The Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag | 2021

When will everyone realize that the middle of the year falls at the very end of June/the very beginning of July, and not the middle of June? I don’t know, but it won’t stop me from posting all my mid-year reading stuff whenever in the summer I feel like it.

And today, it’s time for the annual Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag!

Read my post from last year (hard to believe I’ve had my blog for this long…)

The Questions:

The best book you’ve read this year-

Last year when I did this tag I couldn’t choose a single best book of the year, so I just listed a bunch of my 5-star reads, and I think I’m going to cheat again this year….

For fiction:

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton

The best sequel you’ve read this year-

……ummm….. *awkward silence*

Besides Hercule Poirot books, which don’t really function as a truly chronological series, I haven’t read any sequels this year.

New release you haven’t read yet but want to-

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir— I read the first few teaser chapters of this and desperately need the rest, but my hold won’t be available for six months and there is a 100+ person long line for physical library copies in my library system….

I might just buy it.

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year-

As Good As Dead (A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder #3) by Holly Jackson. I am so excited for this book to come out! AGGGTM is my favorite series at the moment and both of the first two books were awesome. (I pretty much raved about them all last year)

Biggest disappointment-

I try not to be needlessly negative on my blog, since authors work hard on their books and all ratings are a matter of sole opinion, but one book I did not like this year was Admission by Julie Buxbaum.

Biggest surprise-

Hmm this is a difficult one. This year one of my resolutions was to not read books I don’t think I’ll like– as opposed to last year, when I just read whatever was popular. I think I’ll go with Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman, since I didn’t like the first few chapters, but as I kept reading I was completely sucked into the book.

New favorite author (new to you or debut)-

Andy Weir and Daphne du Maurier! I have been searching everywhere for copies of Daphne du Maurier’s lesser-known books (everything besides Rebecca, basically) and can’t find them anywhere, which is just a little frustrating… I especially want to read My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn.

Books that made you cry-

I’m not much of a book crier… I pretty much only cry about books if it’s really late at night and I’m not emotionally stable….

The only ones from this year that I remember are:

The Light in Hidden Places by Sharon Cameron

Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman

Books that made you happy-

Umm…. I did not read many light-hearted books this year. Well. All the 5-star books I read this year made me happy because of their utter brilliance.

Favorite book-to-film adaptation-

Okay. I’m writing this tag at the perfect time, because today I found out that The Mysterious Benedict Society is getting a TV adaptation and the first two episodes came out yesterday! I was just scrolling on Instagram when I learned this crucial information, so immediately I turned on Disney+ and watched the first two episodes, and oh my gosh everything 11-year-old me loved from that series re-emerged from the deep recesses of my memory!

It’s really sad that the series is so underrated. Yes, it’s middle-grade, but it is just so creative, interesting, mysterious and full of my favorite things– riddles and brain-teasers.

Favorite posts you have written this year-

Discussion: Writer’s Block and Blogging Burnout

My Top 20 Books of 2020, Ranked (this counts, right?)

Recommending Books From My Most-Read Genres | Favorite YA and Adult Fiction

Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year-

Um… I guess Challenger Deep has a nice cover... but I bought that in December 2020…

Books you need to read by the end of the year-

Again, I don’t put much pressure on myself to read specific books in a specific time period, so I don’t really have anything for this category.

Goodreads goal-

I’m ahead of schedule for my Goodreads goal of 100 books, which is nice to see. In 2020 I read 126 books and I know I haven’t read as much as I had at this time last year, but then again this year I actually have a life that’s not quarantine so I am totally fine with that.

My Nominees-

I’m not going to nominate anyone for this tag since I was not nominated myself, but feel free to do it if you want (even though you probably all are almost certainly already planning to do it)

Thanks for reading my blog today! How has your reading year been?

Feel free to let me know in the comments!

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