Inspirational Skai: Day 5 | Five Fall Favorites 2025: Re-Read

I'm having so much fun reading everyone's suggestions and reminiscing about my own past reading. I have also added so many new books to my TBR (does anyone else really want to go out and buy more books now?), and we aren't quite done yet. We still have today, and tomorrow. Welcome or welcome back! I think I may be more excited about today's book line up than even my top five books of the year. One of today's books has three paragraphs about it. I guess that's what happens when you talk about books you have reread.

Because I tend to reread a couple of chapters and then get bored, I rarely reread books. At first, I struggled to find books I have read more than once from cover to cover, but then I talked to my sister, and she helped me come up with five different titles that I have reread. Many of these rereads are from some of my favorite series. Almost all of them, I read first when I was a kid and have reread since I've been an adult. Here are five books that I enjoyed enough to finish rereading.

1. Nancy Drew: The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Carolyn Keene

In the fifth book of the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories: The Secret of Shadow Ranch by Caroyln Keene, Nancy and her friends, Bess and George take a vacation to a Shadow Ranch near Phoenix, Arizona. Even before the trio arrives at the ranch, they encounter the mysterious accidents that have befallen the small working ranch and learn of the ghost horse haunting the ranch. Soon Nancy and her friends are wrapped up in a dangerous old mystery involving an outlaw, a forbidden romance, and a missing stolen treasure.

I have reread this story many times. Here are the reasons it is one of my favorite Nancy Drew Mystery Stories. First it takes place near my hometown and while I was growing up, most book took place either in fictional places or major cities near the East coast. I'm guessing that's because most of the major publishers were still located in New York. The second reason is that there is a computer game by Her Interactive inspired by this title. As a kid, when we got that computer game, I distinctly remember rereading this book. Most recently, I read this book because a few years ago when I decided I wanted to read the Nancy Drew books in order. While I'd read many of them as a kid, there were a few I missed, and I wanted to make sure that I read those. Rereading this one, I was surprised by what I remembered and even more surprised by the dangers that I had forgotten. These old mysteries are intense.

View on Good Reads.

Read the review on Instagram

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, a post-apocalyptic impoverished mining town under the totalitarian regime of Panam's Capital. Every year, the twelve districts as reparations for a war fought decades before, must send two children between the ages of 12 and 17. During the 74th annual Hunger Games, Katniss's little sister, Primrose, is chosen in the drawing. Naturally protective of her little sister, she volunteers to take her place. Katniss will have to fight to the death against twenty-three other kids if she wants to make it home to her family. It helps that she's been illegally hunting outside her district since she was a child and is quite skilled with a bow and arrow. However, when the other District 12 tribute confesses his love for her on the night before the Games in front of the whole country, she is forced to reconsider everything she thought she knew.

Initially, I read this in junior high when the movie was coming out and all my friends were obsessed with Team Peeta or Team Gale. I'll admit I liked Gale better reading it as a young teen. In 2022, I found an audiobook edition published in 2019, read by actor Tatiana Maslany (She Hulk) and decided to reread as a re-listen. While the story has elements of political satire, on this listen what stood out most to me was the relationship between Katniss and Peeta, and how the Hunger Games made them lovers on opposite sides of enemy lines. They are actually called "star crossed lovers" in this book. That's a line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet about Romeo and Juliet. There were other moments that reminded me of Shakespeare, but that line in particular convinced me, the first book in the Hunger Games series is a Romeo and Juliet retelling with them as teens in a post-apocalyptic world. Unfortunately, for my teenage self, that also means Gale was only ever Juliet's cousin, Tybalt. If this is a Romeo and Juliet retelling, he never had a chance.

View on Good Reads.

Read the Re-Read post on Instagram

3. Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans

After his father's death, Michael and his mother moved from California to Idaho, where he has spent the last few years hiding that his Tourette's Syndrome isn't the only thing that makes him different from other teens. He also electrical powers. His body generates its only electricity, a charge strong enough to tase a person. After he shocks the school bullies, Jack and Wade, a cute cheerleader, Taylor notices him, and tells him that she has the ability to read minds and make people forget. When Michael's mother gets kidnapped, Michael, Taylor, Michael's best friend Ostin, and the school bullies drive to California to rescue his mother.

