Hello, lovelies! Happy December! Finals are in full swing, so I probably won’t write again till next week, then hopefully I’ll be able to catch up and do all my end of year blog posts. Today, I’m going to talk about the books I read in October along with other things that kept me entertained. I hope you enjoy!

Previous Installment – Books I Read In September (Plus Other 2020 Favorites)

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//Books//

//Tintin: Red Rackham’s Treasure by Herge

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

Convinced that Captain Haddock’s ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, used a series of clever clues to describe the precise location of a priceless treasure, Tintin, Snowy and Captain Haddock rent a boat — the Sirius — and set sail on a treasure hunt. Without knowing it at first, the team is accompanied by an eccentric scientist called Professor Calculus. Although it is difficult to hold a meaningful conversation with the professor due to his hearing problems, Calculus more than proves his worth as an extra passenger. His ingenious mini-submarine certainly comes in very handy when searching for shipwrecks!

While the intrepid explorers search for the treasure, Tintin can’t help wondering if there’s an important clue they might have overlooked. But in the end, the big question concerns Marlinspike Hall and its place within the saga of Sir Francis Haddock!

//Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls by Herge

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

The classic graphic novel. Seven explorers return from an expedition in the Andes, where they unearthed the tomb of an Incan priest. One by one, they fall into a coma. Can Tintin figure out what is causing the mysterious illness?

My Review For Both Graphic Novels

I’m just going to review these graphic novels together because they’re part of the same series. I have a lot of nostalgia tied to Tintin. My dad and I used to watch the cartoons together when I was a kid, so I bought the graphic novels from Book Outlet last year. Each book is a bind up of three comics. I read one of them for the Reading Rush last summer but hadn’t read the others until October. I personally enjoyed these two more than the one I read in July. The mysteries were just more interesting and the dialogue was funnier. Each comic is relatively short. They have their own plots but connect with each other in an overarching storyline. I’ve been reading this series out of order, so I’ll try to fix that.

Red Rackham’s Treasure had more fun action scenes, but I enjoyed The Seven Crystal Balls more because there were more funny character interactions.

//Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?

It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son.

In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?

My Review

I haven’t read a lot of YA contemporary this year, so every time I read one, I’m reminded of how much I love the genre. This book is about a girl, Jessie, who’s dad marries a woman he meets at a grief counseling group. She is then moved across the country to live with her and her son. They’re super rich and Jessie is sent to a very fancy private school. The novel pretty much follows her adjusting to a new place. There is a romance in the book, but it is very much a subplot. The book is more about her adjusting to living in a new place, getting a job, making new friends, and figuring out her new family dynamic.

The romance is very cute. When she arrives at this new school, someone sends her an email telling her he’ll be her guide through this crazy high school and they slowly become friends. I really enjoyed their banter and I’m glad that he didn’t stay secret at first for a stupid reason. Jessie isn’t the perfect protagonist, and I liked that the book wasn’t too over the top. All the high school stuff was portrayed normally if that makes sense. The conversations, the flirting, the bullying, etc. was realistic.

My favorite part of the book hands down was Jessie’s relationship with her step brother, Theo. Whenever step siblings are written into books, they’re either terrible or the main character sees them as a full sibling. The novel started with Theo and Jessie hating each other, so I went into the book thinking I was supposed to hate his character. But no. The book handled them being in this strange situation very well. Both of their parents got married and moved them in together with zero warning! They pretty much avoided each other at first. She thought he was a spoiled brat, and he thought they were gold diggers. Theo is definitely a dick, but both their reactions made sense.

I loved seeing the slow progression of them becoming siblings. They went from hating each other to “Do you want to stress eat chocolate in my room?” It was great. The author wrote the perfect balance of concern and disinterest into their interactions. I got excited every time they had a scene together. I can imagine their characters having a sibling bond for the rest of their lives.

(Also, Theo is gay, so there was never any gross subtext. Them hanging out alone was never a point of contention with their parents.)

//Sadie by Courtney Summers

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

A missing girl on a journey of revenge. A Serial―like podcast following the clues she’s left behind. And an ending you won’t be able to stop talking about.

Sadie hasn’t had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she’s been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie’s entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister’s killer to justice and hits the road following a few meager clues to find him.

