Damaris Mukulu's 3 favorite reads in 2025

This book is brilliant. Life-changing brilliant, dare I say.

The biggest thing it gave me is a simple but uncomfortable truth: money is emotional, not mathematical. We like to believe our decisions are rational, but so many of them are shaped by fear, comparison, past experiences, and the stories we tell ourselves.

What I really appreciated is that this book doesn't try to impress you with gimmicks or promise to make you rich. There are no flashy tips, no shortcuts. It goes deeper. It asks you to understand yourself first, then build a relationship with money that you can actually live with.

It made me think differently about wealth, risk, patience, and what "enough" really means. It reminded me that survival matters more than brilliance, and that real wealth is often invisible.

This one deserves all the flowers.

"I was not sorry when my brother died."

That opening line alone should tell you you're in for something different.

Nervous Conditions is the first in Tsitsi Dangarembga's powerful trilogy, and in my opinion, the strongest of the three. We meet Tambu, a bright young girl growing up in rural Zimbabwe, hungry for education and everything it promises. Independence. Freedom. A different life.

But that freedom doesn't come easy.

Not when you're a girl.

Not when poverty is your portion.

Not when your opportunities are tied to the death of a sibling.

Tambu grows her own corn to sell in town, determined to make something of herself when no one else will bet on her. The writing is bold and the tone matter-of-fact but piercing. It's a coming-of-age story wrapped in complex family dynamics, colonial legacy, gender expectations, and deep internal conflict.

I especially loved the contrast between Tambu and Nyasha. Their relationship, fraught, fascinating, tender and tragic, is the emotional heartbeat of the novel. One is trying to rise by playing the game. The other is being eaten alive by it.

What makes this book brilliant is how it layers the personal with the political. You're in Tambu's head as she watches the adults around her. Her anxious mother. Her quietly crumbling father. The larger-than-life uncle. The aunts carrying rage and disappointment like handbags.

This book made me think about the cost of progress. Who gets left behind when one of us moves forward. What we suppress to be seen as "good."

Every once in a while, you come across a book so immersive, so beautifully written, that it refuses to leave your mind long after you've turned the last page. The Covenant of Water is that book for me.

At over 700 pages, it's a commitment - but one I'd make again in a heartbeat. Set in Kerala and spanning three generations, this novel is an absolute masterclass in storytelling. Abraham Verghese weaves together history, medicine, love, loss, and resilience with such depth and beauty that I often found myself pausing just to absorb a particularly stunning passage.

The story follows a family cursed with a mysterious affliction; at least one person in each generation drowns, no matter how careful they are around water. But at its core, this book is about so much more than that. It's about human connection, about fate and the quiet strength of those who bear life's heaviest burdens. The characters felt achingly real, their joys and sorrows settling deep in my chest.

I finished this in January, but it's still on my mind as I move through my February reads. It's the kind of book that leaves you with a proper book hangover, the kind that makes it hard to jump into anything new because nothing quite compares.

If you love sweeping, multigenerational stories with rich history, unforgettable characters, and incredible storytelling, read this book. Just prepare to be wrecked in the best way.