 Hey guys, can you go help me? I'm gonna be real, I'm not sure I know what's happening right now. And this was the worst. Look at this, look at this. This book is gorgeous. This is so much worse than I could have possibly imagined. ["I'm Gonna Be Real"] So it's been a minute since I posted a video. I was posting like crazy in October. If you missed my community post, or I think I talked about it on Instagram as well, in addition to just having a crazy, crazy month in October, I ended the month by having to take my cat to emergency and then getting hit by a drunk driver. Like all in the last weekend of October. And I was just like, you know what? I need a break, I'm so done. So I haven't posted any content basically since then, anything that I didn't already have recorded and ready to go. Which, yeah, I think I had my TBR ready to go. So yeah, I'm quite late with my wrap up. I did have a lot of books that I read in October because that was part of the reason October was so crazy. I was covering House of the Dragon, covering Rings of Power. Trying to read 25 books. I did not read all 25 books, but I did read a lot. And then I had to read a bunch of books that were for live shows and then do those live shows. And work was extra crazy. Like my actual job that I do for a living was extra crazy busy in October. It was insanity. So yeah, I took a bit of a break from social media, from content creation. Yeah, so I'm back. We're here, we're doing it. I promised Elast Rings of Power video. That is coming, it's nearly done. So that will be the, it should be the next video that I post after this unless something happens again to destroy my plans, that's my plan after this. My next video will be my last Rings of Power video. And those are, I'm glad to be done with those even though I plan to do more media commentary because it's just so much more work to edit those. Yeah, I don't think I would have taken that on if I'd realized. Anyway, we're here to do my October wrap up. I'm just fair warning, it's been now over a month for some of these books since I read it. So I'll do my best to remember how I felt. All right, let's get the stack over here. So you can see what we're, oh, it's like Jenga. Oh my God. Oh no, it's gonna fall, it's only gonna fall. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Oh my God. So yeah, I read this many books and we're gonna go through them. That's what a wrap up is. Oh, I can't put this down now. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no. Okay, it's fine. It's, oh no, it's not fine. Caz, can you go help me? Is this a staring at me? Let's do this. All right, all right, all right. Also, a lot of these, so videos that I was doing for them, I don't think I have any reviews but like all the live shows and stuff that were for some of these books have already happened. So I'll leave links for things in the description if you are interested. Anyway, the first book, oh also, I swear I'm gonna talk about the books I read. I just think it's kind of interesting and I guess bears on my reaction to these books. I accidentally grouped my reading in October. I did not mean to do that whatsoever. It was not my intention to do that. It was just kind of like the order in which like holds for audiobooks came in from the library that like I needed to get through because they were due next or I was just in the mood for it or the deadline for what was coming up. So like it just split itself that way naturally where I kind of like thematically grouped my reading. So at the beginning of the month I read like all my haunted house books just like almost back to back. It's like all lumped together. So I started like thinking about them all in comparison with each other. Then there's some other like match pairs in my TBRs or in this wrap up that like I was reading either simultaneously or back to back. So anyway, there will be a lot of that going on. It was not on purpose. So for real, we're doing it. We're starting it now. The first book that I read in October was Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno- Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. And this was, I believe my, yeah, I think this is my first slash only Sylvia Moreno-Garcia. I keep putting this on October TBRs and I was like, God damn it, this year, this year I'm gonna freaking read it. So that's kind of why it was the very first one that I read. I was like, I'm not letting this year go by without reading it. So I did. I did not love it, but I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, it's been a month now. It's been more than a month. What did I think of it when I read it? I thought the concept was pretty good. I just didn't think the execution was that good. See, what did I think? I thought that the characters were not that well-flashed out. I thought the mystery was not that. I don't know. It just felt like the concept was very, very cool. But I remember there was a specific issue with I had it that I had with it. I think it was to do with the characters. Yeah, I just remember feeling like, I don't know, the creep factor was in the mystery. Like it just didn't impress me that much. Like I read it and I was like, cause I feel like this gets hyped so much. And I was like, that was pretty good. It wasn't like amazing. And I thought it was a bit heavy-handed with some of its themes. And yeah. Like the thing that's the horror aspect of this, I guess it was pretty horrifying. I ended up feeling, I think I felt that it was just kind of messy and kind of the pacing was not great. I guess I sound very negative about it. I think I gave it three or three and a half stars. Like I didn't think it was bad, but I didn't think it was that grid