Oh, hello! Today we are here to do the mid year
book freakout tag, which is a perennial favorite here on BookTube. And it is not quite the middle
of the year- that is July 2, but close enough. So we're going to go ahead and do this. I want
to try to restrict my navel gazing in this and make this truly like a tag and have this be
pretty rapid fire. I will just say that upon reflecting through what I have read so far
this year, I realized that this doesn't... it's a weird year, because I don't feel like
there are that many like super high highs, nor have there been a lot of super low lows,
I feel like the average book I'm reading is a little bit better than my expectations. Like
I feel like my average book is about a three and a half star. But I haven't had a ton of five
star or four and a half stars- not as many as I would have hoped or wanted. I did go through.
Like I'm still sort of coming out of a slump in the spring. So maybe that's a part of it. I
don't know. But all that to say just a general kind of commentary on reading so far this year. I
definitely have things I'm excited to talk to you guys about. But as a whole, that is my comments.
So without further ado, we will try to keep this going pretty quickly here. So straight out the
gate. The first question is what is the best book you've read so far this year? My actual answer
to that is this book but because it's going to be my answer to the next question. I will say
my second best book that I've read this year is The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin- it made me
weep. It's a classic of nonfiction for a reason, especially the letter to his nephew just
like destroyed me, in the best possible way. Highly recommend. It's very short not... I
was gonna say very easy to get through. It's it is in the sense of it's not difficult
language. It's not dense prose. The thoughts in it are pretty thought provoking. But it is not
a overly difficult piece of literature to read, other than the kind of content and emotional
components and it deeply affected me and I really loved it. Then the second question is what's the
best sequel you've read and I that by definition, the fifth book in a five book series is a sequel
so Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian. This is my favorite book I've read so far this year. It is
such an appropriate ending to that original five book series, the fact that it's called the last
Olympian and thematically what that means kills me. I loved the plot. I loved the characters. I
loved everything about this book, I can't really tell you much about it because it is the last book
in the series. But this is my favorite book so far this year, what and by the way, I'm making my
way through the Heroes of Olympus. And once I'm done with that, Ashley is going to come on from
Bookish Realm and we're going to do a live show about both series. So I'm excited for that. Next
question is a new release that I've not yet gotten to that came out this year that I need to one
is Blood Heir by Ilona Andrews, right up here, which is the first in a spin off series of Kate
Daniels, which is probably my all time favorite series. So I need to get to it. I've been sort of
like saving it up. And I don't- I don't know, do people do this with books they're really excited
about I've been sort of saving it up. Similarly, the reason I haven't yet read Amari and the Night
brothers by BB Alston is because I'm saving it for the moment where I'm perfectly in the mood, so
that I can just enjoy it for what I'm sure is going to be just a delightful ride. So those are
the two books that I've not yet gotten to that were released this year that I really want to get
to most anticipated book for the back half of the year. Honestly, there's a lot of books I'm excited
for. I'll talk more about that later in July, a lot of the books that I was really pumped for
have already come out. I would say if I had to pick one that I'm most excited for, I probably
would say The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang, just because we had a year off from her little
kiss quotient series, and I'm really excited about the hero for this one. I have a digital art of it.
So really, I just, I'm probably gonna read it here in the next couple of weeks. And I'm really
excited to get to it. It comes out I believe, at the end of August so I will say that's probably
a things that are actually confirmed to come out this year that's probably my most anticipated,
though, actually, I will say tied now that I'm thinking about it... I will say Sam's book in
the Ice Home series. I think I know who her hero is. I hope I know who her hero is. And if
it's who I think it is, I think that will be a really good book so I will say that's my
other anticipated one. I believe that one's out in September. Biggest disappointment of the
year? I'm gonna say generally the Lord Peter Wimsey series from Dorothy L Sayers guys,
I was expecting this to be like some yummy, delicious mystery candy for me this year that I
was just gonna get to just savor and enjoy with y'all. And that is not how it turned out. I
guess I'll say Whose Body? because that has been the most disappointing of them so far, but
i'm not... i'm going to DNF that series. I did finally finish All the books I wanted to read
in that series, so I can at least sort of like, be done with that as a real bummer. And I'm sorry,
like that's, you know, sometimes when you pick something for a group read you've not read before
doesn't work out the way you were hoping it would. So that has definitely been the case for that
series. Unfortunately, I have books in it that I really did enjoy. So like The Nine Tailors-
I thought was good. And I believe that I if I went back and read Gaudy Night and Busman's
Honeymoon, I would still really enjoy those. But yeah, just not not as good as I was hoping.
Sadly. Biggest surprise? I'm going to say 2, I'm going to say Dead Dead Girls by Nekesa
Afia, just because I was expecting it to be somewhat of a cozy historical mystery. And it
actually ended up being a pretty hard hitting serial killer thriller set in 1920s Harlem- really
recommend I thought it was a very strong debut, but it just wasn't the kind of book that I
thought it was going to be. And then The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte. Just knowing what
the setup of this book was, I thought that I knew what the titular tenant's backstory might be.
