Favorite Read: October 2022

In October, I read spooky books for Halloween. My favorite book this month was a new release that fit the spooky vibes: Dead Flip by Sara Farizan.

Growing up, Cori, Maz, and Sam were inseparable best friends, sharing their love for Halloween, arcade games, and one another. Now it’s 1992, Sam has been missing for five years, and Cori and Maz aren’t speaking anymore. How could they be, when Cori is sure Sam is dead and Maz thinks he may have been kidnapped by a supernatural pinball machine? But when Sam returns— still twelve years old while his best friends are now seventeen— Maz and Cori are thrown back together to solve the mystery of what really happened to Sam the night he went missing. (Goodreads)

Dead Flip was exciting and fun to read and really gave me Stranger Things vibes. It’s YA, which can be a turnoff for some, but I felt it balanced realistic situations and characterizations and didn’t fall into the trap of making the characters overly obnoxious and dumb teenagers. The characters were sympathetic without being perfect and the premise was very intriguing. My only gripe is that I would have liked the book to be a little longer because I wanted to know more about the book’s magic system and I just wanted to spend more time in the world of Dead Flip.

October’s reads and ratings (out of five stars)

Theme reads

Mirrorland, Carole Johnstone: three and a half stars
My Sister, the Serial Killer, Oyinkan Braithwaite: four stars
Every Last Fear, Alex Finlay: four stars
Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel: four stars
Girl in the Walls, AJ Gnuse: four stars

Others

Seoulmates, Susan Lee: four stars
Blackwater, Jeannette Arroyo and Ren Graham: four stars
Royal, Danielle Steel: four stars
Tokyo Dreaming, Emiko Jean: four stars
Dead Flip, Sara Farizan: four and a half stars
Straight Man, Richard Russo: three stars
Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng: four stars
The Storm is Here: An American Crucible, Luke Mogelson: four stars
Self-Made Boys, Anna-Marie McLemore: five stars
Bronze Drum, Phong Nguyen: four stars
Legendborn, Tracy Deonn: five stars