The Booker Prize 2025

Last year I decided to read the whole shortlist and review each read; but I decided to go one better this year and read the whole longlist. And I’ve manged it. All 13 books read before the winner is announced in November. So here are my quick thoughts on the longlistees and who my money is on (not that I ever get it right).

Endling by Maria Reva
Oh this was hard work. There’s a couple of stories going on. I enjoyed the characters at times, and the exploration of Ukraine. But the random addition of snails I just didn’t get. I kept stumbling over them and it just took me out of the story. It felt clunky in places. It felt for me, that Maria was more focussed on making it an important literary piece that she ended up forgetting about the heart of a good story, and I really slugged through it. It wasn’t very seamless, bounded from one theme to another and didn’t feel complete. It’s also randomly split into several parts and I still have absolutely no idea why.

Flesh by David Szalay
This was a very uncomfortable book to read, in so many ways. It is well written and I was absorbed in it, but it wasn’t always pleasant to read. I’m not a prude by any means, but there were passages I was so uncomfortable with that I had to skim read. This isn’t a bad book, not in comparison to some of the others on the list, it’s well written. It’s just not very palatable. I also think there’s too much going on and it’s so overwhelming and so the heart of the story gets lost.

Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
Everyone kept telling me that this was the one to start with as it was really good but I didn’t see how. It’s incredibly dry, very literary. And that’s not an insult as such, but I have never been a great fan of the kind of books that seem to focus more on sounding smart rather than making it a goo story and sadly I felt what’s what let this one down. It’s short but the long sections (not chapters) makes it feel drawn out and overly long. An interesting story but it’s one I struggled to connect with.

Misinterpretation by Ledia Xhoga
This was hard work to get through. I think I enjoyed it, but you had to work for it. It’s not overly uplifting. It’s very hard, what I would call a “proper literary” book. One where you feel you have to struggle, and if you don’t then you’re not reading it right. But I didn’t not like it. Except for the characters, I didn’t like any of them. It is very real, in all its raw and honest and dirty ways, so I commend Ledia for that. I do think it’s quite a timely book about, surprisingly, misinterpretation, language barriers, cultural barriers. If you stick with it, you’ll find underneath there is a very real soul about this story and it is thought-provoking – I just wish it had been easier to get there.

The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai
Oh this was way, way, way too long. I prefer books around 300-450 pages, anything longer than that, I find, tends not to warrant it, and at nearly 700 pages, I can say it didn’t need to be that long. I’m all for description and scene setting and whatnot, but I think half of this book could be removed without negatively affecting the story. It didn’t make much sense either, it drifts off on too many tangents. There’s too many characters to keep up with and none of them appealed to me. There’s no denying Kiran’s ability to create a story, but for me it felt like she had half a dozen ideas and instead of pruning them, she just went with them all, which made it heavy and sluggish I made myself finish it but I couldn’t help but think I’d wasted a few days of my life. I just didn’t get it at all. I couldn’t get into the heart of the story, so wrapped up it was in all its intelligence.

Audition by Katie Kitamura
Ahh it has no speech marks! Why do people keep doing this? That aside, I loved this. I can’t pinpoint what it was but I absolutely loved it. It just spoke to me in so many ways and I couldn’t put it down. Yes it’s a smart literary book, which I usually struggle with but it was so much more accessible. There was a big transition between parts one and two that’s never explained so that threw me a bit but overall I highly rate this.

The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits
This was so weird to read. It feels very retrospective and very rushed. It’s very “he said then she said then we went and he sat down” for page after page after page, and it got a bit stale. I didn’t like any of the characters, although you don’t get to know them well enough. It’s quite a dull plot that was delivered in quite a dull way. This was one of the books on this list I was really looking for ward to but it didn’t’ give me anything, I couldn’t connect. It is definitely a forgettable book for me.

