The Best Books of the Year…So Far: Live!
- Greg Barlin
- 18 hours ago
- 10 min read
Technically, it’s all the books I've read in 2025, including the best, the worst, and everything in between. Below you’ll find a running tally of the books that I have reviewed this year, updated and reranked after each book that I finish. Explore the latest reviews and discover hidden gems with insights from BarlinsBooks, your literary companion for top new releases.
#1 - The Correspondent
by Virgina Evans ★★★★★
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.
#2 - The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest
by Aubrey Hartman ★★★★★
A children's book about life's most difficult subject—death—told with compassion, humor and grace at a level on par (or above) any adult literature.
#3 - Broken Country
by Clare Leslie Hall ★★★★★
A small town, a love triangle, a murder, and a trial form the foundation of this twisty, emotional novel set in mid-1900s England.
#4 - Atmosphere
by Taylor Jenkins Reid ★★★★★
Filled with tragedy, perseverance, and love, the novel focuses on the fictional first women in the NASA space program in the early 1980s.
#5 - Throwback
by Maureen Goo ★★★★★
Goo's sweet time travel tale sees a 17-year-old from 2025 transported back to 1995 to try to help her own mother win homecoming queen.
#6 - King of Ashes
by S. A. Cosby ★★★★★
Edgy and violent, Cosby's latest sees a successful money manager sucked into working for a sadistic gang in order to save his brother.
#7 - Dead Money
by Jakob Kerr ★★★★★
Kerr's mature and tightly-plotted debut follows the murder investigation of the founder of a fictitious tech company in San Francisco.
#8 - Wild Dark Shore
by Charlotte McConaghy ★★★★★
When a woman washes ashore on a remote island, the lone family living there nurses her back to health. But both parties have secrets...
#9 - The Names
by Florence Knapp ★★★★★
A mother debates what to name her son, and her three choices create three parallel timelines in this mature and solidly composed debut.
#10 - The Everlasting
by Alix E. Harrow ★★★★★
A time-traveling tale that dissects the most famous legend in the land, Harrow once again creates a binge-worthy blend of fantasy and creativity.
#11 - Dirtbag Queen
by Andy Corren ★★★★★
Sparked by a viral obituary, this unlikeliest of memoirs introduces us to the crazy Corren family and their larger-than-life mother.
#12 - The Three Lives of Cate Kay
by Kate Fagan ★★★★★
An author who has fiercely protected her anonymity—despite writing the biggest book series on the planet—finally tells all in a memoir.
#13 - The Silverblood Promise
by James Logan ★★★★★
A strong start to a new fantasy series, a roguish young man travels to a distant city to solve the mystery of his father's death.
#14 - The Blackfire Blade
by James Logan ★★★★★
A worthy continuation of what started with The Silverblood Promise, Book 2 is filled with heists, mini quests, and more of everything you loved in Book 1.
#15 - Onyx Storm
by Rebecca Yarros ★★★★★
The most anticipated book of 2025 mostly delivers, as author Yarros continues the Empyrean series and Violet Sorrengail's evolution.
#16 - Heart the Lover
by Lily King ★★★★★
Full Review coming soon
#17 - Scythe
by Neal Shusterman ★★★★★
Two teenagers are forced to compete to become a Scythe, whose job is to control overpopulation by killing a set number of people each year.
#18 - Sunrise on the Reaping
by Suzanne Collins ★★★★★
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.
#19 - I Have Some Questions For You
by Rebecca Makkai ★★★★★
A woman returns to the elite boarding school she attended after 20+ years to search for answers about the murder of her roommate senior year.
#20 - One Golden Summer
by Carly Fortune ★★★★★
A photographer spends a summer at a lake house where she meets a cocksure man whose charms threaten their mutual vow of friendship.
#21 - Great Big Beautiful Life
by Emily Henry ★★★★★
Two writers compete for the opportunity to author the memoir of a reclusive heiress while coming to realize they might just be soulmates.
#22 - The Wishing Game
by Meg Shaffer ★★★★★
A teacher's aide who dreams of adopting a young boy from her school competes in a contest for the sole copy of a reclusive author's new book.
#23 - The Girls Who Grew Big
by Leila Mottley ★★★★★
Another gritty offering from Mottley, who this time explores teen pregnancy and a small group of teen moms who help each other through it.
#24 - You Are Here
by David Nicholls ★★★★★
A sweet and heartfelt story about finding love when you least expect it, told with a distinctly British cheekiness and sense of humor.
