October Wrap-Up: An actually…good month??

OCTOBER IS THE BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR!!!

Looking back, it seems obvious. My birth month + Halloween + good weather + I’m out of my reading slump + my favorite cookies at my local grocery store were briefly 50% off.

BUT I WAS OBLIVIOUS TO THE POTENTIAL THAT OCTOBER COULD BE THIS GOOD!!

Let’s talk about it.

What a time to be alive, ladies.

It was my birthday. (Which was solid. A girl can legally drink, my friends.) It was Halloween. (Which is not my favorite holiday but I am a fan of: candy; cute decorative things that look like ghosts and witches and pumpkins; the period known as “now,” when the aforementioned cute and candy things are on sale.)

It was also midterm season. So for approximately 1-2 weeks (corresponding to my birthday!! We love it) I spent absolutely every second of every day wanting to die and crying. Except not actually crying because that’s very off-brand for me.

But THENNNN it was the most wonderful time of the year (please read in the bellowing singing voice of the song): getting grades back!!! Getting As = my drug. Addicting, instant pleasure-inducing, life-controlling, priority-redefining, etc etc. I love it.

Also: I READ SO MUCH. YOU GUYS. I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!!! And I also posted here?? And on bookstagram??? And on Goodreads??

I don’t know who I am but I do know I: love what’s happening..

OCTOBER GOALS

DON’T START EVERY MIDTERM PAPER THE DAY BEFORE ✓

BLOG POST ABOUT ONCE A WEEK ✓ish

POST ON BOOKSTAGRAM AT LEAST TWICE ✓

READ AT LEAST 8 BOOKS ✓

READ AT LEAST TWO CLASSICS ✓

READ AND POST ABOUT RENEGADES AND ARCHENEMIES  ✓ish

KEEP ON APPLYING TO JOBS AND INTERNSHIPS ✓

DO FUN THINGS??? ✓✓

Oops, I did it again…”it” being “accomplish all my goals” baby!!!

Except I only kind of blog posted enough. And I haven’t posted about Renegades and Archenemies yet. But I’m saving that sh*t for the release date boi.

Watch me: basically recycle all of these goals right now. Don’t mess with what’s working.

GOALS FOR NOVEMBER

Blog post at least four times

Post on bookstagram at least five times

Read at least 10 books

Read at least one classic

Post about Renegades and Archenemies

Keep an eye on internships

Write and post reviews

Keep doing fun stuff!

This month is the calm before the storm. And also after the storm. The calm between the storms.

Midterms are donezo and December is when finals come to kick me in the face and make me cry. So I’m set for the moment.

This month this month…Thanksgiving. Course registration.

I don’t know. In Little Women don’t they say something about how sh*t November is? The weather sucks. It’s kinda boring. We’ll see.

Shoutout to me half-remembering quotes I read more than a decade ago. Practically Cam Jansen with this photographic memory over here.

BUT ALSO IT’S VOTING TIME BABY!!! I am phone banking and canvassing and going home for 24 hours (spending 12 of those hours on a bus) because my absentee ballot never arrived.

American people: Please vote. Please please please.

Let’s talk about how much I read!!!

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1. Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Read: September 20 – October 4 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

CAN YOU EVEN BELIEVE HOW LONG THIS BOOK IS. Can you imagine sitting down and being like, “Ah, time to start a new series! Just some light worldbuilding and characterization and…there’s literally five hundred pages.” What a power move.

Anyway this was fine. Fun. Romance was good.

Also it was 500 pages long and literally nothing matters.

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2. A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

Read: October 5 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

Remember how I didn’t like the contemporary by Brigid Kemmerer I read? And remember how I don’t like ACOTAR?

This is like if those books were combined. What a dream.

Also, yeah…that’s right. This book is 496 pages long and I read it in a day. What of it? That’s just a casual, cool thing for me to do and not something I want to brag about until the end of days.

Thanks to Bloomsbury for the ARC!

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3. Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Read: September 24 – October 6 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

The thing about life is that it’s teeming with disappointments. Not only of the disastrous, notable variety, but also the more subtle kind that just leave you feeling meh.

Six of Crows is a five star read and one of my favorite books of all time. This is just…fine.

NOTICE A DIFFERENCE???

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4. Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

Read: October 7 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

Hell yes I reread this book less than six months after reading it for the first time. I LOVE IT AND I WILL NOT BE SHAMED.

This is one of those books that I love and a lot of people don’t love and every time it hurts my feelings and it should teach me empathy or something for all the times I hate books that people love but it doesn’t and it never will because I am an emotionless robot.

Except for one (1) emotion, which is: love for this book.

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5. The Girl King by Mimi Yu

Read: October 6-9 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2.5 stars

Did I want to like this book? Yes. Desperately.

Did I like this book? Of course not, because this is an unjust world and I never get what I want!!! (Except for one time.)

This just never grabbed my attention, even a little bit even one time. I was bored and I thought the romance was deeplyyyy unnecessary and I WANTED MORE SISTERLINESS OKAY.

See: the thing I said earlier about disappointments. And also the thing about thanking Bloomsbury for the ARC.

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6. Love & Luck by Jenna Evans Welch

Read: October 8-10 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3.5 stars

But also, sometimes the universe works in beautiful, symmetrical ways…….which must be why, fresh off the disappointment that was a lack of sisterhood in The Girl King, I was delivered some of the BEST SIBLING RELATIONSHIPS EVER TO HIT THE WORLD OF YA.

What a treat.

