← The Currently Reading Podcast
The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 7, Episode 44: Sick Reading + To Skim Or Not To Skim
00:54:51
On this episode of Currently Reading, Kaytee and Meredith are discussing: Bookish Moments: reading while sick and reading on birthday trips Current Reads: all the great, interesting, and/or terrible stuff we’ve been reading lately Deep Dive:...
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- [00:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Foreign. Hey readers, welcome to the Currently Reading podcast. We are bookish best friends who spend time every week talking about the books that we've read recently. And as you know, we won't shy away from having strong opinions. So get ready.
- [00:24]
Katie Cobb
We are light on the chit chat, heavy on the book talk, and our conversations will always be spoiler free. Today we'll discuss our current reads, a bookish deep dive, and then we'll visit the fountain.
- [00:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz, a mom of four and full time CEO living in Austin, Texas, and sometimes even sick. Reading can be fun.
- [00:42]
Katie Cobb
And I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I love fitting my life into spreadsheet cells. This is episode number 44 of season seven and we are so glad you're here. 44, Meredith.
- [00:56]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I know. Almost to the end of season seven.
- [00:58]
Katie Cobb
I know. We have to start planning for crush week here soon, which is crazy.
- [01:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I know. It's gone by so, so fast.
- [01:06]
Katie Cobb
It's like a whole person now. Almost seven years crazy. Okay. I don't know why for some reason that is hitting me today. Probably because I just had my own birthday. Our deep dive today, though, comes from a listener question. We love them. Please keep sending them because it delights me no end to get deep, deep dive idea as a subject in our inbox. This one comes from a listener named Cindy. She wants to know when it's okay to power through and skim a book. Like when? When is that okay?
- [01:35]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's a good question.
- [01:36]
Katie Cobb
Got some thoughts for sure, but we'll get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week. Meredith, what is yours?
- [01:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, well, my last week has not been the world's most fun week. After Jackson was sick for an entire eight days with flu B, right as he was getting better, I came down with it. So we have had more than two weeks in the Schwartz family household where we have not been at the top of our game cumulatively. So this last week, the flu hit me hard. I was in bed for about three and a half days, which is a really, really long time for me to just literally like, take to my bed. And however, what I was cognizant of is a lot of times when I am sick, like with the flu, I do not feel like reading. So sometimes I feel like it, like it's like going to put you in your bed, but you can't even benefit from like. Well, I got extra days of reading, but this time, Katie, because of the way that My symptoms rolled out those first three, three and a half days. I didn't have a lot of head congestion, which is what really keeps me from being able to read. So I did get some good reading done. And it was one of those times where it felt like my reading was there to save me or to give me solace. Usually I watch a lot of TV when I'm sick. I barely watch TV at all. I just powered through a few books, including one exquisitely smutty romance that was exactly what the proverbial doctor ordered. So sick reading, sometimes it can be fun when it works. When your body will let you do it.
- [03:16]
Katie Cobb
Yes. And it is. It's a tight. Like, it's an eye of a needle kind of threading proposition, and you have.
- [03:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
No control over it. I can't just force myself to read when I'm sick like that. It's either gonna work or it doesn't.
- [03:28]
Katie Cobb
Me neither. And sometimes you need. It demands something different of you. Right. Like. Oh, well, I could read, like, poetry, because if I fall asleep, there's only the one page. Right. Or whatever it is. But mostly I'm like, you know, put on the movie. I've seen eight. It's probably 10 things I hate about you. Honestly.
- [03:46]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah. Yeah. The last time I was in bed for a long period of time was actually when I got my hysterectomy a couple of years ago. And I was in bed for multiple days for that, but couldn't read because I was on pain medication, which just wipes out my ability to read. And I watched all of the first two seasons of Madame Secretary. That's a lot of television.
- [04:08]
Katie Cobb
Sometimes that's what we need to do.
- [04:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [04:10]
Katie Cobb
It's what life demands of us.
- [04:13]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right. All right, what's your bookish moment of the week?
- [04:15]
Katie Cobb
All right. Well, mine is about reading a lot. So this past weekend, as you know, I celebrated my birthday down in Mexico. And that was bookish in a few ways. First, I read and read and read, and that was great fun. I read hundreds of pages on the back porch and on the beach and sunscreened myself to kingdom come so that I didn't get burned and ruin the rest of my trip. And it worked perfectly. The weather was beautiful, inside and out. Outside, the windows were open, the sun was shining, wind was blowing. Everything was perfect. The temperatures capped at 83 degrees.
- [04:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Nice on the beach.
- [04:51]
Katie Cobb
It was perfection. Perfect reading weather. I also finished three audiobooks and got most of the way through a fourth while driving to and from the beach house. And it spurred Me. That binge spurred me to start planning for my epic summer road trip with the kids, which will involve, I have made a spreadsheet, of course, 63 hours of driving about 4,000 miles over two weeks, plus a week sandwiched in the middle lakeside. By my estimate, that means I need at least four paper books, my fully loaded Kindle, and enough Audiobooks to cover 180 hours of listening.
- [05:32]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, my gosh.
- [05:33]
Katie Cobb
That is how many books? That is so many books. Because again, I listen at a ridiculous speed. It's usually right. Now, for some reason, my sweet spot is 2.85, but that's just under 3x, right? So I can almost triple the number of hours that I will be driving to figure out my number of hours of audiobook needed. I am not mad about it. It will probably be July, will probably be my biggest month of the year. As much as I love the spreadsheet of planning, the goddess of spreadsheet, planning for the trip itself and making sure that I have all my locations covered and my. My hotel rooms booked for when I don't have a place to stay, et cetera. I'm even more excited that I did get to add a column on the spreadsheet for audiobooks, make a whole docket plan for 180 hours worth of listening in three weeks. I'm so excited.
- [06:25]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, my gosh. Well, that's where your sort of core as a planned reader comes into play, right? You're not. We know that you're not always a planned reader, and mood reading has come into play in the last couple of years, but I think at your core, you're a planned reader.
- [06:40]
Katie Cobb
It's still there. Yeah, definitely. Lately, what I've been doing is kind of moodily picking, let's say, five books off my shelves that I want to prioritize and then planning to read them. So I'm like, trying to hybridize this mood reader, planned reader thing that's dichotomy and turn it into something new, some kind of weird half human hybrid. But yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna do is pick, you know, 20ish books that all sound good. And then in the moment, I will be able to say, now my mood says swing this direction. So I'm excited.
- [07:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, that is so much good reading time. High stakes, Katie.
- [07:21]
Katie Cobb
Oh, so many. Yes. High stakes. Gosh. And my kids are just gonna be like, brains rotted in the backseat, just cruising through the miles. They're such good travelers.
- [07:31]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I think they are really good travelers. And the fact that you can. I think a lot of people are probably saying to themselves, I couldn't go on vacation with my family and know that I was going to get that much reading in, because if I'm in the car with Even just my one 13 year old son, I'm not going to get that kind of concentrated audiobook listening, whether it was in my ears or playing in the car in general. I just wouldn't be able to do that. So you, the dynamic you have with your kids really allows you to get in some good reading in a very specific way. I think it's great.
- [08:07]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, I'm stoked for sure. All right, let's get into what we have been reading, though. Meredith, what is your first book this week?
- [08:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, I have an interesting group of books, y' all. I'm very, very excited to talk about them. And this first one is one. This is actually coming out in a couple of weeks, not very long from the time this show airs. This next book is out June 24th. It's called the Compound by Aisling Ra. Here's the setup. Imagine waking up in a remote desert compound with 19 other gorgeous 20 somethings. All of you are contestants on the world's most popular reality show. That's where our lead character, Lily, finds herself. And she is happy about it. The rules to the game are deceptively simple. They have to complete daily challenges to win everything from, like, champagne and lip gloss to basic necessities like food and furniture for their shared living space. Oh, and there's a kicker. Every morning you must wake up with someone in your bed or you're banished from the compound. You don't have a partner. You don't have the Paradise. So as nine men arrive to join the 10 women that are already there, the competition intensifies in ways that feel both sickeningly familiar and, I gotta say, increasingly unhinged. Aisling Rawle creates the most twisted mashup of, like, Love island and the Lord of the Flies that you never knew you needed. So what starts as a satirical take on, like a reality TV show morphs into something much darker. The producers are pushing the contestants to increasingly dangerous situations for those ratings that just keep going higher and higher. All right, this is one of those rare books that I actually found initially all on my own on NetGalley. I can probably count on one hand the number of times that that's happened and worked out. And it worked out. But then a couple weeks later, a few really trusted readers started to talk about it, and I prioritized reading It I ended up giving this book four full throated stars and enjoying the overall reading experience. But I have a couple of caveats to note. This book is correctly comped as a slightly dystopian reality show thriller that mixes elements of like Big Brother and Bachelor in Paradise. And I would say that is to a certain extent a very apt description. There was a lot to be interested in right from the beginning. This one is a page turner. We don't get a lot of information, we don't get a lot of context. We're just dropped right into the middle of the action. And I like stories where I have to figure out what's going on. That's fun for me. There are a lot of characters just like in any of these reality shows that you would watch. And they're all a certain kind of character, right? They're young, beautiful, slightly vapid. But the structure of the story and of the show does a lot to move the action along to a certain extent. But by the time I was at about 35%, I wanted to keep reading. I wasn't going to DNF, but I needed something to happen. And this is one of my two big issues with the book. I think I thought this was going to be more dystopian and less reality show, but that's not what what this is. This is a book about a very intense reality show. And it's a book that plays heavily on the themes of consumerism and like the performative culture of television and social media. And I think if I'd known that, I could have settled into it better. But as it was, I kept waiting for some dystopian element to evidence itself and it didn't. The other big problem I had with the book is very much a me problem. I don't need all my characters in a book to be likable. You guys know that about me. But I hate it when the character through which I am seeing the story is someone who I would describe as a limp noodle. And that's what we get with good old Lily. Lily is blonde and tan and pretty, but she's almost nothing else. Her interior monologue is as boring as what's happening on the outside. She just readily admits that she doesn't have a lot of thoughts in her head and kind of just wants to be taken care of. That's a big trigger for this reader. Again, you guys know I like people who rise to the occasion, and Lily is the opposite of that. I do know that there were some people in, for example, Goodreads comments who didn't mind her and thought that she was supposed to be a blank slate in that that would be useful for us to use her to see the rest of the characters. And I can see that point of view, but as far as Lily herself, I just ended up wanting to banish her from the Compound. I will say that the ending will be controversial, but I didn't mind it. Again, ending slut. Overall, this was a quick read. It was page turning. It's more than a beach read, but not by a whole lot. It will definitely be for you if you love a reality show and a reality show setting where things go off the rails. This is the Compound by Aisling Rawl Interesting.
- [13:26]
Katie Cobb
I am on the fence about reality.
- [13:28]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Shows so I wouldn't prioritize this one.
- [13:31]
Katie Cobb
Katie Yep, yep. That makes sense for me.
- [13:34]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, this is going to be a very a definite hit for people who are like, I've always wondered what would happen if you took some of the guardrails off of a show like Big Brother or Love Island.
- [13:46]
Katie Cobb
Okay, perfect. See, and that's good to know. Okay. My first one I have feels about it is called the Guilt Pill by Samya Dave. This book has a great premise, but it did not fully deliver for me in the execution. Here's the setup. Maya Patel is our main character. She has it all. A startup that's bursting with success, a husband that adores her, a brand new beautiful baby boy. She's an influencer, sharing daily about her life as a new mom and entrepreneur. But we also know almost immediately she has disappeared. Her family and her company have no idea where she is and she's become totally unreachable despite her online notoriety. In the primary timeline of this book, she seems to have it all. Like I said, like many do from the outside. But she's running low on sleep, trying to juggle aging parents and her company is growing too fast for their funds and staff to handle. Her best friend is worried about her leading to a strain in their relationship and she's carrying all of that on her womanly shoulders like we all do, right? With the most human of emotions. Guilt. Maybe that's the most feminine of emotions. We're not sure it's all her fault or she's convinced that it is. She's not a good enough daughter. She's not a good enough mom. She's not a good enough wife. She's not a good enough business owner or best friend. When she connects with another rising star in the Girlboss space, Liz Anderson, they Hit it off immediately. Liz has been there. She understands, and she's actually been working on a supplement called the Guilt Pill. These small hot pink pills are the antidote to blaming oneself, clearing out the female brain to actually get to work on the issues instead of spiraling or trying to make amends for things. When Maya tries them out, she becomes the confident and unapologetic woman she has always wanted to see in the mirror. So far, so good. She can handle whatever the world throws at her because she doesn't waste her precious time beating herself up for the little missteps or the things that she's imagining other people are thinking about her. But as she becomes acclimated to the Guilt Pill, she has to up her dosage and she starts realizing that her ruthlessness could lead to the unraveling of all the pieces that she holds dear. This book is a multimedia format with two timelines. We are putting together what happened to Maya in the time leading up to her disappearance, while also piecing together interviews and articles and online comments sections after she goes off the radar. The way it's constructed pulled me all the way through the book. I love a multimedia format as much as the Next Girl, and this one has short chapters that were easy to keep me moving along. I also talked to a lot of people while I was reading it because the concept is so interesting to me. It felt a little bit like a novelized version of Taylor Swift's song the Man. Like how would I be able to move through the world if I didn't have like womanly expectations on me?
- [16:42]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Right.
- [16:42]
Katie Cobb
I think it's a really cool concept and I wanted to see it explored. However, by the time I got to the end, I just wanted this book to be over. It got very preachy to me and rather than wrapping up with a tight not a tighty bow, but wrapping up the story, when we figured out what had happened, Ms. Dave decided to drag it out with additional pages and chapters dedicated to the aftermath. Now, I did read a galley of this book, so it's absolutely possible that by the time the final product was released, the ending was changed or tightened or cleaned up. But for this reader, I was just disappointed in the way that the pieces started to come together. It felt like a messy puzzle rather than one that was really cutting social commentary, which is what I wanted here. Not every book is written for me, but it did not work for me. This was the Guilt Pill by Soumya.
- [17:36]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Deve man, that's got a great premise though. I totally understand why you picked it up. I can't even imagine what my brain would look like if it wasn't beating itself up.
- [17:50]
Katie Cobb
Like, what it could do. Right. If it didn't spend 20% of its brain activity working on like, oh, I could have said that differently. I could have done that differently. I could have been better at blah, blah, blah. Yes.
- [18:00]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
It's such an interesting thought exercise that I can. I really love that kind of thought exercise. It's akin to books like the Power where what if all of a sudden women had physical power that we don't currently have and could automatically feel safe wherever we went or could best someone in a fight. I mean, those can.
- [18:20]
Katie Cobb
Curfew.
- [18:21]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [18:22]
Katie Cobb
Or Vox by Christina Dalcher. Like, where women are silenced and like, what happens if they take their voices back? Like, I love that kind of dystopian ish premise. And this felt like that. And then it just like, meh.
- [18:36]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh. If you have if listeners, if you have some great recommendations for books that really did work for you that are kind of along those same lines, let us know because both. That's a sweet spot for Katie and I. We both really love books like that.
- [18:52]
Katie Cobb
Yes, definitely.
- [18:53]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, Katie, this next one is very interesting. This is a book I will almost guarantee nobody has has read who is listening to the sound of my voice. This is a little book that I found in my library through bookish serendipity. It's called how to Order the Universe by Maria Jose Ferrata. Here's the setup. Seven year old M, just the letter M, has discovered the key to understanding the universe. It's all there in the Cramp Hardware catalog. Because while her mother stays home nursing some unnamed malady, M skips school to join her father, known only as D, on his routes as a traveling hardware salesman across small Chilean towns in the 1980s, M has become his secret weapon. Because it turns out having a precocious little girl by your side makes shopkeepers order more screws and door hinges than they ever intended. Em learns to categorize everything through this language of commerce and hardware. But when a mysterious photographer named E joins their travels searching for ghosts in a Chile where people have a habit of disappearing, M's carefully ordered universe begins to show its cracks. Here, Maria Jose Ferrata has written something that is kind of like a fable, but make no mistake, this is a story that cuts like a knife. So as I said, we have. This is another book that I picked up in my library for no reason other than the fact that the COVID has a picture of a Little girl's Mary Jane on it. And I cannot resist that. But unlike our other Mary Jane cover, that's a serial killer book. That's not what we have here. But it was enough to get me to pick it up and I'm so glad that it did. This is a book in translation by a Chilean author and it's an odd little work of literary fiction. It's published by Tin House Publishing. Now I've read other books by Ten House Publishing and they always give you a lot to chew on. This one came out in 2021, so. So it's backlist too. All things that I have been trying to prioritize in my reading. Something different, something unexpected, something backlist, and if I can, something in translation. But we must revisit the fact that this book is definitely a little bit strange. We never know the names of the characters. As I said, they're known by the different letters. And the entire story is from Em's perspective, starting out when she's about 10. So we get this very precocious character who has insight well Beyond a normal 10 year old. But also we're seeing the entire story, a very complex one that is from her very limited perspective. And that contradiction made this book very interesting. It's short, it's only about 170 pages and it's got teeny tiny chapters. The first half of it is really, I would describe as charming as you see Em and her father spending their days going through his route as a traveling salesman. And we get a lot of these, these classifications. Im is a kid who lives or dies by classifying, categorizing, or systemizing everything. And it's so funny and it's sometimes heartbreaking the way that she does this as she walks side by side with her father who is a very struggling door to door salesman. And then he meets up, they meet up every day after their work. They meet up like at bars. This book takes place in the shadow of the Pinochet reign in the mid-50s in Chile. So economic times are very, very hard. And we get the sense that there are a lot of things happening that our lead character, from whom we're. The perspective we're seeing the story is being sheltered. The second half of the book gets a little bit stranger still as our character tries to understand some of the big things that are happening in her family. Again, this is a very literary little novel, not one that I would normally pick up or stick with, but I did this one as a part of my morning routine and doing it just a Few pages at a time made it an interesting read and it did give me a lot to think about. I think this would be a great book. An unexpected pick to read as a part of a book club or a buddy read, because there were several times that I found myself really wishing that I could discuss what was happening in the book with another reader. So a little odd one here. This is how to Order the Universe by Maria Jose Ferrata.
- [23:23]
Katie Cobb
Well, we love an interesting book, so it was interesting. There you go. And something outside of our. Our normal Miyu.
- [23:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And I loved our lead character. Again, the lead character, the perspective. The person whose perspective I am getting. I don't care about endings. I very much care about my lead character. And Em is a very. Someone who I very much cared about and was invested in so much. Unlike the compound where I was like, I really can't stand the lens through which I'm seeing this book.
- [23:55]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Excellent. Okay. My second book this week is nonfiction, and it's something I had no idea that I was going to care about. So I'm going to talk about everything is Tuberculosis by John Green.
- [24:10]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, good. Yes. I've been hearing so much about this book.
- [24:13]
Katie Cobb
Why, though? Okay, I. I have had ups and downs in my relationship with John Green over the years, especially with regard to his fiction, but his nonfiction always hits for me. And that five star streak continues with this, his newest title. Now, it doesn't seem like a book with this title or about this topic should be interesting or amusing or even good, but in the hands of John Green, it is all of that and more in this nonfiction pick. John Green allows his laser focus and accessible writing to guide us through the history and persistence of the world's worst disease. Even though many of us have heard of tuberculosis because we live on planet Earth, we probably have some serious misconceptions about its prevalence and its mortality. Even today, tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. It was once romanticized as a malady of poets, but today, tuberculosis is a disease of poverty, not poetry. It walks the trails of injustice and inequity that we gave it to walk. In 2019, John Green met a young man named Henry. He's a tuberculosis patient at Laka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone. He was traveling with a charitable organization. John became fast friends with him, this little boy who was older than he looked, but had spindly legs and a happy smile. In the years since that first visit, he became John Green, became a vocal advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness, awareness of healthcare, inequities that allow this curable and treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest in the world, killing one and a half million people every year. I'm not sure that this book will change a lot of minds or open a lot of eyes as to the need for health care reform, especially global healthcare reform. This is a disease that impacts people just because of where they live. Right in the US it would be nearly unimaginable for somebody to suffer from and die from tuberculosis, but it becomes resistant and becomes impossible to cure and almost impossible to manage in places with lower access to healthcare. It is an interesting and conversational book, even though it's about tuberculosis. How why John Green reads the audio himself. And for me, this was not a note taking and marginalia book, so that was the perfect way to take it in. He has a lightness to his speech even when he's talking about something that is deadly serious. If you're the type of reader who loves a deep dive into a topic that you've never wondered about in your entire life, John Green is the perfect guide for your journey. I can't wait to see what he decides I need to know about next because I am sure to love it. He is so good at this exact thing and I gave this five stars. Even though when I saw that he was releasing a book about tuberculosis I was like, is this a joke? What is happening? It was so good. It was so interesting. It was full of humanity. It was full of heart and full of rounded out knowledge. I loved it. It's everything is Tuberculosis by John Green.
- [27:30]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. I am so glad that that was good for you. I. Because I. I've heard so many people that have read it and loved it. I've never read anything by John Green and I think this is one that I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick up. I'm on hold for it at the library.
