My 2025: Andrea Mara - Best thing you saw online? "The Troy Parrott goal"

Your Hero of 2025?

Alice Hayes, an incredible young girl who has been through unimaginably challenging medical treatments over the last three years and just keeps smiling. An amazingly inspiring person, as are her sister and her parents.

Villain of 2025?

Every human in our headlines who is responsible for misery, violence and war, plus the non-human villain that is AI.

Best Personal Moment?

Going to the New York premiere of All Her Fault, and sitting across the aisle from Sarah Snook and Dakota Fanning, as they watched themselves onscreen pretending to be characters I made up in my head.

Best Movie or TV show?

All Her Fault (of course, of course) and also Stranger Things S5, which I obsessed over with my kids and husband for the last few weeks of 2025. Oh, and also Slow Horses S5 – it just keeps getting better and better. The scene with Roddy Ho and Diana Taverner is one of the best I’ve ever seen on TV.

Best record?

Every Teddy Swims song, though I couldn’t tell you the titles – my husband plays Teddy Swims all the time, so he now lives in my head.

Best book?

The Death of Us by Abigail Dean, an incredible crime novel about the impact a horrific crime has on a marriage.

Best thing you saw online?

The Troy Parrott goal. Or rather, the reaction to it – I was travelling home from a book festival and didn’t know the match was on. Suddenly all my WhatsApp groups were full of parrot memes, which can be confusing without context. The best reaction I saw was the clip of customers in a Dublin Airport bar. There’s nothing like the collective joy of an entire country getting behind a celebration.

Your hope for next year?

On a personal level, I would like to continue my decade-long avoidance of housework by writing books, and on a wider professional level, I hope we will see a greater response to AI’s invasion of creative spaces.

What tickled your funny bone?

Cork comedian Chris Kent – my husband and I went to see his show earlier this year and briefly considered going again to the exact same show a few months later, that’s how good it was. But then it turned out we couldn’t make the second date and figured it probably makes sense to wait for him to have a new show. Hint, hint, Chris!

• • Andrea Mara’s It Should Have Been You is available now via Penguin.

Capping off another inspiring 12 months for music, sport, film, comedy, literature and activism – both at home and around the world – we're thrilled to bring you the brand new Hot Press Annual!

Inside, the HP critics deliver their verdict on 2025, including the albums, tracks, movies, books, games, quotes, photos, events and political happenings of the year. We also sit down for insightful interviews with cover stars Kingfishr, Nell Mescal, RÓIS, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, Ewan McVicar, Booker Prize winner David Szalay and many more. Plus: special end-of-year reflections from the likes of Aisling Bea, Ardal O’Hanlon and BP Fallon...