Happy Monday!
I’m scheduling today’s newsletter while en route to a bachelorette in Scottsdale — hello from the past!
Future Jamie is most likely puking on the plane home after 3 straight days partying in 40-degree heat. Please send your thoughts, prayers, and electrolytes.
Speaking of which! I so appreciate all the kind messages and support after Sunday’s post.
You nosy little freaks love it when I get vulnerable, and there is nothing I love more than praise!
Onto the books
The theme of my August reading was ‘poorly timed kidney failure,” which only happened in 2 of these books, but 2/5 is a statistically improbable plot point and worth mentioning.
I will also not tell you which books, because that spoils the fun!
Notably, I am taking a break from cannibal horror and airplane romances to reconnect with the normies. I have hit the threshold on how many conversations I’m willing to make uncomfortable based on what I’m reading. At least for now.
Am I healing?
Or am I conforming to a system that wants me to BE SILENT?
Anyway…
🌳The Afterdark, E. Latimer (3)
YA queer horror at a boarding school with a Lovecraftian twist.
I’m starting to realize that when people say “Lovecraftian twist,” they mean an unknown creature that comes out of a body of water.Any creature. Any body of water. In a way, Aquamarine has a Lovecraftian twist, but I digress…
I did not realize this was YA when I picked it up, and that impacted my initial thoughts. The ‘spooky boarding school in a forest’ setting had me hooked, but I was missing some emotional depth and reflection from the main character. As a teen, I would have eaten this up. As an adult, it was just okay.
👯♀️ Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves, Sophie Gilbert (4)
Dissecting feminism through pop culture from the late 1990s to present day.
Reading this was like flipping through a nightmare yearbook of every pop culture moment that impacted my self esteem. Yeesh. While not groundbreaking, Sophie Gilbert added interesting causality by going chronologically to find intersections between pop culture, feminism, and porn. I’m really glad this book exists, and it feels like prerequisite reading for fans of this newsletter. On that note:
⚽️ Spectacular Things, Becky Dorey-Stein (5)
Contemporary fiction about sisters, soccer, and sacrifice.
Do yourself a favour and go buy this book! Becky Dorsey-Stein ripped my heart out and dribbled it across the field for sport. I adored everything about this, especially the nods to real women’s soccer stars and moments. “What a gift.”
🐕 In Tongues, Thomas Grattan (3)
A man becomes an assistant and plaything to a rich New York couple.
I really wanted to like this queer coming-of-age story, but was mostly annoyed by it. The main character was selfish and flawed and not in a fun way. In a ‘discovering himself at the expense of other people’ way. He did evolve over time (spoiler alert), but the ending was too coincidental for my opinion to evolve with him.
🌊 All The Water In The World, Eiren Caffall (4)
The Day After Tomorrow, but from the perspective of a young girl with autism (allegedly).
The glaciers have melted, New York is underwater, and a group of researchers and their families have stayed behind to preserve artifacts at the American Museum of Natural History. What a set up! I loved the dystopian world. I loved the lyrical writing. I loved the distinction between “The World As It Is” and “The World As It Was.” However, the narrator being so young and openly bad at relating to people kept me at a distance from the other characters. I was way more interested in what the researchers perspectives would have been — put me inside the mind of a professional nerd any day of the week! More importantly, climate fiction is hitting a littttttllllee too close to home as of late. I prefer my anxiety to come from spooky monster stories than the news, thank you very much...
Last Thought:
Live footage from this Arizona bachelorette:
Epilogue
What did you read this month?
Anything I should add to my TBR?