It is already November, how can time fly by so fast? As I’d already predicted, the dreaded reading slump I always face in autumn hit me hard in October. As a result, this is the worst reading month of 2025 so far. I was in a general funk all month and I just can’t put my finger on why. Without further ado, let’s take a look in the books I did finish though!

My monthly stats

As stated before, my reading slacked this past month. I didn’t feel like picking up a book and whenever I finally opened one, it hardly captivated me. I wanted to put it aside and didn’t really feel the urge to pick it back up. I therefore finished just 4 books as a result, the lowest of low numbers in 2025. On the other hand, I hauled 10. I read just 1,624 pages and listened to 14.6 hours of audiobooks. Because I was slumping so hard, the average time for me to finish a book was 4 days. I also had days this month that I didn’t read anything at all except social media content. The genres I picked up vary from fantasy to romance to nonfiction to literary fiction. So, this was a good mix! I also mixed Dutch and English again, they were fifty-fifty. It wouldn’t surprise you that my average monthly rating is low as well, October got an average rating of 3.17 stars. Amongst these 4 books there is one book I didn’t rate as it’s a memoir.

My read books

1. The Primal of Blood and Bone by Jennifer L. Armentrout – This is a September leftover I really hoped would pick up. I was bored out of my mind and DNF’ing it after about two weeks felt like a huge relief. It’s such a pity as the rest of the series is really good! It went all downhill as this series is milked out completely and the book getting repetitive and dragging as a result. Nothing much is happening, it feels like the author doesn’t know what to say anymore and these books are just reduced to a cash grab. Really unfortunate. I slogged through half of the 40 hour audiobook, and nothing happened so far. 🎧DNF @ 52%
2. Out on a Limb by Hannah Bonam-Young – Finally a book I’d actually enjoyed, and the only one from my October TBR. However, I’m not solely positive, as I find the characters not sticking. The approach of this romance is done really well and the healthy communication between main characters Win and Bo is much appreciated. It felt like such a refreshment compared to all these romances where the main characters fight and miscommunicate a lot. Even though this was the best of the bunch, it still didn’t fully convince me. 📱⭐⭐⭐,5
3. Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai – It took me forever till I picked up my next book. Or not really, but I will come back to that later. Late October, this new memoir got published and after slogging through other books, I finally managed to actually finish something? In one day? Who was I? This memoir could be seen as a direct follow-up to 2013’s I Am Malala. Now, Yousafzai is a grown woman, who had to find her way navigating between two different cultures, college, love, mental health struggles and just life with the whole world looking over her shoulder. All this has been well-depicted and packaged into smooth writing which made it hard to put the book down. I don’t rate memoirs though. 📱no rating
4. Crave by Tracy Wolff – In the meantime, I was also reading another book, ironically one I put aside several years ago. Now I was in desperate need of something I might enjoy, and as I loved vampire novels back in the day, I decided to give this one another go. At my first attempt, I felt growing out of YA and nearly disliked all the books in this particular age range I picked up. This time around however, I succeeded in finishing it. I still wasn’t fully convinced, but I enjoyed it well enough. 📱⭐⭐⭐
5. The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji – I saw this book popping up somewhere and the blurb immediately piqued my interest. I love to read outside my comfort zone and to read as diverse as possible. Books about different cultures therefore find their way to my TBR quite often. This one got a lot of praise, so I was pretty eager to dive into it. I decided to go for the Dutch version and listened to the audiobook. While I enjoyed it well enough, I wasn’t fully convinced. It’s not bad, but I couldn’t stand several characters and that’s kind of a problem. 🎧⭐⭐⭐
6. Alchemised by SenLinYu – The book the whole world was waiting for… Despite my strong doubts, I decided to take the plunge and buy the Dutch ebook with a huge promotional discount. For now, I’m glad I did as this book wasn’t for me. I’m not too sure whether it is my slump speaking, the translation or if the book indeed is not my cup of tea, but I had a hard time. Not with the reading part, because for this 1000+ pages novel it reads pretty fast, but nothing seems to happen. It never captivated me really and felt like a slog to me. It’s quite complicated and I just think I should give the English audiobook a try as that sometimes might help. But not in winter. For now, I had to put it aside as I left it untouched for over two weeks. 📱 DNF @ 31%

My bookhaul

1. Als bittere sinasappels by Milena Palminteri (originally Italian, bought the Dutch translation. An English version seems unavailable)
2. The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay
3. Finding Dandelion by Lex Martin
4. Kissing Madeline by Lex Martin
5. Shameless by Lex Martin
6. Reckless by Lex Martin
7. Breathless by Lex Martin
8. There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
9. The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
10. Burn For Me by Ilona Andrews

I know, I know… I have so many books left unread but got myself some more. Some I have been eyeing for ages now, so that’s a good excuse if I may say so. I truly hope November will be a better month reading wise and I can finally kick this reading slump out the door.

How was October for you? Do you experience an autumnal reading slump each year?