October 2025 Books and Looks

If someone could please explain to me how in the hell it is already November, I would greatly appreciate it. October felt like it took all of three days beginning to end. It was a good month though. I attended a book club event in Versailles at the Tiny Bird Bookshop. I spoke at the Partnership for Southern Impact, a new partnership initiative from the Brennan Center for Justice and Fisk University in Nashville. I also got about 5 pages written in the research project that I am doing for Accepted Society. L and I played two sessions of Dungeons and Dragons with his family and I've been trying really hard to take better care of myself.

The Looks

This month involved heading into the office three days per week, a short work trip to Nashville and a couple of cozy days where I dug into research curled up in my home office chair. As the month steadily cooled down, my outfits began to focus on pulling out some jackets that have been hanging in the closet desperately waiting to be worn. Nuuly, as always, delivered with some great pieces that made me feel on trend and excited.

The Books

The Society of Unknowable Objects: Gareth Brown also wrote The Book of Doors, which I haven't read yet. This book is not a sequel, however it is in the same universe so I look forward to picking that up. I plan to write a full review for this one, but the short story is I highly recommend it. There is a mystery, magic and some really interesting characters.

Illusions of Fire: Hitha Palepuposted about this book on instagram and I was struck by the beautiful cover. If you are a fan of the Legendborn Cycle, then I would say this book is absolutely for you. I would say it is an upper YA. Full review is coming, but it is a retelling of the ancient Hindu epic poem the Mahabharata. I hope that this blows up because it is well-written, funny and the longing is 10/10.

Any Trope but You: I was really excited to read this one. Becca from Bad on Paper podcast mentioned she thought it had fallen through the cracks because it was released in April but was a more winter-y vibes. I loved how the author took tropes and made a playful little twist. But man oh man, it was about 200 pages too long for me. It felt like the plot meandered a bit and could have been a bit shorter.

The Blonde who Came in from the Cold: This is book two in The Blonde Identity series. I love Ally Carter, but the first book just did not hit for me. I read that this one was a bit different. Plus it involves a quasi enemies to lovers trope (I'm a sucker for that one). So I picked this up through the library and really enjoyed myself. It's the tale of the twin sister (the actual spy) from The Blonde Identity. There are dual timelines; present day as the rival spies try to figure out how they ended up kidnapped and handcuffed together and the trainings and missions before they said goodbye forever the year before. It's not anything groundbreaking, but a nice spy escape.

The Secret of Secrets: Listen, I will read every single damn Robert Langdon book. I don't care how trash it is, I just love the character and the depth of research that Dan Brown does. Can it be a bit predictable? Yes, absolutely. But do I love the weird conspiracies that Brown puts out more? For sure. This time, Robert has an age appropriate female counterpart and it explores the idea of consciousness and noetics. I'm now a bit more fascinated with the idea of consciousness and may pick up a couple of books to learn more.