What happens when you stop performing and start existing? This month, I read 10 books that asked—and sometimes answered—that exact question.
There’s a moment in every reader’s life when they realize their TBR pile isn’t random—it’s a therapy session disguised as entertainment. My October reading? Ten books about what we hide, who we become when we stop hiding it, and whether authenticity is worth the price of admission.
Spoiler: It is. But the toll booth doesn’t accept credit cards.
The 10 Books That Made Me Question Everything
1. The Will of the Many by James Islington ⭐ 4.75/5
Genre: Epic Fantasy | Pages: 641
The Premise: Magic school meets moral philosophy meets “the system is definitely rigged and we’re all complicit.” If The Name of the Wind and a political science thesis had a baby, this would be it.
Why It Haunted Me: James Islington built an empire just to ask one devastating question: What’s the difference between surviving a corrupt system and helping it thrive? His protagonist Vis spends 641 pages learning that the line between the two is mostly wishful thinking.
The quote that lodged itself in my brain: “There comes a point in every man’s life where he can rail against the unfairness of the world until he loses, or he can do his best in it. Remain a victim, or become a survivor.”
Read This If: You like your fantasy with a side of existential dread, you’re still not over Harry Potter but want something that asks harder questions, or you’ve ever wondered if “just surviving” is the same as selling out.
2. My Soul Mate by Wah Kee ⭐ 3.25/5
Genre: Manga | Pages: 200
The Premise: Dead artist possesses living artist to finish their comic together. Ghost meets creative burnout fantasy.
The Rough-Edged Truth: Art is messy even when one of you is dead. Collaboration is about learning to share control—even the haunted kind.
Read This If: You believe creative partnership is both love story and mild haunting, and you don’t mind rough edges if the heart still beats underneath.
3. Nosy Neighbors by Freya Sampson ⭐ 4/5
Genre: Cozy Mystery | Pages: 383
The Premise: Two women in a crumbling London apartment would rather ignore each other than connect. Then eviction notices arrive, forcing an uneasy alliance that uncovers old secrets and unexpected kindness.
The Takeaway: Even the prickliest people deserve second chances. And sometimes saving a building means saving yourself.
Read This If: You loved A Man Called Ove or Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, you believe in unlikely friendships, or you need a reminder that found family counts just as much as biological family.
4. The Burning Girls by CJ Tudor ⭐ 5/5
Genre: Horror/Thriller | Pages: 400
The Premise: A reverend and her teenage daughter move to a village where silence isn’t golden—it’s poisonous. Protestant martyrs burned in 1556. Two girls who vanished in the ’90s. A previous vicar nobody wants to discuss. The past isn’t buried here; it’s buried wrong.
Why This Got the Only Perfect Score: Because CJ Tudor understood something crucial: the real horror isn’t supernatural. It’s the collective agreement to never speak certain truths. Every “we don’t talk about that” becomes a slow-acting poison that seeps through generations.
I caught the Usual Suspects reference early. Was I surprised by the reveal? Only half. Did that matter? Not even slightly. Sometimes it’s not about the twist—it’s about watching the author expertly lay the track.
Read This If: You want horror that provokes as much as it disturbs, you loved Midsommar or The Witch, you’re drawn to complicated women who refuse to perform goodness, or you believe the scariest monsters are the ones we create through silence.
5. Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon ⭐ 4.75/5
Genre: Memoir | Length: 7 hours, 6 minutes (audiobook)
The Premise: From surviving a car crash at four that killed her mother, sister, and cousin, to becoming an SNL icon—this is the story of a daughter and her fierce, flawed father who taught her that the best response to tragedy is to be bigger, louder, and braver than the pain.
The Revelation: Self-belief isn’t something you wait for the world to hand you. It’s something you decide to have before anyone validates it. Shannon’s father nurtured her confidence so fiercely that by the time she faced Hollywood, she already knew she belonged anywhere she showed up.
Her advice made me immediately want to do something reckless: “If you ever feel stuck, just go into a completely different atmosphere with different kinds of people and see how stimulating it is.”
Read This If: You’ve experienced loss and wonder if lightness is still possible, you’re hustling in creative fields and questioning if your weirdness is an asset, or you need proof that tragedy doesn’t have to define you—it can refine you instead.
6. How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley ⭐ 4.5/5
Genre: Humorous Fiction | Pages: 352
The Premise: A seventy-year-old woman who’s become literally invisible assembles a crew of misfits to save a crumbling community center. It’s part heist, part found-family love letter, entirely a meditation on refusing to shrink.
The Truth Bomb: The people you choose are often stronger than the people you’re given. And waiting for permission to matter is just another way of choosing invisibility.
The line that gave me pause: “You don’t get to our age with a completely unblemished record. Not unless you’ve not lived. The trick is just to try to ensure the balance falls on the side of the good.”
Read This If: You believe Fredrik Backman writes cranky-hearted fiction that makes you believe in humanity, you’re tired of “acting your age,” or you’ve ever felt like you’re supposed to have it figured out and are exhausted from pretending.