shakes either. But if I had read this after reading some of the other books I read, I probably would have thought better of it or rated it more highly because of the comparison to the others that were mostly not even as good as this. So yeah. In hindsight, I probably should have given it more credit because I little did I know that I would read a bunch of haunted housebooks after this that like, that were not even as good as this. And I didn't think this was that good. So I'm glad I read it. I didn't dislike it. It's fine. And I still think this cover is awesome. So yeah, Mexican Gothic. I fricking did it. Next came a haunted housebook that was not as good as Mexican Gothic but did feel eerily similar to it. And that was Gallant by V.E. Schwab. I just don't think that I don't, I don't think I liked Schwab. I liked Vicious. And I know a lot of people don't like the sequel, Vengeful. And I agree that Vengeful is not as good as Vicious but I did enjoy Vengeful. But, oh, and I like the monsters of Verity. I don't love it, but I do like the monsters of Verity which is the savage song in our dark duet. But like, I think the shades of magic is very overrated. Like I had a good time reading it, I guess. I think it's, but I don't, like the way it gets talked about is being like incredible in everyone's favorite. I think is way overhyped. I didn't like Addie LaRue. I didn't like, was it City of Ghost? The middle grade one, didn't like that. And now I didn't like Gallant. I don't remember if she's written something else that I've read. I don't know, but yeah. This was, I think when I reviewed it on Goodreads I said Stardust meets Coraline but this wishes it was Gaiman. Cause it has a haunted house aspect. It has like a, it's creepy. There's like this parallel universe thing against the Coraline thing. It's also more like Faye with like a portal to a different world that's kind of reminded me of Stardust. And it just felt like, like it felt like there's kind of a cool concept here but it just like wasn't workshopped enough and Schwab was like, I can get away with just kind of writing pretty. And like, you can't. Like, especially when it does remind me so much of Coraline and Stardust where I'm like, yeah, no, but those books are like miles and away better. And this is like the half-assed store brand imitation version. And then again, it gets all the special editions and it gets all the like illustrations and gildedness and it's just like so ill-deserved in my opinion. So I think I give this two stars cause I was like, this is all just window dressing. It's not good. It's not good. So yeah, that's Gallant. Which again, like if I'd read this before Mexican Gothic, they're not that similar. Again, it's more like Stardust and Coraline. If I had read this first though, I might've been like, well, Mexican Gothic is better than that because it most certainly is. Yeah, I'm gonna be, this is the regular US edition, but I also have the Alfred Special Edition. I will be selling that. Next up is a book that I am not sure that I understood. And that was The Death of Jane Lawrence. I did enjoy this and I thought it was more successful in a lot of the things that it was doing than a lot of the other books I read this month. But also that might just be because I didn't understand it and if I did understand it, I would be less impressed with it but there's something about it like being so like complicated that I don't know. At the very least, I'm like, well, they didn't really cop out. I feel like the author like went wild with it and I was like, I'm gonna be real. I'm not sure I know what's happening right now. But I did think the build up to it because this is another haunted house story more or less. And I did feel like the build up to it was suspensively done. It did have that air of mystery. It was almost like Rebecca-esque and like, do we know what we've gotten ourselves into? Can we trust the people we are around? What is actually going on here? So I thought that was much better done than I've seen in most of the other haunted house stories that I read in October. Then we get to the third act, which no spoilers, but in the third act, when we things escalate and unravel and reveals happen and there's a speculative element in this, a very very speculative element in this, it gets so wibbly wobbly and timey-wimey that I was like, okay. I guess that makes, nope, I don't know what's happening. Okay, sure, sure, whatever you say is happening. I don't know what's happening. But it was still like, it kept my interest while that was going on. I wasn't like, I don't know what's happening. I was like, I don't know what's happening. This is a lot though. Like it was interesting. And I feel like it had a lot of like original ideas and concepts. It didn't feel like a copycat or something else. So for that alone, it gets points and it certainly like hooked me. I just felt quite baffled. It made me feel kind of dumb. So maybe if I reread it and like, I don't know, or if I can find someone to explain it to me. It was an enjoyable read. I gave it three stars because I was like, maybe I gave it four stars? I was on the cop between the two because I was like, I don't understand what happened. So I don't feel comfortable reading it highly. I think what happened was probably cool if only I understood it. So like, I feel pretty positively towards it but I gave it the same reading I gave Mexican Gothic but I do like this more than Mexican Gothic, I would say. Next was a big old disappointment and that is My Imaginary Mary by Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton, and Jody Meadows. This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year because I like from