These Four Rhode Skin Products Are Actually Worth Your Money
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Welcome to Glam Room, where we put celeb-founded beauty brands to the test. As A-listers continue to launch new ranges, we're using our beauty editor expertise to sniff out which products from the line are worth the hype. Our latest contestant: Rhode Skin, created by Hailey Bieber.
It's been more than two years since Hailey Bieber launched Rhode Skin and created the Peptide Lip Treatment, the lip balm that every celebrity now carries around in their bag, or better yet, on the back of their Rhode iPhone case. (Note: The launch of Rhode's Lip Case even made me want to upgrade my iPhone–I'm not immune to being influenced.) Along with it, Rhode launched other skin care products: a daily moisturizer called the Barrier Restore Cream, Pineapple Refresh, a cleanser, Barrier Butter cream, a moisturizier, and the Peptide Glazing Fluid, a hydrating serum.
Since the brand's inception, it feels like Rhode has done the near-impossible, bypassing the celebrity-founded-beauty-brand pitfalls. People (not just influencers) seem to actually use this brand, re-purchasing their creams and glosses when they run out. For a while, the brand was in their 'everything is out of stock' era, where the products were nearly impossible to purchase. But now, Rhode products seemingly live in makeup bags and medicine cabinets everywhere. Even someone like me, who is always suspicious of celebrity-founded brands (see: this column), had high hopes when Rhode launched. This has less to do with Hailey Bieber's flawless skin and more to do with the fact that, over the years, I've noticed that she has good taste. Since I regularly zoom in on the background of celebrities' videos to spot the products that really live on their vanities, I knew that Bieber was a fan of an esthetician-founded brand called Biba Los Angeles, a personal favorite of mine that will endear me to almost anyone. Plus, with a team of formulators like Ron Robinson—a cosmetic chemist who founded the skin care brand Beautystat—behind Bieber, I was optimistic that Rhode wouldn't be a flop.
The ethos of Rhode seems to follow in the footsteps of Glossier (a brand that, coincidentally or not, also launched with skin care and lip products before moving onto color cosmetics): Your skin but better. This year, Rhode sold for a nice sum of money to e.l.f. beauty and ventured more fully into the makeup world, launching a tinted version of their Peptide Lip Treatment, a contour lip pen, and a cream blush. Does the sheer number of glow-packed products exhaust and bewilder me? It sure does. That being said, months of testing revealed four products from Rhode's range that truly stood out.
I never fully appreciated Rhode's Peptide Lip Treatment. It comes in many iterations—one unscented, three scented (caramel, watermelon, and vanilla, which are tragically all to0 sweet for me), four tinted versions, and a limited-edition glittery peppermint option that feels like rubbing bits of minty sand on my lips. As a hydrating lip balm, this product misses the mark for me on account of the sticky factor. However, I reached for it often to use as a clear lip gloss that pairs beautifully with a lip liner. Now, I too find myself fishing multiple versions out of my purse. (Rhode, please, make a Lip Case for those of us who haven't bought a new iPhone since 2020.)
Milky toners that hydrate and help your skin retain water are all the rage these days. I actually believe that Rhode's version is a clear standout. It is incredibly soothing and hydrating, thanks to ceramides, and sinks into the skin while leaving behind an undeniable glow. This is also one of the products that I see people re-purchase the most as a primer for both skin care and makeup. I know I'm not alone in being impressed. It helps that the 4.7-ounce bottle sells for $30, which is a generous amount of product for the price. In my experience, it is well worth the money. After a month of twice-daily use, I feel like I've barely made a dent.
I am a cream blush snob, but the first time I swiped on Rhode's Pocket Blush in the shade Toasted Teddy, I audibly said, 'Whoa,' to an audience of no one. The pigment makes an impact. It's creamy, can be worn on both lips and cheeks, and does an impressive job of lasting throughout the day. My one complaint? The packaging. The product itself is about half the bulk, and the rest is taken up by bulbous plastic (post-consumer recycled, but still.) Pocket? Yeah, right. The only pocket this fits into is in a pair of 2021 cargo pants. It makes zipping up my makeup bag a massive headache. But is the blush good enough that I'll get over it? Yup.
I won't lie to you, when I first heard the news that Rhode was launching a thick cream, I was disappointed. Allow me to explain: Beyond the fact that I think the brand is reaching its hydration limit, as someone with acne-prone skin, my regular routine simply doesn't include slathering on a Murumuru seed butter that could clog my pores and cause breakouts. For the sake of science, I persisted in my testing.
It is always a surprise and a delight when a product you expect to hate swoops in to collect the award. After the first week of testing, I fell deeply in love with the Barrier Butter. It's not just that I never once had a breakout while wearing it, it's also because it leaves a glow that lasts well into the next day. I actually believe that it has made my skin look better—healthier, brighter, and obviously, less dry. It reminded me of a product from Biba Los Angeles that Bieber herself has used in the past, a cult-favorite moisturizer called the Onerta Barrier Face Cream that celebs like Billie Eilish and Miley Cyrus have gushed about. The ingredients differ from Rhode's version, but the texture and barrier-repairing quality is very similar, and I wouldn't be surprised if Bieber took inspiration. The one big difference? Biba's version is $95 for 1.7 ounces, and Rhode's is $38 for a whopping 5 ounces.
