October in Review

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I read 17 books last month, a higher-than-average number of books for me and above-average page count as well. Still getting a lot of audiobooks in—in fact, nearly half of the books I read were audiobooks. Not that long ago, I would never have believed I’d enjoy audiobooks as much as I do, but they’ve become a huge part of my life now.

Here are the books I read in October:

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman (5 / 5)
The Lost World by Michael Crichton (4 / 5)
Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix (4 / 5)
Corpse Creek by Vincent Ralph (2 / 5)
Bury the Lead by David Rosenfelt (4.5 / 5)
The Worst! by Mark Binder (2.5 / 5)
The Ghost at Dawn’s House by Ann M. Martin (4 / 5)
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians by Brandon Sanderson (4 / 5)
Home Fires by Mally Ham (5 / 5)
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson (5 / 5)
The Spy Keeper of Marseille by Roseanna M. White (3 / 5)
The Running Man by Stephen King (2 / 5)
Relative Silence by Carrie Stuart Parks (1.5 / 5)
Ferris by Kate DiCamillo (2.5 / 5)
In the Afterlight by Alexandra Bracken (4 / 5)
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe by Agatha Christie (4 / 5)
Deadly Little Lessons by Danielle Valentine (3 / 5)

This list includes 3 ARCs and 4 re-reads. My favorite book from October was Skyward. I started 3 series, continued 5 series, and finished (or caught up on) 2 series. My ever-changing short list of to-be-reads, as well as a flag for the book I’m currently reading and an ongoing list of those I’ve read and posted about can be found here.

I’m also keeping my Goodreads page updated with a more extensive list of to-be-reads. Despite my almost too-long TBR list, I’m always looking for more to add. Feel free to offer suggestions of your favorites or just recent reads you enjoyed.

Book Review: In the Afterlight

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In the Afterlight
The Darkest Minds #3
by Alexandra Bracken

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: YA dystopian

Spoiler notice: The following review will contain some spoilers for the previous books in the series, starting with The Darkest Minds.

With their home base destroyed, Ruby and the other survivors make plans to head to a larger Children’s League base and regroup. The ultimate plan is to liberate camps where thousands of children have been imprisoned and mistreated for years and discover the cause of and a cure for the disease that caused all of this trouble in the first place. But there are those with their own agendas that work against Ruby, Cole, and the others from the fractured Children’s League.

This final book in the trilogy was another 500-page book that didn’t feel like that many pages. The aftermath of the previous book casts a long shadow throughout, and while some of Ruby’s grief and PTSD threatened to bog the story down, it never became a huge issue for me. My biggest issue was actually Ruby and Liam’s relationship, the drama involved, and the awkward, physical advancements in their relationship. Outside of them (which is unfortunate, since she’s the main character and he’s a major side character), I liked a lot of the other characters, especially Chubs, Zu, and Vida.

The resolution to this dystopian trilogy was satisfying to me, even without everything being wrapped up in a nice, tidy bow. In fact, a nice, tidy bow would probably have seemed too unrealistic. Overall, this series earned 4+ stars for me. I’ll most likely read it again someday, and there are some side novellas that I’m still planning to read soon. Fans of YA dystopian books should consider reading the series.

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Book Review: One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

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One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Hercule Poirot #22
by Agatha Christie
read by Hugh Fraser

My rating: 4 / 5
Genre: Classic mystery

This is somewhere in the middle for me, in regards to my favorites and least favorites in the series. The mystery was engaging enough, and I really liked the inclusion of the children’s rhyme as the chapter headers and also used other ways in the book. It was pretty obvious that the shoe buckle was going to be a crucial part of the mystery, though I couldn’t quite guess how. This is one for which I was definitely not going to figure the solution out in advance, but that doesn’t stop me from from trying. Sometimes that’s half the fun; sometimes it’s annoying. It probably depends on how much I’m enjoying the story as a whole. This time, it was fun to try to decipher any clues we might have been given, but I don’t know if we weren’t given enough or if I just didn’t think it through very well. Seriously, I kept coming back to that buckle and what it might mean that I/Poirot hadn’t figured out yet. But alas, it stumped me. Overall, this was a good read—or a good listen, rather, since I listened to the audiobook narrated by Hugh Fraser, which is as great as ever.

