Okay, so today we are going to be doing my October wrap up. All the books that i read in the month
of October. This is the last month where the wrap up will be the reviews. I'll still do wrap
ups... probably. Maybe. But starting November, every single book or most every single book
that i read will get a dedicated review. If you missed the channel update, announcement,
thingymadingy (up there and in the description). Before we get into all the stats and reviews and
such... buddy reads for November! On the Patreon server we will be buddy reading Fires of Vengeance
and Rhythm of War. I've all... i have ARCs for both of these. By the time both buddy reads
will start i will have read both of them so i won't be reading along, but i will be very active
in the chat and participating in conversations and i'm really excited about that because they're both
going to be a lot of conversations around both these books. In the public discord server (both of
which are going to be linked in the description of this video) we'll be reading Jade City, which i'm
so excited about. I've been meaning to read this book for a while. It's finally happening and it's
happening as a buddy read which is just perfect. So three fantastic books for the buddy reads
this month. Also sorry this video is late and the reading vlog didn't happen over the weekend
either. I took halloween off and then when it came time to do the reading vlog i realized i
just haven't really read that much last week. It's kind of updates about being in the middle of books
so i decided to not do it. Before i get into stats, real quick i went ahead and included
Rhythm of War in my statistics for the month. The reason is because at the time i'm filming this
(which i'm filming this video early) i'm halfway through it. By the end of the month i'll probably
be 70-75% through and it just feels weird to put it in November when 700-800 of the pages will have
been read in October, so i'm including it in this month's stats but it's not done. So i completed
six books this month; working on the seventh, but i'm far enough into it that
i don't know what to do with it. Stats! I read one gothic fiction novel, one literary fiction,
one alternate history, two sci-fi, one nonfiction and i'm going to be mostly through one fantasy.
My star ratings are pretty positive this month. Rhythm of War isn't included in these
star ratings because i'm obviously not done with it, but overall i had a positive reading month.
Obviously i know that some of the these things are sub-genres like alternate histories- technically
sci-fi, but it's distinct enough that i put it in its own category. First book i finished this month
(i didn't realize was sitting right there on the bookshelf) first book i finished this month was My
Cousin Rachel. Daphne Du Maurier is easily and quickly becoming a new favorite author for me.
She writes gothic fiction exactly as i want gothic fiction to be. She has these very slow, quiet,
subtle stories with very odd characters that on the surface look fine, but the more time you spend
with them the more you question everyone. She has this incredible ability to build this very
slow story, but the prose is so unsettling that even though things are happening and things are
being unveiled so slowly i feel on the edge of my seat because of the way it's written and the
tension that's written between the lines. On top of that, in My Cousin Rachel which the setup is
kind of difficult to explain. I tried to explain it to Korey and it was a jumbled up mess, but
our main character; his cousin goes off to marry another cousin, but it sounds... it sounds weird.
Anyway, our main character is very suspicious and we're following the woman that uh... that the
cousin would have to marry and we're following him because she comes for a visit. It's really hard
to explain cohesively. I don't know why i'm so bad at explaining the basic setup of this book. What's
great about this book (that part doesn't matter so much) what's great about this book other than the
stuff i already said is that Du Maurier has this ability to with each chapter reveal a little bit
more about the characters and in each chapter i find myself flip-flopping between thinking,
"Okay, being really suspicious of her" and then the next chapter: "I'm really suspicious of him"
and you kind of are slowly unraveling these characters in a way that constantly makes me
change what my predictions are. And i love the way Du Maurier ends her novels. I love that she gives
us all the information we need, but leaves us in a place where there's so much room for discussion
on what really... i just, i love Du Maurier. I love Du Maurier. I loved this book. I said
this in the vlog (Rebecca is right there) um i think that this is better written than Rebecca,
but i did like Rebecca more so i'm just excited to read more Du Maurier. I have bought several of
her books. I will be reading more next month. Next book i finished this month was Anxious People. So
Fredrik Backman is my favorite author of all time and he writes literary fiction. He... this one
is very different from his other books and he warned us that it would be very different. I love
Backman's humor and he leaned into his humor a lot in this book and it didn't always work for me, not
because i don't love his humor but because a lot of his characters felt like caricatures and not
like... Backman has this ability to write humanity in such a penetrating way that every time i finish
one of his books i view people differently and i'm reminded to give people room to not be perfect
because we're all doing our best, which is a big theme in this book in particular, but
a big theme in a lot of what he writes. In this book he did an amazing job as always
with articulating complex concepts in very simple ways, but saying it in a way that makes me think
on a level and in a way that i wouldn't have thought before. Backman is unmatched (in my
opinion) on his ability to to dissect humanity and discuss it in compelling, simple, yet thoughtful
ways. This book did all those things and i was in love with it. I didn't love the plot. I already
mentioned some of the characters... i really loved a lot of the characters, but there were also a lot
of scenes where dialogue and character revelations felt really forced, which i've actually never felt
with Backman before. And on top of that the plot in general was fun. I had a good time with it,
but i also had some pretty big problems with it and i did end up doing a detailed spoiler-filled
review over on my Goodreads, which is linked in the description of this video. So if you want
more information, it's there. I still really enjoyed this book. I still gave it 3.5 stars.
