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The Currently Reading Podcast
Season 8, Episode 14: Reading Merit Badges + Books We Recently Set Aside
01:05:54
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Foreign.
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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.
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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.
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I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And sometimes I let the algorithm help me choose my next book.
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Sounds dangerous. I'm Katie Cobb, a homeschooling mom of four living in Arizona, and I think readers make the best fangirls. This is episode number 14 of season eight and we are so glad you're here.
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B
Readers are big fangirls. We love to fangirl over authors, over fictional characters who are hot, over each.
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Other, copies of books, over our favorite podcasters. It could be anyone.
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B
Yep.
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A
All right, y'. All, we are going to let you know at the top here that our deep dive today is going to be about three recent DNFs for both of us. You have asked us to do this and sometimes it's a little hard for some of us to dnf. So we're going to talk about it anyway. But, but first we have some mischief to manage. Meredith it is the first Monday of the month. It's November 3rd, and that means it's time for our one ad for ourselves each month. And this month we're doing something a little different, right?
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B
We are welcoming a bunch of new listeners, which we're always so happy about. So we will remind our new listeners that we do this once a month, as Katie just said, because for the whole rest of the month you are going to get all of our episodes, which are usually an hour ish in length, of book talk, without any interruption from commercials. So it's the beginning of November and as we sat down today, Katie, like we often do, we are starting to, we, we, you know, do a little bit of planning before we get on Mike. We think about, okay, where are we in the year? What are things coming up? You always, Katie, do a great job of keeping me grounded scheduling wise and remembering like, okay, right, we've got this coming up and that coming up, which I really appreciate. And we were marveling at the fact that we're almost to Thanksgiving here in the United States and we were feeling extra thankful because when we went and checked our numbers. We, of course, are at 2, 900 paid members on Patreon 2,900 of what we call Bookish Friends. People who've joined us at the $5 a month level and hundreds at the $10 a month level, which always surprises us how many of you support us in what we're doing and give us tons of support emotionally, but also financially. Katie, we never, ever thought we would have a group this big, and we are so grateful because they allow us to do so many things.
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It's so true. We say at the end of every single show that Bookish Friends are the best friends and are constantly astounded by not just the number of you, but, like, the depth of your affection. We've shared some personality, personal, and difficult things on this show over the years and especially over the last year. We've been very trying to be very transparent and open, and the Bookish Friends are just the best people. I every day am so grateful that we both get to sit down and do this thing we love every single week. And then all these people are behind us, just, oh, I've got chills. Just, like, cheering us on, rooting us on and in our corners. So, yeah, our ad this month is about being grateful. Yes.
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B
And from a business perspective, you guys allow us to do business in the way that we want to do business, which means we are not having to worry about advertising. We can just focus on creating the kind of content that brings us joy and also brings you guys joy. And then, of course, as you said, the community. Now, don't get it twisted. We love every one of our listeners, whether you pay to support us or not. We are so grateful that you are here and listening to this show, but we always love it when you join us, and we are incredibly thankful for it.
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Yes. Happy Thanksgiving, Meredith.
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B
Absolutely. You too, Katie.
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All right, y', all, if you want to jump on this, like, train of hugs, you can join us@patreon.com currentlyreading podcast. And you get so much for that. Five bucks a month. But especially our unending gratitude. Mischief managed.
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B
Good job, Katie.
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All right, let's get into our Bookish moments, which we always love. What is yours this week, Meredith?
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B
All right. I did something that I have never done before, and I did it on accident, but now I think I'm going to do it on purpose. I last week got to the end of the audiobook that I was listening to, but when the audiobook ended, I was in the middle of painting and I was in the middle of watercoloring. And I was in the middle to a place where I couldn't use. I couldn't like, use my hands to mess with my phone. And I was very focused on what I was doing, so I didn't really care to do that. And I was kind of thinking about the end of that book. So, anyway, long story endless. What happened was the algorithm started to show me previews from other books that I might like on.
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A
Where? Where did it do this? On Spotify.
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B
I want to. No, I want to say it was audible, which I use. I use Libro fm. I use audible. I use Spotify, all three in different ways. I believe it was audible that did this. As I finished that book, it started saying, well, because you liked that book, you might also like this one. So then it played me like a five minute preview of that book. And then when I didn't touch it at all, then it played me a five minute preview of another book. And so then. So now I'm interested. Now I'm like, okay, I'm doing nothing. And the first one was one that I had heard that I'd listened to before, but the other ones weren't. And so anyway, I ended up letting it play for like three or four of these.
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Yeah.
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And I ended up jumping into a reread of the Marriage Portrait by Maggie o', Farrell, which I had read in print the first time but had not done on audio. And I never would have done that except for the fact that it started playing and I was like, I love this world. I love it was. Marriage Portrait is not a perfect book. You guys have heard me talk about it before, but there's a lot that I liked about it. So I liked the fact that I was doing a book flight, but it was on audio. I wasn't participating in the choosing at all. Now, again, I'm not trying to say that audible should be what you use. We are. We are agnostic from that point of view. And we in fact really say if you're doing audio, we most of the time use Libro FM because you can support independent bookstores. But I thought this was an interesting piece of functionality. This idea is interesting.
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Yeah. It's like what Netflix does when you finish a show, right. And it starts, like previewing something else you might like. Why? Why aren't all the audiobook platforms doing this?
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Well, who knows if they're not? I mean, I don't know that it's not. I've never let that happen before.
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Well, Libby certainly doesn't. I have, what, 20 books downloaded at any given time. And it never jumps to the next one. It's like, all done. Okay, come on, make me a playlist, Libby. Let me just, like, glide through my audiobook life. I love that reader roulette idea, right?
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This sampling of other books that you might like based on it was very interesting. I enjoyed it a lot, especially if.
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It pulled from your wish list or, like, these are titles that you've purchased but you've never actually started. Maybe it's time to jump into them.
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Right? Which is not what this did, just to be clear. But that is a great wish. That's a great fountain wish, Katie.
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I feel like there's a lot that could be done with that.
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Come on, Libro fm. Help us to stare out.
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And they're so good. I bet they're listening to this and next week they're gonna be like, guess what we have. This is so fun. You just click the radio button and it'll enable it in your app. Cause they're, like, on top of it. They just innovate all the time.
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I love it.
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Love it. Okay, my bookish moment this week is about our sweet Megan. Megan, thank you for editing all our episodes and producing them and uploading them. They make our life so much easier. This past week, she went to a book festival, and then she sent a video to our currently reading group chat where we keep all of our, like, balls in the air. Right? She met Tyler Merritt and was telling him about my undying love and crush on him as an author. He is Jen Hatmakers. I'm absolutely fine with it, but I just adore him. So rather than just being like, well, that's cute that you would talk about this random person who, like, he and I have chatted online. We're friendly in DMs, it's fine. But he grabbed her phone, made a video calling me out for not making it to this book event in Tennessee, which I was not going to be able to go to. But I did think about mailing my books to her just so that he could sign them in person. I didn't do that. But to have that 15 seconds of video where he was talking right to me. Oh, my gosh, my heart. Pitter patter. Joy.