what I've read this series that this trio of authors is doing where they take, originally they were doing the Lady Janies where they took various Janes and retold sort of comedic versions of their stories. So Jane Eyre, Lady Jane Gray, and Calamity Jane and now they're doing Mary's. So they did Mary, Queen of Scots. My Imaginary Mary is Mary Shelley. And I'm not sure if they've done the next Mary yet or about to do the next Mary, but in any case, I was excited for this because I like what they've done so far in these projects. I like their humor. And I love Frankenstein and Mary Shelley. And this book has so little to do with Mary Shelley. Like the other ones feel like comedic ribbing about either Jane Eyre's fictional, Jane Gray is real. It's making light of and fun of and being kind of crazy with it. But it's still like, my playing Jane was very much drawing from Jane Eyre and from Charlotte Bronte. Here, I was like, why is Mary Shelley in this? It's because you needed a Mary, but I don't think you're interested in telling a story about Mary because she has friends in it with Ada Lovelace. And of course they're like, I mean, obviously they never met in real life, but they really should have. So let's write this. But it was more about Ada Lovelace, I think, than Mary Shelley. And the like other figures from literature, it's spoilery, so I don't wanna say, but also I don't think this book is good. I don't know that I should care, but there is incorporation of element slash names, characters from another fictional universe. And it's not Frankenstein. It was very unexpected. And I was like, that was not expecting to encounter that in this book. And it's a thing that I like a lot, but I don't think it was used very well here and it didn't make any sense to me why they thought that had anything to do with Mary Shelley. Like I was like, I don't know what we're doing here. It was just kind of messy and not that funny. And I was like, I don't think you wanna be talking about Mary Shelley. Like I don't think you know what to do with Mary Shelley. So you should have just have not done Mary Shelley. So I gave this two stars. I was quite disappointed with this. At first I was like, okay, so it's not probably, I don't like it as much as the others, but okay. And the more it went on, it was, and it felt so long. It got so dragged out. Yeah, I did not like this. I cannot recommend this at all. It's not even like a, it wasn't for me, but I don't think this is the worst one that I've read. So I haven't read them all, but of the ones I've read from this series, this is definitely my least favorite. Next up I read something really intense and amazing and that was The Trouble with Pete, it's my job for Cromby. So if you missed it, the podcast episode is recorded and up, so I'll leave that link down below. And also if you missed it, our announcement, the podcast episode for Wisdom of Crowds will not be prerecorded. We're doing a live show on the last Tuesday of November. So if you've read that far, because it will have spoilers, if you've read through Wisdom of Crowds, then please come and join us and chat with us. It should be a ton of fun. But yeah, Trouble with Pete, it's so freaking good. This is my third time reading it. And yeah, it's so good, there's no business being as good. But I have reviews for this on my channel from when it came out. The podcast, you know what this is. And if you don't, I mean, you must be new to my channel. Next up, I read Dragon Haven with, not with Robin Hobb, by Robin Hobb with Mara. Because we are continuing our journey through the realm of the hill drawings. And I have already read, so in November on my TBR I have City of Dragons and I've already read City of Dragons. So spoilers for my thoughts on that. Dragon Haven, I thought dragged a lot and I had a lot of issues with the pacing of it. City of Dragons, I liked a lot better. And I've heard the City of Dragons is the least liked in the series. I mean, that's what I've heard. I don't know if that's true. Which surprises me because this so far is my least liked because this is where we are with these characters. We kind of like stay in one place. And we get a lot of different POVs, but all those POVs are in the same place. So this book feels so stagnant to me. Because even then all those characters that are in the same place, there's not that much progression of their situation either. They're all in this one place and it all just takes place there and all their POVs are there. And like their status quo does not change that much throughout this book. And it is longer than City of Dragons. City of Dragons brought in some more perspectives and had some more progression and change in their situation. So I liked it a heck of a lot better. Dragon Haven, it just, I mean, the character work is great and I like this world and I like what she's doing with it but it just felt so stagnant. I think I gave it, I'd have given it three stars. I'm sure I was waffling between three and four because it's hob. So it is still good, but I was like, the pacing on this is not great. So I'm still enjoying it. And obviously I said City of Dragons, I was like, okay, we're back. This is way better. So I by no means hated this, but the pacing, the pacing, the pacing. Next up, I read The Hacienda by Isabel Cáñez. This was the Blazing Bodice Ripper's Book Club pick. So the live show for it was on Bethany's channel as she picked it. We all dressed up as Gothic heroines, more or less. At least that's what I did. Well, that was the mission statement. So that's what I did. We had some various interpretations of what that means. So if you missed it, I'll leave that link down below. I hated this book. I