The 2025 Read Harder Challenge is Here
Welcome to The Best of Book Riot, our daily round-up of what’s on offer across our site, newsletters, podcasts, and social channels. Not everything is for everyone, but there is something for everyone.
Book Riot’s 2025 Read Harder Challenge
It’s finally time to announce the 2025 Read Harder Challenge! This is Book Riot’s 11th year hosting this challenge, if you can believe it. If you’re a Read Harder regular, it’s great to see you again! If this is your first time joining us, welcome to the challenge.
2024’s Best Mysteries, Thrillers, and True Crime
Because I enjoy — and put more stock into — the lists that give readers some kind of idea as to how the list was put together, I thought I’d give a little behind-the-curtain peek at my reading and how this list came to be.
The Queerest Christmas: 2024 LGBTQ Holiday Romance Novels
These queer queer holiday romances aren’t just good for your holiday reading, though. Each and every one of them makes for the perfect bookish gift, whether as a last-minute ebook or a carefully wrapped present under the tree. That’s the beautiful thing about holiday romance books — they’re perfect for reading and gifting. Basically, they’re here to fill your every holiday need. So fill all your stockings — and your December days — with these festive holiday romance reads full of queer love and LGBTQ characters.
Bookish Gifts for the Person Who Has Everything
No matter your price point, no matter the giftee, there’s certain to be something on this list for your favorite book lover. From personalized book stamps to handmade coffee mugs and everything in between, this list has it all.
An Adorably Awkward and Explicitly Sexy Sapphic Holiday Romance
Today’s book recommendation is a new sapphic holiday romance by the author of Delilah Green Doesn’t Care. There are so many juicy tropes packed into this book: lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, a secret relationship, and a couple more that I won’t mention, just to keep things fun. This book has a large, eccentric cast of mostly queer characters, and by the end of it, I wanted to be friends with each and every one of them.
Honoring Nikki Giovanni With BIPOC Poetry
I’ve gathered poetry collections that continue the tradition of exploring everything from queerness to oppression to everyday living that Giovanni carried on from her artistic forebears.
