Season 8, Episode 2: Reader Roulette + Our Assigned Summer Reading

Summary

Currently Reading Podcast: Season 8, Episode 2 Summary

Release Date: August 11, 2025
Hosts: Meredith Monday Schwartz and Katie (Kaytee) Cobb

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1. Introduction

In Season 8, Episode 2 of the Currently Reading podcast, hosts Meredith Monday Schwartz and Katie Cobb dive deep into their current reads, assigned summer books, and introduce a new reading game called Reader Roulette. The episode is structured to provide listeners with rich insights into their literary journeys, complete with personal anecdotes and thoughtful critiques.

2. Bookish Moments of the Week

a. Meredith's Morning Reading Routine

Meredith emphasizes the importance of understanding one’s optimal reading times based on personal energy levels. She recently revamped her morning routine to prioritize reading and journaling over additional work commitments. Meredith shares:

“I made a very intentional decision that I was going to take that extra time and devote it just to more reading at the time of day that I am sharpest…” (02:53).

This adjustment has allowed her to engage more deeply with her nonfiction and literary fiction selections, enhancing both her personal and professional life.

b. Katie's Reader Roulette

Katie introduces a spontaneous reading method she's dubbed Reader Roulette, where she selects her next book by spinning a metaphorical wheel, leading her to unexpected and serendipitous reads. She explains:

“Every time I finished a book, I spun the wheel to wait for one to find me. Sometimes that meant a really hard scroll through my libro…” (05:17).

This approach has expanded her literary horizons, introducing her to books she hadn't previously considered, fostering a sense of adventure in her reading habits.

3. Current Reads

a. Meredith's "Hide and Seek" by Andrea Mara

Meredith delves into her latest read, "Hide and Seek" by Andrea Mara, an Irish domestic crime fiction novel. She provides an in-depth synopsis:

“When our lead character, Joanna, moves her family into their dream home in a very upscale Dublin suburb, she discovers her new house was once home to a missing three-year-old girl…” (10:25).

Meredith praises Mara’s ability to intertwine two timelines—1985 and 2018—to unravel suburban secrets without relying on graphic content. She highlights the book's spoiler-free suspense and its appeal to fans of authors like Lisa Jewell and Alice Feeney.

b. Katie's "You'd Could Make This Place Beautiful" by Maggie Smith

Katie explores "You'd Could Make This Place Beautiful", a poignant memoir by Maggie Smith (not the actress). She shares her emotional connection to the book, which centers on themes of motherhood, self-love, and navigating personal heartbreak. Katie reads a compelling excerpt from the title poem:

“Life is short. Though I keep this from my children
Life is short and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill-advised ways…” (18:54).

She applauds Smith’s poetic narration and her ability to convey profound emotions through concise, impactful verses.

4. Assigned Summer Reads

a. Meredith's "Razor Blade Tears" by S.A. Cosby

Meredith discusses her assigned summer book, "Razor Blade Tears", a novel that intertwines themes of grief, vengeance, and interracial friendships. She provides a brief overview:

“This book is about two fathers, one Black and one white, who meet at the funeral of their murdered sons...” (29:15).

While Meredith acknowledges the book's strengths in character development and its significant messaging, she offers a nuanced critique, mentioning that some elements felt "overwrought" and "preachy" for her personal taste.

b. Katie's "4th Wing" by Rebecca Yarros

Katie reviews "4th Wing", the latest installment in Rebecca Yarros's fantasy series. She outlines the plot involving Violet, a scribe turned Dragon Rider, navigating a perilous academy filled with political intrigue and personal challenges. Katie notes:

“Hundreds of cadets try out every year. Fewer than half make it out alive, and not all of them bond with a dragon...” (34:51).

She critiques the book’s representation of disability, feeling that Violet’s chronic condition was initially significant but became sidelined as the story progressed. Despite this, Katie praises the book's engaging storyline and the emotional investment it fosters.

5. Book Discussions and Opinions

Meredith and Katie engage in thoughtful discussions about their assigned books, comparing them to previous reads and exploring themes such as:

• Acceptance and Preachiness in "Razor Blade Tears":
  Meredith mentions feeling that the book sometimes prioritized its message over organic storytelling, leading to moments that felt forced.

• Disability Representation in "4th Wing":
  Katie expresses concerns about the tokenistic portrayal of Violet’s disability, suggesting it lacked depth as the narrative continued.

Both hosts acknowledge the complexities of tackling heavy themes and the balance between delivering important messages and maintaining storytelling finesse.

6. Wishes at the Fountain

a. Meredith's Wish for Bookish Projects

Meredith encourages listeners to embark on personal bookish projects or quests, such as reading through specific book lists or exploring different literary genres. She suggests:

“This could be reading through a very specific book list… or like I'm working my way through all of Agatha Christie…” (55:10).

This initiative aims to add structure and purpose to one's reading habits, fostering continuous literary growth.

b. Katie's Wish for a Focus Chamber

Katie shares her concept of a Focus Chamber—a dedicated, distraction-free space designed to enhance reading focus. Inspired by her experiences with modifications in her environment, she describes:

“I like the idea of this focus chamber for reading. And it could be your bedroom or it could be somewhere else in your house that's technology-free and has the perfect reading setup…” (55:42).

This wish underscores the importance of creating conducive environments for immersive and undistracted reading sessions.

7. Conclusion

Meredith and Katie wrap up the episode by reiterating their recommendations and encouraging listeners to engage with their content through social media and Patreon. They emphasize the joy of shared literary experiences and the continuous pursuit of meaningful reading.

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Notable Quotes:

• Meredith on Morning Reading:
  “I was going to take that extra time and devote it just to more reading at the time of day that I am sharpest…” (02:53)

• Katie on Reader Roulette:
  “Every time I finished a book, I spun the wheel to wait for one to find me…” (05:17)

• Katie reading Maggie Smith’s poem:
  “Life is short. Though I keep this from my children…” (18:54)

• Meredith on "Razor Blade Tears":
  “For this reader, nuance and show me is so much more important than big cinematic fight scenes…” (34:34)

• Katie on "4th Wing" Audio Experience:
  “It's like putting blinders on a horse. It lets my mind wander in the shower in a completely different way…” (55:10)

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For more detailed discussions and to connect with Meredith and Katie, visit CurrentlyReadingPodcast.com or follow them on Instagram.

Transcript

[Katie Kom]

Foreign.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

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.

[Katie Kom]

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.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I'm Meredith Monday Schwartz. I'm a mom and a Mimi and a full time CEO living in Austin, Texas. And morning reading is some of my best reading.

[Katie Kom]

And I'm Katie kom, a homeschooling mom, 4, living in Arizona, and I am embracing a game I'm calling Reader Roulette. This is episode number two of season eight and we are so glad you're here.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Ooh, that sounds exciting. Reader Roulette.

