Half Year Check In

Wow, it's insane that half the year is gone! So I'm wondering, how's my reading going for this first half of the year?

First of all, if I want to make it to my unwritten goal of 100 books a year, I'm right on target for that having read 53 books this first half! Already that's better than last year where as you can see here, I was only to 40 books read by the end of June.

So, if I were to make a Top Ten list of favorite books read so far this year, what would I put on it? Here you go:

1. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
2. The Wives of Henry Oades by Johanna Moran
3. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
4. The Passage by Justin Cronin
5. Coop by Michael Perry
6. Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
7. Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman
8. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
9. My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters by Sydney Salter
10. The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

Of course,  the interesting thing will be to see which of these books end up on the year end's Top Ten list!

What new-to-me authors have I discovered and fallen in love with so far this year?

• Neal Shusterman
• Megan Whalen Turner
• Patrick Ness
• Simone Elkeles
• Juliet Marillier
• Robert Jordan
• Sydney Salter
• Ann Dee Ellis
• Jennifer Roberson
• Justin Cronin
• Michael Perry

How am I doing on challenges?

Oh, not so good! I did finish Once Upon a Time though. And I'm doing quite well at reading local authors. But the TBR Challenge is getting extremely neglected along with Printz books. I have read a couple for the Take Another Chance Challlenge. And I'm nearly giving up on That's How I Blog Challenge, but I may keep trying there still

What genre do I seem to read most so far this year?

Out of the 53 total books, 31 are YA (and most of those are paranormal, romance and/or fantasy), 2 are classics, 2 non-fiction (already better than last year!), 5 or so are fantasy, about 9 Literary/Contemporary Fiction, 2 from science fiction, and about 2 or so historical fiction.

We had a big discussion the other day on Twitter at the #Bblog chat about what niche we might fill with our book blogging. I figured I'm all over the place... but what does my little report tell you? I'm mostly YA? Or mostly fantasy? I don't know what I am....

How do I need to tweak my goals in order to be satisfied with my reading accomplishments by the end of the year?

If I keep going like I'm going and not have a "bad" month of only a couple books read, I should get to that 100 mark. I need to add TBR books to the list like crazy if I'm to succeed in that challenge. And try to get a classic and a non-fiction in there maybe once a month so that at the end of the year I won't be disappointed in my low numbers in those categories.

Where do you stand at this half year mark reading-wise?