The gigantic bottle means that I don't feel the need to be sparing, and I now happily go to bed with a thick layer that my skin drinks up throughout the night. Have I accidentally reached for Rhode's Pineapple Refresh cleanser instead, since the two bottles look identical? I sure have. But I'll give Rhode a pass since my skin has never looked this glowy. I already have a second tube waiting for when I finally finish the first.
Here's the thing about Rhode that I don't think all celebrity-founded brands can claim: I believe that Bieber truly cares about the quality of the products she puts out, and she genuinely uses the line herself. That in and of itself makes the brand a standout. I may not be obsessed with every single product, but none of them are flops (except for the glittery Peptide Lip Treatment, let's figure that out!). Overall, from the price points to the formulas, Rhode has done an excellent job creating a line that I believe could exist with or without Bieber's face in the campaigns—not that I want her perfect skin to vanish from my feed just yet. In the meantime, I will rock my glazed-donut glow and impatiently wait to see what Rhode creates next.
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The Books You Should Actually Be Reading This Summer, According to ELLE Editors
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." For those of us who believe a packed bag is never complete without two (or ten) books, summer is our time. Nothing compares to the euphoria of a wide-open weekend, warm weather, a good book, a good view, and a sweating glass of something close at hand. If you're craving such synergy, perhaps the trickiest question isn't even where to go; it's what to bring with you. Still, the very definition of 'beach read' is fluid, subject to your taste. With that in mind, ELLE editors have compiled a list of new summer books that run the gamut between realism and fantasy, romance and horror, literary and breezy—with the hopes you'll find a read to fit your itinerary. Without further ado, below are our picks for the best books of summer 2025, as defined by the months of June, July, and August. Don't forget your sunscreen. With contributions from Kayla Webley Adler, Sara Austin, Moriel Mizrahi Finder, Adrienne Gaffney, and Kathleen now. 'In S.A. Cosby's riveting crime thriller King of Ashes, investment manager Roman Carruthers wakes from a dream of his mother—who went missing when he and his siblings were teenagers—only to discover his father has been in a terrible accident. Roman returns home to the former manufacturing epicenter known as Jefferson Run, Virginia, where his sister, Neveah, is struggling to keep the family crematorium running. But it's their brother, Dante, who's in the worst trouble of their trio. As Roman and Neveah discover that their father's accident was no accident at all, they learn Dante is in debt to a dangerous local gang, and Roman's deep pockets might not be enough to placate them. The criminals want Roman's skills, and soon he's embedded with them, fighting for his family while wrestling with the morality—or lack thereof—of his choices. Cosby drives his readers through the story at full-throttle, and yet little ends up rushed: His characters are deeply crafted, and the issues at the heart of his epic are rightfully complex. This is yet another smash hit from the author of All the Sinners Bleed.'—Lauren Puckett-Pope, culture writer $23.85 at now. ''I grew up fully aware that my father was a brilliant man whose expertise I should never ever question. Did I believe that he was a good man? That's another question entirely,' writes Janelle Brown—from the perspective of her protagonist, Jane—in What Kind of Paradise, a perfect sort of immersive, tantalizing, thought-provoking summer read. The novel centers Jane, who grew up idolizing her father and adhering to his isolationism during her off-the-grid upbringing in mid-'90s rural Montana. But when he decides to publish an anti-tech manifesto and she becomes his inadvertent accomplice-in-crime, Jane ultimately makes a run for it. She lands in the tech mecca of San Francisco, where she hopes to learn the truth about her mother's long-ago death whilst immersing herself in the very technology her father condemns. A thriller and a coming-of-age saga, What Kind of Paradise is a gripping reckoning with family, AI, and what we do in the pursuit of progress.'—LPP $17.76 at now.'Early in Susan Choi's latest book, 10-year-old Louisa and her father disappear on a beach. Only one of them will eventually be found. What begins as a standard thriller veers in an unexpected direction as Louisa's parents' histories—her mother's estrangement from her American family and her father's from his in North Korea—become an inescapable factor in this story from the National Book Award-winning author of Trust Exercise. '—Adrienne Gaffney, features editor $26.44 at now. 'I'll Tell You When I'm Home is not a straightforward story, but neither is Hala Alyan's. Told in hundreds of bite-sized segments that give her memoir the rhythm of her poetry, Alyan threads together 11 chapters, each organized by a month in the growth cycle of a fetus. (For example, 'Month Three: Your baby has fingers and toes,' and 'Month Seven: Your baby is the size of a coconut.') These passages provide entry points for Alyan to organize—and attempt to make sense of—her ancestral history; her frequent displacement throughout childhood; her relationships; her struggles with addiction, disordered eating, and sobriety; and, after multiple miscarriages, her journey to have a child via surrogate. 'I have never not been Palestinian,' she writes in one section. 'That has never not been written upon my body.' And it is in the writing about her body—its history, its travel, its desires, its pains, its othering, its future, its continuation in the tiny form of her child—that Alyan triumphs. This is a beautiful, soul-bearing book.'—LPP $24.12 at now.'A recent college graduate, David Smith is torn between two identities—that of a wealthy Stanford grad and of a Black, queer man. When he's arrested for drug possession, he realizes that the world of elite misbehavior that his friends live in is one that he cannot fully join. Author Rob Franklin beautifully illustrates the bubbly excesses of youth coming up against the sobering realities of racism, addiction, and violence.'