November wasn’t my best month. I mean, I still kept my average daily pages pretty high. But I’ve had way better months of reading. I read only 6 books. A total of 2,264 pages. Which is an average of 75 pages a day. I’ve got to read more books next month so I can finish the year out strong!
Dracul by Dacre Stoker and JD Barker (493 pages). First of all, this one of the gifts that came in one of my book club boxes. So yes please. And second, one of the authors is, in fact, the great grandnephew of Bram Stoker. So that right there was enough to have me intrigued. It’s the origin story of Dracula. Told through the journals of Bram and his brother, letters from his sister, and Bram’s current state, we learn about Bram’s early childhood illness and the nanny Ellen who was by his side. Until she disappeared. 14 years later, she begins to reappear to the Stokers, having not aged a day. But is Ellen truly the enemy? It definitely reminded me of Dracula. To the point that I thought I was reading the same book, only with different characters. I assume the idea is to make you think that Bram’s own personal experiences led him to write Dracula, rather than it being a work of fiction. Well it worked! I finished in 5 days.
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate (381 pages). The Southwestern Christian Advocate was a newspaper in the late 1800’s that was published and sent to preachers in the lower Southern states. Included in the newspaper was a Lost Friends column. This column was for people to find friends and family who had been lost to them during antebellum slavery. In 1875, Hannie Gossett is a free woman (well, girl) living as a sharecropper on her old owner’s plantation of Goswood Grove in Louisiana. She is the only member of her family who wasn’t sold away. When she learns about the Lost Friends column, she makes it her mission to find her family. And help as many other black people find their families as possible. In 1987, Benny Silva has arrived in Augustine, Louisiana, as the new high school English teacher. Her students have little to no interest in literature. But in a town full of both black and white Gossetts, Benny finally gets their attention when she introduces a Tales from the Underground project. The family connects made between the two stories were just amazing. I finished in 5 days.
Providence by Caroline Kepnes (363 pages). This is a weird one to describe. Jon and Chloe are best friends, with a very deep connection. But when they are in middle school, Jon is kidnapped. Four years later, Jon shows back up. But it’s not the same Jon who was kidnapped. This Jon is bigger, stronger, and has a weird power that he can’t control. So he leaves his hometown to make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone he loves. Six years later, Detective Charles “Eggs” DeBeneditcus feels that there’s more to the random heart attacks that are happening around Providence, Rhodes Island. But he can’t figure out the connection between the victims. Until the stories finally converge- Chloe, an artist still haunted by the loss of her best friend; Eggs, still hunting for answers; and Jon, a confused loner who still wonders what happened to him so many years ago. I finished in 5 days.
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (336 pages). Elena Richardson lives a perfect life, with her perfect husband and home and children (well, 3 of the 4 are perfect). But appearances can be deceiving. And when Mia Warren and her daughter Pearl enter their lives, Elena realizes that there is much more wrong with her world than she knew. She goes on a quest to learn everything she can about the family who is upending her world. I’ve now started watching to series on Hulu. I finished in 4 days.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig (288 pages). This was my Once Upon a Book Club book. And omg- it was amazing! Nora’s life isn’t at all what she imagined. So she decides she doesn’t want to live one more day and a few minutes before midnight, she kills herself. Instead of waking up in heaven or hell, she wakes up in a library. This library is full of books that allow her to go into the different lives that could have been, if only different choices had been made. As Nora opens different books and different lives, she starts to wonder if there really is such a thing as the perfect life. I finished in 2 days.
The Bargaining by Carly Anne West (403 pages). Penny is used to her parents trying to pawn her off on the other parent rather than deal with her. But when her mom ships her off to live with her father, stepmother and stepbrother, Penny is none to thrilled. Especially when her stepmother April tells her they are moving to a small town in Washington State for the summer to fix up an old house April has bought. While Penny has her own ghosts from issues, this house also has ghosts. And a chilling story to go along with it. Honestly, it was a really hard book to get into (despite sounding like an interesting story). Which is why it took me so long to read a relatively short book. I finished in 9 days.
This month’s favorite was.....The Midnight Library. No contest.
