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- [00:00]
A
And today we are doing. What are we doing, Hannah? What's it called?
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We are.
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A
I got it. I'm sorry. Welcome to Book Talk Etc. A podcast bound to grow your tbr. I'm Tina from TBR Etc.
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And I'm Hannah from Hand Picked Books.
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This is a conversational podcast about books and more from two Midwest Mood. We're easily distracted by new releases and today we read through books that we missed out on.
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If you enjoy listening, we'd love for you to follow us on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. And if you have a quick minute, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or sharing us on social media. It truly helps us connect with other book lovers.
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A
Hey everyone. It is the start of a brand new month so we wanted to take the time to invite you to join us on Patreon. Our Patreon Group is such a wonderful, supportive community of readers and if you've ever wanted your reading to be more of a social experience, experience, this is a great way to find that connection. Becoming a patron is also a way to financially support our podcast, to meet other readers and of course get access to our exclusive bonus content. 4 or $5 a month. You'll get access to two bonus episodes per month and one live event as well as invites to our Book Talk Etc Discord Server and Facebook group. And we host a monthly community read. You also have access to everything we've created since we started, which is a ton, and your support helps keep the main show ad free. June is packed. We're very excited about it. We are going to be reading a very buzzy book for our collective community read It's Land by Maggie o'. Farrell. Excited about that. We're also going to be hosting a Need Reader happy hour, having another bookseller on for bookstore browse the Hand sell and Hannah and I will be picking our quarterly community reads and you'll get to hear us work through our process. So if you're Interested, head to patreon.com booktalk etc or link in our show notes. Thank you so much for your support. Hi Hannah.
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B
Hi Tina. How are you?
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A
I'm just fabulous. How are you?
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B
I'm fabulous too.
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A
Fantastic. We've been chatting for a bit here and I think we're buzzing a little bit. I'm also buzzing because I had my a little espresso morning coffee. So I'm booked and busy. I'm ready to chat and I'm excited. I have a book that I'm bringing that I feel like people are going to Be like, wow, I can't believe you read that. That's very surprising. But they're going to be excited. Yeah.
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B
Okay.
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A
Nobody knows. Nobody knows.
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B
Not even me.
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A
Not even you. Yeah.
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B
I also love that you have a ghost cup, because I feel like.
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A
And ghosts behind me.
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B
And ghosts behind you. You always have that ghosty blanket with you on that.
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A
I love it.
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B
Chair. Couch.
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A
It's a couch.
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B
Couch.
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A
Yeah.
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B
But I love the ghost cup also because I personally feel like the best time to read horror is summer. I know fall is fall, I feel like, is a different type of horror. Fall, I feel like, is like dark, bleak horror. Summer is like the, the slasher, the like ghosts, the haunts, the.
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A
I don't know, the jump scares. The jump scares fully with you on that. And. And you know what's funny? Every year I'm like, oh my gosh, in October, I'm sharing. I'm gonna read all horror. But by the time I get down to October, I'm kind of done.
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B
I'm like done with horror.
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A
I'm a little done with it. I like to read horror year round, but by then I'm usually like, I kind of want to move into something like more literary or maybe a chunkier book or what have you, so. You're absolutely right. I feel like now is the time to read horror. I have. We both have one horror novel to review for you today and I'm very interested to see how we chat through that one.
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B
I have two technically, so we've got one that we'll chat through together and then I'm going to bring another one later, so.
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A
Fantastic. Oh, now I'm curious.
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B
I do have one. I will say for the fall, I do have. Every once in a while I'll try to at least pick one or two that I know I specifically want to read in the fall. For me this year it's Slue Foot by Brahm. Because I've never read that before.
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A
Oh my gosh, I love that.
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B
And I'm gonna. I'm gonna buddy read it. I'm gonna buddy read it with a friend at the like in October specifically. So every once in a while, you know, I'll slot one in and I feel like that one is very fall. Like it has a fall feeling too.
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A
Oh, for sure. Completely fall. We are actually funny you say that we to with our patrons. A group of people are going to read Frankenstein for the first time in Discord. Yes. So any. Anybody's welcome. I say a group of people. Do I know who those people are? No. I'm just like one. I'm gonna.
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B
You're in there and loving that people are doing it.
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A
Yes, yes. So we'll be reading Frankenstein this fall. I'm very excited about that. But before we get into all the fall goodies, technically it's the first month of summer, even though we're not even
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B
quite into summer yet.
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A
We're not even quite there yet. But I will tell you about my loving lately, and I feel like this is going to be a perfect solution for those very busy summer months as it pertains to grocery shopping and meal planning. Stick with me. Okay, so this is an amalgamation of different things I've seen online from people. How they create their meal plans for the month, how they grocery shop, how they budget for food, how they decide what to do, you know, eat and what have you. So here's what I have decided to do, and it's. We've done it for a month. It's worked really well so far. So I have given every day of the week a theme. So slow cooker Monday, Taco Tuesday, Easy Wednesday, no recipe needed. Try it Thursday, Fun Friday, single pan Saturday, and snuggle Sunday. Now, I did not make that up. I can't remember where I saw that. Again, it's just a culmination of things I've seen people share online, but not all. Okay, so that's the theme. People do that, right? That's not like breaking. But what I've then done is I go into my recipe app, which for me is the skylight app, and I tagged the recipes with the day of the week. So if it's. We'll say it's salsa chicken in the crock pot. Now, in my recipe app, that has an M, because Monday is slow cooker Monday. Okay, so there you go. I tagged all my recipes with the day of the week that they correspond to. And then. This sounds insane. Now, remember, I only do this once a month. Like, I'm doing it right now for June, and then my June is set. So then I go in and I pick the meals, and I put them on the meal plan for the entire month, right? So I know what we're eating every day. And then I put all of that on a grocery list and I order the groceries and I try to keep to a budget. I'm still sort of working through what makes sense. But last month, I think we spent around 400 for the whole month. And I feel good. I feel pretty good about that. Really good, you know, because freaking groceries are expensive. So I'm Gonna try to stay around 400. If not, I can get. Even if I can get under that, I'll be happy about that, too. But, you know, keeping that.
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B
Is that 400, assuming you have, like, those pantry staples.
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A
You read my mind.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Oops. You read my mind. Exactly. So some of this stuff I had mostly spices, but no, that. I. I really. I have my rice. You know, I love bulk rice. I got a lot of that. So, of course, there's some things that carry over from previous shopping trips. But that.
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B
That's how you do it.
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A
That's how you do it, right? And so, of course, you know, I plan the dinners out, and then I just sort of have in my head, okay, I know we like this for breakfast. I know we do this for lunch, and we sort of just freestyle those. Maybe I can come up with a solution for that. But so far, it's worked really well. I like to order groceries for pickup, so I go to Sam's Club and I go to Aldi. And why I like, though it might cost more with the pickup. I'm not impulse buying. I'm not just buying, you know. Oh, the kids are with me. They want xyz, whatever. Like, I feel like it really helps me stick to that budget. And this month, I've been really good about not, like, popping into the store. Oh, I forgot. I don't have enough. Whatever. I haven't had to. So I'm feeling really good about it now. This morning, did my kids eat a granola bar at the bus stop and two sausages for lunch? Yes. Because I was. It's, you know, the end of the month, and I'm like, dang it, I don't. I ran out of, you know, normal breakfast food.
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B
But it's still food, though.
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A
It's still food. Are their bellies full? Yes, indeed they are. I have been loving it. I'm happy to show a visual for that, I'm sure on our YouTube, if you're watching there, I'll put it out there and I'll try and share some stuff in my Instagram stories as well. For anybody that is curious, but that's my loving lately, how I grocery shop and my meal plan strategy.
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B
So envious of people who can really stick to it. I've tried, and it'll get to be like, Wednesday night, and I've worked all day, and I know that I'm supposed to be making, you know, chili that night for dinner, but now I don't want to.
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A
Yeah, see, and yesterday, you gotta stick to it. You gotta Stick to it. And that's one thing too, because. Right. You have the ingredients for it. Sometimes I do go off script. Like yesterday, it was literally seven in the morning, and I'm like, well, I have this ground beef out. I know we have a softball game late. Like, what can I do? I cannot have tacos again. I cannot have a burger. And whatever I had, I used up the potatoes because like you said, I, like, made a mistake and whatever. Doesn't matter. But I was like, oh, I gotta be creative. But with that, I was like, okay, I just searched up ground beef, and then it came up with, like, a Mongolian noodles recipe, and it was delicious. See, I was like, okay. So there's a little flexibility. And yes, it does sometimes require me making dinner before work, which is weird, but also better than put it in the slow cooker 7:30 at night when I'm like, I'm gonna.
- [09:39]
B
That's so true.
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A
Crumble. So anyway. So true. Yeah, it's worked. I don't know.
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B
Aldi's great for meal planning, too, because you. You can get like a whole bag, you know, of onions. You get a whole bag of lemons, and you're like, well, I need to make sure that I'm making a couple meals this week that require.
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A
Enjoy.
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B
Lemons and lemon juice.
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A
Enjoy.
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B
We're gonna have some lemon salmon and some lemon orzo soup. All right, There you go.
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A
Hey, that sounds delicious.
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B
All right. My loving lately is also kind of perfect for summer. And it's so basic, I'm not even going to talk about it for that long. But it's literally just my monitor clip on F. And it's funny. So this was one of the gifts that Dustin got me for Mother's Day, because every time we record, I have to shut my office door. And we have really poor circulation in our building. And so every time I shut that door, it gets ungodly hot in my office. And as it has gotten hotter outside, my office has continued to get hotter. And every time we would get done recording, I would come out of my office and be like, I am going to die. I'm melting. And so I needed something that didn't take up a lot of desk space because you can get those desk fans that just sit on your desk, and those are great, but I have a lot of clutter. I tend to just clutter my desk. And so I really wanted something that wasn't going to take up a lot of space. And this was perfect. It literally clips right on the top of your monitor. And it's USB powered. So it does have to be plugged into a USB port on your computer. But I don't mind it.
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A
Yeah, why not?
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B
That's really cool because it takes. It doesn't take up desk space. It fits right up on top of my monitor and it just blows directly down on my face, into my face. It has three speeds. So like right now we're recording. I don't want it on the highest speed because is a little bit loud. But if I'm, you know, really sweating up a storm in my office, I can power that baby up to the, to the third level and it is going to cool me right off. So a very basic one. This is like $15. I think that Dustin got it at Target, found the exact same one on Amazon. I can link both, but I have been utilizing this every single day in my office. So that is my loving lately. It's a monitor clip on fan.
- [12:05]
A
I love this because I too have a little desk fan that used to be John's bedside fan. He got a different one. But you're absolutely right. The amount of times I bump it, move it throughout the day, my mouth goes there. I love it because I like a little, you know, I need a little blowing air on my face now. So. What a great, thoughtful gift. I love that.
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B
I know I. I tend to enjoy those practical gifts and he's a very practical person too. But I love that he can give a practical gift while still being thoughtful. I feel like that's a very specific talent. So.
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A
Yeah, yeah, no, that is a great one. So I will transition us into our mutual latest read because Hannah and I are going to be discussing our community read for May. And it is Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker. In my hands, I'm holding the exclusive aardvark version. It's very beautiful.
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B
Is that the one with the gorgeous. It's gorgeous.
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A
It's got a foil overlay. It's got really intricate detail. There's samurai swords and a skull on the back. And it says, the way of the samurai is found in death. So I mean, it's a really kind of lovely pie release. And we chatted with our patrons last night. If you are not familiar. Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker is about two people who are living centuries apart who discover a door between their worlds. The two timelines are October 2026 and October 1877 in present day. You're following Lee Turner. Lee cannot remember why or how he killed his college roommate. All he knows is he did and he fled to Japan where his father is currently living, and he's kind of spiraling. Something's terribly wrong with the house. When he gets there, things feel off, but he can't exactly put his finger on it. He doesn't know if it's paranoia or the Ativan and pills he's been taking to help him sleep. Then in October 1877, you have Sen. Sen is a young samurai in exile, hiding from the Imperial soldiers in a house behind the sword ferns. It's the same house that Lee is living in in present day. And what's. It's the end of the samurai. Her dad has returned home from this battle, and she is just desperate to train beneath him and to please him and to be the best version of herself and to be the best samurai she can be. And then they end up seeing each other, and, you know, kind of the story goes from there. And that's really all you need to know about this story. Hannah and I and our patrons really sort of. We had a great conversation about it, but I think a lot of us. Maybe I'll just say it. I'll speak for myself. I didn't get it. I didn't understand. I missed a lot about it. And I don't know that it's only because I did the audio. I was confused in parts. And I know you had a very funny reaction, or you. You. When I first talked to you about it, you read it before me. You said three and a half, and then you switched to two. And I was laughing because I was like, wait, that's like a big shift. Tell me more about that rating.
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B
Well, I finished it and I was like, okay, I'm a little confused, but I enjoyed a lot of it. So I'm thinking, you know, like, I. I liked it. I didn't. I didn't love it. And to me, that's like a 3. It can be anywhere between a 3.5 and a 4, depending on where I rank in that. Like, I liked it, but didn't love it scale. But then I thought about it more, and I was like, I was really annoyed by this. I was really annoyed by this. I don't understand this. And so maybe I didn't even like it. Yeah. And I went to 2.5. But then when we were talking with our patrons, and this is part of why I love book club, even though I think many of them had the same reactions that we did where they didn't get it or didn't like it or didn't appreciate certain parts, I think we all kind of processed through the book a little bit. And I even did some Googling and reading while we were chatting about differences between like Western Gothic literature and Asian Gothic literature, Western horror and Asian horror. And I was like, wow, they're really different. And of course it makes sense that they're really different. And I really appreciated kind of getting to learn that and have a moment where I was like, this isn't necessarily because this isn't a true gothic book. And so I didn't like it. I actually had something to learn there.
- [16:37]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I appreciated that. And it reminded me so much of when Tracy Thomas was on our podcast and she was like, let yourself be dumb.
- [16:45]
A
Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a great motto for life in general. Right. Don't come into something, you know, assuming you know everything there is. No, I'm really glad, glad that you mentioned Googling because I was doing the same during our chat and I started to feel a little self conscious about it because I'm like, geez, you guys, you know, we're running the chat and I felt bad that I sometimes I come in, I'm ready to go, I'm like, okay, I got all my questions, I know how I feel, etc. This one, I came in similar to you. I read it right before, I think I finished it yesterday morning or whatever recently and I gave it a three and a half. For me, a three and a half is the lowest rating I'll give when I still recommend a book. I still recommend this. I don't think it's a bad book by any stretch. I loved Bat Eater and other names for Corozang. That was five for me. So. And I knew going in it was going to be a different story and it was going to be hard to compare to that. I did a lot of Googling though, and that's what was making me feel bad because I'm like, geez, we should. I. I'm talking to myself. I should come in with all the answers and the questions ready. And that's not always the case. You know, as a, as a book club facilitator, we are having our authentic reactions right alongside our patrons. And I think that's part of the fun of the convers. We don't read the books in advance. I also learned a lot though, and I think for me that learning was the biggest strength for this. I loved learning a little bit more about the samurai. I loved learning in the author's note at the end. If one thing Kylie Lee Baker can do, if there's one thing she's going to do is write a killer author's note at the very end. And in this, she's talking about her family and sort of her relationship with being a descendant of both the oppressor and the oppressed from that part of her family. And I just love what she had to say about that. I love that we're following a female samurai that said, why it's not rated higher. I found myself not being super enthused to pick it up. I was like, okay, you got to read this book. You know, you're. You're. You got to read it. And I kept waiting for the moment where the levy broke, where I'm like, yes, now I'm in it. I'm super in it. I sort of got there. Probably 50% is really when I was like, okay, now I'm more into it. And then it kind of lost me again toward the end because I was like. Like what?
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B
The ending felt messy to me. A little bit, yes.
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A
A little chaotic for me as well.
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B
And again, I felt like it relied a little bit more on maybe psychological thriller, which is fine. It just wasn't what I was expecting for this story particularly. And that's part of where it lost me also, is kind of the resolution area.
- [19:17]
A
What do you mean by it relied on some of the psychological thriller?
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B
I feel like I can't really say a lot without spoiling it.
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A
Right.
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B
And so I think it just kind of relied on, like, what's gonna happen? Who. Who can I trust? Who can I not trust?
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A
What's actually happening? Real versus not real.
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B
Yeah, Rather, like, this story is really interesting, and we're. I don't know. I can't describe how I would put a horror book along that ending trajectory. But it's not always this. I feel like the way you view what's going on in a horror book and a thriller book is different a hundred percent.
- [19:58]
A
And that's why when you.
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B
Thriller is like puzzle. Right. Or like, who did it? I want. I want you to say more.
- [20:04]
A
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. It can be those things. I think for me, I heard you say that or I saw you say that yesterday. I was like, wait, what elements did you feel were in that? Because if I were to read this thinking it was a psychological thriller, I'd be mad because there are elements that are common in horror, but not thrillers. For example, any supernatural elements I don't want to see in thrillers. But I think you're absolutely right with the psychological aspect of it. The questioning, am I wrong? Is the narrator wrong? Who is telling the truth here? What am I getting? Definitely, I saw that psychological element, and I think we all sort of in the chat were like, what the heck genre would we call this?
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B
Was this book?
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A
Yeah, is this book. You know, and I sort of leaning. I'm more leaning into the historical elements. So I might even call this historical horror. I think sort of that's where I landed. And we also, at the beginning, were like, it's not really Gothic. And then we looked up the definition of Gothic. According to one website, it was literally all of the elements that are in this book. So I was like, huh, Maybe the publishers are onto something. Maybe it is.
- [21:09]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
It didn't feel like. You're absolutely right, though. In the. In the. On first blush, I was like, how is this Gothic? But I sort of See if you look at the. The raw definition. Okay, fair enough. Have. Oh, yeah. So Allison found this definition from Wikipedia. Gothic fiction is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion. Intrusion of the past upon the present. In that sense, it's literally.
- [21:32]
B
You get that here.
- [21:34]
A
Yeah, you definitely get that here. I also recognize that this book was very maudlin. I mean, it's a pretty. It's depressing. And that's. That is totally fine. You're sort of filled with this sense of like, oh, gosh, what's gonna happen in the end here? How is this going to wrap up? And I liked that I was getting those feelings. I still think the writing is strong. There were some sentences. I was like, yes, that's beautiful. That's a beautiful way to phrase that. But at the end, I feel like if I'm going to. If I. If I were to move my rating at all, I have to read the ending again. Because I was like, what? I know I missed a lot of the main points, but that's okay. We will let ourselves be dumb. And that's sort of why you discuss books, right? Is to see if we can't bring out more elements that we might have misunderstood.
- [22:23]
B
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And ultimately, whether or not, you know, we loved it or didn't like it so much, I am still glad that we read it and got to talk about it as a group.
- [22:33]
A
And what I love, too, about our group is that we do read through a lot of different genres, and folks go along that journey with us. So I'm glad we got to read Historical Horror this summer as we head into summer. But those were our thoughts on Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker. All right, so For Booktok, we are going to explain our episode and talk about how we came up to it, how we came up with this. I remember we were on air when we did come up with it. We were talking about whatever book it was, and I was like, gosh, I feel like I've missed out on some of these books that people were talking about. And I just. Because it has so much discourse sometimes it's like I've read the books that I wanted to read that were popular, and the ones that I don't want to read, I'm not going to read. And so I thought it could be fun to make space for this, to try and capture other popular books that we feel like we missed out on or ones that were discussed a lot, that sort of thing. How did you take the concept?
- [23:25]
B
At first I took it the exact same way. And when I got to thinking about books that I missed out on, just in prepping for this episode, I kind of started thinking about several things and ways that you could take this concept again. Books that came out in previous years, maybe one or two years ago that were really buzzy that I never read. For example, I'm not bringing this book today, but I did consider reading it for this episode. But like Buckeye or Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, that one, you know, blew up, as her books usually do. I still haven't read it yet. And so that was another one that I was considered bringing. I know, and you're gonna love that book.
- [24:05]
A
When the time is right, you are going to love that book, I predict.
- [24:09]
B
But I got to thinking, and this could also be things like classics that we never read in high school and college during our lit courses. It could also mean childhood books like the Hobbit or Percy Jackson series, or if you never read Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray, you know, a decade ago when those were really popular. And it could also mean prize winners that you didn't get to read that year during that prize list. But now you're making your way through those lists of these books that you missed out on throughout the years that were award winners. I just think that there are so many ways that you can look at this topic beyond the reason that I think both of us kind of thought, you know, for going into this episode. And it just got me really excited because I feel like that's how so many of our topics are where it's like, oh, we have this idea. And then you get to thinking about it and you're like, well, it could also mean this and this and gosh now I want to make a bunch of reading lists, make my way through
- [25:07]
A
all of these books, you know, and. And I was so excited about this topic. I still am excited about this topic, but per usual, I don't know what my problem is. When we have a topic episode, I'm like, I need to find the absolute best example of this. Like, I will not rest until I find the best example of whatever, you know, the topic is. So the ones I thought about bringing but aren't, but I didn't, is Barbara Kingsolver's demon Copperhead. Everyone talks about that book, and I. People tell me I need to read it, and it's still on my list. I considered lessons in chemistry, and that's one that I just dug my heels in. When it came out, it was so buzzy. Everyone's like, you're gonna love it. I was like, I don't wanna read it. And so I still might at some point. I didn't get to it for this episode, but those were two examples that I was like, okay, I wanna know what I think about this. But in the end, I sort of did it my way, as we're want to do. I have one buzzy thriller that is from an author I hadn't read from. And then I have one book that is very well loved that I had no intentions of reading. But when I started and read the first couple pages, I was like, oh, I'm in. So that's where I went with it.
- [26:19]
B
Oh, that's exciting. Yeah, I almost brought. I almost. With the classics route, I'm still in the middle of Jane Eyre. I'm really going slow with it.
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A
You've been so good with that, though. And are you annotating Jane Eyre? And, like, really? I have.
- [26:32]
B
I have old Jane with me. I have Jane with me right here. And yeah, she is. Oh, my God, she's looking gorgeous. And I am. I am really enjoying it. I am reading it in print and I just read more slowly in print, and that's okay. I'm about halfway through now, and I think sometimes when you read things slowly, you lose a part of the story. But with this one, I do not find that that's happening. And that's probably because I am reading it so deeply, annotating it. I've been watching a lot of commentary on YouTube and things like that, which has just been so fun. I didn't want to rush through the other half of this to bring it for this episode, so I decided to not try to do that. I almost brought another classic that I missed out on. That's kind of more of a modern classic that I thought about bringing for this episode that I knew I could probably read pretty quickly was 1984 by George Orwell. But again, I was like, I don't know if I want to rush through a book like that.
- [27:28]
A
No, not like that.
- [27:29]
B
I'm also planning to buddy read that with a friend in June. So you will be hearing about that book soon, but just not today. Went with a horror release that came out last year that I didn't get to that I was maybe going to read, maybe not decided to pick it up for this. And then I also am bringing a romance that was popular quite a while ago and it's kind of resurfaced and I didn't read it when it came out, but I am reading it as a part of the current conversation. So that's what I'm bringing today.
- [28:00]
A
Great plans. Sidebar. Do you have your buddy reads picked out for the rest of the year? And is it with the same friends?
- [28:06]
B
No, not for the rest of the year. And it is with the same friend. Emma. I buddy read with her every month. She was one of my really good friends when we lived in North Carolina and we. She decided to leave Bookstagram and I was moving and we were like, we need a way to stay in touch. Every month holds us accountable to talking regularly. And so we've been. We've been buddy reading ever since. And it has been a great way to stay in touch because even when we're both busy, we know that we're gonna at least be reading a book together every month. We sometimes pick them ahead of time, but usually we're picking them like end of May, we're picking our June read. End of June, we're picking our July
- [28:47]
A
read because you had mentioned the. The slum. Slum. No.
- [28:52]
B
Slew Foot.
- [28:52]
A
Slew Foot by Brahm for fall.
- [28:54]
B
Different. Different buddy read. Yeah. Not my buddy reads with them every month.
- [28:58]
A
Okay.
- [28:59]
B
Yeah, got you. Okay.
- [29:00]
A
No, no. And I'm just impressed because you are so good with these buddy reads and I was just wondering if, like, you had like the full which knew. Which who knew? And I didn't want to say it like that, but I'm like, you're really consistent with these and I know for you having a set TBR is not your fave.
- [29:18]
B
I think maybe for my buddy reads with Emma, it's because it's like that relational factor too. Of like.
- [29:23]
A
Absolutely.
- [29:24]
B
She's also the connection of. She's very different than Me, she's very type A.
- [29:28]
A
And I'm like, I was wondering a
- [29:29]
B
way to love her by being consistent with it because, you know, I know it means a lot to her. Not that it doesn't mean a lot
- [29:35]
A
to me, of course. It's just not your normal, your typical way that you go about your reading life. And that's okay.
- [29:40]
B
Exactly. But anyway, that's an external factor there.
- [29:43]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that so much. Okay, without further ado, let's dive into our reads. I am very excited to share my first one. It's the Last Party by A.R. tori. And you might be thinking, I've never heard of this book. And you might be right. It is a book that came out in 2024. And I don't know if I've had so many people directly tell me that I should read this book, like, in the thriller space, because it's very dark. And I think people thought that I would love it. So this book is about. It's kind of got this interesting setup. I actually did start it last year and I lost track of it. I think I canceled my Kindle Unlimited, like, trial. I was. And it's on both. You can do a tandem read over there. And I was like, I don't know if I need to pick it back up. So who you're following is Perla. And this is the reason. Perla is the reason why people recommend this book to me. Because Perla is a piece of work. She is in this fabulous marriage with Grant, and they have a daughter, Sophie, and they live in Pasadena. They're affluent, sociable and accomplished. Yada, yada, yada. Seems like the perfect life. We know. Of course it is. Not, not. You're also following a person named Leawood Fulcrum, who 23 years ago confessed to murdering two young girls during a birthday party. He's in. He's in prison, of course, and he's sort of this infamous figure. And he is getting interviewed by a doctoral student who is interviewing him for his dissertation. And so you're getting Perla and her shenanigans, and then you're getting Leawood and the doctoral student and their interviews. And the doctoral student's really just interested in getting Leawood to open up about his motives, why he did it, that sort of thing. The thing about Perla is she is obsessed with this crime and is going to take things to the extreme in order to play into her obsession. That is where I'll leave it. I enjoyed this a lot. I really did. I know I'm setting it up like I didn't like it. Perla, though, is not my kind of.
- [31:47]
B
Of unhinged.
- [31:49]
A
Thank you. She's not my brand of unhinged. I like unhinged that has a lot of complex backstory that you understand their motivations and you're like, oh my gosh, why are you doing that? Perla just seems to be a true sociopath. She just really seems to be. I didn't understand her motivations. Now was I still interested in seeing what she was going to do, what she was going to do next? Yes, of course. This was definitely a wild ride and it does come together. I think the reason why I got fussy is because you get Perla's little initial, Shenan's in the beginning, and then you meet Lee Wood and then they introduce the doctoral student. I'm like, where are we going with this? Right, what's going to happen here? And I sort of got fussy. But it does come together in a really, really satisfying way, actually. I think if you are interested in people that are. Are interested in true crime, like that sort of conversation about obsession and like, why are you so interested in this? Or how is it that killers get these level of fandom from people? I think you might like this. There's definitely some reveals, there's definitely some, let's see, question marks as to why people are doing the things they do. But I didn't mind that I always ask, people always want, want fast paced book recommendations and I sort of struggle with recommending that because I can be patient. So I'm like, gosh, is this fast paced? This one definitely would fall under fast paced in my opinion. It just sort of has enough in there. Once you get going, once you get past the initial sort of setup, you'll. You'll have a good time sort of turning these pages. It was dark. Please don't read this if you're a sensitive reader. It's definitely dark, definitely twisted. Definitely has this unhinged main character. And overall I enjoyed my reading experience. I would recommend it if you are a person that enjoys dark thrillers. Again though, please hear me when I say it's pretty dark and twisted, particularly if you are a parent. Anyway, that's the Last Party by A.R. tori.
- [33:48]
B
Honestly, with that, you know, true crime element, it kind of sounds like it might be one that I would enjoy potentially.
- [33:55]
A
I think you could be down with it. I do think that if I let
- [33:58]
B
go a little bit.
- [33:59]
A
Yeah. Yes, if you let go a little bit.
- [34:02]
B
Yeah. Okay, sounds good. My first one that I'm going to be bringing is the horror book that came out last year that I was on the fence on whether I wanted to read it or not and decided to pick it up and give it a go. That is Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones. I'm excited to talk about this one. Yeah, I love supporting Stephen Graham Jones. Just a lovely person. And his books can be really hit or miss for me personally. But that's also because he has such a broad range of the types of horror that he writes. And so I just like to try his stuff and see where it lands for me personally. But this particular story is historical vampire horror and we're following three different points of view. Now, I decided to set up this synopsis myself because I think that the way it is set up on the back of the book and on Goodreads is very confusing. So I hope that I'm able to lay this out a little more smoothly for you all. So first we have Etsy and she is an academic. She's facing career trouble and she discovers her ancestors hidden journal. Her modern day perspective really frames the story and explores the generational reckoning of her family's dark history. Then we have a diary which is another point of view and it's written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor. And this is Etzel said ancestor. What this journal unveils is a very slow, bloody, macabre chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet Native Americans dead in the snow. This is told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits with this Lutheran pastor. So at its heart here, this is absolutely a revenge story. It uses layered epistolary structure to tell a story of supernatural folklore and Native American colonization. As you could kind of tell from the way the story is set up is that this is a story within a story within a story. Which I was confused about when I started this on audio, but I decided to switch to the print and it was clear as day how this book was structured. So while I think that the narrators. The narrators did a great job, it's very well narrated. I would struggle to recommend this one on audio. I personally preferred the print just because of how unique its structure is. Unless you're really good at just sitting listening, like really immersing yourself and paying attention to when those chapters shift. Because while I listen to a lot of audiobooks, it's that paying attention to when the chapters shift. Right. And like oh, what time are we in? Who is narrating this part of the story, etc. You would have to really pay attention to that part if you listened to it on audio. There is a lot packed in here with what's happening to Native Americans during this time with land seizure and forest reservations. And while we follow Good Stab, we're really washing his identity change as his land is being taken away from him. And there is a supernatural element to the story that explores this identity shift in a really beautiful but graphic, bloody, painful metaphor of vampirism about forced assimilation and the devastating impact that it's had on indigenous communities. There is this cannibalistic assimilation that's described in this book that, while absolutely haunting and horrific, is such a powerful symbol for being forced to become something that you actually despise and the dread that you feel when you know you are starting to lose your heritage. Did I enjoy this book? Personally, I don't know. I think that this is objectively like a four to five star book. I think it's brilliant. I genuinely think this is one of the smartest horror books I've read, like I've ever read. Especially that structure element, that story within a story within a story. And then you get like the end, you get back to kind of that beginning perspective and it ties everything together. So it's also one of those ones that I think is important that you really read from start to finish to fully grasp the story's meaning. I mean, all stories you should read from start to finish, but this one, the ending, really tied it all together,
- [38:38]
A
you know, cover to cover.
- [38:40]
B
That's genuinely how, or generally how I recommend reading books overall. But I. This kind of ties me back into what we were talking about with Japanese Gothic. I don't know if I fully grasped everything that Jones wanted readers to grasp while reading this. And I have to be okay with that. And I want to let this book be brilliant and necessary, even if I can't fully hold on to all of the reasons why that this is such an important and needed book, especially in the horror space. So. So hopefully that, you know, at least kind of tells you what the book is about and whether or not you personally would want to read it or not. But I think if you're a horror reader, this is kind of a must read, in my personal opinion. So that was the Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.
- [39:27]
A
I'm so happy that you read this. I'm very impressed that you read this because it's one of those books that I'm Intimidated by. For no real reason other than I'm like, I hope I like it. I hope I get it. I hope I understand it right.
- [39:39]
B
And I do have the general gist of, you know, like, what he was trying to say about, like, I mentioned forced assimilation and forced reservations and just colonization in general, but some of those deeper, intricate things. I'm not 100% sure that I caught on to everything, and I'm just going to have to be okay with that. I want to look at some other people's reviews, and there's a lot of, like, literary criticism of this book because it really is just. Just one of those horror novels that really requires kind of that deeper look, I think. So I'm looking forward to diving into it more deeply that way and hopefully learning from some other creators who grabbed onto more than I did.
- [40:19]
A
Yeah, no, I thought you did a great job and definitely gave us just enough. I appreciate that you sort of rewrote a little bit of what readers can expect because we were actually reading. I didn't say this earlier, but in Japanese Gothic, we're reading through the synopsis. I was like, wait, I'm not gonna say that on air because that's a spoiler. So don't read the full synopsis of that one. But I will tell you about the book that I'm very excited that I read. And it is Still Life by Louise Penny. No way. Yes way, Homie. It is the first book in the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series. Ah, okay, okay, okay. So you probably know about this book if you're a reader in this type of mystery thriller space. It is about three pints, and in the very beginning, you have a dead body in the woods. The deceased is found on Thanksgiving weekend. And this brings Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and his colleagues from Quebec to a small village in the Eastern townships. Gamache cannot understand why anyone would want to deliberately kill well loved artist Jane Neal, especially not any of the residents at Three Pines, a place so free from crime, it doesn't even have its own police force course. But Gamache knows that evil is lurking somewhere behind the white picket fences and that if he watches closely enough, Three Pines will start to give up its dark secrets. This book first published 2005, so obviously it has been out for a while. I've known of this series as long as I've been a reader online. People love the series. And the thing that I always heard about it was you just have to get past the first two books. And then it starts getting really Good. And for me, one, I don't really do series. Two, I thought it was going to be too cozy for me. And three, why do I want to read two books before it starts to get good?
- [42:05]
B
I know when people say that, I'm
- [42:07]
A
just like, I don't know. Exactly. I'm here to say that I enjoy it from book one, and I'm excited to see where it goes. But this is the one, too. When I was, like, really debating, gosh, what am I going to pick up? What am I going to read? I read a first few pages of this, and I was like, wait, I love this. This book, unfortunately for me, is the fall book. It is perfect for fall Thanksgiving weekend. Cozy, evocative writing. There's a dinner they're cooking. I mean, I can't say enough about how fall this freaking book is. It's a quintessential fall read. And I was like, dang it. That's the only thing I regret is that I wasn't reading it in the fall. And what I love is that this does not feel like the first book in a series. You don't feel like you're, like, getting ramped up and like, who's this? And like, oh, the whole backstory, blah, blah, blah. No, no. I felt like I was dropped in. In the middle of a conversation. Like, these characters were living in this book, and I just, like, stepped in and was like, oh, my gosh, who's going? Kind of like a real conversation, you know, when you meet a friend group for real, like a new group of people, you're trying to figure out, okay, like, who's friendly here, who's dating who. That's what you're doing in this book. And it was so fun to puzzle out again. These characters, I think, are what made this story so strong for me. And I'm just so excited that I'm like, oh, my gosh. I get to presumably follow, if not these exact same people more in this world, because I actually don't know what book two is going to be about. This is a mystery. Though I would not call it cozy. I bristle almost at cozy's because I'm like, it's just not my style, you know? And you all know that if you've listened. I don't love too saccharine. I don't love stories that are too saccharine or too cozy. I thought this had a perfect blend of humor, of mystery. Kept me on my toes and really good character development. The humor was easy, and it wasn't cheesy. It felt like the dialogue was authentic Again, I, like, feel like I want to get to know these people more. And I thought the mystery was good. And what I love, too, is you actually get to meet the deceased. It's not like, oh, this random person. I was sad, and I just met her seven pages ago. Right. I think the author. You can. I'm just buzzing because I'm like, this is so fun. I immediately want a copy. I immediately want a character list. Like, I don't have physical version of that. And that's the. One of the things that I regret about this reading experience. One, that I didn't read it in fall, and two, that I wasn't annotating as I went along. But as you can tell, I highly recommend this book. I had a great time reading it, and I can't wait to continue on in this series. Who am I? Anyway? Highly recommend this one, and I'm so, so glad that this reading experience made me read it. The book is Still Life by Louise Penny.
- [44:50]
B
Oh, my gosh. I know. So many of our listeners are gonna, like, just, like, scream when they hear that you're bringing this one. Have you read it? I have not read it.
- [44:58]
A
Okay. Okay.
- [44:58]
B
I do have it on my shelves, but I. Again, we'll give it some.
- [45:02]
A
It.
- [45:02]
B
I've never. Okay, mail it to you.
- [45:05]
A
No, I'm gonna order it from Pango.
- [45:07]
B
Okay. Okay. There we go. That works. I. Was this a series that Renee read that feels like it might be. Like people might be like. How does she not know that?
- [45:17]
A
I. I don't know. I can't remember. I can't remember if. Renee, if you're listening, if you're out there, did you read this series? Series? I can't remember. I want to say yes, but I can't remember either. Not as it wasn't like, oh, my gosh. Yes, I knew Louise Penny's out if. If she did read it.
- [45:32]
B
Yeah, I. I couldn't remember that either, so. But I know that Renee did a little bit more of, like, the mystery series. I do.
- [45:38]
A
Yes.
- [45:39]
B
You know that. And had, like, those mystery authors that were her.
- [45:42]
A
You know, I don't know that Louise is one of hers, but I wouldn't. Don't count it out.
- [45:47]
B
No, Sharon Bolton was.
- [45:48]
A
Yeah, yes. Yes.
- [45:49]
B
Because I bought several Sharon Bolton books
- [45:51]
A
because of Renee is great.
- [45:53]
B
Yeah. Agreed. Okay. I almost moved on to my shelf edition, but we're quite there yet. I need to tell you about my next book, which is the Deal by Elle Kennedy. And this is the first book in the Off Campus series that inspired the TV show that I brought as my loving lately last week. This is one that I missed out on because I did not read the series when it came out and I hadn't read any of her books before I started the Off Campus series on Prime Video, but because I watched the series and loved it, I wanted to try the books out as well. This story follows Hannah Wells, who has finally found someone that she has eyes for. But while she might be confident in pretty much every other area of her life, she is carting around a lot of trauma that is impacting her sex life in particular. And if she wants to get her crush's attention, she will have to step up out of her comfort zone and make him take notice of her. Which ends up meaning tutoring the annoying, childish and very cocky captain of the hockey team, Garrett in exchange for a pretend date with a very popular university superstar, Garrett Graham. All he has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything that he's worked very hard for. If helping Hannah make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he's all for it. But of course, one unexpected kiss leads things in another direction and it doesn't take long for Garrett to realize that pretending isn't going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants is him. So I hate to say this, but I do think that the show is much better than the book. I think that this book didn't age great. I looked at when it was published and it was published back 2014, 2015 and it's so interesting to see how far we have come in the romance space with just things like how men treat women and consent and how much like I don't know what the more romantic and even like sexier that has been in the in this like recent era of publishing romance. And so in a way it was kind of interesting to read it and how it's aged and just how how far romance has come. But if you are wanting to read this for the same reasons that I did, if you just want to have fun but aren't expecting the same amount of care and love that was put into the show, especially around sexual trauma. I think it was done really beautifully and gently in in the show and it is not done that way at all in the book. And it almost felt like the book was making light at the even though I know that that wasn't the intention because I know for a fact that that wasn't the intention. I just think that the writing didn't age great. Like I mentioned, I think that Garrett was just kind of a jerk in the books and in the show, it was easier to see, you know, via his body language and his facial expressions. And we got to be a little bit more inside of his head. And so we were able to see beyond this just kind of cocky exterior that he had that was really present in the book.
- [49:11]
A
Book.
- [49:12]
B
Garrett himself has some baggage. And again, I just. I know I keep saying it. I just think that the show did a better job because really the topics that are tackled in the book are pretty heavy. And yet it's kind of just this fun. Oh, he's kind of a jerk. And she's kind of, like, whimsical. And I just feel like the book made light. Made light of it. And I didn't. I didn't like that very much. I did already purchase the next two books in the series, so I think I'm gonna try them. I spent my own dollars them. But if I don't like them as much as I didn't like this one, I probably just won't be sharing them here. It might just be this, you know, thing that I throw in my beach bag over the summer. We'll see. But unfortunately, the book was not for me, and that was the deal by L. Kennedy.