—AG $25.99 at now. 'A quick read—the kind you can definitely finish in a couple summer afternoons—Jess Walter's latest crackles with the author's wit, even whilst immersing itself in the thick of modern American woes. 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Decades later, they remain close friends, as are their wives and daughters, and the families reunite for a weekend upstate—a yearly tradition amongst their group. But when one of them chooses to wield their power in a shocking act of abuse, they each are given a choice: Continue as if nothing's happened, or reckon with the rot that's always been present in their lives. Among Friends is utterly engrossing; I'm already begging my friends to read it so we can discuss the ending.'—LPP $26.48 at June 24. 'By now Lisa Jewell is well-beloved for the addicting quality of her thrillers, and her latest, Don't Let Him In, is no exception. From the first page, the book feels taut with danger, its characters tangled in a web they can't yet recognize. The plot is shaped like a classic domestic suspense: A man is not who he says he is. (He is, in fact, utterly awful!) 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Mottley shows that while young mothers face incredible challenges, their lives can still be full of extraordinary love and joy.'—AG $28.00 at June 24.'Leesa Cross-Smith—the author behind Half-Blown Rose and This Close to Okay, among others—turns her eye for intimate connection toward three Americans adrift in Seoul in As You Wish. Lydia, Jenny, and Selene have arrived as au pairs hoping to rewrite their own scripts: Lydia longs for a main-character life, Jenny is determined to put romance firmly in the rear view, and Selene believes South Korea holds the key to finding the birth mother she's never met. Their paths—and secret wishes—intertwine on a weekend trip to a mythic waterfall said to grant desires. When one of them circles back for a do-over, the ripple effect forces all three to reckon with what they truly want and what they're willing to risk for it, turning a fizzy drama into something richer: a meditation on friendship as the greatest magic of all. 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A slow-burning but scathing assessment of consumerism, vanity, and our deep-rooted desires to perform.'—LPP $20.30 at July 1. 'I'm a long-time reader of Maris Kreizman's work at Literary Hub and beyond, so it was a pleasure to get her takes on issues that have less to do with publishing in particular and more to do with America writ large. I zipped through I Want to Burn This Place Down, her new book of essays, impressed by how much ground Kreizman manages to cover in such a slim volume. Although these pieces are far from comprehensive—nor do they claim to be—they effectively critique many of the liberal beliefs she once accepted without challenge. (These beliefs included, among others, that labor organizing is 'impractical' and that cops are uniformly heroic.) Kreizman chronicles her own identity shift from 'good Democrat' to a more enlightened one, doing so with humor and a righteous anger that feels present on the page. Charged yet earnest, I Want to Burn This Place Down makes the reader feel Kreizman's rightful frustrations as their own.'—LPP $25.10 at July 1. 'A mixed-media satire told with style and verve, Hot Girls with Balls has a lot going for it beyond its instantly iconic title. The narrative will inevitably draw comparisons to Luca Guadagnino's Challengers, but with volleyballs instead of tennis rackets, a much heavier dose of internet culture, and two Asian American trans women at its heart. Six and Green are twenty-something volleyball players and influencers; they're also dating. Their social media fame grows with every Instagraph Live they broadcast during the COVIS pandemic, and as they compete in an indoor men's volleyball competition (thanks to transphobia), they're keen to capitalize on the attention. But when they speak up on behalf of the trans community, the results online are fickle at best—and hateful at worst. Benedict Nguyễn's sharp, funny-yet-serious debut explores the constant pressure to present identity 'correctly,' especially when that identity is under equally constant threat.'—LPP $25.11 at July 8. 'When I read Library Journal describe Sarah MacLean's These Summer Storms as 'the steamy love-child of Succession and Elin Hilderbrand,' I knew I needed to bump it to the top of my pile of beach reads. And, indeed, These Summer Storms fits that description well, particularly as the Storm family reunites on a private island off the coast of Rhode Island in the wake of their patriarch's death. There, they discover technology tycoon Franklin Storm has left his widow and children 'a game, of sorts': Remain on the island together for a full week, complete the challenges he has assigned to them, or forfeit their inheritance. This conundrum is further exacerbated by the presence of Jack Dean, Franklin's right-hand man, with whom protagonist Alice Storm has recently shared a one-night stand. Simmering tensions, sibling rivalries, and undeniable attraction fuel McLean's excellent foray into contemporary romance-slash-drama. This one's a treat.'—LPP $30.00 at July 8. 'A Marriage at Sea was such an emotionally vivid portrait of a couple in isolation that I was shocked it wasn't fiction. How could a writer get so deeply into the minds of two real people in such extraordinary circumstances? Elmhirst's incredible account traces the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey, a 1960s couple who set off from Britain for an around-the-world sail to New Zealand but become stranded after a whale hits their boat. Their harrowing period lost at sea is so brilliantly depicted that it's almost too painful to read.'—AG $28.00 at July 8.'When Sophie, a newspaper writer, goes to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe for work, she sees it as a nice break from the tedium of parenthood and home. Instead, she gets a front-row seat to her celebrated male colleague's complete implosion. After he gives a scathing review to the show of a woman he had just slept with, he inspires a wildly popular one-woman show that exposes years of terrible behavior and drags Sophie into the middle of the mayhem. Bring the House Down considers what role theater can have in a community with more humor that you'd think was possible.'