June ’20 wrap-up

Good evening bookworms!

Does anyone else feel like this year has simultaneously taken 30 seconds, and 8 years?! I am so tired, but also, where the hell did this year go? How are we already more than halfway through?

Thankfully I have a week of holidays coming up. I’m hoping that I can use some of that time to catch up on blogging and get slightly ahead by actually scheduling posts (as opposed to starting them 6.5 hours after my blogging plan says they should have been published… oops?! (and then posting 10 hours later… ?)

June is kind of a blur right now… I mean, my birthday (which was in the second half of the month) feels like it was months ago, and I’m always surprised when I look at my toenails and can still see how fresh my pedicure looks. (I had a spa day for my birthday present this year.)

We’ve had a second wave of COVID outbreaks in Australia, so while some parts of the country are back in quarantine, I’m just staying at home forever because I don’t have an immune system…

The whole world is still in a state of flux, and I’ve been taking bigger breaks from social media. The blogging world is still a kind place, but I have recently thought that even Bookstagram is getting a bit hard sometime. The bullying is getting real. Once again, this is a link to heaps of information on the Black Lives Matter cause, including updated information for petitions to sign, places to donate, info for protests, as well as resources that you can read.

I’m also including a link for people who want to read more about LGBTQIA+ issues. The queer community is my community, and I love it, but being a good ally is something that everyone can do. And I’m not just saying a good ally for queer people, but a good ally for all human rights issues. The world is in such a hurtful place right now, and it makes me so sad. Anyway, ReachOut.org has lots of resources and information that is relevant to everyone, despite being an Aussie based site.

Book time!! I read a surprising amount in June… 10 full novels, and a bunch of novellas and a graphic novel too. 17 things in total to add to my read items. Which is huge for me. But also, basically everything I finished was a romance story… because sometimes we just need something happy in our lives.

Actually, I have thought about this a lot recently. Normally when I am trying to escape reality in books, I read a lot of fantasy… but recently, I haven’t been able to really deal with the conflict in fantasy books because of what is happening in the world, so I’ve kind of just been drowning myself in romances instead. I mean, I’m ok with this. But this is my reality at the moment.

Book	Author	Series	Symbols	Rating	Cover
Filthy Gods	R Scarlett	American Gods #0.5	❤️ ?‍? ?	4
Under Locke	Mariana Zapata		❤️ ?‍? ?	4
From Lukov With Love	Mariana Zapata		❤️ ?‍? ?	4
Leo Loves Aries	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #1	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	4
Leo Tops Aries	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #1.5	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	3
Scorpio Hates Virgo	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #2	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	4
Scorpio Loops Virgo	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #2.5	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	3
Gemini Keeps Capricorn	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #3	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	4
Gemini Rules Capricorn	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #3.5	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	3
Pisces Hooks Taurus	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #4	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	4
Pisces Floors Taurus	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #4.5	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	3
Cancer Ships Aquarius	Anyta Sunday	Signs of Love #5	❤️ ?️‍? ?‍? ? ?	4
The Tea Dragon Tapestry	Katie O’Neill	The Tea Dragon Society #3	⚔️ ?️‍? ♿️ ? ? ? ⏰ ?	3
Blindsided	Amy Daws		❤️ ?‍? ?	3
Fix Her Up	Tessa Bailey	Hot and Hammered #1	❤️ ?‍? ?	4
Suck	Nikki Belaire	A Naughty Novella #1	❤️ ?‍? ?	2
Hawk	James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet	Hawk #1	? ?‍♀️ ? ⏰	4

Honestly, I don’t even think I had a favourite book in June. There was lots of books that I enjoyed, but none that were really ‘stand out’ faves, and no 5 star reads (which is a little sad).

General

I worked all June. *surprise*

I mentioned above it was my birthday, and husband organised a spa day for me as a present. It included a massage, facial, and mani / pedi. Plus they gave me cake on the day at the spa. TWO FLAVOURS! (Blueberry cheesecake and tiramisu.) It was so good. That was definitely the highlight!

