Ugh. I’m later in the month again. I hate it when I post my monthly wrap-ups later than like, the 5th of the month. ‘Cause then it just feels super late to me. But yeah, I’m finally posting my October reading for 2024.
I’m very pleased with the amount of reading I got done last month. It’s been some time since I’ve read nine books in a month, and it’s something that I wish I would do more often. And I enjoyed almost all of the books I read in October, which was a huge bonus.
Anyway, without further ado, let’s get into my StoryGraph statistics from last month!
October Reading 2024
I read 9 books and 3,995 pages
😐 MOODS: I had more reading Moods in October that I’ve had in a long while – possibly the most ever. Adventurous was of course the biggest chunk of the pie chart. The second biggest slice is Emotional, then Lighthearted and Hopeful. The other four Moods were Reflective, Mysterious, Inspiring and Funny.
👢 PACE: My books from last month were mostly medium paced, but around a third of them were fast or slow paced.
🔢 PAGE NUMBER: Everything I read was between 152 and 640 pages.
📖 FICTION/NONFICTION: It was once again all fiction in October. As is my usual.
🎭 GENRES: There were more Genres in October than there have been in months. Fantasy was the Genre I read there most of, which is always the case. Though, interestingly it’s actually tied with Young Adult this time. The other five genres were Manga, Graphic Novel, Romance, LGBT+ and Romance. (BTW, in case you were wondering, the genre vs. demographic thing still bugs me.)
📄 FORMAT: This particular pie graph is once again wrong. (As it always is.) About half of the books I read were physical copies, but some novels were digital.
⭐ RATING: My median star rating for last month was 4.11. The ratings I gave were between 2.5 stars and 5.0 stars, so yeah.
📉 PAGES READ DAILY: I did most of my reading during the last third of October. My biggest reading spike of the month was the 23rd, though my reading was decently high on the 14th, 29th and 31st. I also read books on the 3rd and 4th, and between the 21st and the 27th.
So yeah, I liked how much stuff I ended up reading in October. Did it feel a bit like cheating because the majority of what I read were graphic novels or manga? Yes, but I’m actually okay with that this time. Especially because the One Piece super volumes are so thick. Plus, I enjoyed most – almost all – of the novels I read last month, which is always fantastic.
I’m not sure how my reading is going to be for November. This is usually one of my best months of the year for it, but I’ve been so indecisive about which book I’m gonna read next that I haven’t started reading a new novel yet. Which, ugh, I hate it when that happens. Hopefully I’ll finally make a decision and get something started tomorrow.
Anyway, thanks for joining me in checking out my StoryGraph stats for my October reading in 2024. Thank you also for reading, and I hope you have an awesome day/night!
Bet you didn’t expect to ever see this post again. I think the last time I did this post was at the end of January this year. I did say I was going to discontinue it because it was becoming too much after all. But I’ve been giving it some thought for the past couple of months, and I’ve decided that I’d like to try keeping up with this post again.
I’ve been doing pretty well with my posting lately. At the very least, I’m happy with the last few weeks on the blog, which is honestly what I want the most out of this blog.
Anyway, let’s get on with the post! Here’s to the furry weekly wrap-up in almost a year! 🥂🍻
Monday 10/28: Fall 2024 Book Recs
Last Monday, I finally got around to posting my Fall Book Recommendations for 2024. Basically, it was a list post that consisted of books I liked that I thought had autumn and/or spooky vibes. I had about seven of them this time. Check out the full post if you’re interested in which books made the cut this year.
On Tuesday, I participated in Top Ten Tuesday. The topic of last week was Halloween Freebie, and I went with a bit of a medley – a Creature Feature or monster mashup if you will.
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community.
This past Wednesday, I participated in Can’t-Wait Wednesday again. It was the first time I’d done so in the past couple of weeks.
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme currently hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings. It focuses on books you’re looking forward to reading, usually new releases.
And last Thursday was Halloween. Again, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!! 🎃👻🐈⬛🧹🦇🕸️ I hope that everyone enjoyed theirs.
Sunday 11/3: Sheets Series Review
Yesterday, I finally posted my review for the Sheets series. I had wanted to post it on Halloween, but it just didn’t work out, unfortunately. Oh well.
Sheets and its sequels, are a trilogy of cute graphic novels that feature ghosts that wear actual bedsheets. Yes, really. I enjoyed the series and ended up giving it a median rating of ★★★★☆.
So yeah, it’s been awhile. I wasn’t ever sure if I ever planned on starting up this series of posts again, but I guess I have. We’ll see how long this lasts this time, haha. Hopefully I’ll keep it up? 🤞🍀
(Also, last week I officially crested 400 blog posts on the Blog That Nobody Knows! Yay! 🎉💖)
I’m generally pretty happy with what I ended up posting last week. Regarding this coming week, I’m planning on finally getting out my Monthly Reading Wrap-Up for October 2024, probably (hopefully) tomorrow. I also have another couple of posts I’m planning on doing, and am of course hoping to get another book review out.
