I read 6 books and got 5 Goodreads challenge achievements this month!
Now lets look at the breakdown :)
StoryGraph Reading Challenge Progress: 20/20
Goodreads Fall Challenge Progress: 8/12
Top Genre read as at October 2025: Fantasy
My first read for October and Book #36 was How To Beat Anyone At Chess by Ethan Moore. Rating: 2/5
I would like to reiterate that I know very little about Chess. This book taught me 3 things: Chess notation, Castling and that most chess players are just swotting. I'll try out some of the moves on my board just so I understand the notation bits better so let it not be said I learnt nothing from this.
Book #37 was Immortal Dark by Tigest Girma. Rating: 3/5
*side-eyes booktok* This is one of those books that would be better off as a show, I think. I also feel a MMC POV might have been helpful to the romance portions and also get us more insight on the vampire aspects. Either that or the sister's POV would have been nice. I don't know if I care enough about the characters to read the second book but that might change if the price is right.
Immortal Dark helped me earn the Community Picks achievement in the Goodreads Fall Challenge!
Book #38 was Solito by Javier Zamora. Rating: 4.5/5
Bless Javier wherever he is because this was a read. The chapters were long but I didn't mind because there were chapter breaks and they were sectioned for every step in his journey. I don't think I ever thought about what people when through trying to illegally enter la USA and this story really opened my eyes to what they've gone through. I really wish I knew what happened to the other characters in the story but neither does the author so I just gotta suck it up lol.
Solito helped me earn the Hispanic Heritage & Memorable Memoirs achievements in the Goodreads Fall Challenge.
Book #39 was Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi. Rating: 4/5
I really appreciate when an author tells us a story about slavery and doesn't need to black suffrage the reader to death to get the story told. I liked the two timelines approach a lot and that it gives us a bit of what happened on the Gold Coast when slavery became illegal.
Homegoing helped me achieve the Fiction Faves achievement in the Goodreads Fall Challenge.
Book #40 was The Drowned Life. Rating: 1.5/5
This book was a wild card pick that I didn't need to pickup because I definitely had The Bewitching on standby as my spooky read but no, I deviated. I wanted something horror from my existing Library to help me through those unending hours of a 24-hour readathon, this was too "new weird" to get the job done. I liked maybe 20% of the stories in this collection, I found most of them too confusing to be engaging.
Book #41 was Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree. Rating: 4/5
Love when a book does exactly what it says on the tin. Very lovable characters, the story is very low stakes. I wanted, just a little bit, to see the bad guys and assholes get their ass beat but Travis said it's not that kind of story. As for the queer rep? Yea I guess technically.
Legends & Lattes helped me earn the Heart-Warmers achievement in the Goodreads Fall Challenge
ethan: cor, who do you think is hotter: me or the sun?
cora: the sun.
ethan: okay. let me rephrase. who do you think is hotter: me, your amazingly fit boyfriend who may or may not sleep with you tonight depending on your answer, or the sun?
An answer to an imagine your OTP thing, even though it's not really shippy. It's Ethan worrying that he sent Casper into a murder-frenzy with an autocorrected text.
Casper: It’s good to be back.
Ethan: good to have you back
Ethan: got something on your mind
Ethan: ?
Casper: Yeah.
Ethan: you had a long time to get in touch
Casper: I feel like I’m getting worse.
Ethan: did you catch something and not tell us
Casper: Remember what we talked about at the reunion?
Ethan: oh
Ethan: should I go see you?
Casper: No.
Ethan: you sure
Casper: Yes. I’m sure.
Casper: I’m just getting cravings.
Ethan: bad ones?
Casper: Psychological.
Casper: I think.
Ethan: ?
Casper: No.
Casper: Not bad ones.
Casper: I just wanted to let you know just in case.
Ethan: of?
Casper: Relapse.
Ethan: you made it this far
Ethan: you will machete through this
Ethan: *make it
Ethan: fuck please don’t machete through this
Casper: Too late.
Ethan jumped off of his couch and reached for his jacket. He marched to his door as he hurried to get it on. A quick swipe retrieved his keys, then he stopped short. The soldier let his hand hover over his gun belt. He grimaced then took it.
With his decision made, Ethan hurried out and tried to call Casper. “C’mon, pick up, pick up,” he urged as he ran to his car. He got the man’s voicemail. “Don’t do this, Casper. You’re better than this. Don’t screw things up now.” Voicemail again. “Shit.” Ethan screeched out of his driveway, then sped forward. He dialed a new number.
