 I know a lot of people love this. In my opinion it's Hot Trash. I mean I'm just telling the truth. I'm not lying. Hi friends welcome back to my channel. I hope you're well. Today we're doing a really exciting video but it's one that like well I've never done it before because I've never been on bookstube at this point in the year but we're doing the mid-year book free cat tag. I've been watching some people's videos of this and everyone's like this is my favorite time of the year. I love doing these videos. And I'm like it's only my third day out here. Yeah it's only my third day out here. I don't know. I am excited however to look back at the books I have read so far this year. So the first question is best book you've read so far in 2020. This is impossible for me to answer. Like it's so hard. I can't do it. My heart is saying no. I'm gonna treat this question as stand aligned not series. I'll talk about series in the next question because I'm gonna I think I'll change the question a bit to what I want. So if we're talking just about stand learns I think we'll have to be between two. The first will be the guest list by Lucy Foley. I don't actually have it right now. If you're regular on my channel you have heard me speak about this book quite a bit. There is a murder mystery set on this remote island off the coast of the country island and we're at a wedding of this really rich influential couple and we find out on the first page that someone has been killed at the wedding and we don't know for the majority of the book who it is, who has done the king. It's a really traditional who done it and for me this book is also just like representative of me falling in love with the murder mystery genre and mysteries in general this year. They're kind of all I want to read but I also think murder mysteries in that kind of like traditional Agatha Christie style. It's something that's difficult to find modern versions of. Like I don't think they're written enough. I would I just want to be drowning in them but I'm not. So if you have any good recommendations please do let me know but the guest list was just so engaging. You had this cast of characters who the majority of them were just completely horrible but you had a few who were normal. It made it more bearable because you had a few people who were your eyes in the situation. I just thought the tension built so well. I loved the writing and I loved how we didn't know who was dead because for a lot of the book my theory as to who was the murderer was actually the person who ended up being killed. I really liked that twist on it whereas normally you know who's been killed but I think it just add an extra element of intrigue. So this book was great for me but it was also emblematic of a new genre that I was falling in love with. And then my other answer would have to be Middle Game by Seanal Maguire. I loved this book but I don't... I still quite... I love this song. I don't... I still don't quite know how to feel about it fully. It's a book that you can't really put into a category and we have the twins Roger and Dodger who have been made by their scientists and he is trying to use them to gain control of the world. And it's about alchemy and about telepathy between the twins and I can't really say much more than that. It's an impossible book to describe who needs to go into this pretty blind but it was just like a work of art. Ten out of ten. Ten out of ten. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. And the next question is best sequel you've read so far in 2020 and I'm going to cheat a bit. I'm going to talk about two series that I've read the whole of the series already in 2020 and these are up there with my favorite books of the year too with those sand loans. I don't know how I'm going to pick at the end of this year. Like I really have no idea. First is The Illuminate Files by Amy Coffman and Jay Kristoff. This is a science fiction YA series that is told completely through multimedia format. So you have chat logs, you have some really cool pages where you might need to rotate the book or the words go like that. And the multimedia format is a massive reason as to why I love these books and also why I think they are so readable. They're fairly chunky but they are so quick to read. And the first one a company wages war on this illegal planet that our two main characters are living on and they have to escape. They're living on separate ships and they are communicating through these multimedia formats. These books follow different characters to the first one. We're following different aspects of this war. I think Gemina was my favorite. Woo! I think Gemina was my favorite out of the three we matched today. We don't give a fuck. Gemina had this great part of it where it doesn't kick off until like page 130. This is 659 pages and everything is kind of not calm but like coasting until page 130 and then shit just hits the fan and it goes mental. And I love the character in this. One of my favorite characters in the whole series Ella is in this and that series is just it's just incredible. Like it's just beyond anything I've ever read in terms of imagination and in terms of really coming up with something new. I'm putting my whole family onto it and they're all loving it. So excited! And then the other series I have to mention which I talk about all the time is the