Mostly Fictional
Ep. 71: Pam's Spontaneous Summerween Reading!
Pam takes part in a Summerween readathon and Hallie couldn't find anywhere quiet to read on a cruise (but still managed to read).
Books mentioned, in order:
Glassworks by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith
Bloom by Delilah S. Dawson
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
Earthflown by Frances Wren
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire
Stand and Defend by Sloane St. James
Moonbound by Robin Sloan
A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston
A Shape in the Dark: Living and Dying with Brown Bears by Bjorn Dihle
Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution by Cat Bohannon
Find Pam and Hallie online!
Follow Hallie’s Substack at wordsmithreads.substack.com
Pam can be found on Youtube and Bookstagram at @pams_inkheart
- Duration:
- 1h 3m
- Broadcast on:
- 17 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Mostly Fictional, a podcast about the books of yesterday, today, and tomorrow. My name is Pam and I'm Haley. And last week, our lovely listeners, we had that special episode. So this week we now have two weeks of reading updates to offer up to you. I, on my hand, had a rollercoaster of reading. I impulsively joined a week-long read-a-thon that has come and gone. And almost all of my library holds became available at the same time. - Did you read all of the library holds at the same time? I have two in my position that I have not read. One, I don't think I'm gonna read. One, I probably will read. And then one more to pick up. - So it was like a spontaneous luck of the Libby, like I did back in March. - It very much was. - It was very spontaneous and very wild gamut of different things, but the things I have read, I've been pretty good with. But I wanna hear about you. How did your couple of weeks of reading go? - I had a pretty good couple of weeks of reading. I was on a cruise just recently, and I did some reading on the cruise, though not as much as I thought I would, because it was quiet anywhere, because the belt was 100% booked. So there were people everywhere, amazing, that there are people. I was like, "Where are these people? "Why are they here?" And then nevermind the fact that I am there also. So I did do some reading, but not as much as I thought I would do, but I do still have six books to report today from my two weeks of reading. - That is fantastic. I have four to report, so we'll be able to do a nice back and forth. Okay, do you have like a particular order that you wanna share them in, or is there like, what was like the, we could start the low point and go up, or you can do them in that particular order? - Oh, I always just list them in my notes as the order I finished them, because that's how my brain works. So I'll just start there. The last episode, sorry, two episodes ago, I guess. Two episodes ago, I talked about that I was reading Glass Works by Olivia Wolfgang Smith, which was the random book that I picked up from the library. And so I finished this. And I ultimately liked it more, especially than I thought I would, just as like a random library choice. I had some quibbles with it. I do think this is a good, so the premise of it is it follows kind of four generations of Glass Workers. Every someone in every family works with Glass in some capacity, either they wash windows, or they blow Glass, or they, do you remember what someone else does, or they like work with stained glass windows? That's why it's called Glass Works. And it kind of follows this little B heirloom. There's a B on the cover of the book. And I don't know, something about it just never quite clicked with me. I really liked the first three generations. I think I would have liked to see more overlap, 'cause the problem was I would like fall in love with the characters, and then we would go to the next generation, and then I wouldn't get to see those characters anymore because they were estranged from their parents, or didn't get along with their parents, or never called their parents. I'm like, but I just liked them, so that was my, I was like, I don't wanna lose them, I just, I just fell in love with them. So that was my personal quibble of like, you can't make me fall in love with a character, and then be like, okay, nevermind, you're not gonna see them again for the next 200 pages. - Oh, yeah, that's so heartbreaking. - I know, but I did ultimately like the book, and I think if you're someone who likes family stories, generational stories, this is like a fun kind of under-the-radar one that I've never heard of. - Wow, okay. So was this one that you finished before you left for the cruise? - I think I, oh gosh, when did I finish this? - Oh, it's okay. Time is a vortex. I feel like I maybe finished it on the plane. I honestly can't remember. - Okay, all right. Well, the first one I finished, fit in with some of the prompts that was for this little impulsive readathon that I joined. It was Summerween, which is, yeah, for our listeners who baby haven't heard of Summerween, it's a portmanteau of Summer and Halloween, and it's all in the spirit of bringing the Halloween speed times to Summer. And it's hosted by Gabby Reads on BookTube, but she hosts a lot of the stuff on Instagram as well. She had different prompts and challenge thingies to accomplish throughout the week. I posted two of the Instagram challenges and then completely forgot 'cause I ignore Instagram most of the time, but I had fun accomplishing the reading actual bookish prompts for the readathon. So the first book I finished fit three of the prompts, actually, so. - Wow. - I read "Bloom" by Delana Estossen. This is a tiny little horror book that I hauled recently, and it has incredible summer atmosphere. And so that's one reason it fit three of the prompts. One of the prompts was to read a book in the dark, and I read this in bed while it was dark out, which does count enough for the prompt. It's horror, which was the second prompt, read a horror or thriller book. And this fit prompt number five that was read a book that takes place in the summer. This is set in summer, June is mentioned, or summer is mentioned, I think, or like we're between academic years, so summer. Oh, yeah, it was a spooky book, but it's spooky in the sense of just like, oh, something is wrong, but you don't quite know what yet. And I would describe this as an obsessive romance that turns horrific and just horrific in the sense of just horror. So the quick blurb of this is that Rosemary meets Ash at a farmer's market, and they quickly become very attracted to each other, and it just goes dark at some point. I felt both like love and annoyance at different points. I loved the vivid similes through this book, so like the descriptions where it's like, oh, she was like water in the summer, I don't know, you know? But then they were just abundant, there was like almost too many of them. I then loved Rosemary's like discovery of her attraction to women, but some of her descriptions where she contrasts this relationship with a woman, with her past relationships with men, and like really paints all men as