Tag Archives: October

2021 Monthly Status Update: October

Posted in For the love of books by

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My favorite time of the year is almost over! Fall is the best – between the cooler weather and my birthday and all the Halloween decorations, I just love this time of year. We always have a big Halloween celebration and it’s just great. And this year we got to make lots of new memories with our son. I started back at work and it’s been hard at times trying to find a balance between work and home – this resulted in October being a slow reading month for me! Here is my reading progress for October:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 7
# pages read this month: 1,921
# books read year-to-date: 97
# pages read year-to-date: 32,870

Other Posts this month:

Nothing to report from this past month!

BUT I just have to mention – I made it onto one of my favorite podcasts FATED MATES!! I called in and left a voicemail to talk about the book that “blooded me”  and they used my recording to conclude one of their episodes! I literally screamed in the car when I heard it, I was so excited!! It’s episode 27 of Season 2 and was an interstitial about sickbed scenes on romance novels. I HIGHLY recommend listening to the whole episode because it was a good one but if you’re looking to hear from me specifically, my message starts at minute 29:00!

Favorite books from this month:

Nothing really that stood out this month

Next Month TBR List:

Nothing on the TBR for next month, which is good because work is just so busy right now and I’m going to have trouble keeping up between my work load and a baby at home. I’m hoping to fit in time for reading when I can and just read stuff from my backlog or my library. I’ve also started going to clients and to the office again and have been listening to my podcasts! So hopefully I can read some books this month for catching up with the podcast TBR.

Happy November to everyone and enjoy Thanksgiving (safely)!

2020 Monthly Status Update: October

Posted in For the love of books by

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October has somehow come and gone. This year has flown by so quickly I don’t even know where the time has gone. And even though work is still very busy, I have been able to find time here and there to read! And I had some time around Halloween off so I was able to read more on my favorite holiday. So here are some reading highlights from October for me:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 10
# pages read this month: 2,834
# books read year-to-date: 78
# pages read year-to-date: 25,730

Other Posts this month:

No other posts this month!

Favorite books from this month:

Nothing that really blew me away this month

Next Month TBR List:

  • None!

I currently have no scheduled reads for November and I did that on purpose. I did that so I can catch up with some of my backlog – I currently have 2 books that I’m behind on for 2020 and I’d LOVE to have a year where I kept up with all my scheduled reads. And the next month is still going to be crazy for me! But hopefully November continues to be a productive reading month! Hope you all had a wonderfully spooky Halloween and are looking forward to a festive Thanksgiving! Happy reading everyone!

October Reading Challenge: Booktober Reading Bookish Bingo!!

Posted in 2019, For the love of books, October Book Bingo, Reading Challenges by

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Ahhhhh I love book bingo reading challenges! And combined with my OVERARCHING love for the Halloween Holiday and all things (lightly) spooky, I am so excited about this reading challenge this month. Work will be busy for sure but I’m hoping to get a lot of reading done still. Anyways here is the Bingo sheet for this month, courtesy of Bookish:

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Can’t wait to dig in and get reading! I’ll check back in at the end of the month on how my bingo sheet turned out. Happy October everyone!

2017 Monthly Status Update: October

Posted in For the love of books by

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October flew by, and we are that much closer to the holidays! October was also a crazy work month for me, I was barely able to keep up with the blog tour schedules never mind the additional books on top of that that I signed up to review. Luckily I was able to take the past two days off to catch up on some relaxation and fun. And hopefully in November/December I’ll catch up on my backlog! So below is my progress for October:

Monthly Stats:
# books read this month: 8
# pages read this month: 2,406
# books read year-to-date: 91
# pages read year-to-date: 27,167

Favorite Books I Read:

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First Frost by Sarah Addison Allen – 4.5 stars

Other Posts this month:

The Duke of Danger BLOG TOUR!!

The Highlander is All That BLOG TOUR!!

St. Martin’s Press Holiday Romance Blitz – Blog Tour Post

The Right Kind of Rogue BLOG TOUR!!

