April Reflections

Guys, I finally did it. This month I finished making my way through Dick Wolf’s One Chicago universe. I have now seen 293 episodes of Chicago Fire, 260 episodes of Chicago P.D., and 217 episodes of Chicago Med. That’s 770 episodes of television that I watched in about six months. I do feel incredibly accomplished. I already wrote and published one essay about these shows, but I hope you’re all prepared for many more. One of my favorite things to do while binge watching shows like this one is knit; in the time that I’ve been watching these three shows, I’ve finished two sweaters, fourteen hats, and started working on a tank top. I’m mining this network tv for everything it’ll give me—content for this Substack, knitting motivation, and conversation fodder for months.

I’ve also been going on walks. This is not a technically new thing in my life, but every time I take a walk on the trail near my apartment I am floored that everyone was right about physical movement and the outdoors: it does make everything better. It makes my outlook on life better, it makes me feel better in my body, and it makes me feel superior to everyone out there who isn’t take a walk on a gorgeous trail 1-3 times every week.

books

I was really on my audiobook shit this month. 4/6 of the books I read I did on audio; there was just something in the air that made me reach for them while I was working and going on walks and cooking. I think I had a really great reading month, because I was so locked in and I really enjoyed pretty much all of these books.

They All Fall in Love at the End by Haili Blassingame is a debut novel about a young writer navigating an open relationship, changes in her family, and political tensions on the campus where she’s earning her creative writing MFA. I really, really liked this. Cat is a messy main character, but there’s something so earnest about the way she’s just trying to follow her heart. The love she has for her longtime boyfriend (while also navigating a flirtation with his best friend) really oozes from the pages. There’s nothing straightforward about love and relationships, which is something Blassingame seems to really understand. This book is out on June 2nd.

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke was a banger. There’s been a lot of talk about this book literally all over the internet, and a lot of people don’t seem to like it as much as I did. Burke’s debut is about a tradwife influencer who wakes up and realizes that she’s living in the 1830’s, without all of her modern day accommodations (like nannies and producers and farm workers). I thought this was a really interesting look at the performance of womanhood and who holds the power in a marriage and the culpability of tradwife influencers. I was really WITH the book the whole time and thought it was good, but the ending really pushed it over the edge to great for me.

I have never felt as tender towards a main character as I did the narrator of Good News by Alexa Yasemin Brahme. This novel follows Maggie, an artist working on her MFA thesis, as she finishes up her final painting and her personal life spirals out of control. She is admittedly a pretty messy character, but I was still rooting for her. I felt really connected to her and empathized a lot with her anxieties. I loved this book! It’s out on May 5th.

Good News, out now!

Into the Blue by Emma Brodie is hands down my favorite book of the year so far. It’s been a long time since I’ve loved a book this much. I did the audiobook for this one, and I was walking around with tears streaming down my face for days. The love story is beautiful, the writing is perfect, and I love A.J. and Noah so much. This is a novel about a love story that spans years; it’s heartfelt and compelling and the worldbuilding in it is pretty mind blowing. I really cannot talk enough about how much I loved this book.

I also listened to London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe on audiobook this month. This truly felt like just listened to a very long podcast episode; it’s a true crime book about a 19 year old boy in London who dies a mysterious death. This was a very entertaining, well-researched book and I did really like it. It was my first experience with any of Keefe’s work, and I definitely see myself reading more.

