Today’s post covers the second half of the books I read in October 2025. I shared what I read in the first half of the month here. I shared my five star reads here. I did read one more 5 Star book after I wrote that post, so that book will be included here! The Amazon links to the books I’ve read are affiliate links and if you use them and make a purchase, I may receive a small commission. If you’ve read any of these books or are interested in them, I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
Title: Wait For It
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Genre: Rom Com
Publisher: Penguin Audio, 8/10/21
Source: Publisher – Print, Library – Audio
Why I Read It: Backlist
My Rating: 4 Stars
For my 25 in ’25 bonus list pick for rom com, I read Wait For It by Jenn McKinlay. It’s funny I had this one waiting for me because I’ve read two others of her books already! This is about Annabelle, who moves to AZ for a graphic design job with her best friend. She is housed in the pool house of a mansion, owned by the reclusive and mysterious Nick. Nick is the grumpy to Annabelle’s sunshine, and is a wheelchair user after a stroke. Their eventual romance is a part of the story along with the side stories of Annabelle’s job and Nick’s estranged sister.
“Stuck in a dreary Boston winter, Annabelle Martin would like nothing more than to run away from her current life. She’s not even thirty years old, twice-divorced, and has just dodged a marriage proposal… from her ex-husband. When she’s offered her dream job as creative director at a cutting-edge graphic design studio in Phoenix, she jumps at the opportunity to start over. When she arrives in the Valley of the Sun, Annabelle is instantly intrigued by her anonymous landlord. Based on the cranky, handwritten notes Nick Daire leaves her, she assumes he is an old, rich curmudgeon. Annabelle is shocked when she finally meets Nick and discovers that he’s her age and uses a wheelchair. Nick suffered from a stroke a year ago, and while there’s no physical reason for him not to recover, he is struggling to overcome the paralyzing fear that has kept him a prisoner in his own home. Despite her promise to herself not to get involved, Annabelle finds herself irresistibly drawn to Nick. And soon she wonders if she and Nick might help each other find the courage to embrace life, happiness, and true love.”
I love a grumpy sunshine story, as well as a close proximity relationship, so I enjoyed this one, although there was a lot going on other than the romance itself! I also really enjoyed the Arizona setting. I wasn’t a huge fan of the way the male narrator voiced female characters, but that didn’t ruin the story for me.
Title: Eternally Electric
Author: Debbie Gibson
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Gallery Books, 9/9/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 3.5 Stars, rounded up to 4 Stars
Before there was Taylor Swift, tweens and teens enjoyed the music of Debbie Gibson, and maybe if she had social media back then she would have been even bigger! The first concert I attended was Debbie Gibson, and I had Out of the Blue and Electric Youth on record album. (I think I had the perfume as well!)
“Debbie Gibson was just sixteen when she released her multi-platinum debut album Out of the Blue and recorded ‘Foolish Beat’ in 1988, making her the youngest person to ever write, produce, and perform a Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper. A child actress who became the original pop princess, Debbie had full creative control over her music and, when that no longer aligned with a transitioning arts scene, she went on to star in Broadway’s Les Misérables, Beauty and the Beast, and Cabaret, as well as in the London production of Grease. Yet, for all the accolades and achievements, her success came at a high price. Anxiety, depression, financial struggles, illness—Debbie writes candidly about these and other challenges, and how she ultimately redesigned her life to overcome them. This is the story of her not only surviving, but thriving: returning to her musical roots, releasing new albums, going back out on tour, and living the best version of her authentic self to remain…Eternally Electric.”
Eternally Electric is Debbie’s story from her teen years to the present, with much about her music and her family, as well as her health issues. I remember from my time as a fan that she (like me) loved Billy Joel, and that she went on to play Eponine in Les Miserables. I didn’t know that she is still writing music now and that she even wrote a Hanukkah song (although she isn’t Jewish). There were a lot of name drops in the book, and some of the writing was repetitive and disorganized. While it wasn’t a favorite memoir for me, I enjoyed the nostalgia of remembering the music that I loved as a tween.
