Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag (is this a comeback? probably not)

i guess my new thing is posting every three months and then disappearing. you love to see it.

i have been doing the mid-year book freak out tag for AGES and i love doing it, so i figured i should revive the blog to feel something AND to do the tag again, so there’s a digital footprint of my unhinged reading taste every year. also, i hate a lot of the questions in this, so i am making some up and dropping some cringe ones, sorry!

i will naturally cheat in this first question because that is just who i am as a person, and will list 3 books, just to keep you all on your toes until the end of the year.

1. The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka – genuinely a fantastic little novel, that explores memory and how crucial it is to our sense of being. very quiet and unassuming, and then packs a gut punch. emotions were felt, it was traumatizing to feel something, but i got through it.
2. The Brothers Karamazov by the man, the myth, the legend Dostoevsky – i am a dostoevsky stan first and a person second (if then) and i cannot begin to recommend you this novel. it’s like a classical soap opera. it’s scandalous! gossip! and then philosophical and religious tangents for hundreds of pages. truly THE ultimate reading experience of the year.
3. The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake – imagine a book that elicits zero thoughts. like none. but it vibes so hard. the characters are insane and yet i love them. the writing is ridiculous. please pick it up to become completely unhinged.

my reading year has mostly been romance and rereading till i stabilize my emotional distress BUT i did read The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin and it’s a masterpiece? like what a perfect conclusion to a series that is brilliant. well done. honestly, the broken earth trilogy is so unique and unlike anything i’ve ever read before, so i highly recommend it. if you’re a lit fic girlie wanting to get into fantasy, this is it. this is like the depressed woman moving book, but fantasy with a much larger scope.

also the second book in the neapolitan novels?? The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante was truly BRILLIANT like the girlies are so right about ferrante.

any book?? like i have been so bad with keeping up with new releases this year. who knows what came out. probably books. wild. anyways, let’s say that top new books to read include:

1. Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou – a very me book, called a coming-of-conciousness novel and i truly wish that were me.
2. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan – loved A Visit from the Goon Squad , would love to read this soon. 
3. Out There by Kate Folk – a short story collection that sounds RIGHT UP my alley but i am a disaster being and never pick up books. i remember a blurb saying this is as if kafka wrote a black mirror episode and like ??? how perfect is that?? truly need to get to this one soon.

i have so many here! my favorite authors are publishing new books so i am nothing if not hyped! at all times!

1. Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater – ready to get hurt again.
2. Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir – ready to be confused again.
3. The Luminaries by Susan Dennard – just ready for a new Dennard book honestly.
4. Babel by R.F. Kuang – ready to make this my whole personality.
5. Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake – ready to become feral again.

obviously it’s To Paradise. like yanagihara had no business writing something so bad and yet she did it and laughed her way to the bank. ugh.

i mean probably the atlas six?? did not expect to go full on chicken book on it but it happened and i am so happy it did.

of course i am including this category. i read a few romances i loved this year, but top one is probably the day of the duchess by sarah maclean. love her brand of historical romance and i LOVE the marriage in trouble trope. THE ANGST!! truly have not recovered since i read it.

also a new category by yours truly. i think the most universal appeal book i read this year is the swimmers by julie otsuka! it’s short, it does interesting things with narrative form and it’s really emotional. would recommend to anyone, really. but honestly it is a truth universally acknowledged that i can make people read just about anything.

there you have it! that was the mid-year book freak-out tag! let me know what is the best book you have read this year, I would LOVE to know!

In the meantime, happy reading

 

 

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