California Dreaming
I was on vacation to LA this week, so my reading was condensed to a few long-form reads. Both the magazine feature and book are thought provoking reads. They told compelling stories while making me think differently about life.
What I Wrote:
Music, Drugs, Love | NineOverFour
I often fail to find the words to bring comfort to those who need it the most. This essay was written as a self reminder and cheat sheet on how to handle those harrowing moments. As I’m still learning, it’s not about forming the perfect sentence but about showing up and being there.
What I’ve Read:
Everything I Never Told You | Celeste Ng
This was a quick read, as I finished it on my return flight, but a rewarding one. The novel unravels the mysterious story that leads to the disappearance of a 16 year old Asian girl. It was set in a small Midwest town in the 1970s, however the themes that run throughout the narrative could be plucked out of a recent New Yorker piece. Some of the ideas I personally related to were: the weight of meeting unspoken parental pressure and the feeling of being invisible while observing everyone else.
The Agency | NYTimes
Adrian Chen digs deep into the Russian troll machine. It’s quite terrifying and fascinating to think that people are paid (quite handsomely) to tweet and post comments on Facebook. It makes me take a step back and question media consumed on the internet. How much of it is curated and biased toward a certain point of view? If you were stuck in a manufactured echo chamber, would you know it?