Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag 2019

It’s reached the point in the year where i re-evaluate my reading choices, life choices and pretty much everything else. Luckily, the mid-year freak out tag has been around for some years now to help you look back on your reading and look forward to what you might actually want to read in the rest of the year.

The Best Book You’ve Read So Far in 2019?
This is incredibly difficult because i’ve read so many incredible books this year so far, but i don’t think i’ve found one that truly fits in to my ‘top five books of all time’ sort of thing. So instead of the best book, i’m going to list a few books that i think are definitely notable:

• On The Come Up by Angie Thomas
• Meat Market by Juno Dawson
• All The Things We Never Said by Yasmin Rahman
• Birthday by Meredith Russo

The Best Sequel You’ve Read in 2019?
I hardly ever read sequels, and you’ll probably know that if you’ve kept up with the blog or our Twitter account in the last four years. I do love sequels, but for some reason, something always steers me away from reading them. Because of this, i’ve not read any sequels so far this year! I probably should rectify that in the second half…

A New Release You Haven’t Read Yet But Want To?
I’ve had Opposite of Always by Justin A. Reynolds on my TBR for the longest time now, and i’ve still not gotten around to reading it. At this point, i don’t even think it’s a new release. Once it was released, the YALC excitement started and i’ve been focusing on my books for that, so i really hope that i’m not hyping it up too much now and i’ll be disappointed when i get around to it in six months time.

Biggest Disappointment?
Sadly, my biggest disappointment this year was A Good Girls Guide To Murder by Holly Jackson. This book has been hyped up for a good year now. It was huge at YALC in 2018, and it’s been constantly talked about since. However, i found it quite dull, predictable, unrealistic and i just didn’t connect with it at all. I had no issues with Holly’s writing, it was actually quite good, most of my issues were plot, so i’m excited to see what she comes out with in the future.

Biggest Surprise?
Other Words For Smoke by Sarah Marie Griffin has easily been my biggest surprise. I didn’t know what to truly expect from the book, but i knew that if i didn’t read it soon Lauren from Norther Plunder would disown me as a friend. I actually ended up really enjoying the book i loved the weird twists and different characters. It’s something i found incredibly easy to read and keep up with considering i was a little nervous to start it.

My other biggest surprise which deserves a mention is Girls Of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan. I wasn’t expecting a whole bunch from this book, but we read it for our LGBTQ+ book club this year and i ended up adoring the story of it.

Favourite New Author?
I don’t know if you can count Yasmin Rahman as a new author due to her being involved in anthologies in the past, but her debut novel All The Things We Never Said is due to be released on Thursday (11th of July) and i was lucky enough to be gifted an early copy. I absolutely adore Yasmin’s writing and her experimental nature with writing. Without a doubt she’s an author that i will continue to read, i think Yasmin is definitely a new favourite.

Newest Fictional Crush?
I really struggle with fictional crushes, i have some from a long time ago that i’ve obviously carried with me as i’ve grown up (Noah Shaw), however as i’ve gotten older i can’t say that i’ve got many new fictional crushes. So for this one i have absolutely no answer. The one thing i’m missing from my reading this year is falling completely in love with a character. That’s not yet happened.

A Book That Made You Cry?
I haven’t cried at many books this year, after all it does take a lot for me to cry whilst reading. However, i received a copy of How To Make Friends With The Dark by Kathleen Glasgow, and honestly i was a mess throughout the entire thing.

A Book That Made You Happy?
Proud The anthology by Stripes was released earlier on in the year, and that entire time made me incredibly happy. I adore Stripes anthologies and Proud was one that really touched my heart. We did a lot of work for Stripes around the publication of Proud and the book is so wonderful and covers so many bases, it’s really difficult not to completely fall in love with it. Just reading it made me incredibly happy.

The Most Beautiful Book So Far?
I think one of the most beautiful books that have been released and i’ve read this year has to be The Quiet At The End Of The World by Lauren James. Her book covers are always completely stunning and match the stories perfectly. I adored the cover and i also thought the book was incredibly beautifully written and expresses a lot of points about the human race that i thought were interesting.

So that’s the mid-year book freak out tag if you made it to the end of this incredibly long post. I always do find it useful to look back at the year of reading so far, and i enjoy thinking about what i’ve had the chance to read. So far i’ve read thirty-six books, so i’m hoping to double that by the end of the year!