October 2026 Books
I have to say something about the elections here in the US last night before I dive into October's books. WE DID IT. I'm feeling more hopeful than I have in a long time, and I just want to give everyone a hug. I can't wait to see what happens now.
I'm disappointed in my own state of Tennessee, though. While watching other southern states like Texas and Georgia flip to blue, my state remained red. I'm taking comfort in the fact that it was a very close race for governor in a state that has traditionally been staunchly conservative. That's progress, even if we didn't win.
I'm so relieved that Democrats won overall by such a large margin. I was hoping for a huge blue wave because not only is it needed to affect change, but it also means the current administration won't be able to easily try to claim it was all voter fraud. We turned out to vote, and we showed everyone what we want. There's no denying that. Now let's hope our representatives can do some good work.
I read three books in October. Three seems to be the magic number for me, so I'll keep that in mind when planning my reading goal for next year. Here are my thoughts on them.
Parasite Eve by Hideaki Sena (1994) 
The PlayStation game Parasite Eve is one of my favorite games of all time, so I'd wanted to read the novel it's based on for quite a while. It's hard to find a physical copy, so I finally just purchased the e-book and read it via my laptop and phone, as I don't have an e-reader. Not ideal, but I managed it!
The author was a graduate student in Pharmacology when he wrote this novel, and boy can you tell. He spends a lot of time, especially in the first part of the book, describing medical procedures in great detail. Things like surgery don't usually bother me, but some of the descriptions were a bit much even for me.
The horror in the book comes from body horror and the idea of not being in control of your own body, and this is carried through not only in the parasitic Eve but also in a couple of uncomfortable and over-the-top scenes of sexual violence, so there is definitely a content warning for that. The last few chapters were a bit much for me, and I think the horror would have been better conveyed with less description. Over-description is one of this book's biggest problems.
I did really enjoy the second part, which I think is the strongest part by far. Eve is more sinister here, only surfacing every now and then to assure us that she's working toward her ultimate goal. I sympathized with both main female characters, Kiyomi and Mariko, and I'm glad the author fully fleshed them out and did them justice before going into what happened to them in the end. I wouldn't call this a feminist book, but Kiyomi and Mariko were mostly well-written. The same can be said for Asakura, the other female character who didn't feature as prominently but was still an important part of the story.
I'm a huge fan of the game, and it's absolutely the better story, but it was pretty cool to experience the source material. Just, if you read this, go into it ready for detailed medical descriptions and scenes involving sexual violence. Some of the horror in the last part worked for me, like the descriptions of Eve as she transformed and the spontaneous combustion. Some of it was too vile and over-the-top, making my overall thoughts about this book pretty lukewarm.
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1818) 
Oh, Victor Frankenstein, how you annoyed me with your failure to think through your actions and your subsequent moping and feeling sorry for yourself. You did this to yourself! Honestly, though, I loved Frankenstein's inner monologue and his reckoning with both the monster and himself.
I can't believe I had never read this before, especially as a classics-loving pre-teen and teenager. I hadn't read a classic in a long time, so I was worried I would struggle with the language, but I flew through it. It was so hard to put down, and I even enjoyed Walton's letters, which are the driest part of the book. I appreciated the three different perspectives of the creator, the creation, and the outsider and felt they each added a much-needed viewpoint to the story.
It's such a devastatingly sad book, though. I feel for the monster most of all, who I couldn't help but be hopeful for in the beginning, even knowing how his story ended. Overall, I can absolutely see why this is a Gothic masterpiece, and I'm chuffed that it was written by a teenage girl.
The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black (2019)
This is the final book in the Folk of the Air trilogy, which I've loved all the way through. It's very, very dramatic, kind of like a Faerieland soap opera, so I can see how it wouldn't be for everyone. I ate it all up like candy, though.
I don't want to get into the plot too much for fear of spoilers, but the series begins with young twins Jude and Taryn, whose parents are murdered by a redcap who then feels responsible for them, so he adopts them and whisks them away to grow up in Faerie. This hidden land is a beautiful but sinister place full of political intrigue and fae behaving badly, and Jude and Taryn each learn how to navigate it in their own ways.
Jude is the more abrasive twin and the main character, and throughout the trilogy she works her way up from bullied teenager to spy to seneschal to High Queen. There's an enemies-to-lovers romance with the eventual High King, Cardan, who starts out as one of Jude's bullies.
I love this trilogy for its detailed and lovely descriptions of Faerieland, the complicated but satisfying relationships between all of the characters (not just Jude and Cardan), the plot that constantly had me gasping out loud, and this third book, which was the highlight of the trilogy for me. Jude's complex relationships really come to a head here, and seeing her figure them out and settle into herself was a treat. Very pleased with this trilogy and the way things were wrapped up.