Hello friends, happy Thursday! I hope you’re all doing well. I can’t believe, but I’m happy that we’re wrapping June up! Let’s get into how my month went!

Currently Reading:

Cujo by: Stephen King. I’m invested because I like the idea of a rabid dog causing mayhem… but it’s been a really slow read so far and I don’t know how everything is connected and it’s taking too long put the pieces together. I hope that once things start to come together it’ll be like an ‘aha!’ moment. I also find King has added a lot of details that I don’t think truly need to be added.

Scarborough by: Catherine Hernandez. This was shortlisted for Canada Reads 2022. I just started this today and wow is this heavy in a different sense. This really picks out the everyday things that happen to people of most low in come families, not all of people of colour but majority and it’s a really interesting read so far.

Lioness Rampant by: Tamora Pierce. I randomly thought to pick up this audiobook last night and so far I haven’t gotten through the first chapter. I don’t know, the story hasn’t really gripped me yet.

What I’ve Read:

All My Puny Sorrows by: Miriam Toews. I graciously gave this 3 stars because I appreciated the writing, but the subject matter (assisted suicide) wasn’t my cup of tea. I also don’t really care for literary fiction all that much, it’s really hit or miss for me.

Where the Drowned Girls Go by: Seanan McGuire. I love this series, but this book lacked the spirit and spark that I’ve come to love and expect. It was still well written, but not my favourite.

Book of Wings by: Tawhida Tanya Evanson. I read this as part of the longlisted Canada Reads 2022 books and this wasn’t the type of book I normally pick up. It was very poetic about finding oneself, but I just couldn’t connect to the book unfortunately.

Wishing Day by: Lauren Myracle. This was the first book in this trilogy and it was a lot darker than I thought it was going to be. This touches heavily on depression; there are characters that the author touches on that I want to see if we’ll get more from in the coming books.

The Love Interest by: Cale Dietrich: This was not anything I expected it to be and it was a major disappointment. I couldn’t get behind the concept of the plot and the negative body image it portrayed, just nah, not for me.

Five Little Indians by: Michelle Good. This was such an important read to learn more about residential schools in Canada. This was such a well told story; a harrowing story, but also a hopeful story. Highly recommend! This was the winner for Canada Reads 2022 and totally deserves it!

The Fact of a Body by: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich. This was a non-fiction read that dealt with very heavy topics. Check the trigger warnings before reading, it was part a memoir and part a story of a murder and the author intertwines the two stories as they relate to one another; it was a bit of a confusing read, but I didn’t hate it.

One Last Stop by: Casey McQuiston. This started off slow and I was afraid I wasn’t going to like it, but it really turned around for me. There is such a wonderful found family and I loved the whole time travel plotline.

He Said/She Said by: Erin Kelly. This was something else, my brain was mush by the time I finished. This was another heavy novel where the trigger warning should be checked before reading, but definitely an intriguing physiological thriller.

Links to my my blog posts this past month:

Links to posts I enjoyed around the blogosphere:

Kate @Your Tita Kate talked about how return to office has affected her bookish life and I found it to be very relatable … that is, if I was going back to the office.

Krysta @Pages Unbound talked about what she looks for in a book review – I thought this was an insightful look into book reviews.

Éimhear @A Little Haze Book Blog posted her review of the Hate U Give – such a beautiful and well worded review.

This has been a trying month for me, but here are some positive moments from the month:

Highlights of the month:

✨ I went downtown Toronto for the first time since the pandemic! It was a fun day out with my two best friends; we ate, drank, got friendship bracelets, fun day! 😊

✨ I tried my hand at baking again and came away successful! I made chocolate chip cookies 🍪 AND chocolate cake… look at me baking!

✨ Went to the iHop that opened in my city (the only one not in Niagara Falls in Canada) and it was delish!

✨ Finally got to have dinner with a friend I haven’t seen since March! Great company and yummy food!

✨ Joined a readathon for the first time in a long while, the Dessertathon! 🍪

✨ Got a pedicure with my mum for the first time since 2019! I love the sparkly purple colour that I got.

✨ Went to all you can eat wings… in which I could barely eat what was in front of me 😅

What I’ve watched:

Jane the Virgin; season 5. I can’t believe that I’ve finished this show and that it’s all over. I’m going to miss this show; this was such a comfort show. It’ll be one that I’ll probably go back to in a few years from now. Did I like the way this ended? I’m actually ok with it. Usually, when something ends meta, I hate it, but this managed to be ok in my books. I think because we knew she was writing her book about everything that happened in the show that turning it into a tellanovella made sense, but the fact that they didn’t actually DO it, but just said it as a last remark, I could get behind that. If they had tried to show how they would turn her book into a show, then that would have been too much for me. They did it in a very simple way and I like how happily ever after it felt.