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Yeah, that was really, really great.
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It was so fun. And it just, like, made me all bubbly with Joy that authors are just so happy to be doing what they're doing and to be, you know, talked to out in the wild. And I realize not every author is like that, but they're just regular people. That are just happy to do what they do. And isn't that the best, to just find your joy and your unicorn space? Oh, it makes me just delighted. And so that had to be my bookish moment.
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It's so great. And he is absolutely so rizzy, it's.
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Not even funny, as the youths say. Yes, yes, I love that. All right, let's get into our current reads. Meredith, what have you been reading lately?
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Okay, I have an interesting amalgamation of books today. I have a Domestic Suspense that I really liked. I had a work of poetry that I literally wanted to throw, and I have a book that I found through bookish serendipity that I think nobody has heard of before and so many of you will like. So it's an amalgamation of things. First off, we have that work of domestic suspense that I was talking about. This is Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkinson. Here's a setup. Eight year old Felicity Law vanishes from her bed in the middle of the night from the master's lodging at Oxford College. This is a very old, very creepy house with priest holes and secret passageways. That is definitely a character in its own right. The police immediately turn to Dee, who is the Scottish nanny who has been Felicity's only real companion. But Dee does not know where Felicity is. Dee was at the theater in London when the girl disappeared. So through Dee's police interview, the nanny's police interviews, we start piecing together this very dysfunctional family dynamic. Dad Nick Law is the newly appointed college master, who's this very ambitious former BBC executive. He's trying to find his feet in the Oxford academic world. We've got his glamorous Danish wife Maria, who is pregnant and clearly strugg with her stepdaughter. And at the center of it all, we have Felicity, who is 8 and is selectively mute. She's grieving her dead mother and apparently seeing ghosts in this creepy house they live in. Any number of things could have gone wrong. So the question is, where is Felicity?
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All right.
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I had never heard of Magpie Lane or Lucy Atkins before stumbling across this book. I went to London with my friend Betsy in 2023. We found this book at Borzoi Books at Stow on the Wold in the Cotswolds. And honestly, I let it sit on my shelf for two years for no good reason. But then one day it was completely calling to me. So I picked it up, plopped down in my reading chair and read the entire thing in a day. I love it. Lucy Atkins is throwing a hundred miles an hour in this book, but she manages to make it look effortless. I loved the writing. This is slow burn domestic suspense where every element kind of works together. I found the pacing to be exactly right. I loved the character development and I loved the feeling of knife edge tension between the parents and the nanny. And then there's this relationship between this sweet, troubled little girl, Felicity, and her nanny who legitimately cares for her. Atkins builds on that relationship beautifully so that you are invested in what happens to each of them. But what I think sets this apart from other good domestic thrillers is how well crafted this mystery is. It isn't just the mystery of where Felicity is. It's about this complexity and the dynamic nuance between every different relationship, all the people in the house, and there's enough of a supernatural element woven through it to make things interesting and atmospheric. But that is not the main draw. This is really a book that is less domestic suspense, more a story about damaged people, family dysfunction, and the stories we tell ourselves and others. The ending made complete sense to me, but not everybody will like the way that it ends. I was thrilled to see that this book had really high ratings on Goodreads and it completely tracks because it is one of those works of domestic suspense that I thought got all the pieces right. If you loved Strange Sally diamond, you're going to love this book. If you loved 17 Years later by JP Palmer, which I've talked about multiple times, you will absolutely love this book. I gave it four and a half stars. Fantastic domestic suspense done really well. This is Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins.
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Okay, I like it and I like anything set in Scotland.
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Well, this is set in Oxford, but we have that Scottish element with the.
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Nanny coming from Scotland, having that Scottish. I have Scotland on my mind of late and that will come up later in my current read as well. Yes, very fun. All right, my next one. Oh, actually it's going to come up now in my current reads. I misspoke because my first book is Once There Were wolves by Charlotte McConaughey and. And this is her. Not even her newest release. This is just one of her books that I have read. So I read Migrations by McConaughey when it came out in 2020, but I haven't picked up anything else by her since then. When Wild Dark Shore this summer started buzzing quite a bit, I decided it was time to grab her 2021 release from her instead. Here's the setup. Inti Flynn is an Australian scientist who has recently arrived to the Scottish Highlands with the goal of reintroducing wolves into the wild. In the Scott, wolves were once hunted to extinction in the area, and since then wildlife biologists have discovered that taking out super predators unbalances the entire ecosystem. It doesn't actually make anybody safer or better off. You can't get rid of wolves and bears and polar bears. It ruins everything. But that does not change the opinion of the locals that wolves will a kill their sheep and b endanger their children and probably their women and everybody else. There's so much tension between the scientists and the local community that you can nearly cut it on the page. When a local farmer ends up dead, seemingly mauled to death with with his insides coming on the outside, Inti buries the evidence. She is absolutely positive that her wolves would never be responsible for killing a human. But if it wasn't the wolves, there's still something dangerous lurking in the woods, and it's in everyone's best interest to figure out what it is before it strikes again. This book takes place over the course of a year when they're just about to release the wolves and then that entire first year, and it encompasses so much. It's sisterhood and ecology and violence and tenderness. I love the concept of rewilding something that was lost and is found again, bringing something back to the place that it is meant to be. Migrations her other book that I read felt like near future catastrophe, but this one took me to places I've been the wilds of Scotland with a fantastic Australian narration because Inti is from Australia and encouraged me to care desperately for the balance of power in the wild along with this small town. It was balance of power external to the humans and then the one that was happening in between humans as well. It was emotionally charged and literary and beautifully written. I felt completely transported, which was also true for the other book I read by her. I know I've seen some I threw this one across the room Comments about her newest release, but I'll be honest and say that I'm very excited to pick it up as she has now delivered twice on this literary cli fi that is apparently right in my wheelhouse. I really enjoyed this one. It's Once There Were wolves by Charlotte.
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McConaughey, which has a 4.09 on Goodreads, over a hundred and almost 15,000 ratings.
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Yeah, it really. And Migrations is similarly high. It's. I mean she has well like this literary gorgeous writing that's propulsive and interesting. The books are not long, they're just easy to read, but they're Also very thought provoking. Just really excellent. Excellent.
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I'm so glad that you love that one. I have not read any of. Or hers at all. Only because I feel like so many other readers have got that corner handled.
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Yes.