Status of 2017 Reading Challenges:

  1. Finish 2016 ARC’s from NetGalley that I missed – Still have 26 more to go, plus going to have another 30ish from 2017. Shouldn’t sign up for any 2018 reviews and should just read my backlog LOL
  2. Participate in 2 reading challenges – During May I participated in the Bout of Books challenge and during August I participated in ARC August so this Goal is checked!
  3. Other goals:
    1. Write shorter reviews – I think I’m doing better at this, this past month I was able to get out a few shorter ones
    2. Continue establishing relationships – I think I’m doing it, we’ll see how it goes I guess!

Next Month TBR List:

I did my best in October to keep up but I missed a bunch of reviews. My schedule for November is currently lighter than usual (hopefully that doesn’t change) so I’m hoping to catch up on some of the backlog during November. Below is my TBR list for November only though, make sure to check back regularly for some great reads this month!

-Deja New by MaryJanice Davidson
-Third Son’s a Charm by Shana Galen
-The Second Mrs. Hockaday by Susan Rivers
-Romancing the Scot by May McGoldrick
-Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
-Left to Chance by Amy Sue Nathan
-Sweet Tea and Sympathy by Molly Harper
-Like Broken China by JD Thompson
-The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

2015 Book #109 – The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

Posted in Book Clubs, Book reviews, Fiction, Literary Greats, Terryville - Fiction Lovers by

51WGFB7KW6L._SX303_BO1,204,203,200_Title: The Island of Dr. Moreau
Author: H.G. Wells
Date finished: 10/18/15
Genre: Fiction
Publisher: Bantam
Publication Date: 1896
Pages in book: 157
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Where I got the book from: Terryville Public Library

Blurb from the cover:

Ranked among the classic novels of the English language and the inspiration for several unforgettable movies, this early work of H. G. Wells was greeted in 1896 by howls of protest from reviewers, who found it horrifying and blasphemous. They wanted to know more about the wondrous possibilities of science shown in his first book, The Time Machine, not its potential for misuse and terror. In The Island of Dr. Moreau a shipwrecked gentleman named Edward Prendick, stranded on a Pacific island lorded over by the notorious Dr. Moreau, confronts dark secrets, strange creatures, and a reason to run for his life.
While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what is still a rip-roaring good read.

My rating:  3.0 stars out of a scale of 5

My review: I read this book for the Terryville Library’s Fiction Lover’s Book Discussion group discussion for this month (October). This book definitely wasn’t something I would have picked up on my own but I have to say it was absolutely the perfect thing to read during October. I found it to be very creepy and gave me the goosebumps thinking about these creatures that Prendick encounters on the island. It was only 157 pages so it was a quick read. Basically Prendick finds himself lost in the middle of the ocean on a dingy and he gets picked up by a boat with a man named Montgomery aboard. Montgomery is Moreau’s assistant and he’s returning to the island after picking up some supplies. Prendick gets ditched on the island too and even though Montgomery is very hesitant about letting him stay, he doesn’t really have much of a choice.
Prendick encounters many different kinds of people on the island, though there seems to be something a little off about each one and he finds himself wary of these creatures. Turns out Dr. Moreau had been performing vivisection on various animals over the last 10 years on the island and had managed to mold different animals together to take on a human-like form. I guess my issue is that I can’t imagine what these beasts would have looked like and how they possibly could have resembled a human even in the slightest.
MV5BMjI0OTY1NDY5NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjkwODg0NA@@._V1_SX640_SY720_I mean none of the creatures in the photo look even remotely human to me. And Dr. Moreau spoke some about combining the different animals brains together. I’m not a scientist or anything but I feel like that wouldn’t really be possible. I don’t think you can take 2 separate brains and mash them together and have them work. I think with humans they are able to replace certain lobes of the brain but they use another human brain I’m pretty sure, I don’t think you can graft brains across different species.
I thought this was an interesting book though and it was a great October read. Its also a literary classic so I would recommend giving it a try if you haven’t already!

The bottom line: I liked this book fine. I don’t think I loved it but it was a short easy read and was appropriately creepy for the month of October.

Link to author website
Click on the cover to go to the book’s Amazon page