Why We’re Just Watching Lior Torenberg

Summary

Totally Booked with Zibby

Episode: "Why We’re Just Watching Lior Torenberg"

Host: Zibby Owens
Guest: Liora Torenberg, author of Just Watch Me
Date: February 4, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Zibby Owens sits down with debut author Liora Torenberg to discuss her novel Just Watch Me, a creative and timely exploration of internet culture, livestreaming, and the costs of sharing your personal life online. The conversation spans the origins of the book, its innovative structure, the complexities of family and digital identity, and the surprising role of hot peppers. Through wit and candor, they highlight the joys and anxieties of both writing and living in a hyper-public, always-on world.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Book Introduction and Structure

• Zibby is captivated by the book’s unique storytelling:

  • Each chapter begins with the protagonist’s follower count on a fictional streaming platform, paralleling her tumultuous real life.
  • The format is described as “intoxicating and refreshingly creative.”

  "I found it refreshingly creative and the writing of course was great, but the format was so intoxicating I just loved it."
  — Zibby Owens (04:07)

• Liora describes Just Watch Me:

  • Follows Del Danvers, a struggling misfit whose sister is in a coma.
  • Del begins livestreaming her life to raise money for her sister’s care, adding hot pepper-eating stunts to grow her audience.
  • The online attention brings both opportunity (mentorship by a streamer called “Hotpot”) and danger (entanglement with a manipulative top donor).
  • The novel explores the tension between online persona and real-life responsibility.

  "She is ignoring her mom like the plague, lying to her mom... and that arc develops and changes and does become a bit of a subplot throughout the book."
  — Liora Torenberg (08:23)

2. The Anxiety of Watching and Wanting to Help

• Zibby commiserates with Del’s self-sabotage and the reader’s desire to help:

  "You’re left being like, oh, my gosh, like stop… do you feel like that? Like just wanting to help her out?"
  — Zibby Owens (07:06)

• Liora responds:

  • Del is written to be difficult and combative when cornered.
  • The author admits to intentionally heightening Del’s issues for dramatic effect, with the ethos of eventually helping her “dig herself out.”

  "She does not make it easier on herself, for sure."
  — Liora Torenberg (07:38)

3. Family Dynamics and Escapism

• The complex triangle between Del, her mother, and her sister Daisy (who’s in the hospital).
  • Del uses livestreaming as both a coping mechanism and an avoidance tool, creating a world where she’s in control versus the painful reality of her family’s situation.

  "By live streaming 24/7, she never has to leave that bubble."
  — Liora Torenberg (08:23)

• Multimedia narrative uses instant messages, unanswered texts, and voicemails to mimic the noise of modern life.

4. Authenticity, Parasocial Relationships, and Online Boundaries

• Discussion of how constant sharing—especially during the pandemic—has blurred lines between public and private life.
• Liora reflects on how livestreaming culture and the “content economy” exploit vulnerability and crises:

  "The better you are as a content creator, the more demand you create, the consumer on the other end becomes insatiable... that balance of sharing everything and what you get to withhold... is central to the plot."
  — Liora Torenberg (10:03)

• Zibby and Liora swap stories about feeling self-conscious and awkward when sharing online, drawing humor from their own discomfort with digital performance.

  "My kids made me delete everything I put on TikTok because it was so cringe inducing."
  — Zibby Owens (12:36)

5. Hot Peppers: A Real-Life Obsession

• Liora’s personal history with spicy food forms the book’s quirky through-line.
  • Entered childhood pepper-eating contests; attends the world record hot pepper competition annually.
  • Writes about what she knows, adding humor and specificity.

  "For the last eight years I've been going to the world record competition every year, which is in New York. And the climax of the book takes place there."
  — Liora Torenberg (17:31)

6. Creative Process and Writing Journey

• The novel was inspired by a desire to return to the “play” of writing after a difficult, overworked previous project.
• Drafting Just Watch Me felt smooth and playful; Del’s distinctive voice guided the narrative.