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You know what I mean.
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It's true. Yes.
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All right, Katie, you need me to go back to my script and tell you what my next book is, and I've got it. I'm a professional. Here we go. The next book I want to talk about is the book that I wanted to pitch across the room.
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Chuck it.
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Okay. It's a work of poetry. It's a book of poetry. And it's called what the Deep Water Knows by Miranda Cowley Heller.
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Oh, how do I know that name?
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Does that sound familiar to you? You're looking it up, so we can't.
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No, I'm typing the name of that title in. She.
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B
What is it? What does she write? Because you have heard it.
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A
Yep, I have. And I can even. It's like, yellowish. This cover is yellowish. Oh, my gosh. What is. There's infidelity in this book. The novel. God. Oh, it's gonna make me so mad when you say it.
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B
I didn't read it.
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Neither did I.
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Because of the plot line.
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Yeah. I want to say it starts with a P. It does. Oh, my gosh. What is it?
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See, this is interesting to see how your brain is working the little P. Megan, we're gonna cut all of this out, so we're not gonna make people.
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Listen to this, but what is it called?
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The Paper Palace. So it's very interesting to see how your brain was picking up all of those pieces. Because it was in there.
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Because I've never read it, and you've never, like, you've never read it. So it's not even in a Meredith slot in my head. All right, right.
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So here's the setup. This book written by Miranda Callie Heller, who is the best selling author of the Paper Palace. This book is her debut poetry collection. Before her career as an HBO executive and then as a novelist, Heller wrote poetry. And what the Deep Water Knows represents her return to that early creative practice, which I did not know. The collection moves chronologically through a woman's life. Childhood, marriage, motherhood, with Cape Cod's landscape as a recurring backdrop. That sounds great. These poems are frank and personal, touching on everyday moments, like notes to children, observations of nature, reflections on relationships. It is intimate work, to be sure.
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All right.
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Really, really, really? Sounds like I would love it. As you know, I am on this journey trying to read more Poetry and find my sole poet. I have no idea why that second part is important to me, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I picked up Miranda Cowley Heller's debut poetry collection, thinking maybe this would be it. I hadn't read the Paper palace because it does have adultery in the premise, so it's not interesting to me. But the buzz about that book, which many people absolutely loved, was enough to make me curious about her poetry. When the publisher sent it to me, the blurb promised something deep and juicy, an exploration of the deep water of midlife. And I was ready for that. Here's where I ended up. I can tell you one thing. That poet, my sole poet, it is not Miranda Kelly Heller. Lord love a duck. This collection is bleak. What I found in what the Deep Water Knows is a collection that's not just bleak.
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It's.
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It's angry. Deeply, burningly angry in a way that I was not expecting. Poems that would start out about a loving marriage would end in a place that made me think this woman desperately needs either a ton of therapy. I know that because that's what I've been doing for the last four months. Or a divorce lawyer stat. So many of these poems either mourn a childhood long gone or trace the arc of new love disappearing into the bowels of an unhappy, dispirited middle marriage. It is so depressing. Katie, the imagery here, as you would guess from what I just said, is visceral. Way more visceral than I anticipated. I love a searing image that burns itself into my psyche. Please give me that. But here, the imagery feels like it's about being provocative, about proving herself to be a capital P poet, rather than serving any decisive insights. It comes across. It came across to me as performance rather than purpose. And look, I know that this is my very, very, very subjective opinion, and trust me, when I read this book, I was in a very fragile state when it came to anything, but especially things centered on marriage. So I'm very aware that I'm bringing a specific lens on this, and you should be aware of that, too, because it may be the perfect collection for you. But though I wanted to take this slim collection slowly, the way I approach all poetry, savoring it piece by piece, I found myself racing through it, finally closing its pages and holding it away from me, pinched in between two fingers, and putting it straight to my pile of this need, this book needs to go now. This one was a rough one. This is what the Deep Water Knows by Miranda Cowley Heller. And hopefully, Katie, that very Honest review will help people both stay away from it if they should, but also find it if they should.
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A
Indeed, that is what we're always hoping for, but it's not for this reader. Somebody else can find it. Yes. Oof. Okay, this next one I'm going to talk about is also not going to be for every reader. I'm going to talk about Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, which is not about dinosaurs, so you can lay that down right.
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This is one that I started and DNF'd. Not on my list for the Deep Dive, but this falls into that category.
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A
I can see why that would happen. This is my second horror novel by Chuck Tingle after I really enjoyed Bury youy Gays by him. I think that was earlier this year, early 2025. I read that one as a galley before it released. He also is very well known for weirdly titled erotica. There's a lot in his back catalog. This is not that. And it doesn't have weird sex with other objects that are not humans. So that needs to get taken off the table right away. This one starts out feeling more ya, which Meredith is. Oh, I would imagine you would DNF it right away. But it quickly moves into actual horror territory while keeping a YA protagonist. So it's kind of both. And here Rose is our main character. She lives in Neverton, Montana, which the blurb tells us is a God fearing community with a heart of gold. Also the home of the most effective gay conversion camp in the country. The ads for it are constantly on TV showing successfully cured teenagers now living their best lives free from the gayness that could have sent them straight to hell. These are on like the actual network television stations. Rose and her family are part of that constantly prayerful following in his footsteps crowd. They only watch Christian television. They attend all the events their church puts on, and her parents are now ready for the town's most eligible young man to start courting Rose. So she ends up in a wonderful Christian marriage where she belongs. That's the setup for our story. But one night at dinner, right as they're introducing this idea to Rose, she chokes a little bit on her food and she can't get her coughing under control. She coughs and coughs until she vomits and finds live mayflies in the detritus of what came out of her stomach. Live bugs are in this stomach acid pile. She also starts seeing a strange ghost or maybe demon following her around town. A woman dressed all in white who I pictured as the thing from the ring, the demon thing from the ring, but I'm not even sure she had long dark hair. That's just how she manifested in my head. This book is not perfect. It's got some pacing issues through the middle that left me alternately interested and totally wanting to zone out. But it's got great representation in both queerness and narrow spiciness that I really loved. And it's horrifying. As I listened to the audio, which is narrated by Mara Wilson, who found fame as a child actor when she starred In Matilda in 1996, I was plenty horrified, sometimes feeling like I was going to gag myself from the ways events were playing out. For anyone who has triggers around conversion therapy or homophobia, this is going to be a really tough read. But I found it to be just the right amount of horrifying to really get under my skin. It does feel like he grew as a writer as far as his full length novels go between this one and Bury youy Gaze. So I do plan to continue to read his horror moving forward. Next on deck, and that is a card pun is Lucky Day, which just came out this year. For now, Camp Damascus was a little on the edge. I did not love it, but I'm glad that I read it. This one is Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle.
