👻 OCTOBER WRAP UP 👻

     Welcome back! Did you enjoy this month? The weather here in Kentucky has definitely taken a hard right turn in the fall/winter direction and I'm here for it. One more month of nothing by 40-50 degree weather and I might have to just go ahead and turn on the heat. I really read some good books this month. I'm proud to say that I actually read 6 of the books that were on my TBR and I only had to DNF one book, you'll see that one later on. But I can say right now that my favorite books were definitely: Career of Evil, Akata Witch, Akata Warrior and Dolores Claiborne and Darktown. Everything else was a slight let down, but before I get ahead of myself, lets take a look at what I read this month.

The Silkworm- ⭐⭐⭐⭐
   The second book in the Cormoran Strike series was waaaaaaay better than thought it was going to be and to be honest, I thought it was better than the first book. Being that I have finally caught up the series I will say that these books get better and better as they go on. This novel consists of Cormoran taking the case of the missing author. His wife suspects him to be off writing/finishing his new book, but once Cormoran gets really looking into the missing author (Owen Quine) and his new work, The Bombyx Mori, which seems to ruffle a lot of feathers so many things come to light that clearly the people depicted in Quine's new work will LOVE not to come to light. So its up to Comoran and Robin (I love their relationship) to get to the bottom of this before someone else is charged.
Jughead Vol. 1- ⭐⭐⭐
     It was okay, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but yeah. It was just okay. I liked the artwork and the color schemes but the storyline/plot was kind of all over the place. But the main plot line, evil principal taking over Riverdale High and Jughead is the only one who can stop him. I was reading this for my first book in the #GetGraphic read-a-thon.
Career of Evil- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
     This one was definitely the best of the three. A severed leg has been delivered to Strike's office addressed to Robin and the hits just keep on coming. Compared to The Silkworm this novel was just as suspenseful and page turning, I can see now why people love this series so much. I also learned something else about myself while reading these books, that I have to read these books at a slower pace than I would normally read, only because I felt that if I read it any faster, I would miss out on the more slightest of clues to help with the case. This book also dealt something I haven't seen or heard of in a very long time called Body Integrity Identity Disorder or BIID. Which I think is something very fascinating, and I did some personal research on the matter. But back to the matter at hand, I really loved this book and now I just can't wait till the fourth book, Lethal White, comes out. Definitely will be pre-ordering it.

     And here is where I went off my own beaten path and picked up a book that I've had on my kindle for a couple of months now. See what had happen was the fact the Career of Evil fucked me. I love when I read a great 5 star book, but when it does happen the next book or books that I try and read after it quickly get the chop because they aren't the book I was perviously reading. It took me two days and starting and stopping three books on my prescribed TBR to come to this book and knock it out of the park. 

IQ-⭐⭐⭐

     It was a good mystery though. A rapper hires out to a local private detective who goes by the name IQ, but his real name is Isaiah Quintabe, his got a troubled pass but with the death of a close family member IQ has decided to use his gifts of patients and observation for good and help those who need it. The rapper has a hit out on him and it's up to IQ to figure out who's behind it and stop it. I liked this book, it was pretty fast paced, but the only thing that kind of got on my nerves was the flashing back and fourth from the pass to the present. I understand why Mr. Ide put those flashbacks in the book, they definitely gave the reader background on IQ and Dodson's relationship and how they came to be what they are. The second book, Righteous came out on the 17th of October and I hope the back and fourth time jumping is something that was just in the first book to establish background. 

Akata Witch- ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
     FIVE FREAKING STARS, as usual. This book is so good. I love it. I know when the third books comes out, I will probably be reading this first book again for the third time because it's just that good. You can check out my review of the first book here.

Akata Warrior-⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
     Okay, real quick I don't know if anyone else picked up on this, but I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the fact that Sunny's spirit face is called Anyanwu which is a play off of Octavia E. Butlers' character of the same name in Seed to Harvest. Like I get so much life from that wee fact. So anyways, this book was great. It sucks that can't really go into much detail, this being the second book and all, but I must say, it was SSSOOOOO GGOOODDD! Like for real. Just read them already. The growth in the characters, not just with themselves but within their powers is just great and the personal struggles that Sunny, herself had to go through throughout this book, I think I'm most impressed with her growth and I feel that within these pages, you can see that Dr. Okorafor had gotten more comfortable writing about them. I can't wait till the next installment.

