Consumption Diaries No. 20: June

Consumption Diaries is a monthly series on what I’ve consumed and been consumed by. 

If you missed last month’s report you can find it here, and the full archive lives here.

June! I don’t have much to say about June other than it happened. You’re all feeling the same heat I am, watching the world unfurl its ugliness as I am. There are always bright spots, however silly! Espresso martinis, a book with good paper so it just feels nice in your hands, the dive bar dance floor at 2 am, the perfect lip balm (see below), the internet’s (and my) full embrace of the Sabrina-Chappell-Charli brat summer.

Also, I have a lot of new readers this time around, so hello if you’re new here! My substack about lit girls blew up in a way I did not expect and was a little embarrassed by, I must admit, but I am so appreciative of everyone who took the time to read, comment, share, or send me kind words.

In case you missed it:

I have parked my identity so solidly under the “editor” label that I cannot consider myself a writer without laughing, but everyone’s thoughtful engagement reminds me why I like this as a hobby! The internet is good sometimes!

Without further ado, this month’s consumption:

books

• The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell — I thought this book’s premise of looking at our generational proclivity to ruminate through cognitive biases was clever. This isn’t the most in-depth look at them, and I imagine people with psychology or sociology degrees might roll their eyes. But Montell’s book felt much more personal than any book purporting to be a definitive text on the subject, so I wasn’t expecting a deep dive and didn’t mind that it’s surface-level cultural critique.
  
  Montell seems to have a lot of haters on the internet, and idk, the criticisms that she is unqualified are valid, but her books are also fun and I get the sense she’s just sharing things she finds interesting. She isn’t in academia, and I would not expect her books to reflect that setting. Anyway, I’m not here to defend the author or against any valid criticisms of this book, but I hope no one is reading any one nonfiction book and declaring it the great defining text of its subject matter anyway.
  
  I personally found this interesting and a quick listen (I did the audiobook while I cleaned my apartment one afternoon), and a good refresher on cognitive biases through a current lens. If I want to read more about them from an expert, I will!

• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai — in another contrarian opinion this month, I’m flabbergasted that people found this boring. You’re all made of stronger stuff than I; I was weeping throughout this novel, which, for those unfamiliar, is about the intertwined lives of friends and family affected by the AIDS epidemic and set in Chicago. The subject matter alone is incredibly heartbreaking, but personifying one of the U.S.’s biggest health care failings through Makkai’s characters was really devastating.
  
  That being said, I can’t say it’s a new favorite book, and it felt like something was missing. The something is likely that the author is not a gay man, particularly one who lived through this. There’s always a larger conversation to be had about who gets to tell what stories, and I wouldn’t say Makkai didn’t deserve to tell this one because I don’t know her story.
  
  But like the Montell dilemma above, I think this is gap easily closed by supplementing with some closer perspectives. I asked y’all what books about the AIDS epidemic you’d recommend that are written by a member of affected communities, so I’ll share the compiled list. I can’t personally vouch for any of these since I haven’t read them myself, but thank you to everyone who gave me a suggestion!

  • To The Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Herve Guibert

  • Sketchtasy by Matilda Bernstein Sycamore

  • The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels

  • The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne

  • Christodora by Tim Murphy

  • The Beauty of Men by Andrew Holler

• Chlorine by Jade Song — Yet another popular book I’m cautiously going to say I didn’t absolutely love, though I did appreciate what it was trying to do. I’ll spare you now because I’m planning to do a longer review here soon, but what I will say is that 1. My biggest complaint was that it should have been shelved as YA and without that context, the angsty teen writing felt juvenile to me as someone who hasn’t read YA in over a decade, and 2. This book is both every former competitive swimmer’s dream and nightmare.

• Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors — I enjoyed Mellors’ debut novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, because despite my best efforts, I can’t help but love reading about rich people and their rich people problems. Blue Sisters isn’t exactly a departure from that, though the subject matter felt darker and more emotional.
  
  I might also do a full review of this if I can find the motivation, but the main topics here — sisterhood and addiction — are incredibly close to my heart. The majority of my personality is defined by my proximity to my siblings, and I love love love being a sister with sisters. I’m the eldest daughter in my family (and I don’t shut up about it either), but something I think is very cool about this book is that I imagine every reader’s perspective would be different depending on their birth order. If you’re a middle or youngest daughter and you’ve read this book, please come talk to me!
  
  Blue Sisters will be published in the U.S. in September, though if you’re impatient like me you can also order it from a U.K. bookstore and try to justify paying that pricey international shipping fee!

movies

• The Idea of You (2024) — I think Harry Styles should have stayed in the Wattpad universe for this one, but if it hadn’t been billed as such it might have been less distracting and more enjoyable.

• Hit Man (2023) — Glen Powell is so charming on screen that every time I watch him I have to decide all over again whether he’s attractive or just charismatic. I’m still not sure! I think he just benefits from the universal truth that men who go to the gym and also seem to have manners are deceptive..

• The Iron Claw (2023) — More like the iron jaw (sorry). Zac Efron figuratively acted his little face off, but I wish it had been literally so we could have seen his performance without his new plastic surgery chin :) it’s a crime against humanity, but so is the fact that this was based on a real story, so. The last 15 minutes or so were so heartbreaking and beautiful.

• Moonlight (2016) — Finally! I’d put this one off for so long because in 2016 I was not a movie person. All I knew was the Oscars drama because while I might have not cared about The Arts, I’ve always cared about people being messy. Obviously, as the rest of the world knows, I was missing out.

• But I’m a Cheerleader (1999) — My friends and I went to a showing of this toward the end of June because we’d all been dying to watch it but hadn’t found it streaming. I am so devastated that I have shared 25 years on Earth with this movie without actually seeing it. It’s not perfect, but it’s perfect. I am obsessed.

bought

In addition to ordering Blue Sisters from Waterstones, I added Private Rites by Julia Armfield to my order because everyone in my life knows I’m an Our Wives Under the Sea fanatic and I simply could not wait until Armfield’s newest book comes out in the U.S., which isn’t until December somehow. I also ordered Our Wives Under the Sea from the U.K. because the cover was so much better than the U.S.’s. I’ve started this new book and am trying to finish it quickly because I don’t want to travel with it next week. Stay tuned!

The aforementioned perfect lip balm! I have plenty of favorites (Laneige) and not-favorites I’ll use anyway (Summer Fridays) but now that I have collected all three flavors of the Ole Henriksen peptide lip treatment, I am declaring it my current best lip balm. Everyone has different preferences on consistency and stickiness in their lip balms, but this one is a Goldilocks in all categories for me. It’s become my go-to, both alone and underneath or on top of lipsticks and other lip products.

That’s it for me this month! Tell me: What did you consume this month, or what consumed you? Books, movies, shows, music, art, food, drinks, silly little lip balms, joys, sorrows, all of it! I always want to talk about it.

Have a lovely July, and don’t get heat stroke.

Before you go: Find me on Instagram, Goodreads, StoryGraph, or Letterboxd to keep up with my obsessive tracking habits in real time.