Read a Girl #25: "Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays", Chelsea Hodson

Imagine reading your best friend’s diary. Getting their first-person account of situations you experienced together, learning about feelings and thoughts so obscure and delightful that you never knew they had. And imagine recognising yourself in their actions and behaviours, relating to every word, every punctuation sign.

That’s how I felt while reading "Tonight I'm Someone Else: Essays", by Chelsea Hodson. This collection is deeply personal and yet so relatable. The one that resonated the most with me is the essay in which she reveals her passion, as a teenager, for the band Hanson. OK, bear with me. If you were an adolescent in the mid-1990s, you probably remember their hit song, “MMMBop”. Yes, THAT song.

Now, quick detour: one thing you probably didn’t know about me - when I was 13 I was a deranged Hanson fan. Mad. Completely insane. In fact, if you are reading this newsletter in English is because of Hanson as I started learning the language as a teen so when (WHEN, not IF - that was my line of thought) I met them I would be able to communicate with them.

So, yeah. That essay was too close to home for me.

But back to the book. Its essays are filled with references from music and films, and really paint a picture of what it’s like to be a woman in modern times. Unmissable.

My first book, “a spectacularly sad ending”, is a collection of poetry and prose about heartbreak, loss and survival. It chronicles experiences of love, loss, abuse and grief, and is for anyone who is or ever had to mend a broken heart. It's available as a paperback and also on Kindle. You can get it here.

🎵 This newsletter was written to the sounds of “MMMBop”, by Hanson.

We have a playlist with all of the music featured on our newsletters. You can listen to it on Spotify.

My name is Renata and I am the Founder and Editor of Read a Girl, a platform aimed at promoting the work of women writers. My background is in journalism and I spent most of my career covering foreign affairs and travelling around looking for good stories to tell. Reading is a very big passion of mine and my favourite authors are Elena Ferrante, J.D. Salinger, Julian Barnes and Sylvia Plath.

You can learn more about me here and on my website.

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