Happy Halloween, friends! I hope you all are having a safe and happy holiday! And remember: Don’t eat or drink anything from Faerie! Yeah, I am going as Cardan from The Cruel Prince this year, because I’m extra but also like to stay on brand!  🍏

October was a bit of a rough month for me reading wise. I DNFed two books, and read sixteen others, but I truly only loved a small few of the things I picked up this month! And, sadly, the first thing I read ended up being the best thing I read all month! But I am hoping that November is much better reading wise for me! 🧡🍂

Other October Things…
✨ #FridayFrightAThon is over and it was such a success! Thank you to everyone who read along with us. It means the world to me! I hope to do it again next year!

✨ I did five spooky recommendations: Witches, Ghosts, Demons, Shifters, and Vampires!

✨ Worlds 2018 for League of Legends is WILD this year. And, I’ll be honest, me staying up too late and watching it (because it is in Korea this year) has really impacted my reading. But it is so worth it! #IGWIN ❤

But on to what I read in October…
(Like always, you can click the links in each of the titles if you would like to read a more in-depth review of each book and see the individual trigger and content warnings.)

➽ The Lost Sisters (The Folk of the Air #1.5) by Holly Black – ★★★★★

“His hair was bright in the moonlight, his face as handsome as heartbreak.”

No one weaves words and magic like Holly Black. No one. And I don’t even have words to express how amazing it feels to be back in this world. Not only did it make me appreciate The Cruel Prince more, it also made me emotional because of all the foreshadowing for The Wicked King. This is a pivotal short story that completely immersed me, captivated me, and reinforced that this is my favorite series of all-time.

➽ Daisy Jones and The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid – DNF @ 22%

“I love you as much as I’m willing to love anybody.”

I can’t believe I’m DNFing a Taylor Jenkins Reid book. She wrote one of my favorites books of all time, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, that means more to me than I have words to even begin to express. But this? This was just boring, and crude, and told in such a bad format. It’s like mini interviews if you will, where multiple people are talking, but it was impossible for me to ever be immersed.

➽ Aquicorn Cove by Katie O’Neill – ★★★★

“But there’s no home without a future…”

Aquicorn Cove stars a young girl named Lana, and she and her father come to visit her Auntie Mae on her little island. Lana is grieving the loss of her mother, but feels happier in her hometown, before Lana was forced to move to the city with her father. And the village is rebuilding after a disaster has struck. But Lana is more than happy to help. But when she goes to the water, she finds a little seahorse-like friend, who is in need of her help!

➽ City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6) by Cassandra Clare – ★★★★★

“You are the blade of Heaven. Make sure you are worthy.”

Friends, we did it, we read all of the The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments. I’d like to take a moment and thank each and every one of you who motivated me to read this backlist instead of just jumping into The Dark Artifices. Seriously, I am so grateful because even though the road started off rocky, I quickly became so attached and fell so in love with these characters and this world. (But we don’t talk about City of Fallen Angels, that book never existed!)

➽ Vicious (Villains #1) by V.E. Schwab – ★★★

“Plenty of humans were monstrous, and plenty of monsters knew how to play at being human.”

Friends, this is my fifth book by VE Schwab, and I’ve three starred every single one of them. At this point, it is glaringly obvious that you should take my review(s) of her work with a grain of salt, because it is obviously a “me” thing. I will say that I adore the author, and I want so desperately to fall in love with a book of hers. And even though I thought Vicious would be the one, it sadly wasn’t.

➽ The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter – ★★★★

“Nothing ever truly faded. Time only dulled the edges.”

This is a story about two sisters who are still grieving from a harrowing, unspeakable, horrible event that happened to them twenty-eight years ago. The book starts out with a flashback chapter, where we quickly learn that a home invasion is happening, because the girls’ father is a very liberal lawyer in a very conservative and small town.

➽ The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah – ★★★

“Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.”

This is a heartbreaking, historical fiction, WWII story that stars two sisters living in France, when the Germans take over in 1939. But we get to see present day glimpses from 1995, that star an older woman thinking about her life and all the harrowing events that she was forced to live through before immigrating to The United States. But it really develops this complex guessing game where you are not sure which sister is this present-day narrator.

➽ The Mermaid and Mrs. Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar – DNF @ Page 149/496

“Its appearance is unbeautiful. It is not what people expect of a mermaid.”

