Goodbye September – Hello October

Posted in TBR, Wrap-up

Jeey, spooky season is here!! I do like fall… and although I don’t really have plans for it this year, I did get myself some foxy flowering pots and a pumpkin jumper.

September has been a bit of a weird month for me. We finally went on holiday again, and actually went abroad!!! Not too far though… we went to Belgium. We visited some towns (and even went to the spa in Spa), went for walks, Dave had his first ever kayaking experience, and the weather was Perfect!!

Reading wise I not really slumped, but I did get stuck on a book for over two weeks so I thought this wrap-up may not have more than 4 books or so. But then last week happened, and I sped through a bunch of books again somehow bringing the total to 11 books (still my worst reading month of the year, also page wise, but still very reasonable).

DNF

Both these books I received through Netgalley, and both I DNFed about 20% into it. After Alice Fell promised a very interesting story, but when I stopped reading it still absolutely nothing had happened. The writing style also didn’t work for me… it was too descriptive and meandering and just completely failed to suck me in. The Patriot List is yet another Marvel book I got my hands on, and although I very much enjoyed parts of it (read Venom), I just haven’t read enough of the comics to fully grasp what is going on here. So this wasn’t a bad read, I am just putting it down for now because I feel I can get way more out of it if I learn a bit more about the whole setting and the characters from the comics first.

3 Star

The book I got myself stuck on was The City of Dr Moreau. I did write a full review for it which you can find over here. But basically, I liked the idea of it, but the story jumped around through time and between characters too much for me to feel connected to the story. Truly Devious is a book that has been on my radar since it came out and now I finally picked it up. And it was enjoyable enough but I’m not really the target audience I guess. I didn’t care for the romance (and most of the side characters) whatsoever, and so the cliffhanger had no impact on me at all. The mystery was okay, but I am annoyed by the fact that we don’t really get any answers… because for me the mystery (especially the current day one) isn’t interesting enough to drag out over multiple books. The audiobooks are on Scribd so I probably will continue the series, but I am in no hurry to do so. One series I Won’t be continuing is Kingdom of the Wicked. There were definitely parts of this book I loved (aka Food). But this book really wasn’t for me. You can find my full review on it over here.

4 Star

The Bachelor Girl’s Guide to Murder was a fun, forgetable historical murder mystery and the perfect palet cleanser. Two young ladies who rather go sleuthing than get married, a cute (but not annoying) romance, and okay mystery… and only just over 200 pages long. Definitely a series I will be continuing if I want something light. My Discworld (re)read is getting closer to its end… and I am okay with that. Although I still thoroughly enjoyed Thud! and Making Money, they didn’t really bring in anything new. Especially Thud! kinda felt like I had read it all before already. Maybe I am reading them all too soon after each other…. I am still having fun with them though. I was going to save Near the Bone for October but then decided to just read it already. Huge trigger warnings for domestic abuse (both physical and mental). Henry has done a great job finding a balance between the two very different types of monsters, and the desperate situation our main character finds herself in. I would have liked to get a few more answers, and there were some points where logic somewhat failed, but otherwise a very good read.

5 Star

Where I ended up DNFing two of my Netgalley reads, I also got two that just blew my mind. I love these books so much! Rise of the World Eater is the last book in the Frostheart series… and although Technically a MiddleGrade book it contained such epicness, realness, and difficulty that it will appeal to readers of all ages. You can find my full review for it over here. The Spirit Engineer is based on the true story of William Jackson Crawford as he investigates the science behind spiritualism, and his slow decline into madness. This was such a fascinating story and definitely one of my favourite books of the year. My full review for it can be read over here.

What about October? Well… I don’t really have any spooky reads planned for it (I know, very unlike me). I have only 12 books left on my owned-tbr, so I guess I could try and get that under 10. Starting with a personal Marvel readathon (I still have 4 Marvel books on my Netgalley shelf). I also still have 10 books on my Have-to-Read-in-2021 shelf so I should probably have a look at those as well soon (especially since November is Believathon and I’ll mainly be reading MiddleGrades).

Hoping you are well,

Published by simplyabookdrunkardblog

8 thoughts on “Goodbye September – Hello October”

  1. Nice pictures. You two look really good together! How’d the kayaking go? Mrs B and I tried it together early in our marriage and it was not a good time, as both of us thought we knew more about kayaking than the other while the reality was we both knew WAY less than we should have, hahahaha. We haven’t tried again 😀

    I know you or Dave have listened to an audio version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Do you happen to remember who the narrator was? I’m thinking of trying an audio book for that for halloween but there are a LOT of versions out there :-/

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    1. Hahaha, thanks 😊 kayaking went well I think… there were some bad floods in July, so there was still quite some debris in the river. But there was also a decent current so we mainly just sat back and relaxed 😎 we only got ourselves stuck twice (at which point Dave would just get out and push the boat).

      Dave listened to it, narrated by Washington Irving.

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