The Fruits Basket Obsession: A Mid-Year Book Freakout Tag

I'm sitting here with Volume One and Volume Five of Fruits Basket, the only two volumes I have so far, and I'm feeling like I've been fully consumed by this series. I know it sounds a bit dramatic, but I've read every episode of the anime adaptation, and my friends have all fallen in love with it too. In fact, they're now stuck watching it with me, and we spend hours discussing its complexities and depth.

I'm not ashamed to admit that Fruits Basket has taken over my life. I've lost interest in everything else, including hobbies and social events. My friends are starting to worry about me, but I don't care – I need more of this series in my life. I need to know what happens next with the Sohma family and their cursed zodiac animals.

I've been meaning to read the entire manga series for a while now, but I keep putting it off. Volume One is already finished, but I'm not sure where to start – does it even matter? The fact that there are 21 volumes of Fruits Basket means that there's still so much to explore and discover. I'm excited to dive in and see what other adventures await me.

I've also been considering vlogging my way through the series. I think it would be a great way for everyone who hasn't read Fruits Basket yet to experience the emotional rollercoaster that is this manga. My friends have already asked me to do it, and I'm tempted to take them up on the offer. Who knows – maybe I'll even make some new friends along the way.

I've been bombarded by requests from my friends to read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. It's taken a while, but I finally have Volume One ready to go. I'm excited to share my thoughts on this book with all of you. Vlogging it will be a great opportunity for me to express myself and connect with fellow book lovers.

As for the rest of the year, I'm determined to finish The Starless Sea. It's already been two years since its release, but that's just given me even more time to obsess over this series. Fruits Basket may have started as a mere anime adaptation, but it has evolved into something so much more – a way of life.

I know some of my friends might think I'm crazy for being so passionate about one book series, but I don't care. When you find something that speaks to you on such a deep level, you can't help but get consumed by it. Fruits Basket has done just that for me – and I'll be forever grateful.

The Starlet C by Erin Morgenstern is next on my list of books to read. While many have been asking me to do this for years, I'm finally ready to take the plunge. I've already started reading it, and I can barely put it down. It's a challenge – will I be able to finish it before the end of the year? Only time will tell.

If you're a fellow Fruits Basket fan or just someone who loves books in general, I'd love to hear from you. What are your favorite books that have consumed your life? What's been the most disappointing book you've read recently? Let me know – I'm all ears and would love to discuss these topics with you.

