My Goings-On in June:
Here are the things that stand out to me this month:
- Writing and critiquing. I sent my draft off to critique partners and then read one of my critique partner’s manuscripts.
- College visit. My daughter Danielle and I went to our first (live) college visit. It was a local small liberal arts college, and we mostly went to get the feel for what a small college is like. We’ve also done a couple of virtual visits and we booked another in-person visit to a big school in a neighboring state.
- Trip to Tucson to visit my mother-in-law. My MIL is in a memory care facility in Tucson, and my husband and I flew out there to see her. We’re honestly not sure how much longer she’s going to remember us since her sense of reality and the “now” is fading fast. Alzheimer’s is such a strange disease. It’s hard to understand the ways that the brain compensates for this altered sense of reality. For instance, my MIL thinks she’s in Illinois, and even when we took her out and she could see the mountains all around us, she didn’t realize she was wrong. Instead, she insisted that somehow the mountains had been moved to Illinois and kept commenting on how she couldn’t get used to it. I’ll admit it was a little hard not to laugh!
- In the Heights. We also saw this movie while we were in Tucson, and I was blown away by it!
Features & Discussions:
June 2021 Discussion Challenge Link-Up & Giveaway
May 2021 Monthly Wrap-Up & Best of the Bunch
How to Create Book Page Art. (And a Peek at Mine!)
The Joys of Verse Novels, Graphic Novels and Other Very Quick Reads. Let’s Discuss!
June 2021 Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up Link-Up & Giveaway
My 2021 Reading Progress:
I read 15 books in June, putting me at 58 books so far this year and 7 books ahead of being on track for my Goodreads goal of 100.
I also read and critiqued 1 author-friend’s manuscript, which brings my total manuscripts read to 7 for the year (most of these were for critiques, though a couple were full manuscripts I read in January for Author Mentor Match).
June 2021 Reviews
I did a lot better about posting reviews this month.
- These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong | Review
- Sunkissed by Kasie West | Review
- Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas | Review
- The Startup Squad by Brian Weisfeld & Nicole C. Kear | Review
- Face the Music by Brian Weisfeld & Nicole C. Kear | Review
- Party Problems by Brian Weisfeld & Nicole C. Kear | Review
- Glow by Ruth Forman & Illustrated by Geneva Bowers | Review
- These Violent Delights by Payal Doshi | Review (This one includes the author’s Top Ten Addictions!)
June Best of the Bunch:
(Best of the Bunch is hosted over at Cocoon of Books. We link up our favorite reads of the month!)
This month’s MG pick is Rea and the Blood of the Nectar. Such a fun, unique fantasy.
My YA choice is These Violent Delights. I absolutely adored this Romeo and Juliet re-imagining!
2021 Goals Progress:
The Discussion Challenge is my one and only goal for 2021.
Progress: 6/21-30 Discussions (Chatty Kathy)
I posted two discussions in June.
How to Create Book Page Art. (And a Peek at Mine!)
The Joys of Verse Novels, Graphic Novels and Other Very Quick Reads. Let’s Discuss!
Balancing Spending on the Blog, Making Money, and All the Moral Dilemmas that Go Along With It
I’ve Been Stalking Your Goodreads.
2020 End of Year Book Survey (& Year in Graphs!)
Unbiased Reviews: Is There Such a Thing?
HOST/SIGN-UP LINK – Feed Your Fiction Addiction & It Starts at Midnight
Wrap-Up Round-Up!
Don’t forget to link your June wrap-up posts up to the Monthly Wrap-Up Round-Up. And enter the giveaway!
It sounds like you had a busy month with lots of travel. I’m surprised you got any reading done. 15 books is a great achievement.
Wow! College visits. Makes it all seem so much more real. I hope your daughter finds the perfect school for her.
Cemetery Boys has been on my list forever!! Happy July!
I really enjoyed These Violent Delights as well. I feel like we haven’t seen too many Shakespeare retellings/reimaginings recently. I hope you have a good July!
Oh Nicole, my heart just breaks for your MIL and your husband. It’s so cruel, Alzheimer’s, and they (and you of course!) will be in my thoughts ♥♥
In the Heights looks amazing! I really want to see it, but let’s be real, I won’t haha. Gosh, more college!? Dude, just reading about it gives me anxiety! But so good for Danielle, I hope she finds an amazing school!
So sorry about your MIL. Alzheimer’s is such a difficult illness. I am glad you found something to laugh about ?.
College visits too… You have a lot going on.
Your book covers are so colorful!
Have a great July.
I’m so sorry to hear about your MIL, it’s such a tough illness. Sending you and your family all the love! <3
I'm really happy to see you enjoyed These Violent Delights, everyone loves this book so much,I have to pick it up eventually!
I hope you'll have a beautiful month, take care! <3
I’m sorry to hear about your MIL. But it’s good that this pandemic has lessened up to the point where you’re able to be with her!
Glad you were able to see In The Heights. Movie theatres aren’t open in Canada yet but I hope they do soon as I would love to capture the magic of those songs on the big screen!
Hope you have a great July, Nicole!
These Violent Delights sounds so good!
I would like to have a private conversation with you Nico. As well as Shanna. I will open up a Discord and, we can chat there. Just make an account and send me your username. My username is my name and my blog name.
Sorry about your MIL. Alzheimer’s really is a strange disease. Glad you got to visit her though! And I LOVED In the Heights too! So inspirational!
Alzheimers is hard. We thought my mom had it for a bit before she passed but it was a stroke that caused her to forget a bit and when she got her memory back, we were so thrilled. Best to your MIL–its going to be a journey.
It’s so fun visiting colleges (and frightening too to think of leaving our kids there! lol). We had to move my mother to a memory care unit a few years back. It was very disorienting for her at first; we hated it so much. But I was grateful for their ability to take good care of her when we had run out of options to do it at home. Alzheimer’s is definitely a horrible disease.
I’m looking forward to going to the movies soon, regardless of what we see! 🙂
I’m sorry about your MIL, Alzheimer’s is not an easy thing.
I enjoyed In the Heights too but I liked Hamilton better. Good luck with the college visits and happy reading!
I’m glad you were able to visit with your MIL. Alzheimer’s really is a strange, strange disease.
I hope to see In the Heights soon!
-Lauren
So sorry to hear about your MIL but I’m glad y’all were able to visit with her! My husband’s grandfather had dementia and sometimes we had to laugh to keep from crying. Or we just did both. 🙂 Good luck with the college hunting. My second child will be doing that soon, too. We also really enjoyed In the Heights! And 15 books!! You’re doing great. <3
I have copies of your favorites of the month (still unread), but now knowing you really enjoyed them, I know I will too. We went through a similar situation with my husband’s grandma–she didn’t understand that she no lived in Florida and always asked us why we traveled to Florida so many times to visit her (she was in a nursing home about 15 minutes from our house). It’s definitely difficult/painful to watch someone you love mentally decline. College visits are fun and so much better in person, so I’m glad you are able to do that now.