Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: I really enjoyed this book despite it being extremely sad basically the entire way through. This is about two women, Erica and Laure, who meet and fall in love as teenagers in Paris in the late 1970s. The book then follows them through the next 40+ years as their lives diverge. I read this slowly because it is very sad, but also because I wanted to savor it. The writing is really incredible, she creates such a visceral sense of setting. It was so easy to picture Paris in the 70s and imagine what it felt like to be there, broke and young and in love. Both of these women felt so real to me, and I was invested in both of their stories. This reminded me quite a bit of Talking at Night by Claire Daverley, a book I loved and think about often. Really good, really sad, would recommend.

Articles

• How Caro Claire Burke Wrote the Biggest Book of the Year: Really liked this interview with the author of Yesteryear. I have liked and followed Caro for a long time— I found her on TikTok and then started listening to her podcast, Diabolical Lies, early last year (I have recommended it here before but their episode about Usha Vance is so incredible and I think about it all the time). I also separately learned about Yesteryear when it sold in a huge auction for an absurd amount of money and Anne Hathaway bought the film rights before the book was even finished. Now it’s one of (maybe THE) biggest books of the year and I think it’s fascinating to hear Caro’s thoughts on this whole process and what it has done to her life. She tried to be a published author for a decade and then her debut novel sold for seven figures and has sold 1.5 million copies. That is INSANE.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Lucky (AppleTV+): I read the book this show was based on a few years ago and remember basically nothing besides the most basic points of the plot, but I was curious about the show because it stars Anya Taylor-Joy, who I really like. She plays the titular Lucky, a girl who has lived a life of crime and is currently on the run because she and her husband stole millions of dollars. This show is extremely watchable and I flew through all seven episodes in two days. But I can also tell it will leave my brain almost immediately. I thought the whole cast was really good, Annette Benning plays an evil lady and it’s very fun. And I think Anya is so good in everything. This is well paced and moved super fast and I was invested the whole time. There’s just nothing about it that makes it stand out in my mind as really good. The thing I remember most from the book doesn’t even happen in the show! So I don’t think it matters at all whether you’ve read it or not.

• Adults (FX/Hulu): I have been thinking about season two of this show for weeks and then it came out on Thursday and I already finished it. Now I’m mad!!! Give me more than 8 episodes!!! There are several new shows in the last year that are ensemble sit coms about people in their 20s (I’m thinking of Overcompensating and I Love LA and Not Suitable For Work), and I’ve liked all of them but I think this one is my favorite. I loved season one and I think season two is even better. I felt like it really came into its own and you can do so much once you’ve established who your characters are. This show is so, so funny. Laugh out loud funny. There were so many good guest stars this season (Raven Symone!!!! You’re JOKING). I have a CRUSH on Paul Baker. I am already thinking about watching the whole season again. If this doesn’t get renewed I’m gonna scream. I love it.

Movies

• Tony (theaters): I liked this so much more than I thought I would. I usually don’t love a biopic but I think this avoids a lot of the issues I usually have with this type of movie. It’s about Anthony Bourdain, and the summer he spent in Provincetown as a teenager and got his first job in a restaurant. I liked that this is really just about this one summer, instead of trying to tell a sweeping story about his whole career. My one complaint has to do with basically the only girl in the entire movie (played by Emilia Jones), who is a classic manic pixie dream girl with hardly a personality trait to be seen. But I liked everything else about this. Dominic Sessa plays Tony and I thought he was so good, and I also loved Antonio Banderas as his boss. Leo Woodall plays another guy working in the restaurant and I loved his performance, too. This made me weirdly emotional, I cried a few times. It’s hard not to think about how he died, even though the movie doesn’t get anywhere close to that. And also, I just love cooking and I love food. Good movie!

• Erin Brockovich (rented): Was thinking about this movie after watching The Pelican Brief and then had more than one conversation about it at work (don’t ask if I was the one who brought it up every time okay that’s irrelevant your honor) so I had to watch it. Julia Roberts is so amazing in this, I love her outfits and her attitude and how good she is at her job. I love how everyone underestimates her and then she is the only one who can actually get people to trust her. I love how she stands up for herself and what she knows is right, and how she unapologetically speaks her mind and is always right. I just love her!!! This makes me laugh and the ending always makes me cry. I think this is a perfect movie.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

I just need to write for a second about the farmer’s market. It is extremely urgent and important that you are all going to the farmer’s market!!! I have always gone sporadically but this summer I really committed and have gone every week since May that I have been in town. The people at the stands I go to every week recognize me now and it is the loveliest way to start my weekend. I’ve eaten 2-3 giant tomatoes a week for months and I am not even a little sick of them, they are so incredibly good. I’ve gotten carrots and green beans and peppers and corn and the most insane cantaloupe and sausages and fresh herbs and figs!!! I’ve gotten local honey and croissants and baguettes and apples and berries and flowers and cucumbers and zucchini and every week I get a breakfast sandwich from a guy named Steve who has my order memorized. It gets me out of my apartment on Saturday mornings and it makes me genuinely excited to cook and to eat. It is the best. You have to go! Find one near you and go!

One Last Thing…

I am extremely locked in here, see you all in September!!!

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That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Back After This by Linda Holmes: I have had this sitting on my shelf since it came out over a year ago, I bought it because I really liked her other two books. Of the three, this is the most true to form romance novel. It’s about a woman who works at a struggling podcast company, and what happens when she agrees to be the host/subject of their new show at the request of her boss, the premise of which is that she works with a life coach who sets her up on 20 first dates. This is very cute and a very quick read. I loved the central relationship, and I loved all the niche podcast drama. Really good!

Articles

• The Dishonesty of True Crime: Immediate click on this headline for me, I’m sure no one is surprised to learn. I have some issues with Elizabeth Bruenig but I have always liked her writing about crime. I’ve written many times here about my dislike of true crime as a genre, and all the ways in which I think it is harmful and gross. This article gets into many of the reasons why, as it talks about the case discussed in a recently viral documentary called Maternal Instinct on Netflix. I saw a lot of discussion about this documentary and this case when it came out, but I could tell from the trailer and the discourse that watching it would just piss me off so I never did. It’s about a woman who got sentenced to death after she killed her pregnant friend to try to take the baby and pass it off as her own. This article talks about all the stuff the documentary left out— basically, the entirety of the defense’s case. This woman is, obviously, extremely mentally ill, but the documentary apparently doesn’t address that at all and just paints her as a cold hearted evil person rather than someone who is not in touch with reality. This is the problem with this type of true crime content. People who tell these stories for entertainment have no incentive to tell the full story, because the full story is often full of nuance and uncomfortable truths that people don’t want to have to confront. It is a lot cleaner to tell a story about an evil woman who killed someone than it is to tell a story about a woman whose mental health declined severely after a lifetime of trauma and abuse. And the fact that these documentaries always tell the story in this way means that general public perceptions about these types of issues are so skewed to this one perspective. This is BAD. There’s no reason to be hashing this out on Netflix. It’s not a platform built to handle these topics in a way that is accurate or fair or respectful. It is not a good thing for millions of people to watch a documentary that spews a police/prosecutor narrative of a situation and leaves out the defense’s arguments entirely. This is not healthy for us as a society.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Loot (AppleTV+): I liked the first two seasons of this show but until this week I hadn’t watched season 3, which came out at the end of last year. This stars Maya Rudolph as the ex-wife of a billionaire who decides to give away her money and actually be present in running her charity organization despite being absolutely and completely out of touch. This show is very funny and also quite absurd. It has a really fun cast of supporting characters and they all find themselves in increasingly insane circumstances. Maya is just so hilarious, I love her performance in this. I’m not sure if this show will keep going but I would watch more if it does! It’s good and fun and low stakes.

Movies

• The Pelican Brief (rented): Last Sunday I had no plans and it was raining and I wanted to watch a movie, but I had no idea what to watch. So I used a strategy that has never let me down: I went to Julia Roberts’ filmography and picked a movie that came out in the 90s. I had never seen this before and it’s really good! It’s based on a John Grisham novel about the assassination of two Supreme Court justices. Julia plays a law student who starts looking into what happened and then becomes a target herself. This movie has a really crazy cast— in addition to Julia, Denzel plays a reporter looking into the story, Stanley Tucci plays the killer (not a spoiler I promise), and a young, HOT Tony Goldwyn plays the president’s chief of staff. This has so many beautiful shots of DC which I loved. The plot is twisty and propulsive, but I do think this could have been 30 minutes shorter. Overall still very good and I’m glad I watched it. The best movie where Julia plays a woman who is smarter than all the men around her who gets wrapped up in an investigation into some kind of wrongdoing is still Erin Brockovich, but this is a close second.

• All the President’s Men (rented): Then I ended up here because it was directed by the same guy, and I had never seen this either. I love a journalism movie (Spotlight is the best one) and this is kind of the blueprint for the genre. I mean, what’s there to say about this, really? It’s so good, obviously. Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford are just amazing together (I actually don’t think I’d ever seen a Robert Redford movie? The man was so good looking oh my god). I have tried more than once to understand the whole Watergate scandal (I listened to the whole season of Slow Burn about it!) but it is so complicated I still could barely explain who all the people involved are. But this movie still really builds the tension and the moments where they finally get someone to say what they need them to say are actually electric. It’s also so interesting to see how investigation work used to be done. You used to just be able to call the White House and someone would answer your questions! Extremely relatable to me to watch scene after scene of them showing up at someone’s house and that person being absolutely desperate to be anywhere else talking about anything else. I loved all the typewriter noise and their incredible 70s suits and hair styles. Really depressing to think about how this type of thing used to be enough to take down a President and if this happened now it would not matter even a little bit. Love that for us. Really good movie, though! Glad I finally watched.

• Don’t Say Good Luck (Netflix): This movie made me SOB, oh my god. This is about a girl who gets cast in her high school musical while her mom is sick with cancer. Melanie Lynskey plays the mom and I just love her, she is so good in this. The daughter is played by Adam Sandler’s daughter, Sunny, and I thought she was really good, too. The musical the kids are doing is Waitress, which makes me cry on it’s own, but you add in a dying mom storyline and it is impossible to hold it together. This is good but just so, so sad.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Kindle Paperwhite: I got this as a gift last Christmas after holding out for years. I prefer to read a physical book and I was reading ebooks on my iPad when I needed to, and I thought that was good enough. But then I got this and I LOVE it. I left it on a plane at the end of June and thought it was lost forever, and then last week I got an email that American Airlines had found it and they sent it back to me! I was about to buy a new one because I really became reliant on having this. I know this is not new or groundbreaking but I am emphasizing this again in case anyone else is still a hold out like I was.

One Last Thing…

I made this creamy corn orzo last week and loved it. I ate it with sausages that I got at the farmers market (I have been obsessed with going every weekend this summer!!) and it was so good and made really great leftovers. Will definitely make again!

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That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand: This is only the fifth of Elin’s 30+ novels that I’ve read, but I understand why they are so popular. Just extremely fun and easy to read. This one is about a woman named Hollis, an internet famous food blogger, who is greiving the sudden loss of her husband after he dies in a car accident. She decides to host a “five star weekend,” and invites one friend from each era of her life. This is full of amazing descriptions of food and also juicy juicy drama. I read it so fast! I have had this on my shelf since it came out in 2023 but I finally picked it up because the adaptation came out on Peacock last month. More on that later. This book is worth reading if you’re looking for a light summer read, would be perfect on a beach.