Also: Ireland!!!

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7. Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Read: October 11-14 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3.5 stars

Gang, it’s finally happening.

For YEARS (okay maybe like 1 year) I have claimed to be planning to reread The Lunar Chronicles. I, and probably everyone, assumed I was absolutely lying because I never follow through on my promises.

BUT I WAS BEING TRUTHFUL. Because look. I did it.

Also Cinder is the worst book in this series and that’s just facts.

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8. Circe by Madeline Miller

Read: October 9-18 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 3 stars

Ughhhhhhhhh.

Guys.

I just don’t get the hype with this one. I just thought it was so meh. I liked it at first and then I just got so tired of it. Maybe had something to do with me listening to the audiobook? Who can say. Regardless: unpopular opinion baby!!!

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9. Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Read: October 15-18 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

IT’S A BINGE READ, BABY.

Yes I am going to read this whole series in the span of a month. Yes I am going to read other books too. Yes I am a superhero and would appreciate extensive praise.

Also, this book is slightly better than Cinder, but Scarlet and Wolf are still meh. At least Thorne appears. Heart heart heart. And Cress a lil.

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10. Archenemies by Marissa Meyer

Read: October 14-18 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I finished Renegades and was like, this series has so much potential!! The next book could be really good!!!

What I didn’t realize is that the next book could also be really bad. And guess what? This book was pretty bad.

EVERYTHING I WANTED TO HAPPEN? THE OPPOSITE HAPPENED. See: THE INJUSTICE OF THIS LIFE.

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11. Anna and the Apocalypse by Katharine Turner

Read: October 20-21 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

This was just…the strangest.

Like…it’s a novelization of a movie. A British zombie movie. For teens. With singing. And jokes. And one that seems for all intents and purposes to be made up mostly of scenes in which brains get smashed. (Yes I stole that from my Goodreads review but it’s really all I can say on the matter.)

Thanks to Fierce Reads for the copy!

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12. Cress by Marissa Meyer

Read: October 19-22 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

Whooooole lot of Marissa Meyer this month my dear boy. Like…cumulatively over 2000 pages.

Who am I.

Anyway THIS IS THE BEST BOOK IN THE SERIES I THINK and Cress and Thorne are present and accounted for and truly what more could you possibly need.

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13. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Read: October 23 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 2 stars

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the best part of being an English major is reading the same stories over and over again when you didn’t even like them the first time!!

See: Bartleby the Scrivener; Huck Finn.

The first time, you get that affective unpleasantness, but multiple readings bring out a whole new level of dislike. 10/10 recommend, sarcastically.

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14. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Read: October 22-23 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4.5 stars

This book is not for the faint of heart, which is not an insult or a challenge. It contains racist and sexist and all around bigoted language and it can be very very very hard to get through.

But it’s amazing. And I think it’s worth it.

AHHH even thinking about how I felt when I finished this book is affecting me!! Reading is cool!!! I might need to raise this rating!!!

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15. Opal by Maggie Stiefvater

Read: October 24 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

I WILL READ ANYTHING EVER THAT HAS EVER OR WILL EVER CLAIM TO EXIST IN THE SAME FICTIONAL WORLD AS RICHARD GANSEY III.

Maggie Stiefvater, please write infinite books in which you name-drop him one (1) time. I am asking you to manipulate me and take my money.

Make me suffer it’s FINE.

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16. Sadie by Courtney Summers

Read: October 25 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 4 stars

For some reason I woke up one morning (or possibly early afternoon, to be fair) and was like “I’m going to binge read Sadie today.”

Even though I had class that day from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m.

Even though this is a pretty grueling book.

No regrets??? (Some regrets.)

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17. Stalking Jack the Ripper by Kerri Manisalco

Read: October 29-30 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1.5 stars

WHY MUST I SUFFER.

I have this book on my TBR for like a year, I finally buy it (BUY IT!!! Not even on Book Outlet!! With real human money!) in time for Halloween, and of course I hate it.

Why am I doomed to this life of pain and turmoil??? Why are books so cheesy and weird?? Why am I destined to be the lone guard against strange subtle antifeminist language drowning under performative feminism???

If you can answer any of these questions, lmk.

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18. Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Read: October 26-31 🌷🌿🌷 Rating: 1 star

If it ever takes me five days to read a 200 page YA fantasy book, something is dreadfully wrong.

In this case, that dreadfully wrong something was a whole lot of boring + sexual predation + awkward embarrassing cringey discomfort.

The big three of me hating a book, really.

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TRULY OUT OF THE SLUMP. Guys, I haven’t read this many books since…May! When I literally didn’t have school!

Thriving.

Anyway, drumroll please…..the moment we’ve all been waiting for…….the average rating for the month is………..

3.11111!

Quantity over quality I guess.

Well, I managed to post three times. Actually four, but due to a common technical difficulty known as “Emma being a f*cking idiot” I deleted a post. Or reverted it to a draft or whatever.

Either way it is lost to time and I’m not pleased about it because I actually made graphics!!!

Here are the posts I didn’t irrevocably f*ck up, in order of views.

1. It is my birthday so here are my ten favorite books

2. September Wrap-Up: All school, all the time

3. The Unique Blogger Award: A very on-brand ego boost

Yay October!! So good!!

Let’s see if my good mood and strong standing and relative motivation can make it through the rapidly incoming cold weather that consistently makes me wanna die!

Fun!!!

How was your October? Did you read anything good? Anything terrible? Have you read any of the books I read?

What were you for Halloween?