Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

I have no idea who made the Mid-Year Book Freakout tag, but I’ve seen it all over booktube and I’ve seen several other bloggers take part in this as well, so I thought it would be fun to join in! If you’re not familiar with this tag, it consists of 13 questions to discuss your reading year so far, since we’re halfway through 2019 now.

So far, I’ve read a total of 209 books. In 2018, my reading goal was to read a book a day, so for this year, I set my goal to 365 as well. But considering I’m already ahead of my goal, I might actually try to read 400 books! That would be a huge personal record, because I already read many more books last year than I ever had before 🙂

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Best Book You’ve Read So Far

I can’t possibly choose only one favourite book so far, so I’m going to answer this question for multiple genres:

• Adult contemporary: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
• YA contemporary: I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
• Middlegrade contemporary: Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World by Ashley Herring Blake
• Fantasy: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
• Sci-fi: We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia
• Graphic novel: Taproot by Keezy Young

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Best Sequel You’ve Read So Far

I just really can’t choose, okay? So again, I have multiple answers for this question. These are sequels that are part of three of my all-time favourite adult fantasy series:

• In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire, which is book 4 in the Wayward Children series.
• The Winter of the Witch by Katherine Arden, which is the final book in the Winternight Trilogy.
• The Kingdom of Copper by S.A. Chakraborty, which is book 2 in the Daevabad trilogy.

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New Release You Haven’t Read Yet But Want To

Okay, I’m not even going to limit my choices too much anymore. I’ll list a release for every month that I haven’t gotten to yet but really want to:

• January: The Binding by Bridget Collins
• February: The Weight of Our Sky by Hanna Alkaf
• March: Small Town Hearts by Lillie Vale
• April: Descendant of the Crane by Joan He
• May: Going Off Script by Jen Wilde
• June: Like a Love Story by Abdi Nazemian

These are all books that I already own, so I’m hoping to get to them soon!

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Most Anticipated Release for the Second Half of the Year

Just like for the last question, I’m going to list one most anticipated release for every month:

• July: Heartstopper, Vol. 2 by Alice Oseman
• August: The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta
• September: Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell
• October: Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
• November: The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
• December: Children of Virtue and Vengeance by Tomi Adeyemi

I quickly came to realize the flaw in organizing these by month, because there are just so! many!! amazing!!! September releases!!!!!!

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Biggest Disappointment

This is actually a very easy question to answer, because my most disappointing read of the year so far is a book I just finished last week: All the Better Part of Me by Molly Ringle. I came across this book on booktube, saw the bi flag on the cover, and thought it sounded amazing. But it honestly hurt me so much to read this book. If you’re curious to read my review, you can read it here.

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Biggest Surprise

This seems like a bit of a shady question, because saying a book was my biggest surprise of the year implies that I didn’t actually expect to enjoy it. I don’t usually pick up books when I don’t think I’ll like them, so in that sense, I don’t have a lot of surprise reads. But I do sometimes try to venture out of my comfort zone, and I last did that last week by reading an adult romance. I usually don’t really click with that genre, but when I read Broken Records by Lilah Suzanne, I really enjoyed it!

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Favourite New Author (Debut or New to You)

I usually only start to consider an author a favourite if I’ve read multiple books by them, because I tend to sometimes be disappointed when I loved one book by an author but not love their other books. I don’t want to give any double answers in this post, so I won’t choose any of the authors I’ve already mentioned here!

One author who was new to me this year is Caleb Roehrig. I read Death Prefers Blondes shortly after it came out and really enjoyed it. So I also picked up his other books, and I really liked Last Seen Leaving as well. White Rabbit wasn’t really for me, unfortunately, but I definitely want to read his next book!

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Newest Fictional Crush

Being aroace, I don’t get (fictional) crushes, but I CAN tell you my favourite fictional romance, so that’s what I’m going to do instead. I promised not to include doubles, but I can honestly only choose Alex and Henry from Red, White & Royal Blue, because I love them with all my heart. I’ve already read the book twice, and I just know I’ll reread it again at some point.

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Newest Favourite Character

In January, I finally read The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic for the first time. And I fell in love. The series definitely has its issues, and it’s all very messed up, but I just love the characters so fucking much. It’s safe to say I would die for Neil Josten. (Not that he’d need me to, I’d be completely useless in a fight.)

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Book That Made You Cry

I never really remember if a book made me cry, but Not Your Backup by C.B. Lee definitely did. Not because it made me sad, but because I loved the way the aroace main character discussed her (lack of) sexual and romantic attraction, and it just made me feel really seen. I reviewed this book on my blog a while ago, so you can read my full review here!

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Book That Made You Happy

I didn’t have to think about this very long, because I read The Summer of Jordi Perez by Amy Spalding in one sitting and it made me really happy. This is the perfect summer read, with a fat protagonist who loves fashion and food, and a very lovely f/f romance.

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Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought This Year

This is not a new release, but I just got my hands on the UK hardback of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller last weekend, and it’s now one of my most prized possessions. I just love this book so much!

What Books Do You Need To Read By the End of the Year

Look, I don’t even have room for all of the books on my physical TBR anymore. Do you really expect me to make a short list of books I really need to read? Nah. I can’t. I do hope to get through most of the books on my TBR though!!

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I hope you liked this post! How has your reading year been so far? I wasn’t tagged to do this, so I’m not going to tag anyone else either. If you’d like to do this too, consider yourself tagged! 🙂

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