october reads

image by Bonnie Barton from @flashesofstyle

I read five books this month, which is one a week, so I’ll give myself a virtual high five for that. With the holidays coming up I don’t know how much I’ll be able to read, so I've been devouring books this month. I lucked out, and every book I read this month I enjoyed, which doesn't happen often!

The Round House by Louise Erdrich | I learned a lot from this book about Native American tribes and their jurisdiction, which was interesting. The book tells the story of 14-year old Joe, whose mother is brutally raped. She remains silent about the identity of her attacker, and so Joe and his friends take it into their own hands to find out who committed the crime.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach | This is the perfect book to read in October, since it’s about dead bodies. I enjoyed this book, surprisingly. I don’t do well with gory imagery, but this book did a good job of handling the subject without getting too graphic, and it was humorous at times. The author brought up some interesting points about the morality of using human remains for science, and really made me think.

Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” by Lena Dunham | I may be in the minority by saying that I really do like Lena Dunham. I am well aware of why people don’t like her, but I love the show Girls and therefore reading her…book (I hesitate to call it a novel, memoir, or even collection of short stories – it isn't organized well enough to be called any of them) seemed like the next step. I did enjoy it, but I felt like it was a bit all over the place, which I guess lends itself to her mental state.

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma | This book has been labeled as “F. Scott Fitzgerald meets Wes Anderson” by The Village Voice, which I think is an accurate description. The writing is phenomenal, and the narrator, whose identity is never truly revealed, is unreliable, as is the story, which changes over time. I LOVE novels like this. After I finished, I wished that I knew someone who had read it too, so we could talk about it. It’s one of those books.

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt | I enjoyed this one, but it is sad, so make sure you are prepared to cry. Multiple times. The pace of the novel was somewhat slow, but the author does a very good job of capturing the voice of a 14-year old girl. If you like coming of age novels, you'll like this book.

I’m going to dive into Written in my Own Heart's Blood next, which is part of the Outlander series (which is amazing, by the way). It's over 800+ pages, so it will take me quite a while to finish!

P.S. Happy Halloween! We're spending this Halloween at home, passing out candy to the kiddos in our apartment complex. This is the first year that we'll actually have trick or treaters, so I'm excited! Last year Matt and I dressed up as Amy and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory, ha!