September Reading Wrap Up
September was a whirlwind. I feel like I blinked and the month was over. At the beginning of the month I made a list of books I would hopefully read throughout the month, and let me tell you:
your ghoul pretty much read everything under the sun except those books.
Grab a cup of coffee, get yourself a snack, and let’s get into what I was hoping to read this month versus what I actually read this month.
My September Hopefuls
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My September Hopefuls *
If I’m being perfectly honest with you, and with myself, I was overly ambitious with this list. In the month of August I read 12 books so in theory I thought I could probably do that again, but who am I kidding? 12 books is a lot and all of these books are over 300 pages. A handful of books I read in August were under 200 pages—that was the real reason I was able to read 12 books.
Out of all of these hopefuls I am bummed I didn’t get to two of them:
The Dragon Wakes with Thunder by K. X. Song
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
I finished the first book in both of these series in August so I was hoping to just keep going with the sequels but alas I didn’t quite get there.
I’m not going to wallow about it though! I had a great reading month, and it was very unexpected!
Drum Roll Please
Drum Roll Please
My September Reads
I read 10 books in this month, and I was honestly shocked when I was doing my wrap up because I really didn’t think I read that much. From the 12 Hopefuls I had, I read two of them. The first, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, was a book club read for my mom and I (click for a full review), and the second, The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore, was a much needed palate cleanser after reading You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White. If you like small town romances with a HEA guaranteed, definitely check out the Dream Harbor Series by Laurie Gilmore.
I am very grateful to be able to read and review ARCs (advanced reader copy) and this month I got to read three great ones.
The first one I read was a young adult romance, Everything She Does is Magic by Bridget Morrissey, this is definitely a high school young adult read but overall, even at 30 years old, I found this story to be very fun, cutesy, and relatable to parts of my high school experience. You can check out my review on StoryGraph here.
The second was a little out of my comfort zone because I typically don’t read splatterpunk horror, but I will be forever grateful that I received an advanced reader copy of You Weren’t Meant to Be Human by Andrew Joseph White. I wrote this review before I started this blog, so you can check it out here, but I will say this is one of the best books I’ve read all year, and probably the heaviest book I’ll ever read in my life. You Weren’t Meant to Be Human follows Crane, an autistic transman, who is a part of an alien worm cult deep in Appalachia. Crane becomes pregnant and the worm cult forces him to carry the pregnancy to term. This book is heartbreaking and deeply disturbing. As always, check your trigger warnings but if you can handle it, I highly recommend reading it.
And the third ARC I was able to read was a highly anticipated release for me which was The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino (click for my full review). While I thoroughly enjoyed it, the romance was disappointing for me. However, if you enjoy a romantasy with a unique magic system and a childhood friends to lovers romance, this might be for you!
In between these ARCs, I devoured What the River Knows and Where the Library Hides by Isabel Cañas. What the River Knows was a 4.5 star read for me. It was almost perfection, and the audiobook was done beautifully. The narrators did an amazing job. It very much delivered on the promised 1999 The Mummy vibes. Unfortunately, the sequel, Where the Library Hides, was thoroughly disappointing. There were too many unnecessary plot twists, the romance fell flat, and the solution to the mystery was completely unbelievable. I rated it 2.5 stars. Quite honestly, I’m just going to pretend only the first book exists sadly.
I finished the month out with some great reads in what I’m calling:
My Knight Era
My Knight Era
After The Second Death of Locke by V. L. Bovalino, I moved onto Behooved by M. Stevenson as I was hoping to have something fun to uplift my mood, and uplift it did. It technically doesn’t have knights in it but it takes place in magical forests and a stone castle, so it fits the ~vibes~. If you’re looking for a fun romantasy with low stakes, I highly recommend. And no, this isn’t just a horse romance. It is a horse by day, man by night romance. The distinction is important.
Then, I buddy read Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher with my partner, and by buddy read, I mean he listened to it in three days and it took my 2 weeks to finish. The narrator made it hard to get into, and despite that bit of information, it was the funniest book I’ve read all year. I couldn’t listen to it while I was driving because, well, I one time drove passed my job while listening to it. Don’t worry, I wasn’t late — if you were concerned.
And last (technically), but certainly not least, I took a brief interlude from my knights to revisit my favourite series: The Sworn Soldier Series by T. Kingfisher. I was beyond excited to find What Stalks the Deep by T. Kingfisher at my local Barnes and Noble a whole week early! I buddy read this with my TikTok bestie Toast. We devoured it over the weekend. If you haven’t read What Moves the Dead (book one) by T. Kingfisher, I highly recommend checking it out, along with the rest of series. This is the type of series were you need to read them in order.
At the time of finishing this blog post, I have 75 pages left of my current read, Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove, and I can say with full confidence I will be finishing it before I go to bed. So, I suppose you can say I’ve actually read 11 books in September and read 3 books from my September hopefuls.
If you made through this entire wrap up, thank you for being here and reading my ramblings. Stay tuned for my end of the year TBR write up.
Happy reading <3