What I Read In October

 

Here's what i read on October. 13 books total. Of those, exactly none were 5 stars 😫, four were 4 stars, six were 3 stars, and three were 2 stars. A mediocre month ago said and done.

Five of the thirteen were review copies. I took a step back from those to try to knock down my actual tbr a bit. Four of them were audiobooks. Six of these were print. The longest book was 403 pages. The shortest book was 120. A total of 2364 pages read.

Mother Dauber by K Bengston

I bought this ebook when it first released, but lord knew when I’d actually get to it. Bengston had audio download codes available and I had to throw my hand up — I needed something to keep me company on my commute, and I knew I’d get to it much faster this way.

And honestly? I’m glad I did. The narration for this book is fantastic. The pacing, the emotional beats, the creeping dread, the twist on the cryptid‑horror genre... it all lands. It leans into that classic “you should never go home again” trope, but he balances the creepy stuff with the emotional stuff so well that you feel fully invested from the get-go. And, watch out, soft spoiler alert you for animal lovers, thank god he didn’t kill off the dog! Genji, the grocery store owner, though…

The story follows Delilah, whose uncle convinces her to move back home to care for her rapidly declining mother - a woman suffering from dementia and a severe case of the orneries that has scared off every home‑care nurse in the county. Delilah assumes it’ll be a painful but pretty straightforward gig. Her childhood home and the woods surrounding it, though, have other plans.

It doesn’t take long before her mother’s mood swings become the least of her worries. Delilah starts hearing familiar voices and old nursery rhymes from her past, echoing through the house and the trees. At first, she thinks it's all in her head. But as she rekindles her friendship with the local sheriff Clay, he admits he can hear it too. And then there's the dauber nests that keep appearing outside her mother’s window — no matter how many times she scrapes them away — are a whole new level of “absolutely not.”

As her mother continues to deteriorate, Delilah realizes something is out there beyond the tree line, watching them, messing with them and it all seems tied to the old farm on the other side of the woods. Memories, nightmares, and ancient dark things begin to surface, and Delilah starts to understand that whatever is making her mother sick might be far worse than dementia.

This was a great audio experience — well‑paced, well‑performed, and deeply atmospheric.

How to Survive Camping: The Man with No Shadow by Bonnie Quinn

I bought this cheap on Chirp and thank god. The narration was fine. But holy hell this book was manic and pure chaos.

The campground owner got into fights with the supernatural entities that are trapped on her ancestrial property literally every five minutes. I saw someone comparing it to the TV series Supernatural but guuuuurrrlll.... even Supernatural had the wherewithal to only fight one crytpid creature per episode. And you would think that by subtitling it "The Man With No Shadow" Bonnie was going to take the same approach but nah. She had her protagonist Kate contend with dancing fairies, little demon kids selling ice out of a wagon, the man with a skull cup, a vanishing house, and a crying girl before getting to the final boss. And that's not even all of them!

I was hoping for a cutesy horror book to get me into the halloween spirit but this was just eye roll and side eye city for me.

Nightjars by Michael Wehunt

I see some of you out there gushing over this book and I'm sitting here, still gnawing on it like... really?! Because this was such a weird one for me. While I was reading it, it was ok. When I put it down, though, I found I wasn't dying to pick it back up and had to force myself to stop doom scrolling because the more I delayed, the more this was going to hurt my book average for the month, LOL. What a way to motivate myself to keep reading, huh?

I didn't hate it, though I did consider DNFing it a few times there in the beginning, but I am definitely struggling to see what everyone loved so much about it. It was clunky, in some spots oddly hard to follow, and in other spots I found it to be painfully slow. When it finally got to where it was going, I found I just didn't care - about the characters, about their situation, about the kind of vampy-vamps they were. I really just wanted to get to the end so I could put it down forever.

Not a horrible book but definitely not one I will be talking about after this review is published.

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

Okay, yes... I'm aware... it was absolutely time I finally read this. How have I been calling myself a horror girlie all these years without tackling one of the genre’s most infamous classics?!

Consider that problem solved and the box has now officially been checked.

I’m honestly tempted to rewatch the film now, because I only remember it in bits and pieces, and I’m curious to see how the two stack up against each other, especially with the book so fresh in my head.

Let me get this out of the way: I could not stand the mom, and the cop grated on my nerves, but the dark, exhausted, morally fraying priest? Oh man, he’s the character who completely hooked me. And sure, some of the dialogue is undeniably dated (“what’s doing?” made me cringe every time), but it is a product of the 70s, and while certain lines haven’t aged gracefully, the atmosphere absolutely has.