—AG $28.00 at July 8. 'This romantasy-comedy made me laugh out loud on almost every single page. A deadly assassin is forced to seek help from a brilliant female healer, and, of course—in a classic enemies-to-lovers story—they hate each other at first glance. The humor is delightfully ridiculous, and the banter is so good, it will have you whipping your head back and forth between the two main characters as if you're watching a tennis match. Technically, Brigitte Knightley is a first-time author. (But fanfiction readers will recognize, 'Tell your cat I said pspspspsps.') I can't wait to read more of her books.'—Kathleen Hou, beauty director $21.00 at July 8. 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'The titular walk into a bar ends badly. The unnamed narrator's husband is leaving her for a woman named Maggie. Only weeks later, she gets a diagnosis of breast cancer. The two heartbreaks are so linked that she names her tumor Maggie. Katie Yee's debut is filled with eerily real accounts of the crazy things we obsess on after a breakup, humor in disaster, and the salvation found in true friendships.'—AG $25.10 at July 29.'Emma Rosenblum has a knack for writing about the rich and catty. Her buzzy debut Bad Summer People is set in an exclusive beach community, while her sophomore novel, Very Bad Company, takes place at an executive retreat. In her third title, Mean Moms, Rosenblum once again takes readers inside a dishy, insular scene—this time, that of Manhattan private school moms. The plot centers on a trio of mothers—Frost, Morgan, and Belle—whose children all attend the same top-ranked private school. There's a gripping mystery that kicks off when a new mom infiltrates their clique, but as with all of Rosenblum's books, my favorite aspect is the smart, biting, and often hilarious, social commentary she weaves in throughout the suspenseful tale. With Mean Moms, Rosenblum once again proves she is a master of skewering the worlds she inhabits.'—KWA $28.99 at August 5.'Another juicy read from the author of Before We Were Innocent, this one is set in the drug-and-bubbly fueled world of Laurel Canyon of the early '70s. When Los Angeles newcomer Lane Warren, a journalist working on her first novel, meets Hollywood native Gala Margolis at a party, they forge a complicated bond. Wild child Gala helps make Lane a social star, while coolheaded Lane urges Gala to pursue her own writing talents—to a point. In a time when few creative women reach the top of their field, friendship perhaps inevitably turns to rivalry. Touching on themes of ambition, ambivalent motherhood, and life in the L.A. fishbowl, Berman's novel is ultimately about the importance of owning your own story—and the possibility of rewriting it.'—Sara Austin, executive editor $30.00 at August 5. 'Be warned: Moderation is far from your typical effortless beach read. Elaine Castillo's novel is as expansive as the VR landscape her protagonist, Girlie Delmundo, must navigate after she's hired for a new content moderator position. As a social media moderator capable of stomaching the alarmingly graphic material thrust in her face each day, Girlie soon adapts to Playground, her company's latest VR acquisition. But her feelings for her new boss, William Cheung, as well as the mysteries surrounding Playground itself, threaten to eat away at Girlie's careful boundaries. A love story for those who love Severance (both Ling Ma's book and the unaffiliated Apple TV+ series), Moderation is ambitious, challenging, and brilliant.'—LPP $29.00 at August 12. 'Neruda on the Park author Cleyvis Natera returns later this summer with the searing The Grand Paloma Resort, a novel set amongst the staff of a luxury hotel in the Dominican Republic. When a looming category-five hurricane, the case of two missing girls, and the ever-present inequalities of race and class collide over the course of one seven-day stay, the guests and the staff—including sisters Laura and Elena—can no longer maintain their unsteady equilibrium. The White Lotus ought to look to Natera's clear-eyed literary thriller for inspiration.'—LPP $30.00 at August 26. 'One of my most-anticipated reads at the start of 2025, Katabasis is R.F. Kuang's triumphant return to fantasy after her 2023 publishing satire Yellowface. The author of The Poppy War trilogy and Babel, Kuang is of course no stranger to fantasy, and Katabasis features perhaps her most unorthodox approach to magic yet. On its surface, the book's setup seems straightforward: A Cambridge student and her rival must journey to the underworld to save their professor. But the challenges they encounter throughout their romp through Hell have as much to do with their feelings for each other, their insecurities about themselves, and their mislaid trust in Cambridge as they do with the dangers of Hell itself. Laced with Kuang's signature critiques of colonialism and academia, Katabasis is also a love story, and an ultimately stunning one at that.'—LPP $24.50 at You Might Also Like The 15 Best Organic And Clean Shampoos For Any And All Hair Types 100 Gifts That Are $50 Or Under (And Look Way More Expensive Than They Actually Are)
Elle
18 hours ago
- Elle
That ‘We Were Liars' Plot Twist Leaves a Major Question Unanswered
