Indie books I read in 2025

January 7, 2026 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

I just can’t get into them. I find the characters hollow, the plots too focused on trauma, and I keep quitting them partway through.

I’m unfortunately talking about the last ten times I tried to read mainstream literary fiction.

I hope you didn’t think I was talking about indie i.e. self-published books. My favourites this year have all been indie published.

Here’s a list of what I read (with some very subjective commentary. There’s a reason I stay out of online review spaces and why I’m not tagging any of these authors in my post.)

The Flowered Blade – by Taylor Hubbard (trans hypertwink elf prince subverts his orc captor’s expectations and gets absolutely railed for his trouble. A queer fantasy fan favorite, but Taylor pls see me after class re: filter words)

Disasterology 101 – by Taylor Donovan (surprisingly strong, a powerful portrait of extreme OCD, though the ending felt abrupt)

Geist Fleish – by Christian Baines (A five-book series’ worth of horny supernatural story set in Weimar Germany and crushed into a novella. Insultingly short, I require another hundred thousand words pls)

What a Nobleman Needs – by Merry Farmer (Peak Merry Farmer, as Regency noblemen boink their way through a comedy of errors with a side of mortal peril)

The Full Moon Problem – by Kay Claire (Charming story about a shy werewolf and a trans herb witch. First person present tense is not my favorite POV)

A Boy Called Rainbow – by Robin Knight (I wanted more from this premise of a deaf artist and an uptight appraiser, but I ended up skimming the last 1/3 of the book)

Junker Seven – by Olive J. Kelley (top tier, excellent space-chase themed sci-fi with a heavy dose of trans politics)

Peter and the Wolves – by Merry Farmer (ABSOLUTE FILTH but, like, really good. Fantasy setting, endless gay sex, it may have reshaped my frontal cortex *PLEASE NOTE * does not contain wolves)

They Were Roommates – by D.C. Emerson (sweet trans guy 4bi guy slowwwwwburn omg just kiss you ding-dongs)

Nine-Tenths – by J.M. Frey (I never knew where this book was headed, every plot point was a heavy hitter. Out of these, this is one that I might read again. Especially when Book 2 comes out)

My first read of 2026 is a Sapphic rom com rewrite of Pride and Prejudice set at a romantasy cosplay event. Honestly, how could it be bad?

I’ll have lots of time to catch up on my TBRs (virtual and physical) next month while I’m recovering from a medical procedure which I am not talking about in detail (yet) though if I’m bringing it up here I’m clearly okay with discussing it. Later, because it’s going to be a long story. 2026 is literally the year that everything changes.

WHAT RUINED ME Episode 9: ‘Watership Down” by Richard Adams

February 17, 2023 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

This book is tied for first with THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY for most important book in my personal history. Douglas Adams taught me about absurdism, and the lyrical power of words. A Doug Adams run-on sentence is a thing of near incalculable beauty, and I’m pretty sure Ford Prefect qualifies as my first book boyfriend (the talking mouse in the Narnia series doesn’t count, as I more wanted to be him.)

Richard Adams taught me politics. Just like Tolkien, he liked to say that Watership Down isn’t about totalitarianism. Like Tolkien, he is both right and wrong. People who haven’t been to war don’t know how deeply it changes you. Whether or not Adams set out to write an allegory, I believe his experiences serving in World War II, fighting literal totalitarianism, became part of the myth of himself.

So yeah, it’s a book about rabbits trying to find somewhere nice to dig some holes, but it’s also a classical pilgrimage from base delusion through the vale of sin into moral righteousness. And it’s also about the horrors of authoritarian rule. In every case that our plucky, fluffy heroes encounter an anti-democratic system of rabbit governance (Adams gave them cops and kings) the outcome is disastrous. Denial, subversion, death.

Meanwhile our heroes are like a carrot-seeking antifa. They don’t have a chief, until other rabbits start referring to one of them as such. They don’t impose their will on each other. They innovate, make friends with other species, liberate tame rabbits from captivity, and defend themselves gallantly against a vile oppressor. What in the world was I meant to learn from this book other than the principles of utopian anarchism?

Like hell it’s about rabbits. It’s about surviving this maddening, misunderstanding, murderous life we’ve granted ourselves. These times are both like and unlike any time in human history. The challenges are enormous. But the will of every heart to go on beating means we will face them and rise above.

I have to believe this.

What else is worth believing?

Verdict: Did Not Finish

July 21, 2021 ~ Will Forrest ~ Leave a comment

Carrying on from the last post, here’s a short list of reasons I haven’t finished books recently.

An aristocrat so incompetent she can’t cut a piece of fruit (this seemed false, as she’d have had knife skills for eating complicated state dinners) and a master thief who habitually targets mansions of the rich, but didn’t know about the servants’ passages behind the walls. And was told about it by the same girl who can’t cut fruit.

The FMC “humorously” tricking the MMC into humiliating himself in public, knowing that’s his worst nightmare. Relationship red flag, yo.

The Dead Hooker trope, in which the MMC’s heroic motivation is seeing his mother and other sex workers get violently assaulted. I’m not saying this isn’t motivating, but did you need to make me imagine a dozen women getting raped just so I’ll believe this guy’s do-good motivation? Growing up in a London brothel in the 1860s would have been motivation enough, thanks.

Same book: anachronistic use of the word ‘pussy.’ Kids, the Internet is RIGHT THERE. Google that shit. I know I do.

When the characters keep noticing how hot the other person is, even while in mortal peril or the midst of the worst argument ever. This is everywhere and I hate it.

Christ, I’m a snob.

“I want you to throw me against the wall and make me regret all my life choices. Now would be fine.”

What makes me finish a book? In the main, intelligent characters with genuine agency, and if there’s sex, consent is explicitly stated in the text. Even the enemies-to-lovers, ass-slapping, fight-while-we-fuck stories need to have consent baked into the plot.

Actively agreeing to ridiculous sex is damn sexy. “I want you to throw me against the wall and make me regret all my life choices. Now would be fine.” Having had sex I regret, that I didn’t entirely plan on having, I know what I prefer.