The Week In Recommendations 5.8.25

A book about aughts pop culture, Meghann Fahy's next big role, and Hill House summer!

This is the free edition of Rich Text, a newsletter about cultural obsessions from your Internet BFFs Emma and Claire. If you like what you see and hear, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Our latest subscriber podcast was about fashion, politics and personal style. An episode checking in on “The Valley” is coming soon! Rich Text is a reader-supported project.

Over on Love To See It this week, we’re talking about “Farmer Wants A Wife” and “Bachelor In Paradise” gossip.

Civic challenge of the week:

Call your Senators and House reps to ensure they are opposing funding cuts to NPR and PBS!

Claire has been reading…

“Mỹ Documents” by Kevin Nguyen, which I finally finished this past week. As the family at the heart of the novel endures an era of Vietnamese detainment — some within a camp, and others on the outside — it becomes a story about journalism and its uneasy relationship with resistance. For one woman, a lifestyle reporter at a BuzzFeed-style website on the outside, the internment camps become her big career break. But for her half-sister, who is also her secret source on the inside, leaking information about the conditions within the camp is fraught with risk and offers uncertain benefits at best. Illicit newspapers within the camp offer both uncensored truth and wild conspiracy theories. And for outside audiences, even the best reporting available reduces the detained Vietnamese-Americans to pitiable objects rather than full and complex humans. But it does take on a bittersweet flavor to see journalistic ethics put under a microscope in 2025, when the heyday of BuzzFeed-style news websites has long since passed and even the New York Times has lost its luster. In many ways, “Mỹ Documents” feels not only prescient, not only timely, but oddly nostalgic. I’d love to have the news media, with all its many flaws, in sturdier shape today.

I’m often the raving anti-ChatGPT lunatic in the room. I never use it, and my distrust and loathing for it is many-faceted. But one of them is that it hallucinates, in part because it is designed to satisfy the user instead of offering the truth. (This week I googled a TV show and the book I thought it was based on together, and the AI Google response at the top simply made up a connection between them. It turns out I was thinking of the wrong book.) So I was extremely interested in this New York Times piece on AI hallucinations, which are apparently getting more frequent in newer iterations of the programs. Oh, and no one is sure why or how to fix it. Great! Let’s put this technology in charge!

Adrienne LaFrance’s Atlantic piece on how far America has already slid into authoritarianism was terrifying and informative, as she speaks to a few high-profile dissidents who witnessed the slide in their own homelands — all of whom are emphatic that, while it isn’t too late, we must shake off complacency and fight at every turn.

Emma has been reading… 📖

Atlantic writer Sophie Gilbert’s new book, “Girl On Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves,” which examines the rancid, internalized misogyny of the pop culture of the 2000s. Since this is the culture I was raised on as an elder millennial, I was eager to get my hands on Gilbert’s book. “Girl On Girl” dives into everything from the Spice Girls to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign to Britney Spears to the archetype of the Girl Boss. Gilbert positions all of these things within the framework of postfeminism, a “vague” movement which gained steam in the ‘90s, defined mostly “in opposition to a boogeyman version of feminism, encouraging women to embrace casual sex, spend with abandon, and be as stereotypically girly or overtly sexy as they desired.”

“The shifting cultural ideals for womanhood in the 1990s help clarify why the aughts were quite so cruel,” writes Gilbert. “There was only one way to exist in public, and it was a trap.” I’m only a couple chapters in, but I’m very compelled by Gilbert’s analysis, and suspect I’ll be noodling on her writing for quite awhile.

Claire has been watching… 📺

“Sirens,” an upcoming Netflix limited series starring Julianne Moore and Meghann Fahy. Based on the play “Elemeno Pea” by Molly Smith Wexler, “Sirens” follows hard-edged burnout Devon (Fahy) one Labor Day weekend as she tracks down her younger sister Simone (Milly Alcock) at the island mansion where she works as a personal assistant to a billionaire’s wife. Devon made the journey to demand help with their father, who has dementia, but she ends up staying because she believes Simone has become entangled with a cult led by her boss, philanthropist Michaela Kell (Julianne Moore). What unfolds is the gauziest nightmare you could ever be trapped in, as Devon and Simone try to come to a detente with each other, process their traumatic shared childhood, make sense of Michaela’s Svengali-like hold on the women around her, and plan their futures. With the dreamily unsettling atmosphere of a fairy tale and the twisty plot of a thriller, “Sirens” took me an episode to get into, but I was seduced first by the pitch-perfect performances and then by the off-kilter vibe. A definite must-watch if you love domestic thrillers like “The Last Mrs. Parrish” or the melodramatic class-conscious comedy of “The White Lotus” and “Succession.”

Emma has been watching… 📺

I have also been watching “Sirens,” and am completely enraptured with the setting and the performances — especially Meghann Fahy’s and Julianne Moore’s. (See Claire’s commentary above.) I’m about halfway through the screeners and still unsure where this thing is going, in the best way. Excited to discuss this one more after it premieres on Netflix on May 22.

I’ve also been catching up on my backlog of “The Studio” and “Your Friends And Neighbors” episodes, both on Apple TV. Both shows are uneven at times, but I’m still having a fun time watching, which right now is enough for me!

