October was a heavier month than expected. There was a lot of illness and loss this month, with several family friends and a former colleague who passed away. It made for a rather heavy month, and I think the thoughts and feelings that brought affected me much more than I realised!

The month wasn’t all terrible though. I did a lot of baking (apple pies, lemon pound cakes, and banana-chocolate walnut loaves), I finally booked my ticket to Sri Lanka for a friend’s wedding and the New Year, and I treated myself to many books and cute Pop Mart things! I’m sharing some highlight posts from the month off my Instagram (and I just realised that one of the pictures I posted was from September, lol… oops)!

October was not the reading month I thought it would be. Despite feeling like I was reading all month long, it turns out I wasn’t really reading much at all! It could be that it just felt like I was reading a lot because I had several longer reads going on throughout the month and so I was “constantly” reading. In total, I read 8 books, making this the month I read the least in 2025! 🫣

Despite reading so little compared to previous months, I did have one 5-star read and what might be one of my top 5 reads of the year (but that could change). That book was: ✨ A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman! ✨ After years of being on my TBR and having literally everyone and their mum telling me to read the book, I finally picked it up and binged it in one day. I ugly cried. It was cathartic and wonderful! 🤭

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It was also another fun month co-hosting the Let’s Talk Bookish weekly meme. You can learn more about it, read all the discussions, and see the upcoming month’s topics HERE.

*COVERS are linked to Goodreads and the TEXT is linked to my review, if available*
*books are arranged by READING ORDER with the most recently finished first*

^{5 pandas}

^{A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman}

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^{4.5 pandas}

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^{4 pandas}

ARC Review: Temping Is Hell by Cathy Yardley
Book Review: Whispers of the Deep by Emma Hamm

I fulfilled the monthly reading challenges this month but I didn’t go the extra mile with my reads. I also still haven’t caught up with the missed Buzzword challenge, but I’ll get to it… I swear, lol.

✔ Goodreads Reading Challenge (Notion tracker): 127/150 books
✔ Beat the Backlist: 📚 1 backlist book // 📱 0 backlist ARCs ⇢ 1 Bingo Spaces
✔ 2025 Buzzword Reading Challenge: October (“violent words”) ⇢ Temping Is Hell
✔ 2025 Year in Aeldia: October (“has foil on the cover”) ⇢ Jade City ^{(I didn’t finish this re-read but I’m still counting it!)}
✔ 2025 Popsugar Reading Challenge: 0 books

And that’s it for October! How was your month and what was your favourite book? I hope everyone is doing good and taking care. 💜

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