Spring Favorites 2026
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
With summer beginning, it's time to wrap up and reflect on spring. This spring brought new obsessions in TV shows, music, films, books, and more. Here are all of my favorites!
2026 Spring Mixtape
"Showgirl At Heart" by Haute & Freddy
"Dinner Party" by Niall Horan
"The Best" by Conan Gray
"Black Balloon" by The Goo Goo Dolls
"Feel Your Rain" by Eli
"drop dead" by Olivia Rodrigo
"On Purpose" by Sabrina Carpenter
"Stars" by PinkPantheress
"If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)" by The 1975
"Crush" by Mandy Moore
"American Girls" by Harry Styles
"Wrong Impression" by Natalie Imbruglia
"Pop" by Harry Styles
"Dance No More" by Harry Styles
"Cherish the Moment" by The Cheetah Girls
"Dancing on the Wall" by MUNA
"Be Like A Woman" by Chris Rainbow
"Carnival" by The Cardigans
"Her Diamonds" by Rob Thomas
"Dress You Up" by Madonna
"Crazy" by Alanis Morissette
"Big Girls Don't Cry" by Fergie
"Little More Time" by Niall Horan
"Losing Streak" by Avery Cochrane
"You Are" by Atomic Kitten
"Bring Your Love" by Madonna and Sabrina Carpenter
"Jump" by Madonna
"Shapeshifting on a Saturday Night" by Avery Cochrane
"Heroine" by Maroon 5
"Mary Jane" by MUNA
"Girl's Girl" by MUNA
"The Good Kind" by The Wreckers
"Warwick Avenue" by Duffy
For TV, I was primarily watching Dawson's Creek (still cracking away it, currently halfway through season five) and restarted One Tree Hill. As a girl who collects DVDs (amongst many other things), it's my desire to own all my favorite shows on physical discs. OTH is one of the series that I finally have the entirety of, and getting to rewatch the show on DVD has been making my nights. Rapid-fire OTH thoughts: Naley is the best TV couple of all time, Brooke Davis for president, Lucas Scott is a little b*tch, my holy trinity of characters is Brooke, Nathan, and Haley! <3 Now my favorite thing I watched this spring was, of course, Off-Campus. I've been highly anticipating the release of this series, as I have read and adored the books. Just like any adaptation made nowadays, I was nervous and skeptical going in. Especially after all of the promo that was done leading up to the show and the original cast announcement, I had my hesitations. Then the show came out and completely erased any skepticism I had. Wow, wow, wow did they do a fantastic job across the board. I'm severely addicted and thus desperately want to reread all of the books in order to keep living in this universe. I need season two to come out as soon as possible, especially because it's Dean and Allie's season and I am deeply obsessed with them. As a hockey romance ADDICT, I am thoroughly pleased and satisfied with what they presented to me. All I want to do is talk about this show and consume content of the cast. Literally nothing has occupied my brainwaves except for this show. The way that I was blessed with two superior dance scenes this year so far between the Dean and Allie JLO scene and the People We Meet On Vacation New Orleans scene, not to mention two incredible couple costumes to add to the list!
Speaking of Off-Campus, if you are craving more hockey romance book series, let me recommend some of my other favorites. My classifications for a good hockey romance series (besides having good writing and characters) include found family amongst the guys and girls, swoony flirtation, sexy smut, and the couples having insanely good chemistry. So, if you have only watched the show, definitely go read the book series as well as the second-generation spin-off called Briar U (Hunter Davenport has his own book in this series!). I'd also recommend the Maple Hills series by Hannah Grace, the Off the Ice series by Bal Khabra, and my FAVORITE, the Undone series by Peyton Corinne. I am always on the hunt for more hockey series (it's my favorite niche area of romance). Otherwise, for books I read from the months of March to May, I had some heavy hitters from some of my favorite authors and some meh, but cute reads. I started March by reading Hit Girls by Nora Princiotti, and holy crap, have I ever read a book more catered to me! If you love early 2000s pop girls than you MUST read this book. From there I continued with the non-fiction by picking up Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson, and it was a wonderfully done biography that I had on my TBR forever. 2026 has been my journey of rereading the Harry Potter books, and in April I read Goblet of Fire. Also in April I read Tangled Up in You by Christina Lauren, which is a Tangled (aka my favorite movie ever) inspired story. It was a little slow for me at first, but as it went on, I got more and more into that by the time it got to the last hundred pages, I was so invested I finished it all that night. I also read The Night We Met by Abby Jimenez and absolutely adored it. Last year was my first endeavor into Abby's books, and I am now firmly a fan and will read everything she puts out. To kick off May, I read the fourth book in the Undone series by Peyton Corinne, Unbound. As I previously stated, this series is my all-time favorite hockey series next to Off-Campus, and this book only further validated that. Back to back to back with my favorite authors, I then went on to read Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune and ate it up! Carley is my queen of quintessential summer romances, and the way she writes scratches my brain just right. I cannot wait to watch Every Year After when it premieres on Prime! To round the spring off, I finished with First and Forever by Lynn Painter, with whom I have a love-hate relationship. Better Than the Movies is one of my favorite, favorite books, but with Lynn, she can either create super cute, perfectly executed romances or super cringey, unrealistic romances. This book was somewhere in the middle; it wasn't bad, but it wasn't too memorable either.
As an avid movie watcher, there are far too many for me to list in one go. Instead, I'll give you my highlights.
*New Releases
Hoppers - didn't love it; good message but didn't love the premise
Project Hail Mary - loved it; Ryan Gosling is one of my favorite actors; I adore him
The Drama - I still don't know how to feel about this one; "the drama" was a little too real/intense for me to digest
The Devil Wears Prada 2 - pleasantly surprised; this was much more enjoyable and well done than I had anticipated (obviously it will never hold a candle to the original)
I also got to see Legally Blonde in theaters for the 25th anniversary as well as Ferris Bueller's Day Off for the 40th anniversary, and they were both amazing. Getting to see my favorite films brought back to the big screen makes me so happy, and I will always go see every one that I can. In my opinion, there's nothing better than rewatching your favorite movies because you know everything that's going to happen, so you don't have to have any anxiety over the unknown, and you get comfort in the familiarity of all of the best moments you know and love. With that, I rewatched many of my favorite spring films such as My Best Friend's Wedding, 27 Dresses, Cinderella (2015), Wild Child, The Devil Wears Prada, Steel Magnolias, and You've Got Mail. I also watched a collection of films that have been on my watchlist, like Emma (2020), Nine to Five, The Virgin Suicides, and Spencer. I loved each of them and immediately added them into my rotation of favorites to come back to.
Some miscellaneous favorites of this spring included sprinkles on my coffee, FM radio, writing in a physical weekly planner, strawberry açaí refreshers with raspberry syrup from Starbucks, my laptop, blouses and flowy tank tops, Little Words Project friendship bracelets, Coco Wyo coloring books, Victoria's Secret/Pink, pajama sets, blueberry crumb cake tea, white eyeliner on my waterline, and my Djerf Avenue robe!
I'll see you next time for a summer wrap-up (not to rush summer, but as an autumn girl, I already have a slight itch for all things cozy and autumnal)!
XO E.L. ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆.˚⭒⋆