Articles

• Tonight on Dateline This Man Will Die: I was really intrigued by the trailer for this movie Primetime coming out next month, starring Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, the host of To Catch a Predator. Then I saw someone say it’s based on this article from 2009, so obviously I had to read it. This is an in depth accounting of what happened when a sting operation on the show lead to a guy shooting himself in the head when the police entered his home. To Catch a Predator is one of the earlier examples of true crime television that maybe seems like a good idea in theory but in practice is horrible. I recognize that everyone may not share this opinion but I find this kind of public shaming truly gross, even and maybe even especially when related to this type of crime. Chris Hansen is an unrelenting opportunist who sees the situations on the show as a chance to create a spectacle, an absolutely disgusting way to approach the topic of child sexual abuse. It went so far beyond him being a journalist trying to shed light on this issue, and it made no real impact whatsoever in terms of preventing or fixing it in any way. There’s a deeply unsettling sense of glee on his face every time he gets to ruin a guy’s life. It is possible to find the behavior highlighted on the show to be really bad and also recognize that this is a sociopathic thing to choose to do as a career, to personally profit and gain influence off of the fact that sometimes adults try to have sex with kids. And law enforcement acts even more recklessly and lawlessly than usual when the goal is to make good television and not to actually enforce the law (a large number of arrests made on the show were illegal and the cases were eventually thrown out). The show did nothing to combat the issues it was claiming to fix, it just created a sick spectacle. This article is a good highlight of the myriad of ways in which the people who made and participated in this show were absolutely in over their heads and no one realized or cared until there was a guy dead in his own house (some of them still didn’t then!). Just gross.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• The Bear (Hulu): I finished! The fifth and final season came out in June and I watched it slowly over the last couple of weeks. I thought the first two seasons of this show were perfect television, and then it kind of lost me after that. This last season felt like a bit of a return to the show that I loved, with most of it taking place in one day as they prepare for a dinner service and everything keeps going catastrophically wrong. I have always loved the visuals in this show, it’s shot in such an interesting way with so many gorgeous close ups of food. I love all the characters and loved that they all got their time to shine, but I was particularly invested in Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ritchie and Ayo Edebiri as Sydney. I loved their character arcs separately and together. I think this show ran longer than it needed to but I also thought the last season was good and I cried a lot at the last episode. They finally figured out how to land the plane!

• The Five-Star Weekend (Peacock): Much like the book, I finished this so fast. This stays really true to the novel, with some small changes that I think all make sense. It has a really excellent cast— Jennifer Garner is perfect as a famous food blogger living on Nantucket, and I always love Regina Hall and D’Arcy Carden. It’s so interesting to see Chloe Sevigny in something so normal, I saw her say in an interview that she wanted to do something her mom would actually want to watch which is so funny. This is way better than the other Elin adaptation, The Perfect Couple, and is extremely bingable and I think enjoyable whether or not you’ve read the book. It also got renewed for season 2, which will be interesting to see because this first season covered the whole book. I’ll watch more of this, why not.

Movies

• Miss Sloane (HBO): I watched this extremely random political triller from 2016 because HBO put it on my home screen and I remember liking it when it came out. This stars Jessica Chastain as a lobbyist who is working to pass a gun control bill in the senate. The politics in this feel extremely 2016, but I still think it’s a pretty good political thriller. It has a lot of twists and turns and is the type of movie that all comes together in the last 10 minutes. Jessica Chastain has never been anything other than excellent in a movie, and that remains true here. Very random movie but I liked it!

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Burgundy mascara: I saw a TikTok of a girl with hazel eyes wearing this and bought it immediately. I don’t wear mascara on a daily basis but when I do, this makes my eye color pop so much. I famously lost the spelling bee when I was in third grade on the word burgundy and I do think about that every time I use this but I will persevere because it looks so good!!!

One Last Thing…

This recent episode of John Oliver about police surveillance technology is so good. I think most people don’t realize how absolutely out of hand this has gotten in recent years. We are being watched!!! And the ways in which law enforcement is allowed to access and use this data is fairly open-ended and unregulated, as are the rules for how they have to share the data and what they are doing with it. Most agencies are either refusing to share information or putting such a high monetary price on it that it is effectively impossible to access (recently I got a cost estimate of $5500 to get 12 hours of security camera footage from a courthouse). It’s BAD. You should throw your Ring camera in the trash and learn about what your local county board or city council is doing about Flock cameras and/or law enforcement’s use of these kinds of technologies in your community. And also, do not ever, under any circumstances, speak to the police.

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That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Good People by Patmeena Sabit: I loved this book and have been recommending it to everyone. It’s about a family of Afghan refugees living in Virginia who experience a family tragedy, but instead of the story being told from their perspectives its told from the perspectives of everyone else around them. It switches points of view every few pages, which makes it extremely propulsive. It felt like putting a puzzle together because I couldn’t figure out who to believe. It took me a minute to get into this, get used to the structure, and figure out what was going on. But once I was in I was IN, and I basically read 70% of this in one sitting. It’s really well written and such a unique structure, not sure I’ve ever read anything like this. I can’t stop thinking about it!

Articles

• What If It All Came Out?: This made me want to throw my phone into the sea. This is about the depth of personal information that we have all put online and how screwed we all are if/when it gets hacked and leaked. Even if it doesn’t happen to you it could happen to a friend or family member, and then you are implicated anyway!! This talks about a guy whose entire digital life got hacked and posted online, the famous Sony hack and leak, and also the mess of celebrities and Hollywood professionals that got intertwined in the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni lawsuits because texts and emails are discoverable. This is also something I think about often at work when I get an extraction from someone’s phone and can go through their contacts and texts and emails and call logs and internet history and photos and videos (even deleted ones) and everything they’ve ever asked ChatGPT. The amount of information you can find out from someone’s phone is so extensive it’s hard to grasp. At this point we are all decades into having our personal information on the internet and in the cloud. I don’t really know what we are supposed to do about this but I’m scared!

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Sterling Point (Prime Video): All I knew going into this new show is that it was created by Megan Park, who made a movie called My Old Ass that I loved, and that it got really good reviews. So I sat down to watch it when it came out on Wednesday and was immediately invested. Really good show!! It’s about Annie, a 17 year old girl living in New York with her Dad and twin brother. When their estranged grandfather dies, Annie and her brother learn from his lawyer that he left them a house on an island in Canada, and Annie goes to the island to learn more about her grandfather and her mom, who died when Annie was young. I got so invested in this so quickly and watched the whole season in two days. It has an incredible vibe and setting— on a lake in Canada in the summer, everything I wanted and did not get from Every Year After. This show is about teenagers who actually feel like real people, who act and talk like their age. It is funny and sad and mysterious and fun. There are several romance story lines that I was really invested in but also so so many interesting things happening outside of that. It has a good soundtrack full of fun pop songs and a lovely score to go along with it. I have nothing bad to say about this! I really liked it. I hope they make more. I’ll watch anything Megan Park makes.

Movies

• 100 Nights of Hero (AMC+): This movie has a cast that was very interesting to me— Nicholas Galitzine, Emma Corrin, Charli XCX, Maika Monroe. I went into it not knowing much else, and I don’t think it really worked for me. This has a gothic fairytale vibe and is about a woman who is on a deadline to bear an heir, her husband who is uninterested in touching her, her maid, and a mysterious visitor who comes to stay. Visually this is really cool but it was just a little too weird for me and I wasn’t very invested. I didn’t hate this but I will also never think about it again.

• 13 Going on 30 (Netflix): Netflix is remaking this with a cast that is VERY appealing to me (starring Emily Bader and Logan Lerman, sign me up), and that news made me want to rewatch this for the first time in many years. This holds up so much better than similar movies from the early 2000s. Mark Ruffalo has been hot on the big screen for 20+ years!!! I don’t really know what the point of remaking this is but I will be there, I guess.

• One Night Only (theaters): Obviously I ran to see this immediately. This is a rom com that takes place in New York, in a world where the government has banned premarital sex except for on one night every year. The movie follows Owen (Callum Turner, HOT) and Allie (Monica Barbaro), two single people who keep running into each other throughout the night. Obviously this is an insane premise and I had a lot of logistical questions!!! The movie sort of answers them (it’s three years into the government mandate, everyone has biosensors that alert the police if they are breaking the rules) but also just brushes past a lot of the more complicated parts of it (what counts as sex? everyone is just fine with this? I have QUESTIONS). The two leads are really good and have incredible chemistry, he is sooooo hot and charming and I think she is really charismatic. There were parts that really made me laugh! But ultimately I’m not really sure what the point of the sex ban plot line was? This could have just been a movie about who people who keep running into each other over the course of a night out. You really don’t need a whole extreme premise like this to get me to believe that hot people might want to hook up? They didn’t have to do the fascism part!!! I had fun with this (it takes a lot for me to not have fun with a rom com) and would generally recommend it as long as you know going in that it doesn’t make a lot of sense. This is a Brain Off Film. This is made by the same guy who made Anyone But You and I think that one is better, but again I still liked this enough. The best Callum Turner rom com is still Eternity (congrats to Dua Lipa, oh my god).

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Nodpod: I’ve written about this before but it’s been a while and I still love it. I got one of these for Christmas and I use it every night. It’s like a weighted blanket for your eyes. This helps me fall asleep so much, and it especially helps me fall back asleep if I wake up before I want to. I love a sleep accessory and this is my current favorite.

One Last Thing…

I’ve made this Gooey Lemon Butter cake twice over the past few weeks (one I took into work and then another I made when I had people over for dinner). It’s really easy and really good, a perfect not-chocolate dessert.

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That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry: This was the last of her books that I hadn’t listened to on audio, and it was the perfect thing to binge listen as a distraction. I don’t have anything new to say here, she is just so good at this. This is not my favorite of hers (Book Lovers always and forever) but I still really like this. It’s different from her others, which I appreciate. Six books in you gotta switch it up a bit! She didn’t put out a book this year but has said she will next year. I can’t wait to preorder.

Articles

• How Reality Stars Became the Most Influential Celebrities in America: Really good article about how and why reality tv stars are such a big part of pop culture. You might not like it, but it’s true. The girl who won Love Island has 3.5 million instagram followers! These people are FAMOUS. This article is written by Lindsey Weber, one of the hosts of Who Weekly, my favorite podcast. I always find both her and the other host, Bobby’s, takes on celebrity culture to be so smart and this article is no exception.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Adults (Hulu): I know I just wrote about this last time, because I rewatched season one in preparation for season two coming out in a few weeks. But truly the only actual television I’ve watched in the past two weeks is the new special episode that just came out, a flashback episode about how the group met Paul Baker. My favorite character!! This show is so good and I really can’t wait for season two.

Movies

• The Odyssey (theaters): I came into this with a bad attitude ready to complain about it. I am famously not a Christopher Nolan fan and I have also tried several times to be interested in Greek mythology and it’s never stuck. I HATED when I had to read this in high school. But by now you all know I cannot miss out on pop culture discourse (this is also almost certainly cleaning up come awards season), so I walked myself to the movie theater preparing to be very bored for three hours. And now here I am, ready to eat my words. This movie absolutely rules. It is so good. This had me rapt, on the edge of my seat, in awe of the visuals and the sound and the music. It is so LOUD, it made this such an immersive experience. Even before this came out I heard and read a lot about how it uses almost zero CGI, and how everything in this was done using practical effects. This is genuinely astonishing to me now having seen the movie. This cast list is a roster of A list actors, with Matt Damon giving an absolutely massive performance as Odysseus at the helm. Anne Hathaway is so good, she is always so good, and it rules that she is having one of the best years of her career 20 years in (she’s in SIX movies coming out this year). This movie is so expansive, so huge, just an incredible feat of film-making that really left me in awe. I promise no one is more surprised at how much I liked this than me!! I can’t stop thinking about it and will probably see it in theaters again.

• Roofman (Prime Video): This movie was on my radar when it came out last year but I never got around to watching it until now. I liked it! It stars Channing Tatum (you know how I feel about him…) as Jeff, a guy who escapes from prison and lives in a Toys R Us to avoid getting caught and sent back. Eventually he starts interacting with the community and becomes particularly close with a woman (played by Kirsten Dunst) who works at the store he’s living in. This movie has a lot to laugh at but it also has a very melancholy undertone. I kept waiting for things to fall apart! Channing is really good in this movie. He is funny and charismatic like always, but he’s also really good in the more dramatic moments. And Kirsten Dunst has never been bad in anything, ever. I really liked this movie, it’s such an absurd story, and then I learned at the end that it’s true!!! He was a real guy who really escaped from prison and lived in a Toys R Us!!! Wild.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Mrs. Meyers Tomato Vine: I am obsessed with this scent but they only sell it in the summer, so whenever I see it I stock up. I found it last week! This is so fresh and light and clean and exactly how I want my apartment to smell in the summer. I bought three room sprays.

One Last Thing…

I got really into this youtube game show where they create travel based games and play against each other. There’s a bunch of different seasons with different games in different places, to me it feels spiritually similar to The Amazing Race and I think you’d be into it if you like that show, or any reality tv competition shows. It makes me laugh and it’s really well made, the perfect thing to have on when my brain is broken and I can’t focus on anything serious.

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That’s it for me! Back to regularly scheduled programming. Don’t ever talk to the police, please. I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

I have nothing to say here this week but I am working on it.