  "I wrote to entertain myself. And I think around even early, like draft two or three, her voice was just so strong that it became very much a matter of just watching her interact with the world."
  — Liora Torenberg (18:45)

• Liora’s background:
  • Immigrated to the U.S. from Israel as a child, found solace and confidence in reading/writing English.
  • MFA from NYU, with several shelved novels before her debut.

7. Current Events and Personal Challenges

• Liora shares candidly about releasing a book during global conflict, with her family still in Israel:

  "It's a nightmare. There's not a lot to say... All of my family's in Israel... constant worry."
  — Liora Torenberg (22:19)

• Notes the separation between her personal reality and the escapism in Just Watch Me; her current work-in-progress addresses heavier topics.

8. Reading Tastes and Influence

• Liora reads widely—fantasy, Gothic, contemporary, and ARCs (advance reader copies).

  "I really just have a very varied taste with books, with TV, with movies. I just consume everything. I love it. I love to be entertained."
  — Liora Torenberg (23:51)

9. Writing Advice

• The importance of keeping joy at the center of writing:

  "If it's not fun, then what's the point? ... Keeping those things in balance. For me it's keeping the joy in the center."
  — Liora Torenberg (26:08)

• Balancing playfulness with the discipline to finish projects.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Del’s character and anxiety:

  "She, like, means well, but getting in her own way, and you’re left being like, oh, my gosh, like stop."
  — Zibby Owens (07:06)

• On the perils of parasocial fandom:

  "Her top donor... thinks he deserves a certain level of access to her. And Del is not one for de-escalation."
  — Liora Torenberg (05:27)

• On the risks and rewards of sharing online:

  "What do you keep for yourself? What do you give and what do you keep? And what do you lose in that process?"
  — Liora Torenberg (10:03)

• On hot pepper competitions:

  "I've been going to the world record competition every year, which is in New York. And the climax of the book takes place there."
  — Liora Torenberg (17:31)

• On the creative process:

  "Really this was getting back to play in writing for me and feeling joyful... There’s not a ton of myself in here. Del could not be more different from me."
  — Liora Torenberg (18:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Book premise and structure: 05:27 – 07:05
• Del’s character, anxiety, and family dynamics: 07:06 – 09:39
• On research, streaming culture, and online performance: 10:03 – 13:45
• Hot pepper stories and using real-life interests in fiction: 14:03 – 18:13
• Writing process, background, and MFA journey: 18:45 – 22:12
• Coping with current events/Israel: 22:12 – 23:13
• Reading tastes and humor: 23:14 – 24:22
• Stomach issues, NYC apartments, and embedding real struggles into fiction: 24:23 – 25:51
• Writing advice and creative joy: 26:04 – 27:26

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Conclusion

Zibby concludes by expressing her admiration for Liora’s unique voice and Just Watch Me’s inventiveness. Liora’s blend of humor, candor, and creative risk-taking runs throughout both the conversation and the novel, making this a must-listen for anyone interested in how our digital lives shape fiction—and vice versa.

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For more on the episode and to connect with Zibby, visit zibbymedia.com or @totallybookedwithzibby on Instagram.

Transcript

[Zibby Owens]

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[Zibby Owens]

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[Zibby Owens]

Zibby here.

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I loved Leora Torenberg's novel. It's called Just Watch Me. It is so creative. Each chapter. Well, we talk about this in the episode, but each chapter talks about how many followers she has on this particular streaming YouTube esque app and tracks the development of this pursuit along with her own life, which is sort of in disarray. And I found it refreshingly creative and the writing of course was great, but the format was so intoxicating I just loved it.

Liora Torenberg's debut novel, Just Watch Me.

Was published in January 26th in the US, UK and Germany.

Her writing has been published by One Story, Mayday, December Magazine and others, and she received her MFA in Creative Writing from New York University and is a.

Member of the Lighthouse Book Project. Go check it out. And by the way, I know you can't see it here, but the COVID is awesome. Well, you can see it in the show notes and all that, but it's just very creative. Lior welcome to Totally Booked. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm so excited to talk to you. I have been avoiding hot sauce ever since reading it. I've been looking at my plants in a new way. Anyway, congratulations on the book. Thanks for coming on.

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's really exciting to be here.

[Zibby Owens]

Tell listeners what your book is about.

