My Favorites of Spring 2023

 🌸 My Favorites of Spring 2023 🌼

Below, I have listed some of my favorite music, movies, movie trailers, YouTube videos, and TV that I have watched or listened to this spring. This has been a great season for some amazing entertainment. It'll be fun to show that off, also. 

🎞️ Movies/Specials:

1. Love Again (watched May 13th)

~ I had a ball watching this movie today, with my mother, my best friend, and her mother. It is definitely the perfect movie for a good laugh with friends. Also, Celine Dion’s music is some of my favorites and I loved her songs in this movie. It was just a lot of fun watching this gem and I highly recommend it to the romantic comedy fans. Loved Sam, Priyanka, and Celine. 

 

🎵 Music:

This season has been so great for music. I spent a lot of time listening to all of these songs and albums over and over again. 

1. Luke Combs’s new album: Gettin Old

~I’ll always love Luke Combs’s voice. He has such a great style to his singing that stands out from other country music singers. Definitely, one of my favorites along with Scotty McCreery and George Strait. 

~So many great songs on this album, my favorite would be his cover of “Fast Car.” I adore the original by Tracy Chapman but his is just great in every way. 

2. “Eyes Closed” by Ed Sheeran- Absolutely beautiful. 

3. “Where Did All The Guitars Go” by McFly- I have loved McFly since I was a teenager and am ecstatic that they have new music coming out. 

4. “Hope I’m Not the Only One” by Logan Mize- Love this song so much. Logan has a great voice. 

5. “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus

6. “I Wanna Dance With You” by Skylar Austin

7. “Wings” by Jonas Brothers

8. “That’s Not How This Works” by Charlie Puth, feat Dan & Shay

9. “Waffle House” by Jonas Brothers- My favorite of the Jonas Brothers songs

10. “Song About  You” by The Band CAMINO

11. “Black and White” by Niall Horgan

12. “That’s When” by Taylor Swift, feat. Keith Urban- I adore this song so darn much! 

13. “Say You Love Me” by Steve Grand

14. “I Think I Like You” by The Band CAMINO

15. “Wish You The Best” by Lewis Capaldi

16. “If You Go Down (I’m Going Down Too) by Kelsea Ballerini

17. “Make Your Own Kind of Music” by Cass Elliot 

18. “Hits Different” by Taylor Swift

19. “Rhythm of the Night” by DeBarge

20. “You’re Losing Me” by Taylor Swift

📺 TV Shows:

1. The Clone Wars Season 1 (episodes 15-22)- Season 7 (episode 12)

- The Clone Wars is one of the best pieces of Star Wars entertainment that there is. I loved every minute of watching this show and seeing how they developed most of the characters throughout all of the season. This is an absolutely brilliant show that every Star Wars fan should watch. It is incredible. 

🖥️ YouTube:

1. Books and Lala

~who has blurbed my favorite books?

~Astrology Book Controls my TBR for a Week ♈🔥- I’m not someone who believes in Astrological signs but these videos are always a lot of fun. 

 ~Reading Books from Failed Video Ideas

~ Attempting to Solve a Mystery 🔍 Before the Book Ends- Such a fun video. I love Kayla’s video ideas. 

~upcoming books you need to read

~ Have I Read a Book Published in Every Year of My Life?- This is such a neat idea and I decided that I wanted to also do it for the books that I have read by the time I am watching this video. (watched May 18th, 2023)

1993 ✅ 1994 ✅ 1995 ✅ 1996 ✅ 1997 ✅ 1998 ✅ 1999 ✅ 2000 ✅ 2001 ✅ 2002 ✅ 2003 ✅ 2004 ✅ 2005 ✅ 2006 ✅ 2007 ✅ 2008 ✅ 2009 ✅ 2010 ✅ 2011 ✅ 2012 ✅ 2013 ✅ 2014 ✅ 2015 ✅ 2016 ✅ 2017 ✅ 2018 ✅ 2019 ✅ 2020 ✅ 2021 ✅ 2022 ✅ 2023 ✅

30/30- I have read a book published in every year that I have been alive. Also, I have at least one 5 star read for each of the years that I have been alive. That is so cool. Terry Pratchett definitely helped with that, lol. I have read a book published in almost ever one of these years just with Terry’s books. 

~ My Giant Summer TBR 🌴🩴☀️- I’m reading The Princess Bride this month (June), so that’s pretty cool that we are reading it near the same time. 

 

~ Reading Books You Didn't Finish- Makes me want to read Babel.

~ Choosing My Next Read | Scavenger Hunt Decides My TBR- I love when she does the Scavenger Hunt!! I remember watching Peter’s video six years ago and completing it along with him. I decided that I’m going to do it this year. 

1. Grab your favourite book. Go to the acknowledgements, and the first name you see, find a book by an author with the same name. 

~ My favorite book is Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. 

~ It does not have an acknowledgements page so I went with her dedication, which is to Stephen. 

2. Pick something on that cover and find another book with the thing in the title. 

~I picked Fairy Tale by Stephen King.

~On the cover, I picked a tree. 

3. Go to page 50, line 5. Pick a word from that line and find a title with that word. 

~My book with tree in the title is: Aru Shah and the Tree of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi.

