Hello!

The last day of the month falls on the day I publish my blog posts? It’s perfection!

Almost as satisfying as when the month starts on a Monday.

This month has been a real rollercoaster for reading – I was so hyped at the beginning of the month because we had a heatwave in the UK, I love September, it was my birthday, I smashed my August tbr and I was so ready for a new reading month!

I finished an audiobook pretty early on, I finished a physical book that wasn’t on my tbr and then I was so ready to dive in to a new release!

And then I didn’t finish anything for two weeks. I feel like there needs to be a word for where I’m in a reading slump but in a way where I’m still reading consistently, but I’m only reading a few pages at a time and not really enjoying what I’m reading. It put such a dent in my motivation and I ended up doing some sprints at home to binge read the end, not because I was having a good time but because I needed it to be over.

But I did it and I got a couple more in before the end of the month and now I think I’m back again! My partner has just read and adored Fourth Wing so I’m under strict instruction from him to read it as soon as he’s back from his work trip so my first read of October will probably be that! But I’ll be getting in to my October tbr in my next post.

So without further ado, let’s dive in to what I read in September!

A Touch of Malice – Scarlett St Clair (library ebook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Until this moment I honestly forgot that I started the month by finishing this off. This series blew me away but not necessarily in the ‘wow this is amazing’ way – it absolutely reignited my love for Greek mythology and I feel like I have read a lot of Greek mythology this year now, I like learning more about Hades and Persephone and all the references to other Greek stories (especially how some are left as ancient stories and some have been modernised) but by this point in the series – and being almost a month removed from finishing it – there were so many sex scenes which felt like they’d been shoved in for the sake of it and the actually cool plot part only happened in the last 5-10% of the story. It probably didn’t help that this was a library hold so I could only read it on the libby app on my phone which I hated. The ending did have me hyped for the dual perspective finale that comes out next year and I have officially preordered it on my Kindle so I don’t have to read on my phone again!

The Bullet That Missed (The Thursday Murder Club #3) – Richard Osman (audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️
I really do love this series, especially as someone who is very new to crime. I really like the contemporary nature, I love the subtle humour and the main cast of characters are absolutely fabulous. The main reasons this one got three stars instead of the four the first two books got are because there was a change in the audiobook narrator and that threw me off (thought I appreciate that’s a me thing) – I ended up going immediately from The Man Who Died Twice into The Bullet That Missed on a drive that ended up being way longer than anticipated, and all of Mr Osman’s books end with a 40 minute interview with the man himself. TMWDT ended with said interview with the audiobook’s narrator Lesley Manville. In this interview, they talked about how she would narrate book 3 and that she’d love to do it. Then when I pressed play on book 3 not even 5 minutes later, it was introduced as being narrated by Fiona Shaw and don’t get me wrong, she did a good job – she was fine – but she didn’t quite have the heart of Lesley Manville and she was harsher with her tones and accents. I think if I hadn’t read them so close together I wouldn’t have noticed but it really threw me off.

And the other thing – that may also be a reflection of my reading comprehension rather than the book – was that I don’t think the resolution was as neat as the other books. I still had questions and I was confused about how the murder was solved – I don’t think it was explained very well and I was still confused when I finished it so it wasn’t as satisfying as the other books. I have used an audible credit on book 4 – The Last Devil To Die – and I’m looking forward to reading that in October.

Me Before You – JoJo Moyes (physical book) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I’d pulled this title out of my tbr jar for a TikTok video back in August I believe so I had it next on my list to read with my eyes after A Touch of Malice and it was lovely. I’ve seen so many clips from the movie adaptation so I had Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin in my head and I’ve not even watched the full movie yet but I already know they’re the perfect casting. It was a sweet story with very English humour and a really sad ending, which is the main reason I could only give it four stars because I just don’t have it in my heart to enjoy sad books as much as ones with happy endings. I am very excited to finally watch this movie adaptation in full!

