go with the flo
Instagram | Subscribe | 100 Books
this week’s style inspo:
Florence Pugh in Don’t Worry Darling. I feel like I’m going to lose subscribers for saying this (I hate to see you go! We can agree to disagree!) but I thought this was one of the best and most thought-provoking movies I’ve seen since Parasite. It’s like Get Out, but for white ladies, lol. I’m haunted by it and also obsessed with the styling and set design.
what i’m clicking:
How a dog’s killing split Brooklyn progressives | the mystery of the headless goats | the mystery of Anna Weyant | the surveillance artist creeping on instagram | What happened to Maya? | How effective are travel boycotts? | How to live with a ghost | The remote Indian village where names are sung, not spoken | What happens when you say yes to every PR email | What the end of Best American Travel Writing says about the genre | the roots of veganism aren’t white | are trees talking underground? | the beautiful and brutal world of bonsai | The Velveteen Rabbit was always more than a children’s book | it shouldn’t be this hard to buy concert tickets | the billionaires obsessed with babies | the questions we don’t ask our families (but should) | a month in a Tuscan villa didn’t cure my burnout | the man who thinks we should go extinct | are travel writers ruining the world?
what i’m wanderlusting:
Uzbekistan’s Silk Road cities
what i’m watching:
I finally watched Severance (no relation to Severance the book) and I loved it! I’m a little nervous that maybe they’re building some ridiculous 7-season arc and I think it could have been very neatly wrapped up in one season, but I’ll be sticking around for season two.
what i’m coveting:
Excuse the bro aesthetic for a moment, but I’m really feeling the need to own a hemp t-shirt with a yin yang on it.
what i’m listening to:
The new SZA
what i’m recommending:
This absolutely perfect beanie
what i’m writing:
I had a bunch of stories come out last month, including an article about going on a cruise with my mom and one about European cities that are perfect for a winter vacation.
what i’m reading:
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Gabrielle Zevin
I absolutely adored this book and I wanted it to last forever. It’s one of my favorite kinds of books: a deep dive into a subculture (video game creators) I didn’t know about, and it’s also another one of my favorite kinds of books: one where you get to watch a group of friends grow up.
Did it make me cry: I cried! I’m a sucker!
Would I recommend it: If you liked The Interestings or A Little Life, you’ll probably like this too.
Would it be a good movie: Yes, but it seems like it would be really expensive to make the video games for the movie and it would be SO annoying if the video games were bad.
Colleen Hoover
I had to quit tiktok because it was too addicting but Colleen Hoover (CoHo) is so popular on booktok that you don’t even have to know what tiktok is to recognize that this shitty, half-assed, objectively terrible self-published book is *everywhere* this year. I was commiserating with my cousins about how it reads like fan fiction–one of them said he read it in one sitting in a “rage-induced fugue state”, which seems to be a universal theme with people who disliked this book.
Did it make me cry: It made me depressed at how popular it is. I’m shedding a figurative tear for all the sorry souls who recommended this book. Log off and read more books, for the love of the planet.
Would I recommend it: Do NOT under any circumstances read this book. It’s the dumbest, least thoughtful, and cringiest thriller I have ever read in my life–and I’ve read some absolutely *terrible* books.
Would it be a good movie: Meh, probably better than the book but they need to rewrite the ending.
Anthony Doerr
This book took me a month to finish, I think because it got off to a horrifically slow and confusing start and then once the plot finally got going, I was too afraid about what was going to happen to my favorite characters (those sweet gentle oxen brothers) that I was reluctant to really dive in. But then some instagram friends (thank you!) coached me through it and I ended up finishing the last 100 pages or so in one sitting.
Did it make me cry: I ugly cried and needed to take a time out to snuggle with my dog to get through it. Now, weeks after I’ve finished it, I still want to cry thinking about the oxen.
Would I recommend it: Maybe? Not really. Everyone is obsessed with this book, but I thought it was just kind of sloppy and poorly edited. It just felt very…. rushed. One friend described it as “haphazard,” which I think is a brilliant description. The thing that really gets me though is that this book could have been SO good, but I think it’s a case of “wow this writer is so famous we don’t need to edit them/they won’t let us edit them cause we’re gonna sell a shitload of books anyways” (cc: Sally Rooney, Hanya Yanigahara). With a little more thought and care, this book could have been an 11/10 and the fact that he squandered this brilliant idea and all this cool research on a book that only turned out to be a 9/10 makes me give it a 7/10 for hubris and recklessness (though it will still probably make it into my top 10 favorite books of the year).
Would it be a good movie: Probably pretty boring, honestly. I think the magic of the book is that it’s a book about a book and that just wouldn’t translate to screen.
The Wind Whistling in the Cranes
You all know that I can never put a book down once I’ve started it. It may take me months or years to finish but there’s something about me that just cannot abide a “Did Not Finish” pile. Call me a masochist. I slogged through 425 pages of this poorly-translated nothing book until I got to the last chapter and went, “oh, that’s interesting.” But it should have been a SHORT STORY, not a 500-page NOVEL! What is WRONG with people.
Did it make me cry: Absolutely not.
Would I recommend it: Do not go anywhere near this book.
Would it be a good movie: Nope.
Shelby Van Pelt
Ok, imagine if Frederick Blackman (the A Man Called Ove guy) wrote a book about a lonely lady in the Pacific Northwest who works at an aquarium and befriends an octopus. Heartwarming antics ensue.
Did it make me cry: Yes, it’s so cheesy but it’s adorable. You know how I feel about animal friends.
Would I recommend it: If you need some tearful holiday cheer for the end of the year, read this book.
Would it be a good movie: I personally would not watch this movie and think a film adaptation is fully unnecessary.
Lillian Fishman
This book is ostensibly about sex, but there’s something about it that’s not quite horny, just kind of sad. That said, I enjoyed reading it, I thought the narrator was 100% believable and it took me about five minutes to finish this book.
Did it make me cry: No.
Would I recommend it: Not really, no. If you’re looking for an example of a book with a LOT of internal monologue, this might be a good one. But I don’t know why you’d be looking for that.
Would it be a good movie: No, it’s more like a weird/unfunny subplot in Girls or Emily in Paris rather than full feature film material, you know?
You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty
Akwaeke Emezi
Akwaeke Emezi wrote one of my top 100 books of all time so I was really surprised I didn’t know they came out with a new book this summer. After reading it, I’m not surprised I didn’t know about it. Not that it’s *bad* really, but it’s just sort of a trite romance novel that’s trying to be deep and sad and sexy but just left me sort of grimacing–at the dumb plot line, the unlikeable narrator, and the lazy stereotyping (see: sassy black sidekick who’s catch phrase is literally “go on wich ya bad self, gurl!”).
Did it make me cry: No, but it was trying to. It just felt weak.
Would I recommend it: No, but please go read The Death of Vivek Oji. Completely different, totally amazing.
Would it be a good movie: I would watch the fuck out of this movie, actually.
go with the flo
I am currently reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and love it and also want it to last forever. And thank you for the review of Verity — I read her It Ends With Us last year and did NOT get the hype and was worried it was the same with Verity. That's one less book in my Libby queue!