Articles

• Why is Florida Executing So Many Prisoners?: If Pamela Colloff wrote it, I will be reading it. She is one of my favorite writers and she does incredible reporting about the criminal legal system. This is her latest, about the speed at which Ron DeSantis has been signing death warrants in Florida over the past year and a half. Florida executed 19 people in 2025, more than twice as many as the previous highest number of executions in any state in a given year in the modern era. This article focuses on a lot of the people who are involved in this process in some way— legal defense teams, prison staff, the priest who meets with the people on death row in the state, and of course, the people on death row themselves. Reading about the death penalty always makes me feel a bit sick. It is so disgusting that this something we continue to do in this country, a genuinely evil stain on our society that we are all worse off for. This article is so well written and a lot of it pissed me off, but I really appreciated the part about the director of an anti-death penalty organization talking about why she feels it’s important to talk about and spread awareness of the fact that this is happening. The state is murdering people at an alarming rate. Most people don’t know that. The least we can all do is pay attention.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Adults (Hulu): I watched this last year when it came out but I decided to watch season one again because season two starts in a few weeks. I liked this last year but I think I forgot how much, because this rewatch made me love it. This show is SO FUNNY. The first episode is kind of cringe and hard to get through, but after that it is just so, so good. This is just about a group of friends living together in New York. The cast is so good together (obviously I have a crush on Paul Baker), there are hilarious guest stars (JULIA FOX), and this just makes me laugh so hard. I really recommend watching this before season two starts next month. I can’t wait.

Movies

• The Invite (theaters): I really loved this movie. I’d been looking forward to it since it got rave reviews at Sundance earlier this year, and despite the Don’t Worry Darling mess I am a fan of Olivia Wilde because I loved Booksmart so much. She directed and stars in this, alongside Seth Rogan, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz. Olivia and Seth play a married couple who invite their neighbors over for dinner, and the whole movie takes place on this one night in their apartment. This made me LAUGH, it is truly funny at times, but it is also very emotionally resonant. I thought all four of them were really great in this, but Olivia in particular is so good. Seth Rogan is actually a very good dramatic actor, and anytime he does something like this I am always thoroughly impressed. This whole movie takes place in the same (beautiful!!!) apartment, and I loved how that created a claustrophobic vibe. The music in this is also really effective. There were parts of this that were so cringe I was watching through my fingers, but like, in a good way? I really loved this and I can’t stop thinking about it. Go see it!

• Heartstopper Forever (Netflix): I loved and got very invested in the first season of this show, and I kind of think every season since has had diminishing returns, but I still wanted to see how they wrapped it all up. This is a very wholesome show (though each season got a little bit darker and more serious) and this movie is the ending of the series. This is a nice ending and a good way to say goodbye to these characters who absolutely cannot pass as high schoolers anymore at all, even a little. The soundtrack is really good, too.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• mattress topper: I really need to buy a new mattress, but when I do that I want to upgrade in size, which obviously requires buying a whole new bed, and I just don’t want to deal with that right now. So instead, I bought this mattress topper hoping it would buy me more time, and it definitely did. Now I’m just furious I didn’t do this sooner. My bed feels brand new!!

One Last Thing…

Ryan Beatty has a new album out that I’ve been listening to and really like, but mostly it has just reminded me of how much I loved his last album, Calico, a couple years ago. Bruises Off The Peach is a perfect song and I think I’ve listened to it 100 times this week.

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That’s it for me! This week I am gonna go see The Odyssey, I guess. Will my Christopher Nolan Hater streak continue?? Stay tuned!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• So Old, So Young by Grant Ginder: I really liked this book! It follows a group of friends who meet in college, and we meet them again at five different parties over the next ~20ish years. In each section we get a bunch of different POVs, so this felt like such an interesting character study. This manages to touch on so many different things— marriage and divorce, having (or not having) kids, addiction, death, career growth, just so much stuff. All of these characters felt so real to me, and I both sympathized with and was angry at all of them at different parts of the story. This captures so well the feeling of becoming friends with a group of people when you are all at the same point in life, and then what happens and how those relationships evolve as everyone sets out on their own path. And especially the gaps that grow between the people who have kids and the people who don’t. I was shocked at how much plot was fit into just these five parties, and I thought it did a really good job of explaining what had happened in the interim without just feeling like a giant info dump to catch us up to whatever year we were in next. This was so easy to read and I read it super fast. Recommend!

Articles

• The Today Show Goes Dark: Thought this article about The Today Show in the wake of Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance was super interesting. I have never really watched this show but I have always found the behind the scenes politics so fascinating (this is why I loved Kate Couric’s memoir and season one of The Morning Show). This talks about how Savannah is really the head of the show, and how Nancy’s disappearance has thrown the whole ecosystem into chaos. How can a show that tries to balance hard hitting news with ~good vibes~ deal with something this terrible happening to one of it’s main stars? I guess we’ll see what happens.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Love Island USA (Peacock): We made it!!! The finale airs on Sunday and I’m excited to get my life back. I have a love/hate relationship with watching this show. I get so invested it in, it takes up so much of my time, and by the end of it I feel like I am begging for it to end. But I love the social aspect of watching this with my friends and I love the drama. I liked this season more than the last one, but I don’t think anything will ever live up to season 6. The men on this season were diabolical. Did they forget they were being filmed?? This feels like a case study in the red pilling of Gen Z boys. I’m SCARED. It was genuinely painful to watch these women put up with this. It was so cathartic to finally watch Sincere get whacked by his family this week. I need Melanie to leave him in two minutes when she gets her phone back. I am rooting for Trinity and Bryce to win, as I have been for the past two weeks. Honestly we could have called this all a wash halfway through, no one was even anywhere close to them.

  I continue to be really confused by the casting of this show, as AGAIN this season two people got removed from the show because old posts of them saying racist slurs resurfaced online. It is genuinely baffling to me that they can’t figure out how to avoid this. Something that was interesting to me this season is that in the past the cast have had someone running their social media accounts for them while the show was airing, posting on instagram for them. They didn’t do that this time around, none of them, and I just wonder what the reasoning behind that decision was because it definitely feels like it had to have been a directive from production. The online conversation about this show feels truly inescapable, and it has certainly grown exponentially over the past couple of years, so I assume that has something to do with it. But I personally find the real-time airing of this to be one of the reasons it is so compelling, so it’s interesting to watch them navigate that as the fan base explodes (the app crashed the first time there was a vote this season!). Overall, I had more fun this summer than last, but I’m excited to be done. But like clockwork, I’ll be back here next summer to do it all again.

Movies

• Gone Girl (Netflix): I always end up watching this movie around this time of year because this is the time of year when the story takes place. I think this is basically a perfect movie that has held up incredibly well despite being over 10 years old at this point. This is just an all-timer of a performance from Rosamund Pike, and I also love Tyler Perry as Nick’s kind of scummy but also very good at his job defense attorney. This score is incredible, I listen to it often when I’m working or reading. I just think this is one of the best book-to-screen adaptations of all time, and the best David Fincher movie.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• K18 Dry Shampoo: I am genuinely annoyed to report that this $48 dry shampoo is unquestionably the best one I’ve ever tried, works so well that I am amazed every time I use it, and I probably won’t ever buy a different one again. This is different from others in that it is actually a liquid, and I only use a few sprays each time, so I am hopeful this bottle lasts a long time. Because this starts as a liquid I find it really easy to work it into my hair, whereas other dry shampoos leave a white cast or just sit on top of my hair without actually doing anything. This makes my hair look just washed in maybe two minutes. Sorry!! It’s worth it.

One Last Thing…

This week I listened to the new season of Serial, which is called The Last 12 Weeks, and follows a criminal defense team through the 12 weeks before their client’s scheduled execution. I thought this was so well done. I do not do death penalty work, but there was so much of this that felt so relatable to me. The investigator being annoyed to be followed around by a journalist (this would absolutely be my reaction), the complicated feelings that come with building a relationship with a complicated client, and the dark humor required to sustain this type of work. I have so much respect for people who are doing death penalty work of any kind, but especially post-conviction, where your clients are just lined up to be murdered by the state. This podcast highlights how absurd the whole system is and how arbitrarily these life or death decisions get made. Absolutely worth a listen. Full list of podcasts I recommend here.

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to see The Invite!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Phoebe Berman’s Gonna Lose It by Brooke Averick: I picked this up to start it before bed one night and ended up staying up until 2am to read it straight through. It’s really cute! It’s a romance novel about Phoebe, who is one month away from turning 30 and desperate to lose her virginity before then. Brooke is an influencer and I’m always a little hesitant when an internet personality gets a book deal, especially to write a novel, because so many of them are truly terrible. But I was pleasantly surprised by this! I don’t think I’ve ever read a romance novel lead like this, full of anxiety and stress. I was stressed for her! But I think this is a lovely portrayal of those types of mental health issues. I loved the friend group in this and had fun guessing which of her prospects she would end up with. Just a very easy and cute read.

Articles

• Did a Climber Leave His Girlfriend to Die at the Top of a Mountain?: I have been weirdly invested in this story since I heard about it last year, so this long read in the New Yorker was an immediate click for me. This is about a man who, with his girlfriend, attempted to climb Austria’s tallest mountain, Grossglockner. It was winter, the conditions were treacherous, they were unprepared, and around 2:30am he left her near the summit and turned back alone. They recovered her body the next morning. What has been fascinating to me about this story is the criminal proceeding that followed. He was charged with homicide by gross negligence, and the trial judge was a man who himself is an expert mountaineer who specifically handles cases related to mountain, avalanche, climbing, cable-car, and ski accidents. This article chronicles the trial, and it’s pretty clear what the author thinks happened. For me, there are a lot of really damning facts, but one in particular really makes me doubt that this was truly an accident (no spoilers, but it involves the man’s ex-girlfriend). This is a really well written article with a final line that made me gasp. I also recommend the episode of Criminal about this story.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (Netflix): We’re back on my favorite topic!! I remain extremely invested in this cheerleading team and always binge the new season of this show very quickly. We’re on season three, and I think it was my least favorite. This show is much less about the experience of making the team and being a cheerleader, and is now mainly about the experience of being a Netflix star. That is interesting, but it’s not what I want from this! I want to see more dancing and more of the training camp process. I have also felt like this has become more deferential to Kelli and Judy over time, and I thought season one felt more honest about it all. I was dying this season watching several scenes of the two of them being absolutely baffled to hear that the girls want more positive feedback from them. This is such a Boomer attitude, to be so confused why these girls who are desperate for their approval might want them to say something nice about them sometimes. PLEASE. I was confused why Faith got so much screen time and would have loved to see more about the other rookies, but also, watching like 17 people involved in a conversation about whether or not she should wear her hair in a ponytail as if it’s the most important decision that’s ever been made is exactly the stuff I love to see on this show. I find the Reece storyline hard to watch, in a similar way that I cringe watching the Mormon Wives husbands struggle to understand how they ended up in a marriage where their wife is more important than them. I still hate Charlotte Jones, she will never redeem herself in my eyes. I wish this was a little more like the old CMT show used to be, but I will still continue to watch this for however long they make it. At least they are getting paid more now.

• Not Suitable For Work (Hulu): Circling back now that the whole season is out to confirm that I really liked this show! It’s about a group of 20-somethings living across the hall from each other in New York. I really like all the characters in this and there are several relationships that I’m already invested in. I think everyone is good in this but I am particularly obsessed with Avantika, who plays a girl trying to be a celebrity stylist. I’ve been looking for her next move since she was the best part of the Mean Girls Musical movie and I love this for her. I think you should watch this! It has the same good vibes as every other Mindy Kaling creation. It has a lot of potential and I really hope it gets renewed.