- [27:44]
Katie Cobb
I mean, I do think that for morning reading, Anthropocene reviewed is the way to go because it would be so easy to do like a single essay a day and they're between one and five pages.
- [27:55]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Like it would be like, oh, that's a good.
- [27:57]
Katie Cobb
I have like time for a snack or another. I'm gonna make myself a cup of coffee and while the Nespresso is working, I'm gonna read one. Yeah. Perfect length for that. And gosh, that book I feel like is a universal hit. So I love it.
- [28:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, good. All right. My third one is a book that I have thought about so many times since I read it and I Want to be really careful with the setup because I went into it almost completely blind and I really feel like that is the way to go into it. This is a book called Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wong. Alright, here's the setup. In the magical industrial city of Tirin, Siona Frainen has spent 20 years obsessed with achieving what is considered to be impossible, becoming the first woman ever admitted to the high magistrate at the University of Magics and Industry. This orphan from the wrong side of the tracks is brilliant, driven and absolutely unwilling to let the old boys club keep her out of their ranks. And when she finally claws her way to success, her new colleagues are determined to make her feel unwelcome. And instead of giving her a qualified lab assistant in a lab, they just assign her a janitor. Well, as these two, Siona and the janitor build an unlikely partnership, they begin to unravel mysteries about magic that no one is supposed to question.
- [29:22]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [29:23]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, my gosh. Usually when I finish a book, I write up my thoughts immediately. In the case of this book, I needed two full days before I could put pen to paper because I really, really liked this book. And it was not at all what I thought I was going to get when I started it. I thought I was going to get a fairly easy, fun work of fantasy. That is not what this is. It's not easy. The magical construct is complex and that's something I really, really like. And there's a reason for its complexity in the story. But there were a few times in the first 40% that I was like, phew, okay, I'm paying attention. But this is a lot that we are learning here. And this book is not what I would describe as fun. I guess I thought it would be because it was recommended to me by the queen of fun herself, Jamie golden from the Popcast. But just like Jamie is more complex than she seems on the surface, so is this book. And again, these are good things, because what we do have here is a work of fantasy that is intelligent and demands your attention. It also asks some really, really big questions about some of the sacred cows of human life. What is the proper role of women in society? What happens when religious leads us to overlook the wrongs that we do to others? And on and on. What we also have here is a book of surprising emotional complexity. I was moved by this story. I was taken in from the very first paragraph in one of the best first chapters of any book ever. Seriously, that first chapter is a banger. And I was impressed by the arc of the main character's development. She starts in one place and we see her struggle and claw for the change that she needs to make internally. This is not an easy process to watch, but it is very, very impactful. Impactful, I think, because I have lived a life where I believed a lot of things that turned out not to be what I thought they were. And that's always difficult. Here we walk that road with our main character, Siona, and I know I felt deeply for her journey. I also fell so hard for the love story that is in this book. It had me clutching my emotional pearls and for me, that is a great feeling. This book has a lot of plot and the ending 15% will leave you as breathless as that first chapter. So though this book wasn't exactly what I thought it was when I started, I am so glad it was. It was what it was by the time I finished it. I will not forget it. And I have not. This is Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wong.
- [32:15]
Katie Cobb
ML Wong? I thought you said Emma ML.
- [32:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah.
- [32:19]
Katie Cobb
Okay. First of all, I know that Jamie B. Golden is going to be thrilled to be called the Queen of Fun.
- [32:24]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
She is the Queen of Fun.
- [32:26]
Katie Cobb
And we should get her a sash and send it to her. I think she would love that. Yes, this sounds great, honestly. And we've just talked about on the indie press list that came out for our bookish friends the Thursday before this episode dropped the. The more complex fantasy where you have to pay attention and sometimes that's. That's the best way to get into a new world. Right.
- [32:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So, yeah, I just. Yeah, definitely know in that first 30, 35, 40%. It's a lot of information coming at you, but you will be richly rewarded.
- [32:59]
Katie Cobb
Okay, Meredith, we've talked a lot today about characters that you have complicated feelings about. And my third book has one of those. Actually. It has a lot of those. I'm going to talk about King of Ashes by S.A. cosby. Cosby.
- [33:15]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Okay. Yes.
