Mid Year Book Freak Out Tag 2015

This tag was created by ReadLikeWildFire and Ely Jayne and it is essentially a look back at what we've read so far this year and what we have yet to read!

1) Best Book You've Read So Far This Year
Ann: I have to say Girl Online by Zoe Sugg
Clare: The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh seriously blew me away. I can hardly wait for the next book!

2) Best Sequel You've Read So Far This Year
Ann: Mine would be Path Finders by Angie Sage, I just loved the Magyk series and love the sequel just as much.
Clare: I feel a little like I'm cheating since it's more of a companion series than an actual series but Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge was spectacular.

3) New Release You Haven't Read Yet But Want To
Ann: The Isle of the Lost by Melissa de la Cruz
Clare: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. Its been intimidating me, I am so excited but also so nervous for this book.

4) Most Anticipated Release For the Second Half of the Year
Ann: My most anticipated release is Girl Online 2 by Zoe Sugg
Clare: Mine is Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. I am so beyond excited for this book.

5) Biggest Disappointment
Ann: Suspicion by Alexandra Monir
Clare: The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges. The covers are so pretty, its set in Russia and involves necromancy. But in reality she raises about two people from the dead in all three books and nothing much ever seems to happen. Very disappointing.

6) Biggest Surprise
Ann: The Program by Suzanne Young
Clare: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle. I pre-ordered this almost entirely based off the cover but I wasn't expecting more than a fun, light read and then it came out of nowhere and impressed me so, so much.

7) Favourite New Author (Debut/New to You)
Ann: My favourite new author is John Green because those of his books I have read I have LOVED.
Clare: I'm cheating again and choosing two - Mila Gray who is not necessarily a debut author since she has written previous books under Sarah Alderson but she is definitely new to me, her book Come Back to Me was so wonderful. And also Alice Oseman who wrote Solitaire and is a debut author. Solitaire is incredible and I highly recommend it.

8) Newest Fictional Crush
Ann: My new fictional crush is James from The Program by Suzanne Young because he was so protective of those he cared about just like me.
Clare: More cheating. Wow. Both leads from Tainted Angel by Anne Cleeland: Vida Swanson and  Lucien Carstairs, I have a lot of love for the leads from the companion/sequel as well but these two were so tough but mysterious but vulnerable. Huge crushes all round.

9) Newest Favourite Character
Ann: My newest favourite character is Sloane from The Program by Suzanne Young because she fights back and refuses to go along with the program.
Clare: Mine has to be Sophia from Rook by Sharon Cameron. Whilst I loved Rene as well, it was Sophia who was my favourite. She was so kickass and caring and self sacrificing and just so interesting to read about.

10) Book That Made You Cry
Ann: I mainly read happy books and I never really cry whilst reading so I don't have anything for this.
Clare: I...cry at everything. But All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven had me full on gross sobbing. So I guess I choose that one.

11) Book That Made You Happy
Ann: Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson
Clare: Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli, I literally just read this last week and I was smiling non stop for ages after the last page.

12) Favourite Book to Film Adaptation this Year
Ann: I haven't seen any adaptations this year although I do hope to see Paper Towns soon.
Clare: This is a tough one because all the ones I know will be my favourites (Mockingjay, Paper Towns etc.) I haven't seen yet but I really loved Love Rosie which was based off Where Rainbows End by Cecelia Ahern - which was the first of her books I ever read.

13) Favourite Post This Year
Ann: My review of Girl Online which you can find here.
Clare: I've seen some blogs put this as 'post' and some specifically as 'review' so my favourite general post to do was the Bookish Identity Tag (here) because me and Ann picked answers for each other and that was just really fun, but my favourite review was Daughter of Deep Silence/I Am Her Revenge (here) because it was so interesting comparing them.

14) Most Beautiful Book You've Bought (Or Received) This Year
Ann: Clare got me a colouring book (she's obsessed) and the drawings are beautiful.
Clare: Mine has to be Made You Up by Francesca Zappia. I'll put a picture below to show you how gorgeous and I can promise its even better in real life. It's next on my reading list and I am so excited for it.

