#24// love, bling and screenshots
this is gonna be fun
Dear Reader,
Today I bring you all the fun things—crazy rich Asians in reality TV shows, steamy romance books. Let’s dive straight in, because this does look like a rather lengthyyy letter.
Read
Last year, during the pandemic blues, I fell into a Talia Hibbert hole. I followed signs because Hibbert and her book heroine Chloe were everywhere—Youtube, Insta, you name it. I don’t read many adult romances, and I usually feel underwhelmed by hyped books. But it was the pandemic, what have we got to lose?— and I decided to give Get a Life, Chloe Brown a try. I loved it!
Listening to Chloe Brown’s story was such a comfort, not to forget it was a very fun narration. Chloe is a chronically ill computer geek. She builds websites and has a bucket list. The bucket list involves things like moving out her parents’ mansion and riding a motorbike at night—things that Chloe cannot generally do because of her illness. She has two adorable sisters, Dani and Eve, and the trio make the best support system. Now, in the apartment that Chloe lives in, there’s a handyman Redford ‘Red’ Morgan. Heavily tattooed, paints at night (shirtless of course), holds secrets of past trauma. They hate each other. But there are cats on tree tops, and window gazing and heart fluttering in this enemies-to-lovers trope. Listening to the book on Scribd, narrated by Adjoah Andoh, was really the best. I finished it over many months—mostly because the chores I associated with the listen did not repeat too often—and it made me giddy, dizzy, happy. Also endless sighs! PS: Listening to this at night might have consequences. Red and Chloe know their way around ‘love’. And Red is such a darling! If you are looking for a make-me-feel-good-and-cuddle-me-to-death-and-give-me-all-the-sexy-feels, this is the book for you.
Of course, I could not get enough of the Brown sisters and moved to Dani Brown on audio, narrated by Ione Butler, in the new year 2021. Fair warning : This book has a lot more explicit sex scenes. Also if you are listening it with people around, make sure your earphones are inserted properly. Unless that's your thing. I had an incident of the phone screaming ‘Fuckbuddy Fuckbuddy’ when my earphones came loose. The silver lining being I had good reflexes to plug in the earphones securely before the lovemaking began.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown will make you sweat and huff. Dani is doing her PhD and fake-dates the security guard and ex-rugby player Zaf after a video of him rescuing her from an elevator goes viral. Reason : the publicity could help Zaf’s sports charity for children. Dani is a bisexual who follows the no-strings-attached rule. She doesn’t like commitment. And she loves this idea of playing Zaf’s girlfriend in public, and seducing him for a ‘three week contract’. Zaf, on the other hand, is a hopeless romantic who devours romance novels, and already has a crush on his friend Dani Brown. Fake dating into love with coffee, eye-to-eye talk and lots of sex. Not to forget that the other two Brown sisters are always around to tease and nag.
The third book Act your Age, Eve Brown follows the youngest sister Eve Brown. I read this before the Dani Brown book this year because I had an e-ARC from the publisher; I wanted something to read instead of listening. It was enjoyable! Eve Brown is a witty, sunshiny (book reference), always-listening-to-songs-with-airpods, purple haired hot mess. She can never stick to a job; she loses interest and attention soon enough, even if she has been successful at it. That’s when the Brown girl decides to make it on her own (after a successful wedding management assignment which her parents had hoped would be her ‘thing’ but she didn't want it anymore), and drives out…Into a car accident with a man who hates her purple hair and guts (maybe because she walked into an interview in a T-shirt with quotes, without a resume, and gave witty, sarcastic answers back). Now she is morally obliged to help Jacob Wayne run his understaffed Bed and Breakfast. She is the complete opposite of his orderliness; they clash so often; and soon enough get entangled (pun intended). The book also explores Eve’s self discovery, and how she understands herself (and her behaviour) better, as she gets closer to Jacob. I did think it could’ve been explored in more details, but no complaints—Eve and Jacob have a heated, sex-filled arrangement as they try to figure out how it fits their employer-employee relationship. It is fun, it is breezy.