- [49:59]
A
I will say, though, I'm one glad that you read it and can do the compare and contrast between this adaptation in the book. But also, I love that we are now in an era where the people doing the adapting are going to say, okay, let me take this source material and make it better, make it more modern, make it address some of the issues, issues that were lacking from the author.
- [50:17]
B
Right?
- [50:18]
A
Yeah.
- [50:18]
B
You know, the author being like, oh, I didn't address it this way in the book. And I wanna. I wanna be a part of the on screen adaptation so I can do a better job, you know, with it on screen. So. Yeah, I love it too.
- [50:29]
A
No, I'm so glad you did. You read that one. Anyway, I am gonna move on here to our shelf editions, as one does. I'm bringing a book called Nerve Damage by Anna Kira Stinson. And this one has one of those covers. And I'm like, huh, this sounds good. And the reason why. Why it rose to the top of my shelf edition is because. Get a load of this. What did you call her? Get a load of this unhinged woman.
- [50:54]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [50:56]
A
Okay. All right. So Clarice's breakup With PT began in the usual way. She discovered he was cheating. Then came the constant texts, the non stop emails from burner accounts and the countless phone calls from dozens of different numbers. He showed up outside her apartment and her office. He sent her flowers and poems. Poems, A link to the music video for Dido's White Flag. And relief only arrived when Clarice finally obtained a restraining order and a one way ticket from New York to la. So Clarice is dealing with a lot. Just as the restraining order expires. And three years to the day since she left him, she spots a man who looks suspiciously like PT at a nightclub. Could it be him? Her friend's like, no, no, it's not him. Etc. The therapist is like, let's work on healing. Etc. And she keeps asking all these people about what she should do. Then she starts to have these like painful memories resurface and is convinced that her ex has returned to ruin her life. But she doesn't have evidence. So what does she decide to do? She decides to stalk this man instead. You know, to like get evidence. Of course she does.
- [51:59]
B
What else was unhinged? What else would an unhinged lady do?
- [52:01]
A
I know. And this is a profane and poignant debut novel and it's a different kind of survivor narrative about how far one woman will go to get control back of her life in a world determined to send her spiraling. So I'm certainly intrigued. I'm really excited to try this. I've not seen many reviews at all. This one is out already. It came out on May 12th of this year. And this book is called Nerve Damage by Anna Kira Stinson.
- [52:30]
B
Yeah, I got a copy of that one too, but I hadn't gotten a chance to dive into the back. And I like the way you, you set that up. It almost is like this new take on a survival story.
- [52:40]
A
Yes. And that's why I, I call. I said unhinged only because like in my head I'm like, oh, this woman who was in a tough relationship decides to stalk her ex back. And like, you know, you can be light hearted and cheeky with it, but I don't know what the vibe and tone of this book is, so I don't want to make light of those things.
- [52:55]
B
Is it going to be satire or an actual serious conversation?
- [52:58]
A
Yeah, exactly. And you nail it. And I'm here for both. I'm here for whichever way it goes. But I just read the first chapter. Chapter and it's really good. Or the first sentence. It's the Day before Halloween, and I've agreed to go to a concert at a venue called Afterlife with Bunny and this insufferable guy she's been dating.
- [53:12]
B
I love that. Honestly. The first sentence is great, Great first sentence. It almost sounds like it's going to be satire, but we'll see.
- [53:19]
A
Yes, exactly. All right, tell us about your shelf.
- [53:22]
B
Yeah, my shelf edition is called Liar's Dice by Juliet Faithful. And I've been seeing a little bit of buzz on this one. I did receive a copy from the publisher, which is the new imp from Random House Thousand Voices that Jenna Bush Hager is. Is doing. And yeah, so I'm eager to read more books from that publisher in general. But this one is about Dolores and Mita, who grew up in rural Brazil. And they are identical and inseparable. But Mita develops a mysterious illness that challenges the family. And one day, Dolores wakes up to find her sister gone. She's been sent to a hospital in their father's native London. There is no Dolores without me, and Meda is gone. When the family moves to Rio, Dolores's parents act as if Mita never existed. She is lonely and grief stricken and struggles to learn to read and write at the stodgy British school until she meets Andrea, a headstrong, sweet, wise girl from the more dangerous part of town. Andrea shows Dolores a new side of Rio and how to survive it. As the dictatorship cracks down on dissenters and people start to disappear Here, Dolores begins to wonder if her sister is dead or alive, if her parents are lying to her. And she is determined to uncover the truth. And she's willing to do whatever it takes, including lie, gamble, steal, whatever she has to do to get her sister back. It says that this captures the precarious intensity of coming of age in a volatile time when repression and silence are the fabric of everyday life and the cost of family secrets. This also sounds like a take on a, you know, survival. Survival story. And because that was mentioned like in. In the synopsis. And so I think it's fun that we're both kind of bringing books that are different takes on what we think of when we think of a survival story. This one sounds like it's going to be really sad, but also a great historical fiction book that looks at a time period I am not super familiar with. I like coming of age stories as well and stories about sisterhood, so I'm excited about that. That is Liars Dice by Juliet Faithfull.
- [55:36]
A
Good. I don't think I've heard of that one yet. All right, that's it for today. We thank you for spending a part of your day with us. Links to all the books mentioned can be found in the show notes, and if you enjoyed today's episode, you can help us by following wherever you listen and by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us get our show out to new listeners and grows our audience. Don't forget, if you'd like access to exclusive bonus content and community, you can join us for $5 a month on patreon.com booktalk Etc.
- [56:05]
B
If you'd like to connect with us, you can email us@booktalk etcmail.com you can also connect with us both at Booktalk etc on Instagram and YouTube. And you can find Tina TBR etc and Hannah at HandpickedBooks. Talk to you next week. And in the meantime, remember, everything's better with books.
- [56:33]
A
I hope we weren't live.