Jennifer (50:00)
I could go in so many different directions right now from there, but I think what I'm going to do is really, like, the whole outside world is crashing in question is one I'm very interested in. So I'm going to go to Some Kind of Famous by Ava Wilder. And in this book, which I really, really loved, Merritt Valentine. She's like a songwriter and a musician and a performer who essentially made, I don't know, four or five perfect albums, starting when she was, like, in her late teens. And I'm talking, like 16, 17, 18, and through her kind of like mid-20s. And then she burned out and flamed out in a really public way. And the thing that the. That felt really timely, especially now. Is that it? And where she is now? Now she's 35. So, like, for the past 10 years, she has been trying, yes and no. Like, trying to get her life together. And then a couple Years ago, like ended up in this small Colorado town living with her twin sister and, and her sister's husband. So it's like she eventually made her way back to family. But those years where she was in la, in the music business, she was like, you know, a beautiful young thing. She was targeted by older men. She was, you know, she made these amazing records, but she was coping with sort of the, I don't know, the. She was coping with essentially the way that she had been treated. Like, right. Trafficked in some ways. Right. They made her a star, but there was a price and the trauma of that. She was drinking, she was doing drugs. Right. And the night that she flamed out, it's clear that she had either liked that she had overdosed essentially, and that she was so close to losing her life that she kind of got scared straight in some ways. And I think the book makes a really interesting choice and one that I think is really effective to have her be like 10 years away from that moment. But she's rich. She had made these albums that still get a lot of, you know what I mean? She still has a lot of monetary comfort from that time. But the kind of inciting incident is that her sister is pregnant and is basically like, you own a house in this town. Like she bought like, you know, but you have to, you have to move into it now. But she'd not, she just hadn't been ready to be alone. So what she ends up doing, Merritt ends up hiring Nico Petrakis, who is a little younger. He's 30. He has lived in this town for like eight years. And there's a lot of tension, of course, in these like beautiful Colorado mountain ski towns between essentially like the rich people who can afford to live there and then like the working class people who make who, you know, who make everything run. And so Nico does a lot of like, you know, cunning is like a one man contractor essentially. So Merritt hires him to kind of get her house in livable order and the two of them become friends and then of course, lovers. But it's really interesting and so well done because Nico is facing essentially kind of facing the fact that like, okay, this is a job that will allow him to actually have some savings, but he's like a regular person. He means like a couple thousand dollars in the bank. And she is really aware of the fact that she has made a lot of mistakes with men. She got a really interesting diagnosis at some point that she had essentially like, you know, I mean, like a diagnosis from a therapist that ended up making her feel like garbage instead of helping her figure out how to deal with her life. And she's just really afraid that if she, like, lets herself fall in love with Nico, she will essentially, like, fixate on him and it will be really unhealthy. And she was always willing to put these men first. And at the same time, her past comes calling because her old agent wants her or manager wants her to come back to LA and work with a young singer who is like Merritt herself, wildly, wildly talented, but also young and sort of at the mercy almost of the forces that ruined her. Nico is, I think, also a really interesting character because he has, you know, suffered some heartbreak. He had an old girlfriend who, like, he's had. He's been living in the same house, but, like, there's always other renters. He's a renter, but there's always, like, people going in and out. But he's been steady there. And he had an old girlfriend who essentially, like, kind of was like, I'm interested in opening up the relationship with, like, the other, like, another man. The three of them were, like, sort of in, like, a loose relationship. But then, like, Nico got kicked back out again. So he's got this, like, tender heart, and he is really aware of the fact that, like, he doesn't have health insurance. He doesn't have, like, this is. You know what I mean? Like, all of the ways in which being essentially, like, working poor in this town means that what will his future be like? I found this book, again, to be just really thought provoking in terms of how do you. If you have led a life that Merritt's kind of ashamed of, she's ashamed of her choices. And it's not until she, like, goes back to LA that she's able to maybe put some things in perspective. And she also, like, Nico's too proud for her to be like, well, just come live in my house with me and you can stay in this town forever. And Nico, I think, has to be on a journey. Like, this is a book, and this shouldn't feel as like both of these characters are really on a journey, and they have to figure out who they are before they can be together. And that used to be something that happened all the time in every romance I ever read. But this felt, like, notable to have it be. To have Ava Wilder's interest in both of our characters and their journeys be so well, well matched, if that makes sense. So, yeah, I just really. These are people who really put themselves down, do not think that they're worthy, and Finding each other somehow gives them the ability to let go of the past. I thought it was terrific. So that's Some Kind of Famous by Ava Wilder.
