My Most Anticipated Spring & Summer Reads – Fiction and Non-Fiction Picks for 2025

Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, here are some of the most thought-provoking and transformative reads to look forward to over the next few months.

Today, I’m thrilled to share the most anticipated spring and summer reads of 2025.

Whether you're seeking escape, self-discovery, or emotional renewal, this season’s fiction and nonfiction titles offer powerful paths to healing. 

Plus my book, Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading is finally out in the US and Canada on June 10, 2025 in case you’d like to add it to your Spring and Summer reads. I hope you love it :)

Let’s dive in!

Fiction First: Spring & Summer Stories to Get Lost In

1. My Name Is Emilia del Valle by Isabel Allende

A classic Allende tale of war, memory, and womanhood. A young writer journeys to South America to uncover her father’s past and, ultimately, her own identity. It's a profound meditation on intergenerational trauma and healing. Therapeutically, it invites us to honor our lineage while reclaiming our narrative. Emilia’s story unfolds across time and geography, blurring the line between memory and myth. The novel celebrates ancestral strength and cultural heritage. Readers are invited to reflect on the parts of their story that remain untold. It’s a moving reminder that healing begins when we ask the right questions.

2. The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong

Vuong’s second novel follows a lonely teen and a widow with dementia, exploring themes of care, memory, and unexpected connection with his signature poetic tenderness. The story encourages us to see beauty in unlikely bonds. It's a balm for grief, loneliness, and the fear of fading away. Vuong’s language turns quiet moments into revelatory ones. The characters’ vulnerabilities echo the universal human longing for presence. It’s a novel that holds sorrow and joy in the same breath. Readers walk away with a deeper sense of empathy and belonging.

3. Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

Emily Henry delivers another emotional, sparkling novel about joy, loss, and love’s redemptive power—sure to be a summer bestseller. It reminds us of the importance of embracing life’s fleeting moments. It’s a healing journey for those seeking hope after heartbreak. The story radiates warmth and humor even through pain. Its characters are as endearing as they are flawed. This book helps us remember the beauty in small gestures and second chances. It’s an ode to messy, beautiful living.

4. The Favorites by Layne Fargo

Think Wuthering Heights meets the Olympics. This ice-dancing drama explores obsession, ambition, and the dangerous allure of being the best. A thrilling exploration of passion and the cost of perfection. It’s perfect for those grappling with performance pressure and self-worth. The novel dives deep into the psychology of rivalry. Fargo masterfully examines how pain and love blur in competitive spaces. It's both riveting and emotionally raw. The result is a cathartic ride through ice and identity.

5. Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata

From the author of Convenience Store Woman, Murata brings us a strange, spellbinding story about detachment, identity, and society’s expectations. A deeply original novel that’s as thought-provoking as it is unsettling. It soothes readers who feel like outsiders and questions societal norms. It's healing for anyone seeking liberation from conformity. Murata’s world is filled with surreal logic and stark truths. The protagonist’s resistance to social roles resonates deeply. This book challenges conformity while offering comfort in difference. It’s ideal for readers rethinking what it means to belong.

6. Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

A lyrical novel about a Nigerian woman navigating dreams—both literal and metaphorical—while confronting familial expectations and colonial legacy. Adichie’s prose is as evocative as ever. Therapeutically, it provides solace in cultural reconnection and personal awakening. The novel blends realism and dreamscape with elegance. Its heroine's dreams reveal emotional truths long buried. Adichie draws from Nigeria’s past while imagining futures of liberation. It’s a balm for fractured identity and buried dreams.

7. The Eights by Joanna Miller

A psychological thriller centering on a mysterious women’s retreat where nothing is as it seems. With gripping suspense and social commentary, this novel dissects the masks women wear. It’s therapeutic for those exploring boundaries, autonomy, and group dynamics. The story probes how trauma and power intersect. Miller creates a setting where truth is slippery but essential. Tension builds with each twist, demanding emotional engagement. Readers finish changed—more attuned to their inner compass.

8. The Names by Florence Knapps

This novel follows three generations of women bound by shared names and secrets in a quiet coastal town. A haunting and tender exploration of memory, family, and identity. Therapeutically, it nurtures generational healing and understanding. Knapps masterfully connects past to present. Each woman’s voice echoes the other’s, creating a chorus of longing. Themes of forgiveness and legacy permeate the novel. It’s a powerful reflection on who we inherit and who we become.

9. My Friends by Fredrik Backman

Backman brings us another heartfelt tale about misfits and the community they build. Funny, moving, and full of compassion, it’s a reminder of the strength found in connection. Therapeutically, it validates loneliness while offering hope through friendship. His storytelling wraps pain in humor and heart. These characters feel like people we’ve known all our lives. Backman affirms that found family is just as powerful as blood. It’s a love letter to human connection.

10. The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami

Set in a surreal hotel where guests confront past lives and futures, this novel blends magical realism with psychological insight. A story of reckoning, forgiveness, and inner transformation. It invites deep introspection and spiritual healing. Each room in the hotel reveals a new emotional terrain. Lalami weaves memory, fantasy, and regret with stunning prose. Readers are invited to unpack their emotional luggage. The novel becomes a sanctuary for spiritual renewal.

11. Luminous by Silvia Park

A poetic novel about identity, immigration, and light in all its metaphors—Park’s debut is haunting and hopeful. It captures the nuance of cultural displacement. Therapeutically, it fosters belonging and voice for marginalized identities. Park’s language glows with quiet intensity. Her characters navigate disconnection with courage. The novel affirms the beauty in reclaiming voice and visibility. It’s a lighthouse for those between worlds.