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B
Yeah, that, that was the. It was the May flies that I was like. And we're out and done that plus the conversion therapy.
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A
She's interested in their, like, life cycle and I'm like, ma', am, you need to be like, drinking bleach. I don't know what is in your stomach, but it's not good.
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B
Well, this next book of mine is gonna take you in a completely different place.
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A
Okay, I'm excited.
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B
Very, very palette cleansing here.
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A
Good.
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B
This is a book called the Girl who Reads on the Metro by Christine Ferre Fury. It's a book in translation from the French. Here's the setup. Juliet is our lead character and her daily life in Paris is pretty much on autopilot. She's got a soul sucking office job, a string of not great boyfriends, and a general sense that every single day she is going through the motions. Her only real escape is the metro rides to and from work, where she loses herself in books and creates elaborate stories about her fellow commuters and what their reading choices say about who they are. There's the woman who always cries on page 247 of the book that she's reading. There's the devoted math students. There's the amateur ornithologist. She knows them all. Or at least she Knows the versions of them that she has imagined. But one morning, Juliet makes an impulsive decision to get off the train a stop early and take the long way to work. That's when she stumbles through a rusty gate wedged open with a book and finds herself face to face with Suleyman, the enigmatic owner of the most magical bookshop she's ever seen and his young daughter, Zaidi. Solomon has an unusual business model. He employs what he calls passeurs, literary matchmakers who study strangers and deliver to them the exact book at the right moment in their lives. And he thinks that Juliet will be perfect for the job. What comes next is Juliet's chance to decide whether she will keep living her small but safe life or step fully into a world where books have the power to transform everything. All right, if you are someone, and I know that you are because you are listening to us, who is at the cellular level, you understand finding comfort, meaning and a whole second life between the pages of a book, you are going to want to consider this book. This is pure bookish magic for people who understand that sometimes the right book at the right time is changes your entire worldview. This was one of those library serendipity moments for me. I was browsing the fiction section in the stacks of my library, the fantastic Lake Travis Community Library, and that gorgeous, perfect Parisian cover that this book has grabbed me. It's, as I said, a book in translation from the French, and I decided to read it as a part of my morning reading routine because I wanted to read it slowly and sip it rather than gulp it down. This is a slim novel, and while this book is very sweet, it has quite a bit of poignancy to it. So it's not treacly. Juliet, our lead character, we see through her the joys of being extraordinarily bookish. And we also see that sometimes, not always, but sometimes, we can retreat too far into our stories and into our books and into our introversion and keep ourselves from living as full a life as we could in our present world. There are hard things that happen to the people in this book. There are real struggles and real losses. But the point of all of it is that books will always be there to help carry us through hard times. So a healthy dose of bookish therapy to be found there. I loved that this novel celebrates the book community too. Not just the books themselves, but the way that the sharing of the right book can become a point of soul inspiring connection. I loved when Juliet becomes a Passur, that literary matchmaker. This is the perfect career in all of our minds. We would all love to be this right. It's whimsical and magical, but also touches on something deeply true about how books connect us. If you loved the Little Paris bookshop, or I think especially if you loved the film Amelie, you're going to fall hard for this book. It's got that same gentle, quirky charm with a distinctly French sensibility that feels cozy and profound. For many of us, this is perfect fall reading. It's a beautiful little find and I'm so glad I stumbled onto this delightful novel. This is the Girl who Reads on the Metro by Christine Ferre Flurry.
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A
It sounds absolutely delicious. And that is. You're exactly right. Like, I want that job. I was thinking about this in the shower today. Like, how do I make it so that my other job is to do, like, bookish therapy where I just get to talk to people and be like, you know what the perfect book is for you right now? Prescriptions. Bookish prescriptions. That's what I want to do.
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B
That would be so fun. How do I get that job so, so fun? I don't know.
- [31:33]
A
I don't know either. I'm going to keep working on it, though, and in the meantime, I have a third book that y'. All. I can nearly guarantee I'm not going to make it through talking about this book without crying, but you're just going to have to deal because it has my heart, so too bad.
- [31:48]
B
Buckle in.
- [31:49]
A
Yep, just join the party. I am going to talk about Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell, which hearkens back to Meredith's first read. Because I first saw this on my trip to the UK two years ago and it took me forever to pick it up. And I don't know why, but.
- [32:06]
B
But when we went, wasn't it being celebrated as like, the book of the year?
- [32:11]
A
Yes, it was middle grade book of the year in, like, Waterstones and Blackwells. It was everywhere, so I didn't read it, so that's fun. So we're gonna see how far I make it without crying. Somebody start a stopwatch. It's not looking good because I'll tell you by the end, but this book makes me cry a lot. Impossible Creatures is a relatively simple story. First, we're going to meet Christopher. He's a middle grade British boy, 11, 12, 13, who is sent to stay with his grandfather in Scotland. There are only a few rules, but one of them is set in don't go up the hill past the tree line. Of course we're only a few hours into his stay when he breaks that rule in defiance of both his father and grandfather. As soon as he enters the forest, he is confronted by a real live unicorn. It may be the national animal of Scotland, but that is still not something that exists outside of myth and legend. So Christopher follows it to the edge of a small lochen. There he discovers a young griffin who appears to be injured or lost, and a dripping wet girl named Mal, who's looking for her companion Gelephin, the very griffin that Christopher is holding, who is probably the last of his kind. She asks for his help and together they dive into the lochen, only to emerge in the archipelago. It's not on any map, impossible to find by those who don't know where it is. But here, the impossible creatures of myth and legend still exist, and they are in trouble. The glimmery, or the magic that runs through the archipelago and the world beyond it that we all live in, is fading. And that means the Krakens and the manticores and the sphinxes and the dragons are all in danger. Christopher and Mal set out on a quest, along with an unlikely band of found family accomplices, to figure out what is happening to the magic of this world. Along the way, we build a mythology based on those impossible creatures and Christopher and Mal's acceptance of of the roles they need to play in order to save them. My Heart as mentioned, this was the 2023 Waterstones Book of the Year or UK Book of the Year for middle grade. And it had just been named so when we both were in the uk, me with my family that fall. It has sat patiently on my TBR ever since then. But this fall, book two in the series came out and so I finally decided to dive into it as a read aloud with my kiddos during our homeschool mornings. That was a huge mistake. Huge. Don't get me wrong, we all loved it. But I don't know if I will ever recover from having read some of these scenes aloud. The characters and the world that Katherine Rondell built in this book have changed me. We often talk about how middle grade novels can tackle harder things in a way that's a little gentler, even for adult readers. And she does that here with what is seemingly a PhD in empathy and compassion. Within the pages of this book, we find the difficulty of being a human in this world, the one we live in, seeing the brokenness and the ways that people are awful to each other and the world around them, but balanced with the joy of a beautiful sunrise. And the reassurance of friendship that clicks and then lasts a lifetime. When I say that it was a mistake to read this book aloud, I mean that it wracked me with sobs multiple times and my kids just had to come and rub my back and hold me while I continued to read. Of course, they do love it when that happens. All four were at least teary during one scene. And Levi, my middle boy, declared after that day's reading session that, well, we all know what this book will get. Rated now 1 billion stars and we weren't even at the end yet. He was right though. I cried again after that multiple times. I even cried when we wrote our review to put it in their notebooks. And I cried. Today while I wrote my setup for this book on the show. I texted our sweet Mary to say that I could write my own 90 page dissertation about why this book touched me in such a deep way. But I will sum it up here by saying that it was perfect. It walked the tightrope line between emotionally dead and emotionally manipulative and hit emotionally resonant perfectly. It balanced character and plot in a way that will appeal to all readers across the spectrum. It's gorgeously illustrated throughout, but especially the maps on the endpapers and the guide to creatures at the end of the book. If you're a reader who has loved middle grade in any genre, but especially fantasy, this is a gem of a book and the start of a planned five book series. As I mentioned, book two is out now and the kids are pushing for me to pick it up next, but I think I'm going to let my heart recover a bit first before we dive into that one. It does cliffhanger at the end to the next in the series, but the story in this one resolves completely. So I'm telling yourself. I'm telling you all to do yourself a favor and pick it up. Now. It may well be my top book of the year, certainly within my top three. And there are so few middle grade books that have made it up there in the past few years that I am thrilled that I finally read this one and that it hit every single note and then some. And I'm so proud of myself for not crying. You did it. I did it. And I think it's because I like got the catharsis out earlier when I was sobbing while writing this setup. This book was perfect. It is Impossible Creatures by Katherine Wandell.