As always, follow me on social media for more updates on my reading journey. You can find links to my profiles in the description box below.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi it's once again been a couple of weeks since i've uploaded a video um but you know i have been  doing things and i know i keep saying that i will explain it to you all in detail eventually and by  eventually i mean literally later this month so you'll know what's going on and why i've been  uploading less i promise i think it'll be worth it for you just thank you for giving me the space and  time i've needed to take little breaks here and there i've been very busy but we're back we're  talking about some books so it's finally that time of year and by that time of year i mean at the  middle of the year or actually a little bit past the middle of the year i'm a little bit behind on  things however it is the middle of the year now and what does that mean it means that everyone is  filming their mid-year book freakout tags which is a book tag that's been around for years now i've  done it multiple times but it's been a few years since i've actually done it and i really love this  tag it's just kind of like a mid-year check-in to give you all updates on the books that i've read  so far this year and my thoughts on all of them what books i plan to read in the second half of  the year and it's just like a bunch of questions so that you all can know how my reading has been  going so far this year and i can give you an update and that's what we're gonna do today  and i'm very excited about it i will of course leave links to the original creators videos in the  description box below so you can check them out as well as time stamps for each of the questions if  you want to jump around but before we get into the tag i do have a couple of like quick announcements  that i want to mention first of all i do want to let you all know that the necklace that i designed  with anna louisa is back in stock for those of you who have been asking about it it took a bit um  there were some like problems with like warehouse stuff but the necklace is back in stock so if  you are interested in purchasing the um hannah necklace from annalisa i will leave the link in  the description box below you can head straight there and pick one up for yourself if you would  like to i know a lot of you messaged me about it and i did mention it on instagram recently  but i wanted to let you all know on here as well because i know plenty of you were asking about it  so thank you all so much for being so patient while we were trying to get them all back in stock  but they are back now so if you would like to get yourself one you can do so and then the second  thing i also just quickly wanted to say thank you all for um the like reaction and response to the  necklace in the first place um it sold out in a day which was incredible and unbelievable and um i  am just so overwhelmed and floored and full of so much gratitude for all of you because you send me  all of the pictures and messages telling me how much you like it showing me yourself wearing it  and stuff like that and honestly it makes me like tear up every single time because it just makes  me so happy to see you all wearing it it means a lot to me and i'm so glad that you all love  it as much as i do and that it means as much to you as it does to me so yes i wanted to quickly  thank you for that and also let you know about the restock but without any further ado let's get  into the questions of the tag and find out what's the best book i've read so far this year and the  most disappointing book i've read so far this year and everything in between so so far this year i've  read a total of 18 books which is literally double what i read last year which is incredible for me  at this point honestly um considering that i've been busy doing other things and haven't actually  had that much time for reading so 18 books is really nice i'm very happy with that number and  like i said many times in like previous videos i've loved everything i've read so far this year  so it's been a great reading year and i'm really hoping to keep up that momentum in the second half  of the year as well but the first question is what is the best book you've read in 2021 so far so  i'm gonna take this question to mean best like objectively the best book not my favorite book  i've read so far this year because those would be two different books even though i consider this  book that i'm gonna mention as one of my favorite books i've ever read and one of my favorite books  i've read this year i just objectively think this is the best book i've read this year even if it's  not necessarily my favorite one because there's a different one that's my favorite one which i  think you can all guess but in my opinion the best book i've read so far this year is on earth  we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vong i've talked about this book in a couple of videos now i think  but it is honestly one of the greatest things i've ever read this book is a letter that a son  wrote to his mother who is illiterate and it's about his experiences and his life growing up  as gay and vietnamese-american and what that was like and her life as a vietnamese immigrant coming  to america and what it was like for her and her mother as well and it's just so beautiful it's  honestly some of the most beautiful pros i've ever read in my entire life it's heartbreaking it's  really difficult to read at times but honestly it's one of the best things i've ever read and i  thoroughly enjoyed it and i know i'm definitely gonna read plenty more that oceanvong writes  i'm very interested in picking up his poetry as well so yeah definitely i think this is probably  the best book i've read in 2021. question two is what is the best sequel you've read so far in 2021  and this was a no-brainer for me such an easy question to answer and also this i could consider  my favorite book that i've read so far this year as well but that is none other than chain of iron  by cassandra clare no one here is surprised i'm sure most of you have seen the vlog at this point  it's just like an hour of