Consumption Diaries No. 21: July

this series can now legally drink

Update: No one has revoked my Canva privileges yet but they need to

Happy August! July was a quiet month for me, which I always appreciate in the middle of summer when it’s miserably hot. DC broke several heat records this month, the worst being four consecutive days of highs over 100°, not even accounting for the humidity driving the heat index up.

The highlight of my July was spending a week with my family at my parents’ (shared) house in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, which is on the barrier island side of a small town south of Ocean Isle Beach and Holden Beach (the latter is where we vacationed each summer growing up). It’s so far south it’s very nearly South Carolina, and the beach actually faces south rather than east as you’d expect.

Now that I live further north, when I tell people I’m from North Carolina they often tell me they went to the Outer Banks on family vacations. The Outer Banks are great (though not a simple ferry ride away from Chapel Hill as the Netflix show OBX purports), but essentially the entire NC coastline is beach, and if you haven’t experienced the ones south of the Outer Banks, you’re missing out. They tend to have more of a small-town vibe, and even though NC beaches are all public — and free, looking at you, New Jersey — and they can get crowded too, the lack of busyness keeps them feeling secluded and peaceful. They’ve taken a lot of care to protect the dunes and wildlife (birds and baby turtles!) as well.

Regardless, I am biased, but the beaches of NC are some of the best on the East Coast. Even if there were several shark sightings in Brunswick County and my mom scared me enough that I didn’t last more than 10 minutes in the water at a time — probably not helped by the Shark Week content we had on constantly in the background and the showing of insane shark movie “Under Paris” we put on one night.

If any of my fellow East Coasters find themselves in the area, might I recommend:

Of course, a bookstore. I visited Pelican Bookstore, a small shop in the middle of a strip mall that has a decent selection of both new and used books, and they’ll pay you for your used books too. I picked up Margo’s Got Money Problems by Rufi Thorpe, which I briefly review below, and my partner bought a nonfiction book that I can’t remember the title of because my eyes glazed over.

For food, you can’t go wrong with driving down to Calabash (the southernmost town in the state) and eating at any of the restaurants there, according to my parents, but we also went to Ocean Isle Fish Company in Ocean Isle Beach on the rainiest day. We were still able to sit outside at their tiki bar overlooking the marshy intracoastal waterways, and I ordered the poke bowl (very fresh tuna and mercifully not loaded down with toppings) and a frozen bushwhacker (one thing about me is that I’m gonna get the tropical drink). My mom orders the tuna tacos there, and the bite she shared with me was indeed delicious. But we mostly cook at home during our beach trips, so we stopped by Island Seafood Company (which my vegetarian sister cannot enter because the smell is so overwhelming, as a disclaimer). They also have excellent key lime pie. We’ve taken to assigning dinner nights when we’re all together at the beach, so for our night, my partner and I made an extremely rich cacio e pepe–inspired macaroni and cheese from this mac & cheese cookbook.

Other random recommendations: The beach is such a good place to see birds! We are lucky in that Sunset Beach borders the Bird Island Reserve, a bird sanctuary, but even still, lots of fun birds for me to log in the Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab app. I’m aware that there are plenty of bird apps, but I like this one. I know absolutely nothing about birdwatching other than I turned 30 and decided I liked birds now, but documenting them in the app and reading facts about them kind of feels like the dad version of Pokémon Go. Bird girl summer!

Okay that’s it, I’m sorry I am moonlighting as a bad travel blogger when you’re here for books! I’m a yapper, I’m an oversharer, I’m just a girl. What can you do?

What I read

Books

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston — The plot was extremely predictable, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in a book like this. The main character, secretly a ghostwriter for a very famous romance author, returns home upon her father’s death, where her new hottie editor shows up on the doorstep of her family’s funeral home — but he’s a ghost! So unfortunate! Obviously, they must find a way to be together. I liked that the premise of this was different than your typical romance, though.

Private Rites by Julia Armfield — If you’ve been here for a bit, you know I’m always screaming about Armfield’s debut novel, Our Wives Under the Sea. I’ll say right off the bat that I did not like Private Rites as much as Our Wives, but the longer I’ve sat with it the more I appreciate it. I won’t give you the plot because it is quite plotless. I thought the inside flap blurb told me more about what was going on than the writing itself, so it seems better to go in with no expectations. I grew a bit frustrated waiting for something to happen as I got closer and closer to the end, but I see Armfield’s intent behind the mystery.

And to entice you a little since that surely didn’t sell it, if you love literary fiction about complicated families, give this one a go. It explores sisterhood and grief by exposing the worst bits of both individuality and collective humanity — and was really interesting to read after Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors, a very different novel but about similar things, just without a dystopian element. Like Blue Sisters, I think your reading experience might vary depending on whether or not you have sisters and also your birth order amongst them. I kind of love that, though. The writing is beautiful and clearly the star here, which is what I expected. Armfield may be uninterested in details, but she has such skill for observing humanity exactly as it is.

Every Summer After by Carley Fortune — I don’t say this as a knock against YA as a genre, but this book is half YA and it’s pretending to be for grown-ups. Most grown-ups, however, don’t want to read awkward make-out scenes involving teenagers when they expect a book about those teenagers grown up. Or maybe that’s just me!¹ I’ve also realized that one of my least favorite tropes is when the second-chance romance is between two kids who never got over their childhood crushes to the point that it affects their adult relationships because no one in their lives loved them enough to tell them to unpack that in therapy. And maybe you’re saying, “but they’re soulmates!” I mean, sure. They could still be soulmates without all that. I would like to go to this lake, though. The setting was lovely.

