September Update: What I've Been Loving Lately
Mormon Wives and cabin stays.
Hi lovely lot!
It’s time for another monthly round-up of stuff I’ve been loving, vaguely in the culture sphere but sometimes more meta.
September, as always, feels like a new beginning. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been travelling a lot and feel unrooted — in the best way possible. Sometimes, you need to get out of your routine and day-to-day to come back and appreciate it.
READING
Hello, Beautiful by Ann Napolitano: I’m late to the party with this one, but it’s as moving as everyone says. It’s a tender story about family dynamics, sisters and love — I sobbed on the plane to Tenerife reading it. For me, it’s a 4.5 out of 5 stars read, and it only loses half a star because I would have liked to read more about some of the other characters in the family.
Why are all the characters in Sally Rooney’s novels so thin? By Emma Specter
Emma Specter is one of my favourite op-ed writers around, and her takes on Vogue are always refreshing — as well as not being very ‘traditionally’ Vogue. Her latest piece bravely asks why Sally Rooney’s protagonists are always achingly, delicately, narrowly thin. I love Sally’s novels, but I am not a Sally Rooney Girl. A Sally Rooney girl is: Thin, taller than average and brunette.
Here’s an extract from Emma’s piece: Novels certainly aren’t required to mirror their readership, and I’m a lot less starved for sympathetic, well-developed representation as a fat reader than I was even just a few years ago. But as I encounter yet another crop of protagonists who dream of a better and more principled world, I find myself wondering where fat people fit into it all—or, more to the point, where we don’t fit.
First Poem for You, by Kim Addonizio
I like to touch your tattoos in complete
darkness, when I can't see them. I'm sure of
where they are, know by heart the neat
lines of lightning pulsing just above
your nipple, can find, as if by instinct, the blue
swirls of water on your shoulder where a serpent
twists, facing a dragon. When I pull you
to me, taking you until we're spent
and quiet on the sheets, I love to kiss
the pictures in your skin. They'll last until
you're seared to ashes; whatever persists
or turns to pain between us, they will still
be there. Such permanence is terrifying.
So I touch them in the dark; but touch them, trying.
WATCHING
The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
I love reality TV, so it’s no surprise that I devoured The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives within a few days. It’s a weird anthropological experience, watching the lives of women who are so different for me, some of who are trying to break free from a life defined by patriarchy.
Nightbitch (out December 6th in the UK). I won’t say much about it here, as I’ve got a few articles on this in the pipeline. But, if you liked the book, it’s worth a watch. It hits and misses, but Amy Adams is brilliant as always. If you haven’t seen Sharp Objects yet you MUST.
DOING
I stayed at RE CABINS last week, and having stayed at some similar cabin experiences I can say that this was the best I’ve been too. It was all in the little touches — the products in the bathroom, the outside bath, the candles and well-equipped kitchen. It does make me laugh how commercialised nature has become, and how sad it is that we will pay (quite a lot) to reconnect with it. But, Re Cabins worked for me and I can’t knock that — I switched off, I felt calm, I loved every second.
Lots of love, chat soon xoxo
Chloe