Welcome to the June 2025 Reading Round-Up. Each month I write about the books I’ve read and rank them from least favorite to best.
As the halfway mark of 2025 approaches, it feels like a good time to reflect on my favorite books that I have read so far this year. Most of the books I have read were very good, but only a few have been standout stars. Of the books I’ve read to date, my favorites have been Orbital by Samantha Harvey and Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal.
There’s still time for 10/10 reads as the year goes on. I’m hoping that some of them come from my Summer 2025 Publishing Preview, which includes 20 releases I’m looking forward to this season, many of which have now been released.
Please consider sharing The Book House Blog with anyone you know who you think might enjoy monthly reading round-ups, quarterly theater reviews, seasonal publishing previews, and themed reading guides.
If We Were Villains - M.L. Rio
Fiction/Mystery, 368 pages, published in 2017
Oliver Marks is a student at the Dellecher Classical Conservatory in its elite Shakespearean acting program. By the fourth and final year of study the group has been whittled down to seven close-knit students who spend all their time together in class, rehearsal, and competing for parts. Natural rivalries and tensions have emerged within the group, leading to a shocking act of violence on opening night of the November production of Julius Caesar. Determined to protect one another from the prying eyes of the police, the group decides to tell a collective lie and act out their innocence until the acting can go no further and Oliver takes the fall for the group. This isn’t a spoiler. The book begins when Oliver is released from prison and decides to finally tell the truth about what really happened to the detective who first investigated the case. The rest is a slow unspooling of the fateful final year, which includes a cast of characters loosely mirrored on the type of cast that might appear in one of Shakespeare’s plays.
This book has had a big following since its release in 2017, with many comparisons made to The Secret History by Donna Tartt, a Pulitzer Prize winner. I can see why the comparisons were made: both are moody, literary mysteries set in the world of academia and following a rarified group of campus misfits. If you’re choosing between one or the other, however, I’d definitely go with The Secret History, which gives more time to exploring the characters and giving them depth. If We Were Villains was certainly unobjectionable and made for a pleasant listening experience, but I was never fully invested in any of the characters or the outcomes of their lives.
Rating: 7/10
The Empusium - Olga Tokarczuk
Historical Fiction, 320 pages, published in Polish in 2022, translated to English in 2024
A young Polish man suffering from tuberculosis is sent by his father to Görbersdorf, a health resort town in the Silesian mountains in what is now Poland, but in 1913 was part of the Hapsburg empire. The young man’s father has chosen Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen as where his son will stay, which is populated by an eclectic group of men, each of whom drinks copious amounts of the local hallucinogenic liqueur every night before debating the world’s issues. As the men debate war, peace, the future of society, and the role of women in that future, strange things are happening in the town. Not only does no one never seem to leave the sanatorium, but patients keep dying, and spoiler, it’s not always from tuberculosis.
While the horror story element of The Empusium is fictionalized, the town and the sanatorium are not. The author, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2018, grew up in the area near the crumbling remains and drew obvious inspiration from it when writing the novel. Tokarczuk plays with this element of reality by weaving paraphrased lines from the works of great world literature throughout the book and assigning them to the men of the guesthouse. These lines are often grossly misogynistic and meant to reflect the very real views and debates of the time. I understand that the pontificating of the men is central to the premise of the book, but I also found it a bit tiring and a little too loquacious. While I appreciate what Tokarczuk was doing and the skill that was evident in her writing, I would have preferred a little less philosophizing and a little more explanation of the town, the sanatorium, and the secrets that lay beneath.
Rating: 8/10
Show Don’t Tell - Curtis Sittenfeld
Fiction/Short Stories, 292 pages, published in 2025
Curtis Sittenfeld is probably best known for her debut novel, Prep, about the rarefied boarding school experience of Lee Fiora, a scholarship student from the Midwest. Since Prep’s publication in 2005, Sittenfeld has gone on to write six more bestselling novels. Show Don’t Tell is Sittenfeld’s second collection of short stories, most of which center around fully-formed, reflective, and funny middle-aged women reflecting on life, love, and love lost. In the first story, a woman at a prestigious writing MFA program in Iowa recounts the complicated dynamics in her cohort when funding packages are released. In another, a movie producer from Los Angeles flies to Alabama to convince a bestselling author of a book on how to save your marriage to include a gay couple in the film adaptation, while struggling with her marriage herself. And in the final story, “Lost But Not Forgotten,” Sittenfeld returns to the world of Lee Fiora and Prep, but this time, Lee is approaching fifty, divorced, and attending her high school reunion.
I really enjoyed reading Show Don’t Tell and was genuinely invested in every story. Each of the characters are witty and perceptive, making each story a treat to read. At the end of the day, however, I don’t think that Sittenfeld did anything new or unique with this collection. If anything, some of the stories seemed to blend into one another with similar structures: unexpected person gets in contact and makes the protagonist reflect on the past and path of his or her life. Regardless of this critique, the book deftly features the very real themes of everyday life: marriage, love, divorce, and the search for fulfillment.
