What I Loved This Week (102)

I'm all about a book that feels like a David Lynch movie, The Count of Montecristo and thrifting gods this week

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Instructions to best enjoy this note: Grab a beverage of choice, sit somewhere cozy, blanket highly suggested, and enjoy!

📚What I Read and Loved

Audition: One of my favorite books is Intimacies. Since I’ve read everything Katie Kitamura has published. Audition is her new short novel. It’s been marketed as a psychological thriller, but the reality is, it goes beyond that. She mentions in an interview that she was trying to recreate a David Lynch movie in her novel, and I think she kind of nailed it! The DL vibes are there.

Two people meet for lunch in a Manhattan restaurant. She’s an accomplished actress in rehearsals for an upcoming premiere. He’s attractive, troubling, young—young enough to be her son. Who is he to her, and who is she to him? In this compulsively readable, brilliantly constructed novel, two competing narratives unspool, rewriting our understanding of the roles we play every day – partner, parent, creator, muse – and the truths every performance masks, especially from those who think they know us most intimately.

📺 What I Watched and Loved

The Count of Montecristo (2024): My Roman Empire is the Count of Montecristo (weird, I know). I love the book and I’ve watched all the adaptations, I even went to Marseille this year just to visit the Château d'If (and let’s be real, the Calanques). I just finished Sam Claflin’s version, and I loved it so much! I can say it’s the best rendition I’ve watched yet; his acting as the Count was flawless. For a book that is that long, nuanced and where so many things happen, a mini series works leagues better than a movie. Can’t recommend it enough. (Prime Video)

The Jetty: When there’s nothing new to watch on TV, I go to my trusted Britbox streaming service, pick a British mystery, and it rarely disappoints. This 4-part series follows Det. Ember Manning as she must figure out how a fire at a vacation home is connected to a podcast journalist investigating a missing person's cold case and an illicit love triangle between a man in his 20s and two underage girls. (Britbox)

💕 Micro-Joy

I was blessed by the thrifting gods this week. I scored an espresso machine for $9, a Lily Pulitzer linen shirt, and a Dooney and Burke leather bag for pennies!

✅ To-do List

• In honor of cabin season, thrillers and mysteries set in a cabin

• 24 books to read in May, courtesy of the NYT

• Adult Hobbies Worth Trying via

  milk and cookies

• When the world feels too much, read these books via

  Life with Books

🐰 Rabbit Holes I Went Into

• If you are planning to visit Japan or want some wanderlust, you are going to love this.

• Are the Telephathy tapes real or a scam? It’s complicated. (Wowza!)

• A long read about a cult (my favorite type of long read)

• The American Girl Magazine Summer via

  Larisa

🧜🏼‍♀️  Articles and Bits I loved

• What happens when a Christian relationship expert’s marriage falls apart?

• Skip or Buy Trader Joe’s edition

• 30 very strong cooking tips via

  Steph Robinson

• Would you go to a silent reading event?

• Tarot interest is on the rise, but why?

• If you love movies and shows, this game is for you

😄 Free Happiness

• Hooter’s Jokes

• Hits different

• Height of technology

• I need an innie

👋🏼 Classifieds

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