- [33:18]
Katie Cobb
He does it again, folks. S.A. cosby is one of the authors that I cannot help but gobble up as soon as he releases a new title. This one came to me through NetGalley as an ALC and I dropped everything as soon as they approved me. I was like, clear the dockets, folks. It is time for an essay. Cosby in real time. This book releases tomorrow and if you are a murderful, scary, gory lover of plot and drive, I hope you've got it pre ordered so that it's already on its way to you. Here's the setup. Roman Carruthers our main character, heads home to a small town in Virginia named Jefferson's Run after his father is injured in a suspicious car accident. He is left unconscious in a coma, and Roman shows up like a knight in shining armor to help keep things afloat for the family. His younger brother Dante reveals in short order that he owes $300,000 to the local drug dealers, the Black Baron boys. Nevaeh, their sister, has been running the family crematorium as their father's second in command. She is exhausted from burning the candle at both ends and trying to keep the family together. As the house of cards that is the Carruthers family starts to fall. Roman realizes that Dante's debt is what put their father in the hospital. This car crash was no accident since Roman has a talent with money, like he can seemingly make it grow on trees through financial wizardry. He offers to help get Dante out of trouble by making the drug dealer's money work for them, doubling and tripling the amount that Dante owes. It's the only way to keep each of the siblings from receiving a bullet to the back of the head and to prevent the gang from finishing the job on their father. Roman begins working for the Black Baron boys under the leadership of their kingpins, Torrent and Tranquil. In the meantime, Nevaeh attempts to uncover the long ago mystery of what happened to their mother when she disappeared while the kids were all teenagers. The rumor around town is that their dad, with his own crematorium close at hand, killed her and burnt her body. So maybe Nevaeh doesn't really care if he wakes up. Each of these threads comes together until we pull one and watch this entire sweater unravel into bloodshed and chaos. Good freaking Lord. SA Cosby can write the goriest, most horrifically detailed scenes of torture and violence, but the characters, the plot, and the absolute mastery of his craft will keep me coming back for more. Thank you, sir. May I have another? Even when my face is screwed up in horror, Roman, the main character in this story, is complex and someone we spend a lot of time with in this book. He is not a dishrag. He is not uninteresting, but he is not a good person. As I messaged our mutual friend Alex Cox while we were both drinking this book down, we became ever more horrified by the actions of each of the characters in this book. No one is safe. No one has clean hands. There is gore everywhere. This book will destroy you. It horrified me, sickened me, and gripped me by the throat. Through every page, I am consistently surprised by how much SA Cosby can write characters that I actively loathe but keep me wanting to read every single page. It's a true talent, and I cannot get over it. I'll never get over it. I will die wanting another SA Cosby book in my hands. While I have not always given his books five stars, I have read every single one with bated breath and muscles clenched the whole way through. And this one did get five stars from me. It will live in my head rent free for at least the rest of this year and probably the rest of my life. It is excellent and horrifying, and I loved it. This is King of Ashes by S.A. cosby.
- [37:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Oh, good. I am so glad. I am as glad that you loved that as I am when I love a new Louise Finney. It's just that is the equivalent for you. He is such a fantastic writer and such a fantastic human. I mean, I'm just so happy that it was really good. What a home run.
- [37:35]
Katie Cobb
It's so good. And, like, the COVID is just like fire. Oh, my gosh. And just the imagery, the title, everything, the way he weaves his stories.
- [37:45]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
He's. I mean, really one of the best ones. The best authors working right now, I think.
- [37:50]
Katie Cobb
Oh, yeah, I would absolutely agree. He's just phenomenal. Okay, so with that in mind, let's move to our deep dive, which is not about King of Ashes, because we want to know when we are gonna just power through, when it's okay to skim a book. So I'm gonna read Cindy's original email to us, and it's short but sweet. Here's what she Is it okay to speed through the text to move on? I catch myself doing this to get back to the plot. I did this recently and ended up having to go back because I had missed some things that were important further into the book. I hope my question makes sense. I love your show so much. I never miss. So Cindy has a very specific conundrum, which is that sometimes she skims and she doesn't know what happened in the meantime. Right.
- [38:36]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Is it ever okay?
- [38:38]
Katie Cobb
Is it okay? Is anything ever okay in reading? Well, of course we have opinions about that. Right, right, right.
- [38:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
So I think our overarching opinion is going to always be it is. It is definitely okay for you to do anything that you need to do in the book that you're reading that feels good to you and gets you the result that you're looking for from that book. That's the question I ask myself when I consider, do I want to Set this book aside for a different time. Do I want to DNF with prejudice, meaning I'm never going to pick it up again? Do I want to if and if that's the case, do I want to skim to the end? And sometimes I do each one of those things depending on the book and my mood. And, you know, I'm sure there are probably some other factors, but usually those.
- [39:28]
Katie Cobb
Are the big two, right? Yeah. I tried to break this answer down into a couple things, and the first thing I asked myself mostly is, when do I skim a book? Which is still going to be different for every reader. Right. Because we all have different requirements of our reading life. So I skim if I'm way behind on a buddy read, but it's not interesting me as much as it is my buddy. Right. So I want to keep up. And I like reading with this person or this group of people, but I don't want to be stuck in the minutiae of this. And it might kill my reading if I really say, like, okay, well, I gotta read my 30 pages and I better do it right, because it's a buddy read. Mm, can't do it. I will skim when I'm trying to figure out if I want to continue reading a book or not. So I might skip ahead 30 pages and see what else. What's happening now? And if I feel like Cindy, like I missed a big thing, well, maybe I go back and read those 30 pages because there's something worthwhile happening there. I will skim when I'm too confused or tired to pay attention. But I want to know how it ends. And this is a skip to the end situation. Right? Okay. I got to figure out, are they going to finally bang or are we going to find the killer? Or are we, like, what's going to happen here? I'm bored with this book, but I want to know what's happening at the end or sometimes. And this is just part of the job. When I'm pre reading an indie press list book and I want to know if something about it, something specific about it, continues throughout. Are we always going to be in second person? Right. Or when does the sex scene start? So I can let our listeners know exactly when that is going to happen, I'm. I'm skimming. I'm quickly reading page after page after page to try and find certain elements that are important to me when I talk about that book on the show.
