Amazon's Best Books of 2025
It's always an exciting day at Barlin's Books when the Amazon Editors release their favorite books of the year. That list, in some ways, was what initially gave rise to this site. It's an opportunity for me to compare my impressions with theirs, identify books I might have missed over the course of my reading year to target, as well as pick out surprises among their selections.
This year, I think they got a lot right! For books that were published in 2025, all of my Top 20 (with two exceptions) appear somewhere within Amazon's Top 100. While we differed on where some things should be ranked, they also didn't include any (with one exception) of my lower-ranked books (those rated 3 stars or less). In general, we're pretty well aligned.
Let's take a look at the Amazon rankings and see how they did vs. the final 2025 rankings from BarlinsBooks (full BarlinsBooks rankings here)!
A generational novel focused on the intersecting lives of two families in a small Ohio town, spanning more than fifty years and with a particular emphasis on war. It's good...but is it the best book of the year? It is not.
An innovative character study in which an aging woman's life story is revealed through the letters she writes and receives from a myriad of people. The novel idea—to tell the story purely through those letters—somehow works from start to finish and creates a book full of beautiful prose and magical moments. My favorite book of 2025.
A true story of the rescue of two boys who had escaped Nazi concentration camps during World War II, intersected with the stories of the American soldiers who first found them.
A nineteen-year-old young man on the verge of suicide forms an unlikely bond with an elderly woman suffering from dementia in this bleak book which should have be titled "The Emperor of Sadness".
When a woman washes ashore on a remote island in the South Pacific, the lone family living there nurses her back to health. But both parties have secrets...Amazon got it right on this one—it's excellent, tension-filled, and definitely worth a read.
A surprise entry—while the Queen of the Plot Twist is wildly popular with readers, her poppy novels simply don't end up this high on lists like these. While I wouldn't put it at #6, it was better than expected, especially the final quarter of the book.
The top memoir on the list details the unexpected dissolution of a twenty-six-year marriage when a woman discovers her husband's infidelity. Moments of quality, but scattered and incohesive.
Filled with tragedy, perseverance, and love, the novel focuses on the fictional first women in the NASA space program in the early 1980s. This is another one Amazon got right, although they likely ranked it too low. It was my favorite book of the year for several months—TJR's best.
Author Mary Roach is back with her signature blend of wit as she examines the human body and all of the potential ways we attempt to modify it. This is a pretty inflated rating for a book that was chuckle-worthy and perfectly fine, but not much more.
"Sonia is an aspiring novelist; Sunny, a struggling journalist. Together, they embark on a search for happiness as they confront the many alienations of our modern world."
One of the buzziest books of the first half of the year deserves the hype, and it's continued to rise up my rankings as I remember it fondly. A well-crafted story that barrels to one of the more tone-perfect conclusions of the year. A Top 5 book for me in 2025.
Edgy and violent, Cosby's latest sees a successful money manager sucked into working for a sadistic gang in order to save his brother. It's a small notch below Cosby's best, but that still makes it one of the better books I read this year and firmly in my Top 10 of 2025.
Perfectly fine, but this account of the sons of Teddy Roosevelt embarking on a quest to hunt the mysterious Giant Panda in the 1920s was not one I expected to see crack the Top 20.
A sob-inducing quick read that explores the all-encompassing experience of young love and how it is put in perspective upon reflection later in life. A deserved spot in the Top 20.
Another gritty offering from Mottley, who this time explores teen pregnancy and a small group of teen moms who help each other through it. Appropriately ranked.
Where books like Broken Country have continued to rise in my rankings, Memorial Days has continued to fall. It is brutally honest and soul-bearing, but it has failed to leave a dominant lasting impression.
I love seeing this get some recognition! Kerr's mature and tightly-plotted debut follows the murder investigation of the founder of a fictitious tech company in San Francisco. This is solidly in my Top 10 for 2025.
Collins returns to give us the origin story of Haymitch Abernathy in a way that might make this the best Hunger Games novel to-date.
I'm not finished with it yet, but even partway through it may be the most infuriating book I've read this year. A masterclass in exposing corporate cover-ups across decades from "one of the most trusted companies in the world", Johnson & Johnson.
