An R.F. Kuang release is always an event. I love that for her as much as I love it for us, and I especially love that her latest is a bit different from what I’ve seen of her so far. In this contemporary coming-of-age novel, we see through Chinese American college freshman Lily Chen how homegoing isn’t always quite like what you think it will be. When Lily sets off for Taipei and the intensive Chinese language summer course she enrolled in, she’s hoping to feel closer to the culture her parents were born into, but that she never fully grasped. But then everything seems to just crumble. Her roommate sucks, her classes are a little too intense, and there’s a piece of nasty gossip floating around about her. Then her grandfather dies, and suddenly, the search for who she is takes a different turn. —Erica Ezeifedi

Ancrum has become a force in YA over the last several years, and her latest endeavor is being described as a romantic queer horror thriller that is ultimately a love letter to Frankenstein. I’m sold.

Victor Frankenstein has everything he could ever want, except that money and privilege aren’t enough to prove himself or to change the world. He wants to figure out how to bring people who are sick and dying back to life.

It’s not entirely surprising that no one wants to allow him to try this, but after a drunken bet, Victor has to take things into his own hands. He’s taken a teenage boy from a neighboring village as his monster. That boy, Elias, taken under the dark of night, awakens covered in stitches and scars. His loved ones abandon him. Elias is, however, tethered to Victor, who has set out to find a way to reverse what he’s done to Elias. He’s afraid, and he feels guilty about what he’s done.

The connection Victor and Elias feel includes one another’s joys, pains, regrets, and more. Even though both are looking for answers and ways to end the other’s existence, the bond they feel may lead to something else entirely. —Kelly Jensen

Theo of Golden has been dominating the bestseller lists for many, many weeks now, so it’s no surprise to see it on the Goodreads Most Read list. It’s a feel-good novel about Theo arriving at the town of Golden and learning the stories of its inhabitants. It was read by 14,000 users this week and has a 4.4 average rating.

This turned out to be the sleeper hit of 2025: it has kept growing in popularity, seemingly just from word-of-mouth recommendations. Katie Couric also named it the first pick for her new book club. It’s about a woman who has written letters daily her whole life. When someone from her past writes back, she has to reevaluate a painful period in her life and find a way to forgive. This was read by 16,000 users last week and has a 4.4 average rating.

In this 2025 thriller, 81-year-old Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is trying to live a quiet life in the suburbs, but when one of her neighbors turns up dead, all eyes turn to her. When Elsie was 14, she was Mad Mabel, the youngest convicted murderer in Australia. Now, with the help of a couple of podcasters, she’s ready to tell the story in her own words. 16,000 users read it this week, and it has a 4.4 average rating.

This is the newest book from the author of The Help. The Help was a huge bestseller, made into a blockbuster movie, but it received a lot of criticism for its use of stereotypes of Black people and white saviorism, as well as its historical inaccuracies. This criticism didn’t prevent Stockett from snagging a lucrative book deal for her new novel, however, and it looks like it hasn’t hurt its sales. The Calamity Club was read by almost 27,000 users this week and has a 4.6 average rating.

At the top of the list is Yesteryear, which came out in April. It’s one of several buzzy tradwife novels out this year. In this one, a tradwife influencer wakes up one day in the time period she’s been romanticizing, and real-life homesteading turns out to be much more difficult—and dangerous—than it looks on Instagram. Yesteryear was read by almost 36,000 users this week and has a 3.9 average rating.