h e l l o from t h e o
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this week’s style inspo:
Lil Nas X giving Satan a lap dance in Call Me By Your Name
what I’m clicking:
Can reading make you happier? | Our autofiction fixation | How author Sarah Gruen lost her life | These precious days (or, how Ann Patchett did shrooms with Tom Hanks’s assistant) | Munchausen syndrome and identity hoaxers | Victorian-era momfluencers are taking over instagram | I regret to inform you about the Baylor influencer twins | How the pandemic changed baby names | This hillbilly commune is the stuff of nightmares | The goth sex club that was a safe haven for Hollywood predators | How politics unraveled the crafting community | The scandal of a Nike reseller | How beeple crashed the art world | Balthazar, reunited | Cloud kitchens and the mysterious case of the f*cking good pizza | I called off my wedding, but the internet won’t let me forget | Renting is terrible, but owning is worse--especially if your house is a Scottish castle | The case for the subway | The lonely death of George Bell | The impact of inheritance | The last time the Suez Canal was blocked, a utopian micronation formed | The CIA report on astral projection | You can be a different person after the pandemic | What the pandemic cost teenagers | Every day, massage workers face violence | The diversity and inclusion industry has lost its way | Meghan Markle didn’t do the work | Hollywood’s fetishization of Asian women is killing us
what I’m wanderlusting:
Turkmenistan’s Gates of Hell
what I’m watching:
I watched Lupin in one weekend and it was SO FUN (but then I realized that the season ends on a cliffhanger and I was furious [but then I saw that it’s getting renewed for season 2 and I calmed down]).
what I’m coveting:
This ying yang tee from Jungmaven that I refuse to spend $50 on.
what I’m listening to:
X Gon’ Give It To Ya, on repeat.
what I’m recommending:
If you’ve seen me at a social gathering IRL in the past two months, I’ve probably been wearing a nap dress, which is like a semi-fancy nightgown you can wear in public. Comfy dresses are obviously not a groundbreaking fashion trend, but I think the reason why people are obsessed with the nap dress is cause the quality feels much better than a regular $100 dress. I have the Ellie for more ~casual~ times (or to wear with a turtleneck underneath) and the Sabrina, which is actually just a regular dress and not for napping because it has a zipper. I have them both in black, which means that a goth Victorian ghost will be appearing at the next soiree I’m invited to.
what I’m writing about:
I wrote about the 10 best New York City books written by women for NYC - The Official Guide.
what I’m reading:
The Three Weissmans of Westport
Cathleen Schine
I have this terrible personality quirk where I just HAVE to finish a book. I’ve only not finished one book in my life. It was House of Leaves and I put it down because I could not figure out what the fuck was happening and I also didn’t care. I think it’s mostly that I’m a victim of the sunk cost fallacy when it comes to reading where I’m like “well, I’ve already read 50 pages of this book, I might as well read the other 400 pages”. But the truth is that I’m not excited about the book so then I end up looking at my phone or watching movies instead of reading or just straight-up start rereading Harry Potter again to avoid finishing the book.
Ok, that was a pretty long-winded intro to this book that had nothing to do with the book so the TL;DR is that this book sucked and I truly regret not being able to just put it in the donation pile after I got 50 pages in and still wasn’t interested.
Did it make me cry: No.
Did it make me laugh: No.
Is it a good pandemic book: No, but in some ways a book like this is inspiring. If something this abysmal got 1. Published and 2. Picked as a New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year (!), then there’s hope for us aspiring novelists.
Would I recommend it: Books are sacred and I would never condone their destruction, but I straight up think this book belongs in the trash.
Would I read it again: No.
Would it be a good movie: Fuck no.
Scott Hawkins
This book was a Baader-Meinhof for me. I had never heard of it before in my life until I saw it referenced in a Reddit thread a couple of weeks ago and then suddenly it was EVERYWHERE, even though it came out in 2016. I was intrigued and also in a reading rut due to my Weissmans of Westport situation so I thought this sort of immersive fantasy/horror book would help me. Plus, I love books with the word library in the title.
Did it make me cry: I have this thing with animals dying and there is some pretty fucked up animal murder in this book that I could not handle.
Did it make me laugh: I honestly think this book’s #1 redeeming quality is that it’s VERY funny.
Is it a good pandemic book: It’s sort of an apocalypse book but the apocalypse is just sort of happening behind the scenes and mentioned once or twice towards the end.
Would I recommend it: This book is a fucking mess. The concept the author started out with is intriguing…maybe it would have become a good book with the right editor. But the whole thing unravels almost immediately. Plot holes, loose ends, inconsequential tangents, gratuitous violence against animals, nebulous descriptions of imaginary places, incredibly dumb physics, and more. I really wanted to scribble notes and edits and questions in the margins and send it back to the writer with a rewrite request. This book had a lot of potential, but it never should have been published.
Would I read it again: I’m putting this book in the pile to be donated.
Would it be a good movie: Ha, actually yeah it would be kinda fun but the animal scenes would have to change.
Chang Rae-Lee
Before I read this book, my only experience with Chang Rae-Lee was The Surrendered (oh my god, that book is fantastic and devastating). But this book is nothing like what I expected and I’m still not really sure what to make of it. It totally defies genres.
In the beginning of the book, there’s almost no context to the who/what/where/why. You’re just sort of thrown into this domestic scene that seems to have nothing to do with anything. It feels like the book got misprinted with the wrong cover. But somehow, it’s still really engrossing, with fascinating characters that you really learn to like and then about 100 pages from the end you’re like WHAT THE FUCK!!!!! I was afraid to read the ending of the book, but also I was dying to find out what happens.
Did it make me cry: Yeah, there are some cute moments where I maybe got a little teary.
Did it make me laugh: Yes! The writing is so funny and the characters are so goofy and loveable…at first.
Is it a good pandemic book: Not really? They do quite a bit of fancy traveling in the middle, which is kinda fun.
Would I recommend it: I truly don’t know. This book was extremely weird and it was a huge time investment. I definitely don’t regret reading it, but I’m afraid you might.
Would I read it again: It’s a bit too long for me to read again, but after what happens at the end, I am sort of tempted to go back through to some of the scenes and see if I missed any big clues.
Would it be a good movie: I don’t even know how this movie would be filmed or what it would be about. I think it’s too weird for the screen, but if somebody wants to adapt it, I would stream the hell out of it.
Carmen Maria Machado
I had heard so much about this book (including an excerpt on This American Life) that I didn’t really consider reading it, even though I really enjoyed Her Body and Other Parties. But something compelled me to finally pick it up and OH MY GOD. I feel like this book is permanently inked into the inside of my skull. I think about it all the time.
Did it make me cry: It’s definitely sad, but I don’t remember crying.
Did it make me laugh: She’s very funny, but it’s a dark humor and not really the LOL kind.
Is it a good pandemic book: Some people might just find this book riveting, but if your house is starting to feel like a prison and your family is starting to feel like your captors, I think this book would be a very disturbing read. So much of it is really visceral that it feels like you’re inside her world sometimes.
Would I recommend it: Yes! Probably one of my favorite memoirs of the past few years.
Would I read it again: No need.
Would it be a good movie: No.
Sally Rooney
I wasn’t sure whether to include this because it’s not actually a book—it’s just a short story bound as a perfectly tiny little booklet. I hoped it would tide me over until Beautiful World: Where Are You comes out in September. It was fun to read, but unfortunately it didn’t quite hit the spot and as is the case with most short stories that I read, I already forget what it’s about.