June 2025 Reads
Listen. This month was absolute chaos between work and moving into my condo, but let me just say, THANK THE LORT for central A/C.
Can you believe that I haven’t had central A/C for the last nine years? NINE. Do you know how SPOILED I feel not knowing how hot it is outside unless I leave my condo?
I used to have to set up a whole labyrinth of fans in my previous apartments so that I would hopefully get a WISP of cool air across my skin at night lol. Now all ya girl has to do is tap-tap that down button and you can catch me standing underneath the air vent looking like the cover of Flash Dance (without the water or ability to bend my back like that lol.)
This is kind of like how I felt when I got a new car and finally understood the hype behind a back-up camera. Ya girl is LIVING.
Anywho, I didn’t get through as many books this month because I was busy, but most of what I read was definitely worth it!
So let’s get into everything I read in June!
*All summaries are taken or paraphrased from Goodreads.
The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley
THE IRRESISTIBLE URGE TO FALL FOR YOUR ENEMY by Brigitte Knightley
Rating: 4/5 stars
Summary: Osric Mordaunt, member of the Fyren Order of assassins, is in dire need of healing. Naturally – such is the grim comedy of fate – the only healer who can help is Aurienne Fairhrim, preeminent scientist, bastion of moral good, and member of an enemy Order. Aurienne is desperate for funding to heal the sick - so desperate that, when Osric bribes her to help him, she accepts, even if she detests him and everything he stands for. A forced collaboration ensues: the brilliant Woman in STEM is coerced into working with the PhD in Murders, much to Aurienne's disgust. As Osric and Aurienne work together to heal his illness and investigate the mysterious reoccurrence of a deadly pox, they find themselves ardently denying their attraction, which only fuels the heat between them.
My Thoughts: Okay, so if you’ll remember (you won’t lol), I was heavily into my Dramoine era going into 2025 and was reading a bit of Draco Malfoy/Hermoine Granger fanfic - specifically from the website An Archive of Our Own. One of the fanfic books I read and freaking loved was called Draco Malfoy & the Mortifying Ordeal of Falling in Love (find my review here). What I learned soon after finishing that gem is that the author was offered a traditional book deal by one of the big publishing houses to rewrite that book outside of the Harry Potter world. So you couldn’t get the OG fanfic online anymore. WELL, shout out to my girl Ayse who is a buyer for a nonprofit book store in Chicago called Semicolon (shop local if you’re in the area!!!). They had a collab event with Berkley Romance, and she gave me all of the ARCs she got from it and THIS BOOK WAS IN THAT BATCH OMG. To say I was excited is an understatement. Now onto the actual book review lol. The banter was phenomenal and thank god because the OG had some of the quickest quippy wit I’ve encountered in a MINUTE. While the plot was also very similar, I appreciated that the author put a spin on it so that it genuinely felt like a completely different literary experience. She didn’t cross over the human and magical worlds as much in this one, but the MFC still had one foot in each realm which made Aurienne’s backstory feel much more authentic. The MMC is still a morally gray broody boy that we all love to love, and although Osric has some Draco-parallel qualities, his personality is thoroughly his own. When she says this book is a slow burn though… woooooweee. She means it. While I was thoroughly entertained by the storyline and variety of misfit characters, I did notice that the build-up to any sort of attraction or romance was definitely slow going. Right when we start to see a spark and feel a little heat coming off the fire, the book comes to a close leaving everything on a cliffhanger. So on one hand, I’m freaking pumped this means there will be a second book! On the other hand, COME ON LOL. You made me go THAT LONG without some much-needed palpable sexual tension?? Rude. Just rude. Anyway, I obviously recommend this book once it’s published on July 8th lol.
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
THE CRUEL PRINCE by Holly Black (The Folk of the Air, #1)
Rating: 4/5 stars
Summary: Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
My Thoughts: I know this series has been circulating in the fantasy lovers’ ether for a while, and I can’t remember why I dug my heels in on reading it until now lol. This wasn’t groundbreaking, but I did appreciate that it was just different enough to make it feel like its own fantasy experience. Jude is a human who was adopted by her half sister’s fey father after he murdered their parents. As a human in the fey world, she gets bullied relentlessly and is always butting heads with this broody boy Prince Cardan. Although she doesn’t want to admit it, Jude is down bad on trying to fit in with the fey lol. While she’s navigating the high school-equivalent woes of being a human teen in a fey world, there are some political shifts happening within the Courts of Faerie that leaves Jude questioning if she wants to stay in this realm or return to the mortal world. The book definitely leaves you on a cliffhanger and with a huge wrench thrown into a relationship that we were only able to root for for like 5 mins lol. So although this wasn’t a groundbreaking plot, I’m itching to read the next book in this series!
