Friday Finale: The best bookish sweatshirt and super nerdy song recs

On the final Friday of each month, I take a look back at all the things I loved and put together this list of recommendations for you: the Friday Finale. It might include the best book I read, a particularly impressive recipe I tried, or the best thing I streamed this month. I hope these standout moments from my month inspire you to make some time for yourself looking forward!

I am honestly surprised that I have favorite things to share with you from this month! I worked every single Saturday this month plus a few weeknights, and I’m so proud of myself for finding little pockets of joy amidst all the work hours.

This monthly favorites list is a little different from most months. I read six books in March, but I wasn’t blown away by any of them. You’ll see below that one of them did end up inspiring a favorite thing, though!

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I included this sweatshirt as a part of my bookish small shop post last year, and my sister Parker bought it for me for Christmas! When I say I’ve worn it every week since, that is not an exaggeration. And it’s honestly more like every other day. The design is everything I’ve ever wanted out of a graphic sweatshirt: empathy, colorful flowers, a book. THERE ARE FLOWERS SPROUTING FROM THE PAGES OF A BOOK. It doesn’t get better than that.

Plus, Inkwell Threads is a great company with quality products that gives back to organizations like the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Loveland Project, and Spread the Vote. So it’s really a win-win situation here. They have all sorts of other bookish merchandise, and I know I’ll be purchasing something of theirs for myself soon.

Okay, this is probably the most niche favorite I’ve ever shared on one of these lists, but I’ve been listening to these songs for days, and you deserve to know about them, too. I finally, finally finished The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the prequel to The Hunger Games books that shares part of Coriolanus Snow’s life as a young man. It wasn’t my favorite book (★★☆☆☆), but I can appreciate what Suzanne Collins wanted to do with this one since we all did such a great job of romanticizing the Games at the height of the movie mania.

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In the prequel, Snow is tasked with mentoring a tribute in the 10th Hunger Games, and of course, his tribute is the girl from District Twelve: Lucy Gray Baird. She’s a singer in a traveling performing arts group/family called The Covey, which got stuck in District Twelve in the middle of the war that led to the Hunger Games. (There are some great theories that Katniss is actually descended from one of the Covey members!)

Throughout the book, we get the lyrics to a lot of the songs Lucy Gray sings. Obviously the first thing I did after finishing the book was to search for them on YouTube, and I stumbled upon Emma Lee’s channel. She has a playlist of every song that Collins includes in the book, using the lyrics from Collins and putting them to her own original melodies. That alone is incredibly impressive, but she also has a gorgeous voice, and I love her whole vibe. “The Ballad of Lucy Gray Baird” (also on Spotify), “Pure as the Driven Snow,” and “Nothing You Can Take (Reaping Song)” are my favorites, but they’re all worth a listen! (And before you ask, no, you don’t need to know anything about the books to enjoy her music.)

I am loving all the foreign language series that Netflix makes available to its subscribers! Spencer and I have watched a few of them since quarantine began (I shared some here, here and here), and I’m back with a new one. 3% is a Brazilian show that’s a bit Hunger Games but with a sci-fi twist. Every year, all the 20 year olds from the impoverished Inland compete to be one of the chosen ones who will get to spend the rest of their lives in the rich and beautiful Offshore. The catch? Only 3% of them can earn a spot.

The show is now complete with 4 seasons of 7-10 episodes each. I really liked the premise and the show’s dystopian vibes, and I thought they did a good job with the realistic tension and love-hate relationship between the Inland and the Offshore. I’m also a huge fan of shows that do a good job of reinventing themselves each season, and 3% is absolutely that. They stayed true to the original premise while upping the ante every season. I would recommend it for lovers of sci-fi and strong ensemble casts!

Full disclosure: I received this product for free from Influenster and One A Day in exchange for my honest review.

These One A Day Women’s Natural Fruit Bites are the best gummy multivitamin I’ve ever tried! Not only does it include all the women’s health-specific vitamins that you want for bone health, immune health, and keeping your body working its best, but the bites are made from real apples and taste like fruit leather. Sometimes gummy vitamins bug me because I’m taking them for my health, but they taste sugary sweet. These only have 1g of added sugar; the rest of it occurs naturally from the apples! If you’re in the market for a new multivitamin that you’ll actually want to take every day, I would recommend these One A Day Women’s Natural Fruit Bites.

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What brought you joy this month?

P.S. If you’re in the market for more adorable bookish merch, you can find my favorite stores in this post.