- [41:08]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense that there would be different times where it's really, really useful to skim. I totally agree. I mean, I've said many times before, if I go into skim mode. Well, first of all, I think. And I think all of us can think about this for our own reading. I have more than just two modes with my reading there. It isn't like regular speed and skim, and that's it. I have probably 10 speeds of reading that I will pull out and use, depending on the situation, right? So I have a close reading where I am really paying there. I am annotating, I am making notes. I am making. You know, I'm not gonna go through all 10 different speeds like that. But that's one end. And skim would be all the way at the other end. Now, if I go all the way to the other end of skim, where I am literally, I am just skimming, I am not even reading the book. I am skimming it. I will never bring that book to the show because I only bring books to the show that I've read, right? I could. I have books that I read faster or slower than others, but I'll never bring a book to the show that I've. That I've just skimmed. But a lot of times where skimming comes into play for me in my particular kind of reading, because I do so much in the realm of mystery, thriller, that kind of thing, I will almost never just. It happens. But I will very rarely just dnf a book like that. I will almost always go into that extreme skim mode, skim to the end. Because the result I'm looking for at that point for that book is not to bring it to the show anymore. I've let go of that notion of it. But I at least want to be able to know. I want to be able to answer any questions that I had about the book, like, who was the killer? How does it come together? And a lot of times, I'm also looking to be justified in what my guess was about who did it or how things come together. I just want to satisfy. I just want to kind of. The result I'm looking for is I just want to close that book in my head and be able to put it back on the shelf and not feel like, oh, I want to come back to it. Now, there are other books where I know that I'm not in the right mood for it. And in that case, I will step away from it carefully, not skimming anything. And I will save that for, you know, another time when I'm in a different mood. But Skimming does come into play. I think that it has a place in your reading repertoire, being able to skim. But also there are some things that you give up when you skim, like major plot points. Major plot points. There could be a lot of things that we give up when we. When we skim, but it is one of the tools that I think is totally valid to bring out when you want to achieve a certain result with a book.
- [44:01]
Katie Cobb
Okay, so here. This is a rapid fire Q and A here, Meredith. So let's say you have a book in front of you. You can choose abandon, skim, or quick read. Those are your three options. Here you pick up the book, shoddy start, abandon, skim, or quick read.
- [44:17]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Probably abandoned just because I'm really, really learned that if a book is really shoddy bad from the beginning, it is not going to get better for me and I'm just gonna let it go.
- [44:28]
Katie Cobb
That is exactly how I feel. I will. I am more likely to DNF in the first 20% than I am in the latter 80%, because once I've started to invest the time. So, like, if I already hate it on page four, it's time to set it down. Do not skim to see when it gets better. No, not interested. Okay. Mushy middle, Abandon skim or quick read.
- [44:49]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I sometimes will use not a skim, but a quick read to get through a mushy middle.
- [44:56]
Katie Cobb
Yep. That's exactly where I fall on that as well. So I'm not skipping. I'm not jumping, you know, reading a couple sentences of a paragraph and then jumping to the next one to see what's happening further on. But I am quickly, just like speed reading almost through the mushy middle to. I'm taking in all the words. I just don't let them sink in before I continue.
- [45:18]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, and those are the ones where. If you. If you hear me talk about a mushy middle on the show, that's. That's what happened. Like, I'm. I am always going to mention a mushy middle if I went into that mode when I was reading it, just because I feel like it's a really important thing for people to know.
- [45:35]
Katie Cobb
Okay. And then wackadoo ending, like, just totally off the rails. Would you abandon at the end?
- [45:43]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
No.
- [45:44]
Katie Cobb
Okay. Would you skim to the end if it starts going wackadoo?
- [45:47]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I mean, it. I. It does depend on the kind of. The kind of wackadoo. I mean, and I think that that is true for every reader. Right. Like, I skim almost every sex scene. The majority of sex scenes, no matter what book I'm reading, I will skim it just because I. It's just not something that I'm interested in, like spending a ton of time on. So that's something that I will skim. If it's like a very, you know, an end to a, like a murderful book that I've been really into, I know I won't skim it. I'll. I'll pay close attention to it. But again, every read makes those decisions. SA Cosby is a really good example of someone who writes incredible books that I've heard many really good readers say they have to skim a lot of his books because they're so violent.
- [46:34]
Katie Cobb
Yeah, yeah. There are very gory scenes in some of those books.
- [46:38]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And that's a good reason to take out your ability to skim or quick read.
- [46:44]
Katie Cobb
Yes, most definitely. Okay. And so that was our fun, like rapid fire quiz. The real answer to this deep dive into all to all. When is it okay, Deep dives is that there's no reading police, right. There's nobody ever that's going to come back and give you a quiz on. Well, okay, so if you're a high school student and you're listening and you have to read this book, whatever it is, Lord of the Flies for honors sophomore English, you might have a quiz on it and you might need to know a random detail. Right. But you're allowed to skim when the book calls for it, when your reading life calls for it, when your mental aptitude calls for it, or whenever you freaking want to.
- [47:29]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes, absolutely. Full throated. Agree on that. And also, and I think, Katie, you would say the exact same thing. If you're finding yourself going into that skim mode a lot, you probably need to think a little bit more deeply about the books that you're reading because you probably are not reading the books that are really going to fill you up as a reader or just not even fill you up. Like, I'm not talking about like in some big readerly way, but I mean, if you're constantly like, oh, I just want to skim through this, skim through this. If that's happening a lot. Your reading life needs a zhuzh.
- [48:04]
Katie Cobb
Yeah.