~My word from the fifth line is: they.

4. Find a 5-star read with the same colours on the cover.  

~ My book that I picked with ‘they’ in the title is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. 

~ The book I picked that was 5-star read with the same colors on the cover is A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness because it has white, black, and gray on the cover. Also, it is one of my top 10 favorite books. 

5. Find a book with the same number of pages. (hint hint, goodreads is your friend) 

~The book with the same amount of pages as A Monster Calls is The Castle of Llyr by Lloyd Alexander, with 206 pages. 

6. Flip open to any page. The first name you see, find a book by an author with who shares that name. 

~ This one was a hard question to answer because the names in The Castle of Llyr are all fantasy names, so they would not be names of authors. So, I decided to open to the first page of the book and look at that and found the name John from St. John’s University. 

~ John was an easy author to find because one of my favorite writers is John Green. So I picked one of my favorites of his which is Paper Towns. 

7. Find another title with the same number of letters. 

~ In Paper Towns there are 10 letters. 

~ Another book with 10 letters is Set In Stone by Mari Mancusi.

8. Find a book with a similar cover. 

~ A book with a similar cover to Set In Stone is The Land of Stories: The Enchtress Returns by Chris Colfer. They both are purple and have the villian in the foreground and the hero/heroes at the front. 

9. Flip to a random page. Point at a word, and find that word in a book title on your TBR shelf. 

~ I flipped to page 337 in the book and found the word branches. 

~The book that is on my TBR shelf with branches is A Branch of Silver, A Branch of Gold by Anne Elisabeth Stengl.

10. Read! 

2. SuperCarlin Brothers

~PROOF That Snoke is Cloned From Grogu | Mandalorian Star Wars Film Theory

~What If Draco ACTUALLY Killed Dumbledore| Harry Potter Film Theory 

~What If Sirius TOLD HARRY How To Use The Mirrors| Harry Potter Film Theory - Would have been a good idea on Sirius’s part

~ TRON Lightcycle Run REVIEW & Disney Adventure-  Love their Disney videos. One day, I’ll go too. 

~ J vs Ben: We FAILED Even More Harry Potter Trivia- REDEMPTION Quiz

~ How the Weasley Twins Knew What to Bet Ludo Bagman | Harry Potter Film Theory 

~Harry Potter TV Series REBOOT! What’s It Going to Be About?| Harry Potter Film Theory- I don’t know what to think about this reboot. On one hand, I love the original movies, but on the other, there are so many scenes that are not in the movies that would be great to see. Also, the show could focus on stuff that Harry was not able to see himself that was going on at the same time. So truthfully, this could be a really cool. I love the ideas that Ben is talking about in this video. 

~J vs Ben: HAPPIEST Harry Potter TRIVIA Quiz Ever

~Gusteau’s BIG Secret Revealed | Ratatouille Pixar Film Theory

~J vs Ben ULTIMATE Department of Mysteries Harry Potter TRIVIA Quiz

~Top 10 Best (and Most EPIC) Star Wars Scenes Ever | Star Wars Film Theory

~What if Mirabel Had Died When Casita Fell | Encanto Disney Film Theory- Very sad

~What if Crookshanks KILLED Wormtail | Harry Potter Film Theory- Yeah, it’s too bad that this didn’t happen. 

~Who Created the UNFORGIVABLE Curses | Harry Potter Film Theory

~What If Neville Was The Chosen One | Harry Potter Film Theory- New Series… YAY!!!!

~ J vs Ben: ULTIMATE Harry Potter Prank Trivia Quiz | WHEEL OF PUNISHMENT- So much fun, lol!

~ Top 5 PRE Deathly Hallows Fan Theories | Harry Potter Film Theory- Fun video, I remember hearing some of these at that time.

~ What If Neville Was The Chosen One- Part 2 | Harry Potter Film Theory 

~ J vs Ben: Hardest Harry Potter Families Trivia Quiz EVER

3. The Library of Allenxandria

~ Discworld City Watch Books Ranked! | There’s No Such Thing as Too Much Vimes- I’ll always love Allen’s Discworld videos. My list is very similar to his, Night Watch is very much my favorite of the Watch books. It is one of the best of the Discworld books.  

~Book Jeopardy Season 2 Episode 3 | Theo v RJ v Alex- Finally, it’s back!!

~ Talks by the Fire: Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire- Absolutely, hilarious! 

~ The First Line Challenge Returns! | ft. My Wonderful Wife, Christina!

4. Good Mythical Morning/More

~ What Disney Character is This Food?- I am too good at guessing Disney characters made out of food. Lol

~ What Was This Pasta Tossed In?- Hilarious!

~ International Pickles Taste Test- Love these International taste tests.

~  We Get Put On The Spot (Game)

~ Ranting with Helium Balloons | The Big Blow Up- This will forever be one of my favorite videos of theirs. It’s hilarious. 

~ Can We Beat The Hardest Game in the World- Oh my goodness, this is hilarious! Haven’t laughed so hard in a long time. 

