The Month That Was... November 2019

Another month of pathetic blog activity has whooshed by! I barely made a dent in my planned TBR for November and mostly just listened to audiobooks. I'm so thankful I finally learned the knack of listening to stories as it means I can at least get through some books on my commute.


I'm getting antsy to start on my 2020 challenges though, they've helped me focus my reading a bit this year and I'm all adrift without any to follow. I'll be doing Around the Year in 52 Books and Popsugar properly and then I'll tick off Book Riot's Read Harder prompts if I can but am not fully committed. I call it the Read Not Much Harder challenge.

Oh yeah, and one of my suggestions made the Popsugar list! It's an author with flora or fauna in their name.

If you missed it, check out what was on my radar for November.

Reviews:

So what did I read?

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

Urban Fantasy - Werewolves
Verdict: Re-read of the first book that got me hooked on fantasy. Older me doesn't like Elena so much in this first book, she really jerks around the men in her life. I'm not re-rating this though as I try to use my first impressions, and I did previously love it. Still tempted to re-read the rest too (Elena gets better).
POPSUGAR: 7. A reread of a favorite book

The Toll by Neal Shusterman
★★★★★

Science Fiction - Immortality - Season Finale
Verdict: I've listened to this whole trilogy on audio and I highly recommend. I've seen a few negative reviews on the final instalment but I love being absorbed in this world and it surprised me with where it went. I guess if you're just in it for the main character arcs and not the world-building and politics, it might have dragged on a bit. But I loved it.

Nigel: My Family and Other Dogs by Monty Don
★★★★

Dogs - Non-Fiction - Memoir
Verdict: Lovely book about Nigel and dog-ownership in general, narrated by Monty himself on audio. Does not shy away from the fact that dogs die, as he talks about dogs he's had in the past.

Underland by Robert Macfarlane
★★★

Non-Fiction - Caves - Natural History
Verdict: Not sure this is my thing, I don't really need poetry in my non-fiction, although I can understand why people like him. The descriptions of people going into caves got a bit repetitive. More interesting to me were the parts about the ice and the nuclear waste storage.