OCTOBER RECAP // new fave book, spooky series binge & mental health

I’m really terrible at sticking to a schedule people. I’m meant to be FREE and I just can’t do it.

I said I’d try and post every 2 weeks during exams but whelp that didn’t happen. I kept leaving it to Sunday and then I just couldn’t get around to finishing the dang post. The cycle continued so this is why you’re only getting a post now.

Anyways, I don’t want this post to go up too late so I’m trying to stay ahead of the game and post it now. I also want to start doing book hauls in monthly recaps so that’ll start happening in next month’s one. I have a giant one coming up because my last one was back in like March, but afterwards, I’m going to do ’em in recaps. If you even cared…

Should I stop rambling and just get into what happened last month? I think that’s a good idea!

Hunting Prince Dracula by Kerri Maniscalco {★★★★☆}: hskjkjs this SERIES! I’d just finished the first book last month (i.e. September) so I decided to jump right into the sequel. And I enjoyed it a lot more. I will say I think I rated book one a half star too high so I’ve lowered that now. I thought the characters were more developed in book two and I really enjoyed the creepy setting. Me, the scaredy-cat that I am, was petrified at night. BUT I found out from Ioana who is Romanian that the geography of Romania in this book is terrible… which is not great. And I truly dislike the main female character, Audrey Rose. The feminism wasn’t as contrived in this book as it was in the first one, but she was still very stupid most of the time. I talked a bit more about this one in my Goodreads review so click HERE for that.

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Tweet Cute by Emma Lord {★★★★★}: this book is on my top five favourite reads of the year list? WHO AM I? Okay so, unfortunately, you can’t read it until the 21st of January next year because I received an eARC from the publisher. But this book is fantastic! I had heard almost nobody talk about it so I had no idea if it would be good or bad. And I was so thoroughly surprised.

Few teen rom-com books hit the perfect balance but this one really nails it. It’s a modern-day You’ve Got Mail reimagining which you just know will be the best. The writing is witty and clever. You can immediately connect to the characters. The element of social media flows naturally with the story and doesn’t make you internally cringe. The romance was really was cute and I rooted from them the whole time. You can connect to both main characters on all different levels. The family dynamics just added another layer to the story. It’s just,,, so good? And I love it a lot! A huge round of applause to the fantastic author for getting it right. I went a bit more into depth in my Goodreads review < 3 < 3 < 3

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Escaping From Houdini by Kerri Maniscalco {★★½☆☆}: I know, Ruby not rating a book high? Okay, people I usually know what I like which is why I never really give low ratings. But I lowkey hated this book? Hate is a strong word but I was just severely irritated the entire time and wanted to rip my hair out. There is a love triangle in this book and Audrey Rose irritated the living daylights out of me. I wanted to slap this girl she upset me so much. I just,,, thought this book was unnecessary. The only character I cared about was Thomas because he had some common sense! The mystery was repetitive and I just didn’t care about the reveal. It was just?? Not the best?? I feel like the fourth one will be better but this love triangle was the most stupid thing ever and it wasn’t needed. It just created drama and we can’t leave Audrey’s head so it pissed me off. More rant over here whoops.

Becoming The Dark Prince by Kerri Maniscalco {★★★★☆}: As we mentioned the only character I actually like is Thomas. He carries this entire series on his back at this point. Hope he’s doing okay. Anyways, this novella was what it was. It was nice to read from his perspective for a change because I do not care about Audrey Rose basically at all. The writing is mediocre but we love Thomas Cresswell so like???

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Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman {★★★★½}: okay so if I haven’t told you, I’ve been almost non-stop listening to the film soundtrack. So naturally, as one does, you read the book? No? just me? Welp. No idk why I decided to read this, I just was in the mood so I did. I make strange and bad life decisions okay.

It took me longer than usual because I was busy that week but wow. This book truly is as beautifully written as everyone says. You don’t expect contemporaries to be written like this but really just wow! Stunning! I just love this story. I don’t know if I would have liked it as much if I hadn’t been obsessed with the movie but does it matter? It’s a really accurate adaptation. I loved the last few pages, and am really intrigued to what’s going to be in the sequel which I’ll hopefully get to soon. There are of course some scenes *cough* that I didn’t need to read *cough* whoops… BUT I still loved the book. Elio is just an entire and it’s interesting… to be in his head. Glad that I can now say I’ve read it. My review over on GR might be better than this one sorry. Click here for that!

I’m still writing exams in November BUT there are some books that I’ve just been super keen to read that I wanted to mention : )

• The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys
• Find Me by André Aciman
• Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron
• Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
• The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare

Not much happened last month online. I was trying to keep my distance so I could study.

The only thing I did do is start using Netgalley. I requested a few books and actually got accepted? The site always frustrated me because the only books I wanted to read were from big publishers and my score was almost non-existant but I read a few and my score increased. So now I have like six eARCs on my Kindle that I need to try and get to whoops.

Guys, exams have not been treating me well. They’re super stressful when you literally know nothing about what can be asked. You never know what you should focus on and it’s just not the best time. My anxiety went through the roof and I just didn’t want to talk to anyone. I wanted to disappear off the face of the earth. But I’m feeling a bit better now so glad that’s over *wipes brow*

HOW WAS YOUR OCTOBER? WHAT WAS YOUR FAVOURITE READ? HOW ARE YOU DOING? I’D LOVE TO KNOW!

xo