What I Got:

• The Final Revival of Opal & Nev (ARC, April 2021) by Dawnie Walton
• Classical Comedy: Greek and Roman ed. by Robert W. Corrigan

What I Read:

• Meddling Kids (audiobook) by Edgar Cantero (DNF at 65%)
• Check Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones by Ngozi Ukazu
• The Sun Down Motel (old ARC) by Simone St. James
• Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
• Miles Morales: Spider-Man (audiobook) by Jason Reynolds
  • CW: racism, murder
• Ella Enchanted (audiobook) by Gail Carson Levine
• Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi
• One of Us Is Lying (audiobook) by Karen M. McManus
  • CW: suicide, blackmail, homophobia/being outed
• One of Is Next (audiobook) by Karen M. McManus
  • CW: suicide, homicidal ideation, murder, minor sexual assault, blackmail
• Dune by Frank Herbert
  • CW: death, dehydration, war, queerphobia, racism, colonization
• Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
  • CW: shooting, dead relative, racism

So we can all see that I listened to an abnormally high number of audiobooks this month. Work has suddenly been keeping me super busy and I went through an extreme bout of anxiety for a good chunk of the month. Audiobooks are easier to consume when I’m busy and/or anxious because I tend to get headaches at those times. But I can’t blame it all on my own life. Reading Dune definitely contributed to the audiobook boom of October. It’s a slow-moving CHONK of a book, but we’ll get to that later.

It’s a rare occurrence when I DNF a book past 50% in, but I just had to. Meddling Kids wasn’t horrible or extremely problematic, it was just awkwardly written and even more awkwardly spoken. The author’s language was trying to be flowery and mysterious but ended up stilted and jarring. Especially the dialogue. Also, it felt like the author was using the setting (small town 1990s) to be sexist and a bit racist. It did not feel like an adult Scooby Doo novel like it was pitched to me. There were nods to a ton of other cornerstones of the mystery and horror genres (according to Wikipedia, Enid Blyton’s The Famous Five series, Scooby Doo, and H.P. Lovecraft’s foray into the Cthulhu Mythos). I’m not into these genres generally, so the hints and Easter eggs blew right past me. I was so disappointed!

Onwards with all of the audiobooks. In what I promise is related news, I freakin’ love Spider-Man. Any rendition of Spider-Man. But my favorites are Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Hence the Miles Morales audiobook. Plus, I’d been wanting to read something by Jason Reynolds, so it was a twofer! This book was no exception to my love of Spidey-related content. The audiobook narrator was awesome, so expressive and clear when someone else is talking. I also loved the discussion around how prisons are a tenet of modern slavery, because it’s true and not something I’ve seen in any fiction I’ve read. The fight against modern-day white supremacy, in the form of the enemy Miles faces both as Miles and Spider-Man, hit home, especially when racism was directed at Miles. It made me irrationally angry to read those parts. This was a wonderful blend of superhero action, high school problems, and slices of normal life with all their hilarious and serious moments.

Ella Enchanted was another read inspired by something I already love: the movie version of Ella Enchanted starring the lovely Anne Hathaway. My feelings toward this book and its movie adaptation are similar to my feelings for Howl’s Moving Castle and its film adaptation. The book and movie have very little in common except the basic premise and the names of characters, and I like the movie a bit better (probably because I saw them first and attach them to fond memories).

The book was much less sinister than the movie, and the plot simpler, but Ella is still the spunky and defiant protagonist that I already loved. I thought it was interesting that Char and Ella are acquainted from the beginning, unlike the movie when they meet on the road. It’s much less insta-love and more friends-to-lovers (“lovers” being a loose term because they’re teenagers). And Lucinda actually sort of redeems herself in the book instead of being self-centered the whole way through. Character development, check!

The book is also more obvious in its parallels with Cinderella—pumpkin carriage, fairy godmother, things disappearing by midnight, calling her “Cinders” at one point—but the book does it in its own way. One thing I did like better about the book is that Ella learns a bunch of languages to speak with other peoples and species, including ogres and elves and Aretha (her BFF). Plus there are a parrot and a centaur, so that was neat, too!

Since October is spooky season, I decided to read some mystery stories. I took the easy route and listened to the One of Us Is Lying series, which is YA. The best way to describe the first book is to imagine dumping The Breakfast Club and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda into a murder mystery. Like The Breakfast Club, the main characters outwardly fulfill stereotypes. The book attempts to subvert those labels, but it does so in a predictable and somewhat cliché way. The connection to Simon vs. is merely because of the school Tumblr account that reveals student secrets. Except the Tumblr account in this book is much more sinister.