me crying and losing my mind over this because i loved it so much  still my favorite book i've read so far this year i've read a lot of really good books but this was  still the most enjoyable reading experience for me because it just made me feel every single emotion  so yeah definitely my favorite sequel i've read so far this year i am so excited for the finale  of this series i never want it to come out because i never want this series to end but also i need it  like today because i'm so tired of like having this cliffhanger i just i need a resolution  question three is a new release you haven't read yet but want to there have definitely been quite  a few new releases this year that i have been eyeing and wanting to read i just haven't had the  time or the motivation to pick up yet but the one that comes to mind right now is one last stop by  casey mcquisten who is the author of red white and royal blue i've mentioned that book multiple times  i read it in 2019 i think and i really really enjoyed it and i've been looking forward to their  next book for some time now so i'm very excited to pick that one up it just came out recently  and i'm very interested to see what i think about it i feel like i'll definitely enjoy it i've heard  a lot of people say that it's actually better than red white and royal blue i mean i really like that  book so if it's better than that i would love this so yeah i'm very excited to try that one question  four is your most anticipated release for the second half of the year and for me this is easily  easily the sequel to aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe which is aristotle and  dante dive into the waters of the world that title i'm i'm so excited if you've been with me from the  like start of my channel you know that aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe is  one of my all-time favorite books i love this book it is like classic y literature to me i love it  so much i think it is so so good it is one of the books that got me into reading why a contemporary  in general and benjamin larissance the author has been teasing like a sequel for years and years now  and we're finally getting one i believe it comes out in october and i'm so incredibly excited  i love arie and dante i would die for these two they are precious to me and i'm so excited to  see their story continue i'm really hoping that it's good usually i don't have that much faith  in sequels but like i'm willing to give this a chance i'm willing to like be hopeful about it  because i just love them so much and like i just i want to be back in that world in their world with  these characters that i love so deeply so yeah i'm so excited for this book i had no idea that it was  coming out this year so when i found out about it i was over the moon and i just i can't wait to  have my hands on it question five is your biggest disappointment so i have two for this actually  first up we have king of crows by libba bray the finale to the diviners series i've mentioned this  book in a video before i think and mentioned that it wasn't my favorite in the series i think it was  kind of a bit of a letdown for a series finale it was by no means bad i did enjoy the book i think  i gave it three stars like a solid good read and i enjoyed it but it just didn't live up to the rest  of the books in the series in my opinion and it was too long i think that's my main criticism of  it it was just way too long it was just like not what i wanted it to be i expected a bit more from  this so again not a bad book by any means i still highly recommend the series i really enjoy the  whole series but just not exactly what i wanted it to be and then the second book i have to mention  shouldn't come as a surprise either because i also talked about this in another video i've  talked about most of these books in other videos i haven't read that much this year so you'll hear  me repeat myself multiple times but that book is the invisible life of addie larue by v.e schwab  again i want to preface this with i gave this book four stars i did genuinely enjoy this book i don't  want you all to think i like hate it or something i don't i enjoyed it i thought it was a good book  i just do not see it as like exceptional the way that everyone else does and it just didn't live  up to my hype that i built up for it in my head i thought i would die for this book like i thought  i'd be head over heels in love with this story and it would be one of my new all-time favorite books  and it just wasn't so it was disappointing to me again it's still a good book i still think  it's worth reading i think it was enjoyable but in my opinion it's not really anything special  and in my opinion victoria schwab has much better books that's just how i feel personally  um so i was a little bit disappointed by this one so yeah this one in king of crows  are definitely um the two that have been the most disappointing but again a three and four star book  like i've still read great books i haven't read anything less than three stars so far this year  who knows maybe second half of the year i'll read some really terrible books maybe i'll read some  terrible books for fun and then we can vlog that who knows leave recommendations for really bad  books and maybe i'll read some of them all right question six is biggest surprise and for me this  easily goes to my reread of the entire shadow and bone trilogy i filmed a whole reading vlog when i  was rereading this trilogy and it was honestly one of my favorite videos i've made so far this  year because it was really really fun for me i'd never read ruin and rising before but i'd read the  first two years and years ago but i just didn't really care that much about the series i thought  it was three stars just okay good but like not my favorite thing and then i reread them this  year right before the show came out because i wanted to prepare and i love them now like i  literally love this series i would call this one of my favorite series it's genuinely such a good  series i was so taken aback by how much my opinion on it had changed and it's definitely made me want  to go back and reread a bunch of other series to see how my