What I Read: October

Cooler temps always have me itching for witchy books and creepy reads! I had a lot of fun with books about ghosts, monsters, witches, and vampires this month with a few regular books thrown in the mix. Cooler weather is also perfect for couch cuddles while reading!

Books:

• Soul Searching by Lyla Sage- I'm not going to lie, I was a little mad at Lyla Sage for leaving Rebel Blue Ranch behind. I wanted more of that magic and I didn't know if Sweetwater Peak could compare. But this book proved the magic isn't in the setting, it's in Lyla herself. This book was the perfect combination of warm hug and spooky ghosts. I loved it so much. Brady was my kind of man: sweet, dependable, and words with his hands. I am so excited to read Clarke's story. The sneak peek at the end of this book had me intrigued.

• Greenteeth by Molly O'Neill- This book starts with Jenny Greenteeth, a lake monster, and introduces so many other amazing characters along the way. Jenny ends up saving a witch who is thrown in her lake to drown and they take off on a quest together that involves a star, a mythical boar, and unicorns. I really enjoyed this story!

On the way to Chicago.

• Lore Olympus: Volume Nine by Rachel Smythe- I forgot a new volume released earlier in the month and was so excited when Elise pointed it out to me in a bookstore we were visiting in Chicago. I preordered a couple of the volumes, but decided it was more fun to stumble across a new volume that I didn't know or forgot was releasing. That was a solid choice because finding the book made my day! This volume had me giggling at multiple points and I absolutely loved it. Read it in one sitting on our drive back from Chicago.

On the way home from Chicago.

• Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones- This was not at all what I was expecting. I pictured mannequins come to life and killing people and that wasn't what happened at all. The writing, as always, was so phenomenal. Stephen Graham Jones has the creepiest brain and I just can't get enough of it.

• The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst- I love the world building and characters in her books. The romance is super blah, I wish she'd just scrap writing romances and go for fantasy. The talking plants and magical greenhouses were amazing! Just picking up the book to read made me happy because I got to see the beautiful cover!

• Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson- This was a fantastic premise. Jet is bludgeoned nearly to death on Halloween night. She suffers injuries that will lead to her death in what doctors estimate will be about a week. She decides to spend her last days solving her own murder. Sounds good right? But it was disappointing. I may have gone into it with expectations too high based on how much I loved The Reappearance of Rachel Price. This book felt more young adult than any of her other books. Jet's last letters to her family were cringy as hell and a lot of the dialogue was too. I was also disappointed with how obvious the killers were, I expected more of a twist out of her.

eBooks:

• Run for the Hills by Kevin Wilson- I enjoy Kevin Wilson's odd and quirky characters. This was the story of siblings discovering each other existed and driving across the country to find their dad who left all of them and started anew in a different city with a different woman each time. It was strange and interesting and didn't end how I expected. 

• Root and Bone by Jessica Raney- This was one of those rare books that started with a bang and just kept getting better! There were a few things I found annoying, but overall this was one of my favorite witch books I've ever read.

• Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz- This was a delightful book. It had lots of cute, little sections that made me giggle. I loved the robots' individual personalities and the storyline with robots gaining civil rights. This book will leave you craving biang biang noodles without ever even having eaten them before, the descriptions are so full and lovely. I enjoyed lines like this one, "Cayenne admired the way humans could stick to their daily rituals even as the world blew up around them."

• The Bear by Andrew Krivak- I picked this book based on a bookseller recommendation at Exile in Bookville in Chicago. It said, the less you know, the better so I went into it blind. It was lovely.

Audiobooks:

• Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London- This had a fun and enjoyable premise. I didn't like it as much as I was expecting. I enjoyed the podcast and the various ways she told the story. It could have been more.

• Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris- Sookie Stackhouse Book #1. This was a fun fantasy with a mystery in the mix.

• A Little Blood and Dancing by Tyler Parker- I enjoyed the writing and it got a couple giggles out of me, but this story was very meh. It built for 400ish pages before it ever got where it was going. It reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite. A bunch of weirdos just bumbling around with no real purpose.

• Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson- I picked this book up at an independent bookstore in San Antonio, Texas from a Texas authors section. My mom read it and kept talking about how funny it was so I had to finally read it. It was hilarious. It felt like being in conversation with a very funny friend.