Wow! 2025 is almost gone. How did that happen so fast? It feels like I blinked and twelve months flew by without so much as a brake tap.
I'm the type of person who likes to look back at the year that's ending to focus on all the good things that happened, and there was a lot of good happening on the blog this year.
For the first time since 2022, I published more than 100 posts. That's double the number I was able to publish in 2024 and about 25 percent more than 2023. In both of those years, I was essentially going back to school, first getting my non-traditional teaching certification and then getting gifted certified. Both of those programs were no joke and took up a lot of my free time. This school year has been way more relaxed in that aspect, although I was tapped to be a mentor for a new teacher, so I'm not exactly extra-duty free, but those duties aren't extending outside of school hours so it maybe doesn't count...
Basically, I'm figuring out that work-life balance everyone talks about which is being reflected here on the blog via the number of posts I was able to share with y'all.
Anyway, I feel like I was more intentional in the way that I posted this year, which was in line with one of my goals for 2025. I stopped worrying about how many posts I was publishing each week or even each month and focused more on the content I was sharing. I wanted each post to be purposeful, and I think that dedication to quality over quantity worked. My average post visits increased this past year, and I saw some of the highest traffic I've seen in a long time. At the time of writing this post, the blog had registered more than one million views for the past twelve months.
I'm always curious about which content resonates most with y'all, and it never fails to surprise me. This post about my favorite foundation continues to be the most popular thing I've written since it was published four years ago, and this post about deodorant still claims the number two spot three years after it was published. That's nuts! But for the purpose of this post, I'm only looking at the posts I published in 2025.
In an interesting turn of events, all but one post in the top ten most popular posts from 2025 is about reading. Even when I expand the list to include the top 15, there are still only four non-reading related posts. Expand it to the top 20, and that number only goes up by two. Last year, reading-related posts only accounted for half of the top ten most popular posts compared to 2023 when only three of the top ten most popular posts dealt with reading and 2022 when only one of the most popular posts was about books.
Is this a sign that I should be focusing more on book and reading-based posts versus my other content? These type of posts are definitely trending upward, that's for sure. I do feel like I had a lot of reading-related posts this year compared to years past, but even still those posts only account for about a quarter of all the content that I share here. It's definitely something to think about, but just the idea of shifting my focus a bit more to what is arguably my favorite hobby has got me pretty excited!
Let's get to the countdown for 2025's most popular posts, yeah? Just for fun -- and to get a bit more variety than just books -- I'm going to share the top 20 posts. Just like in past years, I'll be counting down to number one.
Top 20 Blog Posts of 2025
#20 - What's New on My TBR: 10 Books I Want to Read - Over the summer, I decided it would be fun to start back doing more regular TBR updates for y'all in addition to my seasonal reading lists. I wanted to not only keep track of the titles that were catching my interest, but also hold myself accountable for my ridiculously-long TBR list that never seems to get shorter. This list was posted in July, and I have currently read four of the ten books featured there.
#19a - One Woman Book Club Review: A Not So Meet Cute - This was my February book club pick, and it could not have been more perfect for the month of love. It had some definite Pretty Woman vibes and had me laughing out loud a few times. This full-length review tied with my May book club pick, which I'll talk about next.
#19b - One Woman Book Club Review: The Darkest Flower - My May book club pick was actually a bit of a disappointment, and I'm quite surprised that this negative review was so popular. I'm curious to know whether all the people who read my review actually read the book and what they thought about it.
#18 - What I Read Spring 2025 - This reading roundup covered roughly three months of reading. There were a lot of series on this list, some of which I need to check up on to see if the next book is out... *quickly opens up new tab*
#17 - My Best Purchases from 2024 - This one is exactly what it says it is: a roundup of what I considered my best purchases from the previous year. Looking back through them, I still agree. I'm using all but two of the items I featured.
#16 - Top 8: My Most Used Beauty Products - Again, the title of this post tells you exactly what it is, and yes, I am still using every single item I wrote about.
#15 - My 2025-26 Classroom Must Haves - I'm happy to say that I got all of these items for my classroom this year except for one, and out of those I'm still using all but one. My students, unfortunately destroyed the hall passes pretty quickly.
#14 - One Woman Book Club Review: When We Believed in Mermaids - This was probably the best book I read over the summer. I love this author's work, and this book was no exception.
#13 - 30 Places to Visit in the Wiregrass Area - This post explores destinations that are good for a day or weekend trip for people who live in the same area as I do. I'm sad to say that we didn't get to visit any this year, but there's always next year!
#12 - One Woman Book Club Review: The Lost Bookshop - This was my very first book club pick of the year and the first book club review post I wrote. This story was magical and whimsical and a good one to start the year with.
#11 - 20 Graphic Tees for English Teachers - I don't know if you've noticed, but I love a good graphic tee, especially ones that have English things on them. So I rounded up a bunch of my favorites to share with my fellow English teachers. Looks like they found the post!
#10 - An Early July Outfit Roundup - I don't know what made this post so popular. It's just a bunch of typical-for-me summer outfits, nothing truly special in my opinion.
#9 - One Woman Book Club Review: Fawkes - This is in my top three favorite books for the year. I love a good historical fiction book, and this one had a magical twist to it that was fascinating. Remember, remember the fifth of November, the gunfire treason and plot...
#8 - One Woman Book Club Review: The Price of Paradise - This is another historical fiction book, but for me it didn't fully land. I enjoyed the book, certainly, but it felt like there was something missing or not quite believable about the overall story.
#7 - One Woman Book Club Review: Veins of Gold - This standalone from one of my favorite authors was a miss for me. It felt under-developed and incomplete, and I was just disappointed.
#6 - 15 Books to Read This Summer - This was another seasonal reading list to help me try to further reduce my out-of-control TBR list. I'm not sure it worked since I only read five of the books featured, but this was about the time I got caught up in a couple of series.
#5 - Fall Reading List: 20 Books to Add to Your TBR - I've read six of the titles featured on this list. A few of them I'm still waiting to become available from my local library. I'll read them all eventually!
#4 - What I Read This Summer - Several of the books in this reading roundup made my best books of 2025 list, so you should definitely check it out if you haven't already.
#3 - 10 Book to Read This Winter - It's important to note that this post is from January and is not my current winter reading list. Out of the ten titles featured, I've read five. I started another and didn't make it very far before deciding it wasn't really for me. On another note, I've been reading Love and Ruin for what seems like forever, and although I'm enjoying it, it is so serious that I keep taking breaks from it.
#2 - Spring Reading List: 10 Books to Add to Your TBR - I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but I've only read two of the titles I featured on this list. However, I did start and DNF'ed a third that I just did not like. This list definitely has the worst showing on my part in terms of completion.
#1 - 2025 One Woman Book Club - Just like with 2024, my annual book club post takes the top spot. It seems lots of you were reading along with me this year. And seeing as how seven of the most popular spots went to reviews of this past year's book club picks, maybe it's time for me to consider expanding my book club even more. I don't know what that looks like right now (a.k.a. the time I'm writing this post), but I am certainly open to ideas.
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