7. Last Bite by Amy S. Peele ⭐ 2.5/5
Genre: Romantic Comedy | Pages: 256
The Premise: A 45-year-old widow gets pulled into helping her niece launch a catering business in Chicago, finding her way back to herself through food, friendship, and Cubs baseball (Bill Murray cameo included!).
The Simple Truth: Reinvention doesn’t require permission—just the willingness to show up scared.
Read This If: You’re a Chicagoan who gets emotional at Wrigley Field, or you’re going through a transition and need proof that starting over is possible.
8. Mabuhay by Zachary Sterling ⭐ 4.75/5
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy | Pages: 256
The Premise: Two Filipino siblings mortified by their family’s Oregon food truck discover their mother’s “embarrassing” folklore stories are actually survival instructions when mythological creatures crash into their lives.
The Lesson: The stories that embarrass you, the folklore, the food, the complicated inheritance—aren’t baggage to shed. They’re weapons to wield. Specificity is the only honest route to universality.
Read This If: You loved Avatar: The Last Airbender and want that humor-heartbreak fusion, you believe middle schoolers deserve complex narratives, or you’ve felt caught between being mortified by your family and ready to fight dragons for them.
9. Over the Influence by JoJo Levesque ⭐ 4/5
Genre: Memoir | Length: 9 hours, 47 minutes (audiobook)
The Premise: What happens to a thirteen-year-old powerhouse when the industry that created her decides she’s no longer profitable? JoJo went to hell and came back with receipts.
Why It Matters: Reclaiming your narrative after everyone else has written it for profit isn’t therapy—it’s revolution. Speaking truth when silence would be easier and more lucrative is the only power that actually belongs to you.
Read This If: You’ve felt exploited by systems bigger than yourself, you’re navigating recovery from anything (addiction, trauma, a really bad decade), or you’ve spent years being who everyone needed you to be and are finally trying to figure out who you actually are.
10. The Anatomy of Magic by JC Cervantes ⭐ 3.5/5
Genre: Romance, Magical Realism | Pages: 304
The Premise: An OB-GYN who cast a spell on herself to stop feeling retreats to her family’s magical Mexican home, where multi-generational magic and her first love inconveniently await. Encanto for adults with more kissing and existential dread.
The Harsh Truth: Emotional avoidance isn’t self-care—it’s delayed suffering with interest. The magic that lets you forget pain also steals joy.
Read This If: You loved Encanto and thought “but what about romance,” you appreciate Mexican folklore that feels lived-in, or you want Emily Henry’s emotional intelligence mixed with Isabel Allende’s magical realism.
What I Learned: The Pattern I Didn’t Know I Was Following
Here’s the thing about reading ten seemingly random books: they’re never random. They’re your subconscious doing research.
My October reads were a sustained meditation on who we become when we decide authenticity matters more than approval.
The Common Thread: Permission Structures and Performance
Every single book wrestled with agency versus compliance:
- The Will of the Many: Surviving corruption vs. enabling it
- The Burning Girls: Communities maintaining silence to avoid truth
- Hello, Molly: Deciding self-belief doesn’t need external validation
- How to Age Disgracefully: Refusing the permission structure of “appropriate”
- Over the Influence: Reclaiming a narrative written without consent
- The Anatomy of Magic: Realizing emotional numbness is sophisticated avoidance
Even the lighter reads reinforced this. Nosy Neighbors showed what happens when protective armor drops. Mabuhay celebrated embracing hidden heritage. These were all stories about unmasking—choosing realness over the performance of normalcy.
My Reading Method: Active Truth-Seeking
I’m not reading to escape. I’m reading to examine. This is investigative reading disguised as comfort genres.
I’m noting:
- Which quotes stick (captured passages from nearly every book)
- What a book tried to do versus what it succeeded at
- The metacommentary (catching references, recognizing setups)
My October Mood: “Tell me true things, but make me work for them.”
The Biggest Surprise: Why Horror Beat Everything Else
The Burning Girls earned the only 5-star rating—and that’s revealing.
Horror isn’t my typical genre. My regular diet skews toward memoirs, cozy mysteries, translated fiction. Yet CJ Tudor’s novel succeeded precisely because it refused sensationalism. Tudor understood that real horror is social horror: inherited shame, enforced silence, communities becoming complicit through collective amnesia.
I discovered I’m drawn to horror that functions as social critique. Books asking uncomfortable questions about systems, complicity, and silence.
The Verdict: What October Taught Me About Reading (And Myself)
I’m in a truth-collecting phase, gathering stories about people who chose authenticity, lost something in the process, and had to decide if the trade was worth it.
I’m simultaneously hungry for:
- Real narratives (memoirs)
- Comfortable coded truths fiction allows
- Permission structures examined
- Silences broken
- Invisibility challenged
And I want it wrapped in enough narrative intelligence that I never feel lectured.
October’s reading lesson: The books we choose reveal the questions we’re asking ourselves. And apparently, I’m asking: What does it cost to stop performing? And is the price of authenticity worth paying?
The answer, according to these ten books: Always. But bring your credit card, because this toll booth doesn’t offer payment plans.
What Are You Reading?
Tell me: What’s your October reading revealing about your current questions? Drop your recent reads in the comments—I’m always looking for my next truth-seeking escape.
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