Movies

• Voicemails for Isabelle (Netflix): This was actually pretty good. Every once in a while Netflix drops a rom com that I am pleasantly surprised by! This stars Zoey Deutch as Jill, who is struggling with the recent death of her younger sister. She continues to call her phone number and leave her voicemails, not realizing that a guy names Wes (Nick Robinson) is on the other end now. This is very emotional and made me cry more than once, but it also has a lot of really funny moments and I loved the central romance plot line. Nick Robinson is so cute and should be in more rom-coms. And Zoey Deutch is genuinely amazing as a rom-com lead, I am never disappointed by her in this type of movie (everyone watch The Threesome, it’s underrated). My main complaint with this movie is the soundtrack, it’s full of TikTok music that sometimes made me cringe. They played a Benson Boone song at a pivotal moment and I simply cannot get behind that choice. But overall this was a pleasant surprise, and I certainly recommend if you are a rom com fan. But also, her sister dies and you will cry! Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

• Your Fault: London (Prime Video): Sorry but I love this insane series. The second one just came out and I ate it up, I actually liked it more than the first one. In the first movie, Noah’s mom gets remarried and they move to the UK and move in with the new husband and his (HOT) son, Noah’s new step brother Nick. Obviously Nick and Noah fall in love!!!! Then in the second movie they are dealing with their relationship being a secret. There is also a lot of genuinely insane stuff going on. These movies are crazy but the two of them have incredible chemistry. I’m invested! I am obsessed with Noah’s style, she wears the coolest clothes and her makeup always looks good. Nick is HOT. The plot is so crazy but I don’t care, I’m so locked in. I need the third film NOW. This is for you if you have ever spent time on Wattpad or if you like dark romance novels.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Whole Foods ice cream: is 50% (if you have Amazon Prime, 44% if you don’t) through 7/7! I go every year when they do this sale and buy sooooo much ice cream. They have such good flavor options and lots of things I don’t see anywhere else! My top recs are the Nightingale ice cream sandwiches (all good but especially the banana pudding flavor) and the Jeni’s High Five flavor.

One Last Thing…

I binged this podcast, Love Trapped, so quickly. This is about a woman named Laura Owens, who claimed to be pregnant by Clayton Echard, a former lead on The Bachelor a few years ago. This story got a lot of attention when they ended up in court, with Clayton denying that Laura was pregnant at all. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of this truly insane story, and I thought this podcast was really well researched and well made. The podcast is done for now but the story is ongoing so I will definitely be watching for updates.

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That’s it for me! Happy July! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Exit Lane by Erika Veurink: I picked up this romance novella in the hopes of getting out of a reading slump and it worked! I read this in one sitting last weekend and it was so good. This is a When Harry Met Sally inspired story about two people who road trip from Iowa City to New York after graduating college. I really loved this, it was emotional and hot and full of yearning and tension. Very good romance!!

• Into the Blue by Emma Brodie: WHAT A BOOK. I could not put this down and I can’t stop thinking about it. This is a romance novel but I’ve never read anything like it, particularly the ending. This is about two people, AJ and Noah, who meet in high school and bond over their interest in acting and their love for a niche improv sci-fi show. Then we follow them over the course of the next decade. This kind of reminded me of Deep Cuts, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, but I also think its stands on it’s own. It’s so well written, perfectly paced and so full of emotion and angst. It’s a bit long (~430 pgs) but I read it in 24 hours because I was so captivated by the story. I loved how this was written and I loved the trajectory of the story. I will be thinking about this for a long time!

Articles

• F.D.A Clears Sunscreen Ingredient Long Used in Europe and Asia: I’ve had about 10 people ask me about this this week, I love to have a strong personal brand!! If you’ve talked to me about sunscreen ever (or if you’ve been reading this newsletter for a while) then you are probably familiar with my rant about how the US regulates sunscreen like a drug instead of a cosmetic, which means new ingredients have to be approved by the F.D.A. Before this, they hadn’t approved a new ingredient in decades, which means we are decades behind other countries in terms of making good sunscreen. This is why I buy 15 sunscreens every time I leave the country. They are better! This week the F.D.A. cleared bemotrizinol, which has been used in other countries for decades and is in a lot of my favorite European sunscreens. Finally!!

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Every Year After (Prime Video): This show is BAD. I was looking forward to this because I thought the book was good, but it is really not good. This is a dual timeline romance about Sam and Percy who fell in love as kids when they spent summers living next door to each other and, in present day, haven’t seen each other in 10 years. The acting in this is really not good, something I can sometimes ignore if I’m having enough fun, but this show is not fun! The overall vibe is sad and depressing. The same actors play Sam and Percy in the past and in present day and sometimes I genuinely cannot tell what is a flashback and what is actually happening now because they look THE SAME. I thought this had the potential to be good in the same way The Summer I Turned Pretty is good, but it really is not. They also changed so much stuff from the book, basically only the bare bones of the story feel the same. Just not a good show! Ugh.

• Widow’s Bay (AppleTV): I saw a lot of people raving about this and I love Matthew Rhys so I started it with no idea what it was about. I quickly learned that he plays the Mayor of a small island town that is struggling, and he’s trying to find a way to revive the island but something weird is going on. I thought this would be scary (murder) but it is actually scary (clowns). This is like actually a horror show, who knew!!! Not me, sorry. If I did I probably wouldn’t have started watching this. I’ve watched three episodes of this and don’t plan to continue (unless someone wants to convince me otherwise). This is a me issue, I do think the show is really well made and the story is intriguing. AppleTV very consistently makes really, really good shows. I just generally don’t like this kind of horror! If you do you should definitely watch this.

Movies

• How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (Paramount+): I had been thinking about this movie ever since binging Running Point last month because Kate Hudson was really good in that show. I had not seen this in years, and while there is obviously some misogynistic stuff in this, I don’t really care. I had fun!! They are soooo hot and have such good chemistry. They simply do not make them like this anymore.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Lifelines Dot Art: I love to have something to do with my hands while I rot on the couch and watch tv, and this is my latest obsession. This is color by number meets connect the dots, there’s a bunch of different books with different themes, and they come with markers! I highly recommend to anyone who is likes coloring.

One Last Thing…

Obviously I loved this.

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That’s it for me! I am traveling the next two weekends so I probably won’t be back here until July (yikes). I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

I have not picked up a physical book in nearly a month. Help!!!!

Articles

• Everlane and the Death of the “Good” Millenial Life-Style Brand: A few weeks ago I scrolled past a headline about how Everlane had sold to Shein and gasped. I really like Everlane! I have several shirts and sweaters that I have had for years and wear frequently, and they have all really held up. This makes me sad! This article is a good missive on the current trend of consolidation and the accompanying loss of anything that unique and/or high quality. Everything is either slop or costs $1000. I don’t like it!!!

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Four Seasons (Netflix): This show is so easily watchable, I once again watched the whole season in the span of 24 hours last weekend. Season 2 picks up a few months after the end of season one, and has everyone processing the huge developments that happened at the end of the first season. The main structure of the show stays the same, we follow this group of friends who meet up several times a year, a different trip for every season. I love this cast so much, everyone is so funny and they all fit so well together. I will always and forever love Tina Fey, and I really like seeing Colman Domingo doing something fun. This show makes me laugh so much but it is also just a really lovely portrayal of friendship and moving through different phases of life. I hope they make more.

• Not Suitable For Work (Hulu): I had already planned to watch this because I will watch any Mindy Kaling creation, but then I saw someone call it The Bold Type 2.0 and I was even more sold (I LOVED The Bold Type, extremely underrated show). This is about a group of 20-somethings living in New York. Three episodes are out and I’m very on board. It’s so good! I like all the characters and I’m very invested already. I have been waiting to see Avantika on screen again since she was by far the best thing about the Mean Girls Musical movie and I think she’s really good in this. Jay Ellis is also here as a peripheral character and I’m never mad when he shows up in something. And I’ve been waiting to see Ella Hunt again since Dickinson ended (another VERY underrated show, I loved it so much), Everyone else is new to me! I think this has a lot of potential and I’m excited to see where it goes. So far, I definitely recommend.

• Love Island USA (Peacock): clocking in for my summer job!!! I become such a menace when this show is on, I can’t shut up about it. I am constantly hoping this will be as good as it was in season 6, but I don’t think we will ever have it that good again. We are four episodes into this new season and I have found the first few episodes to be fairly slow, but I think things are starting to pick up. I have more fun talking about this with all my friends than I do actually watching it. Last summer I got extremely invested, but was also very annoyed by the end. I hope to be just as invested but way less annoyed this time around. We shall see!! I will check back in in six weeks.

Movies

• The Sheep Detectives (theaters): I loved this silly murder mystery movie. This is about a flock of sheep who are cared for by their shepherd, Hugh Jackman. He cares for them and reads them murder mysteries every night before bed, and most importantly is the enemy of the town butcher/is not raising them for slaughter!!! One day he turns up dead, and the cop in town is really dumb (most accurate part of the movie) so the sheep decide it is up to them to solve the murder using everything they’ve learned from the novels he read to them. This movie is so good, funny and heartwarming and genuinely just a joy to watch. I laughed, I cried, and I had fun figuring out the mystery. This is full of murder mystery tropes and jokes, it has an excellent cast (I love when Emma Thompson shows up in a movie), and I would recommend it to anyone of any age. I loved it.

• Office Romance (Netflix): New J.Lo romcom I feel ALIVE. She might be a weirdo but she has consistently, for 30 years now, been very good in rom coms. She stars in this with Brett Goldstein (who I really like after his incredible performance in season two of Shrinking), who also wrote it. He has spent his entire career very publically talking about how much he loves J.Lo and how he thinks she’s the most beautiful woman alive, and then he wrote this romcom and cast himself as the lead and told her they would only make it if she agreed to be in it. This is the correct way to be a celebrity!!! If I was famous I would also be writing myself into romcoms with my celebrity crushes, more people should be doing this. I think the two of them have great chemistry in interviews, the press tour has been so good. I had really high hopes for this movie!! If I’m honest I’m not sure it lived up to them. This definitely has it’s funny moments and I do like both of them, but something about this didn’t totally work for me. It almost felt like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to be a raunchy sex comedy or to be earnest, and it didn’t really commit hard enough to either. I do still like the two of them together, and Betty Gilpin is here as a side character and steals every scene she is in. I did not hate this, I just wanted it to be better than it was. I liked it but I probably won’t ever watch it again.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Wall hooks: I have really been down an Etsy rabbit hole recently. I bought these hooks for my entry way and I love them. They were super easy to hang and they look really good. I bought a set of six but you can also buy them individually!

One Last Thing…

We’re back!! I am ready for my third annual term as President of the Charlotte Jones Hate Club. Even if she is not a prominent part of the the show I will never let anyone forget that she is a villain. I can’t wait to watch this.

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to force myself to finish a book so I can get back into a reading routine. I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Famesick by Lena Dunam: What a memoir. I think there are a lot of valid criticisms of Lena but you simply cannot deny that she is a brilliant writer. This is extraordinarily well written. It is emotional and harrowing and funny and full of gossip (I CANNOT BELIEVE she dm’d the person who made The PowerPoint oh my GOD). Everything I want a celebrity memoir to be! She doesn’t hold back, the good or the bad, and it’s just compulsively readable. It chronicles the making of Girls and her rise to fame, which coincided with the absolute and total decline of her physical and mental health. There are a lot of visceral descriptions of medical stuff in here that were hard to stomach at times, but I appreciated the unrestrained honesty. Unsurprisingly to anyone who is familiar with her, this is kind of lacking in the accountability department. That’s my main criticism. But this is really worth reading, especially if you are a millennial woman or someone with any attachment to Lena or Girls. I have been contemplating a rewatch of Girls for a while now. I watched the show as it aired when I was in college, and I’ve just been curious about how I would respond to it now at 31 vs when I was 20. Reading this definitely made that even more likely. I listened to this on audio, which she reads herself, and thought it was really good.

Articles

I loved reading this Substack post about all the ways in which When Harry Met Sally is a perfect movie. Because it IS. And even though it is widely recognized as one of the best, maybe THE best, rom coms of all time, I still somehow feels like it’s not getting enough praise. It is just a perfect movie.

GOOD MOVIE

When Harry Met Sally...

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4 months ago · 229 likes · 151 comments · Shea Serrano

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

I have watched no movies and just a bunch of tv!

• Running Point (Netflix): Loved this fun, low stakes, silly show. Kate Hudson plays a nepo-daughter who becomes the president of the basketball team her family owns when her brother crashes out and gets sent to rehab. In addition to Kate, who I think is really good here, this has a really fun cast— Brenda Song! Justin Theroux! Max Greenfield! Jay Ellis! This is quite funny and really made me laugh. It’s also definitely a show made for people who maybe aren’t fully paying attention, because Kate Hudson narrates basically the entire thing. This moves really fast and made a very fun binge, there’s two seasons out and it got renewed for a third. Will definitely watch!

• Margo’s Got Money Troubles (AppleTV): Absolutely loved this adaptation of one of my favorite books from last year. This is a weird little story about a 19 year old who has an affair with her professor and gets pregnant, and then starts posting on OnlyFans to make money. I loved this book, and I loved this show. It stars Elle Fanning, who I think is excellent! And also Nick Offerman, who is giving an (excluding Parks and Rec) career best performance. Nicole Kidman is playing a character that is much more fleshed out in the show than she was in the book, and Michelle Pfeiffer is really great in this, too. This is quirky but it is also so lovely and moving. And funny! It got renewed, which I think is interesting because this first season covered most of the book, but I do think there is so much to explore with this story so I am excited to see where they take it. I loved this. If you have any intention of reading the book you should do that first (and I recommend it!) but I also think this stands on it’s own as a tv show.

• Hacks (HBO): What a perfect ending to a perfect show. I am so sad this is over but I loved the ending so much. It has consistently, over five seasons, continued to reinvent itself but never in a way that felt absurd. It remained genuinely hysterically funny, but I also felt so endeared to and invested in all of the characters. Jean Smart is a revelation in this show, so incredible to watch and such a commanding presence. I loved everything about Deborah Vance, even the bad parts. If she wins an Emmy again it will make her the first actress to win Lead Actress in a Comedy for every season of a show. Hannah Einbinder also did amazing work in this, and the character of Ava evolved so much over the course of the show. I love them both so much!!! This show often stressed me out and sometimes made me cry but more than anything it made me LAUGH. The last episode was so amazing, with so many callbacks to the early seasons and a truly perfect ending. It made me want to go back to the beginning and start all over. I will really miss this. One of the best.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Fruit Riot: I love sour candy and that has led to an addiction to Fruit Riot as well. These are frozen fruits covered in a sour coating and it is sooooooooo good. I love the grapes (and have found them at Costco) but my favorite is the mango. I eat these until my mouth hurts. They’re in most grocery stores!

One Last Thing…

My sister told me about this daily geography game and now I have to play it every morning. It gives you five different cities, with increasing difficulty, and you have to click on them on the map. That’s it! I always feel very cocky when it’s having me click on US cities but then it will throw out a city in an African country and all bets are off. It’s fun!

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to watch Love Island and the new J.Lo rom com!!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

Once again I did not finish a book this week pls send help.

Articles

• What Katie Didn’t Know: Recently I was reading this substack post from i have great taste (my current favorite newsletter) about celebrity breakups and she linked this old (2012) article about Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes and Scientology that I had somehow never read. This was shocking to me because I think I have consumed every, literally every, other piece of media about Scientology that exists. I have been obsessed with learning about this organization for years. I wrote a paper about Scientology in grad school, this is so serious to me!! This article is so insane, incredible journalism, and I continue to be deeply confused about how much we know about Scientology and the fact that it is still allowed to operate unchecked. It’s crazy. I really recommend the show Leah Remini made, called Scientology and the Aftermath. I watched it as it aired years ago and and I still think about it all the time.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Bait (Prime Video): Someone recommended this to me as similar vibes to Fleabag and Starstruck. SOLD. This is created by and stars Riz Ahmed as a struggling actor who gets an audition to be the next James Bond. I really liked this, it is funny and absurd and quite ridiculous at times but it also has some heavier moments. I think Riz Ahmed is really good and I’ve never seen him in anything like this. This goes more and more off the rails as it goes on, but it’s only 6 episodes so it goes super quick. I thought it was a good binge.

• Off Campus (Prime Video): God this was good. I watched it so fast and I’m upset it’s over. I have known about this book series for years but never read it, but from what I knew I just knew I would like the show. This is a hockey romance series set in college, the first book and therefore season one of the show is about Garrett and Hannah who decide to fake date so she can make her actual crush jealous. In exchange she agrees to tutor Garrett so he can pass philosophy class and keep playing hockey. Your classic hot jock dating the nerd (who is also hot) plot line!!! I ate this UP. All eight episodes came out on Wednesday and I was done by Thursday night. I think this is extremely comparable to The Summer I Turned Pretty both in vibe and in quality. The acting is not great and the dialogue is corny but I could NOT turn it off. The men are hot! There’s basically every romance trope that exists going on here! At one point there is only one bed!!!!!! What can I say, I like what I like. The episodes all end in cliff hangers and I just couldn’t stop watching. I thought the two leads had great chemistry but also there is another side couple that I am almost more invested in, and I hope season two is about them even though I understand that would deviate from the order of the book series. They are already making season two thank god. If I had read these in high school I would have been obsessed. If you see them pop up on my Goodreads in the next couple of weeks please mind your own business!!!! In my mind Prime Video is becoming the streaming equivalent of The CW. They are making shows for the girls!! They’re adapting a bunch of romance novels (next I am looking forward to the Every Summer After series coming out in a few weeks). I will literally watch every single one.

Movies

A couple months ago the sequel to Ready or Not came out, and a couple people asked me if I was going to see it and then were shocked when I said that I had never seen the first one. I decided to finally watch both now that you can watch the new one at home. Ready or Not (Hulu) is about a girl named Grace (Samara Weaving) who ends up in a deadly game of hide and seek with her new husband’s family on her wedding night. No one ever told me this was actually good!!! This is a perfect comedy horror movie, very bloody and gross but also funny and absurd. I love when Adam Brody shows up in whatever I’m watching. I liked this a lot!

The new sequel, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (rented) picks up exactly where the first one left off, and follows Grace through a second round of the game, this time with her sister (Kathryn Newton) involved. This is not as good as the first one but it is still a fun time. There’s lots a new fun side characters, but I basically spent the whole time sharing at Shawn Hatosy (Dr. Abbott from The Pitt, he’s so HOT). The ending of this is really nuts but whatever, I was on board. This is a fun franchise! I’m glad I finally watched.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Butter London manicure set: I am a DIY nail girl and have been painting my own nails for like 15 years. When people ask my how I get them to look good, the answer is always that first, I take care of my cuticles. This set comes with the cuticle softener I like the most, and also a glass cuticle pusher and glass nail file. These are the best and way more effective regular orange sticks. You need to push your cuticles back on a regular basis!! Even if you’re not painting your nails you should be doing this.

One Last Thing…

MUNA is back!!!! I love them so much and I’m loving this album.

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That’s it for me! I am going to another wedding next weekend so I’ll see you all back here in two weeks.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

I was on a roll and now I’m not!!!

Articles

• The Hollywood Feud of the Century: I read this long article, a definitive account of what happened between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni during the making of It Ends With Us, the day before it got announced that the case settled and will not go to trial. I think that is a net positive outcome, as the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard trial taught me that we as a society are simply not equipped to watch something like this play out in court. Everyone lost their minds during that, it made me feel insane. The Blake/Justin situation was different, obviously, but so much of the discourse felt the same to me. So many people had a lot to say about all of this, but if you actually read the primary sources I think its actually pretty clear cut what happened here. He said and did things that are objectively weird at best, sexual harassment at worse. She responded accordingly, and in the process probably overstepped the boundaries of her professional role on the film. And then he retaliated by paying a bunch of money for people to orchestrate a smear campaign against her on the internet that, to be clear, really worked. In the end I think she comes out with more of her reputation in tact than he does, but I don’t think either of them will ever completely recover. All for a movie that wasn’t even good! Mess.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Beef (Netflix): I loved the first season of this show and was excited to watch season 2, even though it’s a whole different story with a whole different cast. This one is about a couple (Oscar Isaac (HOT) and Carey Mulligan) who run a fancy country club and end up being blackmailed by another couple (Charles Melton (hot!!) and Cailee Spaeney) who work at the club. That is what I expected the entire season to be about but that is really just a catalyst for a sequence of events that gets crazier and darker and insane over the course of 8 episodes. I liked this but it was also very stressful and sometimes hard to watch! The last couple of episodes are pretty nuts. I liked season one more, but I still think this is worth watching. It has a really great cast, and I love the overall aesthetic and the music.

• Euphoria (HBO): Just a mid season check in to let you all know I am hating this!!! I cannot believe how unwatchable this is. Every episode is one hour that feels like five. It is gratuitous and vibeless and just absolutely unrecognizable from what it used to be and everything that made it good. I am undecided about if I will finish it, I don’t know what I could possibly gain from doing so other than a fully informed hatred instead of a partial one. Sam Levinson should never be allowed to be in charge of anything again.

Movies

Thought this was a good place to talk about the Michael Jackson movie. People keep asking me if I have seen it, but I haven’t and I don’t plan to. There’s a lot of reasons for this. First of all, I truly can’t think of a musical biopic that I like. I generally find them very boring and too reverential of the subject (I get that this is the point but it is not interesting to me). But also, in this specific case, there is nothing interesting to me about a Michael Jackson movie that is approved by his estate.

There is obviously a lot to say about Michael. By the time I was old enough to have any consciousness about pop culture he had stopped making music and already been accused several times of sexually abusing kids. I do not now and have never had any emotional attachment or investment in him as an artist. But I understand why people do, and I certainly understand why, if you loved him in his prime, that is still a feeling that you hold onto.

I felt fairly indifferent about Michael until I watched Leaving Neverland in 2019. It’s a two part documentary series that features two men, now grown, who spent a lot of time around Michael when they were kids. And they both tell very similar stories, in very specific detail, about how Michael sexually abused them when he was an adult in his 30s and they were younger than 10. I don’t think it’s possible for a reasonable person to watch this documentary and think that they are lying. I think all the time about this review of the documentary by Wesley Morris, which I think is one of the best pieces of pop culture criticism I’ve ever read. I would tell you to watch the documentary, but you can’t, because the Michael Jackson estate buried it. They sued HBO, pointing to a non-disparagement clause in an unrelated contract Michael had with the network in 1992, argued it applied to everything on HBO in perpetuity, and the network removed Leaving Neverland from their streaming platform. HBO owns the license for the documentary through 2029, so it won’t be streaming anywhere again until after that.

Again, I understand how you can know all this and the music can still mean a lot to you. Given what I do for work, I think I am uniquely positioned to understand having a positive relationship with a person who has done something horrific, let alone a pop culture icon who has been deified to this extent. And I also have a lot of sympathy for the fact that he himself suffered a lot of abuse at the hands of so many people, including his family. What I don’t get is the people who don’t acknowledge any of this at all, who act like nothing happened. This is purposeful ignorance that is simply not reasonable. It’s not like one person said this decades ago and nothing else ever happened. There is a not small number of people who say that Michael Jackson had sex with them when he was an adult and they were a child. This has been true for 30 years, far beyond when it became obvious that making an accusation like this would not result in any kind of fame or fortune, as many people like to suggest his accusers are seeking. There are new accusations from last week. What is the point of telling a story about him if it doesn’t talk about this?

The movie tried, a little, to address it. The original script included the 1993 case involving Jordan Chandler, the first time Michael was accused of sexually abusing a kid. They shot the whole movie, and then after they finished the estate realized that the Chandler family’s settlement with Michael included a ban from ever discussing them in any media. So they had to rewrite and reshoot the whole second half of the movie, and now it ends in the 80s, before any of this happened. Even if it had been left in, though, I don’t expect that it would have been a fair or accurate representation of what happened, given who funded the movie.

I think this movie serves to re-familiarize younger generations with Michael and to create a sanitized version of him for people to remember going forward. It’s Michael Jackson propaganda, funded by his estate, and I’m sure they are very pleased with their investment. It is set to pass $500 million at the box office in its third weekend, and people love it (well, the critics don’t). His music is hitting higher streaming numbers than it has in years. It worked! But until someone wants to tell the real story, the whole story, I’m gonna sit this out.

I recommend instead this episode of Pop Culture Happy Hour about how to reckon with Michael’s legacy, and also this episode of Cannonball with Wesley Morris about the movie.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Chillhouse press on nails: I cannot believe how much press on nails have improved in the last few years. This is now my go to for any trip or special event when I want my nails to look nice. I love the Olive & June ones, but recently I’ve tried a couple from this brand and I love them even more. They have more fun designs! I put these on for the wedding I went to two weeks ago and they are still on today. None of them have popped off and I have never gotten more compliments on my nails in my life. I don’t do anything special, I just follow the instructions and use the glue they come with.

One Last Thing…

Don’t ask me how many times I watched this.

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That’s it for me!

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• How to Fake it in Hollywood by Ava Wilder: I loved this book when I read it several years ago, and then I read Ava Wilder’s new book a couple months ago and that made me want to reread this. I listened to the audiobook this time. This book is soooooo good. This is about two celebrities who agree to a fake PR relationship in order to boost their careers. This is a little more serious than a typical romance novel— it touches on some heavier stuff and there’s an alcoholism storyline that is a big part of the plot. But it is also fun and hot and really, really good. She is an underrated romance author! I love all of her books.

