September 2026 Reads
September was a weird month. It just felt like things that usually fill my cup weren’t energizing me the way I expected, and that left me a little meh.
One high note: I started an Appalachian Clogging for Beginners class with a few friends, which, if you don’t know what that is, I highly recommend doing a quick YouTube search lol. 😉 It’s 13 weeks. That’s right, THIRTEEN. And it’s been incredibly enjoyable, if I do say so myself.
More to come on that, but for now, let’s get into everything I read in September.
*All summaries are taken or paraphrased from Goodreads.
Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman
CARL’S DOOMSDAY SCENARIO by Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #2)
Rating: 4/5 stars
Summary: "The training levels have concluded. Now the games may truly begin." The ratings and views are off the chart. The fans just can't get enough. The dungeon gets more dangerous each day. But in a grinder designed to chew up and spit out crawlers by the millions, Carl and Princess Donut need to work harder than ever just to survive. They call it the Over City. A sprawling, once-thriving metropolis devastated by a mysterious calamity. But these streets are far from abandoned. An undead circus trawls the ruins. Murdered prostitutes rain from the sky. An ancient spell is finally ready to reveal its dark purpose. Carl still has no pants. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. For Carl and Donut, it's anything but a game.
My Thoughts: Okay looooove how this series is progressing! Carl and Donut have finally hit level three and get to choose their “race” and “class” for the rest of the competition. Depending on what they choose for each, they unlock different perks they can use to their advantage. Thanks to some under-the-table advice from a talkshow host who competed in the dungeons before, Donut chooses a class that gives them unlimited access to Mordecai, their dungeon guide. While this obviously propels their character development through leveling up skills and earning more perks along the way, I also felt like they’re stepping out of the caricatures they walked into this series as in the first book (Carl being an absolute BRO and Donut a sassy cat who only cares about herself and Carl’s ex-girlfriend) and starting to develop more depth. It doesn’t hurt that they’re introduced to side quests, and because Carl has a hard time saying no to helping people, he and Donut find themselves in some pretty complicated situations that definitely put their lives on the line. I also loved that the author has started introducing additional layers to the plot, like the complicated intergalactic politics between the powerful corporations governing the dungeon and manipulating what happens inside it. Although this book has only just started digging into some of the deeper plot twists and character arcs, I cannot wait to see what happens in the next book!
The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook by Matt Dinniman
THE DUNGEON ANARCHIST’S COOKBOOK by Matt Dinniman (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #3)
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Summary: Welcome to the Gun Show! The top 10 list is populated. The sponsorship program is open. The difficulty is ramping up. The first three floors were nothing compared to what Carl and Donut now face. The Iron Tangle. An impossibly complicated subway system built out of the world's subterranean railway systems, all combined and then tied together into a knot. Up is down. Down is up. Close is far. The cars are filled with monsters, the railway stations are less than safe, and the exit is always just a few stops away. But there is hope. For the first time, the crawlers are all working together. The loot is better than ever. And the secret to unraveling it all may be hidden in the pages of a seemingly useless book. Welcome, crawlers. Welcome to the fourth floor of the dungeon.
My Thoughts: Hats off to Matt Dinniman for putting himself in a position where he basically has to make every floor a different “world” because WOW, this level was COMPLEX. Floor Four takes Donut and Carl into a labyrinth of subway stations and railways. Trying to understand how this intricate system works, where the stairs to the next floor are located, and how the monsters on this level are using the trains is an absolute FEAT. In a refreshing change of pace though, almost everyone else in the dungeon decides there is strength in numbers. Mind you, Carl and Donut have BEEN flexing this mantra while fighting for their lives down here, but a lot of other crawlers are finally on board due to the complexity of this floor. I would say there are two or three big things that happen in this book. One) Carl is gifted the Anarchist’s Cookbook, which is basically a journal compiled of notes and cheat codes from crawlers of dungeons past. He hasn’t told many people about it and only checks it in the bathroom, where the corporations running this shit show can’t see him, but I’m excited to see how the tips he’s getting from this book help them make it to the lower levels. Two) After getting separated from her group, Brynhild’s Daughters, a woman named Katia joins up with Carl and Donut when the leader of that group, Hekla, asks them to look out for her. Carl is super suspicious of Hekla and, therefore, doesn’t easily trust Katia right away. So it was very interesting to watch how their group dynamics grew and shifted the more they relied on each other to stay alive. Three) Mordecai is put on a 7-day timeout, which means Carl and Donut lose their unlimited access to communicate with him and are kind of winging what they’re doing without his guidance. That said, Carl starts leaning more on the NPCs (non-player characters), or characters planted and controlled by the game, and begins learning more about their role in the dungeon and where most of them originate from. I love how much deeper each book is taking us, both in character development and in the plot, and I cannot wait to start listening to the fourth book!
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell
Rating: DNF @ 40%
Summary: Set over one school year in 1986, Eleanor & Park is the story of two star-crossed misfits—smart enough to know first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.
My Thoughts: Okay it killed me to DNF this book because I loved Rainbow Rowell’s writing in other books like her entire Simon Snow series. I also know people adore this book, like its Goodreads rating of 3.92 with more than 1.2 million ratings says it all. However, I’m a huge mood reader and I’ve felt a little disconnected from things in multiple areas of my life this month for some reason. So I think that may be the biggest culprit of why I just couldn’t muster up the want-to to press play on this audiobook every time I had a chance to listen to it. I can tell the story of Eleanor and Park’s relationship is going to be absolutely beautiful, but it’s just not for me right now. I’m not saying I’ll NEVER read this. I’ll probably just come back to it when I’m feeling more in the mood for an angsty YA romance.
