This Week In Recommendations - 11.06.23

An awful reading week, two intriguing documentaries and how much would you need to earn to live your ideal life?

👋 Hello & welcome to this weeks edition of “You Should Check Out” formally known as The Low Down. I’m so excited to have given this Substack a rebrand and my intention was always to try and grow the space into what I wanted when I felt confident to do so. So here we are! I’ve returned from my holiday to Polignano A Mare feeling so relaxed and recharged. Our vacay was amazing and we saw other areas of Puglia such as Monopoli and Leece. I would highly recommend it as a place to go. It was great for families/couples as well as for a girls trip and we also saw some female solo travellers too. Gorgeous scenery, amazing food and good vibes. What more could you ask for?

❤️ This week I’ve been obsessed with Aperol Spritz but subbing the soda water for Sprite - game changer! Tiramisu, sunshine and iced cherry lattes!

Reading

📚 Normally I have two or three books to recommend each week. However, I went on holiday and despite reading in the sunshine being my favourite thing to do, the two books I read were absolutely AWFUL. I mean so bad. One was too women’s fiction for me (totally not my thing) and the other had gorgeous writing but nothing happened. Literally nothing. So for a first in this newsletters history, I have no recent reads to recommend!

So at the start of my journey home, I ordered books to come the next day to a save me from a slump. I mean, May’s reading was almost too good to be true so of course a slump would have potentially been on the horizon - just not ideal on vacay!

I got Yellowface by R. F. Kuang that I have yet to see a bad review of. I’m two chapters in and already feel like this has the ability to save me from the slump. I also picked up Sylvia by Leonard Michaels which is a short memoir about a young married couple living in NYC in the 60’s on the brink of self destruction. And lastly, I picked up The Silent Cry by Kenzaburō Ōe. Translated from Japanese, this is a story about two estranged brothers who have to come together for the sale of their family home. I love complex sibling dynamic stories plus this is a Serpent’s Tail classic. I’ve read two of these recently and enjoyed them so I hope I like this one too.

📖 A book from the archive this week I wanted to share was The Last Romantics by Tara Conklin. I read this on my honeymoon and this is a book about complex sibling dynamics. It tells the story of The Skinner children and their lives living with their mother as children before getting older. It’s a slow burn but the writing is gorgeous and I gave it a 5 star back in 2019. I will definitely be re-reading this at some point.

Watching

Being away has meant I haven’t watched much TV. I am still in a mourning period of losing Succession AND Barry in one go since they’ve now concluded though imo, they both ended perfectly! That being said, I have watched two amazing documentaries that I have to shout about.

📺 Before I left for Italy, I watched Bama Rush - a documentary following four girls trying to make it into a sorority at the University of Alabama. “Bama Rush” is what the recruitment process is called and this became a massive Tiktok trend a few years ago which has resulted in a spike of young women wanting to attend the school. I’ve saw a lot of stateside criticism about the documentary saying it was boring/unfairly covered but as someone from the U.K, I found it interesting since we don’t have anything like this here. I also didn’t realise there were such things like coaches you could hire to help you become the ideal candidate. Worth a watch imo.

📺 Then I watched The Curious Case of Natalia Grace that had me glued to the TV even though I found it incredibly sad. It is the story of The Barnett’s who decide to adopt a little girl from Ukraine. Once she is in their care, they begin to notice things that casts doubt on her age. It triggers off a chain of events that landed The Barnett’s in huge legal trouble. This was horrifying and left me totally speechless. Afterwards, I watched the Dr Phil interview and read more information and this case is truly mind-blowing. It is available via Youtube if you search the title.

LISTENING

I listened to two great podcasts episodes while flying. I used to love the Modern Love podcast (and the TV series is also amazing!!) so I went back to listen to some recent episodes and I loved an episode called “He Ghosted, I’m Grateful”. Denny was casually dating on Grindr filtering for trans-friendly men when she met Jack. Things with Jack felt so different. But when she starts to want to explore her feelings further, he ghosts her. I loved this one because there was a positive spin on this story. I love this podcast and am kicking myself for not listening lately.

🎧 I also loved a recent episode of The Diary of A CEO with Nicola Kilmer, CEO of The Ordinary. This was such a brilliant episode as Nicola was so engaging with a brilliant background story on how she ended up in business, really great advice but also, an enormous amount of tragedy she suffered when she lost her business partner and former CEO, Brandon Truaxe. I remember seeing Brandon’s erratic behaviour on social media before his death as it was picked up by the media. But knowing what led to this was so so sad. It’s a heartbreaking story that I struggled to get out my head. I really do highly recommend this one and have told so many people I know that they should for sure, check this out!

INTERNET BROWSING

👩🏻‍💻 I’ve been obsessed with a piece that Curbed - part of New York Magazine - have run lately. The article is called How Much Does It Cost to Live Like This?

Journalists have asked a group of under 30, childless New Yorkers what their dream life looks like. By this, it isn’t over the top lottery wins with yearnings for a super yacht but more around the area they’d like to live, their ideal property, if they had kids what school they’d go to, vacation plans, hobbies etc. And with this information, the journalists have gone away to work out how much this will cost and what they would have to earn each year to make this achievable. It was such a fantastic read and the results are crazy. I knew New York was obviously expensive but knowing that over half the households living in the city can’t afford to live their comfortably was a sad statistic. Definitely check this out - it’s got me wanting to do this with my own life goals!

👩🏻‍💻 I also loved this piece in Vice this week called What It’s Like To Grow Up With A Weird Name. I thought this was so relevant given the amount of very unique and different names you hear these days. It features perspectives from adults with names like Gandolf, Merlin and Plum and their experience growing up with a quirky name. It made for an entertaining read and I really loved this take that “having a unique name is almost like having a superpower”.

ETC

💄 I’ve been big into beauty this month and switched up some things in my routine. I have used the St Tropez Express Tan for over 5 years but there’s a new kid in town that I much prefer - The Tanologist Express Tan in Extra Dark. It gives such an even, gorgeous colour and doesn’t cling to dry areas. And also, much more affordable! I’ve been obsessed with an old but goodie that I only reach for time to time and that’s the Corsx Snail Mucin Essence. I love this stuff. It really does make a noticeable difference to my skins hydration and also gives it that glass skin dewy look that I love.

🎶 I’ve been listening to SO MUCH TAYLOR SWIFT since the Era’s tour has pretty much dominated my Tiktok FYP page the last month. I’ve always liked her music but never been a huge, huge fan. Her shows looks incredible and she has been on repeat so much this month. Firmly in my ‘swiftie’ era.

🛍️ My wish list right now includes this Skin1004 Madagascar Centella Cleanser since noticing the cleanser I’ve been using is massively out of date (😷), this 11 piece cookware set from Amazon since I really want to get back into making new meals and this Signature Ultrasonic Diffuser Oil Discovery Set by Soho House. I always love a candle burning in my office but the weather is too hot right now.

And that is it for this weeks You Should Check Out! Wishing you a lovely Sunday ❤️ thanks for reading xx