Monthly Wrap Up

October 2020 Monthly Wrap Up

By on • ( 23 Comments )

I still want to keep up with the trend of highlighting positive things each month, so here’s my positives for October:

  • I diversified my genres a bit more than usual.
  • I read not just one, but two books that fell under the umbrella of horror (even though they were more creepy/spooky than actually scary).
  • I reached 150 followers on my blog!
  • I read some really amazing books this month.
  • I did my first official proofreading job!
  • I listened to my first audiobook narrated by a full cast, and it was like listening to a whole movie!
  • I read 4 ARCs, which is a lot less than I had hoped, but still progress.

Here’s my breakdown of monthly/cumulative totals for October:

October Totals

  • Books read: 25
  • Books DNF’d: 1
  • Pages read: 7,848
  • Average pages: 356.70

Cumulative Averages

  • Days per book: 2.37
  • Pages read per day: 280.48
  • Books read per month: 22.60
  • DNF’d books per month: 0.7

Genres Read in October:

  • Fantasy: 7
  • General Fiction: 2
  • Historical Fiction: 9
  • Horror: 2
  • Mystery/Suspense: 1
  • Science/Nature: 1
  • Sci-Fi: 3

Genres Read in 2020:

  • Biography/Memoir: 2
  • Books About Books: 1
  • Fantasy: 181
  • Folklore/Fairy Tales: 8
  • General Fiction: 24
  • Graphic Novels: 2
  • Historical Fiction: 34
  • History/War: 1
  • Horror: 2
  • Mystery/Suspense: 6
  • Paranormal/New Age: 1
  • Play/Theater: 1
  • Poetry: 1
  • Romance/Erotica: 9
  • Science/Nature: 1
  • Sci-Fi: 30
  • Self-Help/Inspiration: 1
  • Social Science/Current Affairs: 1

Backlist vs. 2020 Releases

  • Backlist books: 164
  • 2020 releases: 62
  • 2021 releases: 1

Fiction Vs. Non-Fiction

  • Fiction: 218
  • Nonfiction: 8

Format Read:

  • Print: 124
  • Digital: 90
  • Audio: 12

Age Range

  • Adult: 89
  • YA: 133
  • Middle Grade: 3
  • Children: 1

My favorite books of the month were Golden Son by Pierce Brown and The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune.

Here’s what I read in October, with links to each of my reviews:

  • The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski (Hussite Trilogy #1) ARC — There was a lot of harmful anti-Semitic statements included, ones which didn’t further the story in any way, and while these ideas were part of history, there wasn’t any kind of historical note included. These ideas are STILL being used to justify harm to the Jewish community in the present day. I actually felt compelled to reach out to the publisher about this book, and got no response.
[Fight Club narrator saying “I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.”]

I’ve got some pretty lofty goals for November, but I’m aiming to read the 11 ARCs I currently have outstanding, some of the books authors have generously provided to me to review, and work my way through the massive list of library books that are sitting on my bookshelf begging to be read. Some of the ARCs on my TBR that I’m really looking forward to include:

  • The Camelot Betrayal by Kiersten White
  • These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
  • Warmaidens by Kelly Coon
  • All the Tides of Fate by Adalyn Grace

How did your October reading go? What were your positives for the month?

Categories: Monthly Wrap Up

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23 replies »

  1. Pingback: Ideal Inspiration Blogger Award – Whispering Stories

  3. Great wrap up! Look at all those books 🤯 Definite reading goals there lol YES for The House in the Cerulean Sea! Such an amazing read and so glad you loved it too 😍 Good luck with the ARCs that need to be read this month and hope you have a great one!

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    • Thank you! The House in the Cerulean Sea was definitely because you kept insisting how great it was and how much I’d love it. You were right 😎 And thanks – so much for ARCtober lol but this month is going to be the one where I finally get those ARCs under control!

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  5. I love your wrap ups! They are so cool! I like how you break down your favorites by stars, how you display what genres you read, and for what age groups those books were. Thanks! I feel like I told everybody how much I loved the Weaver Trilogy by Lindsay A. Franklin this month…but I can’t tell y’all enough. 😉 I also FINALLY got around to reading The Goose Girl and Enna Burning! They were good, too!

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  6. Wow look at all those books you read… I’m so happy that you have such a long list of 5 star books, I just love reading good books one after another in a chain! And congrats on a 150 followers Leah!

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  7. Congratulations on another book-tastic month! I can actually relate to being so disturbed by a story that I needed to write to the author. For me, it was a story that pretty much virgin-shamed a *sixteen-year-old* girl (and punished her for refusing to ingest the fae equivalent of date rape drugs*). Like, it wasn’t even funny about the anti-virgin thing, the way Hocus Pocus was. I didn’t get a response either, but it felt like a bit of catharsis.

    October’s always my favorite blogging month. I don’t do as much reading, usually, but writing all those spooky, supernatural specials keeps me delightfully busy. 🎃

    * Obviously the author didn’t intend it to sound like that, but that was the first image that came to mind.

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    • Thank you! I also love October, even though I’m the wussiest lol.

      I’m so glad I’m not the only one that felt that way! This book was full of the most hateful anti-Semitism that didn’t even have anything to do with the actual story. I understand that it was a story involving historical fiction, but when the information presented is still being used to justify murder in the present day, I would have expected a historical note, which wasn’t included. It was absolutely disgusting and reading it left me shaking. I’ll never read anything by Sapkowski again. And I’m horrified at the publisher as well.

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      • You’re totally not a wuss. 🙂 Halloween is as much about magic and cosplay as it is about ghosts and monsters.

        And wow, you’d think in 2020 a publisher would at LEAST put a disclaimer before the story (or better yet, rethink why they want to include such unnecessary “historical details”). 🤨

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      • Well, thanks for not calling me a wuss.

        And I would absolutely expect some kind of disclaimer or historical note if that info had played an important role in the story, but best case would have been to leave it out, since it clearly didn’t. But I guess it really shows the author’s true colors, making him one author who I won’t miss reading anything by. This was one of the few books that I rated even though it was a DNF.

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