gave it two stars, not one star, but this book is purported to be a, not a retelling of, but to be heavily inspired by Rebecca, by Daphne de Moria, a book that I love. And I don't, you know, a retelling or inspired by like, it doesn't need to be the same thing and probably shouldn't be the exact same thing, but Rebecca is so good and this is not good. And then to hear, it was like in the author's note or interview with the author or something like that where the author was like that she'd always loved Rebecca, but that she didn't like some certain things about Rebecca. So she was gonna like fix it in her book. And I was like, oh boy, no book is perfect. It's fair if there's something about Rebecca that you didn't care for, but it's just like that book is such a masterpiece. And this book is so not. So just like the idea that you're like, I'm gonna take Rebecca, but I'm gonna do it one better. It's just like, oh no, no, no. You have a lot to learn. Rebecca is way better than this for many, many, many reasons. So if you missed the live show, we go into it. I don't think any of us loved this book. I certainly liked it the least. And I did manage to kind of convince people that they liked it less than they thought they did. So yes. But yeah, this was a big old miss for me. And again, if I'd read this before Mexican Gothic, I would have been like, wow, Mexican Gothic is brilliant. It's not the Hacienda. Next up, I read something that was not on my TVR because I totally had time for that. Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. This kind of took the place because I had Carrie on my TVR and then I didn't actually manage to read that. That's also like Mexican Gothic is on every Halloween TVR and I never read it next year, next year because I've taken care of Mexican Gothic, so that's next. But this was not on my TVR and I did read it. And the main reason I did was because so last year I read The Shining and I had wanted to watch the film of The Shining after but I didn't get around to it. Didn't have time and it's like a three hour movie. So this year, I watched The Shining with my brother and then after we watched that, I was like, would you be interested in watching Doctor Sleep, which is the film of the book obviously and is the sequel to The Shining. And he was like, yeah, sure. And then I was like, well, I gotta read it first. So then I just like abandoned my TVR real quick and read Doctor Sleep so we could watch the movie. And I did not really like the movie very much. It wasn't bad, but a lot of the things that I think make the book work would be difficult to translate to screen and they also just like didn't try, which was weird. What's also kind of weird though is this book opens with a note from Stephen King being like, well, have you only seen the movie The Shining because this is a sequel to The Shining. He's like, if you've only seen the movie, The Shining, you might be a little confused because the end of the movie, The Shining is different from the ending of the book, The Shining. And this is continuing the book so that you might be, there's some things you should know about how that ends. And then the movie of this is like doing these like, well, just we're gonna match the movie, The Shining and be as equal to that. So it kind of like shifts things in Doctor Sleep to make it still fit with the movie, The Shining. Which I guess because the movie is so iconic, I get why they wanted to be able to use that imagery. It was just so weird. I was like, they keep taking Stephen King's work and me like, nope, we're doing it like this instead. Like try as you might. I did enjoy this book more than I enjoyed The Shining book and whereas I like the movie, The Shining, better than the movie, Doctor Sleep, but I think I like the book, The Shining, better than the movie, The Shining, I don't know. I don't like The Shining very much. I don't think it's bad, but I don't think it's that great. This worked for me a lot better almost the third act to get a little bit ridiculous to me as Stephen King books tend to be for me where I just don't really find them scary or interesting. They kind of lose me when they get to into that side of things. You know, it starts being horrific and speculative and all that. But for a Stephen King third act, this worked better for me than they mostly do. They didn't like go completely haywire. And I thought the character worked with like Danny. Now all these years on like what the events of The Shining, how they affected him into adulthood was done really, really well. Yeah, this story just interested me a lot more. And I think he was doing more interesting things with it. The Shining was just like, I don't know, a horror for the sake of horror. Like thematically it started to kind of become nonsense towards the end. So here I thought the horror side of things was also still relevant narratively and thematically and wasn't just horrifying for the sake of being horrifying if that makes sense. So I do like Doctor Sleep the book better than The Shining the book. The movie was not great in my opinion, which is unfortunate because it had a really good cast and Mike Flanagan directed it. Yeah, it wasn't great, but the book's good. So read the book. Next up I read These Fleeting Shadows. And I kind of got this because I vaguely got the impression from its cover and what little I paid attention to from its blurb that it would be like The Haunting of Blind Man or something like that. It's really not what surprised me when I picked it up was when I realized at the outset the premise of the situation is, I was like, this is literally the inheritance games, which I had just read the month prior, I think I read it in