![]() Amanda Berglund for BuzzFeed News It was a busy year for the Reader team!
Tomi
Personal Essays Jade Schulz for BuzzFeed News Bon Appétit’s Test Kitchen Chefs Are The Only YouTube Stars I Care About by Louis Peitzman
I may never get better at cooking, but I will follow these chefs to the ends of the earth.
This '80s PBS Show Made It Cool To Love Math by Anne Helen Petersen The best kids’ TV activates something that becomes an orienting beacon for the rest of our lives. That’s what the math show Square One did for me.
Random House When I was a teenager, Francine Pascal’s iconic series was an escape to a destination that I already knew my way around.
7th Heaven Duped Me Into Believing In A Christian Family Fantasy by Shannon Keating Growing up, 7th Heaven offered me wholesome Christian comfort. But then I saw myself in queer shows like South of Nowhere, in which the Christian grown-ups weren’t saviors.
What Amazon Reviews Reveal About Humanity by Jen Doll Jade Schulz for BuzzFeed News
The real reason to read Amazon reviews — specifically that trail of reviews left by one person, product after product — is to get a glimpse into a life utterly unlike your own.
How My Brother Survived The Camp Fire by Janelle Hatchett Ross Hanchett
My brother lives in Paradise, California. For five hours on November 8, while wildfire devoured the town, I had no idea if he was alive or dead.
Like Everyone Else In The Aughts, I Loved Norah Jones by Tomi Obaro Reviewers dismissed Jones’ first two albums as Starbucks music, but there’s no denying how popular they were.
Newsletter exclusive: an astrology column from executive editor Karolina Waclawiak ![]() We’ve almost made it to the end of 2018. How do you feel? If the answer is depleted, run-down, or burned-out, you are certainly not alone. This has been a tumultuous year for a lot of people. One brief look at my Spotify top songs of the year paints a pretty clear picture of my headspace this year. How many times can a person listen to James Blake before they curl into the fetal position? Apparently, I was on a mission to find out!
Features Richard A. Chance for BuzzFeed News
Natasha Trethewey Wants America To Have A Personal Reckoning by Hanif Abdurraqib The Pulitzer Prize–winning, former US poet laureate’s new collection, Monument, feels timely, but she’s been reckoning with America’s sins for decades.
Glennon Doyle Is Trying To Wake Up White Women. Is It Working? by Shannon Keating
The author, activist, and former mommy blogger has been encouraging her mostly white fans to speak up and empower themselves. What happens when her new advice is to shut up, listen, and let women of color lead the way?
Netflix
While urban Indians like me run our own home into the ground, the 50% foreign community of Auroville has turned barren land into a lush forest. For more on this story, watch Follow This on Netflix.
Books This Is The Best Fiction Of 2018 by Arianna Rebolini
Our favorite novels and short story collections, presented in no particular order.
Read An Excerpt From National Book Award Winner The Friend By Sigrid Nunez
In this excerpt from The Friend, the protagonist recalls teaching a writing workshop at a center for victims of human trafficking.
Isabel Seliger for BuzzFeed News
Women's rage is in the spotlight in three of 2018's most thrilling novels: Megan Abbott's Give Me Your Hand, Oyinkan Braithwaite's My Sister, the Serial Killer, and Adrienne Celt's Invitation to a Bonfire.
16 Heartbreaking Books To Get You Through Your Own Heartache by JM Farkas
Sometimes the best way to deal with a broken heart is to break it even deeper.
Book Excerpt: What Do You Do When Your Sister Keeps Murdering Her Boyfriends? by Oyinkan Braithwaite Zakiya Noel for BuzzFeed News In this excerpt from Oyinkan Braithwaite’s novel My Sister, the Serial Killer, Korede starts to suspect that her sister Ayoola isn’t the victim she claims to be.
35 Books Librarians Have Recently Loved by Arianna Rebolini
Romance, biography, manga, and so much more.
Cultural Criticism Ben Kothe / BuzzFeed News; Everett Collection
These Are The 11 Best Movies Of 2018 by Alison Willmore This year was bad, but at least the movies were good. Here are my favorites.
Will John Legend Ever Make Interesting Music Again? by Tomi Obaro
The R&B singer, despite his progressive politics, has remained uncontroversial in an increasingly polarized moment. But has it come at an artistic cost?
I’m Tired Of Looking At All These Bad Wigs On Black Actors by Bim Adewunmi Lixia Guo / BuzzFeed News; AMC; HBO
From The Walking Dead to True Detective, this year was replete with bad wigs that suggested a casual disregard for black people’s interiority.
How Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg Went From Superwoman To Supervillain by Anne Helen Petersen
The reality of Silicon Valley is that it’s commerce by any means necessary. And the reality of Sandberg is that she’s excellent at it.
The Teen Rom-Com Was Reborn In 2018 by Pier Dominguez Lixia Guo / BuzzFeed News; 20th Century Fox / Everett Collection; Netflix
This year’s breakout teen movies, like To All the Boys I've Loved Before and Love, Simon, reglamorized old tropes for a new audience.
Tumblr Has Closed The Door To Users Who Don’t Have Many Places Left To Go by Bryan Washington
With the end of adult content on Tumblr, people whose identity, sexuality, or interests fall outside the mainstream have lost one more online space to find ourselves.
You’ve Got Mail Made The Internet Seem Nice by Scaachi Koul AF archive / Alamy Stock Photo The 1998 rom-com believed that the internet could be used for something beautiful. Another newsletter exclusive: an interview with a writer we love! This month: Nichole Perkins, cohost of the podcast Thirst Aid Kit and author of the poetry collection Lilith, but Dark, out now. ![]() Sylvie Rosokoff
“I’m currently on vacation and I wanted to be smart about how many physical books I packed, so I kept the number to two (plus everything on my iPad). Helen Hoang’s The Kiss Quotient kept me glued to the beach, much to my sunburned shoulders’ regret. I could not put this book down. In this juicy contemporary romance, 30-year-old Stella Lane decides she wants to learn how to have a relationship despite the challenges of Asperger’s syndrome. She hires Michael Phan, an escort with a “no repeat customers” rule, but something about Stella makes him agree to take her on as his only client for the next few months. Stella finds comfort in her math- and data-driven career. Michael’s devotion to his family keeps him from forming any real intimate connections, but when these two get together, things get sweet and spicy quickly.
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