intertextu[allie]ties | issue 10

The best things I read, watched, and listened to in April 2025 (plus a portrait of the author as a teenager!)

hello, dear reader.

Last month, I wrote about spring and fresh beginnings. So, in the spirit of the season, I’ve decided to use this, my tenth issue, to turn over a new leaf! 🍃

Up until now, I’ve used this space like the pages of a journal to list and rate every single book, movie, and TV show I read or watched that month. I have loved sharing these comprehensive snapshots of my media consumption with you all but, upon reflection, I feel it might be more meaningful going forward to do away with star-based ratings and, instead, put together a curated edit of only my favourite things – like a monthly mixed tape with no skips. 🎶

So, read on for my April recommendations, including a fantastic debut novel that’s Normal People meets Daisy Jones and the Six, and a classic 1950 film I’m convinced formed the acid-green DNA of The Substance.

✍️ Allie

My favourite books, movies, and music of the month!

I first became aware of Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley through the Book Enthusiast’s wonderfully comprehensive “52 Books Coming Out in 2025 That You Need to Know About – Part 1” roundup. A debut novel by a Canadian-born author, this literary romance came out in February of this year and is already slated for a film adaptation starring Saoirse Ronan and Austin Butler. 🎬

With such a high-profile page-to-screen transition planned and comparisons to Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (one of my favourite books of the last decade) swirling around it, Deep Cuts shot straight to the top of my TBR pile and I finally had the chance to dig into it this month!

Set at the start of the new millennium, self-identifying music snob Percy Marks catches Joe Morrow’s attention at the Berkeley campus student bar when she delivers an off-the-cuff close reading of a Hall & Oates song. Percy’s big opinions about music usually annoy everyone she meets… but not Joe. He’s a songwriter and asks Percy if she would consider sharing her thoughts on something he’s working on. Thus begins an on-again, off-again collaboration/friendship/obsession that will define them both.

Although this ended up being a little lighter on the romance than I was expecting, I thoroughly enjoyed Deep Cuts and breezed through its 277 pages. Percy and Joe were like a cross between Marianne and Connell from Normal People, and Daisy and Billy from Daisy Jones & the Six – two fictional couples I still think about and wish well – and their dynamic kept me invested from the first chapter to the last. 📖

The best movie I watched this month was a Best Picture winner from 1950 that has long been on my watchlist. All About Eve, which stars Bette Davis in an absolute knockout performance, is a sinister exploration of what happens when adoration becomes obsession.

Davis plays Margo Channing, a legendary Broadway actress known for her sharp tongue and tempestuous moods, who finds herself reluctantly charmed by a young fan named Eve. Fresh-faced, unassuming, and eager to please, Eve becomes Margo’s assistant, going above and beyond to anticipate every single one of her idol’s needs. Before long, Eve is thinking and acting just like Margo – almost as if she were getting ready to replace her.

Tragically prescient and staggeringly modern – espousing ideas about aging, obsolescence, misogyny, and the vicious cycle of the entertainment industry that we saw articulated seventy-four years later in 2024’s The Substance – All About Eve is a classic for a reason.

If you liked the complete picture of my monthly movie watching, you can check out my Letterboxd diary for all my reviews.

I refreshed my spring songs 🌸 playlist on Spotify with some new-to-me finds like this 1991 live recording of George Harrison playing “Here Comes the Sun” in Japan and the aptly titled “Spring Into Summer” by my indie pop darling Lizzy McAlpine. Spring has always felt like the gentlest and most hopeful season to me, so now I think this playlist better reflects that mood!

My favourite musical surprise of the month was a looper performance of Ed Sheeran’s new single “Azizam,” which I’ve since learned is a Persian term of endearment that means “my dear” or “my beloved.” I listened to the studio version of the song when it first hit streaming and thought it was fine, but then this video changed everything. The virtuosic musicianship on display coupled with the gorgeous setting made me hear the song anew. (Ed, I implore you, please release this version on Spotify!)

I was doing some spring cleaning this month and came across my first creative writing journal that I started when I was thirteen years old. I decided to take a moment to flip through it and found myself unexpectedly moved.

For some reason that must have made sense to me at the time, I decided to kick things off with a “Forward by the author” for some kind of imagined readership (see leftmost photo below). In it, I wrote: “Perhaps all this practice will help me build up to being an author someday, when I get an inspiration or idea for a book…” I put this thought down on paper in June 2005 – nearly twenty years ago! – and here I am today: with one completed manuscript currently under consideration by four literary agents and halfway through a second book.

What’s more, the entire journal is filled with stories, poems, and drawings about The Phantom of the Opera, as seen in the middle photo below that shows the first page of a story I wrote as a continuation to the 2004 movie adaptation and the rightmost photo below that shows one of the many cartoons I used to draw of myself with the Phantom.

It’s so easy to be embarrassed by our younger selves, but I honestly have so much affection for past-me. I am constantly coming back to the things she loved with all the unchecked passion of her thirteen-year-old heart! As I’ve noted in previous issues, my novel-in-progress is a modern-day retelling of The Phantom of the Opera, so it’s profound to not only be reminded that this project has, in a way, been twenty years in the making, but also that I’m still dreaming the same dream two decades later. ⭐️

twenty years in the making. ✍️

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writing this month’s newsletter. ✌️

Before you go, let me know what you thought of this issue’s focus on my favourite books, movies, and music from the month rather than a complete list of everything I read, watched, and listened to with star-based ratings!