I can’t believe it’s July already! Half of the year is done and so I thought I’d do a little update blog post and also include the Mid Year Book Freakout tag! This tag was created on booktube and it is a great way to review what I’ve read! (Here is the original video : (1) Mid Year Book Freakout: 2016 (ORIGINAL CREATOR) – YouTube)
First, the number of books I’ve read this year. 2022 has put me in a lot of reading slumps, but despite that, I have managed to read 17 books so far which is quite an achievement for me! I’ve had some five star reads and some three star reads, so…this should be interesting 🙂 Before the questions, here is a visual representation of the stats from my Storygraph and all the books I’ve read so far just to give you guys an update!
Let’s get on with the questions!
- Best book you’ve read so far in 2022?
This is really hard for me to narrow down so I picked a few. First of all, it’s Room on the Roof. Ruskin Bond has magic in the way he writes. Everything is just so beautiful in his stories always! Next is Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber. OMG that book was amazing! I loved Evangeline and Jacks and I cannot wait to read more of them! The next is 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons. The best way in which I can describe this book is “sunshine”. Lastly, of course, my reread of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. One can never go wrong with HP! 🙂
- Best sequel you’ve read so far in 2022?
I have two books for this. The first one is a reread and that is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I have been rereading and annotating the HP series and I read this book again after a really long time. It still feels like home and I absolutely loved it!
The next book that I wanted to talk about was Finale. This is the final book in the Caraval trilogy and I absolutely loved it! It was the perfect ending to an amazing series and honestly was one of the best sequels I’ve read ever!
Check out my review for Caraval
- New release you haven’t read yet, but want to.
A new release I really hope to read soon is Book Lovers by Emily Henry. I listened to the audiobook of Beach Read earlier this year and I really liked it, so I’m hoping I’ll like this one too
- Most anticipated release for the second half of the year.
The Dream Runners by Shvetha Thakrar. Technically, this book was released in late June, but I’m still very excited for this. I read Star Daughter last year and I liked it. And Dream Runners sounds really unique and exciting!
- Biggest disappointment of 2022
The biggest disappointment for me this year was The Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate this book. I thought there were some really great things in the book and I will be continuing with the series in the future, but when I started reading it, I had very high expectations and I think that was part of the reason why it failed to be as good as I thought it would be. (If you guys want to read a brief description of my thoughts for the same, be sure to check out my Goodreads review. )
One more that I have to mention here is The Hating Game. I know that this is a super popular book and I was really looking forward to loving this, but I didn’t. This was just pages upon pages of Lucy acting stupid. I found the characters to be very flat. I liked the idea and there was so much scope in there for actual character development but it felt like the only character they had was their ridiculous hate/love for each other. I mean, come on! I love Hate to Love romances but this was just way too superficial.
- Biggest surprise of 2022
The book that really surprised me this year was The Once and Future Witches by Alix E Harrow. This is a HUGE book! And it has a pretty heavy plot and characters. When I picked it up, I honestly thought that I would DNF it just because of the sheer volume of the book. Plus, I was in a bad reading slump and I did not think I would finish it. But this book turned out to be good! I read the whole thing in less time than I expected so this was a pleasant surprise!
- Favourite new author
I didn’t read a lot of new authors this year, and especially not good ones. But I read and really enjoyed Dreams Lie Beneath by Rebecca Ross and I really enjoyed it. It was a light and easy fantasy read complete with an aesthetic setting, a unique magic system, curses and a lot more. I loved this book, I gave it 5 stars and I cannot wait to read more of her books!
- Newest fictional crush.
I did read Anne’s House of Dreams, so we still have Gilbert! But if we look at new crushes, it has to be Weston from 100 Days of Sunlight by Abbie Emmons! He is just such a positive, inspiring character and an absolute ball of sunshine!
I also have to mention Jacks and Legend from Finale.I loved them both too!
- Newest favourite character.
Evangeline Fox from Once Upon a Broken Heart was such a great protagonist! I also loved Clementine from Dreams Lie Beneath! And how can I not mention Rusty from Room on the Roof?!
- A Book that made you cry.
I don’t usually cry at books, but a book that made me feel really emotional was Room on the Roof by Ruskin Bond. It was such a beautiful book and the relationships between the characters and their friendships was just so heartwarming to read about. I really felt the characters’ feelings being their pain, happiness, love, everything.
- Book that made you happy.
100 Days of Sunlight! Abbie Emmons is my all time favourite authortuber and her book lived up to all my expectations. Her sunshiny personality really shone through in her writing and it was just the kind of book that will make you feel happy no matter how low you feel!
- Most beautiful book you’ve bought so far this year (or received)
The most beautiful book I bought this year is Daughter of the Moon Goddess. I started reading this book but put it on hold. I plan on reading it soon. The cover of this book with the moon and the flowers is just pure beauty!
- What books do you need to read by the end of the year?
I have way too many unread books on my TBR to keep track of them all. But a goal I have made for myself is to read more Indian books this year and I have decided to start with Ponniyin Selvan, a Tamil historical fiction. This is an extremely popular book and I am hoping to at least finish the first of the seven part series this year.
So that was my wrap up for the first half of the year. If you guys want to read my in depth thoughts of any of the books, do check out my Goodreads or Storygraph pages, I leave a brief review in there. Or if you want a complete review, let me know in the comments below and I’ll upload one onto my blog. Thanks for reading and have a great day! 🙂
Links:
The soulful scripturient 