A reading review of Q2 2025

We're heading into August, so let's do a reading review of the books I read in Q2 of 2025.

Q2 of 2025 is well and truly in the past with August arriving this week, but July has been such a busy month for me that I haven't had time to get around to doing a proper reading review.

This month, I've been to a concert, completed work experience at Penguin Random House, and started volunteering at my local library. However, I have found time to read and add to the many books I read earlier this year.

In Q1 of this year, I read 26 books. In Q2, I read even more, totalling 30 books.

These varied in genre, and some of them were Advanced Reader Copies from authors. Q2 also saw some of my favourite books of the year so far.

So, let's get into my reading review of Q2 2025.

WriteWatchWork's Reading Review

Total Number of Books Per Month

As mentioned above, I read 30 books in April, May and June. These were a mixture of eBooks on my Kindle and paperbacks. I have also read a hardback, which is very unusual for me as I'm not a massive fan of them.

In April, I read nine books. May saw me read 11 books, and in June, I read 10 books.

May was the strongest month, with the most books read, but there were some great books across all three months, making Q2 even better than Q1.

Most-Read Genre

Whilst young adult dystopias and romance dominated Q1, my most-read genre of Q2 in 2025 has to be purely romance.

I did read other genres, including fantasy and thrillers, but the most common was romance — contemporary, young adult, and cowboy romance.

Most-Read Author

In Q2 of 2025, I read 23 different authors. The different authors I read in April, May and June were:

• Abby Jimenez

• Ana Huang

• Annaliese Avery

• Bailey Hannah

• Catherine Cowles

• Debbie Johnson

• Elena Armas

• Emily Henry

• Freida McFadden

• Katie Kitamura

• Lauren Asher

• Lauren Roberts

• Lynn Painter

• Navessa Allen

• Nikki Castle

• Richard Osman

• Q.B. Tyler

• Sarah J Maas

• Sarah Morgan

• Steve Cavanagh

• Sylvia Plath

• Tahereh Mafi

• Whitney Gardner

Out of the 23 authors I read, seven of them were new authors to me. These were Annaliese Avery, Catherine Cowles, Katie Kitamura, Lynn Painter, Navessa Allen, Sylvia Plath and Whitney Gardner. One of my Bookish Bingo goals this year was to read a new author, so I'm pleased I've done that in both quarters of 2025.

But, my overall most-read author is Debbie Johnson as I read four books by her.

Favourite Books

Where do I start?

Q2 of 2025 was such a fab quarter for me. I read quite a few books that were 4 stars, and quite a few that were 4.5 stars and higher. So, because it's hard to pick, for this part of my reading review, I'll pick three favourites and then list some honourable mentions.

My overall top pick, which is my top book of the year so far, is Watch Me by Tahereh Mafi. I think I actually rated this 6 stars, which just shows how much I loved this. It is the first book in the Shatter Me: The New Republic series, and it was amazing!

The next book has to be Change of Hart. This cowboy romance by Bailey Hannah was one of my most-anticipated releases. I was invested in the characters, I loved the dual timeline and most of all, I loved the found family and heart-warming moments. Plus, it was the first book that made me full-on cry.

The third and final book in my top three favourites list is going to be A Court of Silver Flames. It's a hard decision to make, but ACOSF made me fall back in love with the ACOTAR world and reignited my love for fantasy books. I related a lot to Nesta, the FMC, and would re-read this book, for sure.

Credit: WriteWatchWork

Credit: WriteWatchWork

Credit: WriteWatchWork

Some other honourable mentions include Kill For Me, Kill For You; Fragile Sanctuary; Love Redesigned; Reckless; Funny Story; and Debbie Johnson's Starshine Cove series.

Favourite Authors

There are so many different authors I could pick for this category. One of them is Tahereh Mafi, but I'm going to avoid including her in this list as I chose her as one of my favourite authors of Q1.

So, my top three favourite authors of Q2 are:

• Catherine Cowles

• Lauren Asher

• Steve Cavanagh

I was introduced to Catherine Cowles' books in Q2 after receiving Broken Harbor (book three in the Sparrow Falls series) from Evermore Books, an imprint of Penguin. I read Broken Harbor and then continued that series by reading Fragile Sanctuary, book one. It's safe to say Catherine is now one of my favourite authors of all time.

Lauren Asher is up next. Now, I have bought every single one of Lauren Asher's books. I have read them all and I have loved them all. She is an auto-buy author for me, and reading Love Redesigned just reminded me why I enjoy her books so much.

My final favourite author of Q2 is Steve Cavanagh. I read Kill for me, Kill for you, knowing that I would enjoy it because I loved Steve Cavanagh's Eddie Flynn series (I've still got a few more of those books to read). But I underestimated how good Kill for me, Kill for you is. It is a top thriller that everyone should read.

Best Book Surprise

There were a couple of surprises in Q2 of this year. The first surprise is that I was shocked by how much I enjoyed a particular book.

I had heard mixed reviews of Reckless by Lauren Roberts prior to reading. I loved Powerless, book one in the series — read my review here — so I was sceptical as to whether or not I'd enjoy book two.

But I loved it. I thought it was a great sequel, building the characters up more and focusing on their developing relationship. I'd definitely recommend this series if you're interested in fantasy books.

Credit: WriteWatchWork

Credit: WriteWatchWork

Surprise two came in the form of a novella. If you've read my reading review of Q1, you'll know I was re-reading the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. Except this time, I was also reading the novellas for the first time.

The final novella, and final book, in the series is Believe Me. It's told entirely from the male protagonist's POV, and I LOVED it.

I was so surprised by how much this book improved my reading of the series. It was emotional (I even had tears at one point), it was funny, but most of all, it was such a wholesome ending to the series.

Least Favourite Book

Out of the 30 books I read in Q2 of 2025, I rated four books below 4 stars. These were The Nanny is Off Limits by Q.B. Tyler, Lights Out by Navessa Allen, Powerful by Lauren Roberts and The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas.

Unfortunately for me, I didn't enjoy these books as much as I thought I would. The Nanny is Off Limits and Lights Out were a bit too explicit. When reading The Nanny is Off Limits, I preferred a side character over the protagonists, which shouldn't be the case. Lights Out failed to live up to the hype for me, and the humour in it was the only thing that made me rate it 3 stars.

As for Powerful, I had heard such rave reviews, but when I read it, because it's a novella in the Powerless series with a simultaneous timeline, I knew how it ended. I didn't get as much emotion from it as I thought I would, and to be brutally honest, I don't think it's necessarily needed as a book.

The American Roommate Experiment was surprising because I enjoyed The Spanish Love Deception. However, with this one, I found the characters slightly cringeworthy and became embarrassed by their actions. I did, though, like the ending when they broke up and had to grovel to get back together.

25 Books for 2025

In Q2 of 2025, I managed to tick off eight books on my 25 Books for 2025 list. These were Reckless (Lauren Roberts), Funny Story (Emily Henry), A Court of Silver Flames (Sarah J Maas), Love Redesigned (Lauren Asher), Kill for me, Kill for you (Steve Cavanagh), Change of Hart (Bailey Hannah), The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath), and Watch Me (Tahereh Mafi).

Credit: WriteWatchWork

I've got 15 more books to read to complete this list, but I'm hoping to read these in the following two quarters.

I hope you enjoyed reading this review of my second quarter of the year. Hopefully, if you haven't read some of these authors or books before, I've inspired you to give them a go.

Please do comment below if you fancy letting me know some of the books you've enjoyed this year.

Until next time...