What We Read in October

Oof October was not my favorite. We had so much illness in our house and the adults are still kind of limping through life. My reading suffered as a result of the rough month we had which included 2 work trips on top of all the illnesses. Here is how my reading shaped up! 

Best books:

Talking at Night was an excellent character driven novel about the friendship between 2 friends. There is plenty of angst and bad decisions in this book but it’s forgiveable (for me) because of the characters’ pasts. There is no plot to this book so avoid it if you need a plot. In Memorium is historical fiction set during WWI. It’s focused on the forbidden feelings between 2 soldiers and also demonstrates the horrors of war which is prescient given what is happening in our world today. No one truly wins in war. 

Good to pretty good:

I had to think hard to remember what Paper Names was about which means it was pretty forgettable. It tells the story of a first generation immigrant. What drove me to read this was finding that the author, who is an investment banker (which is an industry with insane hours - like 60-70+/week), wrote this at night. How! Here For It was an excellent collection of essays about faith, sexuality, and all kinds of other topics. I Could Live Here Forever had promise. It is about a woman in an MFA program at UW Madison. She falls in love with a man who is early in his recovery from a heroin addiction. I could NOT separate the (terrible) decisions of the protagonist from how I felt about this book so that knocked it down from great to good. 

Did not work:

The Puzzle Master appealed to me because I love puzzles. However I somehow missed that this book involved things like the occult and other plot points that required me to suspend my disbelief and it just did not work for me. Bleak House was my 2023 conquer a classic read with a Patreon group and wow it was awful. I’m never surprised when a classic doesn’t appeal to me. But it felt evident that Dickens was paid per word. So. Many. Characters. So many wondering plot points. So. Many. Words. 

Boys’ reads:

Paul and I randomly plucked this book off the shelf at the library. It is a cute book about a girl whose mom calls her mouse as an affectionate nickname and she DOES NOT LIKE IT. 

Taco loved this book! He also loved the other book by this author that we checked out based on the recommendation of an anonymous commenter. Thank you to that person!!

Did you read anything great in October?