Friends, life is just too short to read books that feel like a chore. On top of racist comments, use of slurs for Romani people, questionable antisemitic speech, slut shaming, and other gross things because of “historical accuracy!” Miss me with all that, please. And the last chapter I finished (14) literally had a questionable orgy going on so that men could fulfill their fantasy of having sex with mermaids. Life is too short, friends. Way too short.

➽ The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – ★★★★★

“I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”

Best reread ever! RTC very soon! But… now I just want to reread all my favorites!

➽ The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare – ★★★

“…For one Herondale to be saved by love, and another Herondale dammed by it.”

I clutched my pearls so very tightly when I found out that there was an anthology that starred Magnus, my favorite character in all of Cassie Clare’s works. Magnus is the bisexual, Asian, warlock of my dreams, and I love him with every bone in my body. I truly believe he is one of the best characters in all of literature.

➽ The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware – ★★

“Never believe your own lies…”

This was my first Ruth Ware book, but sadly it wasn’t a hit with me. But looking at my friend’s reviews, I do think I might be in the minority with my feelings. I will say that the atmosphere was eerie and perfect. I will also say that the writing and prose was beautiful. But I’m not someone who reads a lot of thrillers or mysteries, but even I could see all the reveals in this one coming a mile away.

➽ One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid – ★★★

“I am finishing up dinner with my family and my fiancé when my husband calls…”

Do you ever read a book and know that you’re reading it at the exact moment in your life when you needed to read it? Because that is me with One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I know a three star rating doesn’t seem that high, but the message of this book spoke louder to me than maybe any other book this year. The universe really lined up for me with this one.

➽ Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches, Vol. 01 by Miki Yoshikawa – ★★
This started out so much better than it ended. But then the gratuitous fan service and the glossed over sexual assault and disrespect of other people’s bodies just completely ruined this one for me. Which is really sad, because I loved the concept!

➽ Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare – ★★★

“This is how a faerie loves: with a gift.”

With the way that City of Heavenly Fire ended, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy! I thought this was going to be everything, but sadly I was a little let down. I mean, a few of the stories in here are the best I’ve read from this universe ( Bitter of Tongue & Born to Endless Night) but most just felt boring to me, if I’m being honest. I know that sounds horrible, but I just feel a little let down, I guess.

➽ If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio – ★★★★★

“You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough.”

This book is so haunting, so atmospheric, so gripping, and so perfect. And If you, too, love The Secret History by Donna Tartt then I recommend this book with every single bone in my body. Also, this is such a love letter to Shakespeare and all his work, so if you appreciate that I think you’ll also fall so head over heels for this story. I’m honestly not sure what I expected going into If We Were Villains, but it is now one of my favorite books of all time.

➽ Kingdom of Ash (Throne of Glass #7) by Sarah J. Maas – ★★★

“Once upon a time, in a land long since burned to ash, there lived a young princess who loved her kingdom…”

Here is the thing – if you have loved this series from the start, you are probably going to love this conclusion and be very happy upon turning that last page. I’ve had a rocky journey with Throne of Glass even before it became “cool” to dislike this series and even before the stans thought it would be “cooler” to ignore all the gross, problematic elements. I’ve just never loved this series. And I always feel like the characters I do end up liking from this world, get the bad end of the stick. And Kingdom of Ash was no different. And, in true Sarah J Maas fashion, the book was ungodly longer than it truly needed to be.

➽ Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean – ★★★★

“Silence is the cousin of invisibility.”

I loved this ownvoices Japanese fantasy so much! This is another review that I’m in the middle of, but I promise it will be up before the November 6th release! Don’t sleep on this one, loves!

➽ The Last Time I Lied by Riley Sager – ★★★

“…Sometimes a lie is more than just a lie.”

I just finished this one! But a review should be up on November 2nd! I really was completely immersed with this story, and I actually loved the finale twists! I’m just not completely sold on the epilogue. But this was a really good book for the spooky season, and I’m so happy that I was able to read it with so many of my friends!

And I think that’s everything! Again, I hope you all have the happiest of Halloweens tonight, and please stay safe and warm! I’m actually leaving to go to California for a few days tomorrow, but I have lots of posts scheduled, I just might be a little late responding to all your amazing comments! Happy reading, friends! Stay spooky! 🎃🧡

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