You Consume a lot of Pop Culture

Are ready for wedding season or want to read a Pulitzer-winning writer

Hi book lovers,

Hope you had a great weekend. A friend and I took a home and garden tour on Saturday and got to wander around some stunning houses. It was a perfect activity for a Zillow-stalker like me.

And, now, what to read if…

You’re a Pop Culture Junkie

Superfan by Jen Sookfong Lee*

I’m slowly making my way through an advanced copy of Where Are You Boys Tonight, an oral history of the early 2000s emo craze. It has me 1) revisiting the albums I had on repeat while in high school and 2) thinking about how different songs, books, movies and TV shows have defined eras of my life. I use pop culture to better understand myself — dissecting character’s motivations and song lyrics in an attempt to think through my own motivations. If you have similar habits, grab Superfan, a memoir-in-essays from novelist Jen Sookfong Lee about the culture that’s defined her.

When Lee was twelve, her father died after a long battle with cancer. Her mother, a Chinese immigrant who didn’t speak English, suffered from a serious depression and withdrew from the world. Lee turned to Anne of Green Gables and “The Joy of Painting” with Bob Ross for comfort and companionship. Eventually, though, she grew frustrated with the way the culture she loved and obsessed over depicted Asian women like her, something she struggled with as she began writing and found the publishing industry had a specific idea of what stories she should be telling.

There is so much I love about Superfan. Lee’s descriptions of rereading L.M. Montgomery’s classic series again and again instantly transported me to days spent revisiting my own favorite books. It’s also a master class in how to write an essay that blends personal experience with pop culture criticism. I left feeling like I knew Lee and that I had gleaned some sharp insights on everything from Princess Diana to ‘80s movies. Reading it is the equivalent of having a drink with a culture-obsessed friend.

You’re Prepping for — or are Already in — Wedding Season

It Happened One Wedding by Julie James

It is officially mid-May and we are knee-deep in wedding season. From now, through August, expect to have at least a few activities — a shower, a bachelor(ette) party or the nuptials themselves on your calendar. For even more wedding craziness, read It Happened One Wedding, a contemporary romance from Julie James.

Investment banker Sidney Sinclair is on a disastrous blind date when FBI agent Vaughn Roberts recognizes an opportunity and attempts to ask her out. She shoots him down and they expect to never see each other again. Except (and it’s a romance novel, so of course there is an “except”) they soon learn Sidney’s sister is engaged to Vaughn’s brother and their siblings are counting on them to help with whirlwind wedding planning. With Sidney looking for a long-term partner and Vaughn afraid of commitment, a relationship is off the table, but a friendship between the two blossoms … and you can probably guess where it goes from here.

This book is a total joy. I read it ages ago after reading a glowing review of it on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. I loved it so much that I immediately read the entire series it’s a part of and have since returned to it a half dozen times or so. The banter between Sidney and Vaughn is fantastic, there are some fun undercover FBI investigations and the conflict between the two of them — wanting different things — feels real, rather than contrived for a novel. Throw it in your bag to read on the way to the wedding.

You’re Curious about the Pulitzer Winners and Finalists

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

The winners of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize were announced last week — including former What To Read If picks Stay True and Trust. Xochitl Gonzalez made the shortlist for her commentary in The Atlantic, about politics, culture and gentrification, all topics she explores in her novel Olga Dies Dreaming.

Set in New York City in the months surrounding Hurricane Maria hitting Puerto Rico, Olga Dies Dreaming follows two siblings with Puerto Rican roots. Both the titular Olga and Pedro “Prieto” seemingly have their lives together. Olga is a wedding planner to the one percent and Prieto is a congressman, representing their rapidly-gentrifying neighborhood. Beneath the surface though, they are both a mess, struggling to maintain relationships and living with long-held secrets. Their mother, Blanca, abandoned them to their grandmother as children, choosing her radical political causes over staying with her children. After years of silence, Blanca reappears with requests for both Olga and Prieto.

Olga Dies Dreaming is an ambitious novel, offering a blackmail plot, a thread involving the Russian mob, a love story and more. As Ron Charles of the Washington Post said in his review when it first came out last year, “Rarely does a novel, particularly a debut novel, contend so powerfully and so delightfully with such a vast web of personal, cultural, political and even international imperatives.  For fiction lovers, what an auspicious start to 2022. ¡Feliz año nuevo, indeed!”

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Thanks for reading! You can catch up on last week’s recs here.

*I received a free copy of the audiobook of Superfan from libro.fm in exchange for an honest review.

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