June Monthly Recap (2023)

 

It has been a while since I last posted. Here is my June monthly recap! Better late than never, right? My life is pretty hectic right now.

Monthly Recap is a feature where I recap my life, books I’ve read, borrowed, and purchased, blog posts you may have missed, shows I’ve watched and give an overall count of my reading progress and more. 

I have been saving up money for the past year to go to ALA with my mom and we finally went! After hopelessly missing (both emotionally and physically) ALA of 2020 and 2021, we made it there. I had a mostly great time that I’ll be discussing later this month. We spent a whole week in Chicago.

Everything had started great. Well, not the month itself but Chicago at least! Until…

Unfortunately, on the second day of ALA, my dad passed away at home. My dad has had a lot of health issues over the last ten years. We had a feeling that this was coming but we didn’t know it would be this soon. Does anyone ever though?

I’m still coming to terms with it. Ultimately, home is really weird right now with it just being my mom and I. I’d been at work a total of one day since getting home on the 28th. My first full week back was a couple weeks ago and I was both dreading it and glad for it. I’m still worried about leaving my mom home alone but honestly, given our being nearly nonstop together for the past two weeks, she may be glad for it.

I made a GoFundMe to help cover cremation costs for my dad and as usual, it just proves to me how amazing and kind internet people are. I truly cannot thank everyone who shared or donated enough. My mom and I are so, so thankful that so many people helped us. It means a lot more when a lot of people in real life haven’t done anything for us. We’ll be getting my dad’s ashes later this week. We’re still figuring out what we’re doing for him and when we’ll be doing it. We know we’re going to hold a celebration of life/memorial but it’s going to be very informal. It will likely be small.

Honestly, it sort of feels like when I get a second to breathe that something else happens. I’ve learned that you kind of just have to roll with it though. 

Besides that though, I’ve spent a couple days hanging out with my nieces and nephew. They are the absolute cutest. They’re so smart, funny, sweet and curious. I love them so much. They are also semi-terrors half the time, ha.

I’m still trying to figure out what social media is going to be most used now. I do like Threads a lot but don’t like that there’s no “Bookmark” feature for posts. By the way, if you have an invite to Bluesky, I am looking.

Highlights:

I went to ALA in Chicago with my mom as I mentioned!

Maisie Peters and Kelly Clarkson both came out with albums! I still have not given the latter’s a listen yet. . .

My blog has been pretty empty since February. I always get to the point where I want to blog but doing the work for it just seems exhausting. I think it’s because I have so many thoughts for posts but everything is so disorganized that I get overwhelmed and don’t do anything. I’m getting out of that though. I need to have something else to focus on with everything else going on.

I really tried to get through as many audiobooks in June as I could since I knew with ALA there would be at least a week I wouldn’t be able to. The genres were mostly Adult Fiction or Mystery YA.

June Books Read: 11

~Audiobooks~

June Books Started: 3

I received Where Echoes Die for being on the street team! I was so excited to be approved. I was able to snag Those Pink Mountain Nights after replying to a tweet from Jen Ferguson asking about interested parties in receiving an ARC. After loving Courtney Gould’s and Jen Ferguson’s  first books, I was excited to hear of their new books, request them and actually be sent copies!

Those Pink Mountain Nights is my first physical ARC from HarperCollins and I could not be happier. I started it on the train to Chicago. I began Saints of The Household while at ALA, literally waiting for a panel, and have really enjoyed it so far. I haven’t read it since then but still! It’s also by an indigenous author. It’s always so amazing for me to see more Indigenous authors publishing, especially in Young Adult fiction.

Favorite Book(s) Read In June:

I loved She Is A Haunting and All The Dead Lie Down. Can we please talk about those covers? They give me all the slightly (okay, more than slightly) unsettling vibes in the best way. I received She Is Haunting as part of The Strand box for March and it is so gorgeous in person. If I’m remembering correctly, these were back to back listens as I was in a haunted setting mood. These were two great creepy mystery books. The writing in both was so atmospheric They are perfect reads for Fall.

Over the past few years, I have been ridiculous about updating my Goodreads. I rely on simply writing down my books read on my  calendar and then praying I remember to type them all up. It does not go as well as one may think.

Luckily, I have everything typed up for this year and I am currently at roughly 95 as of this posting in July. All of them have been audiobooks except maybe three.

~Books Bought In June~

I have been very good at not buying books this month because of ALA coming. If anything, I may have spent too much on Libro FM audiobooks and Kindle books…

~Books for Review From June~

Physical:

Thanks so much to Bloomsbury for this finished physical copy of Secret of The Moon Conch! That cover is gorgeous.

Here are my top seven books I received at ALA in no particular order…except for cover color.

How gorgeous are those black covers all together? Especially The Revenge Game, The Blood Years and The Bad Ones and they’re pink! I will always love a dark (themed) book with a pretty pink color because they can have both!

eARCs:

Thanks so much to all of the publishers for all of the review copies!

I’ve been listening to Maisie Peter’s album, The Good Witch. I have been waiting months for it. At least, it feels like months to me? I can’t remember when I discovered her but it was this year. Anyway, she does not let me down. She’s influenced by Taylor Swift and reminds me of Carly Rae Jepsen (my love).

 

I’ve continued listening to Crime Junkie and Morbid. I started listening to the Park Predators podcast which I have to do in small doses because anxiety.

I started season two of Cruel Summer! I had completely forgotten about it returning in June. So far, so…okay-ish?

My mom and I finished up our The Fosters watch. I’ve been attempting to get her to watch Good Trouble from the beginning and so far it’s been a no-go. She started watching it with me during the third season and absolutely loves Evan.

Besides that we’ve been rewatching Mom, The Middle, Veronicas Mars (mostly me) and Derry Girls (Weekly). Our comfort shows we throw on to either watch or just listen to in the background.

How was your June? What have you read, watched, heard or done so far this summer? Let me know in the comments.

As always, you can follow me on Twitter (while it exists), Instagram and my latest social media, Threads. My username for Threads is YAIndulgences.

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