Once Regan’s possession tightens its grip, the book becomes impossible to put down. The tension, the dread, the slow slide into full‑blown horror — I flew through those chapters. I love how deeply the book dives into the psychological side of things, and doesn't spend a lot time in the gory spaces.

If you grew up on the movie like I did but never actually read the source material, it’s worth correcting that. The book has a much different vibe, and honestly, it deepened my appreciation for the story in a way I didn’t expect.

I read a used mass market copy of the book that was pretty yellowed and battered. Published in 1972, and sold for a whopping $1.75.

Find Me Where It Ends by Cassandra Khaw

This book went someplace I hadn't expected. It’s technically a book about mental health and the slow unraveling of a woman who’s spent her life banishing other people’s ghosts, but the subject matter makes it a strangely gentle read.

Antigone’s family has a weird tradition. Death arrives to greet them in the shape of a dog. A sweet, furry, loyal dog who shows up when your time is running out. Days, weeks, months — you don’t know. You just know the clock has started. And when Antigone’s Death dog appears, her grip on her own mental stability starts to slip.

The book doesn’t shy away from the hard stuff. It talks openly about suicidal ideation, the logistics of planning a death, and the emotional fallout of sharing those thoughts with the people closest to you. It’s frank, vulnerable and, for some I can envision, somewhat unsettling.

And I’m not sure the back cover prepares readers for what this actually is. It’s not horror. And it’s not sci‑fi. It’s more like… cozy speculative fiction wrapped around a very real conversation about mental health. And calling it cozy feels wrong, but also kind of right? There’s a friendly ghost, a dog who’s literally Death but also oddly lovable, and a weird hopeful spin on the idea of controlling the one thing we’re never supposed to control — the terms of our own ending.

It’s a tender book with heavy subject matter, and while it didn’t fully land for me, I can see why it resonates with readers who like their existential dread served warm.

Check your trigger warnings and also go in knowing this is not The Salt Grows Heavy. It's not even The Salt Grows Heavy's cousin.

The Demon Overlord's Retirement Plan by MH Foster

This was an impulse grab from a book‑browsing binge a couple weeks ago. I don’t usually reach for fantasy, but the jacket copy made it sound like a super accessible, quirky read and honestly... who can say no to that?

It is exactly that. It’s low‑stakes, low‑brow, cheeky fun... a cute palette cleanser narrated by a demon overlord who decides he’s done with the whole “eternal evil” thing after his four hundred and forty‑fourth incarnation. He slips into the skin of a joe shmoe farmer and retreats to a quiet little village with his adorably destructive pet goat and acres upon acres of turnips. It's meant to be the beginning of his retirement. But we know it won't be a restful one because, well, there would be no book if he was able to retire peacefully, and because... well, best laid plans and all that.

I’ve seen a lot of Goodreads reviews calling the book annoying, simplistic, or oddly written, but if you go in knowing that it’s meant to be silly and light, it delivers what it promises. It’s brain candy. A breather book. The kind of thing you read between heavier titles when you need something that won’t emotionally or psychologically ruin you.

Now… having said that, I feel absolutely no urge to pick up the other two books in the series. This world was fun for a day, but not one I’m itching to revisit. Cute, quick, and forgettable — and sometimes that’s exactly what you need.

It Looks Like You In the Dark by Mathilda Zeller

Steeped in Native Alaskan folklore, the story follows a young woman and her friends as they search for her missing sister while also trying to fend off a group of white men determined to reopen an old mine in the Kobuk River Valley. In theory it’s a great setup... cultural tension, environmental stakes, and a missing‑person mystery layered with supernatural elements. But for me, it fell a little flat.

The book balances psychological and physical horror in a way that should feel gripping, and for a while it does. You’re constantly questioning the narrator’s reliability, wondering what’s real, what’s myth, and what’s trauma. And it works… until it doesn’t. There was a point where the ambiguity frustrated more than it fascinated.

I went into this expecting to like it more than I did. The folklore elements are intriguing, and the setting is atmospheric, but I found myself getting tired of trying to decode what was happening instead of being swept up in it. It wasn’t bad but it also never fully grabbed me the way I hoped it would.

Underwhelming, but not a waste of time. Just one of those reads where I think I mentally set the bar a little too high.

Blacktail by Scott Hawkins

I see people throwing all the stars at this thing with reviews like "this book fucks" and "fucking hell".

I'm more like "da fuuuk??"

Shame on everyone who gushed over this on bookstagram. I dropped full hardcover price because I was getting major FOMO vibes from all of yall and wtf. This wasn't even that good. I bet everyone who loved this also got gushy over Open Throat.

Woke wolf fiction, get thee behind me. Give me the bitey and bloody bunnies of Watership Down any day.

