The 2022 Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag

I keep seeing this pop up on the blogs I follow, and I did it last year, so why not jump in again! Yeah, I know it’s a little bit pas the actual mid-year point, but still, we can have fun! I will probably do similar to Tammy at Books, Bones, and Buffy because I will have trouble picking just one book as well! I borrowed the header image from Jeanna at The Bucket List. Let’s get started!

# of books read so far

Technically this is past the half way point, so that’s a little off. But that’s okay. I dropped my goal from over 200 to just 200 so that I wasn’t constantly feeling behind. Plus, I thought I might do more writing. And yeah, lots of excuses.

Best Books I’ve Read So Far This Year

I always have so much trouble picking my favorites because I love so many books! But I’m going with these three. The middle one I actually just read, and had originally picked the book before this in the series for this one, but after I finished this, I had to switch out.

Best Sequels I’ve Read So Far This Year

Again, so hard to just pick 3 even! I had 8 listed to pick from!

New Releases I Haven’t Read Yet But Really Want To

The first two I bought, but haven’t read yet. The last one I had really hoped for an ARC of, but I lost my one contact at that publisher right about the time it came out.

Most Anticipated Releases for the Second Half of the Year

The first one I have an e-galley of, and I should be getting an e-galley of the third one when it gets closer to release time. I’ll probably wait and buy a copy of the second one once it is out!

Biggest Disappointments

I pushed through the first one which started out really good, but I got kind of bogged down about halfway through it. I didn’t finish the last two. I was really disappointed in the second one because the book by this author last year was one of my favorites from last year. I had already purchased a physical copy even though I had the e-galley of it, so I may try again to read it that way. The last one I heard about on Twitter and was excited because actually it’s the same title I had for the very first novel I actually got pretty far in writing, and it’s kind of set in Chicago with a hot paleontologist like mine is! But I was bored and didn’t care for the writing unfortunately.

Biggest Surprises:

So I’d never read Katee Robert but won/or got a free copy of this audiobook and gave it a try. I loved it! The Tara Sivec was a shorter audio novella type of story, and while I always love Sivec’s books, for some reason I hadn’t really thought much about this one. Boy am I glad I G-D finally listened to it! And of course the last one was a TikTok made me buy it. But once I picked it up, I was hooked and can’t wait to read the rest!

Favorite New or New to You Author

Finally got time to fit in a Sarah Ready book for a blog tour and loved it! Same with Michelle Dayton. I’ve wanted to read a John Scalzi book for awhile, and after seeing a bunch of good reviews for The Kaiju Preservation Society, I was hooked and bought a bunch more audiobooks. Only the ones that Wil Wheaton narrates though, lol.

Newest Favorite Characters – specifically book boyfriends

I adored Beckett in Mansplainer, Sam in SeatMate, and just finished and really want my own Ryan from Spare Me.

Books That Made Me Cry

The first one got me because I totally understood how she felt as I had times like that in my own life, never knowing that’s probably what it was called. Going back to the next generation of Crownover’s Marked Men series is definitely ALL the emotions. And the last one, well it just had some really emotional parts.

Books That Made Me Happy

All the cheese puns in the first one! In the second one it was the awkward stuff and way things happened. And the last one is just the later in life romance.

Favorite Book to Movie Adaption I Saw This Year

Sadly, I haven’t ever read these three, although I’ve read part of the middle one. But I LOVED these books’ tv series!

The Most Beautiful Book I Bought/Received This Year

I love my 10th anniversary special cover edition of Seduction and Snacks. I would have put both of the Meghan Quinn illustrated books too, not just this one, but I had to also include a book with a dachshund on the cover which made me so happy!

Favorite Post I’ve Done This Year

This is so hard to choose since I don’t do a ton of discussion posts. So here are the top three I guess.

• Book Bonanza 2022 Wrap-Up – I guess I loved making this one and having it to go back and look at to relive the weekend!
• 2022 Support Book Bloggers Challenge – While I haven’t really done any more of the actual challenge, this was fun to do anyway!
• Review: The Anxiety Relief Coloring Book for Adults by Kara Holmes – This was fun when the author reached out to me because it meant I spent some time coloring again which I love, but haven’t done in a while.

A Book/Books I Need/Want to Read by the End of the Year

So, the first one was on this same post last year for this same reason. Oops! I need to finish the second book’s series. And since I’ve jumped around in the third book’s series, I need to go back and fill in the ones I haven’t read yet!

Final Thoughts

So, as with last year, this was fun, but actually took a lot of time! Have you done this post? Or if you decide to, leave me a link so I can visit and check out your picks!