Everything I Read in May 2025

This was an outstanding month of reading. I read ten books in total, and genuinely enjoyed everything I read. Of course, I had my favorites. Broken Country might be my favorite book of the whole year. I cannot stop thinking about it. The new Emily Henry book, Great Big Beautiful Life, was my favorite book she’s written (I loved that it had more of a mystery vibe!). And I read two strong pre-orders (both completely worth ordering now and enjoying over the summer: Everyone is Lying to You (trad-wife murder mystery) and Last Seen (woman finds out her mother was murdered when she was young; sets out to figure out what happened). Plus, Tess Greenfield’s book of essays, which made for the perfect listen. An excellent month of books, indeed!

As always, there are even more book recommendations in The Library. Please tell me what you read and loved this month. I get so many great recommendations from this community. 

Everything I read in may 2025

Thrillers

This Book Will Bury Me, by Ashley Winstead

OMG. This book is a page-turner (and it’s terrifying, for the record!) I don’t typically find most thrillers scary, but more psychologically thrilling (if that makes sense). This one is very, very scary; I even had a couple of nightmares. Jane Sharp is a college student in Florida. She has just lost her father (this part of the book is sad). When a local woman is murdered, she finds herself slipping into the world of online true crime forums. It becomes an obsession, being an armchair detective, hunting killers from afar. She drops out of college and befriends four other “sleuths,” who feel like family. They set out to research and help solve crimes nationwide. It gives her a sense of purpose in a world that’s begun to feel meaningless without her father.

When three college girls in Delphine, Idaho, are murdered, Jane and her true crime family are determined to solve the case. But details aren’t adding up; they are against a clever killer. Jane and her group travel to Delphine, placing themselves at the story’s center. Jane risks everything (using the last of her savings, pretending to be a local college student) to uncover what’s happened. It’s a year after the case has concluded, and Jane is telling her story (the book is structured as if Jane writes it), telling the truth of what happened. I suspected a pretty epic twist throughout the book, but didn’t want it to be true. I’ll say no more, but it’s a shocker!!! Overall Score: A- // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Everyone Is Lying to You, by Jo Piazza (Out 7/15)

This book is a treat. A fun murder-mystery about one of my favorite fascinations: the tradwife influencer community. It is not out until July 15th, but it is a worthy pre-order. I loved this. Lizzie and Bex were the best of friends in college. But afterward, they went their separate ways and could not live more different lives. Lizzie and her husband are both writers, struggling to pay their bills and living in New York. Bex is now Rebecca, a tradwife living on a ranch in Utah. (I thought of Ballerina Farm).

When Bex reaches out to Lizzie after fifteen years, asking Lizzie to do a feature on her (and something big she’s launching), Lizzie flies out to MOMBomb, a mommy blogger conference at an upscale resort in the desert. But when Bex’s husband Gray is violently murdered on the second day, and Bex disappears… all bets are off for what will happen. Bex is now the prime suspect in his murder and needs Lizzie to get to the bottom of what happened before it’s too late. This is a page-turner. It’s sharply observed by someone who has spent a lot of time studying influencers (Piazza also has the podcast, Under the Influence). I read it in a couple of sittings and absolutely loved it. Overall Score: A // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Last Seen, by J.T. Ellison (Out 8/1)

J.T. Ellison never disappoints! This one kept me on my toes, goes a little bit off-the-rails (in a good way), and haunted me afterward. Halley James’ world is falling apart. Her marriage is over, she has been fired from her job at a forensics lab, and her dad needs emergency surgery. When she gets the news about her dad, she runs home to Marchburg, Virginia, immediately. But as she searches for her father’s paperwork, she comes across a massive secret: her mother didn’t die in a car crash when she was young. She was murdered, and her father has been lying about it for years.