[Katie Kom]

It's a little bit not Katy esque, but we're going to check it out.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Some roulette is really fun. And some roulette, like Russian roulette, is deadly.

[Katie Kom]

Thankfully, my reading life has no deadly consequences to date.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Let's keep it that way, Katie.

[Katie Kom]

That's the plan, y'. All. Today for our deep dive, we will be circling back on those summer reads that we assigned to each other. At the end of season seven, we'll bring them as current reads and then we'll kind of chat through what that process was like and let you know our thoughts on each of those books. But first, we will get started the way we always do with our bookish moments of the week. Meredith, what is yours?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I have talked to ad nauseam on this podcast about my morning reading, right? Like how I read in the morning. And I've talked a lot about the fact that I think it's really important kind of reader know thyself thing to know. What part of the day should you do different kinds of reading based on your own energy flows? I was thinking about this because recently, through some circumstances in my life, I have had the opportunity to kind of rework my morning routine. And I wanted to be super intentional about how I did that, right? So I was like, okay, I could definitely use that time for work in one of my two jobs, right? I could. But is that gonna serve me holistically in the very best way? So what I decided to do, and this felt very naughty to me because normally when I have any extra time in my life that I don't have to give to my family, I work. That's what I Do. That's how I'm programmed. I enjoy my work. In this case, I said, no, I am going to double down on a routine that is already really working for me and which is doing my morning reading, which includes journaling. This double element of it.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Oftentimes what I'm reading sparks thoughts that really help go into my journaling. Sometimes my journaling is just straight up like journaling, like, Dear Diary, you know, what happened yesterday. Sometimes it's emptying my brain of thoughts about work or a project that I'm working on. But no matter what it is, both of those things are really useful to me. So I made a very intentional decision that I was going to take that extra time that I hadn't expected to get, that I've gotten and devote it just to more reading at the time of day that I am sharpest and most able to take in nonfiction, work related or business related things, but sometimes just like literary fiction that demands more of my brain. So I'm really enjoying kind of reworking with great intention this part of my day.

[Katie Kom]

Okay, yes, I like that. And I not the same. But I have recently reworked the beginning of my day as well. Figured out that my terrorist of a dog basically really needs a walk to start her day. But it's hot in Arizona, so I started. The very first thing I do is take both dogs out for a walk. And amazingly, it has changed the entire rest of my day in very big ways, which allows for more brain space in other parts of my day. So it's not reading, but it allows for reading later because she's not being such an asshole.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Now. But when you go, are you not listening to a book?

[Katie Kom]

I usually am listening to a book, which is also fun, that I can like clock in some audiobook time because I lost that quite some time ago when I. When we moved closer to everything that we needed to do, I lost any, like long drives. So this starts me with 20 to 30 minutes of audiobook listening before I work out. So I'm still getting that in. I'm getting up about half an hour earlier, but the entire rest of the day flows more smoothly because of it. It's cool.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, for sure.

[Katie Kom]

It's very cool.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Absolutely.

[Katie Kom]

Okay. But my bookish moment is not that. It is that I've had a realization about my reader life. So the past year, but especially the past month where we had our time off, has really drilled into me that I am no longer the Katie that I used to be. Even a month before the end of the season, I Talked about how I was so excited to plan for my road trip, these many hours of audiobook time. And I said on the episode, I'm going to add a column to my spreadsheet and make a list of books that I am intending to read during what will amount to 180 hours of listening time. Why would I not do that? Right? So excited, friends, that did not happen. Instead, I had the one book assigned that we will talk about today. And then I spun the roulette wheel. I thought I was becoming a chaotic reader, but it's not even that. It's what I'm calling reader roulette. Instead, every time I finished a book, I spun the wheel to wait for one to find me. Sometimes that meant a really hard scroll through my libro. You know how you can, like, flip really hard on your phone and it, like, makes things go fast? Yep. To find stuff in the Wayback Machine. Once that meant finding a copy of a book at a used bookstore that my friend bought. And I was like, well, that's the only copy. Okay. I'm going to grab it myself. And I started it that day once it was hearing from another friend of mine, Heather, this will probably be my top book of the year. And I went for it. I grabbed it on Libby as soon as I started driving and binged that book right then. I had never heard of it before, didn't look it up beforehand, just like jumped in with both feet. So this led to more backlist, more bookish serendipity. And thankfully, it also led to some really great books. Completely unplanned. Many were not even on my TBR before I started my trip. And they found me with a spin of the wheel. The whims of fate decided that this was my reading life. And I loved it. And also, two years ago, Katie would have been like, are you losing it? What is happening to you?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

You would have made a plan and followed that plan.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. And I would have been offended at this. Katie not having a plan.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. I really like this idea of. Because we talk about planned readers, we talk about mood readers. I like this idea of a third category. That's the chaotic reader.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. Just like, who knows what's gonna happen?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I really. There's something about that that is very enticing to me.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. And it's not mood reading, because I thought that's what was happening to me earlier this year. Like, okay, well, for my next read, I'm kind of thinking emotive, you know, or like transportative or whatever. And that's not what it was. It was just like, let's see what book the gods drop in my lap. Let's see what happens.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, it's not Mood. It's a complete third category.

[Katie Kom]

Totally different way of reading, and it's been a lot of fun. I don't know. It's really weird. But y' all be prepared. There are some interesting books that you've probably never heard of coming up on my current reads over the next few months.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

So now I'm thinking, okay, so there's planned readers and mood readers and chaotic readers. Okay. Is there a force that's on the other extreme, which would be more like the way that Johnny reads, the way that my husband reads, where he doesn't read anything except what I. I mean, and this is because this is what.

[Katie Kom]

He wants, like a directed reader.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. I'm not saying that I say to him, you read that. Like, I don't have any desire to do that. But he vastly prefers to be like, I need a new book. And so I just hand him a book. And that's the exact opposite of the directed reader, the planned reader, the mood reader, the chaotic reader. I like this kind of spectrum, you.

[Katie Kom]

Know, that I don't. I think it comes from, like, Dungeons and Dragons or something, but there's like, chaotic, neutral, moral, neutral, villain, like, all of those. I feel like there's a whole board out there for us that somebody. Betsy. Betsy, somebody needs to work on this for us.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah. This is an interesting. So we'll ask listeners to weigh in on this. Like, is it more than just planned mood readers? Like, are there other. How many people kind of fit on these other categories?

[Katie Kom]

Yeah, I love it. Interesting.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I love it. Okay, well. And it's very interesting to me, the idea of you being a chaotic reader, because that makes for interesting conversation.

[Katie Kom]

So this also plays into one of the other conversations that we've had for a long time on currently reading, which is that you and I both kind of tightly control our lives. Right. Like, we have a lot of things that are exactly as they are supposed to be because we want control over what's happening around us. Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Or because we have a lot of things required of us. So things have to be controlled.

[Katie Kom]

Exactly. And for you, that sometimes, like, the opposite manifests as. So with mood reading, I can let loose on that control. I can get rid of those reins and kind of let my reading life guide me. And for me, it has warped a little bit into this chaotic reading where it's like, I have to be so on top of all these other things. Now I'm going to not even let my mood guide me. Like nothing is guiding me. I'm completely.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, it's like the big, huge middle.

[Katie Kom]

Finger to all the plans that anybody ever made for my life. Not in this area, no. Thank you, ma'. Am. It's very interesting. Let's talk about current reads, though, because we have a lot to discuss there too. What is your first book, Meredith? We do.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Okay. My first book, squarely in my wheelhouse. And for a lot of listeners, they're absolutely going to love this book too. I highly recommend it is Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara. I love Andrea Mara. This is Irish domestic crime fiction. Okay, here's the setup. When our lead character, Joanna, moves her family into their dream home in a very upscale Dublin, Ireland suburb. She thinks that she has happened upon the fresh start that they really, really needed. But then she discovers in a super unsettling way in the very first chapter that her new house was once home to a three year old girl named Lily Murphy. A girl who vanished during a neighborhood game of hide and Seek in 1985 and was never found. She was three. Not surprisingly, this becomes Joanna's obsession, especially when she realizes that her own daughter, Sophie bears an eerie resemblance to Lily, the missing child. And it's the same age. So this book, as a lot of books are with Andrea Mara, set across two timelines. We've got the summer of 1985. We've got this huge neighborhood filled with kids. They, you know how it was in that? You don't know, Katie. I know how it was in the mid-80s.

[Katie Kom]

I was a baby, right?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I was out running. I was 12 in 1985. So this is like exactly me where our parents just could not be bothered.

[Katie Kom]

With where we were.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

You just basically came home when you needed to go to bed. So that's what these kids are doing. They're playing, you know, hide and seek. And then we go back to present day, which in this case is 2018. This domestic suspense novel goes back and forth between, you know, kind of the facade of suburban life, but then the secrets that are underneath. Joanna digs deeper into Lily's disappearance. And then Joanna's own mysterious past begins to kind of surface. And Joanna makes a chilling confession. She believes that she might actually know what happened to Lily Murphy. Okay, this is my third Andrea Mara book. I'm sorry, this is my fourth, not my third. I've liked each one better than the one before and I am not alone in that enthusiasm because Hide and seek was shortlisted for the Irish Crime fiction Book of the year in 2018. So this is a quality page turner here. Andrea Mara writes what you know, again, I've described as perfect Irish domestic suspense. If you're a fan of Lisa Jewell or early Lucy Foley, you absolutely need to put her on your radar. And also Alice Feeney, I would say, falls into that same category. Andre Amara books aren't a series. They have this wonderful consistency because we're always kind of in an Irish suburb with young families living close together, sometimes getting into each other's business in inappropriate ways, sometimes not, and almost always a child goes missing. But here's what makes her books so accessible. There is nothing gory on the page. These are books that anyone could read. Even a new mom dealing with her own anxieties wouldn't find anything here that would keep her up at night for the wrong reasons. One thing, because it's told across two timelines, 1985 and then 2018, there are a lot of characters to keep track of. That's not usually a problem for me. In fact, it's something that I do fairly easily. But I found myself flipping back and forth a few times trying to remember who was who in each timeline. So if that thing really irritates you, know that you're going to find a lot of that here. But the pacing is so well done that you get swept along regardless. I read this one in print because I had to order it from Blackwell's in the uk, but. But if her books are available on audio, that is the direction that I go. They are just for me, my sweet spot, audio listening. Also, of course, there are triggers in this one. I don't want to give anything away, but there are some fairly big triggers, so check that out in advance before you jump in. That said, I tore through this book and I'm already planning on working my way through more of her backlist. Black Wells has kept me well stocked, but hopefully because she's getting more popular, pretty soon she'll be available more widely here in the US too. This is Hide and Seek by Andrea Mara.

[Katie Kom]

Books with little kids missing give me the heebie jeebies. I have theories that are completely baseless. So my first theory, which probably has nothing to do with the book, is that somehow this child got trapped in the walls.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Oh goodness.

[Katie Kom]

And the second one is that the main character in 2018 is in fact the child grown up. So those are my theories. They have nothing to do with anything that Meredith said. But yep, yep, that's what I'm going with.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

But those are the kinds of things that Andrea Mara's novels lead us to think about. Like, you're not right, but you're not wrong. And it's.

[Katie Kom]

You're.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

You're in the right place.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. Those domestic suspense ones with the kids in them, they just. They give me so many heebie tweets.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I know, but I do want to underscore moms, you will be okay.

[Katie Kom]

It's gonna be okay. We're all gonna be okay. Take a deep breath. Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

This is not little kids hanging from trees type of situation. That's not what this is.

[Katie Kom]

Simon Bjork. What's his name? Traveling Alone.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Samuel Bjork.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

No, you're right. That's it. I'm Traveling Alone is the name of that book.

[Katie Kom]

Yep. Yep. Okay. My first book has no murder in it at all. It is called you'd could make this Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith. Not that Maggie Smith, y'. All. Okay. This book is a memoir written by a poet, which many of you already know is one of my favorite places to play. So I was really happy when the roulette ball landed here. It could have been too hard to read for this reader. And I remember when it came out about two years ago, and as people started to recommend it to me, the way I would look at the blurb and say, not for you, Katie. Not right now, but this summer. It was for me, right now. This is a memoir of Maggie Smith's life, but the central pivot, the central plot point in this middle aged life is that she gets divorced and has two young children at home. It's her own private heartbreak, but she pulls the spotlight away from that moment over and over again, like a stage manager that brings your attention elsewhere. She shows us, as the blurb says, a mother's fierce and constant love for her children and a woman's love and regard for herself. While many of the chapters are very short, sometimes just a line or two, she is building something beautiful here. She's pulling apart moments in her own life to speak to the culture around us, patriarchy and empathy. She explores forgiveness and anger and the way memories can change over time when you look at them from a little distance and then a bigger distance. Right. She navigates motherhood and work and family and womanhood and progressivism and tradition. And she's a poet, so it's poignant and stunning. I listened to her tell her story, read her memoir thanks to a 2 year old galley from Libro FM that I found by spinning my phone as fast as I could. But then I bought a copy of it at the next bookstore that had it for me on my road trip because I needed this book in my home. I needed to be able to flip through it and journey with Maggie again, almost like a prescription written by a doctor. The title is based on a poem of hers which is not very long, so I'm going to read it here. Good Bones by Maggie Smith. Life is short. Though I keep this from my children Life is short and I've shortened mine in a thousand delicious ill advised ways. In a thousand deliciously ill advised ways I'll keep from my children. The world is at least 50% terrible and that's a conservative estimate Though I keep this for my children. For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird. For every love child a child broken, bagged, sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world is at least half terrible and for every kind stranger there is one who would break you. Though I keep this from my children, I am trying to sell them the world. Any decent realtor walking you through a real shithole chirps on about good bones. This place could be beautiful, right? You could make this place beautiful. This poem and this book as a whole speaks to all the ways that heartbreak grows us that we have good bones. I've spent this past year excavating mine. I share only semi regularly about my personal mantra for the past year on Instagram. Competent and capable. I've been learning to do new things. I've stretched myself in new ways and it's a refinding of myself. It's about excavating my good bones and making this place and this person and this life beautiful. And so I loved with my whole heart and soul. You could make this Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Oh, I'm so glad that that worked really well. That is the kind of book that I think needs to find you at such a right time for it to hit really perfectly.