Things We Left Behind (Knockemout #3) – Lucy Score (ebook) ⭐️⭐️
The book that put me into my slump. I was moderately excited – book 1 was 5 stars, book 2 was 2 stars so I knew that my relationship with Lucy Score was rocky but I was optimistic. I like Sloane (she’s a librarian, of course I do) and Lucian was teetering on the fence between tall, dark, brooding, handsome, protective secret love and melodramatic man-child and I’m afraid he fell on the side of melodramatic man child.

The whole narrative would be fine if the characters were in their twenties, maybe even college. But when you remember that most of these characters are in there late 30s if not 40s, then the whole thing becomes incredibly cringy.

I did discover my love for highlighting passages on Kindle and I thought I would give you some examples of the notes I made on the bits I highlighted (as to avoid spoilers, of course):

• An adult said this to another adult?
• Cringe
• Seriously?
• Jesus christ really???
• Oh how quickly the mood can be killed
• This is meant to be an actual adult woman
• This is a grown woman
• Grown. Ass. Woman.
• Creepy as fuck
• Okay I actually like this line
• Ew
• EW
• Creepy behaviour
• Why is Lucian gross now
• Fucking creep

I originally rated it 3 stars because I liked it slightly more than Things We Hide From The Light, but I have since come to terms with the fact it is definitely two stars and I can like it more than another book but that doesn’t mean it deserves a whole extra star.

Good Vibes, Good Life – Vex King (physical book) ⭐️⭐️
As of writing this, I finished this today so after filling in my book club journal and my own book journal I’m kind of sick of writing about it. So here’s something I frantically typed out when I finished the chapter about money just to get the thoughts out of my head that quite aptly sum up my opinions on the whole book:

The problem with the ‘you must work harder for what you really want’ mentality is that it takes a very naive and frankly untrue approach to the nuances of life. “Money is readily available to everyone, and the distance between you and money is determined only by your attitude towards it.” This quote from someone who claims to have grown up with nothing, should really have considered looking his widowed mother in the eyes as she raised her children the best she could and saying that. He wouldn’t dare. The implication that the reason anyone doesn’t have the money they want or need is because they’re not working hard enough actually makes me angry and that principle rippled through the whole book – from someone who claimed to have such life experience and manifested himself into being a successful entrepreneur from nothing, this is an incredibly harmful and naive believe.

So I’m afraid I’ve not found the good vibes for a good life (or maybe it was all bullshit? Woah).

Circe – Madeleine Miller (audiobook) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A bonus extra book finished between initially drafting this post and actually publishing it!

I’m still on my Greek hype. I’ve had this book in my Audible Library for a while and I decided for my September tbr to choose the book that had been in my library for the longest, and I’m so glad it was Circe. At first I was a bit dubious as I don’t normally vibe with literary fiction, but the fact it was Greek definitely meant that I could still enjoy it. It’s the first book I’ve read that was all vibes no plot and I think the ending was a bit rushed and ambiguous, but I really enjoyed it. I’m still figuring out where the line is between what is actual Greek mythology and what is fiction, but I felt like I got a really good understanding of a lot of Greek stories and it was really nice to feel a bit smarter when it got to a story I recognised!

Circe’s character development was actually really sweet, the presentation of the other Titans and Gods was varied (in a really interesting way) and even though there was no solid plot, it was still engaging and almost read like an autobiography. Considering her life spans over what is probably thousands of years, it felt slow only in the way an immortal life would feel slow.

The two books from my September tbr that I didn’t manage to get to were my Kindle Unlimited picks – the first two in the companion trilogy to Hades and Persephone that started with A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St Clair; A Game of Fate and A Game of Retribution. I’m 100% blaming this on the fact that Things We Left Behind took up two weeks of my life, but I have at least started A Game of Fate and it’s really nice to dive back in to a story I already know from Hades perspective. Now that I have started it, I imagine I’ll get through them quite quickly, but I’ll be bumping these two onto my October tbr so there’s a sneak preview of that!

It’s definitely been a mixed reading month and now that I do monthly tbr’s I’m definitely getting through less of my backlist, but I am getting more for my money with these subscriptions so pros and cons!

Thank you so much for reading,

Sophie xx