I enjoyed these parallels and watching the characters grow individually and together. Hearing them try to puzzle everything out was super interesting. (Except when they finally connect the dots, it’s someone who you don’t meet until halfway through that randomly puts it all together. I wished it had been the four main characters to solve it. Or at least mostly solve it.) Of course, two loving sister relationships and an internal journey to see one’s self-worth didn’t hurt, either! I love those two things in books.

My main problem with this book is the ending. Part of it made sense when thinking back on the story, but the other half was a bit of a stretch. I could see the attempts to foreshadow it but I still couldn’t quite believe the leap it took to get there. The other part of the ending I didn’t like was that the last small chunk was focused on a romantic relationship that fell apart right toward the end for no reason. It felt sudden and useless to have this happen after the murder gets wrapped up only to be resolved again shortly.

My last beef with this book is how sensationalized one of the characters’ sexuality becomes. That felt a little… off to me. I get why it was done that way, but I still didn’t like it.

All that being said: this book is often hard to stop reading, especially with such good audiobook narrators. And I did stay up later than intended to finish it, so that’s always a point.

I have less thoughts about the second book because they were pretty similar. The plot puts the first book in front of a fun house mirror, because it just has a few tweaks and different characters. The ending of this one made much more sense. I could think back on the story and see hints and clues leading to the conclusion. It improved on the last book, but the similarities kept it from being a whole lot better. These were fun mysteries to listen to, and I had a blast following the characters around. There’s just not whole lot of substance.

The last audiobook I listened to was Long Way Down, another Jason Reynolds. This was about three hours long because it’s told in verse, but I did like it. The way of storytelling was incredibly effective. The main character is following the rules of his neighborhood by taking his brother’s gun to go shoot his brother’s killer. As he’s taking the elevator down, the ghosts of people he knows who have died join him on each floor. It works so, so well.

Each October, I usually try to read a classic spooky novel, but that did not happen this year. Instead, I read a classic sci-fi. Since the movie version of Dune was supposed to come out this year, my sister and I picked this as our book to read together this month.
Listen, I know this is a classic, but I didn’t really enjoy it. It is an incredibly complex narrative and the world building is insane, but none of this made the plot move faster or add to my enjoyment. Not to mention that one of the villains was queer and fat, and these things were used to make him seem “gross” and evil to others. The ending was not worth the slog through 800 pages. Normally, I read all of the extra material in a book, but when I got to the end of the actual story I couldn’t bring myself to do this. Honestly, whenever I picked this up I was thinking about what else I could be reading. There were moments of excitement, but they were just moments.

I’ve been pretty rambly in this post, so I’ll keep the last couple reviews short. Persepolis and Persepolis 2 were very enlightening and intriguing graphic memoirs with a unique art style that lent itself well to the story being told. Also, Marjane Satrapi is such a badass in these books. Yeah, she has some serious problems in her life, but she’s also so fully herself all the time, even while having to make concessions for an oppressive regime.

The second book in the Check, Please! series was every bit as wholesome and real and emotional as the first one. The only thing that ever took me out of the narrative was that there were too many new characters to remember their names. Other than that, I loved how the author dealt with the issues of being openly gay in the public eye and the emotions that come from graduating college and figuring out what you want to do with your life.

Last but definitely not least, the only book I read this month that I consider truly spooky: The Sun Down Motel. This book has a super compelling plot, but the two timelines were too similar and the ending wasn’t quite what I expected. Toward the end, some characters were acting much differently than their previous development told me they should, so it was a little jarring. Also, the killer’s explanation for why they murder people was LAME. Totally anticlimactic. (Not the actual ending, just the reasoning.)

I don’t read a lot of horror/thriller/mystery/spooky books, but I really enjoyed this one! It’s the perfect amount of spooky so that while you’re reading you’re definitely spooked, but you can still sleep at night without any issues (or without any book-related issues, at least).

My anxiety kept churning out an excessive amount of thoughts this month, so I’m glad at least some of them turned toward books! I’d much rather have too much to say than nothing to say at all. November is going to be one of the weirdest months yet in 2020 as we navigate how to celebrate a holiday about being together during a pandemic. It’s going to be hard and strange, but hopefully it will also be joyful and gratifying. At the very least, it will be nice to have a day off to just chill and eat!

Now, please enjoy this wonderful meme that I thought about when I mentioned Howl’s Moving Castle: