Wrap Up: October 2022

Happy Halloween and end of the month, everyone! We hope that you’re all doing well and staying safe. As you know, with the end of the month comes our monthly wrap up! Check it out to see what we enjoyed this month!

This month Caitlyn read 13 books, and Cossette read 25 books.

It’s been a pretty crazy month on my end between work, and just…life in general, so while numbers wise I didn’t read as many books as I had hoped, I did have a very enjoyable reading month! I had multiple 5 star reads including Stolen City by Elisa A. Bonnin, Babel by R.F. Kuang, and The Witch Haven and The Witch Hunt by Sasha Peyton Smith. I also loved Blackmail and Bibingka, the third installment of the Tita Rosie’s Kitchen series by Mia P. Manansala, and The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake. I’m planning to keep my TBR for next month pretty open, because my buddy reread of Emma with friends and our read of Arsenic and Adobo for TeaTimeReads!

To add or purchase the books mentioned:

• Stolen City: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• Babel: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• The Witch Haven: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• The Witch Hunt: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• Blackmail and Bibingka: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• The Atlas Paradox: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

Posts I Loved Reading: 

• I really loved this interview with Elisa A. Bonnin, author of Dauntless and Stolen City, that Eleennae shared and especially loved the discussion on world building!
• Andi at ohnobooks posted a spotlight on The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro and it definitely piqued my interest! I ended up requesting it from NetGalley after reading this post and was approved, so I’m looking forward to checking this one out!
• I am a huge fan of Greek mythology and have been since I was a kid, and one of the stories that has always fascinated me is Medusa. I hadn’t heard of Stone Blind before reading Robin’s review, but after this review it’s moved very high up on my TBR and I am looking forward to checking it out! 
• We all know how much I love dark academia and its vibes, but there are definitely major issues with the genre, including its whiteness and foundation in oppression and romanticization of the past. Amanda over at Bookish Brews posted a great post taking a deeper look into the origins of the genre, but also the ways in which we can improve it. It’s a really great read, and I highly recommend it! Additionally, Kate at YourTitaKate posted a list of Dark Academia Books by Author’s of Color that I also recommend checking out!

What a month! I started out the month in Chicago, where I had my best reading week in a while, and then came home to a lot of smoke from the wildfires. October also brought us Midnights, which I’ve been listening to non-stop since its release. This month, I finally finished my Normal People annotations, as well as my Little Women ones. Some new reads I loved this month were If You Could See the Sun by Ann Liang, and The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna.

To add or purchase the books mentioned:

•  Normal People: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound

• Little Women: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• If You Could See the Sun: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
• The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches: Goodreads | TheStorygraph | Bookshop | IndieBound 

Posts I Loved Reading: 

• By now, you should all know that I’m an Amanda bookishbrews fan account first, and human being second. So obviously, I had to shoutout Amanda’s post on dark academia which talks about the the history of universities in America, how dark academia romanticizes the past, as well as how it’s an erasure of history and discrimination, among many other important topics.  I think this should be mandatory reading for all readers. 
• Kate from yourtitakate also posted about The Problem with Dark Academia as a Genre this month! 
• As someone who has been dipping her toes into literary fiction a bit more lately, I really appreciated Kowthar’s post on “on the suffocating whiteness of female rage and the Sad Girl”.   

We hope that you have a great November and we’ll see you next month!