The2025 was not a good reading year for me. I was insanely busy at work (yay Japanese corporate life) and the nine to eleven hours of hyper-focusing in two languages completely drained me.
Although I didn’t hit my target of reading at least 12 books in Japanese, I was able to ready 7. So this won’t be a long list, but here’s a summary of the best and worst books I read in 2025.
The Best
もう別れてもいいですか
(Mou Wakaretemo Ii Desu ka)
Author: Miu Kakiya
Genre: Slice of life, human drama
Japanese Level: High-intermediate N2
Pages: 339
I picked this novel up completely by random when I was browsing the bookstore and saw this cover with a forlorn woman standing in a kitchen and the text “can we split up already?” across the title. (I am a sucker for book covers.)
This novel tells the story of a woman in her 50s grappling with the stigmatism around divorce in Japan. Especially in the country-side where gossip is a pastime. Her husband isn’t a drunk, he doesn’t cheat or beat her, but he doesn’t like her and it emotionally abusive.
I loved every page in this story. The rage and frustration this main character feels and her transformation from timid housewife to confident independent woman.
There are lots of conversations similar to [OO], which looks at the culture around 婚活 (arranged marriages), only this time about divorce and Japanese people’s attitudes towards it. So it’s also very educational.
In the afterword, the author states how she wanted to write a novel that helps middle-ages women come to terms with divorce and out their own happiness over what they fear others might think.
Hands down the best book I’ve read in a long time.
東京バンドワゴン
(Tokyo Bandwagon)
Author: Shoji Yukiya
Genre: Slice of life, family drama
Japanese Level: N2
Pages: 330
This novel tells a series of short stories around a large family who run a second hand bookstore in an old building in the center of Tokyo. Each story has two concurrent mini-mysteries that involves most of the family members and their friends/neighbors, which helps keep them engaging.
Every character had a unique voice (which is a must when the cast is so huge) and it was fun reading their family banter. My favourite scenes were the ones at the dinner table where multiple conversations were happening at once, each interweaving with each other. It created the absolute mess of dialogue that made it feel like you were in the room with this large family.
This wasn’t anything remarkable or special, but it was a fun little read.
The Worst
カラフル
(Colorful)
Author: Eto Mori
Genre: Slice of life, family drama
Japanese Level: N2
Pages: 272
CW: Suicide, child assault, sexism
This story is about a person who it told by an angel that he tried to kill himself but is being given a second chance in a young boy’s body.
It’s supposed to be an uplifting book looking at how precious life in, but this was a DNF for me.
It was sooooo boring and the main character was insufferable. He was incredibly judgmental (the amount of sexist comments coming from a kid was disgusting) and self-absorbed.
The story is also supposed to be a look at suicide and how wonderful life is, but the depictions of depression and suicidal tendencies are disingenuous. They are surface-level interpretations from a neurotypical woman and can potentially come off as offensive to people who actually suffer.
This book reminds me of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, which is hands down one of the worst novels I have ever read.
汝、星のごとく
(Nanji, Hoshi no Gotoku)
Author: Yuu Nagira
Genre: Slice of life, human drama
Japanese Level: N2
Pages: 456
This is the story of the lives of two childhood lovers who meet in school then grow up into adults. One becoming a successful mangaka and the other stuck in the same hometown they grew up in.
This is by the same author of 薔薇色じゃない (Bara-iro janai), which had a similar story of the relationship of two men over a long time, and was one of my favourite books of 2024. I think her writing is incredibly beautiful but…BUT… Never have I been more disappointed than in this novel.
*MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD*
If you don’t want to be spoiled on this novel, please don’t read the next paragraph.
There are two things I despise in stories: relationships between teachers and their students (especially if the student is underage) and surprise cancer ending to manipulate you into feeling sad.
Guess what this novel has.
*SIGH*
I wanted to love this book so much. I was loving it until after the half-way point when everything goes wrong. The main guy also turns out to be an asshole and constantly cheats on the female lead. And despite the woman telling him to eff off, she goes back to him because he has cancer. He never ever apologises for cheating on her or treating her like crap.
I accidentally picked up the second novel half-way through reading the first, but when I realised it wouldn’t be able the two main leads and instead the relationship of a teacher and the underaged student he gets pregnant, I immediately returned it.
So disappointed. I don’t think I’ll read anything else by this author despite her writing skills being above a lot of Japanese authors. It’s just not worth it.
Best and Worst Japanese Books
So there are my top two and bottom two novels of 2025. I hope they might help inform people who are looking to pick up any books in the coming year. (I will write longer reviews that include looking at the type of Japanese used in both my favourite books of the year.)
What did you read in 2025 that you particularly liked or didn’t like? Did you read these novels I discussed above?
Best and Worst Japanese Novels of 2024
Best and Worst Japanese Novels of 2023