Rewind It Back by Liz Tomforde
REWIND IT BACK by Liz Tomforde (Windy City, #5)
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: HALLIE: When I was eleven, my family moved next door to his. When I was thirteen, he was my first crush. When I was sixteen, we fell for each other. And when I was nineteen, we broke each other's hearts. Six years later, I've landed an internship with a big-name interior designer in a new city. Unfortunately, that city just so happens to be the one he plays hockey for. I thought Chicago was big enough to avoid him, until I get the surprise of a lifetime and unknowingly move in right next door. Even worse? The renovation project I'm assigned to in hopes of turning that internship into my full-time dream job… It's his house. But how am I supposed to update his bachelor pad into a family home when we can't even stand to be in the same room? I may have loved Rio DeLuca once, but I'm not that same girl anymore. | RIO: I never thought I'd be the only single one left in my friend group. But after years of trying to find love, I've concluded it may not exist for me anymore. That is, until I accidentally hire Hallie Hart to renovate my house and our jaded history has me rewinding memories I've kept secret for years. You see, there's something that my friends don't know. That connection I've been looking for since I moved to Chicago, that one person some search their entire lives to find . . . I had already found her when I was twelve years old. And now the only girl I've ever loved is moving into the house next door. Again.
My Thoughts: Eeeek! I’m making a strong statement here, but this might’ve been my favorite book of this series… Especially since I was OBSESSED with Kai and Miller’s story (Caught Up), but I don’t know. There’s just something about this second chance romance between two people who have such a beautiful and complicated history. Plus, Rio is the biggest Italian sweetheart a girl could ask for, and I freaking loved that we finally got to know his character on a deeper level in this book. Up until now, he’s been a lovesick, golden retriever-type of character amongst the Windy City friend group. However, through his perspective in this story and learning more about his life before Chicago, it’s clear he is just fiercely loyal, knows what he wants, and is not willing to settle for less. Hallie was the perfect counterpart to Rio. She comes off a little scrappy and standoffish, but this girl has been GRINDING to get where she’s landed in her career. I freaking loved the complexity of her character, and how we got to know who Hallie was in the past and why she is the way she is now. AND CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE TENSION BETWEEN THESE TWO? It was thicc and also so freaking endearing and I could not get over their wholesome dynamics. Liz Tomforde knew she had to go hard in the paint on this last book of the series, and my friends, she did not hold back. If you haven’t dabbled in the Windy City series, I highly recommend it!
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Summary: Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath. They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.
My Thoughts: I’ve had this book on my shelf since I last visited my friend Ayse in Chicago back in 2021 - which is far too long for both the book and visiting her again lol. I think what maybe put me off from reading it is that I kept seeing it being described as a retelling of Homer’s Iliad which I’ve never read. However, I’m here to say, even if you haven’t read the Iliad, you can read this with no problem. I’m sure you recognize more characters throughout it if you have read the classic, but I just took all the Greek names in stride and treated them like they were just new characters to the story lol. This book was really beautiful though and has so many layers. It really magnified the human experience of being inexplicably in love with someone, knowing that they’re your person, and feeling that in your soul. I will say, the only reason I could not give this book a full five stars is because the plot was a slooooooow burn. It honestly didn’t pick up until later in the book, I know we had to understand both Patroclus as a character and his background with Achilies, but hot damn. That pacing felt a little dragged out. Otherwise, as I’ve said, this shit was really beautifully written and I highly recommend it.
The Three Lives of Cate Kay by Kate Fagan
THE THREE LIVES OF CATE KAY by Kate Fagan
Rating: 3.75/5 stars
Summary: Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, she’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. She’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now. As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.
My Thoughts: My rating for this book is something I feel the need to explain. Although the book itself is probably a 3.5, my experience with the audiobook was easily 4 stars. I just really looked forward to listening to it and loved that it had a full cast of narrators. So it was a breeze to get through and I enjoyed the story overall. If I take a step back from the ~vibes~ and actually pick apart everything, I’d say it was still solid. It maybe just wasn’t anything super groundbreaking lol. The story is told from multiple perspectives and told mainly in the format of a documentary. So there’s some interviews sprinkled in, sidenotes from the main character interjected, and tabloid headlines read to you. Although all of this could get overwhelming, I thought the author did a great job of making it clear whose perspective you were now listening to. I loved that there was a little bit of low stakes mystery, some romance that leaves you guessing who will end up with who, and a big question mark as to what will happen when Cate Kay returns to the hometown she ran away from almost a decade ago. If you’re looking for a book that will feel like a change of pace, is quick to get through, and has a little bit of sapphic romance in there, I highly recommend this debut novel! I’m excited to see what this author will write next!
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Summary: Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of the Persian Gulf in a senseless accident; his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.
My Thoughts: I’m not sure what I expected going into this book. I didn’t read the premise before starting it which I think may have been a slight detriment to my experience. The start of this book is definitely a slow burn. It’s not that the content isn’t interesting at the beginning, I just feel like the pace made it hard to stay engaged. There were also a few times when the audiobook’s narrator didn’t change the voice of a different character all that drastically, so I was lost on which character’s perspective I was currently listening to. After a little bit of clarifying Googling though, I finally got my footing with the format and the narrator’s different voices and was much more immersed in the story lol. This story was really unique and once I understood what was happening (lol), I felt much more connected to the characters and plot. Although Cyrus had a rough go in life with his mother dying in a plane crash when he was young and his father passing away unexpectedly, with the kicker of being an addict, I also felt like he was pretty selfish? I don’t know. I realize he’s extremely depressed and has been so caught up in this martyr obsession during his sobriety, but I think what he was planning to do was based on a storyline he was telling himself vs. something that was actually real. Overall, I liked this story, but there were just a few things that made it an inconsistent audiobook experience.
