My year in (reading and writing) books

Everything I read and wrote in 2025

My book launch dinner. Photo: Deontè Lee

I published my first book this year. The thing about selling a good before you write it is that it feels like you have a gun pointed at your head until you finish it. Those first few months of excitement from friends and strangers will soon turn into “how’s the book going?” questions that you don’t want to answer and shady insinuations that you might never finish it. Well, I did. Behind schedule, but I’ve learned that book deadlines are quite malleable. My release date was pushed back even without my procrastinating, due to 2024 being an election year. Non-fiction that’s not a political book in an election cycle is a death wish, I was told. I’d never get booked on any late-night shows! I didn’t get booked on any late-night shows regardless, lol. I thought I might return to the Colbert Show, where I once promoted Keep It in 2019, but those e-mails to my publicists went unanswered after a few correspondences.

At times, I wondered if I should have shelled out several thousand dollars a month for a celebrity publicist. I'm glad I did not waste the money. James Faccinto, my publicist, was a fantastic partner on my book release, and he kept me sane when I learned that a big advance from one of the big publishers does not mean they will be spending a lot of money to promote it. In fact, because you got a big advance, you will be expected to use all your “connections” to promote the book yourself, or to hire an outside publicist. At any rate, I enjoyed my book tour! And I loved my editor, Jamia Wilson. She helped shape my book into something incredibly meaningful to me.

I wish I had read my book aloud more to catch some of the typos that copyediting didn’t catch. I discovered those typos while recording my audiobook, when it was too late.

I’m incredibly happy with what I put out into the world this year. These are my own insecurities, but I’d never felt like a “real” writer until this book was published. Sure, I’d had a few pieces in print before, like celebrity profiles, but it wasn’t until this book that I’d even had an essay published in a U.S. print magazine! A piece (“What I Found on the Dance Floor”) for Harper’s Bazaar¹. The rest of my writing has been for websites that no longer exist. I don’t foresee a collection of my previous work being published anytime soon.

I pitched a 2010s follow-up to Pure Innocent Fun that Random House declined to buy. (I should’ve been a NYT best-seller instead of merely a USA Today national best-seller!) I could’ve taken it elsewhere, but I decided that I’m no longer interested in being solely an essayist. I wrote a short story after the rejection, which was published in Volume 0. That story is also the most popular on their Substack.

My apartment burned down in the fall, and I retreated to Connecticut to stay at a friend’s family home. Invigorated by selling my first short story, I dove into an idea for a book that had been banging around in my brain for years. In 2022, I was a writer and producer on the Netflix series Uncoupled. We shot my episode in the Catskills at a ski lodge. One night after shooting, I looked around at the snow and said aloud, “I wonder what a Friday the 13th would look like set here.” I conceived of that idea as a screenplay initially. I had some interest, but I would have to write it on spec first. I couldn’t figure out how to make it work beyond “slasher set in the snow.”

Years later, in Connecticut, the story finally fell into place. The characters clicked. And it became a lot more than “Friday the 13th in the snow.” And I dove into writing it as a novel. I was reminded of when I first fell in love with Goosebumps and Christopher Pike novels. When I told my Grandad I was working on a horror novel, he excitedly said, “You’ve wanted to do that since you were a kid.” To be honest, it was an ordeal writing my first book. I just wanted it done. But writing this novel, which I have tentatively titled Ski Trip, has been the most fun writing I’ve ever had in my life. I am going on a writing retreat in January, where I plan to finish the final third of the novel. I’ll return to New York once it’s done.

According to one of my favorite astrologers, Chani Nicholas, next year is supposed to be a big year for Leos. I also turn 40 next year. I used to be anxious about the fact that I hadn’t achieved the career success I’ve always wanted. But sometimes, you have to spend a little time in the woods to figure out your actual destination. I’m proud of the culture writing, podcasting, television writing, and everything else I’ve accomplished till now. But I’m even more excited about what’s next.

I also rediscovered my love of reading this year. I read 33 books this year. Here they are in order of finish date:

• Frankie by Graham Norton

• Good Girl by Aria Arber

• Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (re-read)

• No Fault by Haley Mlotek

• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

• Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

• How to Write an Autobiographical Novel by Alexander Chee

• Matriarch by Tina Knowles

• Ecstasy by Alex Dimitrov

• Universality by Natasha Brown

• There Are Reasons for This by Nini Berndt

• American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

• Nocturnes for the King of Naples by Edmund White

• Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson by Tourmaline

• Love in Exile by Shon Faye

• Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbey

• I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire by Samantha Hurley

• Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

• Audition by Katie Kitamura

• Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott

• Better Living Through Criticism by A.O. Scott

• Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

• The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

• Luster by Raven Leilani

• Jack the Modernist by Robert Glück

• Lonely Crowds by Stephanie Wambugu

• Game Changer by Rachel Reid

• Perverts by Kay Gabriel

• Private Citizens by Tony Tulathimutte

• Best Woman by Rose Dommu

• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

• No God But Us by Bobuq Sayed

• Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

My favorite books this year were Audition and Jack the Modernist. Both taught me new things about how to structure a novel. I began and ended the year with two fantastic debut novels from Afghan writers who also wrote exceptionally about nightlife — Good Girl and No God But Us. My most unexpected fave of the year was my first read, Frankie. I read it because we were interviewing Graham Norton on Keep It. And it ended up being a beautiful story about love, friendship, the art world of ‘60s New York, and the AIDS crisis. I remember Graham being shocked that I actually read the damn thing; most interviewers don’t. He surprised me by leaving a voicemail for my final episode of Keep It, congratulating me on an eight-year run. I read many friends’ debut books — Rose Dommu, Haley Mlotek, Bobuq Sayed, Stephanie Wambugu — and enjoyed them immensely. Love in Exile is a must-read for anyone who has ever fallen in love, thought they’d fallen in love, or hopes to fall in love.

I have other friends’ books in my to-read pile that I will get to in 2026. My 2026 pile has already started to grow. My friend Brendon Holder and I are starting the year with The Secret History. I just got the rest of the Heated Rivalry books in the mail. I resolve to read more Toni Morrison. I hope to tackle Divine Days and The Brothers Karamazov. I hope to read more philosophy. I hope to expand my short story, “Try the Priest,” later in the year, and so I will be reading Sierra Simone’s Saint and Louisa May Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase.

I went shopping with my best friend, Blair, in Manhattan today and needed a book to read on the subway. I grabbed John Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat from the pile, since it seemed short enough to finish in a day. I didn’t expect to read a book about a house burning down, and friendship being born from the ashes. I was reminded of how my friends have made this year, despite being one of my hardest, an incredibly hopeful one as well. If you saw me reading Tortilla Flat and sniffling on the 5 train this afternoon, I’m sorry about that! At least I remembered to bring tissues with me, thanks to the cold weather.

Thank you all for reading this year, through all its ups and downs. For now and always, this newsletter will be Frank².

1. I published an essay in a UK magazine a decade ago about MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch, but I’m sure no copies exist anymore.

2. Even when I changed the name briefly, my friend Judnick told me, “Bitch, it was always Frank to us!”