Alexa, play It’s Gonna Be Me from the & Juliet OBC. Happy end of May, besties, can you believe it? I sure can’t…
With the end of the month comes wrap up time! Get comfy and cozy and let’s chat about May!
As you will be able to see, I discovered a new cozy mystery author/series 🤣I read a lot of Ellie Alexander this month and loved every minute of it! I started her Bakeshop Mystery series and finished her Secret Bookcase Mystery series. These books are super easy to lose yourself in and I love that; part of what makes them so compelling for me is the Bakeshop series takes place in one of my favorite towns, Ashland, Oregon (I miss you OSF!) and the Secret Bookcase series takes place in Northern California, which is where I’m from. I’m looking forward to continuing with the Bakeshop Mystery books (I literally just got an ARC for book 21, so I’ve got some catching up to do!) and for her spin off series for the Secret Bookcase that’ll be starting in early 2026. If you’re looking for a good new cozy mystery series to start, definitely check hers out!
This month was an incredible month for ARC approvals. Aside from A Body at the Book Fair, I got ARC approvals for The Killer Question by Janice Hallet, A Play About a Curse by Caroline Macon Fleischer, Girl Dinner by Olivie Blake, When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee, Not Quite Dead Yet by Holly Jackson and Hot Wax by M.L. Rio! I wish y’all could’ve seen my face when I got the approval for Hot Wax, my jaw was open for a solid 2 minutes, I was in total shock.
With June being Tony Awards month, I thought it would be fun to read all the Best Play and Best Revival of a Play nominees, which then turned into me doing a 30 plays in 30 days challenge and I’m really excited about it! I’ve been working on my TBR and the plays I ordered have all arrived. My plan is to read all the nominated plays before the Tony Awards on the 8th, and then after that I can read in whatever order I’d like.
Books read this month:
- The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li (ARC, 3.5 stars)
- The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar (4 stars)
- Meet Your Baker by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
- The Body in the Bookstore by Ellie Alexander (4 stars)
- A Murder at the Movies by Ellie Alexander (4 stars)
- Death at the Dinner Party by Ellie Alexander (4 stars)
- A Holiday Homicide by Ellie Alexander (4 stars)
- A Victim at Valentine’s by Ellie Alexander (4 stars)
- A Body at the Book Fair by Ellie Alexander (ARC, 4 stars)
- Natural Beauty by Ling Ling Huang (4 stars)
- Smile and Be a Villain by Yves Donlon (4.5 stars)
- The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han (reread, 3 stars)
- Next to Normal by Brian Yorkey (reread, 5 stars)
- The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff (3.5 stars)
- The Boy You Always Wanted by Michelle Quach (3.5 stars)
- A Batter of Life and Death by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
- On Thin Icing by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
- Caught Bread Handed by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
- Fudge and Jury by Ellie Alexander (3.5 stars)
Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:
- I’ve really enjoyed Susan Lee’s previous YA romances, Seoulmate and The Name Drop, so I’ve been looking forward to reading her latest The Romance Rivalry. I loved Helena’s review and it made me extra excited to read it!
- Kala from BooksandLala did more videos (1, 2) in her Guessing Your Favorite Book vlog series and of course I was obsessed with each of them.
- As we all know, I am a cozy mystery lover (which definitely shows this month!) and I loved Cait’s Confessions of a Cozy Mystery Reader post! And I too think I could solve a murder mystery 🤣
My posts this month:
Truthfully, this month has been pretty dang chill! With the craziness of last month, a more relaxed May was exactly what I was looking for. At the beginning of the month, my mom and I went to see the Mamma Mia tour, and we had a wonderful time! We saw the tour at the end of 2023, and it was so nice to revisit the show. It was an absolute blast; as per usual, my face was hurting from smiling so much once the show was over.
The UK Next To Normal proshot aired on PBS (beloved) this month and I still can’t believe we now have a professionally filmed recording to watch. If you don’t know, Next To Normal is one of my core musicals — that show really rewired something in my brain when I first listened to it in 2009 and is so so special to me. I used Superboy and the Invisible Girl in auditions and loved singing Everything Else in voice lessons. It’s a very important show to me and I’ve been looking forward to this proshot since it was announced and it did not disappoint! I was a sobbing mess the entire time, like my eyes were so puffy after I finished watching it was crazy. It absolutely wrecked me and I need to watch it a million more times. I’m thinking of watching it again and writing a full review for it because I have thoughts, so let me know if you’d be interested in that!
My mom and I went out to breakfast with my aunt and uncle who we haven’t seen in a really long time at the beginning of the week and it was really lovely! We had a great meal — I got huevos rancheros and it was so good, I ate the whole thing — and got to catch up, and then I went to a Barnes and Noble I’ve never been to before and was able to use a gift card that I got after finishing the musical last month, so it really was a great day!
I bought a few prints of Redbubble and reorganized my bulletin boards by my desk and I’m really loving how it’s all coming together! It’s much fuller now and I honestly can’t stop looking at it because I love it! I’m planning on this coming week finally putting up the gallery wall that I’ve been planning above my TV and getting some more art prints to put by my bed. Once I’ve got those worked out I’ll share some photos!
Aside from the Next to Normal proshot, I watched a few new things this month that I really enjoyed! I finally watched seasons 4 and 5 of You and god, what a wild ride that was. I liked the final season a lot, and am glad that I watched/rewatched the whole series in one go. I rewatched A Simple Favor in anticipation of watching Another Simple Favor, and you know what, I unironically love those movies. They’re super entertaining (and messy) and I love Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, so it really is a win for me. I also watched the new Netflix mini series Sirens, starring my beloved Meghann Fahy and thought it was so good. And not to brag, but I have worked with/sung with Emily Borromeo, who played Astrid, so I was extra excited to watch and I really enjoyed the mini series and would for sure watch it again. I also found out that the series was based on a play, so now I definitely want to read the play!
I did some baking this month! I made a simple vanilla cake with raspberry buttercream for my mom on Mother’s Day that was really yummy, but my favorite was the strawberry cake that I made. It was so delicious and I will for sure be making it again. I made pizza twice this month and did a white pizza with burrata and that may be my new favorite pizza! I also made a really good burrito and finally successfully rolled a burrito, so I was pretty proud of myself.
Music wise, aside from always listening to Niall Horan or One Direction and only being able to fall asleep to their music (also Zayn followed Louis on Instagram and y’all don’t understand what that means to me), I’ve been really into Dove Cameron’s Too Much this month, which is a bop! I finally got around to listening to the cast recordings of Maybe Happy Ending and Death Becomes Her (I’ve been so behind on new cast recordings, I can hear Helena yelling at me to finally actually listen to Swept Away, I will in June, I promise!) and loved them both. Death Becomes Her is one of my favorite films, and I am bummed that I missed it when it was in previews when I was in the city in October, but hopefully, I can make a trip out sometime soon and see it because I can’t stop listening to it, and I’m dying to see Maybe Happy Ending.
This month’s most listened to playlist is truly nothing different, but as always I’m sharing it! Really these playlists are just a way to see which Niall songs I’m hyperfixating on each month 🤣
And that was my May! The month both felt pretty luxurious and very short; time is an illusion anyway! I’d love to know how the lusty month of May (iykyk) treated you! What did you read? What did you do? Tell me all the things!
Until next time! đź’ś
