Hello, lovelies. It’s time for me to publish my September and October favorites, where I talk about books I’ve read, movies I’ve watched, etc. I feel like “Favorites” is the wrong word for these posts, but that’s all I’ve got. This was originally created to chronicle all the books I’ve read in the previous month, but the lists have gotten so large that I’ve had to narrow them down. I think I’ll start just writing reading wrap-ups in 2020 (but I do like keeping track of the music I’ve been listening to because it’s fun to look back on)
Now that I’ve finished that spiel, let’s get into the actual post.
Previous Installment – July & August Favorites (Books, Movies, Music, Etc.)
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//Books
Mary Poppins by P.L Travers – I did not think I would enjoy this book as much as I did. I’ve been trying to read more classics this year, which is why I picked it up, and this one surprised me. I liked the movie as a kid, but the book is completely different. I laughed a lot while reading it. becauseMary Poppins was such a narcissist and a really fun character to read about. It reminded me of the Pinocchio book for some reason.
Avatar: The Last Airbender: Imbalance (Graphic Novels) – I thought I had read all the graphic novels last year, but I guess they’re still publishing new ones. I waited until all three parts came out before reading it because these tend to end in cliff hangers. This graphic novel series deals with the political aftermath of the show. This one, in particular, is about the imbalance between benders and non-benders.
Beauty & The Beast by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont – I linked the edition I read in the title. I’ve never read the original Beauty and the Beast, so I never realized how closely YA retellings follow the original. For example, we don’t actually know how the beast became the beast. There are a lot of intricacies to the spell that made him that way and it was really interesting to unravel and learn more throughout the story. I don’t think you all need a summary of this book. Everyone knows the basics of the story, but the original still managed to surprise me.
The Last Star by Rick Yancey – I finally finished the 5th Wave trilogy. I think this was a series I would have devoured all at once if I didn’t have other books to read from the library. I have mixed feelings about the ending, but I like it overall. I enjoyed it more than the second book. This trilogy is a post-apocalyptic series about aliens invading the earth and killing more than ninety percent of all humans. My favorite part of the series was the main characters’ inner monologues.
Archenemies by Marissa Meyer – This is the second book to the Renegades trilogy. It takes place in a world where superheroes basically run the government and regular humans become complacent and too reliant on them. Nova, one of the “villains” of this society (AKA the anarchists), infiltrates the superhero headquarters to bring it down from the inside. That’s pretty much the premise of this series. The second book is a lot less plot-driven than the first book, but I think I liked it more. I very much enjoyed the slice-of-life character development in this novel and I’m really excited about the final book, which was set up really well.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman – This was one of the spooky Halloween books I read last month. This was my first Neil Gaiman book. I definitely plan on checking out more of his books next year because he has a very distinct writing style. The movie was actually a pretty good adaptation of this book. It’s about a girl who moves into a creepy house with her family and she goes into a parallel universe, where the “other mother” tries to kidnap and keep her there. The movie was definitely creepier than the book, but that’s mostly due to the visuals. I may go for the graphic novel if I reread this someday.
You by Caroline Kepnes – This book was VERY different from the Netflix show. Joe is a lot creepier and Beck is a lot dumber. I do like the choices they made for the show because it made more sense in that medium. The book was a whole different level of scary. If you don’t know, this is a thriller about a stalker who works at a bookstore, who falls in love and obsesses over a grad student who shares her entire life online.
Close Enough To Touch by Colleen Oakley – This is the first contemporary book I’ve read in a few months and it was really good. It’s an adult contemporary novel about a woman who is allergic to human touch. She became a recluse and didn’t leave her house for nine years until she was forced to by circumstance and gets a job at a library. The other point of view is of a recently divorced man who is trying to salvage his relationship with his teenage daughter. He has also adopted his dead best friend’s son, who has some mental health issues that doctors are trying to diagnose. I wouldn’t consider this a romance even though it’s classified as one. It’s more about two grown adults trying to figure out their lives. It’s not a super action-packed book, but I was still sucked in enough to miss my bus stop on my way back to my dorm, which hasn’t happened in a long time.