- [37:08]
B
Yeah, and this book for sure. Especially for all those reasons, but especially if you love magical creatures in your middle grade this is an especially good example of that.
- [37:18]
A
Oh, my gosh. Yes. It's so good. It's so good. And every time there was a new creature, we would be like, ooh, what's this one? And then I'd have to come up with a new voice. Like, this is a lot of work for a reader alouder, man.
- [37:30]
B
That's another reason to take a little break.
- [37:33]
A
Seriously. I was like, oh, Jacques, of course. A French dragon. Now how do I talk? I don't know what I'm doing now. Oh, my gosh. But it was so good. I loved it so much. I just want to hug it.
- [37:46]
B
Isn't that the best? It's the best experience when you're like that. Now is a book that I wish I could reread for the first time.
- [37:54]
A
Yes. And that's why I wish I had read it myself first, because then I could have sat there and I would have known what was coming. But I could read it aloud to my kids and watch them get to experience it. I don't think I would have cried less, but I would have prepared myself in a different way. So, yeah, I think I might read book two alone before I put it in their ears with my voice. Those were our six current reads, which means now we get to get into our deep dive about books we recently DNF'd. And I'm sure somebody has DNF'd impossible creatures. Not me, but somebody will have. So let's start talking about some of those and a little bit about why they didn't work for us. So, Meredith, what's the first one you wanna bring this week?
- [38:36]
B
Well, I'm going to tell you that before I do, I'm going to tell you we have a long and storied history in not doing deep dives about DNFs.
- [38:44]
A
Right.
- [38:45]
B
When we first started thinking about the format of the show, we actually talked about potentially having a section of. Did we DNF anything this week? Like, that was actually like every week. Like, every.
- [38:58]
A
Right.
- [38:58]
B
Like. Like current reads. And then it would gone. It would have gone to DNFs. I DNF a lot more than you do. And so there was that issue. And also we were like, but, you know, we really only want to talk about books that we have finished. So that's when the rule about that came into play. Like, we will only talk about books that we have finished when it comes to a recurring segment on the show. But we have had so many people over the years say, I wish that you guys would offer, you know, that you guys would do this either behind the paywall or as a recurring segment on the big show. Something.
- [39:32]
A
Yes.
- [39:32]
B
So this falls into the category of giving the people what they want, because both of us have mixed feelings about talking about DNFs. For me, I DNF a lot more than you do. So again, I just want to specify for me, I don't count something as a DNF unless I have read a goodly amount of it. So a book flight is not dnfing books. That's a little sample. They go back into the pool.
- [39:56]
A
Right.
- [39:57]
B
Without that, this means I have read a goodly amount, usually 10 to 15% in my e reader or 50 pages in a print book.
- [40:06]
A
Okay.
- [40:07]
B
I'm going to give a book that much. Usually, sometimes more. Also, I make a big distinction between DNF did not finish and NRN not right now. So today I am bringing a DNF, which means I DNF'd it with prejudice. I will not be picking it up again. An nrn, I think I probably will in the future, but it is not right now. And one that I don't know where I should slot it.
- [40:31]
A
Ooh.
- [40:32]
B
All right, so. So my dnf, my least interesting. Here, let me start out with the least interesting one in our end, a book that has been a really big favorite across the spectrum from a lot of readers that I trust. I nrn. Not right Now. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Okay, this is a sweeping family drama that had really beautiful sentence level prose. A really lovely start. But I knew that emotionally I was going to need to be able to invest more in order to really, really, really give this book a proper reading. And so I got about 50 pages in and I said, I am not as a reader, bringing enough of my best self to this book to meet it where I should. So I, in our end, it not right now. I think in the future I am more than open to picking it up, but it's not right for me right now.
- [41:25]
A
And that serves, as we've talked about before, both you and the author. Right. Pushing on a book that is not for you right then, even if you're sure that someday it'll be perfect for you, is not. It does a disservice to both of you, so.
- [41:39]
B
Right, exactly. And also it serves to respect readers that I trust who have pressed it into my hands and who have really, really loved it. Like, I want to bring the right version of me to that book instead of being like, I started it and I hated it. I hate it. When people do that, when they're like, well, I knew I was in the mood for X, Y and Z, but I did it anyway. And now I hate that book. That annoys me so much. So I would rather just say, let's just back away from this one for now. What's your first? We're going to do three each. So what is your definition of dnf? Remind us all.
- [42:11]
A
Yeah, it's the same. I need to have. Well, for me, I need to have marked it as currently reading, which means I got far enough into it to say, I'm going to keep reading this book. Sometimes that happens right away, like when I started read aloud with the kids. We don't DNF sometimes. It's very rare that we would DNF a book that we are reading aloud. So the very first day I mark it, and I've usually read 25 to 30 pages at that point. If I were reading it by myself, I probably would have read more than that. But it's whatever day I decide I'm currently reading it. If I listen to 5% of it before I go to bed and I'm like, yeah, I think I'm going to keep going with that. I don't mark it because the next day I'm going to actually give it a shot and see if I actually am interested in continuing.
