Q3 has begun, and that means it’s time for the Mid-Year Freakout tag! *rubs hands together in glee* I have so much fun doing this every year!

How Much Have You Read?

By this time last year, I’d finished 120 books. In 2022, 114 books. This year? A solid drop. Just underlining what I’ve been noticing – I’m reading fewer and fewer books every month. It’s pretty distressing. What’s wrong with me? I don’t believe that getting my ADHD diagnosis could have made the ADHD worse, but I’m struggling to come up with another explanation, since my reading decline started just then!

What Have You Been Reading?

Unsurprisingly, Fantasy continues to dominate! Who is shocked? I’m not shocked.

‘Other’ has dropped from last year, which is interesting because it was holding pretty steady for the two years before that. Whereas Spec Fic has risen a bit – more books that were obviously speculative but didn’t fit very neatly into any SFF sub-genres.

DNFs are almost doubled from last year – almost a quarter of the books I picked up this year, I’ve DNFed! That surprises me, honestly. I guess I’ve gotten even stricter about not wasting my time on books that don’t deserve it.

The five-star reads are about the same as last year, but the four-star slice is a bit smaller.

A small but significant drop in the % of BIPOC authors. I’m really unhappy about this – I’ve been trying so hard to read more from authors of colour, and it is CLEARLY not working!

Given that the primary purpose of Every Book a Doorway is to feature DIVERSE SFF, this year I decided to do a breakdown not just of authors, but the characters too. Thus!

The only surprising thing about this is that the Cishet slice is so big! WHAT. What have I been reading?!

Not a surprise, but still a disappointment. (The Does Not Apply slice was for books like Birth of the Firebringer, where all the characters are unicorns.)

Clearly I’ve got to do another long hard look at my reading, because this isn’t what I want to be here for!

Best Book/s You’ve Read So Far In 2024

Even if I’ve been doing less reading, the reading I’ve been doing has covered some SERIOUSLY AMAZING books! Last year I listed six books for this question: this year, 20! And that’s without counting the amazing books that are sequels, since I count them for the next question!

20. That certainly makes me happy.

Best Sequel/s You’ve Read So Far In 2024

I am only just now realising that I’ve not read a lot of sequels this year! Lots of series openers and standalones, but not sequels. Huh. BUT THE ONES I READ WERE FABULOUS! And I’m obscurely pleased that four of these six were self-published.

New Release You Haven’t Read Yet, But Want To

To be fair, I’m currently reading or have started almost all of these! Although I’ve just been warned by my book-bestie that From the Belly is actually way too scary for me…

Most Anticipated Release/s For the Second Half of the Year

I always have lots to look forward to and that’s how I like it. Even those of these I’ve read or am reading, I’m still excited for their release – I want to see how the rest of the world reacts to them!

Biggest Disappointment/s

Quite a few major fails from books I was really looking forward to – although I want to point out that Path of Thorns and Road to Ruin are both objectively great, they’re just not for me!

Biggest Surprise/s

As many surprises as disappointments, which feels very fair! Although not all the surprises were perfectly good ones; I’m still pissed off about Earthflown’s very strange ending, and Innkeeper’s Song was mostly a surprise in its style rather than its quality. But many of these were books I picked up on a whim and ended up utterly consumed by; The Briar Book of the Dead, for example, and The Gathering. And even though I went in with no idea of what to expect, somehow Bone Harp and Failures still managed to take me by surprise!

New Favourite Authors (Debuts or New To You)

SO MANY NEW NAMES TO ADD TO MY AUTO-BUY LIST!

(Projections is cheating a little – I’ve read the author’s YA, but this was her Adult debut, and under a new penname! So it totally counts.)

Underrated Gems You’ve Discovered Recently

Many Drops Make a Stream is an indie release, so I guess it’s not that weird that it’s not very well-known – I keep meaning to sit down and write it an awesome review to help boost it, because it truly is EXCELLENT! As is Projections, which I’ve seen no one talking about – and that one was a trad release. ???

Mad Sisters of Esi is another one where it’s kinda fair – it’s not been published in the US or UK yet, so it’s not surprising that it’s flying under the radar. It made the Subjective Chaos Kind Of Awards finalist list, though, which will hopefully bring it more attention!

And Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies is the kind of cute and fluffy that my kind of reader doesn’t read very often, but it was EXACTLY what I needed when my brain was misbehaving. And so much fun!

Rereads This Year

Far fewer rereads than this time last year, but that’s fine. Several of these were to prepare for sequels; Hands of the Emperor I read to the hubby as a bedtime book, which we both enjoyed very much!

Book/s That Made You Cry

Swordcrossed got me HARD in the Feels – I wasn’t crying from sadness, they were happy/intense tears, but there were tears! Whereas Long Live Evil had me almost sobbing because SARAH REES BRENNAN YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID; and if you don’t at least tear up at the not-coronation scene at the end of Hands of the Emperor, you’re doing Life wrong.

As for The Feast Makers…I may have cried a tiny bit that the trilogy is now over. JUST A TINY BIT. But it’s okay, because it was a WONDERFUL finale, and also clarke* is going on to EVEN BETTER THINGS. My heart’s still just a wee bit bruised is all.

*not a typo, this author seems to prefer his name be uncapitalised, so that is how I will write it!

Most Beautiful Book You’ve Bought So Far This Year

It hasn’t arrived yet and I have no idea what it looks like, but I trust that illumicrate’s edition of The Phoenix Keeper is going to be so beautiful! I am RIDICULOUSLY excited to see what the commissioned artists have done with it!

What Books Do You Need to Read By the End of the Year?

City of Refuge was on last year’s list, ffs. Am I EVER going to get around to reading it??? I want to so badly, and yet… Glamour Thieves, on the other hand, is my pick for the Orcs, Trolls, and Goblins – Oh My! square in the r/Fantasy bingo (I could have counted Daughters’ War, but damn it, I like to do as many squares in Hard Mode as I can!)

Empire of Silence is a weird one – I’ve read about half of it. It’s one of those where I’ve heard so many people raving about it, and specifically raving such interesting things, that I want to check it out, even though at first glance (…and second) it doesn’t look like my thing at all. I guess we’ll see how I do with it?

HERE ENDETH THE TAG! I hope you enjoyed all my pie charts, and please consider yourself tagged if you fancy having a go at this yourself!