I'm not sure how, but we have managed to reach the middle of 2025. The year has whizzed by in some ways; in other ways, it feels like its been going on for forever. The Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag is a fun way to mark the occasion. Created by Ely @Earl Grey Books and Chami, it offers a chance to look at what we've accomplished in our reading in the first six months of the year. It is a tag, but I wasn't tagged by anyone and I'm not going to tag anyone. If you want to do it, consider yourself tagged! (I used the same version of the tag that Leslie @Books Are the New Black did. I've seen slight variations in the questions on other blogs.)

Every year, I try to read more than I did the year before. To this end, I set my Goodreads goal at 215 for 2025. I'm almost halfway there:

I've taken on a bunch of reading challenges this year. Some of them are short term, some of them last all year, and others are open-ended ones. I'm over 50% done with the majority of them. You can see where I'm at by checking out the left sidebar of my blog or by clicking the "Reading Challenges" tab at the top of my homepage.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins

Evil Bones by Kathy Reichs (available November 18, 2025)

It Happened on the Lake by Lisa Jackson—This book is way too long, too melodramatic, too predictable, too far-fetched, too everything. I read all 592 pages, but man, it was a slog!

Murder Runs in the Family by Tamara Berry—I love a good cozy mystery and Tamara Berry is one of my favorite cozy authors. This book has a fun premise, too. All of these things should have equaled a real hit for me, but this one was a pretty meh read for me. The main characters were annoying and the plot dragged. I wanted to love the book, but I just...didn't.

A Dream of Death by Connie Berry—I read this book, the first installment in Berry's Kate Hamilton mystery series, in January and really enjoyed it. I've since read the next three books and will likely finished the next two—a holiday novella and a full-length book—by the end of the year. It's a light, clean, entertaining mystery series that has provided some great comfort reading.

I've discovered lots of great new characters this year, but I'm really not the "book boyfriend" type.

Vera Wong is the character who came immediately to mind for this question. She makes me laugh! Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto is the first book in the series. I still need to read the second.

The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness—I loved this book when I first read it back in 2011, but it had been so long that I had forgotten that my favorite character dies. It's such a pitiful scene, too, that it ripped my heart out all over again.