opinions have changed on them now like  four or five years later so yeah hands down this has to be the biggest surprise for me because i  genuinely did not think i'd ever come around to loving this book series as much as i do now but  i'm so pleasantly surprised by it it's a good surprise very happy surprise question seven is  your favorite new author and for this i definitely also have to go with oceanvong like i mentioned  before i loved this book so much that i definitely plan to pick up his poetry books as well because  i feel like i will absolutely love anything that he writes definitely a new favorite author for  me like an auto buy author okay questions eight and nine are new fictional crush and new favorite  character and quite honestly i don't think i have one for either of those because every single one  of my new favorite fictional characters or fictional crushes has just come from anime  this past year i don't think i have a new like fictional crush or favorite character in a book  i guess you could count mal from shadow and bone mal and alina like the two of them i like love  them i love their relationship their relationship is my fictional crush i guess we could pick that  and they're like two of my new favorite characters so we'll go with mal and elena actually i think  that's a pretty fair answer question 10 is a book that made you cry and i could go with like  a number of books because a lot of the books i read this year made me cry some of which you  have witnessed on camera i'm gonna pick two that i haven't mentioned in this video yet and the first  one is the stationery shop i've mentioned this book in a couple of other videos before i think  and i have talked about how much i love it it's definitely one of my new favorite books i've read  i genuinely enjoyed this book so much and it definitely made me cry it was heart-wrenching  and just very very emotional for me it's basically like historical fiction romance and i don't know  what it is about that genre specifically like a story that takes place over like a very long span  of time that really gets to me i think it's just getting to see characters entire like lifespans  or life stories like play out over time really gets to me in some way it's like that and found  family or like the two tropes that really make me like lose it emotionally and the stationery  shop is very much that like it starts in the 50s and then we move on to like 2013 so it takes  place like throughout all of that time and so we really get to grow with these characters and see  how they change and what happens to them in their lives and it's beautiful and it's so emotional  everyone should read this book it's so good and then the other book that made me cry which has a  very similar plot structure is uh malibu rising by taylor jenkins read i finally read malibu rising  it just came out like last month or something like that and it took me a bit to pick it up but i just  finished it like yesterday and i loved it i'll talk about it some more in like a wrap up once  i've read some more books and i'll like wrap up some of the other books that i've read recently  for you all but um i did very much enjoy this book and it did make me cry i definitely do not like it  as much as i like daisy jones or evelyn hugo those two were like god tier books for me this was like  four stars and really great but just not as great as those two i do think it's more similar to her  other books i've read her entire backlist so um i've read like all of her other romance books as  well before daisy jones and evelyn hugo and um i really like those two and i think this book  is more similar to that even though it has the same kind of structure as evelyn hugo and daisy  jones where it's about these like fictional celebrities in this fictional taylor jenkins  read celebrity universe but this did make me cry because of the sibling relationships which  is like the core part of this story and the like commentary on like family and stuff um which was  again like the main aspect of this and it was very emotional um i really enjoyed it though it was a  great read highly recommend taylor jenkins read never lets me down she never disappoints so yeah  these two books definitely made me cry but like i said a lot of books make me cry i cry very easily  now in contrast question 11 is a book that made you happy see books that made me cry can also be  books that made me happy um those two things are like kind of interchangeable sometimes i cry from  sheer happiness and i did tear up a little bit in this book from sheer happiness um but this is  definitely a book that i would say made me happy and that is the house in the cerulean sea i've  mentioned this book multiple times on my channel now as well i love it it's so good it is so happy  and it's all so sad of course like i said but at the same time it's mostly just like a purely  happy book if you're looking for something to just like cheer you up something to like escape into  for a little while this is definitely the book that i would recommend it's really heartwarming  and it will definitely put a smile on your face all right and then the next question is the most  beautiful book you have either bought or received this year and for me this hands down has to go to  the collector's edition of clockwork angel or the 10th anniversary edition not collector's edition  10th anniversary edition i love this book it is one of the few books i've actually bought this  year i really haven't bought that many books this year but i love this edition i saw it and i was  like i need it i know i already have a copy of clockwork angel but i want this one because it's  so pretty and this is like my favorite series so yes i'm very happy to have this i do want like the  other pretty editions of the um what's it what are they called what is chain of gold called the last  hours oh my god that took me so long i do want the pretty collector's editions of the last hour  series like the waterstones ones they're so nice um but i did not buy them when they first came out  and now they're like 300 on um depop or like ebay or something like that so i'm not paying that much  money for a book but i do want them