Every item on this page was chosen by an ELLE editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy. Spoilers below. In an addendum published in the deluxe edition of E. Lockhart's 2014 bestseller We Were Liars, the author mentions The Sixth Sense as one of several inspirations for the memory loss that protagonist Cadence Sinclair endures throughout Lockhart's story. As it turns out: Cady does, indeed, see dead people. This revelation will come as little surprise to fans of the book. The plot twist is exactly what propelled We Were Liars to infamy amongst readers, especially BookTok acolytes, who pushed the title back onto the bestseller list during the pandemic. But for those watching the new Prime Video adaptation without this context, the finale is likely to land much harder. Episode 10, 'My Friends Are Lying in the Sun,' at last pulls the curtain away to reveal a horrible truth: There's a simple reason the Liars—Gat, Johnny, and Mirren—didn't call Cadence for months after the events of so-called Summer 16. They weren't alive to do so. Short answer: As Johnny later puts it, the Liars 'really didn't know how to do arson.' Long answer: By the end of the Summer 16 timeline, the Liars have uncovered enough family secrets, backstabs, and betrayals to convince them they can no longer willingly participate in the Sinclair legacy. They decide they want to make a statement. They want to prove the family's obsession with inheritance is fickle, cruel, and unjustified. They want to, literally, burn it all down. They decide to set Clairmont—the main house on Beechwood Island—ablaze. (It's worth mentioning that they are also a little drunk.) As they wipe the wood floors with gasoline and craft Molotov cocktails on the gleaming marble countertops, they execute a reckless plan. Gat takes up his position at the boat station. Mirren turns her mother's bedroom into a tinderbox, while Johnny tackles the attic and Cadence the downstairs. At midnight, they strike their matches, but both Johnny and Mirren get distracted: Johnny by a picture of their grandfather, Harris, and Mirren by a painting in her mother's bedroom. By the time they attempt to run out of their rooms, the smoke has become too thick for them to see where they're going. Meanwhile, Cady successfully escapes the house, only to go charging back when she hears her family's golden retrievers whining from inside. The Liars have forgotten that Cady's mother locked the dogs in Clairmont to keep them calm during the evening's planned fireworks. By the time Cady reaches the goldens, everything around her is burning. A falling wooden beam smacks her across the head—likely causing the injury that will trigger her memory loss—and she can only listen to the dogs' cries as they succumb to the smoke. (If I can go through life without ever having to watch a scene like this again, I'll be thankful.) The loss of the dogs is horror enough on its own. It's an unspeakable, avoidable mistake, a terrible act of negligence and a betrayal of the animals' trust and innocence. Remembering this tragedy in the Summer 17 timeline, Cady is overcome with grief, sobbing as the Liars hold her close. But it doesn't take her long to recall the rest, and somehow, it's worse. Not only did Cady forget to let the dogs out, but she wasted precious time stealing her grandmother's black pearls from Clairmont's clutches. Doing so means Gat doesn't see her when he comes sprinting inside the building, desperate to save his would-be step-cousins. Soon, Gat, Johnny, and Mirren are all trapped inside the smoke and fire, while Cady runs out onto the beach. 'We didn't even think about the gas line,' the ghost version of Gat says in the Summer 17 timeline. And so we watch in flashbacks as the house blows up, and the force of the explosion knocks Cady back into the ocean, likely compounding her brain injury and the resulting amnesia. Gat, Johnny, and Mirren all die in the blast. They are definitely not flesh-and-blood humans, but—as Johnny makes clear—neither are they figments of Cady's imagination. They seem to be ghosts, 'haunting' Cady because she is not yet at peace with their deaths, and neither are they. No one but her seems capable of seeing these spirit-Liars (at least until the final scene, when we learn Johnny appears before his mother, Carrie). Cady interacts with each Liar once more after learning their fates: with Johnny, who admits his own fear of hell but believes Cady will spend the rest of her life doing good things to earn a tier in heaven; with Mirren, who wishes they would have 'let themselves be messy sometimes' so that they 'actually could have seen each other'; and with Gat, who isn't sure if he's 'real' but knows he loves her still. The ghosts only finally disappear after all four Liars jump off the dock together one last time. Cady's grandfather, Harris, has eyed Cady as the next heir of the Sinclair empire. When she rejects his gift—her grandmother's black pearls—she thereby rejects his symbolic passing of the baton. Harris decides, then, to threaten her. He reveals that a Time reporter will soon arrive on the island to interview him about his legacy. If Cady does not accept her place in the Sinclair family tree, Harris claims he will tell the journalist what he knows about what happened that fateful night in Summer 16. Cady's relatives believe she was a tragic heroine, the sole survivor who attempted to save her cousins from a terrible (accidental) fire. Harris knows the truth: The 'arson, animal cruelty, and involuntary manslaughter' will characterize the rest of her life, should it become known to her family, her friends, and the general public. 'When the reporter comes on Saturday, you keep that in mind,' he tells her. But after bidding the ghost-Liars goodbye, Cady doesn't seem to care what comes next. When the reporter eventually asks for her take on the Sinclair story, Cady says she's 'just really not into fairytales anymore,' and runs off to steal her family's boat and flee the island. Her mother and aunts watch from afar, proud to see her breaking free. We Were Liars ends its first-season run not with a scene between Cady and her Liars but between Aunt Carrie and the ghost of her son, Johnny. As Carrie prepares to leave Beechwood at the end of the summer, she walks back inside her kitchen, only to find Johnny—or, rather, his presence—waiting for her. When she says she'd thought he'd 'left' by now, he replies, 'I don't think I can.' The screen then cuts to black. That leaves one major question unanswered. Forget whether or not the Liars are 'ghosts' or 'spirits' or hallucinations. We know they're dead. But if one of them 'can't leave' Beechwood, does that mean he's stuck forever? And if Johnny is stuck, are the other Liars stuck, too? With Cadence gone, can they 'pass on' without her? Or will Carrie take up the mantle as their sole witness? Such a cliffhanger is certainly set up as a lead-in for a potential We Were Liars season 2, which could draw material from Lockhart's prequel novel, Family of Liars. (That book indeed centers Carrie and her sisters as teenagers on Beechwood.) Still, there's no guarantee yet whether Prime Video will end up renewing the series. For now, Johnny will just have to wait.