Gaming

The Sims 4 got a new expansion and I have played the SH!T out of it. Yep, while I loved the Tiny Houses pack, The Sims 4: Eco Lifestyle has been so much fun, and I have sunk another 40 odd hours into the game in June. I know that’s not a huge amount, but I’m still working full time and I also read 10 full books and a bunch of novellas this month. And I didn’t get it until 9 June either… ?

Anyway, it’s been super fun and you can do all these things to change the eco footprint of where you are living. Recycling and updating your appliances and plumbing to be water or power saving is so good. You can also go dumpster diving which is something I’ve never seen before, and there’s new careers (town planner and new engineering) and all the other good stuff that The Sims does so well. The boys are encouraging me to start streaming my Sims life, but I’m not convinced yet…

Dungeons & Dragons

I took almost A FULL MONTH OFF D&D. It was really weird. I played one game in our Star Wars campaign, but that was it.

I can’t wait to talk about the second ‘season’ in our main campaign in July though. arghhhhhhh!!!! (I am seriously in love with this campaign, and my character.)

Also, we have been talking about streaming our D&D games (which, the boys have more traction with this than The Sims request) and hopefully it should be pretty easy because we play online anyway… But I will definitely let you know more about this later if it happens!!

TV and movies

Things I finally watched in June were:

• the final season of Jessica Jones on Netflix
• Mary Poppins Returns on Disney+

Music

Did I even listen to music in June?? I’m not sure. If I did, you can pretty much guarantee that it was a mixture of really old Fall Out Boy (Take This To Your Grave), Illy (still waiting for the new album to come out…) and Taylor Swift (all of the albums forever).

As you may know, Shanah @ The Bionic Bookwork who runs Top 5 Tuesday is on hiatus at the moment. But since it was PRIDE month, I wanted to do something a bit extra. While I did have plans to do topics for all five Tuesdays in June, because of real life (rude), I only manager to get three posts in. Regardless, these are some of my fave posts of June:

• Top 5… trans and non-binary books
• Top 5… f/f relationship books
• Top 5… m/m relationship books

Of course, if you know me at all, you’ll know that I didn’t stop at 5 for them… there’s no one to police me any more so I can do what I like!! MWAH-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… ok, I’ll lower the evil now!!

I am still up to date on blog-hopping!! YAY!! I know, it’s taken me a long time to learn this lesson and I’m sure I’ll forget it again by the end of the year, but while I’m still remembering, let’s take a look at some of my fave posts of yours in June!! There’s a pretty heavy PRIDE theme, obviously, but also some great lists of BIPOC reads and just great books, so I hope you all find something to add to your shelves with all of these recommendations!!

• Laura @ The Books Corps listed all the f/f books on her TBR
• Fadwa @ Word Wonders did a huge list of books with pansexual characters
• Charvi @ Not Just Fiction recommended 10 underrated queer books
• Ally @ Ally Writes Things made an even bigger list of 100+ Black authors to read
• Lili @ Lili’s Blissful Pages shared her TBR for #20booksofsumer, but it has so many good books on it, I had to include it

The next batch are my fave discussion and general blogging posts that I saw in June. Some of these really made me think, and I have to admit that I really need to step up my game!!

• Marie @ Drizzle and Hurricane books asked if book bloggers’ work is really worth it
• Isabelle @ Nine Tale Vixen shared a post on self-care for bloggers
• Lauren @ Northern Plunder wrote an amazing post on how to stop ‘maintaining’ your blog, and to start growing it (seriously, this was so good)
• Katie @ Never Not Reading asked ‘Where does the Harry Potter fandom go from here?‘
• Chana @ Paper Procrastinators wrote a post about separating the artist from the art

These are all really valuable topics, and some have actually inspired some of my upcoming posts (you know, when I get around to finishing writing them!!)

How was your June?