As always, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope you all have a great day/night!
A story of ghosts, family, loneliness, and laundromats.
Marjorie Glatt feels like a ghost. A practical thirteen-year-old in charge of the family laundry business, her daily routine features unforgiving customers, unbearable P.E. classes, and the fastidious Mr. Saubertuck who is committed to destroying everything she’s worked for. Wendell is a ghost. A boy who lost his life much too young, his daily routine features ineffective death therapy, a sheet-dependent identity, and a dangerous need to seek purpose in the forbidden human world. When their worlds collide, Marjorie is confronted by unexplainable disasters as Wendell transforms Glatt’s Laundry into his midnight playground, appearing as a mere sheet during the day. While Wendell attempts to create a new afterlife for himself, he unknowingly sabotages the life that Marjorie is struggling to maintain.
Sheets illustrates the determination of a young girl to fight, even when all parts of her world seem to be conspiring against her. It proves that second chances are possible whether life feels over or life is over. But above all, it is a story of the forgiveness and unlikely friendship that can only transpire inside a haunted laundromat.
My Review
Humans are delicate, too. The teensiest mistake can ruin them, even if you do everything else right. Just because mistakes seem small and insignificant, doesn’t mean they are.
Delicates
Ugh. I wanted to have this review out on Halloween. Clearly, that didn’t happen, lol. So much for that. (Here’s a belated Happy Halloween 🎃👻🐈⬛🧹🦇🕸️ to everyone, by the way.) But it’s here now, I guess. Anyway.
I decided to read the Sheets series because it looked cute, and… honestly, that’s kind of it. But I don’t think I really need to have another reason than that. I mean, that’s my initial reason for picking up most books – there’s something about them (usually their covers) that draws me to them. And this wasn’t any different.
Since there are actually three books in this series (it isn’t just the same book split into three volumes, like The Glass Scientists), and I felt differently about each one, this review is actually gonna be split into three mini reviews. So let’s start off where this series starts off – with the first book in this little series: Sheets.
Sheets
“But this place is home, baby. And once you have that, there’s nowhere you’d rather be.”
Sheets
I rather enjoyed Sheets. It was a solid start to this little series of graphic novels. My favorite thing about this installment – and I guess the rest of the books as well – was how nostalgic it made me feel.
If I put the pieces together correctly based on the information provided, and am remembering that correctly, this series starts in 1998. I was very young at that time, so I barely remember anything, but since a bunch of nineties stuff carried over a bit to the 2000s, it was enough to make me feel the nostalgia. The Gameboys, the lack of cell phones everywhere – all these things awoke ancient memories within me. It was so weird, but it was nice to look back on that time.
The thing that I loved the second most about these graphic novels was how ghosts’ forms come from bedsheets. I absolutely loved that idea – I thought that was so clever and adorable. The ghosts were also my favorite part of the art style.
The characters were also cute. I really liked Marjorie and Wendell’s friendship, but I wished we’d gotten to see them more as friends during the novel, instead of just becoming friends near the end.
Speaking of the ending, it was kind of… eh. Everything wrapped up just a little too neatly, and parts of it didn’t make sense. If being seen by humans is such a huge law in the ghost world, why is it suddenly okay at the end? But I recognized that this series is targeted towards middle grade and younger, so I kind of get why everything was wrapped up so quickly and efficiently.
Delicates
“Everyone has ghosts. I think we all need to learn that there’s no shame in letting them out.”
Delicates
Out of the three graphic novels in this little series, Delicates was unfortunately the one that I enjoyed the least. Don’t get me wrong – I still liked it, I just didn’t like it as much as the other two.
The main reason for this was definitely all the middle school drama. It just annoyed me to read about, likely because I already lived it. I didn’t enjoy middle school drama when I was in middle school and I don’t enjoy it now. And out of all three books in the Sheets series this one definitely deals with it the most, which is why it’s my least favorite. I think that actually kids in middle and primary school will enjoy it for this reason, though, because they’re probably going through this stuff right now.
I did enjoy the new main character introduced, however. Eliza was awkward and quiet, but she really rounded out our main trio in the best way. Unfortunately, like in Sheets, we didn’t get to see as much of this interaction as I’d have liked. We also didn’t get to see too much of Marjorie and Wendell just hanging out as I had expected either, which was also disappointing. Because most of Delicates was focused primarily on introducing Eliza and the aforementioned middle school drama.
I will say that the topics focused on in this installment are important for middle school aged kids, as well as sensitive, so reader discretion might be advised. (Depression and suicide ideation are very heavily implied.)
Lights
It’s much harder to create light than it is to extinguish it.
Lights
Lights was my favorite out of the Sheets trilogy, and it really isn’t that surprising. It was the most “action packed” of the three, and had the most interesting plot to me. It focused on the thing I was most curious about from the beginning: Wendell’s past before he died and the events leading up to it.