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante — I was on vacation with my family when That List slowly rolled out. Over our morning coffee, my mother and I would pull up our respective NY Times apps and check off the books we had read from the most recently released batch, laughing about how few we had read or even heard of, wondering how anyone could ever declare a book the best of a century but having fun with it anyway because what else is there to do with something trivial we’re voluntarily participating in? By the time the list was complete, I happened to be nearing the end of the No. 1 pick, which we now know is My Brilliant Friend. My mom and I had another laugh at the coincidence and speculated on whether it was that good, and honestly, I am surprised it was named the very best book of this entire quarter of a century, but I did really enjoy it and I understand why everyone is rabid over Ferrante now. I can’t wait to read more of her work, though I’m not sure if I want to continue with the Neapolitan quartet first or explore some of her other work — Days of Abandonment, specifically.

Margo’s Got Money Troubles by Rufi Thorpe — This is a really fun summer read. I have to admit that I didn’t think this was as hilarious as most people said it would be, but maybe I’m just a hater without a sense of humor. The premise sets itself up for humor well, though — Margo, 19 going on 20, decides to keep her unexpected pregnancy just because she can and delves into the world of OnlyFans for money, with the aid of her ex-pro wrestler father. I was frustrated with Margo often, but in the way all eldest daughters are frustrated by their younger sisters because they obviously know best. And while it would have been easy for the author to get a little slut shame-y with Margo’s OnlyFans adventure, she takes sex almost entirely out of the equation, which legitimizes her efforts as real work.

Articles, essays, etc.

Kaia Gerber, celeb book club queen to the hot girls, has now launched t-shirts and various merch for her newest venture, Library Science. No one will be surprised that the items are expensive, but their price point only adds to the exclusive “not like other girls” intellectual club. I think Kaia’s ploy to capitalize on the literary it girl moment is kind of genius, actually. If real brands are getting in on it, why not a celebrity’s personal brand too?

Say what you will about social media, but I’m so glad to be living in an era where I can watch Olympic athletes laugh about their cardboard beds and unbox their swag on TikTok, or watch Suni Lee and Simone Biles tell each other which TikToks they wanted to make after winning the team gold and then scroll across said TikToks mere hours later. I really love the Olympics, and half of the fun is getting to know the athletes, however parasocial and dystopian it may be.

What I watched

Movies

MaXXXine (2024) — I love this bitch. Her movies are stupid, but I love her.

Kinds of Kindness (2024) — I really wanted to understand this movie, perhaps just to prove that I’m cooler and deeper than people saying this is the weirdest thing they’ve ever seen because they themselves are not strange and unusual (sorry). But it’s weird. The shorts format was intriguing, but it reminded me why I often struggle with short story collections. Also, I think Yorgos Lanthimos is just trying to prove to us that he’s a freak.

Under Paris (2024) — absolutely hilarious movie to watch right before The Olympics because this is about, drum roll, a mutant shark swimming her queen self into the Seine and camping out in the catacombs. The most realistic part of this is how the politicians react (which is to say, not at all), and the second-most realistic part is that humans are so stupid.

My Cousin Vinny (1992) — one of my all-time favorites. I need to watch this at least three times a year to maintain homeostasis.

Twisters (2024) — Glen Powell could tame a tornado with his charm alone. I’m very confused by him because I don’t think he’s that hot for some reason? But he is dazzling!  He makes everyone around him better and funnier and hotter. So I guess this is me admitting that fine, he’s hot, just in a way that would be so overwhelming and intimidating in real life. Also, this movie was silly and over the top and fun.

Shows

I’ve been powering through a Sex and the City rewatch, which has been really interesting in my 30s compared to the first time I watched it in my early 20s (other than the few peeks I got before my parents shooed me out of the room in the early aughts). Some of it has aged terribly, which a million think pieces can tell you, and some of it is just silly; Carrie’s lines make me cringe. One of my favorites: “After all, computers crash, people die, relationships end. The best we can do is breathe and reboot.” WHAT? But there are moments of joy and poignancy and clarity that I couldn’t appreciate when I was younger.

I also watched The King’s Affection, on the K-drama front, and even though I said I wasn’t a period piece gal, I think I have to rescind my statement! Or maybe Park Eun-bin and Rowoon are just hot in their little Joseon-era outfits.

What I bought

My oversharing knows no bounds, so shit I spent my money on in July that I would recommend: fancy Cocofloss dental floss, the store brand version of the Tower 28/Magic Molecule hypochlorous acid spray because it’s only that expensive on account of the packaging, and a new luggage set from Calpak that cost so much but I did not have a checked bag size roller bag because I’m a carryon person. Bonus: a sticker that says SUNSET BEACH but is made to look like the Waffle House sign.

And something I did not buy but am dying to talk to someone about: Lingerie brand Fleur du Mal’s “saucy Italian summer” collection. We have taken the European summer x Lisa Says Gah thing too far. And yet, I would probably buy cacio e pepe underwear if it weren’t $75. Can someone rich please buy something from this collection and report back?

Ok, that’s enough from me! Tell me: What did you read, watch, eat, and devour in July?

1. And this book was nominated for a Goodreads choice award in 2022, so I guess it really is just me.