Oct Reading Wrap Up

I read a total of 8 books in October, out of which 5 books were graphic novels/manga. October was a pretty hectic month for me and I hardly got any time to read books. I couldn’t read much from my Halloween TBR. I read some pages of IT but the size of the book again intimated me and I ended up choosing graphic novels over such a huge book.

• The first 3 books I read were from Locke and Key graphic novels series which I have reviewed earlier here. They were perfect for Halloween as they are scary and have ghosts and other horror elements. I gave the series an overall rating of 4 stars.

I borrowed couple of books from my library – one was a manga and the other was a tiny book.

• Sea Prayer by Khaled Hosseini – 3 stars –
  I couldn’t shell out money for such a tiny overpriced book so got a copy from my library. I am not sure why this was even turned into a book. This could have been a blog entry or part of a bigger anthology. The illustrations were not good either. So not sure why anyone would spend their money on this book. It is inspired by the story of a Syrian refugee kid who drowned in sea trying to get to Europe. The author says that thousands of people have gone missing when they tried to escape through sea.
• Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimura (omnibus of vol 1 and 2) – 2 stars – 
  I saw this book in my library and I don’t know why I thought this was fantasy, maybe because I saw Jellyfish and thought the main protagonist has some Jellyfish powers or something. But the jellyfish have nothing to do with the main plot. It is a very silly story with sillier characters, better suited for young adults (and not for adults). The plot was little stupid – the male character trying to dress up as a woman and then trying to get these dorky girls to dress up and become fashionable. He then falls for the main protagonist and his serious looking brother falls for her too. Also the male character is trying to find his mother. Everyone acted in an over dramatic manner and the artwork wasn’t great either. Sometimes it was difficult to understand what was even happening in some panels. An okay one time read.

I also borrowed one more book from library which I loved –

• The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang – 4 stars –
  When I picked this book from children’s section in my library, I had no idea who the author was. It was only later that I realized she was the illustrator for one of my favorite graphic novels – In real life. Her illustrations are amazing in this book as well. The story was also nice. It’s about a prince (Sebastian) who likes to wear dresses and finds a seamstress (Frances) who is ready to make dresses for him. They sneak out of the castle at night, with the prince calling himself Lady Crystallia. The prince ends up even winning some beauty pageants while dressed as a woman.
  I didn’t really like the way it ended. But still happy that transgenders got a representation through this book.
  (Spoiler: I wish the prince and the seamstress had stuck together until the end though. Towards the end, seamstress had become way too selfish for my liking while the prince still cared about her a lot.)

I watched Coco movie (Pixar) and seeing Frida (or a character pretending to be Frida) in the movie made me want to read about Frida Kahlo, so I picked a small book about Frida as I am going to Mexico.

• Frida & Diego by Catherine Reef – 5 stars –
  This book gave me exactly what I wanted to know about Frida Kahlo. It was succinct, had loads of pictures of the painter along with her paintings. I did not want to read a 600 page book and instead wanted something which was a quick read while also covering all the major events that happened in the artist’s life. This gave details about her personal, professional life as well as her health issues. It covered everything from her birth to death. It also covered Diego’s life. Great book for those who are unaware of these famous artists from Mexico. The book also had tidbits about the political climate in Mexico during that time which was an added bonus.
• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant – 4 stars – 
  This was a perfect read for Halloween with killer mermaids. The writing is great as always like in other books by Seanan McGuire(who had written this book under the name Mira Grant). This is a science fiction book masquerading as fantasy. Other than the part that mermaids are mythological creatures, everything else is science fiction here.

  It is about a cruise type big ship full of scientists who go in search of mermaids, only to find killer mermaids who are trying to eat every human they can find onboard the ship. It was not much of a thriller but it definitely is scary. Only the last 100 pages were thrilling and fast paced. Rest of the book was about the scientists on the ship and their study of mermaids.The author has done extensive research on marine life and educates us about various deep sea creatures. She gives a very plausible theory about the existence of mermaids and even talks about their physiology and answers questions like why humans were not able to find mermaids earlier or how mermaids are able to breathe air like amphibians etc.

  The book was perfect in every manner except for the characters who were not very appealing. I didn’t like any of the main characters for some reason and did not like the dialogues in particular. Most of the dialogues between characters did not seem realistic and sounded melodramatic when I read those sections.Also the book was way too slow paced and some parts could have been edited out like the parts where an estranged couple keeps bickering or the discussions about exes which added no value to the main story. I was expecting it to be fast paced and thrilling like Jurassic Park but it wasn’t. Still it was an interesting read. Scientists on the ship were calm and focused on their science research while people were dying like flies outside their lab, which just didn’t make much sense. 🙂

  This book has a great representation for deaf community which I really appreciated. It also has LGTBQ representation with bisexual and lesbian characters.

So what did you read in October?
 

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