts of your brain simultaneously. This multisensory experience reinforces your understanding of the material, making it easier to grasp complex concepts, intricate plotlines, or challenging subject matter.

Speechify blog

My top 5 books of the year so far

Even with the bit of help I get from my immersion reading gimmick, I have slowed down, and April has been my low so far. Remarkably Bright Creatures took me almost two weeks to complete. I blame Easter and family time for it!

Thanks to The Story Graph, I can visualise the books I have read and my reviews and labels so beautifully. It summarises the formats I consume books in as well, and as a rule, I only mark a book read in audiobook format if that is the only format I used to go through it.

Number of pages and books read per month so far

I have rated 7 books with a 5 star rating

If I were to make a top five of the best reading experiences this year, the list would be this:

1. Yellowface, by R. F. Kuang

Wrote about it in February’s Grapevine:

2. Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt (see last week’s Grapevine)

3. Amma, by Saraid de Silva

4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

Covered both books in the first Grapevine of April.

5. The Long Walk, by Stephen King

I talked about this book early in January, and though I would personally place it much higher on the list, I focused on a hierarchy of books I would universally recommend to anyone. I know The Long Walk is pure fiction writing exquisiteness, but I also know many people would take issues with it. If you like anything by Stephen King, you would like this, though!

So there you have it. My top read books so far in the year. My reading goal is set to 35 this year, because I grew tired of missing the mark for the past few years. I know that thanks to immersive reading I will be blowing past this target, but I am also at a point where the number at the end of the year is less important that the experience and the pleasure I took from reading the books.

If you’re wondering what the other two books were out of the seven that I rated five stars, they are Ready Player One by Ernest Cline and Elantris by Brandon Sanderson. The reason they didn't make top 5 is that the former was a YA sci-fi made special and particularly enjoyable due to the audiobook and the narration of Will Wheaton, and the latter is a special form of high fantasy that I don’t imagine many people would jump to without prior introduction to the genre. I tried to keep the top 5 universally relevant for book lovers, and not specific to genres.

So far, 2025 has provided me with some very special literary joys and I am having more fun reading than I have had in the past ten years! As you can see, it’s not because I am reading new books necessarily: some books on the list are re-reads, others are quite old, some are newly published, and I think this mix is what makes the ecclectic mix so fun!

Here’s to reading and enjoying it!

What’s your top 5 this year?