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke: Then I read THE book. I am not sure when I’ve more highly anticipated a book. Caro hosts a podcast I am obsessed with called Diabolical Lies, and I think she is so smart. Then she announced she had written this novel about a tradwife influencer who one day wakes up in the 1800s and has to figure out how to actually live the lifestyle she has been selling on Instagram? Exactly my interests. THEN it sold for seven figures in a huge auction and Anne Hathaway bought the film rights and then it started getting rave reviews and I just knew I had to get my hands on it immediately. To no one’s surprise, I really liked it. The main character, Natalie, is so interesting. She has vile opinions and behaves very poorly, but also I really liked being in her head. This novel is so voicey and biting and I loved the writing. Every time I picked it up I had a hard time putting it down. It moves very quickly, and I could not figure out where it was going. I think the ending felt kind of rushed and I would have liked it to be a bit more fleshed out, but overall I recommend this. The kind of book you finish and then immediately need to find someone to discuss it with. I can’t stop thinking about it!

Articles

• The $1.75 Million Betrayal: I just know when I click on something in The Cut it’s gonna be crazy. This article is about TikTok influencers, two couples, who spent a lot of time together and then it turned into affairs and lawsuits and MESS.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Bad Mistakes (Netflix): I watched all 8 episodes of this show in one weekend and I liked it! This is created by Dan Levy and Rachel Sennott so I had high hopes for it. Dan Levy and Taylor Ortega (who I had never seen before but loved in this) play siblings who end up accidentally involved with an organized crime ring. This made me laugh!! It is very funny and I thought it was really well paced, the stakes kept escalating and I was very invested. Laurie Metcalf plays their mother and I am obsessed with her. I hope this gets renewed! I want to know what happens next.

• Trust Me: False Prophet (Netflix): I have been obsessed with the FLDS cult for years so I had to watch this. It’s a docuseries about a woman who infiltrated an FLDS family and helped take down their leader after Warren Jeffs went to prison. This is really interesting to watch but probably not a good place to start if you don’t know anything about the history of this cult. For that I’d recommend a different docuseries, Keep Sweet, Prey, and Obey (also on Netflix), or season 2 of this podcast. Very bleak stuff here but I am glad people are continuing to get out.

Movies

• Splitsville (Hulu): Deeply silly movie. This is about a guy named Carey, whose wife Ashley asks for a divorce. He goes running to his married friends for comfort, and they reveal that their secret to a long lasting marriage is non-monogamy. Then things get extremely messy. This is an absurd movie but it really made me laugh. Dakota Johnson is here and I continue to think she is great in stuff like this. If you think she is a bad actress it’s because you’ve only seen her in stuff she only did for a check! All these weird smaller movies she is in are quite good. I am not sure this will be super memorable to me in the long run but I had a good time while watching it.

• The Devil Wears Prada 2 (theaters): I liked it!! Very rarely do I think a sequel like this is necessary, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be good (I thought the Freaky Friday sequel was actually very good and I am once again yelling about how good the newest Bridget Jones movie is). What I think really works here is that the four leads- Meryl, Stanley Tucci, Anne Hathaway, and Emily Blunt- are all genuinely amazing actors. I liked that this didn’t just rehash the plot of the first one without adding other stakes, and I thought there was good commentary here about the current state of journalism and tech and all that. But it’s also very fun! Amazing clothes, obviously, and a good soundtrack. It has been too long since Meryl has been in a movie!! I love her as this character, she’s so chic. Anne Hathaway also looks amazing. There is maybe one too many plot lines (I NEVER say this but they could have cut out the romance) and one too many cameos in this, and I with they would have streamlined this so they had time to dig a little deeper into some of it. But overall I had fun and this is worth seeing if you have any attachment at all to the original.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Zbiotics: I thought this was certainly a scam and then I tried it and now I am a believer. You drink this before you drink alcohol and it prevents a hangover. It WORKS. The science has been explained to me more than once but I have simply not retained it because who cares. I just care that I don’t feel like I want to die when I wake up the morning after drinking. Most recently I used this at a wedding and felt so much better than I should have the next morning. I am a convert.

One Last Thing…

I saw this banana cake on Instagram and ran to the store immediately for ingredients to make it. It was sooooo insanely good, the cake is so light and fluffy and the frosting is so addicting I was basically eating it straight out of the mixing bowl with a spoon. I brought it to work and it got rave reviews from my coworkers. Will definitely make again! One of the best things I’ve ever made with dead bananas.

Christina's Substack

Banana Cake with Salted Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting

This cake is a 10/10 and would be perfect for Easter brunch (or any important event coming up). It’s easy to make since there’s no layering involved. You just need a 9×13 pan and a mixer…

Listen now

5 months ago · 1357 likes · 10 comments · Christina Rossetti

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to turn 31!!!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden: This book is everywhere and for good reason. It is so NUTS. This is a divorce memoir written by a woman whose husband of 20 years left her out of nowhere at the beginning of the pandemic. This is a horror story!!! About a woman passing off her financial life to a man entirely, and what happens when that man decides he doesn’t want to be with her anymore. This is so conflicting because Belle Burden is extremely privileged and has an amount of family money that is unfathomable to most people. There are moments of grotesque wealth described in this. So she is fine, and was never really at risk of not being fine. But still, you can’t help but sympathize with her on an emotional level, because the things this man did to her are so insane. They had a prenup that he used basically to punish her in their divorce negotiations. His behavior as described by her is truly psychotic. This is really well written and extremely compelling. I listened to the audiobook which she reads herself, and I thought she was a fine narrator.

Articles

• I Found It: The Best Free Restaurant Bread in America: If Caity Weaver writes it I will read it! I laughed so hard reading this extremely long article about her quest to find the best free restaurant bread. She talks to a guy who wrote a whole book about the history of bread who is so hilarious, absolutely unable to understand what she is trying to do and also appalled that she is even using the words “best bread” and “Olive Garden” in the same sentence. She emails celebrities to ask them what they think the best bread is (JLo was too busy filming a movie to answer, said her publicist). She visits several restaurants and describes the bread in excruciating detail, and also adds comment about the soda policy for good measure. God this made me LAUGH.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Shrinking (AppleTV): This show is so, so good. The third season just ended and I loved it. This is about a group of coworkers who all work at the same therapy practice and their extended group of family and friends. The central story is about Jimmy (Jason Segel) struggling to deal with the death of his wife and raise his teenage daughter, but there’s also a lot more going on. Harrison Ford plays the boss, Paul, who is dealing with a Parkinson’s diagnosis, and Jessica Williams (who is genuinely the high point of everything she is in) also works at the practice and was Jimmy’s wife’s best friend. I love all of these characters so much, I’m so invested in them. This show makes me laugh and cry, usually in the same episode, and is just so heartfelt and lovely. This does everything for me that I thought Ted Lasso failed to do (I do not love that show like the rest of you, sorry). It was originally only supposed to be three seasons but they’ve renewed it for a fourth, which makes me a little nervous, but I will definitely watch.

• Euphoria (HBO): I don’t really know what’s going on here but I will be watching, I guess. This show is back four (4) years after season 2 ended and it feels like an entirely different show. It has abandoned so much of what it was in season one, it’s basically unrecognizable at this point. I did not think the first episode was particularly good (WAY too long) and I don’t really have hopes that it will get better. I don’t think Sam Levinson should be writing shows on his own, I don’t think he knows what to do with any of the women here, and it all just feels a bit cursed to me. Because it’s been so long since the last season, so many of these people have gone on to become bona fide movie stars in the time since. To see Zendaya and Jacob Elordi and Sydney Sweeney back here feel like such a career regression for each of them. I would not say that if I thought the season would be good, I do not think television is inherently less prestige than movies, but I don’t think it will be! One of the most glaring things that stood out to me in the first episode was the lack of a soundtrack from Labrinth. The music he created for this show gave it such a unique and specific sound that, to me, feels inseparable from the show itself. We’ve lost that, we’ve lost the glitter on everyone’s faces, and we’ve lost half of the characters. Why are we doing this?? I don’t know, but for some reason I do feel compelled to see it through. I will report back in 8 weeks.

• The Pitt (HBO): There’s so much tv on right now!! This, at least, has just ended season 2. I was obsessed with this show in season one and was very excited for it to return. While I still liked it, I had a harder time watching it this season. Season one centered around a huge trauma, and this season seemed to be more about everyone slowly losing it at a series of smaller crises over the entire day. This is very much how I feel about my own job— sometimes the things that push me over the edge are the small ones that just finally pile up a little too high. The show about a bunch of emotionally unstable people working in an under resourced environment trying to solve unsolvable problems hit a little close to home, I gotta say. I don’t love some of the choices they are making with the side characters here (I think writing off Dr. Mohan SUCKS), and while I love the ensemble aspect of the show it almost makes it hard to give anyone enough space for their own story when you’re trying to fit so many in. To be clear, I still think this is a really good show. I watched it every week as soon as it came out. I am just not quite as obsessed as I was last time around. I am excited that it’s coming back for season three, and I love that they make this on a regular schedule. See you all back here in January!! I’m going to go back to watching ER now.

Movies

Last week I wrote about You, Me, and Tuscany, and that movie really made me think a lot about My Big Fat Greek Wedding (HBO), so I had to watch it. I hadn’t seen this movie in years. I am not joking when I say I think this is a perfect movie. There is literally nothing wrong with this. I love the central love story, and I love that the conflict in the movie comes from outside sources and not within their relationship. I am obsessed with all of the family members here. They are so FUNNY. I love her Aunt being genuinely unable to comprehend the fact that Ian doesn’t eat meat, and her dad putting windex on everything. His speech at the wedding made me cry. This is just so, so good. A perfect film.

Then I watched the sequel, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 (Netflix), which is decidedly not a perfect film. In this one Toula and Ian have a teenage daughter, and there is drama in the family when her parents realize that a paperwork mishap means they were never legally married. There are still some really funny moments here (like the women pulling each others necks every time they pose for photos), and it’s fun to see everyone again, but this is just not as good. I suppose this is to be expected of a legacy sequel, but I always have hope because sometimes they are actually good (this is me once again yelling about how good the fourth Bridget Jones movie is). They made a third one a couple years ago that I have never watched because it got truly terrible reviews and I am scared!! But I might have to do it for the closure here. I just love them.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Spicewalla Cardamom Sugar: I bought this at a King Arthur store (incredible place where I could easily spend $1000) and now I put it on so many baked goods. Banana bread, scones, sugar cookies, so many things. I’ve also added it to tea or on top of a piece of buttered toast. It’s so good. They also have a lavender lemon one and and cranberry orange one that I want to try.

One Last Thing…

I love this. She doesn’t miss!!

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That’s it for me! Everyone say Happy Birthday Scott Gilbert!!! I’m in a wedding next weekend so I’ll see you all back here in two weeks.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Little One by Olivia Muenter: I liked this a lot! It’s about a woman who grew up in a cult, and as an adult she gets an email from a reporter who is writing a story about it that forces her to confront her past for the first time. It’s told in two timelines, so it flashes back and forth from the present to her childhood. This is really well paced and I read it so fast because I was so eager to find out what was going to happen. I was mad I picked this up at a time I couldn’t just read it straight through. Olivia is the co-host of a podcast I loved called Bad on Paper, so it’s really fun to hear her talk about working on a book for months/years and then finally read it. But even if you have no idea who she is, this is good. If you’re into cult stories I definitely recommend. I also liked her first book, Such a Bad Influence, about a child influencer who goes missing.

• The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce: God this book was GOOD. I read and loved You, With a View a couple years ago and loved it so much I immediately bought this book, too. Then it sat on my shelf for over a year because who knows why?? I picked it up last week and read it in one sitting and loved it. This about about Georgia, Eli, and Adam. The three of them have been best friends in high school, and then Eli and Georgia fell in love and started dating in college. They broke up, and five years later Adam is getting married and Eli and Georgia are determined to keep their friend group together. This is reminiscent of Happy Place but honestly, I kind of liked it more? (I feel stressed just saying that but I think it’s true okay). It is the perfect amount of angsty and yearning and conflict, and I loved Eli and Georgia together from the beginning. I need her to write more, I will read whatever she writes next.