[Liora Torenberg]

Sure. So my book, Just Watched Me follows Del Danvers, who is a bit of a charismatic misfit, and she is at the end of her rope. She has been fired from her minimum wage job. She is behind on rent. She thinks she's developing an ulcer. And perhaps most central to the book is that her little sister Daisy is in the hospital in a coma, and the doctors want to take her off of life support. Adele and her mom want to put Daisy on private life support, but of course, that costs a lot of money. So under all of these different pressures, and honestly, because she is bored, Del decides to start a live stream to raise money. And she's finding that when she's talking about Daisy, her viewers become very interested and they're even donating some money. So then when she adds on hot pepper eating on top of that, her viewership kind of starts to skyrocket and she starts to think, maybe I can raise more than just my rent. Maybe I can actually help my sister. And a bit of a celebrity streamer in the space named Hotpot takes her under his wing and mentors her. And her viewer count goes up even more. But at the same time, another for viewers who she, who might have a bit of a parasocial relationship with her, starts to demand more and more of her. He's her top donor and he thinks he deserves a certain level of access to her. And Del is not one for de escalation. So of course she makes everything 100 times worse. But as her digital life gets more and more stressful and as the stakes get higher and higher, she does have to finally deal with what her online presence is ignoring and face her real life.

[Zibby Owens]

Wow.

Well, I love. It was just so creative, this whole and. And almost subversive the way that. That Del talks about work. And just like all of life, like, everything becomes complicated, whether it's dealing with her neighbor or her rent or her, like, just everything. She, like, means well. I feel like she means well, but getting in her own way, and you're left being like, oh, my gosh, like, stop. Like, do you feel like that? Like, kind of like anxiety, feeling like just wanting to help her out?

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah. And I feel a little bit of responsibility as the writer, because, of course, I'm just getting her in more and more trouble, and I did. She has to dig herself out. And of course I'm there to help her dig herself out. But no. And I do think it's part of her personality. And she's so different from me, but she is someone that. Almost like a dog, like an injured animal, if she is in a corner, she is going to fight, like she's going to bite. So there's. She does not make it easier on herself, for sure.

[Zibby Owens]

You also write about her relationship with her mom, who is also caretaking her sister, which is such a complicated time and relationship and a very vulnerable sort of moment for the family. Talk a little bit about that and the sort of triangle of relationships there.

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Yeah.

[Liora Torenberg]

So at the time of the book, Del and her mom are not fully estranged, per se, but it's clear that Del has been avoiding contact with her mom. And there is just this elephant in the room and this subtext to all of their conversations that Del can't stand, which is, your sister might die or is on her deathbed, or we have to look at gravestones, or we have to do this and you have to visit her. And Del is in this full denial mode where she has created this online space in her live stream where it is her own world and everyone sees her exactly. And only how she wants to be seen. And she controls every element of that life. And by live streaming 24 7, she never has to leave that bubble. So she is ignoring her mom like the plague, lying to her mom. Her mom is, in turn, of course, worried about her. And that arc develops and changes and does become a bit of a subplot throughout the book. For sure. I'm fond of her mom. Even though she doesn't have a lot of screen time. I think it's outsized.

[Zibby Owens]

She could get one of those supporting character nominations. You're like, oh, who knew?

[Liora Torenberg]

And it's part of kind of the multimedia of it all, because her livestream is a constant barrage of instant messages. And then there's a lot of voicemails and texts from her mom that often go unanswered.

[Zibby Owens]

Yes.

Which is how we live these days. Right. It seems like everything is. Even if we're not always putting it out there, it can feel as though we are all being watched at every moment because everything we all do is very public. It seems like there's, like, nothing to hide. Do you. Do you feel like that? And did you have to do research with streamers? Getting this vibe of 24. 7 streaming.