As Halley comes to terms with this enormous secret, she races to figure out what happened to her mother, as well as her estranged (and now missing) older half-sister. Her search takes her to Brockville, Tennessee. There, everything is not as it seems. The town initially comes across as utopian, but there is an underlying darkness. And the truth about what happened to her mother and her sister is even darker than she could have imagined. Old memories come to light, and Halley searches for answers. This one is full of twists and turns, utterly unputdownable, and worth the pre-order! Overall Score: A- // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

The Manor of Dreams, by Christina Li

This took me a little while to get into (mostly because at the beginning of the story, I kept confusing characters!). Vivian Yin is dead. She was the first Chinese actress to win an Oscar and a trailblazer in the eighties. But at the height of her career, she disappeared from the spotlight. Her daughters (and granddaughter) Lucille, Rennie, and Madeline expect to inherit the family mansion. At the reading of the will, they are taken aback when the home is left to another family: Elaine and her daughter, Nora. Lucille, Rennie, and Madeline move into the house, convinced that something sinister is at stake.

What did Elaine do to get Vivian to change her will? Over the week (as the five women live in the home together), the complicated history between the two families is revealed. Lucille and Rennie race to figure out what happened during the last weeks of their mother’s life. Told in dual timelines (present day and Vivian’s in the eighties), we learn the painful truth behind the house’s origins and the last tragic summer they spent there. There’s a bit of a supernatural element (ghosts!) and it gets very dark, but I couldn’t put it down. Overall Score: A- // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Every Sweet Thing is Bitter, by Samantha Crewson

Thirteen years ago, Providence Byrd put the family car in reverse and ran her mother over. Her mother survived, but Providence became a felon, and her life (and relationship with her family) was irrevocably changed. Now, her mother has gone missing, and Providence has returned home to try and find her mother, mend fences with her estranged sisters, and confront her abusive father. (That’s a lot!). Her sisters are both scarred by their father’s abuse and what Providence did to their mother.

Providence is essentially persona non grata except her best friend’s father (now suffering from alzheimers), and her high school sweetheart Zoe (now a conservative congresswoman). She stays at her one friend’s (her roommate from prison) trailer on a neighboring Native American reservation. It was a fast read, and it was engaging, but it was hard to read. The main character made so many horrible decisions that she was hard to relate to. I didn’t like her or anyone else in the book! And I didn’t like how it ended. Not my personal favorite, but it still merits a B.  Overall Score: B // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Broken Country, by Clare Leslie Hall

I can’t stop thinking about this book. Was it a thriller or a romance? I think, both… plus gorgeous writing. It may be my favorite read of 2025 so far, I’m not entirely sure. At times, I felt frustrated. It felt like a more literary version of The Light We Lost, a book I loved when I was young but felt annoyed by as an adult. It concerns an affair, which always stresses me out. I absolutely hate books where there is cheating. And I don’t know if it’s because I get triggered or just irritated. I get angry, and never feel sympathetic to the cheater, no matter how compelling their reason might be. Still, I loved this story so much.

Beth is married to a kind and gentle man, Frank. They have a happy marriage, with one central skeleton in their past (their young son died in a tragic accident, several years ago). When a dog attacks their sheep, Beth’s brother-in-law Jimmy shoots the dog. Beth doesn’t realize how this will impact her life. The dog’s owner is Gabriel, her teenage love, who has returned to their village with his young son, Leo. (It does not help that Leo reminds her a lot of her son.) Years ago, Gabriel broke her heart, and Beth is still not entirely over it. Beth finds herself pulled back into Gabriel’s life.

Tensions begin to arise between Beth and Frank. Rumors swirl around their small town. The book opens with a death; we race to determine who died and what happened. There is also the love stories between Beth and Frank and Beth and Gabriel. The alternating timelines can be slightly confusing initially, but they make for great storytelling once you settle in. I loved this book so much. Overall Score: A+ // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Romance

Great Big Beautiful Life, by Emily Henry

It’s funny because the criticism around this book made me most excited to read it. Emily Henry’s latest book has a mystery (still, within a romance) with Evelyn Hugo vibes. I don’t entirely understand the criticism, because the book is still a romance, written with Henry’s signature (charming!) cozy warmth. It still feels like an Emily Henry novel, with a mystery inside the romance. And that is what I loved about it! Alice is a writer: an eternal optimist, looking for her big break. When she tracks down Margaret Ives (the now eighty-something heiress and former tabloid princess), she thinks that maybe she’s finally found her big story.

