What are You Reading in November?

I read about a dozen books in October, several of them during Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon, which happens twice annually. While the reading month as a whole was enjoyable, I also had quite a few flops. My biggest disappointment—just because of my high expectations—was I Am the Dark That Answers When You Call by Jamison Shea. I loved the first book in this duology, I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me, but I recommend it as a standalone. I don’t feel like it needed a sequel. Either way, you can read the first book for task #20!

I read a couple of sapphic gothic novels that I really enjoyed: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen and House of Beth by Kerry Cullen. Both of them are… unexpected love stories, I think you could say. And I’d personally consider them “weird horror,” for task #11.

The book that creeped me out the most was A Game in Yellow by Hailey Piper, a lesbian erotic horror novel about losing touch with reality that was a little too immersive. This one is definitely weird horror.

Outside of the horror genre, I found a new favourite in This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone (task #16), which I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read. I’m grateful to my book club for putting this on the top of my TBR! I also read The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I’ll be picking up anything she writes next.

As for my November TBR, I have a couple of book club picks to read: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid and Hungerstone by Kat Dunn.

I haven’t quite decided what I’ll read for my December All the Books episode, but I’m considering There’s Always Next Year by Leah Johnson and George M. Johnson (task #1, #10, #22) and Every Day I Read: 53 Ways to Get Closer to Books by Hwang Boreum (task #1).