September Reading Wrap Up

This wrap up is actually being posted on time! That’s very off-brand for me. Not sure how I feel about it. It’s all very confusing.

Here are the books I read in September! There weren’t very many. The last two months have been particularly hectic and I’ve just been pretty slack about reading and actually finishing any of the books I have on the go.

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

I Let You Go is a thriller about a little boy who is hit by a car and instantly killed and unravelling the events surrounding that horrific event. The story follows multiple perspectives and I absolutely couldn’t stand the perspective of the main detective/policeman/whatever his title is. And unfortunately, we follow him quite a bit throughout the book. He was the stereotypical overworked, overtired, unappreciated, trying to progress his career, having problems with his wife so then of course attracted to the young (and only other female cop mentioned that he works with…at least the only one mentioned in detail) who is cool and carefree and smart and just UGHHHHHH STTTTTAAAAHHHHHHP. His parts were so cliché. I just wanted him to stop being an idiot. It was distracting from the much more intriguing part of the story, which should have been the main focus.

Overall, this was just ok. I ultimately like how it all came together in the end, but the story itself just kind of got in the way of all the mystery.

3 stars.

Little Monsters by Kara Thomas

I spontaneously listened to the audiobook of this because it was available through my library and I thought the cover looked cool (solid decision making process). I probably wouldn’t have picked it up if I’d read the synopsis or seen any reviews on it, which is a good thing because I actually thought this was pretty great. We follow Kasey who has just moved to the small town, where the book is set, leaving behind her troubled family past. She befriends two other girls, however one night they don’t invite her along with them to some massive party and then one of those friends goes missing. From there it’s fairly typical mystery/thriller storytelling where EVERYONE seems suspicious. But it worked. I liked the switching in perspectives we got and how it gave you two sides to an event and the motives behind doing things. I also liked the way it all wrapped up, which is the real kicker for me. I have to like how a story wraps up, especially a thriller, otherwise my feelings towards the whole book are tarnished.

3 stars. But really more of a high 3. Almost a 4. The teenage girl drama drags this down a bit for me, which isn’t the book’s fault. I just don’t like teenage girl drama.

Death Note: Black Edition Volume 5 (Volumes 9 and 10) by Tsugumi Obha

Death Note: Black Edition Volume 6 (Volumes 11 and 12) by Tsugumi Obha

Going to review both of these together because:

My feelings are much the same across both
I really wish this series had been shorter so in my mind I’m going to just smoosh them all into one giant thing

It’s hard to review these individually because not only by this point has so much crazy shit happened that if I say anything about these it will make absolutely no sense and also be massively spoiling the initial story, so overall these are my feelings and thoughts.

This story is amazing. The premise is so great. The characters (for the most part) are awesome. They’re not nice people. Some of them are. Some of them act entirely selfishly. Everyone’s pretty chaotic, even if they’re acting with good intentions.
It eventually felt like it dragged out too long. The storyline started to feel repetitive, and eventually I was just waiting for the massive culmination of everything to blow up and be done.
When it did eventually come together and blow up, it was great. It was a perfect ending. I would’ve been mad if it had ended any other way.
Ryuk is amazing.
I will probably never watch the Netflix adaptation and if I do it will only be to hate-watch it because WHAT EVEN IS THAT HOT MESS OF A SHOW I KNOW IT’S ONLY ‘BASED’ OFF THE MANGA BUT NO. ALSO MISA (who already was not one of my favourite characters, but I could at least deal with her in the manga) HAS BEEN ADAPTED AS MIA AND SHE IS JUST ALL OF THE KINDS OF WRONG AND SERIOUSLY WHO HAD THIS STUPID IDEA.
I have seen a trailer for a movie (which I believe is being released with English subtitles *hopefully* somewhere in Australia?) set 10 years after the events of this series concluding and THIS I will actually watch because it looks good. But don’t watch the trailer if you aren’t caught up because it will massively spoil things. And if you watch the trailer after only having watched the Netflix movie, you will just have no idea what’s going on.
If this whole series was a novel (just one novel… like yeah it would be a chunky novel, but I don’t mind) I would have probably enjoyed the whole thing a lot more. If all the repetitiveness was taken out…

Black Edition Volume 5 3 stars

Black Edition Volume 6 4 stars

Inked by Eric Smith

How to describe this…

Magic tattoos decide your destiny?

You go through a rite of passage where you get ‘inked’ and it turns into moving tattoos of what your job will be?

Who freaking knows. Or cares. Because I don’t.

This was just not great. There’s apparently a sequel. I won’t be reading it. It was so clichéd and trope-y and predictable that I physically cringed at some of the words I was reading. I also would try and guess what would be the next line/paragraph/chapter and could pretty much get it right every time. There wasn’t much that redeemed this for me. I think if I were a LOT younger, maybe it would’ve been ok? But even then the story was so 2 dimensional that I don’t even think that would have kept me engaged.

1 star.

This might be my first month with no 5 star books? Or maybe it just feels like my worst reading month because I read so few books, and still had a 1 star book in there. And when you factor in that Death Note is fairly quick to read (because of all the pretty… well not really pretty but still.. pictures) I didn’t read very much at all. Fingers crossed for next month that I can get my life together and read as much as I would like.