Articles

• The Unwritten Rules of Celebrity Podcasts: Loved this article about how podcasts are replacing some of the more traditional stops on a press tour, particularly written profiles done by actual journalists. I just had this conversation with some friends at work a few weeks ago, about how the boon in celebrities and influencers hosting podcasts has lead to a lot less opportunities for actual interviews done by actual journalists. I think this sucks! I love a celebrity profile and there are several that stick out in my mind as iconic pieces of pop culture history (don’t even get me started on the 2011 Chris Evans GQ profile okay this is so serious to me). It makes me sad to thing about this medium going away. I also think so many influencers and celebrity hosts are bad interviewers. Alex Cooper, for example, cannot ask a decent follow up question to save her LIFE and I find it infuriating to sit through. I want someone to ask real questions, not make a celebrity play a dumb game in the hopes of going viral for something stupid! Keep Taffy Brodesser-Akner and E. Alex Jung employed please!

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Paradise (Hulu): I waited for all of season 2 to be out so I could binge it, and I did that last week. This show is very, very good. I can’t really talk about the plot without spoiling a bunch of stuff, but it’s a political post-apocalyptic thriller made by the same guy who made This Is Us, so it has an under-current of emotional depth that I find shows about this kind of topic often lack. Sterling K Brown plays a secret service agent and he’s very good, and season 2 brought in a lot of new characters that I really liked. This is just compulsively watchable and perfectly paced. It’s already in production for a third (and I think final) season, and its definitely worth watching if you haven’t. I’m so curious to see how it all ends.

• Taskmaster (Youtube): The new season of this started this week!! I love this stupid show so much. It makes me LAUGH. This is a UK game show, each season features 5 new comedians who compete all season to complete absurd tasks for points. They do the dumbest stuff on this show, and it genuinely makes me cry laughing. This is a perfect thing to watch when you are sick, or sad, or want to watch something that it would literally be impossible to be triggered by in any way. The season that just started is season 21, which means there are so, so many episodes of this. Just pick a season and start! You don’t have to go in order. Every episode of this show is on their Youtube channel in the US for free.

Movies

• You, Me, and Tuscany (theaters): I am a simple girl. If you put a rom com in the theater I am gonna be there, okay. This one stars Halle Bailey as Anna, who meets a random Italian man at a bar and then decides to go stay at his Tuscan villa without his permission. She meets his family, who through an absurd comedy of errors comes to believe she is engaged to him, and then she meets his HOT brother Michael (Rege-Jean Page making his return to romance post Bridgerton!!!). You’ll never guess what happens!! This is like While You Were Sleeping meets My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and it was so much better than I expected it to be. The plot is absurd and there are a lot of things that don’t make sense if you think about it too hard, but that is really not the point. Brain off, lean in, have fun!! I laughed a lot! The ensemble cast is arguably more compelling than Halle and Rege-Jean, who, while very hot, don’t necessarily have strong chemistry together. This felt reminiscent of early 2000s rom-coms without the misogyny, the scenery and the food are beautiful, a perfect three star film.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

The Sephora sale is here! Open now if you’re Rouge, and on the 14th for everyone else. I had been holding out for this and at this point am out of most of the products I use regularly, so I mostly replaced all of that. But also threw in a couple fun things because I can’t help myself. Here’s what I got:

• Makeup by Mario Skin Enhancer: I have written about this many times now, but it’s my favorite makeup product and I use it every single time I put makeup on.

• Nars Concealer: this is the best spot concealer I’ve ever tried and I have done two rounds of Accutane so you should trust me on that.

• Benefit Brow Pencil: this is my go to eye brow pencil and I buy two every sale.

• Dae Styling Cream: this is what I use anytime I slick back my hair and I’m out of it! It smells soooo good.

• Cyklar In Shower Body Oil Balm: a recent discovery and my current favorite lazy lotion alternative. You put this on straight out of the show when your body is still wet and it leaves your skin so hydrated. I was using the santal scent and just ran out, buying the vanilla one this time.

• K18 Dry Shampoo: I have seen so many TikToks of this fixing people’s greasy hair in under a minute and I got got, ok sorry!! I’m very intrigued to try this and will report back.

• Sephora Favorites: Body Care: I love buying these kits to get travel sizes of products I love, and to try new things without committing to a full size. This one has a lot of my favorite body care products— I have used and love the Hanni Water Balm, the Necessaire and the Cyklar body washes, the Josie Maran body butter, and the L’Occitane shower oil.

• Sephora Favorites- Korean skin care: I have tried fewer of these products but I really like the Biodance mask, the Laneige milky toner, and the Glow Recipe toner.

One Last Thing…

After watching the Netflix documentary about America’s Next Top Model and finding it quite surface level, I listened to this podcast: Curse Of: ANTM. This digs so much deeper than the show and there is a lot of stuff in here that I hadn’t heard about before. Definitely worth listening if you liked the documentary. Full list of podcasts I recommend here.

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to read Yesteryear!!!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Best Offer Wins by Marisa Kashino: I read this thriller in one sitting last Saturday. It’s very good! I had seen it everywhere and it took forever to get it from the library. It’s about a woman who has spent over a year trying to buy a house and how the process has slowly driven her insane. When she learns about a house, her dream house, that’s about to come on the market she goes to really extreme lengths to make sure she gets it. We are in her head the whole time and she is so unhinged. The plot is very different but this kind of reminded me of Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, and how the main character is making increasingly terrible choices and you’re just reading her crazy justifications and thought processes. She is truly unwell and says and does so many offensive things throughout this, it’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. This book takes place in the DC area so it was fun to read about neighborhoods and restaurants that I know. And its under 300 pages, so super quick to get through. This is compulsively readable and really well paced, and it’s stressful but not scary. I recommend!

• You Between the Lines by Katie Naymon: This romance novel is soooo good, I loved it. This is about high school rivals who end up at the same MFA program. This is enemies to lovers done very well— it makes sense why they don’t really like each other but it’s also not hard to understand how they get over that. This, to me, felt like if someone took the scene in 10 Things I Hate About You where Julia Stiles reads her poem about Heath Ledger in front of the whole class and turned it into a whole book. There’s good tension and yearning and it’s just really good. This author’s next book is a New Years Eve novel coming out this December and I will definitely read it!

Articles

• Could the Girls of Camp Mystic Have Been Saved?: This was infuriating to read. It is about the camp in Texas where 27 girls died in a flash flood last summer, and how the camp is planning to reopen this summer. There are a lot of details in here that are so horrific and evidence of blatant negligence on the part of the people who own and run the camp. The fact that they are just opening again feels insane to me. This gets at a really interesting dynamic, where all the people who survived and whose children survived are talking a lot about God’s Divine Intervention or whatever, and the parents of the kids who died are left to wonder what that implies about what happened to their kid. I cannot imagine living through this, and I cannot imagine being a person in charge and showing such little contrition.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Love Story: JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette (Hulu): Wanted to circle back now that the whole season is out. I really liked this show, but I thought the first half was much stronger than the second. I think Sarah Pidgeon is so, so good in this. Emmy incoming!!! I thought Paul Anthony Kelly was really good in the first half, but I didn’t quite think he carried his weight in the darker, heavier episodes towards the end. He really did look so much like JFK Jr. though. I loved the clothes and the music in this so much, and I definitely think it’s worth watching even if the last episode is tough to sit through. I’m very curious to see if they keep this going as an anthology series, and if they do, who they will do next.

• Jury Duty Presents: Company Retreat (Prime Video): I really did not think they could pull this off again but I think they did. This made me LAUGH. The premise this season is that Anthony thinks he has been hired as a temp to be an assistant at a small, family owned hot sauce company’s annual retreat. What he doesn’t know is that it’s all fake and everyone else there is an actor. They put him in the most absurd scenarios and it is just very, very funny. I love the last episode where they finally tell him whats going on and then you get to see the behind the scenes of how they pulled it off. I’m not sure I liked this as much as the first season, but I’m sure a big part of that was just the novelty of the structure of the show (plus James Marsden was there). This is still absolutely worth watching and I hope they keep it going in new iterations for several more seasons.

Movies

• The Drama (theaters): I was excited to see this and really felt like I needed to go as soon as possible because I was very afraid of spoilers. Everyone is talking about the twist in this film as if it’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened in a movie. Now having seen it I kind of agree. I just think it’s impossible to guess where this is going because the answer is truly insane. This stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson (both very good in this) as a couple on the brink of getting married. They are at dinner with friends when the conversation turns to everyone revealing the worst thing they’ve ever done, and her answer is so unbelievable it sends everyone spiraling. This is stressful! It is the type of cringe that makes you laugh because it’s so uncomfortable. I expect the discourse about this film to be insufferable, but also I genuinely don’t know what to say about it. I think I liked it? But it is also just so unsettling. See it? I think?

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Madewell dress: I do not have as much success at Madewell these days as I used to, but I really like this dress. It’s very flattering and I think I’ll be able to dress it up or down depending how I style it. I expect to wear it a lot this summer. It’s on sale!

One Last Thing…

I am loving the new Robyn album. I should not have to be at work I should be outside listening to Robyn!!! Nothing will ever live up to Body Talk, one of THE definitive pop albums of all time, but this is really good. I like it more than her last one! My favorites right now are Really Real and Dopamine.

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to binge season 2 of Paradise and hopefully continue the reading streak I’ve been on. I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• The Quiet Damage: QAnon and the Destruction of the American Family by Jesselyn Cook: I listened to this audiobook over the past week or so and my god is this BLEAK. This tells the story of people who became QAnon believers, and how it affected their lives and their families. It follows five different families and is extremely well researched and well written. This manages to be extremely empathetic to everyone involved without ever excusing actually harmful behaviors or beliefs. It is SAD, so, so sad, but it also manages to sometimes still be hopeful. It is infuriating to hear stories of how vulnerable people get sucked into this cult and then burn nearly every bridge in their lives. It’s terrifying to think about how many people this happens to and how easy it is for people to get stuck in it. I will be thinking about this book for a really long time.

• The Blonde Identity by Ally Carter: I needed something light as a palate cleanser so I read this spy romance novel and had a great time. I read and loved Ally Carter’s Christmas novel in December, and then I realized she also wrote the Gallagher Girls series that had every middle school girl, myself included, in a chokehold in 2006. This is her first adult novel, about a girl who wakes up in Paris with no memory of who she is or how she got there. This has spies and assassins and an amnesia plot and romance. It has EVERYTHING. A super quick read that did not do anything too surprising but kept me entertained. There is a sequel that I will definitely read! But I think her Christmas novel is better, I hope she writes more of those.

Articles

• Both Sides of a First Date: I used to love reading Date Lab, the Washington Post column where they set people up on blind dates (RIP), so I was very excited to see The Cut basically doing the same premise. These are so fun to read!!

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives (Hulu): I am ready to talk about the Taylor Frankie Paul of it all. I have been watching all of this play out like a car wreck I can’t look away from, but I wanted to watch the new season of the Mormon wives show before I said anything. Before I get to Taylor I just have to say: watching this show feels like watching a horror film. This is a visceral depiction of what it is like to be a woman in a high control patriarchal religion. The women are all the breadwinners in their families and the men are furious about it. Layla and Miranda were both moms of multiple children and divorced by age 25. Jessi shows up every season with a completely new face and a husband who cannot speak to her with anything other than blatant distain and vitriol, but he also refuses to leave her because he likes the lifestyle that being married to her affords him (he does not work. A few days ago they finally filed for divorce). Mikayla is coming to terms with the fact that she never really processed the sexual abuse she experienced as a child and now doesn’t want to touch her husband, who was 21 when she was 16 and pregnant with their first kid (he also does not work). Jen Affleck wants to be famous so bad, but she is married to Zac, who doesn’t want her to take all of the opportunities she is being offered because she needs to be a mom, god forbid anyone expect him to be the primary parent (he dropped out of med school and, you guessed it, does not work). They have a conversation in the 7th episode of this season where Zac is saying it feels impossible for them to both chase careers while they have young kids, and one of them will have to make sacrifices. It is clearly the first time in his entire life that he has thought about this (he’s 28 with three kids), and you can literally see his brain struggling to comprehend that that one who has to sacrifice their career might be him. The only marriage here that doesn’t seem to completely suck is Whitney and Conner, as he fully and supportively leans into being the main caretaker in their family while she is on Dancing With the Stars and Broadway without making her feel guilty about it. The men in this show simply cannot fathom how they have ended up here, married to women who are more successful than they are, because they have spent their entire lives being told by The Church that they will be the most important and the most valuable person in their family. Now they are being asked to do what they see as a woman’s work— to care for the children, to cook, to clean— while their wives become stars and make more money than they will ever be able to access on their own. This is debasing to them because they see this work as inferior, because they see women as inferior. I am not joking when I say this is the worst possible life I could imagine for myself, to be legally and spiritually bound to a man who does not take me or my career seriously at the most basic level.

