2025 Bingo Cards - First Wrap Up!
I have been interested/participating in Bingo for ten years now and have completed a card for the past five, so I felt it was a reasonable time to finally write some sort of wrap up post (you know, because of the 5/10 year anniversaries, not because I am a terrible procrastinator who never got around to writing anything previous years....).
As I was thinking about how to do this wrap up, I put together some of my own personal Bingo stats from the prior 10 years - for example, the first three years I participated I did not even get a single Bingo. (10, 12, 8 books read for those three years.) At the time I was reviewing for a fantasy themed blog and only filled in squares with books I reviewed that fit them, which obviously did not work as a system. I stopped reviewing for that blog in 2019 and now review for a different, romance-centric blog, so my reviewed books make it on my card much less frequently now (the first three years an average of 7 books were read for review, and now it's about 1.5 per card).
This year was the first time I completed two cards. The first, intentional card is a LGBTQ+ main(ish) character card and the second card is...leftover books I read. I also had probably about 50 other SFF books (not including re-reads) that I read in the time period that did not make it on either card. My recycled squares were “Retelling” for the LGBTQ+ card and “Name in Title” for the other card.
I have a terrible memory so I won't be going through all 50 books but here are some standouts:
Absolute Favorite of Both Cards: Yield Under Great Persuasion by Alexandra Rowland: This was the first book I read in the 2025 Bingo year and unintentionally fit the Gods square. I loved it so much I actually re-read it a week and a half later. Tam, the main character is a grumpy goblin (not literally a goblin), there were multiple meddling gods, there's a monologue at the end in an orchard that is just *chef's kiss* of monologues. I literally cannot put into words how much I loved this book. I made my best friend read it and she said I liked it because I am Tam so make of that what you will.
Only Author Appearing on Both Cards: Julie Leong: I had received The Teller of Small Fortunes as a Fairyloot subscription book, and originally read it for the Immigrant square, but it ended up on the Cozy square. It was a delight! Tao, the main character, travels around and tells small fortunes, and over the course of the book gets involved with a thief and a mercenary looking for a missing child. Overall, this book has big found family and road trip vibes, and even with the missing child subplot, ends up feeling like a hug. The Keeper of Magical Things, set in the same world but standalone, didn’t have the same feel (it was more stressful at the end for me), but it did have a really lovely community building aspect and I loved the two main characters.
Easiest AND Hardest Square: Pirates: The second book I read for Bingo ended up being Red Scholar's Wake by Aliette de Bodard. This was an intentional choice, since I originally only planned on one card. I have read (most of) de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen series and loved it, and enjoyed The Red Scholar's Wake also - I have had a hard time getting into her other more sci-fi works, but The Red Scholar's Wake worked for me - it felt accessible in a way some of the other works in this universe have not. The very LAST book I read for Bingo was The League of Gentlewoman Witches by India Holton which, I will be honest, I had to slog through. I have tried the first in the trilogy (The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels) and just could not get into it, even though it has everything I like (pirates! Regency society! magic!) except it has a very specific sense of humor that I sometimes felt drifted a little too much into the *wink wink aren't we so funny* variety.
“Easiest” Square: Parents: I finished Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees on April 27 and had already devoured the entire Her Majesty’s Royal Coven trilogy by Juno Dawson earlier in the month, so the Parents square was the first to both be filled. I really cannot recommend Her Majesty’s Royal Coven trilogy enough - it is so propulsive and fun. I'm very bad at finishing trilogies but this is one I actually completed!
“Hardest” Square: Generic Title: I read A Dark Lord’s Daughter by Patricia Wrede for my Other card (a book I owned but did specifically pick up for Bingo) and it was enjoyable but did not live up to what I expected from a Wrede book. I finished that one on February 23. I had known I was going to read A Song of Silver and Gold by Mellissa Karibian for my LGBTQ+ card’s Generic Title square, but it took me a while to be interested in it. A YA sapphic retelling of the Little Mermaid fairytale, it was totally fine but nothing amazing. I finished it on March 15.
Book Club Books That Do Not Reflect My Taste: I am in a book club where we read SFF and we rotate who picsk. So, I would not necessarily have read: Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees, Psion by Joan D. Vinge, Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones, and technically Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner was a book club book but it was my pick, and I did pick it specifically to fill the 80s square on my LGBTQ+ card.
Weirdest Books (For Varying Definitions of Weird): Shroom for Improvement by Jemma Croft: this book is about a mushroom fae who inherits his father’s magical house after his father dies before telling him about the magical mushroom fae ritual that he needs to do each year to keep up the house’s magic >!- the ritual ends up being ejaculating on a rock.!< The mushroom fae and the love interest take a whole book to figure this out. Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Sothers: starts out as amazing fantasy (the prologue is spectacular, the evil sorcerer telling the ruling class he plans on destroying the god, so they need to figure out some infrastructure before he does so is just great) but morphs into sci-fi, with a strange plot twist >!about how the world is actually Earth but it’s been transformed by aliens who learned about a TV show!< and I’m not sure I loved how it ended up. But, this would be a good option for “Judge a Book By Its Title” square for 2026!
Least Favorite Square: Biopunk: Just not my vibe. I read Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White for my LGBTQ+ card, and I did have to dig a bit to find something that fit that I wanted to read. I did not love the book but I think it was good - just not for me. A lot of religious trauma and gross body stuff. (This book fits the not hard mode "Trans or Nonbinary Main Character" square for 2026.) For my other card, Issac Steele and the Forever Man by Daniel Rigby was an unexpected biopunk. I was looking for something with Caves of Steel vibes, and this came up as I was searching. (I might have been influenced by the "Steele" in the title.) It was a bit goofy, and I believe it is only available in audio, but if you like a silly detective novel that does not take itself too seriously, with a man who has a throat that can speak any language and an eye that gets big, it’s good!
Book Where I Most Related to the Main Character: The Incandescent by Emily Tesh really killed it for me. I loved the fact that the main character is pretty much the same age as I am and good at her job but also not infallible. She was far more relatable than many fantasy heroines who are SO powerful and SO pretty and SO competent. This is a perfect millennial book, in my opinion.
Best Kindle Unlimited Book: The Compact by Miriam Benisse: This was an unexpected delight - I was looking for books with similar vibes to one of my recent favorites (A Suitable Consort by R. Cooper) and this popped up in my search. It had a great romance, amazing characters and some fun white walker-esque bad guys. When I read it, the second book was up for pre-order on Amazon, but since then the author has said it is taking longer than anticipated to finish it, and I am very sad about this. I will definitely be rereading this one.
Not a Book(s): For my LGBTQ+ card, I played a video game called “Heaven Will Be Mine.” Since I will in no way do it justice, here is the summary from Steam: “Heaven Will Be Mine is a visual novel about making terrible life decisions in the midst of a hot-blooded battle between giant robots. Select one of three terribly behaved girls to fight and/or make out with each other in their struggle for the fate of space.” It was fun though I definitely was very lost until I read this Reddit post which explained some of the main concepts in a much clearer way than the game did. For my Other card, I watched the Murderbot TV show. As a HUGE Murderbot fan, I really enjoyed the show, though I had my complaints (as most readers do). I am thrilled it’s getting another season.
Well. Thank goodness I didn’t review all 50 books, can you imagine how long this post would have been? Also if you’ve gotten this far and feel like we have similar taste in books please message me so we can be friends on Goodreads.