Heart of the Graphic Novel series. This has my heart. You'll know if you've been here how obsessed I am with this series. We're following Nick and Charlie as they fall in love and Alice Oseman's drawing style on this is just like it kills me. It actually kills me. This made me fall in love with graphic novels and if you're looking for something cute, warm, fuzzy that will just like fill your heart with joy this graphic novel series is it. The next question is a new release you haven't read yet but want to and for this I'd have to say you should see me in a crown by Leah Johnson. I've seen so many people talk about this and give it rave reviews and it's on my script it's just waiting for me to pick it up. It's about a girl called Liz who has these dreams of going to this college in order to become a doctor and play in the orchestra there. However the money that the financial aid that she was counting on to be able to go there falls through. However she realises that her school has a scholarship for prom king and queen and so then her goal is to become prom king... I don't know what the f*** she's saying but girl I am Liz. Her goal is then to become prom queen so that she can get the scholarship so she can go to school that she wants however it's a bit of a difficult journey and she ends up I think falling for another girl who is running for prom. I can't speak today who is running for prom queen and so it's a female-female romance. I've seen so many people whose opinions I trust and who have very similar opinions who love this and I've just been eyeing it up since before it came out so I'm really excited to get to this one. Next is what is your most anticipated release for the next half of the year and I have two answers for this. First is The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. Now I haven't read Station 11 don't hate me I want to read that really badly but this one intrigues me so much because it reminds me in certain aspects of the starless even though they're very different in genre but it seems like The Glass Hotel from my understanding like follows quite a few different characters and it's a lot of intrigue and mystery and that's kind of elements I enjoyed a lot in the starless sea. I cannot tell you really the plot of The Glass Hotel. I know we're sitting at The Glass Hotel I know there's a woman who goes missing and there's a guy called Vincent who works at the hotel and there's something to do with his brother. I know a lot of things but I don't know about that I'm not sure why. I'm very excited to read it I've already pre-ordered it as a birthday gift for my mum because it was on her birthday list which means I get to read it also. Is there no budget this time around? And then my other Rosentes of Fate release is One By One by Ruth Ware. Now if you've watched my video where I read new releases I've actually read an arc of this and I loved it. It was five stars it was amazing. It's not the most complex thriller if that is what you're looking for it gives me those very much like murder mystery isolated group stuck somewhere vibes which I love. All the thrills I love are isolated closed circle mysteries. Oh it's so good. I love everything about this and this is about a company who go on a trip to this ski resort and you don't really know why and there's a one woman there who worked at the company years and years and years ago and has come on a trip with them. You're like sis why are you there? Why is she here? You eventually find out why she's there and one of the group is murdered and you're like oh shit and it goes on from there and it's oh it's so good I love the atmosphere I love everything about it and the reason I'm so looking forward to it coming out is so that all of you can read it and you can say Megan you were right. I don't think it's going to be to everyone's taste because like I said it's quite simple I think you figure out the baddie quite early on but I think that was intentional so I'm very excited for everyone to read this one and then we can all talk about it. My biggest disappointment this is fairly easy because I just made a video all about my most disappointing books but this is one I read right at the start of the year and it is read white and royal blue by Casey McQuiston. This one good reads best romance of the year last year everyone seems to love it no I hated it. If it came on I wouldn't necessarily skip it well that's not true I would I'll skip it. I gave this two stars but I kind of think that was a bit too generous almost I think if I read this now just a couple months later I'd give it one star because I've become a bit more picky this is oh my god I don't even want to talk about it this is a romance between the son of the president of the United States and a prince of England and it's about them. It's okay okay firstly everyone says it's enemies to lovers it's not it's not enemies to lovers because like they're only enemies for like 30 pages and then they're like oh I secretly loved you the whole time but then you weren't enemies then. I just thought the romance in this was really poorly written the prince in this also Prince of England was very caricature of like what someone thinks a posh British person is like and listen I hate posh British people like vote Labour please but it was such a caricature with almost no depth to it that I just felt like he wasn't a