#25 - The Anxious Generation
by Jonathan Haidt ★★★★★
A thoroughly researched exploration of the rise in mental illness among Gen Z, paired with several suggestions for how we can fix it.
#26 - No More Tears
by Gardiner Harris ★★★★★
Full Review coming soon
#27 - Foster
by Claire Keegan ★★★★★
A quick 50-page read, the story of a young girl who is delivered by her father to stay with a family in a neighboring town in Ireland.
#28 - The Ghostwriter
by Julie Clark ★★★★☆
A woman returns home to ghostwrite her estranged father's memoir while trying to unravel if he was responsible for the 50-year-old murder of his siblings.
#29 - Buckeye
by Patrick Ryan ★★★★☆
A generational character study centered on the intertwined lives of two families in a small Ohio town, focused mostly on identity and the impact of war.
#30 - What Kind of Paradise
by Janelle Brown ★★★★☆
A girl grows up in a remote cabin in Montana with just her father, whose distrust of technology and government grows each year.
#31 - Death at the White Hart
by Chris Chibnall ★★★★☆
A local publican is found dead with a crown of antlers on his head in this multi-layered mystery taking place in a small English town.
#32 - Not Quite Dead Yet
by Holly Jackson ★★★★☆
A novel premise gives way to a well-structured mystery in which a woman must solve her own murder before an aneurysm kills her.
#33 - Kills Well With Others
by Deanna Raybourn ★★★★☆
Author Raybourn runs it back with everyone's favorite female assassins in their 60s, in a sequel that's just as good as the original.
#34 - Carless People
by Sarah Wynn-Williams ★★★★☆
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.
#35 - Lloyd McNeil's Last Ride
by Will Leitch ★★★★☆
An Atlanta cop with a secret terminal brain tumor attempts to orchestrate his death in the line of duty to help his family financially.
#36 - My Friends
by Fredrik Backman ★★★★☆
Told mostly via flashbacks about four childhood friends, the novel focuses on resiliency and found family in the face of domestic violence and neglect.
#37 - Thuderhead
by Neal Shusterman ★★★★☆
A continuation of the Arc of a Scythe series, the novel picks up where book one ended as the scythedom becomes increasingly divided.
#38 - Among the Bros
by Max Marshall ★★★★☆
An exposé on a fraternity-led Xanax trafficking ring, focused on Greek life and the pervasiveness of benzodiazepine use at colleges.
#39 - My Next Breath
by Jeremy Renner ★★★★☆
Actor Jeremy Renner recounts the harrowing events of an accident that left him with 38 broken bones and clinging to life by a thread.
#40 - Summer Romance
by Annabel Monaghan ★★★★☆
A 38-year-old nearly-divorced mother of three starts a summer fling with a dashing, slightly younger man. Can it last?
#41 - Theo of Golden
by Allen Levi ★★★★☆
A mysterious and private man appears one day in a small Georgia town and begins to have a profoundly positive impact on several residents.
#42 - Proof
by Jon Cowan ★★★★☆
When a lawyer starts to dig into the murder of his best friend, all signs seem to point to his own law firm being behind involved.
#43 - Big Dumb Eyes
by Nate Bargatze ★★★★☆
One of the biggest comedic acts touring today shares random tales from his life, from early days in Tennessee to his rise in comedy.
#44 - Replaceable You
by Mary Roach ★★★★☆
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.
#45 - Murder at Gulls Nest
by Jess Kidd ★★★★☆
A nun leaves her convent to investigate the disappearance of her friend, only to encounter multiple murders at her boarding house.
#46 - Society of Lies
by Lauren Ling Brown ★★★★☆
A woman who was part of a secret society while at Princeton investigates her sister's death, who was also part of the same society.
#47 - Memorial Days
by Geraldine Brooks ★★★★☆
Brooks recounts the ongoing impact of the unexpected death of her husband of 35 years and her process years later to properly grieve.
#48 - Three Days in June
by Anne Tyler ★★★★☆
A woman must set aside losing her job the day before her daughter's wedding as she navigates the intricacies of the wedding weekend.
#49 - The Beast in the Clouds
by Nathalia Holt ★★★★☆
Teddy Roosevelt's sons embark on a quest in 1929 to obtain a specimen of a giant panda, an animal rarely seen and wholly unknown at the time.
#50 - The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife
by Anna Johnston ★★★★☆
A chance set of events leads to a down-on-his-luck elderly man assuming the identity of another in this sweetly sappy feel-good story.
#51 - The Medusa Protocol
by Rob Hart ★★★★☆
Our assassins hell-bent on *not* killing return in a sequel to Assassins Anonymous that is satisfying but falls short of the original.