- [42:57]
B
Yep.
- [42:57]
A
So, yeah. And I do not right now. Occasionally I have done that. I even brought one of those to the show not too long ago that I had to restart completely from the beginning and it ended up being a hit for me. But if I. Not right now, it in the moment, it doesn't show up until I finish it later. So.
- [43:16]
B
Got it.
- [43:16]
A
Okay. All three of mine are true DNFs. One of them. I knew within a very short period of time that it was a real DNF for me. So the first one I want to talk about, though, is called all the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harmon. So this is a mystery. We've got a young mom who has a child named Dylan, and her child's bully goes missing. She decides that she's gonna look into it, but there's like a lot of convolution around the case itself, right? Because why is she interested in making sure this kid gets back home safe? Like, we care about all kids. Right. But why is she so interested in this? She's a mess. She's awful.
- [44:02]
B
Is that why you DNF'd it?
- [44:03]
A
And I did. I wanted to kick everyone in this book in their Tenderest Places. It was a pretty fast dnf, but there were all these reviews that had me convinced that I was gonna like it. Like, oh, every character in here is hateable, but still root onable. There was nothing joyfully redeeming about any of them where I was like, oh, but at least, you know, if she gets the guy, it's gonna make me care. There was nothing there. So I knew that it was not gonna be a DNF because. Or it was not gonna be a not right now because I didn't like the execution and I liked the idea, but the. The people were not enough to keep me interested. Okay, so that's one of. That's like a typical DNF for me, that I will start something, I'll get into it, and I'll realize that I don't like anybody. It's not enough to keep reading. Right. Exactly.
- [44:51]
B
Well, that leads me to my second one, because that was a really, really big reason that I DNF'd it. But this is the one that I DNF'd with prejudice, where I will not be returning to it. But this one was a heartbreaker for two reasons. It's by an author who has written a book that I really liked in the past.
- [45:11]
A
Okay.
- [45:11]
B
But a big problem with it was that I do not care very much about the author as a person at all. This is Katabasis by R.F. kuang.
- [45:18]
A
You DNF'd it.
- [45:20]
B
Okay, Roxanna. So the other. So to finish what I was saying, the second reason it was a heartbreaker is that it was a book that Roxanne and I were reading together, which usually we're really good about. Not DNFing.
- [45:30]
A
Right. That does usually pull me through, too. Yep.
- [45:33]
B
But it does happen. And when it happens.
- [45:35]
A
So dnf.
- [45:36]
B
Yes.
- [45:36]
A
Okay.
- [45:37]
B
Well, we always DNF together if we like. If it's.
- [45:39]
A
It's a joint decision. Yeah. Same with Katie and I. Yeah.
- [45:42]
B
You're either going to go through it together or you're going to stop it together. But this was one where we got to 47%, which is a sizable amount of this book, which is about, you know, people going through the circles of hell trying to find this professor. And we both were like, the professor is awful. Why do we care about traipsing through hell to find this jackhole? Right. Like, what are we doing? And I cannot tell you how deeply I did not care about the two lead characters and what happened to them.
- [46:11]
A
Whose names are Alice and Peter.
- [46:13]
B
I wanted Alice and Peter to Drown in the lethe.
- [46:17]
A
Yes.
- [46:18]
B
And for us all to forget that they existed. Like, I just. I. You know, and so Roxanna and I, like, we always. There's always this moment where each of us are trying to keep a brave face on. And, like, you know, well, you're trying.
- [46:30]
A
To feel out the other one.
- [46:31]
B
And we're. But there are certain things that tell the other person. Like, we, you know, we're talking about the book, obviously, but there are certain code words that we use. And when we finally got to the. I'm just having a really hard time even reading a chapter a day, we're like, okay. And Roxanna this time was the one to say, can we call it on this book? Because I just don't care. The reality is I really struggle with RF Kuang. I've said this before in interviews that she does. I struggle because there's a. There's a personality to her that triggers me.
- [47:04]
A
Okay.
- [47:04]
B
That's just me. That doesn't mean. I mean, for. She's wonderful. That's just me. This book was the bookish personification of all of that personality. It was very navel. Gazy to me. It was very. Let me show you how smart I am. That is the thing that gets me. It's. The word I use to describe it is priggish. And it is one of my least favorite personality traits in people. And she's got it in spades, at least in interviews, maybe not in real life. And this book was the bookish personification of priggishness. We set it down and took a big sigh of relief. We will not be returning to Katabasis by RF Kuang.
- [47:51]
A
Yes. It was a hard read for Katie and I as well. We did finish it. Definitely not my favorite. Does not measure up to Babel at all. So. Right.
- [48:02]
B
Which was both of our, like, 12 books of the year.
- [48:07]
A
Yeah.
- [48:07]
B
Loved it. And that's, I think, what so many people thought. Like, okay. And actually, Yellowface was not my favorite book of all time, but I read it really quickly with, like. And wouldn't. Didn't want to DNF at all. But the. Everyone's like, oh, this is kind of a return to maybe some of the stuff that we loved in Babel, like a return to the style. This was not anything like Babel as far as character development of what you know, in Babel, there were so many characters that were flawed. Yes. But that you really loved, cared about so much from the beginning. And this one, I just. If I'd been in this book, I would have pushed the two. These two characters right into the mouths of the one of many monsters that were chasing them.
- [48:50]
A
I don't. So spicy opinion didn't DNF it, but I don't disagree with anything you just said. Also, I've never experienced her as an author. I've never listened to an interview with her or anything. So her personhood, her personality doesn't have any play on whether or not I enjoy her books.
- [49:07]
B
Which is good. Maybe keep it that way. I just want to underscore again, this is part of the reason why we don't make this a regular thing. Because I want to be honest and transparent, but also do not want to yuck anyone's yum. There's a lot of people who've really liked Catabasis, so this is my experience of it. I did not finish it. So that also comes into play. Like, hey, okay, you can have opinion about 47%, but you didn't experience the whole book. That's why I would never bring it as a current read. So there you go. That's my. In my. My true and honest feelings about where I stand with that book.
- [49:44]
A
Okay. My third one is going to deal with some feels about the author, but for my second one, I am going to talk about We Are the Light by Matthew Quick, which is probably one of the longest investments I've ever made in a book before I DNF'd because I was 70% of the way through before I decided it was not for me.
- [50:03]
B
Yep, that's. That is really, really far through. And I tend not to. I mean, it's not that it's never happened, but I tend once I get to 70%, I'm probably gonna power through. If there's anything that I feel I could bring to a conversation about it on the show. Now, if there's not, that's another thing.
