MID YEAR BOOK FREAK OUT TAG | 2021

i love pirates let's start there and i love women let's also start there [Music] hi everyone i'm haley welcome back to my channel i know it's been forever and i just want to say thank you to everyone who left the kindest the sweetest comments and sent me just such nice messages sometimes it hits me that there are over 20 000 of you following me and supporting me but usually i don't think about it i just i'm kind of existing just a little nerd girl doing her little thing but like i was literally crying in my room it's just really nice to know that there were so many people who were there for me you all mean the world to me and i'm really excited to do this video i know that a lot of people really love this tag so i'm going to be doing the mid-year book freakout tag the creators of this tag are ellie and chami i'll have my videos linked down below be sure to check them out and let's get into the tag best book you've read so far in 2021 okay so here's the thing i can't answer this with only one book that's the most absurd thing i think i've ever heard so i'm gonna give four i've read so many good books and we're only halfway through the year i feel so blessed oh my god that literally didn't make sense i'm sorry i got overwhelmed i just moved my bookshelf with my chair what if it falls on me that'd be really bad um go add me on goodreads because i have an entire shelf dedicated to my 2021 favorites did you hear that my puppies are barking they're crying so first up i have honey girl by morgan rogers i adored this book if you watched my what was it my march wrap up i raved about this book it was fantastic it was everything it was beautiful it was amazing the prose is stunning it features a queer black protagonist it's like a coming-of-age story of her figuring out what to do with her life and with herself post-grad and trying to find her place in the world trying to understand her purpose and it's just incredibly relatable like as a black queer woman myself and just dealing with imposter syndrome and also feeling like you need to really work yourself to death in order to feel successful or like properly productive i know that sounds weird but i honestly in my review literally all i said was i've never felt more seen by a book i think that's what i said i said something like that y'all ate that review up i didn't even say anything of sustenance sustenance substance anyway i think about this book at least every day if you want to hear me talk about it more go watch my march wrap up okay so my next favorite is the city of brass by essay shackleboard i've also talked about this book about a million times my channel already so i'm not going to go into too much detail this is a historical political fantasy that follows this con woman nari who accidentally comes wrong person and she gets whipped away to this magical world called devabad and she has to adjust to this new world while also learning a lot about her past and information that she never got to know about herself so it's really cool you guys know i love political ontregan books this book outsold i think that this is the best i've ever read politics done in a book the world building is so immersive and the characters really stand out on the page i just think that isn't shaggerboardy is a brilliant writer and i look up to her so much when i'm writing my own stories the next book that i really love i'm going with four okay i know i asked for one but i'm going with four think about it as you get more book recs you should be grateful next book that i love i actually don't have a copy of because i am a fraud but that book is the bluest eye by tony morrison toni morrison is one of my favorite authors actually i think she is my favorite author ever it's just every single word that she writes just pierces my soul and honestly i can't explain her impact on me like you just have to read her work because i can't do her justice with my own words i really can't i love the blues eye it really explains and emphasizes how black women and young black girls are the most vulnerable and unprotected people in american society it's really sad and it deals with a lot of really really hard concepts and themes but it's so beautiful and it's so important and honestly i think that like everyone should read it everyone should read at least one tony morrison book in their life this book is about this little black girl who is so influenced by the harmful beauty standards and expectations in her life that she wishes to be white every day she basically wishes that she looked like a little white girl and she wishes she had blue eyes tony morrison really packs a punch with all of her words i just think that she has the mind of a mastermind i'm so inspired by her i i can i don't have enough good things to say about that woman okay and the last most amazing book that i read this year is a diary of blood by st gibson when i tell you i opened this book up i did not even know what to expect i didn't know what the book was about but this book let me tell you it blew my mind this book has the best pros i think i have ever read in my entire life i've never been so sucked into a book just by the words and the style of writing alone usually it's the characters in the plot that get me but for this book the actual prose is what kept me reading the characters i did love and the plot was very fantastic but the pros i just can't get over it if you don't know what this book is about it is essentially a lyrical retelling of dracula and his wives it's queer it has polyamorous romance they're vampires it's honestly so good and you might be like oh it just sounds like a dark sexy fantasy yeah it also deals with important things and really deep things such as abuse and learning how to take control over your own life and form your own identity outside of a relationship and in a relationship i really enjoyed this book best sequel you've read so far in 2021 i think i only read like three or four sequels this year and almost none of them are worth mentioning except for one that book is the kingdom of copper by essay chakraborty this is the second book in the david bed trilogy it wasn't as good as the first book i didn't enjoy it as much as the first book but that's just because the cd brass was a tough act to follow and here's the thing that i love about the city of brass