Lets Talk Bookish

Let’s Talk Bookish: Recapping Anticipated Releases

Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

✨ Welcome back to another week of LTB! ✨

Let’s Talk Bookish is a weekly meme created by Rukky @Eternity Books and co-hosted by Aria @Book Nook Bits and myself! In this discussion meme, participants get to talk about certain topics, share opinions, and spread the love by visiting each other’s posts! Learn more about LTB, past topics and future topics HERE.

This week’s topic is:

Recapping Anticipated Releases

Prompts: With two months left in the year following October, let’s recap your anticipated releases so far. How have you fared with your most anticipated releases in 2025—have they mostly met with your expectations or have you been let down? Were you surprised by 2025 releases you weren’t anticipating but ended up being more enjoyable than expected? Are there any 2025 releases you’re still waiting on? If you like, share your top 2025 releases so far!

First of all, how on earth is October pretty much over already?! 🙃 The month just started yesterday and now we’ve somehow zoomed through nearly the entirety of its days. I know days/weeks/months tend to fly by at the end of every year, but I feel like 2025 has been exceptionally fast. Don’t you think? But I digress…

How have you fared with your most anticipated releases in 2025—have they mostly met with your expectations or have you been let down?

2025 has been a weird reading year for me so I haven’t been reading nearly as many books as I thought I would, let alone new releases. Of the 128 books I’ve read so far this year, about 24 were new releases and 10 of those were highly anticipated.

Admittedly, a lot of the new releases I marked as anticipated are still on my TBR, and if I’m being honest, they’ll likely remain there for a while yet as I’m much better at collecting books than I am at actually reading them… 😇✌🏽

Thinking about what I’ve read so far though, I’d say it’s been a pretty mixed bag. There were some that really hit the mark and I loved them as much as I thought I would (and maybe even more). Then there were others that were enjoyable but didn’t blow me away like I expected, and then there were the ones that disappointed and fell so short of my expectations. From the list below, the first five books were ones that hit the mark and I adored, the next two fall on the “enjoyable enough” spectrum, and the last three fall on the “fell short” spectrum.

Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales by Heather Fawcett, In A Rush by Kate Canterbary, The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao, Rebel Witch by Kristen Ciccarelli, The Earl That Got Away by Diana Quincy, Embrace the Serpent by Sunya Mara, A Language of Dragons by S.F. Williamson, The Forest King’s Daughter by Elly Blake

Were you surprised by 2025 releases you weren’t anticipating but ended up being more enjoyable than expected?

Off the top of my head, I can think of a few new releases that weren’t on my radar (and therefore were unanticipated) but that I ended up loving. Most of these are (maybe unsurprisingly) graphic novels but of course, I loved Harrow’s latest novella!

Blades of Furry Vol. 1 by Emily Erdos & Deya Muniz, Arcana: The Lost Heirs by Sam Prentice-Jones, Saint Catherine by Anna Meyer, The Knight and the Butcherbird by Alix E. Harrow

Are there any 2025 releases you’re still waiting on?

Here are a few anticipated titles I’m still hoping to add to my shelves this year:

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, Cursed Daughters by Oyinkan Braithwaite, Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree, I’ll Find You Where the Timeline Ends by Kylie Lee Baker, Daddy Issues by Kate Goldbeck

Don’t forget to check out the other bloggers who joined the discussion this week! 👇🏽

Sammie @ The Bookwyrm’s Den
Rachael @ The Green Tea Librarian
Emma @ Pages of Emma
Leslie @ Books Are the New Black
Yolanda @ Past Midnight
Raji @ Worlds Unlike Our Own
Abyssal Libarian
Annemieke @ A Dance With Books
Elle @ Unwrapping Words
Jillian @ Jillian the Bookish Butterfly

If I’ve missed your post this week, don’t hesitate to let me know in the comments, and I’ll add you to this week’s list of community posts ASAP!

How have you fared with your anticipated releases this year? Have any new releases surprised you despite not being a book you anticipated?

12 thoughts on “Let’s Talk Bookish: Recapping Anticipated Releases”

  4. I was real’y excited for the woman in suite 11, which I loved! Im currently reading my other anticipated read.
    The other new release I picked up was killer creatures (gorgeous cover!), cat’s
    People & deep end.

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  9. Ohh, interesting that we don’t have a lot of overlap on our anticipated reads! Very fun! Harrow has definitely been the break through author for me, this year. I’ve loved everything I’ve read so far. The Everlasting was so good!!

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