February is for Lovers

The February Brain Dump

It’s that time of the month again! Cue my regularly scheduled expression of disbelief re: the passage of time. That being said, I’m thrilled to be at March’s door: temps have risen marginally in New York and my will to live has returned from the war.

In honor of my genuine love for Valentine’s, Galentines, and the abundance of tacky heart-shaped things they inspire, this month’s Brain Dump is a list of 10 things I’ve loved this February.

Here we go:

1. Homebodies by Tembe Denton-Hurst ($17.66, Bookshop)

I loved this book. Homebodies offers a look into the current landscape of digital media from the perspective of Mickey, a Black, queer writer. It’s a classic quarter-life crisis novel: Mickey loses her New York media job and temporarily moves home in the messy aftermath to figure out her next steps. The word that comes to mind is incisive; Denton-Hurst catalogues the nuances of the NY media girls, suburban monotony, and the unique torture of workplace microaggressions with the methodological care of an ethnographer. The world of digital media is expertly rendered (Denton-Hurst is a staff writer at NY Mag’s The Strategist), but more impressive is the undercurrent of millennial malaise that’s deftly incorporated into the text, a persistent feeling of unease that comes with the realization that the world you were raised to inhabit no longer exists.