The Land In Winter by Andrew Miller
I was intrigued by this one almost instantly. The way Andrew writes is very unique and feels so effortless. I enjoyed the depiction of mental illness, particularly in an era where it wasn’t understood as much. Could it have been a bit shorter, more concise? Possibly. It does take a lot of time to say very little. But in this case, I quite liked the slower pace. It gives us a closer insight into mundane domestic life that, even though it is set quite a long time ago, many of us can identity with (until the end when it comes a bit more intense). But I can understand why some people have called it slow and a bit dull. He does spend a lot of time on bits that don’t really have an impact on the story as a whole, and whilst this would normally annoy me, I quite liked it here. So many of the books on this longlist have been very intense and really difficult to read. This was slower, more peaceful, and easier to enjoy.

Love Forms by Claire Adam
This was great right from the start. It had such character and such emotion running throughout. It’s very description heavy, and not very dialogue heavy. We are reading as if we’re a diary or an inner monologue, which was an interesting narrative as it gave me a more direct personal view of the goings-on. There were the occasional part that I felt were stretched out a bit too long and could have been more concise. But overall I really liked it. It’s got so much to love about it and I would definitely recommend it to those who enjoy family sagas particularly.

The South by Tash Aw
Whilst another “literary” type of story, I found this one much easier to read. It wasn’t trying to be too clever or be something it’s not. It’s a genteel story full of heart. Nothing much actually happens, in my opinion, but I didn’t mind. This is a character led story and the characters are definitely interesting. I enjoyed it. It wasn’t easy to read subject wise, but it does draw you in and hold your attention. I did, however, find it a little constrained. It’s hard to explain if you haven’t read it. It was pleasant but I’d have like it to go a bit off-piste now and again, making it a bit more exciting.

Universality by Natasha Brown
I read this early 2025, way before the longlist was announced, because I’d heard such great things about it, but I did not get the hype at all. I think I gave it 2 stars, I just couldn’t get on with it. I found the plot disappointing, and I didn’t gel with any of the characters. I felt the meaning behind the story, the morals, felt flat, and the writing did not hook me at all. I think I’m in the minority here because everyone seems to really love it. But for me it felt like it was trying to be important, rather than trying to be a good book.

One Boat by Jonathan Buckley
I love reading about grief and I’m interested in seeing how different authors go about it. But gosh I found this hard. It’s so “literary” that I ended up focussing on making sense of the words and sentences, rather than really getting what the story was. And I had the same with Orbital last year (which did go on to win, so what do I know). It just seemed like the author was trying to make every sentence so highbrow that I just couldn’t enjoy it. It was also quite introspective and all over the shop, and I found it hard to have any connection with character or plot.

Flashlight by Susan Choi
I am not a fan of long books and this was quite long, so I was a bit worried, but I actually ended up enjoying it. It is a difficult book at times, with some difficult themes, but what made this stand out was it was enjoyable as well as important. It’s interesting, with well written characters, it’s full of depth and heart and is definitely one of my favourite books from this list. My two negatives are the chapter length – some were over 50 pages long – and it’s also a bit drawn out, I think it could have been 100 pages less and still get across what it wanted to.

Shortlist
– Flesh
– The Land in Winter
– The Rest of Our Lives
– Audition
– Flashlight
– The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

My Prediction
I admit, I must prefer more…exciting books, thrillers, historical novels, romances etc. I’m not the biggest fan of the intellectual literary books that always tend to get nominated for the awards. I don’t dislike them on principle, but experience has told me that I struggle with them. And I say that every year when I read the long/short lists. But I still try. But sadly I think this was the most disappointing longlists I’ve read for a long time. I think I enjoyed maybe two of them, but the rest just didn’t sit with me at all. Oh well. There’s always next year.

I wanted Love Forms to win but it didn’t even make the shortlist. I had a feeling it would be Seascraper, going on other reviews I’ve seen but that didn’t make it either Out of the shortlist I want either Audition or Flashlight to win. Having said that, I could see Flesh winning because of its important topics touched upon, and for how much hard work it was to get through, even though I wasn’t a fan.