Carrie by Stephen King – I don’t normally read horror novels, so this was a first for me. I’ve never read any Stephen King, so what better way to get into his writing than reading his first novel. The book honestly wasn’t that scary. I read it very slowly because I was scared that it was going to get scary (which is very counterintuitive). This book is incredibly well-written. I was rooting for Carrie from the first chapter because she was abused by everyone around her. It was an interesting revenge story about a teenager with telekinesis. I recommend you read Stephen King’s author’s note at the beginning because the people Carrie was based on had very tragic endings.
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston – I did not expect to love this book as much as I did, considering all the hype surrounding it. It seemed like a cute cheesy gay romance, which is what I wanted to read after reading so many horror and thriller novels. It ended up being one of my favorite books this year. I wanted to reread it immediately after finishing it because I loved the characters so much. The dialogue among all of them was amazing. I loved the political aspects of the book, both international and within the U.S. If you haven’t heard of it, this story is about the Prince of England and the First Son of the US falling in love with each other and the politics surrounding that. Their romance developed so well (I normally don’t enjoy the hate-to-love trope), the adults in the story weren’t ignorant idiots, and it was so funny! I highly recommend it. (I also like that none of the characters were teenagers. There was no high school BS and I could take the relationship a lot more seriously.)
The Latte Factor by David Bach – I was super wary about reading this book until my friend gave it five-stars. I didn’t learn a lot of new things about finance because I know about investing and retirement accounts, but I definitely think it explained money in a very accessible way. It wasn’t laid out like a self-help book. It was actually like a fiction short story where we followed a 27-year-old woman figuring out her life. It wasn’t overly patronizing and I recommend it if you have no clue how to manage your finances.
//Movies
The Sun Is Also A Star – I didn’t watch this movie when it first came out because I loved the book so much and the trailer didn’t pique my interest. I got the DVD from RedBox one day and gave it a watch. It was fine. It followed the book pretty well, but some things don’t translate well into film. I still highly recommend the book and I want to reread it again to remind myself how much better than the movie it was. It follows a Jamaican high schooler who is about to get deported and a Korean-American boy about to do his college interview. It’s a very well-done interracial love story.
Five Feet Apart – Now this is a movie that did the book justice, which makes sense since they were written at the same time. There were definitely some scenes in the book that I wish made it into the movie, but I still loved it. This movie follows two people with cystic fibrosis who fall in love but can never be near each other without risking harming the other. (People with CF are at risk for sharing each other’s bacteria).
Snowpiercer – I watched this with Akash (my friend’s little brother) and ten minutes into the movie he said, “You really like dark things, don’t you?” I looked at him surprised because I’m pretty sure I’ve only ever watched cartoon movies with him, so he named all the very dark books I’ve recommended to him. “Everybody dies!” That got me thinking that he’s right. I very much love dark books. I have two extremes: Disney movies and violent government films that are allegories for capitalism, which brings me into what this movie is about. This video was recommended by a Youtuber Best Dressed, who graduated from film school and made a video about all the movies she loved, and this one piqued my interest.
This movie takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where the Earth is encased in ice. The only surviving humans are on a train circling a never-ending track. The back of the train contains the poorest people and the more forward you go, the richer the citizens. The front of the train is the conductor, who is the richest and most powerful. The back of the train have no supplies and basically have to eat cockroaches to survive. They decide to escape and take the front of the train. As they fight to go forward, you see how much better the people live the further along the train they are and how hard the government fights to keep that hierarchy. I am not explaining this well enough. The world-building in this book is phenomenal considering it’s only two and a half hours. The plot twists and reveals shocked me, and the pacing was incredible considering all the action scenes there were. Warning: this is a very violent film. The scene Akash was referring to happened at the very beginning when a man was getting his arm cut off. It’s not a horror film, so I wasn’t that put off by it. It’s on Netflix and I HIGHLY recommend it.
