Even More of the Best Book Covers of 2025 So Far

Pinks and reds are among the prominent colors in standout covers this year, and this very basic–yet very visually arresting–take on stage curtains utilizes both. The title and author font are pretty basic as well, though the change of font for the blurb on the cover doesn’t distract from the main feature at all.

On a less design-angled note, this cover makes me think of this particular Simpsons scene.

Vintage-inspired covers are not new and sometimes, even the best designed ones can blend into one another. This one stands out, though, for its visual contrasts between the bold magenta flower, the vibrant green background, and the gray-white and black colors for the title and author. That flower’s shape brings movement to the image, especially in light of the severe-looking font choice. The little pretend fold lines at the top left of the cover and on the bottom right are nice details, too.

The publisher hired a person to crochet this cover, and frankly, that’s enough to warrant placement on a list of great covers. But the colors all work here, too, as does the font for the title and author. My favorite elements outside of the obvious are the multi-colored nails and the unfinished edges at the wrists. Though the cover is not textured, it certainly looks that way.

It’s the person between two vintage chairs that stands out, of course, but that’s not solely what makes this cover so good. It’s that that image is paired with an all lower case title and authorship done in a blue that perfectly matches the paint on the lower half of the wall. The blue and lower case letters manage to simultaneously draw attention to the strange image and also downplay it a lot. Black heels on the model’s feet don’t hurt, either.

“Photos of people in bizarre shapes” among the best covers of 2025’s third quarter is not going to be limited to this one. This isn’t the only version of discontent utilizing the jarring image of half a body to sell the book, either. Check out the UK and Spanish versions below. Both are also good, but the US edition slightly edges both out (it’s the color palette).

Brody’s cover for Nguyen’s book is straight out of a 1980s video game, and that’s a high compliment. Nothing here should work and yet it does. Though there is an image here this book cover is entirely font driven with its contrasting neon green on purple background. The word play here is clever enough on its own, but the actual image itself enhances it because it forces you to figure out what the balls are (volley) and what makes the girls hot (…the heat).

This cover has been sitting in my “can’t wait to write about it” pile since I first saw it, and now that I get to write about it, I find there’s not a whole lot that needs to be said about why it is so good. It’s the contrasting colors and shapes. It’s the neon sign serving as the book’s title. It’s the sign missing some of its lights on the perfect word. Is “Joy Moody” as a name a little on the nose? Sure, but it doesn’t matter because the cover is so good.

Contrast this US cover with the original published in Australia. The difference in what the book conveys in terms of tone, mood, and genre are quite different.

Movement. That is the key element of this cover. Despite having a lot of things going on, they’re all in harmony. From the range of colors to the clouds, stars, and sun, from the big bold fonts to the small stars grounding the moving black element (is it smoke? Is it dark water? Is it the joining of two bodies or souls?), this cover just sings.

One of the best details in this cover is right in the word “Middle.” The “i” is lower case, whereas all of the other letters are not. Had there been more lower case letters sprinkled throughout, it would have felt more hokey or even a little Brady Bunch and therefore discordant with the title and the image of three pillows. But instead, that little detail gives the perfect impression of a middle spoon between a big M and a big D.

The hyper-color pillows have great texture here, too. The white for the blurb, for the words “a novel,” and for the honors Varela has racked up is maybe a little distracting from the cover, but their placement does help ground the image nicely.

Pink, red, and bloody: that’s what makes this cover work. Usually those “up the nose” covers are more gross than gratifying, but the way the face is trimmed for this cover allows those nostrils to not stand out in an uncomfortable way. It’s the bloody lips that do instead.

The second entry into the category of “photos of people in bizarre shapes” among great covers this quarter is this one. Not only do we have another great title, but we’ve got a lot of jarring angles between human limbs and chair limbs, as well as the title alignment. That ecru coloring is once again creating some calm in what’s an otherwise chaotic image. Even the red for part of the title and the author’s name isn’t creating discordance here but bringing some stability instead.

