Ep 392 - 2025 Reader Resolutions!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Reading Glasses - Ep 392: 2025 Reader Resolutions!

Introduction and Overview

In the kickoff episode for 2025, hosts Brea Grant and Mallory O’Meara reflect on their reading journeys from the previous year and set the stage for their 2025 Reader Resolutions. Released on January 2, 2025, this episode delves into personal reading habits, listener feedback, and practical strategies to enhance the reading experience in the new year.

Current Reads

The episode begins with a discussion of the books both hosts are currently engaged with:

• Bria Grant shares her interest in non-fiction, specifically mentioning "Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters" by Charan Ranganath. She highlights insights about how memory retention varies based on reading environments, stating, “...you would retain different information because the location you're reading in is different, even though it's the same book.” ([00:40])

• Mallory O’Meara discusses her engagement with "The City in Glass" by Nghi Vo, describing it as an “epic” mythological fantasy that intertwines themes of love, memory, and transformation. She enthuses, “It's like Circe, but not a retelling of anything” ([02:22]).

Listener Feedback

The hosts take time to acknowledge and respond to listener feedback:

• Jessica writes in to reassure a fellow reader (referred to as a "glasser") about using library facilities, emphasizing the library's role as a community resource. Mallory summarizes Jessica's sentiment: “Reading Glasses is signaling to the city that the library is worth your tax dollars.” ([04:09])

• Morgan, a librarian, reinforces these points, advocating for the use of library restrooms and highlighting additional resources available, such as free menstrual products and first aid supplies. She encourages library patrons to “...use the restroom for whatever you need. We love when people see the library as a safe space to just exist.” ([05:24])

• Vanessa shares her struggle with a reading slump and seeks advice. Brea and Mallory recommend exploring a diverse range of books available on platforms like Libby, stressing the importance of finding books that match one's current mood. ([06:07])

Review of 2024 Reading Goals

Brea and Mallory reflect on their 2024 reading resolutions, discussing their successes and challenges:

• Bria notes a shift towards lighter and non-fiction reads, moving away from her usual apocalyptic genres. She mentions an increase in audiobook consumption, stating, “I just do it automatically.” ([11:35])

• Mallory shares a tumultuous 2024, marked by personal upheavals that disrupted her reading goals. Despite a strong start, life events led her to drastically reduce her reading pace. She acknowledges the importance of maintaining a reading habit for her mental health, saying, “I hate it... not having a regular reading habit negatively affects my mental health.” ([12:19])

StoryGraph Insights

The hosts explore their reading statistics from the StoryGraph app:

• Emotional and Dark Themes: Both Bria and Mallory find that their top reading moods are "mysterious," "emotional," and "dark," with Bria questioning, “Are all books emotional?” ([13:45])

• Pacing and Page Counts: Bria notes that 63% of her books are medium-paced and 51% have fewer than 300 pages. Mallory reflects on her similar distribution, emphasizing the prevalence of longer books (“honkers”) ([14:08]).

• Genre Preferences: Bria’s favorites are horror and science fiction, closely followed by fantasy and LGBTQ+ themes. Mallory's reading is dominated by fantasy, horror, queer books, and romance ([15:38]).

• Format and Author Demographics: Bria indicates a preference for ebooks (70%) over print and audio formats, while Mallory shares her split among print (56%), digital (31%), and audio (13%). Both highlight a significant portion of their readings by women and authors of color ([16:43], [19:21]).

2025 Reader Resolutions

Setting the stage for the new year, Bria and Mallory unveil their 2025 reading goals:

• Bria's Resolutions:

  1. Continue Using Cawpile: Bria plans to maintain her detailed reading tracking using the updated Cawpile spreadsheet, incorporating new categories like "appeal factors" and "doorways." ([28:12])
  2. Read Profession-Related Books: As a filmmaker without formal training, Bria aims to read three books related to her profession, down from her previous goal of six.
  3. Participate in the Reading Glasses Challenge: To stay motivated and diversify her reading list, Bria commits to the annual challenge that encourages stepping out of her comfort zone. ([28:35])

• Mallory's Resolutions:

  1. Set Monthly Reading Goals: Instead of annual targets, Mallory opts for flexible, monthly numerical goals to avoid end-of-year cramming and foster a sustainable reading habit. ([29:07])
  2. Enhance Audiobook Usage: Mallory intends to dedicate regular time to selecting new audiobooks through Libby, merging her leisure activities with reading. ([30:46])
  3. Read Outside the Home: She resolves to utilize outdoor spaces, such as her patio and local parks, to cultivate a more enjoyable and varied reading environment.
  4. Attend More Author Events: With a desire to reconnect with the literary community, Mallory plans to attend three author events throughout the year, particularly in her new locale, Los Angeles. ([35:09])

Listener Question and Rulings

A listener, BDL, poses a dilemma: after gifting a bookstore gift card to a high school girl, the recipient purchases "Icebreaker" by Hannah Grace, deemed inappropriate by the mother. Brea and Mallory address the issue with empathy and practical advice:

• No Liability: Both hosts affirm that BDL is not at fault for the daughter’s book choice. Mallory states, “This is not your fault” ([36:31]).
• Parental Responsibility: They emphasize that parents should guide their children’s reading choices and communicate openly about book content. Brea suggests, “Maybe include a few book recommendations” with the gift card to steer selections.
• Publishing Industry’s Role: The hosts highlight the need for clearer signaling of book content, such as a “spiciness” rating, to help readers make informed choices. Mallory notes, “I wish there was some sort of chili rating” ([43:06]).
• Personal Experiences: Sharing their own stories, Brea and Mallory relate to the complexities of navigating book content and parental expectations, reinforcing that gifting a book is generally a positive gesture.

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Bria and Mallory encourage listeners to share their own reader resolutions and engage with the podcast community. They reiterate the importance of setting achievable reading goals and maintaining a balance that supports both personal growth and mental well-being. The hosts express gratitude towards their listeners and promote their upcoming projects, including a new book and merchandise available in their store.

Notable Quotes:

• Bria Grant ([00:40]): “...you would retain different information because the location you're reading in is different, even though it's the same book.”
• Mallory O’Meara ([02:22]): “It's like Circe, but not a retelling of anything.”
• Bria Grant ([05:24]): “We love when people see the library as a safe space to just exist and to spend as much or as little time as they want without having to do or buy anything.”
• Mallory O’Meara ([12:19]): “I hate it... not having a regular reading habit negatively affects my mental health.”
• Mallory O’Meara ([35:09]): “This doesn't stress me out. It just gives me the satisfaction of like, oh, I have this thing to do.”

This episode of Reading Glasses offers a comprehensive look into the hosts' reading habits, personal growth, and strategies for a fulfilling 2025 reading experience, all while fostering a supportive community for book lovers.

