October 2023 Wrap Up

This is Halloween. This is Halloween. Everybody make a scene. Spooky season has ended way too soon but let’s get to my October 2023 wrap up.

The Exorcist

Synopsis:

Originally published in 1971, it remains one of the most controversial novels ever written. A literary phenomenon soon after its release, it spent fifty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, seventeen consecutively at number one. It also became a wildly popular motion picture, garnering ten Academy Award nominations. On the opening day of the film, lines of fans stretched around city blocks.

In Chicago, frustrated moviegoers used a battering ram to gain entry through the double side doors of a theater. In Kansas City, police used tear gas to disperse an impatient crowd who tried to force their way into a cinema. The three major television networks carried footage of these events, and CBS’s Walter Cronkite devoted almost ten minutes to the story. The Exorcist was, and is, more than just a novel and a film: it is a true landmark of American culture. . . and a reflection of our innermost fears.

My Rating: 5/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2023/10/17/the-exorcist-review/

Purchase

Anna Dressed in Blood

Synopsis:

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat.

They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay. Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home. Yet she spares Cas’s life.

My Rating: 4/5

My Full Review: I don’t know how I missed reviewing this one. I really enjoyed it for the most part. The ghost hunting aspect was a lot of fun. However, the ending felt a little too easy.

Purchase

The Birds and Other Stories

Synopsis:

Eight spellbinding tales of suspense, mystery and romance from the renowned author of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Focusing upon eerie and inexplicable phenomena, the stories include The Birds which Alfred Hitchcock adapted to film and the terrifying Split Second in which a woman suddenly finds herself plunged into a world of strangers. This description may be from another edition of this product.

My Rating: 5/5

My Full Review: I listened to this on audiobook, and I really enjoyed it. It’s creepy and full of tension.

Purchase

Frankenstein

Synopsis:

“I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life and stir with an uneasy, half-vital motion.” A summer evening’s ghost stories, lonely insomnia in a moonlit Alpine’s room, and a runaway imagination–fired by philosophical discussions with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley about science, galvanism, and the origins of life–conspired to produce for Marry Shelley this haunting night specter.

By morning, it had become the germ of her Romantic masterpiece, Frankenstein. Written in 1816 when she was only nineteen, Mary Shelley’s novel of “The Modern Prometheus” chillingly dramatized the dangerous potential of life begotten upon a laboratory table. A frightening creation myth for our own time, Frankenstein remains one of the greatest horror stories ever written and is an undisputed classic of its kind.

My Rating: 2/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2023/10/27/frankenstein-reivew/

Purchase

Dark Harvest

Synopsis:

Halloween, 1963. They call him the October Boy, or Ol’ Hacksaw Face, or Sawtooth Jack. Whatever the name, everybody in this small Midwestern town knows who he is. How he rises from the cornfields every Halloween, a butcher knife in his hand, and makes his way toward town, where gangs of teenage boys eagerly await their chance to confront the legendary nightmare. Both the hunter and the hunted, the October Boy is the prize in an annual rite of life and death. Pete McCormick knows that killing the October Boy is his one chance to escape a dead-end future in this one-horse town. He’s willing to risk everything, including his life, to be a winner for once. But before the night is over, Pete will look into the saw-toothed face of horror–and discover the terrifying true secret of the October Boy.

My Rating: 3/5

My Full Review: https://wildwoodreads.com/2023/10/27/dark-harvest-review/

Purchase

Dracula

Synopsis:

He is a creature of darkness. His face deathly pale, his eyes ablaze with the fires of hell. He has been dead for centuries, yet he may never die. He waits in his crumbling castle in the mountains of Transylvania, as his prey draws closer and closer to destruction…. Here begins one of the most celebrated horror stories in history, the tale of an undead monster who craves the blood of his victims and relishes his dominance over mankind. With its delicious mix of action, suspense, and looming dread, Bram Stoker’s Dracula has terrified and inspired readers for more than a hundred years.

My Rating: 4/5

My Full Review: I read Dracula last year and decided I wanted to reread it this year. I really enjoyed the audiobook and I think I enjoyed it even more than last year.

Purchase

So that’s my October 2023 wrap up. What did you read this month? And are you doing anything fun for Halloween?

Books-a-Million: Save up to 80% on clearance items! Shop the clearance selection at Booksamillion.com — Shop Today.

Blick Art Supplies: Watercolor Paint