Made You Up front

Made You Up back

15) What Books Do You Need to Read by the End of the Year
Ann: I pick all my reading books out of my TBR jar so I never know what I'm going to be reading next! But I will definitely be reading the Girl Online sequel!
Clare: I definitely need to focus on finishing series, for example the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer and catching up on the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. Other than that I'll see where I go.


So that's our Mid Year Book Freak Out - let us know if you've read any of these books and what you thought of them and tell us what your answers to any of these questions would be! Hope you're having a wonderful summer.

Bookish Identity Tag

This tag was created by Little Book Owl, Katytastic and Benjaminoftomes. The idea of the tag is to answer a few questions centered around popular books to find out your Bookish identity. We thought we'd do it a little bit differently and answer the questions for each other just to see what we got and how well we really know each other.

1) What Dystopian/Fantastical world would you live in?
Ann: For Clare I picked the world of Narnia. Not sure whether she would prefer before the White Witch or after though.
Clare: I'm gonna pick the world of Magyk, Ann is constantly going on about those books so I figured she'd at least know her way around.

2) Who would your partner be?
Ann: Isabelle Lightwood from the Mortal Instruments for Clare. This one is an obvious one, who wouldn't want Isabelle as their partner?
Clare: I am not sure if this was intended to be a romantic partner or a friend one but since I don't intend to start shipping my sister with people lets keep it friendly. Erm... this is really hard. I'm going to go with the Mortal Instruments as well and pick Magnus Bane. I feel like he'd keep you out of trouble Ann and for bonus points he'd be a lot of fun. I'm almost jealous.

3) Who would be your godly mother/father (Percy Jackson)?
Ann: I struggled with this one because I have never actually read Percy Jackson so I took a quiz imagining I was Clare and got Athena!
Clare: I feel like Zeus would be Ann's father. She is a climber so she clearly has no problem with heights so the flying perks would be great. Plus lightning.

4) Would you be a downworlder or a nephilim (Mortal Instruments)?
Ann: Me and Clare both agree on this one, we would be downworlders - specifically warlocks because it looks like fun.
Clare: Yeah, like Ann said we've actually discussed this one before (because we are just that cool) so this was kind of an easy one.

5) Which house would you be in (Harry Potter)?
Ann: Another one where we will have the same answer: Slytherin. That's what we got on Pottermore.
Clare: Yep, this isn't just us calling each other evil, the sorting hat decreed. I even have a Slytherin cushion and a Slytherin scarf. (We went a tad overboard when we visited the Harry Potter studios).

6) Which factions would you be in (Divergent)?
Ann: I picked Erudite for this one because I think Clare is a very intelligent person.
Clare: This is difficult because I know that Ann wants Dauntless but its so hard to categorise someone. Also I have now forgotten basically all the factions. Oh I don't know, I think if you are brave enough to commit to being Dauntless you're clearly brave enough to be a Dauntless. So there you go Ann, you can have that one. I'll miss you when we're on opposite sides of this battle.

7) What would be your daemon (Northern Lights)?
Ann: I think that Clare's daemon would be some kind of cat/big cat so I looked into it and decided to go for the snow leopard.
Clare: Wow, research. I'm now really curious which characteristics of the Snow Leopard are the ones that made you think of me. But I'll take it. I was fully committed to saying Panda and then I had a panic moment about whether that was inaccurate after you actually researched yours so I did your thing and took a quiz and you got Panda! So yay! (It actually gave a few options: Chameleon, elephant, and swan- but an elephant would be ridiculous, swans scare me and you'd lose a chameleon don't even try to tell me you wouldn't)

Clare: So overall I think we actually did fairly well, I mean I was full on hoping for Hades as my Greek God. Who doesn't love darkness and sarcasm. And a giant dog. But I can't argue with personality quizzes. Also, super glad to have a snow leopard following me around now. Since I left it really late to do my half of this (shame on me) Ann won't see my choices until it's already up. So I don't know how accurate I was yet. I will have to get her to add her thoughts later. Let us know what your answers would be for any of the questions in the comments!

Taylor Swift Book Tag

We may be jumping on the bandwagon a little late with this one, but Katytastic did a Taylor Swift Book Tag (find it here) and we thought we'd give it a go.

 1) We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together: pick a book or series that you were pretty sure you were in love with, but then wanted to break up with.