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah. Well, I mean, I wrote this book and I started writing it in 2021, really deep in the pandemic. And it was more a case of writing towards what I wanted to know because I'm not an online person by nature. And I do think people became much more online during those years, me included. And Twitch has always existed. Twitch is a live streaming platform that live cast is based off of in the book. But it did blow up during the pandemic. And specifically a category on Twitch called Just Hanging, where you see people truly going about their day, folding their laundry, going to the gym, and they're just taking a camera with them. And I really became fascinated by both sides of the equation there. Both the person streaming every second of every day, even if it's not a live stream, even if it's a few hours, and the person on the other end who in theory wants the company or the entertainment. And it struck me as very lonely and it struck me as also very unique to that time. But I think it has only escalated more and more, even if someone's not live streaming their every day. I think the way we've seen the content creator economy develop is this idea that your worst moments, your most vulnerable moments, the worst things that happen to you are the content of virality. And if you're having a bad day and you're crying, you think, okay, let me get my camera, let me put this online. And then I think the question for Dell becomes, what do you keep for yourself? What do you give and what do you keep? And what do you lose in that process? Because in theory, the better you are as a content creator, the more demand you create, the consumer on the other end becomes insatiable. Like, they will take more and more whatever you have to give. And so that balance of sharing everything and what you get to withhold, which Adele grapples with a lot, is I think, central to the plot. And I hope I answered your question. I think I forgot it now.

[Zibby Owens]

No, that's. I mean, that was super interesting. I was asking if you went on and tried a service. Did you go on Twitch or anything?

[Liora Torenberg]

No, I mean, now. Now that we're in the most more boring side of things, like bringing the book into the world, not really boring and being facetious, but demands an entirely different skill set. I'm trying to be more online, so I think you're very good at it. I could learn like you, but, you know, even. Even the little that I am sharing is really just out of my comfort zone. And I had a friend tell me like, oh, don't worry, the first hundred reels you post or the first hundred things you post are going to feel weird. And that I think made me feel worse. But I'm crying.

[Zibby Owens]

I mean, I think the trick is just finding what's right for you. Like I. My kids made me delete everything I put on TikTok because it was so cringe inducing. They were like, this is so embarrassing. You cannot have this on. And they will like make fun of me being like, does Elle Evans know that? And I'm like, stop, just stop. So anyway, you know, yeah, I would.

[Liora Torenberg]

Love to have a 16 year old edit my, my content before I put it out or however old your kids.

[Zibby Owens]

Are, you would like any of them to, to run it, you know, by you. That would actually be kind of funny. Well, anyway, if it doesn't feel natural to you, like I'm just not going to dance. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm not dancing in front. Nobody wants to watch me dance. And so, I don't know, you know.

[Liora Torenberg]

No dancing on my end. I'm thinking of doing some like behind the scenes content about the, my writing process and things like that. And you know, I think if I have fun making it, maybe people will have fun watching it. That's been my, my M.O. for writing and it's definitely true for just watch me like I was cracking myself up while I wrote it and hopefully people crack up while reading it. So yeah, I think coming. I have a good internal radar if something feels right or not and you.

[Zibby Owens]

Can do something really funny. Like you could do something that people haven't done right and that's what captures attention anyway. Like just do something cool. All you need is like a caption. I don't know. I think it's fun to experiment every so often. So I don't know, just try something totally new and people like that, I think. Or at least you'll like it. You know, something fun.

[Liora Torenberg]

I've already been asked a couple times to eat peppers while answering questions, so there's a few of those videos online.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh my gosh. Yeah, don't. You don't have to eat any peppers right now.

[Liora Torenberg]

No, I don't have any with me. But yeah, I don't mind it. I love hot peppers and it's. That's something I actually have a lot of experience about with and I think being able to put that in the book brought so much specificity and maybe give people insight into a really rich world.

[Zibby Owens]

Why, why do you have so much experience with hot pepper.

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[Liora Torenberg]

I just love them. I. I think ever since I was in elementary school, I've loved spicy food. And I remember a state fair or school fair, like some small fair in my county that they had a hot pepper eating competition. I entered it and I was probably in fifth grade and I didn't win, but it was really fun and I was better than a lot of the older people and that gave me confidence. And then I think for the last eight years I've been going to the world record competition every year, which is in New York. And the climax of the book take place there. And shows like Hot Ones have really popped off and it's become much more mainstream.

[Zibby Owens]

You just never know which interests end up differentiating you and causing entire books to be written.

