Hello hello! I am emerging from two very stressful weeks for both school and work, so I am happy to take a breath this weekend. Here’s a recap of my week:
Things I Read
Books
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw: This is a short story collection about four generations of Black women and the intersection of sexuality and Christianity. I listened to the audio book, and I really wish I had read a physical copy instead. I don’t know why, but I struggled to focus on the audiobook. I do think this is very good, I always find anything about religion to be super interesting and I do recommend this. It’s super short and I flew through it. I think I just picked the wrong format.
Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: This was WILD. I picked it up because I saw it described as Gossip Girl meets Get Out, which feels pretty accurate having read it now. I honestly don’t know what to say about this that doesn’t spoil anything, I went in knowing basically nothing and I’d recommend that. It’s essentially about two Black students, Devon and Chiamaka, who are seniors at a rich kid private school called Niveus Private Academy. A whole bunch of creepy stuff happens. I think this was too long and the pacing was a little off, it lagged in the middle and then so much happened in the last 50 pages. It also took me over two weeks to finish this, which is an eternity for me, especially for a YA book. I do think that is more a reflection of how busy I have been the last two weeks rather than the quality of the book, but there was definitely a slump in the middle. If you like a rich kid private school thriller, this is a pretty good one.
Articles
“The Liberty Way”: How Liberty University Discourages and Dismisses Students’ Reports of Sexual Assaults: Obvious content warning here. This was a horrific article about how Liberty University not only fails to properly investigate and hold accountable perpetrators of sexual assault, but also how they punish the people who report their assaults for violating the honor code. This is so gross. The emails and quotes in here are so disturbing and revealing of the fact that this is an intentional policy choice made by those in charge here rather than an accidental oversight. This is also another example of how damaging purity culture can be, and why religious affiliated universities including policies banning premarital sexual activity in their honor codes is so problematic. When you do this, you actively discourage people from reporting their assaults, and only add to the shame that survivors often already feel. This story is so shameful.
Katie Couric is Not for Everyone: This was a fascinating profile of Katie Couric written by Rebecca Traister, who is one of my favorite writers. I didn’t know a lot about Katie Couric before reading this and I have found the media tour in the lead up to her book’s publication to be so interesting. I didn’t know that she tried (and failed) to make the jump to evening news after years at the Today Show, and it’s just interesting to learn more about someone who’s public persona has been fairly one dimensional. There are things in this profile and that I’ve heard are in the book that make her sound….not great! An interesting read, for sure.
They Were Promised a Chance at Parole in 10 Years. It’s Been 50.: The criminal justice issue I am mad about this week is happening in Louisiana. In the 1960s, a lot of people who faced the death penalty if convicted pled guilty to crimes with the understanding that they would be eligible for parole in 10 years. Then, before they hit that 10-year mark, the state changed the parole eligibility requirement to 20 years, and eventually eliminated parole eligibility all together. These people, mostly Black, thought they were signing up for 10 years in prison and now have been incarcerated for 50-60 years. The new District Attorney for New Orleans is revisiting these sentences, and several of the people who made this deal are being released from prison. Regardless of the fact that these people thought they were agreeing to something that then had that taken away from them, there is simply no reason for someone who is in their 70s or 80s, who has been incarcerated for 5-6 DECADES, to stay in prison. Sentencing someone to life without the possibility of parole is inhumane.
Things I Watched
TV
Insecure: I am both so happy this is back and so sad it’s for the final season. I was late to the game and just binged this last year, but it’s so good and I’m very sad it’s ending. The first episode of the season was so good, and I’m so curious to see how this all ends. I will watch whatever Issa does forever. New episodes are out on Sundays on HBO.
Selena + Chef: It’s back! This show is such a delight. It’s Selena Gomez in her home kitchen, with a different famous chef every episode on Zoom teaching her how to cook something. This is such a fun watch. Selena knows basically nothing about cooking, so it all feels very accessible. Except for the extremely nice kitchen stocked with extremely nice appliances, that part feels very not accessible, tysm. The first three episodes of the new season are out now, on HBO Max.