Elle
18 hours ago
- Elle
The Books You Should Actually Be Reading This Summer, According to ELLE Editors
For those of us who believe a packed bag is never complete without two (or ten) books, summer is our time. Nothing compares to the euphoria of a wide-open weekend, warm weather, a good book, a good view, and a sweating glass of something close at hand. If you're craving such synergy, perhaps the trickiest question isn't even where to go; it's what to bring with you. Still, the very definition of 'beach read' is fluid, subject to your taste. With that in mind, ELLE editors have compiled a list of new summer books that run the gamut between realism and fantasy, romance and horror, literary and breezy—with the hopes you'll find a read to fit your itinerary. Without further ado, below are our picks for the best books of summer 2025, as defined by the months of June, July, and August. Don't forget your sunscreen. With contributions from Kayla Webley Adler, Sara Austin, Moriel Mizrahi Finder, Adrienne Gaffney, and Kathleen Hou. Out now. 'In S.A. Cosby's riveting crime thriller King of Ashes, investment manager Roman Carruthers wakes from a dream of his mother—who went missing when he and his siblings were teenagers—only to discover his father has been in a terrible accident. Roman returns home to the former manufacturing epicenter known as Jefferson Run, Virginia, where his sister, Neveah, is struggling to keep the family crematorium running. But it's their brother, Dante, who's in the worst trouble of their trio. As Roman and Neveah discover that their father's accident was no accident at all, they learn Dante is in debt to a dangerous local gang, and Roman's deep pockets might not be enough to placate them. The criminals want Roman's skills, and soon he's embedded with them, fighting for his family while wrestling with the morality—or lack thereof—of his choices. Cosby drives his readers through the story at full-throttle, and yet little ends up rushed: His characters are deeply crafted, and the issues at the heart of his epic are rightfully complex. This is yet another smash hit from the author of All the Sinners Bleed.'—Lauren Puckett-Pope, culture writer ''I grew up fully aware that my father was a brilliant man whose expertise I should never ever question. Did I believe that he was a good man? That's another question entirely,' writes Janelle Brown—from the perspective of her protagonist, Jane—in What Kind of Paradise, a perfect sort of immersive, tantalizing, thought-provoking summer read. The novel centers Jane, who grew up idolizing her father and adhering to his isolationism during her off-the-grid upbringing in mid-'90s rural Montana. But when he decides to publish an anti-tech manifesto and she becomes his inadvertent accomplice-in-crime, Jane ultimately makes a run for it. She lands in the tech mecca of San Francisco, where she hopes to learn the truth about her mother's long-ago death whilst immersing herself in the very technology her father condemns. A thriller and a coming-of-age saga, What Kind of Paradise is a gripping reckoning with family, AI, and what we do in the pursuit of progress.'—LPP Out now.'Early in Susan Choi's latest book, 10-year-old Louisa and her father disappear on a beach. Only one of them will eventually be found. What begins as a standard thriller veers in an unexpected direction as Louisa's parents' histories—her mother's estrangement from her American family and her father's from his in North Korea—become an inescapable factor in this story from the National Book Award-winning author of Trust Exercise. '—Adrienne Gaffney, features editor Out now. 'I'll Tell You When I'm Home is not a straightforward story, but neither is Hala Alyan's. Told in hundreds of bite-sized segments that give her memoir the rhythm of her poetry, Alyan threads together 11 chapters, each organized by a month in the growth cycle of a fetus. (For example, 'Month Three: Your baby has fingers and toes,' and 'Month Seven: Your baby is the size of a coconut.') These passages provide entry points for Alyan to organize—and attempt to make sense of—her ancestral history; her frequent displacement throughout childhood; her relationships; her struggles with addiction, disordered eating, and sobriety; and, after multiple miscarriages, her journey to have a child via surrogate. 'I have never not been Palestinian,' she writes in one section. 'That has never not been written upon my body.' And it is in the writing about her body—its history, its travel, its desires, its pains, its othering, its future, its continuation in the tiny form of her child—that Alyan triumphs. This is a beautiful, soul-bearing book.'—LPP Out now.'A recent college graduate, David Smith is torn between two identities—that of a wealthy Stanford grad and of a Black, queer man. When he's arrested for drug possession, he realizes that the world of elite misbehavior that his friends live in is one that he cannot fully join. Author Rob Franklin beautifully illustrates the bubbly excesses of youth coming up against the sobering realities of racism, addiction, and violence.'—AG Out now. 'A quick read—the kind you can definitely finish in a couple summer afternoons—Jess Walter's latest crackles with the author's wit, even whilst immersing itself in the thick of modern American woes. So Far Gone's protagonist is Rhys Kinnick, a former environmental journalist who opts for an off-the-grid lifestyle after a seismic clash with his son-in-law, a conspiracy theorist whose repeated tirades about 'secular globalists' and the 'lame-stream media' ultimately push Kinnick over the edge. But when, years later, his grandchildren show up outside Kinnick's door, their mother inexplicably missing, Kinnick is pulled into a zany adventure (with an equally entertaining ensemble cast) as he attempts to bring his family back together.'