2020 End of the Year Freak Out Tag

I saw this cool tag over at a GREAT read. I've been doing the Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag for a couple years now, but I had never seen this one until recently! I'm very excited to take part in it!

Best Books I’ve Read Since July:

The Song of Achilles was absolutely amazing! It blew me away! I love Greek mythology, and this retelling of The Iliad was incredible! I also really enjoyed Home Before Dark, which was a mystery/thriller. The plot twists in this book were just insane!

Best Sequel I’ve Read Since July:

I have not read a lot of sequels I liked in this last half of the year, but this one was great! I love the Ellie Jordan series!

New Releases I Haven’t Read but Want To:

Paola Santiago is still on my tbr. I own it, and I swear I will be reading it soon... La Llorona!! I can't get over it! 😂 And as soon as I'm in the mood, I'm gonna devour Midnight Sun. My younger self is VERY excited about this book, present day me is very curious 😉 Instant Karma sounds really fun and cute! I loved The Lunar Chronicles, so I'm just really looking forward to reading anything by Marissa Meyer.

Biggest Disappointments:

The first book in this series was such a let down, but then I read book two and things were looking up. But then book three and four came around and NOPE! Love triangles and the mysteries being diverted to subplot level? No thanks!

Biggest Surprise:

But as I said, I liked book two. I honestly think it's because while reading this book I was reading some commentary from a friend who was born and raised in Romania, so her little tidbits of history and just knowledge of the setting and the royalty really made this enjoyable. I honestly thought I was going to love the rest of the series after reading this one. But that was not the case 😬

Favorite New Authors:

Circe is on my list to read sometime soon (hopefully!) Madeline Miller's writing is just incredible and I am very excited to read more of her work!

Book that Made Me Cry:

I was an absolute mess by the end. I love mythology so I know what happens in The Iliad and how it ends, and yet I was still not okay.

Book that made me happy:

This book made me happy because as a Mexican American, I don't see my culture represented very much in books, so this book was a very interesting read for me. It was inspired by The Odyssey (more mythology!), but instead of the Greek gods and monsters, we got La Llorona, a chupacabra, some Aztec gods, and just other really interesting Mexican myths and folklore! It was such a cool read and I really enjoyed the mix between the Greek myths and the Mexican folklore! I loved it!

Most Anticipated Books for the 1st Half of 2021:

You may see a trend here... I love mythology! Lol. Lore is set around Medusa and it just sounds really interesting! And no one should be surprised to see a Shadowhunter book on here because everyone knows how much I love this world 😅 And The Last Strand is the last book in the Elemental Assassin series, one of my all-time favorite series, and I am not okay! 😭 I'm excited to read it, but I'm also not ready to say goodbye to these characters and seeing the series end.

It's been an interesting year... I actually didn't get very much reading done. As of right now I've actually only read (apparently!) 15 books in the last half of the year, so it was a bit hard to pick books for the categories. A lot of them have been duds lately, so I'm hoping to finally pick up something that I will truly enjoy as much as I did The Song of Achilles.
I am not tagging anyone in particular, but feel free to do it yourself if you'd like! I'd love to see your answers! 😁