Well it’s the 13th of October, Boils and Ghouls, and I can’t believe that in just a few short weeks, it will finally be Halloween 🎃
Time does seem to be flying by because I’m a little shocked that we are almost halfway through October 2025 (also, Happy Thanksgiving 🍁 to my Canadian readers!)
The sheer amount of books I’m aching to read are just piling up and there are always intriguing titles getting announced on the daily, so it’s like there isn’t enough time to read all the books I want to… (factually so) but I’m really hoping to cozy up this spooky season and finish a whole bunch on my reading list!
Speaking of reading list, let’s recap the books read last month in tonight’s post– the September vol. of our Morbid Monthly Reads 💀
As an ambitious ghoul, I like to prepare in advance a few books to read each month to get myself excited and inspired to curiously dive into some horrific stories!
(yet lately, a fewbooks has turned into about 10-12+ books on my TBR lists per month…)
And I also organize my lists based on seasonal themes or topics and Advanced Reading Copies (ARC) of books I’d like to review within the given NetGalley & BookSirens timeframe.
Also, I’ve had authors reach out to me over the last few months to read + review their books, and I must say it’s one of the few joys and honors as a blogger– to work with authors directly (via my contact page 👈🏻) and share my honest opinion of their works.
So if you’re a Horror, LGBTQ+ or Indie writer and you have some spooky books you’d like me to read 👀 please summon me as I’m your ghoul!
To me, this season, or time of the year, is all about slowing down. The summer fuels you with that hot, fierce and powerful energy to get outside more, and soak up as much sunshine as humanly possible. While the autumn weather can be enjoyable for a nice brisk walk, you would want to spend more of your time indoors (or possibly by a warm firepit, enjoying some campfire stories.)
So in summoning that energy, here’s some of the books I thought would be fitting for our September‘s vol. of our Morbid Monthly Reads.
I really love using the Fable app to prepare my Morbid Monthly and also sharing them with my fellow fabulous Fablers to get everyone hyped for the upcoming scares or fascinations I’m about to experience!
Many of the books I’ve recently added to my growing and endless TBR are actually from other Fable users who have endorsed them, so it’s a very mutually beneficial community to be a part of.
If you happen to be an avid reader and want more social in your book life, Fable is definitely the app to seek out 👀
Book Reviews
📖=physical/ebook 🎧=audiobook
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)
Format: Audiobook 🎧
“The New York Times bestseller from the Grammy-nominated indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity in the wake of her loss.
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band – and meeting the man who would become her husband – her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.
It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.
Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.“
As a fan of Japanese Breakfast, I was very curious to read Michelle’s memoir discussing the very difficult process of losing her mother at a young age and how she navigated that extremely difficult time in her life.
One of the last Get Outside and Read, Buds! selections for the month of August, I ended up finishing the book in early September as I was moving apartments during the end of that month… but when I started the audiobook (via Spotify Prem), I couldn’t stop! ❤️🩹
Rating:💀💀💀💀💀
They Fear Not Men In The Woods by Gretchen Mcneil (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Brigids Gate Press & Netgalley for the ARC] Format: ebook 📖
“For fans of Midsommar, Catriona Ward, and Sarah Gailey, this addictively readable modern horror novel unfolds like a movie with a climax you’ll never see coming.
When Jen Monroe hears her father’s remains have been found, she returns home to disprove his death, only to find the forests of rural Washington are hiding unimaginable horrors.
Seven years ago Jen Monroe left behind her hometown of Barrow, Washington after her father, a forest ranger passionate about protecting old trees from the aggressive logging business, vanished. She vowed never to return. Then she gets a text from her estranged mother: Her father’s remains have been found.
It seems impossible to Jen, who had always believed her father was alive, and she returns home determined to find out what happened. When her ex-boyfriend suggests a camping trip in the woods in her father’s memory, it feels like the opportunity Jen has been hoping for: to find her father. To find the truth. But what she finds in the ancient, impenetrable forest may be deeper, darker and deadlier than she could have imagined—and it has no intention of letting her leave.“
When I read on NetGalley that this book was being compared to Midsommar… it was an insta-request to read on my part!
Rating:💀💀💀💀
Smile so Red and Other Tales of Madness by Mia Dalia (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Brigids Gate Press & Netgalley for the ARC] Format: ebook 📖
“From Mia Dalia, the author of Estate Sale, Haven, and other literary nightmares, comes a uniquely terrifying collection of dark psychological fiction, featuring novelettes and short stories that range from horror to suspense to mystery to coming-of-age to thrillers.
SMILE SO RED – a man finds a strange graffitied house in the woods and a smiling darkness that follows him home. SPINDEL – a twelve-year-old boy suspects that one of the neighbors on his paper route might be a local serial killer and sets off to investigate. BLUES FOR THE SOUL– a library worker tries to help a troubled young boy and uncovers a terrible truth about his family. DEVIL’S CHORD – return to the world of Smile So Red with a meta journey set to the earworm tune of your worst nightmares. STUMP – a bullied young boy and a downtrodden family man from the same apartment complex unwittingly entrust their secrets to the same remnant of an old tree in the local woods. FLAMINGOS – two sisters must confront their troubled past when a buried memory is triggered by the seemingly innocuous plastic lawn birds. THE TRUNK – striving to achieve the American Dream, a first-generation immigrant from a war-torn country buys a new home and finds something in the basement that has other ideas for him. REDDEST – another return to the world of Smile So Red, albeit from a very different perspective.
Go on. Turn the page. Pick a nightmare. I dare you.“
Fascinated by the cover of this Horror short story collection, I couldn’t wait to see what sort of nightmares I was going to encounter!
I wasn’t familiar with Mia Dalia’s previous works (Tell Me A Story and Do You Know The Muffin Man?), but after reading this latest one, you can be sure that I will be reading her books moving forward.
Rating:💀💀💀💀💀
Subscribe to the blog for more volumes of the Morbid Monthly Reads
We Are Always Tender With Our Dead by Eric LaRocca (2025)
[ 🗣️Thank you to Titan Books & Netgalley for the Read] Format: eBook 📖
“Michael McDowell’s Blackwater meets Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show in the disturbing first installment of a new trilogy of intense, visceral, beautifully written queer horror set in a small New England town.
A chilling supernatural tale of transgressive literary horror from the Bram Stoker Award® finalist and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
The lives of those residing in the isolated town of Burnt Sparrow, New Hampshire, are forever altered after three faceless entities arrive on Christmas morning to perform a brutal act of violence—a senseless tragedy that can never be undone. While the townspeople grieve their losses and grapple with the aftermath of the attack, a young teenage boy named Rupert Cromwell is forced to confront the painful realities of his family situation. Once relationships become intertwined and more carnage ensues as a result of the massacre, the town residents quickly learn that true retribution is futile, cruelty is earned, and certain thresholds must never be crossed no matter what.
Engrossing, atmospheric, and unsettling, this is a devastating story of a small New England community rocked by an unforgivable act of violence. Writing with visceral intensity and profound eloquence, LaRocca journeys deep into the dark heart of Burnt Sparrow, leaving you chilled to the bone and wanting more.”
Okay okay, you’re probably asking “What are you doing reading another Eric LaRocca book after what you experienced in ADIBL?!” 💀
And to that I say… I am morbidly curious about everything, and I do love Eric’s writing style and disturbed stories. So, I grabbed my emotional support Mothman plushie, and braced myself for the first installment of the Burnt Sparrow series.
Rating:💀💀💀💀
The Pale House Devil by Richard Kadrey (2023)
Format: audioBook 🎧
“A gripping, snappy creature feature from the master of horror noir about two detectives—one dead, one living—hired by an embittered old landowner to banish a bloody cosmic monster from his ancestral home, perfect for fans of Cassandra Khaw, Charles Stross and Lucy A. Snyder. Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries—one living, one undead; one of them kills the undead, the other kills the living. When a job goes bad in New York, they head west to wait for the heat to cool down.
There, a young woman named Tilda Rosenbloom hires them on behalf of wealthy landowner, Shepherd Mansfield, to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California.
As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they’ve faced before, they come to learn that the most frightening monster might not be the one they’re hunting…”
I had previously requested to read The Flesh King on NetGalley and then discovered that it was the second book in Richard Kadrey’s Discreet Eliminators series.
And so, thankfully, the first book The Pale House Devil was available to read (via Spotify Prem) to give me the backstory I needed before diving into the next installment.
Rating:💀💀💀💀
Bat EateR and Other Names For Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker (2025)
Format: eBook 📖 + Audiobook 🎧
“Cora Zeng is a crime scene cleaner, washing away the remains of brutal murders and suicides in Chinatown. The bloody messes don’t bother her, not when she’s already witnessed the most horrific thing possible: her sister being pushed in front of a train.
Before fleeing the scene, the murderer whispered two words: bat eater.
