Offbeat Offline: September 2025

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? My husband finally venturing out, a medical appointment and a whole lot of laziness. Seriously, one would think that this was one of my hiatus months (which, counterintuitively, were full of reading/reviewing activity)...I barely read (and reviewed) and lost too much time playing tiles games. I need to get back on track...I mean, with my life as a whole...but more of this below.

📚 WHERE DID THE MONTH GO? As I said, I barely read (well, I barely did anything at all). I did read and review the last of my ARCs (last until I downloaded the ones below, that is 😅), but it took me ten days to sit down and write a MINI review for it. Procrastination, my old friend.

Approvals (2):

• The Darkness Greeted Her by Christina Ferko (YA, thriller - not a real approval, because it was Read Now on NG)

Penny's abusive father is dead…but she still hears his voice in her head, encouraging her to hurt those around her. She can't go to school or be around her friends or even draw with a sharp pencil without her intrusive thoughts urging her toward violence. Desperate to get a handle on her OCD, she agrees to spend the summer at Camp Whitewood—an exclusive therapy retreat in the woods.

She feels optimistic when she arrives. The other girls all have their reasons for being there, which makes Penny feel a little less alone. But then she starts seeing things that can't possibly be there: the gold watch her father was buried with, his favorite whiskey spilled on her cabin floor...a terrifying figure she calls the Shadow Man looming at the foot of her bed. Penny thinks she is losing her mind, but when a girl goes missing, and is later found dead, it's clear that whatever is happening at Camp Whitewood isn't all in her head.

As the hallucinations become increasingly intense and more girls wind up dead, Penny must work with whoever is left standing to figure out what is real before the Shadow Man uses their traumas against them and claims their lives.

• That the Dead May Rest by Karen A. Wyle (Adult, afterlife, urban fantasy - again, not a real approval, because it was Read Now on NG)

After a life of peril and fear, Millie has reached the peace, beauty, and security of the afterlife. But one day, when she is performing her glad duty of welcoming a new spirit, that spirit recoils from her in horror — because her body had become a zombie, and had brutally killed him.

As more spirits make the same terrible discovery, they ask themselves, and each other: is this somehow my fault? When will it end? And finally: what can we do? Is there anything we can do to stop this?

And are there people among the living who can help them to do it?

Reads (2...oops?):

• Opposite World by Elizabeth Ann Martins (Adult, sci-fi)

The daughter of a former computer scientist who's hiding from his past gets involved in the same technology he contributed to creating - one that can rewrite the user's experiences - and once trapped into the program itself, must battle corporate overlords and unbury the truth about her own life, in a literal trip down memory lane. An intriguing sci-fi/thriller/coming-of-age blend with a few flaws - but I came for the dreamscape/memoryscape, and I have no complaints about that. Brilliant.

• Catfish Rolling by Clara Kumagai (YA, magical realism – reread [pub. 2023])

Years after an earthquake so powerful that it cracked time itself - taking her mother - Japanese/Canadian Sora is still searching for her in the zones where time flows differently, until her father disappears as well, and she has to venture deeper into the dangerous spaces where times goes awry to get him back. On a basic level, it's a sci-fantasy-meets-coming-of-age story with a mixed race protagonist at its center; but scratch that surface and you'll have a story about coping with grief, preserving memories as opposed to clinging to them, respecting/making peace with the environment we live in, being able to accept the things we can't change. Plus it's a love letter to post-quake Japan, the fractured time a metaphor for the different ways (speeds) in which its people react to such a disaster. A quiet gem.

Reviews (1...oops again?):

• Opposite World by Elizabeth Ann Martins (see above)

Mini review coming in November.

Here are my scheduled reviews for this month:

• When We Talk to the Dead by Ian Chorão (on Mon. 6th);
• The Last Soul Among Wolves (The Echo Archives #2) by Melissa Caruso (on Sat. 11th);
• Wake the Wild Creatures by Nova Ren Suma (on Thu. 16th);
• Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear by Seanan McGuire (Wayward Children #10) (on Fri. 22nd).

