Due to technical difficulties, please enjoy this random Tuesday issue.

A rant about the worst book I’ve read so far this year: “These Summer Storms” by Sarah MacLean

• The premise of this book sounded so engaging and fun - Liane Moriarty meets Elin Hilderbrand, just what a girl wants for some summer reading. A tech-mogul dies in an accident and his family is reunited for the first time in years and made to play an inheritance game. On an island off Rhode Island or something, idk East Coast geography. But I imagine there are a lot of blue hydrangeas.

• However:

• Every character was so unlikable. This is fine in theory, but the book wanted you to find them sympathetic. I didn’t.

• The Dad’s motives for setting up this “game” are so confusing and poorly explained. Does he want his estranged children to reconnect or does he just lowkey hate his whole family? Never clear.

• The tasks in the game are mostly boring and unevenly distributed. Our main girl just has to sit on the island for a week. She acts like this is the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life. Boo hoo poor little rich girl.

• The romance is between our main girl and the Dad’s right hand man. The first night they meet (and sleep together) she thinks they’re strangers and he doesn’t disclose that he knows who she is or that he works for her Dad. This is icky. He also just comes across as a d-bag the whole book. Maybe they deserve each other.

• Don’t bother reading this book. In fact, would advise to actively avoid this book.

“Bachelor in Paradise” and “The Compound:”

• I recently read the (not very good) dystopian reality dating-show book “The Compound” by Aisling Rawle, so when I was watching this season of BIP (Bachelor in Paradise) and they decided to make it a competition show for half a million dollars I thought to myself, oh god all this needs is a wildfire raging on the edge of their pristine beach.

• “The Compound” centers around 20 contestants in a Love Island-like villa, who are there for a up-to a year or as long as the last of them lasts in the villa. The reader is aware that around them swirls a dystopian world of constant war, famine, and other general nasty but non-specific stuff. By completing tasks & games, the contestants get rewards to make their lives in (and maybe after) the villa better. Also, it’s kinda a dating show. A lot of this sounds like a fascinating social experiment but I also found myself wondering, “who would watch this?”

• Sure at the beginning, it seems fun. A random group of people dropped into a villa in the middle of the dessert, having to complete lots of tasks and get to know each other. When it gets to the point of our main girl Lily lying around for weeks on end despondently… I’m sorry girlie I’m turning the tv off.

• Obviously a point of this book is that the world of reality dating shows currently is in and of itself, kind of dystopian. Contestants spending tons of money just to look “good” enough to be on the show, the money & resources it takes to produce each season, the fact that we all know these shows aren’t really about “love” but about getting a large enough social media following.

• In the past, BIP has been one of my preferred reality dating shows for the low-stakes friendly nature. It certainly has it’s own flaws and incredibly cringy moments (what is up with their constant exoticising of the “locals” and sending their largely white cast off to do “primitive” “traditional” activities). But this year, when a few “weeks” into the season, it was announced that no new people would be coming to the beach and that the existing couples would have to compete to win half a million dollars, the first thing I thought about was “The Compound.”

• Perhaps it’s a reflection of the cost of living crisis that they now have to offer a cash prize and not just love, but personally I’m not a fan of this change.

Things I’ve enjoyed about August so far: this is a list of foods

• My mom making rhubarb pie. Yum. It should only ever be rhubarb and not the abomination that is strawberry rhubarb.

• My mom also making apricot jam. I am profiting from the labor of others.

• My mom’s friend growing amazing tomatoes. Eating BLT(A)s for dinner multiple times this month.

• Tillamook strawberry ice cream. Such a good texture. It’s a shame that they don’t have Tillamook ice cream stores.

• A surprisingly amazing piece of zucchini bread. Is zucchini bread better than banana bread?

An update on TikTok edits I have been delighted by recently:

• Cousin Richie x Man in the Mirror

• Severance x the Nicki verse of Beauty and a Beat

• Hannibal x audio of the girl who fell in love with her psychiatrist

• The day I got like 7 edits of All the Presidents Men (rip WaPo, you used to be a real one)

Question of the week: What is the best thing you’ve eaten in August so far?