Highlights from the 30 Books I Read in One Month
An October 2024 Reading Recap
If somebody told me on October 1st the total number of books I would read in the next month, I don’t know if I would’ve believe you. But regardless, I manage to read the most amount of books I’ve ever read in a single month and I’m going to go over just how I was able to achieve such a feat.
October 2024 Reading Stats
As I have mentioned in the title and intro, I read a whopping 30 books during the month of October. Yes, about 25-50% were graphic novels, but I’m proud of myself for all of the books I was able to read last month.
With my average rating being a 4.08, I was a bit all over the place with the different genres and ratings that I gave out for the books I read.1
Some Other Fun Stats
Fantasy was my most read genre for the month, with romance in a close second.
I read 8,340 pages and over 1.5 million words for a single month.
Two of the books I read this month were e-ARCs, so I was able to clear out my NetGalley shelf a little bit this past month.
Favorite Books I Read in October
Adult
The Kiss of Death by Shanen Ricci2
Apprentice to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
My Kind of Trouble by L.A. Schwartz
Middle Grade/Young Adult
The Flicker by H.E. Edgmon
Unseelie by Ivelisse Housman
October 2024 Reading Highlights
Fablen
One of two major readathons that I participated in, this was a DnD-inspired readathon hosted by Margaret from TheWordN3rd. As a member of the Order of the Golden Rune, each participant had to complete various main quest prompts for five different acts over the course of October, with additional opportunities to earn points through optional side quests.
Twenty-four out of the thirty books I read in October were used towards Fablen, with my best reading weeks for the readathon were during Acts 2 and 4.
Trick or Treatathon
This was the other major readathon that I participated in during the month of October and it was a fun reading challenge to celebrate Halloween. How this readathon worked was that everyone received a list of potential prompts to choose from as you created your own bingo board(s) to serve as your prompt list for the readathon.
In addition to the points you would get for completing prompts on your bingo board (or boards), there were opportunities to gain extra points from completing word puzzles, scavenger hunts, and other fun games here and there as well as gaining bonus points anytime you got a bingo.
For my boards, I just did one small board (3x3) and one large board (5x5). Though if I were doing it again, I would just stick with one board in general. On my small board, I was able to complete four of the prompts and got one bingo from it. On my large board, I did a lot better with nineteen completed prompts and ended up getting four bingos from it.
All Things CYBILS
Since being selected as a judge for the 2024 CYBILS Awards, I have had to read a lot of different kidlit books for my category of Graphic Novels. I was able to read fifteen of the nominated titles for both Graphic Novels subcategories (YA and EMG), and it’s definitely been a unique and interesting experience.
Additionally, I did read one book outside of my category that was nominated for this year’s awards, The Flicker by H.E. Edgmon (nominated in EMG Speculative Fiction), and really enjoyed it.
Everything I Talked About on Substack During the Month of October
What’s Next
As I mentioned in my November TBR post last week, I’m going to be taking a break from competitive-based readathons. Since I have a bunch of books I still need to read on my physical and digital shelves as well as keeping up with my duties as a CYBILS judge, I think now would be a good time to take a pause and reset from these challenges and just focus on reading.
Not that’s a bad thing, personally I like the fact that I can have my reading tracker for October stand out a bit compared to months where I only read the same 2-3 genres.
I wrote an in-depth review of this book on my Substack in case you want to check out (or just click the link under the “Everything I Talked About on Substack During the Month of October” section.