A weird month all around! New meds, new ‘office’ equipment, my first ever job interview. (How have I not had one before now??? Bc I was working at the same place for like 7 years and they didn’t need to properly interview me.) AND NEW BOOKS, OFC!

ARCs Received

I’ve been toying with making myself a ‘new-to-me authors only’ rule for requesting arcs…but there are a whole bunch of authors I love who could definitely use the hype of early reviews, so???

Not that my reviews have been very early lately

I’m trying to resist requesting books I know I’ll love that don’t need the help, though. Like Schwab’s upcoming book, nobody benefits from me reading that early. (Assuming I’d be approved!) And surely Amal el-Mohtar’s first novel is already getting plenty of attention, right?

Read

20 books read this month! (Not counting the Tremontaine episodes I read, purely because it’s too fiddly to include their covers here.) That’s four more than in September! Hee. It’s funny, I felt like I was really struggling to read, and yet…20 books.

Quite a few rereads (are those easier to read when I’m struggling???): Swordcrossed, Stranger, Turn of Light, the first two books of Miles Cameron’s Age of Bronze trilogy, Metal From Heaven (for the third time!), and the Melissa Scott and Barbara Hambly books.

New-to-me highlights: Don’t Let the Forest In, which wowed and delighted me; Brooms, a QBIPOC historical fantasy graphic novel about illegal broom racing; and The Wings Upon Her Back, which was an excellent depiction of being radicalized/groomed and then becoming deradicalized…

I had a sudden, inexplicable urge to read nonfiction this month, and went looking for what I’m told are called ‘microhistories’ about food! And found some delicious-looking ones. (I couldn’t resist, okay?) The Secret History of Food, which is the first I got through, was massively entertaining, although it did end on a bleak note! Highly recommended.

To the best of my knowledge, 3 of the 18 authors this month are BIPOC, aka 16%.

Reviewed

Four is pretty measly, but, I was really happy with most of them. Especially the one for Metal From Heaven!

DNF-ed

12 DNFs in one month is a new record, and I feel a little embarrassed (why???) but not sorry. Although as I said in my DNF post yesterday, I don’t think most of these are objectively bad! They just didn’t bring me joy. (Yes, that’s my new standard and I’m sticking with it.)

ARCs Outstanding

How to catch up on books that have been released already??? November and December have a LOT fewer arcs due, so maybe I can work on my backlog…

Unmissable SFF Updates

This month I removed a book from my 2025 Unmissable list, which was an odd feeling – but an excerpt from it was released recently, and the writing style was a huge let-down. I’m glad I found out before I had the book in my hands, though!

(And not to worry, the list is currently at 54 books. Even if nothing gets added between now and the end of the year – which is absolutely not going to happen! – it’s still going to be plenty long!)

How did my predictions/anticipated reads for October go? I declared twelve books Unmissable for this month, and–

• seven were five star reads (The City in Glass, The Mountain Crown, Swordcrossed, The Nightmare Before Kissmass, Sorcery and Small Magics, Metal From Heaven, and Don’t Let the Forest In)
• three were DNFs (Sargassa, The Nightward, and The Scholar and the Faerie Door)
• two I haven’t gotten to yet (And the Sky Bled and Legend of the White Snake)

That seems pretty damn excellent! Possibly my most accurate set of predictions so far!

Misc

My review for Ancillary Review of Books went live this month! So much more formal and professional than my usual style (AND SO MUCH SHORTER – seriously, who can fit a proper review into 1000 words???)

Looking Forward

November is a MUCH quieter month for book releases, and I’m not sorry about that – I have so many reads to catch up on! But that doesn’t mean there won’t be ANYTHING new, and I’m extremely excited for all four of these!

Onwards to November!