Kiss, Marry or Kill: 67 (six seven!)

Not my typical book reco (but my tongue was happily blue). Plus, poop better and look good doing it, the one clause EVERY woman needs in their prenup, and GO TO THERAPY ALREADY GUYS

This is my weekly series for subscribers only, where I’ll share things that caught my eye this week in a fun and flirty way (kiss), a sustainable way (marry), or a not-so-good way (kill). And yes, this trendy game is technically “f***, marry, or kill” but we run a family-friendly-ish show around here.

Kiss (things I like right now)

📖 The Quitters Club, Jessica Strawser

First, let me say this book is a grocery store birthday cake. It’s so saccharin you want to hate it, but you can’t stop eating it (and you’d buy it again). It’s not my usual style of book, but I finished it in three days, and found myself surprisingly emotionally invested.

Four college friends get together for a long-overdue getaway—no spouses, no kids. Their conversation gets deep fast, and it turns out everyone has something big they’re struggling with. They form a pact—they’ll all quit the thing making them miserable, holding each other accountable and supporting each other through it.

I don’t have a group of friends like this. (To be honest, I don’t have many friends. I don’t seem to need people as much as others do, a conversation I’ve had with my therapist many times.) But this group of women truly embody “it takes a village,” and I found myself wondering what that kind of friendship would feel like. I settled on, ‘That level of closeness would be overwhelming,” but I can admire it just the same.

Some of the choices made in the book were… odd. Unrelatable at best. And yes, you’ll find some tropes in these pages, and a tidiness to the story that rarely happens in real life—birthday cake, remember? But the story itself was immediately engaging, and I found myself really rooting for these women. The story was heartwarming and satisfying (especially one woman’s ending—I bet you’d be able to guess which enraged me the most), and 5,500 5-star reviews can’t be wrong.

💩 The bathroom accessory you never saw coming

In the earliest days of Whole30 (2010), a new product entered the Paleo scene. It wasn’t food or a supplement, but it was related to what you eat… when it came out the other end.

The Squatty Potty promised more efficient and comfortable pooping by placing your body into a more ergonomic pooping position. By placing your feet on their stool (placed in front of your toilet), you’d raise your knees, better align your colon, and produce easier flowing #2s with less strain. (I can only say “poop” so many times in a write-up, and “stool” in this context is confusing.)

Over the last 16 years, plenty of Squatty Potty competitors popped up. (Thank god for that, because the founder was later charged with buying child sexual abuse material.) I went with the Strongtek stool when I moved to Utah, and it still graces my toilet today. They’re all basically the same, though—a curved stool designed around your toilet. Until now.