June in Review

Me after seeing The Fault in Our Stars opening weekend.

To me, June always flies by. Always. In contrast, July seems to last a lifetime. However, this year, it seems especially true. We were two-thirds of the way through June before I even realized we were past the first week. I did not accomplish as much as I hoped I would have, I'm hoping to make up for that in July.

Books I Read in June:
We Were Liars by E. Lockart
Split Second by Kasie West
Real Live Boyfriends by E Lockhart

This reading month was not as fantastic as the previous month. I would like to think that's due to the two weeks I worked two jobs and did not have time for anything else, but really I just didn't feel like reading a lot this month.

Life Things That Happened in June:
1. Had the two jobs, felt exhausted all of the time with no time for fun, finally quit the job I hated and felt relieved.
2. Went on short camping trip with fiance's family. Fun!
3. My friend Katie came to visit from New York! I missed her so much and it was fantastic to see her!
4. I finally started on the road to planning my wedding. It's turning out to be quite a bit more than I expected.

Songs I Loved in June:
1. "I Wanna Get Better" Bleachers
To be fair, I've loved this song since my friend Kayla introduced me to it. However, I started to love this song even more this summer.
2. "Dangerous" Big Data
I heard this song one day and I was like, "I like this song. I like driving to this song."
3. "Boom Clap" Charli XCX
Featured in The Fault in Our Stars movie, I fell in love with this song slowly then all at once. Hah, but seriously, this song is so upbeat and catchy. I find myself singing and dancing to it all of the time.

Movies/TV Shows I Saw in June:
1. The Mindy Project
I started watching this at my fiance's apartment one night and loved it. I then proceeded to sign up for a free trial of Hulu+ to watch it.
2. X-Men
I'm just going to cover the whole series. I finally jumped aboard the X-Men train at the end of May and have caught up to see the new movie. I don't know how I went so long without watching anything from this series. So good.

What did you read this past month? Or listen to or watch? Let me know in the comments; I am always looking for recommendations.

Bout of Books Wrap-Up

Hey, everyone!

The Bout of Books readathon was this past week.If you want to know more about the readathon, check out their blog .

This Bout of Books was definitely more successful than my first. Last year, I didn't even finish a book! This year, I read three books, started three books, and read a total of 1,194 pages, almost double over what I typically read a week. 

As far as following my TBR, I started Allegiant right away on Monday and finished it on Tuesday. On Wednesday, I went to the library and got a lot of books, rediscovering graphic novels/manga along the way. That night, I read Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon: Short Stories 1, which I had picked up from the library. I also started The Bell Jar and read a short story from Too Much Happiness. I then proceeded to not read a lot on Thursday or Friday, making some progress. Then I started The Distance Between Us last night. 

While I am pleased with my progress and enjoyed participating in the readathon, I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of them in the future. I've discovered that while Allegiant was a good choice and The Distance Between Us was probably a good choice, The Bell Jar and Too Much Happiness were not the best choices. It's not that they were bad choices; they were just heavy reading material. I'm about halfway through The Bell Jar and do intend to finish it, but it's just not the best book for a readathon. Short stories also are difficult because I often like to sit and read the same book for an extended period of time, and I struggle to go that with short stories. However, I plan to make my way through both of these books. 

Overall, I do think Bout of Books was very successful. I met my goal by reading more than I usually do in a week. I got through one of the books on my TBR and started the other three. 

Did you participate on Bout of Books? Did you meet your goals?