Transcript

[Mallory O'Meara]

Foreign. You're listening to Reading Glasses, a show about book culture and literary life designed to help you read better. I'm author and book devourer, Mallory O'Meara.

[Bria Grant]

And I'm Bria Grant, filmmaker and e reader. This episode. Hey, it's a new year. Happy New year, everybody. We're Talking about our 2025 Reader Resolutions and how we did on 2024's plus we deliver a ruling. And if you're responsible for what someone buys from the bookstore with the gift card you gave them. And what if it's a child, a young person, and they're reading something that's a little smutty, what happens? Are you to blame?

[Mallory O'Meara]

We got thoughts. But first, Bria, what are you reading?

[Bria Grant]

I am listening to a book called why We Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to what Matters by Charan Ranganath. It is. You know, I like memory stuff and brain nonfiction and falls into that category. It's great. It's about not just like our memories, but the way our memories is. Are shaped by various things. For example, if you're reading a book here in this studio and then you went and read the same book somewhere else, you would actually retain different information because it would feel like you're reading some new stuff. And you would retain different information because the location you're reading in is different, even though it's the same book.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's bonkers.

[Bria Grant]

There's also like a lot of stuff about, like how we make decisions about, you know, you walk into the house and you don't remember where you put your keys when you walked in. And the reason for that is that you put your keys down hundreds of times in your house. And you have to go back and follow the synapses for those where you put. When you put the keys down this one time. But you aren't gonna be able to do that. Cause you put it around down a hundred times. Whereas you may be able to remember.

[Mallory O'Meara]

If you put it down somewhere weird, right?

[Bria Grant]

Or you're in a new spot, or it's something weird that you've never done in the past. Anyway. It's like, it's a lot stuff about memory, why we remember things a certain way and kind of the way our brains work, which is not simple as you can imagine. We used to think that like, oh, this one part of our brain is in charge of like this kind of memories. It's not. There's all sorts of different stuff that affects our memories and the way we remember and why we remember some Things incorrectly. It's fantastic. It's a. It's a real me kind of book. What are you reading?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, this is your first science book of the year.

[Bria Grant]

First science book of the year. I didn't think about that. Mm.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I am reading. Spoiler alert. We are still recording this in 2024.

[Bria Grant]

We are.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I was in my mad dash of 2024 books and did not finish this one. There was two books that I was in the middle of and really wanted to get to, and this is one. The City in Glass by Nghi Vo.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, I want to read that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

The Glasser author. I was really excited about this book, and it's really delivering so far. It's like. It's this, like. It feels like mythological fantasy. There's this. It starts. There's this like. Like, sort of mythological fantasy city, and there's this demon who. Who's lived there for a long time, and she's really shaped the city. She shaped the people in it. And then one day, a bunch of angels come and the entire city up, and she is. The demon is. Is devastated, and she. She swears to, like, destroy these angels. So she is trying to put the city back together, but the angels are coming back to the city, and they want to shape the new city. So it's this kind of battle to kind of to shape the city. But, of course, they start falling in love with each other.

[Bria Grant]

It's.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's just. Yeah, it really. It feels. Epic is the perfect word for it. It's like. Feels kind of historical in, like, an ancient world way. There's also, like, this epic love story of, like. And there's a lot of stuff about, like, death and memory and transformation and desire. And if you like Circe, you probably would like this. It's like that kind of energy. It's not like a retelling of anything, but it has that, like, ancient world kind of kind of vibe. I love it. I wish I could have finished it, but it's great so far. It's the City in Glass by Nevo.

[Bria Grant]

And mine is why We Remember. Unlocking Memories. Power to hold on to what Matters by Charon Ranganath.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So we want to take a moment to share some listener feedback. Jessica wrote in to say hi, Bri and Mallory. I am writing in my car after listening to episode three.

[Bria Grant]

Wow. You wrote from your car? I, like, just listened to the episode, couldn't make it inside. Wrote from the car.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Full fountain pen.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm a library assistant at my local library, and I wanted to write in about the sweet glasser who was worried about using the library.

[Bria Grant]

This is a person who goes on runs through the city and wanted to use the library bathroom and wanted to make sure that was cool to use the library bathroom even if you weren't using the library.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And across the board librarians say pee at the library. But there were a couple really good pieces of of feedback, so I put them in this episode. Jessica says Something you may not know is the library is constantly keeping stats of things you might think aren't important. One of those things is how many people come into the library on a daily basis. This may seem a bit extreme, and I'm not sure if every library in the US does this, but basically it's another way to prove to the city that the library is a resource people are using and is a good use of city tax dollars. All this is to say the glasser that's using the library in any way is helpful to the library. I I hope this helps them feel absolved of any guilt because truly, I don't believe this community could hurt the library if they tried. Thank you so much for the wonderful podcast. I've been a longtime listener and it is the highlight of my week. So every with every p you are signaling to the city that the library is worth your tax dollars. I fucking love that that is true.

[Bria Grant]

Morgan wrote in and said hello librarian here. As soon as I heard today's podcast question about peeing at the library, I knew I'd write in and affirm what you have already said. Yes, it is absolutely appropriate and welcome to to enter the library. Just use the restroom. I fully agree. There aren't enough public bathrooms in the world and we want to be a resource to the public. If anyone is still on the fence or feels guilty about it, you can remember that you are a customer of the library just by paying taxes and having a library card, assuming everyone already has one. If not, you're still welcome to pee, but please get one. My library system also has free menstrual products, first aid supplies, and even Narcan available. So please use a bathroom for whatever you need. We love when people see the library as a safe space to just exist and to spend as much or as little time as they want without having to do or buying anything. That's so lovely.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's so thank you for all the.

[Bria Grant]

Work you do to spread the love of the library. May your reading be enjoyable and may your restrooms be readily available.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Truly, nothing is better than the public library. And I will say before I Deleted all my dating apps. That was one of my things. I'm like, oh, you don't have a library card.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, no good. No good.

[Mallory O'Meara]

If you want to be my lover, you got to have a library card, man. So hot tip, folks. You want to get dates, flash that thing around. It's very impressive to people. Vanessa wrote in to say, hi, I am the library mood reader. Oh, this was the person who was having a hard time because they're a mood reader, but they use the library and every time a book came in, it wasn't the book that they wanted.

[Bria Grant]

Okay, got it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Vanessa, thank you for writing in with a name. I have gotten some good ideas with your feedback and other glassers. I am in a big reading slump in general. Thanks Election. So I will file these tips for later use. I've always had a hard time with my wheelhouse, but I realized recently that epistolary is my top wheelhouse item. Good for the challenge this year. I also love lgbtqia plus romance and vampires. Thanks for the podcast, Vanessa. Glad that we can help you. Our advice was basically check out a shitload of books.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, yeah. Check out a lot of books.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And check out that available now.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And see what's available right now, because that's going to be best for you if you want to read something that you're just in the mood for.