“Eth-”
“Hey, Mason,” Ethan greeted with forced sugar in his voice. “Can you do me a big favor?” Of course he would, they talked about this. “Cody might be on the loose. He was sending me some sketchy texts, and I’m worried.”
It took a moment for Mason to process the words. “Oh! I’ll keep my eyes peeled,” he replied. “Do you know where he’s staying? Want me to pass an all-call to ClaCom?”
“All-call please. I’m looking into his sister’s place. Talk to you later.” Ethan ended the call and tried to calm down as he navigated through the recovering city. He glanced at his speedometer and forced himself to ease off of the accelerator.
At a stop, Ethan dialed for Casper again. No luck. He considered police intervention, but dismissed the thought. They would arrest Casper on the spot. This was a job for the Class and Company. If they were lucky, they would only need to bury one body.
The ten-minute drive wore Ethan down. He shivered as he jumped out of his car and raced up to Vanessa’s door. Even as he rapped on the door, he kept a hand on his belt, hoping that he worried for nothing. Ethan glanced around the street, wary of onlookers and wondering if Casper was sneaking around. When the idle observation could no longer sate his worry, he rapped again. No answer. The soldier beat on the door one last time, and with no answer, he grimaced and turned to make his way around the back.
“Hey!” The shout turned Ethan’s eyes up. “What’s the big deal?” It was Vanessa.
“Where’s your brother?”
“Ethan?” Vanessa flinched back. “Lemme get some clothes on. I’ll let you in.” She ducked back inside.
“Whoa, wait!” Ethan called up. “Where’s your brother?”
Vanessa frowned as she returned to the window. “He’s not here. He’s been staying with one of your friends, the goth girl I think,” she answered. As Ethan raced back to his she called, “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wait for me!”
Ethan weighed his options. Vanessa ended up making the decision for him. She ran out half-dressed and jumped into the back of his car with her own gun. “What’s happened?” she demanded as she struggled into her clothes. “What sort of trouble is Elliah in?”
“Sketchy texts; stopped responding to me,” Ethan summarized as he gunned the car. He wondered if Casper told her more after coming home. “I think he’s having an…” He hesitated. “Episode.
“Episode? PTSD?”
More hesitation. He had not thought this far. “Something, he never confirmed it,” Ehan lied. “He started texting me out of nowhere, first time since the invasion. He admitted that he wasn’t feeling the greatest, and autocorrect screwed up one of my messages.”
“What’d autocorrect say?” Vanessa asked, finally clothed and belted in.
“You’ll machete through this. After I made the correction, he told me ‘too late,’ and I don’t like the sound of that,” Ethan answered.
Vanessa pondered the words in silence as they made their way. Ethan tried to call Hailey, but, like Casper, she failed to answer. Neither of the two knew what to make of it.
When they made it to Hailey’s home, still advertising psychic readings, Ethan could hear Casper at work. “Shit,” he murmured as he raced for the fence instead of the door. Even as Vanessa shouted at his back, he jumped the boundary and dropped into the backyard. “Casper!”
“Yeah?” the man looked up with a frown. “Wait, what are you-”
“Elliah?” Vanessa called from the top of the fence.
Casper frowned. “Why are you…?” He gestured at the both of them.
Hailey stepped out from her backdoor. “Hey, Ethan, Hot Tits,” she greeted without so much as a glance at the pair. “How’s the pig coming, Casper? Is it giving you any trouble?”
The man glanced at his friend and sister before shrugging. “It’s fine. Messy, but fine,” he answered. “It’s kind of therapeutic.” He raised a bloody machete and cleaved through the hog before him. “Different from when we were starving for meat back in the day. The machete is screwing with me more than this half-thawed beast.”
As Vanessa lowered herself from the fence, Ethan sputtered, “What’s going on?”
“I thought you said he was having an episode,” Vanessa hissed as she looked over the yard and the warming cooking pit. “This looks like a barbeque.”
“Cookout,” Hailey confirmed. “We were planning on calling the Class and Company to have a party, our own little get-together after the mess at the public reunion.” She smirked. “We were planning on doing it next week considering how frozen this hunk of meat is, but Casper had the bright idea of taking the machete on my wall and putting it to good use.”
“We can thank Ethan for that,” Casper laughed before addressing Ethan and Vanessa. “Now what brings you two crashing in here so early?”
