 October is gone and November's here. It's incredibly dark and dreary outside but let's talk about the books that I read in October. Welcome back to my channel. I hope you're all good. Today we're going to be doing my October wrap up. I feel like October was a pretty good reading month. I mean I loved the vibe. Spooky, oaky, coaky and creepy. I love reading in October and November. They're probably my favorite months to read and December. I don't know. I just love the vibe of reading at the end of the year. I think particularly the books that I read like mysteries. Mysteries are so good. Horror like Spooky Bex are so good at the end of the year. So I feel like I had a pretty good reading month on the whole. The camera does a good job of hiding it but it is like the most depressing outside that has ever been outside. It's just November 1st today when I'm filming this and like hmm. So if you don't know either way that my wrap ups work, first we go through my reading statistics for the month because I'm obsessed with statistics. I love just going through the statistics. Okay I am obsessed with mustard. I can't believe I just said that out loud. Mustard? Then I chat about every book that I've read. Well I chat about. I say every book that I've read with the rating that I gave it and then we go through the disappointment surprises and hits of the month. So I don't go into depth on every book because pretty much every book here has appeared in a reading vlog on my channel so it would get a bit repetitive. So I only talk about the books where I've got something different to say about them essentially. So let's get straight into the reading statistics. So in October I read 11 books which is pretty good. I read a total pages of 3714 which averages out to 120 pages per day. The average book length was 337 which I think is one of my higher average book lengths of the year so far because I typically read like a few long books and then a few maybe novellas or short books and so 337 I would say is one of my higher book average book lengths of the year so far. My average rating was a 3.86 which I think is almost identical to last month. What was last month? A 3.89 so literally 0.03 lower than last month so pretty similar in terms of the books that I enjoyed and the average time of my TBR was 11 and a half months which I think is pretty the longest I had this year. It's really skewed by Cersei by Madeleine Miller which was one of the oldest books on my TBR. It'd been on my TBR for 44 months. So everyone so we're definitely skewed by that. There was another one on there that had been on there for 22 months and then there's someone there that had been on my TBR for no months so just ones I picked up so averaged out to 11 and a half months. Okay let's get the pie charts out everyone are we excited? In terms of individual ratings I gave two five stars two four point five stars which is pretty good three four stars one three point five star two three stars and one two star. It's been a while since I had a two star I'm not gonna lie to you and that book was originally two point five but I was like you know what it's a two. I had a lot of two stars at the start of this year I think within the first six months of this year I had pretty much the same amount of two stars as I had the whole of last year but then I think you know it's always tricky because I was talking about this I think with my patrons where I had a really tough start to the year and I had lower ratings I think at the start of the year or just more two stars and I don't know was I just picking up more books that I didn't like and I've been luckier with the books I've been picking up the latter half of the year because this has been like my only two star um this latter half of the year or was my mood affecting the ratings that I was giving because like you could read a book one day and it'd be a five star you could read a book another day and be a four star. I don't reckon like you know books can be too far you know skewed depending on mood but it does have an impact and so I just wonder what which one of those it was you know in terms of genre I read two fantasy two horror two mystery two nonfiction one romance and two thriller so a really nice wide array of genres in terms of format I read one via the audiobook four via mixed media which means I had the physical and the audiobook and six just via the physical I've been trying to read much more books just physically again that's how my reading has changed from the two halves of the year whereas at the first half of the year I really needed the audiobook to read a physical book I was struggling to read as much whereas this part of the year I'm finding I'm actually preferring to just read physically so it's just interesting how our reading tastes and habits change depending on the wider context of our lives. In terms of audience I read nine adult and two y a I remember I was filling out my form like my um my spreadsheet and I was like it's a lot of adult it's a lot of adult and even one of those YA I'll talk about it in disappointments I think is new adult I don't think it's categorized right that was something I forgot to mention in the vlog that I did a bit but a few of you are minding me in the comments so yeah not a lot of YA this month. In terms of where the books were from one came from a book box two were from Book of the Month four were gifted to me three were books I'd bought myself and one was from Audible. In terms of series statistics I know we all care about this two were first in series and nine was standalone so I didn't make any progress in series this month but one of those books is first in series I'm not continuing a series so I've only started one new series this month which is okay I've really not started many series this year compared to other years I mean that's not difficult like previous years I was starting like 20 series a year um and it's been much more constrained this year but I would have liked to make some progress in series but the videos actually didn't lend themselves to that and then finally in terms of author status three were debuts three were authors I'd read from before and five were new to me which looking at the stack I don't I guess I didn't think that but yeah really I can't believe that I actually can't believe that oh my god yeah I suppose so yeah a lot of authors I'd never read from before and a lot of debuts as well so really only three debuts imagine the hundred yeah okay I suppose that math wasn't nothing for me at first but that does make sense okay that is