And I was completely wrong about that. And in a way that delighted me, like I really loved
where this book ended up going in terms of the themes that explored the things that it was
tackling in its time, I think are fascinating. I love this book. This is one of my favorite reads
of the year. But it really surprised me in terms of like going there in a way that I didn't think
it would. Next a favorite new author, either a debut or sort of like new to you? I'm going to
take this in two directions. One, a new author, who I now consider to be an autobuy is P Djeli
Clark, just because I tried Ring Shout last year. And then I think, actually the first book in the
series, A Dead Djinn in Cairo might have been the last book I read in 2020. But the first book I
read in 2021, was The Haunting of Tram Car 015. And I also read A Master of Djinn. And between
all of that he is just an auto buy author for me at this point. I love his world building
his storytelling. It's all just really, really wonderful, dense, imaginative, fun, thematically
rich, great characters. I just really love what he does. So I would say he's my new auto buy author.
And then I would say that in terms of an author, I found, I would say, Honey Philips, because while
her stuff is not as good as Ruby Dixon, like, it's just it's not in my opinion, but I think it's
the closest thing to Ruby Dixon that I've found and she has such a big backlist that it's
been fun for me to like start diving into it, and have something that's at least approaching
the vibes and the delight of a Ruby Dixon book. So I would say she's my other favorite new to
me author. Newest fictional crush? Not really something I do but if I had to say I do love the
hero in Last Guard by Nalini Singh, Canto Mercant, I just love him. If he were a real man, he'd
be my type for sure. He's pretty dreamy anyway, I can't wait for you guys to read that book. It's
really really good comes out in July strap in. It's great. I also recently interviewed Nalini
Singh if you want to hear more about that book, I will try to remember to link that somewhere. And
then favorite new character again, technically we met her I met her the very end of 2020 but really
2021 and I would say that is Fatma El'Sha-arawi? I believe it's how you say her last name. She
is the detective in the series. She is a dandy, she is queer. She is smart. She is fabulous. She's
a great family member. She's just great. I love her- great detective great main character down to
read pretty much anything that she's starring in. Then a book that made me cry. I already
mentioned The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin definitely made me cry, particularly in
that letter to his nephew. And then the other one I'm going to say is Firekeeper's Daughter
by Angeline Boulley. This is a hard hitting YA, it's like between a YA contemporary and a YA
thriller. It's it's definitely a thriller, but it reads more like a hard hitting contemporary. Man.
All the content warnings like everyone you can think of like racism, SA, abuse, substance abuse,
like just everything. It has this and it's... ripped my heart out and put it back together.
But I wept reading this book. It is so good. My mom read this recently upon my recommendation,
she couldn't put it down. She read it in like two days, which is unusual for her. It is so so
good, but it is also very emotional. So strap in for that. And then a book that just made me happy.
I'm gonna say Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells, because this is Murder bot literally solving a
murder mystery... could this be more squarely aimed at me? It could not. And I don't think
this is the best in the series, but it's maybe the most fun in the series. And it just made
me smile. I had a great time reading this one. And the most beautiful book I bought I would
actually say I just got this big beautiful bind up of Monstress the first three volumes of
Monstress, but since it's art that I already had, I'm gonna say Monkey King by Wu Cheng'en. This
is one of the latest penguin clothbound classics, designed by Coralie Bickford Smith and I Just love
the color story in this one as well as like that wave pattern that's obviously inspired by the
source material. So I'm gonna say this is the most beautiful one that I got. And then in terms
of things I need to read well, in terms of my 21 books that I want to read in 2021, I'm actually
doing pretty well on that. Because I'm now done with all the Dorothy L Sayers stuff. I also read
both of the Robin Hobb books on that list. And I think I read one other one. But I do want to keep
making progress on that. So for instance, I want to finish off the Heartstone trilogy from Elle
Katherine White. So when I read both of those, I want to finish up the Scythe trilogy from Neil
Schusterman. I still have, I'd say, probably nine books left on that list that I want to finish
up this year. So I want to do that. Now that I'm done with the Dorothy L Sayers project, I have
some more sort of like mood reading room for classics. So I have read a few classics, you've
already heard me talk about a couple of them so far this year, but I want to focus more on
that for the rest of the year and make my way through my classics TBR for the year, because
I'm really hoping I can read a lot of those. So fingers crossed that like I can get some energy
and Mojo around that going. And then I also want to focus more on my Nora Roberts, reading
project Reading Roberts, in particular Year One, and this has Irish Thoroughbred in it for reasons
that you guys will be hearing about very soon, these two in particular, but I'm also looking
to read a lot of more Roberts for the rest of the year, at least I'm hoping to. So between that
and then the ARCs that I still need to read not as many but I do still have a few that I'm hoping
to get to that will be a pretty full reading list. So that is my Mid year freak out tag. I think I
kept that moving pretty snappy. So good job me. Let me know how your reading has gone so far this
year? Let me know that in the comments below. And yeah, I think that that will do it for me. So
if you enjoyed this video, please like, subscribe, follow me on the social media if you're so
inclined. I have all that information listed in the description box below. Including merch By the
way! I just put up some merch for the first time. So check that out if you're interested. That link
is in the description box. And yeah, that will do it for me. Hope you're having an absolutely
lovely day and I'll talk to you soon. Bye!