When West McCray―a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America―overhears Sadie’s story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie’s journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it’s too late.

My Review

This book was really good. It jumps back and forth between Sadie and a true crime podcast. The podcast takes place months after Sadie’s point of view, so we go from seeing Sadie’s interaction with someone in real time to that person being interviewed months later about a so-called missing girl.

I don’t want to give too much away since this is a mystery novel. We see it unfold on both sides. We see Sadie searching for the man who killed her sister, while the reporter searches for her. A random detail I appreciated is that Sadie has a stutter. I love how it was portrayed. It was something I never had to think about before, but reading about how people perceived Sadie and how much brain work it took for her to say a sentence was interesting. I learned something new. (I also found out weeks later that Biden has a stutter ,and I never noticed! I never realized all the mental gymnastics he has to go through to recite speeches, so now I can appreciate how much work he had to put into debates.)

Also, trigger warning for sexual abuse if you plan on reading this book. I highly recommend the audiobook because it’s full cast and the “podcast” parts are recorded that way.

//Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K Rowling

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS

The war against Voldemort is not going well; even Muggle governments are noticing. Ron scans the obituary pages of the Daily Prophet, looking for familiar names. Dumbledore is absent from Hogwarts for long stretches of time, and the Order of the Phoenix has already suffered losses.

And yet . . .

As in all wars, life goes on. The Weasley twins expand their business. Sixth-year students learn to Apparate – and lose a few eyebrows in the process. Teenagers flirt and fight and fall in love. Classes are never straightforward, through Harry receives some extraordinary help from the mysterious Half-Blood Prince.

So it’s the home front that takes center stage in the multilayered sixth installment of the story of Harry Potter. Here at Hogwarts, Harry will search for the full and complete story of the boy who became Lord Voldemort – and thereby find what may be his only vulnerability

My Review

I continued my reread of the Harry Potter series in October. I stopped last summer because I felt weird about reading it for awhile because of J.K Rowling’s transphobic comments. I definitely don’t agree with anything she’s said, but I’m not going to let that stop me from enjoying Harry Potter. I definitely did for awhile, but I still love Ender’s Game despite that author’s many homophobic and racist remarks. I finally felt comfortable enough to finish my reread.

One thing I noticed while reading Half-Blood Prince is that it’s the first time since first year that Harry has had a relatively normal year of school (barring the ending). There were always external factors that affected his previous school years: (2) the chamber of secrets being opened, (3) dementors patrolling the school, (4) the tri-wizard tournament, and (5) Umbridge and the ministry interfering at Hogwarts. There wasn’t any external infiltration at Hogwarts in his sixth year, so the book followed Harry, Ron, and Hermione through their normal lives. There was definitely a lot of set up for the finale, but I liked how we got to see their lives as students over the course of many months.

Also, what was the movie doing? This book had so much more going for it! The battle at the end should’ve been included in the film. I’m sorry, but the movie focused too much on romance and didn’t even portray that well. They may as well have included a cool action sequence at the end!

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//Other Entertainment//

//Movies

• Inception – I’d been meaning to watch this film for a decade, and it’s just as good as people say it is. This movie was phenomenal. Christopher Nolan makes terrible superhero movies (i.e. Batman v. Superman) but makes great science fiction movies. I couldn’t look away. The plot. The characters. The special effects. Just…chef’s kiss*. Inception is about characters who can enter dreams and steal secrets from people’s subconscious, which spies and government agencies take advantage of. I can’t really give a description that does this film justice. It’s on Amazon Prime. Watch it.
• Akeelah and the Bee – I love this movie. I haven’t watched it since middle school, so it’s been awhile. The movie is about a girl in a poor school district in South LA training for the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
• Ratatouille – I re-watched this movie in October and it’s still good. Last month, I found out that TikTokers are writing Ratatouille: The Musical (I had vaguely heard about it, but I didn’t realize how big the project was. People are composing songs, choreographing dances, sewing costumes, drawing sets, etc.) and it got on Disney on Broadway’s radar. That would be such a cool thing to come out of quarantine!
• The Willoughby’s – I don’t usually watch Netflix animation movies, but my friend recommended this one to me. It’s about four kids who have terrible parents, so they concoct a plan to orphan themselves (in other words, kill their mother and father). This is a kids movie, so some parts were cheesy, but the main plot was really good. It was fun to watch.

