October 2023 Reading

Are you ready for another lengthy reading post? In an attempt to catch up on some belated posts I'm going to throw another month of reading into one post. Here we go...

I started off October with wanting to reread the A League of Extraordinary Women series. This is the second one in the series. It's like Bridgerton crossed with feminism which I really enjoy.

Every once in awhile I need to read a Colleen Hoover novel. My principal and I talk about these as "chick lit" with an edge. They are easy reads but Hoover always addresses tough issues (in this case teenage pregnancy and infant loss) in a way that I usually end up crying at some point while reading her novels.

This was my lunchtime read throughout September into October. This was a book I borrowed from my friend who runs the Little Free Diverse Library program in our area. I enjoyed this book in that Downing lived in my city for some of his life and was writing about some places that I was very familiar with. I also think he might be friends with my aunt's partner's son, which I found out from reading this book, but that's a whole different story...

Every once in awhile I just need a Regency romance fix. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about :)

This is a book that a friend recommended to me. It is about the war in Syria and I learned a lot, this book broke my heart, and I just can't stop thinking about it. I highly recommend this book, but, be warned, it is not a light read.

I love Fiona Davis' books. I have ready so many of them and they are all so good! This one focuses on Radio City Music Hall and a little known, true, New York City story from the 1950s. The true story blew my mind and I spent quite awhile on Wikipedia reading about it. I just thought this book was so good! And it made me want to go see the Rockettes dance in their Christmas Spectacular.

This was a 90s book for The Decades Reading Challenge. I loved reading about the grunge scene in Seattle and travelling back in time with Kailey to see what happened, and where her love story went wrong. While somewhat predictable, this book sucked me in.

This book was amazing for the first 80% and I was so engaged and nodding along and learning so much. And then the last part just fell off a cliff. Dave read this book and he agreed with me. He loved the majority of it and then had to force himself to finish it. So I would say, read this book, but be warned, I don't think it ends strong.

I don't know if it was my mood or what, but I didn't love this book. I've read others of Rochon's books which I've really enjoyed but this one didn't engage me in the ways in which her other ones did.

The premise of this book sounds really good -- it was compared to The Bookish Life of Nina Hill which I loved. However, I didn't think this book was as good. True confessions though: I looked up my Goodreads rating of it and I rated it 4 stars. I honestly don't remember loving it that much so I'm confused by what October Natasha was thinking :)

In my opinion, this is one of JD Robb's better books in the In Death series. I really like this one.

This was my lunchtime book for October and it was loaned to me by a good friend. I enjoyed many things about this book, especially reading the points of view of the four sisters. Sometimes four narrators can feel like too many but in this case it didn't.

I loved this book. I read it in one sitting and then wished I had the next book in the series. I loved the puzzles, especially. I just about bought this book for Sam for Jólabókaflóð but I decided not to. But I think he would love this book!

This book was a little disappointing because somewhere I read that it was like "Back To The Future" in book form. It wasn't that, for me, so I was left wanting. However, if you don't have that description in mind, this book would probably be very fun.

So those were the books I read in October. Have you read any of them? I feel like I was a bit grumpy about some of my reading -- do you get that sense? Did I judge any of these books too harshly?

Total books read in October: 14

Total books read in 2023: 157*

*I'd set my 2023 reading goal at 150 books for the year. Since I surpassed that goal in mid-October, I decided to set my goal at 175 books. As of yesterday, I'd read 172 books (and I'm almost done two more) so I think I'll have to set a new goal! How many books do you think I'll read in December? What should my total reading goal for 2023 be?