Monthly Book Round-Up Middle Grade-Adult: July 2025

Dear readers – last year, sometime in the fall, I put together this list of books that I read in July. I kept trying to chip away at writing proper summaries the books, and just didn’t. It’s once again summer reading, the busiest time of the library year. I still have a stack of books waiting to be reviewed next to me, but in the meantime, I thought I’d put this list out there, incomplete as it is, as so many of these books made my favorites of the year list, and even those that didn’t I’ve wanted to follow up with sequels.

Middle Grade

The Misfits : a Royal Conundrum by Lisa Yee. Illustrated by Dan Santat. Random House, 2024 – this winner of the 2024 Cybils 2024 Elementary/Middle Grade Fiction award
Where There Be Monsters by Alby C. Williams. Narrated by Tyla Collier. Roaring Brook Press/Macmillan Audio, 2025.
Max in the Land of Lies by Adam Gidwitz. Dutton Books for Young Readers, 2025.

Cover of Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brosgol

Plain Jane and the Mermaid by Vera Brosgol. First Second, 2024.

Teen

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko. Read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt. Blackstone, 2020.
Redemptor by Jordan Ifueko. Read by Joniece Abbott-Pratt. Blackstone, 2021.
Let Them Stare by Jonathan Van Ness and Julie Murphy. Storytide, 2025. Sully is a new high school graduate and the only openly non-binary person in their small town of Hearst. They have big plans to escape to the Big Apple for a fashion internship – only to have it go south at the last minute. They’ve already sold their car to the only other gay teen in town, their job at the local quirky thrift store filled. It’s time for reinvention, baby – and then the beautiful vintage bag they find turns out to be haunted by the spirit of a drag performer from the 1950s. With someone else’s story to distract them, Sully might just find a way out of their funk – and into discovering a whole new side of their town. I read this in print, but I heard Sully’s voice in my head much like JVN’s on Queer Eye – utterly delightful, even when Sully is being oblivious to the way he’s dismissing the people in his life he cares about. It even made me tear up towards the end.

Cover of World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff.

Cover of The Singular Life of Aria Patel by Samira Ahmed

A World Worth Saving by Kyle Lukoff. Read by Will Mallory. Dial Books, 2025.
The Singular Life of Aria Patel by Samira Ahmed. Read by Kausar Mohammed. Little, Brown 2025.