You're Going to a Homecoming Game

Read tarot cards or or like "like"

Hi friends,

I treated myself to the latest Thursday Murder Club book, The Impossible Fortune, instead of waiting months on the library list. I’m now torn between reading it all in one go — because I love spending time with these characters — and trying to make the reading process last as long as possible. I’ve decided to reread the whole series over Christmas and New Year’s.

Also on my TBR: my pal Eman Quotah’s new book The Night is Not For You, which Publisher’s Weekly described as a “wonderfully chilling and entirely immersive feminist horror story.” I look forward to reading it with all the lights on in my house. If you’re in the D.C. area, you can celebrate Eman’s book launch at Solid State Books on H Street this Friday.

And, now, what to read if …

You’re Off to a Homecoming Celebration

Throwback by Maurene Goo

My neighborhood high school celebrated its annual Homecoming last weekend with a fabulous parade and a football game. It all felt very “Friday Night Lights” and reminded me of Maurene Goo’s Throwback, a YA novel starring a high school senior who travels back in time to help her mom become Homecoming Queen in the early ‘90s.

When Sam, the daughter of Korean immigrants, is nominated for Homecoming Queen, her mom, Priscilla, a former cheerleader, doesn’t understand why she has no interest in campaigning for the royal court. Sam prefers spending her time working on her boyfriend’s film project, rather than chasing clichéd high school experiences. After a blowout fight with her mom, Sam calls a ride share to take her to school. She does make it to the building — but in the 90s, when her mom was a student.

Sam’s seen enough time travel movies to know she’s been sent back to fix something and concludes she must ensure her mom wins the Homecoming crown. Stuck in an era with outdated attitudes and without the internet, Sam sets to work and ends up questioning everything she thought she knew about her mom.

I adored Throwback, best described as Joy Luck Club meets “Back to the Future.” It’s funny, big-hearted and filled with insights about the Asian American immigrant experience. It feels like a ‘90s teen movie in the best way.

You’ve Gotten into Tarot

If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You by Leigh Stein

Tarot cards are having a bit of a moment. Vogue reports, “U.S. searches for ‘tarot cards’ and ‘how to read tarot cards’ increased by over 30% during the pandemic, while another study suggests the tarot and oracle industry is slated to become a $93 million market by 2027.” If you’re looking to the cards for guidance, check out If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You, Leigh Stein’s gothic novel set in a TikTok hype house.

After being dumped via Reddit post (!), Dayna, an unemployed former journalist approaching her 40^th birthday, begrudgingly accepts a job from a man she last spoke to 20 years ago. Craig has turned his crumbling mansion into a group house for TikTok stars, hoping a cut of their income will help him restore his home.

The rabbit is named Owen Wilson.

Dayna quickly becomes curious about Becca, a tarot card influencer who built a large following while living in the mansion — and then disappeared. Despite Craig’s instructions, Dayna joins forces with the house’s newest resident, nineteen-year-old Olivia, to find Becca, and along the way finds some of the secrets the labyrinth manor is hiding.

If You’re Seeing This, It’s Meant for You is creepy, claustrophobic and tense in the best way. I’m not on TikTok but still found a lot to love about the novel — the commentary on the shifting line between journalism and influencing, exploration of how millennials are approaching aging and a rabbit named Owen Wilson.

As a bonus, if you’ve already read this one or just can’t get enough of gothic novels, Leigh will share three of her favorites in this newsletter next week.

You Celebrated the 30^th Anniversary of “Clueless”

Like by Megan Reynolds

“Clueless,” the Beverly-Hills-set retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma starring Alicia Silverstone as the like stereotypical valley girl, turned 30 last month. (I was recently devastated to learn many of my Gen Z colleagues have never seen “Clueless”, especially because I regularly quote it.)

“Clueless” is one of the many texts Megan Reynolds examines in Like, her “history of the world’s most hated (and misunderstood) word.”

Reynolds in an unabashed fan of the word, littering her communication with it and going so far as to argue “Like.” can be a complete sentence. She argues “like” is no longer a piece of slang or the domain of teenage girls, but a critical aspect of communication today that adds nuance to conversations and makes meaning clearer. Bringing in examples from her own texts, emails and chats with family and friends, as well as Ice Spice’s album “Like..?” and, yes, “Clueless,” Reynolds reclaims the word as an example of linguistic innovation — not the bane of grammarians everywhere.

Fans of Amanda Montell’s Wordslut won’t want to miss this one. In fact, Montell said, “Like is a fun and fascinating book that will leave its readers with delight, curiosity, and hope. Anyone who has ever been criticized for using this word, or has censured it themselves, needs not only read Megan Reynolds’s work but shout it from the rooftops.”

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