October Wrap-Up

Click to listen! Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Hello Hello! How are you?

October came and went and now we are in November, wow! Once again, I didn’t have the best of months, I’ve been so busy lately and my conditions have been flaring up over the last few days, but I put in a reading streak this weekend and managed to finish 3 more books before the month was up!

I’m giving myself another easy month in November because university is going to get seriously crazy and I have to start my thesis. So if you’re interested to find out about the books I’ve planned to read, you can find my November TBR here!

France is now in lockdown so that means more reading time and writing time (I’m determined to win NaNoWriMo this year) for me and less stress over university as it is now distanced learning, so I’m very relieved! I’m hoping to get more books read and hopefully dive into the massive pile of books I’ve set aside for my thesis (I’m so excited to start working, I’m not normal aha!).

In October, I was able to read a total of 9 books, which is still fairly good, so now, let’s talk about all of these books I read last month!

.

BOOKS READ

.

My Favourite Books of the Month

Ghostly Echoes (#3 Jackaby) by William Ritter – 4.5 stars

This is the third book in the series that Candyce and I have been buddy reading for a few months and I loved it from the very first page. The previous books were so good, but this one had something else, I don’t know how to describe it exactly but more true-to-mystery vibes. In any case, it was amazing and I can’t wait for the finale, my review will be up in a few weeks!

.

Ring the Bell by Josie Jaffrey – 5 stars

My only 5-star book this month is a short story of only 31 pages, but in such a short space, I went on a wild adventure and my feelings were all over the place. This is set in a dystopian world and it has a really big societal critique underneath that you only see right at the end. It blew my mind away and if you don’t mind hard to read and slap-in-your-face books, this is for you. Here is my review!

.

October Books

The Wolf and the Water (#1 Deluge) by Josie Jaffrey – 4.5 stars

I read another Josie Jaffrey book this month and I think that other than Ring the Bell, it’s my favourite of hers that I’ve read so far, I still think of it now nearly a whole month after I read it. This book had everything, great characters, some baddies, great world-building and subtle political issues, a really original and surprising plot, I adored it and you can read my review of it here.

.

Beastly Bones (#2 Jackaby) by William Ritter – 4.5 stars

I also read the second book in the Jackaby series with Candyce in October and this is where the series started to turn towards what just happened in book 3 and what is sure to keep happening in book 4 (that makes no sense but you should read it and find out). I can’t gush enough about this series, I love it, it was such a fun reading experience and my review should be up in the next weeks.

.

Odessa (#1) by Jonathan Hill – 3.5 stars

This was a graphic novel and one of my many Netgalley books. I’m glad I was able to get another one ticked off the list because I don’t think I’ll get the time to read any in November! This was a good book but it didn’t fully do it for me. The landscape drawings were beautiful, but I did not like the characters’ drawings at all and I found the plot to be a bit on the immature side, things seem to have happened in the end so I might continue the series! You can read all my thoughts here.

.

Second Cousin Once Removed by Kenneth L. Toppell – 1 star

This was another book that really wasn’t my thing. I pushed myself and went right to the end but it was one of the most boring and crude books I’ve read this year, well no, actually it’s the most. This is my lowest rating this year and it just felt so old-fashioned, badly executed and bad. I would not recommend and I’m not writing a review for it.

.

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacNeal – 3.5 stars

I read this book with some blogger friends (Hannah has invented an impromptu book club and we’ve been loving it). Wow, we had SO MANY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS! This book is definitely not for the faint-hearted or the reader who just wants an easy read they don’t need to interact about, you’re going to be screaming, I guarantee it. It was a good book, there were just some things that bothered me or that I would have liked differently, but I’ll have a very messy review up soon.

.

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee – 3 stars

This was another not great book for me, unfortunately. It was the October pick for the Middle Grade Marvels book club as the BOTM. Most of the members seemed to love this but there was just something missing for me, I can’t put my finger on it but I didn’t really like the characters and there were a lot of unanswered questions, but I’ll have all my thoughts up in the coming weeks!

.

Under the Lesser Moon (#1 The Marked Son) by Shelly Campbell – 4 stars

And the last book I managed to read for October (cutting it short but with 10 minutes to go before midnight on the last day, YES) was GREAT, thankfully aha! This was a very different book and it surprised me a little bit, I read it for my first-ever Mythos & Ink blog tour and I really enjoyed it, I loved the world-building, the creatures, the main character was so interesting and I can’t wait to continue it! You can read the rest of my thoughts in my review!

.

October Reading Stats

Number of books: 9

Number of pages: 2,510 pages

Star ratings:

1 star: 1 book

3 stars: 1 book

3.5 stars: 2 books

4 stars: 1 book

4.5 stars: 3 books

5 stars: 1 book

Average rating: 3.72⭐

Genres: 1 science fiction dystopia short story, 1 fantasy LGBT historical fiction, 2 YA fantasy mystery historical fictions, 1 YA dystopia graphic novel, 1 mystery, 1 historical fiction, 1 MG fantasy science fiction and 1 fantasy.

.

I’m really happy with my month, I had one book that was really not my thing at all and a few not so good one, but I had a lot of great ones and some new favourites! I can’t wait to dive into all my November books now!

That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed this post, see you soon, stay safe,

Ellie xx