October Reads 2024

[tjs_whatnot]

 

 

 

 

 First, my apologies. I seem to be incapable of making cut tags anymore. I've tried on rich and html and they just don't work. 😭😭

October Reads!

 

Let's see, another month, another graphic style from another reading app. This one looks pretty cool. Anyone else on Fable and want to follow each other?

 

 

The Best of Me by David Sedaris ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

I've loved David Sedaris for a long time, but I honestly can't remember one book besides “Me Talk Pretty” that I read. Maybe I've just read a lot of his articles in things? I did once have a subscription to The New Yorker (that's what an old, pretentious, delusional asshole I am 🤣) But, listening to him read these stories-- the best of the best-- and they felt familiar and so great. I laughed, I cried, I forgot I had complicated feelings about his sister.

 

It was great, and since it's the best of… I feel like I really don't need to read any of the books I've missed up to this point. ❤️

 

Teacher of the Year by M.A. Wardell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

Firstly, there really should be more books about teachers falling in love. Especially teachers of littles (but I might be biased about that). But still, this was cute. The writing style though was a little too light for some of the subject matter (one MC is a recovering alcoholic and the other has childhood trauma around a parent's alcoholism) so it wasn't quite as powerful as it probably could be. *shrug*

 

Moonlighters: The Novella Collection by Anita Kelly ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

Have I gushed about Anita Kelly yet? Has anyone else read their stuff? I discovered her on a Alexis Hall Discord server and read about her and her motivations to tell queer and marginalized stories before I even read any of her books. ❤️❤️ 

 

At times it does read like it is an agenda and not a progression (if that makes sense? ) but she does tell some great stories about some fascinating characters. This was 4 short stories that center around a queer bar in Portland (or maybe a suburb of that town? I might be getting it and another book I read this month's location mixed up). It was an eclectic mix of characters and watching them connect and fall in love was varying levels of delightful.

 

Infinity Son by Adam Silvera ⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

Ugh. Adam Silvera has made me cry a lot, and he's made me sigh a lot. But he's never bored me to tears or made me sigh with Do Not Want to Finish Blues before. But he has now. Just… what? Why are these characters so boring and one dimensional? Ughs again.

 

Iris Kelly Doesn't Date by Ashley Herring Blake ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

So, I accidentally do this thing where I read a series out of order. It's not really a big deal because they're all different couples, but this one does feel like the grand accumulation of things. But I did like all the characters (some of them I liked more than one of these MCs, so I'll definitely check out the rest of this series.) 

 

This was some very hot sapphic love, and very tropey and is sort of centered around a queer retelling of my favorite of Shakespeare's romances, “Much Ado About Nothing” and generally was a good time, though I will warn that mental illness is a major focus, but it seems to be handled well (in my not so expert opinion).

 

Paint Our Song by Maia Kinley ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

 

Firstly, I hate this title! Yes, one MC is a artist and the other is a musician, but…ugh. No.

 

Surprisingly though, that is my only real beef with this book. Sure, there are some typos early on that made me nervous, and some of the characters and relationships could have been given more time and energy, but as a ARC of a new, independent author, I was pleasantly surprised.

 

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

 

I've been loving the persona and enigma of Chuck Tingle and what he's done with the publishing industry, but I haven't actually read anything from him. I was pleasantly surprised (and I don't even like horror!)

 

It was really great with having a message and not beating us over the head with it. It did end sort of weird (I think) but I'd already been satisfied at the conclusion so I'd sort of checked out.

 

The Inexplicable Logic of My Life by Benjamin Alire Saenz ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

 

I really do love this man's writing style, his characters. This was almost as good as his Aristotle and Dante books and was very similar. In fact, because this story takes place a few decades after Ari's story and is about a kid who was adopted by a queer Latino who is very close to his mother and whose father had died, I couldn't get the idea that this was Ari as a father story. That was until there was no Dante and the idea of that was too immense to contemplate. 😭😭

 

 

So, that was my October. What about you all? What have you been reading? 

 

 

Comments

[profiterole_reads]

Your cut works, no worries.

[tjs_whatnot]

Phew! That was really stressing me out! Thanks for letting me know. ❤️❤️

[profiterole_reads]

Check your main page, not the post page, to see if the cut works. :-)

[wearing_tearing]

Glad to hear you liked Bury Your Gays! I just started listening to the audiobook :D

[tjs_whatnot]

That's how I consumed it too. In all honestly, it was some of the cast of voices that got me interested despite it being horror. 😍😍

Come back here when you're done and let me know what you thought. ❤️📚❤️

[delphi]

Thanks for bringing Fable to my attention! I just set up an account and followed you, but I'm probably going to wait until January to start fresh with my reading list.

[tjs_whatnot]

Excellent! Followed you back! They made it so easy to just upload my Goodreads data, and the pretty graphic was too enticing to turn away. And then all the social aspects are fun too, as I always want to talk about books and reading. ❤️❤️

[tinkaton]

oh no not another book app to tempt me lmao. how does it compare to Storygraph, if you've used that?

[tjs_whatnot]

I am loving it! It's way more social than any other reading app I've been on so far, which is awesome since all I want to talk about these days is books, apparently. And it's easy to track in progress books and because Kindle has got me addicted to streaks, this helps fuel that. Plus, pretty graphics.

But honestly, I'd abandon Goodreads over this before I'd ditch Storygraph. I still really do love the statistics and bingos that I'm doing there.

Come! Join me! 😍😍