Writing Ives’ biography would be the opportunity of a lifetime! But when she arrives, she meets Hayden Anderson: a Pulitzer-prize winning author. The two are to compete for the chance to write Ives’ biography. After a month, she’ll choose the person to tell her story. The only thing? Alice can tell that Margaret is lying. She’s only giving each of them pieces of the story. And they can’t swap stories because they’ve both signed ironclad NDAs. As Hayden and Alice grow closer, they can’t tell what story they are supposed to tell. I loved this. I read it in a few sittings and passed it to my mother when I finished! Overall Score: A // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Literary Fiction

The Dream Hotel, by Laila Lalami

First of all, this book has gotten a lot of critical acclaim and is objectively good, but reading it was so upsetting that I almost DNF’d it several times. So, in this case, the “grade” is not about the writing but about my enjoyment level. I felt anxious and upset most of the time as I read this book. It is the not-so-distant future, and Sara Hussein is detained at LAX on her flight home from a work trip. Agents from the Risk Assessment Administration take her aside and tell her that she will soon commit a crime. Based on data from her dreams, the algorithm has determined her to be an imminent risk to her husband. For his safety, Sara will be detained for 21 days and kept under observation.

Sara is transferred to a retention center, where she meets a group of women. The rules are strict, they are constantly being watched, and even the slightest misstep will alter their risk assessment score, resulting in longer detention times. Months pass, and Sara is no closer to release. This book scared me–it felt like it could come true. It was depressing in the same way that The School For Good Mothers did. I just wanted it to be over. But it is a brilliant, gorgeously written book that made me think and feel. It’s hard to recommend this, as it was torture to read at times, but having had a little distance from it, I am glad I read it. Overall Score: B // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

Non-Fiction

Me, But Better, by Olga Kahzan

If you love personality tests and want a better understanding of yourself, this book is for you. It explores the five key personality traits and whether or not it is possible to change. These traits are: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. The author (in a charming, self-deprecating fashion) sets out to change her personality (ideally to be more extroverted, agreeable, and less neurotic). She tries everything from improv to sailing to meditation!

It makes you think. It was fun to hear about her journey and the science of personality, but some things felt repetitive. That being said, it is a fun and fast read that inspired me (I would love to be more agreeable, less neurotic, more extraverted, and so forth. The author narrates, I’d recommend listening! Overall Score: B+ // Order on Bookshop or Amazon

We’ve Decided to go in a Different Direction, by Tess Sanchez Greenfield

This book was an absolute treat. Tess Sanchez is Max Greenfield’s wife. She spent over twenty years as a casting director, until she was unceremoniously fired in the fall of 2020, losing the job she adored and got so much of her self-worth from. The book is a collection of essays that will make you laugh, cry, and sometimes get mad. I chose to listen to it, and am so glad I did, as Sanchez herself narrates, and you feel like you are being told a series of juicy stories from your new best friend.

Besides navigating job loss (and everything that comes along with that), Sanchez also writes candidly about her father’s struggle with Alzheimer’s (these parts were heartbreaking) and the idea of parenting her parents. There are funnier stories, too, where I actively laughed out loud while walking the streets of Charleston. Family stories, the glamorous (and less glamorous) parts of working in Hollywood, and stories from her marriage to Max. I can’t recommend it enough. I went into it not knowing much about Sanchez (it was recommended heartily in the comments section of a previous reading list), and now I adore her and can’t wait to see what she does next. Overall Score: A // Order on Bookshop or Amazon