12. Flashlight by Susan Choi

Choi returns with a psychologically nuanced novel about adolescence, secrecy, and the blurred boundaries of mentorship and autonomy. The story follows a teenage girl navigating the complexities of influence and betrayal within a summer arts program. Therapeutically, it supports readers processing difficult memories, boundary confusion, or complicated early relationships. Choi dissects manipulation with subtle, devastating clarity. The book explores how creativity can be both liberating and exploitative. Her prose creates space for emotional reckoning. It’s an important read for reclaiming agency.

13. Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan

A dreamy and cinematic exploration of lost love, art, and memory, set in a water-bound community. Kwan’s novel blurs reality and fantasy with meditative prose. It’s a balm for heartache, offering beauty and stillness. The setting feels both unreal and intimately familiar. Kwan captures longing in its most elegant form. Each scene is a painting of grief and wonder. It’s a slow, immersive healing experience.

Non-Fiction Reads to Inspire Us This Spring & Summer 2025

14. Book of Alchemy by Sulekha Jaouad

A luminous, genre-defying meditation on transformation, mental health, and the invisible threads that shape our lives. Blending science, myth, and memoir, Sulekha offers a powerful new vision of healing. It's a soul-stirring call to embrace inner alchemy. Therapeutically, it offers tools for deep personal renewal. It pairs perfectly with my book, Bibliotherapy: The Healing Power of Reading, which offers a variety of creative bibliotherapy techniques as part of any healing process using creative practice.

15. The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains by Pria Anand

In this poetic and deeply humane debut, neurologist Pria Anand shares the mysterious, often astonishing stories of her patients—each case unfolding like a detective mystery where the diagnosis depends not just on symptoms, but on the story behind them. From a woman channeling the Holy Spirit to a family unable to sleep, Anand interweaves these clinical encounters with reflections on her own life as a doctor, mother, and patient. Set across Boston, India, and beyond, this book reveals the wondrous and fragile workings of the brain—and the universal truths hidden in our strangest experiences. It’s a moving meditation on empathy, the power of narrative, and what it means to be human.

This deeply insightful book explores the brain's paradoxes—its fragility and brilliance, its quirks and miracles—through the lens of a practicing neurologist. A celebration of neurodiversity and the incredible mystery of consciousness. Therapeutically, it nurtures awe for our mental architecture and opens paths to cognitive empathy and understanding.

16. Matriarch by Tina Knowles

Tina Knowles shares her journey through motherhood, legacy, and creativity in this empowering memoir. It offers inspiration, resilience, and deep familial insight. Therapeutically, it honors generational wisdom and matriarchal strength.

17. Notes to John by Joan Didion

In this posthumous collection of letters and essays, Didion writes with aching clarity to her late husband, John Gregory Dunne. It’s a meditation on grief, memory, and enduring love. Therapeutically, it offers language for sorrow and the longing that never leaves.

18. We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle

An extension of the popular podcast, this book tackles life’s hardest questions with radical honesty and grace. Topics range from addiction to parenting to purpose. It normalizes struggle and champions emotional bravery.

19. Bad Friend: How Women Revolutionized Modern Friendship by Tiffany Watt Smith

This bold social history reframes how women’s friendships are viewed—complex, messy, and ultimately transformative. It’s a celebration of intimacy beyond romance. It offers liberation from toxic expectations and affirms emotional richness in female bonds.

20. Love and Need by Adam Plunkett

A sharp, elegant novel exploring masculinity, emotional longing, and class through the lens of a young poet’s complicated romance with a wealthy art critic. With lyrical prose and subtle tension, Plunkett examines the dissonance between intimacy and ambition. It addresses identity, emotional validation, and the cost of self-compromise. The novel interrogates power within love and language. Plunkett’s characters long for acceptance while fearing dependence. This story offers a tender, critical look at vulnerability. It’s perfect for readers navigating emotional contradictions.

21. Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara

A powerful meditation on how our identities are shaped, scattered, and searched in the age of the internet. Vara blends memoir and cultural critique to examine our fragmented selves. Therapeutically, it offers insight into digital disconnection, validation-seeking, and reclaiming authenticity. This is a must-read for anyone navigating selfhood in the modern age.

22. The Next Day by Melinda French Gates

In this deeply personal and inspiring book, Gates explores what comes after seismic life changes—be it divorce, reinvention, or global advocacy. A guide for reclaiming power and purpose, it’s especially healing for those rebuilding their lives. Gates shares hard-earned wisdom with clarity and compassion. The book is a blueprint for resilience and transformation.

23. Time Anxiety by Chris Guillebeau

Guillebeau investigates our modern obsession with productivity and the fear of wasted time. With research, stories, and practical tools, it’s a guide to finding freedom in the present. It’s therapeutic for those overwhelmed by urgency culture. The book helps reframe how we relate to time—less as a threat, more as a canvas.

24. The Explorer's Gene: Why We Seek Big Challenges, New Flavors, and the Blank Spots on the Map by Alex Hutchinson

A fascinating look at human curiosity and the biology of exploration. Hutchinson blends science and storytelling to explain why we’re driven to push boundaries. This book speaks to readers seeking adventure or understanding their restlessness. It’s validating for those drawn to the unknown, offering both insight and permission.

So there you have it—a collection of books to enlighten, entertain, and carry you through the brighter months of the year. Whether you’re escaping to faraway worlds or diving deeper into your own, remember: the right book at the right time can change everything.

Until next time, happy reading—and don’t forget to share your favorite picks with me Bye for now!

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