 Hi, Foxes! Hello, everybody! E here. Welcome back to another book tag video. I know I went forever without doing one, and then this is the second one in a week, so don't mind me. We just gonna jump right into it. Many thanks to Richard Reads. I will link to his channel down there in the doobly-doo. Today's tag is the mid-year book freak-out book tag stuff. So I probably got that all wrong. Mid-year freak-out book tag, something like that. Book freak-out tag, whatever. Number one is a best book you've read so far in 2019. This is a tie. I don't know if one of them is gonna fall off or not, but right now it is a tie between Recursion and Westlake Soul. Recursion is by Blake Crouch. Westlake Soul is by Rio Yewers. I'm not sure. I apologize. I love both of them equally right now, but I don't know if one of them is gonna fall off or not. If anything, Recursion might fall off, so we might just go ahead and go with Westlake Soul there. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards Westlake Soul. The only reason why I'm throwing Recursion on this list is because Westlake Soul is on this list again later on. And I don't like repeating myself. So number two, best sequel you've read so far in 2019. This is a cheat because I've only read one sequel that I know of. So that's gonna be Black House, but I absolutely loved it. So of course it would probably be on the list anyways. And no, this is not the last time you're gonna hear Stephen King's name in this video. My apologies. And maybe that's some repetition like I said I wasn't gonna do, but it's whatever. It is what it is. So number three. A new release you haven't read yet, but want to, Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. I am not a Chuck Wendig fan. I dig the guy. I follow him on Twitter. He's a lot of fun. I don't like his writing. You can yell at me down there in the doobly-doo. But I checked out Wanderers and I got an electronic advanced readers copy. And I got past the first chapter and I was like, this is like nothing else he's ever written before. All the broken fragmented sentences that he's known for, the stuff that actually irritated the balls off me in his Star Wars novels, that's gone. It felt like an actual novel and I am there for that. But I stopped reading it just probably about 10, 15 pages into it because I want to read the actual book. So I'm gonna be buying the hardcover all like 800 pages of it and we are gonna jump into that bad boy. If you want to do a buddy read with me, let me know. It comes out July 2nd and I plan on reading it as soon as it comes out. Okay, so number four, we have most anticipated release for the second half of the year. The Institute by Stephen King, duh, if you're a fan of the channel, you know I am a massive Stephen King fanboy. I am hoping it is good and not another elevation. We can hope. We can have big dreams, okay? We can do that. Biggest disappointment was the talisman because I remembered liking it more than I liked it this time. I re-read it, but it was just a horrible, horrible slog to get through and I thought I was going to enjoy it this time because usually when some Stephen King books are just okay for me, on a second re-read they get better because I catch more and whatnot and it's still great as far as the Thursday Thursday stuff is concerned. Me finding all the connections and everything, but I just didn't like that book at all. Also did elevation come out this year? I like blocked it from my memory. If it did come out, that one is my biggest disappointment. But if it didn't, if it came out last year, I kind of think it came out this year. It's terrible. I literally blocked that book out of my mind. I hope I don't forget that it was terrible and end up trying to re-read it anytime soon. Oh lord Jesus. Okay, so the biggest surprise was Aether Christ by Kirk Jones. Blown away by it, it was a hell of a lot of fun. If I may also add, it's not really a surprise because I knew he was good, but Chad Lutsky has been killing it this year. Everything I've read by him has been fantastic and he's a new to me author kind of deal. He's also become a bit of a friend of mine. So yeah, Chad Lutsky is on there, but definitely Aether Christ. That just came out of nowhere. I bought it. It was a cover buy. Usually when I buy things based on the cover, I'm disappointed because nothing lives up to a great cover usually except for maybe like regulators by Stephen King or Richard Bachman. But yeah, Aether Christ by Kirk Jones. If you haven't read it, check out my review. It's on the channel. Just search Aether Christ, Edward Lorne and it'll come up or just go read my review on Goodreads. Terrific book. Big surprise. Let's see here. Favorite new author. Debut or new to you. Christopher Buhlman of Those Across the River. I went out, actually it's around here somewhere, but I got those across the river. Reddit loved it and I went out and bought another one of his novels. I should be getting that one pretty soon. I'm going to try and get it in before the end of summer and it's called Necromancer's House. I'll be in this month's book haul video. You'll see that. Let's see here. Newest fictional crush is Westlake Soul. I remember falling in love with that dude while I was reading that book and that's just, I mean, my heart was all for him. I just wanted to give him a hug. They go kiss on the cheek and be like, dude, it's going to be all right. You know, it's also okay if you leave, man. I fell in love with that dude reading that book. It was just fantastic for me. And again, Wayne Fenlon, thank you so much for sending me the book and introducing me to Rio, yours, Yours, whatever his name is. Rio's, right, Rio. Rio's work. Sorry, but thank you so much for sending me that book and introducing me to that author is a fabulous character, fabulous book. Once again, number nine is newest favorite character. Again, I'm going to put Westlake Soul on there. Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to repeat myself, but here I am repeating myself. So, Westlake Soul, again, he's my newest crush, favorite book of the year so far, and my newest favorite character. Let's see here. A book that made you cry was Lot by Brian Washington. It's probably the only one this year. There's a lot of books last year that made me cry, but this year definitely Lot. There was a lot of very passionate, heartbreaking stories in there. A lot of very near and dear subjects, subjects that are near and dear to my heart. A lot of stuff in that book that really hit home, and the writing was beautiful, fantastic, just an all-around terrific book. If you haven't read Lot by Brian Washington, I suggest you go out and grab it. Next up, a book that made you happy, Michelle Obama's Becoming. This is one of those, and I actually got some comments on my Top 5 Hopeful and Top 5 Hopeless video. Why isn't Becoming on there? And I actually, I explained at the beginning of the video that I didn't feel like non-fiction should be on there. I don't know why, but I didn't feel that that was right because I wanted to keep it novels, keep it fictional. But, yeah, probably the only book that really made me happy, happy this year was Becoming, and I specifically went and looked for that book for that reason because I wanted to be uplifted and it was that time of my life that I needed something positive and that book fit the bill. So, next up, sorry, my nose is killing me all. I snorted too much meth before. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Susan Burgess, calm down. It's just a joke. So, at number 12, a most beautiful book you bought so far this year or received, Kari Mora by Thomas Harris is an absolutely gorgeous book. I don't know if I have it around. Yes, I do. I'm actually going to show this one off because it fits, I mean, it's the most beautiful book. All this gold that you see on here, it's all raised and whatnot. It is so nice. It is a beautiful book and I don't care if it's bad. I don't care if y'all hated it. I don't care. It's just actually gorgeous. But then you open it up. Oh my God. Oh my God. No, Elder Duckie. Elder Duckie. This is Elder Duckie, by the way. He's sitting back here. I got names for all of my stuffed animals. No, Gregor Zane. We about to have a catastrophe over here so I'm going to stop messing with that stuff because we got one more left. Oh, unlucky number 13. Okay, number 13. What books do you need to read by the end of the year? I just realized that this says books and not book. So I'm going to throw Kari Mora on there. It actually wasn't one of my picks. I actually, what I had on here was the goldfinch because it's really cool. So I'm going to throw Kari Mora on there. It actually wasn't one of my picks. I actually what I had on here was the goldfinch because it's probably going to take me about a month or two to read this book. I'm loving it. It's fantastic, by the way. Pierce, if you're reading it, man, I'm on page, as of recording this, I'm on page 180 something. 181 maybe. I know I'm reading it with him. I'm reading it with my buddy Richard Gerlach and my buddy Scott Kemper. And I'm loving it. The writing's fantastic. That one done. I need to get Kari Mora done. I also need, there's a couple of books I have for review that I got to get through. Especially one by Brian Detzner and then another one by T.F. Allen. Several different books I need to get through. But the ones that I'm looking forward to the most are probably the goldfinch and Kari Mora. And of course, Stephen King's The Institute. We got so many books coming out. Wanderers got to read that one too. So many great books. Mora's tagging people. I'm not sure who all's done this one. So I'm just going to go ahead and throw this stuff out there because they tagged me recently. So Jason's Weird Reads I'm tagging you Mr. Beardy Man. I'm tagging Regina from Regina's Haunted Library. I'm tagging you. I'm tagging JB Taylor I'm tagging you son. I'm tagging Erica. Sorry, no, Ryan. Ryan I'm tagging one more person. I know Steph already did this. So Cammie's Corner. I'm going to tag those five people. So if any of you guys want to do it go ahead and do it. If not, if you don't feel obligated it's all in good fun. But if you do decide to do it then definitely give me a shout on Twitter or in the comments section. Let me know when your video is up. I'd love to go watch it. But until next time, I have an E. You have an U. This has been the book tag video. I'll talk to you guys later. Bye-bye!