Monday Miscellany: Terror and giggling in quick succession

Notes from July 14 - 20

Jul 21, 2025

Somehow we made it to another new week, my dudes! Today’s top headline in my world: we met with a contractor to finalize the details of having our asbestos siding replaced and new gutters installed! Exciting stuff. The joys of home ownership, etc. (But for real, I am pretty pumped. It feels good to make positive changes to our living space, and I’m grateful we can afford to do so.) What’s new with you?

Read this week

I’ve had my eye (heh) on You Didn’t Hear This from Me by Kelsey McKinney since before it was released, but when my Libby hold came in I found myself snoozing it several times,1 waiting for the right moment to actually read it. Thankfully, I’ve been in a nonfiction mood recently and finally picked this one up, to great effect. It’s all about gossip—what that actually is, the history of it, the way it’s portrayed in books and movies, its reputation in society, how we’ve gendered it, and so much more. McKinney’s writing is approachable and funny, even as she discusses academic thought and scientific research, and I laughed out loud several times. There’s something special about an author who can fully dissect a Doja Cat lyric about someone’s alleged “ten out of ten” dick in one paragraph and then seamlessly transition to a quote from German philosopher Walter Benjamin in the next. I was intrigued by McKinney’s notes on both the 2004 and 2024 versions of Mean Girls, fully shaken by her ideas about social media as nonconsensual surveillance, and just fascinated throughout. If you’re at all interested in the ways information spreads through groups of people, this book is a really fun and enjoyable way to learn more about the topic.

While finishing You Didn’t Hear This from Me, I was keeping tabs on another Libby hold, V.E. Schwab’s Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. It’s the Gretagram book club pick of the month and our discussion is this coming Saturday, so I was starting to think I would need to buy a copy so I could read it in time. But then, book magic: an email from the library letting me know that my physical copy (which I had fully forgotten requesting) was ready! The timing does sometimes line up just right, and I love when it does. I feel like this book is everywhere right now, but if you’re out of the loop, here’s what you need to know:

Jessica Out Of The Closet Jessie And Claud GIF

The story opens in Spain in 1521, and we start out with two alternating points of view, María (d. 1532) and Alice (d. 2019). María’s sections cover a lot of geographical ground and move through large chunks of time at a fairly quick clip, while Alice’s focus on just a few days she experiences as a new college student in Boston. As the gap between these two gets smaller, Charlotte (d. 1827) gets thrown into the mix and her perspective slowly weaves everyone together and gives the narrative an overarching shape. The tone of Schwab’s writing and the expansive scope of her storytelling reminded me a bit of her earlier standalone novel The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, which was a favorite of mine the year I read it. She’s juggling a lot at once, but I was never confused about where I was or who I was reading about, and the short chapters really help to keep things moving. And the ending! Exciting, a bit unexpected, and very satisfying. This is a historical fantasy that will delight existing fans of those genres but also appeal to fiction readers more broadly. The hype is real.

Yesterday I started God Help the Child by Toni Morrison for The Stacks book club later this month,2 fully expecting to take a few days with it and include it in next week’s newsletter, but I finished reading this morning, so I’ll go ahead and tell you about it. First of all, gosh, it’s short! But, in typical Toni Morrison fashion, it contains worlds. The story centers around Bride, a young Black woman who testified in a child abuse case when she was little and helped put a teacher in prison. It’s now many years later, the teacher is being released, and Bride, newly single, goes to meet with her and deliver a care package—an encounter that doesn’t go as intended and instead leaves Bride physically beaten and emotionally reeling. From there, we switch between a few different character perspectives, including Bride’s mother, best friend, and ex-boyfriend. There are through-lines of trauma, child abuse, and racism, which are heavy to be sure, but there’s also a peppering of magical realism via a reverse-aging storyline. Of Morrison’s books that I’ve read, I wouldn’t call this her best, but it’s definitely the most modern in setting, and perhaps the most narratively accessible. I found it compelling and I’m very much looking forward to the book club discussion.

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Watched this week

I love a scary movie, but I might love a horror comedy even more?? This past week Jordan and I saw Ready or Not (2019) with our friend Caleb, and it was tense and gory, and my heart was in my throat but also we laughed a bunch! It’s about a young couple who is getting married, the bride really nervous about joining her new husband’s family. After she is sufficiently reassured and the ceremony has concluded, the two newlyweds are settling in for the night when OH MY GOD, creepy Aunt Helene appears in a dark corner of the bedroom and reminds them that it’s almost time to play a game. Whaaat? Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the groom hails from a board game dynasty several generations strong. Every time someone new joins the family, they have to draw a card from a mysterious box at midnight and play whatever game the card says, as an initiation of sorts. This time, it’s hide and seek. “But there’s no way for me to win, right?” this bride, Grace, asks her new father-in-law, to which he off-handedly replies, “I mean, stay hidden ‘til dawn…”

And then shit gets very serious! There are cumbersome vintage weapons! Accidental killings! Something called a goat pit! Aunt Helene’s bizarre “I dipped my head in watered-down glue and then stood in a wind tunnel” hairstyle! Lots of blood! “Is that… Dave Rygalski from Gilmore Girls?”3 Yes, he’s in there too! Oh, and if you like Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, you will be delighted by several key scenes!!

I somehow missed this one when it came out, but I’m so glad to have come across it these years later. If you enjoy terror and giggling in quick succession, give it a watch.

Haiku round-up

Haiku is a poetic form that originated in Japan, containing seventeen syllables in a five-seven-five pattern. At the beginning of 2024, I started writing one every day, and while traditional examples include thematic reference to the seasons, mine tend to be a bit more all over the place. Here are this week’s efforts—enjoy!