🌊 Sunday Sharies: June 2025

Plenty of beach reads, 'Materialists' thoughts, a summery cookbook, and a new pair of hiking boots

Midsummer is here and July is around the corner. There’s a lot of stuff we’d like to share that won’t fit in our usual Thursday TV newsletter. Some of that stuff is here. Read on for a special monthly peek into what your trusty Double Take duo has been watching, reading, listening to, and more.

— Jenni Cullen and Jess Spoll

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What we’re reading…

Jess: I finished Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Life early in the month, but it might've been better if I'd left it unfinished. Maybe it was mismatched expectations, but instead of Henry’s usual sparkling banter and swoony romance, it was a halfhearted romance mixed with a Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo-style account of a wealthy older woman who's supposed to be glamorous but is mind-numbingly dull. The two "romantic" leads are somehow even less interesting, which makes this my most disappointing Henry read yet. (2.5/5 ⭐️)

Mallory Arnold’s How to Survive a Horror Story was exactly the campy, chaotic palate cleanser I needed afterward. A group of horror authors are summoned to a creepy mansion and forced into a high-stakes survival game orchestrated by a recently deceased horror legend. It’s not scary, and the riddles aren’t complicated, but the fun is in the absurdity and theatrical flair. A perfect popcorn read. (4/5 ⭐️, out July 8)

I also enjoyed The Compound by Aisling Rawle, which is speculative fiction that reads like Love Island meets Lord of the Flies. Twenty contestants trapped in a hyper-produced, constantly surveilled reality show compete in bizarre challenges while forced to pair up romantically—all for the entertainment of an invisible audience. It's sharp commentary on consumerism and manufactured spectacle, and I loved the ambition even if the ending felt a bit rushed. (4/5 ⭐️)

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Jenni: A week of vacation at the shore allowed me knock out a few breezy summer reads…all miraculously a just-above-mediocre 3/5 stars.

Early on, I finished the new Julia Seales book I mentioned back in May: A Terribly Nasty Business. A mix of regency romance, 'Clue'-esque camp, and P.G. Wodehouse-style shenanigans, this sequel was silly and cute. I’d recommend for those who love the idea of that tone combo and don’t feel the need to take murder mysteries too seriously.

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez was fine. I enjoyed the charming meet-cute in the first act, but then found myself coasting passively through, waiting for the rest of the book to wrap up. It’s a solid beach read if you like your romance with a little extra emotional baggage—as is the Jimenez way.

Finally, I also read Emily Henry’s, Great Big Beautiful Life, about two writers competing to author a biography about a reclusive heiress. This one has been getting some heat from diehard Henry fans (and Jess), but I thought it was decent. Might have even given it 3.5 out of 5 stars in a different month, but my generosity wilted a bit once the temperatures hit triple digits. This book sits somewhere between romance and contemporary fiction, which could be why it’s throwing some readers off. And I agree with Jess, it was giving The-Seven-Husbands-of-Evelyn-Hugo-knockoff at points. Still, Henry’s prose is as lovely as ever, and while the premise isn’t flawlessly executed, it was compelling enough to keep me turning the pages.

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What else we’re watching…

Jenni: I have not had a ton of extra movie-going time lately, but was able to finally watch Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead (3.5/5 ⭐) on HBO Max and catch Materialists (3.5/5 ⭐) when it came out in theaters earlier this month. These might be hot takes given the audience ratings online, but…