Dolores Claiborne-⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

     This was such a haunting book. Doloris Claiborne was NOT  one of the Stephen King books that I wanted to read this month, but while sitting here doing my daughters hair I needed something to listen to that wasn't a cartoon and I just pressed play on my Overdrive and I DIDN'T TURN IT OFF TILL IT WAS OVER!! It was that good. It was haunting, I cried, I felt justice was done and at the same time. I loved Dolores' character, she was so strong and determined and reminded me VERY MUCH like my own mother. I called her the next day and I wanted to cry all over again thinking about the book. This has to be one of my favorites of Kings books that I've read. And again I'm not sure where to go from here with his books, but I digress. Dolores Claiborne is the story of a women who is accused of killing off her LONGTIME employer and we begin the book with Dolores coming into the police station to give her statement. What I liked the most about this book is that it was told in what I can only think of is just one LONG monologue. And it's Dolores telling her whole story how she became employed with her recently deceased boss/friend and she even talks about the rumors of her killing her husband in this small New England costal island town. You can tell in the movie where the elaborated on certain parts of the story that did happen, but not to the movies extent, but both are still very enjoyable. I would highly recommend this book.  

Midnight Crossroad- (Midnight Texas book 1)⭐⭐⭐ (Book 1 in the Dewey's 24-hour readathon)

     So I decided to go and try my hand at the Dewey's 24-hour readathon, and the first book that I picked up and finished during the readathon was Midnight Crossroad, and while I might like characters that inhabit the town, the book are kinda slow and it was almost was like nothing was happening in this book. Manifred is the newest person to move to Midnight, and he is a psychic. He moves to this town and he realizes that his neighbors aren't just regular people. But even with their differences, they stick together like family. Bobo, Fiji, Joe, Chuy, Oliva, Lemuel... all of them, they are interesting characters, but reading this installment was like a slice of life manga. But there was a murder and racist biker gangs, so it had it's moments but eh. It's not the Sookie Stackhouse series, I can tell you that.

Day Shift-⭐⭐⭐ (Midnight, Texas book 2 DNF @52%)

     This was supposed to be my second book in the readathon, but I passed out at midnight and didn't get to take a bigger chunk out of this one like I wanted. While, I wasn't sure I was going to pick up the next book in the Midnight, Texas series I needed to see if this one was going to kick it up a notch. It did not, but It was still enjoyable just the same. I read this one in one day. The Midnight Hotel has been renovated after many, many, many, many, many moons of abandonment and that of course is turning the heads of the residents of this small town as well as Manifred is in a heap of trouble after something has happened to one of his long time customers, and of course again, the town has come together to get him out of this mess. What I did like was the quick shout of a well known were-tiger (wink, wink). Again I'm sad to say that this one, was not as good as I had hoped it to be. Since I only have one more book to read in this series I'm just going to hold off on it. I just don't want to put myself through anymore blah books in this series. Had to DNF it. 

Darktown- (Darktown book 1)⭐⭐⭐⭐.5

    I don't know what brought this on for me, but something about this one drew me in and I couldn't wait to read it. I saw it on the humble and I thought this might be something. It takes place in 1948 Atlanta, Georgia. It's a fictionalized account of the first 8 black officers on the Atlanta PD. In this story we follow two of the first black cops, Smith and Boggs and two white cops Rackstraw and Dunlow. Having taken place pre-cilvi rights era you can pretty much imagine what few black officers are going though on a daily bases, not being considered "real" to their white companions and even to their fellow black citizens. What brings the four together is the death of a pretty black girl and a retired white cop and Boggs and Smith are on the hunt for her killer, even if they aren't supposed to be. What I really enjoyed about this book is the characters and the mystery. I enjoyed this one so much, I'll definitely be reading the second one. Highly recommend. 

     This month was not the best. It was like I started pretty strong, but then everything just fell flat. I had, well at least I thought I had some really good books picked out,  but once I started reading the ones I had picked out, I couldn't get into them. This month, I just refused to read, just "okay" or "alright" books. If I couldn't get to the 100 page mark, I just gave up the ghost on it. Then I started to realize that I have started many books and hadn't gotten to the 100 page mark because they weren't giving me what I wanted. I wanted to read some seriously scary books, but the things I picked up weren't cutting the mustard for me. Now I'm not sure if for next month, which I wanted to get into #NonfictionNovember, but hey it's not like these books are going anywhere right? 

     So what did or didn't you read this month? Did you read any good scary books? Let me know down below. And I'll see ya'll laters! 

PEACE