The 17 Best Books of 2025 You Need to Read

Choosing the best books of 2025 hasn’t been easy. This year, there’s been much doomsaying about the decline in literacy and the rise of AI-generated texts, but there’s also been plenty of excellent releases that prove must-read books aren’t going by the wayside just yet. At VF, we spent the year talking to authors about the horrors of the MFA, breakups that can inspire twisty novels, how penning a book can help process the past (such as your wrongful murder conviction), books based on road trips, and how book tours can turn into road trips.