5.  Charlie Hopkinson/ Not Obi-Wan Kenobi

~ Anakin REACTS to Grogu Escaping Order 66

~ Anakin REACTS to his old buddy returning

~ Gandalf REACTS to Bilbo ‘Never aging a day’

~ Obi Wan loses his mind over Lizzo in the mandalorian 

~ Anakin meets Padme in the afterlife

~ Qui-Gonn Reacts to ‘The Force’ being Anakin’s Dad

~ Qui-Gonn watches his fight with Maul for the FIRST

~ Anakin reacts to getting roasted by the council

~ Anakin reacts to Padme’s funeral 

6. Dominic Noble

- The fact that I have not had Dom on this list is ridiculous. His videos are always some of my favorites that I watch, especially his Lost in Adaptation series. I love his thoughts on literature and his type of humor. 

~ The Horse and His Boy Broke the Lore

~How to Train Your Dragon- Lost in Adaptation

~ The Fellowship of the Ring~ Lost in Adaptation 

~ Twilight Eclipse ~ Lost in Adaptation- These will never get old.

Other Favorites

 1. MasterClass Presents: Neil Gaiman Teaches the Art of Storytelling

~I have been wanting to watch Neil Gaiman's MasterClass for years and now I can from my library on Hoopla. Neil is one of my absolute favorite authors ever and hearing his insights in writing is everything. This is going to be so much fun! 

 

~ In the sections below, I'm going to talk about my favorite takeaways from each of the episodes, along with some notes I took from his insights into writing.

~Episode 2: Truth in Fiction (watched March 23rd)- I love the idea of truths that fiction can give you even though it is not real. Great examples with "Little Red Riding Hood" and his book Coraline. His antidote of how he came up with the message for Coraline, really shows the idea of truths in fiction. He shows the importance of fiction and finding what is real in these "fake" stories. The Ocean at the End of the Lane is one of my favorites of Neil's, because of how personal it feels. Neil's story about writing this book was beautiful. I hope that Neil will eventually write an autobiography.

~Episode 3: Sources of Inspiration (watched March 29th)- Writers definitely have a compost heap. I cannot tell you how many ideas I have for stories that are just that, stories. Inspirations can be anything not just literary. I love his story of his experience with Snow White and how that inspired his retelling, Snow, Glass, Apples. One of my favorite things is taking a classic story and making your own take on it so this exercise that he is talking about speaks to me so much. My series The Chronicles of Grimmless is literately me doing that. 

~Episode 4: Finding Your Voice (watched March 29th)- Starting writing with imitation and then continue on from that. There will be mistakes and they may be the most important thing for young writers. I love the Chuck Jones quote. It’s important to get the bad words out and find your own voice. Great use of Terry Pratchett to illustrate his point of having to finish pieces that you are working on. I know that I’m guilty of not finishing pieces. He’s right about his stories feeling all like him. That you can tell that they are Neil Gaiman stories. Good example of American Gods for finding the correct voice for a piece and Stardust for the narration and voice. It’s one of my favorites of his because of how it feels like an old fairy tale. His way of describing The Ocean at the End of the Lane is brilliant. Love that the narration is first person and that it takes you through  the main character’s memories. 

~Episode 5: Developing the Story (watched March 29th)- Love his story about his son, Ash’s favorite game: the What’s Going to Happen Game. It is important for a writer to play this with their readers and keep them wanting/guessing what is going to happen next. I love his essay from the book Stories that he read. Four important words to remember “and then what happened?” The author has to care what is going to happen in the story and imbue it into their writing, so that anyone reading it will to. When he starts a new story, he writes down everything he knows about the story on a piece of paper. A giant brain dump, with words and doodles. Just a way of telling himself everything he knows. This helps brings connections between the ideas. Want to make sure you have some sort of idea of what the story is about. You get the idea and then what it is about will lead you through writing it. The Neverwhere story he told is interesting and makes me want to read it even more than I did before. Creating conflict is an important part of writing. Knowing what your characters want will help lead you through a story. This is such a true statement. Characters take over the story so much and also your mind.  

~Episode 6: Story Case Study: The Graveyard Book (watched March 31st)- First, of all this makes me want to read The Graveyard Book again. I love listening to Neil read is works. He is one of my absolute favorite audiobook narrators and I loved listening to him explain his story. He has the very best voice to read a book. I could listen to him read anything. 

~Episode 7: Short Fiction (watched March 31st)- Great introduction his short story collection M is for Magic. The insight that he gives from Roger Zelazny about how the short stories he wrote are like the last chapter of a novel they had never written, is brilliant. It is so important that the characters in a short story seem like they have life outside of the story. Such a cool idea for it. Neil’s point of starting with the idea, that you are paying by the word in a short story, is a cool one. To see if you can write a story with as little words as possible. Yay, he read his “Nicholas Was…” story, which is about Santa Claus. One of my absolute favorites of his short stories. 

~Episode 8: Short Fiction Case Study: "March Tale" (watched March 31st)- I like his story at the beginning of how he started to write “March Tale.” This story is another great one. A great example to show what he was saying in the previous episode about short fiction, especially with the idea that the story could be an a final chapter. I like how he showed how he could expand on his story.