Hey all, Dani here.
Wow, well I guess here we are at another wrap-up post where I end up combining my weekly wrap-up and my monthly wrap-up. That doesn’t happen too often, but it makes things a bit more fun/chaotic for me.
Umm…what have I been watching recently? Gosh, I don’t even know. My days have been starting to blend together. Oh, I can tell you what I will be watching very soon…as in the next day or two. First up, “Critical Role” is back tomorrow for episode 100. They have been off the air since like March, and it will be nice to watch some of my favorite voice actors play D&D again. And then on Friday “Hamilton” is dropping on Disney+. I have been wanting to see this show for four years now, and while this won’t be in a theater watching a live performance, it will be the main cast and is a recording of a live performance. So I’m super excited about that.
Most of my weekly wrap-up stuff will be discussed below, like what I read in the last week, and what I’m hoping to read soon. So I guess I’ll just talk about what I’m currently reading.
As usual with my monthly wrap-up, let’s start off by checking in on my overall goals for the year.
- Reading: Well, I finished 27 books in the month of June, so I’d say it was another pretty decent month of reading…though 6 of those were single issue comics, 4 of them were volumes of manga, and 5 of them were children’s picture books. Still, I read a few incredible reads, and only a couple just okay reads, so I’m going to say it was a good month. So that puts me at 154 books read for the year so far, which I think is pretty great.
- Blogging: I did all right on blogging this month. I’m still trying to figure out my time management so I can get things done in a timely manner, because I can admit that some of my posts have gone up late, or I’ve finished them and thought they were scheduled for publication and instead I guess I just hit save draft, so it doesn’t go up when it’s supposed to…and then I don’t realize it until days later. That hasn’t been fun. But I will get it figured out. I still have a lot more content to send your way. Oh, and because I’ve been busy and it has continuously slipped my mind…I hit 800 followers…I think it was a few weeks ago. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I honestly can’t believe that my blog has that many people following along. And to go along with that excitement, I reached 1,000 blog posts a couple weeks ago as well, which also feels like a pretty big milestone.
- Writing: Well, with juggling two jobs and reading and blogging, my writing somewhat got shoved to the back burner. BUT I am happy to say that I’ve just started the Colorworld Creativity Club over on the Colorworld Live VIP group on Facebook, and it is a place for people who are working on creative projects–whether that is poetry, novellas, short stories, novels, screenplays, music, artwork, etc–to get help working through any blocks, as well as a place to have a support system to hold us all accountable for actually making progress on our projects. I’ve set myself a goal of 20,000 words to write on my novel for the month of July. Now let’s hope that the CCC can hold me to it.
- Conventions: While in-person Gen Con was canceled, they are holding Gen Con Online on the same days, so that should be pretty interesting. Plus, Damian and I booked a hotel room in Indianapolis for those Gen Con Online dates, so we can get out of town for a few days (and have lovely reliable hotel internet). We’ll probably still do a few of our usual Gen Con stops as well, like going to the comic book store–obviously staying as socially distant as possible, and wearing masks in public. And we’re still hoping that Cincinnati Comic Expo in September will still be good to go. My friends at Colorworld Books have actually started doing Colorworld LIVE convention style events just about every week, sometimes two a week. They gather up three or four awesome voice actors, hold a livestream panel, then a VIP panel for anyone who buys some signed merch, and of course you can get shirts, metal art prints, and more with characters these actors have portrayed. It’s pretty cool.
Okay, now that the general month wrap-up is over, let’s go ahead and jump into the specific reading wrap-up. As always, if I have a review up already then I will include the link to it. So, let’s go over everything I read in June.
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas — 5 stars
Super Adjacent by Crystal Cestari — 3.5 stars
Kingdom of Souls by Rena Barron — 4 stars
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall — 3.5 stars
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin — 4.5 stars
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory — 5 stars (review coming July 21)
Vox Machina Origins Series II #1 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Vox Machina Origins Series II #2 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Vox Machina Origins Series II #3 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Vox Machina Origins Series II #4 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Vox Machina Origins Series II #5 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Vox Machina Origins Series II #6 by Matt Mercer, Jody Hauser, Olivia Samson, Msassyk, and Ariana Maher — 5 stars
Pride by Ibi Zoboi — 4 stars (review coming July 7)
Spellhacker by M.K. England — 4 stars
Black Clover Vol 21 by Yuki Tabata — 5 stars
My Hero Academia Vol 24 by Kohei Horikoshi — 5 stars
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor — 4.5 stars (review coming July 2)
Otaku by Chris Kluwe — 4 stars (review coming July 16)
Beach Read by Emily Henry — 4.5 stars
My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero’s Vol 1 by — 4 stars
Edens Zero Vol 2 by Hiro Mashima — 5 stars
All the unicorn books above — 4 stars
The Proposal by Jasmine Guillory — 5 stars
Now it is book haul time, and I’m starting with my digital book haul, because I picked up quite a few e-books this month, due to sales, or physical books being back ordered, or because I have a bunch of books to read for blog tour reviews. So I’ll go over my digital haul before jumping into my physical haul.
Okay, now for the physical haul.
Next up is the OwlCrate Unboxing.
Finally I suppose it’s time to talk about my July TBR. Unfortunately I don’t have a completely set TBR for this month. There are a handful of books I need to read for review, and then I have stacks of books that I’ve been eager to read for a month or so now, and just haven’t had the chance yet. So I have a bunch of options.
Here’s some reads I can definitely say that I’ll be completing in July: Mayhem by Estelle Laure (I have a blog tour review coming July 14th), Shielded by KayLynn Flanders (review coming July 18th), Lobizona by Romina Garber (blog tour review coming July 28th), and Spells for the Dead by Faith Hunter (Nell Ingram #5, blog tour review coming July 30th).
Other than that the above books might be what I pick up…but it might also be wholly mood dependent. I’m not sure.
How was your June? Let me know some of your favorite reads of the month in the comments, and I’ll be back soon with more bookish content.
Free State of Geek 