Fantasy, Magical Realism & Romance
Book Reviews
September 2025
Every month, I have the astounding privilege of diving into new worlds and experiencing different people’s beautiful minds through books. The only thing I love as much as reading the books is talking about them. So, here we are. This is everything I thought about the books I read in September 2025.
Rating: 5 ★
Genre: Literary Fiction, Romance
Review: This was my second time reading Talking at Night, and at this point, the story may as well live in my bones. I’m convinced that I think about it often enough to have metaphysically merged with it.
My obsessive condition is so extreme that I made a playlist with songs that correlate to every chapter, which you can find here, so that you can have the perfect background music for each and every stage of the book. Okay, now that we’ve covered how much I love the book, let me try to explain why I love it.
Talking at Night follows the relationship between Will and Rosie over the course of a decade (even longer, actually). A journey that is often a friendship, sometimes a hateship and rarely a romantic relationship.
Through grief, poor decisions and harsh truths, it is always, always a love story. It’s a story that knocks the breath out of you, has you gasping for different outcomes, and has you knowing that it couldn’t have gone any other way.
The emotional depth of these characters regularly sends me into a paralysed, gagging spiral of sobs. But like, in a good way 🙂 I don’t want to scare you off. Just please read this. Please.
Unfiltered Thoughts: Not to be dramatic, but this book makes me feel like life is worth living.
“and what might a soul look like, if you could touch it, if you could dance with the light and the dark of it.”
“He wants to tell her that love and fury so often feel the same, to him. That his skin burns for her. His blood crawls, and that doesn’t feel safe or nice or quiet; it feels like rage.”
“She found she could combat them both, that way; the sleeplessness, and the throttling of each day, by taking her pen and writing down the unsayable things. Things not made for music, or human eyes; things she can’t believe she is thinking, and feeling, and somehow finding the words for.”
“Never again, he’d promised himself. Never again would he touch her, or get close to her, in case his heart couldn’t take it.
But now she is here, beside him, and never has already been broken.”
Rating: 3.5 ★
Genre: Fantasy, Magical Realism
Review: Piranesi is easily one of the most unique books I’ve read this year, with its magical labyrinth and trapped oceanic scenery. It has a beautiful mix of tranquillity and omnificence. The atmosphere in this book is nothing short of magnificent.
To be honest, I don’t really want to say too much about the book because the less you know going into it, the better. However, I will say that you follow a scholar who has this deep connection with the labyrinth he lives in, and is on a mission to study the world around him. He believes that he is one of the only people in this world, and there is a mystery centred around that belief that then unfolds in the rest of the story.
More than anything else, I feel like it’s a truly beautiful depiction of an almost child-like innocence. To me, it has the makings of an allegory.
Unfiltered Thoughts: May we all view the world with as much wonder and respect as Piranesi views his home.
“Perhaps even people you like and admire immensely can make you see the World in ways you would rather not.”
“I realised that the search for the Knowledge has encouraged us to think of the House as if it were a sort of riddle to be unravelled, a text to be interpreted, and that if ever we discover the Knowledge, then it will be as if the Value has been wrested from the House and all that remains will be mere scenery.”
Rating: 4.0 ★
Genre: Epic Fantasy, Adventure
Review: Last Argument of Kings is the perfect example of how, even when a book doesn’t go where you want it to, you can still love it. Perhaps, even more than you would’ve. I expected epic battles, grand character arcs and jaw-dropping reveals, and honestly, I got all of that, just in a form that I wasn’t picturing.
The First Law trilogy remains a masterclass in witty banter, an engaging plot, morbid humour and juicy grimdark characters. I genuinely loved this.
My one and only frustration was that it felt unfinished. I’m coming from the perspective of a trilogy being a complete package, but all of these characters’ stories felt open-ended by the time I finished Last Argument of Kings. I’m assuming that’s on purpose, and that we get some kind of closure in later standalone books or maybe in The Age of Madness? I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out because I’m on a full Joe Abercrombie binge at the moment. Onward!
Unfiltered Thoughts: Ending a trilogy on a cliff-hanger is diabolical. I have some words for you, Joe.
“But you love to play the good man, don’t you? Do you know what’s worse than a villain? A villain who thinks he’s a hero. A man like that, there’s nothing he won’t do, and he’ll always find himself an excuse.”
“I have learned all kinds of things from my many mistakes. The one thing I never learn is to stop making them.”
“Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes.”
Rating: 3.0 ★
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Review: Not my favourite from Hannah Bonam-Young, but I still had a great time reading this. As always with her books, Out of the Woods was tender and sensitive in all the best places, with fantastic character chemistry.
I enjoyed the setup of the marriage in crisis and the whole mission to mend it, as well as the overarching message. However, I didn’t feel locked into the characters, and there wasn’t much to the plot in my opinion.
Unfiltered Thoughts: Lovely but not particularly memorable for me.
“If you give me the space to grow, I’ll plant myself next to you.”
“I want you to understand that you can be anything but not everything. And, sometimes, you have to make a choice for yourself, right or wrong, before life makes it for you.”