Movies
Dune: I will preface this by saying that I do not like science fiction and I walked into this knowing absolutely nothing about the story, so I am not the target audience for this at all. I just cannot ignore a movie that gets this much hype and has this great of a cast! I walked into the theater fully prepared to be bored (this movie has a run time of 2 hours and 35 minutes, to which I say: why? It only covers HALF of the first book, this is TOO LONG) and when I checked my watch to see it had only been 15 minutes I thought “oh no.” I ended up liking it a lot more than I thought I would, but the bar could not have been lower so that is not saying much. I will say, I was not bored! A plus! This film has lived rent free in my brain all week, so that’s something. Visually this was absolutely gorgeous, genuinely stunning cinematography and definitely worth it to see on a big screen. I think all the performances in this are very good, Zendaya is on screen for maybe five minutes but she does look amazing. I love Timothee Chalamet and I will not apologize. He gives a great performance here. Plot wise… I was not invested at all. Somehow, in 2 ½ hours, I learned nothing about any of the characters? Again, I walked in with zero frame of reference, having not read the book or even the Wikipedia plot summary, and I walked out wishing there had been so much more (any?) character development given the length of the film. Lots of exposition and not enough pay off. I think the bottom line here is just that this is not my genre. There is so much world building required to set up a story like this and I cannot make myself care. I honestly think I don’t have the imagination required to fully immerse myself in a story like this, and I get so stuck on all the strange things happening that I don’t focus on the actual story. If you tell me that the people in your film are afraid of being eaten by **giant sandworms** in the desert I just have to laugh? One of the main villains in this story is a weird huge bald man (?) who can fly (??) and is always naked in a bathtub (???). Absolutely WHAT is going on here? I am SORRY, this is just not for me!!! I know people love this book, and if you are one of them I hope you find that the movie lives up to your expectations. The feeling of satisfaction when a book adaptation is everything you wanted it to be is the BEST. It is a fantastic feat of filmmaking, and I can appreciate that. But you will probably not be reading about the sequel to this film in this newsletter, and I’ll leave it at that. You can see this in theaters (highly encouraged if you can do so safely) or stream it on HBO Max.
Little Women (2019): In as many ways as Dune was not for me, this movie is. I cannot adequately put into words how much I love this. The way this movie makes me feel is why I love movies. Just *thinking* about it makes me emotional. It is beautiful and overwhelming and just transcendent, one of my favorite movies of all time. I saw this four times in the theater and have watched it several times at home, and every time I notice new little intricacies that make me love it even more. Its exuberant and joyful and celebratory, but also heart wrenchingly sad. It feels like a love letter to the book, to Louisa May Alcott, to movies, to all of us. Greta Gerwig is a genius and what she did here is extraordinary. The way she juxtaposes the two different timelines is so perfect, the way she wrote the dialog makes these characters feel so real and lived in, it’s just a masterpiece of filmmaking and I will be screaming about her Best Director Oscar snub forever. The score! The costumes! Saoirse Ronan! Timothee Chalamet! Florence Pugh! Oh my GOD. What a film. You can stream this on Starz or buy it on Amazon.
Things I Bought
I don’t know who I think I am wandering into the Target candle aisle just to “see what they have”??? Obviously I bought multiple candles. They have so many good fall scents and they are so cheap. I really like this one, Blue Cedar Fig, and this one, Harvest Apple.
One Last Thing…
My latest podcast binge has been Floodlines, about Hurricane Katrina. I was in fifth grade when this happened so I definitely remember it, but this podcast made me realize that a lot of those memories are of media narratives that were just blatantly false. I learned so much from this, about what really happened in the aftermath of Katrina and about how the media narrative can so effectively shape our collective memory of an event. Highly recommend.
That’s it for me! I hope you all have a good week. Happy Halloween!
TTYL,
Emily