Hey, guys and welcome to my June wrap up! I always do them on my YouTube channel but I never considered doing it on my website because I didn’t really know what to include on here apart from what books I’ve read (obviously). But after some deliberation, I came up with a couple of ideas to give you guys some insight as to what’s going on in my life. I only ended up reading 4 books in June which is pretty bad for me, but I’ve been in a massive reading slump, and a lot has been going on, which you will find out about later on in this post.

Anyway, let’s get on with the wrap up!

Bitterblue by Kristen Cashore (Graceling Realms #3) (review)

Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller (Daughter of the Pirate King #1) (review)

Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller (Daughter of the Pirate King #2)

Big Bones by Laura Dockrill (review)

 

 

The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco (The Bone Witch #1): I downloaded this on Audible as I had heard quite a lot of good things about it and I was interested in the concept of a Bone Witch, and a young girls who resurrected her dead brother. I’m listening to it right now, as I’m writing this post, and I’m on 70% so I think I might actually finish it today! (30th June) It’s ok, I guess. It’s not a storyline that is entirely captivating and it’s VERY slow, but there are parts of it that are intriguing and THAT’S what has been driving me on for the rest of story.

The Empress by S.J Kincaid (The Diabolic #2): I think that I’ve been ‘reading’ this since last month. I started it whilst I was in Holland visiting family, and I think I got to page 86 or something like that? And I’m STILL on page 86. I haven’t touched it. Not because the storyline is bad, because I love the world of the Diabolics. I’ve just been in a reading slump and I’ve preferred listening to audiobooks than physical reads. But so far, this book has all the political intrigue that I love and I can’t wait to finally delve back into this world.

Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles: Since I’m going to YALC this year, I knew that I had to read as many books by the authors that are going as I could. So I started off this adventure with Bookshop Girl by Chloe Coles. I’m reading it on my Kindle app on my phone and I’m on 6%. So not far at all. But like I said above, I’ve just preferred audiobooks the past couple of months than physical (or ebook) reads. But the 6% that I’ve read has been ok. The writing comes across as very simple, but we’ll see how it carries on.

Shadowhunters Season 2 and 3: So I’m all caught up on Shadowhunters now and I gotta say, I’m absolutely love it. Which is surprising because season one was SO CRINGEY! But the series keeps getting better and darker and I’m really enjoying it. I think we’re on the mid-season finale of episode 13? So I’m hoping it comes back soon? But then I’ve heard rumours that it’s going to stop at season 3? So I don’t really know what’s going on with the show after. 4/5

Ambulance: I watched this with my Mom. It’s a documentary on BBC One that follows the ambulance team of the West Midlands (which is where I live). It’s so interesting to see how the ambulance service deals with different calls and it was so strange to see hospitals where I’ve been or areas where I’ve walked round. If this sounds interesting to you, just be aware that there are trigger warnings for pretty much everything, especially mental health. I was definitely triggered whilst watching this, and had to have a massive cry to my Mom over some episodes. 5/5

Re-watched Luke Cage Season 1: I’ve already seen Luke Cage, but to prepare myself for season 2, I decided to watch it again. And it was even better the second time around. I love the characters, the storyline, the underlying messages… Everything about this show is just perfection and I couldn’t have asked for a better actor to play Cage. I also wanted to watch The Defenders (see below), so I knew that I had to have all the Marvel shows fresh in my mind. 5/5

13 Reasons Why Season 1: I watched about 8 episodes of this when it first came out and since season 2 has just been released, and loads of people were talking about it and saying how amazing it was, I decided to give season 1 another go. The reason I stopped watching it the first time was because I was triggered SO MUCH by everything that was happening in the show, and when I watched it when it first came out, there were no trigger warnings at the beginning of the episodes… There was nothing. Absolutely nothing. So yeah, I had nearly finished the first season the first time around, I literally had about 4/5 episode left to watch, but I just couldn’t. It was too hard. But I got myself together and watched it again. All the way through. In 2 days. I noticed that THERE WERE NOW TRIGGER WARNINGS AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH EPISODE, which was a massive change from before and something that I was happy to see. There were also short videos in the Trailers and More section about how to spot someone dealing with mental health (which wasn’t there when it first came out). So I’m glad to see that the producers have taken on all of the criticism and added helplines and trigger warnings. And even though, I didn’t really like the show (I thought that it’s still quite damaging and romanticises the idea of suicide and mental health), I was kind of addicted to the story and ended up watching the first couple of minutes of season two. 2.5/5