[Katie Kom]

Yes, exactly. Oh, it was so good. She's such a great writer. It was wonderful. Yeah.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And the piece that you read was absolutely beautiful.

[Katie Kom]

Oh, I got chills. I don't know if you'll be able to hear that on the audio, but y', all, if you can. I was rubbing my arms.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Well, interestingly, I'm actually bringing some poetry for my second book here, a part of my morning reading which has opened up just this love of poetry for me. So this is a book called A Little Daylight Left by a poet named Sarah Kay. Sarah Kay is one of those rare spoken word poets who translates really, really well to the page, but you can hear her voice almost as if she's reading every line. These aren't poems that are trying to impress you with, like, putting big, fancy literary obstacles in front of you to tackle. They're not like enigmatic poems. But Sarah Kay makes you feel less alone in the world by finding the profound in the completely ordinary. And that, I'm realizing, is my favorite kind of poetry. This collection tackles all those vulnerable moments that we usually try to just get past. To your point, Katie. Heartbreak, aging parents, the terrifying uncertainty of new beginnings, that awful space between who we think we are and who we dare to hope we might become, or helping us figure out what we might dare to expect from our lives. Whether Sarah Kay is writing about two girls completely forgetting that they're supposed to be playing baseball in a poem that I loved called Ode to the Two Girls in the Outfield of the T Ball Game, or exploring friendship in a poem called Pulling a Sarah Every poem feels like a conversation with somebody who really gets it. So looking at my notes across this poetry collection, I have to start with something that honestly surprises me about myself. This fact that I have become a poetry reader, like, regularly. This is not historically me. And yet books like this one are adding something to my reading that I didn't even know I was missing. Scratch that. Actually, they're adding something to my life. Life. There's something about reading poems that gets you in a totally different way than reading novels does. And it's like I kind of feel like poetry sinks into a different layer of my skin. Another thing that's weird about me. As a book podcaster, I often don't find success with books that publishers send me unless they're by completely known authors, right? But a little Daylight Left is really beautiful, and it completely caught me off guard. Sarah Kay is a young woman, definitely not the Gen X poem that I'm so on the hunt to find. And yet these poems spoke to my 51 year old heart so clearly. Her voice has that clarity and that wondering and that figuring things out, but she also is very distinctly sure of herself. Her voice is her own. She's speaking from a very particular point of view. And isn't it fascinating how poetry can transcend identity like that, how it can reach across generations and experiences and find that universal thread of what it means to be human. I love K's work in that she moves between different styles and kinds of language with such confidence. She writes poems about mundane things like dating apps or mundane moments, right alongside with poems about the sublime. There's nature, technology, heartbreak, hope, all woven together in ways that feel surprising and also at the same time, inevitable. Actually, there's a poem called the Church of Coupledom that I literally want to memorize a couple of those poems that I want to commit to memory, which hasn't happened to me with poetry in a long time. This is a short collection, just fewer than 100 pages, but it packs an incredible emotional punch. As I was reading, I kept thinking about how much Taylor Swift would be inspired by Sarah Kay's work. And there's something about the way that Sarah Kay captures those specific small moments that remind me of Swift's songwriting at its best. Both of these artists have a gift for making you feel like they're speaking directly to your experience, even when they're very clearly writing from their own. This is a little daylight left by Sarah Kay.

[Katie Kom]

I love that. I think it's really hard to talk about poetry as a book reviewer, and even though we've done it over and over again, but it's hard to kind of give a feel for an entire collection. So gold star, because I thought you did a great job.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. So did you. I like that we both. That we both brought that for something a little bit different.

[Katie Kom]

Okay, so we're going to move from there into my second book, which is the Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Issa Arsene. This is the newest release by the author of one of my favorite books from 2023. Shoot the Moon was the title of that book, and that one was historical sci fi, about a brilliant rocket scientist in New Mexico. It ended up on my top books of the year list. It felt like it was made for me. I loved it. Her new book pivots to historical fiction. Just pure historical fiction. Ditches the sci fi elements. Here's the setup. Young ingenue Margaret Short has taken a bow as Lady Macbeth, the role she has always believed she was meant to play. At home, she plays another role. She is wife to her best friend, Wesley, but the marriage is to protect him from any accusations of sexual impropriety, because it's the 1950s and 1960s and gay men are not allowed to be out. So he marries Margaret, his best friend. As his best friend, she wants to keep him safe. However, after a public breakdown threatens everything that she holds dear, Margaret's doctor prescribes her uppers. Just a little help to get through the day, like you did in the 1950s and 60s. Mommy's Little Helper, right. When her husband Wesley, is invited by an eccentric Director named Vaughn to join the cast for a Shakespeare performance in again New Mexico. Margaret decides to tag along in hopes that the time away will help kind of recenter her set her back to rights. Being in New York, she's around all the same people. It's hard to break out of her routine. But when she goes to New Mexico with Wesley, she finds a different world in Vaughn's company. It's filled with lies and betrayal. Margaret and Wesley become embroiled in an affair. Yes, both of them with a man who may not be all he seems. He's kind of a little bit cowboy, Old west, old style. And they have to find a way forward together before their story becomes the tragedy. There is murder, sex, drugs. This is historical fiction chock full of everything you've ever seen in like a gangster movie or a classic Cary Grant film. It's everything, right? I attempted to read this book twice, but was only successful the second time. The first time I made it about 25% of the way in and decided I needed to set it down because I had no idea what was going on. But I knew I would like it eventually. It was just not the right moment for it. The second time I breezed through in a day with no issues. The setup makes it sound like it's mostly about theater, but this is no Tom Lake by Ann Patchett. Macbeth. The story that starts out this one is a tragedy, and this story skates pretty close to that with drugs and addiction at the core. So there are trigger warnings here. There's also a lot of sex, but it's not graphic. But you need to know it's there. I would happily hand Shoot the Moon to my middle grader, older middle grader, who loves to read science fiction about women, but this one I would not give to him. It's just a lot darker storyline than the other one was. I did end up really enjoying it, but again, it took me a while to even like these characters enough to consider reading further than that 25%. So shoot the Moon will continue to be my favorite of hers, but I did enjoy this one enough to finish it, and I gave it, I believe, three and a half or four stars. This was the Unbecoming of Margaret Wolf by Issa Arsen.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And that one came on your radar simply because of the fact this was an author that you'd read before.