September. Like after that, it's very, it's not after the opening kind of this is the situation, it's very, very different. It's nothing like the inheritance games, but just the opening situation of like who our character is and how she gets into being in this house and the setup of that and the requirements of that. I was like, this is the inheritance games. After that, it got kind of crazy and the twist in it, I have to say I did not like very much, although it didn't really change my mind but I did feel more positively towards it, I guess, when I, the author's note kind of explained what this was inspired by and why, and then that is why she did what she did with it. So when I learned that I was like, okay, like it makes sense to me now more why you chose to do things in this way. But it didn't make me like the experience of reading it any better, but I'm like, okay, I get it now, why it's like this. I just don't think it's that good. It wasn't bad. It kept my interest. I don't think it was very spooky though. Like spooky things are happening, but it's just like a lot of a book being spooky. Like Rebecca is more spooky than a lot of these, even though Rebecca by Daphne de Morier has no speculative element. There are no ghosts, there are no ghouls, there's no jumpscare, so there's nothing like that. But Rebecca does succeed in having this like foreboding atmosphere, this creeping sense of dread, this growing suspicion and feeling of unsafety and uncertainty and paranoia. Like it succeeds in like transporting you into that mindset. And a lot of these books, like they just kind of like show you scary stuff and you're like, I mean, that's not, maybe on film that might be kind of scary because I would actually be seeing it, but like, okay, so there was a scary thing. I don't feel scared though. I don't feel suspense. Like a lot of it, if you show me the ghoul, it immediately stops being scary. If you have somebody creeping around and wondering if there is something or if they're losing their mind, that's a lot more suspenseful. So it had a lot of that problem. It kind of shows its hand too early. It kind of shows you crazy stuff to begin with. You're like, so like the status quo is crazy. It's not like surprising and shocking and alarming when suddenly a spooky thing happens, if that makes sense. So it's not terrible, but it's not that great. Next up we have a pairing. So we've moved on from haunted houses. The next pairing, Victorian children with magic. Not, okay, not necessarily Victorian, but like historical British children with magic. So first up I have Hollow City, the second Miss Perevren's book. I read the first Miss Perevren book last October. I didn't love it that much. I actually liked the second one more. I liked it better. And yeah, so this is continuing the same story where there's these peculiar children that are trapped in time. So they are from a bygone era and are main characters from the modern day. And they have peculiar abilities and there's like, there's a big bad and other baddies and you know, things going on. Miss Perevren is like the one that kind of like has these children gathered to her home and is their protector. And it's a second book. So it carries on the drama of the first book. So it'd be spoilery to say what that is, but I think this world is pretty inventive and the humor works for me. And it did kind of like sweep me up in a way and it was not too long. It does kind of stop in the middle. Like it ends so abruptly. Like they talk about middle books. Like this straight up, I was like, what? It just, okay, I guess we're just ending it there. Cause as we were getting to the end, I was like, how are we gonna resolve this? And then we just didn't. So I guess that's book three. But yeah, I had a good time with this. Like I said, I liked it more than the first one. And yeah, for a relatively flawed concept that it feels like it has a lot of plot holes in it, but it does feel those indecently well in a way where like I'm able to keep going with it. My going with it-ness is like pretty high with this, surprisingly, cause it is kind of a strange concept. But yeah, I think it's pretty successful. And I think it does, it was an engrossing weed. And that's really all I could ask for. It had vibes, it had spook, it had tension, it had adventure, that's really all I was looking for. I did not quite feel that way about the next book, which is again, children with unusual abilities in a sort of Victorian setting. Not sort of, it is a Victorian setting. And that is Ordinary Monsters by J.M. Miro. This was gifted to me by a friend, although I was interested in it already. It's very, very long. I feel like one of the main issues with this is that the storytelling is quite arm's length. So it's this really, really long tone with a lot of different character perspectives that get combined or they kind of come together from different places. And at first it really intrigued me. It really stuck me in from the beginning. But then we just kept skipping around to different places and different things and there was so much going on. I did not feel connected to any of the characters cause I didn't feel like I was like with them enough in their minds and when they're feelings. Like stuff was happening. So like I was being told and shown all this stuff that's happening. And some of it's, you know, it's quite harrowing and interesting, the world building is pretty cool. But I felt no emotional investment in any of it because I don't feel like the author, you know, put me in the place of those kids or any of the characters really. So that I felt no emotional weight to anything that was happening because I felt no emotional investment