October Wrap-Up | November TBR & Plan With Me

This month, like every other month this year has flown by. I can’t believe that we’re already in November and I have Christmas presents to worry about! It’s insane. Somehow, my reading this ended up being pretty good even though I struggle through a reading slump for most of it. To get out of my reading slump, I did lots of self care and just took a break from reading then did a small readathon for myself. If you joined me in the readathon on Instagram – thanks! I hope you got lots of reading out of it; I surprisingly did.

What I Read In October

As I said, it was a surprisingly good month. I read a lot of books, almost as many as the last couple and a decent chunk when it comes to the page count. I am very proud of myself! I loved many of the books I got to and I’ve definitely really excited to get through more of my physical TBR. As of today, I still have 96 physical books (T_T) but I’m actually excited to get to them so that I can put myself off my book buying ban.

NOTE: no book covers this wrap-up, I’ll be honest – I can’t be bothered.

Total Books: 12

Total Pages: 4,404

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi
★★★★★ (5/5) | REVIEW

The Disaster by M.K. England
★★★★☆ (4/5) | REVIEW

Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody
★★★★★ (5/5) | REVIEW

Home Time Vol 1 by Campbell Whyte
★★★☆☆ (3/5) | REVIEW

Home Time Vol 2 by Campbell Whyte
★★★★☆ (4/5) | REVIEW

Helena by Claire L. Smith
★★★★★ (5/5) | MINI-REVIEW

The Last Halloween by Abby Howard (NetGalley Graphic Novel)
★★★★★ (5/5) | AMAZING // NO REVIEW BUT READ IT

Vicious & Vengeful by V.E. Schwab
★★★★★ (5/5) | READING BLOG

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson
★★★★★ (5/5) | AMAZING // NO REVIEW BUT READ IT

The Avant-Guards Vol 1 by Carly Usdin
★★★★☆ (4/5) | SO CUTE // NO REVIEW

Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare (audio)
★★★★☆ (4/5) | I AM NOT OKAY.

Blogging Highlights

It really didn’t feel like I blogged a lot this month because I struggled with motivation to read and write. But I did manage to put out many blog posts I was proud of so I’d love it if you checked them out! It’s surprising that it doesn’t feel like I blogged much when I kind of did? Blogging once a week used to be the goal for me and now I feel strange when I only blog twice a week. I’m not sure…Maybe my blogging boom from August and September created higher expectations for myself.

BookTube Babble: An Interview With BeckleBooks

Pairing Books with KPOP Music Videos (& Theories)

The Ultimate Guide to Being a Buddy Reader

My Pet Peeves with The Publishing Industry

I Read A Bunch of Heist YA Book | 3 Book Reviews

What I Watched in October

Another surprise, I watched more than one movie this month! I usually don’t watch many movies or tv shows; my primary hobbies are books and games, and I usually watch YouTube more than anything else. This month, however, I made an effort to sit on the couch and watch some wholesome movies (2 of which definitely made me cry) so that I could relax and feel all the feels.

The Holiday ★★★★★

This is one of my all-time favourite movies and I couldn’t help but watch it again this month. I just love everything about this movie; the cast, the characters, the storyline and how they all go through different types of love. It makes me all mushy and happy and I’d highly recommend it especially as we get into the holiday season.

The Intern ★★★★★

This is again another absolute favourite movie of mine (so I guess I’m Rosa Diaz because apparently I love all movies by Nancy Meyers). I rewatched this one and I am so happy I did. This was so cute and wholesome and amazing. Watching these movies made me yearn for more just like them so I guess I’ll be checking out more movies by Nancy Meyers.

Borat 2 ★★★★☆

I have never watched a Borat movie so I started watching this with my SO with absolutely no context and boy was this movie weird, eccentric but ultimately – shockingly funny. Not every bit of it was amazing, there were definitely some moments when I cringed like crazy but many moments but just pure satire fun and poking a lot of at American politics. I’m glad I saw it in the end, it was all for a good laugh.

November Plan With Me

You may have noticed that I didn’t do a November Plan With Me post for my bullet journal – and the reason is purely because I’m not super happy with my spreads. You can find them on my bookish instagram @trufflejournals if you want but I wasn’t a huge fan of my work. I had this idea of using these cute space stickers in conjunction with these Asian stamp stickers to make it like an alien’s travel diary collage style but it ended up looking so weird to me. It’s unfortunate but I’ll stick to it this month.

Like with reading and blogging, I was super inspired this month so it was hard to get creative. I’m also looking at transitioning to a digital reading bullet journal since I recently got the iPad Air 4 I had been saving up for – it is AMAZING and I’m so glad I finally have one of these. It’s been a breeze reading graphic novels on Scribd, starting to take notes digitally and just watching content in bed.

November TBR

I have tried to keep my TBR small but I’ll be honest, there is a pretty big book pile on my shelf right now for November – but I keep trying to tell myself ‘No pressure’ but I also just want to read them all. It’s such a struggle; why can’t I be paid to just read books for a living. If only blogging was my job haha. Anyway, I’ve got a few posts planned for November that helped me pick out my TBR and the 6 books I’m aiming to get to are:

Defending the Galaxy by Maria V Snyder
An eARC from The Nerd Daily that I’m keen to get to because I read the first 2 books in this series, really enjoyed them and even interviewed the author about it.

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
This is the November pick for the new book Grimoires Book Club by yasminthereader that I’m super excited to join. I bought my copy in October and I’m super excited to pick this one up!

The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon
I’m really pushing myself to continue this series because I loved the prequel, I loved the first book (I reread it a month ago) and I’m so excited for the next book coming out this year so I MUST CONTINUE.

Starsight by Brandon Sanderson
Unless you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t heard me screaming about Skyward, I loved it – and my preorder for the sequel finally showed up so I am 100% devouring it. I hope it’s as good as its predecessor.

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern & The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
I’ve put these two books together because I’m going to be doing a BookTuber taste test! Based on the recommendations of yasminthereader and oliviareadsalatte, I thought I’d finally pick up these two lovely books and see what my thoughts are in a reading blog. EDIT: I may have screwed up the book picks and the taste test TBR may change but I’ll update you guys in my official reading blog post 🙂

So, how was your October reading month? What have you got on your November TBR? Did you watch anything cute and wholesome?

Until next time,