**I drink my coffee and watch as wisps of smoke fill the air. The towne has a Halloween gathering every year with a large fire so I get ready in my costume, a simple dress with a mask, and make my way over. The streets are filled with young children running around in masks with candy spilling out of their tightly-grasped hands. I find some familiar faces in the form of shoppe owners and make my way over to see tables filled with bat-shaped candies and drinks in cauldron cups, and elixirs that will make your hair grow long and curses for people that have wronged you. I browse the collections and purchase a red gemstone ring with a crescent moon before heading back over to the fire as the smoke tries to block out the full moon.**

If you read my October TBR post, then you’ll know I decided to not have a set TBR and just mood read. I usually end up mood reading anyway even after I set the TBR, so why not just write about a few books that seem interesting for October without putting pressure on myself to read them? I ended up reading three books and had one DNF, which took up a lot of my time. So let’s get into all the books.

• A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston

Unfortunately . . . this was my DNF. I was just really disappointed by this one, especially after I really enjoyed The Dead Romantics. Her young adult book Geekerella wasn’t too bad either. This one on the other hand was not for me. It’s about a woman on her way to her vacation when she finds herself in the town from her favorite romance series. Sounds great right? My dream is to travel to my favorite fictional worlds, though quite honestly I probably wouldn’t last five minutes in most, so maybe it’s for the best it hasn’t happened (yet). The weird part is that I can’t quite pinpoint what wasn’t working. I think the story was just a bit slow and didn’t really have a strong plot. Nothing was really happening in the 130-ish pages I ended up reading and I just wasn’t invested in the characters or the story. I read this book for probably about two and a half weeks before finally giving up.

• Peanuts: Snoopy’s Beagle Scout Tales by Charles M. Schultz

This was so cute! I’m not much of a graphic novel person still, but I have gained a love for Snoopy over the past year or so for some reason, so I thought it was time to actually read something Snoopy related. I found this graphic novel and thought it looked pretty good and decided to try it out. This has stories from several authors including comic strips from Charles M. Schultz following Charlie Brown at camp and Snoopy leading his Beagle Scouts. I really enjoyed this one. Part of my thing with graphic novels is that they don’t feel like they have developed stories at times, but this one had an actual story involved and a good one at that. Each story was funny and I found myself laughing at several scenes. I really loved this one and it has quickly become a new favorite graphic novel.

• Nothing Like the Movies by Lynn Painter

With this book, my thoughts are going to go in two completely different directions, so bare with me. This is the sequel to Lynn Painter’s Better Than the Movies, which got pretty big when it released, and it was one that I loved as well and what kicked off my Lynn Painter binge. This follows Liz and Wes in college after they have gone through some things. Since this is a sequel, we’re going to leave it at that. I don’t think there will be a Lynn Painter I don’t like. Her writing style is engaging and fun with heartfelt moments and humor and teens that actually kind of feel like teens. This was no exception. We got Wes’s point of view in this one as well which was interesting to see. I enjoyed the book and being back with these characters and seeing where they have since ended up. Now going into my “however.” However, this book was kind of unnecessary. I feel like it kind of negates the original Liz-Wes relationship and changes the whole dynamic. Liz also goes through a bit of a character change and I miss the Liz of the first book, especially since I really loved her character and could see myself in her in some ways. I do love her finding new passions in her internship, but I think she was so desperate to reinvent herself that she was forcing herself to become someone she wasn’t. And Wes made some out of character (Wes-tionable? haha, sorry!) choices here that he probably wouldn’t have made in book 1. To make a long story short, I did enjoy this one, but think it wasn’t needed and shouldn’t have been added.

• The Party by Natasha Preston

I kind of fell off with thrillers a year or two ago, but there are a select few I still want to read, and the latest Natasha Preston is always on that list. This is her release from last year that follows a group of friends on spring break in a remote castle where they start getting killed off one by one. Starting this, it was a bit slow. Nothing really happens for a little while, but once the murders start happening it gets a lot more interesting. Natasha Preston isn’t for everyone, but I love her books. I had so many guesses as to who the killer could be and kept changing my mind. I was in suspense the last chunk of it waiting to see what would happen and how this one would wrap up. Something I hate is the questionable choices they make. I swear that thriller characters are not smart sometimes. When someone dies, it’s time to leave. I don’t care how bad the storm is outside, I would take my chances. My main complaint with this one is that I wanted some more closure. Her books never fully wrap themselves up and always have some thread left hanging, but I really wanted closure with this one. I don’t want to get into specifics, but it’s something I wish we saw wrapped up a bit more. I would love to know what happened. Overall, I did enjoy this one and it’s on the higher-middle end of my ranking for Natasha Preston thrillers.

This somehow has turned into a very long wrap-up, but I had so much to say about each of these books. My least favorite was definitely A Novel Love Story, but I don’t think I have a favorite. My other three reads are all ones I really enjoyed and I can’t decide. Did any of you have a favorite or least favorite read in October? I’d love to hear!

xoxo,

Just another reader