#52 - Daikon
by Rob Hart ★★★★☆
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.
#53 - Before We Were Yours
by Lisa Wingate ★★★★☆
Two lives unexpectedly intertwine as a Senator's daughter connects with an elderly woman who might be secretly connected to the young woman's family.
#54 - When It All Burns
by Jordan Thomas ★★★★☆
Part memoir, part history of fire, author Thomas recounts his time with the Los Padres Hotshots while positing ways to deal with megafires.
#55 - Famous Last Words
by Gillian McAllister ★★★★☆
When her husband goes off the rails, taking three people hostage, his wife tries to save him while unraveling the why behind his act.
#56 - The River Is Waiting
by Wally Lamb ★★★☆☆
Exploring addiction, incarceration, and the impact of tragedy on a family, the story follows a father serving a 3-year sentence.
#57 - The Warbler
by Sarah Beth Durst ★★★☆☆
A woman tries to break a curse which causes the women in her family to transform into a tree forever if they stay in a place too long.
#58 - The Secret of Secrets
by Dan Brown ★★★☆☆
Robert Langdon is back for another romp through an international city—this time, Prague—and a secret about human consciousness that could rock the world.
#59 - Finding Grace
by Loretta Rothschild ★★★☆☆
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.
#60 - Night Watcher
by Daphne Woolsoncroft ★★★☆☆
A serial killer returns to Portland after almost twenty years to terrorize a local radio host, targeting the one person who saw him and lived.
#61 - Forget me Not
by Stacy Willingham ★★★☆☆
A woman returns to her hometown in South Carolina, only to be confronted with clues that help her unravel her sister's disappearance twenty years prior.
#62 - A Marriage at Sea
by Sophie Elmhirst ★★★☆☆
A British couple decide to sail from England to New Zealand in the 1970s, only to be stranded in the middle of the Pacific after a whale destroys their boat.
#63 - Departure 37
by Scott Carson ★★★☆☆
A B-52 bomber that has been missing for over 60 years suddenly returns to U.S. airspace in 2025...and it's carrying a nuclear bomb.
#64 - Black Woods, Blue Sky
by Eowyn Ivey ★★★☆☆
A young mother falls for a strange, disfigured man and chooses to live with him and her six-year-old daughter in a remote Alaskan cabin.
#65 - This Book Will Bury Me
by Ashley Winstead ★★★☆☆
A novel about true-crime aficionados that uses the recent University of Idaho murders as its source material, an ill-conceived choice.
#66 - Deadly Animals
by Marie Tierney ★★★☆☆
Set in 1981, a 14-year-old girl—whose hobbies happen to include studying roadkill—helps police investigate several murders in England.
#67 - Heartwood
by Amity Gaige ★★★☆☆
The search for a missing hiker in Maine serves as the backdrop for this novel more focused on the complexities of human relationships.
#68 - Run for the Hills
by Kevin Wilson ★★★☆☆
A woman's life is upended when a half-brother she didn't know she had convinces her to join him on a road trip to find their father.
#69 - The Fourth Consort
by Edward Ashton ★★★☆☆
A colonizer from Earth is stuck on an alien planet and must unravel the internal politics of the local species while trying to survive.
#70 - Frankie
by Graham Norton ★★★☆☆
The novel follows the fictional life and friends of Frankie Howe, from Ireland to London to America and back, from the 1950s to today.
#71 - Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
by Kylie Lee Baker ★★☆☆☆
A serial killer targeting Asian women during the pandemic combines with a ghost story to form one of the more racist books I've read.
#72 - The Oligarch's Daughter
by Joseph Finder ★★☆☆☆
Part international espionage, part man on the run, a novel that suffers from plot holes big enough to drive a Russian tank through.
#73 - Queen Esther
by John Irving ★★☆☆☆
A strange and polarizing story, focused mostly on a New Hampshire family and their youngest grandson as he searches for identity and belonging.
#74 - Sandwich
by Catherine Newman ★★☆☆☆
A menopausal mother narrates her family's week at the beach on Cape Cod—their 20th in a row—while musing on the changes life brings.
#75 - Ruth Run
by Elizabeth Kaufman ★★☆☆☆
A cyber thief is forced to flee from Homeland Security when her crimes finally come to light in this poorly-plotted mess of a book.
#76 - A Psalm for the Wild-Built
by Becky Chambers ★★☆☆☆
A non-binary monk leaves on a journey to find themself and in the process encounters a robot who is seeking to learn what humans need.
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