New Zealand Fiction I Read in 2025

There's always a book on my bedside that I bring up to my coffee table every morning, along with my phone and water bottle. I try to make time for reading in my daily life, but despite reading consistently, I've always felt my knowledge of fiction set in Aotearoa has been lacking. This year, I set a few creative and fun goals for 2025. For one of those goals, I wanted to read at least 5 books by New Zealand authors. 

By the time I started my first novel by an NZ author, things were looking dicey. It was nearing the midpoint of the year, and my reading speed had slowed significantly. When we decided to set the theme of New Zealand fiction for my book club, I picked up Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton, which had been sitting idle on my Kindle for years. 

I was pleasantly surprised by Catton's book. Following that, I set out to finish three more books set in Aotearoa. Now I'm on my fifth and final book, with more on my TBR pile. This will likely mean I'll reach my goal, and if I'm being optimistic, exceed it, well before the end of 2025. 

Here are my spoiler-free reviews for the books set in Aotearoa I have read in 2025. 

Birnam Wood, Eleanor Catton, 2023

Birnam Wood follows a collective of guerrilla gardeners who call themselves 'Birnam Wood.' Mira is the founder and unofficial leader of the collective. She discovers a lifestyle block that would be perfect for a new illegal gardening project. While scoping out the property (trespassing), she encounters a tech billionaire called Robert Lemoine, who specialises in drone technology (surveillance). 

He decides to support the project financially for his own convoluted reasons. Mira and her collective are given the alluring opportunity of significant funding from an unethical source. 

From there, the novel unfolds with themes of environmental conservation versus destruction in the name of profit. But surprisingly, one of the novel's major conflicts is between long-standing friends, Mira and Shelley. There is also Tony, a former member of Birnam Wood and former lover of Mira, who is against, well, everyone. 

As a reader, I often go for stories that rely heavily on character development. In Birnam Wood, Catton creates an intricate web of interpersonal relationships. I expected the exploration of the cruelty of cooperations versus the conservation of the environment, but I didn't expect a friendship fallout to heavily affect the plot. In Robert, we have a true psychopath. We are given insight into his psyche, and there's rarely anything sympathetic to find therein. 

In contrast, Mira, Tony, and Shelley are all flawed but relatable characters. Mira is determined and brilliant, but struggles to connect with others. She is a passionate gardener with a gift for nurturing plants. Mira also wants to empower others to learn to plant and maintain gardens. She is all vision with no motivation to maintain the administrative duties of the budding group. That's why Shelley is her right-hand woman. But Mira can feel that Shelley, her best friend, flatmate, and integral member of the collective,  is pulling away from her. 

We learn that Shelley has a simmering resentment under the surface. Shelley finds herself reluctantly dedicated to the collective, which, in her late 20s, she is beginning to feel has diminishing returns. She also resents Mira for receiving all the credit as the figurehead. Shelley is a conflicted character who is sympathetic to Mira's attempts to repair their friendship. But her sympathy turns on a dime. Her envy of Mira drives her into complex and immoral situations as the text unfolds. 

Tony, as a character, felt particularly tough to read. Catton expertly created a specific kind of kiwi male. Everyone in Aotearoa has at some point encountered an over-eager left-leaning man who plays devil's advocate at the expense of alienating those around him. 

Birnam Wood is ambitious, but for whatever reason, the relationships were what I enjoyed exploring the most. I came in for the "eco-thriller," but stayed for the characters.  At the halfway point, a dramatic event changes the fortunes of Mira, Shelley and Robert the billionaire. We quickly find that Robert has the funds and influence to get out of just about any situation. 

The turn of events was clever but left me feeling cold after the book had set up such a charming cast of characters. Much like Catton's chosen set piece, the Canterbury environment, she decided to set up a meaningful setting and a grounded and compelling cast of characters, just to make you witness her world burning. A novel about the environment, knowing what we know, could only go one way. 

Amma, Saraid de Silva, 2024 

Speaking of a penchant for writing wonderful casts of characters, Saraid de Silva is also a talented writer with compelling character development. In her debut intergenerational novel, Amma de Silva focuses on the lives of three generations of women in the same family. She explores their interconnected story in a non-linear narrative structure, which takes the reader across time and geography. 

The mantle is passed between the three women as we move through the chapters. We first meet Annie, the daughter or granddaughter of the story, during her visit to London to meet her estranged uncle, Suri. Then we learn more about Annie's grandmother, Josephina, in her younger years in Singapore. Finally, we follow Annie's mother and Josephina's granddaughter, Sithara, after the family has immigrated to New Zealand. 

