2024 Popsugar Reading Challenge - Update #10 & Beat The Backlist 2024 - October Update

Happy Wednesday everyone! Today I'm combining my tenth update for my October progress on the year long Beat The Backlist 2024 reading challenge, hosted by Austine Decker, & tenth 2024 Popsugar Reading Challenge update with mini reviews.  You can see my original tbr for the Beat the Backlist here.  In October, I completed 3 books for a total of 45 books completed out of 52 books on my tbr for Beat the Backlist (all of which I also read for my Halloween Reads) and I completed 3 books for a total of 44 out of 50.  Without further ado, keep reading to see my thoughts on the books I read for these challenges in October:

Beat the Backlist

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Reviver (Reviver Trilogy #1) by Seth Patrick ended up being quite a pleasant surprise and a great choice for the spooky season.  I'd say that the first half of this is amazing, but the second half of the novel is close but not quite as amazing.  I really liked how this does such a good job of blending procedural with horror fantasy elements.  I am really looking forward to trying the rest of the trilogy.  

My review is also on Goodreads and my Halloween Reads - Wrap Up & Mini Reviews post.

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Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin sounded like it had potential but it just wasn't for me.  It's way too long, I'm not quite interested in steamboats enough, and some of the "historical" elements were unnecessary for me.

My review is also on Goodreads and my Halloween Reads - Wrap Up & Mini Reviews post.

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Strange Weather: Four Short Stories by Joe Hill has been on my tbr for ages and I'm glad I could finally check it off.  It's a good solid read overall, but the individual stories could be a little hit or miss for me.  I think I liked Loaded and Rain the most of the four.  

My review is also on Goodreads and my Halloween Reads - Wrap Up & Mini Reviews post.

Popsugar Reading Challenge

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The Shadows Between Us (The Shadows Between Us #1) by Tricia Levenseller is a pretty great YA fantasy romance series opener.  The characters are a lot of fun and so is the audiobook production.  I do wish there was more in terms of world-building though.  While I did enjoy this, I don't know if I'll be back for book two.

My review is also on Goodreads.

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The First to Die at the End (Death-Cast #1) by Adam Silvera is a great novel, but this prequel is not at all necessary and it definitely didn't need to be this long.  All that said, I loved these characters and I definitely cried while listening to this on audiobook.

My review is also on Goodreads.

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The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1) by Craig Schaefer was pretty cool.  I think I'm going to have to read all the other books in the series because it might become a favorite.  I wish I tried this urban fantasy series opener ages ago, but at least I've got a lot of great reads coming my way!

My review is also on Goodreads.

Are you taking part in either of these challenges?  As always, thanks for visiting my blog and perhaps even commenting down below!