Months pass, the killer is never caught, and Cora can barely keep herself together. She pushes away all feelings, disregards the bite marks that appear on her coffee table, and won’t take her aunt’s advice to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival, when the gates of hell open.
Cora tries to ignore the rising dread in her stomach, even when she and her weird co-workers begin finding bat carcasses at their crime scene clean-ups. But Cora can’t ignore the fact that all their recent clean-ups have been the bodies of East Asian women.
Soon Cora will learn: you can’t just ignore hungry ghosts.”
I’ve been meaning to read this book since it was released at the start of the year, so I suggested it as a possible option to vote on for our September Morbid Curiosities book club read and well, it won!
So we tackled this one as a book club last month, using the Fable app, discussing thoughts on the book, posting highlights and sharing quotable passages. This was also the first book I’ve read that took place within the pandemic, which was quite an interesting reading experience.
Rating:💀💀💀💀.5
To haunt my previous reads, check out this archive.
While I didn’t get a chance to finish The Flesh King last month (but stay tuned for the October recap 👀) I am glad I was able to finish as many books as I did.
With moving an entire apartment and setting back up your home office to go immediately back to your day job, I was swamped and unable to attend to as many books as I wanted (or promised myself I’d get a chance) to read. That’s okay though, because books will always be around and ready for when you’re able to read them 🖤
If you’d like to see what other books I’ve read, creep my books 👀
plus consider possessing your inbox with NEW blog posts…
High and Low vibes of September 🍎
Out of the six books I read, I didn’t really feel like any of them were too concerning (with the exception of knowingly going into the Burnt Sparrow series with my hands over my eyes) or struck me as “bad” vibes…
But, there was definitely one book that struck my emo-heart and stood out to me with the most overwhelmingly authenticity and courage to display such personal vulnerability on paper (or in my case, via audiobook.)
✨ VIBED THE HIGHEST WITH…
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner (2021)
Why did this book exceed my expectations?
To listen to someone’s experience with losing their mother and the complicated feelings in dealing with that… I knew it would hit me hard in the feels (and I should have expected Michelle, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of Japanese Breakfast, with her lyrical power to punch me with them) but oh my goodness…
The way Michelle Zauner writes her memoir, recalling those moments with her mother that have shaped her as an adult (plus those darker moments, too, that have also had an impact) is so hauntingly beautiful that you really need to pause between the chapters to process the whole story’s emotional impact on Michelle going through all of this during that time. Conflicting, emotional and empowering; I’m so glad I finally had the opportunity to read this memoir (and so happy it was chosen as the last book for our August Get Outside and Read, Buds! book club)
☠️ HIT MY LOWEST Vibe WITH…
They Fear Not Men In The Woods by Gretchen Mcneil (2025)
What happened during the reading experience?
When I initially read that this book was being compared to Ari Aster’s Midsommar, I was very intrigued! I’m a big fan of Ari Aster’s classic horror movie and have also recently read another Horror book with a similar comparison and was not disappointed…
However, it took me a little longer to see the comparisons within this book. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad book and I would still recommend that you read it if you’re into Ecological (and Body) Horror, it just wasn’t what I was expecting upon reading the premise of this book.
I do appreciate DAW Books & NetGalley for allowing this ghoul access to the advanced reading copy to read this summer 🙏🏻
If you’ve made it this far, I appreciate that you’ve read about my monthly reading habits 🙈
Drop a 👻 in the comments and share your reading highs and lows for September…
Also… do YOU have a morbid curiosity? You should join the support club(s) 👀📚
What more could you possibly want, Boils and Ghouls?!
Spooktober has been nothing but delightful thus far for weather and vibes, so let’s keep this energetic high up with a recap of last month’s curated outfits!
Curated Outfits of September 2025
Saying goodbye to Summer(ween) is always hard, especially when Autumn is traditionally a season of letting go and resetting. So I decided to continue those hot and crispy vibes into September…
But before going into our monthly recap, let’s not forget that it’s Friday after all and that means…
Also don’t forget you can always check out my Style Guide page for more #OOTD inspirations, brands I wear and stores to visit 💅
Highlights of the Month 🕶️
Still Existing in Summerween Town
Like I mentioned, I continued those Summerweeny vibes into September with my my comfy oversized AE Skeleton shirt paired with a flowy floral Maxi skirt from Urban Outfitters. I really love the effortless pairing of this combo and how comfy I feel going to work in this outfit.
Then you also have this adorable eyeball crochet bandana I found at Winners mid September (since they essentially stock their Halloween decor pretty much in the middle of summer) that screams “Summerween”
Vacay Mode ⛰️
Last month, I was extremely fortunate enough to travel to the west coast of Canada to see the mountains and experience the other side of the country.
