Your Next Read Based on Your New Year’s Resolution?

HAPPY NEW YEAR! It’s that time of year again. The smell of New Year’s resolutions is in the air, and people are high on the hopes of what the upcoming 365 days will bring.

If you’re anything like us, though, one of the things that are boggling your mind is the question of what to read next. It’s a huge task, right—picking the first book you want to read in the New Year? It sets the whole tone for what your year of reading will be like! So, we’ve decided to help you out!

Now, most people use these articles to wax poetic and compare the books you’ve read this year and loved to new ones to help you decide what’s next. But we decided to take a different approach. Instead, we will give you both a fiction and non-fiction recommendation based on your New Year’s Resolution. How fun!

Do You Want to Turn Your Life Around in 2025?

Maybe you’re completely starting over in your 30s. Maybe you’re just graduating from college and just taking your first steps out into the real world. Whatever your reasons for wanting to make a change, we think these next two books will be for you.

Fiction: Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

Our main protagonist, Maggie, feels like her life has stalled out. Her marriage didn’t even last two years. Her graduate thesis is at a dead end. And everything feels like it’s crashing down around her.

But Maggie is anything if not resilient. And she uses this swift turn that her life has taken to lean into the chaos and recreate herself. With the help of her mentor, her friends, and more than a couple of breakdowns, Maggie leans into her first year of singledom and learns a lot about herself along the way. And we believe you can recreate your life right along with her.

Non-Fiction: The Quarter Life Breakthrough by Adam Smiley Poswolsky

Poswolsky wrote this book when he realized that his current path had left him feeling disconnected from the world around him. He started asking himself uncomfortable questions, which led him to slowly and painstakingly craft a life that he loved. If you want to do the same, then this book is just the pick for you!

Is Your Resolution to Be More Involved in Your Community?

Building community is so incredibly important, now more than ever. And how you craft that community and advocate for those around you is equally as important. If your resolutions and goals center around fostering community, then you should absolutely check out these next two recs!

Fiction: The Museum of Ordinary People by Mike Gayle

When Jess’s mother unexpectedly passes away, she is tasked with cleaning out the house to prepare it for sale. While emptying the house, she makes a series of decisions that lead her to a warehouse called The Museum of Ordinary People.

Items in the museum’s care are peculiar, and Jess gets roped into an unofficial position as the museum’s custodian. She and the Museum’s mysterious owner start learning more about the objects surrounding them, and as they do, a beautiful mosaic of everyday life unfolds within the story.

This novel is, at its crux, a story about loss, about life, and about what makes a community. So, if fostering that community is something that you want to focus on in the upcoming year, we think you’ll find inspiration within these pages.

Non-Fiction: Build It and They Will Come by Cat Lantigua

The process of building and fostering community is a deeply intentional one. And that is something that Cat Lantigua explores in this incredibly important book. It delves into how viscerally important it is to create space for you and the people like you.

Lantigua also questions the notion that only influencers or activists can build community and turn that entire idea on its head. Community building is work that anyone can (and should) take part in.

Is 2025 the Year You Finally Become a Reality TV Star?

From The Bachelor to Survivor, the world of reality TV is vast. But if making it on one of those shows is your goal for the upcoming year, we think you’ll find value in the next two recommendations.

Fiction: One to Watch by Kate Stayman-London

One to Watch follows Bea, a plus-sized fashion blogger who inadvertently gets cast as the lead on Main Squeeze, a Bachelorette-style reality TV dating show. And while at face value, this book seems like just another kitschy rom-com, it is so much more than that.

This book explores themes of what it’s like to live in the public eye and feel like your life has been taken out of your own hands and thrust into the hands of complete strangers. If you’ve dreamed about one day gracing the screens of millions of viewers, you’ll find this one to be a page-turner for sure!

Non-Fiction: Captive Audience by Lucas Mann

Described as “an appreciation of reality television wrapped in a love letter to his wife,” Captive Audience explores why everyone loves to hate reality TV. Filled with self-deprecating humor, Mann explores the obsession with watching others perform within the “trash” shows we all know and love. And this book is an incredible analysis of the impact that these shows have on real life – both the good and the bad.

Do You Not Have a Resolution at All?

Look, we aren’t judging. Because truth be told – SAME. But, if you don’t have a resolution as you go into 2025, that is A-OK. This just means the world is your oyster.

Whether you’re creating a robust and thought-out “To Be Read” plan or if you’re more of a mood reader, we still think you’ll find some sort of value in the list we’ve compiled for you.

Now if only actually completing those resolutions were as easy as finding a book inspired by them.