No F*cks Given® Newsletter | 5.28.24
Sociopaths, hot flashes, and a new NFG perk!
Here we are again, my fabulous fucklings: the NFG Newsletter roundup is upon us, and per usual it contains great deals, fun links, book recs, and random AF musings from me to you.
PS: You’ll note my usual Monday schedule shifted to Tuesday due to holiday weekends in both the US and UK. I hate the thought of crapping up your inbox on your day off!
HOUSEKEEPING:
This monthly dispatch is a free way to connect with my fans, let you know what I’m up to, and when there are new books, deals, etc. to report. If you’d like more from moi, you can upgrade to a paid subscription and receive weekly NFG tip emails, everything in the archives, AND access to the *new* private chat. We have fun.
What’s up?
To quote my friend Ted, “It’s hotter than two minks fuckin’ in a wool sock” down here in the Dominican Republic, and I LOVE IT.
I swear my body was simply not meant for cool climates, despite the eighteen years I spent growing up in Maine, training on long, dark months of negative temperatures, wind chill, and Nor’easters, with approximately thirty total annual guaranteed days of hot sunny weather. If we were lucky.
Then again, I have recently begun experiencing hot flashes and night sweats, so we’ll see how I feel about the temps as perimenopause continues to have its moist and manic way with me. IT IS A WHOLE THING.
Meanwhile, you better believe I bookmarked
’s thread on this topic and am monitoring it with gusto.In other sexy news: my husband Judd has released yet another new song, to cap off the second full EP that he’s put out in just a smidge over a year. Ya girl is very proud.
The tune is called “Since You’ve Been Gone” (not to be confused with the 2004 Kelly Clarkson banger, though similar streaming stats are more than welcome). It’s a Fats Domino-esque, horn-infused homage to the New Orleans R&B that he discovered as a kid via his dad’s old record collection.
You can watch the official lyric video HERE (he creates all of his own videos too, because he is a stud) and stream the song on Spotify or wherever you get your music.
NFG DEALS
The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck AUDIOBOOK is still on sale for $9.99—until May 31st—as part of Libro.fm’s “Mental Health Awareness Month” promotion. Click HERE to take advantage of the discount.
What else?
I mentioned in the last NFGN that my husband and I are making some Big Life Changes. WELP. It turns out that these changes are going to involve downsizing, and putting our lovely Caribbean dream house on the market so we can be more flexible with our comings and goings in the next few years.
(Still planning to stay largely tropically based though; see above re: my core temperature needs.)
As you may imagine, this was/is a logistically and emotionally fraught decision, and following through on it has been a true test of both my organizational prowess and anxiety management skills.
Which is to say, the Must-Do Method from Get Your Shit Together has come in handy lately.
NFG NEWS
A recent reader poll revealed that 73% of you were DTC (down to chat), so I created a new perk for paid subscribers!
We’ve already done a round of fun and illuminating introductions to kick things off, and then I opened a thread asking folks what they want to hear from me in the coming weeks.
I’ll be basing future NFG tip emails on many of the excellent questions/suggestions that have been coming into the chat.
You can expect some of my patented practical, no-nonsense advice relating to overwhelm, building self-esteem (and discarding that pesky need to be liked), dealing with manipulative people, speaking up when someone has crossed the line, and more.
If you want to be able to suggest topics, ask me questions, and chat with likeminded peeps on a private channel, you can upgrade to VIF (Very Important Fuckling) status and join the conversation. I’d be very happy to see you there!
(And not for nothing, annual subscriptions are 50% off until May 31st…)
Book recommendations
As longtime subscribers know, I was a book editor myself for fifteen years and I like to use this newsletter to shout-out my recent favorite reads. I don’t take requests or PR trades or anything like that; whatever I recommend is because I truly enjoyed it and think other people will too.
Fiction:
Daughter of Mine by Megan Miranda. I always look forward to a new suspense novel by Megan, in part because she is just SO GOOD AT TWISTS. And lord, I love a twist. I actually edited her first novel for adults, All the Missing Girls, and ever since I left publishing, I’ve been grateful to be able to continue to read her solely for pleasure.
Like a Sister by Kellye Garrett. I was seeing her new book, Missing White Woman, all over my social feeds, so I decided to start with the previous one, which won a bunch of awards in the crime fiction world. An impulse buy that worked out! I’ll definitely be adding MWW to my to-read list…
(I read a couple other novels this month that I didn’t like very much, so they don’t go in the newsletter. Hoping to get out of a disappointing fiction slump with All Fours by Miranda July, which came highly recommended and is next on tap!)
Nonfiction:
Sociopath: A Memoir by Patric Gagne. As someone who reads a lot of thrillers and therefore encounters many fictional representations of socio- and psychopaths, it was super interesting to get a real-life, first-person accounting of going through life with this diagnosis. Patric Gagne doesn’t pull any punches; she’s honest about her, shall we say, moral and ethical deficiencies and her history of “bad” behavior. But she also paints a picture of a misunderstood (and likely larger than you think) population, most of whom haven’t had the resources she did to learn about their mental makeup and work toward “normalizing” some aspects of it that would make their lives easier and safer. She’s also quick to point out that there are parts of her sociopathic personality that she welcomes and wouldn’t change, and I have to say, I see her point. She is fearless and shameless, and those can be powerful and useful qualities indeed… Very intriguing.
LINKS & LIKES
Speaking of sociopaths, Ripley on Netflix was excellent. Andrew Scott (aka the Hot Priest from Fleabag) absolutely slayed this role—in English and Italian, no less.
Flavored seltzer from Something & Nothing (the cucumber is my fave). I can’t get this stuff in the Dominican Republic, so whenever I’m in the US I look forward to guzzling it—and it’s available in the UK too!
The most fun thing I read this week, courtesy of Dirtbags Through the Ages by
A summer of burning it all down by
, which reads in part:
This is the summer of quitting the things that don’t serve you. The summer of decentering the expectations of culture and doing what you want to do, whether that’s join a knitting group, or become a bog witch. It’s the summer of caring a lot, but not giving any fucks. It’s the summer of gentle ministrations to your soft body of survival. It’s the summer of grief and joy. A summer of knowing all we’ve lost but knowing how much more we have to live.
Sounds like a plan to me.
Alrighty folks, that’ll do it for my monthly(ish) NFG roundup. As always, thank you for reading, and until next time: I see you, I appreciate you, and I sincerely hope you’re out there giving fewer, better fucks and living your best life!
Sarah
RECENT POSTS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED:
"It’s a Fats Domino-esque, horn-infused homage to the New Orleans R&B that he discovered as a kid via his dad’s old record collection."
This is so up my alley I need a restraining order. Can't wait to listen it!
All the best wishes for your next adventure!!! I hope you can stay tropical during winters.