10 Things: Summer Sludge

All my recommendations for what to listen to, read, watch, make, cook, do, and buy this week.

Where I am, it is hot. So here is what is hot. (Paid subscribers get a few recipes that are ruling my world, plus the TV show I’m watching and a bird in a burrito.)

1. LISTEN TO / READ: Let’s talk about the thrillers / mysteries I’ve listened to / read in the last two weeks.

   Hello, it’s me, a person who is now addicted to trash. I don’t know what to do about this, except tell you every book I listened to and read over the past two weeks.

   I will be ranking these on a different scale than I would rank a regular book. Because they are all absolutely trash. What makes them trash? I don’t know, something about “her blonde ponytail swung in the breeze while her orange tank clung mercilessly to her skin” or whatever. I’ve read so many of these bad books that I don’t know what makes a book good anymore. So I’m going to rank them out of 10, a scale that means nothing, and whose upper limit is way below the last literary book I read (Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, which was objectively good, and beautiful, and poetic, and funny, and all the things, but NOT A MURDER MYSTERY / THRILLER).

   

   • The Guest List by Lucy Foley: Recommended to me by Kat, and truly excellent. I did not guess the murderer but Kat did. Pros: Ireland, frat boys who get their come-uppance, a wedding. Cons: A little too much bad weather, but you don’t get a say in that when you’re getting married. 10/10.

     

   • The Writing Retreat by Julia Bartz: You know how the twist is usually something like, “And he had been her brother the WHOLE TIME”? The twist in this book is like, “And he had been her brother, who was an alien, but not a real alien, an alien in a movie about aliens that was being made by a Hollywood producer who was secretly ALSO THE MOM.” It’s that bananas. I’ve given nothing away with that, by the way, so feel free to read this absolute off-the-rails novel with the knowledge that you are in for something incredibly strange. 7/10, points off for somehow too much lesbian sex for me. (It wasn’t the lesbian of it all, it was that I do not come to these books for graphic sex.) (Lesbian sex is my preferred kind of sex. To be clear.)

     

   • The It Girl by Ruth Ware: The protagonist works in a bookstore and loves books. There is a close female friendship at the center of the story. I solved this one. Would Kat have solved it? We may never know. 9/10; it could have been about 100 pages shorter, and certain stylistic ending choices were tacky.

     

   • Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty: This was maybe actually secretly a really good book? Like, a legit good one? Tennis, siblings who don’t really like each other, a fun mom character. Would make a bad TV show, Apple+, just in case you’re considering it. It would make a bad TV show in the way that any good book would make a bad TV show. IYKYK. 10/10.

     

   • Mother-Daughter Murder Night by Nina Simon: This one was like Gilmore Girls meets one of those new crime dramas that try a little too hard to be woke? But not in a bad way; it works better when it’s a book. The central drama is about land preservation / ownership. So. It’s not about, say, a wedding. Not unsolvable! 10/10.

   • Whisper Network by Chandler Baker: This is one of those twisty murder mysteries that tries very hard to be a feminist classic taking place in a high-end mid 2010s start-up. 8/10; no need for all the “we worked hard but the men won anyway” parts. (That might be a literal quote from the book.) (I’ve stopped putting in the pictures because what are they really adding.)

   • The Club by Ellery Lloyd: A White Lotus drama on an island with celebrities and multiple deaths. 10/10, would read again.

   • The Teacher by Freida McFadden: Unreadable. The twist involves a person who was buried alive somehow getting unburied and fake-haunting her bad husband using shoes. 2/10.

   • The Expectant Detectives by Kat Ailes. Also probably secretly an actually good book. Incredibly accurate representation of what it is like to be pregnant and in the midst of a murder investigation. 10/10.

   • The First Lie Wins by Ashley Elston. This is more of a crime thriller than a murder thriller. I think there is a murder or two, but they’re glossed over. The twist was… fine. 6/10.

   • Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera. This was the first book that was truly terrible that I loved all the way through. It was the one that broke me and turned me into One Of These People. It centers around a true crime podcast, and a narrator who really seems like she killed her best friend… but she can’t remember. Satisfying through and through. 10/10.

2. GO: Outdoor gyms in public parks

   

   I ran a different route recently and came across this simple exercise area in a public park near my house, which reminded me how common these are, and how great! Something like this is all you need for a shockingly complete whole-body workout: tricep dips, assisted pushups, kick-ups, calf raises, floor jumps, and then the no-equipment ones like lunges, squats, jumping jacks, etc. Plus, free! I am so happy to have remembered that these are out there.

3. BUY: These little paper fairy tale houses

   

   

   I bought one of these (the Goldilocks House) at Goodwill for $2, and it was a hit. The simple-to-assemble houses come in cardboard boxes stocked with the necessary accessories and a probably-superfluous book. T liked hers so much that Luke went and ordered the one that was a barn (Bo-Peep’s Barn), and we have now played with it for 35,000 hours, est.