Five star reads are looking like a thing of the past in 2025. So to cheer myself up I’m going to talk about more of my favourite five star reads. We have two very different books today but both are ones that left me feeling a little empty after finishing them (in the best way).
Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe
This book was wild in the best way possible. I had a hard time explaining why I enjoyed it so much when I reviewed it a few years ago so bare with me.
I had never read anything like this and I’ve read nothing like it since. A thriller has never gripped me as much as Dark Room Etiquette did. From the very first page I was on edge and that feeling only gets worse the further in you get. The changes in narrative tone are really subtle but extremely effective. I can’t explain it too much without giving away the biggest twist of the book but it’s chilling.
This is the type of book that stays with you for a long time after reading it. I remember finishing it and just sitting in silence for a while trying to process what I’d just read. It’s pretty rare for me to rate a thriller five stars, I think this was the first.
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything—until he’s kidnapped by a man who tells him his whole life has been a lie.
Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he’s been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.
But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape . . . before he loses himself.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
This one probably isn’t very surprising as a lot of people have rated this book five stars. I can’t imagine rating a Taylor Jenkins Reid book lower than four stars at this point. Her books are immersive to the point that I constantly question if these people and events are real. Evelyn Hugo is definitely her most complex character, she loved to keep everyone in her life on their toes at all times.
Don’t even get me started on the twist near the end of the book. When I say I audibly gasped I’m not exaggerating. I don’t think I’ve ever been so shocked by a book in my entire life. There’s something very special about this book that you really need to witness for yourselef.
Synopsis: Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.
Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the ‘80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.
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