- [50:21]
A
Exactly. So this one was a favorite of a lot of people, including Knox McCoy. He talks about this book all the time. He adores this book. Right. Love this book. It's totally great with me. If you love this book, the premise is that Lucas, the main character, is writing letters to his former shrink after a tragedy that paints Lucas as a hero. His wife died in a shooting that rocked the community as a whole. And this is the way Lucas is dealing with that fact. Usually an epistolary novel really works for me. I love letter writing and books. Bring it on here. It did not. By halfway through, I was making a yucky face every time I was ready to listen to My audiobook for the day. And by the time my brain caught up to my RBF, I was 70% in. And I realized I hated the characters. The plot was nonsensical. There was nothing to keep me invested. There was nothing that made me think, you know, I'm going to push through. I'm going to see how this event that he's planning turns out. I'm going to see how the community rallied. No. No, Lucas, no. I decided life was too short to have me keep going with something I disliked so vehemently that it was coming out of my body, in my face, every time I had to listen to this book. So it was DNF with prejudice. And I have the paper copy of the book, and I put it like you did with your second current read with Miranda Kelly Heller's poetry. I put it so fast on my outgoing bookshelf, I was like, somebody else is gonna have to deal with this. It's not gonna be me. I was so mad. Yeah. Yeah. Well.
- [51:55]
B
And I didn't recognize the name, but he apparently also wrote Silver Linings Playbook. Yep. Interesting. Okay, my third one is the one that I need you to help me, Katie. You specifically. I need you to help me decide, is this an NRN or a dnf. And this one is a real heartbreaker because this one is one that I just finished trying and setting aside for the third time. Okay, but it's one that you really love. It's one that many people really love. It's Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow. Katie, why can't I do this book? I keep getting. Here's what happens to me every time I read the first couple chapters, and I'm like, I'm so in. I love the way it's set up. The first three chapters. It's set up in a specific way. Three sisters, the first three chapters, and I'm like, oh, my God, perfect. And then I get, like, 50 more pages, and I. And that's when I. I, like, hit the suffragette stuff and the. What? And then I'm just like, I'm too bored to continue. Should I NRN for another? Like, maybe I'm a different reader in five years. Should I DNF and just say this one of hers, Although so many of hers have been huge hits for me.
- [53:16]
A
Yeah.
- [53:17]
B
This one is not it. What do you think?
- [53:19]
A
I. I think you should dnf it for real. Okay. Okay.
- [53:25]
B
So if the first 75 pages don't get me.
- [53:27]
A
Yeah. I think you've invested enough in it to realize that this book is different than some of her others in that it doesn't have the same sparkle to the magic that the ones that we really, really love do. Right. 10,000 doors of January. Even her little novellas, the Fractured Fairy Tale. Something like that.
- [53:49]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Spindle's End or Spindle.
- [53:51]
A
Yeah, yeah, something like that. Those have a little sparkle to them. A little bit of glitter in the seams of the pages that this one doesn't quite have. It's a little bit more stoic. It's a little bit more staid, like historical. Rooted, I guess. Okay. Okay.
- [54:12]
B
That's a good way to describe it.
- [54:13]
A
Yeah. And if it's not working for you, 75 pages in, it's not going to all of a sudden flip to something different. So I think you should take it off your tbr and that's okay. We can have books that we don't love by an author that we love. Otherwise, like, yes, it's just a bummer.
- [54:30]
B
Because it's such a pretty. Because. Because I love her. Because I would love to be a completist. Because it's such a pretty cover. Because I always do this in the fall. Because it always feels like it's going to be a friend. Like, for all those reasons, it's, you know, it's a bummer. But I like the way that you described it and your. That feedback is really, really helpful. So I am just going to softly caress its exterior and say, I wish you were. We are. We are not fated mates. But that is okay.
- [54:55]
A
I agree. I like that. Okay. My final one is a bit complicated because my third book is Fire by John Boyne. And I will probably never do this again, but it's worth discussing. This is the third book in the Elements series by Boyne. Right. He starts with Earth, Water. Nope, he starts with Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. Fire is the one I DNF'd. If you buy it in the US it's one complete book. They put all four of them together, but when I was reading them with Katie, we were buying them from the UK and getting them shipped from Blackwell's and so we got them as little mini novellas. Okay. I have brought the first two to the show. I really did enjoy book four. I read the first chapter of this third volume, which it's little, so I probably still read 15% of it because it's, you know, it's a novella and I could see the writing on the wall. So I put on the brakes really hard mentally, and Katie and I had been reading them together. She did not DNF with me. She plowed ahead and then intentionally spoiled the entire book for me. She was like, katie, this book is not for you. You're not allowed to read this book because this is a book about sexual abuse of young boys, specifically a 14 year old boy. And my oldest just turned 15. But at the time we were reading this, he was 14. It was way too close to home. After finishing the fourth book in the series, we also read an article that John Boyne, as a gay man, has publicly aligned himself with the TERF ideology, which is Trans Exclusionary Radical feminism. It says, I'm a feminist, but I don't believe that trans women are women, so they should be excluded from any protections of women. Trans women are one of the most endangered subsets of women. That has unfortunately stained him in my reading life going forward. So sometimes you don't want to know about the author that you love. I love the Hearts Invisible Furies. It's a book I have read multiple times. I have highlighted and book darted my copy. I adore it. But this has sullied him for me in a big way. And to have that on top of my experience with this book, which was like, it felt like it wasn't, of course, but it felt like a personal attack on my son and then a personal attack on my sister within the course of one month, you know, by this one author. So I will not be bringing this book or the fourth book to the show in the future. And I've actually unhauled his books from my shelves at home, which broke my heart a little bit because again, I adored. I'm positive it's on our press list. I adored Hearts on Visible Theories and so Fire by John Boyne. This DNF was hard on a lot of levels and it kind of rippled out from there. Yeah, right.
- [57:34]
B
No, I can completely understand that. What I will say, and I haven't read any of them, but what I will say is I listened with great interest to the spoiler filled discussion that Sarah from Sarah's Bookshelves Live did about all four of the books. And it was such a good discussion. It was so well done. It is spoiler filled.
- [57:57]
A
Yes.
- [57:57]
B
So I did not have to read any of the books in order to understand what like I sort of feel like I read them, but I didn't have to read them.
- [58:06]
A
Right.
- [58:07]
B
And so if you are at all interested, then that would be something that you could look up. I highly, highly recommend that Sarah's Bookshelf's live. But I totally understand where you're coming from on the dnf and, you know, your further more global thoughts on this author.
- [58:24]
A
Yeah, it's. It's a tough road to hoe, I guess. Yep.
- [58:29]
B
It's such a bummer.
