Sophia Babai

I'm so excited for it!

Thank you! It is nowhere close to readable yet (like, I was going to send my agent the first two chapters and I wound up sending him the first chapter plus two pages) but I am seeking to fix that!

My main takeaway from this is that my narrator needs to be about 4x more stressed than she already is, which is gonna be fun since she's already dealing with a hungry ghost, a potentially murderous assistant, a dying father, an angry estranged sibling, a deeply depressed husband, and a stalker.

Influencer calling her agent to discuss a brand deal while delivering her baby

LORD

Agent explaining that content creators need constant content, generally a new upload every two hours

I feel tired just reading this

Me squished at a silly angle with my laptop on my chest and the keyboard shoved under my chin as a beautiful elderly tabby takes over my entire lap

Witness the nonsensical angle I have been forced into

I write this post while sitting on the couch in my pajamas, my feet slowwwwly regain feeling after going from a run in sub-zero degrees. My roommate's cat is kneading my crotch and sticking her butt in my face. If I had to put on makeup and set up fancy lighting to post this, I simply would not.

Description of the ideal instagram face: young, poreless skin, high cheekbones, catlike eyes, long lashes, small nose, full lips. "It looks at you coyly but blankly, as if its owner has taken half a Klonopin and is considering asking you for a private-jet ride to Coachella."

I know exactly the face they're talking about though

There are tremendously secret pods of people who make tremendously secret pacts to boost each other's content. The fact that these pods exist is entirely unsurprising but the amount of security that goes into them is wild. (Can't risk being seen as inauthentic, I guess!)

So many of these three-minute videos take 2-4 hours to make? And you have to post 3-4 EVERY DAY to make the algorithm happy? And even then it's a total crapshoot whether you'll get famous (being a pretty white girl helps but it's not a guarantee.)

Reading up on social media influencers for my book and the shit these people have to do is WILD, low-key seems like one of the most exhausting jobs in the world.

Genocide slowed down is still genocide.

I'd love to hear your reactions when you read it :)

Yay! I'd love to hear your reactions if you read it :)

Yay!

Everything about it is incredible.

The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday is the best; Kundo Wakes Up is a bit meandering but lovely. The others are fun but in my opinion skippable (but I'm EXTREMELY picky so everyone should trust me when I say 'read this' and everyone should take it with a grain of salt when I say 'don't read this' 😂)

You know what works best for you but personally I wouldn't describe them as book one vs. book three etc, they're all standalones set in (very) different parts of the same world, with no overlap in plot and very minimal overlap in characters.

I have successfully persuaded another friend to read The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday! Perhaps I can persuade you also to read The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday? You will spend at least two thirds laughing and one third whispering, "oh shit, oh SHIT."

Van Hollen is being personally credited as the chief pressure point that made Israel release a Palestinian teenager with American citizenship from their dungeons, where he was held for 9 months without even a criminal charge.

Israel does not believe any other country in the region has any right to sovereignty, or borders, or airspace, or protection from the Israeli military. Israel's posture, aka Israel's illegal occupation of Syrian territory and its repeat attacks towards Syria, is entirely consistent with this.

The US invasion of Afghanistan directly killed over 200,000 Afghanis and indirectly killed around 360,000 more. These numbers are probably tremendous underestimates because often there was no one left alive to count the dead. We bombed weddings and funerals, we shot children in their beds.

("We" is always a complicated statement to make here. I am Afghani. I am American. I am the land bleeding and screaming and I am the hand slicing it open and setting it aflame. According to the topsy-tursvy laws of the world I live in, only the former makes me dangerous.)

Oh hey I have 8.6k followers now. Hello! I am honored you like my words :)

There's a pro shot of the original Broadway cast on Youtube! And a concert version I really enjoy.

Sounds delightful!

Fiddler is my dad’s favorite musical!

I haven’t heard of the second! Tell me about it?

I LOVE Urinetown. I really hope I can see a professional production one day (my high school did it.)

I have magic theatre-lottery-winning powers and get to watch perhaps an unreasonable amount of theatre.

Sweeney Todd my love!

Oh hey I have 8.6k followers now. Hello! I am honored you like my words :)