horrible. In making my notes and like reflecting on all this, like as much as I didn't like those things, it did show how naive Rosemary was to the signs that Ash is not all that she seems, dot dot dot. And I don't know if you ever watched Bojack Horseman, but there was a quote in there that was like, when you wear rose colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags, that was this book. So I guessed the particular flavor of horror pretty early on, which definitely added to the creep factor of like, oh, when is this gonna be revealed? But it didn't add up to the surprise factor, 'cause well, I figured it out, but part of this book reminded me of an old campfire horror story that kept me up until 4 a.m. when I was 13. So that also added to the creep factor. I was just, ooh, heavy GPs. I, it was hard to fall asleep after finishing this. I would certainly recommend this for those who like slow, steady, descends into horror, even though this is just a 200 page novella. This managed that slow descent into horror so well that once you got to the uh-oh moment with Rosemary, like she gets to that moment too, it was just too late. You couldn't crawl back up the slide, like you're down, you're done. So that's the first book I finished and the first of three books that I have to mention in relation to the summer ween read a thought. - I do think it's funny that both of their names are nature names. - Yes, that's true. - Rosemary as like the herb, herb, yes, and then ash, like an ash tree. - That's a good point. - Are there other names in the book? - Yes, there are other people, but like one of the only names I can think of right now is like Millie and Eric. - So, yeah, I don't know of any trees named Eric. - Could you imagine? - This is my, this is my Eric tree right next to my apple tree. - But yeah, there's a lot of vivid food description and I had noticed, I spotted on one of the first pages, the dedication has a little cupcake. And it's just so cute. Where the author says, "For my beloved daughter Reese, "a brilliant artist and baker who requested it. "Thank you for the inspiration and the cupcakes." And it was only after seeing the cupcakes in the book and seeing that particular drawing with cupcake, there's a tiny cupcake on the cover right behind the person's shoulder there. - Oh, that's really sweet. Whoa, when you then know where, when you then know more about those cupcakes, it's less sweet. This is horror, so I will put it, I will leave it at night. - Okay, that's fair. But definitely was a very cool little cup of detail that once I spotted it, I was like, "Oh man, "who ever made this cover?" Hold on, it's usually, she says it back here. Designed by Julia Lloyd, good job Julia Lloyd. I love excellent cover design. So that was my first book. - Awesome. My second book, I did read entirely on the boat and I don't know if that, like I said, there wasn't like a ton of quiet time, so that maybe like added to my reading experience if not being great of this book. I like kept getting interrupted, so I didn't have like a big long stretch. I also read it on my Kindle and I feel like I maybe would have had a different, and I will tell you the book in a second, I feel like I maybe would have had a different experience had I read it physically on the page because it did win the booker a handful of years ago. Not that it, not that like the booker is, you know, oh, if it wins the booker, it has to be a good book, but, you know, the booker is not nothing. It's enough people were like, yes, this is a good book, let's give it a prize. So this is, I'm sorry, I just lost my notes. Oh, and I actually went out in order, but we'll go with this one anyway, 'cause it was one I was talking about, "The God of Small Things" by Arundhati Roy, and it's kind of a family story, I read she had a little interview at the end of her book, where she talks, she was like, it was like a Q and A, and she said something to the interviewer where she starts at the end, and she ends in the middle. So she kind of, 'cause there's like two different story lines, it's like leading up to this event, and then what happens after this event, but she basically starts after the event, and then ends just before the, it's very confusing. It's even more confusing, sane and out loud, but I was especially confused as I was reading because there's no timelines, there's no like date at the top of the page or anything of like October, or even the year that we're in. So I had, half the time I was like, are we before the thing has happened? And then it would be like, you know, so-and-so was walking down the street, and then she remembered, and then okay, now we're back the 20 years prior. So I could never entirely place where I was in the story. That said, I may have enjoyed this more had I read it on the page, because I didn't, you know, I could have been like, oh yeah, this has happened then, or I could have like drawn a timeline, and been like, this happened, then this happened, because I do think it was, we try not to say interesting. I do think it was like a fascinating tale. She kind of spirals in and out of, you know, that's actually a unique structure of, okay, I'm gonna start here, and I'm gonna end here. That's unique and original. It does kind of feel like it exists outside of time, because no times are ever mentioned. - Like not even a month or a season. - It might have mentioned month at one point, like it's just hot, it's said in India, it's just like hot all the time. And it like rains, it rains and it's hot. So I'm like, I don't know, I don't know India weather either. So I have no, you know, if that was, if it was hot or rain in California, I have an idea of, okay, it's probably not December if it's hot outside, and if it's raining, you know, it's most likely not July, like, but I have no reference for India weather of what's normal for them, which, you know, note to my own ignorance, but anyway, all this to say, I do think this is probably a good book. It just wasn't for me personally, is the takeaway. - Yeah, that's really fair. Okay, well, jumping on things that were for me, my next book, that was definitely meant for me, but had just like missed a little bit on some, I think some descriptors that we're not going with. - I did indeed finish Earth flown by Francis Ren and illustrated by an artist who goes by Littarnas online. You encouraged me to pick this up right away, and I thank you for it, because I think if I hadn't picked it up right away, it might've just sat in the shell for a long time. - And you were still looking forward to it. - I was looking forward to it. You were, you very clearly were biased toward that one. - Yep, yep. I love that you can hear the bias through the internet. This was a gift from my friend. The Blurb at the Top says it's a blend of sci-fi, fantasy and crime war. Yep, it does hit all those points. I really liked the characters and their interpersonal issues and connections, but more so when they were talking more about like mundane things than the bigger plot that was going on here, the book really lost me with some of those bigger world implications and like the conspiratorial