Hi everyone, I've got my June wrap up today. I have basically nothing to say
about June because June was an extremely uneventful month because I spent most of
it unwell and unable to really do anything, other than watch a ridiculous amount of TV.
Which honestly, I'm not sure whether to be proud of or not because I
watched an impressive amount of TV this month and then I also managed to read
seven books and six graphic novels I think.
So I'm just going to get straight on into what I read and watched in June.
I started the month by finishing 'Tower of Dawn' by Sarah J. Maas which is the sixth or seventh book
in the 'Throne of Glass' series. I'm not entirely sure at this point. It's basically a companion novel
following Chaol, Nesryn and Yrene during the events of the last book in the 'Throne of Glass' series.
I'm gonna say anything more than that because if I tell you anything about the plot of this book,
it'll just spoil the entire series essentially.
I love this series. It has such a special place in my heart for a
lot of kind of personal reasons and I really enjoyed this book a lot more than
I'd expected to actually. It was far too long and I didn't really care about
Nesryn's ins perspective at all. I really like her as a character but I
definitely could have done without her chapters and her perspective because it
just dragged on for a little bit and I just wanted more of Chaol because he is
my absolute favourite and I also absolutely adored Yrene.
With that being said and as much as I did enjoy this and I do enjoy this series, I am totally
aware of how many problems it has and I'm kind of just giving up on this
author once I finished with this series. But I am just in far too deep with this
series and it means too much to me for me to kind of totally forget about it.
But I did really enjoy this book. I just loved being back in this world and the
story and I absolutely loved spending time with the characters again.
But it was far too long. It didn't need to be this long and I ended up giving it a 4 out of 5 stars.
I then picked up 'The One Hundred Nights of Hero' by Isabel Greenberg
and this is a graphic novel that is essentially an F/F retelling of 'A Thousand and One Nights'
and follows Hero as she spends one hundred nights telling stories to this guy, who made a
bet with the husband of the woman who she is in love with, that he could
basically sleep with her just like that. So she spends a hundred nights whilst this
woman's husband is away, telling stories so that she can distract this man so
that he doesn't end up sleeping with her and it basically tells you that story
but also tells all of the stories that she tells during those nights.
I thought this was brilliant. It was so funny and witty
and just very unique. The art style was really quirky and it was just this
brilliant witty, sarcastic reflection kind of on society and how it treats
women and also the narrator in it was brilliant.
She was so sarcastic and I absolutely loved the humor in this
and I thought it was great and I ended up giving it a 4 out of five 5 stars.
I then read 'If I Was Your Girl' by Meredith Russo, which follows Amanda after she moves to
school after being harassed and abused for being trans. And it basically follows
her as she builds these new relationships in this new life.
Whilst also trying to decide whether or not to come out to these new people.
And I thought this was great. It was incredibly intense and absolutely heartbreaking but
also very insightful and also did have some very cute and adorable moments in it as well.
I finished this in a couple of hours. It was an incredibly easy read
and I feel as though it's one of those books that no matter who you are, how old you are,
how you identify, you will be able to take something away from this
because it did have a lot of insight into being trans and also the author's
note in it was absolutely fantastic and I ended up giving it a four out of five stars.
Next I read 'Papergirls: Volume 4' by Brian K. Vaughn, Cliff Chiang, Matt Wilson and Jared K. Fletcher.
I am four volumes into this series and I still have no idea how to explain the plot of it.
I have no idea what is going on most of the time and I don't really care
because I absolutely love it, it is so bizarre. The best way I can describe it
is think 'Stranger Things' if the boys from 'Stranger Things' were a bunch of
paper girls and they were traveling throughout time. That's how I'm gonna
explain it because I don't really know how to explain it because I don't really
know what I am reading but I do know that I really really enjoy it.
It is so much fun the characters are brilliant the art style is fantastic and I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars.
After that I read 'Floored' which is a collaborative novel by Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Tanya Byrne, Non Pratt,
Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson and Eleanor Wood and it follows five teenagers
after one year they all get trapped in an elevator together and kind
of bond over the fact that one, they were trapped in an elevator together but two,
a guy died was they're in the elevator together and then it follows them over
six years and follows their relationships and how their lives change
and how they intertwine and things like that. I was super excited about this.
I thought it sounded absolutely fantastic and honestly I really didn't like it.
I just didn't think it worked. I thought the concept for it was great but I just
don't think it worked on execution because you got to know these
characters but also you didn't get to know them because you met them once a year.
