You're Fascinated by Internet Scams

Are looking for murder, magic and mayhem or are watching a lot of spring training baseball

Hi friends,

Welcome to March. I hope you enjoyed your Leap Day! Did you do anything special with the extra day? Let me know.

And, now, what to read if…

You’re Obsessed with the Fake Wonka Land

Hype by Gabrielle Bluestone

When I launched this newsletter, I explained that I’ve always thought finding the right book at the right time was a certain kind of magic. I had that feeling last week as I read Hype, journalist Gabrielle Bluestone’s examination of the disastrous Fyre Festival and the broader world of online grifters, when the pictures of a sad Willy Wonka experience in Scotland hit the internet.

Families paid $40/person to attend, lured in with lush AI-generated images and walked away with two jellybeans each. You can read more about it here.

Hype paired perfectly with scrolling through the pictures of the World of Pure Imagination. In it, Bluestone alternated between documenting the decisions that led to hundreds of wannabe influencers stranded on an island and examining new other internet-era scammers, such as fake heiress Anna Delvey, Adam Neuman of WeWork and, of course, Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes. She argues that social media and venture capital practices incentivize excitement and “hype,” over actual results, connecting the dots between the $400 juicing machine that raised $120 million, the world of influencers and the Fyre Festival.

It’s a juicy and entertaining read I enjoyed even after watching both Fyre Festival documentaries. (Look: it’s well-established I’m fascinated by a scam.) Grab this book to ensure you don’t buy tickets to the next fake experience/festival.

You’re Looking for a Mystery — With a Side of Magic

These Deadly Prophecies by Andrea Tang

If you’ve ever wanted a mystery in the vein of “Knives Out” or The Inheritance Games but with magic, Andrea Tang’s These Deadly Prophecies is your next read. It’s a YA novel about a teenage sorcerer's apprentice attempting to figure out who killed her teacher, Sorcerer Solomon, one of the world’s most famous fortune-tellers.

During a training session months before the book’s action, Tabatha Zeng’s teacher prophesized his own murder, saying he would be killed by his “best beloved.” Sorcerer Solomon makes Tabatha promise that when it happens, she will stand with his youngest son, Callum, no matter what happens. When a police officer on a literal witch hunt decides one of the two teens is the killer, Tabatha and Callum decide to trust the dead sorcerer and team up to find the real murderer.

These Deadly Prophecies is a well-plotted mystery but what really makes it shine is Tabatha’s voice. It’s narrated in the first person, and Tabatha is funny, wry and witty, while still feeling like a real teenager. If you, like me, are fantasy-tepid, the world-building is clear and grounded in our universe, making it accessible to all readers. One note: I’d put this on the upper side of YA (Publishers Weekly says 14&up) in case you have a young, advanced reader at home.

You’re Ready for Baseball Season

Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes

We are less than one month out from Opening Day! Baseball officially starts on March 28 (just 24 days, but who’s counting). If spring training games just aren’t cutting it for you, consider reading Linda Holmes’s Evvie Drake Starts Over, a hug of a book starring Dean, a former major league pitcher, and the titular Evvie, who has barely left the house after her husband died in a car crash the year earlier.

After pitching for years, Dean suddenly has the “yips,” he can’t get the ball over the plate. Dean, his coaches and doctors have no idea what the problem is and, desperate to get out of New York, he moves into an apartment attached to Evvie’s house, after a mutual friend introduces them. The pair agree to not discuss Dean’s baseball career or Evvie’s husband and, over the course of a year, they develop a deep friendship that has the potential to blossom into something more.

At its core, Evvie Drake Starts Over is the story of two people grieving the lives they thought they would have. It’s tender, loving and the kind of book that will make you smile and tear up, sometimes with a few sentences. As Roxane Gay wrote in her Goodreads review, “This is a very charming novel. It is a juicy red apple. It is a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils. It is, and I mean this in the best possible way, a Hallmark movie, but with richly drawn characters who are imperfect and interesting.”

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Thanks, as always, for joining me each week. Would you have gone to Wonka Land? The Fyre Festival?

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