[Katie Kom]

Known author, right? Yeah. So when we got the ask about a galley in our, you know, email inbox, I said, yes, I would like a copy of that one. And then I didn't Pick it up until later when it was available on audio, which is what happens a lot when I get a galley. Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

But again, sometimes setting aside a book and coming back to it later, you get a whole different experience with it. So that's a great thing to do. That's a great strategy.

[Katie Kom]

I think if I had pushed through the first time when I was bored and not paying attention, I think it would have ended up being a two star, two and a half star book for me because I just wasn't invested in any of the action, any of the characters did not care at all what was happening. So I had to walk away from it, let it cool off completely, and come back afresh to actually get through it and enjoy it at all.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. And that's so important for people to remember. When you DNF a book you're actually doing, oftentimes doing the book a favor, you're not doing it a disservice. You're doing it a favor to walk away from it.

[Katie Kom]

Exactly. Okay, now we are at our third books, which is exciting because that means we get to report back to each other and to all of you up about how our summer reading assignments went. So, Meredith, I'm very excited to hear you talk about your third book. What is it?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

My third book, my summer assignment is Razor Blade Tears by S.A. cosby. I'm going to set it up extraordinarily briefly because we have talked about this and it's been talked about everywhere so very, very briefly. This book is about two fathers, one black, one white one. Both of them ex cons who meet at the funeral of their murdered sons who had been married to each other. We've got ike, who spent 15 years going straight after having a long criminal history. He's built a new business and he is staying out of trouble. And then we've got Buddy Lee, who's an alcoholic who has never fully left his criminal past behind. Neither man had accepted their son's relationship with each other while they were alive, and now they are both drowning in their grief and guilt over what could have been. So when the police investigation goes cold over their son's murders, these two very unlikely partners partner up and they decide that they are going to go get vengeance for themselves. All right, Katie.

[Katie Kom]

Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I love SA Cosby.

[Katie Kom]

Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Love him so much.

[Katie Kom]

Me, too.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Was so grateful to be able to get to speak with him and hear him speak and absolutely love him. And this one is going to be a hard one for me to thread the needle on. Because the thing is, Razor Blade Tears is no question really, really good. It's page turning, it's important in its messaging and it is heartbreaking in its characterizations. This novel deserves the praise that it has gotten, but for this reader, it wasn't a five star read that I thought maybe it was going to be. And I spent a lot of time really thinking about this so that it would be meaningful as I move forward making other choices for myself. Now, before I go any further again, I want to say that I got to meet SA Cosby and hear him speak at Hampton's whodunit. I was so impressed by him. He's an amazing human being. The amount of work that goes into writing a book, especially one that is this ambitious, is staggering and I have nothing but respect for that process. But if I'm being honest here, because that's what we have promised we would do, I just didn't love this one. I also didn't love all the Sinners Bleed. I liked them both, but I didn't love them. Razorblade Tears uses a big, huge hammer. It's got big characters who are written in a way that we know them within just a few lines of dialogue. And that's something that I loved about it. It's got big, huge, gory, uber violent action scenes. That's what everyone talks about when they talk about SA Cosby's work, right? The uber violent action scenes. Many times the dialogue and these set piece fights made me think of a late 80s action movie, which I gotta say surprised me and took me out of the story. But maybe because of the way I read, these cinematic fight scenes didn't stand out to me as much as they did for other readers. The book itself has a big, huge message about acceptance, unconditional love, and mostly about the power of regret. And this message is one that needs to be heard for sure. But here's where I struggled. At times I felt like Cosby was trying too hard to teach us about acceptance rather than letting the story do the work. Some of the conversations about LGBTQ issues felt preachy instead of organic, and there were moments when characters would say things like LGBTQ and it just didn't ring true that that would be coming from the people with these deeply ingrained homophobic beliefs. It was just a lot to tackle. Homosexuality, trans acceptance, racism, socioeconomic differences all in one book. And it felt overwrought to me. For this reader, nuance and show me is so much more important than big cinematic fight scenes or long spit filled soliloquies. I need more of a scalpel in my reading. And Cosby is all hammer. And don't get me wrong, he has pounded out a great niche for himself. To be sure, readers who love adrenaline rushes will absolutely devour this, but I don't want to be yelled at. Or if you do yell, you have to have another volume too. This one was turned up to 11 the entire time, so for me, the impact just wasn't there. I think part of it, too is that this book has been talked about so much that I largely almost felt like I had already read it. That could be a big part of my experience here. Sometimes the hype can work against you for a book. We definitely know that. I'm very glad I read it, though. I'm glad I checked it off my list again. He's an author and a man that I very much respect, but it's not going to make my list of five star reads. This is Razorblade Tears by S.A. cosby. And really, Katie, the reality is not every book needs to be a five star read.

[Katie Kom]

Of course. Right?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

It does not need to be that.

[Katie Kom]

Definitely. Okay, I'm gonna get into my book and then we'll have more discussion about both of these. So my book, of course, was 4th Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Did anybody forget that? No, they did not.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

They did not.

[Katie Kom]

I had so many conversations about this this year. I did do a full setup for it, even though everybody knows what this book is about. Right. But I'm proud of my setup, so I'm going to keep going with it. Here's what I wrote. Quiet and unassuming, Violet was supposed to be a scribe. She was looking forward to a life surrounded by books and history, lost in the stacks, and certainly protected from anything dangerous. But her mother has other plans for her. Like her brother and sister before her, Violet is sent to join the Nevarra, the Dragon Riders. Hundreds of cadets try out every year. Fewer than half make it out alive, and not all of them bond with a dragon. Sometimes cadets even kill each other just for a better chance at bonding with the dragons who are available. It's cutthroat to the extreme, and even more so for Violet, who is tinier than everyone else and suffers from a chronic condition making her bones extra brittle and her joints extra loose. She's always a breath away from injury, and dragons bond with those who are strong and willful, not weaklings. As Violet makes it through the first challenge, she catches the eye of Zaden Ryerson, a son of the resistance. When they rose up a decade ago to seize power. Violet's mother was the one who quashed their rebellion. She keeps a close eye on the children of those rebels, like Zaden. Thankfully, Violet's childhood friend Dane is also part of the Academy, and he'll keep his eye on her and keep Zaden's gaze far away. If this sounds like the making of a love triangle, you would be right. Violet has to manage challenge after challenge as she trains at the Academy and attempts not to die in the process. Y', all, this could only have happened this summer, right? But I had this book assigned to me. That episode aired and then I left on this road trip, right? So then I met 50 people plus who all said, oh my gosh, you're going to read 4th Wing. Have you read 4th Wing? What's happening with 4th Wing? And then like an idiot, I reposted the little story templates that were like, what have you read of the most read Goodreads books this year? And I checked off fourth Wing because I was done with it by then. Didn't even think about it. My DMs went bananas. Oh my gosh, you've read it. I can't wait to hear what you thought about it. People had so many opinions about if I was going to like it. They wanted to know what was happening. And I kept trying to like keep it under wraps, knowing that this episode was coming. So I will say a few things about my reading experience and then talk a little more in the deep dive about what did and didn't work for me, I think is what I'm going to do here. The first thing I wanted to say is that I did this on audio, but only the standard version. First. People were like, ew, don't read the audio. Because when it first released the narrator had a cold and it was terrible. They re recorded it after it really blew up because people would be like, this book was garbage because you can hear that her sinuses are completely full of gunk. The audio experience was great. There was no cold, there were no sniffles, there was no claustrophobia in my ears. Nothing bad happened with the audio, but it was suggested to me that I try the graphic audio version. And that was in all caps. Not for me. In fact, I believe it's not for anyone who listens at a faster speed. But that is what made it most definitely not for me. Here's where we start with this book, right? The first few lines of fourth Wing are as follows. Conscription day is always the deadliest. Maybe that's why the sunrise is especially Beautiful in the morning because I know it might be my last. I tighten the straps of my heavy canvas rucksack. She's describing what's happening to her. She says she's out of breath as she goes up the stairs in this stone fortress to see her mother. The graphic audio starts with heavy breathing, and the woman who voices Violet says, I guess this is what six months of heavy training gets me. Okay. It was horrific.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

That sounds awful. And I don't understand the words you're saying. The graphic audio. I don't understand those words.

[Katie Kom]

Okay, I'm gonna explain that a little better. Okay. They have done this with quite a few Romantasy books I know for sure. So, like, you can get the graphic audio of Throne of Glass. You can get the graphic audio of a court of thorns and roses. You can get the graphic audio of 4th Wing. And instead of it being the text read out by an audio narrator, it's more like they made a play of it and recorded actors playing each a different part. And instead of all the dialogue setup that we needed, they're acting out all of it instead. So instead of her saying, I'm out of breath as I go up a tower, she acts it out as though she is out of breath, and you hear her inner monologue. It's supposed to be a movie in your mind. It was not. It was terrible, but.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

So it's not actually reading the book to you as the author wrote it?

[Katie Kom]

No, it's not. It's been adapted to this other movie version of the book. And on top of all of that, thankfully, I was able to find it at the library because I bounced out of there so fast, I would have had to request a refund. It is cut into two parts, so you have Fourth Wing, Part one and Fourth Wing Part two. So if you do buy it on audio, you have to spend two credits to get this movie in your mind version of it.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

You said people told you to listen to this?

[Katie Kom]

Yes, and it's a reader that I trust very much. She has been a great reader, like, in my life, as a recommendation source for a long time. And I think people know that I really like audio. So the assumption was that this would be a fun way to take it in. And I think if you've read the book already, it could be a fun way to experience it in a different way.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Reread it. Yeah.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. Like, I'm just gonna let this story wash over me while I wash my car and pull weeds or whatever it is, because I already know what's Actually happening underneath this production. No, thank you. On heavy breathing into the microphone, and especially not heavy breathing at increased speed. Yeah, that was terrible.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

But it's not giving you the experience that Rebecca Yarros intended or that any author.

[Katie Kom]

I agree.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right.

[Katie Kom]

I agree.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Okay. So the fact is you bounced out of that. You read it like a normal person then.

[Katie Kom]

I did. I read it like a normal person, and I devoured it. I was especially excited about the fact. Exactly what you were just talking about, Meredith. But it worked in the opposite way for me. This book has been everywhere for more than two years now. I was mouth open, shocked at some of the twists in plot that I thought would have been spoiled for me, knowing what I know about this book. Like, I thought I had heard enough about it that I had a pretty good idea about everything that was going to happen. And then there were things that happened that I was like. No way. Like a cartoon character listening to these plot twists. I was. So you did like an ahooga.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Katie Kom]

With my big eyes and my big mouth. Exactly. So I was just so thrilled that I don't know if it was that the Internet did a good job at not saying the things, and I will also not say the things, or if it was that I had really good blinders when it came to this book because I didn't think I was going to read it ever. Even though I had all these copies of it on my shelf. For whatever reason, I was thrilled to be able to not have all this stuff spoiled for me that were really big, exciting plot points, and that worked out really well for me. So even though with razor blade tears, it kind of worked opposite, where it felt like you kind of did know everything that had happened to it, because people have been talking about it now for five years.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And I think I went in with my expectations high because of I'd read another book by him that I'd liked, and people had said they'd like this one even better, and then I had met him and experienced him in that way. And, yeah, so I kind of went in. But you went in with your expectations fairly low.

[Katie Kom]

I did.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Which I think is a great. I mean, I think that's so much preferable.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

To go into a book with low expectations.

[Katie Kom]

Yes, I think so, too. I think that is part of the thing where if you're told, okay, this book is going to be absolutely perfect for you, and you've been sitting on it and waiting on it, knowing that it's just gonna be amazing, and I just can't Wait, to like those break glass in case of emergency books. If they disappoint, then it didn't hold you in the right way. Right. But this one, I was like, okay, all I've. Ugh, Katie, you're gonna hate it. You better just knock it out. You better just get it done. So even by the time we went to my first bookstore meetup, I think I was more than halfway done with this book already, because I was like, we're just gonna knock it out. We're gonna get it done, and then I can play roulette the entire rest of this drive, and I don't have to worry about homework. And instead, it delighted me in a lot of ways, which thrilled me to no end, of course.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

It's so good. It's not the world's best book.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

We know. For all the reasons that it. You know. But it's such a great story.

[Katie Kom]

Yes, it is a great story. Okay, I'm going to close this as a current read. So this is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. And then we can go into the deep dive and talk a little bit more about some things, like the fact that this is still being forced to read a book. Right. Which, as we've now established, neither of us is super into. So what was that part of it like for you? I know we've done this multiple years in a row now, Meredith, and we've gone back and forth between you and I telling each other what to read and then letting the listeners choose. And now we're back to each other telling within the broader story of those switches back and forth. Was it better to be back in this land, or are we switching back next year to listeners telling us.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. The listener one was different only because we created a list of. What was it, three or four? I can't even remember how many, but.