the david badge trilogy in general it doesn't rely on violence and constant action scenes to keep the plot going and to keep things interesting no no no no it's constantly building suspense and it always has a slowly burning tension throughout the book with the politics and the relationships between the characters it's just so subtle with every little thing that just keeps you completely enthralled new release you haven't read yet but want to the first book is ace of spades by farida ibk imede i actually already started it i'm like 40 pages in i'm just in a massive reading something right now i we don't know what's going on i'm really excited to get to finish this because it is literally pitched as get out meets gossip girl and while i don't care about gossip girl i love the vibes of school drama and like high school politics and also just the fact that it features two queer black main characters that's already enough to sell me and also get out is one of my favorite movies ever it's a young adult contemporary thriller and i can't wait everyone who i know who has read it has said nothing but good things about it so i have very high expectations okay so the next new release that i really want to read is the jasmine throne by tasha suri i don't even know what this book is about i'm sorry but i've been doing this thing where i go into books blind and recently i've been really loving it because all i need is a con title and a couple tropes and you can sell me on it i heard that this book is sapphic and it has politics and it has two badass women that's literally all i need to know i don't care if you tell me that a book is saffic and there are politics and violence i'm here for it you're gonna be like oh my god i don't even know what the book is about you don't need to know what the book is about just know that it's staffing and it's written by an author of color you should support them okay most anticipated release for the second half of the year okay i have three the first book is she who became the sign by shelly parker chan this book is also safic it's pitched as mulan meets the song of achilles and it's supposed to be like this lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the ming dynasty i just have such high expectations now because it's like historical fantasy but then you make it literary it's literally everything i want because it has a politics and it has beautiful prose and it's queer i can't wait for this book i can't i can't i'm not actually gonna mention the other two books because i'm not going to that's this is enough biggest disappointment i have no words i literally made a video but i'm not going to talk about it again i really don't want to the biggest surprise the biggest surprise for me was menace by jmdarhauer because i genuinely thought i would never get into dark romance i wouldn't say that i'm timid and not into the dark stuff because obviously you know i love my violence dark romance it just it doesn't work for me but this one it did it's kind of like a mafia book but it doesn't really feel like a mafia book to me not that i've read mafia book before when i sing a mafia book i think of this big bad guy who was like taking care of this girl and he's in the mafia that's it that's all i think of but this one was different because this guy didn't like the girl he actually wanted to kill her but they are romantically involved there's backstory though it's because she tried to rob him and he's this guy who has resorted to killing people because he hates his life and it's like everything else sucks so he's like i'm gonna kill this girl and then they get involved and they start working together because they both need each other to get things that they want i really enjoyed this book it's a duology and it talks about a lot of really important things trigger warnings for sexual assault and abuse and substance abuse i felt like there was a lot of heart in this story it kind of made me emotional like just some of the things that were happening and i genuinely really enjoyed the characters and the slow burn relationship that they had you know i love it when the super super tough guy only has a soft spot for this one person that he loves and he's like willing to do anything for her and i just this isn't even a favorite book of mine i literally gave it three stars but like i ate it up the only thing i didn't like about it was the writing the writing style but everything else was great so yeah that was my biggest surprise because i genuinely was about to write off dark romance if you guys have any dark romance recommendations let me know because i mostly have only read penelope douglas favorite new author debut or new to you i have three morgan rogers because honey girl is a masterpiece st gibson a diary blood was also a masterpiece and then also ecwinkia messi i think i'm saying their name right they wrote the death of even og which is another beautiful book also i just want to say all three of these books deal with queer love and how it can be way more expansive than heterosexual love maybe i have a theme in terms of my favorite authors and they all have beautiful lyrical prose if you know any other books or any other authors that write about these things or in similar ways please tell me please comment i will literally love you forever those are my new favorite authors really sorry if you can hear the dogs barking i just i can't do anything about it they're puppies they're babies they do what they want oh my newest fictional crush honestly i don't have one this is sad because i remember last year for this question i literally had like 12 and now i i can't think of any well xyala from black sun because she is a bisexual ship captain she's badass she's beautiful and i love her like what else do you need to know other than she's a ship captain i love pirates let's start there and i love women let's also start there can you guys recommend me some pirate books that have women and this is supposed to be me doing a tag but it just turned into me asking you guys for book rights i will love you forever newest favorite character also zayala i feel like this year and i was thinking about this earlier a lot of the books i read this year i've been enjoying mostly for the messages and the themes that i get from them and the beautiful writing and not so much the characters in the plot