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this week’s style inspo:
Something that’s been bringing me joy lately: all these clowncore maximalists that dress up like they’ve been dared to wear every single article of clothing they own at the same time.
what i’m clicking:
The TV writer who scammed her way into scenes with lies | How scandal and controversy have derailed the new Harry Potter movies | Crossing a picket line to party shows how shallow celebrity activism is | Netflix’s bad decisions have caught up with it | Does traveling to every country count if you don’t post about it? | Does Joshua Tree have too many airbnbs? | Ghana’s return tours lure celebrities but ignore a reality | Where do NYC’s street cart donuts come from? | Tracing a vintage photo album across Portugal | The pursuit of hotness | What’s with the kunstlermania publishing trend? | Some more literary drama: A writer got her debut novel pulled for plagiarism–then she wrote about it and THAT STORY got pulled for plagiarism, too leading to the following headline: Plagiarism Today Plagiarized in a Plagiarism Atonement Essay | What’s behind the criticism of Black-owned brands? | How the pandemic made me lose my ambition | The mental health crisis among teens | The woman who killed Roe | Inside the “new right” | The unraveling of an expert on serial killers | The herbalism community is at war with itself over abuse allegations | Why do we fail people in cults? | Recreating a family’s lost holocaust history | A murder solved in the DMs | The Black contractor hired to take down confederate statues
what i’m wanderlusting:
Lunch in a vineyard at a five-star hotel in Provence
what i’m watching:
Love Is Blind. I watched my first reality dating show recently and I was completely riveted. The premise is that straight people meet one another AND GET ENGAGED without ever seeing what the other person looks like. I laughed, I cried, I grimaced in horror, I yelled “that’s a red flag!” at the TV a bunch, and I got so invested that I watched both seasons AND the Brazil and Japan versions. I’m obsessed with this show and I think it’s fascinating.
what i’m coveting:
These purple Givenchy clogs. I literally *gasped* when I saw them in a store window in Amsterdam.
what i’m recommending:
I got these tiny purple-tinted glasses last year on a whim and since then they’ve somehow become my go-to glasses. They match all my outfits! Plus, I just saw a subway ad for the Dior version, so I feel like I’m “fashionable”.
what i’m reading:
Emily St. John Mandel
I needed this book–and her previous book, The Glass Hotel–to be about 500 pages longer, but I loved it. I really feel like she’s an artist and herworld-building is unbelievable. I feel like there should be college courses dedicated to her work or AT THE VERY LEAST a fan site where somebody does one of those crazy FBI string walls to make connections between the scenes and characters from all of her books.
Would I Recommend It: Yes! But not as a standalone. I think you’ll only love it if you’ve already read Station Eleven and *especially* The Glass Hotel first.
Eva Dolan
This is literally the worst book I’ve ever read and I officially don’t trust British publishing–I think all the best British books get published in America and if they don’t, it’s sort of a red flag. But before I knew that, I was very excited to find this book in Europe because I was like, “oh, cool, a best-selling thriller I’ve never heard of before” and the cover was FILLED with rave reviews. It was garbage and I hated all the characters. It’s not fun to read a book when you’re rooting for NO ONE.
Would I Recommend It: Don’t read this book.
Tana French
For some reason I’ve been saving Tana French "for a rainy day–I have no idea why. But then I accidentally finished my only book on the first day of a week-long trip and luckily, The Witch Elm came to the rescue, sitting there on the library shelf of my cruise ship. I LOVED IT. My mom kept getting mad at me for being boring because I literally could not stop reading this book, even during meal times (sorry, mom).
Would I Recommend It: It’s a stay-up-all-night-until-you’re-done-reading kind of book, so if you’re into that kind of book, run to the bookstore right now.
Chris Pavone
I was working at Random House when this book came out and at the time, as a 25-year-old, I was like “ugh, this looks like trash, I’m not even going to think about reading it.” Fast forward a few years later and I saw it lying around at my neighborhood media swap and thought I’d give it a try and this was a big lesson in learning to trust my first instincts, cause this book fucking sucked.
Would I Recommend It: Absolutely not, but I would watch the HELL out of this movie, please somebody make this movie.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Tara Jenkins Reid
People will ask me “what book should I bring on vacation?” and from now on my answer is always going to be THIS BOOK! It’s so fun–by the same author of Daisy Jones and the Six, with some of the old-school glamour of City of Girls and scenes that feel like they’re pulled straight from the headlines of Hollywood’s Golden Age.
Would I Recommend It: Yes, if you need a nice little book with wonderful characters and some *very* juicy plot points.
Xochitl Gonzales
I bought this book because it had a pretty cover and it was on one of those “most anticipated” lists and at first I loved reading it–it’s like The Wedding Planner meets The Motorcycle Diaries (yes, it’s a weird premise) in a way that felt fully realistic. But then, something changed and it veers into this fantasy that’s really poorly executed, with a bunch of storylines that just.. fizzle out. I think this book needed another round of edits. It could have been amazing!
Would I Recommend It: I had a lot of fun reading this book in the beginning, but the ending is messy and overly complicated and by the time I had finished it I just felt nothing. I can neither recommend nor reject this book. It’s just fine.
clowncore, clogs, and crime thrillers
Hi Teddy: Love your newsletter - we are reading Sea of Tranquility for our book club and I cant wait to get started...Come out here to see Desert - she is a darling good baby..xxxxxPatsy