Wrap Up: June 2025

To quote Harry Styles, “baby you’re the end of June”! I can’t believe we’re at the end of the month; June truly flew by. I hope that you had an amazing June and an amazing Pride! It’s the end of the month so of course it’s time for a monthly wrap up! What a month June was both reading wise and life wise, so let’s get into it!

June has for sure been my best reading month of the year! I did my 30 plays in 30 days readathon this month (which I’ll talk more about in a blog post that I’m working on) and read quite a few novels! 

Books read this month:

1. The Crucible by Arthur Miller (reread, 3 stars)
2. John Proctor is the Villain by Kimberly Belflower (5 stars)
3. Eureka Day by Jonathan Spector (4 stars)
4. English by Sanaz Toossi (4 stars)
5. The Hills of California by Jez Butterworth (3.5 stars)
6. “Oh, Mary!” by Cole Escola (1 star)
7. Our Town by Thornton Wilder (4 stars)
8. Ohio State Murders by Adrienne Kennedy (3.5 stars)
9. Shakespeare’s Sister by Emma Whipday (4 stars)
10. Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B by Kate Hamill (4 stars)
11. Medusa Undone by Bella Poynton (4 stars)
12. The Cottage by Sandy Rustin (4.5 stars)
13. Choir Boy by Tarell Alvin McCraney (3 stars)
14. It’s Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han (3 stars)
15. Witch by Jen Silverman (3 stars)
16. Gwen & Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher (3.5 stars)
17. Significant Other by Joshua Harmon (3.5 stars)
18. Enter the Body (play version) by Joy McCullough (4 stars)
19. The Butcher’s Daughter: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett by Corinne Leigh Clark and David Demchuk (4 stars)
20. Merrily We Roll Along by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart (3 stars)
21. Shakespeare’s R&J by Joe Calarco (3 stars)
22. An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (4 stars)
23. What the Constitution Means to Me by Heidi Schreck (4.5 stars)
24. M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang (4 stars)
25. Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam (2.5 stars)
26. The Flick by Annie Baker (3 stars)
27. Macbitches by Sophie McIntosh (4 stars)
28. Romeo and Juliet Walk Into a Bar by John Maclay and Joe Foust (4 stars)
29. The Secret Love Life of Ophelia by Steven Berkoff (4 stars)
30. Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring (3.5 stars)
31. The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson (5 stars)
32. Kill Creatures by Rory Power (3.5 stars)
33. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (5 stars)
34. I Wanna Fuck Like Romeo and Juliet by Andrew Rincón (2 stars)
35. I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman (4.5 stars)
36. Prima Facie by Suzie Miller (4.5 stars)
37. Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox (2 stars)

Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:

• Helena posts it and I read it, that’s just how this works! I haven’t actually read any of the books in the Meant to Be series yet (I will eventually), but I always look forward to Helena’s reviews of them, and I really enjoyed her review of the latest book in the series Worth Fighting For by Jesse Q. Sutanto.
• We all know that I am a champion of audiobooks; I wouldn’t get half of my reading done without them, I loved Lila’s Let’s Talk Bookish discussion about audiobooks, and specifically when she talked about the accessibility that audiobooks provide and the part about “Oral storytelling is one of the most ancient arts and predates written storytelling by millennia”. This is a great, quick read that I recommend checking out!
• I am obsessed with playing my NYT daily games — Wordle, Strands, Connections…I love them all, so I loved Kayla’s video where she had her channel members make personalized Connections for her to solve. It was so fun and I hope she does a part 2!

My posts this month:

• Summerween TBR

Well this month has been a wild ride, honestly. It’s been pretty go go go all month since we started our summer camp program on the 9th. The entire week before was filled with training prep, materials inventory/ordering/organizing, a full weekend of training and then we started camp. That’s really taken up all of my focus; I haven’t been doing anything other than working during the week and a bit on the weekends in some cases, and then spending the rest of the weekend relaxing as much as I can and getting ready for the week ahead.

I’ve been doing a lot of cooking this month! I made it a goal that I wouldn’t order out this month — I broke this rule once at the beginning of the month when I was so busy doing prep work for the summer, on a deadline and knew that I’d be working until at least 9:00 pm that day, and then I ordered sushi for dinner on Father’s Day for my dad and I, but otherwise I’ve been cooking all my meals (or my parents cooked) and I’m really pleased with that! I’ve never really been comfortable cooking, but in the last few years I’ve started to cook more and I’m pretty proud of myself! I made quite a few different things this month and tried some things for the very first time! I made some of my staples, burrito bowls and pasta with sundried tomato cream sauce (I truly think this is my favorite food at the moment), but I made quite a few new things including

• Veggie Egg Bites (I did spinach, bell peppers and jalapeno)
• Breakfast Quesadillas (spinach, bell peppers, sun dried tomatoes, and feta)
• Caprese Pasta Salad
• Strawberry Muffins (new recipe)
• Bang Bang Salmon Bites

All of these recipes were so good and I’ll definitely be making them again. The Bang Bang Salmon Bites were especially delicious! I made rice bowls with them for lunch two days in a row last week and I already want to make them again.

I finally set up the gallery wall in my room and I’m so happy with it! It turned out exactly how I wanted it to, and I love looking at all of these prints every day! Funnily enough, the tapestry that I had above my bed fell over in the middle of the night one night, and I decided to not put it back up. So, I’ve got more wall space and I’m thinking of putting up some more prints and photos by my bed. 

This month I rewatched season 2 of The Summer I Turned Pretty (I cannot wait for season 3!) and started a Schitt’s Creek rewatch. Otherwise I haven’t actually been watching a whole lot of new stuff, mostly just Giants baseball and the NWSL. I did watch a few documentaries though, and have spent a lot of time watching/listening to old episodes of the Two Girls One Ghost podcast.

Musically, it’s been pretty much the same as always, but I finally listened to all of Zayn’s albums (honestly being in the office for 8+ hours does have its advantages sometimes) and overall really enjoyed them! I think Mind of Mine is probably my favorite of his albums, but I liked Icarus Falls a lot too. The songs I’ve been hyperfixating on (aside from my usual Niall songs) are:

• Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter
• sHe by Zayn
• LIKE I WOULD by Zayn
• Hypnotized by Gina Miles
• Hot Pursuit by Gina Miles
• Grapejuice by Harry Styles
• Dancing Around by Meg Donnelly
• Spring Into Summer by Lizzy McAlpine
• Romeo by Dove Cameron

Also, who else is doing the Manchild dance every 5 seconds? I literally can’t stop doing it. 🤣 While these songs have definitely been on repeat this month, you’ll also see like 2 of these in my monthly playlist because…well, you know I’m always listening to Niall. (I also have been listening to Espresso a lot in the car with my mom, so Espresso managed to crack the top 15)

And that was my June! Let me know in the comments what your month was like. Your favorite books, shows, music, things you did, whatever! I’d love to hear all about it.

I’m so excited for July because it’s & Juliet tour month! I get to see the tour 4 times in July and I can’t wait, so I’m really looking forward to July, so also let me know what you’re looking forward to in July!

Until next time 💜