- [48:04]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Because it means that the books are not giving you what you need as a reader right now. I see that happen a lot, Katie, with people. This is where, I mean, I see this happen a lot. People who are telling me I've been reading thrillers forever and I'm just now I just find that my reading's broken. All I can do is skim. The first thing I do is take that. The thrillers away from them and say, you, my friend, have aged out of thrillers. Not necessarily aged. You've matured. Your reading has matured. You need something different. This happens a lot for people who read a lot in the murderful genre. It just tells me you need something with some more depth to it. And so skim when you need to, but be aware that it's not happening too much.
- [48:50]
Katie Cobb
Well, and. And that can go in any direction or format. Right. So you could be somebody who really prides yourself on. I love reading classics. That's part of my readerly identity. Right. But lately I've been bored and I've been skimming regularly in classics. And it's not that I'm reading 100% Charles Dickens. It's that all classics are kind. Maybe it's time to pivot to the modern classic, or maybe it's time for a thriller because you need to redirect your attention in a different way. And that's, yes, absolutely true, that if you need a little sequin sparkle and a shine polish on your reading life, it might be time to look at how often are you skimming the books that you. That always work for you because they're not working for you anymore. And that's okay because we all go through seasons, right?
- [49:38]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, absolutely. Total permission.
- [49:41]
Katie Cobb
Yes. Hopefully. Hopefully that helps you, Cindy, and anyone else who is wondering about the skimming that we do or what is happening with their own reading life, let's pop on over to the fountain and throw some coins and make some wishes. Meredith, what is your wish this week?
- [49:57]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, this is a weird little wish, but it's one that I think about all the time on Instagram. And maybe this is just a me thing at, like, where I am with my life and my bandwidth, my age and my trip through perimenopause. I don't know, but I will. I see that notification from a DM from Instagram, and I always wish that notifications had, like, what you said in addition to the notification, because I will see a notification that's like, Right. I thought exactly the same thing about that book. And I'm like, I have no idea what book that person's talking about, and it will irritate me until I can go in. And, like, because I have to, like, batch my Instagram stuff, right? Like, I can't just randomly look during the day because I have other things that I have to be paying attention to. I wish that Instagram would include what you said and their response in the notification. That would really help me.
- [50:52]
Katie Cobb
You know what my recommendation is? What? That you turn off notifications on Instagram and you just go in and deal with it when you have the mental bandwidth to do it.
- [51:01]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yeah, no, I probably should. That's like one of the few remaining notifications that I have on my phone. I really have taken most notifications off at this point.
- [51:10]
Katie Cobb
Okay.
- [51:11]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
But it. It makes me crazy.
- [51:13]
Katie Cobb
Yeah. Well, I mean, it seems like a simple fix like that you should be able to toggle it on and off. Right, Right.
- [51:20]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Or give me like 10 lines instead of two lines of, of, you know, that. Whatever. That actually might be something that I could do now that I can.
- [51:26]
Katie Cobb
Robust notifications.
- [51:27]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes.
- [51:29]
Katie Cobb
There we go. I like it. Okay, I am going to press a book this week for my fountain wish. I wish to press the House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune into your hands. This is kind of like the antidote to King of Ashes. It's almost its opposite in every single way. I am looking forward this summer to picking up somewhere beyond the sea. Which means it feels like the perfect time to press the first in this series, the House in the Cerulean Sea into our listeners hands. This is the story that made so many of us first fall in love with TJ Klune. It is a cozy fantasy of sorts, filled with improbable characters and an unlikely middle aged normal dude hero. Linus is a standard paper pusher in the department in charge of magical youth. And he has been called out to an orphanage for special investigation into sacred six dangerous youths. There he meets Arthur and his charges. We've got Talia the garden gnome, Chauncey the Green Blob, Sal the Were Pomeranian and Phi the Sprite. And of course we cannot forget Lucy. A sweet nickname for Lucifer the Antichrist. Arthur would do anything to keep these kids safe and Linus just wants to do his job. But sometimes the right thing and the correct thing are not the same thing. TJ Klune builds us a magical world and allows us to call it home for a few hundred pages. If you managed to miss this one 5 years ago when it released, let it take you away this summer instead. It is time. Please read the House in the cerulean Sea by T.J. klune.
- [53:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Yes. That is a perfect antidote. That's a perfect palette cleanser. After you read.
- [53:11]
Katie Cobb
A little. A little bit of sparkle.
- [53:14]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
I love it. That is so, so Good. All right, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me, I'm Meredith at meredithmonday Schwartz on Instagram and mention whatever.
- [53:25]
Katie Cobb
Book you're commenting about when you talk to her, please. Yes. And you can find me Katie@notesongbookmarks on Instagram. I am only talking about octopuses. That's all I do over there. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putamong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with.
- [53:44]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
The title of every book we mentioned in the episode and timestamps. So you can zoom right to where we talked about. It can be found in our show notes and on our website@currentlyreading podcast.com youm.
- [53:55]
Katie Cobb
Can also follow the show at currentlyreading Podcast on Instagram or email us at currently reading podcast gmail.com.
- [54:03]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
And if you want more of this kind of content and you know you do become a bookish friend for just $5 a month on Patreon. You get a ton of content, you get a ton of community, and you keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts or shout us out on social media. All of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [54:27]
Katie Cobb
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [54:33]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
All right, like our coffee mugs say, until next week, may your coffee be.
- [54:37]
Katie Cobb
Hot and your book be unput downable.
- [54:40]
Meredith Monday Schwartz
Happy reading, Katie.
- [54:42]
Katie Cobb
Happy reading, Meredith.