all I read in statistics let's just go through all of the books I read this month with their ratings first I read horrid which was 4.5 stars then I read love on the brain which was also 4.5 stars I read wildflower by Drew Barrymore which was three stars true crime story by Joseph Knox which was five stars Cersei by Madeline Miller which was four stars sleep by C.L. Taylor which was three stars forgotten women the writers which was 3.5 stars in my dreams I hold a knife by Ashley Winstead which I gave five stars Bella Donna by Adeline Grace which was two stars Ascienda by Isabel Knaas which was four stars and The Three Dahlia's by Katie Watson which was four stars okay that is all the books let's get into the disappointment of the month so my biggest disappointment of the month was Bella Donna by Adeline Grace I just read this in my cats right not cats halloween pumpkins let's just uh forget about that shall we could you just cut that halloween pumpkins pick my tbr vlog definitely go check that if you haven't yeah lux one of my cats picked Bella Donna now if you watched videos where I was talking about this like when I got it I think maybe I put it on some tbr I don't know but I spoke about this quite a few times before I read it and I was bigging it up like I was like wow this book is going to be my new favorite book and like so in this we're following a young girl who's been orphaned who goes to live with some of her distant relatives there's kind of like a murder mystery going on there it's a very gothic book and our main character cannot die and she has kind of this close relationship with death because death has been intrigued as to why he can't take her soul like she can't die and so it's kind of like a love triangle with her and death and also the stable boy and like I said in the video it's not really a competition I just did not love the writing of this I spoke about how a lot of the plot felt very fragmented it was like half mystery half romance but the two never bled together you know sometimes you read writing advice or watch writing advice online and it's like each scene should serve a purpose and I often believe each scenes should serve multiple purposes because what would happen in this is that the scenes just felt very like isolated from each other and I didn't love the writing at all I just it wasn't for me I felt really bad I was so excited to read this and then it was just very disappointing the writing simultaneously felt a bit um I don't know if simple is the right word I don't know what to be mean listen do you but I want to say juvenile by like she was oh she was very rude weren't ya that's mean there's sexy times in this book there's like sex scenes and like I just I don't know where we draw the line because I've heard some people speak about how sex scenes in a book doesn't necessarily stop a book being YA because you know teenagers do have sex but I don't know also the fact that our main character is 20 I just feel like it's a new adult but I guess publishing doesn't really recognize new adult as a genre really so it's a tricky one it's a tricky one and I but I also don't feel like the writing is new adult I feel like the plot and the writing is more YA so it's a tricky one I don't really know but yeah I was very disappointed with this I was very sad because this was one that I really hyped up I'm sorry to any of you who I made by this book and then I didn't really have any massive disappointments the rest of the month but I would say that my other biggest disappointment was sleep by CL Taylor I read this in my 24 hour reading vlog with pausing the timer whenever I'm not reading I just didn't love this as much as I thought I would I thought this would be a great isolated murder mystery stuck in this cabin fun mystery right very unlike an unwanted guest by sherry lapina which is one of my favorite you know stuck in this hotel cabin kind of thing and there's murders going on right it's basically about murder happening at this isolated scottish inn and our main character is kind of being targeted for she was in a car accident that killed some of her co-workers it wasn't her fault but she is being blamed for it somewhat and blaming herself for it and I just didn't love this firstly I didn't feel like there was enough twists and turns the book is more of a thriller and I was expecting more murder mystery but it's also not very thrilling I just feel like in my memory not a lot happened well here's the tip like it was just like everyone just sitting around being like well been deaf it's pretty awkward you know and one of my biggest problems with this is like if you're gonna be stuck in a snowstorm I don't know if it was snow I think it was wind and rain more so but if you're gonna be stuck in a storm in a in a place I want the house and the weather to feel like another character and this felt very separate from the weather and the landscape and everything like it I just didn't I never envisaged it I don't know I just never fully got into it it wasn't terrible I thought the writing was good but it definitely was disappointing okay surprises of the month let's talk about one of my 4.5 stars of the month which was horrid by Katrina Leno this is like a haunted house book our main character has just moved to her mother's childhood home with her mother and it seems like the house is haunted and this was a surprise to me on just how well the haunting house was done I feel like I've been banned with a lot of haunted house books I've read like three haunted house books this month but previous this is the first book I read this month and previous this I think I've been banned like books would promise to be haunted house books and then it just wouldn't be a haunted house I'm like what am I reading this for whereas Katrina Leno always does our world with a little bit of surrealism a little bit of fabulism a little bit of speculative nature to a book I just say words I don't fully know what all those mean I just know the the vague vibes of those words you are the biggest fraud that I've ever met and I just love Katrina's writing but like this was a surprise to me because it was like okay I believe I have believed strongly for ages that I could love a haunted house book but this proved it to me because this was so good the only reason this wasn't a five-star is the ending is like come on girl like I am all for uh open ending an unsatisfying ending but this was too unsatisfying this was perfect for to be the first book I read in October because the vibes and this like the falling leaves the autumn