It is probably my least favorite Backman book. Either this one or My Grandmother Asked Me To
Tell You She's Sorry. Probably that one. So this is probably my second least favorite Backman book.
Doesn't make it bad. I still had a great time with it. It didn't... it didn't connect with
me on as many levels as his books usually do, but i still thought it was great. I'm
still glad i read it. There are still a lot of quotes in here that i will be revisiting
a lot. This Is How You Lose The Time War. This is i think a novella. And how... how do i describe
this? I'll have to describe it really really vaguely. This is a sci-fi, an absurd sci-fi.
Two women from different
i don't even... i don't even know. Different... two different agencies.
Okay, two different agencies that are kind of like different worlds. They're warring and these women
are spies that are both out to accomplish goals for their agencies to uh... help them win
this war. This book is a compilation of scenes as well as letters. These two warring spies
have been leaving letters to each other as they're traveling time and space. And so
they end up in different worlds and in different timelines finding these letters from each other
and it's not always cohesive. One of these, this is, this is two authors. One of these authors
is a poet and THAT shows. This is the most lyrical, flowery prose that i've
ever enjoyed. Usually i love thoughtful prose. I love intentional prose, but i do not love
"purple" prose and the book itself; there is a line in this book that calls this prose "purple."
So at least it's self-aware. I didn't... okay, when i started this book i hated it. I thought
it was pretentious nonsense. I got deeper into the book and i fell in love with it. And i
don't know how to discuss it. I do plan on re-reading it and when i re-read it,
we'll do a dedicated spoiler-filled discussion because there's a lot to discuss here,
but i need to re-read it first because this is a book that's written in such an abstract way that
it's easy to miss massive things, but at the same time it's written in such a beautiful way that's
intentionally abstract that it's a fun puzzle to put together and it's filled with whimsical,
beautiful, fantastic worlds and settings and creatures and ideas and it's such a beautiful,
weird, story. There you go. 11-22-63. I... this, this is the audiobook that i
listened to this month. It took me the entire month almost to get through the audiobook
and i have really mixed feelings on this. Oh my golly! This is another time travel story following
Jake who goes back to the 50s and has to live life in the 50s and become an established person there,
so that eventually he can stop Oswald from assassinating Kennedy on 11-22-63. There's a ton
of U.S. references. I don't know how the enjoyment would be if you aren't very familiar with U.S.
culture and pop culture and history. I think King does a really really good job of explaining things
well so that even if you don't know much about this setting and time you can still enjoy it, but
it may be more challenging if that were the case. This book,
let's see how long it is. About 850 pages. Did it need 850 pages? My answer would be:
no. I thought Jake was a good main character. I enjoyed following him. I think that King, one of
the greatest things about the way he writes is that he does an intense amount of research and it
shows. As i said in the reading vlog, this could have easily been a book of cliches, but instead
King went in and said: "Your cliches are wrong. Let me tell you what the 50s are actually like."
And i appreciated that. King has an incredibly immersive writing style. I really felt like i was
there and i, especially the first like 300 pages i really enjoyed the pacing of it. That slow
trekking through. Really knowing where we're spending this book. King is also fantastic
at build up. He's so good at really building tension and excitement. Some things i don't
think i'm enjoying about King, especially not in this book. I guess i'll just talk about this book.
