After a disastrous September, when I had very little time and motivation to read, October turned out to be a much better month. Even though I had just as many (if not more) things on my To-Do list, somehow I was able to embrace my inner “busy bee” and also find some time for myself.
In October I read a total of 7 books! Six of them I was able to finish by October 18th. With such a great start, I was hoping to read 10 or more books by the end of the month but the last two weeks have been particularly busy and didn’t leave much time for anything but work.
OCTOBER HIGHLIGHTS
1 – The Reading slump is gone!
I made reading a priority over anything else – i.e. movies, YouTube or Netflix, and the results speak for themselves! Not only I was able to read more than I usually do, but I also read more books in a shorter period of time. To make things less stressful for myself, I decided to stay away from the ARCs and mainly picked up books from my physical TBR.
2 – I’m in love with the local thrift bookshop.
That place is a heaven on Earth! I don’t actually have any photos from the store itself (I’ll try to take some the next time I’m there).
It’s a total and absolute chaos! I thought it would annoy me, because I usually like my books organized by genres, authors, series, colors, etc. BUT! I actually loved going through the shelves not knowing what I’d find, and discovering some true gems under piles of books. It’s like a scavenger hunt but without any clues.
3 – New favorite book and movies of 2019!
October was had some amazing new releases. «Fountains of Silence» by Ruta Sepetys, my new favorite book, came out earlier in the month, and also two great movies were released in October – «Joker» and «Doctor Sleep». If you haven’t watched these movies yet, highly recommend to make some time and go watch them asap!
«Joker» was a big surprise for me. Especially because I kept tearing up throughout the whole movie. It was just so sad! Joaquin Phoenix did an incredible job, and I can already see that Oscar statuette in his hands.
«Doctor Sleep» was released on October 31st, so instead of our plan to stay home, eat candies and watch horror films, we decided to go to the cinema.
I loved it! I haven’t see the Shining, but I feel like everyone knows what the Shining is about so that wasn’t a problem at all. And I loved how «Doctor Sleep» was less horror and more fantasy orientated. It kinda reminded me of «Night Watch» (the Russian urban fantasy thriller that was released in 2004, and eventually translated to English).
4 – The blogging and reading community.
I wasn’t very active on my blog in October, but I read many wonderful posts that I’d like to share here:
- Ally talked about Not having a favorite genre and how it influences being a book blogger. It was very interesting to see someone else voicing out my own “concerns” about not having a favorite book genre.
- Another amazing post was by Rafaela about the Main Problems of Being an International Reader. She is also from Portugal (like me), and many the things she mentioned in this post I can 100% relate to!
- Isabelle provided some tips on How to Organize the GoodReads shelves! I try to keep them as organized as possible, but I love seeing how everyone else sorts their books, and copy some of their ideas *wink* *wink*
- I love Katie’s fun post for all sweet tooth readers out there (me!) – Books to Read Based Off Of Your Favorite Halloween Candy!
- Lashaan creates incredible content @Bookidote, and this month I particularly loved his post on Reviews’ Objectivity.
- And finally Tiana’s recent post It’s ok to DNF gave me the necessary push to DNF the book I was reading (and not enjoying) at that time. Thank you, Tiana! 🙂
MONTHLY GOALS CHECK-IN
| ✔ | 1 – Read my first Stephen King book – «Cell» was my first Stephen King book! |
| ✔ | 2 – Read Agatha Christie books & follow the Miss Marple Reading Guide – I thought I’d be able to read like… ten Agatha Christie books, but I only managed to read 2. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ |
| ✔ | 3 – Read thrillers, mysteries and historical fiction – Check, check and check! |
| X | 4 – ARCs ARCs ARCs! – That’s the one I failed at… I wanted to clear my to-read shelf on NetGalley, but I also needed to focus more on my physical TBR. |
| X | 5 – Eat tons of sweets during the Halloween season – Yeah… I didn’t. At least not as much as I wanted to! 😀 |
MONTHLY READING STATS
This is the first month of this year with more read Mysteries and Thrillers! If you check all of my previous wrap ups, Fantasy was always on top. I actually loved diving back into thrillers and crimes. I’m not sure why I stopped reading them in the first place, but I really missed the excitement of plot twists!
The best book of October and probably of 2019 (so far) was «The Fountains of Silence» by Ruta Sepetys. I loved it so much that right after finishing it I ordered the other two Ruta Sepetys books!