talk. Like the, you wouldn't understand, it's for your own good, this is bigger than all of us kind of stuff. I was capital L lost, like case in point, the prologue is a murder framed as an overdose. And by the end, I was still confused on the why. Why was this person picked? What was the message they were trying to send? The motive of that murder was never made clear for me. I was confused. And then as we got to the big climax near the end, it really felt like they were just gonna leave us hanging, like waiting for some kind of sequel. And at the end, it does just say something like, oh, the story will continue in like a companion of some kind. I don't remember where it says that, but it says it somewhere. - So it's okay that it ends on a cliffhanger if it's promising potentially another book. - Maybe, so hold on, I'm at the end. There we go. Amanda makes, okay. Although Earthlone is written as a standalone, there is an in-universe sequel coming. Be the first to know via our quiet newsletter at, and then the newsletter for this book, I guess. So I guess there's gonna be more, but like this is meant to be saving on itself. I did like figure out the comparison I was trying to figure out. I do hate to compare books to movies sometimes, but they are both storytelling formats, so it makes sense. So do you know the like those movies that end on like a tense note where you can feel like a character is just looking into the camera and just thinking or saying this isn't over? That kind of ending, that's what it was. And one character specifically, it felt like his purpose was to point out something's not right here, specifically with the murder framed as an overdose, like he was very caught up on that, and like he is a journalist, so that he has that curiosity to keep digging and following that feeling. He had enough detail to make him three-dimensional, but it also just felt like that was his purpose for the book, was to be with the audience to be like, "Hey, what's going on? This is not right." And his chapters had a lot of the world building in it too, which was really cool. You have characters who have the like typical superpowers of being able to create fire, being able to heal, being able to bend water, telekinesis, and then there's also whatever referred to as empaths, which are people who can sense other people's emotions and project their emotion onto another person or like manipulate emotions. So like they're deemed like really like, "Oh God, what do we do if we have one of these people in our family kind of thing?" So there were definitely a lot of interesting social implications, and a lot of the talk about this, one of these characters is an empath, and it's kept secret from the world. Like nobody knows, only-- - Understand, totally. - Yeah, exactly. And so a lot of the discussions about keeping it secret felt very much we're hiding the queer person in the family, which was interesting allegory. But this author is non-binary and has included all kinds of other queer characters in this book, so it certainly wasn't meant to be in a negative light. I just, it was fun to catch that little allegory there. And I definitely felt a lot of fun like picking it up each time. You then just had a slight character twist at the end where like one character decides to do something very, very stupid. And then another character comes in to take the blame for the very stupid thing. And it's just like, we were building up to this tense climax, and now it's all, oh, anyway, so I felt some frustration toward the ending, but it definitely was very fun, a fun time. And that's what I want out of a book. I wanna be entertained. And I certainly was. I did laugh out loud a few times throughout this book 'cause the characters had some funny things. And even partway through the book, I should move my sticky note to here. There's like a family relations, family friendship tree. I think I'm gonna call it because it shows a few of the high power families in this world and how they're connected. And I keep missing it as I'm flipping back through. There it is. And they illustrated it as like pipes and stuff because this is a futuristic London where water levels have just totally risen up. And so they had to keep building more and more levels above London to like keep an alternate version of private rights by Julia Armfield. - Yes, that's what I was trying to remember. I was like, Haley just read a book where there was like, - Oh my God. - I was a water. What was it? It was private rights. I have like object permanence issues sometimes. So the fact that earth film was in my hands is all I could think about. I couldn't think about what it was yet read. So thank you, yes. So this is more of a sci-fi crime war section of that. Like, oh, so this family relation connections, friendships thing was definitely very helpful to flip back through be like, okay, cool. That name sounds familiar. Okay, cool. Where are you in the map? And how are you connected? But basically we get to know a lot of the middle part of this graph, not so much the edges. So I think that's where I got lost in some of the like higher implications of the story that just didn't make sense to me. So I still really liked it. I think I want to follow the author and see what else they have cooking in their little brain. And success, just slight let down on the ending, I think. - Yeah, that was gonna be my question of, did you like it enough to read this potential companion? - I think I would love to read the potential companion because if it follows similar enough characters to here, I think that could be really fun. 'Cause and just the world's really interesting. Like to have, they author definitely did a great job of integrating characters with these powers into a way, into a world and like how it actually would be reflected. Like if you have somebody who's born a healer, they're kind of just destined to become a doctor, right? Like what else are you gonna do if you're given this incredible power to heal people and you don't become a doctor? - Become a lawyer. - Exactly. And then there's like all kinds of technology things to like suppress certain things. So like if you are a fire starter, you get put, you had suppressors put on when you go into an airplane. So you don't blow up the plane. - Either intentionally or unintentionally. - Yeah. So I definitely love those little aspects of the world building that was really fun. And it definitely makes me want to explore more of what this author has coming. If whenever it does come, 'cause I think this is their first book and they I think published it first independently. And then I think indigo. So Canada's version of Barnes and Nobles published this particular edition to like promote it. And we'll see what else comes down the pipeline from this author. - Yeah. - Cool. - Yeah. - It was cool. Okay, my next one, the reason I got confused is because both of these have the God of in the title which I didn't plan. It just happened that way. So the one before was the God of Small Things. This one is The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. - I think I've heard of that. - It just