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Halfway through the year means halfway through my reading challenge! I set it at 100 books this year and am a little ahead of schedule. The increased pace can be credited to the manga I’ve started to read (manga = Japanese graphic novels) which fly by and I’ve decided to count. (I don’t count the hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic every year so I’m cutting myself some slack on the manga).

I finished 28 books in the second quarter of this year — and the fiction to nonfiction split was much less balanced than I usually see! It was a quarter to sink into fiction for me:

  • 5 nonfiction
  • 23 fiction

Here were a few standouts:

The Rick Riordan Universe

I finally finished my read-through of all Rick Riordan’s books, ending with the Trials of Apollo series in April. All said and done, 21 out of the 59 books I’ve consumed this year were Percy Jackson related. Here’s the post where I reflect on those books.

My Hero Academia by Kohei Horikoshi

Clearly, I need to call out the manga series that I’m obsessed with: My Hero Academia. The anime is so good I kind of lost my mind and am now reading all the manga. (I wrote a post on it a month ago.)

Six of Crows & Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

An audiobook reread I did in preparation for the Shadow and Bone Netflix series. This duology is one of the best of all time. I’m convinced everyone will enjoy these books. Fantasy heist with found family criminals whose only real enemy is their own trauma. It’s incredible.

Call Down the Hawk & Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater

The sequel trilogy to The Raven Cycle (why are there so many good books — what a blessing). The middle book, Mister Impossible, dropped the other month and didn’t disappoint. Stiefvater’s writing is so sharp and engaging and weird and brings you completely into the story.

One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston

Their queer, sapphic time-travel rom-com sophomore novel. It deserved its own post.

May the Best Man Win by Z.R. Ellor

A queer YA that made me feel a lot of feelings that I was not ready to feel but damn. It also got its own post.

Honorable mentions:

With Love,

Natalie

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