As a home school mom with a full time, at home job, summer is strange time of planning and freedom. I feel like I’m doing less, but the truth is that I get a lot more done. And I don’t just mean in the fandom department. My house is clean. There are always fresh flowers. My nails are done. Last Friday, I took my kids to the noon showing of Wonder Woman, and we are planning on going back one day this week. It’s good enough to spend another $41.50 at the theater. It really is.
But I do feel obligated to give a little bit more headspace to my obsessions. If I really want to conquer that Dutch fishtail braid, I’m going to have to spend some quality time on YouTube. In that spirit, I’m going to give you my top five obsessions for this week. The things I can’t quit thinking about, can’t quit googling. Can’t stop. Won’t stop.
My Cousin Rachel
The trailer for My Cousin Rachel is so sufficiently sexy and creepy that I want to live on that Cornwall estate right now. Based on the 1951 novel by Daphne du Maurier, author of Rebecca, it’s about Phillip, a man who’s grown up an orphan, but set to inherit his cousin’s large estate. That is until his beloved guardian and cousin marries an unknown woman in Italy, sends a cryptic letter back Phillip that seems to point the finger at his wife, Rachel, as the source of his illness.
Phillip sets out to find the truth. In the novel, Rachel comes to him. It looks like in the trailer, he goes to her, looking for revenge. Either way, he falls under her spell, not knowing whether or not she’s culpable for his cousin’s death or not.
The trailer looks lush like a good period piece should, and stars some of the best actors around: Rachel Weiss, Sam Claflin and SER JORAH himself, Iain Glen. It’s creepy. It’s sexy. It’s suspenseful. Like Phillip, you never quite know who to trust. I cannot wait to see it.
Harry Styles: The Album
You don’t need me to tell you this, you really don’t. Julie already talked about Harry with us. But I’m obsessed with it all the same, and for one particular reason. Harry Styles is PERFECT POOL MUSIC. I’ve piped it through the Sonos by the pool more than once and let me tell you … it’s summer mellow. It’s happy. It’s age appropriate for my kids. It moves from mellow rock ballad to fun rock shout-out-loud effortlessly. So right when I fall asleep in a float, “Kiwi” comes on. It’s just right.
I haven’t stopped listening “Two Ghosts” and “Sweet Creature” for two weeks.
Rainbow Rowell’s Runaways
EW broke the news that Rainbow Rowell’s next project won’t be Carry On 2 or a postcard with those four little words from Eleanor to Park, but that she will be writing the new ongoing comic series for Marvel’s Runaways (with Kris Anka doing art).
Runaways is a great series that even moderate to newbie comic fans can consume quickly and have the whole canon. It started just a decade and a half ago with the incredible Brian K Vaughan (of Saga and Paper Girls amazingness) and Adrian Alphona from Ms Marvel. It’s about a group of kids (and a telepathic dinosaur) who discover their parents are super villains. Check it out here.
I’m excited because I love Rainbow’s work (obviously) and I always want more of it. Plus I think this is a perfect fit for her storytelling style, and her character voices.
An Unnatural Vice
Oh KJ Charles, how you complete me. When I joke in my author bio that I have a penchant for gay wizard regency novels, you may think that that’s a euphemism for some other type of book. But KJ Charles writes just that, and does so PERFECTLY. I love her Magpie series, her Society of Gentlemen series and now this one, the Sins of the Cities. She writes impossibly realized and well drawn characters that leap off the page, move effortlessly throughout the series even when they aren’t the protagonist of the novel, and she makes me yearn for her next work.
An Unnatural Vice comes out today, and you bet your ass it’s all I’m doing. Again, even if you THINK that M/M romance is not for you (it’s for everyone), KJ Charles is a great way to find it IT IS TOTALLY YOUR THING. Buy it.
The Keepers
Did you guys see this mess yet? I love a good documentary. I really love a great murder mystery. The Keepers gives you the obsessive binge-level-must-know-right-now of Making a Murderer with the righteous outrage of Spotlight.
The tag line “Who Killed Sister Cathy?” becomes the background to an entire host of other, often unsolved and unsolvable questions that linger long after the doc (and your 8 hour binge watch) ends. I fell in love with the first two ladies we are introduced to: Abbie Schaub and Gemma Hoskins, former students of Sister Cathy, who become the first “keepers” of the truth. They’ve been searching for years for documents, interviews and answers. I love their partnership, I love Abbie’s Type-A organization and Gemma’s spunk.
But I really started to hate this story. It’s the kind of thing that you know in the back of your mind has always existed in the world, in the not too distant past, and in the present, but that you wish you could erase from anyone’s experience. I’m obsessed with all the ways it infuriated, engaged, saddened and impacted me. Go watch.
So, that’s what I’m obsessed with this week. Next week, it will probably be Parachute bedding and building an herb wall in my kitchen. I’ll let you know if I get anything more done as the summer progresses or if I let my obsessions drag me under.
What are you currently obsessed with?