came out in early July. It's getting a lot of buzz. Okay. I think, do you know how sometimes you go into books and you're like, I'm not gonna read what it's about because I know I read it when it was about at one point and I put it on hold. And so that's what I did. I was like, I'm just, everyone's talking about this book. I know I put it on hold at one point. I know I looked at what it was about at one point. And so I just kind of went in not remembering. - Not remembering. - Just went in. And I think that ultimately messed me up because I think I went in expecting it to be a little more literary fiction and it's more solidly, oh God. I can't remember now. We even looked at the difference between suspense and thriller and mystery. - Oh no. - One of those. It's one of those. I think it's a thriller. And it's about a missing person and there's kind of two timelines happening. So the story revolves around this young girl, young woman, she's like 13 or 14 named Barbara who is at this like 1970s summer camp and her that her family owns the land and then they like employ a lot of the people who work for the summer camp and her family has like a big cabin that's like up away from the summer camp. And she's always wanted to go to the summer camp but she's been like a problem child. And so she gets to go to the summer camp and she goes missing. Oh, that's how the book opens is that she's not in her bed, she's missing. And then we learned that Barbara had, I guess it would technically be her older brother. Her older brother also went missing like 14 years ago before she was born on this same patch of land. - Oh, I'm feeling so tense from that. - So you're like, oh, what is happening? Like is something, what's a foot basically? So you're kind of pivoting around a few different point of views. You're going between Alice, who's the mom, Tracy, who is Barbara's roommate, this woman Judy, who's like this first female police detective on the force who's been brought in to investigate. Barbara's disappearance. And then we're going back in time to see what happened with the younger, he was young when he disappeared, which is what I think of him. He was like eight when he disappeared. The younger older brother, it's very confusing. What happened with him and so there's these like multiple timelines happening. I was never confused. I knew where we were in the timeline, which is better than it was for the God of small things. But I will say that this is a, it's a really fun thriller and a fun mystery. And I do appreciate that if you pay close enough attention, I did not, but if you pay close enough attention, you can figure out all of the things pretty much. There's like one thing that you probably wouldn't, but everything else you could probably be like, hey, didn't they say such and such? And then if you remember that for a hundred pages, you'd be like, oh, I was right. Like there's enough things that come together, which I actually do appreciate because then it feels like you as the reader are participating in the mystery rather than being like, surprise, here's the thing that you never would have guessed because it happened offscreen of her that's character that you never met. And you're like, where did that come from? - So I, the only reason I didn't, I'm not like raving about this one is one, I went in with like kind of wrong expectations. And two, because I went in with the expectation that it would be a little more literary and it was more thriller, I felt that the chapters do that thing where they end on like a super cliffhanger. - Yes. - But they're like two pages and it's like a cliffhanger. And then it switches to a different perspective. I'm like, it's already thriller enough. Like you don't need to, you can just stay here. It's, the plot itself is propulsive, okay? You don't need to throw on extra gas. So I started to get a little annoyed with that. But for the most part, I would say this is very entertaining. I enjoyed the read, even though like I said, I got a little bit annoyed with that. - Yeah. - Little quibbles. But yeah, that's the God of the Woods by Liz Moore. I do think it's like a good fun. It's like a perfect summer read, 'cause it's set in the summer. - Yeah. - It's kind of a thriller. I don't know if I would say that it's beachy, but it's definitely a good summer read. - So I wanted to Google again real quick, suspense versus thriller. And a website called firstediting.com says that suspense is about building tension and what may happen while a thriller is more of a push and pull between the hero and the villain protagonist and antagonist with an established conflict. - It's more the first than the second. - Yeah. - So, but then also like it truly has like this mystery aspect with these people who have gone missing. And that's what good reads tags it as first. It's a mystery. - Yeah, okay, I would say it's mostly a mystery 'cause you're like, where did Barbara go? - Where did her brother go? - Yeah, what's happening at this summer camp? What's going on with that family? Something's fishy. Yeah, that's, I would say it's most firmly a mystery. Okay, all right. Well, then that's, it has now been neatly categorized, even though it is a book and it can fit in many categories, but we've put it in a box for now. And it was a box that was edging enough for you, but the wrong expectations skewed things. And that happens. I think it's happened to both of us at least a couple of times this year. Oh, I also did the thing where I read a description once, forgot about it, then finally picked up the book. I read, this is Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Shawna McGuire. This fit two of the Summerween prompts. It's horror adjacent, so it kind of fits that prompt. And one of the prompts was to read a book with a title that is five words or longer, because it was the fifth year of doing Summerween and Down Among the Sticks and Bones is a six word title. So, fit that prompt. This is a sequel prequel sort of to Every Heart of Doorway, which is a series, which is a start of the series that is set at Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children. It's a portal fantasy series about these kids who go to another world, like they just go through a portal, they go through a door into this other magical world, and then they can't cope when they come back home to our reality. So they end up at Eleanor West's home. Down Among the Sticks and Bones specifically follows a set of twins we met in the first book, and they were so much fun. And I'm so glad we got a whole book dedicated to those twins. And the audiobook, which I grabbed along to read along physically with, the audiobook was read by the author. I thought that was very cool, I didn't know that. - So wait, is it a sequel or is it a prequel? - Okay, it is the second book in a series, but it happens before. - But you said it's twins that you meet in the first. - Yes, and then this is what happened to them before you meet them in the first book. - Oh, okay, so it is a prequel. - It is a prequel, but it's the sequel 'cause it's the second and the second. - So it does that thing. - Yep, sorry, I did not do