real person and if I'm supposed to be reading a romance and becoming really attached to the characters like all this book is is their relationship if one of you doesn't seem like a real person to me how am I supposed to get attached to your romance so I know a lot of people love this in my opinion it's hot trash I mean I'm just telling the truth I'm not lying it was stupid as well there are so many stupid things I haven't in this book that I can't take because they're spoilers but like just stupid stuff and I'm like if you're in the position you were in as these people this this would not be happening in a many years you would not be that stupid anyway I hated it. Biggest surprise is the next question and for this I'd have to go for The Strange Case of the Alchemist Daughter by Theodore Goss this is kind of like a mystery set in Victorian England featuring the daughters of a lot of the kind of male classic figures so we've got Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde's daughters we've got the female Frankenstein Sherlock and Watson appear in this together as well kind of to help the girls but it's done really well in a way that the girls are still the focus of the story but this was such a surprise I read it for my murder mystery video and I just needed another book to read on on audiobook and I just scrolled through and found this and I thought it was gonna be three stars average whatever on a whim read it loved it was five stars the girls have a really great found family there's about five or six of them and you just fall in love with them and the support that they give each other and the way that it's told is that one of the girls is writing the book and so occasionally the other girls will pipe in and it will be written almost like a play where they'll be arguing about how certain events actually happen and I just thought that that form of storytelling of us meeting some of the girls through that first was brilliant and it made it so engaging especially listening to the audiobook I do want to from now on at some point get the rest in the series but I am I think going to listen along to the audiobook whilst reading it physically I think that'd be the perfect thing because the covers are gorgeous and so I want to own these books because I think they're all going to be favourites but the audiobooks are also incredible so I'd recommend listening to the audiobooks as well. My favourite new author I think a lot of my opinions are the same I'd probably say I've never read any Amy Coffman or Jay Kristoff before I'm really excited to get written to their some of their other stuff and so I'd probably have to say them I know they're not new authors because this is debut or new to you I don't think I've read really many debut authors this year oh actually I read Wilder Girls by Rory Power and this is Rory Power's first debut book and I loved this I got four stars I think it was like a 4.5 it was so close to being a five star but just like not quite there but I know a lot of people don't love this but I do. Everyone loves me well your bastard hates me but they just wrong I think I'm just special special this is about three girls who are at this boarding school where something called the tox has happened which is essentially a illness that is mutating in all the girls in different ways one of the girls goes missing and so then the other two have to go look for them it's also female female romance I think the vibes of this like the atmosphere unparalleled I want this to be a Netflix original limited series oh my oh my god it would be so good it would be so good like you know when you think of something like that you're like I want that to be a Netflix series when you get sad knowing it will probably never happen but you're like it's just so deserving of it but I'm so sad that that is never gonna happen but that's probably actually my favorite debut author Rory Power. Okay so next question is newest fictional crush I don't tend to crush on people in books let me have a think if I had to say one I'd probably say Hector from the girl of Fire and Thorn series he don't really Hector doesn't kick in until books two and three newest favorite character oh I have the answer that would have to be Darby from no exit I just read this in my last vlog I am obsessed with Darby in this book so Darby is riding in a snowstorm to try and get back to her family and she has to stop because the snow gets so bad she stops at like a rest stop and she finds that she's stuck there with four people and in one of the vans at the rest stop is a girl trapped in the van locked in a cage and so the whole book is her trying to figure out who it is although she figures that out fairly quickly and then it's all about trying to survive trying to keep the girl alive and trying to get out of the situation that they're in she pulls tricks at the bag Darby does it I the stuff that she does in this book how ingenuity she is the sacrifice she makes how hard she fights so good so good well just as I thought talented brilliant incredible amazing show stopping spectacular never the same totally unique completely not ever been done before this book made me so stressed I sit in the vlog it gave me chest pain it gave me heart palpitations I was so stressed out for the few days I'm too angry to talk I want to slash someone's head she just really acts in a way