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
THE GREAT BELIEVERS by Rebecca Makkai
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: In 1985, Yale Tishman, the development director for an art gallery in Chicago, is about to pull off an amazing coup, bringing in an extraordinary collection of 1920s paintings as a gift to the gallery. Yet as his career begins to flourish, the carnage of the AIDS epidemic grows around him. One by one, his friends are dying, and after his friend Nico's funeral, the virus circles closer and closer to Yale himself. Soon the only person he has left is Fiona, Nico's little sister. Thirty years later, Fiona is in Paris tracking down her estranged daughter who disappeared into a cult. While staying with an old friend, a famous photographer who documented the Chicago crisis, she finds herself finally grappling with the devastating ways AIDS affected her life and her relationship with her daughter. The two intertwining stories take us through the heartbreak of the eighties and the chaos of the modern world, as both Yale and Fiona struggle to find goodness in the midst of disaster.
My Thoughts: I had a couple of friends read this book last year and they raved about it. So I’m not sure why I decided to defer my audiobook hold in Libby so many times before borrowing it, but I’m so glad I finally did! The format switches between two main timelines and POVs. The past is told through the eyes of Yale Tishman who is a gay man living in Boystown Chicago during the build up and height of the AIDs epidemic. The present is told from the perspective of Fiona who is tracking her daughter down through Paris in 2015. She was the younger sister to one of the first men to die from the virus in Yale’s friend group and continued to be a pillar of support - literally as the power of attorney for some of them as their lives were coming to an end. I cannot express the rollercoaster of emotions this book put me through. Watching so many of these young men suffering because there’s no cure or end in sight to the AIDS epidemic was absolutely heartbreaking. However, it was also so beautiful how they rallied around each other when their friends were all they had. The storyline of Fiona looking for her daughter in Paris wasn’t AS impactful, but it kept me invested in her character arc between the 1980s and 2015. I don’t know man, I haven’t read a book that made my throat constrict like this in a while, and I highly recommend it. Not to mention, I learned SO MUCH about what the world was like when that epidemic was starting to hit the queer community and I am FLOORED it’s not talked about more.
The Wedding People by Alison Espach
THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Summary: It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.
My Thoughts: I feel like I’ve been hearing about this book everywhere lately, and I’m so glad I finally downloaded the audiobook. Phoebe is absolutely lost in her life. Her husband left her two years ago, her career has felt like it’s been idling for a while now, and she honestly isn’t sure what she’s doing anymore. Lost in a gaping abyss of “what is life?”, she books herself a room in a hotel that’s full of people there for a wedding and ends up getting incorporated in their full week of activities. I fucking loved Phoebe. She felt so real. Her heartache of a lost identity was palpable, her “I do not care what anyone thinks about me” attitude after she has a self-realization moment was so relatable, and I honestly loved how freaking smart and witty she was. All of the side characters made this story so entertaining. Like they were all SO flawed, but in the most charming ways. I laughed out loud multiple times and appreciated the endearing storylines they wove into this experience. This book does touch on some heavier topics including infertility, suicide, cheating, and more, so please check trigger warnings before jumping in, but I do recommend this book for sure!
Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
SAY YOU’LL REMEMBER ME by Abby Jimenez
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Summary: There might be no such a thing as a perfect guy, but Xavier Rush comes disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong… unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be. Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.
My Thoughts: I’m not sure how to start this review because I felt like every time I pressed play on the audiobook, it was a different experience lol. At the start of this god sent connection between Samantha and Xavier, the only thing that was missing were some crackers because oh my god the CHEESE. I’m not an instant-love trope girl and this isn’t TECHNICALLY instant-love, but it is very quick love. As their situation gets more complicated though, I appreciated that their relationship and the romance between them became more dynamic and complex as well. This book beautifully captures the emotional weight of a long-distance relationship—not just the need for trust, but the aching I wish I could hug them right now or I miss waking up next to them every day kind of longing. It’s that vulnerable yearning in your chest for someone who feels just out of reach. I also felt like the author handled the tougher topics of this book with such care - specifically a parent going through early onset dementia and the hard decisions a family has to make that come with those devastating situations. By the end of their story, I was completely sold on the strength of the chemistry and connection between Xavier and Samantha, and wholeheartedly loved how it wrapped up. This wasn’t my favorite Abby Jimenez book by any means, but she’s a kick ass writer and I think most romance readers would enjoy this book either way. Just please check trigger warnings before diving in!
That’s it for Pride Month!
Hopefully now that I’m a little more settled and am trying to be much more judicious with how I’m spending money, most of my time will be consumed by reading on my new couch in July.
2025 Book Count: 80
Add me on Goodreads if you haven’t already.
YOUR TURN! What is one of your favorite summer reads?