Tag: Mid-Year Freak Out Tag

Y’all know what time it is! It’s mid-year freak out tag time! I love doing this tag every year because it’s so fun to look back at everything I’ve read so far and see what the standouts were, new favorites, ones that didn’t deliver and what I’m looking forward to for the rest of the year!

From January to June I read 109 books and for some categories it was easy to find a clear winner and others were a little tricky. I also tried as hard as I could to not repeat books but…when it’s good it’s good and there are a few books that appear in multiple categories for multiple reasons because well, it’s my mid-year freak out tag and I can assign winners as I want to. (I was trying to make a “it’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to” reference there, not sure if it worked the way I wanted it to…)

Anyway! Let’s get into the tag!

Now, since a few books/authors appear in several categories, we’re going to start there and then I’ll go category by category because the rest of the books mentioned only appear once. In my head this makes sense, so we’re going with it!

I’m positive that none of you are surprised to see Sunrise on the Reaping make an appearance on this list, and it’s actually the winner (or one of the winners) for multiple categories! Sunrise on the Reaping was one of my most anticipated books of the year, and it did not disappoint! It’s without a doubt the best book I’ve read so far this year, and I honestly think that it would be hard for another book to top it as my favorite of the year, but we’ll see! It’s definitely the best book I’ve read in the first 6 months of 2025, so that was an easy pick. If you’d like to read my full thoughts, you can check out my (long) review. I honestly have not stopped thinking about this book since I read it; it also sent me into a full on Hunger Games meltdown (we love to see it) and I need to get back to my series reread.

Unsurprisingly, this book also made me cry like a baby, so it had to be included in the books that made me cry category. I was literally crying like 2 pages in. Suzanne was like “I know exactly what to do to wreck Caitlyn’s life” and she did it, and I thank her for it. I took a picture of myself after I finished reading the book and you can literally see the tears streaming down my face 🤣Sunrise wrecked me and put me back together again and I’m utterly obsessed.

It’s also the winner of the newest favorite character category because Maysilee Donner, I am obsessed with you. I’m so glad that we got to meet her in this book and get to know her and I just fell in love with her. I loved her tough exterior; her anger is fully justified. She’s born into a world that truly does not value her life whatsoever, and each year she has to stand in the town square and hope and pray that her name isn’t called to send her to her death. I’d be angry as hell too! Her character development throughout the book is absolutely fantastic, and I love that we get to see her kindness and empathy as the story goes on in her interactions with Ampert and Haymitch (as well as the other Newcomers) but we do get to see her sass, especially with Drusilla. Snow is lucky that he never met her because she would’ve eviscerated him, I wish we could’ve seen it. Upon reading Sunrise on the Reaping, Maysilee immediately became one of my favorite characters in the entire Hunger Games universe and she’s without a doubt my favorite character I’ve read about so far this year. 

In February I finally read Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage and I immediately became obsessed with the Rebel Blue Ranch series. I bought the rest of the books and pre-ordered Wild and Wrangled essentially the second after I finished Done and Dusted. I devoured the entire Rebel Blue Ranch series; I just loved it. I loved the atmosphere and the characterization (Ryder family my beloved), and I truly enjoyed each book in the series. My favorite of the series is Lost and Lassoed, which is the winner of the best sequel category for the mid-year freakout tag. I loved Teddy from the second we met her and knew that her book was going to be my favorite of the series. I really love Gus, and Riley was an absolute delight. I would read 8347382 books about that kid. It’s only been a few months since I finished the series and I already want to reread them.

And because of that, Lyla Sage is definitely getting the new favorite author award. Her writing is fun and compulsively readable, and I love the depth that she brings to all of her characters and stories. While her next release, Soul Searching, doesn’t necessarily sound like something I’d usually read, because of how much I love her writing, I’ll definitely be reading it! If anyone is going to get me into a paranormal romance it’ll probably be Lyla Sage.

Obviously, there are tons of new releases that I want to read but haven’t read yet, but the one at the top of the list is Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry. You’re just as shocked as I am that I haven’t read this one yet, honestly. I’ve seen some mixed reviews and I think that made me a little anxious because this has been one of my most anticipated reads and then I got worried that I wasn’t going to love it as much as I’ve loved all of her other books, but I won’t know until I try! I’m hoping that I’ll get to Great Big Beautiful Life either sometime this month or in August, as my favorite time to read Emily Henry books is during the summer.

None of you will be shocked to see that my answer for the question of most anticipated release for the second half of the year is Hot Wax by M.L. Rio! I don’t think I need to talk about why I’m so excited for this book, we all know why, we all know I’ve been anticipating this book since before it was even announced 🤣I just devour anything that M.L. Rio writes. I have an ARC of Hot Wax — which I am still utterly shocked by, I feel unworthy but very grateful. I’ll definitely be reading this before the release in September. I’m hoping to either get to it this month, or next when I’ve got some time off of work!

Unfortunately, not every book can be a winner, and I’ve got two books for the biggest disappointment category. “Oh, Mary!” by Cole Escola and Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really have high hopes for Party of Liars, I didn’t think he was going to be 5 stars or anything like that, but the premise sounded interesting so I hoped it would be something that I found at least slightly entertaining. I completely understand what Kelsey Cox was aiming for with this story and the intention behind the choices made. I also appreciate the story she wanted to tell and loved the exploration of how far a mother will go to protect her child. Unfortunately though, I really did not like this one.