that's so selfless and so determined I just thought she was incredible like such an incredibly written character with flaws but with so much like fight and grit as well next is a book that made you cry I cry I like every book under the sun I cried so much at Gemina and if you've read Gemina you'd be like bitch why did you cry don't question it I cried a lot at this book and then one that made me cry the ugliest tears in the world was a monster caused by Patrick nest this is about a boy whose mum is dying of cancer and then a monster turns up outside his house and tries to tell him stories and teach him lessons and I have the illustrated version and it's very dark you will be sobbing for that much onwards like you'll just be crying I was a hot mess and like you know when you have to take a bit of time after the book to just sit there and cry some more this book it killed me and so if you're in the need for a cry like if you're like I just want to read a book that'll make me cry this is quite honestly it this is it next is a book that made you happy again I feel like a lot of my books make me happy in some way but I also don't tend to read very many happy books maybe if I'd say one it'd be Watch Us Rise by Renee Watson and Ellen Hagen I really enjoyed the girls relationship in this it's about two girls who sit out like this feminist club at their school and it's them working out their own feminism seeing how that feminism is flawed and for me they much preferred Jasmine's part in this I don't know if the authors wrote half and half I don't know if Renee Watson wrote Jasmine's parts and then Ellen Hagen wrote Chelsea's but for me they felt very different and I love love love Jasmine's parts but I gave this four stars and probably Jasmine's parts were five and Chelsea's parts were three so it kind of averaged out to four Jasmine's journey and just her character made me really really happy and definitely one of my favorite characters she's so strong but also figuring herself out and I thought this was a really realistic exploration of being like 16 and wanting to be politically active but understanding how you're flawed in certain ways and going through difficult family stuff I felt like it was a really realistic look at what girls this age how they feel the next question is the most beautiful book you've bought or received this year I've gone with books that I know for sure I got this year because a few that are beautiful down there I'm like did I get you for Christmas or my birthday because my birthday's in January and so like sometimes it's difficult to remember but I am gonna go for my cloth bound classics that I've received so I have received Alice's adventures in Wonderland and through the looking glass the adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Little Women and I I just love these so much I want to collect them all I just think they're gorgeous you know what I'm obsessed with are you ready you know what I'm obsessed with you for me you know a book is amazing when it has this ribbon bookmark oh I love it well guess what people I get excited about small things and the final question is what books do you need to read this year now there's like a billion books quite honestly if I had to tell you four let's say four books I have to read I adjusted a video of 21 books I want to read before I'm 21 um and my birthday's January 28th so I've literally got the rest this year and 28 days to read those 21 books so definitely go check that video out because that's a much more elaborate answer but for all the books that were in that video and I'm not planning to read in the next two months so like whoops um but they are Six Grosy Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo I said that really fast I'm really sorry I was like come on Megan like it's actually embarrassing I loved Night House by Leigh Bardugo I will speak highly of that book to the end of my days I adored it everyone who hated it you are wrong I'm tempted to read these in like 24 or 48 hours but I'm not sure if I'm capable of that but I'm like tempted anyway they are two of the ones I want to make sure I get around to and then an author which I have read non-fiction from but I've never had fiction and I'm desperate to do so is Americana and Half of the Yellow Sun by Shememanda Nogosi Addichi so these books have been on my TBR for like 50 years I've had these for so long and not pick them up because I find them so intimidating I don't know why but I it's a small font okay and fairly long I love watching Shememanda Nogosi Addichi speak I love reading her non-fiction and so it's about time I get around to some of her fiction as well but I mean there's like 50 books 60 even more that I need to finish by the end of this year so there we have it that is my mid-year book freak out tag that was so much fun that was such fun like I'm only seeing the books I've read across this year I've actually had a really good reading year so far I've got quite a lot of five stars let me know what some of your most anticipated reads are what you're most disappointing most surprising what you want to get around to let me know what some of your answers are to these questions down below and I oh that was like I really whipped my head there if anyone's watching all stars five I felt like india ferro which is like anyway I'll see you very very soon with another video bye