In October, I read 9 books. Honestly, this felt like a bit of a reading slump month for me. I did read quite a few books but only one was a five star read and most of the rest of them were under 3 stars or less.. bummer reading month for me. But! I know that some of you love to read my book reviews and find that some of my least favorite books end up being some of your favorites! So enjoy the review and I already know that my November book review will be very full of some GREAT books!
Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One
This book advertises itself as a #1 bestseller in France, and was originally written in French. It is a very slow moving book about a woman whose life is just kind of falling apart at the edges because of mediocrity. She means an older gentleman who explains that he is a “routineologist” and he can get her life back on track, but she has to put in the work. He gives her many different self help challenges which she tackles and begins to see her life transform before her eyes. In the end, there is a cute little plot twist that brought a smile to my face. This book is chalk full of self help challenges, so it would make a great January read. Otherwise, it felt very slow and like there wasn’t much of a plot or character development at all. It’s a unique book in that I felt like it was a self-help book written in novel form.
Unsettled
I don’t understand how this book doesn’t have more hype!! It was SO GOOD! A book told in verse, and for sure geared toward a middle school/high school audience. This is a book about a young immigrant and her family from Pakistan. She deals not only with being in a new place and a new culture, but also grapples with coming of age while living in a family that practices Islam. I have not been through as many extreme changes as she has, but I could so relate to how she wrote about switching cultures and the things that are SO hard but also when beauty starts to seep into the cracks. I loved this one and read it in one sitting.
So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix
Another Modern Mrs. Darcy summer reading list pick! One thing you must know about me is that I love modern retellings of classics. Even if they are done badly, I just love them. And this one wasn’t done badly, so I do recommend reading it! This is set in the 1860s South when southern slaves have just been emancipated, but the true impact of that has not yet taken effect. Just because all slaves are considered “free” does not mean that they have begun to experience that freedom. This book stays pretty true to the original Little Women and has a great deal of historical fiction in it, too. I did find that there was some modern political snubs in there, but overall I felt like I learned a lot about racism and it’s impact even today from reading this book. I do recommend this one for sure!
The River
This was another Modern Mrs. Darcy summer book list AND I had it on my own shelf so I picked it up. It’s actually quite a small book, and it is about two men who are on an up north canoe adventure. This is like the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE and they have no way to get out. There is a forest fire blazing and then they come across some people who are probably involved in foul play. One thing after another keeps going wrong and there is even some shocking tragedy that I was not expecting. There is a good bit of nature writing in this book, which some people love but I found that I didn’t enjoy as much. I felt like in some ways this was supposed to be a thriller because of all the scary bad things that kept happening, but I honestly just felt like I had emotional whiplash by the end of it- and let’s just say I won’t ever plan to take a river expedition! Ha!
The Other Black Girl
This was another disappointment for me. I wanted so badly to read this and learn and understand how minority people might feel in a workplace setting. However, this book was VERY negative and I had a hard time learning anything because the negativity with which it was presented was grating to me. In the end, there was this weird plot twist that seemed to come out of nowhere and did not add to the book at all. I felt really weird giving this book such a negative review, so I was really hesitant to say anything. But when I read the Goodreads reviews, I realized that I was not the only one- and I found that I learned a lot more about being a workplace minority from reading the Goodreads reviews than I did from reading this actual book.
Imprisoned in the Golden City
I’ve been enjoying reading this series out loud to the kids in the evening. We started with this one about Adoniram Judson, who was one of the first missionaries to Burma (now China). This one took us a while to get into, but once we got to the last half we were flying through it and couldn’t wait to get another book in the series!
The Hotel Nantucket
This was another summer read that I didn’t get to until October, and as with most Elin Hilderbrand, it was a quick moving plot without too much substance. The characters are lovely and complicated and this book featured a ghost, which was weird…but didn’t make me quit reading. In this story, a hotel is coming back to life after years of falling apart. The characters working there and the town around them aren’t sure this hotel is going to make it. There isn’t much in depth plot here, but it’s a fun summer read.
Carrie Soto is Back
Oh, Taylor Jenkins Reid. You have become a household name among readers, and the holds list at the library for any of your books are miles long. And yet…I’m becoming less and less of a fan. I LOVED her OG books, and One True Loves is one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. But as TJR has increased in popularity, her books have become less interesting to me. I feel like if anyone else had written this book, it would be a total dud. But because her name is on the cover, it’s ALL hyped. Don’t get me wrong, she is an EXCELLENT writer and her books always move at a quick pace with a unique plot. She does such a good job of developing characters and having a quick moving plot (something is often mutually exclusive in books- you either have a great plot OR great character building- TJR does both). There is a lot to love about her books, but this one fell so flat for me. The characters were so unlikeable and page after page was about tennis matches. Who hit the ball where, who hit back, how the serve went down, what the score was. I don’t know anything about tennis, so I felt bored and honestly skimmed the parts about the tennis matches. And for me, an avid reader, to skim anything, is a good indication that the book is not written for me. Again- I see where a lot of people like the unloveable characters and the quick moving plot, but I didn’t like this one. Also- Carrie Soto is 1000000% an enneagram 8, the personality type that I tend to class the most with. This means that TJR wrote her character so well that it felt like a real, living person that I would never get along with. But it also meant that I hated the character, or as much as an enneagram 2 can hate someone (haha).
Memphis
I grabbed this one because it was on the Modern Mrs. Darcy summer reading list. It was a good book, although full of some dark and heavy themes. There was a lot of trigger warnings here- sexual abuse, divorce, racism and the deep difficulties that come along with that. People who love this book love how Memphis, while the setting of the story, almost seems like a character. This is the story of four very strong women and how their lives interweave together. It wasn’t a bad book, it was just really heavy for me and not my preferred style. I am glad I read it, but I only gave it 3.5 stars because it wasn’t life changing or excellent for me (but I have heard many people LOVE this one).
And that’s all for October books! Let me know if you have read any of these and what you thought of them!