Title: The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park
Author: Michiko Aoyama, translated by Takami Nieda
Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Hanover Square Press, 9/23/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Translated from the Japanese, The Healing Hippo of Hinode Park is made up of stories about various people who need healing in some part of their life, from doing well in school, finding mom friends, and growing old.
“Nestled at the bottom of a five-story apartment block in the community of Advance Hill is the children’s playground in Hinode Park. If you look to the side, standing on stubby legs, is a hippo. Its upturned eyes give it a teary look, yet for decades, its quiet power has sustained the hearts of one community. According to urban legend, if you touch the exact part of the hippo where you have an ailment or wound, you will see swift signs of recovery. Meet the apartment residents who each find their way to Kabahiko:
- Kanato, who hopes in vain to recover the stellar marks he once scored;
- Sawa, a new mother with no friends, wishes to be able to communicate as she once did when she was an award-winning retail assistant;
- Chiharu, off work as a wedding-planner, longs to listen better for the happiness of others;
- Yuya avoids sports day with a fake injury, only to find he really is in pain;
- Kazuhiko, despite his fading eyes, seeks to see life’s everyday wonder.
A quietly powerful story of hope, friendship and connection, Michiko Aoyama’s beloved bestseller is a celebration of everyday encounters. Its subtle portrayal of the magic of community will lodge itself in every reader’s heart as the eclectic cast of characters find healing in their lives—though they may not always find it in the ways they expect.”
The stories cover people in all stages of life and I enjoyed the community and family connections that were explored.
Title: Dinner At The Night Library
Author: Hika Harada, translated by Philip Gabriel
Genre: Contemporary
Publisher: Hanover Square Press, 9/30/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 4 Stars
Dinner At The Night Library is about a group of co workers at a library only open at night. The library is like a museum of the book collections belonging to famous writers who have passed away. There is a mystery as to who owns the library.
“All Otaha Higuchi wants to do is work with books. However, the exhausting nature of her work at a chain bookstore, combined with her paltry salary and irritating manager quickly bring reality crashing down around her. She is on the verge of quitting when she receives a message from somebody anonymous, inviting her to apply for a job at ‘”The Night Library.” The hours are from seven o’clock to midnight. The library exclusively stores books by deceased authors, and none of them can be checked out – instead, they’re put on public display to be revered and celebrated by the library’s visitors, making it akin to a book museum. There, Otoha meets the other staff, a group of likeminded literary misfits, including a legendary chef who prepares incredible meals for the library’s employees at the end of each day. Night after night, she bonds with her colleagues over meals in the café, each of which are inspired by the literature on the shelves. But as strange occurrences start happening around the library that may bring the threat of its closure, Otaha and her friends fear that the peace they have found there will forever be lost to them. Will their faith in the value of books strong enough to save it? And what will remain if it isn’t?”
I found this one to be a bit awkward in some of the translation, but I enjoyed the story and the mystery aspect to it.
Title: The Living and The Lost
Author: Ellen Feldman
Genre: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Macmillan Audio, 9/7/21
Source: Publisher – Print, Library – Audio
Why I Read It: Backlist
My Rating: 4 Stars
For my 25 in ’25 bonus pick for historical fiction, I listened to The Living and the Lost by Ellen Feldman. This takes place post World War II in Germany, as siblings Millie and David return to Berlin to take part in the denazification process. They had escaped to America as children, leaving behind their parents and younger sister.
“Millie (Meike) Mosbach and her brother David, manage to escape to the States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Millie attends Bryn Mawr on a special scholarship for non-Aryan German girls and graduates to a magazine job in Philadelphia. David enlists in the army and is eventually posted to the top-secret Camp Ritchie in Maryland, which trains German-speaking men for intelligence work. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family. Millie, works in the office responsible for rooting out the most dedicated Nazis from publishing; she is consumed with rage at her former country and its citizens, though she is finding it more difficult to hate in proximity. David works trying to help displaced persons build new lives, while hiding his more radical nighttime activities from his sister. Like most of their German-born American colleagues, they suffer from conflicts of rage and guilt at their own good fortune, except for Millie’s boss, Major Harry Sutton, who seems much too eager to be fair to the Germans. Living and working in bombed-out Berlin, a latter day Wild West where drunken soldiers brawl; the desperate prey on the unsuspecting; spies ply their trade; werewolves, as unrepentant Nazis were called, scheme to rise again; black markets thrive, and forbidden fraternization is rampant, Millie must come to terms with a decision she made as a girl in a moment of crisis, and with the enigmatic sometimes infuriating Major Sutton who is mysteriously understanding of her demons.”