We’ve got shape with the rectangle composed of the book title, book author, and author accolades. Then we’ve got shape with color in the colorful nails. It’s really a simple cover but it captures exactly what the book is about in an effective and eye-catching way.

The deeply saturated colors give the image here a surreal look, despite being a pretty everyday image of a cafe. It’s a pleasing variety of colors, too, with a nice balance of light and shadow. The title and author color and font blend in nicely while not getting lost. Despite the cafe being empty, there is a lot of energy in the image. I found myself spending a lot of time on Morr’s Instagram feed after discovering he was the artist.

Sometimes, there is no need for any image on a cover for that cover to be good. Sure, we’ve seen many a trend with font-focused design on covers and while many were fine, few really stood out as unique or different. This cover certainly stands out for how it creates its title letters out of what appear to be beads. The orange hue against the cream background adds dimension. My only slight issue with the cover is that I wish they didn’t add the title again beneath the S and W–I get why that decision was made, as the word Swallows could be tough to read the way it’s laid out, but anyone who slows down would get it without the repetition.

It’s a bit of a circus-y font for the title and byline on this cover, which juxtaposes nicely with the sugary lips being held by a hand with some sharp-looking nails. The cover design and art are simple. What makes this one sing are those little unexpected elements, including the variety of colors and the restraint in not making those nails stand out with too bold a hue.

Though it gives the vibes of a vampire novel–blame seeing too many lips like this on YA covers that were vampire stories–that this is the cover for a screwball comedy also makes perfect sense.

Less is more for this cover. Sure, we’ve got a banged up car on top of the author’s last name which draws the eye toward it. But it’s the bright green background and peach font choices that create a clash and tension only further set off by the dangling “G” in the title. Nothing about any of these elements are what we might associate with what trigger warning means, engaging reader curiosity as to what that title and image might be referring to in the book.

There’s a little bit of a balls theme this quarter in coverland, but why wouldn’t there be? We’ve already seen volleyballs that were a little hard to decipher without knowing what the book was about. Now, ping pong balls spelling out the title of Zhao’s novel which would be difficult to decipher without the image of a pair of pingpong players in the image (these could easily be Bingo balls). I don’t especially love the ping pong players image, as I think the cover would be stronger without it, but I get the reason it’s there and still think this is a fun, fresh way to create a font-driven design.

No one needs a lengthy paragraph on why a technicolor cat deserves your attention. But this technicolor cat deserves your attention, and its piercing blue eyes are a big part of it. The cat softens the title color and font in a satisfying way.

This isn’t the first cat cover model/mug shot for a novel in recent memory, either. Will There Ever Be Another You immediately calls to mind this fantastic cover from last year.

Generally, these best book covers roundups are for US-based designs. But in the case of this tremendous cover from the UK’s Europa Editions, there’s an exception to be made.

How can a girl simply be blowing bubbles with her gum when she’s not only clearly being swallowed by a shark but her fate is the name of the title? It doesn’t natter because it creates visual interest immediately. So, too, do the colors and illustrative nature of the design. One teeny element with an especially big impact are the black waves on top of the pink background. There’s so much energy here, and it’s not coming from the shark.

Look. When you know the elements that make for a good horror novel, you also have an idea of what makes for a good, trope-y, allusion-y cover to draw readers in. The design of White’s debut adult novel knows what it’s doing here. There’s classic horror coloring with the red, black, and cream palate. There’s the classic horror font for the title and byline. Then, there’s the creepy element of worms slinking their way through the title of the book. It’s simple and not simple all at once. The UK cover for this one takes the vintage paperback horror look up another level, too.

If you’re looking at this one and thinking it not only looks familiar to works of classic and pulpy horror, you’re not wrong. There’s another book that published this year that honors one of those classics with a very similar cover, too. Check out the side by side of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human and The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand.