Shrinking – Loriane Chagnon, Staff Writer
Shrinking returned to Apple TV+ for its third season, delivering a well-needed dopamine surge after midterms. Created by Bill Lawrence, Brett Goldstein, and Jason Segel, the show follows the life of grieving therapist Jimmy, who begins breaking the ethical guidelines of his trade by telling his clients exactly what he thinks. The show’s supporting cast is incredible and makes it worth returning to every season. Harrison Ford shines in what I consider the best role of his career as the cynical senior therapist Paul, who has Parkinson’s disease.
The show balances humour with rawness and honesty whilst exploring deep themes and navigating the personal growth of every character. This season explores parenthood, aging, loneliness, and learning how to love again after surviving a tragedy. Interestingly, for this season, Shrinking has also cast Michael J. Fox, who famously played Marty McFly in Back to the Future, as Gerry, a patient with Parkinson’s disease. This marks the inspiring return of the actor who retired due to his Parkinson’s diagnosis. Fox’s dynamic with Ford is funny and effortless, revealing the skill of two of Hollywood’s biggest movie stars.
If you need a show to make you smile, cry, laugh, or feel hopeful again—look no further—Shrinking delivers exactly what you have been craving.
Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors – Alexandra Lasser
Brutal fights, long silences, devastating losses, and stubborn distances will never undo love formed through a shared childhood. Coco Mellors’s second book, Blue Sisters, explores the sacred and unbreakable bond between sisters. The story follows three of the Blue sisters as they spiral and recover from the loss of the fourth.
Mellors introduces each sister as a stereotype: The responsible lawyer, Avery; the reckless partier, Lucky; the tough boxer, Bonnie; and the unassuming teacher, Nicky, whose death rocked them all. However, with each page, these seemingly solid identities crumble, revealing the humbling truth that they are all lost, in pain, and desperately in need of emotional support. Avery, for instance, is only responsible so long as someone else is in crisis, but who is she when she is the one in shambles? Nicky’s unexpected death exposed the fallacy of their constructed identities most of all, in that her outwardly conventional life was a coping mechanism for severe endometriosis and an addiction to painkillers.
Though some themes are perhaps slightly overdone—the put-upon, responsible eldest and the plight of the beautiful—Blue Sisters delivers an emotionally rewarding tale with lifelike and sympathetic characters. The ending doesn’t bring a shiny resolution to all that life has thrown at the Blue family, but it provides closure as each sister decides to pursue happiness and stability.
The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura and translated by Yuka Maeno – Bianca Sugunasiri
The companionship of the soft pages of a book never seems quite so compelling as when one is in a time of need. When sorrow or worry overwhelm us, we seek comfort in what is steady and familiar. For many, that comfort lies in the pleasant voice of a story. Takuya Asakura’s voice paints a space between the real and imagined that whimsically emulates the experience of seeking comfort from a book within periods of waywardness.
The Cherry Blossom bookshop is a mysterious entity—a melange of coffee shop and bookstore—complete with a charming young waitress, Sakura and her deific cat, Kobako. Appearing only to those facing hardship, the bookshop toes the line between a world of logic and the universe beyond. Once inside the bookshop, you are invited backwards into your past, offered memories that defy explanation, and given the clarity to continue intentionally forward.
Although a fiction, Asakura draws emotion from your chest as tangibly as a physical ache. Each bookshop patron occupies a different sphere of tragedy: A guilt-ridden daughter facing the death of her distanced mother, an elderly gentleman grasping at fading memories of his passed lover, and a pair of twins growing apart and into themselves. The magic woven within these pages takes root in your soul and follows you—demands from you compassion, capriciousness, and childlike wonder.