[Mallory O'Meara]

If you're new to the show, this is the first episode of the year you're new to reading glasses. Welcome. What we're talking about with the library is the app Libby, which most libraries in the US Use. It's one of me and Priya's daily apps. But on that app, you can sort by what ebooks and audiobooks are available now, and you can check out books and read books on Libby. So we highly recommend it. But that's what we're talking about here. If you're. You just started. Welcome, welcome. But we talk about the library a lot. I would die for the library. You can email us everything glasses podcastmail.com. if you want a list of all the books we talk about on the show, deliver to your inbox every month. You can sign up for our newsletter. There's link in the show notes. And before we dive into our 2025 Reader Resolutions, we're going to take a quick.

[Bria Grant]

Reading Glasses is brought to you in part this week by Pear Eyewear. We've all heard New Year new you a million times. Maybe you're reading a book about being a new you, how you're gonna be a new you, but why? Just stick with one version of you. Pear Eyewear has a ton of shapes and styles to match any vibe, any new you, any version of you that you want to be. You can be lots of yous. Maybe there's a you that wears red glasses. Maybe there's one that wears Disney glasses. I don't know. There's so many yous and you can keep trying new things and switch up your look at any time. Like I said, there are ton of collaborations that Pear Eyewear is doing. Disney Princesses, Mickey and Friends, Marvel, Star Wars. There's all sorts of collaborations, plus cool collections like sun tops. You can get cool sunglasses. You can get classic colors. You can get ones that sparkle. So the whole idea is that you have glasses and you can switch up the top frames that go on top so you're not wearing the same glasses every single day, which is very cool. It's a fun way to think about the new year. Maybe next year. You're like wow, I want my glasses to always match my shoes. I want my glasses to show people that I really like the NBA. They have NBA ones. That's wild. You just snap them on, snap em off. New you, new glasses. And hey, don't forget that you can use your FSA or HSA or insurance reimbursement to purchase your base frames. Base frames start at just $60 and top frames start at $25. Free shipping on US orders and free returns and exchanges within 30 days. No questions asked. And there's all sorts of frames. Don't forget you got durable acetate frames with sleek metal temple details. You can find your perfect frame with their home try on program. You all know we love a home try on program. That way you can see them, take pictures, send them to your friends, Decide which pair I wear. You like. So show off your new sides of yourself. This year. Go to Pair Eyewear.com and use code GLASSES for 15% off your first pair. And support the show by mentioning that reading glasses sent you in your post checkout survey. That's P A I R I wear.com code glasses glasses.

[Mallory O'Meara]

My name is Jordan Crucciola and I love movies.

[Bria Grant]

But you know what I might love even more?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Talking about movies and the directors, actors.

[Bria Grant]

And writers that join me every week on Feeling Seen. Love to talk about movies too, like our recent co host, the writer and director Justin Simeon.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I love the premise of your show Feeling Seen. I think that's kind of always my goal.

[Bria Grant]

When I'm making something, nothing touches my.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Heart more than when someone comes out.

[Bria Grant]

Of my movie and says, oh my.

[Mallory O'Meara]

God, I never thought I would see myself.

[Bria Grant]

So hang out with us and geek out about watching movies, making movies and the ways the movies we love speak to us directly. You might just start asking folks around you, hey, what movie character made you feel seen? We're doing it every [e-mail].

[Mallory O'Meara]

This week. Holy shit. We made it through 2024. By hooker, by crook. We got through. Happy 2025. Here's to a wonderful year of books and for us all. I know it's going to be a rough year in the U.S. but by God, for at least this year we still have books. We're going to go through our reader resolutions from last year and set some new goals for the new year. So before we get into them, Bria, how is your 2024 in reading good?

[Bria Grant]

I mean, I would say pretty normal, except like you said, there's a lot more lighter books. I read a lot lighter. I read a lot funnier last year also. I realized that's changed a lot because I started going through my backlist of like books I like from a few years ago that I've been meaning to get to and it's so many apocalyptic and post apocalyptic books. And I was like, wow, I don't really want to read any of these. Which is interesting because I'm just like not in the mood for it. So definitely I will say I in the over the past year I've moved towards things that are a little bit lighter or non fiction and that's kind of the direction I've been going in. So definitely changing as a reader. I also do way more listening than I used to. Used to. It was like, okay, Bria, you need to listen to a certain number of audiobooks a year and now it's like reading. I just do it automatically. Yeah. What about you? How was your year?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I did so good for five months. You would not even believe how good I was doing. I was making progress on all of my goals and I was feeling so good about my reading life. Oh the hubris. I was reading a ton. It was so great. And then me and my ex broke up after a really long time and then three days later one of my best friends died and my whole life, it was like the Etch A Sketch end of my life. I had to do a huge move and it was the worst, most stressful year of my life. And I said on the show before, you can literally see the week all of that happened in my story graph charts. It looks like when the Stock market failed in 1929. Like, it is so ridiculous. Like, it's like, up, up, up, plunge, and then doesn't come back up for months. And it did start to perk up by the end of the year. But it was really interesting. It taught last year, even though it was so awful, it did teach me a lot about myself as a reader. It forced me to radically let go of all of my goals and pivot to figuring out how to enjoy reading again and keep up with the show. All right, so before we get into our goals from last year, Bria, let's break out that Story Graph app and. And look at our. Look at our little apps for the the year. That's why we did them all year, was to look at these graphs. So if you're new to the show, Story Graph is a book tracking app that we love. Bri and I both really wanted to use it last year. And see, and the cool thing about Story Graph is it gives you graphs. When you track your book, you log a book. It gives you little graphs of information about them.

[Bria Grant]

Wow. I'm pulling them up. All right, here we are. My number one mood, Dark, emotional dark, and emotional are up there.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, so for my 2024 moods, my top mood is mysterious, emotional, dark. And then, like, there's a bunch of these in here, but by far is mysterious, emotional, and dark. Do you think that's true of yours?

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, and mine are dark and emotional.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But aren't all books emotional? Is not the point of a book.

[Bria Grant]

No, there's, like, cozy books aren't necessarily emotional, I guess.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I guess some nonfiction books aren't, like, the science book you're reading is probably not super emotional.

[Bria Grant]

No.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right, fair enough. All right, what about pace?

[Bria Grant]

Pace? 63% of my books are medium paced, so I'm 65. All right. All right. And then 28% are fast paced, which doesn't surprise me.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm 19, and then slow is 16. But this is one of the things on Storygraph that I. Because there were some books that I thought took a while and were medium paced. And then sometimes I would see a book that I thought was very fast paced but was also medium. So this one I kind of don't. Don't think. What about page number?

[Bria Grant]

51% of mine are less than 347% are between 300 and 500.

[Mallory O'Meara]

How about Honkers?

[Bria Grant]

How many on 1%?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Wow. My 3%.

[Bria Grant]

Wow.

