Content Consumed: The Great, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition, and more

Happy Monday! It’s going to be such a good week.

Did you watch Succession last night? Make sure you read Content Consumed’s spoiler-filled recap and review.

In today’s edition of Content Consumed, we’re talking about:
👙 Martha Stewart makes Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition history
👑 The Season 3 premiere of The Great did not disappoint
📚 Book review: The Things We Do to Our Friends
😬 Read this: The Rolling Stone Kelly Clarkson show exposé

Good for Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart is officially the oldest woman ever to cover Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit edition.

And she looks good doing it!!

The 81-year-old admitted “usually I’m motivated by pay”—Love that! Girlboss!—“but this time I was motivated by showing people that a woman my age could still look good, feel good, be good.”

We all remember the apron pic from last year. It might be even saucier than this SI spread. What I’m saying is that Martha’s no stranger to a thirst trap. As SI pointed out, she also worked as a model for brands like Chanel as a teen.

The Great is BACK, BABY!

Season 3 of one of my favorite shows of all time, The Great, is here. I watched the first episode on Saturday and loved it. Spoilers ahead!

Finally, the most annoying character has met his fate. Good riddance, Orlo! He started the series as the voice of reason but quickly became way too bloodthirsty and stupid. Catherine has shot him dead… though she doesn’t know that yet. I’m wondering how she’ll react when she does realize it.

As usual, Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult have flawless chemistry. More characters like Georgina are getting bigger roles in Catherine’s court. Peter struggles to be loyal to Catherine while saving his friends. I’m waiting to see what happens with the Swedish monarchs, as their plotline confuses me. Elizabeth remains my favorite character, especially with her dancing scene.

I’m not going to detail the whole episode, but I’m happy and can’t wait to watch the rest of Season 3. Trying to savor it and avoid spoilers—two difficult tasks.

Book review: The Things We Do to Our Friends

I’ve been reading quite a few thrillers lately in an attempt to deviate from my go-to genre of historical fiction. The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent is one of those thrillers—and the most disappointing one.

The premise:
She’s an outsider desperate to belong, but the cost of entry might be her darkest secret in this intoxicating debut of literary suspense following a clique of dangerously ambitious students at the University of Edinburgh.

Here’s what I’ve learned from reading thrillers: the author must release just enough information to keep the reader intrigued but not confuse them or give the whole story away.

In this novel, the author failed to give us enough information. Instead, I struggled to understand why the characters were doing what they did. There was no rational thought. It didn’t make sense. Where was the plot?

The worst part: it was all explained at the end in an epilogue.

The novel was so focused on the setting that we didn’t get much plot. The characters could’ve been perfectly complex—if we could understand any of their motivations. But instead, they just got assigned surface-level personality traits and we never examined much of their values and moralities.

As I said, the setting was great. I felt like I was in Edinburgh. Wonderful! But that doesn’t save this book.

It’s really difficult when the best part of a book is its prologue.

⭐⭐

No, Kelly Clarkson is not the next Ellen (in THAT way)

There are allegations of a toxic work environment behind the scenes of Kelly Clarkson’s popular daytime talk show.

Apparently, the show’s producers overworked and underpaid employees behind the scenes, and working on the daytime talk show was traumatizing to their mental health. However, the people saying this are also saying that Kelly was very unaware of the issues (unlike what happened with Ellen).

Read the Rolling Stone article here, then Kelly’s response here.

And that’s it for today. Don’t forget to read my Succession Episode 8 recap and review!

By the way, I’m almost to 500 followers! Share this with friends and family to help me get there.

Cheers,
Casey

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