The A.V. Club's most anticipated books of summer 2025
V.E. Schwab delivers a sapphic vampire fantasy, a former tabloid writer recounts the wild coverage of Britney Spears, and R.F. Kuang offers a dark academia tale set in hell.
By Drew Gillis, Jen Lennon, and Saloni Gajjar. Images from left: Hot Girls With Balls by Benedict Nguyễn (Catapult); Fox by Joyce Carol Oates (Hogarth); Baldwin: A Love Story by Nicholas Boggs (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
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No matter what genre you prefer, summer always offers a veritable literary bounty. This year, Benedict Nguyễn’s “deeply serious satire” Hot Girls With Balls makes a great beach read, while Pulitzer Prize winner Caroline Fraser’s Murderland is perfect for true-crime lovers—and even true-crime critics. A new biography of James Baldwin offers an engrossing historical perspective, and Joyce Carol Oates delivers a psychological thriller.