a good job explaining that. But yeah, in this series, the books alternate between Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children and the worlds that these kids traveled to. And that's just something I know about this series from people who've read it and loved it. I knew that this book would not feature the Home for Wayward Children, but I'm still kind of hoping that we get a little peek at the end. Like I thought that I was hoping for, but no, that was not what this point of this was. And they're like little novellas. They're not going to hold a whole lot because they just, they can't. With a limited number of pages, they got to get the plot going, they got to get the character development there and things move. I am tempted to get book three like soon. And when I say soon, that could be anywhere from two weeks from now to two months from now, who knows? My library has the whole series of today, which I think is really fun. And my last thing I think I want to say for gentlemen, sticks and bones is that I doggyered exactly one page and I'm going to go find what it was. Ah yes, so a lot of this book is talking about how the twins had expectations put on them by their parents and that those, these twin girls just can't feel they're like going to live up to those expectations because they're just put on, like they're not expected to do anything outside of the boxes their parents have put them in. And it was just such a sweet sentence or like a thought that like the sentiment that children are their own people no matter what. And the sentence at the top here says the troubles with, nope, the trouble with denying children the freedom to be themselves, with forcing them into an idea of what they should be, not allowing them to choose their own past is that all too often the one drawing the design knows nothing of the desires of their model. Children are not formless clay to be shaped according to the sculptor's win, nor are they blank but identical dolls waiting to be slipped into the mode that suits them best. Ah, so there was definitely a lot of like, ignoring your expectations and choosing what you want in this book. And I really like that. And I hope that that's the thing. We do get more of in the series and I'm excited to return to Eleanor West's home in the next book. That's how the series will flip-flop between books. So down among the six and bones, great title. Don't know how accurate I would say it is 'cause we had some sticks and we had some bones but I wouldn't say if we were down and among them. - Does this connect to any of her other, I know her other two series that you're reading that connect? Does this one, is this like in the Shawna Maguire universe? - I don't think so. I think it is its own totally separate thing of series of novellas following these Weyward children and I think it's totally separate from middle game and over the Woodrow Wall. I think those are, so their own contained thing and The Weyward Children is its own thing. - Okay. - Yeah. - Okay, so my next one, I haven't had one of these in a while but I had one of those romance books that has one purpose, okay? So I'm not gonna, I don't have a lot to say on this one but I will say, I know that the, I'm also not really on Instagram but I know one of the big like romance tropes on Instagram are the hockey books. - Have you heard of the hockey books? - I've heard of the hockey books. One of the booktubers I followed just did a vlog entirely about hockey romance books. - Yeah, which is shocking to me, honestly, that there's a whole such incredible, really that's incredible. So this is a hockey book. It's the only hockey book that I've read. It's the fourth in a series of hockey books that are apparently like multiple different people on the team get there, which I appreciate. It's like, okay, here's a couple. Here's this, so this is the fourth in the series. It might be like, why did you choose that one, Haley? I did not, my husband was like, the internet says, read this. So now you have that information. So this one is called "Stand and Defend" by, oh gosh, I don't wanna get the name wrong. I believe it's Simone St. James. - Oh boy. - I've just Googled it. It says, the good read says Sloan St. James, but there is an author named Simone St. James. - Oh gosh. - You're not entirely. - And she's also a romance writer, I believe, that I think I've read something by her. - That I don't remember, but. - Anyway, then it's Sloan. Apologies, Sloan and Simone that I mixed you up. Okay, so this one has so much, I'm just gonna say romance. We're gonna be PG on here. It has so much romance that, at multiple points, I was like, when are we gonna see the hockey? How is this a hockey book? There's like two scenes where he's on the rink, or he's always coming from practice, or going to practice, but we never, I'm like, or he's like, at the game, or they're playing for this, I was like, where's the hockey? Where, and a lot of it, that's not the, like there's hockey and then there's like, there's a, sorry, there's like the two scenes of hockey, it's mostly romance, and then there's this like whole plot where the girl is like plotting revenge against her admittedly terrible ex-fiancé, who was like abusive, so he gets what's coming to him. But there's, that's like a major part of the, I was like, this is not a hockey book. It's a hockey book and that the guy plays the NHL. Anyway, it was entertaining. Okay, it was certainly entertaining. That's really, it was, it's, that's really all I have to say. I mean, it's, he's, he's the very much like the picturesque, like he's a bad boy, and he, you know. But he's strong and soft on the inside. A womanizer, and he, you know, he never goes with the same woman twice, but then he meets her, and oh, now she's the only one that she wants, and oh, he can't stand anyone looking at her, and he's so sweet, romantic, and who knew? And I'm like, okay, we get it, we get it. This is like, you're the perfect book, boyfriend. I, you live in a book, that's right. I get it. It was, like I said, it was very entertaining, and it very much like fit perfectly in the genre. So I knew, I knew what I was getting into when I picked it up. It wasn't like I was like, what is this book gonna be, but is it gonna be a spy? Now have I, had I gone in being like, I wanna read a book about revenge, or if I'd gone in and like, I wanna read a book about hockey, I might have been let down, but I knew that I was picking up romance, and it, it's, it's, it's, it's high steam. Okay, don't, no, no, what you're getting into if you are picking this up, it is not, not for the faint of heart, okay? - Yeah. - No, the good read subscription says, please check triggers before reading. - Yup, it's one of those. - Yeah, that's fine. - I can't even explain some things to you because it's, yeah, well, that's, that's it. That's an interview. - Okay, I will take it away then from you, because the next thing I read, the next thing I finished was truly incredible, but also incredible for me. So I don't know if everybody's gonna agree, but it was really good for me. And I also, my bar is all over the place for