a September consumed
The Lit List No. 14
Until I can muster up the strength for a full newsletter, here’s another monthly wrap-up aka diary. It’s giving early aughts family holiday letter again, but you know what, who cares!
books
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood — my goodreads review is just “grumpy dude meets sunshine gal is not aspirational” and that’s about all I need to say on this. I didn’t hate the first book in this series, The Love Hypothesis, but the characters in the second book were annoying to me. I started reading contemporary romances in 2020 as a distraction once I felt like I had the time to read for fun (not a unique story there), but lately only Emily Henry has been able to deliver the clever, not-cloying, not-annoying rom-com plot and characters of my dreams. Maybe I just need to accept that.
Summer by Ali Smith — I’ve read Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet out of order, so while it’s my third one, Summer the last in the series. Again to quote my goodreads review:
my least fav of the quartet, mostly because I feel like covid-era narratives trying to be introspective are maybe too soon and almost always too earnest.
Sorry. But sticking with the theme of vibes posts for this quartet, it got a spot on my insta grid nonetheless, and all I can really say is that Ali Smith can write.
Angelika Frankenstein Makes Her Match by Sally Thorne — I haven’t read any Sally Thorne before, though I know The Hating Game is beloved by many. And I really hope that one was better than Angelika Frankenstein! I knew the premise — the sister of Victor Frankenstein is also his assistant in reanimation efforts, and they decide to make one of the creations a hottie husband for Angelika — was going to be ridiculous going in, and I’m aiming for a bunch of silly romances this fall, so that’s all fine if you take it at face value. But I had more problems with it than I’d anticipated and couldn’t resist writing a long-winded goodreads review. Once again, I probably just need to accept that romances just aren’t for me.
I’m a subpar meme-making gal now Middlemarch by George Eliot — I haven’t finished Middlemarch yet (I’m close!) but spent basically all of September reading it, so it deserves a mention. It’s not that I didn’t believe everyone when they said Middlemarch slapped, but I can’t believe how much I’ve loved it.
non-book reading
I’ve been behind on my substack reading this month, but some of my favs have had great ones: interruptions, Matches Struck Unexpectedly in the Dark, Book Notes, A Novel Idea, amateur bibliotherapy — I love seeing my pals’ names in my inbox!
I’m enjoying Bon Appétit’s new food diaries series The Receipt. It’s a better version of Refinery29’s Money Diaries. They’ve all been good, but the D.C. consultant one in August had all the D.C. journalists doing their best investigative work yet to speculate on who the diarist is.
watched
Business Proposal — the cheesiest ass k-drama that I very uncharacteristically flew through. I loved it! The dubbing is really bad, so just watch it with subtitles and put down your phone.
Do Revenge — I probably would have watched this eventually the way I watch any Netflix teen romantic-ish comedy-ish — bored and half-invested. But my partner, usually partial to movies featuring explosions and emotionally repressed men, suggested this one, and the movie surprised me as much as that request did. I think most of y’all have seen it already, but it’s actually pretty clever, and aesthetically, it’s unparalleled.
Look Both Ways — am I a Lili Reinhart hater? Awkward that she and Riverdale costar Camila Mendes (see above) came out with Netflix films within the same month and … one is so clearly better than the other. Look Both Ways is a story about accidental pregnancy, and in the year 2022, it does not say the word abortion once, removing choice from the equation. It’s completely unrealistic that in the movie’s two parallel realities, the options for this well-off white woman are “pregnant and must have child” and “not pregnant.”
Abbott Elementary is back! It’s an extremely mainstream opinion at this point, but this show is the best damn one on TV right now.
Mercifully after a long summer break, two Formula 1 Grands Prix graced the September calendar, and this is where I learned the plural of Grand Prix. Sounds fake!
A crossover, because the boys can read!
things I spent my money on
My partner and I went to Montreal over Labor Day weekend and decided to try out the rich people lifestyle and stay at the Four Seasons. I’m still reeling from the cost of that and crying over how much I loved their Byredo products (the name of this specific line is SO BAD why isn’t anyone telling them). I don’t have $280 to spend on the perfume, and body lotion should not cost $70, but at the Four Seasons, you can slather yourself in it all that luxury and pretend.
Once that pumpkin flavor came back to Starbucks, I could not be stopped. Though I highly, highly recommend that you get the pumpkin cream cold brew and not a PSL — the latter is, as you know, incredibly sweet and too aggressive to not even have that much caffeine. I almost exclusively do non-dairy milk in my coffee, and this is the one exception, IBS be damned.
I’m going to attempt a bunch of seasonal romances through the end of the year, staring with fall-themed ones (hence the Angelika Frankenstein above). All the ones I wanted were too popular at the library to have been able to read them this season, so I stupidly bought them — the others for October are The Kiss Curse and From Bad to Cursed. I’m not making any friends with these hate reads, but they’re fun.
etc.
I’m a terrible baker because I hate following a recipe, but these pumpkin maple muffins from Alison Roman were simple enough for even me, and because they aren’t too sweet I ate probably five in a row. My dad gave me his NYT Cooking log-in and now I can’t be stopped.
How many times is too many times to listen to Renaissance? (help)
(sorry to Jacob on this poll, five is the max)
Happy October y’all, may you never tire of pumpkin flavors, 90s Halloween movies, and this newsletter. Send me things to consume next month!