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Book Review: Deadly Little Lessons

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Deadly Little Lessons
by Danielle Valentine

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA thriller

When Lia Michaels’s foster mom first suggests that Lia start attending Luminary Prep for senior year, she doesn’t agree right away. But she starts to think that maybe the new, experimental school could help with her dream to go to college and get a job she actually likes, both of which are long shots with her juvenile record and poor grades. It’s not long into the first semester, though, before things start to feel off. There are thick walls around the campus and parents aren’t allowed in; her first class features an obstacle course that is lacking in safety features. And then there’s the assembly where they’re told that only 5 of the 50 students attending the school will graduate. Lia is determined to be one of those 5, but when the students that fail out start to disappear under suspicious circumstances, her hope to graduate turns into a need to simply survive.

I don’t know why I keep reading these YA thrillers. They always promise much and deliver little. This one at least gets 3 stars, which is more than most from me, and that’s mostly due to my interest in the mystery about the school. I hoped for some kind of unexpected, dark secret behind the school, and in a way that is what it turned out to be. However, a couple of mysterious elements that are presented early in Lia’s time in the school do not have as satisfactory or exciting of resolutions as I would have liked. And I would have felt more suspense and even emotion from the kids disappearing one by one (or sometimes in larger numbers) if Lia and her friends hadn’t seemed mostly protected through much of the book. The question about what was happening was always in her mind, but it lacked urgency for a while and thus lacked urgency for me too.

It is when the urgency really picks up that a physical attraction starts between Lia and another student, and I really couldn’t have cared less about any of that. It was too physical too quickly for my preference and, in fact, could have been a romance I enjoyed if the author had let the interactions between them stand without throwing in the hormones. Lia herself is a character I could not connect with on really any level, and all of the other characters—from her foster sister to not one, but two, romantic interests—were all weak and underdeveloped. In the climax of the book, a statement uttered by the villain made me think the story was going to go a whole different way, and I was actually really excited about the possibility. But that was my bad, because no, it was really closer to what it was built up to be the entire time after all.

Overall, the unique mystery behind the school kept me turning pages, but the underdeveloped characters and shoehorned romance dragged it down. It’s a decent option if you’re not bothered by the aspects of the book that I mentioned above.

I received an advanced review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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Book Review: Ferris

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Ferris
by Kate DiCamillo
read by Cherry Jones

My rating: 2.5 / 5
Genre: Middle grade fiction

Ferris’s life is…unusual. Her little sister has decided to be an outlaw. Her uncle has moved into the basement to fulfill his destiny and paint a history of the world. Her best friend incessantly plays only one song on the piano. And her grandmother has recently started to see a ghost that makes an unusual request.

At first, this story felt whimsical, which I’m sure was helped along by the narration of Cherry Jones (I loved her narration of the Little House books). But certain parts of it became repetitive while other parts were just strange. Billy Jackson playing “Mysterious Barricades” over and over makes me think that he’d drive me crazy in real life. Vocabulary words that Ferris and Billy Jackson learned in school are dropped throughout the book at unnatural times and are defined for the reader in ways that felt jarring to me. Uncle Ted clearly needs therapy; the whole thing about painting the history of the world was completely bizarre and inexplicable. And Pinky (the little sister) seemed like a slightly more extreme version of Beverly Cleary’s Ramona, especially in her younger days—she clearly needs some actual discipline in her life.

Then there are the supernatural elements. Aside from Charisse (Ferris’s grandmother, who is referred to by her name by everyone) and her ghost, Ferris is apparently a bit psychic or something, considering that she starts to have out-of-body-type experiences. None of this is explained, either, or given satisfactory resolutions. In the end, I didn’t really understand the purpose of the book, nor was I able to see any real plot. The story has a certain kind of charm, but it isn’t anything I’d really recommend to anyone of any age.

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Book Review: Relative Silence

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Relative Silence
by Carrie Stuart Parks
read by Piper Jones

My rating: 1.5 / 5
Genre: Christian suspense

After surviving a public shooting thanks to the actions of a stranger, Piper Boone’s life starts to get even more complicated as a neighbor goes missing, family secrets are unearthed, and a past tragedy comes back to haunt her. Tucker Landry, the man who saved Piper’s life, is recovering from his own injury during the shooting and can’t help but want to do his own investigating into the shooter, Piper’s past tragedy, and other family secrets that seem to all be connected in some way.

