Whoa!nus 2025 Year In Review
About this episode
In this Year-in-Review episode, the hosts reflect on the wins and misses of 2025 in romance literature and look ahead to 2026.
What was 2025, really? What did we say we were going to do—and did we do it? In this Year-in-Review episode, we take stock of the year with clear eyes. We revisit the wins, the misses, and the pacing problems from our shelf this year—from Ali Hazelwood’s Deep End to the dark-romance chaos of Nocticadia . We did a shadow-daddy bracket (a rigorous, peer-reviewed process; dissenting opinions noted for the record) that functioned as a useful tool for Isabeau, and found time to accidentally fall head first into the zeitgeist. Who earned the hardest Whoa! ? Who took home the most definitive No ? And which couples earned space on our mental shelves forever? We close by looking ahead to 2026: what we’re pursuing, what we’re done negotiating, and what we’re leaving behind—because not every arc deserves a redemption. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
People in this episode
Host: Isabeau
Topics covered
- year in review
- romance
- literature
- cultural commentary
- personal reflection
Keywords
- 2025
- year in review
- romance
- literature
- cultural commentary
- Deep End
- Nocticadia
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Deep End, Nocticadia
More episodes of Whoa!mance: Romance, Feminism, and Ourselves
- 201.2: True Dark Romance - "Alchemised" by SenLinYu [Part 2]
- 200. The Time War is Foreplay--"This is How You Lose the Time War" by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
- 199: Forty Shades of Green - "The Ground She Walks Upon" by Meagan McKinney
- 198: The Reason for the Peenin' - The Earl's Christmas Pearl by Megan Frampton
- 197.2: Return to SpookyU: Nocticadia by Keri Lake
- 197: Gothy McGotherson: Nocticadia by Keri Lake
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Whoa!mance: Romance, Feminism, and Ourselves podcast page.