//T.V. Shows

• Shrill – This is the only show I binged in October. I watched both seasons over the course of a weekend. It’s  a very short show on Hulu. The show is about a plus sized writer named Annie. I watched it because someone on TikTok said it’s a very good and realistic portrayal of what it’s like to be fat. There are so many little things included in terms of how Annie perceives herself, minor comments from her mom, her boss assuming she was lazy, plus sized clothing only being in flowery prints, etc. Her dick boyfriend literally made her sneak out the back door after having sex when his roommates were in the house. It showed all the little things she had to put up with in her day to day life.
• Trinkets Season 2 – Kat and I Netflix Partied the first season a few months ago, so we watched season 2 in October. It’s about three high schoolers who meet in Shoplifter’s Anonymous and become best friends. Season 2 did a really good job at wrapping everything up. I liked that they ended the series with a good endpoint instead of dragging it on.
• The Good Place – I watched the final season of the show as it was coming out, but hadn’t finished the last few episodes. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the ending. It was getting a little far fetched at around season 3, but the finale made sense. It was a bittersweet ending.
• New Girl – I just needed a light hearted show to watch where I could stop at one episode each day, and this did the trick. It’s about a woman whose boyfriend cheats on her, so she movies into an apartment she found on Craigslist with three male roommates. I have watched the show before. Just out of order. I don’t think I ever finished it. It’s just one of those shows where you can start where you left off or can click a random episode to pass the time.
• The 100 – October was definitely my peak 100 depression. The finale aired on September 30th, and as you know, it was terrible. It created so many unnecessary plot holes and everyone was out of character. I started re-watching the show in mid-October. It was so weird seeing them in Season 1 as teenagers because by season 7, they’re in their thirties with kids. And everyone was still alive! I kid you not, only two people from the original main cast survived the finale (and two characters that were technically guest stars in season 1 and became part of the main cast later). Anyway, I really enjoyed watching the first season, but I was pissed off about the new completely unnecessary plot holes. I started watching season 2 but stopped because I didn’t want to go through the pain of watching the entire show again. It sucks. This was my second favorite show, but I will never be able to enjoy it ever again. I’m fucking pissed.
• Emily In Paris – This is the second show Kat and I watched together in October. I know it’s been getting a lot of flack for portraying many stereotypes about France. I wasn’t that surprised because that’s how every show and film set in another country is portrayed. (Including the U.S and Canada in non-western films!) Narcos definitely wasn’t an accurate representation of Colombia, so I wasn’t that put off by Emily In Paris. The show was okay. It’s about an American woman whose company sends her to Paris to help their marketing office.
• This Is Us – Season 5 premiered in October and I was super excited about it. This was one of the first shows I watched in quarantine and am excited to watch it live as it comes out over the next two seasons. I’m really enjoying the current events they’ve incorporated into the storyline (i.e. the pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, etc.) They transitioned to it so seamlessly. The writers are very smart. The show is about the Pearson family, and we jump between their past, present, and future. It took me years to watch it, but it lives up to the hype.

//Music

I discovered a lot of TikTok songs that I listened to on repeat. I used to find songs in the background of movies and shows, but I guess this is my new way. TikTok also taught me that I’m not as big of a Taylor Swift fan as I thought because I don’t recognize many of her songs. I’m definitely still a huge fan, but I went back and listened to a lot of her older songs and Lover because I didn’t listen to that album after feeling lukewarm about the singles. I also listened to old favorites I hadn’t listened to in years.

Also, I forgot to mention Six: The Musical in my September blog post. One of my friends introduced me to it last summer, but that musical became my workout playlist for weeks. It’s kind of the British version of Hamilton in that it’s a modern hip-hop history retelling about Henry VIII’s six wives. It’s a short musical, and it’s a lot of fun.

• Champions by KHS & Andie Case
• Arcade by Duncan Laurence
• Saturn by Sleeping at Last
• Long Live by Taylor Swift
• Train Wreck by James Arthur
• Take Yours, I’ll Take Mine by Matthew Mole

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Well, that’s it for now. I plan on posting once a week for the rest of the month. I may be able to post twice a week once finals are over. We’ll see what happens. If you all are in the middle of finals, good luck! Until next time 🙂

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