[Katie Kom]

Like, I think it was three.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

We each chose those three, and we said, hey, here are three books that I'd be happy to read. Which one should I read? Weirdly, that one I read, Song of Achilles, ended up being much less successful for me. I really did not like that book at all. It was one that I had chosen for myself as an option, and the two that you've given to me, Chain Gang All Stars and Razor Blade Tears, I really liked. Didn't love, but really liked and really, really glad that I read it.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

So with this one, I didn't feel I was looking forward to reading it. And also my experience of reading it, it read really fast. I mean, that book is not Boring.

[Katie Kom]

Oh, yeah.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And so just like I would say about a movie, but definitely for a book. The worst thing a book can be is boring. I would rather you be bad than boring. And this book certainly is not bad. There's a lot to turn the pages. It's very readable. And so it went by very quickly. I try to get a jump on this reading almost as soon as we get started on our break, just because I don't want to somehow. I don't know. I just.

[Katie Kom]

I don't get to the end and have to cram.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. It's how I'm always worried that I was going to, like, arrive to class and not have my homework done. Like, Meredith, you've got four weeks. But anyway, it turned out to be a good thing that I got that done early, so I didn't dread it. And I was really happy to be reading it the whole time. I was definitely like, oh, I wanted to love one of his books as much as I love him as a person.

[Katie Kom]

Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right. I think that was where it wasn't. You weren't driving that expectation in me. I was driving it in myself. And I also knew that I had some issues with. So when I got done with it, I was like, this book is so beloved that, you know, you hate to come to the podcast with anything other than it was five stars. Best thing I've ever read for a book that people really, really love because you don't want to yuck anyone's yum. And that was kind of my, like, oh, I want to thread the needle and be really clear about the fact that there was a lot to like about the book. I'm really glad that I read it, and it's really helpful for me as a reader to know what are the things that are the big dials in my reading? Like, there's little dials, right? Like, well, it's okay either way. I can, you know, I'm fine. Big dials, though. There's a few of them, and one of them for me is this issue of Show Don't Tell. That's one. The other one is this. I absolutely cannot stand feeling preached at. Like, there's a message that I'm supposed to get, and I'm going to get it if it's the last thing that this author does. That hammer versus Scalpel. Any book that has a really strong message like that that we're all supposed to get is probably not going to work for me.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

To a certain extent, there was some of that in Changing All Stars, too.

[Katie Kom]

I would agree with that for sure.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And even you could say in Song.

[Katie Kom]

Of Achilles in a different way. A different way. But yes, right. Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

It was interesting to me, but, like, I wouldn't want us to be like, hey, here's a list of 10 books that we're going to talk about when we come back. Oh, but one book, like, one normal size.

[Katie Kom]

Doing it every month.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, doing it every month. Preparing for episode. Like, themed episodes. No, thank you. We both decided that eight seasons ago that we weren't gonna do that.

[Katie Kom]

Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

But we did one normal sized book. And it's a way for me to know you better, too, when I read a book that you really, really love. And so then that also makes me want to read it.

[Katie Kom]

Right, right. With razorblade tears. As I was preparing and trying to decide which one I was gonna give you at the end of our season, I did some digging into kind of the underbelly of the Internet, like Reddit forums and stuff, where there was an interesting point that I had not thought about with regard to that book that I think speaks to kind of that hammer versus scalpel, preachy versus manipulative. Like, where do we land on that line? And it was that there are certain corners of the Internet that say that razor blade tears kind of justifies bigotry in that you can always make it better. Right. You can always go back after the fact, after your sons have been killed, and say, well, now I'm going to be a new person. Now I'm going to seek vengeance. But you could have just loved them while they were alive. Right? You could have just been part of their lives when they were here on Earth for you to love them and their daughter and, like, be good parents. Right. And instead, it's such a hammer versus scalpel that it takes this horrible event and then these men deciding, well, we're willing to go to the ends of the earth to avenge these kids because we loved them so much, even though we didn't speak to them or recognize their marriage to each other or their lifestyle or, you know, like, I think that might be some of the tension that you're feeling, Meredith. Is that part of it where it's like, well, if this was so important to you that you're now willing to, like, destroy people and leave, like, a wake of destruction behind you, why wasn't it important enough to you before they died?

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yes. And also, this book, you know, I knew going into it, has another one of those big dials in it that is very particular to me as a reader. Which is that I really struggle with books where the main character or characters doesn't come into the story with their hands clean. If we use a legal phrase like, these are not bad people, but these are people with. They've done a lot of wrong things.

[Katie Kom]

They've got pasts. Yeah.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And they're continuing to do a lot of wrong things. A lot of illegal things, a lot of immoral things. It's really hard for me to root for people like that.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And however, SA Cosby does a really good job of moving us past that kind of black and white element and seeing the gray and seeing the person behind just the life choices or the choices when they're in the midst of grief and regret and all of those things. That's an element that I thought was kind of interesting, too. But, yes, you could have just realized that, hey, you've done tough things that people struggle with. Maybe your kid is doing something that feels like not what you wanted for them, but maybe we look.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, it is for me. The flip side of that is that for Fourth Wing, Violet was billed to me especially as Katie. You're going to like this. It has great disability representation because Violet has this brittle bone, loose joints disability to her. Right. It makes a lot of this hard. Oftentimes, as I was reading, I would forget that completely because it feels like it was very important right at the beginning. When Violet is introduced, she suffers a couple injuries early on at the academy in her training, and then, other than the fact that she needs a saddle later, it's kind of never mentioned again. We get into the story, and she is doing all kinds of things that you're like, wait, shouldn't she have dislocated something? Severed her spine? Something terrible should have happened if this was such an integral part of her identity as a disabled person. And the fact that, you know, her mom pushed her into the academy despite all this pain that she was dealing with on a daily basis. And then it's like, oh, but, you know, mostly she's fine. So it felt like tokenism, like, oh, let's just throw this in. This will make her a little bit interesting at the beginning, and then it doesn't matter later, it's fine. We'll just move on from that. Right. That was my biggest critique of the book. I've also had a conversation with Bumi at one point about Welsh mythology from the editor's desk and how there was a little bit of a kerfuffle about is Rebecca Yarros or any of These other fantasy authors, are they appropriating when they take from Irish mythology or Welsh or Scottish or Norse or anything else? And it's like, well, these are people that still exist and they have their own mythologies. And is that appropriation? I don't know. Right. Or is it just we take stories that have existed forever and there's nothing new under the sun? That part didn't get under my skin at all. Possibly because I'm not Welsh. I can't speak to it. Right. But the disability representation was a little bit like, this feels like lip service rather than an actual characterization of somebody with an integral part of their identity being disabled. I gave it four and a half stars, though. I will treat it as a standalone. I don't plan to continue with the series. And people are like, oh, but the cliffhanger, it was fine with me.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, me too.

