October 2025 Book Trends: Personality, Genre, and Reading Habits

When it comes to reading habits, the ways people choose, start, and sometimes abandon books. Also known as book consumption patterns, it reflects not just what we read, but how our minds and lives shape those choices. In October 2025, the conversation around reading wasn’t just about titles—it was about *why* we pick them up, why we put them down, and what that says about us.

One big theme? personality type, how individual traits like sensitivity, introversion, or empathy affect how we experience books. Posts dug into why highly sensitive people often feel drained after reading emotionally heavy stories—not because they’re weak, but because they feel everything deeper. That ties directly into another trend: ghost reading, the habit of starting a book and never finishing it. It’s not laziness. It’s often a mismatch between the book’s emotional weight and the reader’s current mental space. People weren’t just reading—they were checking in with themselves.

Genre-wise, dark romance, a subgenre blending intense emotion with morally gray characters and high-stakes relationships. kept showing up in discussions. Readers wanted to know if stories about toxic power dynamics were just entertainment—or a reflection of real-life relationship patterns. Meanwhile, historical fiction, stories set in the past that mix real events with imagined lives. faced scrutiny too. Was that 18th-century dress accurate? Did the dialogue sound real? Readers became detectives, hunting for anachronisms and cultural missteps. And it wasn’t just about facts—it was about respect. People wanted stories that didn’t twist history to fit a modern fantasy.

Underneath all this? A quiet question: Are we reading more, or just collecting more unread books? The list below covers everything from why Harry Potter still dominates sales to whether The Alchemist counts as self-help. You’ll find guides on writing book reviews, spotting fake historical details, and picking the right book for your mood—whether you’re feeling anxious, curious, or just tired. No fluff. Just real talk about what people were reading, why, and what it meant.