And because of that big life changes kept happening but you didn't
get to know the in-betweens of it. So you didn't really get to know the characters themselves.
All you've got to know was that each year something big in their
life happened and that was kind of it. Had it just been for that, I would have
said it was okay and a somewhat enjoyable read but there was one
character in this book who was classed as the asshole because there is
'The Swat, the fraud, the dutiful daughter, the child star, the fangirl and the asshole'
and the asshole in this, obviously, is meant to be an asshole but oh my goodness was this guy an asshole.
He was possibly the most disgusting character I have ever read. He somehow managed to offend
every single person under the sun, in a really foul way and I get that he was
meant to be an asshole but also teens and young people will be reading this book.
I don't personally see how you can write such awful things about people who
could possibly be reading this book. He was just awful about every single kind
of marginalization you could have. I was so uncomfortable reading his chapters
that I almost just put this book down. Then I thought I may have been overreacting.
So I gave that chapter to my mum to read and she was also as
shocked by it and I think it was very much going to be the shock factor but I
think it was just a bit of a cheap shot because it was shocking but less because
of how much of an asshole he was and more so that people thought this was
okay to put in the book. So yeah, that I just I couldn't really get over and the
fact that he kind of had a redemption arc but you didn't get to see any of his
redemption because you skipped every year. I don't know. I just found it very
uncomfortable to read and not in a good way and not in a way that I thought worked personally.
So yeah, this was definitely an interesting one. I just don't
think the concept was executed very well and as I said, that character was the
most despicable character I've ever read. I ended up giving this a 2 out of 5 stars.
After reading 'Floored' I honestly just needed a bit of a pick me up, so I read volume one of 'Goldie Vance' by
Hope Larson, Britney Williams and Sarah Stern and then throughout the month I also
read volumes two and three and this was exactly what I needed. It was just a breath of fresh air.
It was so, so refreshing and it follows Goldie Vance, who is a
biracial and I've heard that she is also bisexual.
Although from the first three volumes she has only showing interest in another woman
who she ends up being in a relationship with and it basically
follows her as she lives and works in the hotel that her dad is a manager of
and she works as a valet was also on the side, helping the in-house detective.
She is brilliant. She's solving these mysteries and it is so much fun.
The artwork is absolutely gorgeous and I love the characters in it.
I love the setting, as it is set in the 1960s and I ended up giving volumes one and two a 4 out of 5 stars
and then volume three a 5 out of 5 stars because this was just absolutely fantastic and I adored all of them.
Next I picked up 'Undead Girl Gang' by Lily Anderson and this follows Mila, who is a plus-sized Latina girl,
after her best friend dies but Mila doesn't believe that her death was an accident
and she thinks she was murdered. Both her and her best friend Riley were super into witchcraft.
So Mila decides to cast a spell to bring Riley back to life
for seven days, so they can solve her murder. This was super entertaining.
I will say that for me personally, I felt as though it lacked some suspense and I
would have really loved that to be more of a build-up in that sense.
Other than that, I can't really complain because it was essentially a murder mystery with
zombies and witchcraft and it was very very entertaining, very easy to read and
I ended up giving it a 3.75 out of 5 stars.
Next I read 'The Miseducation of Cameron Post' by Emily M. Danforth and this follows Cameron after
her parents that killed in a car crash when she was 12. That was in 1989 and it
follows her through then until 1993 and it's basically all about her living in
this very conservative small town in Montana and she is trying to kind of
hide her sexuality, as she is a lesbian, whilst also just living her life and
having relationships. But once her aunt finds her out, she sends her to this
conversion therapy camp to try and 'straighten' her out.
This was incredibly intense and incredibly heartbreaking and very difficult to read at times but I do
think it was a very important read and a very honest and raw and truthful read.
For some reason I just really didn't get on the writing style and I also felt as
though it was quite a bit too long. A lot of the plot points almost felt a little
bit like fillers but I did think this was a brilliant book.
I really enjoyed the characters. I really enjoyed the storyline. I just didn't really connect
too much to the writing style. I will say that this book should come with a
million trigger warnings in it and I have written all of my trigger warnings
out for this book in my Goodreads review. And I also write trigger warnings
for all of the books that I review on Goodreads. Which is all of the books that I read.
So if you would like to know any trigger warnings for any of the books
that I've mentioned and ever mention, I always have my Goodreads linked in the
description box but this definitely should come with a hefty list of them.
And I don't want to say them right now because I know I'll forget something and
I don't want to forget something important. Although I will say there is
so much homophobia in this and also a very very graphic self-harm scene.