entertainment, and I was just highly entertained, and that's what I want. This is a book that you sent me in Discord months ago. Maybe even last year? No, I think months ago. And then I put a hold of the library, and then the library gave it to me very quickly. I got to read "Moonbound" by Robin Sloan. This is another genre blending book that was, but this one was so fun and funny. I laughed out loud so many times while reading this book. And this is the last of my books that fit the submarine prompts, and one of the last prompts that I haven't mentioned was to read a book with the night sky on the cover. And the cover of this is a orange to purple kind of sunsetty looking thing, but the sunset has actually just been cut, and you can see the night sky behind it in the moon. So, oh, the nominal cover once I've read everything and enjoyed it. So the premise of this, we have our main character, whose name is Ariel de La Solage, which is kind of like how you can say Leonardo da Vinci is like, he's from da Vinci. Ariel de la Solage is the French version of like Ariel from "The Wild" specifically. Solage is the French word for "wild." - Anyway, I thought that was really cute. - Wait, was that specifically a French name? Ariel's kind of a little French, but I mean like-- - I think that Solage is French. - Oh my gosh, and I didn't even know that when I recommended it to you. I was like, oh, great, Robin Sloan, I know. Oh my gosh, perfect, perfect, perfect. Ariel is this young boy who lives in a little town called Solage, so he's from Solage. It's ruled by a wizard. This is also 11,000 years in the future. 11,000 years, you can't even process how many years that is into the future. Ariel is then like, he's set on this adventure to defeat the wizard and he kind of gets tangled up with kind of saving the world and saving a girl. But before any of that, and that's a little bit of how the synopsis is laid out, it describes that and it says before, but before any of that, he discovers something left over from humanity. A, it says, sweetly, a sentient, sensitive, artificial intelligence with a special perspective on all of humanity who becomes both Ariel's greatest ally and our narrator. - Ooh, wait, so is Ariel not human? - Ariel is human, human-shaped. I don't know if I want to say human, but human-shaped for sure. - Okay, okay. But then he meets this sentient, nope, not sentient. Sentient, artificial intelligence connected to humanity and that person becomes, that AI becomes our narrator and that's just so fun. So the adventure, okay, this book had a map at the front and we've had a discussion about, we don't really look at maps and I had that in my mind every time that we came to a new place and I was like, I want to go look at the map. So I spent a lot of time looking at this map and I especially, since this has been on Earth in 11,000 years in the future, I wanted to know where on the planet this was, but it's so unrecognizable. You can't figure out where it is. You can't just like glancing, figure out where this is. - And none of the names are like anagrams or anything. - You have the small, angry ocean. You have a town called Weird, but it's WYRD, weird. - Okay. - I have Rathvarya, Solvaj, and Robin Sloan put an entire pronunciation guide on his website. Thank you, that's so nice. I loved it because there was some very strange spellings in here. (laughs) Oh, you have a shy of light and shadow tackle, which is, I can't even, this book is so funny, okay? - Okay. - There was little mentions to our modern world, like the timeline you and I live in. There were little mentions to that, that were both so sweet and sometimes really funny. Oh, okay, but the adventure brought us to new and unfamiliar places for Ariel and our narrator, and therefore, you know, us the reader, which keeps us all in the same level. But then you had stuff that was new to us, the reader and the narrator, but not to Ariel, like the fact that animals can talk in this future, which makes the reader curious about like, what else is different from our timeline? One little, but it's not a gripe, it's not really a critique, it was just a comment, I guess. For me, it was hard to tell sometimes if the intended audience was adult or young adult, because the topic of far future and of human civilization, what comes after that, that's pretty adult. But our main character is 12, 13 by the end of the book, but 12, like, so that was my only like, confusing bit, but I do really wanna get the audio book at some point because the narrator is one of my favorite narrators. Her name is Gabra Zachman, and I got to listen to the sample and riot. I'm so excited to get that at some point and just re-listen to this whole adventure and feel like I'm curled up and listening to my parents tell me like a fairy tale before bed, like that was the feeling you get. So this is a super fun fairy tale that has like fantasy elements of there are dragons on the moon and then, but also a wizard, but also we're on earth. And like the synopsis says that it's an adventure into the richest depths of story, capital S, story itself from the creator of the penumbra verse, which anyway, oh, so super, super fun time. And then to kick it all, to top it all off, not kick it off, to top it all off. I discovered I completely forgot about an Indigo gift card that I received by email for my birthday a few years ago. And as I was searching for a different digital gift card, I found that one. So I told myself, if I love moon bound, I'm going to use that gift card to get myself the hardcover because this is so lovely. And I did really love the book. It was such a fun adventure with an incredibly rich history and world and lovely characters that I just, I didn't want to let that gift card sit in my email for me to forget about it for another three years so that I would use it right away. And the hardcover of this, obviously because it's a library book, the crinkly paper prevents you from taking off the just jacket, but that doesn't stop you from peeking underneath. And I've been able to peek underneath. And there's like a moon and some stars on the cover and I just, I want it and silver and platinum. Oh, I love book design so much. So using a gift card does not go against my buying 12 books in 12 months. - Sneaky, sneaky. - Hey, I completely forgot about this gift card somehow. - And I also set that parameter at the beginning. So it's not like you're like, okay, I'm changing the rules. - No, no, no, I set this row at the beginning 'cause I knew gift cards could have come into play and then this one just been sitting in my inbox for three years. I feel so bad. So I even told the friend, I even went to make sure I scrolled back up in our chat or like I searched in our chat to be like, did I even thank her? I must have thanked her. Like I must have thanked her. So I did thank her way back then and then just never used the gift card. So now the time has come. I'm gonna get moon bound. So I'm not gonna haul it whenever it gets to my house, but just you're gonna know I will have moon bound and I'm gonna be very happy about it. And I'm gonna pass it to my husband 'cause he had to