I liked that various stories from the time period were included in this book via the various characters that Millie and David meet. It was interesting that a large focus was on survivor’s guilt and that the story was about post war recovery.
Title: Look What You Made Me Do
Author: Elaine Murphy
Genre: Thriller
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 7/13/21
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Backlist
My Rating: 4 Stars
From my 25 in ’25 bonus list for the thriller theme I picked up Look What You Made Me Do by Elaine Murphy. This is about Carrie, whose sister Becca manipulates her into helping her hide the bodies of the victims she has killed. When bodies are uncovered that Becca didn’t kill, the sisters realize there is another serial killer in town.
“Carrie wants a normal life. Carrie Lawrence doesn’t need a happily ever after. She’ll just settle for ‘after.’ After a decade of helping her sister hide her victims. After a lifetime of lies. She just wants to be safe, boring, and not trekking through the woods at night with a dead body wrapped in a carpet. Becca wants to get away with murder. Becca Lawrence doesn’t believe in happily ever after because she’s already happy. She’s gotten away with murder for a decade and has blackmailed her sister into helping her hide the evidence—what more could a girl want? But first they have to stop a serial killer. When thirteen bodies are discovered in their small town, people are shocked. But not as shocked as Carrie, who thought she knew all the details of Becca’s sordid pastime. When Becca swears she’s not behind the grisly new crimes, they realize the town has a second serial killer who has the sisters in his sights, and what he wants is . . . Carrie.”
Some of this book was fun and it kept the pages turning. The reveal fell a bit flat for me. There is also a good deal of gruesome detail! I did see there is a sequel to this one but I’d say it’s not likely that I’ll read it!
Title: Disney Adults
Author: AJ Wolfe
Genre: Non Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books, 8/5/25
Source: Publisher
Why I Read It: Sent to me for my review
My Rating: 5 Stars
Disney Adults looks at the concept of the stereotypical “Disney adult.” Why do adults love Disney so much? And why are those that do somewhat hated by others? After all, most fans of anything spend their money on that experience, whether it’s sports or seeing converts or yes, constant Disney trips.
“Disney Adults are grown-ups who derive singular, almost obsessive, joy from all things Disney. They devote countless hours and millions of dollars to Disney offerings, whether or not they have children. They’re avid fans of the films, devotees of the Disney theme parks, collectors of the vast world of Disney merchandise, cosplayers who dress in clothing inspired by Disney characters. Their ranks are so large and their cultural impact so distinct that they have their own moniker and are an economic force unto themselves. They’re often maligned in the larger culture and put on a particularly high pedestal of cringe. But in truth, their obsessive fandom hints at a universal desire for pleasure and joy, for magic and escape. There are darker sides to Disney mania that can’t be ignored, but the ranks of the Disney Adult community are broad, deep, and ever-growing. Disney Adults are a telling microcosm of modern America, highlighting the value we place on magic and escapism, and what we deem to be ‘acceptable’ sources of joy. Disney Adults dives deep into a misunderstood subculture, exploring the lives and experiences of a fascinating community to better understand its devotees’ unwavering passion for all things Disney, why it offends, and why it matters.”
This book brought me a ton of nostalgia for the disboards, reading trip reports, and using all ears to plan my future trips. (The author is the owner of the Disney food blog as well as of all ears.)
There you have it, the rest of my October reading! This post included 7 of the books I read in October. Five of these books were in print and two were audio. Genres included rom com, memoir, historical fiction, contemporary,thriller, and non fiction. These were all adult reads.
Have you read any of these books or do you want to? What have you been reading lately?