  And then you have Taylor, who ABC hung their hopes of saving the failing Bachelor franchise on, and then they swiftly canceled her already filmed season when a video from an argument she had with her on again off again partner, Dakota, was made public three days before it was set to start airing. To be clear, ABC did not learn anything new when this video leaked. The incident is from 2023 and literally in the pilot of season one of the Mormon wives show. There was a whole court case, she has a felony conviction. Their problem is not that Taylor got arrested for domestic violence, because if it was she never would have been given the job in the first place. Their problem is that people are really upset about that right now, right when the show was about to air, and now their long term reputation is at stake. And that means their money is at stake. The choice to pull the season is not a moral one but a financial one. Our society loves to preach morality, but we are more beholden to capitalism than we are any kind of moral code. The Bachelor franchise has cast people with criminal records, has cast people who’ve posted explicitly racist things online for seasons where the lead was a person of color, and has endured more than one sexual assault scandal. None of this made any difference to them, because it did not affect their bottom line. Everyone is so quick to point fingers at Taylor, who anyone with eyes and a brain can see is trapped in an increasingly hostile abusive relationship with her child’s father. But what about all the people who looked at her and thought, “this will make great TV”? I am not saying her behavior is good. It certainly is not. But that was true before she was ever on TV at all, and I just have to wonder how this would have played out if anyone had tried to help her instead of trying to profit off of her. Committing an act of violence has rarely been disqualifying from public life for men. Brad Pitt beat his wife up on a plane in front of his kids and then won an Oscar. NFL athletes are more likely to commit acts of domestic violence than the general population and rarely ever face serious consequences for it. But when a woman is the one being violent? Well that, of course, is where we draw the line.

  I am not innocent here. I watch the show. There is something so intriguing about people living their messy lives on camera. The problem is that messy people make mistakes, sometimes really bad ones, and then we all get on our high horses and crucify them in the public square. Who or what is this helping? The reality is that Taylor has never claimed to be perfect, or even good. None of these women have. So I’m not really sure why anyone expected that from them in the first place. And let’s be honest. If they were, would you have watched?

Movies

• Project Hail Mary (theaters): I have been so excited about this movie and it did not disappoint. I read this book several years ago and liked it so much more than I expected to like a book about space. I was quite skeptical about how they could possibly make a good adaptation of this huge, expansive novel where one of the two main characters does not speak a human language. Thank god, they nailed it. Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, who wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how or why he got there. Ryan Gosling is simply a movie star. He carries this movie almost entirely by himself, a very heavy lift, and he does it really well. He is funny and charismatic and HOT, but also really good in the heavier emotional moments. This is visually amazing, it just looks so incredible. There’s no green screens in this movie! You can tell. The score is very effective in the story’s biggest moments, I was on the edge of my seat even knowing how it would end, and I laughed a lot more than I remember laughing at the book. This is a hopecore movie in a way that is not too saccharine to swallow. I cried! Go watch it on a big screen, if you can. I loved it.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Prequel skincare: I am once again talking about Prequel!! This has quickly become my favorite skincare brand. I normally like to try new products and swap things out but I have only used the pre-gleanse oil and the gleanser to remove my makeup and wash my face in months. I also love the Half & Half milky toner, and the Solar Shade SPF and the hypochlorus acid spray.

One Last Thing…

I made this German Chocolate Cake for my friend’s bridal shower last weekend and it was so good.

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That’s it for me! If you read this whole thing I am impressed. I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid: I have had this on my shelf for years and I finally picked it up because I went to California for a bachelorette trip and we went to Indian Wells for tennis! Felt like the right time to finally read this. Carrie Soto is a retired tennis star who decides to come back for one more season to defend her record of winning the most Grand Slams. I really liked this! I do not really care about tennis but this had me locked in immediately. She is so good at writing these sweeping emotional stories and building tension— I could not wait to find out what was going to happen. Like all of her books, this is begging for a screen adaptation. I don’t know why I never get that excited for a new TJR book, but when I do finally pick them up I always like them. WHERE is the Evelyn Hugo movie???

Articles

• Everything I Saw and Overheard at the ‘Human’ Oscars: I love a behind the scenes dispatch like this. I was generally pleased with how the ceremony went this year! It is so much more interesting to watch when a variety of movies wins awards, vs last year when I had to sit through FOUR Sean Baker speeches. My biggest complaint was Sean Penn winning and not even caring to show up, he is very good in the movie but he sucks in real life and I would have preferred anyone else to win that. Also I am just scared that Timmy’s career is going to go on an Amy Adams trajectory now!!! One Battle After Another remains my favorite movie of the season, Sinners a VERY close second.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Neighbors (HBO Max): I watch every episode of this show in awe. It is so hilarious and absurd and insane. This is a documentary series, and each episode features two different sets of neighbors who are having some kind of conflict. I‘m talking arguments over whether a beach is private property or not or where property lines are. Fights about gates! Fences! Walls! And also, I’m not kidding, one guy who decided to start a farm (?) in the front yard (??) of his home in a suburban neighborhood (???). Some of the most interesting people I’ve ever seen are featured in this. This show makes me feel like the most normal person alive. This is hilarious and baffling and genuinely just amazing to watch. It just got renewed for season 2, thank god. I’m obsessed.

Movies

I was still so behind but last weekend I locked in and watched the four Best Picture nominees I hadn’t seen before the ceremony on Sunday! A mixed bag but I’m glad I finished them all.

• Frankenstein (Netflix): I never watched this because I didn’t think I would like it, and what do you know, I was right. This is not for me! It is WAY too long, almost three hours, I could not believe how long this was. It is visually gorgeous and I do think the acting is really good, but I just was not invested in the story and I struggled to finish this.

• Train Dreams (Netflix): This is beautiful but it is also boring. It’s about a logger in early 20th century America who experiences a tragedy, and then it just follows him throughout his life. The cinematography in this movie is so stunning, just beautiful to look at. A really beautiful performance from Joel Edgerton here, too. But I found the plot pretty slow and kind of wanted more. But, this is under two hours, so it didn’t feel like a chore. Good but not a must see, for me.

• The Secret Agent (Hulu): Once again this movie is TOO LONG. I really struggled through the first TWO HOURS and then there was still 45 minutes left!!! This is about a researcher in 1970s Brazil who is at odds with the military dictatorship of the time, and he returns to his small hometown looking for respite. This is also a visually stunning movie, so bright and colorful. My only context for this time in Brazil’s history is last year’s Best Picture nominee, I’m Still Here, so I basically know nothing. There is a lot to like about this— Wagner Moura is SO good and so are all of the side characters, performances from real people who have never acted before! It made the whole thing feel so real and lived in. This is very vibrant and colorful and I think really captured the city and the culture well. I just kind of struggled to pay attention if I’m honest. A three hour movie in a foreign language is perhaps too much for my rotted brain to take in if the plot is not moving quickly. The last 45 minutes are really captivating and finally had me hooked, once I pieced together what was going on and the story finally peaked. I am glad I watched this and I am glad it got nominated! Just the type of thing you need to be in the right headspace for, and probably not for everyone.

• Sentimental Value (rented): I saved this one for last because I thought I would love it and I did. This is about two sisters (Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) and their estranged father (Stellan Skarsgard), a filmmaker, who comes back into their lives and offers the oldest sister a role in his new movie. She turns him town, and he casts an American actress (Elle Fanning) instead. This movie is so good. This is written and directly by Joachim Trier, who also made The Worst Person in the World, a movie I LOVED a couple years ago. It is just so lovely and everyone in it is SO good. I really love Renate Reinsve and I was so impressed by Elle Fanning. A lot of this movie takes place in their old family home, the coolest looking house. It’s very emotional and sad and just lovely. One of my favorites of the season! Loved. It’s coming to Hulu next week, highly recommend.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• hair jewelry: last summer I rotted my brain watching Love Island and then bought hair jewelry, obviously. I have pulled this out for birthday parties and bachelorette parties and weddings and it is fun!!!

One Last Thing…

I am really liking the new Harry Styles album (everyone please hold your shock, tysm). It is pretty different from his previous solo albums (I still think his second album is the best) but I think it’s very fun and will be great summer listening. My favorites are American Girls and Pop. I also watched the Netflix special and it’s fun to see all these songs live for the first time. Sorry but I love him!!!

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That’s it for me! This week I am going to see Project Hail Mary and watch every Ryan Gosling interview I can find!!! I hope you all have a good week.

TTYL,

Emily

Things I Read

Books

If you’re looking for a book to read, try this list of contemporary romance recs, this list of other fiction recs, or this list of non-fiction recs. I also track everything I read on Goodreads.

• Four Weekends and a Funeral by Ellie Palmer: I mostly liked this! It’s about a girl named Allison, who goes to her ex-boyfriend’s funeral and learns he never told his family he dumped her. She decides not to tell them either, and then finds herself committed to helping clear out her ex’s apartment, along with his best friend, Adam. You’ll never guess what happens!! There is a lot in here about Allison finding out she was a BRCA 1 carrier and getting a preventative double mastectomy, so that might not be for everyone. I liked what it added to the story and I really liked the romance between the two of them, but the book is only Allison’s POV and I got a little annoyed at her constantly misreading every situation. If miscommunication bothers you a lot this is maybe not for you. But for the most part I thought this was good.

Articles

• The Trial of Gisèle Pelicot’s Rapists United France and Fractured Her Family: I think Rachel Aviv is the best long form journalist working right now, so if she writes it I am reading it. She writes about really complicated situations and people with such care and depth (I think about this all the time). This is the most comprehensive thing I’ve read about this story and it is just harrowing. This article about Gisele Pelicot is about the case and the trial, yes, but it is mostly about the rift that this caused within this family, between Gisele and her children. Extremely well written, fascinating read.

Things I Watched

TV

If you’re looking for a show to watch, try this list.

• Survivor (CBS/Paramount+): Season 50 started this week! It’s the first season with returning players in so long, and it was the most invested I’ve been in a premiere episode in a long time. This is what I want Survivor to be. I’m already invested in everyone and can’t wait to see what happens. I don’t know if she can but I want Cirie to win soooooooo bad. I love her!! This is probably not a good season to start with if you’ve never watched this show, but as I do twice a year here, I must say again that you should be watching Survivor. Pick an old season to binge and just start. It’s FUN.

• The Traitors (Peacock): I thought this season was very good. For the past few seasons I have thought it kind of fizzled out halfway through, and I wasn’t very invested in the winners. This time I was really invested the whole time and I’m happy about who won. Lots of sore losers this time but they all played bad games so it’s their own fault!! I still think the mechanics of this game make no sense, and I think a lot of the people who play it are very bad at it, but this is just so entertaining. Alan Cumming is doing performance ART on this show, Emmy win deserved! I would watch 17 seasons of this.

Movies

• Four Weddings and a Funeral (Tubi/MGM+): The book doesn’t really have anything in common with this movie besides the title, but it made me think about this so obviously I had to watch. Hugh Grant looks SO GOOD in this movie, oh my god. This is not my favorite of his, but it is the reason we have Notting Hill (both written by Richard Curtis), so I cannot complain on principle. I need someone, preferably Jonathan Bailey, to pull a Hugh Grant and make a bunch of rom coms. He made 8 rom coms in 12 years!!! No one is doing it like this anymore!! Pls I am begging.

Things I Bought

You can read about my full skincare routine and favorite products here. If you need a sunscreen recommendation, try this list.

• Abercrombie sweatpants: I bought these on a whim and now I love them. They are so soft and have held up really well despite me wearing them basically every night and weekend for months now. I’m buying another pair.

One Last Thing…

I am optimistic about this but also scared!!! I love Dolly Alderton and trust her a lot but this is so important and very easy to get wrong. But it looks good, I think? The vibe feels right, at least. I’ve seen some people saying they think this is unnecessary and I couldn’t disagree more, I would watch a new version of Pride and Prejudice every year until I die and never be bored sorry!!

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That’s it for me! I am travelling next week so I will see you all back here in two weeks.

TTYL,

Emily