Hello everyone,
Happy Friday! 🙌 July means my summer vacation is halfway over 😭. But, it also means that the year is more than halfway over and it's time for the Mid-Year Freak Out book tag (originally created by Chami and Ely).
I love this tag because it gives me a chance to highlight some of my favorite (and not-so-favorite) books of the year so far.
I did change some of the questions a little bit to better fit my reading experience. Also, I tried really hard to answer with a different book for each of the questions. However, just know that if I didn't do that The Kiss Quotient would've been my answer to several of the questions. 😅
Without further ado...
1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2018.
Hands down it's The Kiss Quotient by Helen Hoang. I love EVERYTHING about this book and it's the only book I've given 5 stars to this year. It's not just a favorite of the year, but one of my all-time favorite books. Read my full review.
2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2018.
It's not a direct sequel to the first book, but I'm going to give it to The Failing Hours (How to Date a Douchebag #2) by Sara Ney. I thought The Studying Hours was crap so I had low expectations for The Failing Hours, which focused on a different couple and can be read as a standalone. I had expected more of the same crap pacing and cheesy, try-hard dialogue, but NO! I love the MCs, the writing was great, and it's so swoon-worthy. My favorite in the whole series.
3. New release you haven't read yet, but want to.
4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year.
5. Biggest disappointment.
Christina Lauren is an auto-buy/read author for me. Even though I haven't read their entire backlist, everything I read by them I loved. So, I was expecting the same with Love and Other Words especially since it had some of my favorite tropes, but I was so, so disappointed with this one. The heroine Macy was meh, and the hero Elliot was annoying. This was a character driven book and I disliked both MCs. The only thing that saved it from a 2-star rating was Macy's relationship with her dad which broke me.
6. Biggest surprise.
The reason why Pacifica by Kristen Simmons was such a surprise for me is because months after reading it I'm still affected by it. It's set in a not-so-distant future where all the ice caps on Earth have melted, the sea level have risen, and the oceans are toxic and filled with trash. As a person who lives in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by water, I can easily picture this. And whenever I pass by the ocean (which is every day), I think about this book and see this bleak future as reality.
7. Favorite new-to-you author.
Jenny Holiday is another new-to-me author and I ended up binge-reading all three books pictured above (part of Jenny's Bridesmaids Behaving Badly series) during/right after my vacation a few weeks ago. I have found a new favorite contemporary romance author and I'm counting down the days until I can get my hands on the final book in this connected standalone series. Look for my series review for the three books next week!
8. Newest fictional crush.
I'm a huge fan of Lauren Rowe's Morgan Brothers series so I know she can write an amazing hero. Every single one of those Morgan brothers I am in love with. But, I don't know you guys, it's hard to choose but Tyler Caldwell from Misadventures of a College Girl might be my top favorite amongst her to-die-for heroes.
9. Newest favorite character.
Lady Aslyn Hastings from Beyond Scandal and Desire by Lorraine Heath. I love her spirit. She doesn't take shit from any body. She had spunk, but she's not one of those heroines who take stupid chances just to prove how independent they are.
Alexa and Drew's entire relationship, from their meet-cute to the HEA, hit me in the feels and I haven't recovered since. You can find them in The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory.
11. Book that made you happy.
The number one thing in my bucket list right now is to travel to France and Wanderlust by Lauren Blakely let me vicariously travel to France from the comfort of my reading chair while I save up money for actual travel. Reading it made me so, so happy.
12.
I don't remember if I watched any other book-to-film adaptation earlier this year. The only one that comes to mind is Ready Player One and because the movie SUCKED. I wasn't the biggest fan of the book, but after reading it I was expecting an epic movie and the movie was the opposite of epic. The movie highlighted the thing I hated most in the book, the romance, and my one favorite thing from the book, the elaborate scavenger hunt, was eye-rollingly changed and oversimplified that it lost ALL its novelty.
13. Favorite post you've written this year.
I had such a great time creating my first ever mood board and I thought it turned out really nice and captured the novel well. Check out my post here >> The Way You Make Me Feel by Maureen Goo | Mood Board.
The Litjoy special edition of My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows because of the beautiful fan art included on the back of the dust jacket and front flyleaf. It's also signed by all three authors, which is a nice extra.
15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
But, if we're talking already released books, I need to read the books I haven't gotten to yet in my "most anticipated books from February to August" list like Restore Me by Tahereh Mafi, Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi, City of Bastards by Andrew Shvarts, Wicked and the Wallflower by Sarah Maclean, The Sins of Lord Lockwood by Meredith Duran, and the aforementioned Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett.
If you did this tag, please leave your link in the comments. I'd love to see your answers to the questions. If you haven't done it yet, I tag you.
Happy reading,
Michelle
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