Most years I’ve combined this topic with a rundown of my DNFs for the year; this time I can’t be bothered to list them. There have probably not been as many as usual; generally, I’ve given a sentence or two about each DNF in a Love Your Library post. In any case, I hereby give you blanket permission to drop that book you’ve been struggling with. I absolve you of all potential guilt. It makes no difference if it has been nominated for or won a major prize, or if everyone else seems to love it. If for any reason a book isn’t connecting with you, move onto something else; you can always come back to try it another time, or not. Life is short.

So, on to those Most Anticipated books. In January, I picked the 25 new releases I was most looking forward to in the first half of the year, and followed it up in July with another 15 for the second half. Here’s how I fared with them:

Read and enjoyed: 14 (some will appear on my Best-of list!)

• Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
• Spent: A Comic Novel by Alison Bechdel
• Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
• Heartwood by Amity Gaige
• Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson
• Lifelines: Searching for Home in the Mountains of Greece by Julian Hoffman
• The Silver Book by Olivia Laing
• Ripeness by Sarah Moss
• Joyride by Susan Orlean
• Are You Happy?: Stories by Lori Ostlund
• Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester
• The Lost Trees of Willow Avenue: A Story of Climate and Hope on One American Street by Mike Tidwell
• Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
• Palaver by Bryan Washington

Read and found disappointing (i.e., 3 stars or below): 6

• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Breasts: A Relatively Brief Relationship by Jean Hannah Edelstein
• Mother Animal by Helen Jukes
• Heart the Lover by Lily King
• The Accidentals: Stories by Guadalupe Nettel
• Wreck by Catherine Newman

Skimmed (because it was disappointing): 1

• Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys by Mariana Enríquez

Currently reading / have read part of: 4

• Ghosts of the Farm: Two Women’s Journeys Through Time, Land and Community by Nicola Chester
• Jesusland: Stories from the Upside[-]Down World of Christian Pop Culture by Joelle Kidd
• The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
• Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor

DNF: 1

• Archive of Unknown Universes by Ruben Reyes Jr.

Owned in print but haven’t read yet (one was received for my birthday and two just now for Christmas!): 3

• Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin
• Bread and Milk by Karolina Ramqvist
• The Antidote by Karen Russell

On my e-reader but haven’t gotten to yet: 9

• The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
• Kate & Frida by Kim Fay
• Live Fast by Brigitte Giraud
• The Swell by Kat Gordon
• My Mother in Havana: A Memoir of Magic & Miracle by Rebe Huntman
• A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken
• Tigers Between Empires: The Improbable Return of Great Cats to the Forests of Russia and China by Jonathan C. Slaght
• Elegy, Southwest by Madeleine Watts
• Alive: An Alternative Anatomy by Gabriel Weston

Haven’t managed to get hold of: 2

• O Sinners! by Nicole Cuffy
• The Forgotten Sense: The New Science of Smell by Jonas Olofsson [my library has a copy]

I can’t resist compiling this list each year. In the first week of January, I’ll be previewing my 20 Most Anticipated titles for the first half of 2026.

Do you choose Most Anticipated books each year? (Or do you prefer to be surprised?) And if you do, do they generally meet your expectations?