Hello friends, happy Monday! I hope you’re all enjoying summer so far! But before we get to summer it’s time to wrap up everything that was June, let’s jump right into it!

Currently Reading:

Skeleton Crew by: Stephen King. I have one short story left and then I’m done! This collection has gone by quite quickly; some stories I’ve liked better than others, but overall, it’s been an enjoyable read. More of my thoughts once I actually finish it.

Le Morte D’Arthur by: Sir Thomas Malory. I’ve made huge progress on this book over the course of the month… 500 pages worth of progress! Last month I wasn’t really connecting with the stories, now I’m connecting better and finding I’m enjoying them more. I’m going to be sad once I finish it next month.

Sunshine Nails by: Mai Nguyen. This is my next Canada Reads book (I have 2 left after this!) and it’s been a good story so far. I’m just getting to the rising action now and I’m very curious how it’s all going to play out. There are a lot of character POVs that make me interested to see how they all come into play.

What I’ve Read:

44/100

A Girl Like That by: Tanaz Bhathena. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This wasn’t a bad novel, but it didn’t exactly work for me.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by: Oscar Wilde. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ For my 15th(!) and annual reread of this, I decided to take up the audiobook and wow was I impressed! Ben Barnes narrates the Penguins Classic edition and, it was SO good. Highly recommend, it really gave a fresh perspective of the book I love so much!

Miss Peregrine’s Museum of Wonders by: Ransom Riggs. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I thought this was a fun companion novel to this series. There were parts I thought weren’t needed, but overall fun read!

Untamed Shore by: Silvia Moreno-Garcia. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ This was a great coming of age story mixed with suspense and tension, it was just so good!

A Tempest of Tea by: Hafsah Faizal. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ I liked the concept and the vampire aspects… but the execution fell flat for me.

Unearthed by: Amie Kaufman & Megan Spooner. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ This had some pacing issues, but I was invested… plus this ended on a cliff hanger so I gotta read the sequel!

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by: Michelle McNamara. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I don’t read/watch True Crime often, it’s not my genre of choice, but this was well told and really interesting.

Links to my my blog posts this past month:

Links to posts I enjoyed around the blogosphere:

Christina @The Bookshelf Corner posted more titles that would make great candle names

Krysta @Pahes Unbound wrote about authors/marketers asking to withhold or wait to post negative reviews

Sam @Spines in a Line posted about the museums she’s visited recently

I feel like June just existed. I didn’t really do much. I worked a lot, I had quiet weekends with friends or just at home. I went out a few times, but this month was mostly just recouping from traveling last month. Although, I’ve had travel on the brain a lot recently; I just want to go to cozy, lazy places right now, that’s the era I’m in. We’ll see what this summer brings.

Highlights:

✨Went to the Bread and Honey festival in my city

✨Spent time outside in the sunshine

✨Got into audiobooks a bit

✨Visited another city in Ontario for the day, Barrie

✨Hung out with friends

✨Ate out a few times

✨Went to a Toronto Blue Jay’s baseball game

✨Hung out at this pop-up Mississauga food market with friends

What I’ve watched:

Star Trek: Discovery; season 5. And just like that, this series has come to an end. I’m really going to miss this crew because they were one of the best. I’ve loved this since I first started watching it a few years ago. This season was a nice send off. I liked how they had one last big mission to find all the missing clues and how it really gave each character one last chance to shine and figure out who they are. I thought that was done really well. A lot of characters had storylines and just things to find out about themselves and this mission brought it all out. Also, all the love this season had was so beautiful to watch. Michael and Book was such a slow burn, then you had Saru and Lorna, who were just so wonderful to watch in their simplicity. I also thought the addition of Rayner this season was good – he was like a sore thumb, but of course he started to come around. I feel like I can’t say how much I loved this show and how much I’m going to miss it enough.

The Simpsons; season 17. I’m still going strong with my continuation of watching every episode of the Simpsons. Life got a little busy so I kinda fell off on watching last month, but I’m back! I have to say, season 17 was really Italian heavy, like Lisa learning the language and Millhouse just knowing how to speak it – that episode sticks out to me the most. They also went to Italy where apparently Sideshow Bob now lives with his new family – I liked that episode. So they managed to keep things pretty fresh, even after all these years. I’m close to finishing season 18… but I’ll talk more about that in next month’s wrap-up.

One Day; limited series. I will start by saying I enjoyed this, they did a great job of capturing the essence of the book… but did I love it? Not as much as I thought I would. People were raving it would rip my heart to shreds… and it didn’t. Yes, there were multiple occasions where I cried, but I don’t know what it was, I just didn’t feel the gut wrenching heartache I was prepared to feel. Maybe because I already knew the ending and I knew what to expect? Needless to say, it was done so well; I loved that we got short snippet episodes because it really let us peak into these two characters’ lives each year to see what they were up to, and how their relationship was either growing or not moving. I did think the end was a bit rushed. We had each episode be a year in their life, then when life finally works out for them, it was like 3 years in one 30 minute episode and I felt cheated. I get it, we didn’t need to see so much of them together, but it would have been nice if it was paced out a bit better. In the end, I’d highly recommend this, especially if you’ve read the book because I think it does it justice.

Boy Meets World; season 4. I made it to the end of the fourth season! It felt like I was never going to get there, but I did! This season is full of iconic episodes, that I only slightly, vaguely remembered. It’s so interesting what your brain decides to remember. But there were banger after banger of great episodes, from Topanga almost leaving the show (but their love was TOO strong!!), to Shawn joining a cult and the start of the wilderness store, there was lots to watch and enjoy! Again, there were a lot of life lessons to be learned in this season, mostly about staying in school, or continuing on to post-secondary education. They really push for both Eric and Shawn to take the SATs and to apply for college. Much like the Pod Meets World podcast, I agree with their take, that they could have taken Eric’s character down a different route than Corey and had him not go to university and show there’s more to life than going to university, but I digress. I love how in the last episode of the season, we see Bill Daniels (Mr. Feeny’s) real wife for the first time as the Dean. I can’t wait for more of those episodes. I’m sad that Mr. Turner is officially off the show, and I didn’t remember that his last episode ends in him in a coma – that felt so lame, he deserved so much more. I feel like everyone grew up so much this season, and I think season 5 is their last year of high school already. Should be an interesting season, I look forward to my rewatch!

