There have been some beautiful personal stories of grief, love, redemption and growth this year that absolutely cannot be missed. Memoirists like Elizabeth Gilbert and Jen Hatmaker have peeled back yet another layer of their lives to share with the world and 2025 is all the better for it. Make sure you don’t miss these dazzling memoirs as the year comes to a close.

This year, the winner of the She Reads Best Memoir of 2025 Award is:

One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

National Book Award finalist and 2025 Palestine Book Awards shortlist read, Omar El Akkad’s first nonfiction is a memoir-manifesto. An Egyptian-born immigrant, reporter and father, he charts the break between the West’s promises and its practices—after years covering the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter and Gaza (his viral tweet reached 10M). What emerges is a heartsick breakup letter and a search for possibility, dignity and responsibility in a time of sanctioned cruelty.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

And don’t miss out on the rest of our favorite memoirs from 2025!

All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation by Elizabeth Gilbert

Elizabeth Gilbert’s first nonfiction in a decade is a raw love story that veers into reckoning. She meets Rayya in 2000, and the friendship blossoms into love—until addiction and grief crash in. What begins as salvation spirals into a mirror of every self-destructive pattern she swore off. Yet in the wreckage she finds an awakening and a pathway to freedom. This is a read that offers a lifeline to anyone who’s loved fiercely, lost badly, and is ready to begin again.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom by Shari Franke

Shari Franke, the eldest of YouTube’s 8 Passengers, tells what the camera never showed. Behind the thumbnails were draconian rules, coercive “coaching” and escalating harm that ended with the 2023 arrests of Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrandt. Franke charts how she sounded the alarm and rebuilt a self beyond the brand. Read it for an unflinching view of influencer culture’s dark side—and a hard-won blueprint for reclaiming voice, boundaries and hope.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Awake: A Memoir by Jen Hatmaker

Jen Hatmaker, bestselling author and For the Love podcast host, recounts the 2:30 a.m. discovery that ended her 26-year marriage and detonated the life she built. In candid, funny vignettes she maps midlife upheaval: divorce, meds, five kids, relearning money, and shedding scripts about religion, gender and worth. Hatmaker names body shame and self-erasure, then chooses boundaries, joy and a different kind of love. This is a manifesto for radical agency,  and empowers anyone going through a midlife renaissance.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Harder I Fight the More I Love You: A Memoir by Neko Case

Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Neko Case turns her eye on the life that forged her. From a poverty-stricken childhood—“raised by two dogs and a space heater”—to finding refuge in forests, bands and indispensable friends, she shows how art and nature became oxygen. With candor and sly wit, Case traces the invisible girl who learned to blaze, interrogating identity, power and the costs of survival. A musician’s field guide to making space for yourself and making beauty again.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

My Next Breath: A Memoir by Jeremy Renner

Two-time Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner turns the camera on himself after a 14,000-pound snowplow accident nearly killed him New Year’s Day 2023. From ICU and multiple surgeries to grinding rehab, he writes in blistering detail about pain, grit and tiny wins that kept him breathing. The Marvel Hawkeye and Hurt Locker star reframes celebrity through stitching endurance, gratitude and purpose into a story of recovery that asks what strength means—one breath at a time.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

107 Days by Kamala Harris

Kamala Harris’s 107 Days drops you inside one of the wildest campaigns in modern history. Secret Service codename Pioneer, first woman VP, she’s handed the ticket when Joe Biden steps aside on July 21, 2024—with 107 days until November 5. From chaotic strategy calls to brutal debate prep and private moments, Harris offers an unfiltered account of pressure and pivots. Part memoir, part thriller: a study in resilience, leadership and democracy under the clock.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism by Sarah Wynn-Williams

Sarah Wynn-Williams’s explosive memoir puts you inside Facebook’s power core. Between jets and meetings with world leaders, she chronicles a culture of misogyny, double standards and PR spin as decisions ripple across elections and crises. From missteps with juntas to Zuckerberg’s response to Facebook’s role in Trump’s win, she maps how “lean in” collided with working motherhood in a pressure cooker. Darkly funny and shocking, it’s a front-row account of power without responsibility—and the cost.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy

Arundhati Roy’s first memoir centers on her fiercest influence, her mother, Mary Roy. After Mary’s death in September 2022, Roy writes to parse a love she calls shelter and storm, remembering the eighteen year old who left home to keep loving her. From a Kerala childhood where Mary founded a school to the making of novels and essays, Roy blends intimacy, wit and clarity. This book is an ode to freedom, thorny love and what shapes a writer.

Buy the book now: Bookshop.org | Amazon