My October reads

      Comments Off on My October reads

There is something new on the blog. If you are a regular visitor you will probably spot it right away. In the right border are my latest reads and I will promise you that I’ll try to write a monthly blog post about my reviews.

I got back into reading maybe five years ago? As a child is was the perfect way to learn about things and escape my bad childhood. After all the moving around I lost my books and after that couldn’t afford a library card. Reading wasn’t a habit anymore. But five(?) years ago I decided I would pick up reading again. The first year I really struggled to read 5 books. The second year I got to 12 books. The year after that, about 30. Last year I decided to challenge myself (and got Goodreads) to read 42 books. I ended up reading 55! It seemed impossible to do again, but I am currently already at 54. And there are two more months to go till the end of the year.

So what did I read this October?

The psychology of time travel by Kate Mascarenhas
I really liked this read! Besides it being a light-read, it was still very multidimensional due to the time-traveling. It was a murder mystery which wasn’t unfolded too early either. That sadly happens in most detectives. But it was also about science, a love story AND a story about friendship. I am curious to know how it would be if you would read the story in order of time. Will it still work? I won’t be able to find out myself as I am re-gifting it for someones birthday.

Black seconds by Karin Fossum
This was already the sixth I read from the Konrad Sejer series and another good one it was! I really love these, it’s not just another detective mystery. It’s very multi-layered as you follow the story from different perspectives and the plot never unfolds too soon. It keeps you wanting to read on, to find out what truly happened. Meanwhile you also get to know more about Konrad’s life and how a good investigation is not as easy as it most of the time seems on any regular tv-show. Looking forward to reading the next one (again).

Jennifer’s Way by Jennifer Esposito
I started reading this because I wanted to know what it was like for others suffering (yes, it sometimes really is a suffering) celiacs disease. After finding an interview on youtube I got curious for the complete story and ordered Jennifer’s Way. I already started crying at the intro and learned a bunch of new things about my disease. I do think Jennifer is a bit too bitter and aggressive. Even though I recognize the need for that but the harshness of it makes me NOT want to hand this to family members so they will understand me better. It was a good read though. It made me feel like I ain’t alone in this and that was kinda needed in October since it was a bad month healthwise.

Dewey the library cat by Vicki Myron
I love cats, I love reading and I love libraries. So finding a book about a library cat seemed like having a cozy couple of hours in front of me. Imagine my disappointment when this book was nothing special at all. Most of the time, it wasn’t even about the cat or the library. Sadly one of my own cats died while reading this book and quite suddenly too. That didn’t help either. I was in doubt about putting this book on my “too bad to finish” list but finally struggled through. Not a recommendation. Nope!

A secret history of witches by Louisa Morgan
My next read was voted on by my Twitter followers. I thought it would be a fun one with Halloween coming up and it has been a while since reading a witches story. While the title sounds very interesting, you know, secrets, history and witches, the story turns out to be very repetitive. It almost but not entirely bored me. Any time it got interesting, the next girl takes over. Only because of the good writing, I gave this three stars, but actually it should only be two. It was an ok read, but I also liked it somehow. On most parts it lacked a certain depth, maybe it needed another 100 pages or one witch less to make this a good read. The happy ending was pleasant though.

Let the right one in by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Now this was a good read! I already want to read it again sometime. It’s dark. It’s brutal. It has vampires! It’s awesome! I wrote a huge and enthusiastic review about how good this read was but the review got lost when my laptop ran out of batteries… But really, if you are into dark horror and you aren’t faint-hearted this is something to read. It even has a kinda twisted love story woven into it. Apparently it is also made into a movie, but I think I’m sticking to the story instead.

Russian stories by various writers
Meanwhile I am also working through this 900+ pages collection of Russian stories. I started it in September. In October I read about 300 pages and I still have about 250 to go. It has some really good and some really bad and some ok stories from Russian writers, mostly late 19th early 20th century. It’s interesting to read about how life was back then, for farmers or the aristocrats. Some of the stories feel like they have been written last year and some feel like too long ago. Nevertheless, I like the read and will continue to inbetween my other books.

So those were my October reads. Have you read any of these too? What did you think about them? Or is there anything you would like to know? Ask me in the comments!