Shavuos Reads

Recommendations!

A special edition of Weekend Reads, since we’ve got a very important, very niche Jewish holiday this week – Shavuot! (aka Pentecost? I think?) It’s the one that’s seven weeks after Passover, if that’s any help, and it’s one of the three biggies that once involved pilgrimages to Jerusalem. The cheesecake one.

As usual, I remember to write these when I’ve had a recent publication (yay!), so you can find that one at the bottom!

• Sirens

  

  I follow LuckyChap Entertainment – Margot Robbie’s impressive production company – on Instagram, so I’ve been waiting for this show since the production photos were released. I was a little disappointed by its red herring marketing, but it is just so so pretty, full of pretty people and pretty places and bad decisions and a “the real villain was _____ all along”, and I had a lot of fun watching it.

• Tom Lake

  

  Would I have liked this book as much as I did if someone other than Ann Patchett had written it? Possibly not. But this is my third Patchett, so I was expecting an explosive third act and was along for the meandering ride because of that. This book turned out to be a lot quieter, with the crazy climaxes of Bel Canto and State of Wonder replaced with a delayed release of information. Regardless, I’m a sucker for a show business story (the theatre, in this case); the Covid-era-ness of it was subtly done; and I love a self aware narrator.

• Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE

  

  Am I the only one who watched Pussycat Dolls Presents: Girlicious back in 2008? It was one of those “let’s make a band” reality shows.

  Last year, two music juggernauts – Geffen Records and Hybe Corporation – combined forces to make an international girl group based on the K-pop development method. They gathered twenty aspiring pop stars, the youngest of which was 14 (!!), trained them for two years and then tricked them into performing on a “survivor show” – apparently a common system in South Korea for creating K-pop idols.

  I was ready to compare Girlicious to how this current trend of documentary/reality TV hybrids would treat the subject matter and, it turns out, not much has changed! There’s mention of mental health and footage of a psychologist, but it’s all kind of the same! IMO, dancers don’t make for the best television, but it’s not really their fault; nothing will ever match The Glee Project, which understood that pointing a camera at a bunch of theater kids is all anyone ever really needed to do to make good TV.

  God, did I just talk myself out of recommending this?

  My plug for this show is that the girl group is turning out to be pretty successful, so if you enjoy seeing origin stories that might actually matter, this show had some pretty good stakes.

• The Boys in The Yeshiva Whispered About Her

  Finally, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Here is my latest micro fiction, published by the folks over at The Rush Magazine.

As always, thank you for your continued support of my writing. It means so much to me. Chag Sameach!