These women have more in common than blood. They have also overcome hardship in their own ways and are all grappling with the fallout from their mistakes. Throughout the chapters, we start to piece together their fraught relationships. We learn why Annie and Sithara aren't speaking, and how Suri became estranged from all three women. 

De Silva's writing is absorbing. Particularly in the ways she describes the food they eat, their appearances and the relationships they have to one another. My favourite parts of the narrative follow the grandmother, Josephina. Her story takes us to unexpected places, such as getting to know the sex workers in the brothel beneath her apartment, who come in as interesting little cameos. Josephina moves to Sri Lanka once she enters the workforce and spends a lot of time under a banyan tree. Here she meets two men, who will both become significant to her. What unfolds is a beautiful love story with hints of another life Josephina could've led. 

Amma, at its essence, is an exploration of the various paths life can take. In many decisions these women make, we see a potential for an alternative trajectory. Josephina and her family could've settled in another country, Sathira could've kept her toxic ex-husband out of her life, and Annie could've chosen to never visit her uncle. This speaks to the depths Amma creates in its narrative world, which also made it a delight to read. I devoured this book. 

A Beautiful Family, Jennifer Trevelyan, 2005 

A Beautiful Family follows a young girl and her family on a summer holiday on the Kapiti Coast in the '80s. This is a very plot-heavy novel with a wide-ranging cast of characters who are mostly holiday-making somewhere sunny by the beach. 

I really liked the narration of this novel by an unnamed 10-year-old. The way moments were captured throughout the story were filtered through the biases of a child. I especially related to her secretiveness. She hides information out of fear of getting in trouble with her parents or getting on the wrong side of her difficult sister. She also forms a tight, but volatile, bond with another young boy she meets on the beach, called Kahu. 

Kahu and the narrator are trying to collect clues about a young girl who supposedly drowned and went missing in a previous summer. Together, they don't uncover many clues about the girl's disappearance, but nonetheless witness other traumatic events over the course of an eventful summer. 

The young girl often finds herself under the surveillance of her older male neighbour, who we learn is increasingly obsessed with her and her family. Ultimately, the story isn't about mysteries being resolved or justice being served. A Beautiful Family explores themes of negligence. The narrator's parents leave her and her sister unsupervised, and they get into dangerous situations. 

A Beautiful Family captures a time when, for better or worse, young people in New Zealand were left up to their own devices and created their own fun and trouble. Her father is consumed with jealousy over the mother's affair. The mother is fixated on a secretive novel she is writing, and disappears at random while her daughters swim out into the tumultuous waters. Knowing what we know, both daughters are lucky to survive the events of this dramatic summer holiday. This backdrop hints at the crimes and failures of the adults through the perspective of a vulnerable child.  

Mansfield and Me: A Graphic Memoir, Sarah Laing 

This graphic novel sat neglected on my shelf for years. This challenge inspired me to give it a try.  Mansfield and Me centres on one of New Zealand's most famous fiction writers, Katherine Mansfield. Sarah Laing treats Mansfield's biography with great care and admiration. She doesn't hold back on the details. 

Laing finds parallels between her life and Mansfield's. This results in an honest, raw account of both women's lives and journeys as writers. Both women go overseas to pursue their writing careers, and both face hardships abroad. Mansfield interlopes with some of Britain's most lauded artists of the time, but suffers from ill health and financial struggles throughout her time in Europe. Laing chose to immigrate to New York just before the events of 9/11. 

What struck me was the challenges both writers faced in balancing their creative ambitions with their other obligations and health. Women are often expected to make way for other life obligations over their art. It's impressive that Laing could balance moving countries, having three children, and a prolific writing career. She could see the same in Mansfield, who, despite obstacles, still felt a strong drive to write. 

I always find it hard to fit in writing time. I am in good health, and I don't have children, but there are still so many reasons not to write. There are chores to be done, friends to catch up with, and of course, the endless cycle of work. But the biggest off-putting factor is that putting words to the page feels indulgent, and at times, a complete waste of time.

I'm not particularly gifted at writing, but I still feel that drive to do it. Mansfield's story is inspiring. It's so much easier to write now than ever before. If Mansfield moved across the world, dealt with various relationship failures, and poor health, what's your excuse not to write? 

Mansfield and Me is as much a love letter to writing as it is an ode to Mansfield. 

Final Thoughts 

I have no idea what the next year in reading will look like, but having a specific goal in mind for 2025 has been rewarding. I can now see the appeal in reading literature set in Aotearoa. A lot of us are put off reading local writers because we fear the potential for cultural cringe. Even though it can feel like we're a few small dots on the map, there are so many stories to tell. Hopefully, going forward, I will always make time to pick up books by New Zealand authors.