cozy december reads (& otherwise)
here are all of december 2025’s weekly reading book reviews as they happeedn every monday morning! videos + links to shop the titles & learn more while supporting indie bookstores at bookshop.org
✨📖 weekly reading book review december 2025: episode one!! 📖✨
❄️ this week, i finished:
👻 MIDNIGHT TIMETABLE: A NOVEL IN GHOST STORIES by bora chung
📚 currently trudging through:
🙃 LITTLE WOMEN by louisa may alcott (on pg 330/491; gotta finish in time to lead book club on wednesday!! 🫣)
🎬 watched:
💖 BARBIE (2023)
💜 FREAKIER FRIDAY (2025)
📺 hoping to read next:
🎨 A KNOT IS NOT A TANGLE by daniel nayeri & illustrated by vesper stamper
⚾️ MEET ME UNDER THE LIGHTS by cassie miller (coming march 2026!!)
🇫🇷 THE PEAR AFFAIR by judith eagle
🤎 WHERE THE LIBRARY HIDES by isabel ibanez
my bn edition here :)
🎭 the last FIVE books in the first half of shakespeare’s known canon for my #brushupyourshakespeare2025 quest!
what stories are you loving right now?!?
🥰🎨📖🎬✨📺🎭👻📚🎧🩰📝
to the studio!!
🩵xo,
*hallie 🤓
✨ weekly reading book review december 2025: episode two!! ✨
this week i read:
✨ LITTLE WOMEN by louisa may alcott (only two scenes i wish were added to the movies! v. “telly.” v. discussable!)
✨ THE PEAR AFFAIR by judith eagle & illustrated by jo rioux
✨ RICHARD II by wm. shakespeare (also please go enjoy the conversations on the shakespeare anyone podcast !! )
currently reading:
✨ HAMNET by maggie o'farrell
great podcast episode with the director and author (co-screenwriters!) on the SHAKESPEARE UNLIMITED podcast here!
reading next {perhaps}:
✨ RICHARD III by the bard again (no relation really to R2)
❤️ THE PRINCESS SWAP: SNOW WHITE & THE DRAGON / SLEEPING BEAUTY & THE SEVEN DWARFS by kim bussing
✨ THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by laura dave ( !! coming 1.6.26!! )
✨ DINNER AT THE NIGHT LIBRARY by hika hirada
✨
oh, & watched ELF with the family! (because, of course!)
✨
what stories are you loving right now?!
✨❤️✨xo,
*hallie :)
✨☕️ weekly reading book review december 2025: episode three!! ☕️✨
this week i read:
☕️ HAMNET by maggie o'farrell (love, parenting, family, art, grief, plague, women, herbs, in-laws, etc… oh, & That playwright/actor guy…) ; )
currently reading:
☕️ THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by laura dave (thanks for the early copy, scribner ! coming 1/6/2026!!)
watched:
☕️ WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT STORY (a thousand whoop whoops for unconventional storytelling, rian johnson, the cute guy that was on snl this week, & allllllll the twists, humor in the scary, closing my eyes for the gooey bits, and as deep on faith as CONCLAVE was!! bonus shoutout to henry lien‘s SPRING, SUMMER, ASTEROID, BIRD— i’d love to hear him lecture on this film!!)
still watching in little pieces:
❤️ KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (studio ghibli ; 1989)
miiiiiight read next (in between wrapping book gifts!!):
☕️ SILVERBORN: THE MYSTERY OF MORRIGAN CROW by jessica townsend (no. 4 in one of my most favourite middle grade series!)
☕️ OCTAVO by marty neumeier (a da vinci muder mystery?!? sounded intriguing !!)
what stories are you loving right now?!
here for the frosted cookies,
❤️xo,
*hallie :)
✨📖 weekly reading book review december 2025: episode four!! 📖✨
🌟 this week i read:
😎 THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM by laura dave (sequel to THE LAST THING HE TOLD ME; this one out 1/6/26! thank you, scribner!!)
🩷 THE PRINCESS SWAP: RAPUNZEL & THE SEA WITCH / THE LITTLE MERMAID & THE TOWER by kim bussing ( thank you random house kids, i looooove this mg faerie tale series!!! #randomhousekidspartner )
👑 RICHARD III by wm shakespeare
🎬 movies i saw:
💚 WICKED: FOR GOOD
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt19847976/?ref_=fn_t_1
💙 HAMNET
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14905854/?ref_=fn_t_1
and the book here: https://bookshop.org/a/5254/9781984898876
❤️ KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097814/?ref_=fn_t_1
📚 currently reading:
🎄 MURDER AT HOLLY HOUSE by denzil meyrick (cozy british detective holiday mystery in v. small village of odd sorts of characters)
📚 reading next:
the last three plays to make it half-way through shakespeare’s known/published (alphabetical) canon in 2025:
👑. MACBETH
what stories are you loving right now?!
