This is my favorite time of year to do a reading list post. In the fall, I love nothing more than snuggling under a blanket with my dogs and reading a great book. It’s the start of cozy season, am I right? Lately I’ve been reading just about anything. I do go through spurts where all I want is a really great thriller, but right now I’m just looking to read books that will basically hold me hostage on my couch (but in my head I look like I do below 😉). Books that keep me put for sometimes hours at a time. Fall is a time to slow down a bit and I’m ok with that.

Outfit details: Dress (similar long-sleeve style here) | Boots

We have a couple of road trips coming up that I’ll be stocking up on books for, so as always please let me know what you’re reading in the comments. I love a good recommendation! And be sure to check out my other reading lists here!   

October Reading List

Look For Me by Lisa Gardner

When an entire family is gunned down in their home, only the sixteen-year-old daughter survives. Not only does she survive, but she goes missing immediately after the killings. Questions surface as to her involvement in the crime. Was she lucky and escaped the killer’s aim? Or did she have something to do with the crime, even pulling the trigger herself? As a local detective and a survivor-turned-vigilante search for the girl’s whereabouts, each form their own conclusion as to what really happened that day. All the while, the young victim (or suspect) leaves clues of her own that silently ask, look for me… I enjoyed the “Law & Order” style of this story, and crime fiction is a genre I particularly like. I didn’t find the survivor-turned-vigilante partnership to be all that believable, but the story keeps you on the hook with enough mystery and suspense. 

The Guardians by John Grisham

The Guardians, or Guardian Ministries as it’s officially called, is an organization that works to free those wrongly convicted and incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Only a handful of cases get approved at a time and one of those is the case of Quincy Miller, a black man who was framed for murdering his lawyer and sentenced to prison twenty-two years ago. At the time of the crime there were no clues left behind, no witnesses, no real suspects, and no one with a motive. Lies were told on the stand and Quincy was put away quickly and without much thought. The Guardians are re-opening his case and trying to prove his innocence. But powerful people want the case to remain closed and Quincy to remain behind bars. The real killers will do anything to keep Quincy from being exonerated, and nothing is too ruthless or deadly… My husband may be slowly turning me into a big Grisham fan. This was another one I loved. I am fascinated by groups like The Innocence Project and couldn’t put this book down. 

Moonglow by Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon sits down with his terminally ill grandfather and listens to him share stories from his life. Bits and pieces emerge through a medicinal fog of a life that spans several lifetimes. From the secrets revealed about his grandmother who survived war-torn France but remained broken most of her life, to his grandfather’s love of rockets and his late-in-life foray into a love affair at a Florida retirement village. It is a compelling look into the power of keeping secrets and telling lies. It’s a deathbed confession that takes many paths and twists the reader into a work of fictional nonfiction that is equal parts memoir and novel… I enjoyed this one, although I did find it slow at times. I really wanted to hear more about the grandfather’s early life during and after the war, and didn’t feel like I got enough of that story. But, overall I’d recommend it.  

Call Me By Your Name by André Aciman

This is a tale of obsessive love and longing that I cried my eyes over at the end. A teenage boy and his parents’ houseguest form a bond that only spans one summer yet forever changes them. At first, however, each ignores their feelings. As the summer goes on, they discover that they feel very deeply about each other, yet fear what those feelings might really mean. That they may never truly find real intimacy again. One comes to accept himself as he is, while the other struggles to be his true self… I’ve never read a book that left me feeling so utterly sad at the end. I was sad for both main characters, and what is lost from that one summer together. I haven’t seen the movie, but the author has said he very much loved how it depicted his work, so I can’t wait to see it now. I loved this book very much.

All The Ugly And Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

Wavy grows up not only in poverty, but surrounded by meth dealers and abusive parents. She has to learn to grow up quickly for survival. Her little brother becomes her responsibility as does house cleaning, cooking, and registering for school. While she balances all this, her mother lies in a drug-addicted stupor, sleeping the days away. Things get set on a new course one night when Wavy meets Kellen after he wrecks his motorcycle in front of their house. She tends to his wounds and what develops is a rather unlikely friendship. As Wavy gets older, her relationship with Kellen develops into something more. He is the only steady thing in her life and as much as she loves him, he would also do anything to protect her… Some readers will find Wavy’s age and relationship with Kellen a difficult thing to absorb. I have to say I struggled with much of it as well. But I urge anyone who reads this book to read the author’s notes in the back, particularly about flawed characters and the “least bad” choices they make. 

What are you reading?

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xo – Erin

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