Things i didn't enjoy about this book... i don't think King is great at pacing. This book had such
a great beginning and then it really dropped off when it kind of went on a side tangent for
150 pages and just changed its mind about what it wants to focus on, which is fine to do for a short
period of time, but i really didn't need it for how long it went on and it just wasn't interesting
to me. I just didn't care for the middle chunk of this book. Then we get back into the actual story
and the ending was so rushed. And it was such a cool ending. I really liked the idea of it.
Didn't love the execution. I needed a lot more from it plus there were a couple of um side things
that could have been cool and ended up being nothing. Great build up, could have been
cool payoff... i didn't love the payoff. I have spoiler-filled review, again on Goodreads if you
want to see more of my thoughts. I was pretty nervous to put up the spoiler-filled review
because King is such a highly regarded author. I expected it not to be received well, but you guys
are great. I should have known we can disagree and still have a good discussion. Writing In The Dark.
Okay, let's talk about the one book i really didn't like this month. I almost did a dedicated
review for it because i have a lot to say, even though i'm not doing dedicated reviews just yet.
Writing Into The Dark is a writing book. If you watched my prep, nanowrimo outline book thing with
me i decided that i'm gonna do some discovery writing and some outlining for this next book
that i'm trying to work on for nano. More information on me writing. It's a hobby.
There's a video over there if you want to check it out. So i got Writing Into The Dark because
i was doing some research on discovery writing since that's not my thing. I like to outline
and uh Writing Into The Dark was a book that came up a couple of times so i said,
okay let's buy it. It's only 80 pages long. Let's see how it goes. Oh my. Oh my. I guess i'll start
with the positives. There were a couple of good things that i got out of this book and i plan to
just, i plan, i plan to implement them. I've already started implementing a couple of
things. There were a couple of good nuggets that made me glad i read this 80 page little thing,
but then there was the rest of it. I have a lot of negative feelings. I will detail it all in my
Goodreads review because i don't know how many people are going to be interested in me ranting
about it here. I'll say some of the advice i don't necessarily think was great, especially not for
a lot of writers, but he tended to articulate his opinions as: "You're an idiot if you don't
do it my way." And the reason i say that is because he openly, actively insulted anybody
that thought differently from him throughout this entire 80 pages. It was crazy. Like,
legitimately saying things like: "You need to get professional help if you think this way.
I mean it. Go get help." I don't know. I think some of his advice was really solid, but it was
quite tainted by the entire tone of this little 80 page instructions... non-fiction. Because
anybody that presents information, advice on a creative field and presents it in a way of saying:
"My way is the only way and if you don't do it my way you will fail as a writer."
Oof! Oof! Anyway, i still plan on trying discovery writing. I still want to attempt to write with
less of an outline and i did take a couple of things away from this book so congratulations. You
got two stars for that. But i don't necessarily recommend this this nonfiction as your way
to learn more about discovery writing. Last book i'm going to talk about in this video is Bobby
Robot. This is a self-published sci-fi book and because i'm recording this video four days before
the end of the month i haven't actually finished it yet, though i am halfway through... over
halfway through it and i'm really really enjoying it. I am going to cut to another clip of future
Merphy telling you what i thought. Hi! Hello. Welcome to "Merphy is sick." I apologize for
my voice. Final thoughts on Bobby Robot. I think this is a YA book. I would say that it probably
fits more as like a bridge book for middle grade YA so if you go into it think you give it like
that, oh it was such a fun book! So this is about the only human in this, on this planet of robots
and he is going through a series of tests to make sure that his humanness isn't going to
um... be a hindrance. He has to make sure that his emotions and uh his his human fallibilities...
uh basically he's the thing that is going to make the robots decide if humans deserve to live or not
and he has to kind of remove himself from his emotions and he has to have precision thinking
in order to pass these tests. Then he ends up in a situation where he meets up with other humans and
kind of learns... um has a series of hilarious encounters and learns that being human is quite
all right. That's simplifying it quite a bit. It was such a fun story. Really really funny.
Very very heartwarming and just a lot of fun. Really well paced. Well written. This is a
self-pub book. I highly recommend it. I think that if you go in looking for a really fun,
heartwarming adventure, it was a blast and i had a ton of fun reading it. So there you go. Those
are the six books that i finished. Actually they're not even all books. Two of them were
novellas. So four books and two novellas that i finished this month. Be sure to chat with me
more about these in the comments. I post videos every Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.