Words of September || Wrap-up

September was not a good month for me.

It seemed to be going really well in the beginning but the second half completely flipped the mood. Each day felt long and the month felt longer. I've been procrastinating to write this post for so long that I almost decided to skip it entirely. The only thing that held me back is my streak of posting regularly since the beginning of 2024. I really want to keep it up at least until the end of this year.

I'll probably just write whatever comes to mind without a plan. So, grab a drink and settle down, let's get to it ☕️

reading

I read 11 books in September which is a good number. The only thing is that 5 were rereads half of my reading was for comfort. All of them were ebooks and all of them were romance books.

I wasn't going to read Problematic Summer Romance by Ali Hazelwood because it has age-gap which I really dislike. However, I saw it mentioned in a Reddit recommendation post so I picked it up. It's a good thing I went in with low expectations. The characters didn't actually get together until the end. The entire book was filled with their will-they-wont-they vibe. They had the same conversations over and over—her flirting with him and him saying he's too old for her. Their banter was nice but it isn't enough to sell them as a couple. The character development is okay but the romance highly overshadowed it. I realized about half-way into the book that this is kind of a spin-off of another book which I didn't like. Overall, not good. I don't recommend it.

Anti-hero by C.W. Farnsworth is another rec picked up from a Reddit post. I really enjoyed the author's Fake Empire so I've always wanted to try more of their books. This was not bad. It wasn't as good as I remember Fake Empire being but it was nice in its own way. I wasn't a fan of the male lead for a long time but he won me over by the end. Only when the book finished did I realize that stars Fake Empire couple's SON. Lol. Funny. The parents are still my fav though, even in this book.

Wild Wicked Obsession by Layla Frost was a random KU pick. It was okay. Not great but not bad. This also has age-gap romance but it wasn't the focal point like in Problematic Summer Romance so I didn't mind it much. The characters were fine. You can tell that there's a clear bad-boy-good-girl type that the author was going for. It didn't have many layers. It was cute in a few places and the ending with the entire group together solving a mystery was nice.

I tried about 5 KU books after Wild Wicked Obsession, picked due to different reasons, but I liked none of them and quickly DNFed. That string of DNFs was disappointing so I reread the last 3 books of the Mindf*ck series which is always a good read. Then, I reread The Wall of Winnipeg and Me because a friend was reading it. I later reread Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood too.

I wanted more books similar to the Mindf*ck series with dangerous women who are underestimated so I sleuthed a bit on Reddit and picked up Poison Heart by Mae Pierce. I really liked the concept here. The woman was actually dangerous and underestimated. I really liked the part of the story where he was grovelling and she literally poisoned him 😆 This was a fun read. The ending was a bit of a letdown because it too tame considering the rest of the story.

Maneater by Morgan Elizabeth is another book with a dangerous woman. I knew I'd like this because I've read the author's books before and Tis the Season for Revenge is one of my all-time favourites. The lead is a spy who flirts with men and gets information from them which leads to their downfall. The love interest leads a chain of hotels which is being sabotaged. He doesn't know she's a spy to help him and their paths keep crossing and they fall in love. I LOVED how much of a simp he was for her here. She was simp in return too. I loved them. The book put many smiles on my face.

Honestly, I'm Totally Faking It by Amanda Gambill was on my Kindle for a long time and I finally picked it up. I wasn't liking it in the beginning—the characters were lowkey caricatures and the story didn't flow well. However, the book really grew on me as I kept reading. It became so nice by the end. The relationship development was amazing. They're clearly meant for each other. I loved their fake dating plot. I was invested by the end and cheered when they finally got together for real. I still think the beginning could be written better but the story is good.

Although I technically read many books, I didn't read for a good chunk of September. I think I went 10 days without reading anything at one point. I didn't read in the last few days of the month either. My Kindle was inside the shelf, collecting some dust. I was supposed to read something as a buddy read with friends but I wasn't in the mood for it at all.

I want to read a good fantasy series next which isn't hard to follow and doesn't leave me space to think. Need to find one. Let me know if you have any recommendations! Something that grips me like Fourth Wing (book 1, others were meh), maybe with banter like A Dark and Hollow Star series, rich world-building like the Daevabad series, or with a dangerous woman as the MC like The Bone Witch but she should revel in it.

writing

The main update from September is that I'm trying post series again after.. 5 years? When I went self-hosted and got the .com domain, I decided that I wouldn't do any post series. Related posts are fine but not proper series where they have the same name or theme. It had gotten boring after a while so I wanted to keep things new.