Ann: I picked Divergent by Veronica Roth, or more accurately Allegiant. No spoilers but if you've read it you probably know why.
Clare: I was going to go for that but I so knew Ann would get there so, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. I went through a totally obsessed stage where I loved it. And then I tried to re-read it. Which was pretty much the death of that relationship.

2) Red: pick a book with a red cover.

Ann: I picked Ptolemy's Gate by Jonathan Stroud, an author that I love. The first book of his I read was The Screaming Staircase and I ended up reading more of his books.
Clare: I'm gonna pick a recent one and go with The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh. Love. Love. Love this book. Possibly my book of the year so far.

3) The Best Day: pick a book that makes you feel nostalgic.

Ann: The obvious choice is Harry Potter and since I can't think of anything else right now that's what I'll go with.
Clare: Just to be different (although my true answer is probably Harry Potter again) I'm going to say The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye. I loved that book so much when I was younger and it still makes me smile.

4) Love Story: pick a book with forbidden love.

Ann: I picked Delirium for this one, because in that world love is against the law.
Clare: Hello, pretty much every ya novel. I was going to say Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma. Actually I'm still going with that one, it's a really complicated thing and I don't want to over simplify it, but their love is definitely forbidden. With a capital F.

5) I Knew You Were Trouble: pick a book with a bad character you couldn't help but love.

Ann: I know I always pick Sebastian from The Mortal Instruments for any question like this, but I am picking him again.
Clare: Oh god. I'm a sucker for bad characters. And morally grey characters. I can't pick Warner (Shatter Me) every time, much as I might want to. So... Anise from Winterspell by Claire LeGrand. There were so many things I loved about this book, but for a moment there I totally rooted for Anise. Which considering everything she does is either a testament to how well written her character is, or a statement on my insanity. Or both.

6) Innocent: pick a book that someone ruined the ending for.

Ann: For this one I picked Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter which my friends all read and then kept on talking about around me so they ruined it a bit.
Clare: I am sooo careful with spoilers, I didn't read Allegiant as soon as it came out and avoiding spoilers for that was a struggle. But I managed it. I did kinda ruin Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier for myself accidentally which totally interfered with the suspense element.

7) Everything Has Changed: pick a character who goes through extensive character development.

Ann: I picked Meghan Chase from The Iron Fey series because she goes through a pretty huge change.
Clare: The main character in New Girl by Paige Harbison, or actually any main character in her books she does character development so very well.

8) You Belong With Me: pick your most anticipated book release.

Ann: I don't really pre-order books (I'm only 14) but I am excited for Zoe Sugg's second book which doesn't have a title yet.
Clare: My pre-order's are completely out of control. Especially October. Good God October. And it is one of October's releases I am most excited about and that's Carry On by Rainbow Rowell. This book is like an actual answer to my prayers. I need it.

9) Forever and Always: pick your favourite book couple.

Ann: So I don't pick the same ones as Clare, I will pick Penny and Noah from Girl Online by Zoe Sugg.
Clare: I am incapable of choosing so, Four and Tris from Divergent AND Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games. Obviously very different couples. I love how Four and Tris are kind of independently together, they don't rely on each other, they're fine on their own they're just better together. And with Katniss and Peeta - I remember when I first read the books I was SO STRESSED that she'd pick Gale. They just work so well. Rambling over. Sorry.

10) Come Back Be Here: pick the book you would least like to lend out for fear of missing it too much.

Ann: The Magyk series by Angie Sage. I love it so much.
Clare: OK, so I have a specific hardback signed copy of TFIOS by John Green, which is obviously never leaving me. But I have 3 other copies which I happily lend out. I love lending books, which is an odd thing to say when I consistently lose books this way and I am so stressed but there are some books I just want to shove at everyone.

11) Teardrops on My Guitar: pick a book that made you cry a lot.

Ann: I don't cry at many books but I did cry at Allegiant by Veronica Roth. One of the few books to ever make me cry.
Clare: I cry at all the books. I'm not even kidding. I just read a chick-lit book with zero sad moments and I cried because the ending was so happy. I'm hopeless. I agree with Allegiant it's the first, and hopefully last, time I have hit a book against the wall whilst sobbing. I was a fairly non-crying child and the first book that really made me cry was A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens when I was a fair way through my teens, so I'll go with that.

