Happy Friday! Welcome to The Weekend Edition: a series where I share a grab-bag of ideas for your weekend ahead. Think of it as a little dose of joy to kick-off your weekend!

In today’s post, you’ll find:

• a really good thriller to add to your to be read pile
• a movie I watched recently & loved
• the song I’ve been playing on repeat
• an in-depth look at how celebrity book clubs work

📚 The Fury by Alex Michaelides – “This is a tale of murder.” These are the words you’ll find  in bold when you open the front cover of Alex Michaelides most recent thriller, The Fury. Elliot Chase, a struggling playwright and friend to one of the most famous actresses in the world, is the narrator of this tale, and an unreliable one at best. He’s constantly interjecting his own opinions and blurring the lines of what’s real and what’s fiction. The storyline is a typical thriller plotline: A reclusive ex-movie star invites her friends to spend Easter weekend on her private Greek island. What’s supposed to be an idyllic getaway turns into a game of cat and mouse until one of them is murdered. What makes this story unique is Michaelides writing and how he plays with story structure throughout the novel. It wasn’t a very fast-paced book, but the great writing kept me invested until the end. 

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🎥 The Idea of You on Prime – Solène (Anne Hathway), a 40-year-old single mom begins an unexpected romance with Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), the 24-year-old lead singer of the popular boy band, August Moon. I really enjoyed this movie, even though I originally only watched it because I thought it was a Harry Styles fanfic, lol. It turns out that that’s not really true. Anne Hathway stuns as Solène and she brings so much vulnerability to the character, especially as her character deals with the reality of dating someone famous.

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💿 Feel Like That (feat. Bradley Nowell) by Sublime x Stick Figure – It’s been 28 years since Sublime has released a song. According to Rolling Stone, this is the “first original Sublime studio track since Nowell’s death, featuring additional vocals from both Scott Woodruff of SoCal reggae band Stick Figure and Bradley Nowell’s son Jakob Nowell, who took over as Sublime’s singer.” With a groovy reggae sound and a sick beat, I can’t stop listening to this song since it was released back in May.

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📝 How Celebrity Book Clubs Actually Work – a fascinating inside-look at how popular celebrity book clubs —like Oprah’s Book Club, Reese’s Book Club and Read With Jenna —are selected each month, and the impact their selections have had on turning sleepy debut novels into buzzy bestsellers. 

Here’s some of the lines and quotes from the article that stood out to me:

As someone who wants to see more books in the hands of readers, I am wholeheartedly in support of famous people using their immense clout and privilege to promote books instead of the many other products they could be paid handsomely to endorse.

YES to this 👆As a self-proclaimed bookworm, I’m so happy to be seeing more people interested in reading books! Who care whether they were influenced to pick up the book because of a celebrity book club or TikTok or NPR. As long as people are reading, I’m happy. 

There are two full-time staffers on Harden’s team and a group of literary scouts at Baker Literary Scouting who “read for Reese to make sure that nothing slips through the net that is worthy of consideration,” she says. In any given month, 100 to 150 books make it onto their long list for consideration.

Reading for Reese sounds like my dream job. How do I apply? 

Because of the popularity of BookTok, I expect to see more Gen Z celebrities launching book clubs in the near future, and I’d appreciate it if we could skip the “Do they even read?” discourse that’s already come for a new generation.

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Thanks for reading!