Juice Pack 🧃 Edition 2024

My juiciest sips of 2024, from books and content creators to deck builders and scrapbooks

Dec 31, 2024

Hey everyone! The year closes and thus it’s time for Juice Pack - Edition 2024.

A friend and I one time mused over how juice is such an important part of life. We all want to feel juicy and be around juice. Some people swarm to those they think have the juice, to take some from them.

But this, my friend and I agreed, is terrible behavior.

Because actually the juice exists within all of us, within all things. You just have to know how to look at yourself and the world. You don’t need it from anyone else.

So Juice Pack is both a nod to this philosophy and a nod to the visceral feeling of stabbing a juice box (or capri sun) open with a plastic straw, feeling the container compress as you suck down the sugary sweetness with an optimistic force of satiation.

Here are some of my juice boxes from 2024. If you’re reading this in via email get ready to hit those three dots to expand this for further reading 😎.

The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read: (And Your Children Will Be Glad That You Did) by Philippa Perry
I’ve really been into this trend of really long, descriptive titles. Like André 3000’s song “I swear, I Really Wanted To Make A ‘Rap’ Album But This Is Literally The Way The Wind Blew Me This Time” or the anime “I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job.” My niece even wrote a self help guide recently called “Gabby’s Glow Up Book to get the Huzzy Wuzzy, 6th Grade Glowup Book - Let’s see from 5th grade to 6th Grade!” I’m truly obsessed with this book title trend that tells you almost exactly what’s happening in the plot.

Jokes aside, this book is a crucial read for anyone that is on the path to healing their inner child or on the path to becoming a parent (which, for me, happens to be both.) I slurped up every chapter and was especially excited by Perry’s “rupture and repair” philosophy.
“Ruptures—those times when we misunderstand each other, when we make wrong assumptions, when we hurt someone—are inevitable in every important intimate and familial relationship. It is not the rupture that is so important, it is the repair that matters.” - Phillippa Perry
Slay the Spire

I didn’t grow up playing Magic: the Gathering nor did I jump on Hearthstone when it first came out. But somehow I’ve still managed to become a deck-building girlie in the last months thanks to Slay the Spire.

There’s not really much to say - if you’re looking for a good game, you should play it. It’s not my aesthetic but the gameplay mechanics are so good that it doesn’t matter. After you finish unlocking all of the characters and levels, you can compete in daily climbs for the highest score. And if you have third trimester heartburn and insomnia like me, it’s godsend.

Slay the Spire 2 comes out sometime next year (2025), so if you get into it like I did, you’ll have something fun to look forward to.
Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking is back. Or, rather, I came back to it.

I grew up with a mom that avidly scrapbooked and, like most hobbies my mom had, I took this incredibly for granted and viewed it to be a little (🤏🏾) corny. To be fair, scrapbooking in the 90s was still driven by the bold patterns, colors, and geometric shapes of the 80s, an era I’m pretty sure we all can collectively agree… was doing a little too much.
Two pages out of a scrapbook from my mom, me on the swim team in 2001.
Still, after I found out I was pregnant, I started to think about all of these books of memories that my mother made for me and how important they have been and — still are — to me. And I wanted to make one for my child too.

Then I saw Kim Kardashian’s elegant, clean scrapbooks in a Vogue home tour she did and felt so silly for boxing scrapbooking in an era.

Like, of course scrapbooking would have a 2020s clean girl aesthetic moment.

And then when I dove into the online scrapbooking communities to search for the scrapbooks that Kim K had, I found very active subreddits, websites, incredible scrapbook influencers all around, and even Youtube “Scrapbook with me”s.
After months of searching, I found the scrapbook from Kim Kardashian’s Vogue interview (which ended up being one of the most fun and fulfilling online detective moments I’ve ever had). I’ll be scrapbooking the baby’s first memories all of 2025 - let me know if you want me to share my journey!
Nikki.kaigi & Japanese Journaling
Courtesy of Nikki.kaigi

Do you ever have a friend that starts really pursuing their hobby and it just slaps? Nikki.kaigi introduced me to Japanese journaling last year and has been sharing the good word on Youtube and Instagram!
Now, there are a lot of different ways the Japanese journal - but the most remarkable thing about Japanese journaling is the amount and intensity of organized detail in each page.
Planners (like the Plotter or the Hobonichi) double as diaries and are customizable into months, weeks, and days. There’s the modular Traveler’s Notebook, which feels like a blend of scrapbooking and journaling. And there are many more - I’ve barely scratched the surface of this world.
Courtesy of Nikki.kaigi

Thanks to Nikki.kaigi’s influence, I’ve gotten myself a Plotter monthly and weekly for me, myself, and my life, a Hobonichi cousin for journaling about the baby and her milestones, and a 5-Year Hobonichi journal to share with my partner. Follow Nikki on Youtube and on Instagram for even more cool Japanese journaling tips, pens, and stationary.
Dandadan
Science Saru (most known for DEVILMAN crybaby) just released the anime adaptation of the popular manga Dandadan, a truly incredible story that pairs the strange nature of coming of age to the supernatural. Momo Ayase, the granddaughter of a Japanese spirit medium, and Ken Takakura, an obsessive believer in aliens, hit episode one with a hilarious conflict: Momo can’t be convinced aliens exist and Ken can’t be convinced that psychic powers are real.

