JUNE 2025: Best and Worst Book of the Month

Hi everyone. Welcome back to my Best and Worst Reads of the month posts.  This month I read 7 books and DNF’d 1, and I will talk about that DNF’d book here. I will start though with the best book I read this month. 

1. BEST BOOK OF THE MONTH: Animal Farm by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a masterpiece. It is a “classic tale of totalitarianism and propaganda, using a barnyard setting to illustrate the principles of power and control” (Erik Hill Reviews); an allegory that explores the dangers of political propaganda and the manipulation of the masses, and I am here for all of it. It is an important book to read in helping to prevent the mistakes of the past from repeating themselves. It is a book that tells you that if you have control of the military, police, and the press, you can do whatever you want. The pigs, for example, use language to distort reality and justify their actions. They also change the Seven Commandants (originally written to ensure equality) and use propaganda to convince the other animals that their suffering is for the greater good. This is manipulation of language, one of the ways in which totalitarianism manifests itself. Another is consolidation of power, which goes hand in hand with declaring your opponent a public enemy. This is seen in Napoleon, who seizes power and declares Snowball a public enemy of the farm to maintain power and distract the other animals from his own actions. Suppression of Dissent, Exploitation of Labor, Erosion of Ideals and establishing a Cult of Personality are all manifestations of totalitarianism in society, and we see all of these in Animal Farm. Notable examples of totalitarian states in the past and today include Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler, and the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. North Korea under the Kim dynasty is a current example. In America, a totalitarian regime comparable to that of Stalin occurred in the Dominican Republic under Rafael Trujillo between 1930 and 1961.  

Animal Farm is a critique of totalitarianism and the corrupting nature of power. In the book, the animals of Manor Farm overthrow their human oppressor and establish a utopian society based on equality. Manor Farm then becomes Animal Farm. But when the pigs, who represent the ruling class, consolidate power, they betray the very ideals they espoused, turning the farm into a dystopian regime mirroring the oppressive human rule they initially rebelled against (Spark Notes, Animal Farm). In the end, Animal Farm is once again Manor Farm, only this time it isn’t humans who live in the manor house but the pigs, who have since started to walk on two legs and dress like humans.

I didn’t grow up in the American school system, so I didn’t read this book in middle or high school. It was also not in any of the curricula of my undergraduate literature classes, which focused mainly on Spanish literature, so this was the first time I read it. I’ve seen physical copies of 1984 and Animal Farm everywhere since I moved to the US, but I was always hesitant to pick them up because I wasn’t sure I was going to like them (let’s not forget about my love/hate relationship with dystopian novels), but one of my book clubs finally gave me the last little push I needed and I don’t regret it. These books are worth picking up.

2. WORST BOOK OF THE MONTH: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Originally published in 1932, this book is a dystopian novel that imagines a world in the future where technology, conditioning, and a rigid caste system control every aspect of human life. In this society, for example, natural reproduction is replaced by artificial methods and people are conditioned for predetermined roles in life; here, happiness is manufactured, emotions are suppressed, and conformity is prized. Hence, the author is able to explore themes such as individuality, freedom, the dehumanizing effects of a highly controlled and pleasure-driven culture and critique the consequences of unchecked technological and societal advancements (Spark Notes, Brave New World).

The main characters are Bernard Marx and John “The Savage”. The first is a nonconformist in the conformist society he lives in, and the second, born outside the controlled environment, represents the clash between the dystopian world and the remnant of traditional values. This book is relevant today as a “cautionary tale about the dangers of sacrificing individuality and critical thinking for the sake of stability and superficial happiness. It is also a book that raises ethical questions about the role of science, technology, and government in shaping human society.”

This is a reason why this book is still included in literature curricula. The more technology advances today (AI, everyone?), the more this book is relevant. However, it was not a book for me. I understood its relevance to society today and what the author is trying to tell us, but my experience reading this book was not a good one. Dystopian novels are not my favorite genre to read. I’ve said this several times now, and I know that this affected my reading experience. Although I have since learned that this doesn’t matter much if the author’s writing engrosses you in the novel; something that happened to me with Orwell, but not with Huxley. In fact, I didn’t like Huxley’s writing style at all. And this is why it is the worst book I read this month. Again, I think the content of this book is in fact relevant today and I recommend it to anyone interested in reading it because of that, but I did not like how it is written.

3. CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE: Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez (DNF)

I never thought this would happen but, alas, it did. I DNF’d an Abby Jimenez book. Before, she was an automatic buy author for me. Now, I’m not so sure. Here’s why I didn’t finish this book:

The writing. Something about it just ticked me off, and after looking into it I saw that I am not the only reader that was bothered by this. A lot of these unhappy readers called it Tik Tok language, and apparently this book is shock full of it. I’m not a Tik Tok user so I didn’t recognize it on the page, but it still bothered me. I don’t use slang in my everyday conversation language. I occasionally use it, yes, but it’s not my preference. And when I looked it up online, I found words like algospeak and uptalk, words that just gave me vibes of 1984 by George Orwell. I also did not like all the references to Rhysand from ACOTAR. I know that this series is immensely popular, but I’m not one of its adherents. I know of the character and that he is many readers’ book boyfriend, but I didn’t appreciate how he’s mentioned time and time again. The first time was funny. The second, okay. The third, c’mon now. The fourth, really? The fifth, *throws book at the wall*. And apparently, there are more mentions than these, but I didn’t get that far.

The couple. In every Abby Jimenez book that I’ve read so far, I’ve found myself rooting for the protagonists to get together from pretty early on in the book. This time, however, I wasn’t. For some reason, I just wasn’t invested and, in my opinion, the pivotal scene between them—the escape room—was boring. Maybe because I’m not into escape rooms and everything they did in there passed me by? Who knows. The point is, I was bored and by the time I was reading this scene I was thinking, “How long is this book?” Yeah. Not into this book at all. 

Also, I get that they were supposed to fall in love with each other pretty quickly and hard, but the romance here is insta-love, and I’m not a fan of insta-love. Xavier’s grand romantic gestures come too soon in the relationship for them to be romantic. I mean, they’ve only gone out on one date together, however, epic it might have been. In addition, I didn’t see Samantha make any romantic gestures for Xavier in turn. It was always him making them. And this made their whole dynamic seem one-sided. Finally,

The family-drama. I was not a fan of this. Part of the reason why I usually like Abby Jimenez’s books is that she often does a good job at intertwining the romantic storyline with issues such as infertility, disease, grief, social anxiety, among others, and the havoc that these issues wreck in the characters’ lives. But in this case, where one of the side characters suffers from dementia, the family-drama caused by other family members not wanting to take care of her is center-stage. Now, I don’t want to reduce the importance of creating consciousness for the well-being and mental health of the people who take care of people with dementia but, in this book, all this family drama was detrimental to the romantic relationship. It took away scenes between Xavier and Samatha that could’ve sold us more on the budding romance between them. But the book steers away from that and focuses too much on the drama. In other words, we don’t spend enough time with the couple to root for their relationship.  

This is everything for now. I hope you stick around for my next post.