in it. And so it was just a bunch of stuff happening. And maybe it was a TV show that would work better cause you know, like the actors will emote in a way that will make you feel for them even if it's not in the text. It just feels just too emotionless and then too long. And I was like, if it was, if I was really invested in these characters it could be this long and I'd be here for it. But we spent so much time explaining all this stuff and introducing all these characters and showing all these things and explaining all this lore. The setting of this kind of magical London and the sort of penny-drenful-esque vibe. These are all things that I should love. Like I feel like this book should be one of my favorite things. I just felt nothing about it while I was reading it. I was like, I'm on paper, this is awesome. It's not writing anything badly, the prose is good. I just felt nothing about anything the whole time. It's a long book to be feeling nothing. Whereas the Miss Peregrine's book probably isn't as well-written. But I just felt more invested in what was going on and with those characters. So yeah, this, your character-driven reader, I don't know how you will do with this. Next up I have The Child of Thief by Brom and we just recorded, we were late on actually doing the live show on this and I'm still later than that in doing the wrap up. We just did the live show. If this was the shelf space book on pink, Evie was the host for it. So the chat was on Evie's channel. I'll leave that link down below as well. I really loved this. I love Peter Pan and most Peter Pan retellings let me down and this one didn't. This is my first Brom. I've had so many people gift me this book because it's Peter Pan related. I finally read it. The art is fantastic. And I think when we talked about it at length on Evie's channel, so if you wanna check that out, it's there. But yeah, basically it felt like to me that Brom gets it as far as Peter Pan goes, the original J.M. Berry story and character. And it is that from a place of understanding and reverence that he's expanding on it and adding in a ton and putting his own stamp on it. And yeah, I mean, I gave it four stars instead of five, but I did really, really like this and I was very impressed with the writing and the art and just the entire project of it. So well done. I will definitely read more from Brom. Then the book that I was reading simultaneously with that, so I'll talk about it when I get there. It's not next up. I was struggling to finish and part of the vampire. So that was my juxtaposition. I was simultaneously reading those. I just finished the Brom one much sooner. So the next one that I finished was Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman. I read Practical Magic last year and I did not like it, but I already owned this. And it is like a, this is like, you know, a prequel to it that takes place like in the 1600s. So it would be quite a different project. And so even though I didn't like Practical Magic, like I probably wouldn't have bought this after reading it, but I already had it. And I was like 1600s witches is a vibe. I'm like, it could be all right. This was so boring. It was worse than Practical Magic. Jesus. Like I complained. I forgot kind of the experience of Practical Magic until I read this. And I was like, oh God, yeah, this is like what Practical Magic was like where it feels like this like run on exposition that feels like you're waiting for, okay, like you're catching us up on what's happening so that we can start telling the story except the story never starts happening. The whole thing is like that. And this was even worse. It feels like it's just kind of like glossing over everything all the time. And it's stopping to give you like Magic Lessons, Actual Magic Lessons, where these like nonsensical recipes for stuff that doesn't tie into the plot. It's just like, well, the book's called Magic Lessons. So we have to have that in there. I felt less than nothing for anything that's happening. And there's some pretty harrowing stuff going on. But it's all told in this kind of like vaguely, here's what happened, list of events that I'm like, am I supposed to care about this? Cause I definitely don't. So yeah, I did not like this at all. Again, this is worse than Practical Magic. So I will definitely not be reading whatever the other, there's another Practical Magic book. It's called Rules for Magic Possibly. I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm not reading it. Next up is a book that I found very charming. And that was Horror Store by Greedy Hendricks, which I had heard about from Mara. And it's not like incredible. And she warned me and I would say, yeah, the themes of it are a bit on the nose. But I thought it was such a well executed and interesting concept, where it's basically this store that's kind of IKEA-esque. And then there's like stuff going on in the store that's like spooky, crazy weirdness. And then our employees are kind of investigating that weirdness. And we kind of get to know our employees' deals. They all have reasons why they are working in a store instead of, say, in an office and how they feel about that. And we get a lot of insertion of the corporate culture and brand loyalty. And there's illustrations of furniture, like IKEA instructions kind of thing. And there's advertisements for the furniture that get increasingly sinister. And the ending of it all, like the answer to what's been going on, isn't like, again, it's a bit on the nose. So it wasn't like, wow, what a twist. It was like, okay, yeah, that makes sense. I get what you're doing here. But I still think it's just like such a unique book with such a unique