Welcome to Litsy!

#Top25Of25 Part 3 of 4

These last days of the year I am@sharing my 25 favorite books of the year.

Today I share the 4 books I rated with 4.75 ⭐️

Yesterday and the day before I showed my 4.5⭐️ and 4.25⭐️ rated books.
Tomorrow I‘ll share the four 5⭐️ books I read in 2025.

I just love children books about food. This is about Alice Waters growing up loving all different types of food and using that love to get the restaurant she wanted and to teach children about the same love of food. Cute story and wonderful graphics.

I enjoyed this one so much, partly because my time in Berkeley overlapped a little with the characters; they‘re a few years younger than I am.
There‘s a Spotify playlist of the songs featured in the book and that‘s always fun.

https://youtu.be/4wPgSBwE95o

This really got too ingenious for its own good at times; it overstayed its welcome after about 60%. I can appreciate what Berkeley was doing with the structure of the mystery, expectations, etc, etc, but it got annoying.

Plus, y'know, Berkeley's misogyny isn't a super fun time.

This is starting to drive me batty. Roger Sheringham isn't a favourite detective of mine anyway, and watching him get everyone in trouble with fake alibis... argh!

Interesting! Berkeley often liked playing around with the structure of crime stories, and in this one he shows us the murder being committed with names and all... and the introduction (by Martin Edwards) implies that the detective actually ends up being wrong. Very curious how this plays out.

(It is showing signs of Berkeley's issues about women, though.)

This snappy debut moves quickly— spanning more years than I expected given its less than 300 page count. Percy meets Joey & Zoe (who like Bowie) in her sophomore year of college & her relationship with the couple—both together & apart forever changes her life. Plenty of will-they/won‘t-they tension, musical banter & strong nostalgia that got songs stuck in my head without more than a track title, this is fun, but a bit too brief! I wanted more!

An enjoyable listen (mostly listened, did have the physical book as well) which is a love story infused with music. Percy and Joe meet in college. He‘s a musician, she has a deep appreciation of music. She helps him with his songwriting and they form a bond. Life and circumstances create distances over time. Will they reconnect? Tons of musical references. Side note: #nofilter on this freaking AMAZING blue sky and gorgeous day.