What I Read in June 2025
Hi, friends! I cannot believe we’re halfway through 2025 already (though I say this every year or even month, it feels). Recently, I’ve implemented hibernation weekends and a day off during the week (I used to do the latter organically/subconsciously in my 20s), and those have helped me prioritize rest and find balance, which have been a goal of mine for the last couple of years.
Having said that, I’ve been reading more (still need to get my sleep schedule back on track and focus better in the mornings) and also more physical books, which I definitely romanticize over other formats. Anyways, I read a good number of books (for me) in the month of June, and here are my thoughts:
THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH by Andrew Joseph White
I renewed my Letters Bookshop Sidecar Subscription after taking a break for a couple of years (I was very overwhelmed back in 2023). The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is one of the latest books that the folks at Letters picked out for me based on some of my recent favorite books, and I LOVED it.
Technically categorized as YA, The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a historical fiction set in the 1800s London in an alternative universe(?) where there are people with the ability to commune with the dead, signified by their purple eyes. Sixteen-year-old Silas is one of such people and dreams of using his talent to become a doctor but the life that is laid out in front of him is that of being a wife and birthing children with purple eyes. His efforts in escaping this fate lands him at Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School for violet-eyed girls with veil sickness.
Some of the medical descriptions from the point of view of Silas can be a bit gruesome but that pales in what is actually happening at Braxton’s.
RING SHOUT by P. Djèlí Clark
This novella about those who hunt the Ku Kluxes was one of the books I’ve been seeing on TikTok as recommendations for those who liked the movie Sinners. I listened to it on audiobook and wish I had read a physical book instead. It took me a full week, maybe more, to get through the audiobook because I kept missing things so I actually borrowed a paperback from the library so I will report back, hopefully next month!
THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due
Another popular recommendation for Sinners lovers, The Reformatory was perfection. If you have read The Nickel Boys, the premise is based on the very same Florida reform school for boys to which Tananarive has a personal connection.
Twelve-year-old Robbie lives with his older sister Gloria after the passing of their mother and their father having left for Chicago. One unlucky incident lands Robbie at Gracetown School for Boys where he sees haints all over the ground. While Robbie is at Gracetown, Gloria incessantly works to rescue Robbie out of there which provided more context to the time period from the mentions of actual historical events and people as well as the interactions between Gloria and the white folks in town. Robbie’s ability to see haints added many layers to the story from his connection with his late mother, both at home and Gracetown, to him seeing the boys from the years past which highlighted the long history of brutality and secrets at Gracetown.
저주토끼 (CURSED BUNNY) by 정보라 (Bora Chung)
My older sister Jiyoung gifted a copy of Cursed Bunny last time we were in NYC together (to make up for a book she borrowed which was lost in the water damage at her house last November). I had been seeing the purple cover of Cursed Bunny for years but will admit that was about the extent of my knowledge about the book. Seriously, I didn’t realize it was horror (though I should’ve guessed from the title of the book) or the fact that it’s a collection of short stories rather than a full-length novel. I’m not a huge fan of short stories as I prefer to get (emotionally) invested once for a longer reading experience but I really enjoyed the stories in Cursed Bunny. They were all so different yet equally beyond my imagination.
SHADOW OF THE SOLSTICE by Anne Hillerman
Looking for an audiobook led me to Shadow of the Solstice but I am learning that Hillerman family has been writing Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Series since 1970 and that this is the 28th book in this detective/mystery series! Based on real events that have affected the Navajo people, Anne Hillerman writes about multiple mysteries that converge into one plot as the story progresses:
Darleen works as a home aide in Shiprock, NM and is concerned when an elderly lady she works with is missing without any notice or trace, which is uncharacteristic. After some investigation, she learns that the lady has gone with her teenage grandson to a scam rehab program in Arizona. In the meantime, Darleen’s sister Bernie and the rest of the Navajo Nation police are asked to prepare for a visitor from an important federal government official which may be related to the planned resuming of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation lands.
THE FAMILY ROE: AN AMERICAN STORY by Joshua Prager
To be honest, I never thought about “Jane Roe” in Roe vs Wade. That is due to my privilege of living in post-Roe America (for the most part) and taking it for granted really. In The Family Roe, Prager covers all of it: Norma McCorvey, the “Jane Roe” herself; the generations of her family who were affected by an unplanned pregnancy, the lawyers who filed and argued for Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court justices, abortion providers, and the millions fighting on either side of abortion. It is not the most readable or cohesive summary, since there are so many events and people mentioned throughout the book, but it left me with a thorough understanding of and appreciation for the history.
HEAVY: AN AMERICAN MEMOIR by Kiese Laymon
The title of this memoir really hits the nail on the head. Kiese Laymon’s writes about growing up in Jackson, Mississippi as a Black son to an academic mother who is brilliant yet challenging, his own progression through the academic world from being suspended as a college student to being a college professor in NYC, and the burden and shame heaviness he carried throughout his adolescence and (young) adulthood. It’s heavy, vulnerable, and brutally honest.
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen
Since I’m in my Jane Austen era, I had to re-read Pride and Prejudice (this might’ve been the first re-read since high school, or college at the latest)! There reason I decided to go back to Pride and Prejudice rather than reading a new-to-me story is because I am currently in love with Colin Firth’s Mr. Darcy after watching the BBC miniseries adaptation.
The copy of Pride and Prejudice I own (stamped Clayton High School Media Center???) is about 250 pages so it didn’t take me long to get through it, and the fact that I knew the plot and my brain was already in Austen mode to reading Emma also helped, of course. Pride and Prejudice still remains my favorite! While I loved both the 2005 movie and the 1995 mini-series, the novel does proper justification to the plot and the gradual changes in Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s feelings towards one another. This might be one I come back to read again, perhaps as an audiobook because I hear good things about Rosamund Pike’s (aka Jane in 2005 movie) narration.
THE BOOK CLUB FOR TROUBLESOME WOMEN by Marie Bostwick
After reading some heavy (and multiple horror) books in June, I needed a bit of a mood booster. The Book Club for Troublesome Women, a feel-good historical fiction set in the 1960s, was exactly that. Margaret accidentally starts a book club with a handful of other housewives in their NOVA “planned community” including Charlotte, the newest addition to the neighborhood from Manhattan. They begin calling themselves the Bettys after reading their first book, The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. Inspired both by the books they read and the friendship they develop, the Bettys begin to take charge of their lives. It was a throughly satisfying read and decently aware of white feminism. I wish the “middle” of the book was meatier so you can really develop a bond with the Bettys.
P.S. I’m currently reading Wuthering Heights and listening to Buttermilk Graffiti!