listen to me laugh the entire time I was reading this and I couldn't explain to him some of the really funny things. So very excited to pass that off to him 'cause he likes adventure stories. And honestly, there were some Terry Pratchett vibes with moon bound, just like the fun, almost slight elements of absurdism in some points and just jumping from element to element in this adventure. I just was reminded of Terry Pratchett's. And absurdism is not the word I'm looking for, but just pointing out that sometimes you just gotta take a cliche to the end. And then sometimes you gotta go against the cliche and it's very funny, or subvert the expectations. So I'm really excited to pass it along to him and it was just such a cap to my reading time. That's the end of my four that I read and I absolutely adored it. It was so much fun. - I'm so glad you feel, it sounds like you had, for the most part, really positive experiences with all the books that you read. - I think I did. I think Bloom was probably the downness of them, but that was horror, so it was meant to be down and not meant to have a good time with that. - Okay, I'm gonna switch up my order a little bit so I can end with my, I'll end with my best book 'cause I have two left. Since I haven't, you know, I've been okay with the ones I've mentioned so far. And this next one, oh gosh, I really wanted to love this one. And it was, again, like a fun experience and I did enjoy it, but I was ultimately, I think I got annoyed because of all the little like itty-bitty repetitions I kept finding. So I just read and I believe it came out in the last month or two, a novel love story by Ashley Posten. - I've heard that about the internet, yep. - And the premise of it is very cute. Our female main character, whose name, I've already, oh, Eileen, but she goes by Elsie. - She, I also don't understand that. I was like, okay, sure. She has been kind of going through a rough time in her life. She is a, she teaches English class at her local university. Don't worry, you will be told that four times in the first 4% of the book. I actually marked in my Kindle. I was like, this is the fourth time that she said this. I did an editor not read this first chapter. What's happening here? Why have I heard this? She also said twice in the span of like two pages that she had been grading too many AI generated papers. I was like, you just said that. You literally just said that like a page and a half. So I was already like slightly annoyed. But again, that might have been an editor's fault to not be like, hey, you literally just said that. You don't need to say that again. And just like there were a couple things where it's like she would say something and then she would say it again and be like, did you, did you hear this? Did you hear this? So that was, I went in like a little biased toward it because I was annoyed with that. But the premise said of it, it's actually pretty cute. So Eileen Grades, she teaches at a local university, teaches English 101 and she loves romance books. That's like her all time favorite. She and her friends are in this like romance book club and she, you learn that like she had romance but then something happened and you do learn what happened but I'm always gonna tell you. And she's supposed to be going to this cabin with all her friends where they like have this romance, romance book club. And for some reason or another, all her friends cannot come this year. So she decides to go to the cabin alone which I was like, are you crazy? You're just gonna go as a woman by yourself to a cabin in the woods. - Are you, do you want to die? I was like, you clearly have been reading the wrong genre of books. You need to read a crime book. So you know what you're, anyway, she's fine but she does take a wrong turn and end up in the town of her favorite romance series. Oh, she like ends up in a fictional town of her favorite romance series. So it'd be like if you took a wrong turn and ended up at Hogwarts sort of a situation. - Okay. - Or insert fictional place that you love. So she figures out that she's in this fictional town and she knows all of the characters 'cause she's read the books 100 times, she listens to the books. It's like the book that she, the series that she's read over and over. So she recognizes people on site and she can interact with them. She can talk with them. They're all coupled up. She's like, this is amazing but there's one guy in the town that she's like, I don't know who this guy is. What's going on? You also learn that the series was never finished. The author died in an accident before the fifth book could be released. So Eileen is like, you know, who is this guy? Oh, is he like the next hero that like doesn't have his heroine yet? So she's trying to figure out like, okay, what can I do? Well, then she starts kind of falling for him and she's like, oh no. And so there is kind of the romance there. And I did appreciate, I thought it was like an original, what she, what post-in ends up having happen as the plot. I did find kind of original and fun but the language itself, like the style and the prose on the page was just so, was so cliche. Like all the different things that I just said and she mentioned, I was, I kept marking in my book like, okay, we've said that three times, 38% and we had mentioned that he was a blonde haired Darcy or that he was Darcy like three times. I was like, we get it. We get it. We get it. He looks, he reminds you of Darcy. You don't even have to say Darcy. So it's already implied by the fact that he's like brooding and standoffish and comes around to enjoy your presence. Okay, like you didn't even need to say, if you're reading this, you're a romance reader. You know, Brett and Greta, you don't even need to say Darcy. We're all good. We're all there with you, babe. We're all there with you. And then I also, I also loud because I'm gonna read you this line. You're gonna be like, yep, I read that line before. They have a kiss and it says, his mouth found mine, starved in the way a man drowning at sea, starved for air. - Oh my God. - So like I said, it's very, it's cliche. And so I've been trying to decide like, okay, is the author, like, is that the intent to just be like-- - Or was it a bingo game, you know? - I'm going for the cliche. I'm going for the fun because like I said, it is very fun. It's very fun. It's entertaining. The idea of like you could get lost and end up in your favorite fictional town. - Yes, please. - That's incredible. Every reader wants that. Every reader wants that. So I do have to give her a promise for that because I did think it was like kind of fun and how she had the main character grow through that and why she decides to like what she decides to ultimately do at the end. I appreciated all of that. Like her care, I did really appreciate her character growth and her character arc. So I'm trying to be like, okay, maybe the cliche was just there on purpose. - She was literally in a book kind of. - Yeah. - She's doing it on purpose, so. (laughing) - So that was that one. - Yeah, I can't decide if I really liked it or I liked it, but I can't decide if I