Rating: 8/10
Murder the Truth - David Enrich
Non-Fiction/Politics/First Amendment, 270 pages, published in 2025
Since 1964, free speech and journalism in America have been protected by the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which established the bedrock principle that journalists may not be sued for reporting about public officials unless it was published with a reckless disregard for the truth. For the last few decades, however, a quiet movement has begun chipping away at this decision, mostly led by a conservative fringe who distrust the media and believe that it is too difficult for plaintiffs to win under this standard. In recent years, this quiet movement has gone mainstream, with prominent supporters including Justice Clarence Thomas and President Donald Trump.
In Murder the Truth, New York Times editor David Enrich traces the efforts to undermine free speech protections and explores the consequences when successful. Enrich writes about small newspapers across the country that have been shuttered by persistent litigation brought by the rich and powerful that don’t want negative coverage, ultimately bankrupting news organizations and making them uninsurable. He writes about the cottage legal industry that has emerged to represent these interests, whose lead lawyers frequently appear on conservative media and spread falsehoods about any reporting they don’t like. He also covers key recent legal cases including the infamous trial against Gawker brought by Hulk Hogan and the 2019 Supreme Court case Berisha v. Lawson, in which two Supreme Court justices called for the overturning of New York Times v. Sullivan in their dissents.
Enrich does a fantastic job humanizing the consequences of these efforts, choosing to center his narrative on individuals who have been caught up in these legal battles. His reporting is meticulous and self-aware, drawing larger connections to the critical importance a free press has in holding power to account.
Rating: 8.5/10
Memorial Days - Geraldine Brooks
Non-Fiction/Memoir, 207 pages, published in 2025
In 2022, Pulitzer Prize winning author Geraldine Brooks released the bestselling novel Horse. It was her sixth novel, arguably her most popular, and it was written, unbeknownst to most readers, in a cloud of grief following the unexpected death of her husband on a sidewalk in D.C. Tony Horowitz was well known in his own right; he too has a Pulitzer Prize for his non-fiction work, Confederates in the Attic. His sudden death at age 60 of a myocarditis event left no time for grief. Instead, Brooks was immediately thrust into the degrading tasks of death: identifying the body, claiming it, navigating the distribution of his estate, and informing people of his passing.
Three years later, with both children out of the house, Brooks decided to return to Australia where she was raised to live on a remote coastal island for a few months and give herself space to mourn. What results is a beautiful meditation on love and loss that jumps between the frenzied weeks after Tony’s death and the process of grieving in the years following. I’m not entirely sure why I was drawn to read this book - it’s clearly not easy subject matter - but I’m so glad that I did. Brooks is a wonderful writer, and her skill is on full display in this raw and moving memoir that simultaneously eulogizes her husband while also giving credence to Brooks’ own enduring pain.
Rating: 9/10
The Anthropologists - Ayşegül Savaş
Fiction, 172 pages, published in 2024
Asya and Manu are a couple living abroad in an unnamed European city (although if I had to guess, I would say it’s Paris). The two met while at university and have been together for most of their adult lives. They don’t speak each other’s native language, rarely return home to the places of their childhood, and have baffled their respective families with their choice to live so far from home with just each other and without children.
As this short book begins, Asya and Manu agree that it is time assume the role of adults more fully and purchase an apartment in the city. At the same time, Asya, who is an independent documentary filmmaker, decides that her next project will be a film about the local park and the people who frequent it. There is not much else to the plot of the book, and indeed, that’s the point. While Asya films her documentary in the park, Savaş uses a quasi-vignette format to provide the reader with snapshots from Asya and Manu’s lives. Sometimes there are friends, sometimes just the couple; sometimes they are at a bar, and sometimes they are looking at apartments. It is in these quiet, ordinary snippets that a beautiful portrait of shared life emerges, full of the mundanities, joys, and dramas that make up an existence.
The Anthropologists very much reminded me of the Booker Prize shortlisted novel Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico in their depictions of couples living abroad with only their partner for family. Similar themes of connection, longing, and alienation exist in the two, as well as what it means to build a home away from home. If I was pressed, I would probably say that I preferred The Anthropologists due to the depth and beauty of the writing, which made for an almost meditative reading experience.
Rating: 9/10
If you like what you’re reading, please consider spreading the word about The Book House Blog by sharing this newsletter with anyone you know who might enjoy.
And, if you haven’t already, subscribe for free to receive new posts, including my monthly reading round-ups, quarterly theater reviews, seasonal publishing previews, and themed reading guides.
Want to see past months’ round ups? You can find those here. You can also check out my most recent posts below.
I've had IF WE WERE VILLAINS on my TBR for so long, this inspired me to pick it up soon!