Sam Reads

When I tell you my reading tastes are diverse, you’ll understand how diverse they are. By the end of this post, you’ll see the extent of this multi-genre dive. I feel that is the mark of a good book reviewer. If you just stick to one genre, you don’t get the full scope of what literature can offer. So, here’s my November round-up!

Disclaimer: I work with bookshop.org as an affiliate. If you make a purchase from one of my links, proceeds from the sale support an independent bookstore. I chose to work with a local bookstore here in Milwaukee called Rooted MKE, a BIPOC and women-run children’s bookstore. Let’s work together to save our independent bookstores!

The Last House On Needless Street

Catriona Ward, published 2021

This book was a case study in psychology, wrapped in a thrilling, unreliable narrative. From the outset, it disorients you, and you get an overshadowing feeling of dread, not able to trust the MC. That creeping sense of dread pervades the story, and you start to wonder if anything is real. If you’re looking for a book that has that true-crime serial killer vibe to it, this is it.

Plus, one of the main perspectives is from a cat’s viewpoint. Since when do you get that point of view?

Get it here.

All Systems Red

Martha Wells, published in 2017

Book 1 of 8

If you’re looking for a relatively short and funny story about a sentient cyborg bodyguard, this is your book. I got through this book in a day, and I loved it. It’s perfect for the reader who loves science fiction, extraplanetary missions, and the shadow of control by a corporation. Murderbot just wants to figure out what it is. It also wants to help the fragile human scientists who are afraid of it. I’m excited to dig into the other 7 books. These books would be a good fit if you need a shorter book to round out your reading month. If you’re a fan of Deadpool, you would probably find this book funny.

A New York Times and USA Today Bestseller
Winner: 2018 Hugo Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novella
Winner: 2018 Alex Award
Winner: 2018 Locus Award
One of the Verge’s Best Books of 2017

Get it here.

This Thing Between Us

Gus Moreno, published 2021

This book was half a study on loss and grief, and half an unpredictable horror story. I resonated with this book because I lost my dad a few years ago in a traumatic and unforeseen way. The author expertly handled the out-of-body experience of grief here. There is also commentary on racism, xenophobia and how media can politicize a death to achieve its own end. The author takes a deeper dive on how that affects the family directly involved. Technology also has a haunting role here, and it makes me never want to trust Siri or Alexa again. It then takes a supernatural twist. It turns into a horrorland psychosis that is not predictable in any way. It had me gripped.

There are trigger warnings, like racism, animal death, and gore.

Get it here.

A Night To Remember

Walter Lord, published in 1955

Everyone knows someone who has a deep obsession with the Titanic. The Titanic’s lore still permeates today, whether through the movie, YouTube videos, or reading about the fated shipwreck. I think it’s because we know the ship is, unfortunately, crumbling away to rust in the middle of the Atlantic. As a result, we’re still mourning the loss. This book provides a detailed, minute-by-minute account of the sinking. It gives a voice to some passengers and crew members who otherwise would never be heard. It adds a human element to the sinking. The book also includes technical jargon. It offers a forensic accounting of the iceberg strike and the sinking. Even though it’s an older book, it’s still worth a read if you love history.

Get it here.

A Dowry Of Blood

S.T. Gibson, published in 2023

A Dowry of Blood is the most sensual of the books I’ve read in November. It is not a straightforward erotica, in fact, it feels downright dangerous. This is a retelling of Dracula from the perspective of one of his wives. She is intelligent and soon she starts to see past the polish and seduction of Dracula, past the infatuation spell he wants her under. Once he cracks the veneer, she sees him differently, and she and his two other partners start to conspire. It’s a pretty fast read, and definitely what you’d expect out of a vampire novel. It has a deeply seductive gothic charm. This has polygamy, homoerotic scenes, and blood & gore.

Get it here.

An Age of Winters

Emma Liviero, published in 2024

This is another dark book, fiction, but with some very real historical context. After several unexplainable deaths occur, most of them of children, witches are suspected. A new witch hunter is assigned to investigate, and the story had a slowly escalating build until I remembered I was reading on my phone, and I shouldn’t throw my phone. This was based in Europe, and drew off of the witch hysteria of the 14th and 15th century. I thought the author did a good job of personifying it, making it a lived experience for one particular town. If you like historical fiction, you would enjoy this book.

Get it here.

Slaughter-house Five

Kurt Vonnegut, published in 1969

My goal is to read at least one banned book every month. With politicians’ current attitude towards literature, we can’t guarantee that libraries will be allowed to have these books on shelves. They’re still legal to be sold, and I dearly hope that will continue to be the case. With that said, this is a fantastic anti-war book that is a short, extraordinarily well-written read. It is a non-linear unreliable narrative which as you read, you understand why it’s structured that way. Our MC, Billy Pilgrim, has been through hell through World War II, and the time skips throughout the book show his fractured mental state and psychological trauma. There is an entire essay I can compose on this book’s themes and impact on literature. However, for the sake of brevity, I would encourage you to read this book for yourself.

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

One of The Atlantic‘s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

#46 on the American Library Association‘s Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2009

Get it here.

Nettle And Bone

T. Kingfisher, published in 2022

This book was probably one of my favorites during the month of November. I love a good fairy tale, and this dark fantasy is superbly well-written. It follows the story of Marra. She is a third-in-line princess who is kept in a convent for her own safety. So her mother tells her. She realizes something is seriously wrong with her sister, who is married to a violent abusive prince, and no one is willing to help her sister. So Marra decides to enlist the help of an unlikely ensemble and embarks on her own hero’s journey. The book isn’t too long, but it is a feminist mecca that is both morbid and deeply funny. Plus, there is an affectionate dog made entirely from bone. Consider me sold.

Winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel
An Instant USA Today & Indie Bestseller
An Oprah Daily Top 25 Fantasy Book of 2022
A Vulture Best Fantasy Novel of 2022
An NPR Best Sci Fi, Fantasy, & Speculative Fiction Book of 2022
A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee

Get it here.

The Exorcist

William Peter Blatty, originally published in 1971

After reading several lists of horror novels I should read, this was frequently considered the best horror novel of all time. I had not watched the movie. I don’t watch movies before reading the book. I picked this up and got sent for a ride. It starts off innocuously enough, most horror novels don’t catapult you into the drama. There’s a good amount of build-up before it goes off the rails. This book is a perfect intersection of psychology, allopathic medicine, and theology, and it makes you wonder how much psychosomatic torture a body can undergo. Since trigger warnings are a modern thing, not done in the 70’s, The Exorcist is the Godfather of trigger warnings.

The film adaptation did win an Academy award in 1973.

Get the book here.

The Wager

David Grann, published in 2023

At the end of November, I chose a book that had been overlooked on my shelf for multiple months. I don’t know why I waited so long. This nonfiction book reads like a swashbuckling adventure. You will love this book if you’ve read books about James Cook and Edward Shackleton. After rounding Cape Horn and braving the Drake Passage, the Wager shipwrecks off the coast of Chile, and for months faces starvation and mutiny. The island the ship maroons on is now named Wager island, and the story of how the survivors patched together a flimsy boat and limped their way back to England is a true testament on the will to live. Swarthy and dramatic, this book is easily accessible to the armchair historian.

A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, TIME, Smithsonian, NPR, Vulture, Kirkus Reviews

Get it here.

That about covers it for my November reads! If you find any you like, please leave a like or a comment. If you have a request or a recommendation for a book I should review, you should also feel free to leave a comment!