This is also the installment where we got to see the friendships play out between the trio that I’d wanted to see since Sheets and that I felt were a bit neglected in Delicates. We also got to see a lot of catharsis playing out regarding parts of the story and between characters, so that was also nice to read.
All in all, I don’t really want to say too much about this one, as it is the last book in this series. But I will mention that I really enjoyed it and that it definitely had a satisfying conclusion for the trilogy.
Final Thoughts
“There’s good and bad in everyone, you know?But the more friends you have in your life… well… the more, uh, brightness you’ll have overall.”
Lights
Regarding this series as a whole, I think the Sheets series is a solid little collection of middle grade graphic novels. I definitely recommend this to kids that age that like cute supernatural stories with a bit of a darker side.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure teenagers and adults might find something (or things) to enjoy about it, whether it be the art, the nostalgia or the ghost story aspect of it. But I definitely think kids will get the most enjoyment out of this trilogy out of everyone.
As always, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope you have an excellent day/night! I hope everybody had a great Halloween, too!
Happy Tuesday everybody! We’re finally in the throes of fall and on the cusp of Halloween! I’m so excited!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Halloween Freebie, so I’ve decided to do a bit of a monster mashup. A Creature Feature if you will – of an assortment of different Halloween and horror monsters.
All right, here we go!
👻 Ghosts 👻
I liked this book, and I liked its take on ghosts. Sheets is probably one of the cutest ghost stories I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. (I was actually gonna have The Ghostkeeper here for this one, but then I remembered that I’d just read Sheets, so I went with it ’cause I just used the former on a list yesterday.)
🐺 Werewolves 🐺
What’s a creature feature without werewolves? Now, shiver isn’t my favorite werewolf story (I don’t even know if I really have one), nor is it Maggie Stiefvater’s best, but it’s the first one I thought of.
🦇 Vampires 🦇
Speaking of stuff that isn’t my favorite in the genre – yeah, I don’t think that Twilight is a good vampire story. I also don’t think it’s a good story in general, but whatever. It is, unfortunately, likely the most popular modern vampire story, and as the ones that I prefer are either more obscure and from the ’00s, I picked this one.
🧹 Witches 🧹
I think that there are probably better witch books too (aren’t I on a roll here, lol), but I definitely think that this is one of the better ones that I’ve read that isn’t middle grade. I also think I gave it four stars when I originally read it, so there’s that.
🔥 Demons 🔥
I’ve been trying to pick books I’ve read more recently for this list if I can, and unfortunately, this is the most recent book featuring demons that I’ve read.
🧟 Zombies 🧟
I was originally thinking of putting What Moves the Dead here, but I used it on my Fall Recs yesterday. So I picked the only other zombie book I’ve read.
✨ Faeries ✨
I like books with faeries. But I especially like books that portray them properly. Not the world of hot guys and ridiculously sized… Eggplants… That Sarah J. Maas has popularized.
🐙 Deep Sea Eldritch Horror 🐙
I don’t know what to say here, honestly. This has giant horrific sea monsters and disturbing transformations. Very eldritch horror stuff going on.
🐎 Kelpies 🐎
And Stiefvater makes the list a second time! But then, she did write a book featuring a more obscure monster that I’d love to see more of. (And it’s a much better book than Shiver.) I love The Scorpio Races.
💀 Skeletons 💀
Gotta get that Spooky Scary Skeleton rep in here! I think living skeletons/walking-talking skeletons are underrated. I’d see them in a few things growing up, but they just weren’t nearly as popular as all the other monsters. And I haven’t read the Skullduggery Pleasant books, so I was having trouble figuring out a way to get them on this list. But then I remembered that I’ve been reading One Piece and one of the protagonists is a skeleton, and he’s absolutely fantastic (I love Brook), so I went with One Piece.
What books have you been reading lately? Have any of them been spooky or Halloween themed? What monsters or creatures have they featured? What are your favorite types of books with supernatural creatures?
As always, thank you so much for reading, and I hope you have a awesome day/night!
It’s been a couple of weeks, but I’m finally currently reading something on a Wednesday again, so here I am.
WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme that used to be hosted at A Daily Rhythm, but has been taken over by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. Now, without further ado, let’s get into the 3 Ws!
One Piece: Volumes 52 – 53 – 54 (Sabaody Arc) by Eiichiro Oda: So, uh, I might have lied a bit when I said that I was definitely reading this next the last time that I participated in WWW Wednesday. But I’m serious this time, reading the rest of the pre-time skip stuff is next. (Though, admittedly, I am considering reading a little graphic novel first. But this is definitely next after that!!)
Sheets by Brenna Thummler: I’m also considering reading this one next. It – by which I mean the three volumes Sheets consists of – seems like a nice, quick little read. This is also the little graphic novel I just mentioned. In case it wasn’t obvious, lol.
What books has everyone been reading lately? What have you thought of them? What are you thinking of reading next?
Anyway, thank you to everyone for reading, and I hope that you have a great day/night!