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
THE CALAMITY CLUB by Kathryn Stockett
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: Oxford, Mississippi, 1933. Eleven-year-old Meg Lefleur has learned the hard way to rely on no one. Ever since her beloved mother failed to come home last Christmas Eve, she’s been one of the “unadoptable” girls at the town’s orphanage, where she fights each day to keep her wits sharp and her spirit unbowed. When she meets Birdie, a young woman who has come to Oxford determined to remind her socialite sister of the impoverished family she left behind, for the first time in a long while it seems someone else might care about Meg’s future. But as the Depression tightens its grip, Birdie begins to suspect her sister’s charmed life may be founded on a tapestry of lies. Then, Birdie encounters Charlie, a woman haunted by loss who has been pushed to the brink with nothing left to lose. Drawn together by circumstance, they find unexpected kinship among a disreputable, determined band of women. But in a town steeped in hypocrisy, even the smallest act of defiance can have dangerous consequences…
My Thoughts: Strong statement, but I love to make it: this will be one of my top 5 books of the year, if not one of my all-time favorite historical fictions. This story switches between two POVs: 11-year-old Meg, who is being treated terribly at the town’s orphanage as she waits to be adopted, and Birdie, who is visiting her socialite sister in Oxford, MS, to ask for money to cover their family’s back taxes and save the family home in Footley. Through a series of events and various circumstances, their paths end up crossing, and Birdie becomes invested in getting Meg out of that orphanage, which in turn changes the trajectory of her own life as well. Listen, I don’t want to spoil anything, but I loooooved watching these women from different walks of life come together to make a better future for themselves. It was a risky venture in such a conservative town, but a group of women defying the patriarchy to make money by manipulating the vices of men? Hell yeah. We love to see it! Although not all of the characters in this story were likable, you couldn’t help but get invested in the ones with the biggest hearts. If you’ve liked books like The Briar Club by Kate Quinn, you’ll definitely love this one! It has similar vibes and yet is unlike any other, and I highly recommend it!
The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig
THE KNIGHT AND THE MOTH by Rachel Gillig (The Stonewater Kingdom #1) (REREAD)
Rating: 5/5 stars
Summary: Sybill Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams, she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and commonfolk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum’s windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams. Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybill’s visions. But when Sybil’s fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral’s cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she’d rather avoid Rodrick’s dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.
My Thoughts: UGH BARTHOLOMEW. If I could crawl inside this book and join this band of misfits as they work to overthrow the land’s heretical religious figures… Not that I’d be of much help, but I just have big feelings and friend crushes on all of them. You can read my original review of this book here, but my fangirling energy still stands after a second time through. This story is dark with the perfect touches of humor, manages to have depth without being too complex, and keeps the magic system tied to a set of objects instead of some unseen power. Our protagonist, Sybill Delling, is such a badass, and although there’s a small romance plotline, this girl doesn’t need help from any man. She’s got her hammer and chisel and isn’t afraid to put a crack in the patriarchy! The gargoyle is still one of my all-time favorite characters to date and had me hootin’ and hollerin’ and cheesin’ like a big idiot throughout the entire book. Needless to say, this is still one of my favorite fantasies of the last few years, and I am SO excited to dive into the next installment in this duology!!
Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix
WITCHCRAFT FOR WAYWARD GIRLS by Grady Hendrix
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Summary: There’s power in a book… They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened. Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who. Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.
My Thoughts: I believe this is my second Grady Hendrix book ever? Definitely the first of this year, and though I’m not typically a horror girly, I did end up enjoying this one for the most part. After being dropped off at the Wellwood Home, where unwed young women live out their underage pregnancies in secret, Fern quickly realizes this is not going to be a smooth or relaxing experience by any means. Everything the girls do, from what they eat to what they’re allowed to talk about, is closely monitored and dictated by the strict headmistress, Miss Wellwood, and her staff. They’re even stripped of their real identities and given new names to go by within the home. While visiting the traveling library that stops by every two weeks, Fern asks for a book about pregnancy because none of the adults in the home will tell them anything. The librarian instead gives her a book about witchcraft and honing her own power. All of Fern’s roommates think the book is total bunk, but after finding success with one of the spells, Fern becomes convinced the magic is real and that they have the power to take back control of their lives through witchcraft. Cue a series of terrifying events as these girls get deeper into dark magic they don’t fully understand. What I liked about this book is how it addresses the deeply rooted prejudices and injustices these women experienced when these homes were still operating. They’d be tricked into signing paperwork giving up their babies, even if they didn’t want to. Once they went into labor, they’d be taken to the hospital, drugged, and wake up no longer pregnant. Then they’d just be sent home with stitches in their cooters like nothing happened. It’s wild these homes really existed. Listening to this book was also kind of a claustrophobic experience at times because you could just FEEL the naivety of these girls saturating the dialogue and the choices they made. That being said, I also felt like my experience with this audiobook dragged in certain parts. I checked my progress several times, expecting to be farther along, only to find out I’d listened to, like, 5–10% more of it. So I’d say the pacing left a little to be desired, but overall, I understand why this book is one of GH’s most popular!
That’s all I’ve got for September! Don’t worry. Now that I’ve got my September reviews done and posted, I’m jumping immediately on my October ones so that they come out before Thanksgiving. 😅😉
What’s been your favorite fall read?
2026 Book Count: 86
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