You're Following the NHL Finals

Are studying a new language or were scarred by the 2000s

Hi friends,

Hope you’re doing well. Before getting into this week’s recs, I want to congratulate my pal Laura Hankin on the release of her new book One Star Romance, out tomorrow. I give it five full stars and am looking forward to highlighting it in a future edition of this newsletter.

And, now, what to read if…

You’re Watching the Stanley Cup

Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday

The Edmonton Oilers scored eight goals Saturday night to defeat the Florida Panthers and force another game in the Stanley Cup finals. The two teams will face off in game five, in the best-of-seven- series, on Tuesday. For more hockey goodness, check out Jenny Holiday’s Canadian Boyfriend, a romance starring a pro hockey player, Mike Martin, and his daughter’s dance instructor, Aurora Evans.

The title comes from a chance meeting Mike and Aurora had when they were teens. She worked at the Mall of America — in between a demanding ballet schedule — and he was in town from, yes, Canada for a hockey tournament. From there, Aurora began using Mike, her “boyfriend from Canada,” as an excuse to skip prom and other events. Their “relationship” allowed her to hide her intense social anxiety.

Years later, the pair meet again, as Aurora struggles with an eating disorder and Mike adjusts to life as a single dad after his wife’s death. As their relationship deepens, Aurora knows she should confess her secret, but the longer she waits, the harder it becomes.

The premise of this book made me nervous, but Holiday sticks the landing. The fake relationship takes a backseat to the real one Mike and Aurora attempt to develop while addressing some very serious baggage. I highly recommend the audiobook, which is narrated by Emily Ellet and Joshua Jackson (of “Dawson’s Creek” fame). I listened to it in a single weekend.

You’re Learning Another Language

The Centre by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi

I do not pick up languages super easily, although I do better with writing and reading than I do with speaking. (This might mimic my approach to English as well?) Anisa Ellahi, the main character of Ayesha Siddiqi’s The Centre, discovers a new way to pick up a language fluently in just ten days.

She learns the secret from her boyfriend, Adam, who has a savant-like gift for languages. When he learns Anisa’s native Urdu in just over a week, she demands to know his secret. Begrudgingly, Adam describes The Centre, an elite, invite-only language school that promises to teach students a new language in less than two weeks. Anisa, who dreams of becoming a literary translator, quickly enrolls. There, she learns the sinister truth behind The Centre’s method.

The Centre is one of those books that snuck up on me. I thought I knew what I was reading, when all of a sudden it shot off in a different direction. Nathalie Kernot called it “Duolingo gone dark,” a brilliant, accurate description. One note: Without spoiling too much, this book goes right up to the edge of horror, so if that’s not for you, maybe give it a pass.

Reminder rec: Both The Centre and Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies explore the power that comes with language and translation.

You’re Still Processing the 2000s

Toxic: Women, Fame, and the Tabloid 2000s by Sarah Ditum

Long-time subscribers know I have a fascination with the on-going conversation about how poorly society treated female celebrities in the 2000s (see: Advika and the Hollywood Wives by Kirthana Ramisetti, Laura Hankin’s The Daydreams, Birds of California by Katie Cotugno and Kate Flannery’s Strip Tees. Or revisit my essay on the topic for the Chicago Review of Books). Sarah Ditum’s Toxic is the non-fiction book exploring the issue I’ve been waiting for.

Yes, it shares the name with a Britney song

Toxic tells the tale of what Ditum refers to as the “upskirt decade,” named for a period of time when judges ruled women could have covert photos taken up their skirts, through nine essays on different women. She walks readers through Britney Spears’ rise and subsequent conservatorship, Lindsay Lohan’s struggles and the reaction to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction.” Underlying each of the essays is an examination of how tabloids, changing notions of privacy and the internet’s growing power created and advanced scandalous narratives and damaging reputations. In a fitting twist, Paris Hilton, one of the women featured, has bought the book’s production rights.

Toxic is a fast, engaging read that, once again, has me thinking about how growing up in the 2000s affected me and a generation of women who were told Jessica Simpson was fat. As Ditum writes, “The stories of these women, as told through the tabloids and the blogs, became vehicles through which we made sense of our own existence.”

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Thanks for reading! I’m excited to have a guest recommendation this week from Leigh Kamping-Carder, a journalist and the writer of The Heart Dialogues, a newsletter for people born with heart conditions (and the people who care about them):

Writer and podcaster Andrew Leland’s sight has been declining since his teens, thanks to a condition called retinitis pigmentosa that, eventually, will result in complete blindness. The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight is a chronicle of Leland’s adaptations, both physical and emotional. It’s also a deep dive into the diversity of the blind community, the history of disability rights and accommodations and the rich store of language and culture that deals with blindness. As someone with a lifelong health issue myself, I appreciate how Leland presents his story not as a triumph or a tragedy but as an evolution filled with nuance. The book was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize this year. 

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