Star Trek: Prodigy; season 1. So apparently this show is getting a second season… I thought it had been cancelled [after further investigation, it was cancelled by Paramount+ but now picked up by Netflix] so I get a little bit more time with these characters. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed getting to know them, but they haven’t exactly been my favourite. This series is definitely geared towards younger audiences, so sometimes I felt a little bored, but I liked seeing this ragtag team work together and learn to be a small family to one another. The show kinda lost me in this middle when we see the real Janeway trying to locate Chakotay… because she’s real, but also a hologram on the star ship, it wasn’t exactly adding up to me. It took time for the plots to really be laid out, but I enjoyed this and I’m glad it was picked up. I just read that we’ll be seeing the holographic doctor from Voyager in season 2 and I am SO excited! This is starting to feel like an animated version of Voyager… and I’m kinda okay with that.

The Mist; season 1 (and the only season). After reading the short story a little while ago, I finally got around to watching both the movie adaption (see below) and the series that Netflix tried to create. This was only 1 season because it got cancelled due to lack of interest… and I can see that. I have a whole write up prepared that I’m hoping to have posted next month, where I’ll dive into my thoughts on this. But to be brief here, I could see where they tried to go with this, but it felt really flimsy and it lost me a few times. I think around episode 3 I was ready to quit because it was kinda boring and getting slightly repetitive. My interest peaked throughout but I don’t think I could have lasted more than the 10 epiosdes of this. I’m sad that I won’t get answers to how this ends, but it was creepy and could be ruthless and gruesome at times, too, but overall was a meh adaptation (although the story it’s based on was kinda meh, too).

Star Trek: Lower Decks; season 1. I’ve started my next venture in my Star Trek journey and I have to say… I didn’t exactly love it to start. This was a lot. All the characters energy levels were through the roof – everyone was yelling and just really loud; I was like, am I going to like this? Will I be able to continue with this for 5 seasons?! But somehow, either it mellowed out… or I just became accustomed to the chaotic mess, or maybe a little of both, but I actually look forward to watching this every evening. A group of ensigns who live on the lowest part of the ship, who do a lot of the grunt work. It’s like the intern position in Starfleet. I love this team and I love the secret that Beckett is the captain’s daughter… although I kept wondering when people would find out. I was hoping it would have lasted more than just until the end of the first season, but we’ll see how that changes things. Brad is a funny character, he’s nervous about everything, yet is the biggest people pleaser; his and Beckett’s friendship can be off the charts, but it’s cool to see them when they have each other’s backs. I like their friendship and I hope they don’t ruin it.

List of Movies:

• Disney Movies (I sorta got my movie groove back this month!)
  • Charley and the Angel – Fred MacMurray’s last Disney movie and it was good, sometimes a little strange, but I expect nothing less from his movies.
  • One Little Indian – Still counting down the days when there isn’t a Disney western; this one was terrible and so boring!
  • Robin Hood – An animated movie! It’s been so long, I enjoyed this movie immensely.
  • Superdad – I didn’t care for this; the plot was boring and the dad was anything but super.
  • Herbie Rides Again – The sequel to the Love Bug. It was good to see him again, causing trouble, but trying to save the day.
  • The Bears and I – This was a terrible movie trying to rewrite history to make it cleaner than it really is.

The Mist – I actually liked the film over the short story; the book was ok (I hated the ending, but it’s King what do you expect), but the film did a really good job with the story and plot.

The Big Lebowski – as much as this movie felt like it was about nothing… I still had a good time watching it.

Pretty Woman – I think I’ve seen so many clips from this film that I’ve practically seen the whole movie… but I’m glad I finally watched it all together because it’s SO good! The ending was a little too cheesy for me, though.

It Follows – This was such a weird and creepy horror film that didn’t make any sense to me… I gave it a 2 1/2 star on Letterboxd because I was strangely invested and I watched til the end, but just super weird.

To Kill a Mockingbird – I decided to start watching the adaptations on the classic books I read (because I need more projects! 😅). I liked this movie… but it wasn’t as good as the book. This was basically a step by step reenactment of the book, but I found myself kinda bored in the middle, whereas the novel I was fully engaged.

Camp Nowhere – I watched this because Pod Meets World have an episode rewatching it. I fell in love with this movie. It reminded exactly what it felt like to be 12-14 years old; very nostalgic.

What I’m watching:

Bear and the Big Blue House; season 2. I have a few more episodes of this season left. Like I said last month… 36 episodes is a lot. I’m glad season 3 is only 24. Not to say I’m not enjoying this, I am… but I am getting a little tired of it. It’s very repetitive, as it should be as it’s for children, but we’ll see. I’m sure I’ll finish all 4 seasons.

Angel; season 5. The last season. I’m going to finish this. So, the show decided to pick up on season 5 pretending like everything in season 4 didn’t happen, which I can get behind because that season was crap – but we lost Cordelia because of it and that makes me mad. Instead, we get Spike back. Yippie, my favourite character (not!). I have to say, his banter with Angel has been very entertaining so I won’t complain too much, but I’m curious where they plan to take this season.

The Simpsons; season 18. I’m 2 epiosdes away from finishing this so I’ll talk about it more next month.

Instagram & YouTube videos from the month:

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