Caitlyn’s Monthly Wrap Up: June 2023

Another month has come and gone and you know what that means, it’s wrap-up time! Get comfy and cozy and let’s talk about how this month went for me!

May felt like a really difficult reading month for me, I wasn’t motivated to read, I was having a hard time focusing, and I really just didn’t feel like prioritizing reading. Because of that, I decided to change my numerical reading goal. While I do still think that it’s possible that I could hit that original goal of reading 275 books, I decided to lower my official (aka Goodreads) goal to 150, which I know I can achieve easily. 

I started to feel a lot of pressure by setting such a high goal, especially with my work schedule, and then going to Goodreads and seeing that I was behind in my goal by whatever number of books it was at the time was adding unnecessary pressure to something that I love and it made reading feel daunting. It’s not easy for me to change my goals in a way that lowers expectations, but I knew that it was putting me in a bad place mentally, so I changed it and I’m glad that I did.

I always put so much pressure on myself to try and finish a book within 1-3 days of starting it, which many times is doable, but not always. I’m trying to get past this self-inflicted pressure and just read at a leisurely pace — I need to remind myself that literally, no one besides me cares about how long it takes me to read a book. Immediately after changing my goal, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and reading felt much more fun. I started reading a lot of different books and jumping between multiple books without feeling pressured to finish them in a certain amount of time. Since making this change I’ve had so much more fun reading, and it’s not feeling like a chore.

In June, I ended up reading 13 books, and my favorites were:

• A Far Wilder Magic by Allison Saft
• Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall
• The Three Dahlias by Katy Watson
• Painted Devils by Margaret Owen

Blog posts and vlogs I loved this month:

• Silvia Moreno Garcia writes such interesting and atmospheric books, and I’ve definitely been meaning to read more of her work. I loved Robin’s review of her latest release Silver Nitrate and I absolutely want to read it when it comes out in July.
• I’ve read a few books by Emma Mills and have always had a good time while reading them — though it’s been a while since I last read Foolish Hearts, though I do remember loving it. Michelle’s review of Mills’ latest novel, Something Close to Magic, definitely makes me want to pick this one up soon!
• We all know by now that I love MegWithBooks and her video where she goes through her Goodreads to see if she’s read a book published from every year that she’s been alive. I also loved Kayla from BooksandLala’s video where she did the same thing and was also trying to find a 5-star read for every year. These videos were so fun and have definitely made me think of doing something similar.

My posts this month:

• Book Recs for fans of the CW’s Nancy Drew
• What I’m Reading This Week
• Book Recs Based on Your Favorite Song from “The Show” by Niall Horan
• July – December Anticipated Reads

Oh boy, it’s been a really crazy month! Our summer camp program at work started on the 12th and…it’s, unsurprisingly, taken over my entire life. Running a 35+ camp program is a lot of work, and it really is my main focus all the time. Most days, I come home from work pretty exhausted both mentally and emotionally, so it hasn’t left a whole lot of time for other things because by the time the weekend rolls around I really just need some downtime. 

Other than work, I have gotten to spend some time with my family this month. My brother, sister-in-law, nephew, and niece came to visit for Father’s Day which was nice. We hadn’t seen them in a while, so I appreciated being able to spend some time with them. Last weekend I went to see the touring production of Into the Woods with my mom and it was fantastic! Into the Woods is my second favorite Sondheim musical (I’m a Sweeney Todd girlie,), and it’s been years since I last saw it live. 

When it comes to the media that I’ve been consuming this month, I literally have listened to the & Juliet cast recording non-stop since I saw it on Broadway in May. Of course, Niall Horan’s latest album, The Show, has been on repeat when I’m not listening to & Juliet, and I’m really loving Maisie Peter’s new album The Good Witch, but it’s mostly & Juliet that I’m listening to. Season 4 of Nancy Drew premiered at the end of May, so every Wednesday I look forward to new episodes and so far every episode has just been fantastic! Obviously, I’m so sad that this is the final season, but it’s going out with a bang and I seriously look forward to it every week.

Next month I’ll be seeing the tour of another one of my all-time favorite musicals, Les Misérables, and going to the Eras Tour! I’ve been waiting 17 years to finally see Taylor live, and I truly can’t wait.

How has June treated you? I’d love to hear about what you’ve been up to this month. Until next time!