[Mallory O'Meara]

My 300 to 500 are 52%. And then fewer than 300 pages is 45%. So pretty almost evenly split.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's a lot of honker. So we're gonna have to bump up those honker numbers this year.

[Bria Grant]

I don't know. I don't. I'm good.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Congress should count for extra because they're so big.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Fiction, nonfiction. What's the split?

[Bria Grant]

82% fiction. 18% nonfiction. Actually, I thought it would be more so. That's surprising. What about you?

[Mallory O'Meara]

13% nonfiction. 87% fiction, which, I mean, one of the things I wanted to do was read more nonfiction. It's not a. Not a super high number, but it's higher than it was, so I'll take it then. What about genres? What is your most popular?

[Bria Grant]

Horror is my most popular, followed pretty closely by science fiction. And then pretty closely behind that is fantasy and lgbtqia.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Mine was fantasy by, like, country fucking mile.

[Bria Grant]

Weird. Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But I think it's because I was reading, like, like, a lot of books that I wouldn't necessarily think of as fantasy, are classified as, like, Book of Love is a fantasy book, but, like, it's also literary fiction and kind of weird fiction and kind of like. So I think that I read a lot of books that were also qualified as fantasy.

[Bria Grant]

You know what I mean?

[Mallory O'Meara]

My second one is, of course, horror. Next one is Queer Books and Roman. So those were checks out.

[Bria Grant]

I think I'm looking at my Cawpile, which also does charts, and that one says horror, science fiction, and then nonfiction. Really close behind science fiction. So interesting. I think the storygraph. Maybe I've missed a few. I'm not really sure, but I'm not sure why it's different. Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

What about your format?

[Bria Grant]

I don't do format on.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, yeah, because you read all, like, all ebook and audiobooks.

[Bria Grant]

No, that's not true. Because I do. Because comics and stuff, but I just don't keep track of it on storygraph.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, I do. And mine was print 56, digital 31 and audio 13. Pretty pretty. Like, not even split, but pretty. Pretty good showing for everybody, I think. What is your most read author?

[Bria Grant]

For some reason, that one's weird too. It like, did a weird way. So I don't know. Let me look. I think my copy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I have it copy has taken over storygraphs. Copyle has given the storycraft the boot. And if you're new to the show, Cawpile refers to a spreadsheet. We did a whole episode on it last year created by a booktuber that is like a really detail intensive tracking format. But again, we did a whole episode on it. But it tracks a lot of really cool stuff. And Bria fell in love with it and is continuing to do it.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. So my most read author, which is easier to find on Cawpile, for some reason, there's only three authors. And I read more than one book from this year.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, I have four.

[Bria Grant]

Really?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Okay. Mine was Steve Niles, Nat Cassidy, and Stephen King.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Interesting. Oh, I'm surprised Stephen King wasn't higher up on the list. I know.

[Bria Grant]

Isn't that weird because I'm in a Stephen King book club. But we don't. We read Stephen King every other month.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And Steve Niles has a lot of comics.

[Bria Grant]

That's right. I read two comics, Brian.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Mine was Juno Black.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, yeah, of course.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I read three Juno Black books last year.

[Bria Grant]

Nice.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And then Glenn Duncan and Kimberly Lemming and friend of the show, Becky Clooney. Love you, Becky. All of my books were in English. And then what was your top reading month?

[Bria Grant]

November.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Mine was January.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, interesting.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I started 2024 hot again. Like, I was so fucking stoked. I was doing so good. Look it. You can literally see the week.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. Wow, that's an interesting chart.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So funny.

[Bria Grant]

What I also like, okay, can I just say about the Cawpile is that. Yeah, I still read the most in November, but it wasn't that much more than in April because I know the pages. I read the number of pages in my Cawpile. I also know the number of hours I listened to.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Whoa.

[Bria Grant]

How many for the most was November. Also? The most I listened to per month was in November, and that was 12 hours. I also know reading method. Physical versus ebook versus audiobook. 70% ebook.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. Checks out okay.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, I almost. No rereads. Did a couple book club books. And then it also does book length. We did that. Book's original language. Besides English. Japanese.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I was gonna say. You read a lot of translated Japanese books. Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Book format. Novel. And then after novel, it's nonfiction. And then graphic novel.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Huh.

[Bria Grant]

Novella, actually, I thought would be higher, but it's not how I got it. 52% of my books are from the library, 27% owned, which is actually more than I thought it'd be. And 13. 13% were ARCs. The publisher I read the most.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Tor.

[Bria Grant]

Yep. And then after that was idw.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Also, we'll put a link in the show notes if people want to, because I think I kind of want to cawpile this year.

[Bria Grant]

You should do it. It's really exciting. I love a stack. 60% of my books were from 2024.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Wow. You read a lot of new releases last year?

[Bria Grant]

I did. I did disability representation only in 16%.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Still pretty good.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, not bad. LGBTQ representation is 40. It's actually almost half. Half the books I read. 49%. And author wise, 20% of the books I read were by POC authors, 52% of the books I read were BY women and 40% BY men.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I want that life. This was the funny thing is this was me with you storygraph. I feel like I'm one year behind tracking with you. Last year you had the storygraph.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Thing, and I was like, I want that. And then I did storygraph, and now I'm like, oh, I want the cop pile. Yes.

[Bria Grant]

63% of books I read were from a new author. 35% were from returning author. I've read before. Yeah. I love this Cawpile. It's actually made by somebody else. Somebody made this, but they made it so it makes charts. It's really fun.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, It's a book YouTuber. We did a whole episode on it last year. You can Google reading glasses compiled to find it, but I'll put a link to. Actually, Bria, you can put a link in the show notes and then I will also use it.

[Bria Grant]

It's very exciting. It's very fun. If you're looking to track your reading reading. If you want those graphs. There's some more good graphs in addition to story graph, but storygraph does a great job.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, speaking of. So what were our goals from 2024 and did we meet them? What was your first one, Bria?

[Bria Grant]

I wanted to and maintain storygraph for a year, and I did it. And the question is, will I continue? I. I am finding I'm enjoying this little spreadsheet that's, like, not accessible to anybody but myself a little bit more than I'm enjoying these public social media places. But I did do that. What was your first goal?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Mine was I want to read at least five short story collections this year, and I was halfway through this before my entire life fell apart. So big fail. And you know what? I will say something that was a stumbling block for me. This is so, so real. I got to a short story collection by an author that I really like, but all the stories in it were really long.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, so not short. Not short stories.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, little beefy stories. Beef beef stories. Like, one of the short story collections was like 40 pages long, and I was like. Because I think my whole thing was I really wanted to read, like a short story before I went to bed every night. And when a short story was like 40, 50 pages, like, it wasn't. It didn't feel like a quick short story before bed. So I would put it down. And then, like, I kept not wanting to pick it up because the stories were so long. So maybe I need to find a new collection with shorter stories instead of meaty stories.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, you should have just dumped it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, I should have just dumped it, but. Well, the last year was. Was a year. All right, what was your next one to do?

