HOW did I miss this gloriously entertaining treat of a book?

It's The Devil Wears Prada meets The Last Thing He Told Me and you'll love it.

How is it possible that I missed this crazy delicious page-turner of a book, and a tear-up of fashion and magazines and a certain season of NYC life?

I’ll tell you how: in 2017 I was parenting four kids and working full time for the NYT, and my passion for clothes and adoration of fashion and fashion magazines was at a nadir. I was probably wearing jeans (but good ones, always, give me that) and staring into a closet wondering why, why I ever bought anything made of recycled plastic bottles, before I put on a This Is What a Feminist Looks Like t-shirt on one of my kids and a hoodie under my blazer on myself and called it good. I was reading, sure, but a lot of it was for work, and maybe I didn’t feel able to properly ENJOY a book about people romping through NYC relatively unburdened while I tried to figure out how to get 4 kids to 4 hockey games in 4 different rinks at the same time.

But now I absolutely do!! And maybe you do too. I just DEVOURED I’ll Eat When I’m Dead, thanks completely to this year-old list from Tina Boetto (always click through the old post links, kids!).

It’s a mystery and a bit of a thriller—the death of a senior editor and treasured friend at RAGE Fashion Book is put down to an eating disorder, but her friends know better—but it’s mostly a twisty look at a bunch of staunch friends and devoted colleagues caught up in a world they both hate and love, in which there are plenty of rich people behaving badly, but with very entertaining and thought-provoking reasons. If you too missed this and it appeals, hard recommend.

I also savored The Fashion Orphans (that one is 2022, and it’s in Kindle Unlimited), and its two very different protagonist half-sisters trying to figure out how and why their distant mother left them a closet full of wildly pricey vintage Chanel instead of the $$ both need. It’s basically The Chicken Sisters with fashion instead of fried chicken and NYC neighbors taking the place of the small town, and I loved it.

Clothes and fashion are a big part of my offline life (and I’ll keep it that way, although sometimes I barely resist the urge to send y’all an OOTD post). I’ve been picking up and putting down a lot of books lately, and when I read Tina Boetto’s post, I felt the pull of a world where women have always been the main characters, at a moment when I’ve been savoring my own ability to put a little more time into my clothes and my closet as my time is more my own. (Who wants to start our own magazine and call it The Matriarchy? Condé Nast, call me!)

Here’s a glimpse of my latest book haul. Will I read one of these, or bust out the sample chapters of more from Tina’s list? Magic Eight Ball says the future is cloudy.