lately with lila may 2025 | making may-mories

Hello again, dear friends, I hope you all are well, and if you are not then I hope brighter days head your way soon! I’m sorry that I’m running late with this wrap-up; my family has been dealing with a medical emergency involving one of our cats this week and so I kinda dropped everything to help out. The cat in question is doing better, but still requires some specialized care!

Anyhoo, cat emergency aside, I had a pretty good May of 2025! I got to do some fun activities and even managed to finish up watching the current season of a TV series I adore! So let’s check out what went down this past month…

what i posted

here on hardcover haven

what i’m currently reading

you started it by jackie khalilieh

I received an ALC of this audiobook through Libro.fm and started listening to it on a whim. YA contemporary romance isn’t what I typically read, but so far I love this book so freaking much! I adore the Arab diaspora representation and the mixed race representation in You Started It, both of which are done so well that it nearly brought me to tears while listening. And the fake dating relationship in the book is so incredibly sweet as well! I truly haven’t read a book this sweet and sincere since reading Jenny Han’s To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before books!! If you’re looking for a cute palette cleanser, definitely give You Started It a chance!

what i plan on reading

Aside from hopefully finishing You Started It, I also have four ALCs from Netgalley that I’d like to at least start reading, those being: Love in Focus by Lyla Lee, Not Safe for Work by Nisha J. Tuli, Six Wild Crowns by Holly Race, and Birth of a Dynasty by Chinaza Bado. Love in Focus and Not Safe for Work are Adult contemporary romances and Six Wild Crowns and Birth of a Dynasty are both Adult fantasies. I’m excited for all of them, so hopefully I can finish one or two this June!

what i watched

xo, kitty season 2

Aaaaaah I finally finished watching the last one and a half episodes of XO, Kitty Season 2, and I loved it so much!! This season was soooooo cute, with plotlines following Kitty coming into her bisexuality and reconnecting with family plus romantic shenanigans for Kitty and all of her friends and (the cherry on top!) a K-pop competition the gang is competing in! It was all, of course, so freaking adorable!!! And that ending! I can’t wait for the third season to drop (fingers crossed)!

for readers

• Sumedha looked back at ten years of reading
• Leyre remembered the books that made her
• Literary Gluttony revealed their bookish hot takes and heartbreaks and also showcased books that will make you question everything
• Rosina highlighted books featuring trans masc characters and also audiobooks with a podcast element, in addition to talking about getting into booktok
• April told us about translated fiction they’re excited to read
• Lisa showed off puzzles for book lovers
• Lindsey recommended diverse fantasy books to read instead of Harry Potter
• Bookishcore paired books and types of teachers
• Chelle discussed how reading a book at the right time can make it perfect
• Lexi explored the world of Instagram poetry (Video)
• Elle took a deep dive into the worst books on booktok (Video)
• Abby put together a spring entertainment almanac
• Zara explained the issues with race in romantasy (Video)
• Jess made a gay girl’s guide to Ashley Herring Blake for us (Video)
• Isabelle taught us about what makes a romance novel a romance novel (Video)
• Krysta examined why reading purely for entertainment purposes is valid too
• Hayleigh read books about sisters
• Delaney shouted out self-aware mystery novels
• Lou praised Jane Austen’s works
• Jananie spoke about the honest truth about the book community and publishing (Video) and also about why people are obsessed with romantasy and why it’s so straight and White (Video)
• Jack asked whether or not it’s a betrayal to posthumously publish author’s personal diaries and letters (Video)
• Beth tipped us of as to how to read more and be less distracted
• Witty and Sarcastic Books spotlighted fantasy mysteries
• Caro showed off her Libby library loans haul (and, as a lover of Libby and libraries, I adore this haul idea!)
• Tasya gabbed about what makes a romance believable for her
• Meredith used her computer science background to investigate if Silver Elite was written using AI (Video)
• Vox looked into the decline of young, White, straight men writing literary fiction

for fun

• Clo talked more about planning and memory keeping
• Kate released Part II of her deepest dive into American Girl’s Samantha Parkington character (Video)
• Julia Christina spent a spring day living like she lived in a Jane Austen novel (Video)

what i did in may 2025

May 2025 was pretty good for me. I performed in a local choral festival with my choir and also finished my semester strong, so I’m happy about that! I did get very sick with some kind of bug or flu for the second to last week of the month, but that didn’t manage to derail my month too much.

In the middle of the month, I got brunch at a completely gluten free restaurant with my friend, which was really lovely. I got a gluten free omelet with ham, cheese, peppers, and tomatoes plus a gluten free raspberry turnover—all of which was sooooo delicious! My friend also gave me a “silly goose juice” pin, which was so sweet of her!

I also went into the city with my mom towards the end of the month and ended up spending the day at one of the D.C. Public Library branches, which was also really nice. This branch had outdoor balconies so you could take books and read outside, and they also had outlets on the balcony, in case you wanted to work too. It was a really calming experience to be in such a large and beautiful library, especially as my local library branch is quite small in comparison.

At the end of the month, in celebration of finishing up at my community college, one of my besties and I went to Quill & Crumb Cafe for “special celebratory coffee.” Quill & Crumb Cafe is an extremely aesthetic, dark academia cafe inside the Folger Shakespeare Library in D.C. and it was a dream come true to go there! My bestie and I also wandered around Folger Shakespeare Library, which is a literary and theater wonderland!

My mom also got both of us new phones, which is great as I was in desperate need of a new phone! I got a Google Pixel 9, which is a great phone that I think fulfills all of my phone-related needs. I’m excited to use it and start personalizing it!

I’m not really certain what this June will bring. I don’t have any fun plans for the month yet, but I’m still hoping something will come up. Some of my friends and I have been trying to plan a get together soon, so fingers crossed everything works out and we can manage to make it this month! Other than that, though, I’ll just be enjoying the summer!

How was your May of 2025? Did you read anything memorable? Is there anything you’re looking forward to coming up in June of 2025?

Learn more the author of this post:

Lila @ Hardcover Haven

Lila is a 30 year old anthropology student and lover of literature who's been book blogging for an eternity. Her hobbies include reading, singing, writing, arts and crafts, and snuggling her two cats, Snoopy and Clementine.