Mid Year Book Freakout Tag | 2020

So we have officially hit the mid-year of 2020, which means a Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag!!

Q1 What's the best book you read so far in 2020?

So the best book I've read so far this year is Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare, the first book in The last hour trilogy. I had been waiting for this book to come out since November 2019, and well, it didn't let me down even if it broke my heart. 

The main story of this book is about James and Lucie Herondale ( children of Will Herondale 😊), but it's written from the perspective of Cordelia Carstairs, who comes to the London institute. There has been less and less demonic activity around London, which is suspicious, but that only happens due to the entry of an unexpected villain. This problem is solved by our favorite groups of Herondales, Carstairs, Fairchild, and lightwoods. James and Cordelia have to fight them off along with Lucie and the Merry Thieves(the group of James along with his friends Matthew, Thomas, and Christopher). It was a great story, and the cliff ending was impressive; and I can't wait to read the next book, Chain of iron, which will be out next year, March 2nd (The cover of the collectors' edition of this book is already out). 

Q2 what's a book that came out this year, which You haven't read yet?

A book which I haven't read yet is The Hunger Games Prequel that came out a month ago, The Ballard of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzzane Collins. So pretty much all I know about this book is that it's about President Snow, and it takes place during the 10th Annual Hunger games. Snow, with his family at the brink of poverty, is given the task to mentor District 12 Tribute Lucy Baird, which is his one shot at getting out of his current debt.

So I pretty much haven't read this book, so I don't know much about it, but I have read many reviews about this one. I'm really confused on how to rate this as some of the people say they love this book while the others said they wasted their money as they don't want to read about a villain we all hate due to deaths of individual people (not giving any spoilers). So let's see how I'm gonna react.

Q3 What's your most anticipated release of the second half of the year?

In this category, I think I'm tied between The Lost Book of white, by Cassandra Clare and Wesley chu, which will be the second book in the Eldest cure trilogy, and Crush By Tracy Wolff, which will be the second book in the Crave series. So both the books ended in a cliffhanger, and I can't wait to read either of the two books. Both of them come out in September. 

So the lost book of white mainly follows the story where our Malec ship is sailing happily until The Book of white is stolen, and Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood have to return to Shanghai. But the Good news is they being accompanied by Jace Herondale, Clary Fairchild(soon to be Herondale, wait for TWP series 😍), Isabelle Lightwood, and Simon Lewis. Demonic activity is increasing, and Magnus's power is running wild.

Crush comes after Crave, which revolves around Grace and Jaxon. Grace, an average human (so we think) who has to move to live with his uncle in Alaska after the death of her parents and Jaxon, our mighty Vampire King (it's not like twilight, it's more on the line with legacies) who killed his brother, Hudson. But due to the inevitable turn of events in book one, we know that Hudson is back, and Grace is stuck in a hard decision of whether to risk everyone and Jaxon's life or to risk hers, the only problem is that she has all the time in the world to make that decision. 

Q4, what is your biggest book disappointment? 

My biggest book disappointment other than finding out that Cordelia and James didn't actually marry because of love, but because of honor, wait, let me think.

I am just kidding; that book was amazing even though I really shipped Jordelia, and my heart broke for James😢 . 

So I haven't really had any book disappointments this year. Though I can probably write a 3-page essay on how many disappointments this year gave me. But if I have to choose one, I'm gonna go with Prince of Air and Darkness, by M.A Grant. I didn't hate this book, but I didn't like it either. The story had a great plot about the human, Phineas, who had a curse that left him with uncontrollable magic. The only one able to help him is Roarke Lynn, the Unseelie prince, who is also his roommate at Mather's School of Magick. Noe Phineas is stuck between the Fairy realms. I didn't like this book enough because it lacked character development, and it told me how the characters are instead of showing it. In addition to that, I felt like Phineas and Roarke lacked chemistry and were forced together. So you might like it might not. I just think this book wasn't for me.

Q5 What is the most remarkable book you have read this year?

The most remarkable book that I have read this year might be Crave. I know I have talked about it before, but yeah, I liked this book a lot. So when I first started reading it, this book was more of a read to time pass, and as I realized this book was about vampires, I got a bit more disinterested. But as I developed into the story, I found out that this book was actually excellent.

So this book deals with Grace and Jaxon, as I have mentioned before. Where she is a human, and he is a vampire king. Grace goes to live with her uncle in Katmere Academy, an exclusive academy for supernatural creatures, but then she soon finds out the secrets of this academy's dark past. This book has action and humor both, so it's one of the best books I've read this year so far.

Q6 What is your newest favorite character?

My newest favorite character, I am gonna say, is definitely someone from The Chain of Gold. As much as I love James Herondale, I think I'm gonna go with Jesse Blackthorn here. I personally really loved him in both the prologue and the rest of the book. I mainly adored his relationship with Lucie and his dry humor. Jesse Blackthorn just has this charming personality and a terrible past (seeing who his mother was, that was bound to happen). I know many of the Shadowhunter fans will disagree and tell me I should go with James or Lucie or Cordelia, but I really just liked Jesse the best. And I really wanna see his character develop and how he gets a human body, and I know he gets a human body cause in the Herondale family tree, it's written that Jesse and Lucie get married. You know, since simply because there exists one of my favorite people in the world who live in the LA Institute.

Q7 Which book made you happy?

I am gonna go with Chain of Gold here again 😅. I love the Shadowhunter series a bit too much. I don't think I need to tell the plot again. I  might have mentioned that this book broke my heart, but still, it made me happy (you know that prediction that Ron made while reading Harry's tea leaves - you'll suffer, but you'll be happy about it). And as cliche as it sounds, I've read so many Shadowhunter novels, returning back to the shadowhunter universe feels like going back to my other life. Also, this book made me the happiest as I waited for this book for almost a year. And Because I have a signed Collectors' first edition of this novel along with the character cards. But the sheer presence of The Merry Thieves made this book a whole lot happier for me. 

Q8 The most beautiful book you want to buy this year?

There are so many beautiful books I want to buy this year; there is the illumicrate version of The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, which has an excellent cover; then I already brought the Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassie Clare, which again has the most gorgeous cover I've seen. And as much as I like the original version of The chain of gold, the illumicrate version of the chain of gold literally screams at me to read this thing with a coffee cup in the rain.