- [58:30]
A
It is a bummer. But let's un bummer fi and go over to the fountain, which is joyful and fun and Pink splash.
- [58:39]
B
Yes, absolutely. I am so glad, by the way, that we talked about DNFs, because I feel like, okay, we're not just being cowards. We're not, like, we're willing to every once in a while. So we said, like, maybe once or twice a year, we'll have a little DNF to say discussion.
- [58:53]
A
Right.
- [58:54]
B
Let us know if you guys liked this or if you would rather have us not talk about DNFs, because you don't want to hear us. Yuck and yum.
- [59:01]
A
And you can always jump in the show. Notes are stamped so you can jump in time.
- [59:05]
B
Yep, you can jump. Okay. Fountain wish. Okay. My fountain wish is inspired by your bookish moment of the week, Katie. And all of a sudden, I realized, you know what I would really love is author cameo.
- [59:18]
A
You know?
- [59:19]
B
You know what cameo is, right? So in case. I'm sure all of you know. But cameo is a platform where you can go and a lot of different, mostly B and C and D and E list stars have made themselves available there. And you can pay them for some amount of money. Everybody prices themselves differently from 25 to $2,500. You can pay certain people to make a video message for you for someone's birthday for your loved one or whatever. Lots of people do it for, like, their boyfriend who loves this football star, and then the football star can tell him, happy birthday. Author cameo. I think people would love that. Like, imagine if you, for my birthday, could pay Louise Penny.
- [60:01]
A
Yes.
- [60:02]
B
Right. Or if I could pay Jason Reynolds to wish you a happy birthday.
- [60:06]
A
Oh, my gosh.
- [60:07]
B
And I could, like, give them some information about certain books that you've loved or certain characters that you really loved. Or maybe you could allow people to ask a question about one of your books and they'll answer it. Or, like, what? Author cameo. That's my wish. Pink Splash.
- [60:22]
A
Yes.
- [60:22]
B
Which could be regular cameo. Like, just more authors getting on regular cameo.
- [60:27]
A
Right.
- [60:27]
B
We don't have to build a whole new platform.
- [60:29]
A
Yeah, that makes sense. Right? But they need to make it easy for them to find. Are there tags? I've never been on cameo. I know what cameo is. But can you filter by like profession, actors, sports figures versus musicians?
- [60:43]
B
I'm assuming I haven't actually done it my own self. I used to. Knox McCoy's over underachievers, which is a sports podcast, was one of my favorite podcasts and they had this segment. So that's where I would hear a lot about cameo, you know. So anyway, I don't know for sure, but certainly they've got to have tags. I think it would be really fun.
- [61:03]
A
I think it would be fun too. I like it. Right. Tyler Merritt, if you're listening, I should have paid you for that video.
- [61:09]
B
Right. I could list 200 authors that I think would do smashingly well on author cameo.
- [61:15]
A
We could work yours in to mine. So I am going to wish this week for a type of reading merit badge. Okay. So amazingly, nine years into my third kid, I have finally joined the ranks of scout moms. Okay. He's loving it. It's great. He's going with our neighbor who is his best friend. They're loving it. It's obviously changed a lot over the years, but nowadays there's an online website book where you check off requirements for merit badges and you can track your progress. So for the personal safety merit badge, there's six different parts and you can log each one as you complete it and then it'll say now you've completed all six parts and you've earned this merit badge. It's fun to read up on what he needs to do, help them get them done and then you. And then get those things logged in right away and date stamp them correctly. As I was logging things last night because he made us dinner as part of his family merit badge, I was thinking about a reader merit badge program. Scouting gives pins for merit badges. Now for his rank, he's a wee below and I love the idea of using one of the way too many tote bags that we all have and slowly filling it in with pins for stuff like planned and executed a reading retreat. Read a multi book series in one year. DNF'd three books. Right? So you. It's not bookish. Bingo. It's not. You can do this thing and then you check it off. It's build on this little thing and then when you complete that little task, those series of tasks, you get your merit badge for that. Tried a book Flight buddy. Read a book with a friend. Both fiction and nonfiction. Right? So it's all kinds of different little readerly tasks. You can work on it for a lifetime. You could become an Eagle Scout reader Right. Or like a super reader. I don't know what the ranks would be. It could also be a scratch off chart. But the merit badges idea gives a little wiggle room for having multiple, multiple steps involved with each type of badge. And I think it would be so fun for readers. We love a checklist. We love working toward a goal. Right. It could be that one year you try and hit your reading goal, or some year you try and hit double your reading goal. Like, just playing with it. Learn how to track your reading. That's a merit badge. It looks like a spreadsheet. Right. Just looks like. I think it'd be so fun.
- [63:21]
B
I love this idea. I'm like, my mind is totally spinning with all the different ways that we could do this. We could. I love. I love this idea.
- [63:29]
A
Like, this could be really pins. And then you could have like a felt board at home or a tote bag that you put them on or a sash.
- [63:37]
B
And then also, like, it would be cool if it was in the physical world, but could it also be digital?
- [63:43]
A
Right. Right.
- [63:44]
B
Like, that's some, you know.
- [63:45]
A
So anyway, you earn badges and they just. Just digitally display on your profile or on Duolingo. Right. Yeah. You could have your badge board and you could have an author cameo. Like meet an author or go to a book festival and meet three authors. And then you tick off your dates for when you did it. Right.
- [64:06]
B
Get a book signed, have an actual conversation. This would be what I would be working. I've been so excited to be like, I finally got my red owl badge because I did the last thing, which was to have an actual conversation with S A Cosby. Yes.
- [64:21]
A
Or whatever. Wouldn't that be fun? Oh, my gosh, I love it.
- [64:23]
B
That's really fun, Katie. I think we should do that.
- [64:25]
A
I think we should do.
- [64:26]
B
Okay, that is it for this week. As a reminder, here's where you can connect with us. You can find me. I'm Meredith, Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram.
- [64:34]
A
And you can find me, Katie at Notes on bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putabang Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads full show notes with.
- [64:45]
B
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@currentlyreadingpodcast.com you can.
- [64:57]
A
Also follow the show at currentlyreading podcast on Instagram or email us about our great ideas@currentlyreading.podcastmail.com emails that are great ideas. No naughty emails, no me.
- [65:10]
B
You can also become a bookish friend. As we talked about, you get a ton of free content, you get a ton of community, and you keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us, but only if you have nice things to say. Check on Apple podcasts and you can shout us out on social media. All three of those things help us to find our perfect audience.
- [65:32]
A
Yes, bookish friends are the best friends. We are so thankful for you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.
- [65:39]
B
All right, until next week, may your.
- [65:41]
A
Coffee be hot and your book be unput downable.
- [65:44]
B
Happy reading, Katie.
- [65:45]
A
Happy reading. Meredith.