The Best Book Covers of 2025 So Far

It’s not only the perfect shade of pink, but it’s a classic billboard that pops on the cover. The pole holding it up being alligator skin? The exact right detail.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a classic CD cover with a tracklist, so this cover taps all of the nostalgia buttons. This is a book about the power of music and how it can intimately intertwine with those in a romantic relationship, so not only is the cover spot on but the book also has a playlist.

Is this one bird with two heads or is it two birds with only one visible body or is it one bird pictured in two different head positions? The story revolves around twins, so it could go any of those ways. This cover has a nice amount of energy and visual interest in it between the orange raptor, the bright pink background, the title’s script and use of space, and the juxtaposition of them all. Everything disparate simply works.

Remember the colorful book blob cover trend? It would be easy to put this cover into that bucket. But look a little closer. This has a lot more going on than some colorful blobs—there’s a piece of split pottery, and on the left-hand side of the split, a profile of a person. The profile is clever, too, as it almost looks as though it might kiss the other side. That image pops and seems to be in concert with the book’s title.

Sorry to share that while every book cover on this list is outstanding and here for a reason, this one wins. How many people reading this right now wore a shirt like this as a kid? How many would wear something like this right now?

I just want to press each color on this book cover so much. The texture here!

Hot Air has such a simple cover concept but it’s so effective because of that texture and the use of bold colors. This, err, POPS.

Do you open your sardine cans expecting to find a bunch of eyeballs?

I don’t know what to expect in terms of a cover design with this title—it could go so many genre directions—but this cover immediately tells you this isn’t a romance. It captures horror-humor perfectly. The use of space here is especially good, being both a little crowded and perfectly comfortable.

If this were just the title, author, pink background, soy sauce inspired font design, and tray of sushi, it’d be a cool cover. But it is the addition of the sushi chef and the size dynamics going on that make it really pop.

This cover gives such Nightbitch vibes. But instead of a human hand holding a chunk of meat, there are human teeth scattered around. The red-on-black and mixed font used for the title is just gravy.

If you haven’t seen the UK cover, that one is pretty rad, too.

It’s a spreadsheet book cover. Or maybe more accurately, a cover made from art within a spreadsheet. Talk about creative, and the spare use of color here really tells a story in and of itself. The face in the spreadsheet has a heck of an expression, too. This one is for readers who like stories of academia—not the dark side of it—but who are also looking for something rom-commy.

Face on, the cover for Lucky Night is good enough, with two little matches snug in a box together. But adding the spine to the cover design only enhances the entire effect—those matches are alone, but they’re alone in a space with a lot of energy around it.

This book cover design uses shape to create interest, drawing its title and author in what is a natural line for the eye. Using three different colors here is interesting enough, but it’s the multi-colored lion at the center that creates a lot of energy and interest.

The cover is, indeed, luminous. Check out the great UK design, too. It also has a lot of energy but it is a VERY different style.

It’s another animal cover, but the surprising mix of bright green with the bright blue is especially eye-catching. Our wolf is the perfect representation for a book about a cult.

You’ve got your red prairies and haunting green trees…or is that actually a scary skull that should warn you this is no good country prairie? This cover does a lot to convey our mood here while not trying to do a whole lot in terms of design or image. It manages to be font-driven and image-driven simultaneously.

Neon pink on bright red, with a big drippy smile? Yes, please.

This one harkens to the classic “have a nice day” plastic shopping bags.

Vintage animals, ahoy. The bright pink font really does kind of distract from what looks like less of a stag dance and more of a stag annoyance-with-each-other. Usually a cover with so many shades of brown and beige wouldn’t necessarily stand out, but the font not only helps but it requires the viewer to decide whether this is font-driven or image-driven. It’s a little of both. You could, perhaps, say it’s a dance between them.

This cover is very, very pretty. The colors are soothing, as is the water, the full moon, the gathering clouds, and the twinkling lights of the city reflected off the water. The design of the title and the author going vertical, rather than horizontal, creates even more interest.

Something else really special about this cover? It’s origami. You can remove the jacket and make your own art from it. Clever!

We don’t get enough art on covers quite like this. The use of the book title to split the design into two—a tree in varying reds on top and gently flowing water below—adds to the visual interest. The font choice for the title and author is unique.

I know in talking about what makes book covers memorable or good that I use the word “juxtaposition” a lot, and there’s reason. What’s going on in this cover is just that. We have a car, something related to travel and movement, with a plant, representing being rooted, growing out of the car’s rear window. The car looks to be an older style, while the plant breathes in fresh, current life. Placing “A Memoir” in the license plate space? So good.

It’s the ombre coloring here that looks like it is only in the center of the image but really works from top to bottom.

It’s the mixture of wooden chairs and plastic/metal chairs.

It’s the way the title is tumbling down along with some of those chairs.

You know this is a story set in a school in some capacity. Every bit of this just comes together nicely. Every time I look at it, my eyes focus in on something else first.

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Want more of the best book covers? Dive into the four best of 2024 book cover posts, one for each quarter.