When I was a teenager, my mom heard about this series and told me it was a clean teen action novel. I first listened to it as an audiobook while I was an intern doing research for a small media production company. Although I was hooked on this book because of the pulse pounding action and suspense, it was the sweetness of the characters that I fell in love with. Before the final book released, I reread first five books and, on my re-read, I thought about how this book would make a fantastic movie or mini-series. It would look similar to the Percy Jackson tv show, but if I were adapting it would stay true to the heart of the characters, and I would want to find a young actor who has Tourette's to play Michael. I need to reread this book again if I'm going to start adapting it to a screenplay. If anyone knows the author (or whoever has this book optioned) please send them my way.

View on Good Reads.

Read the review on Instagram

4. Anything by Kristina Welsh

During her senior year of high school, Kit made some poor choices that led to her fleeing from her boyfriend, shoeless and in the rain on prom night. Now, she's starting college in a new town at a small Christan school, Mayberry University, but that experience, even being months and miles away, still haunts her. Enter Levi, a rich kid who left his chance at fortune and prestige at an Ivy League school to attend Mayberry. He's tired of people only using him for his wealth and status. Immediately, Kit's genuine faith and kindness catch his attention, but every time he looks at her, is alone with her, or she is caught in the rain, her heart races and she has a panic attack. They will have to learn to trust God and allow Him to heal them, if they want to have a relationship.

Listening to this as an ARC audiobook via Net Galley, as soon as I finished this book, I started reading it again. Some general critiques, the author read her own book, so the quality of the narration improved as the book went on, and I have mixed feelings about the impact of having Levi narrate only a few chapters. He didn't narrate until about one-third of the way through, and early on it was only one chapter here and there, but in the last third, it was Kit and Levi switched narration every chapter. The author should have had them switch chapter narration from the beginning or not at all. His narration didn't add anything new to the story until the final third, but by then it felt too late. Welsh was introducing new elements when she should have instead been wrapping the story up.

What Welsh did really well, was how she captured the effect of sexual harassment, and the struggle of trusting God after being hurt. I was able to see myself in the main character. I have a love-hate relationship with Kit falling in love and finding healing through romance. Mostly because healing should come from God, and not from meeting a better boy, but the romance is so sweet. Levi is one of those fictional guys who are too good to be real, and his patient love for Kit is allegorical. As content warnings go, there are a few kisses, and I would caution that the descriptions of PTSD and panic attacks may be triggering.

View on Good Reads.

5. Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, Operation: Survival by Franklin W. Dixon

Finally, in the Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, Operation: Survival by Franklin W. Dixon, we have the classic characters of Frank and Joe Hardy reimagined as modern teens (written in the early 2000s) working for a secret government organization. In Operation: Survival Frank and Joe go undercover as troubled teens at a reform camp, where mysterious "accidents" have led to the injury and deaths of campers. Out in the wildness, the boys find danger. Everyone from the troubled teens to the angry councilors and program director with too much faith in his process is a suspect.

I read this one as a tween and I know that I've read it at least once since then. These Hardy Boys Undercover Brothers books are my comfort read. I get danger and suspense, without the anxiety that the author might kill off one of my favorite characters. This series is my favorite Hardy Boys series. In this series they are secret agents always going undercover. Amongst these stories they rode motorcycles, had the latest (often fictional) gadgets, and travelled around the US. As an adult, when I read these stories, I see two nice boys who used their freedom responsibly, to do good. I also might have had (and still have) a crush on Frank.

View on Good Reads.

Conclusion

Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys were some of my favorite characters as a kid while Michael Vey was my favorite series of my teen years, and Anything was a recent gem that I've read. Rereading takes time and effort to stay focused long enough to finish a book over again. I only finish rereading books because they are a favorite I enjoy.

As with all of the categories this year, the challenge was to find books that I felt fit the daily theme, and I have had so much fun pulling together these lists. I admit, tomorrow's theme is less about finding the absolute best of 2025, and more about making sure I don't miss talking about any of my favorite recent reads.

Thanks for reading! Check out the other bloggers' posts, enter the giveaway and if you are on Instagram, please follow me to keep up on all my reading and blogging. Links for all of those are below.