Last Month in Review: October 2013

I am a procrastinator by nature, but even I am a little ashamed of how late this monthly reading wrap-up post is.  But better late than pregnant, as they say. (Or maybe that is just my family who says that?) And speaking of procrastination, it's clearly better for me to write this post instead of an actual book review.  Clearly.

I had a short vacation in October in which I read quite a bit, but then I came home and read very little because of Life Stuff. Here in chronological order is what I read, and it's a mix of real books and ebooks.  Overall I've retained less of what I read in ebook format, but I'm pondering now whether that's the nature of the medium or more due to the content of said ebooks.

1. The Fire and the Rose by Abby and Domina. An interesting piece of Harry Potter fanfiction in which Snape and Hermione are in a potions accident and take on each other's physical appearance. Like Polyjuice but with longer lasting effects. Well-written, fun, and extremely satisfying. It totally earns its spot here because it is novel-length.

2. Ajax Penumbra by Robin Sloan. Not technically a book, more like a chapbook, this is a prequel to Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Fun, but naturally I wanted more.

3. One Summer, America 1927 by Bill Bryson.  I'd read the book earlier this year but this time I listened to the audio, read by Bill Bryson himself.  I'm not a particularly big fan of baseball, boxing, aviation, or any number of other subjects covered in this book, but I am very much a fan when an underdog comes along and does something very well--better than anybody else who has come before--and changes the course of that history. Also, I learned that Teddy Roosevelt was the fourth president included in Mount Rushmore because he and the sculptor were personal friends.  And that Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline at breakfast. 1927 was a pretty busy year.

4. Divergent  by Veronica Roth. I'm probably the last person in the blogosphere to read that book.  I liked it--thought it was a fascinating concept. Again I found myself intrigued by the story of a YA novel but wishing it had been given a more adult treatment and had more attention paid to the prose. I will probably read the other two books in this series eventually but I am in no rush to do so.

5. The Kept by James Scott.  This debut novel is, without a doubt, the best book I read in October. I hope to write a fuller review of this eventually, but it's a bleak novel with a bleak setting. Much violence set in relief against some really lovely prose.

6. Panic by Lauren Oliver.  Ebook, YA. I was pleased that Oliver had tried her hand at more realistic fiction, but it still seems pretty forgettable to me: high school seniors in a dying mill town in upstate New York compete in a series of increasingly dangerous situations to win big money. Add in a dash of romance, revenge, and conspiracy. You've got the picture.

7. Love and Treasure by Ayelet Waldman.  Ebook.  Apparently it's almost impossible to write a historical novel these days without intertwining it with a modern-day co-plot. Still, I enjoyed this bit of history, set in post-WWII reconstruction Hungary, even if I didn't much care for the contemporary story. And I think that Waldman is a very good writer.

8. The Serpent of Venice by Christopher Moore. Ebook.  Very funny but also a little skimmable. I'm still a little crushed out on him from meeting him earlier in October since he reminded me so much of the nerds and geeks folks I went to high school with.

9. The Here and Now by Ann Brashares. Ebook and YA. A high school girl recovers from a coma and leaves hospital to come home, but with a case of amnesia that prevents her from remembering the two months leading up to her near-fatal car accident.

10. The Aftermath by Rhidian Brook. Audio book. Another book set in post-WWII reconstruction, but this time in Germany. Bonus: no modern day co-plot. A British soldier, his wife, and son learn to rebuild their lives after the war while the Allied forces figure out how to rebuild Germany.

So what about you?  If you can remember that far back, what were the highlights or lowlights of your reading in October?