Personally, I felt that the pacing was all over the place. It started off pretty slow, and continued to be extremely slow until the last few chapters and then it just kept going…additionally, the story got more predictable the longer it went on. At first I was pretty intrigued and was looking forward to seeing where the story would go, but as it continued each new “reveal” felt so obvious far before it was going to come to light. I also hated one of the main plot devices that was used, and truthfully, it felt like an obvious cop-out to me. I literally said to myself “oh no, please don’t tell me that [redacted] is [redacted]” and in fact, I was correct and at that point I just rolled my eyes and was looking forward to it being over.

I think that this one could’ve been really interesting, but sadly, I just couldn’t wait for it to be over.

Now, the one that I actually had high hopes for was “Oh, Mary!” I’ll be sharing a few more thoughts on this one in my 30 Plays in 30 Days Mini Reviews post that I have coming next week (though not many more thoughts since I don’t like to get too negative) but wow what a disappointment this was. I think Cole Escola is very talented, but unfortunately our humor does not align because I found this to be one of the worst plays I’ve ever read. I didn’t find any of it funny and had it been any longer than 48 pages I would’ve DNF’d it.

And now back to the positive categories! Let’s talk about the biggest surprise. I heard about The Final Act of Juliette Willoughby by Ellery Lloyd through Meg from MegWithBooks and loved it! I was really impressed with the storytelling and how the authors (Ellery Lloyd is a pen name for husband-and-wife writing team Collette Lyons and Paul Vlitos) wove together the different timelines to tell this story. I was really glad to be equally invested in each timeline, and I liked the multiple POVs. I enjoy stories about artists/the art world and combining that with a mystery definitely worked for me! I do think the mystery was a little easy to figure out, but not in a negative way. There were twists and turns but nothing felt out of place or like it was just thrown in for shock value, and I really enjoyed how it all came together. There was one thing that I had questions about in the end and wish were answered, but not knowing didn’t negatively impact my enjoyment of the book. I’d definitely read this one again, and check out more from the husband-and-wife writing duo!

I already mentioned one of the books that made me cry, but there were a few others because I am an emotional pisces theatre kid, I basically cry at everything. Truthfully, the list of books that made me cry could be very long, but I decided to go with a few recent ones that really got to me!

Two of them were plays actually! I also cry when I go to the theatre, regardless of what I’m seeing. I just get really emotional before watching live theatre, and I come to expect that, and I have cried before when reading plays, but I was really surprised by how much both John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower and The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson affected me emotionally! As I mentioned in the disappointment section, I have a post coming out next week that’ll go further into my thoughts on all the plays I read last month, but both of these plays really hit emotionally for me. 

The other novel that made me cry was I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I definitely got emotional while reading, but when I finished the book and read the afterward by Sophie Mackintosh, I immediately started crying, and cried for a solid 2-3 minutes. I still don’t really know how to formulate my thoughts on this book but it was wonderful and made me feel a lot of things!

We talked about what made me cry, now let’s talk about a book that made me happy! Last year, a friend recommended A Daughter of Fair Verona by Christina Dodd to me and I picked up a copy, but didn’t get around to it until this year and I’m so glad that I read it! This book (and series) gives the vibes of the film Rosaline and it’s just so fun! I had a smile on my face and was laughing for the majority of my time spent reading A Daughter of Fair Verona and it was just plain fun. I love a fun book, especially a fun historical romance and then you add in not only Shakespeare but Romeo and Juliet and this book was truly made for me! The sequel, Thus With a Kiss I Die was also super fun and just as shenanigan filled as A Daughter of Fair Verona and I definitely recommend them to historical romance fans!

Aside from the question of best book, the question of prettiest book bought was the easiest answer. I didn’t even have to think about it. Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao is easily the prettiest book I’ve bought this year. I truly cannot get over how stunning every aspect of this book is! The cover, the colors (give me more blue and purple books!), the hardback, the dust jacket (that you can turn into a paper boat!), the end papers just everything is beyond. They really went above and beyond with this design! Personally, this book was also a hit for me and you can read all my thoughts in my review, but honestly even if I didn’t like the book I would’ve held onto this one because of how gorgeous it is!

Ahhhhh the books you need to read by the end of the year question. I mean, the obvious answer is every book I own and every book that’s coming out on my tbr, but the real answer is the books on my 25 in 2025. As of now, the books that I still need to read on my 25 in 2025 are

• The Firefly Summer by Morgan Matson
• Hot Wax by M.L. Rio
• Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez
• What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon
• When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee
• Private Rites by Julia Armfield
• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
• A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
• Holy Terrors by Margaret Owens
• Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors
• Diavola by Jennifer Marie Thorne
• The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
• The Husbands by Holly Gramazio

I won’t lie, that list is bigger than I would like it to be now that we’re in July, but I do think that I can get all 13 books read by the end of the year, I just have to prioritize them. I own physical copies of The Firefly Summer, Say You’ll Remember Me, What Happens in Amsterdam, A Song to Drown Rivers, Blue Sisters and The God of the Woods. I also have ARCs of Hot Wax and When They Burned the Butterfly, so I should be able to get those read soon as well. 

Ah, I love the mid-year freak out tag! It’s always so fun to go through these categories and look back on the books I read in the first half of the year. I’d love to hear your answers for these questions, so let me know in the comments!

Until next time 💜