Countdown to My Birthday and New Releases | Reading Update 10.7.20

 Hey hi hello friends, and welcome back to my blog!

Happy first week of October, everyone! It's by far my most favorite month of the year! I've been obsessed with October and Halloween since I came out of the womb, practically. I mean, not really of course, since I was only four days old my very first Halloween, but still! It's the principle of the thing, ha. 

As I'm sure many of you share the same sentiment, October is usually when I reserve my more creepy and atmospheric books to read. I certainly have plenty of those on my TBR this year, especially since I'm discovering how much I truly enjoy horror novels (me? Love horror? Is it even possible?) as well as historical fiction, which for some reason fits the season perfectly to me. I know some people prefer to read historical fiction in the wintertime, but for me winter is perfect for high fantasy. 

Anyway, despite having clear seasonal reading moods, the first few books I've been reading this month haven't fallen into any of those categories. I was suffering from major fantasy burnout after flipping between Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor and The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton, so I decided to pick up a hard-hitting contemporary, Love & Other Carnivorous Plants by Florence Gonsalves. And boy, was it hard-hitting. I wasn't expecting that much angst to be packed into a single novel. It was actually the very first book I annotated for myself! Though, I didn't go crazy with the annotating, there were just some lines that I felt were too good not to underline (in pencil). 

I finished that early yesterday morning, and by then two of my most anticipated releases for the year came out, so of course I begged my parents to let me go to Barnes&Noble to pick them up, and I did!

Squeeeee!!

I've already read and loved The Tower of Nero by Rick Riordan. I can't believe the Percy Jackson universe has come to an end! It's been fifteen years of incredible stories, and okay I'm getting emotional again just thinking about it. If you want to follow along with my reading, check out my twitter thread here.

I've yet to read The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab, but that's because I'm still feeling off about fantasy. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to put it off, but I want to be able to give it my full, undivided attention. 

(I also picked up A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, but it's the same sort of situation as with Addie. I don't know when I'll get to it.)

So, right now I'm currently reading Days of Distraction by Alexandra Chang, which is a literary fiction novel about a Chinese-American woman navigating her mid-twenties with her boyfriend. 

Isn't this cover just absolutely gorgeous? I'm obsessed with it, truly. This book came out in March, so it's still a relatively new release, and I've seen nothing but good things about it. After I finish this book, I think I'll go back and finish up Dreams of Gods and Monsters, and then maybe take a crack at Addie. I still have a lot of books that I want to get to this month (Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, Imaginary Friend by Stephen Chbosky, Wilder Girls by Rory Power, and Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, to name a few). Will I be able to read them all? I mean, hopefully. That would be very nice if I could. 

However I know for a fact that I won't actually get any reading done basically the last week of the month, because of my birthday and Halloween. I never manage to read anything those last four days. I'm always too excited about celebrating. However, since this year I won't actually be able to have any friends over, maybe I will get some reading in. (I'm turning twenty-three, and nobody likes you when you're twenty-three anyway, ha.)

Okay, I think that's all I have for this reading update. I'll talk to you guys later, then.

Until next time!