Reading is something that some people use to calm themselves, and some may use it to get away. It is an art form, and it’s something that everyone should be able to enjoy. But with reading comes the issue, what do you read next? What book deserves first place on your TBR (To Be Read), or what book should be the first one you ever read?
This list contains books already out and ready to be read by everyone! These were all collected from various forms of book content: TikTok, YouTube, Goodreads, Libby, etc. Audiobooks can also be found in different apps such as Libby, Audible, and Spotify. All books should be checked for Trigger Warnings and age recommendations before being read.
Novels~
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid-
From Goodreads.com: Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin-
From Goodreads.com: On a bitter-cold day, in December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid-
From Goodreads.com: Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n’ roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things. Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road. Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.
Romance~
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood-
As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.
That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor. This is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend.
Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.
Happy Place by Emily Henry-
From Goodreads.com: Happy Place is a romantic comedy novel about two friends who pretend to be in a relationship for one week. Harriet and Wyn have been best friends since college, and they’ve always been there for each other through thick and thin. They even got engaged at one point, but they broke up five months ago. They haven’t told their best friends yet, and on an annual group trip, they find themselves having to fake their relationship in front of the people who know them most. Will they be able to fake being in love with each other?
Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez-
From Goodreads.com: Briana Ortiz has enough on her plate. She’s in the midst of finalizing her divorce, and her brother’s on a deadline to find a kidney donor. Now she has to worry that the new doctor, Jacob Maddox, is there to nab her promotion to chief of emergency medicine. They get off on the wrong foot, but soon the misunderstanding turns into an amazing and heartwarming friendship, and then something more.
Historical Fiction~
All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr-
From Goodreads.com: Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris, and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them, they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah-
From Goodreads.com: In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak-
From Goodreads.com: It is 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier and will be busier still.
By her brother’s graveside, Liesel’s life is changed when she picks up a single object, partially hidden in the snow. It is The Gravedigger’s Handbook, left behind there by accident, and it is her first act of book thievery. So begins a love affair with books and words, as Liesel learns to read with the help of her accordion-playing foster father. Soon she is stealing books from Nazi book burnings, the mayor’s wife’s library, wherever there are books to be found.
But these are dangerous times.
If you love to care about the characters in a book, and if you love to just devour a book, and have your heart broken and mended in the same minute, this book is perfect for you.
Fantasy~
The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros-
From Goodreads.com: Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.
But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away…because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
The perfect mix of magic, worldbuilding, and enemies-to-lovers romance, to keep you reading until the end.
Crescent City by Sarah J. Maas-
From Goodreads.com: Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life-working hard all day and partying all night until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths.
Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose: assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach.
Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross-
From Goodreads.com: After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.
To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.
This is seriously one of my favorite reads of the year, if you are into a very low-stakes fantasy with romance, this is great for you.
Mystery/Thriller~
The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides-
From Goodreads.com: Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.
Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his motivations—a search for the truth that threatens to consume him…
I can confidently say that if you read this book your jaw will drop and you will not be able to guess the ending. Such an amazing read, I highly recommend you read this.
A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson-
From Goodreads.com: The case is closed. Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it. Everyone in town knows he did it.
But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn’t so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?
The Only One Left by Riley Sager-
Warning: This blurb may be triggering
From Goodreads.com: At seventeen, Lenora Hope hung her sister with a rope, stabbed her father with a knife, and took her mother’s happy life.
“It wasn’t me,” Lenora said.
But she’s the only one not dead.
Sci-Fi/Dystopian~
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi-
From Goodreads.com: Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she came into contact with someone, The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war—and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.
Skyhunter by Marie Lu-
From Amazon.com: Strikers are loyal. With unparalleled, deadly fighting skills. With a
willingness to do anything―including sacrifice their own lives―to defend Mara, the world’s last free nation. But to the very people she protects, Talin is seen as an outcast first and a Striker second.
No matter what others think, Talin lets nothing distract her from keeping the evil Federation and its army of haunting, mutant beasts at bay. Until a mysterious prisoner shows up and disrupts Talin’s entire world. Is he a spy? A product of the Federation’s sinister experiments? The clock is ticking for Talin to unravel the prisoner’s secrets and discover whether he’s the weapon that will save―or destroy―them all.
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
From Goodreads.com: The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.
That is until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.
Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.
But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance—Reds against Silvers, Prince against Prince, and Mare against her own heart.
Here are a few more recommendations!~
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (Historical fiction)
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Mystery/thriller)
The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Mystery/thriller)
All the Dangerous Things by Stacy Willingham (Mystery/thriller)
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber (Fantasy)
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black (Fantasy)
Powerless by Lauren Roberts (Fantasy)
Book #2 in the Empyrean series: Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros (Fantasy)
Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter (Romance)
The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston (Romance)
Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood (Romance)