But it's been years and I've changed and grown. I'm still not a fan of doing proper post series where it's part 1, part 2, etc. but I do want to try the same name/theme where it makes sense. I've been reading entire backlists of some authors as a fun side-quest lately and it is the perfect opportunity to make a series type of thing.

Introducing The Author Archives! Reading all books by authors gives a lot of extra insight and perspective which doesn't necessarily fit in individual book reviews. I want to comment on the author's writing style or growth over time. I want to talk about common themes and outliers. So, I decided to just make one post for every author with all of my thoughts in one place like a guide.

I've already posted The Author Archives: Ann Liang and another on Abby Jimenez will be up soon. I'll most likely write another on Adrienne Young at some point when I've read all of her books. I was considering reading all of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni's books because I've liked quite a few of them but that was before I saw her backlist 😂 It's too much. I could write on Ali Hazelwood too but I adamantly don't want to read Deep End so I'lll most likely not. I'm looking forward to making this a long-term series by reading backlists slowly in the coming years.

I spent the first half of September working on 3 massive posts so I didn't blog at all in the second half. I was too tired from writing and my social burnout did not help. I was trying to write the posts that I was passionate about quickly and also schedule them in advance because I will be busy in October. It was clearly a bit too much, though. I should have planned it better and written easier posts. Oh well.

There are 3 posts already written and scheduled for October which I'm quite proud of and I hope you like it! Hopefully I'll have a lot to blog about when I'm back home later in the month because I want to keep my blogging streak going. I have a couple of ideas in mind but my writing also depends on my mood so we'll see.

The September newsletter was my first proper newsletter back in Kit and it did much better than I expected! In the ~7 months I spent with Substack, I got used to seeing low open rates for my monthly newsletters even though I knew that I was writing good stuff.

I was apprehensive about the response and engagement being low after moving back to Kit as well. It is technically still lesser compared to the open rates before I moved from Kit to Substack but it's not that bad. The September email got 62.7% open rate! I was very surprised. If I remember right, most of the opens were in the first 3 days. The unsubscribes were low too, much lower than I expected since I was basically returning with a random email after a long time. (Fairly sure the Substack deliveries were being buried in spam or promotions filters)

Since I'm on Kit again, I casually browsed through my previous emails. Apparently, I've been sending newsletters every month for 4.5 years! Wow. It'll be 5 years in April 2026. I'm shook, haha. And I've been sending on the first of every month all these years. I've kept to the tradition and it's become something that people expect too.

I almost always send the email at 9am IST on the 1st of every month. I've actually received responses or texts from people within the first few minutes saying that they've been waiting for it and they love it. I've gotten comments from people saying that they look forward to the beginning of each month for my newsletter. These compliments are huge and I'm really glad to keep doing it!

I was actually contemplating quitting sending newsletters when I was using Substack but now anymore. Returning to my templates on Kit and the option to address every person by name in the email has brought the love for writing newsletter back. Expect more newsletters on the first of every month, and random bonuses in between 🙂

If you haven't subscribed to the newsletter yet, do it now!

content consumed

I have not caught up with blogs I follow in weeks. I read a few at one point but I didn't have the time or energy to comment. I opened one blog post and managed to read about half of it before I had to do something else and then I forgot.

The only content I consumed were videos and TV shows at random times. I would go a week without watching anything and then suddenly watch a whole show in two days. It's been a mess of a month.

