The Mid Year Freak Out Book Tag is one of my favorite tags of the year, but I always feel bad for the books I read in the second half of the year, which don’t get as much love. So I’m basically doing the Mid Year tag but only featuring the books I read from July to December. This gives me a chance to highlight books that might not make it into my Best of the Year post next week. Here we go!
Best Books I’ve Read Since July:
Three stand-outs since the middle of the year: Ghost Mother by Kelly Dwyer, I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones, and The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst. All very different, but each left a lasting impression on me.
Best Sequels I’ve Read Since July:
I haven’t read a lot of sequels at all this year, but I was determined to catch up with Cat Rambo’s fun series. I read books 2 and 3 almost back to back: Devil’s Gun and Rumor Has It.
New Releases I Haven’t Read but Want To:
I have way more than three books I wasn’t able to get to, but these three hurt the most, and I am determined to catch up with them next year: Ninth Life by Stark Holborn, The Relentless Legion by J.S. Dewes, and Ardent Violet and the Infinite Eye by Alex White.
Biggest Disappointments:
I’m lucky that there weren’t too many disappointing books for me this year, but here are a few I had high hopes for that just didn’t work: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, Dark Space by Rob Hart and Alex Segura, and An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson.
Biggest Surprises:
I love being surprised by a book! And these three books fit this category perfectly. The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sarah Raasch, because it is so well written and has delightful characters; The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel, because it was a gimmicky idea that turned out to be wildly entertaining; and Filthy Rich Fae by Geneva Lee because I was surprised by how much I enjoyed a sexy, romance focused fae story.
Favorite New Authors:
I love discovering new authors, so I can anticipate their next book! These past six months, I read and loved The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong, The Unmothers by Leslie J. Anderson, and We Love the Nightlife by Rachel Koller Croft.
Books that Made Me Cry:
Usually books that make me cry end up being some of my favorites of the year, so expect to see these two books on my “best of 2024” list;-) American Rapture by C.J. Leede and I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones.
Books that made me happy:
All kinds of genres can put a smile on my face, and these three books did just that: Grimm Curiosities by Sharon Lynn Fisher, A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, and Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning.
Most Anticipated Books for the 1st Half of 2025:
I’m limiting myself to six books for this category, although I could easily list more. But these six are absolute must reads: The Medusa Protocol by Rob Hart, My Ex, The Antichrist by Craig DiLouie, The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi, The Staircase in the Woods by Chuck Wendig, When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy, and The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. These are all powerhouse authors who rarely disappoint!
I can’t wait to read A Sorceress Comes to Call so it makes me happy to see it there. I’m also really looking forward to The Medusa Protocol and My Ex the Antichrist. I’m way down the wait-list for my audiobook hold of Dungeon Crawler Carl so I probably won’t be finding out what I think of it for several months.
I can’t believe how popular DCC is! lol.
I’ve only read The Teller of Small Fortunes. I have Cat Rambo, Rob Hart and Geneva Lee on hold at the library.
I hope you get those holds, especially the Rob Hart:-)
Who would have thought that a teenage slasher would make you cry Tammy!
He puts a lot of emotions into his stories:-)
You make me want to read The Spellshop,The Nightmare Before Kissmas, Filthy Rich Fae, The Teller of Small Fortunes, We Love the Nightlife, A Sorceress Comes to Call, Heads Will Roll. But where to start?!
Ha ha I know what you mean! It’s so hard to pick just one at a time:-)
Ooh, I’m intrigued now by the ones that made you cry even more than I already was! Fun wrap-up!
I don’t cry that much so when a book affects me that much, it’s usually a favorite.
I definitely want to get to Teller of Small Fortunes…I think the cat on the cover has something to do with it.
I’m not a cat person but I did love the cat in this story:-)
I have a couple of the books you’ve mentioned on my TBR list – Grimm Curiosities and The Spellshop, so glad to hear you enjoyed those. I almost bought Academy for Lairs but then something put me off. I love the sound of Filthy Rich Fae just because it sounds a bit different to the usual fae story
I was so surprised by how much I enjoyed Filthy Rich Fae. I guess it’s good to take chances sometimes:-)
Makes me so happy to see Grimm!
I’ve now snapped up a few of these others, too.
Grimm deserves all the accolades:-) Thanks for visiting, Sharon!
Doing two of lists per year makes so much sense to me, especially since we read so much! It does remind me I should be thinking about my end of year post before we run out of days in 2024 lol.
The last few days of the month are going so fast!
I’m hoping to read The nightmare before kissmas before the end is over. Glad to hear you liked it.
It was so fun and cute:-)
This is really a fun tag and it is helpful to rake stock of how our reading went! I am so happy to see The Spellshop here, but I am sorry to see that Dungeon Carl didn’t work for you. I think it’s definitely over hyped but I still enjoyed the first two books in the series!
I’m glad you’re a DCC fan! Lots of people love it.
I like that your three favorites are all very different. That’s very cool.
I ended up with a nice mix of favorites in my top five books of the year:-)
This is a great tag.
I’m really looking forward to The Staircase in the Woods.
Lynn
Me too!
Ooh great idea redoing this tag for the second half of the year. Do you think you’ll do it again next year? I can’t wait to check out Spellship, Hitchcock Hotel and Teller Of Small Fortunes. I want to give Academy For Liars a chance sometime but I’m glad I decided to order it into the library sometime rather than buy it. I wasn’t sure about the start when I used Amazons First Look option so seeing it listed as a disappointment here kind of makes me think I was wise to avoid buying it. Anyway I hope you have a lovely new year and enjoy those six that you highlighted.
I had fun doing this “end of year” tag, and I’ll probably do it again. I have heard lots of good things about An Academy for Liars, so it might just be me.