2021 Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag!

Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog! 

How are we already half-way through the year? I'm definitely not freaking out about that, nope. 

But seriously, it's the middle of June and you know what that means: it's time to do the Mid-Year Book Freakout tag! I did this tag for the first time last year but I had so much fun and I promised myself I would do it every year for the foreseeable future. So grab a drink of your choice, curl up with your phone or laptop, and let's get into the tag! 

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1. How much have you read this year? 

As usual, I track everything meticulously through Goodreads and my own stats excel sheet (which only tracks novels, not manga). According to Goodreads, I've completed 111 books so far, 78 of which were novels of some sort, the rest being manga volumes. As for DNFs, there have been 5.

2. What have you been reading?

Looking at my stats on my excel sheet, nearly a third of what I've read so far this year has been fantasy. After that is general/literary fiction, followed by sci-fi, historical fiction, and surprisingly general nonfiction. The rest are crumbs. 

Two-thirds of the books I've read have been targeted toward adult, then YA at one-third, and middle-grade have been crumbs. 

10.6% of the books I've read so far this year have been nonfiction.

3. Best book you've read so far this year? 

I've mentioned this book a few times before, but absolutely Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie. 

It's such an incredible historical fiction set in Japan after WWII and I think everyone would get something out of it. Noriko is such a compelling main character and I love her relationship with her older brother, Akira. There are a lot of trigger warnings however so if you're interested in reading, please look up all of the content warnings beforehand to make sure it's something you can handle. 

4. Best sequel you've read so far this year?

I feel like I haven't read a lot of sequels this year, but I know that isn't true. It just feels like it is. I think I'll go with Darius the Great Deserves Better by Adib Khorram. 

I read this last month, along with the first book Darius the Great is Not Okay. They're YA contemporaries following Persian-American teenage boy, Darius, as he tries to navigate that line between being Persian and being American, while also navigating being gay, and having clinical depression. The first book is about Darius and his family going to Iran to meet his grandparents for the first time, and the second book follows Darius back at home with a new boyfriend and a spot on the soccer team. I think both books are great slice-of-life novels, but I definitely did enjoy the sequel more. 

5. New release you haven't read, but want to?

I still haven't read The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec, and it's been sitting on my shelves for at least four months now. Also my copy of One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston is lost in the mail currently, so I haven't been able to read that yet, either. It's frustrating but I just have to deal. Rest assured, they will be read soon!

6. Most anticipated release in the second half of the year?

Hmmmm, I'll have to check Goodreads.

Okay, I found a few. The first is Dark Waters by Katherine Arden, which is the third book in her Small Spaces series. I'm completely obsessed with this middle-grade horror series and Katherine Arden has never failed me yet. 

Next I'm definitely looking forward to Small Favors by Erin A. Craig. She's the author of House of Salt and Sorrow and I've been following her progress on Small Favors for months on Twitter so I'm super excited for when it finally comes out. Also, this cover? Stunning. The most beautiful cover I've seen in a hot minute. 

7. Biggest disappointment?

Unfortunately I've had quite a few disappointing reads this year, but by far the worst was The Archive of the Forgotten by A.J. Hackwith. 

I loved the first book in the series, The Library of the Unwritten, but I ended up DNFing the sequel after struggling to read it for two weeks and barely getting half-way through. I don't know why, but something about the author's writing style changed and apparently it didn't vibe with my usual preferences. 

Honorable mentions include Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix. 

8. Biggest surprise?

I could say Fifty Words for Rain for this question too, but I want to have different answers. So I'll go with Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, it's super obscure, you've probably never heard of it. 

LOL, obviously I'm joking. It's a very famous classic and I read it in anticipation for Rick Riordan's newest book, Daughter of the Sea, which is a modern retelling of Twenty Thousand Leagues. I wasn't expecting to have as much fun as I did with this book, but I flew through it! My dad was especially thrilled with this because it was one of his childhood favorites. I wish we spent more time in the Mediterranean Sea, but we can't have everything we want, of course. I can see this book becoming a treasure to me.  

9. New favorite author (debut or new to you?)

(Have I read any debut authors this year?)  It doesn't look like it. I have a few on my TBR list, including The Witch's Heart but none that I've already read. So let me go through my excel sheet and see if there are any authors new to me this year. 