TV Shows

• September has been so long that I almost forgot that I finished watching The Winning Try Kdrama this month. The ending was super rushed like many dramas. I got bored with the characters and plot too, despite the rush. I found myself fast forwarding at some scenes because I just wanted it to end. Overall: I liked the rugby and found family theme. The story and the romance weren't that great, though.
• Bon Appétit, Your Majesty ended at the end of September. I was very interested in this drama but my interested started waning half-way through. I was watching new episodes as they released and then I forgot about it for 2 weekends in September. I binged those episodes in one go and kept forwarding in boring scenes. Why do so many Kdramas do this? The beginning is interesting and perfectly paced, the middle is super slow and stretched, the last 1-2 episodes are super rushed. Just keep an even pacing and we'll be good! This drama rushed at the end in such a bad way, it felt like the writers forgot that they had to wrap up by episode 12 until episode 11 came around. Overall: good concept, could-be-better execution. I liked how every episode was named after a dish in the plot. I liked the political and plotlines. I actually didn't care about the romance at all. I watched the last episode so fast and kept skipping scenes chanting, "end. end. end!"
• My Lovely Liar is an older Kdrama that came on Netflix recently. I binged it in 2 days. The pacing was off in this one too but it was better than the above 2. Or maybe it didn't feel that bad because I watched it at a stretch. I watched most of the drama in 1.5x because the scenes were super slow, though. I liked the story and the characters. I liked how the show really explored how the MC's life was affected because of her ability to hear lies. It feels like a simple non-threatening ability but it hampers so much. I liked the depth in the love interest's life. The murder-mystery plot was nice too, although I guessed the killer quite in advance. I didn't like the reasoning for the kill though. It was such a cop-out and stupid. I was glad to see Yoon Ji-on in a drama again (I loved him in Love Next Door) but I actually didn't like him in this role. My favourite Kom So-hyun drama is still Who Are You: School 2015.

life

The biggest thing that happened in September was my social burnout. Although I was fairly careful about factoring in weekends at home and not over-committing to things, it wasn't enough.

On a random day, I suddenly didn't want to talk to anyone and do anything. I didn't want to text anyone. Even when I was trying to be in contact, texting more than a line and adding emojis felt like too much. I stopped speaking in group conversations at work unless I had to speak. I said nothing during lunch and let others carry the conversation even if I could say something. One time, I asked my teammate to talk to the barista to order by drink because the thought of having an unfamiliar conversation was too much.

Ever since the burnout hit, I realized how many small talk conversations I have every day. No wonder I became tired of it. I'm in a new city with a new job and I don't have any close friends here. I have basic conversations with people most of the time, sometimes I say the same thing multiple times a day to different people. It went to such a point that I started staying quiet and not even trying to keep up conversation because every conversation felt like it was taking a piece of me.

I'm starved for good company. I made plans with an old friend whom I'm loosely in touch with and even that familiarity felt like a balm on my soul. It's not a colleague and not a stranger—it's someone who knows me even if not recently. That hangout made me feel better but I was still not upto being back to normal.

In fact, I'm not back to normal even now. I'm not texting people unless I have to. I'm not starting conversations except with my best friend who, through the past 8 years, knows my social limits very well. I told a couple of people that I'm socially tired so they understand but saying that to more people also feels like too much.

I have an upcoming trip in October which is super packed. I'm actually already on the trip as you're reading this. I'll talk about about it in my next wrap-up. I really hope that despite being super busy, it'll be a healing and joyful trip.

Other than the burnout, I have a few updates on running. I went for a few runs in September and they were so so so nice. I ran with a group for the first time and it was really nice. I thought it would be awkward but it was not. Because of the group, I did my longest run yet. I did 5k without any walking and proceeded to finish 6.6k with a few minutes break at one point. I did my fastest 5k yet at a run organised by my office, and it was without music (forgot to take my earbuds) or running company. I tried a couple of guided runs on the Nike Run Club app and liked it much more than I expected.

Somehow, running coincided with when my burnout hit so going for runs felt healing. I got the annual pass for the nearby park which I really like. It has a lot of pathways and is filled with nature. I often see peacocks walking around during my runs too, just casually walking in the footpath where people go. The sounds of nature are amazing and the skies around sunset are beautiful.

On the first day of September, I spent half a day in Bangalore with a friend before returning home. We went to two places with matcha drinks just to try them out. I got a pack of stickers from one of the shops and put them on my work and personal laptops.

I miss staying in the same city as most of my friends. I'm still not used to not hanging out frequently with friends who I don't have to put a mask in front of. Good company with familiarity really does wonders and I appreciate it even more now that I don't have it as often.

how was your september?

What did you do? What did you watch/read? Did you go anywhere new or try something new? Do you have book recommendations with dangerous women or good fantasy plots?