[Bria Grant]

The reading glasses challenge. We release a challenge every year. And I did do it by the skin of my teeth. It was so hard for me to do the last one, which was.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I know, the holiday one.

[Bria Grant]

Do a holiday. Read a holiday book around the holiday. That was tough. But I did do it. I finally. In December. I finished it in December, but I did. It took me a year. What's your next one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I wanted to read at least two books a week. And a lot of books. I was doing that. Even more than that, actually. I was at a clip. I was near. I was three, four books a week, sometimes five. And then my life fell apart and I dropped to two a month for a bit, I think in June, the month after Scott died, I just read one of our favorite books three times. That was the only book. I read the same book over and over. And then I read one book in August. I finished one book in August, and it was a middle grade book.

[Bria Grant]

Great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But it was.

[Bria Grant]

That's what you needed to do at the time.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. And the thing was, I started a lot of books. I honestly, I started so many books that I almost want to start taking, like, keeping. Keeping track of that because I wasn't keeping track of how many books I dumped. I just, like, I would start a book and I'd be in a book slump or I'd start a book, and I just wasn't in the right headspace. So, like, I did try, but. And, you know, I taught. You know, I have to read at least or at least try to read one book a week for this show. But. Yeah. And taught me a lot about myself. All right, what is. What was your next one?

[Bria Grant]

Well, so last year, one thing we were doing was we were mapping out every. Or keeping track of all the countries, the books that we were based, like what country they took place in.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

And I wanted to keep mapping because I was actually, like, putting mine on a map and.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, yeah, it's a little scratch off map.

[Bria Grant]

You know what? I got a little. It got a little tedious. I Felt like I liked it, but it was always a challenge. If I didn't do it right away and I didn't like while I was reading a book to be like, oh, they just went to Chicago and going and writing that down. It kind of felt like it was taking me out of the books. And it just decided as something. I just was like, I don't need this in my life. It was cool, it was fun. But it felt like it was more work and not I wasn't feeling.

[Mallory O'Meara]

When it felt like you were completing a challenge, it was fun. But the honeymoon was over.

[Bria Grant]

The honeymoon was over. So I quit doing it. What is your next one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Weird thing for a nonfiction writer to say, but I wanted to read more nonfiction. And this one I actually did. I was very happy about it because I finally fucking completed something. And it felt great to get back into into nonfiction, which is funny because the next book that I'm writing is a novel. My first, my debut novel. But it was great. I read more memoirs, more histories. And I think, you know what it was, is I did a lot more driving this year.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Which really helped. So hooray. One star for Mallory. And then you didn't have any more, but I had one more. And the funny thing was, so I wanted this show to influence my reading life less. And it was very sweet. Cause all the glasses were like, read all the haunted house books you want. Read whatever you want. We don't care. We love you.

[Bria Grant]

Because you felt like you were reading stuff specifically for the show. For the show.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I was kind of like reading outside of my wheelhouse a lot because I was trying to, you know, give the classers a wider array of books. But your girl wants horror books, so. But the. So I did let the show influence my reading life a lot less. So I was successful in that way. But also, I do want to say this show is what saved my reading life last year. If I didn't have reading glasses pushing me to at least pick up a book a week, I might have gone months without reading. And I learned an interesting thing that I learned about myself is that I hate it. Like, it's good to dump books. It's good to take as much time off as you want. But I realized that I wanted to read. I learned that not having a regular reading habit negatively affects my mental health. Especially when a time when my mental health is in the toilet already. It was hard to figure out because I think it was just tough to parse out when so many other things were negatively affecting my mental Health reading really helps my anxiety and helps me sleep, like, and it lowers my screen time. I was like, there was a big chunk of time, especially, like, in August where I was just looking at my phone for hours before bed because I have a really hard time sleeping. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing? Why am I not reading? So I was really happy because if it wasn't for reading glasses being like, you have to at least try one book a week like that. Mom being like, at least try a piece of broccoli. Except this was a chocolate cake. So I think this was an overall win because I finally accepted my taste in books. And if people want other types of books, this is not the podcast for it. But also, like, we don't review books, so it doesn't ultimately matter. But also, I realized that I needed to prioritize. It was like I had to go from one extreme to another. Like, I was reading, like, it was so regimented and I was reading so much for the show. And then it all completely fell apart and I realized I need to be somewhere in the middle. Like, I have to have a regular reading habit, but it has to be the books that I want to read.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So it taught me a lot about myself. So thank you, classers, and thank you, reading Glasses. And I feel like I'm finally back on track after what's been six months. Like, I still have a little bit to go, but, like, I feel like I'm getting there.

[Bria Grant]

Great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So we're going to talk about our 2025 goals. But before that we do that, we're going to take a quick break and send your thoughts toreading glasses podcastmail.com. if you need a laugh and you're.

[Bria Grant]

On the go, try S T O P O D C A S T I. Ah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Are you trying to put the name of the podcast there? Yeah, I'm trying to spell it, but it's tricky. Let me give it a try. Okay. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, call S E O P P A D. Ah, it'll never fit. No, it will. Let me try. If you need a laugh and you're on the go, try S T O.

[Bria Grant]

P P P D C O. Oh.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We are so close. Stop podcasting yourself a podcast from MaximumFun.org if you need a laugh and you're okay, Bria, we are now in a brand spanking new year. Now let's look forward to it. What are our 2025 reader resolutions?

[Bria Grant]

I'm going to keep using my Cawpile spreadsheet and use the updated one. I found out at some point I was using, like, an old version, and there's, like, a new one, and I need to switch over to that. I also added my own categories to it. I added appeal factors and doorways and wheelhouses, and I just really enjoy the system. So I'm going to continue doing that and maybe continue the other things I do. Goodreads and storygraph, but I don't know. We're gonna see.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right. And you're. Drop the link and I'm gonna start using this. I'm gonna do it, too.

[Bria Grant]

There's a copy. I think there's A Cawpile version 5 is the newest one. So I will.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And you might have to show me how to do it.

[Bria Grant]

How to do it?

[Mallory O'Meara]

It seems so complicated.

[Bria Grant]

It's a spreadsheet. You love a spreadsheet.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, but it does. It. Does it. I don't know how to do the graphs. They automatically do it.