So much of this book fell short for me, left me confused and questioning, or even flat-out bugged me. Some things happened or were mentioned that seemed to be clues to the mystery but turned out to be red herrings; this is fine for a mystery or suspense novel, but some of these red herrings were never given an alternate explanation, even things that were frankly pretty big deals. So while red herrings are common and expected, red herrings that leave major loose ends dangling just smack of lazy writing.

Piper is a character I could not connect with; she’s so naive, even to the point of being obtuse. Tucker’s backstory is compelling, and I appreciated what he brings to the book. I would have liked for the mysterious Clan Firinn he works for to be expanded on, but instead, we get this weird thing about stones that is never explained and literally left me at the end of the book saying (out loud), “Wha? Huh?” A little research tells me that Clan Firinn is involved in other books by Parks, but it appears to be as enigmatic and meagerly used in those books as here. Considering how I felt about this book, this does not lead me to want to read any of those other books to learn more about the organization. I also didn’t care for Piper’s views about God that were never really clarified or corrected.

There are several details from the story that lessened my enjoyment, but I’m not going to list them all. I’ll just end by saying that I do not care for the 1st person/3rd person narration style employed here (1st person for Piper’s POV parts, 3rd person for Tucker’s), as it is always jarring to me. And the audiobook narrator is one of the worst I’ve heard. All of this together makes this a book I really can’t recommend to anyone.

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Book Review: The Running Man

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The Running Man
by Stephen King
read by Kevin Kenerly

My rating: 2 / 5
Genre: Dystopian thriller

Ben Richards’s daughter is dying, and he can only think of one way to get the money for her medicine—volunteer for one of the “big money” Games that so often end in death for the players. When he’s selected for the Running Man game, the whole country becomes his game board…and all its citizens his opponents.

I’m still dancing around reading any of Stephen King’s horror novels, though this book has a few horrific moments of its own. Not that I’d expected a book about a man signing up to be hunted to his death to be uplifting, but I was hoping for at least some bit of hopefulness by the end of the story or at least a purpose to it. There’s a side plot about the air pollution that seems like it’s going to end up being important, but it completely fizzles out by the end of the book.

To be fair, I don’t know how I would have felt about the ending if I hadn’t known exactly what was going to happen. Apparently the publishers of this edition of the book figured that it’s old enough that the ending isn’t a secret, so they put an introduction at the beginning of the audiobook in which Stephen King fully spoils the ending. Seriously, if you’re going to be giving big spoilers like that, put it after the book! And since I was listening to the audiobook, I couldn’t even sort of see it coming and look away… But speaking of the ending, it just felt completely pointless to me. Richards may have liked his plan in the moment, but it’s not like what happened was really going to change anything all that much, at least not given the way it happened. It was just fruitless.

Then too, the year is 2025, yet somehow, it feels like 1970. It can be interesting or even amusing to read a book (or watch a movie) decades after the writer dreamed up what he or she thought the future might look like, to be in that future and see the differences. But Stephen King’s idea of the future when he wrote this book in the early 80s doesn’t feel particularly futuristic. There are hover cars (but still “wheeled” cars too) and a few dystopian elements involving heavy air pollution and people’s willingness to root for the death of games contestants, but overall, the worldbuilding just felt meager.

The bright spot of the audiobook experience was the narrator, who I actually really liked, but the narration couldn’t save the narrative flaws. So this is not destined to be my favorite King book. However, plenty of other people have enjoyed it, so if you’re interested, check out other reviews at the link below.

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Book Review: Skyward

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Skyward
Book #1
by Brandon Sanderson
read by Suzy Jackson

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: YA sci-fi

Humans on Detritus have been attacked by a mysterious alien enemy they call the Krell since the humans crash landed on the planet 70 years ago. They’ve slowly built up enough of a defensive force to fight back, mostly using fighter pilots. Since she was little, Spensa has wanted to be a pilot like her father, but then her father deserts the largest fight in their society’s history and is shot down. When Spensa is old enough to start training to be a pilot, it turns out no one wants the daughter of a coward defending the planet. Spensa might have to find a different way to claim the stars.