[Liora Torenberg]

For sure you don't like spicy food.

[Zibby Owens]

I do not like spicy food. I never ever.

No.

[Liora Torenberg]

Maybe some black pepper on your food?

[Zibby Owens]

Not even. I. I ask for, like cacio e Pepe without the pepe. So I'm that boring.

It's true.

Tell me a little bit more about writing the book and coming up with this idea. I love how creative it is with the number of followers, like being tracked each chapter. That was really awesome. How did you come up with everything and when did you know this was a really good idea?

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah, I don't know if it was necessarily that clean. I feel like a lot of what I write is a direct response to the last thing I wrote. And the book I wrote before Just Watch Me was a bit of a Frankenstein in the end. I think I had been to through 13 or 14 drafts and I wrote it while I was doing my mfa. So my skill level from when I started it to when I ended it was just so different and it became very messy. And I really struggled with that book and it was very good and me and my agent got in touch around it. But ultimately I just couldn't look at it anymore and it was driving me crazy. And I said, I want to work on something new. So really this was getting back to play in writing for me and feeling joyful and going back to what writing was before MFAs. And before all these structured learning environments of just self expression. There's not a ton of myself in here. Del could not be more different from me. I don't even think I'd like her very much in person, which I think a lot of people would probably say. But smaller elements like, or, you know, not so small, but settings, the hot pepper of it all, even her stomach issues, some of that is from real life. And I wrote to entertain myself. And I think around even early, like draft two or three, her voice was just so strong that it became very much a matter of just watching her interact with the world and knowing how insane the Internet is, just thinking what. What viewers would say, what they would demand, and watching that escalate. So it was a very smooth writing process, much smoother than anything else I've ever written and probably anything else I'll ever write before. I think just because Dell was smart, so sure of what she wanted.

[Zibby Owens]

Love that. So take me back a little bit. Like, where did you grow up and when did you know you wanted to be a writer? What else did you want to do? All that stuff.

[Liora Torenberg]

Oh, wow. Okay. So I moved to America from Israel when I was three and I was in the ESL program in school because we just spoke. We were at home growing up. So once I entered school, I did a couple years of ESL to catch up. And I think that writing and reading were really a way for me into the world, a way for me to start engaging and interacting in a real way. And that door never closed, and I'm so grateful for it. And some early again, some early wins. It's like these things happen when you're a kid and you think, oh, I'm good at this. And then you just hold on for dear life. Like winning a Mother's Day poetry contest in second grade and a little Veterans Day essay contest in fifth grade and just feeling like, I am good at this. I'm just going to do this. And I think I just made up my mind. And I never stopped writing. But I did have this moment of sanity when I was applying to schools to undergrad, of wanting to do something a bit more practical. So I didn't study English in undergrad, but it wouldn't. I was writing books in my own time, and I finally decided to do an mfa, but my thought was, I'll just apply to the top programs that I want and probably won't get in. So I'll just apply every few years and maybe one day I'll get in. And I got in My first year, so I was like, oh, shit, I actually have to take this leap. So I did my mfa and no, I do think it was just a matter of writing every day. And I do think I got my 10,000 hours in a bit early because of that, which is nice. But again, I've written probably five or six books at this point. Just Watch Me is the one I'm debuting with, obviously. But there has been a lot of trial and error. Wow.

[Zibby Owens]

How is life, having come from Israel, given everything that's going on in the world and having a book come out now and all of that?

[Liora Torenberg]

It's a nightmare. There's not a lot to say. I'm glad that things have settled a bit now. I'm hoping to be able to visit Israel, but of course there's constant cognitive dissonance and constant worry. I think ultimately we agree, like, everyone in the world just wants to be able to live their life and be with the people they love and have a normal life. And so all of my family's in Israel. My mom, my siblings and I used to visit every year, but I haven't been since 2022. And this book could not also be more separate from that reality. But I am working on another book that I started in 2023, right after the war broke out that is historical fiction, and it does delve a little bit more into those questions. Yeah, but Just Watch Me was written before the war and it's just lives in the world where all that matters is Mademoiselle Dell's livestream. It's very, very separate.