[Bria Grant]

You don't do the graph. So you just. But you do have to make sure.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You do, like, you input information correctly.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. So, like, it's like, you know, you need to. Yeah, it's very easy. It's just a spreadsheet. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

All right.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. What is your first reader revolution?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm nervous to make any revolution resolution. I'm nervous to make any resolutions. I was doing so good, so I feel like I'm tempting the gods. But I guess we already know it's going to be a rough year. So it. My first one is a numerical goal, but it's. And I'm not going to reveal what it is because I don't. I don't like talking about my numerical goals because I don't. If I. I want to be able to refer to if my reading speed and my reading pace without making people feel like. Like they're reading too much too. Like I like. So I'm just leaving that off. But I do have a numerical goal, but it's going to be per month instead of per year. Because I feel like doing a yearly goal sometimes ends up in me cramming in December. And my goal is to read more, not just cram at the end of the year. It's a lifestyle thing, you know? And what I'm going to do is I'm going to try it out for the first couple of months, and if it feels too low, too high, I'm going to just adjust it as I go through the year. So we're going to see.

[Bria Grant]

I have never set A numerical goal, not my whole life. And I don't know how many books I read this year.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's amazing.

[Bria Grant]

I mean, I guess my Cawpile has a track of it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh God, I wish I could be free like that.

[Bria Grant]

It does keep track of it. So I do have a sense. But, you know, sometimes I think there's ones that I read that I'm like, should this be on there? Anyway, my next one is. I think I didn't make it to the list this year for some reason, but I wanted to read six books related to my profession, which I'm a filmmaker and I didn't go to film school. And I feel like there's sometimes things that I just. Just missed out on because I haven't read that many books about filmmaking. And I liked it, but I felt like I was trudging through a few that weren't very good. So I'm gonna do it again, but I'm gonna lower it to three this time. Six. I would say three were good. And I wanna be like more choosy with the ones that I choose, but I enjoyed that aspect of it. And it's a. It's a fun reading goal, but it's also kind of a work goal.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

What's your next one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

More audiobooks. I think because I was feeling so overwhelmed last year, I wasn't. Cause I get. Get almost all of my audiobooks from Libby from the library. And because I was so overwhelmed last year, I wasn't taking the time to like browse because normally what I do is like once a month I'll like get in the tub and sit there for an hour with water. Not just dry, not like there's a tornado coming, but like taking a lovely bath and put a face mask on. And then I will browse audiobooks on Libby for like a half an hour and put a ton of stuff on hold. And then I'm like set for the next few months. And I wasn't, wasn't doing that because I was moving. Like there was just so much happening in my life last year that it made me realize that I just wasn't getting as much audiobooks as I wanted to because I like, wasn't setting myself up for them. So I want to. Want to do more of that. I'm going to make. Make sure I have my monthly tub date with the Libby holds list and. And yeah, I it. Tub date. Me, Libby. A little bit of bourbon. Some nice. One of those sheet masks that go on your face.

[Bria Grant]

Hell yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I mean, I want to do that tonight.

[Bria Grant]

Sounds great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

What's your next one?

[Bria Grant]

The reading glasses challenge. Which I know, look, I know it's a cop out because I know we're going to do it, but also it helps me to have it on my goals. And I look at it. The goals that I kind of revisit every day. Not every day. A couple times a week, which I just revisit my yearly goals every. A couple times a week. And it's just. It helps me to think about my reading list every year. It helps me get out of a rut. I like the reading glasses challenge, so I like putting that on my list. What's your next one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

It's a non numerical one. I want to read out of the house. More specifically, I have this, like, little patio at my house, and I have never sat there. It's like, cute little patio. It's got two cute little chairs and a cute little table. And I walk by it every day of my life. And I go, I should read there and promptly forget that thought. So this year I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna. There's a cute little park near my house. I'm gonna go there. I'm gonna read on my patio more. I still haven't figured out my local bar at my new place, but I. Once I find it, I'm gonna be reading there too. I just like, I need to get back to leaving the house for fun instead of. Of just for meetings and work stuff. Like, well, you know what? I. I've been leaving. I leave the house a lot for work stuff or for errands or like, I go to stuff with friends. Is very rarely. I'm just leaving the house for myself.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, sure.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You know, and I want to do more of that because every time I go read outside, I'm like, this is the greatest thing I've ever done. And then I proceed to not do it again for like a year. Like, I went and read it in the park that one. That one time. Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

You're still talking about it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. That was like, I dream about it at night, but have I gone back? No. So. But I think that's. That's why these challenges and these goals are really good because they give you that little boost that you need.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And we're the kind of people. Like, this doesn't stress me out. It just gives me like, it gives me the satisfaction of like, oh, I have this thing to do and I have an excuse now because it's on a list of things that I made up that matter to nobody but me. But it really helps. So, like, just giving that push sometimes gives me the permission, I think, to, like, sit outside for a little bit and read. What's your next one? Your last one?

[Bria Grant]

My last one is a couple pals and I, a very small group of people, four of us, are starting a graphic novel club.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, that's right.

[Bria Grant]

Where we're gonna meet once a month, read a graphic novel. It's kind of an excuse to hang out with some friends who I feel like we've all gotten kind of busy and we do creative stuff together a lot, but we're all kind of doing creative stuff outside, like, not as much with each other as we used to. And I like reading graphic novels. They do, too. And we're gonna meet. It may expand to more than four people, but right now it's just a very small group. Exclusive, exclusive group. Four people group. And four colors. Four people, four colors.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Isn't that what, like, was it like a comic thing for a while? It's like Four Colors something.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, yeah. Is that right?

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Anyway, so that's what. I'm gonna start that and do that. Do that through the year and see how it goes.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That's fun.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. What's your last one?

[Mallory O'Meara]

This sounds weird, but I want to go to more author events. I think it's one of those things that, like, since I became an author, I kind of stopped going to author events because I do so many of them.

[Bria Grant]

Sure.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So. But it's silly because I love going to see authors. But I think it's like, maybe, like, when you're a baker, you don't, like, go to bakeries and eat bread, or maybe you do, I don't know. But for me, it's just like, it became such a work thing and associated with work that I want to get back to what I love about, like, I love seeing authors in conversation with each other. I love seeing talks. So I'm going to keep. And now that I'm back in la, I want to keep an eye on Skylight books and the ripped bodice.

[Bria Grant]

And how many do you want to go to?

[Mallory O'Meara]

I don't know. Maybe. Maybe I'll set a real low bar. And I want to go to three this year.

[Bria Grant]

I think that's great.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Sometimes setting a number I think really helps.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. And I. Yeah. I mean, I love Skylight. There's a ton of. LA is so rich in good bookstores.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So it's really about just, like, you know, getting on those bookstore newsletters and keeping an eye on things. And yeah, also having friends to go with is fun. I have a friend, my friend Diana Biller. I'm one of my favorite historical romance authors. Like, she loves to go to the rip bodice too. So I was like, oh, I just need, like, a friend to be like, let's go do this thing.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So very fun. All right. Those are our 2025 Reader Resolutions. This year we're actually going to do a mid year check in, which I think I love that. I'm very excited about it.