12) Shake It Off: pick a book that you love so much, you just shake off the haters.

Ann: The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud, none of my friends like it but I really love it.
Clare: I don't usually mind whether people love the books I love, but I have definitely guilty pleasure books. I am probably not supposed to pick a genre for this, but in the interest of laziness - regency romance. The ridiculous over the top clearly historically inaccurate type. You can tell me as much as you like that it's rubbish but sometimes I just want a guaranteed happy ending. I don't care if it makes me look silly.

Disney Book Tag

The Disney Book Tag was created by Katytastic (You can find her video here) . Since we love Disney and we love books we thought we'd give this a try.

1) The Little Mermaid- A character who is out of their element, a "fish out of water".
Ann: For this one I picked Meghan from the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa. She has to go from the "normal" world into the faery world which is not her element.
Clare: I chose Lilac LaRoux from These Broken Stars by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner. She comes from a really priveleged, safe world and the events of the book take her so far from that and she has to find a way to cope.

2) Cinderella - A character who goes through a major transformation.
Ann: Clary from the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. She becomes stronger throughout the series and learns so much about herself and her powers.
Clare: I had to go for Elisa from the Girl of Fire and Thorns trilogy by Rae Carson. The girl she is at the end of the series is so, so different from who she was at the start, she goes through so much and it changes her. She is so much stronger by book 3.

3) Snow White - A book with an eclectic cast of characters.
Ann: Magyk by Angie Sage, all the characters have different specialties and personalities, its what makes it such a great book, no two characters are the same.
Clare: I went for what is possibly an obvious answer, the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. All the characters are so unique and wonderful and I loved reading about all of them.

4) Sleeping Beauty - A book that put you to sleep.
Ann: Suspicion by Alexandra Monir, I just gave up on that book because it was just so dull. To be fair I got a great nap out of it!
Clare: I struggled with this a bit at first but I decided to pick the Wicked Lovely series by Melissa Marr. I am reading it at the moment and I am just not making any progress.

5) The Lion King - A character who had something traumatic happen to them in childhood.
Ann: Harry Potter, when he was 2 his parents were murdered and almost murdered himself. And if that wasn't traumatic enough he then had to grow up with the Dursleys.
Clare: Caelena from the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas. I cant go into it without spoilers but wow. Kinda traumatic.

6) Beauty and the Beast - A beast of a book (a big book) that you were intimidated by but found the story to be beautiful.
Ann: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, it was so daunting when I was 11 that I got Clare to read it to me instead. But in the end I loved it.
Clare: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. It was my first Dickens and I tried a couple of times to read it but failed because it was so daunting but when I finally did it I found I loved it and now it's one of my favourites.

7) Aladdin - A character who gets their wish granted for better or worse.
Ann: Lila from Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson. She wishes for her brother's best friend to fall for her but when he does its in the middle of a terrible situation.
Clare: I cheated a little for this and went for As You Wish by Jackson Pearce which is an actual wish granting. The main character in it, Viola, gets a Jinn to grant three wishes. But all does not go to plan.

8) Mulan - A character who pretends to be someone or something they are not.
Ann: Katniss Everdeen, she pretends to be in love with Peeta to gain audience support. There are a lot of times during the books when events force her to be someone she is not.
Clare: Anna from The Secret Countess by Eva Ibbotson. This is one of all time favourite books and Anna has to be a maid in a household in England because of the russian revolution.

9)  Toy Story - A book with characters you wish would come to life.
Ann: Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick, me and my friends all loved this book and the characters and it would be so great to meet them.
Clare: Harry Potter. This series is so much a part of me and my childhood. But it just occurred to me I'd have to be really selective, I dont think anybody wants Voldemort to come to life.

10) Disney Descendants - Your favourite villain or morally ambiguous character.
Ann: Sebastian from The Mortal Instruments. Even though I was supposed to hate him I wound up loving his character because he is so well written and complex and so interesting.
Clare: Warner from the Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi. I really hated him in the first book but by the end of the second book I was completely rooting for him and by the end of the third I was completely in love with him. Such a great character.