Iron Fist Season 1: Because I wanted to wanted to watch The Defenders, I knew that I would have to watch Iron Fist. I had heard so many bad things about this TV show. People – and critics alike – were stating that it was poor and that there was no storyline, that the acting was bland and it didn’t live up to the other three Netflix Marvel shows. So yes, I was weary going into it. But I watched it in a couple of days, and I pretty much agree with everything that people were saying. The acting was NOT great at all. The best actors were Jessica Henwick (Colleen Wing) and Tom Pelphrey (Ward Meachum), and David Wenham (Harold Meachum) – and obviously Rosario Dawson (Claire Temple). And the storyline was so flimsy and not as strong as I was expecting it to be. I knew that I had to watch it before watching The Defenders but I probably won’t be watching season two. 2.5/5

Started The Defenders: So yeah, I started The Defenders. I think I’m on episode 9? Or something like that anyway. I’m enjoying it so much, it’s so dark and bloody, and even though Iron Fist is my least favourite character (by far), I love having Jessica Jones, Daredevil and my beloved Luke Cage back on screen! I can’t wait to see how it ends.

Started Brooklyn 99: I remember when I watched the first episode of Brooklyn 99 ages ago and I wasn’t impressed. I didn’t think that the humour was for me, so I just stopped watching it. But last night, I started watching it again, and OH MY GOD, I AM OBSESSED. I love the humour. There were so many times that I actually laughed out loud, and related to things that were said. I’m on episode 13, I think so this is a show that I’m DEFINITELY going to be carrying on with.

 

 

Yeah so basically, my life is still shit. Hence the small amount of books read and the huge amount of TV watched. I had two funerals in the matter of a week which wasn’t fun at all. It was emotionally draining to go to my Grandma’s and my Uncle’s funeral, and it just broke me.

Just… so much has happened this month. I got results back from university and I’ve done very well in all of my essays but for one, I didn’t get any results back at all. Because APPARENTLY, I’ve plagiarised and my essay was forwarded to the office of conduct and my university. That was stressful and anxiety-inducing. I had 7 panic attacks in the matter of 2 hours (which is the most that I HAVE EVER HAD). Just for the record, I didn’t plagiarise. I checked if I had included quotation marks (I had), I checked to see if I had referenced everything properly (I had), so I was at a loss as to what was going on. I rang the head office and explained what was going on, and they said that I would get an email in the next 48 hours with a meeting time. This means that I would have had to go to a formal meeting at my university to discuss my ‘plagiarism’, and to see what would become of it. But have I had a meeting yet? Nope. I haven’t had an email or anything, which is ridiculous. So I’ve just blocked it out of my brain and pretended that it hasn’t happened and tried to move on with my life.

But, on the happy (?) side, I made a book inventory on Excel. My best friend thinks I’m so sad for doing it, but it’s helpful for me! I actually did a blog post on it to show you guys how I lay it out. It took me SO LONG to put all of my books in there, and it’s only going to be an ongoing project as I keep acquiring new books.

But overall, it’s just been an absolutely shit month. I’ve been so depressed, my anxiety has been at an all time high and I’m just a mess. I haven’t filmed one single video which is awful and it’s only been the last couple of days where I’ve been blogging again…

I really do hope I’ll start feeling better because I hate feeling like this.

 

 

So there you go, there is my June wrap up. It feels like it took me ages to write this on because of the big life update and mini reviews on the TV shows but oh well! I’m thinking about including a short section on books that I want to read next month? Or would that make the post too long? Let me know in the comments below what you think of that idea!