Out of 7 books, I read 5 Adult books and 2 YA ARCs.
OCTOBER TOP TEN TUESDAY POSTS
OCTOBER BOOK REVIEWS
I hope October treated you well! What books have you read?
Leave your monthly highlights in the comments below!
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WhimsyPages 
Glad you were able to get oug of your reading slump! Yay!! Doctor sleep looks so good! I liked The Shining (both versions). 🙂 Great month you had here. Hope Nov is just as good for you! Happy reading 💖
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Thank you, hun ❤ I was very surprised by how much I actually loved Doctor Sleep, highly recommend to watch it at the theatres.
Oh, I really hope that November will be just as great! To a happy November! 🙂
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🥂
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Thank you so much for the mention 🤗
And omg you went to see Doctor Sleep too! I loved it as well! I agree that it felt more fantasy-oriented than horror but there were lots of amazing spooky moments! I especially loved Rebecca Ferguson, she was the perfect villain, very charismatic in her role but also a somewhat terrifying character. (Tbh, I watched The Shining and I hated it, it was really boring. You didn’t miss anything.)
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Yes!! Rebecca Ferguson did an amazing job, I kinda wanted to be on her team (just for a bit…) 😀 I’d love to see more movies in the future, and the way things ended I think we will. It would be awesome to explore more of that shining 🙂
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Ahhh thank you for sharing my post! It sounds like you had a pretty great month!
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It’s a great post that deserves to be shared! *wink* October was very good, I hope I can carry that momentum to November as well 🙂
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So happy that you reading slump is gone! That’s awesome that you were able to read seven books. Thrift bookstores are always really cool. I love looking around them and seeing what awesome books I find for such good deals. I hope November is a great month too! 🙂
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Thank you!! ❤ That thrift store is the most unorganized book store I've ever seen, but I loved looking through stacks of books (that are taller than me) or going through boxes and boxes of books that didn't fit on the shelves to see if I could find something cool 😀 My bf only went once and has been coming up with excuses ever since… lol
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WHAT A GREAT MONTH!!! You did an amazing job! I need to catch back up with reading ha-ha! I LOVED JOKER SO MUCH!! Honestly … obsessed with talking about that film. Funny enough, I didn’t cry. But my friend I went with was concerned because I was literally just starring very deeply to the screen ha-ha!! I was just so engrossed in it. I also have to check out this How to Organize Your Goodreads list post … I need to work on that a bit lol!
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Thank you, hun ❤
«Joker» was… I have no words to describe it. I kept tearing up and my bf was constantly asking if I was okay 😀 It's very disturbing, so I can't say I liked it, but it was the most amazing movie I've watched in a very long time.
I really hope Joaquin Phoenix will get Oscar for his role as Arthur Fleck.
Oh, GoodReads… I want to create more shelves, so I can sort books easier. And also, I need to create a TBR shelf for my unread physical books only. It's going to be a big project. 😀
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It’s such a deep film. You feel so bad for so many of the characters and the injustice in the world. And I get what you mean … it’s a film that I thought was amazing, but saying I loved it DOES feel kind of weird ha-ha! And if he doesn’t … I’mma rage.
I do as well. I want to start utilizing the shelves for tagging genres, since I don’t do that NEARLY enough. I have the organization part down pretty well but I want to utilize the features more
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You had such a fantastic month! I feel so happy for you to see you’re out of your reading slump! What a feeling! 😀 I love seeing all the Stephen King this month! I enjoyed your review of Cell, I haven’t read it, but I’m glad to see you enjoyed it, as well as Doctor Sleep! 😀
Here’s to a wonderful November! 💞☺️
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Thank you! ❤ I read so much in the first two weeks of the month, and even though not all books were 5 star reads, I still enjoyed them 🙂 And, yes! Stephen King was a big part of my October. «Doctor Sleep» movie was pretty awesome, I'm looking forward to seeing your review of it!
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That’s good that you still enjoyed them! 🙂
Oh man, now I feel I need to go out and see the movie! I’m really glad to see you enjoyed it! 😀
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I’m happy to see you had an amazing month! The sound of the thrift store is amazing! I can’t wait to see some photos 🙂
– Emma
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Uuuh, yes! Can’t forget to take some while the owner isn’t looking 😀
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