Q2 2025 reading recap

More book highlights (and some letdowns) from the year so far

If there’s anything that this wild heat wave makes me want to do more than eat some soft serve with rainbow sprinkles, it’s plop myself in a pool somewhere and read for hours on end. I need to keep cool, I need to make a dent in my TBR… and it also just sounds dreamy.

As we prepare to officially cross into the second half of 2025, I’m happy to report that I’ve been reading lots of good books… even if it hasn’t been from the comfort of a swimming pool.

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Take a peek at my recap from the first quarter of the year:

Q1 2025 reading recap

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Whether you’re holing up in the A/C to beat the heat or you’re lucky enough to find yourself in precisely the luxurious reading scenario I just described, I’m glad to share my quarterly reading recap with you in hopes of giving you some new book ideas or the encouragement you’ve been looking for to finally grab that title you’ve been considering for a long time.

Here are a couple of my favorites from the year so far…

1. All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman: First, let’s talk about the title of this one. It made me LOL, which might be because of my own mental noise about making mom friends and the weird insecurities that plague me (for no absolute reason) about showing up in ~parenting~ spaces. No matter the reason, I loved the title and I loved the book even more. I’m pretty choosy about anything in the mystery/thriller genre, but I would read a book like this again and again. I thought it was funny, fresh, and a total joy to read.

2. The Rachel Incident by Caroline O’Donoghue: I remember having a passing interest in The Rachel Incident when I saw it on shelves last year, but I immediately put it on hold at the library after hearing its author on an episode of Culture Study back in March. I didn’t really have any idea what it was about, so my expectations were in check, but I loved hearing from Caroline—and it felt even more destined to be on my shelf when it was chosen for my book club shortly after that. Like many of my favorite books, The Rachel Incident is primarily a character study that takes readers deep into the experience of a woman in her twenties, but it also explores matters of abortion care, toxic relationships, and fractured friendship. It was a great book club pick, too!

3. Know My Name: A Memoir by Chanel Miller: This one has been part of my collection for a long time and I was waiting for the right time to pick it up, knowing that it covers the aftermath of a real-life campus rape and anticipating that it would be a triggering read. It was, but it was so much more than that—and it lived up to every last bit of hype it’s earned over the years. I don’t read a ton of memoirs, but Chanel’s story—told so beautifully and candidly—was a good reminder of how much of an impact they can have on readers.