Books Read in October

Book By Book

I can’t believe I am writing my October summary on November 15, and there is snow on the ground outside! The weather has been crazy this year here. At least the books have been good! I continued to focus on the RIP Challenge in October, reading mostly dark and creepy books that I absolutely loved. Here’s what I finished in October:

• Never Best Against Occam: Mast Cell Activation Disease and the Modern Epidemics of Chronic Illness and Medical Complexity by Lawrence B. Afrin, M.D. – nonfiction (I’ll review/discuss this one on my chronic illness blog)
• The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher (UK) – teen/YA fiction
• The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo by Drew Weing – middle-grade graphic novel

• The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (Norway) – adult fiction
• Macbeth by William Shakespeare (Scotland) – play (both print and audio)
• The Adults by Caroline Hulse (UK) – adult fiction – reviewed for Shelf Awareness (will link up when it is published later this month – hilarious family holiday drama!) 

• The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal (Canada – Vancouver) – adult fiction on audio
• America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie (VA, France) – adult fiction
• The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier – middle-grade graphic novel 

• Fifty Mice by Daniel Pyne (CA) – adult fiction

So, that is a total of 10 books read in October! Wow, I’m impressed with myself. Two of them were middle-grade graphic novels (and quick reads), just one teen/YA novel, one nonfiction, one play, and five adult novels. I listened to two on audio. These were all good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the four dark and creepy novels for the season, but my favorite was a complete surprise to me – America’s First Daughter, a historical novel I didn’t even plan to finish and ended up loving it! The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo also deserves a special mention – a kids’ graphic novel so clever, fun, and funny that I immediately requested its sequel.

Progress in 2018 Reading Challenges:
This is my favorite part of my monthly summary – updating my Reading Challenges. I read 6 books from my own shelves for my Mount TBR Reading Challenge, bringing my total-to-date to 26! Woohoo! R.I.P. Challenge is always good for whittling down my TBR piles. For the Monthly Motif Reading Challenge, October was Old or New, and I read both: Macbeth was a classic and The Adults was a new release. I also added Macbeth for the Back to the Classics Challenge under Crime Story, and added two for the 2018 Badass Books Challenge: Macbeth again for a book I should have read in school, and The Adults  for a book set at Christmas (I got a lot of mileage out of those two!). I traveled to the UK, France, Canada, Scotland, and Norway for my Travel the World in Books Reading Challenge (though only Norway was a new one for this year). For my 2018 Literary Escapes Challenge, I added just one new state, Virginia. And I finished off my RIP Challenge with another seven books for a total of 14 – what a nice, dark fall! I also reviewed 3 TV shows and 3 movies for the RIP Challenge.
 
Finally, Bookish Bingo hosted by Chapter Break – not really a challenge per se, but a fun game that I play each month. I filled in 22 squares in October – a very good Bingo month for me!

Spaces filled in:

Never Bet Against Occam – read a physical book, doctor
The Killing Woods – not in a series, All Hollows Eve 
The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo – costume/disguise, candy/sweets, pranks
The Woman in Cabin 10 – shelf love
The Lost Ones – heroine, in a series, road trip, kidnapped
America’s First Daughter – orange on the cover, library book, love triangle, coffee or tea drinker
Macbeth – audio book, darkness vs. good
The Adults – contemporary, free book
The Unsinkable Walker Bean – child’s POV

What was your favorite book read in October?