Reviews aside, I have a Tell Me Something Tuesday round-up scheduled for Tue. 28th, in which I answer all the October questions. In the meantime, here's the TMST prompt list for the month of October, in case you want to join in:

• October 7th: What's a movie or TV show that you'd recommend to everyone?
• October 14th: Has a book ever ignited a hobby/passion in you? (a question I submitted)
• October 21sth: What’s something you rebelled against as a kid? (a question I submitted)
• October 28th: What was your favorite Halloween (or cosplay) costume? *Bonus for photos!

🚶‍♂️STEPPING OUT. So, my husband finally started to go out again. He drives me around and goes for small tasks (like buying bread), always by car of course. He still spends lots of time in bed because the pain is real, but we're definitely in a better place than the last three years...Here's hoping things will keep improving - it's about time. I mean, he'll never be able to go back to being as functional as he was before - which wasn't much to begin with - but there's still some leeway...

🤗 FANCY MEETING YOU HERE. I ran into a high school friend for the first time in...20 years, maybe? We genuinely liked each other as teens (I don't mean romantically), so it was nice. The bad part (from my perspective, that is) is that since his marriage ended (10 years ago) and he got the chance to retire early (a couple of years ago), he started a whirlwind of hobbies and activities that made me feel the dead weight of my stupid life even more. He took up swimming, bought a motorcycle and started visiting other countries left and right, and even became a sommelier - which, again, led him to travel a lot and put him in contact with a number of national and international celebrities. It's funny, because I could still recognise the boy I met in high school - the smile, the spontaneity, the niceness - except back then I would never have imagined he had all those other things in him. He tried to make me feel better about my stupid life (see above), reminding me that he hadn't exactly had a career either (he used to be a bus driver) and his marriage went wrong, but heck, the whole time I was thinking, how did I throw all my chances away and found myself in this hellhole? Other people LIVE, dammit. They did/do something with their existence. I mean, I'm happy for him, but I've been feeling more down than ever after that encounter...

🩺 HEAL THE PAIN. I went to the orthopedist for a hip pain problem I've had for a while. He said it's due to an inflamed tendon and advised me to get laser or ultrasound therapy...except the last time I tried to get one of those, the doctor in charge refused to administer them because I have CLL - despite my hematologist telling me that in my case there were no risks involved (with a tumor affecting an organ the bad cells might be stimulated, but that doesn't happen with blood), and no matter that the first time I had gotten ultrasounds a couple of years before, no one had batted an eye. I suppose this particualr doctor wanted to stay on the safe side, but what the hell. So I guess I'll talk to my hematologist again when I see her in November, and ask if she's willing to sign some kind of document that states I can get the therapy I need...

😶‍🌫️ GET A GRIP. Last but not least...as I said above, I squandered this month like I did my previous three-month hiatus, and this has got to stop. For years now (especially since my husband became bedridden) I've been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of things I had to take care of, and basically turned my head the other way as often as I could...but those things don't go away - on the contrary, they become a pile, and thus I feel even more overwhelmed, and well...wash, rinse, repeat. Not to mention, I've started to look for ways to procrastinate my blogging activities as well, wasting my time with compulsory gaming and social media scrolling instead of, you know, reading and reviewing. So I decided I had hit rock bottom and I needed to crawl back up from this hole. I need discipline. And I need focus. And I need to gather all my strength, inner and outer. Cheer for me?

PUBLISHING NEWS/TIPS

None this month.

THINK-PIECES, DISCUSSIONS, ORIGINAL FICTION

• The Orangutan Librarian reminds us that the library is an educational resource, not a business.
• The Orangutan Librarian (again) muses on what makes a bestseller (and how to save publishing).
• Sam asks what things you could do without in a book.
• Lissa shares some of her pet peeves about book series.
• Lissa (again) amuses us with her short story Dinner on a Cloud.

REVIEWS/RECOMMENDATIONS

• Cee Arr explains why It by Stephen King is f**ked up.
• Kit recommends 10 sci-fi/fantasy books with nonbinary characters.

OTHER

• Mary showcases her Halloween decorations.

That's it for now. My next post will be up on October 6th, and it will be the review for When We Talk to the Dead by Ian Chorão I mentioned above.

So, what were your highs/lows in the past month?