June Recap // ft. my new fave books, a drastic haircut, & my current playlist!!

June was slow and a whirlwind all at the same time.

You know when you look back at a month’s accomplishments and it simultaneously feels like it’s been that month for ages, but also feels like time is slipping by you too fast? No, is this just me having an existential crisis?

Whether or not I’m the only one who feels that way- that’s how June felt to me! I read a lot of books and blogged a lot and ate way too many snowcones. Essentially, it was an incredibly *summer* month and yes, I have officially begun rambling and we’re only 99 words into this post.

All of that to say, in this post I’m going to be recapping the month of June. I feel like a lot happened (but also nothing at all?) and I’m looking forward to properly squealing about what I read and what I did and all the normal things I usually talk about on here.

So, without further ado, cue the post!

For the first time in a long time, I had a good reading month.

I can most definitely attribute this to the fact that it’s currently summer vacation for me. I didn’t travel anywhere or do much this month, so it was the perfect opportunity to spend a lot of time reading, and that’s exactly what I did!

If only I had read one more book to perfectly fill out this layout. Come on Olivia, you ruined the aesthetic.

The slightly disproportionate layout aside, I was happy that only three of these books were rereads, which is a pretty good ratio for me, as I am The Rereading Queen™. I also discovered two of my all-time favorite books this month, Girls of Paper and Fire and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

I’ve already reviewed a few of these, but there are definitely some more that I need to dedicate some mini-reviews to in July. Let me know if there are any in particular that you definitely want to see a review for!

At the end of May, I shared my pride month TBR for June. I wanted to do a quick update on how I did- surprisingly, better than I expected! I hardly ever make concrete TBRs, so I was okay with the outcome of reading 4 out of the 6 books on my list.

The only books I didn’t get around to were What If It’s Us and Red, White, & Royal Blue. Both of these were checked out at the library, and I have holds on them, but they just haven’t been checked back in yet!

I did end up reading Autoboyography, Girls of Paper and Fire, Blanca & Roja, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I also read This is Kind of an Epic Love Story, which wasn’t on my original TBR, but did have LGBTQ+ main characters.

Overall, I discovered a lot of really amazing books through making this TBR and I’m really glad I did. I hope you all had a wonderful pride month!🌈

How I Did on June Reading Goals:

• Read 10 books ✅
• Read at least 4/6 books on my pride month TBR ✅ barely made it…
• Go to the library ✅
• Take a lot of bookstagram pictures ❌ I took some, but I wouldn’t say “a lot”
• Grow my bookstagram ✅ slowly but surely?
• Stay active on bookstagram ✅❌
• Explore new genres ✅❌ I read two fantasies, does that count?!

July Reading Goals:

• Read 10 books
• Go to the library
• Post once a week on bookstagram
• Stay active on bookstagram
• Read 3 fantasies and 1 book of another genre besides contemporary
• Clean out my Goodreads TBR

June ended up being the first reading month in a long time that I wasn’t at least slightly disappointed in myself about. Thanks school, I blame you for that. Even though I’m doing a little more traveling in July, I’m hoping that I continue to read a lot because I know my time to enjoy a ton of leisure reading is limited.

All in all, not a bad blogging month at all. Once again, this unusual success is brought to you by my lack of school this June!

On June 10th, I implemented my annual summer blogging schedule, in which I post twice a week instead of my normal once a week. I have to say, this change makes a huge difference in the amount of time I spend drafting posts, coming up with ideas, responding to comments, and interacting with other blogs. I now have respect for bloggers that blog so frequently on a whole other level??

All that to say, I posted 7 times this month, which is above my average. 😉

• May Recap // Just my typical recap, also with a place to ask me questions for a future Q&A!
• 6 YA Novels I Couldn’t Put Down // This was a mini review post where I talked about some of the great books I read over the last few months.
• My Summer Bucket List // A collab with Annie about our bucket lists for summer 2019- possibly I’ll have an update post at the end of summer?
• The Mid-Year Book Freak Out Tag 2019 // Because who doesn’t love to freak out over what they have and haven’t read so far this year?
• 3 Hard-Hitting Novels I Loved // More mini-reviews because #cantstopwontstop
• Should You Have a Blogging Niche? // A discussion about this well known piece of blogging advice, and how much it applies.
• The Summer Bucket List Book Tag // I participated in an amazing tag that my good friend Tiffany created!