Bright I Burn by Molly Aitken

A four‑star read that went down easy, hit the October mood just right, and gave me a reason to take another break from the heavier stuff I’ve been wading through. I ditched my NetGalley queue for a hot minute and fell straight into this witchy tale — though it's not the halloweeny broomstick‑and‑warts kind. This one is a dark, literary reimagining of the first woman ever accused of witchcraft in thirteenth‑century Ireland.

Alice is a hard woman to like but an undeniably compelling one to read. She’s self‑sufficient, sharp tongued, and locked in a love/hate tug of war with men. She loves to seduce and control them, and she burns hot when they refuse to bend. So after a succession of husbands meet untimely ends, it's not surprising that the town’s gossip turns into suspicion, and that suspicion turns into accusation.

Bright I Burn is pure feminine rage, simmering beneath the surface until someone shakes the bottle hard enough to make it explode.

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi

LMAO. I went to review the book on goodreads and read Starch's review first and uhm, yeah, basically same. Except they say they DNFd it and I actually listened to it all the way through. I'll put the link to thier review in the comments. It's hilarious because I felt all the things they felt and thought all the things they thought.

It's a very badly dated story set in a very futuristic world where humans basically nuked themselves extinct, and those who were able to survive became enslaved by vampires - referred to as nobility - who reigned supreme for a good portion of millenia, until the humans began to revolt.

The book opens as the nobility's stronghold on them is weakening. There's a young virgin named Doris and a handsome vampire hunter named D who is half vampire, half human. She hires D to kill the vampire who bit her before she falls under his spell, meanwhile she and every other female we come across falls in love with D the moment they see him, including the big boss vampire's own daughter.

It's cheesy and cringey and the audio narrator wasn't doing the writing any favors. I got the ick too many times to count and honestly, I'm embarassed I didn't figure out the big reveal at the end. I should have seen it coming since the opening of the book but I was otherwise occupied disliking the cardboard characters and funky atmosphere.

I mean, I purchased it on Chirp for five bucks after mentioning it to my husband, who remembered watching and liking the movie when he was a teen. So maybe I should have been more wary LOL.

Chimera Skin by Johnny Compton

I wasn’t sure I was going to like this one. Compton throws us straight into an alien apocalypse with no context, no grounding, just vibes and a whole lotta confusion.

Swanson is a man whose body has been grotesquely modified and fused with others, but we don’t know why. Baptiste is a shimmering, terrifying “silver messiah” who infects people by proximity, but we don’t know what he is or how he came to be. It’s all mystery, no clarity, and the first half left me irritated, annoyed, and wondering why I was doing this to myself.

Then the final 20% hits, and suddenly the lights come on. Compton rewinds the narrative, fills in the missing pieces, and the story finally starts coming together. I was genuinely relieved I hadn’t DNF’d it, because the payoff is surprisingly thoughtful.

Underneath the alien weirdness, Chimera Skin is a human story about the cost of exploration, the way governments treat people as disposable in the name of progress, and how even the monster of the story is just trying to survive the circumstances forced upon him.

It’s not gong to be a universal crowd‑pleaser, but if you give it the time, that last quarter will get its hooks in you and crawl under the skin.

Swallow Us Black Sun by VM Barrigan

The whole time I'm reading this book, I'm thinking it's like a backroom version of death and purgatory. Not as fucked up as Black Farm but not as pleasant as A Short Stay in Hell. IYKYK.

Harrigan has created a hellscape in which you can die a billion icky, terrible, painful deaths and you'll likely respawn in the big long line or you'll regenerate nearish to where you died, and hopefully you'll keep some of your memories so you can try to escape again and be smarter about it this time. every time. for ever. and possibly ever. amen.

I liked it but wasn't in love with it. It absolutely kept my interest though and had me wondering if our main dude was ever going to get out of there. He meets tree cyst sacks that want to eat their way into his body and become his passenger, there's a tiny man who carves his memories into his skin and then cuts it from his body, and these creepy black things with tentacles that steal others away when they are naughty and do horrible things to them that no one can remember. It's kind of twisted and also kind of hokey, but fun and weird in a way I wouldn't know how to describe to someone who hasn't already read the book.

This book came as part of a package I had ordered direclty from the author, which included some pretty cool "extras", and it was super cool of him to send over a signed copy!

At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric LaRocca

This is the Eric LaRocca I enjoy reading. Grungy and gritty, steeped in grief, and willing to crawl into the dark places people disappear when their worlds start to unravel. Sad and tender and feral all at once. It's the precise brand of fucked‑up intensity only LaRocca can deliver.

They write like someone peeling back their pierced and modified skin to show you the bloody, beating mess beneath. It’s grotesque, human, and strangely beautiful.

Beware of animal abuse triggers though. They are brief but brutal.