maybe one day i'll get them who knows uh but yeah i love  these pretty like hardback cloth bound like foil books they're very pretty they're making them for  so many books now like they're making so many books with these like editions and i know there  are so many subscription boxes that do like all these special fancy editions and i've mentioned  this before i used to be way more into like pretty editions of books and i've recently like kind of  gotten out of that but every now and then every now and then when i see one i'm like yeah i could  i could have that that would make me happy so i caved with this one and got it and finally  question 13 what books do you need to read by the end of the year so i have quite a few books  that i still need to read by the end of the year there's one that is definitely the most important  i'm gonna list a couple of them and then i think you'll all know what the number one book is first  off i definitely want to read king of scars um i need to continue on with like the grisha trilogy  and go back into the gracia world because i have been spoiled now at this point thanks to some  people um for this series and i kind of know what happens so like i need to read them um as soon  as possible so this is definitely high up on my priority list of books that i need to get to and  i'm thinking about filming a vlog for it like i've mentioned before so might be doing that and then  another series that i really need to read by the end of the year i mentioned this in my last video  um as well that i started like reading manga and i've gotten super into manga specifically i've  gotten really really into fruits basket and it has consumed my entire life my entity my whole  soul now belongs to fruits basket literally no thoughts head empty just fruits basket  there's nothing else up here i've watched the show four times at this point yes i did finish it yes  i did start re-watching it immediately after i finished it i've shown it to literally everyone  in my life and i'm like you all need to watch this it's the greatest thing i've ever seen my life's  mission is to now make everybody in the world watch fruits basket because it's my favorite thing  on earth i literally posted on my instagram story the other day about how i think fruits basket  might literally top avatar the last airbender is like my favorite show of all time i know that's a  controversial statement um i know that i never thought anything would ever come even close to  avatar for me but i'm telling y'all fruits basket is it fruits basket it's consumed meat okay i can  make an entire video just about why i like this series so much or maybe i will just vlog myself  reading the entire manga series but to get back to the point the fruits basket manga that's one  thing i need to read before the end of the year i have volume one and volume five those are the only  two volumes i have um i do need to buy the other volumes as well but maybe when i do that i'll  just vlog myself reading this entire series maybe that's what i'll do but that could be something  let me know if you all would be interested in seeing that because the only thing i'm interested  in doing anymore is talking about fruits basket i've annoyed so many of my friends but annoyed  them into watching it and now they're like thank you hannah for introducing me to most depressing  yet best thing i've ever seen and i'm like you're welcome because it's the greatest thing ever  anyway um i don't know how to explain to you all how obsessed i am with fruits basket like when i  say consumed me i mean like fully consumed me like i literally cannot think about anything else i do  not love anything the way i love this um so yes i need to read the entire manga series asap it's  so important uh my life depends on this so yeah um that's one thing i will definitely be doing within  like the next month or so because yes um i love this series with my whole heart and soul read it  watch it let it consume you let it consume you and then come back to me and you can thank me and we  can cry together because i will never stop crying about fruits basket and then last but certainly  not least we have the book that everyone has been begging me to read for like two years now i know  but but you'll all be very happy to know that this is the next book i plan to read and i'm vlogging  it so it'll it'll happen it's coming the vlog is coming you'll finally get to hear my thoughts on  this book and that is of course none other than the starlet c by erin morgenstern i know it's  been a million years i know you've all been asking for me to read it for so so long but i'm finally  doing it um literally actually finally doing it i'm probably starting this either tomorrow or  the day after whenever i finally have time but it is literally the next book i will read i promise  you that you can yell at me for the rest of time if i don't read this next i promise okay okay and  i will vlog it so you can see my whole reaction and my whole like reading experience of it like  you've all been asking me to do since it came out in like 2019. it's fine it's fine we're doing it  but yes um i will read this this will definitely be read by the end of the year this will be read  probably by the end of the month so i'm sticking to my word now okay i'm sticking to my promise i  will keep my promise but there you all have it that is it for the mid-year book freakout tag i  hope you all enjoyed watching this video i hope that it was fun for you to hear about the books  i read so far this year and the books i plan to read for the remainder of the year i hope your  reading year has been going well as well let me know in the comments down below what your favorite  book and your most disappointing book that you've read so far this year have been i'm very curious  to know also um if you do want to see any of those reading vlogs and stuff that i mentioned or videos  that i mentioned definitely let me know that as well but that is it for this video if you'd like  to follow me on any of my social media all of my links are in the description box as always  but thank you all so much for watching i hope you enjoyed and i will see you in my next videobyeyou\n"