[Zibby Owens]

Love it.

Amazing.

What types of books do you like to read? Because I feel like you have a really unique and funny sense of humor. You know, this sort of like dry wit and situational comedy and all of that. Like, what are some. What do you like to read?

[Liora Torenberg]

I read a little bit of everything. And thank you for saying that. I'm not entirely sure if it's my humor on the page or Del's humor. I'm like someone that's funny three years after you've known me. It takes me a really long time to be fully myself around people, but I've been told at that three year mark, I start being funny.

[Zibby Owens]

You're funny on the page, so that's all that matters to me.

[Liora Torenberg]

I read all over the place. I just read Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson and Rebecca by Daphne de Morney. And I am currently reading the Wedding People and just finished Murder Bimbo, which is an arc, an advanced copy it's coming out in February. It's incredible. By Rebecca Novak. So, yeah, I really just have a very varied taste with books, with tv, with movies. I just consume everything. I love it. I love to be entertained.

[Zibby Owens]

Same.

Go back for one second to the stomach issues. Talk to me about that because I felt so bad for Del and just wanted to be like, stop doing that. Go to the doctor. Eat it.

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah, I have like a. Just a classic Ashkenazi Jewish stomach, which we have found out is gluten intolerance. Found that out in 2021. Before then I was like, okay, eating just makes me really sick. But yeah, now it's all. It's all good now I just, I have a much more boring diet. But yeah, putting that type of pain in Dell's day to day, that stomach pain. Eating hot peppers is definitely not the first thing you want to do if you think you have a stomach ulcer. So the ulcer was also a bit of. Or the potential ulcer is also a bit of a ticking clock that adds tension. New York City is also not an amazing place to be if you need to go to the bathroom. Unpredictably, there's an innate tension in that. And to add on top of it, Dell lives in a studio apartment that does not have a bathroom and that exists. I worked in property management for nearly six years and I've seen all the horrible apartments and I have seen that apartment. I don't know if I could still find the listing, but it genuinely said in the description, there's a 24 hour gym downstairs. And I never forgot that.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my gosh. I love how her neighbor, like, comes over and is just like, laughing. He's like, oh, you're right. You really, you really had your, like, entire apartment built out of my closet. That's pretty funny. So.

[Liora Torenberg]

Oh, yeah. I once lived in a studio that was split up into three, three rooms. Oh, my God, such an illegal apartment. There's all kinds of wacky stu going on in New York and I'm sure other places.

[Zibby Owens]

Oh, my goodness. And so what advice would you have for aspiring authors?

[Liora Torenberg]

Yeah, advice is tricky. I think that it, of course, depends who you are. But for me, really getting back in touch with the play of writing because I love working and I love checking things off lists and I make plans and I follow them. And so sitting down to write is not a problem for me, but I don't want it to turn into pure labor. There has to be joy there. And when I have this feeling like this hasn't been fun in a while. That is a red alert for me that I need to revisit my process in some way. Because all of this did come from just being a kid and being able to both escape and take part through reading and writing. Both things in equal measure. Like being able to have a safe haven away from the world, but also to be able to enter it and grow empathy and understand people better. And if it's not fun, then what's the point? You know, we're not martyrs. It has to be playful. And so I, I think keeping those things in balance and if you're on the other side of things and if you just like to write when you have that initial inspiration, which can pretty reliably get me through like 20, 30,000 work page words before it needs to have some part of work in it. So if you're that person that only likes the play, maybe get in touch with some of the work parts of it as well. But for me it's keeping the joy in the center.

[Zibby Owens]

Amazing. Well Lior, it was so nice to meet you. Thank you so much. I hope to meet you in real life. And congrats on your book.

[Liora Torenberg]

Thank you so much. Zibby. It was great to chat with you.

[Zibby Owens]

You too. All right, take care.

[Liora Torenberg]

You too.

[Zibby Owens]

Okay, bye.

Thank you for listening to Totally Booked with Zibby, formerly Moms don't have Time to Read Books. If you loved the show, tell a friend, leave a review, Follow me on Instagram, Instagram, ibbeowens and spread the word. Thanks so much. Oh and buy the books.

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