Spensa is the kind of character I normally struggle with, being so defiant and prickly, but I really warmed to her by partway through the book. Her personality was necessary to make her someone who would get back up after so many blows. The way she connects with her flight mates in the book helped to endear her to me, too, and I liked her friendship with Rig. I also really enjoyed M-Bot and his obsession with mushrooms, and I just loved Doomslug. The slow unfolding of the plot and answers to questions inhabitants of Detritus have been asking (or avoiding asking) for decades kept me engaged all throughout the story.

I recently read Blightfall, without initially realizing it was in an already-established universe, and it intrigued me enough that I wanted to start at the beginning. That means that I’m going into this series with more knowledge than the reader is meant to have here in the first book, but I really don’t think it harmed the story for me at all. If anything, I’m all the more anxious to see how we get from where the characters are in this first book to where they are in Blightfall. So despite already seeing the future of this world, I’m still super intrigued to see where the story goes from here.

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Book Review: Home Fires

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Home Fires
by Mally Ham

My rating: 5 / 5
Genre: Memoir, Christian non-fiction

Ken and Mally Ham have been married for over 50 years, and for much of that time, Ken has traveled all over to teach people about Genesis, creation, and biblical truths that have been under attack for decades. In this book, Mally shares the ups and downs of their lives together, her perspective on the beginnings and growth of Answers in Genesis, and how God provided what she needed throughout it all. I am so grateful for and appreciative of what AIG has taught me over the years through its various resources and the ministry’s commitment to the truth, so seeing the incredible ways God opened the doors for it to become what it is today didn’t surprise me at all. I enjoyed the additions from Mally’s children and some other family members; it grounds the book in a way, showing that Mally’s humility is not exaggerated. I truly loved getting this behind-the-scenes look at their family, and it made the entire book an absolute joy to read.

The primary audience for the book seems mainly to be wives of men in ministry, but there is also a lot to glean about godly marriages in general. Though many of us won’t have the same personality as Mally (I share her incredible shyness, but not her humility and gentleness, at least not naturally), she does offer insight that goes beyond her own experiences. As someone preparing to enter ministry life alongside my husband, I found her perspective incredibly comforting and deeply encouraging. This book is a great read for Christian women or anyone interested in the background of Answers in Genesis.

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Book Review: The Spy Keeper of Marseille

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The Spy Keeper of Marseille
by Roseanna M. White

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: Historical Christian romance

Zelie Bellarose is second-in-command of a resistance organization in France during the time of Nazi occupation. Marcel Laurent is a famous concert pianist who was recently freed from a POW camp and is tasked with using his contacts and talents to help with the resistance. As the spy network grows, is betrayed from within, and loses members to arrest and execution, Zelie and Marcel lean on each other for support more and more.

As much as I loved White’s The Imposters series, set in Edwardian England, so far her WWII-era books haven’t resonated with me nearly as much. I’m not sure why there would be such a difference, but the plot here dragged for me. I didn’t really care for Zelie as a main character. I liked Marcel more, but honestly, do professional musicians often think in musical terms as much as he does in this book? Also, though I don’t need a Christian book to be heavy on a Christian message by any means, there seems to be an intent to have a message here, but it’s pretty weak. Zelie doesn’t really trust God, but because Marcel does and is kind and says a few nice things about God, she suddenly realizes she needs to trust Him more.

The stakes in this book with a spy network trying to outsmart the Nazis are weirdly high but also not that high. Though people are captured, even executed, I never really felt much of that personally. The climax was fairly intense in this area, at least, which I did appreciate. There are ups and downs in the book that renewed my interest now and then, but overall, it just felt sort of okay. The romance wasn’t necessarily completely front and center, but it still seemed somehow more important in the book than the spying and danger.

I’ve planned to read some of White’s earlier works, set during WWI, and I think I’ll still give one or two of those a try, but if she releases more WWII-era books, I think I’ll pass. Not that this book was terrible, but not interesting enough to want more like it. However, others liked it more than I did, so if you’re interested, check out other reviews at the link below.

I received an advanced review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

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