h e l l o from t h e o
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this week’s style inspo:
Josephine Baker, icon of the Roaring Twenties
what I’m clicking:
Europe wants Americans back (see you soon, bb) | The perils of sharenting | How to get a table at Carbone | Paulina Porizkova on divorce and dating | The anxiety of influencers | Johnny Knoxville’s last rodeo | Naomi Osaka and the power of nope | Inside the facetune epidemic | When two artists fall in love | The millennial vernacular of fatphobia | Inside a $5,000 antiracist dinner party | The pandemic has undone South Africa’s National Parks | Do we really need an influencer’s opinion about Palestine?| Watching white people confront race | It turns out all those white allies were lying | How thousands of indigenous children went missing in Canada | They were sons | 100 years after the Tulsa massacre, what does justice look like?
what I’m wanderlusting:
Mediterranean paradise in Hydra
what I’m watching:
The Serpent, a show about the serial killer Charles Sobhraj, who targeted backpackers in Asia in the 1970s. It was pretty bad and low budget, but weirdly made me want to be a backpacker in Asia in the 1970s (minus the getting murdered part).
what I’m coveting:
The perfect dress for Greece.
what i’m listening to:
Reparations: The Big Payback. I loved this podcast. It took a little bit for me to get into because there’s something very weird and overproduced about the way the hosts deliver their lines and one of them is so corny that I literally cringed every time he spoke, but their guests made up for it. I think every American should listen to this.
what i’m recommending:
Kiehl’s Butterstick SPF 30 is the best feeling, tasting, and looking SPF lip product I’ve ever tried (move over, Sugar).
what I’m preordering:
Two books by travel writer friends: We Were Never Here by Andi Bartz and The Passenger by Chaney Kwak
what I’m reading:
Mary H. K. Choi
I truly can’t remember the last time a book made me feel so much. I loved this book. I loved the characters, I loved the setting, I loved the writing and the way this book was full of funny and astute observations. I have very little in common with the people in this book but it was somehow one of the most relatable things I’ve read. It was a devastating read, but I’m even more devastated that it’s over.
Did it make me cry: I literally SOBBED at the end of this book. The only book I can remember making me cry harder was All My Puny Sorrows (and honestly these books have extremely similar themes).
Did it make me laugh: This book is so funny. I loled multiple times.
Would I recommend it: I am wary of recommending this too emphatically because I know nobody is going to feel the same way about this book that I do. I want you to read it, but I don’t want you to read it thinking it’s going to be the best book you’ll ever read because you’re only going to be disappointed. Consider this a casual “why not” recommendation.
Would I read it again: I cannot wait to read this book again. I also cannot wait to read her other two books, Emergency Contact and Permanent Record.
Would it be a good movie: Oh god, this book would be so ruined by a movie. But if the Normal People people decided to adapt it into a one-season miniseries, I would be ok with that. I think.
What does it smell like: Mapo tofu and Santal 33.
Diane Johnson
I read this book because it sounded fun (it’s set in Paris! it’s about sisters!) and because it was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997, but I am truly baffled that this book was even published. It’s so weirdly written with plot holes galore and some really wild random acts of racism that have nothing to do with the plot. But it’s somehow extremely boring, at least until the last 25 pages, when there’s so much action that it just becomes absolutely unbelievable and you’re like “ok so this is satire?” This book is dumb and I don’t think you should read it.
Did it make me cry: No.
Did it make me laugh: No, though the ending is so absurd that it’s almost funny.
Would I recommend it: No.
Would I read it again: No.
Would it be a good movie: This already IS a movie, and TBH I cannot wait to watch it. Looks like a delightful pile of (fun) garbage.
What does it smell like: Lilacs and rain and dusty oil paints.
Liane Moriarty
This book is dumb and I don’t think you should read it. You might feel like you want to read it, but try and ignore that feeling. Read Gone Girl instead.
Did it make me cry: No.
Did it make me laugh: No.
Would I recommend it: No, but I do admire the way that once I’ve started a book by Liane Moriarty, I can’t stop reading it, even if I hate it and think it’s bad.
Would I read it again: No.
Would it be a good movie: No.
What does it smell like: It smells like the inside of a suburban that’s been filled with kids and dogs and rotten school lunches in tupperware.
E. Lockhart
This book is dumb and I don’t think you should read it. But if you decide to panic buy it at the airport, you’ll read this book in 15 minutes so at least there’s not too much to regret.
Did it make me cry: No.
Did it make me laugh: No.
Would I recommend it: No. If you are interested in the concept of this book, I would recommend Social Creature instead.
Would I read it again: No.
Would it be a good movie: No.
What does it smell like: Sunscreen and the nervous sweats.