The books of June 2015

Yikes! So far behind! I will be, hopefully, cranking out three posts today. This one is for June.

Movies:
In June, I saw a lot of movies. A lot. More than I thought I would.

Spy, with Melissa McCarthy was really funny. Jason Statham was perfect. And Rose McGowan as the baddie was a great idea.

Pitch Perfect 2 made me pretty happy. It's not as good as the first one, but it still was a good way to spend an afternoon. The riff off section of this one is hilarious.

Full disclosure: I thought Jurassic Park was only ok. And the two sequels, well, I don't really even remember them except that I think the people changed? Sharks...they were jumped. However, Jurassic World? Freaking fantastic. I really loved this one.

Mad Max: Fury Road was the surprise of June. This movie was insane and I loved every second of it. I used to love the original ones, but this was a definite improvement and update given the times and technological advances since the original trio. I hope they make more. (Tom Hardy has a nice pair of lips, if that adds to your incentive to see this.)

Inside Out is a Pixar movie. It hits you in the feels more often than expected. It's very sweet and I think a useful movie for explaining emotions to kids.

Ted 2 was probably the least liked of all these, and I still laughed almost the entire time. I'm fairly certain that Seth McFarlane came up with the joke about Amanda Seyfried while making A Million Ways to Die in the West and realized he had to make another movie with her in it to use it. So that, plus Puddy from Seinfeld and Wharf from Star Trek Next Generation made this movie very enjoyable.

Books:
Apparently I spent all my time at the theater because I only read four books in June: The Italians by John Hooper, The Woodcutter by Kate Danley, The Crown of Ptolemy by Rick Riordan, and The Family by Mario Puzo.

The Italians is kind of a social history of the Italian people, tracing the fighting and politics that eventually formed the nation and noting how everything shaped the current culture. It was an interesting read, but not overly engrossing.

The Woodcutter is a fairy tale type book. The woodcutter, a job passed from generation to generation, is a man who helps keep the fairy tales progressing in the manner we've come to expect. He keeps the darkness from taking over each story. This was a pretty good read if you like new takes on fairy tales (and I do).

The Crown of Ptolemy is another short story cross-over between the Kanes and the Greek demigods. The crazy Egyptian magician is back up to his tricks and trying to get the crown so he can take control. The demigods team up with the Kanes to stop that from happening. We meet some new Egyptian characters in this adventure. Really, I think it was just a way to keep us fans mollified until the new Norse mythology series starts this fall.

The Family is Mario Puzo's take on the Borgias. Highly fictionalized and accepting rumor as fact, there were parts of this that definitely bothered me. Which is unfortunate because this could've been really good. But, to be fair, (I can't remember exactly since it's been two months) I don't think Puzo completed this one before his death, so whoever edited/finished this could be why I didn't like it.

That was it for June. It rained pretty much the entire month...that much I definitely remember.