Book List: 2025 Mid-Year Favorites

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I say this every year, but it’s hard to believe it’s already July and time for mid-year favorites once again. I’ve had a fantastic year of reading so far, and I have so many books I’m hoping to read that it’s a bit overwhelming (the best sort of “problem” to have).

Scroll down to see my top 20 books from the first half of the year, and here’s to discovering many more new favorites during the rest of 2025!

Prior Year Favorites:

• 2024 Year-End Favorites
• 2024 Mid-Year Favorites
• 2023 Year-End Favorites
• 2023 Mid-Year Favorites

2025 Mid-Year Favorites💀

• NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (review here)
• Tilt by Emma Pattee (review here)
• Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield (review here)
• The Family Plot by Cherie Priest (review here)
• Carrion Crow by Heather Parry (review here)

• Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker (review here)
• When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy (review here)
• Death of a Clown by Catherine McCarthy (review here)
• How to Fake a Haunting by Christa Carmen (review here)
• Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

• The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi (review here)
• The Amulet by Michael McDowell (review here)
• A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders
• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
• Dearest by Jacquie Walters (review here)

• Animals Eat Each Other by Elle Nash (review here)
• Bog Queen by Anna North (review here)
• Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
• The Last Word by Taylor Adams
• Wake Up and Open Your Eyes by Clay McLeod Chapman (review here)

Are any of these on your favorites list (mid-year or otherwise)? And, because a little book talk is never enough, what was your favorite read for the first half of the year?

❤Amanda

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