like it's still you can still have great vibes reading this in November so I would 100 recommend picking this up if you're interested in it and then my other surprise of the month was the acienda bite is about to nurse another another haunted house book probably I'm just surprised by how much I love haunted houses so in this our main character has just married for stability it becomes clear that the house that she has moved into and is now alone in may be haunted by her husband's ex-wife who seems very angry and she recruits a priest who yeah there may or may not be a romancer yeah who tries to help her cleanse the property I just thought this was a great debut I loved the writing in this the writing in this is some of the best writing I've read in a while from a debut where the imagery in this was so good and I was talking about how you're in the book the characters are talking about how the house feels so lush and overpowering and claustrophobic and I feel like the writing really mirrored that I had this lush imagery this like full overwhelming writing that I just thought was it just mirrored each other so well I really liked the slave and romance in this you know I read it straight off to belladonna and like I feel like the two opposed one another in how in how it should be done and you know whereas horrid was a YA this was adult oh my god it's raining so heavily outside can you hear that spooky anyways this was adult and so it really went there and this had so much haunted houseness like it was like not just a few see the horrid I feel like just had like maybe four main moments where the house was haunted this had so many events where things would go wrong and stuff would happen and I just I just thought it was really good it just wasn't quite a five star but I do think this really knocked it out of the park for a debut and finally we are on to the hits of the month now first you will have seen in all the books I mentioned I did give in my dreams I hold a knife five stars I'm not gonna say anything more about it this will be in this weekend's vlog it will be the first book in the vlog so you just got to tune into the vlog if you want to hear what I thought about it I'm not gonna say anything otherwise it spoils the vlog and I don't want to do that a 4.5 star that I did have was love on the brain by Ali Hazelward I did really like this listen Ali Hazelward is my favorite romance author I know she does the same thing every time I'm as annoyed at her as you at the big man tiny woman thing the cover for love theoretically that just came out I guess we're gonna be getting the same thing I just ask Ali please do something different like we don't need it but I love her anyway apparently this is about two co-workers who she believed that he hated her when they were a school together and now they have to lead this NASA program together the first half of this I think I preferred to love hypothesis I loved the slow burn of their romance and her thinking that he hates her but him just loving her so much there's like uncontrollable also she runs a Twitter account like a famous Twitter account that's anonymous and she has this guy that she messaged who she doesn't know who he is and um he's messaging her about this girl that he loves and like saying all the stuff that he loves about her and it's him but she doesn't know that that gets me but the second half I didn't love quite as much but I still it still does something to me Ali Hazelwood still knows how to how to push my bad ends I really did like this and I'm very excited for her next book to come out next year and I just seemed to rate all of her books high even if she does continue to burn me with the massive man tiny woman thing like you can just afford to not do it once Ali don't be scared we'll still read the book and then finally my last hit of the month was true crime story by Joseph Knox so this is a mixed media book primarily interviews about this girl who went missing many years ago and on a radar is the author so Joseph Knox is a character in the book it's getting weird it reminds me kind of like a house of leaves where there's like almost like a metanus to it going on throughout the book so Joseph Knox is the author of the book and he talks to us throughout it like it opens up with a letter from Penguin Randonhouse talking about how him them and Joseph Knox are severing ties after this book has been out basically Joseph's friend did a lot of research this book she conducted the interviews but then she was murdered as well so it's him trying to kind of collate the book after her death and it's a lot of interviews of the different characters in this girl's life who went missing talking about their perspectives and you pretty much know one of them you know knows more than what they're letting on and you're trying to figure out who that is and I really loved this I would recommend getting the audiobook the audiobook is full cast but I think because there are some visual elements in this like there's pictures and stuff I would recommend reading it physically and audibly that I often don't recommend that because obviously that's like double the book but I think this book really benefits from having both both formats of media I just love this this is my kind of thing right like a mixed media murder mystery like we kind of always knew it was gonna be five stars I just loved it and I found the ending really shocking I thought the ending built up really well and I just love those meta elements where like I almost believed that this was the second edition of the book and like the first editions of controversies that had arisen from it had actually happened in real life and I was like hang on like what is going on here so I really really loved this I would recommend picking it up I think it is just my kind of thing right mixed media murder mystery you can't really go wrong so there we have it that is my reading wrap up for October I hope you enjoyed this video let me know how you're reading when I would love to hear your statistics any of your disappointment surprises and hits of the month I had a pretty good reading month in October but November and December are about to be like off the charts right everyone get excited I love end of year content even January like I've already got all of January planned end of year content and beginning of your content just they get me so excited so there's a lot of exciting stuff coming in November and December in terms of reading thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you very soon in another video bye