But I am now definitely very intrigued to see what the film for this is going to be like.
As I think the movie adaptation comes out at the end of August and I
ended up giving this a 3.7 5 out of 5 stars.
After reading 'The Miseducation of Cameron Post', once again I just needed
something a little bit lighter because that was a very heavy read.
So I picked up 'Boy Meets Hamster' by Birdie Milano and this follows 14-year old Dylan who is gay
as he goes on holiday with his family and his best friend to this very
crummy Cornwall caravan park. It's basically all about the antics that he
gets up to whilst he is there, as he is trying to get the attention of this guy
that he has a huge crush on. This was absolutely adorable. I will say that this
definitely was for a lot younger target audience. It said it was young adult but
I would definitely say it was young young adult, borderline middle grade.
It had a very diverse cast of characters with the main character being gay and his
little brother had cerebral palsy and then his best friend was a plus-sized girl,
who although not explicitly written on the page, was definitely kind
of written it's being bi and then also one of the other main characters in it was a person of colour.
It was just a really fun, very very easy cute and adorable read.
I do think that it was kind of simplified almost too much.
I think that the characters in this were a little bit infantilised because of how
simple the writing style was but other than that, it was adorable and I would
definitely recommend this to anyone that's maybe younger and looking for something
a little bit like 'Love, Simon' but maybe is a bit too young for 'Love, Simon' or
something like that and I gave this a 3.75 out of 5 stars.
Next I picked up 'Amulet: Volume 3' by Kazu Kibuishi
and this is, as I said, the third volume in this series
which is basically about a brother and sister who move house and end up being pulled into
this new world and realising that they're the only people that can save it and it is so much fun.
This series needs to be made into a movie or a TV series or something
because it was just born to be that. It is so fantastic, so addictive.
It's a great middle grade graphic novel series and it is so easy
to read but also so enjoyable and I'm loving it and I ended up giving this a 4 out of 5 stars.
And lastly in June I read 'History is All You Left Me' by Adam Silvera
and to this follows Griffin during the history building up to and
the present after his ex-boyfriend has died and the grief that Griffin is
feeling over his ex-boyfriends death has extremely exaggerated his OCD.
This is the first book I've ever read by Adam Silvera
and I now totally understand why so many people love his writing and his books.
I will say that I think the hype surrounding this book got my
expectations a little too high and I therefore didn't love it as much as I
was expecting to and as much as other people have done but it was still absolutely fantastic.
I loved the representation of Griffin's OCD.
I thought that was absolutely fantastic and very sensitively but honestly done
and I loved a little wasn't fixed by love but also acknowledged the fact that
people and love can help recovery with these things and it doesn't always all
have to be down to that individual. And I thought the different representations of
sexualities were brilliant in it and the relationships and the characters were great.
I just loved the fact that the characters were flawed.
They weren't perfect. No one was the villain but no one was
kind of this perfect glowing person and I thought it was really great.
I read it in two sittings. It was very easy to read and definitely very emotional but also
wasn't as emotional as I was thinking it was going to be, considering how
everybody talks about it. But also I'm pretty much a very but at this point, so
I may just be completely broken but this I thought was brilliant and I'm now
definitely excited to read more from Adam Silveira and I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars.
So that is everything that I read in June. Concerning everything that
I watched in June, I finished and completed watching 'Sense8' which was
absolutely phenomenal and deserved so many more seasons. I then watched the
entire first season of 'Lost in Space', which is another Netflix original
which I thought was fantastic and I had not heard of it
before but I thought it was really really great.
And then I also watched all three seasons of 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend', which I absolutely loved.
I loved the mental health representation in it and I'm
such a musical nerd. So the fact that it's a musical TV show was just brilliant.
And I didn't actually know that it was going to be a musical.
So that made it even more fantastic and I'm so excited for the next season and then
also my mum and I have just started watching 'Queer Eye' which is absolutely
fantastic and a breath of fresh air and so much fun to watch and my mum has not
watched a single episode without crying, which is also very entertaining.
And yeah, that is what I watched while I essentially couldn't walk through this month.
So that is why I watched and read a lot. I had a lot of time on my hands.
So yeah, that was my June. I would absolutely love to know what you have been reading
and watching during June and I just hope you had the most fantastic month and I
will leave the links to my Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Goodreads and blog in
the description box below. So feel free to follow me on any of those if you would
like and yeah I would love to know what you've been reading watching and what
you were hoping to read and watch in July and as I said I hope you've had a
fantastic month and I hope you have the most brilliant start to July. Bye!
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