The packing continued all throughout October. I finally managed to get all the books into boxes. I thought it would never end. lol. We ended up with 60+ boxes of books. I think 2025 will need to be a year of focusing on reading the stuff on my shelves even more than ever before. I am NEVER moving this many books again, and I need to read and cull any books that are not ones I love.

We’ll finally be heading to Illinois on November 16! It can’t come soon enough. I’m so ready to get through all of the stress and begin enjoying the process of exploring our new space. The impending move does mean I’ll be offline a bit more in mid to late November, but I’ll try to check in as often as I can.

What I’ve Read

Books & Audiobooks

October was my slowest reading month in a long time. My average time to finish a book was 13 days! I only finished 9 books for a total of 3,375 pages. My average rating in October finally ticked back up a little to 4.08 out of 5. So, I guess October was the month of quality over quantity? The books I finished in October are listed below (ratings link to my review, if available):

• The Courting of Bristol Keats by Mary E. Pearson (🎧 / 3.25⭐)
• In Memoriam by Alice Winn (📱 / 5⭐)
• A Whisper in the Wall by Scott Reintgen (📖 / 4⭐)
• Amari and the Despicable Wonders by B.B. Alston (🎧 / 5⭐)
• An Academy for Liars by Alexis Henderson (📖 / 3.5⭐)
• Odd Spirits by S.T. Gibson (📖 / 3.75⭐)
• Prince of Fortune by Lisa Tirreno (🎧 / 4⭐)
• The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (🎧 / 4.25⭐)
• The Nightmare Before Kissmas by Sara Raasch (📱 / 4⭐)

Comic Books

One of my goals for the year is to read more comic books. Specifically, I set the arbitrary number at 100 floppies, but I’d love to read way more than that this year because I am years behind on issues at this point. I managed to read only one comic in October. I read the Kelnacca one-shot issue that ties into the Acolyte character’s past. It was good, but I did wish that Kelnacca had a more central role in his own comic. Here’s a look at some of what I read:

Progress On My 2024 Reading Goals

This year I am keeping things much simpler. I don’t have as many specific goals to track and am just trying to go with the flow. I do want to keep some sort of record of the trackable ones, though. So, here’s a quick peek at how my year is going so far.

• Goodreads Challenge: 138/100 books (+9 in October) – COMPLETED!!
• Storygraph Pages Challenge: COMPLETED!!
• Read from My Shelves: 45 books [31 physical, 14 audio] (+2 in October)
• Books Unhauled: 46 sold on Pango (+9 in October) & 30 donated (+0 in October)
• Read Comic Books: 68/100 floppies (+1 in October)
• Read Pre-2024 ARCs: 4/14 ARCs (+0 in October)

Once again, I managed to get rid of quite a few books this month. Thank goodness. My Pango shop was hopping. I also donated several grocery bags of books in October, but I’m not counting them toward my goals because they were just a bunch of old textbooks. Overall, I made progress, albeit slow, on most of my goals in October.

Final Thoughts

I only reviewed ONE book in October! Who even am I? I just didn’t have the time or energy to put into writing them. Hopefully, November will be better… I did manage to start participating in WWW Wednesday on a regular basis in October, which I’m pretty happy about. Be sure to check them out in my blog archives to see my thoughts on everything I’ve been reading.

Overall, I had a good month of reading. My average rating was 4.08 in October, and my favorite book was In Memoriam. What was your favorite book from October? Let me know down in the comments!

That’s it for this monthly wrap-up. Thank you to everyone who has visited the blog and engaged with comments and/or likes! I appreciate all of you and always enjoy reading your input in the comments. I hope everyone is having a great November!