[Bria Grant]

Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So please write in, tell us what your reader resolutions are. We'd love to know. Send them to reading glasses podcastmail.com now let's solve a bookish problem from one of our listeners. BDL writes in to say, Dear Reading Glasses, recently I was invited to a high school girl's birthday party by her mother. I purchased her a bookstore gift card because she is a reader. The book the daughter bought is Icebreaker by Hannah Grace. The mother is blaming me because her daughter bought an inappropriate book. Therefore, I turn to you to make a ruling of who is liable. God, I live for this. Immediately cut to Brie and I in wigs and robes. We have a gavel made out of a book. For some reason I love Bria. Is BDL liable for the purchase of this smutty novel?

[Bria Grant]

No, of course not. This is wild. By the way, I went and read about a lot of parents who've had concerns over the COVID of this book and apparently keeps getting shelves in kids sections. So, oops.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This is.

[Bria Grant]

You're not the only person who's ended up in this situation. First of all, I mean, look, I'm in no place to say. I don't know how old this daughter is.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So she's high school. She's got to be between 14 and 18.

[Bria Grant]

And I don't know where her maturity level is either, but she was mature enough to pick her own book. And I think that her in any situation, she obviously was able to go to the bookstore alone. Her mom didn't take her, so I think she's mature enough to pick her own book. I think. I can't say whether or not she's mature. I'm not gonna make that kind of judgment. I'm just gonna say this is not your fault. This is not your fault. And if you are a parent who's concerned about the maturity level of the books that your child is reading, then the parent should be the person to investigate. You don't know what this daughter's gonna use this, this, this for now should the bookshore make sure that people know, like, hey, there's some stuff in this that you like. Maybe not. Is not right for this. A certain age group, maybe. Maybe they need to let people know. But it's definitely not your fault. It's not the fault of the person who gave the gift card because all you knew is they were. She was gonna buy a book.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

But you didn't.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You didn't hand the gift card to her with a big wink.

[Bria Grant]

Like, the one thing as I say you could do is offer to have a discussion with the daughter about the book and make sure she understands what happens.

[Mallory O'Meara]

This person has not even read this book. It's no like.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, right. I guess that's right. I don't think the mother also is going to like that anyway. I think the mother has to do that now. And yes, this is maybe unfortunate if this person is. This is way above their maturity level. This is an unfortunate thing that happened. But I think that you'll get. The daughter will get through it. I think everyone's going to get through it. But this is not your fault. It's just this would. I think a gift card is a good gift. And obviously this is what the daughter wanted to read. So maybe she probably.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Honestly, the daughter probably saw this on Booktok.

[Bria Grant]

Probably saw it on Booktok and. And probably has already been exposed to porn before this. But I can't say that for sure. And I don't want to make that judgment because I don't have kids. I don't know what it's like to have a teenage daughter.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes. That being said, I have so many opinions about this. Okay, okay, first off, I agree. Yes. You are absolutely not liable. Jesus Christ. That would be like if you gave somebody a restaurant gift card and they like, the restaurant had something in it that, like. And they accidentally put gluten and then.

[Bria Grant]

I got food poisoning.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, this is your fault. Like, no, you're.

[Bria Grant]

What? Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Okay. Not liable at all. But also, second, these situations are always wild to me because how did the mom find out? When I was a teenager, I would have rather walked into traffic than tell my mother that I was reading something spicy. Well, hopefully your daughter water bore that information out of me.

[Bria Grant]

Hopefully the daughter told the mom and they have a relationship where she can go like, hey, there's something happening in this book and I don't totally understand it. Or it's not something I've been exposed to. Can I talk to you about it? Like, hopefully they have that relationship. That would be fantastic.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But if that's what I feel like a mother. A person who has a relationship with their kid that is open and honest enough that they can have those conversations. It seems strange that a mother like that would then get mad at someone for giving them a gift.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, it seems a little weird.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Like, those two things don't seem to match up to me. Again, folks, we don't have fucking kids. Please don't come for us. But. But second thing, if anything, sorry.

[Bria Grant]

It seems like the bookstore should not shelve these with.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Well, that's another thing. But also, take this with a bucket of salt. I am not a parent, but kids see all kinds of wild stuff on the Internet now. I cannot imagine how difficult it is to be a parent in a teenager right now. I did. I don't think I used the Internet until I was a teen. Like, I can't imagine.

[Bria Grant]

Mallory, you want to hear something wild? The Internet was, like, not available until I was a teenager. There was no Internet until I was a teenager. I'm that old where, like, we had a house computer when I turned 14 or 15.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Weird dusty thing on a card table in the corner.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, but it was like the. That existed. I mean, this was the mid-90s, so it's like you couldn't even access anything. You could get in, like, chat rooms.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

And that was kind of it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, it was.

[Bria Grant]

There was nothing.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yahoo. Chat rooms, baby.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, that's right.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But, yeah, but again, as a. I was reading romance novels when I was a teenager. Again, you could not torture that information out of me to tell my mother or any of anybody, any adult in my life. But I. I don't know, like, I would rather. Teens. This is so spicy. But as a kid who was coming up, who was growing up when Internet porn started, and also as a teen who read a lot of romance novels, the. The weird stuff that, like, affected me. Me was not the I was reading in the romance novels. It was the stuff I was seeing on weird websites.

[Bria Grant]

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But again, weird.

[Bria Grant]

That was a real wild, wild west of like. I mean. Yeah. That stuff wasn't even around when I was a teenager.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

And the Internet was too slow. If you wanted to download boobs, it would take you, like, so long. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

You get one nipple.

[Bria Grant]

You get a nipple after an hour.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And like, one nip per hour, baby.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. I mean, I think either way, look, it's not like our place to pass.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

We're not judgment.

[Mallory O'Meara]

We're not parents. People constantly are emailing us, being like, is this okay for a kid? We can't tell you that that is a parent.

[Bria Grant]

Kids are a different age.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Like, yeah, that is a parents call to me.

[Bria Grant]

Old, in some cases, way more mature than other 15. You know, I mean, it's just. It's gonna be different.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So that being said, as my own personal opinion as a teenager who was becoming a teenager, I think I was. God, how old was I the first time I saw Internet porn? I don't know, maybe 16 or 17, maybe 18. Again, the stuff that, like, really, like, affected, like, the view of my body or the view of what sex is was not in the weird romance novels I was reading. It was in. In. In that. In that stuff. That being said, this is why I have a problem with. With the illustrated covers of a lot of romance novels. Because we were talking about this at a business meeting before this, and we. That. That this book came up, and if you look at the COVID it looks. It does not look like a muddy book.

[Bria Grant]

It does. The COVID is pretty misleading. If it's smutty, I don't know what the book is inside the book. I don't know how smutty it is.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I haven't read. I own it. I haven't read it yet. I do think there's a weird scene with like, a tampon or something. Oh, I don't know. But again, I do think that I wish there was, like, a spicy rating, because what's funny is that I think a lot of readers want this, like, because we. People write into the show all the time asking for the spiciness rating of books. So I think a lot of people would love to know, like, what's the. Is it an open door? Is it a closed door? Is it spicy? Is it kinky? What's happening?