—LPP 'In this superb speculative tale from the author of Lakewood, seven strange and inexplicable portals appear in random locations around the planet. These portals inspire fear and awe and, in some, faith. Years after the doors' appearance, twin daughters Ayanna and Olivia live separately, each with a different parent: Ayanna with their father, who grew up in a religious group devoted to one of the portals, and Olivia with their mother, a traditional Roman Catholic. When Ayanna comes of age and is called to step through the portal, Olivia decides to join her—but then Olivia goes missing. Meet Me at the Crossroads is a stirring, meditative story of spirituality, family, and the desire to love deeply in a difficult world.'—LPP ''How do we not lose ourselves in love? How do we hold on to our beliefs and our ethics in the face of great feeling?' Melissa Febos proposed these questions to me during our ELLE interview last October, during which she announced her next book: The Dry Season, a memoir about her year abstaining from sex. As Febos put it, she spent that year 'trying to let go of this lineage that I think I had belonged to, involuntarily, of these overemotional, romantic people who were thrown around by love and romance and very obsessive and out of control. I spent this time looking for people who had big, self-actualized, beautiful, art-oriented lives that didn't necessarily exclude love, but weren't ruled by it—or at least by this romantic fantasy of it.' Her resulting memoir is indeed 'self-actualized, beautiful, and art-oriented,' weaving literary, cultural, and historical touchstones with her own experience. As Febos showed us with her previous books, including Girlhood and Body Work, it is always a privilege to ponder the big questions through her distinct lens.'—LPP 'After V. E. Schwab's 2020 bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue blew up during the pandemic, fans have eagerly awaited the next stand-alone adult novel from the author known for her grounded fantasy stories. In Bury Our Bones, which Schwab calls her 'toxic lesbian vampires' book, three women navigate centuries of blood lust in this portrait of queer identity, feminine resilience, and unrelenting thirst. This is without a doubt one of my favorite fantasies of the year.'—LPP Out now.''Few things have I been surer of: the woman at the front at the top row of my double decker is my mother.' And so Yrsa Daley-Ward introduces us to the central conceit at the heart of her debut novel, in which Clara, a high-profile author, sees her long-missing mother in the middle of London—and she looks far younger than her would-be 60-odd years. Who, then, is this woman? Clara's twin sister, Dempsey, thinks she is a con artist. Clara is less convinced. But the story only grows stranger when we learn this version of their mother is childless; she never gave birth to Clara or Dempsey. On top of that, Daley-Ward incorporates a book-within-a-book approach that plants pieces of Clara's blockbuster novel, Evidence, alongside her mother's writing. The results are strange, kaleidoscopic, smart—difficult to describe but hypnotic in their pull. The Catch is a mind-bending feat.'—LPP Out now.'I'll devour just about anything written by or about Toni Morrison, whose incomparable works of literature—including Beloved, The Bluest Eye, Sula, and so many others—continue to inspire readers decades after their publication. But I, along with many others, have understood Morrison mainly in this context: as an author. So it's a gift to peek behind the curtain of Morrison's indeed 'legendary' editorship at Random House (from 1965 through 1983) in Dana A. Williams's Toni at Random. This biography, of course, is intriguing for those of us obsessed with the ins and outs of publishing, but even readers less inclined to weigh the industry's merits will find material to appreciate in Williams's account. Although the book skews occasionally academic, Toni at Random is also a balanced and fascinatingly well-researched account of Morrison's editorial vision—and how it still impacts what we read today.'—LPP 'Despite having no sisters, I love and crave stories of sisterhood. And Kakigori Summer is a tale of sisterhood as delicious and finely textured as the shaved-ice dessert its protagonists relish in, and from which the book draws its title. Bittersweet, nostalgic, and easy to envision, Emily Itami's novel introduces us to three sisters: Rei, a driven finance worker in London; Kiki, a Tokyo-based single mother and retirement home employee; and Ali, a J-pop star whose scandalous kiss with a married man draws the paparazzi a little too close. Rei and Kiki rush in to offer Ali some much-needed insulation, and the three escape to the coastal Japanese town where their grandmother still resides. Over the course of the summer, they reckon with their relationship to one another, as well as the loss of their mother years prior. The coastal setting is itself a character in this book, and perhaps one of the book's biggest selling points—Itami makes the landscape feel as real as the bond between the sisters. A lovely, tender-hearted tale.'—LPP 'In this whimsical beach read from Ashley Poston, known for her magical love stories, songwriter Joni Lark is suffering from a bout of writer's block. She heads home to North Carolina, where her parents want to close the family-owned music venue. But then Joni realizes she has a telepathic connection with a has-been musician. Can they use their link to write the perfect song—and save the summer?'