So they set off to convince each other, and are transported into a hilariously weird, rabbit-hole like portal. I’ve never seen such a smart take on the topic of sexuality and growing up, and I’ve never laughed and cried so hard over one anime before. Catch it on Netflix or Crunchy Roll.
Aqua Skin
If you’re into skin care at all, then you know that Korean Glass Skin was dominating Tiktok and Youtube for a minute. If you don’t know, Glass Skin is a sort’ve unrealistic, poreless, glassy, clear skin that influencers swore was attainable with [insert these steps]. And then there’s Glazed Donut Skin (which is an even shinier Glass Skin), Cloud Skin, and Plump Skin.

Anyway, apparently Glass Skin has finally been dethroned by Aqua Skin (or Dolphin Skin). This is particularly juicy for me because I love Korean skincare and, even though I think glass skin is unrealistic and we should probably just all decide to accept that skin texture is real, I too suffer from the hopeless optimism that my pores might one day just disappear. I also love all of the names of these skin aspirations - they’re like the 5 Power Rangers I didn’t know I always needed.

Anyway, Aqua skin seems to be a move in a more healthy direction. Instead of focusing on the outside looking perfect, Aqua skin focuses on the skin’s barrier looking so hydrated you look like you just stepped out of the water. Think dewy. Think plump and bouncy. Think dolphin.
Chartr the Newsletter

If you remember my piece called “I don’t feel like playing,” I talked about how I didn’t know how to continue writing about play and having fun when all over social media and news I was watching people dying or being denied the most basic human rights. I doom scrolled for about a month or two before turning off all social media notifications completely and weaning myself off of checking tiktok and insta constantly.

But obviously I still wanted to know what was happening in the world. Luckily, I stumbled across this newsletter called Chartr. Chartr visualizes data and trends to tell news stories in a way that doesn’t rock the nervous system. While it’s clearly left leaning, it’s also clearly attempting to be neutral… which I always appreciate.

Chartr takes data like:
and lets the data expose the information without much added exposition (unless it’s more data).
Anz
I’ve been listening to Anz on repeat for the past year and a half and it’s finally time you all know.

Her music is a combination of Amapiano, experimental club, electronic, and, I swear to god, 80s video game music. I dare you to hit play on Unravel in the Designated Zone and look me in the face and tell it’s not the funkier club version of one of Sonic the Hedgehog’s tracks off the Sega.
Her music has become one of my defaults for zoning out to when I can’t think of anything else to score my daydream time. One of my favorites is “Clearly Rushing,” where her dancey, full impact breakbeat makes me feel like I’m Jamie Foxx in that club scene in Collateral but instead of a taxi driver sort’ve held hostage by Tom Cruise, I’m a demon slayer.
Plus, love her aesthetic:
The Mafia Nanny
Honestly, this wouldn’t be a juice pack without a webtoon recommendation. And if you don’t care for webtoons or know about them, at least know that it is one of the largest growing media markets out there. Webtoon Entertainment (the app) alone has over 700 million monthly users internationally and has a market value of about 2.67 billion dollars.

Anyway, if you were looking for hilarious, highly entertaining mafia fiction, look no more. I found it for you.
In Mafia Nanny, Davina is chosen from the Elite Nanny Academy to watch and protect the young son of a mafia underboss named Gabriel Angelini. Obviously “elite nanny” in this context means unparalleled hacking skills, martial arts and gun training, ON TOP of incredible caregiving instincts. It’s really a fun read.
Rian Phin

A video of Rian Phin was recommended to me by a close friend of mine and pretty much immediately after watching it, I followed Rian on all platforms.

I’m someone that loves many things, but something I love most of all is when people are absolutely nerds about a specific niche.

And Rian Phin is an absolute fashion nerd.

A lot of their content breaks down personal style philosophies, runway trends, and the cultural implications/impacts of fashion moments. And Rian’s older content shows their DIY process making Balenciaga or Helmut Lang inspired tops.

But my absolute favorite part about Rian Phin’s content is their playful practice of researching archival runway looks, purchasing them, and reading in them in public places.

thatadult

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That’s it for the updates! If you loved this Juice Pack edition of Play Palais, let me know and

Reply and let what your current Juice Pack is - what shows are you watching, what books are you reading, who are you following? Let us all KNOW.

Juice Pack 🧃 Edition 2024

My juiciest sips of 2024, from books and content creators to deck builders and scrapbooks

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