My travel outfits mainly consisted of oversized tees & comfy pants, including one of my favorite UNIQLO Campbell’s Tomato Soup t-shirts! The fit and structure of this shirt is superb, with that patch being the true star of the show!
Saying Goodbye to The Best Cacio E Pepe in town
taken at La Fresca on Feb 14, 2025
Whenever I’d go for food and drinks at La Fresca, I would pick out the most romantic colors or patterns to fit the atmosphere of the place, like my favorite black MINKPINK Mesh T-shirt Dress or my other favorite little red lace number 💋
I love a dimly lit restaurant. I love a moody vibe. So of course I’m going to miss one of my favorite local spots now that they’ve closed and reopened as a new restaurant elsewhere. Hopefully the new location will continue to have these same dark and moody vibes!
Thank you, boils and ghouls, for taking the time to read tonight’s blog post and reflecting on last month’s curated outfits with me. I’d love your feedback and suggestions for this type of content (i.e., whether you’d love to see more or less, etc.) and I’d also like to take these recaps even further in the future with some videos, so stay tuned if you’re eager to see more! 👀
and consider subscribing to creep more (& more) content…
Plus to check out more of my outfits and BTS inspirations, you can head over to Parallel and Pinterest
I can’t believe we’ve finally arrived and it’s now my favorite month of the year! Let all the spooky festivities begin, Boils and Ghouls…
I’m so glad we’ve finally reached October Fall! It’s seriously my favorite month of the year (for a few very selfish reasons, of course, ♎️) but with the crisp, chill autumn air and cozy sweater weather that it brings along with it, how can’t you love this month?!
Plus, we’ve truly entered Spooky Season now with Halloween soon approaching… it’s truly the best month to be a ghoul (impo.)
Are YOU subscribed to the blog? Make sure you are 👀
Morbid & Mor(e)bid Curiosities | October 👻 2025
Now to get all hyped (or horrified) about the books we are about to read this month in the Morbid & Mor(e)bid Curiosities book clubs (over on the Fable app)… we have two very terrifying tales to explore and I sure hope we are ready for them (I’ve heard quite a few things to be prepared for 💀)
Always Double the troubles 😈
Introducing Both Of our October morbid curiosities 👻
self-created graphic design using Canva
Come Closer by Sara Gran (2003)
Goodreads book description
I can’t remember if this book was mentioned in a “scariest Horror books” YT video or if I heard about it about it through the Horror book-vine, but what I heard was just how absolutely horrifying of a story you will experience reading this book… and with that lore, I knew I HAD to live through this one.
So, I kindly suggested this one to the Morbid Mavens & asked if they would be interested in exploring this one with me (along with four other suggestions) however, this was the one we settled on for one of our October Morbid Curiosities, and it truly feels like the best gift to receive! 🖤
Check to see if this book title is available in your area:
Now summing ourselves to the other haunted clubhouse 👻 for our second selection…
self-created graphic design using Canva
This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno (2021)
Goodreads book description
This is a novel I’ve had on hold (for a looong time), finally checked it out, then left on my desk and remembered it when I had to return the book to the library (even before getting a chance to read it…) so it’s been SITTING on my TBR for far TOO long. And for my birthday this year, it was one of the books I was really hoping we would pick for October’s second morbid curiosity 💀
I’m a big fan of the FSG Originals collection and This Thing Between Us happens to be one of theirs! I’ve heard tremendous and terrifying things about Gus’s book and I can’t wait to listen to the audiobook this weekend and be completely scared out of my mind!
Check to see if this book title is available in your area:
(of the Morbid & Mor(e)bid Curiosities Book Clubs Selection Process)
With how busy my after-hours life has been these past couple of months, I haven’t been able to dedicate as much time to my lovely graphic design passions–but I’m hoping to restore my energy in that field very soon!
It’s so fun to make graphics to go with all the suggestions those spooky souls in the club put forward to read in our creepy little Horror corner on Fable (plus, the graphic gets good use each month on our trusty Cursed Wheel to determine our ultimate fate 💀)
If you’re curious on what a typical book club selectionprocess looks like for our book clubs, check out the 🎬 BTS of last month’s Morbid & Mor(e)bid Curiosities (for September) 👀
As our saying goes, “…the mor(e)bid, the merrier…” so if you like book clubs and want to check out the Fable app, we would be happy if you could…
Drop a 🖤 Break a name