{"id":62799,"date":"2025-12-06T11:37:17","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T16:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=62799"},"modified":"2025-12-06T11:37:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T16:37:17","slug":"things-what-i-liked-this-year-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2025\/12\/06\/things-what-i-liked-this-year-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Things What I Liked This Year, 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I liked a lot of cool stuff this year! I liked books, movies, music, games! The end! Huzzah. We did it. I’m going to go eat an apple now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*stares*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*waits*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ugh, fine. Fine<\/em>. You probably want me to, like, conjure names<\/em> of things, which honestly is very hard for me, really for two reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a) my brain is essentially a sinkhole in the middle of the street, and there’s just no telling when a car full of semi-useful information is going to drive right into it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

b) it’s also sort of silly to mark not time this way but enjoyment of media time<\/em> in this way; for example, I read a lot of books for blurbing purposes that didn’t come out this year but are cool future books<\/em>, so do those count? What about a movie that came out in 2024 that I saw<\/em> in 2025? why does this matter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, should these be limited by number? Only ten books? Top twenty? Why does that matter? It can’t matter! The number ten is not a superior number and if I read fourteen books I liked, fuck ten, I’mma tell you about fourteen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever, fuck it, here we go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We start with books because books are the best. I write them. You read them. There are a lot of them by a lot of genuinely wonderful authors. They’re truly a universal good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, in no particular order, is a series of books I liked from and in 2025, and no, I’m not providing mini-reviews, I got shit to do. Just know that I liked these a whole lot<\/em> and you will like them too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple: A Delicious History<\/strong> by Sally Coulthard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hot Wax<\/strong>, M.L. Rio<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Sorrow<\/strong>, Joe Hill<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wake Up and Open Your Eyes<\/strong>, Clay McLeod Chapman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

House of Idyll<\/strong>, Delilah S. Dawson<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spread Me<\/strong>, Sarah Gailey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When The Wolf Comes Home<\/strong>, Nat Cassidy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crafting for Sinners<\/strong>, Jenny Kiefer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good Boy<\/strong>, Neil McRobert<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Watching Evil Dead<\/strong>, Josh Malerman<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why I Love Horror<\/strong>, ed by Becky Spratford<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Serviceberry<\/strong>, Robin Wall Kimmerer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another<\/strong>, Paul Tremblay<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We Are Always Tender With Our Dead<\/strong>, Eric Larocca<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Stalks the Deep<\/strong>, T Kingfisher<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans: A Monstrous History<\/strong>, Surekha Davies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not One of Us<\/strong>, Dan Chaon<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Birding Dictionary<\/strong>, Rosemary Mosco<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Night That Finds Us All<\/strong>, John Hornor Jacobs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God’s Junk Drawer<\/strong>, Peter Clines<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are surely, surely<\/em> some I’ve missed. Again: brain is sinkhole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, and I popped these all into a Bookshop.org list here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, since I am a jerk who needs to eat food to live, and whose health insurance costs are metastasizing in 2026, hey, Staircase in the Woods<\/strong> made it to the year’s best books list on Vulture for 2025<\/a>, and if you’re so inclined to grab it or any of my books before the year is out, I’ll love you forever. Or at least until I perish from an easily-preventable disease and am eaten by all of my quantum cats<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Music<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Got to see a couple shows this year — a truly sublime NIN and a bad-ass Tom Morello + The Neighborhood Kids. And I listened to a lot of music. I have no more profound commentary than that. Music is good. Yay music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s what I liked:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tron: Ares sndtrk<\/strong>: NIN<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No Hard Feelings<\/strong>: The Beaches<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soak<\/strong>: Black Honey<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hives Forever, Forever The Hives<\/strong>: The Hives<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coydog<\/strong>: Carter Veil<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Girls<\/strong>: Princess Nokia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Good for the Soul:<\/strong> GANS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hard-Headed Woman<\/strong>: Margo Price<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All That Is Over<\/strong>: Sprints<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moisturizer<\/strong>: Wet Leg<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memory of a Day<\/strong>: Phantogram<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Swallow the Knife<\/strong>: Sir Chloe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m Only Fucking Myself<\/strong>: Lola Young<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Clearing<\/strong>, Wolf Alice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here’s an Apple Music list<\/a> of the songs<\/em> I listened to a lot, though (though some of these are odd that they’re in there, given I can only remember listening to them once or twice, but who knows).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Movies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hey, movies are great! I mean it’s too bad they aren’t going to exist anymore in a year or two, functionally-speaking, and that movie theaters received a death blow this year and ultimately everything is terrible, but in the meantime<\/em>, I liked a buncha movies this year, so here they be, in no particular order:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinners, One Battle After Another, Frankenstein, Black Bag, The Monkey, Bring Her Back, The Naked Gun, Predator: Badlands, Together, Heart Eyes, 28 Years Later, Companion<\/strong>, Friendship<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weapons<\/strong> gets a special shout-out as a movie I 80% loved and 20% hated, which still makes it great, and arguably makes it interesting<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still need to see Blue Moon<\/strong> and Wake Up Dead Man<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

TV<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Best shows in 2025 — <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pluribus, Peacemaker, Andor, Severance, Task, The Chair Company, The Lowdown, Murderbot, Alien: Earth, White Lotus, The Residence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dang, it was a pretty good year for TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Games<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like this list should be longer, but I dunno! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Blue Prince, Ghost of Yotei, Ball x Pit, Baby Steps<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And I think that’ll do me for 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel free to drop into the comments and tell me what you loved!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or feel free to tell me what I’m missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or just fight me! FIGHT ME YOU FOOLS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

great bye<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I liked a lot of cool stuff this year! I liked books, movies, music, games! The end! Huzzah. We did it. I’m going to go eat an apple now. *stares* *waits* Ugh, fine. Fine. You probably want me to, like, conjure names of things, which honestly is very hard for me, really for two reasons: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-62799","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-theramble","9":"has-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/image-14.png?fit=1484%2C786&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-gkT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62799"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62802,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62799\/revisions\/62802"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}