It’s Monday, Let’s Catch Up │#5

It’s Monday, Let’s Catch Up │#5

Hey bookworm friends! It’s finally starting to feel like summer and since we have more time, I’ve started trying to go to the gym on a more regular basis. I’ve never loved going so I hope I can keep it up for a while. I won’t lie, the fact it’s a perfect time to listen to audiobooks is a good motivator 😅. Anyway, I hope this week treats you well and let’s get into It’s Monday, Let’s Catch Up!

Link-ups

Music Monday hosted by Lauren @ Always Me

Sunday Post is hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer

It’s Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn @ The Book Date

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Marlene @ Reading Reality

Music Monday

For some reason, every single summer-y song I can think of is from the 2010’s and I don’t want to analyze that too deeply at the risk of feeling old. Now that I’m reminiscing, I want to share so many of them but I’ll kindly restrict myself to 2 😜. The first one is energetic and the second, more chill—either way hopefully they make you feel like basking in the sun😎.

Album: Safe Travels Year Published: 2012 Genre: Indie Pop Rock

Album: We Are Nothing Year Published: 2011 Genre: Hip Pop/Alternative/Pop

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

DNF

Sadly, I ended up DNF’ing Season 3 of Phoenix Heart. I only had about 9 hours left to finish the entire series but a character I hated was getting on my last nerve and I didn’t want 9 more hours of that. The plot was also going in too many chaotic directions I didn’t enjoy. It’s a bummer because there were other aspects of this series I really loved but that’s just the way the cookie crumbled. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Currently Reading

I’m working on finishing When The Tides Held The Moon because it’s already overdue but I’m enjoying it a lot! I’m making good progress on finishing series with The Brightness Between Us. It’s blowing my mind and I think I’m loving it more than the first one!

Up Next

Coming up next up on the book pipe-line is Fragile Eternity (The third book in my Wicked Lovely buddy re-read). And I have Woman, Life, Freedom ready for July, where I’ll be joining a non-fiction buddy-read.

On The Blog Recently

I’ve been so MIA that I’ve only made one post since the last Catch Up Monday: May Flowers and Movies│Monthly Reset #10. It is what it is.

Stacking The Shelves

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, whether it be physical or virtual. Reading Reality posts on Saturdays but you can post any day that works for you— don’t forget to visit the link-up on Saturday to join in on the fun!

This week for STS I have something slightly different to chat about. I saw an author I follow on Instagram share about a book bundle they’re part of for Pride and I jumped on the deal! It’s called Monster Manor LGBTQIA+ Book Fair 2025, it’s on itch.io, and the offer is available for another 4 days so I wanted to mention it in case anyone is interested. It’s a collection of 118 adult LGBTQIA+ Comics, short stories, novellas and novels for $25 USD and it directly supports indie queer and trans authors!

Since there are so many e-books, I’m not listing them all but the book that led me to the bundle is Phantom & Rook by Aelina Isaacs. There were also a few other titles in the bundle I’d already heard of and some new ones that caught my attention.

Some Other Titles of Interest

14 Comments

  1. I love the variety you have here! I too have been working out more now that summer is here (I’m a teacher, so some days are exhausting and working out just doesn’t happen). But for these two and a half months I get to be a stay-at-home-mom and I love it. My girl and I have adventures and read and cram as much fun into this short time as possible. Happy reading!

    • Veronica

      Thank you, Sarah! 🙂 Oh my, I can only imagine how tiring the job can be sometimes, that’s super fair! It’s nice that you’re able to go more often for now too though and I hope you have a fantastic stay-at-home mom summer 🖤! That sounds so delightful and like you’re making so many great core memories :D!

    • Veronica

      Thanks, Yvonne! I hope you’re having a great week too 🙂

  2. Huh, I don’t know if I knew that The Darkness Outside Us wasn’t a standalone when I read it — it was a while ago, but I was surprised now to see another book, anyway. I’ll have to look out for it! I wonder if it’d be best to do a reread of the first book though?

    • Veronica

      There is a big leap in time so imo the first one can be read as a standalone but I also think that if you want to read the second one you would 100% benefit from a reread as that one doesn’t function as a standalone at all!

  3. Woman, Life, Freedom looks interesting. I am always looking for more nonfiction titles. There aren’t as many nonfiction recommendations compared to fiction in the blogging sphere and social media. Sometimes, life takes over – my blogging has also been rather sporadic, but that is fine.

    • Veronica

      I agree that Woman, Life, Freedom sounds great I don’t know much about what it’s about I only heard about it recently from a friend. Yeah that’s true, I think there’s more of a focus on fiction in the blogging world and I myself don’t read nonfic often so I really should more too! Yeah, that’s okay we do the best we can 🙂

    • Veronica

      Aha well there are just too many songs, and there is only so much brain-space to keep them all stored 😛! But I am glad you agree they’re good ones for the season 🙂

  4. Adri M.

    I haven’t heard Somebody in forever. Long Hair Don’t Care is fun! I don’t have a specific summer song, but I find myself playing my house playlist more often.

    • Veronica

      Yeah, I actually hadn’t heard Somebody in a while either until I started thinking of summery songs, I came back to it! That’s fair and house music feels summery too because of all the festivals and stuff, though I’ve never been to one of those lol.

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