September Wrap Up

This was easily my worst reading month in a very long time. I didn’t read a single book in about four weeks. Honestly, I kind of lost all motivation to do pretty much anything this month. Which isn’t great, and I’m working on it. But it’s fine. It was a nice break. And I actually finished two books in the past few days, one of which I think might have ended the slump.

Also, I’m very sorry if this post is not coherent. I am, per usual, writing this very late at night before it’s supposed to go up. It’s also been an incredibly long week at work (yes, I know it’s only been a few days) and I watched the presidential debate tonight which I’m pretty sure melted my brain. Anyway, I’ll just get right into the post.

What I Read

Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen – ★★★☆☆

This was an interesting memoir, and one that provides a lot of insight into an indigenous woman’s experience in America. It is told in snapshots of the author’s encounters with gun violence. I think that is an important issue right now, and it was valuable to learn about that from the perspective of a minority woman. However, the writing style of this book just didn’t really do it for me. The narrative jumped around a lot, and I found it difficult to really get into. It was still good, and I hope a lot of other people will really love it.

Simmer Down by Sarah Smith – ★★★☆☆

Romance is usually a pretty safe bet to get me out of a reading slump, and I think this one did. I finished it just a couple hours before this post will be published, so it might be too soon to tell, but fingers crossed. It was fun, but nothing really special. Maybe a two-and-a-half star read for me. I liked the food references and it was pretty steamy. But the sex scenes were really cheesy and the characters didn’t really do that much for me. It was fine. If you like romance, you might enjoy this. But it’s not ending up on any favorites list.

What I’m Currently Reading

Grant by Ron Chernow

This poor book fell victim to the slump. Honestly, I have a lot of spooky reading planned for October, including another very long audiobook, so I might put this one on hold until November. At which point, reading about a good president will either depress me or make me hopeful for the future. Until then, it’s kind of nice not being sad about it when it hasn’t happened yet.

What I Watched

My Octopus Teacher

This was so good! If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a documentary on Netflix about a man who becomes friends with an octopus and what he learns from her about life. It was heartwarming and sad and I loved it.

Ratched

I love Sarah Paulson and Ryan Murphy, so I obviously had to watch this. And it was pretty good. Somewhere between my favorite and least favorite seasons of American Horror Story. If you like AHS, it’s worth a watch.

What I Did

Get a Five-Star Island on Animal Crossing!

If you know, you know. But this was a huge achievement for me (yes, my life has become that boring. It’s still not really complete – no idea how I actually got five-stars – but maybe someday soon I’ll get it close to finish and share my dream address.

Sign Up to Audit a Harvard Philosophy Class

Yes, I make really weird impulse decisions. I blame The Good Place. I haven’t gotten very far, but I guess it’s interesting. I’m learning about ancient Eastern philosophy which will hopefully teach me how to be happier. At least, that’s what this course is supposed to be about.

Blog Highlights

I took a little bit of a break this month, so I didn’t publish my normal amount of posts. But here is one where I talked about why:

I Haven’t Read a Single Book in Over Two Weeks (and Why I’m Abandoning My TBR)

In case you missed this post, I talked about my reading has changed (for the worse) recently, and giving myself a break. I’m starting this year fresh going forward – all previous TBRs are gone and I’m just going to be more thoughtful about what I chose to read going forward. Don’t worry, my October TBR is appropriately crazy (because I need to read ALL the Halloween-appropriate books).

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That’s it for September! I hope you all had a great month! What was your favorite September read?