concept that is very well executed, I think. So, and it's got that quintessentially gritty Hendricks humor mixed with horror. So this stands out from the pack just because it's doing its own thing and I'm doing it pretty well, I would say. So I would recommend this. It's not like amazing, but it's a good time. And it's very short, because a lot of this is pictures. Next up, I read Phantom by Terry Goodkind. And I did not like this very much. I definitely liked, what was it, Chainfire, which was the one that came before it better. This is the first time we're seeing Terry Goodkind kind of do a trilogy arc. All of his books are like in a series, but they also, they are each kind of stand-alones within a series that each have their own kind of arc and resolution. And then you have like the next problem in the next book that will be resolved by the end of that book. So this is the first time he's doing like a trilogy arc where it's one problem that's introduced in Chainfire and we will not see it paid off until the book after this confessor. And I don't think he knows how to pace a trilogy. There's so much repetition here. And then like we talked, I mean, the live show for this was on my channel. So if you missed it, I'll leave a link down below. But he's doing something in this book where like it's on the cusp of being brilliant. But instead of being the type of commentary that it could be, he's like approving of this. It's kind of hard to explain if you haven't read it. But basically like he's having a character do a thing. And like instead of this being like an interesting examination of how a character or a person could be in the situation end up doing these kinds of things and be like, wow. Instead, he's like, yeah, it's great that they're doing this and here's why. And it's like, oh, we were so close to doing something brilliant here, but no, you want me to approve of this. Oh no, oh no, oh no. It's paced badly and the messaging is good, yikes. I'm told the payoff in Confessor is like relatively worth it. So I'm interested to see where this goes, what the payoff for it is. But yeah. Beobathan and I have come to the conclusion that Stone of Tears is like the high point of the series and that in future we'll probably just reread Stone of Tears. Because Stone of Tears is so good. I still love it. Five stars, love it. The other books in the series I'm like, we peaked at Stone of Tears. So yeah, I'm excited to see where this goes and to have like, you know, completed this arc but just what's not great. Next up, I read my first Teaking Fisher book and that was What Moves the Dead and I loved this. Talk about packing a punch. We're back to haunted houses here and I had no idea going into it that this is intended to be a retelling of the fall of the house of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. So well done. It's a very good retelling. I think it's better than the house, Paula House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe. It is very eerie and spooky. After reading so many books this Halloween season that like, all are supposed to give you the oup and spook and ick and yikes. I feel like almost none of that, reading any of these books that I read. And this is so short. And it had me on the edge of my seat. It had me grossed out. It had me like, feeling the suspense intention and feeling anxious because like something horrifying is going on. So like, well done. You don't need a lot of pages and you don't need a lot of gore either. Just the concepts introduced in this are so well executed and it does that thing of the creeping suspicion. So well, that creeping sense of dread so that like, as we build to a revelation, you're like, oh God, oh God, oh God, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not. It's, oh it is, it is, oh it is. So, so good. And then I did, I hadn't, I knew of and generally knew what the fall of House of Usher is, but I was pretty sure I had not read it. If I did it was like in school a long, long, long time ago. So I did quickly read the fall of the house of Usher after finishing this and I was like, yeah, yeah, no. Well done on retelling it and also way better than the fall of House of Usher. So I will definitely read more from Teaking Fisher. This was so good, very spooky, very, like it's pretty gross and dark. I'm not gonna lie, this book, this tiny little book packs quite a punch and I was really hoping I would like it because the reason I picked this for my first Teaking Fisher is because this cover just was so evocative to me from the first time I ever saw it. I was like, ooh, what is that? And then upon receiving it, I was like, oh, look at these pages and then look at the naked book and it was covering it up. But like, look at this, look at this. This book is gorgeous. And I was like, God, I hope I like this. And I freaking did. This was so good. Yeah, yeah, we'll definitely read more from Teaking Fisher but this was definitely the spookiest book that I read all Halloween season. Next up, Empire of the Vampire, which I read with Alex, the live show was on my channel. We ranted about it for quite some time. We both hated, Alex DNF'd it. I was like, it's fine, but we'll just talk about it and I'll fill you in on what happens. And I read the whole fucking thing and ah, it's so bad. And reading this at the same time as reading Child Thief, which I talked about in the Child Be Alive as well, it's just like reading these two books side by side where they're both like, you know, the hot topic edgy book with art in it. And when I started this one first actually, even though I finished the Child Thief before I finished this. And starting this, I was like, all this gore and violence and