Star Trek: The Original Series season 2 & 3. I finished season 2 up at the beginning of the month and it was much like the first season. This season felt like there were more missions outside the ship and they explored more planets and places and met new people, which was fun to see. It was just as cheesy, which I’ve gotten very used to at this point. I spent most of the month watching season 3 and gosh were there such cheesy moments throughout. I hated that if there was a woman brought into the episode, automatically Kirk ended up getting with her, it got kinda annoying. That aside, I still enjoyed the world and the characters, Spock was my favourite but I also really like Sulu and Chekov as well too.

Stranger Things; season 4, volume 1. I hate that this has been broken up because now I have to wait a few weeks for the next, what 2 epiosdes. I forgot how much I loved this show, it’s just really good. Yes, this season felt extremely long and I honestly didn’t think each episode needed to be over a hour long, it made things drag a bit, BUT sometimes it felt like it went by really quickly because I was so into the show. This new demon has been very interesting and I can’t wait to know more and how they’re going to destroy it. I felt like they spent too much time building up to him, only in the last 40 minutes of the last episode to hit us REALLY hard with exposition on his backstory… they could have spaced that out more. But I loved this nonetheless!

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel; season 4. June is the month I catch up on all the shows that I’ve been currently watching, and this was one of them. I can see why my parents stopped watching after episode 3 on this season; it wasn’t funny, it was everything we’ve seen before (I literally had to pause and check to make sure I hadn’t seen the first episode of this season because it felt so familiar); the jokes just weren’t funny, like there were amusing things that happened, but for the most part this was boring and more of a transitioning season for most of the characters, especially Miriam. The Joel and May storyline hit too close to home for me, but I was still interested to see where things would go. I think that’s how I felt for most of the season; I kept waiting for things to pick up… and they just didn’t. I think there’s supposed to be another season after this, so I hope it’s better because this show was once good.

Superstore; season 3. So in this season they throw in a new girl, Kelley and they try to deviate from the whole “Amy/Jonah” plot by having her get with Jonah and have them get really serious… only for him to dump her… for Amy. I knew the moment she showed up she’d be the new “love interest” but it felt so forced and it didn’t work. Then there’s the plot with Amy’s pregnant and Dina is pregnant because she’s having Glenn’s baby (ugh) so much weirdness… that I can’t stop watching? Yes, I look forward to season 4.

I forgot to add in my wrap up last month the movies I watched! I finally, finally was able to watch Spider Man No Way Home and I loved it so much! Watching all three spider mans come together to fight off old and new evils was so fun! I watched Firestarter from 1984, which they followed the book to a T, which I really liked; I also watched Firestarter 2: Rekindled which was almost 3 hours long and it felt like a true King adaptation. It was like they tried to not only create a sequel, but added SO many flashbacks to the original material that it felt like you were watching 2 movies in one. Lastly, I watched Spiderhead and it was long and boring and I didn’t really care for it. I watched it because Netflix said it was 92% recommended to me and that it was sci-fi… it was interesting.

What I’m watching:

The Umbrella Academy; season 3. I started the new season with so much hope and it’s been good so far… but it’s not on the same level as the past 2 seasons have been. I’m invested enough to continue because I love this show SO much.

Riverdale; season 6. Yeah, I’m back on my bullsh*t watching this. I’ve gotten maybe 3 epiosdes in and I don’t even know what to say about it because things get weirder and weirder every episode. But I like to hate watch this, so I’m pretty sure I’ll get through all of this.

Star Trek: The Animated Series; season 1. This is my next series instalment in this world. It’s basically the same as the original series, same characters and premise… only animated. I do like that these epiosdes are only 24 minutes long because they cut out a lot of the dead space that I couldn’t stand in the 50 minute epiosdes of the original.

Superstore; season 4. I’m only a few episodes in, but it’s just as chaotic and weird as the previous season was. I guess this was airing around the time when the Me Too movement was really big because they keep touching on it… but in such a cringy way… I hope it gets better.

Instagram & YouTube videos from the month:

How was your May? Read, watch, do anything interesting? Let me know!