Unusual fact: despite The Thursday Murder Cub finishing in my Top 10 in 2021 (#8 overall), I have never read any of the sequels. Given The Impossible Fortune is book #5, I'm unlikely to get to it any time soon.
A difficult novel to review without spoiling the story, it focuses on a family trying to have another child before a shocking event disrupts everything. A great premise and surprising start fades badly in its ultimate execution.
A speculative historical novel that imagines what might have happened if Japan gained possession of an atomic bomb near the end of World War II.
Way too low! A mother debates what to name her son, and her three choices create three parallel timelines in this mature and solidly composed novel that is way too good to be a debut.
Part memoir, part history of fire, author Thomas recounts his time with the Los Padres Hotshots while positing ways to deal with megafires.
I'm in the minority as someone who didn't care at all for The Measure, Erlich's previous novel in which all adults on the planet received a mysterious string whose length represented the person's remaining lifespan, so no intention of reading this one.
An immense and dense epic literary journey through the South Pacific of 1000 years ago that explores the struggle for power on Tonga. It's an incredible literary accomplishment that deserves to be read, but it was work to get through the persistent density of unfamiliar language and culture throughout.
Only #49? Come on...while it might have been a notch below Fourth Wing or Iron Flame, book 3 in the Empyrean series is still really good. Plus, 2.7 million copies sold in its first week to make it the fastest selling adult novel in the last 20 years has to count for something!
I didn't get to this one until 2026, but its combination of plotting, character development, and misdirection made it a propelling read and one of the best thrillers I've read so far this year.
by Angeline Boulley (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
I'm debating whether to pick this one up. I really enjoyed Boulley's debut novel Firekeeper's Daughter, to the tune of a 5th place ranking in my Best Books of 2022. Sadly, her follow-up Warrior Girl Unearthed missed the mark for me. Perhaps Sisters in the Wind breaks the tie.
I wouldn't call myself a Beyoncé fan, but I can't ignore that this memori from her mother is averaging a 4.8 rating with over 1,100 reviews on Amazon. I might have to pick it up.
A young woman with special powers infiltrates a training program for the military while working undercover for a resistance organization. Fun, a little spicy, and a good read! Plus, who is Dani Francis? I share my suspicions in the review.
Timely, with the release of the excellent James by Percival Everett last year, a retelling of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of Jim, an enslaved black man who flees with Huck down the Mississippi River as his companion in that novel
A time-traveling tale that dissects the most famous legend in the land, BarlinsBooks favorite Alix E. Harrow once again creates a binge-worthy blend of fantasy and creativity. Underrated here at #63 by Amazon; this deserves to be higher.
Another that I didn't get to until 2026. An 89-year-old Swedish man narrates as we sail along this sad journey focused on the challenges and indignities encountered at the end of life. It's a somber book, and one that will almost certainly make readers evaluate how they choose to handle the care of aging parents or even what awaits them at the end of their own life. It's a book that has many 5-star qualities, but it's also one that could have benefitted from some moments of levity along the way. Recommended for its highly accomplished treatment of the challenges of old age and the end of life, but be prepared to be pummeled by sadness.
A no-holds-barred account by a former high-ranking employee that lays bare secrets about Facebook and its executives that are shocking to see in print. Wynn-Williams determinedly plowed ahead, even when Facebook tried to block the book from being published.
A photographer spends a summer at a lake house where she meets a cocksure man whose charms threaten their mutual vow of friendship. My favorite romance novel of the year for once wasn't written by Emily Henry. This one is really good!
Over 30,000 reviews and tracking at a 4.6 average.
I'm happy to see this crack the Top 100. Sparked by a viral obituary, this unlikeliest of memoirs introduces us to the crazy Corren family and their larger-than-life mother. It's irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny; my first 5-star read of 2025.
I'm happy as well to see this one make the list. I devoured this novel about an author who fiercely protected her anonymity—despite writing the biggest book series on the planet—and then finally tells all in a memoir.
Where are #99 and #100? Your guess is as good as mine! The Amazon list stops here.
One email on the first of every month with a summary and rating of each book reviewed over the past 30 days, and a look at where the year's ranking stands.