all these like edgy words and blah, blah, blah. I felt nothing. The only thing I felt, if I felt anything at all was irritation. And I was like, am I so desensitized to violence and blood that I just like, is that why none of these spooky books are spooky to me? Cause I'm just so desensitized to it. And then later I did read What Moves the Dead and I was like, no, I'm not desensitized. But before that, I did start reading Child Thief in the midst of reading this and I was immediately engrossed and invested and felt when something violent would happen, I felt shocked by it or upset by it. And I was like, okay, that's not me. This is just badly written. And if you like this book, I'm happy for you, but I have to say, I do not understand why you like this. This book is, because me and Alex talked about it at length, if you missed it, I'll leave a link down below, but yeah, no. I expected not to love this and I hoped that maybe I'd be pleasantly surprised, but even though I didn't think I would like this, this was so much worse than I could have possibly imagined. Hubbly. Then the book that my patrons chose for me to read and vlog for them, which I did read and vlog for them. All of that, that vlog did not go according to plan because that vlog was like in the midst of my weekend of horrors in my own life, I've taken my cat to the vet and being in a car accident and all that. So like that vlog, I guess I did not go according to plan ended up being a lot longer than I intended. I like picked up Salem's Lodge to read, like on a Saturday morning and ready to vlog. And then mid morning, I'm like, I got to take the cat to emergency. And then from there, everything just got worse. So I did read it and I did vlog it and I liked Salem's lot. I did not love it. I once again had the Stephen King problem of like the third act, I don't really care. When we get into like the violence and the killing and all that, I just, I don't find it scary or interesting. So I think he's really, really good at writing characters and people. So in the beginning of the book, when we're getting to know the characters and the town and all the people that populate that town, that's the part that I really, really like. And I think he's good at it. When we get, and even in that part too, like the building of suspense and the building of the mystery of this like vampiric presence that's in the town, I think that is done well, the build up to it. But then when we get to, okay, let's kill some vampires. I was like, okay, blood violence, cool, cool, cool. I don't, I don't feel a little scared or interested. So I liked it, but the ending kind of lost me. So I think I gave it four stars because I was like, towards the end, I was feeling quite lukewarm on it. I was like, but remember, you did really like the beginning. So yeah, if, yeah. It's just, I don't know, Stephen King ending is just, I just, it just loses me. I felt about the ending of this a bit like I did about the shining, but I liked the beginning of it more than I liked the beginning of the shining. So hence the four stars. So not like a new favorite, but like, I enjoyed it. And last but not least was the patron buddy read. And that was Frankenstein. I left it up to, we're doing it as like a two part or Frankenstein. And then this month we're reading the Dark Descent Rebels with Frankenstein. And I left it up to people if they wanted to read the 1816, 1818 or 1831 versions of Frankenstein. I've read the 1831 one quite a bit. So this time around, I got this edition which is both the 1816 and 1818 versions. And I like that better. It's just, it was crazy to me to see even like between 1816 and 1818, all the stuff that Percy Shelley added in was like more of the melodramatic emotional stuff. And like, I just have to, I talked to my patrons about this too. I have to say I was on Goodreads to like mark this as red or reading or whatever. I was on the Frankenstein page on Goodreads and I saw this one star review for Frankenstein. I was like, okay, I gotta know who gave Frankenstein one star and why. Like, this is not your favorite book that's fine, but like one star. And like, this review was like going on and on about how Mary Shelley clearly never met a man in her life. It doesn't actually know how men think of that so obvious because the way that she writes men in her book, it's like how a woman would think that after having hung out with a bunch of poets that blew smoke up her ass. And it's just so like, I guess hilarious and also aggravating to me because like if you look at the 1816 version versus 1818, 1831, all of those like inclusions of the more emotive stuff is what Percy Shelley added to it. So apparently according to this review, all my books fell on my foot. Oh no. Okay, everything's fine except for my foot. Anyway, so yeah, so apparently according to this review where it's Percy Shelley that has no idea how men really are. Cause he's the one that added that stuff in, not Mary Shelley. Anyway, I love Frankenstein. I love it even more now. And yeah, I had a great time rediscovering that I guess and I had a great time chatting about it with my patrons. So yeah, those are all the books that I read in October. I did not keep account. I think it was like 20, 21, something like that. Maybe I'll count before I post this. Yeah, let me know your thoughts in the comments down below about the books I read. If you've also read them, if you have not read them, if you wanna read them now, if you disagree with me, agree with me, whatever. Whatever you wanna let me know I post videos on Saturdays, random times as well, but definitely Saturdays. Like and subscribe for my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you.