First, we share all the reasons why our Book Clubs are so unique and make the perfect last-minute gift for your literary friends and family members—and for yourself.
Then, in the Saturday Essay, Becca Schuh writes about the unique challenges of being a young, single woman who no longer cooks for herself or anyone else. Female role models in the media tend to embrace this side of domesticity, even contemporary role models like Jess from New Girl. Roommates in relationships provide an uncomfortable point of contrast for Schuh, whose “sense of isolation” leads her to “step away from the stove.”
Meanwhile, in the Sunday Essay, Wyl Villacres delves into the interpersonal issues surrounding his ambiguous racial identity. Villacres is mocked for his skin color in school, despite an incomplete understanding of his Puerto Rican heritage. Then, a spontaneous vacation to the island with a white friend fails to go according to plan. The awkwardness of Villacres’s voyage exposes and deepens an already-difficult legacy of imperialism, generational culture loss, and racial politics.