Claire has been listening to… 🎧

Fiasco: Iran Contra, the second season of Leon Neyfakh’s narrative history podcast. Initially released for paid subscribers in 2020, it’s now available to the general public – and thus, I am finally learning what the Iran-Contra scandal is. (I’m pretty sure my middle and high school American history classes never made it past the Vietnam War by summer break.) It’s a complicated scandal with a lot of moving parts and a huge cast of characters, and it’s not always intuitively clear what the scandal actually is – especially for someone currently bathing her brain in the acid bath that is the Trump era, where even stunningly obvious scandals are quibbled over until they’re dropped from the news cycle two weeks later. So it’s a blessing to have Neyfakh to guide me through, in his steady fashion.

Emma has been listening to… 🎧

Old Rilo Kiley now that the band is back together for a reunion tour! I have such core memories tied to the band’s 2002 album, “The Execution Of All Things,” and 2004 album, “More Adventurous.” Both came out when I was in high school, spending time in the car by myself for the first time once I got my driver’s license. This meant that Rilo Kiley was the soundtrack of my teenage angst. I idolized Jenny Lewis — there’s a reason Claire and I both cited her as an adolescent style influence — and I remember so many afternoons when I’d be cruising down Georgia Avenue or zipping around on I-495, scream-singing my feelings out to “With Arms Outstretched” or “It’s A Hit.” (Should I really go for it and buy some resale tickets for one of the Rilo Kiley shows in New York in September???)

Claire has been buying… 🛍️

Hill House House summer drop – gingham, gingham, and more gingham. My red and green gingham Ellies are among my most-worn summer outfits, whether I’m pregnant, nursing, or unencumbered; the gingham is soft, drapey, and strikes the perfect balance between elevated and casual. So I knew I was done for when I saw chocolate brown and navy ginghams in the linesheet. I’m interested in trying the new maxi length Ellie, the boatneck silhouette Cosima, and the Azalea top and Delphine skirt, but I will probably end up with another gingham Ellie – I just keep going back to them.

I also made Greg go with me for a mega shopping expedition to stock up on olive oil, vanilla extract, coffee beans, jasmine rice, and other shelf-stable goods that I’d read might be affected by the tariffs. I’d never seen a grocery bill that large (turns out that a year’s worth of olive oil is quite expensive, not to mention all the coffee), and I still know that this is like shoring up for a tidal wave by putting a row of leaky sandbags at the shoreline. Interesting times we live in!

Emma has been buying… 🛍️

Hill House summer! I have scaled back my Hill House Home obsession over the last year as I’ve embraced my love of separates and pants, but the brand still does joyful summer clothing better than most. So I was excited to try a handful of pieces from their summer drop, the biggest of the year. I placed a big order and will end up returning a bunch of things, but I’m most excited to try the Margot dress in Pink Floral Block Stripe (I already have this style in white and it’s a summer staple), the Rosalie Top (love that it can be worn with the buttons in back or front!), the Azalea Maxi Dress in chocolate gingham (comfort of the classic Ellie without the fussiness of the ruffle straps), the Kate midi skirt and matching crop top (very curious if this will just be too much fabric on a petite person), and the Celia top with matching Audrey shorts (you can never go wrong with a white set for summer).

Photo Credit: Hill House Home / Canva

Also, I grabbed my absolute favorite Left On Friday playsuit in Cold Brew, a cool, deep brown. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I’ve been wearing the black version almost every day — out to run errands, to barre class, to the airport, to a casual brunch. I swear, the Plunge Playsuit does it all!

Claire has been making… 🧶

Christian Reynoso’s garlic chicken and broccoli was a perfect quick dinner, thanks to the richness of the anchovy pan sauce and a nice crusty bread with butter on the side.

I had grand plans to use the rest of the chicken to top a hummus pasta for a quick weeknight dinner. I love a quick sauce made by folding an unexpected ingredient – goat cheese, hummus – into hot noodles and loosening it with starchy pasta water. As it happened, Greg was working late and I was home alone with both kids that night. This can be a lot. The toddler craves cuddles from mama after daycare and is always underfoot, while the big kid craves chaos and is always creating chaos and then demanding that I watch and comment on the chaos. Amid the maelstrom, I managed to drop and smash a Pyrex measuring cup all over the counter… including most of the dinner ingredients. The hummus, which I’d just opened, was now riddled with glass shards. The shallot, which I’d just chopped, was now blanketed with a generous helping of glass slivers. The floor was covered in glass as well. So I had my older son lock the younger one in the bedroom with him, and I listened to the baby howl with dismay while I cleaned up the glass and found something else to do with all the bucatini in my pot. In the confusion, I left chopped garlic to simmer in lemon juice too long, and we ended up with a delicious dinner of lemon and blue garlic bucatini topped with cold chicken. Bon appetit!

Emma has been making… 🧶

Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Hoisin Garlic Noodles — I used whole wheat spaghetti from Whole Foods — from NYT Cooking. These were super easy and delicious; perfect for a weeknight dinner and leftovers for the next day’s lunch. Plus, I just always absolutely love a sweet and savory mix of flavors, and hoisin sauce definitely delivers on that. I also added crispy air-fried tofu! I just tossed some paper-towel-dried extra firm tofu cubes with a little bit of sesame oil, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a dusting of corn starch (for that added crunch factor) and threw it in the air fryer at 400 degrees. The result was really filling and satisfying.

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