I feel like I have to mention Haruki Murakami. I've read Norwegian Wood and Kafka On the Shore so far, and while I did enjoy them both, I'm not sure if I would consider Murakami a favorite author yet. The two books I read, while I think they're his most popular, were so different from one another that I feel like I don't quite have a handle on his writing style yet. 

I've read both of June Hur's books this year, The Silence of Bones and The Forest of Lost Girls and I absolutely loved both of them. Both books were historical fiction set in Korea and I do love June's way of writing the women in both time periods. I'm excited for her next book, The Red Palace, to come out next year. 

10. Underrated gems you've discovered recently?

Okay, this question is difficult because I'm only on one small corner of the bookternet, so what I think is underrated might not actually be underrated at all, and I'm just looking in the wrong places. So take what I say here with a grain of salt, okay? 

That being said, I haven't seen anyone talking about Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. Granted, it's like ten years old at the earliest, so I've definitely missed the hype train for it. But I read His Majesty's Dragon earlier this year and fell completely in love. I'm glad this is an eight book series because it means I'll have plenty of material to read. 

A 2021 release that I haven't seen anyone talking about is We Are the Ashes, We Are the Fire by Joy McCullough. It's half-written in prose, half in verse, and I think it's absolutely beautiful. Joy McCullough is definitely one of my favorite authors after I read Blood Water Paint by her last year. 

11. Rereads this year?

I have ten rereads under my belt so far this year. First, volumes 1-8 of Saga by Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples. I needed to reread them so I could read volume 9 and not be totally lost. Then I reread Achilles by Elizabeth Cook, a novella about Achilles' life, and The Martian by Andy Weir, which is my favorite sci-fi novel. 

12. Newest fictional crush?

Like last year, I don't find myself thinking about crushes when I read anymore. Mostly because a lot of what I read follows characters either a lot younger or a lot older than I am and so I feel uncomfortable thinking about that. I do have a bit of a celebrity crush on Michelle Zauner, who wrote her memoir Crying in H-Mart, but it's mostly because of her music, and she's also a real person, so I don't think that really counts. 

13. Newest favorite character?

Easy, Temeraire! 

He's so sweet, I can see myself becoming best friends with him. All of the dragons in Naomi Novik's Temeraire series act like big scaly dogs who can talk, but I love Temeraire especially, because I think he's just a soft bean. I can't wait to read more of him. 

14. A book that made you cry?

So many? The book that made me cry the most this year was Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie, but Exit, Pursued by a Bear by E.K. Johnston also got the tear ducts working, and so did Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali. I've read a lot of emotional books this year though, so most have managed a tear or two. These three at least made me put the book down and have to take a few minutes to compose myself. 

15. A book that made you happy?

So many! I've read less fluffy books than I did last year, but I still had a few that had me squealing like a teenager in love.

 Again, Love From A to Z by S.K. Ali was one of them. It was nice to read about two young people who just found home in each other. It was super refreshing. Also, the Heartstopper graphic novel series by Alice Oseman, of course. This series is really just the book equivalent of like, hot chocolate or something sweet like that. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. 

16. Favorite book to film/TV adaptation?

Oof, have I watched anything like that this year? I feel like a lot of people's go-to would be Netflix's Shadow and Bone but I didn't watch that. So have there been any other adaptations this year?

I mean, it didn't come out this year, but I recently watched The Da Vinci Code for the first time. I thought it was fine. I watched the third Lara-Jean movie, Always and Forever, Lara-Jean during a Valentine's Day movie marathon (the first movie is still my favorite). And I watched a few episodes of Tiny Pretty Things before I got bored and quit. Other than that, I don't think I've watched any adaptations. 

17. Most beautiful cover you've bought/received this year?

I'm sure a lot of people have said this, but The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune is probably one of the prettiest books I own. The cover is just so aesthetically pleasing! I also love the cover of The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water by Zen Cho, and I bought that this year as well. 

18. What books do you need to read before the end of the year?

Whatever is still on my physical TBR. If you recall, at the beginning of the year I challenged myself to read every book on my physical TBR by the end of the year. Currently, there are 54 books on that list. I know that I can read 54 books by the end of the year, no problem. It's just that I also read a ton of books from the library too, plus I'm still buying and adding more books to that list. If you're curious, here is the link to my Goodreads shelf. 

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Alright, another year for this tag in the books! What's your favorite read of 2021 so far? Let me know in the comments! 

Until next time!