We read Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner for the book club that I run at work. Unfortunately, I didn’t really enjoy this book. It was entertaining, but mostly I was just stressed out and anxious about the actions the characters were taking the entire time. This novel follows a rich family into adulthood after their father is kidnapped when they’re children. It’s supposed to be about passed down trauma, I guess, but mostly I just felt stressed reading about how these people blowing through their money. Most of the book club members did actually like the book, so I left our conversation with a lot more appreciation for it.

podcasts

For some reason, I have been heavily fucking with the Sentimental Garbage episodes about Sex and the City even though I’ve never seen the show. I love listening to Caroline talk about literally anything, so it’s pretty fun to go through the back catalog and pick and choose what I want to hear her yap about. The Sentimental in the City episodes with Dolly Alderton are SO fun. They obviously both love this series so much, and I’ll always love listening to people talk about the things they love.

movies

I loved The Drama! Sue me! There’s really no way for me to explain my feelings about it without spoilers, so I guess this is your spoiler warning. As someone who has watched Thirteen Reasons Why season 2 several times, I don’t think what Zendaya’s character did was really that bad. This felt like a pretty interesting commentary on if your thoughts are actually harmful if you don’t follow through with them. Alana Haim’s character really seemed worse to me; leaving a mentally disabled kid locked in a closet for hours is actually evil—plus, she actually did that, rather than just thinking about it. I also did leave the theater believing in love, after watching R. Pat and Zendaya reunite at the diner after their disastrous wedding. Sometimes you return to who you love the most, no matter what.

Forbidden Fruits was a blast! There were a couple of bits that were too gory for me, but overall I had a lot of fun with this mall horror comedy. It’s nice to see Lili Reinhart and Lola Tung expand their oeuvre from the teen dramas they started their careers with. I was pretty engrossed in this movie; more movies like this, please!

Tuna I made for some friends.

All I have to say about F9 & Fast X is thank GOD we’re done making our way through this franchise! F9 was so bad it wasn’t even that entertaining; at least there was something compelling about Fast X. But that one ends on a cliffhanger, and who knows when they’ll actually make the next one.

I typically love docs about musicians, and Noah Kahan: Out of Body was no different. I love Noah Kahan, so much, and this film was really insightful. A real peak into the struggles he was with body image and fame and making music about his family.

The Christophers absolutely blew me away. Soderbergh really is a fantastic filmmaker, and this movie rocked. Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel’s chemistry is what really sealed this as a great movie. It’s about an artist who is dying, and a young artist who has been hired by his children to forge entries into his most famous series of paintings. It was funny and heartfelt and a truly fantastic film.

A picture I took on one of my walks.

music

There are no skips on Arlo Parks’ Ambiguous Desire. I listened to this album nonstop after it came out; to me, it is the perfect music to drive to, the soundtrack to a dinner party, the perfect music to listen while you work. I love it!

Noah Kahan’s The Great Divide has really stopped me in my tracks. I can’t listen to any other music, because I just want to be listening to Noah’s new album. It is so good, and I’m so glad to have a new album of his after listening to Stick Season to death.

The Last Five Years 25th Anniversary Recording absolutely bangs. I love this musical, and I have been enamored by every single one of the clips that I see on social media of Rachel Zegler and Ben Platt performing it. I am so glad we got this recording!

tv shows

I finally finished Chicago PD! I have good news for everyone: they are still making good network tv. You can read more about my initial thoughts in the other newsletter I published this month, but I do really love these characters and I think what Dick Wolff is doing with One Chicago is pretty phenomenal.

I flew through Shrinking (seasons 1-3) after finally finishing the One Chicago shows. If you haven’t watched this yet, you really are missing out. It’s so funny, but also SO surprisingly sad at times. The way it talks about therapy and friendship and grief is so refreshing. All of the actors are incredible. This is maybe one of the only ensemble shows that I’ve watched where each character has an individualized relationship with every other character. It makes sense for every single person to have a one on one conversation. I REALLY loved this show.

They have really got to figure out a way to make a Drive to Survive season tell a more linear story than what they did with season seven. The first 6 out of 8 episodes seem to flash back to the very beginning of the racing season to try to tell a complete story for each team. This gets SO annoying to me; there HAS to be a way for them to focus on a team per episode but tell an overarching story of the season.

I’ve jumped on the Hacks train and watched seasons one and two over the last week. This shit is so funny and sweet. I honestly don’t have much more to say other than I truly love this show and I’m excited to keep watching it.