October Reading Wrap Up

It’s November! Merry Christmas everyone! There’s really not much to look forward to this year, so the fact that the holiday season is approaching (yes, we know it’s two months away, but it is getting closer) is very exciting. Time moving forward means election day tomorrow (AHH! If you’re in the US and are old enough PLEASE VOTE!) and Thanksgiving break at the end of the month! It also means that our Goodreads reading challenges are coming to a close soon, so we may need to ramp up our reading in the final stretch. But you’re here to see what we read last month, so we’ll stop our rambling and focus on that for now!

Books Read:

Malka:

I managed to read 9 books this month, which I’m quite happy with! I don’t expect to read as many next month, since I have more midterms and projects, and it’s growing closer to finals as well. Plus, I’m getting slightly slumpy with the cold weather settling in. So if anyone has any graphic novel or romance recommendations, please share them in the comments! But I digress, we’re here to talk about the books I read in October!

This month I finally read a whole bunch of the books that I purchased over the course of the past few months! My 5 star reads don’t contain any novels, but I’m okay with that. Most of the novels that I read were 4 stars, except for one that was 2 stars, which made me sad because I was looking forward to it!

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

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Helium is a book of poetry that I just adored! I’ve been wanting to read more modern poetry, but I’ve also had to be mindful of dark content, which can mess with my mental health. This book was perfect for me. I picked it up when I was having a rough day, and it just fit my mindset perfectly. Its super short and really well crafted, and I’d highly recommend it! As for the Heartstopper graphic novels, well, I think they’re pretty popular, and for good reason! I binged these three books in 2 days and ended up giving each one 5 stars! I can’t wait for volume 4 to come out so I have an excuse to immerse myself in the cuteness that is Nick and Charlie once again!

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Chana lent me Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, since she read it and thought I’d love it. And she was right! It was such a great book, and now I can’t wait to read more of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s work! Always Only You is a romance that uses the grumpy and sunshine trope so very well! The cuteness in this one was so intense in this book, it hurt! Spoiler Alert solidified the fact that I need to read more Olivia Dade, since I’ve loved both of her books that I’ve picked up. This book is a fantastic romance between a plus-sized woman and a dyslexic movie star, that features emotionally abusive parents as well. But to balance it all out was this adorable romance, and a focus on fandom life that was just fantastic! Lastly, for this section, we have Charming As a Verb, which I picked up in a book store and read the first few pages of, before deciding I wanted to read this story. The writing style was so engaging, and I just really enjoyed the story! I’ve seen on Goodreads that not many people have read it, so I’d highly recommend checking this book out and seeing if it interests you!

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Rating: 2 out of 5.

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This book was just not for me. It had a lot of important disability representation, and included a lot of important conversations surrounding difficult topics as well, but while I can see that somewhat objectively, there were other aspects that bothered me, and I think I just wasn’t a good fit with this book.

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Chana:

I read 23 books this month! In 2019 this would be a usual number for me, but this is way out of bounds for my 2020 monthly reading averages, so I’m really happy about it! I read a lot of books that I enjoyed, and I managed to get to a bunch of graphic novels that I had been meaning to read for a while.

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Rating: 5 out of 5.

I just read This is How You Lose the Time War and I already want to reread it immediately. And then read it again. It is SO GOOD. The writing is beautiful, the characters are beautiful, the plotline is beautiful,,,,,,I clearly can’t formulate coherent thoughts. BUT like. Sapphic rival time travel assassins! Exchanging letters!

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Rating: 4 out of 5.

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Rating: 3 out of 5.

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Top two three stars were The Ikessar Falcon and The Tower of Nero. I can’t believe that the PJO series is (allegedly) officially over! But to be honest I don’t trust Rick Riordan to stop, and I’m expecting another series within the same universe sometime soon.

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Rating: 2 out of 5.

This book was really disappointing. I enjoyed the first book in this series, The Infinite Noise, and I thought the general concept was really interesting so I was excited to read this one. However, this book takes a completely different direction than the first book. My main issue was the main character. He was incredibly unlikeable. He was rude, racist, selfish etc. And while those traits were defining features of his character that guided the plot, it was not at all enjoyable to read.

Books Acquired:

Malka:

I only purchased 4 books this month, and I’ve already read 3 of them (and started the 4th!). I’m quite impressed with myself for managing to pull that off! A Cuban Girl’s Guide to Tea and Tomorrow actually comes out on November 10th, but I got my copy about 10 days early!

Purchased:

Chana:

I bought way too many books this month. But I did find out that whoever said money can’t buy happiness was lying because each purchase brought me a burst of pure serotonin that I would not have felt otherwise.

Purchased:

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Gifted:

Things We Did:

Malka:

Hmmmmm. I can’t think of anything exciting that I did this month. I mean, I did another temperature related circuits project that I shared on Instagram for a bit, but that’s schoolwork, really. I think this section pretty much sums up October for me. There was nothing special about it. It was just okay.

November, however, is filled with midterms and projects and other stress inducing items. I’d honestly be grateful if I came out of November thinking it was boring, since I think it will be a lot of work.

I do want to try something fun in November though, and that is to be more active on Goodreads and Instagram stories. So the goal I am setting for myself is to update at least one thought per book I read on Goodreads, whether that’s before, during, or after I read the book. As for Instagram, well, I’d like to pop on there at least once a week, so I hope you all are following us there and will interact with me on stories and through DMs!

Chana:

I watched all of Schitt’s Creek in 3 days! I also went on a walk at the beginning of the month and it was probably the longest I was outside the entire month. It’s started to get really gross and rainy in NYC, so I’m kind of glad that I don’t need to go outside every day, but I also hope that the gross weather stops. (I know it won’t but a girl can dream).

We’re already scheduling classes for next semester and lo’ and behold, they’re all online! It’s crazy because that means by next semester it’ll be a full year of having school online. I don’t want to freak anyone out, but I do think we should all be a little bit worried that the future doctors, engineers, and lawyers are being educated by Zoom university.

Posts We Loved:

Caitlin @ Caitlin Althea had a great post about how to get blog followers!

Tracy @ Truffle Reads presented us with the ultimate guide to being a buddy reader.

Veronika @ Wordy and Whimsical discussed how she avoids blogger burn outs!

How was your October? What was your favorite read this past month? Do you have any recommendations of romances or graphic novels for Malka?