Amazon's Best Books of 2025
- Greg Barlin
- Nov 13
- 11 min read
Updated: Nov 15
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.
While I'll publish my final list for 2025 in early January, you can always see how things are stacking up at my running "Best Books of the Year...So Far: Live!" list.
Let's take a look at the Amazon rankings and see how they did!
#1 - Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆ | Review)
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.
#2 - The Correspondent
by Virginia Evans (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#3 - The Boys in the Light
by Nina Willner (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
A true story of the rescue of two boys who had escaped Nazi concentration camps during World War II. I haven't read this one yet, but it's now on my list.
#4 - The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
The story of an unlikely bond between a nineteen-year-old young man on the verge of suicide and an elderly woman suffering from dementia who he ends up caring for. Mixed reviews have kept me from jumping into this one, but now it feels like I must.
#5 - Wild Dark Shore
by Charlotte McConaghy (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#6 - The Intruder
by Frieda McFadden (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
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.
#7 - Awake
by Jen Hatmaker (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
The top memoir on the list details the unexpected dissolution of a twenty-six-year marriage when a woman discovers her husband's infidelity.
#8 - Atmosphere
by Taylor Jenkins Reid (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#9 - Replaceable You
by Mary Roach (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆ | Review)
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.
#10 - The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny
by Kiran Desai (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
"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."
#11 - Broken Country
by Clare Leslie Hall (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#12 - Paper Girl
by Beth Macy (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#13 - Katabasis
by R.F. Kuang (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#14 - Cursed Daughters
by Oyinkan Braithwaite (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#15 - Next of Kin
by Gabrielle Hamilton (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#16 - King of Ashes
by S. A. Cosby (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#17 - The Beast in the Clouds
by Nathalia Holt (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆ | Review)
Perfectly fine, but not one I expected to see crack the Top 20.
#18 - Heart the Lover
by Lily King (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
A sob-inducing quick read that I'll make sure to plow through before the end of the year.
#19 - The Book of Guilt
by Catherine Chidgey (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#20 - Baldwin
by Nicholas Boggs (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#21 - The Girls Who Grew Big
by Leila Mottley (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review )
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.
#22 - Waste Wars
by Alexander Clapp  (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#23 - Amity
by Nathan Harris (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#24 - What a Way to Go
by Bella Mackie (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#25 - Memorial Days
by Geraldine Brooks (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆ | Review)
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.
#26 - Dead Money
by Jakob Kerr (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#27 - Sunrise on the Reaping
by Suzanne Collins (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#28 - No More Tears
by Gardiner Harris (BarlinsBooks Rating: Review Forthcoming)
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 teh world", Johnson & Johnson.
#29 - Bad Bad Girl
by Gish Jen  (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#30 - Abundance
by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#31 - The Impossible Fortune
by Richard Osman (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
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.
#32 - Finding Grace
by Loretta Rothschild (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★☆☆ | Review)
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.
#33 - Red City
by Marie Lu (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#34 - When We Ride
by Rex Ogle (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#35 - Daikon
by Samuel Hawley (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
"A shocking historical premise: three atomic bombs were actually delivered to the Pacific—not two—and when one of them falls into the hands of the Japanese, the fate of a couple that has been separated from one another becomes entangled with the fate of this terrifying new device." This is one I've added to my list.
#36 - 1929
by Andrew Ross Sorkin (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#37 - To the Moon and Back
by Eliana Ramage(BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#38 - All the Way to the River
by Elizabeth Gilbert (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#39 - The Names
by Florence Knapp (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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. This likely ends up in my Top 10 of 2025.
#40 - Seven Reasons to Murder Your Dinner Guests
by KJ Whittle (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#41 - When It All Burns
by Jordan Thomas (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆ | Review)
Part memoir, part history of fire, author Thomas recounts his time with the Los Padres Hotshots while positing ways to deal with megafires.
#42 - The Poppy Fields
by Nikki Erlich (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
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.
#43 - Detained
by D. Esperanza, Gerardo Iván Morales (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#44 - The Black Wolf
by Louise Penny (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#45 - The Family Dynamic
by Susan Dominus (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#46 - Alchemised
by SenLinYu (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#47 - Mother Mary Comes to Me
by Arundhati Roy (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#48 - The Wayfinder
by Adam Johnson (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#49 - Onyx Storm
by Rebecca Yarros (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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!
#50 - Joyride
by Susan Orlean (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#51 - We the People
by Jill Lepore (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#52 - Tilt
by Emma Pattee (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#53 - The Fate of the Day
by Rick Atkinson (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#54 - We Are All Guilty Here
by Karen Slaughter (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#55 - Sisters in the Wind
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.
#56 - Wild Reverence
by Rebecca Ross (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#57 - Matriarch
by Tina Knowles (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
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.
#58 - Fulfillment
by Lee Cole (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#59 - The Traitor's Circle
by Jonathan Freedland (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#60 - Silver Elite
by Dani Francis (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
I feel like I will have to read this BookTok darling.
#61 - Mark Twain
by Ron Chernow (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
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
#62 - The Gods of New York
by Jonathan Mahler (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#63 - The Everlasting
by Alix E. Harrow (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★ | Review)
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.
#64 - Algospeak
by Adam Aleksic (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#65 - King of Kings
by Scott Anderson (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#66 - When the Cranes Fly South
by Lisa Ridzén (Author), Alice Menzies (Translator) (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#67 - I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This
by Eugene Yelchin (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#68 - Fever Beach
by Carl Hiaasen (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#69 - JFK
by J. Randy Taraborrelli (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#70 - No Body No Crime
by Tess Sharpe (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#71 - Who Is Government?
by Michael Lewis (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
#72 - Taylor's Version
by Stephen Burt (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#73 - The Magician of Tiger Castle
by Louis Sachar (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#74 - Careless People
by Sarah Wynn-Williams (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★☆  | Review)
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.
#75 - The Optimist
by Keach Hagey (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#76 - One Golden Summer
by Carly Fortune (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★  | Review)
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!
#77 - The Art of Uncertainty
by David Spigelhalter (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#78 - Deep End
by Ali Hazelwood (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#79 - Spell Freedom
by Elaine Weiss (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#80 - It's a Love Story
by Annabel Monaghan (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#81 - Having It All
by Corinne Low (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#82 - Book of Lives
by Margaret Atwood (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#83 - Can't Get Enough
by Kennedy Ryan (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#84 - A Family Matter
by Claire Lynch (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#85 - The Let Them Theory
by Mel Robbins (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Yet Reviewed)
Over 30,000 reviews and tracking at a 4.6 average.
#86 - The Love Haters
by Katherine Center (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#87 - Once Upon a Time in Dollywood
by Ashley Jordan (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#88 - Good Spirits
by B.K. Borison (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#89 - Promise Me Sunshine
by Cara Bastone (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#90 - The Fort Bragg Cartel
by Seth Harp (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#91 - A Forbidden Alchemy
by Stacey McEwan (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#92 - The Knight and the Moth
by Rachel Gillig (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#93 - Rose in Chains
by Jile Soto (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#94 - Arcana Academy
by Elise Kova (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#95 - Dirtbag Queen
by Andy Corren (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★  | Review)
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.
#96 - When the Moon Hits Your Eye
by John Scalzi (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#97 - Big Chief
by Jon Hickey (BarlinsBooks Rating: Not Reviewed)
#98 - The Three Lives of Cate Kay
by Kate Fagan (BarlinsBooks Rating: ★★★★★  | Review)
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.