—LPP 'Taylor Jenkins Reid's latest heroine is going to space. In 1980, astrophysics professor Joan's unexpected selection for NASA's Space Shuttle program puts her in line to be one of the first female astronauts. Atmosphere tells Joan's gripping, sensitive, and romantic story of finding love in a career where disaster is a constant threat.'—AG 'A gorgeous queer literary romance, Marie Rutkoski's Ordinary Love depicts the second-chance romance between former teenage girlfriends Emily and Gen. Years have passed since their relationship ended, and Emily is now married with two children, an Upper East Side townhouse, and an abusive hedge-fund-manager husband she met at Harvard. Gen, meanwhile, is a world-renowned Olympic athlete. When Emily and Gen reunite, much has changed about them both—but the chemistry between them remains. As Emily wrestles with a separation from her husband and all that it portends, she must also contend with Gen's reappearance in her life. There is still anger and hurt between them, and Emily isn't sure she can handle any more emotional damage after years of her husband's abuse. But the connection Gen and Emily share is maybe, just maybe, worth fighting to keep.'—LPP Out June 24. 'Within the first few pages of Hal Ebbott's debut novel Among Friends, I knew I needed to go scrounge up a highlighter. There are so many of Ebbott's lines that sing, each of them elegant and insightful in their clarity. (Here's one favorite: 'They were like scars, these talents, like things learned in war: even when they were of use, part of her wished not to know.') The book depicts the seemingly effortless friendship between two families—and particularly between their two patriarchs, Amos and Emerson, who first met in college. Although their backgrounds couldn't be more different, they are drawn together, their trust implicit and undeniable. Decades later, they remain close friends, as are their wives and daughters, and the families reunite for a weekend upstate—a yearly tradition amongst their group. But when one of them chooses to wield their power in a shocking act of abuse, they each are given a choice: Continue as if nothing's happened, or reckon with the rot that's always been present in their lives. Among Friends is utterly engrossing; I'm already begging my friends to read it so we can discuss the ending.'—LPP 'By now Lisa Jewell is well-beloved for the addicting quality of her thrillers, and her latest, Don't Let Him In, is no exception. From the first page, the book feels taut with danger, its characters tangled in a web they can't yet recognize. The plot is shaped like a classic domestic suspense: A man is not who he says he is. (He is, in fact, utterly awful!) But the identity of that man is not initially known to the women in his life, including a widow named Nina, her daughter, Ash, and a local florist named Martha, whose lives unexpectedly intersect when this man's charm proves a horrible facade. I can't reveal much more without spoiling Jewell's twists, but suffice to say, this is one of those gripping beach reads sure to keep you flipping the pages on your next flight.'—LPP Out June 24. 'Adela's parents are furious when she becomes pregnant at 16, and they quickly send her to live with her grandmother in Florida. But what was intended as a punishment turns into something beautiful. What she finds in her new home is an incredible community of teenage moms, girls who have been looked down on by their community but who have created a family together. Mottley shows that while young mothers face incredible challenges, their lives can still be full of extraordinary love and joy.'—AG Out June 24.'Leesa Cross-Smith—the author behind Half-Blown Rose and This Close to Okay, among others—turns her eye for intimate connection toward three Americans adrift in Seoul in As You Wish. Lydia, Jenny, and Selene have arrived as au pairs hoping to rewrite their own scripts: Lydia longs for a main-character life, Jenny is determined to put romance firmly in the rear view, and Selene believes South Korea holds the key to finding the birth mother she's never met. Their paths—and secret wishes—intertwine on a weekend trip to a mythic waterfall said to grant desires. When one of them circles back for a do-over, the ripple effect forces all three to reckon with what they truly want and what they're willing to risk for it, turning a fizzy drama into something richer: a meditation on friendship as the greatest magic of all. The result is a cozy escape that reminds us every wish carries its own shadow—and that sometimes the happiest ending is finding the people who understand yours.'—Moriel Mizrahi Finder, editorial assistant 'Pitched as Love Island meets Lord of the Flies—which, woof, that's enough of a heady concoction to draw in readers already—Aisling Rawle's debut is an intoxicating literary suspense. It takes place on the set of a reality dating competition—filmed in a desert compound sometime in a dystopian future—in which an uneven number of male and female contestants must compete to spend each night with someone of the opposite sex. Along the way, they must complete tasks and competitions for rewards. Some are relatively harmless ('Wear another girl's clothes without asking'), while others ('Banish a couple from the compound') veer darker. At the center of this game is Lily, who is young, beautiful, and content to do whatever it takes to win. A slow-burning but scathing assessment of consumerism, vanity, and our deep-rooted desires to perform.'—LPP