🥰📚🎬🎧🎨🩰🎭📺📝
with dreams of sacrilegious (but delicious) iced chais,
❤️xo,
*hallie 🤓
✨☕️ weekly reading book review december 2025: episode five!! ☕️✨
☕️ this (v. people*y) week, i read:
✨ MURDER AT HOLLY HOUSE by denzil meyrick
(didn’t understand the narrative framing device, & didn’t realize it was historical as well as british crime fiction; i struggled a smidge!)
✨ LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST by wm. shakespeare
(only two more plays to go to make it 1/2 way through the canon this year!!)
✨ THE HALLOWEEN TREE by ray bradbury (ermazzzzzing use of language & sentences & highly recommend for a quick, surreal, spooky read any time of year for that reason alone!!)
☕️ currently reading:
✨ MACBETH by wm. shakespeare
(my tenth grade copy! bahaha my 15yo marginalia!!)
☕️ reading next:
✨ MEASURE FOR MEASURE by wm. shakespeare
(dear folger shakespeare library , pretty please bring back those kinuko craft covers!! ❤️)
✨ THE WITCH WHO STORMED THE PALACE by ryan graudin
(mg sequel to THE GIRL WHO KEPT THE CASTLE, a personal fave of 2024!!)
& maybe:….
✨ GLASS SWORD by victoria aveyard
(bc there’s nothing like a page*turner when you’re zonkered!)
merry continued story*filled festove celebrations to you all!!
(prayerfully silently & in your own homes…)
❤️xo,
*hallie :)
here are four of the books i read this month that i happened to enjoy the most...
THE HALLOWEEN TREE by ray bradbury
i dunno about you, but the only bradbury i ever read was FARENHEIT 451 in high school. dystopian commentary on future society.... and all i remember was walls that were tvs and speakers in the guy's ear, maybe?
i dunno.
either way: THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING.
it's middle grade fiction, and came to my attention when my pal lizzie brought it to book club earlier this year as a spooky read for us to vote on... while it didn't win the rounds of voting, i'm SO glad i picked it up anyway.
bradbury's use of LANGUAGE and SENTENCE STRUCTURE and ONOMATOPOEIA and pacing and characters... i mean: THIS is whAT we ShouLD be "mAKIng" the children read!!! ;D
bonus: it's a bunch of kids in costume who come upon a creepy skeleton man who takes them time traveling on halloween night to see how various cultures and eras have celebrated/reflected on halloween and the passing of their dead...
if tim burton's THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS and pixar's COCO had a surrealist goth baby by way of STAND BY ME, this is that book.
THE PRINCESS SWAP: RAPUNZEL AND THE SEA WITCH / THE LITTLE MERMAID AND THE TOWER by kim bussing
this one was just pure fun. i love a retelling, and i ESpECIAlly love a CLEVER, non-ho-hum-yawn-drum of a familiar faerie tale (or few) in a smoothie blender.
with humor, adventure, and compelling side characters (cute boys!), i think this series is even great for your tween-not-ready-for-YA reader.
(yes, you're taking a princess book rec from a 40+ woman, but i know my faerie tales and this is fun, i promise.)
THE PEAR AFFAIR by judith eagle
yep. another middle grade recommendation. a mystery caper set among paris' underground tunnels, it's revolution and family and detective work and just-barely-historical (1970's?) enough to make it retro and not annoying.
this is the second book i've read by judith eagle, and i'm keeping the rest of her oeuvre on my wishlist! she's amazing! and i love the illustrations, too!
HAMNET by maggie o'farrell
yeah, this is on my "blog posts i meant to have written" list for the year. just... wow.
(elder) millenial me hates admitting it because it's POPULAR and they made it a movie (and a play), too… but the MOVIE was also great.
the author took the, like, four things we actually know about shakespeare the man (including that hamnet, one of his twins, died in childhood) and conjectured an entire novel that answers the question “why doesn't the black plague get mentioned in any of his plays?”
BONUS FEATURE:
the book never names "the tutor," "the son of a glovemaker," "the playwright," "the actor," “husband,” “father,” etc etc AS wm. shakespeare. it's more a story of his wife. and his family’s small life in stratford. and how each parent handles the grief of the death their son, even as they thought they were about to lose the other twin, judith.
utterly powerful and so beautifully written.
as beatifully written as the movie was beautifully filmed and acted.
read it. see it.
be moved by family, motherhood, parenting, and good theatre through which to imagine and grieve and remember.