01/06/2026
Here are my top three, 5 star reads of 2025:
⭐The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price
This book reframes joy, play, and lightness as biological needs, not rewards. Fun helps our nervous system reset, improves resilience, and makes life feel more livable. Yes, fun counts as self-care.
What I especially appreciated is how this reframes fun as intentional and mindful, not forced or performative. Fun doesn’t have to be loud, social, or high-energy. Quiet joy counts. Cozy counts. Solitary counts.
Therapeutic takeaway:
If life feels heavy, the answer isn’t always “do more work.” Sometimes it’s “add more fun on purpose.”
⭐Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes
This book is a reminder that growth often begins with gentle courage. Saying yes isn’t about forcing change, it’s about loosening the grip of fear and allowing life to meet you halfway. A beautiful reflection on expansion, discomfort, and trust.
The premise is simple but powerful: for one year, the author commits to saying yes to opportunities that scare her. Not reckless yeses, but intentional ones that challenge avoidance and self-doubt.
Therapeutic takeaway:
Change rarely happens through pressure or self-criticism. It happens when we gently expand our comfort zone, one small yes at a time.
⭐️Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine By Gail Honeyman
A powerful portrait of loneliness, trauma, and the quiet ways people survive. This book captures something I see often in therapy: healing doesn’t always look dramatic, it often looks like one safe connection at a time.
The story follows Eleanor, a woman living a very structured, solitary life. She values routine, speaks literally, struggles socially, and experiences the world differently.
Eleanor isn’t “fixed” by insight or self-improvement. She heals through safe, ordinary connection and small moments of kindness, consistency, and being seen. The kind of connection that slowly softens protective walls rather than forcing them down.
Therapeutic takeaway:
Loneliness is not a personal failure. And patient, respectful, human connection can be profoundly healing
