I really wasn’t expecting to make bingo this year, but somehow I did. And I mean really wasn’t expecting, as in, I assumed I hadn’t until I looked at my bingo card just now and realized I did. How’s that for a nice holiday surprise?

For those who keep track, I got a diagonal bingo, top left to bottom right. Here are the books:

• Navigating With(out) Instruments – traci kato-kiriyama
• The Breakup Lists – Adib Khorram
• The Fall of Whit Rivera – Crystal Maldonado
• I’ll Have What He’s Having – Adib Khorram
• Almost Sunset – Wahab Algarmi

Adib Khorram and Crystal Maldonado are definitely turning into two of my favorite authors. It’s somewhat unusual for contemporary YA to hold my attention, especially across multiple books from the same author, but I will definitely be keeping up with these two. I also recommend Khorram’s adult romance novels for a definitely-not-YA but equally fun reading experience.

Here are the other books I read toward my bingo card. The order of the books reflects the order going straight down the bingo card, from left to right, row by row, with the 5 bingo books omitted.

• The Mochi Makers – Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson
• Indiginerds – Alina Pete (ed.)
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter – Stephen Graham Jones
• Will’s Race for Home – Jewell Parker Rhodes
• Mapping the Interior – Stephen Graham Jones
• Reasons We Break – Jesmeen Kaur Deo
• Behind My Doors – Hena Khan
• The Asiri – Roye Okupe
• Nayra and the Djinn – Iasmin Omar Ata
• TJ Powar Has Something to Prove – Jesmeen Kaur Deo
• Exposure – Ramona Emerson

I already wrote a separate post about it, but The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones was hands-down the best book I read this year. (I keep accidentally calling it The Buffalo Buffalo Hunter when I recommend it to friends, but I can’t be the only one…) Reasons We Break by Jesmeen Kaur Deo was a close second. It was one of the books that I was super excited to add to my TBR at the time, but, as often happens, I completely forgot about it, read TJ Powar Has Something to Prove by chance, and was happily surprised to realize Reasons We Break was its sequel.

All in all, though I may have barely scraped by with a bingo, I’m pretty satisfied with the reading I did this year. See you in January, by which time I will, of course, have actually made my bingo card for 2026 Reading Goals.