This Week In Recommendations - 09.07.23

Exciting weekend ahead, two four star reads, a jaw dropping podcast rec, overcoming perfectionism and a new midweek dinner recipe

👋 Howdy and welcome to this weeks edition of You Should Check Out. This week has been intense. That being said, I am (kinda?) back on track so let’s keep this light. This week, I’m writing this on a Friday evening as this weekend, I am heading to London! Oh you know, nothing big on the agenda, Just book shopping and seeing LANA DEL REY. I am beyond excited and I am so looking forward to a weekend of exploring the city I used to call home, visiting some book shops, eating good food and seeing an artist again I have loved for many years. A much, much needed break from my current surroundings and a weekend of romanticising overpriced coffee, bookstores and belting my heart out to depressing lyrics ahead.

Also Threads, the Meta alternative to Twitter launched this week and like the little scunnered with Twitter sheep I am, I signed up! You can follow me here. I love that we are all on there, showing up but also nobody has a clue what they are doing. Just like adulting really.

Reading

📚 The one thing that has been consistent this last week for me has been books. I feel like June was such an epic fail reading wise and July has been miles better so far. Two four star books in a row that I’m excited to rave about.

📖 The first book I want to share is The Secret Talker by Geling Yan. I am very glad I ignored the GoodReads rating on this because for me, it was the perfect book at the right time! The Secret Talker follows Hongmei who is happily married to her husband Glen, a college professor. She receives a very random e-mail from a secret admirer and so begins a cat and mouse game between them both as they manage to lure out secrets Hongmei has kept to herself. This was only 160 pages and I loved the tempo of it. It had me hooked and even though the ending wasn’t too shocking to me, I still found it so entertaining. A solid four star read!

📖 On a high from a great book, I picked up The Service by Frankie Miren that was incredible. This is a novel about two women who are sex workers and also the perspective of a sex journalist. After a shock change to the law, the women find themselves entangled in each others worlds. This was such an important book that highlighted challenges women face in this work and it was very thought provoking - especially at the end in the acknowledgement section that outlined some of the U.K laws regarding sex work that had me baffled. I wasn’t as interested in Paula’s perspective (the journalist) but appreciated her role within the story. I looooved this one. Another four star read. I got lucky this week!

📚 This week, rather than share one from the archives, here are some of my favourite books set in London! I loved Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, In Our Mad and Furious City by Guy Gunaratne and White Teeth by Zadie Smith.

Watching

I haven’t watched much TV this week but I did watch the first two Hunger Games movies after saying for the longest time I wanted to revisit these. Loved them just as much as before. And also, very obsessed still this week with Jennifer Lawrence’s style and her “rowification” as the internet has labelled it. It is amazing!

📺 The Bear is back for season two and who knew a show about a sandwich shop would be great TV?! Really recommend watching this if you haven’t seen this before.

📺 I also watched Reality, an HBO original starring Sydney Sweeney who plays a former U.S intelligence specialist given the longest sentence in U.S history for selling classified information to Russia in the run up to the 2016 election. The unique part of this story is the script is taken from the actual FBI interrogation so it flips back and forth from that to this being played out which I haven’t ever seen before. Loved this and I had never heard of this story before either.

LISTENING

🎧 This week I absolutely loved this episode of Awards Chatter with Aubrey Plaza. The hilarious star of Parks & Recreation and The White Lotus spoke all about how her career started, a medical event that happened in her early 20’s and all about her future plans - in which she hopes to host the oscars. Loved this and Aubrey’s interview was very frank sprinkled with her dead pan humour.

🎧 Now that The Idol has wrapped, I loved this episode of Straight To The Comments (a new podcast show discovery of mine that I am loving!) dissecting the awful TV series and all of the controversy that has surrounded it. I have to say, I watched all five episodes of The Idol and it left such a sour taste in my mouth. Sam Levinson is a total creep and I now look at The Weeknd differently too. This covered so much and I think wether or not you tuned in, this discusses so many important things from why HBO where even motivated to create this and the blurred lines between ‘art’ and just straight up torture porn. Super insightful and I think these ladies are fantastic hosts.

🎧 And a new show that just launched last week is The Retrievals, produced by Serial and the NYT, that has made my jaw drop. This is the story of women who under went embryo retrieval surgery and both during and after the procedure, experienced immense pain. Then, they get a letter in from the hospital with disturbing news. This includes the women’s individual experiences as they discuss what happened and this is a must listen.

INTERNET BROWSING

👩🏻‍💻 One of the podcasts I listen to weekly is Mamma Mia Out Loud and this week they spoke about this article called The Epidemic of Self-Diagnosing published by The Michigan Daily. The article explored how the internet has been a catalyst for people recognising they may have symptoms of ADHD, OCD or Autism. It talks about the barriers to diagnosis there are for these disorders but is self diagnosing the right thing to do? An interesting debate on if self diagnosing is something that is helpful or harmful.

👩🏻‍💻 I loved this piece on Vice titled How I Finally Got Over My Perfectionism. It had lots of reflective observations stemming from being convinced we can always do better, being defined by our achievements and how this impairs our relationship with ourselves and our outlook on life. I connected with this in so many ways. I have always been someone who has put an enormous amount of pressure on myself to achieve. In the process of that, it is has definitely been something that has hindered my self-worth and mental health. This is probably one of the best written articles I’ve ever read on this subject. It has stayed with me and I think even if you don’t have perfectionist tendencies, but know someone who does, this is worth your time to get a bit more perspective on the pysch of those who do have this trait.

🔗 Other links include The Week with Aisha Harris’s 6 Book Recommendations That Have Formed and Informed Popular Culture, How Media Mogul Mo Abudu Gets It Done on The Cut, Fortune on The Body Shop asked a group of Gen Zers to critique the company and it was a disaster and Dazed Magazine’s interview with Eliza Clark on one of my most anticipated summer releases.

ETC

👩‍🍳 I made this Chicken Limone recipe that I found on IG this week. The sauce was so tasty and I paired it with garlic baby potatoes and tenderstem. A great mid-week easy meal.

💄 This week I have been on a skincare reset after the worst hormonal/stress breakout. I also think the new cleanser I bought has been clogging my skin so I decided to strip things back. I got the BYOMA Moisturising Gel Cream as I’ve been desperate to find a much cheaper dupe of my favourite Dr Jart Biome Water Cream. This isn’t the same but you know what, it is pretty good. Super lightweight, makes my skin look so fresh and actually affordable. Why Dr Jart does a water cream need to be £33?!

And that is it for this weeks You Should Check Out! The newsletter now has its own dedicated Instagram that I promise, I’ll be more active on. So a follow would be greatly appreciated. Wishing you a lovely Sunday ❤️ thanks for reading xx