Harry Potter – I haven’t watched these movies in years. I reread the series in 2018 and wanted to get through all the movies again but never got to it. I rewatched the first two last month for my yearly Halloween movie marathon. It was a lot of fun and I definitely plan on watching all the movies once they’re in my DVR.
//T.V. Shows
Mom – I watched this show for the majority of September. It was a fun sitcom to watch when I wanted to take a break and didn’t want to binge anything. I’ve seen the show before, but I watched it out of order whenever it was on T.V. I stopped somewhere in Season 4, but I plan on getting back to it eventually. This series is about a recovering alcoholic trying to get her life together for her children and ends up reconnecting with her neglectful alcoholic mother. It’s a serious premise, but it’s still a funny sit-com.
Avatar: The Last Airbender – I finally got one of my best friends to watch my all-time favorite show with me after almost a decade of knowing each other and her telling me she wasn’t interested. (She loves it by the way : ) We are currently in the middle of season 2, but we should get through that by the end of the year. (We watch 4-5 episodes almost every other week). I already wrote a “Season 1 Episode Ranking” even though it’s not exactly in my niche, but I don’t care because it’s my favorite show and it was fun to write. It should be published this month. This show takes place in a world where different nations have elemental powers: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. There is only one person who can bend all four elements, and that is the Avatar. He or she is tasked to keep the peace among all the nations and between the human world and the spirit world. The show takes place during a century-long war after the Avatar disappears. He “comes back” in the first episode.
Tangled: The Series – I usually don’t watch the tie in shows that go along with movies, but this one is surprisingly good. It adds so much to the story and the movie’s original voice actors returned to the show. Season three premiered in October and they released a new episode every day for two weeks. You better believe I was following along with it. The show basically follows Rapunzel adjusting into life as a princess (plus with people in general) and we learn about the magic that created the healing sun-drop flower that gave her hair its powers,
Looking For Alaska – I haven’t finished this limited series yet, but I’m on the last episode. I think the series did the book a lot of justice. I feel like this book wouldn’t work as a movie without it becoming a “manic pixie dream girl” trope. There’s time to get to know the characters and time to hear all the amazing John Green quotes. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the show considering it’s not my highest rated John Green book. The show follows a boy named Miles, who goes to a boarding school in Alabama seeking his “great perhaps.” We get to meet his eccentric new friends, how they become closer, and the chaos that ensues in this boarding school.
//Music
As you can tell, I read a lot of books these past few months, so I mostly listened to audiobooks.
- Lewis Capaldi Album: Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent – I think he’s my new favorite artist
- Circus Of Your Mind from Finding Neverland
- Lose You To Love Me by Selena Gomez – I’m not the biggest fan of Selena Gomez, but this song very much describes my taste in music. It’s a beautiful song.
//Priceless
My Mom Came Back – My mom returned from Bangladesh on August 31st, so things went back to normal after that. I missed her, but I’m happy she was able to visit her family and trusted me to take care of Mysoon.
October Has Been Really Fun – September was my busiest month, school-wise, so October was a breath of fresh air. I did a lot of fun things, I hung out with friends, went to parties, met new people… it was an awesome month.
I Started Journaling Again – I haven’t journaled regularly since elementary school, so I was very surprised when I got the urge to journal again. Especially since I write all the time anyway. I bought a new notebook and have already filled 30 pages. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up with it because it’s been such a fun way to reflect on my day.
Cold Weather – It’s FINALLY started getting cold in Georgia. I was getting kind of sick of the 90-degree weather. It still warms up a bit in mid-afternoon, but the weather has cooled down quite a bit. Plus I love the wind. Give me a huge gusts of wind any day.
Halloween – It’s my favorite holiday and I actually did stuff for it this year. I wore three different costumes for different events this month. It was great. (I just re-wore old costumes because I didn’t feel like spending money on a new one. I’ll buy one next year)
Well, that’s it for now. My next update for November and December will probably go up at the end of the year. It’ll honestly just be full of Disney shows and movies since Disney+ is coming out in less than two weeks. I’m not going to get any school work done
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What books have you read recently? Have you seen any good movies? Listened to any good music?