obviously i do enjoy those things but i feel like mostly i just been feeling a lot more fulfilled just because i get so much more from the book and it's not just about the character but i mean i'm saying like i could love a whole book series because of the characters like i literally did that for the majority of the y books that i read but i've noticed that with y a i tend to like characters more than anything else and now that i'm reading less y a i'm liking the other things more there are other parts of books other than plot and characters but yeah zayala is cool 10 out of 10 recommend black sun because it also is super cool because it's like a historical fantasy the magic system in this book is so cool it's like unlike anything i've ever read before if you're interested in historical fantasy that is based on the americas but pre-colonization black sun is for you i've always wanted to read fantasy that was based on american history that doesn't have to do with white people because this is about the native people of the americas before the colonizers came and ruined everything it's just brilliant honestly rebecca rowan horace her mind it's amazing book that made me cry also cemetery boys by aiden thomas had me very emotional at the end i was genuinely tearing up at 2am i wasn't expecting it was the 2am or was it 6am i don't know it doesn't matter but i was i was i was having a moment it was weird it was like happy tears but also very very sad tears no that whole book came full circle for me it's about this transgender guy who just wants acceptance from his community to prove that he can be a brujo after the flood by cassandra montag had me in shambles at the end i thought i i was no that book almost gave me an aneurysm i was about to be so mad like i literally thought i was going to throw the book it was it was i was not having a good time but at the same time this is exactly what i want books to make me feel because if a book makes me feel that intensely then i know it's a good book this book was fire after the flood is a dystopian book about the world in the future being covered in water because there was a huge flood and so now basically everyone lives on water and boats and everyone's like turning against each other they're like gangs and like violent ship people a book that made me happy also cemetery boys by aiden thomas wait i have it a book that made me happy is also cemetery boys by anne thomas it just hits all the beats so perfectly about family acceptance sexuality gender love friendship death grieving literally everything it's so good she drives me crazy by kelly quinlan this book is a sapphic young adult contemporary rom-com it is about these two girls a basketball player and the other one is a cheerleader they're like enemies like they hate each other so it's like enemies lovers you know i know y'all eat that up surprisingly i did too in this this one instance i did too it was funny it was so entertaining i was literally smiling the whole time i was reading this book because it's about these two girls that are forced to come together because they into a little accident they have to carpool while their car is in the shop they strike up a deal to fake date so that one of the girls can make their ex-girlfriend jealous yeah it was really good i was literally smiling the whole time i read it most beautiful book i've bought so far this year or received definitely daughters of neri by reni k amayo i think it's about these two girls who are siblings and they have like the powers of the gods in them like all the gods are gone but like the only remnants of the gods remain in them these two sisters that were like separated at birth so they kind of have to find their way back to each other and stop the war that's like plaguing their home this book was gifted to me by fake crate and i'm very grateful to them because it's stunning and i can't wait to read it what books do you need to read by the end of the year so many this big the empire of gold by essay track abortion this is the third and last book in the david bad trilogy so i really need to get to it but the audiobook is like 30 hours long so this is a bit intimidating before the end of the year i need to read the burning god by arf kwong this is the third and final book of the poppy word trilogy which is a historical fantasy book that follows rin who must deal with these new abilities in order to stop the war that is ravaging through her country i also heard that this book is really devastating though and you know i love to be crushed by a book i don't know if i'm stable enough for that right now i mean i guess we'll find out i also need to read ray bear by jordan ifueko i have had this book in my library holds for months i literally keep delaying the delivery of this book because i'm like i'm not ready to read it i'm not ready for fantasy it's ridiculous i need to read i need to read it but i've heard it's amazing like literally one of the best wife fantasy books ever and i'm always so excited to read debut authors of colors books i'm going to read you the word because i don't want to butcher it because last time i tried to explain what this book was about i confused myself so i don't want to confuse you guys nothing is more important than loyalty but what if you're sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy i need to read this book immediately i really hope you all enjoyed this video yeah remember to leave a comment down below let me know how your reading year has gone so far i'm really curious to know like what you guys have been enjoying thank you so much for watching remember to like this video comment down below and subscribe to my channel and i will see you next week with another video bye

Channel: Pages of Hayley

Views: 7,840

Rating: 4.986547 out of 5

Keywords: mid year book freak out tag, mid year freak out tag, bookshelf organization, unpopular opinions, book recommendations, book haul, books I love, bookshelf tour, pages of hayley, booktube, booktubers, book review, book talk, readwithcindy, nanowrimo, writing vlog, reading vlog, booktok, my favorite books, top 10 books to read, best romance books, book unhaul, sapphic books, reacting to tiktok, books you need to read, bookshelf reorganization, best fantasy books

Id: _n7xo8dPiKM

Length: 16min 29sec (989 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 09 2021