In romances, I always look for the ‘feelings’ and how the characters make me feel. The three Brown sisters were addictive with their stories. You can read them in any order, btw; they all function as stand alones. I thought Get a Life, Chloe Brown was the best—it had solid character development (while the other two went by plots and more sex) in addition to being lovey-dopey. That was 5 star and I gave the other two Brown sisters 4.5 stars. So overall, perfect escapes, on dull days. I am actually sorry there are no more Brown sisters in the family.
What's New?
I listed 8 shiniest debuts of 2020 that you might love. There are loud women, dead men and white lies that keep families together.
Also, if you are planning your future book shopping, you might find this useful—I wrote about 21 anticipated books for 2021 for Vogue India.
Watch Bling Empire is a saviour for those mindless, TV watching nights you long for. Especially at the end of a week (Ironic that I should write this at the beginning of this week). It is eye popping, eyebrow raising, a bit scandalous—basically rich people throwing around money for things you didn’t know you need; like a spa where the ‘relax’ the inside of your mouth, or ponies that need to fly on Emirates only, or that $40,000 dollars a month not being enough, or $1000 shoes, or ego wars over diamond necklaces or Gucci bags in a box (whatever you call that thing where you lift teddy bears out from a transparent container using claw like things; common in malls, kid’s amusement spaces, k dramas etc).
I love how each character has their own personality—be it the ‘common man’ hot model Kevin Kreider, the aristocratic Anna Shay who unapologetically says ‘They can’t compete with what I was born into’, rich but raised-with-discipline-for-character-building Kale who has unused $200 Versace underwears lying around the house, wannabe-queen Christine Chiu (oh, PS: casually namedropping that she is the wife of a descendant of the Song dynasty, basically royal), Kim’s mom who frowns if Kim doesn’t flaunt her boobs enough on her Instagram photos.
It was wildly entertaining. It definitely takes the crown for the best cringe-binge. There was enough DRAMA (very promising). I thought Anna Shay was badass, and the Shay-Chiu fight is worth your TV minutes. If you’ve been disappointed with the poorly staged not-dramatic-enough The Lives of Bollywood wives or amused by the rich Asians in Singapore Socials, watch this! And reflect on how poor you are (PS: Do I have subscribers who fly their ponies in Emirates btw? Let's talk)
Streaming on Netflix
Amazing Links
- On the pitfalls of doing what you love—The dream job that wasn’t (Clio Chang, The New Republic)
A mattress firm invites interns to sleep at work advertising "an opening for a couple to live and work in a historic lighthouse-turned-inn for $130,000 (total) per year” with no Wi-fi, trek guides in dream jobs etc.
- Screen Memories (Kelly Pendergast, Real life mag)
"My screenshots are an archive of a life lived in the vicinity of screens. They are a small assertion of my sensibility as a reminder that I was here, in front of this screen, in this singular moment... When I take a screenshot, it feels like a tiny rejection of the logic of the contemporary corporate internet. Instead of offering up fragments of my photographic life to the computer gods, the screenshot feels like I’m stealing something back from the computational world for my own uses, removing it from the networked flow (sure, some of these snippets are eventually sucked into my iCloud and otherwise absorbed back).
- I rejected cooking in the name of feminism—until I had to feed myself (Aurvi Sharma, Bon Appetit)
"I had rejected cooking to assert my independence. But food for me was home itself. Family recipes were codas that held memories of grandmas who squatted in front of open fires and, like alchemists, turned ingredients into inheritance. When I was ready for it, my mother had passed on this legacy to me."
- Graphic essay : Every flavour a ghost (Words by Noah Cho, illustrated by Betty Kim, Catapult)
- On writing — What fan fiction teaches us that classroom doesn’t (Julie Beck, The Atlantic)
Did you know N. K. Jemisin used to write fan fic and honed her craft with it? Or that fan fic groups actually help improve writing? More in the story.
- On Ismat Chugtai’s buta-embroidered blouse (Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, The Voice of Fashion)
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That’s a wrap. See you soon,
Resh x
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