Show & Tell: The Space Girls!
Unstacked Digest for the week of April 14-20
This is Show & Tell where I tell you some things I loved from the week and the one thing I hated, plus round up everything else going on around these parts. The first half of Show & Tell is free to all. The adoration and hateration are for paid subscribers only.
I took the Mini Stacks to Austin this week to visit my pal Becca Tobin and her family. We had a great time, but running after the Minis had left me. Extremely. Also, since I spent all day every day with my kids for their spring break, I had no time to consume my regular weekly media dose, which leaves this week’s Grown-Up Show & Tell a little anemic. I watched zero TV (except a little basketball), I barely finished any podcasts, and I didn’t have time to see Sinners1. I do have a few thoughts on The Space Girls, because who doesn’t?
This Week in The Stacks
Grown-Up Show & Tell about boys behaving badly and a children’s book I love.
Giaae Kwon came on the podcast this week to talk about K-Pop and her book I’ll Love You Forever.
Everyone’s favorite guest,
, is back in The Stacks for this month’s bonus episode. We talk about his venture into children’s books with City Summer, Country Summer, and then we talk about a bunch of life stuff like being self critical and remaining human and sports.Books I Read This Week
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
I reread this book for a prompt for this year’s Mega Challenge2. It is Frey’s memoir about going to a rehab for drugs and alcohol at the age of 23. I read it back in 2005, before his lying about the book was exposed and the whole controversy unraveled, which went on to cloud the book for me. As I was reading the book this time around, I keep thinking if he had called the book “autofiction” it would now be a canonical sobriety text. The book is intense and violent and visceral. His writing is straightforward and he uses a repetition device that works to make his addiction and desires feel urgent. There are sections that are too long or overworked, it is a debut after all, but they pale in comparison to the emotional resonance Frey captures throughout the book. I know the book isn’t factual3, and that fact stuck with me in some of the most intense moments (did any of this even happen?), but the truths that Frey writes toward in A Million Little Pieces work in the end if you’re looking to be moved by a good story.
Fave of the week!
Of My Own Making by Daria Burke
This is Daria Burke’s memoir from her childhood raised by a mother who struggled with addiction to her rise as a fashion world executive. Burke also weaves in writing around childhood trauma from experts in the field to flesh out her own experiences. This memoir is solid and I found Burke very likable, but also found myself wishing for more depth, especially around her adult success. I didn’t feel like I left the book knowing who Burke was outside of the trauma she survived. Outside of her own story though, the book did make me think a lot about how we as a society measure success for Black women and how so often that worthiness is tied to achievement and financial milestones.
Housekeeping
Stack the Shelves is less than two weeks away!! I can’t believe how quickly it is sneaking up on us. If you or someone you know wants to attend please make sure you/they RSVP, slots are filling quickly.
We are still working on that fundraising goal so please give what you can. Also if you know any LA based restaurants or food trucks who want to be part of the day, please send them my way.
For more info on the event, to volunteer, to attend, and to donate click below.
I am in conversation with Jenny Slate on Sunday for the LA Times Festival of Books aka Bookchella! We talk on Sunday at 10:20am on the Mainstage. I will be there both days seeing panels and generally soaking up the bookish joy. If you’re in the area you should 100% come out. You can now book free reservations for most of the other panels here.
Things I Love…
Pop Culture
If you’re anything like me you can’t get enough of the Jennifer Hudson Show hallway song and dance. This video had me cracking up. The creator has made a bunch more here, enjoy.
Politics
Remember the lady who was dragged out of that Republican Town Hall in Idaho?4 Welp, the police are recommending charges for those wild security guards who were high on their own bullshit. I don’t like jail but I do like these assholes feeling stressed that they might go to jail.