[Katie Kom]

I'm really good now at being like, I'm so good.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah, me too. I was like, I'm good. This was a perfect reading experience.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm really good now at just reading the first in a series and then being like, peace out. That was fun. And never picking it up again. It's rare for me to pick up a second in the series, so that practice over the last eight years serves me well here. I'm happy to just leave it as it lies. Fourth wing, four and a half stars. I really, really had a great time reading it, and I'm glad I finally did.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I'm so glad that you did and that you had a good experience with it. That makes me really, really happy. And, you know, certainly, yes, there are people who are big fans of the entire, you know, all three of the books that are currently out in the series.

[Katie Kom]

The Criterion universe. Yes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

But it feels to me like the majority of readers that I'm in contact with have said, you know what? The first book is great.

[Katie Kom]

Yeah, exactly.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Let's let it be that. So I'm very happy to do the same thing. But, yeah, I enjoyed this experience of having a once a year kind of sharing of books that we love with each other. And I think it's a really useful and fun thing for us to do.

[Katie Kom]

I love it. All right, so those were our assigned books. That was our deep dive. Let's scooch on over to the fountain and make some wishes.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

All right. My wish is that you would consider readers having a little bookish pet project, something small or huge that you're working on. So this could be reading through a very specific book list. Like, we've talked about. Like sometimes it's really fun to be like, the New York Times came out with their hundred best books of the 21st century. Maybe you want to work your way through that list. Or like I'm working my way through all of Agatha Christie.

[Katie Kom]

Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

That's a long, ongoing kind of book project. I also want to find my perfect Gen X poet. So it's kind of like a little quest. I like doing that. I think there's something fun about setting up a little project, a little assignment, a little quest for myself. So my wish is that you would consider whether or not that might be a fun thing to add. This is an interesting time of year for a lot of us. We look into the fall as being another kind of first of the year. Like if we were on the school calendar, for better or for worse, I still am on the school calendar. Would this be an interesting thing for you to start at the beginning of September? I don't know. Something to consider.

[Katie Kom]

I like it. There's also this time of year a lot of awards lists coming out. Yep. The booker, for example. We just had the booker long list this past week and people are like, oh, there's so many of these I want to read. Or even if it was like, okay, every year I'm going to read one of them. It doesn't have to be the winner.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Right.

[Katie Kom]

It could be just, I want to try it out. That's the literary that I'm going to dip my toe into this year. Sure. Maybe it's the women's prize. Yeah. Maybe it's the Aspen Words Literary Prize. It could be anything. Right.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

In the mystery world. You might want to read the Edgar award winner or one of the five nominated for the Hugo first Sci Fi.

[Katie Kom]

I think that'd be fun.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

So a project would be all of them that come out on the list. A little quest would be just one and just see how that works, you know, like each year I read one of the National Book Award nominees or I read one on the booker and that gives you a lot of wiggle room for choosing.

[Katie Kom]

I like it. A little side quest. Very fun. Okay, this week I am going to wish for a focus chamber. Right toward the end of last season we talked quite a bit about books I was reading about focus and attention and all kinds of things happening right. In my non reading life. Recently I decided to put cling film on the outside of my shower. Like this pretty. It looks kind of like little crystals, kind of broken glass. Ish. And it's because I used to Call my shower the terrarium. It is just straight glass on the whole entire front side. And it felt like I was on display in there. So if a kid came in and needed something, I was just right there in the open, absolutely exposed. So I put on this cling film, and the idea was that I would not be visible. But what happened is also that I can't see outside the shower, which does make me think a little bit about murder sometimes. Like, if somebody snuck in, would I be dead before I even knew what happened? But that's not what's happening. Instead, it focuses my mind in a different way because I can't see myself in the mirror, which is another weird thing about my shower. I can't see things that are on the counter that I would like to pick up later. I can't see how the towel is not folded correctly. It's like putting blinders on a horse. It lets my mind wander in the shower in a completely different way. And I don't have a seat in my shower, nor would it be comfortable to read in there. But I like the idea of this focus chamber for reading. And it could be your bedroom or it could be somewhere else in your house that's technology free and has the perfect reading setup. But the idea is to be able to really drill into what works for you as a reader and cut out those outside distractions. It's like a little idea that's been percolating in my mind. It's probably two months now.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

I like it. Yeah. I like the idea of the focus chamber. I feel like I get very close to that at night when I go to bed with my Kindle in a completely dark room. And just my Kindle. Right. Like, that is kind of the equivalent for me of being in a focus chamber because I literally can't see. I mean, I have my reading glass on, so I can't see more than 6 inches in front of my face, period. But everything else is dark except for just this book that's in front of me.

[Katie Kom]

That one light. Yeah, I like it. That puts me to sleep really fast. Like, I love reading my Kindle in bed, but I also melatonin in every book. I just go right to sleep. So it's not, like, focused reading for me.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Yeah. Right. And I just don't, for whatever reason, I can get a good 30 minutes usually out of being able to do that.

[Katie Kom]

That's laughable to me.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And 30 minutes completely focused is a lot.

[Katie Kom]

If I can make it three, I've done a good job.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Wow.

[Katie Kom]

I don't know. It's like part of the routine, right? I've brushed my teeth and I read while I'm brushing my teeth. I read while I'm washing my face. My Kindle is in front of me the whole time. Even if I'm washing my face, I can use my elbow to turn the pages. But then once I lay down and the lights are off and the sound machine is on, it's like, oh, you read four pages on your Kindle. Good night. That's it. You're clocked out for the day. Like, I can't do it. It's crazy.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Okay, all right. Well, but again, this circles all the way back to my bookish moment of the week. Know when you can do your best reading.

[Katie Kom]

Exactly.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

We all have times where we have a lot of energy and at times where we don't have much at all.

[Katie Kom]

Indeed.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

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, Meredith Monday Schwartz on Instagram and you can.

[Katie Kom]

Find me, Katie at Notes on Bookmarks on Instagram. Our show is produced and edited every week by Megan Putovong Evans. You can find her on Instagram at most of megansreads along with photos of.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

That scrumptious new baby that she's got.

[Katie Kom]

Oh my gosh.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

That's worth the Follow full show notes with 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.

[Katie Kom]

Can also follow the show and all the fun things we're doing at currentlyreading Podcast on Instagram or email us@currentlyreading podcastmail.com.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

And if you want more of this content, have we got the place for you to go? You can join us as a bookish friend on Patreon for $5 a month. I am not kidding. There is so much content there for you. You can also get a ton of bookish community and you keep this show commercial free. You can also rate and review us on Apple podcasts and shout us out on social media. Every one of those things helps us to find our perfect audience.

[Katie Kom]

Yes, Bookish friends are the best friends. Thank you for helping us grow and get closer to our goals.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Until next week, may your coffee be.

[Katie Kom]

Hot and your book be unputdownable.

[Meredith Monday Schwartz]

Happy reading, Katie.

[Katie Kom]

Happy reading, Meredith.