Hi, everyone! We’re now down to the last month of the year and, wow, did time fly way too fast. At this point, I’m not even sure if that’s a good thing because it sure felt like I’ve lost a year of my life at home. Haha But despite this year being a pain in the arse, it sure as heck been one of the greatest reading year I’ve had since 2017. 2017 was a very challenging year for me, and one thing I realized now is that I do turn to books for comfort whenever life becomes too hard for me to bear.

So today, I’m doing the End of the Year Book Tag which I’ve been seeing around the booktube community and saw that one of my bookish friends here in the internet did it on her blog, too. I remember doing a similar post to this one at the first half of the year, so I decided to do it now, too:

Is there a new release you’re still waiting for?

I’m actually looking forward to the release of this thriller called Pretty Little Wife by debut-author Darby Kane. It sounds really creepy and I am all for that recently.

Lila Ridgefield lives in an idyllic college town, but not everything is what it seems. Lila isn’t what she seems. A student vanished months ago. Now, Lila’s husband, Aaron, is also missing. At first these cases are treated as horrible coincidences until it’s discovered the student is really the third of three unexplained disappearances over the last few years. The police are desperate to find the connection, if there even is one. Little do they know they might be stumbling over only part of the truth….

With the small town in an uproar, everyone is worried about the whereabouts of their beloved high school teacher. Everyone except Lila, his wife. She’s definitely confused about her missing husband but only because she was the last person to see his body, and now it’s gone.

What are three books you want to read before the year ends?

• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
• Tweet Cute by Emma Lord
• Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon

I know that some of these aren’t new releases for this year, but I haven’t read them yet and have just acquired copies of them a couple of months back, so I’m really looking forward to getting them done.

Have you already started making reading plans for 2021?

Yes, in fact I’ve already planned buddy reading some books with some of my bookish friends and here they are:

• The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) by N.K. Jemisin
• The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1) by Brent Weeks
• The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1) by Brandon Sanderson

Best books you’ve read in 2020?

• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• The Poppy War (Poppy War, #1) by R.F. Kuang
• My Riot by Rick Spears
• The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

These are my top 5 reads of 2020, I could also add A Promised Land by Barack Obama, but I haven’t finished it yet. Haha It’s really engrossing and such a fun read still! It’s 30 hours long and I just can’t stop listening to it.

The best sequel(s) you’ve read so far in 2020?

In this dazzling and long-awaited conclusion to the acclaimed Mortal Instruments series, Clary and her friends fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother.

Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures out of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell.

The embattled Shadowhunters withdraw to Idris – but not even the famed demon towers of Alicante can keep Sebastian at bay. And with the Nephilim trapped in Idris, who will guard the world against demons?

When one of the greatest betrayals the Nephilim have ever known is revealed, Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Simon, and Alec must flee – even if their journey takes them deep into the demon realms, where no Shadowhunter has set foot before, and from which no human being has ever returned…

Love will be sacrificed and lives lost in the terrible battle for the fate of the word in the thrilling final installment of the classic urban fantasy series The Mortal Instruments!

I actually haven’t read a lot of sequels this year because it’s either I’m starting a new series or I’m reading a standalone book. Haha My favorite, though, is City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6) by Cassandra Clare. After pushing it at the back of my shelves for so many years (because I am not ready to finish the series that I’ve loved so much), I finally finished it this year and I am ready to move on to her other Shadowhunter series!

Your biggest disappointment?

• The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
• Timeline by Michael Crichton

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey was okay for me, I only included it in this list because I think I set my hopes way too high for this one and I just didn’t connect with the characters and didn’t love it as much as I thought I would. I gave it a 3 out of 5 stars though, so it’s not that bad. Timeline by Michael Crichton on the other hand was just not for me, I don’t usually DNF books but I DNF-ed this one because I was just not interested anymore.

Favorite “new to you” authors?

• The Poppy War (Poppy War, #1) by R.F. Kuang
• Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
• The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas
• The Girl On the Train by Paula Hawkins
• Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles, #1) by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

The most beautiful book(s) you’ve bought this year?

• Sadie by Courtney Summers
• The Shadow of What Was Lost (The Licanius Trilogy, #1) by James Islington
• The Flatshare by Beth O’Leary
• Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks
• The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

I bought a lot of books this year and so many of them have beautiful covers, too, but these are six of them which I absolutely cannot stop staring at. Haha I don’t judge books by their covers, but having such beautiful covers, I have to admit, is a plus point!

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How about you? What are your 2020 favorites? If you want to do this tag, consider yourselves tagged by me! 🙂