I didn’t do well at keeping track of posts I loved (I never do and it makes me so sad) but there are a few posts that I definitely want to shout-out. In July I’m going to make a really big effort to always bookmark the posts that I adored so I can include them in my recap posts.

• Jenna and I buddy read On the Come Up together and she wrote an amazing review of it!
• May is hosting the annual Book Blogger Awards (my post coming soon!) and you all should go read the guidelines post and then nominate your favorite bloggers!
• Marie compiled a great list of books to give you all the adventurous vibes, and I love her picks so much and definitely got wanderlust from her post
• Chana wrote a wonderful post about how you talk about your favorite books with people and I related SO much and thought it was beautifully written!
• Annie and I did a collab and shared our summer bucket lists, and hers is beyond excellent and you should all go read it right now

How I Did on June Blogging Goals:

• Keep to my summer blogging schedule ✅
• Read other posts & stay caught up ✅
• Keep track of posts I loved ❌
• Do a tag ✅ I did two, does that make me an overachiever?
• Do a discussion post ✅
• Mini reviews ✅
• Have fun ✅ guys, I had so much fun blogging this month!

My July Blogging Goals:

• Mostly stay on schedule
• Do a tag
• Bookish discussion post
• Blog hop MORE
• Do some blogging housekeeping things

It genuinely makes me so happy that I have time to blog and am able to interact with the community and frequently post on here. I don’t say it enough, but I’m so grateful for all the support you’ve all given me and my blog!💓 I’ve truly met the kindest people through blogging.

I’m going to try and stay as active as possible in July, but I do know that I will be doing a small amount of traveling, so there will definitely be times when I don’t have internet or just don’t have the time to stay caught up in my Reader. I’ll be attempting to schedule all my posts for when I’ll be gone, though, so I hope it doesn’t affect my blogging too much!

Y’all, I just love summer. I may have said that too many times already. I just love the days of sleeping in, staying up watching Netflix or reading, finishing a book in one sitting, and going to get snowcones way too many times in one week.

That sentence, in a nutshell, describes my July.

• I finished The Office. It was a sad day when I watched an episode of The Office and there wasn’t a “watch next episode” button to click. *tear* Please scream about it in the comments with me because it’s just too good??
• I got a really massive haircut. I FINALLY CUT MY HAIR. It was really, really long and I was scared to cut it but I did and now it’s shoulder length and ahh!! I didn’t take a before and after picture from the back (because I’m chicken and cannot show my face) but please trust me on the fact that it is crazy different. I kind of love it, though.

• I saw Aladdin the musical! One of my friends had an extra ticket and generously invited me to come with her, and it was AMAZING- so funny, beautiful, emotional, and the entire cast was brilliant. That’s a picture of my playbill, and then on the left is a picture of the city looking all gloomy and ominous when we were driving in for the show.
• I ate a lot of snowcones. There’s a snowcone place in my town that is basically famous to everyone who lives in our town?? Like I can’t go there without seeing someone that goes to my school. I went…quite a few times so far.
• I hung out with friends! We got snowcones, went to the pool, went thrifting, just hung out and watched movies and talked- I’ve gotten to see a lot of my friends so far this summer and it’s truly the best. I love them so much.

The last thing I wanted to share in this wrap-up is my current summer playlist, because I’ve been listened to a lot of the songs on it on repeat and they’re definitely worth talking about.

There aren’t that many songs on my playlist yet, just because summer is only about half done. For me, my summer ’19 playlist isn’t just a playlist that has songs I want to listen to in summer, it’s like a playlist of songs I discovered or became obsessed with during the summer. If that makes any sense.

If I had to pick my top favorites, it would probably be I Don’t Care by Ed Sheeran and Justin Beiber, If I Can’t Have You by Shawn Mendes, and You Need to Calm Down by Taylor Swift. Those are my current obsession obsessions, but I know there are more songs just waiting to become my new obsession.

That concludes my June recap! This post was longer than my normal recap posts, but I felt like there was a lot to cover. It’s been somewhat of a long, delicious month. And now I sound like I’m on the Creepy Cooking Channel. Thank you for reading my ramblings, if you’ve made it this far!

I hope you all had a great June and that your July is even better.✨

How was your June? What song are you currently obsessed with? Have you seen any musicals lately? What are your plans for summer? I’d love to talk with you in the comments.