Sweet Shit Round Up
June 2020
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June.
Summer is finally upon us, Covid cases are rising once again, and a revolution has begun in the streets.
It’s been a wild month and I’m here to share with you some sweet shit I found along the way.
Books
- Mary B. Addison killed a baby when she was nine years old. Allegedly. Since then she’s been in prison and now a group home serving out her sentence. But Mary never gave her side of the story for what happened that night, the media and the public twisted her silence and the clips of her Momma selling her out didn’t help. Now 16 and pregnant, Mary is determined to reveal the truth of what happened to baby Alyssa in the hopes that it will keep her own baby from being taken away. You can’t help but feel incredibly sorry for Mary and feel like she never got a fair shake. She was just a kid who expected her Momma to have her best interests at heart when all Momma cared about was herself. Allegedly is a great debut novel and really sets up the kind of twists and turns Tiffany D. Jackson will come to be known for (at least if you ask me.) The ending will leave you questioning everything you thought you knew from the start.
Monday’s Not Coming - Tiffany D. Jackson
- Yep. Tiffany D. Jackson made the list twice this month cause her books are that good. Monday’s Not Coming was a ride, ya’ll! I thought Allegedly had a twist, but that was nothing compared to the surprise that comes toward the end of this story. This time we’re following Claudia, just back from a summer with her grandma and ready to take on the brutal world of 8th grade with her best and only friend Monday Charles by her side. Only Monday doesn’t show up on the first day of school. Or the second. Or the first month. Claudia just wants answers on where her best friend is but no one in Monday’s family can get their story straight, the police are no help, and nobody seems to remember the last time they actually saw Monday. Claudia is forced to do her own detective work while struggling with school and loneliness in the wake of her friends disappearance. This story had me worked up with the lack of help for Claudia and concern for Monday. I found everyone’s attitude so frustrating. And then when you find out what really happened? Just prepare to have your mind blown.
- Riley Sager comes up with some pretty bomb thrillers. He has a new one coming out next week called Home Before Dark that I’m already looking forward to but this month, we’re talking about Lock Every Door. Jules Larsen is having the worst month ever. She’s lost her job and her boyfriend on the same day which has left her homeless and broke. After two weeks of crashing at a friend’s place, Jules comes across a Help Wanted Ad for an apartment sitter at the fanciest shmanciest high rise in New York City. Three months. $12,000. What could go wrong? Lol everything. With a list of rules to follow, a tragic backstory, and the mysterious disappearances of several other apartment sitters, Jules has to decide if the money and roof over her head are worth the uneasy feeling that something just isn’t right. As a thriller lover, I pride myself on figuring out what the twists might be before they’re revealed so when I don’t I’m always extra excited at how creative the author is. Riley Sager had me firmly believing I knew what was up and then he said, the hell you do, and turned the plot upside down. It’s a quick read you won’t want to put down until you know how it ends for Jules.
Video Games
Call of Duty: World War II - Zombies mode
- Call of Duty games aren’t usually my top choice, I just don’t care that much about war games and though I’ll play first person shooters, they’re not my go-to type. But the zombies mode that comes with some of the Call of Duty games? That shit’s worth playing. COD: WW2 was one of the free games given to Playstation PS+ members this month so we’ve been able to play a lot of zombies with our friends. The game does sort of have an objective (which is so convoluted to figure out unless you find a video to watch first…and we did,) but you can also just see how long your group lasts fighting the never ending hoard. Also David Tennant and Ving Rhames are characters in it which is bizarre and also wonderful.
- I've got a review up all about The Last of Us Part 2. It’s long, it’s spoilery, and I get riled up over the people who don’t seem to understand how stories work. But if you’ve finished the game or have no intention of playing it, at least for a long ass while, go check it out!
Podcasts
- Jonathan and I are always looking for new story podcasts to listen to while we go to sleep (yes we tend to miss a lot of the story doing this but shut up it works for us.) This month we discovered The Drabblecast hosted by Norm Sherman. We haven’t listened to a lot of them yet but what we have has been a lot of fun. Norm Sherman’s intro each week always tends to make me literally lol (he did a whole bit/ad about adult diapers that I just couldn’t handle.) The Drabblecast is a weekly story podcast with the tagline “bringing strange stories, by strange authors, to strange listeners” and was originally started in 2007 and after disappearing for a little while, it relaunched in 2018 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. Some of the stories we’ve heard so far involved Were-Teddybears, a man who can’t stop finding dead bodies, and the tale of Mr. Wormcake. If you like horror and sci-fi stories with a weird or offbeat flair, go give The Drabblecast a listen!
Peoria Plague
- Old radio plays are a lot of fun. Sure, podcasts are pretty much the modern equivalent but for some reason they just never really feel the same to me. Thanks to a randomly chosen episode of The Drabblecast, I was introduced to The Peoria Plague, an early 70s radio play broadcast by WUHN Radio in Peoria, Illinois. In The Peoria Plague, we are following a breaking news story of a zombie take over in, duh, Peoria. I love hearing “eyewitness” reports during high tension events and this radio play delivers. I also love the way they make it feel so real with the first part of it still playing music in between news bulletins before shit really starts to hit the fan. The sound quality can be a little iffy at times but if you’re a zombie fan or like old radio gags like this, check it out below!
Products
- It’s so hot. Pools are closed (or at least they should be cause COVID IS STILL VERY MUCH A THING, AMERICA!!) So this month we got ourselves this pool and ya’ll it’s kind of huge! Measuring in at 10ft long and almost 2ft high I’ve never seen an inflatable pool that can comfortably fit four adults in it if you wanted to. With the incredible humidity and the high ass temperatures we’ve been experiencing this is easily in the running for best summer purchase. AND IT WAS LESS THAN $30.00! Walmart is sold out online but it might be worth heading to your local store to hunt one down. (You can check out the pool in use here!)
- Backscratcher’s are underrated. I bought one for Jonathan as part of his birthday gift this month and it’s truly a game changer. No more trying to coach each other on exactly the right place to get that back itch scratched. No more grabbing pens or using wall corners like a bear in the woods. Things have gotten a whole lot more civilized and way less itchy around here!
Apps
- Learning languages has never been something I’m great with. I can pick up enough to get by in a class or to be able to read easy-ish sentences in a book or movie but I’m rarely confident in fully speaking them or truly understanding a native speaker. But this month, Jonathan decided he wanted to learn Italian and I figured, why not? Ya’ll….it’s going surprisingly well! I’m on a 23 day streak as of today and I have learned that farfalle means butterfly and not bow tie as the pasta would lead me to believe. If you’ve never tried it before, Duolingo is such an easy app to learn with and it’s free. It offers nearly 40 different languages to learn AND it’s a Pittsburgh based company….go yinzers!
How was June for you guys? Exciting? Infuriating? Did you discover any new authors, artists, or small businesses you want to share? Let me know in the comments below!