[Bria Grant]

But the same. And this is what I said at lunch is that Emily Henry books have this kind of COVID though.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

And those can be pretty spicy.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. Like, how spicy? How many. Out of five chilies? How many chilies?

[Bria Grant]

Um, five.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Wow.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Slapping and sliding.

[Bria Grant]

Slapping and sliding.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, my God. I didn't know that.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, am I wrong? It's been a minute. I mean, actually, no, it's not been a minute. I read maybe four. Maybe I'll say four chilies. It's not. There's definitely nothing.

[Mallory O'Meara]

But no sliding.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, there's definitely, like, not. Okay. I'm gonna say four, because in erotica, obviously there's, like, a lot more descriptions, I would say. Okay. But the COVID of Red, White and Royal Blue is quite.

[Mallory O'Meara]

That looks like a YA Book.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah, for sure it does. And that is, I would say, spicy. I think that's. I would say that's a four or five.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah. I mean, like, I think the covers are cute, but I do wish there was some sort of chili rating, some sort of something that publishers could do to just signify. And not even just again for teens, but for people who. There's a lot of people who don't want to read sex on the page but love romance. So there. I think it would behoove the publishing industry, the romance industry in particular, to figure out some sort of spicy slap and slide and Raiden. Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

Because I'm here for all of the range.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yes.

[Bria Grant]

And really cute covers.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I want it because I want the spicy books.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

I'm looking for those. For those five chili books.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And you would never pick up a book with this cute of a cover thinking that's what you're gonna get. No.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And you know what's really funny? This is the funniest part about question is that I have been holding off on this book because I didn't think it was spicy. I've owned this book for a while and now I'm like, I gotta bump it up on my tbr. Ultimately, this is all a tangent, though. Again, you are very not responsible for this. But I do think, again, the publishing industry should. Should have some sort of indication. But I, you know, I think this is a. This is a parent problem. And I think giving a child or giving a teen a bookstore gift card is a great gift for a teen. Oh, my God. I still love getting bookstore gift cards.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. And I think if in the future you're worried about this, maybe with the gift card you can include a few book recommendations you have or something. But also, this teen is gonna buy what the teen wants. The teen is gonna buy what she wants. And this isn't really on you.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Can I tell one one more? I know this episode's running so long, but I do have a story about this because this kind of happened to me when I was a kid. Not with.

[Bria Grant]

I think I know the story, but.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Please, not with a romance novel, but with a. I'm trying. I think it was the care and keeping of you. I think that's what it was. It was like. So when I was a kid, my. One of my parents took me to the Discovery Channel store.

[Bria Grant]

Yes.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Does anyone remember this? At the mall, of course. Which now somebody's probably living in an apartment. And the only book I could find that was in the store was this book about I. Oh, it was called the period book. I think that's what it was called, the period book. It was, like, for. For young period having folks and. Yes, the period book. Oh, my God. It's still around. It's still in print. Oh, my God. This is, like, seared into my brain. But I was way too young for this. I didn't even have my period yet. I was like, nine.

[Bria Grant]

Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Maybe eight or nine.

[Bria Grant]

Okay.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I. Of course, I like, it blew my mind. I had never. I didn't even know what a period was, and I didn't know what genital. I didn't know what anything was. And. And then I do. What you do when you have something like that is. I brought this. Brought it to school, and I let one of my friends borrow it because she was really interested in it. And then she brought it home, and her mom caught her trying to put in a tampon.

[Bria Grant]

Oh, no.

[Mallory O'Meara]

So it was a whole big deal. I got in trouble. My mom got in trouble, and it was so. It was really embarrassing at the time. And I wish. Obviously I was 8, so I didn't know what the fuck was happening. But I, like, the principal, like, yelled at me for it. But ultimately, this is one of those hard things where, like, ultimately, no one's really in the wrong.

[Bria Grant]

No. Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

It just forces you to have some conversations. And I think, honestly, if we had to pick anybody who's culpable for this, it's the publishing industry for not figuring out a way to signify that there's a lot of sex in these books.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah.

[Mallory O'Meara]

And I think that they should figure that out, especially with, like, romance is so huge right now. But I wouldn't worry too much if I was this mom. I. Look at me. I grew up on romance novels, and I'm mostly fine.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I mean, I'm sorry. Hopefully this doesn't get in the way of your friendship.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh, God. Yeah.

[Bria Grant]

And I think you can, of course, say, like, so sorry. I did not know that would be a possibility. But I don't think you need to feel bad about this.

[Mallory O'Meara]

No. You were completely absolved. We're doing the little book priest thing. You are totally absolved of all book guilt on this. This is not your fault, and we're sorry this happened again. It's one of those just weird situations where, like. Like, it just is a. I hope this kid is fine.

[Bria Grant]

If you gave the kid a. A gift certificate to, like, a store, and they bought. And they bought a shirt, an inappropriate shirt or something. It's not it's you. You did not know that was going to be that.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Unless you're giving a kid, a teenager a gift card to the smut store. Like I think if, if someone gave it a teen. Honestly even the ripped bodice has a lot of ya stuff. So like unless you're going to like getting a gift card to Dildos R Us, you're not reliable.

[Bria Grant]

Speaking of mall stores, dispensers.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Oh spe is DZ is Spencer's still around?

[Bria Grant]

I know randomly. I was in a mall in Hawaii a couple years ago and there was a Spencer's and I was like wow. And I went in there and it's exactly what you remember it.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Yeah, I mean without Spencer's where are bachelorettes gonna get penis shaped straws?

[Bria Grant]

That's where it is. They're shawl's still in there.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Wow, a relic. Okay, we went on so long on this but big opinions. Again if you're a parent write in and if you have a parent who or like an aunt or something, someone who is in a relationship to a teen, write in and let us know. But again please don't get mad at us. We do not like this is ultimately it's all this is a call for parents. So if you want us to give a bookish ruling or solve your reader problem, you can send it to reading glasses podcastmail.com as always want to thank the wonderful mods who run our Facebook group. And remember there's all kinds of fun merch in our void merch store. New year New bookish stuff. Get a get a cute little bookish tote to put your. I don't know. What do people do in the new year? New books, New new journals.

[Bria Grant]

Yeah. Oh my God.

[Mallory O'Meara]

People should be pre ordering our book.

[Bria Grant]

Oh my God.

[Mallory O'Meara]

Pre order the reading glasses book. There's a link in the show notes. Please, please, please. It comes out next month and if you like the show please rate and review us on the podcast listening app of your choice. It is so great for us and helps us reach more readers. You can email us@reading glassespodcastmail.com find us on Instagram at Reading Glasses Podcast. Thanks for listening and thanks for reading. Maximum Fun. A worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by.