like really liked it or just kind of liked it. You're in that middle somewhere. The one that I will end with that I finished 'cause we still have things that we currently are reading. So we'll have to go through those lickety split. The one that I finished that I really, really enjoyed. I was on the cruise. We got off, it was an Alaskan cruise and we got off at a couple different places. But one place we got off was in Juneau. And I bought this book in Juneau, Alaska. - How exciting. - And I was like, I wanna get a book that's by or like about Alaska or by someone from Alaska. And I picked up this book. The guy is from Southeast Alaska, which is where we were cruising. He's lived in Southeast Alaska. And then randomly his family, he was reading it and then was like, blah, blah, blah, blah in California. And then he like mentioned a little teeny spot that's right near where I live. And I was like, this is bizarre in California. - I think these are. - So I was like, that's weird. This called A Shape in the Dark, Living and Dying with Brown Bears by Bjorn Dila. It is non-fiction and it's kind of a memoir plus. The reason I say kind of is because it feels more non-fiction than memoir. So I almost feel like it's like non-fiction plus rather than memoir plus, if that makes sense. - Yeah. So he talks about his own time in the forest. He like, well, I guess it is memoir plus, if I'm thinking about it. So much of the page is spent. He's just like by himself in the forest walking with like his gun, which he'll use specifically. He like goes into the forest with like his tent and maybe sometimes not even a tent, just like a sleeping pack and like a little pot for water. And he's just walking in the net and he'll like see a bear. He does not shoot the bears unless it's like for specifically self-defense, multiple times. He's like, he talks to the bear. He like, he'll sit down. He does not want to shoot a bear. He does not want to shoot a bear at all. And I don't remember actually know if we, anyway, it doesn't matter. He does shoot other game, but he shoots it explicitly to eat it. Like he's not just hunting for the kill. - Correct. - Yeah. Which I do appreciate. I'm like, hey, he's like, he's living off the land here. And he works as a bear touring guide and he talks about that experience. And he also tells you so much about bear. Like I learned so much about bears and just like all the different things, people surrounding bears. I learned about this one guy who actually, then I was like, I was telling my family about him. My family was like, this guy sounds, this doesn't sound possible. So I looked him up and he's the inspiration for the movie The Revenant with Leonardo DiCaprio. So this guy that's mentioned in the book, his name is Hugh Glass. And he's out with like a dozen other men. I think they're called Ashlee's hunters or Ashlee's trappers. And Glass is attacked by a bear. But there's all brown bears, by the way, or grizzly bears. And he's attacked by a bear and he's not, he's not in good shape. I won't be graphic. I'll just say he's not in good shape. He's probably not long for this world. - It's a bad time. - He's not having a good time. He's in a bad way. And so two of the guys of the group are like, they're chosen to stay behind with Glass. And everyone else is like, we're gonna go ahead when he dies, bury him. And then we will like see you after. - So the two guys are waiting with Glass and Glass is just like not dying. He's not dying. And they're like, well, he's probably gonna die soon. He's brought like, he's, he's basically dead. He's, he's mostly dead. And so they just like throw a bear skin over him. And they're like, okay, dude, bye. And they leave. Glass is not dead. Glass is not dead. - My jaw is on the floor. - Don't worry. It gets a hundred times more incredible. He gets up. Again, remember, he has been mauled by a bear to the point that they think he's imminently going to die. He has like ribs sticking. I'm sorry, I told you I wouldn't be graphic, but he has like a broken leg. Other stuff is bad. Like he is not good, okay? Things are not good. He can like barely breathe. He gets up. I will omit a detail for graphicness. And so he's just alone in the woods. He doesn't have any of his stuff 'cause they were like, he's dead anyway. A dead man doesn't need a rifle or a knife or anything or anything. So he's just alone in the wilderness, mauled by a bear. 200 miles from the nearest fort. He crawls there. - 200 miles. - And he makes it 200 miles. - 200 miles. - Okay, I have a rough concept of how much 200 miles is, but I'm gonna put it in kilometers anyway, just to make my brain melt a little more. 321 kilometers. - I was like, this is insane. And that was like a paragraph. It was like two paragraphs on one page. That was, I was like, hang on, hang on, hang on. You can't just throw this though. Anyway, so that just tells you, I loved, I wanna reread this book. I sped through it. It's a beautiful little book. The author has like gorgeous prose. You could tell the reverence that he has for nature, for Alaska, for bears. He, I was like, wow. This was just like a, like a perfect little gem that I just happened to pick up in his store. So, and I think also really helped her that I had just come from Alaska. So the places that he was mentioning, I was like, we're fresh. I know where that is. I'm like, I was just there. Ta-da-da. So anyway, yeah, I really, really liked it. - That is amazing. Oh my goodness. Okay, well, as you said, we're getting a short on time. So we might as well, that is a fantastic final read for our reading updates. But I do really wanna jump into our currently reading. I am currently reading two things as I'm always currently reading two things because I can't stop myself. But I can live in it to just one, to keep you all in suspense on what I'm reading. So, okay, how many are you currently reading? Or I could just jump into my first one. - I have two, but I can be very quick about them. - Okay, I think I'll just keep it to just one 'cause I'm not too far into the second one. So we'll just keep it to one. And you'll have to tune in next time to figure out what I am. What I also was reading at this moment. So, I am indeed reading Sharks in the Time of Saviors by I looked it up, Kavai Strong Washburn. And I am only 90 pages in, but ooh, this is definitely very like slow family drama, I kind of think, but like not drama, but mm-hmm. Okay, this book is about Ninoa, a boy born to this struggling family in Hawaii. He falls overboard about one day and is brought back to the boat safely in the mouth of a shark. So, Sharks, Sharks. And so the whole world is just like the whole world. His whole family, the whole island and Hawaii as a whole state are just like this boy is a miracle. Like that's just what this is. More magical things keep happening to this boy, which some of these things can bring some fortune and fame to their family to get them like out of poverty. But Ninoa has an older brother and a younger sister who are feeling very much pushed aside by their parents because of Ninoa's specialness. So, that's what I know so far. There are lots of POVs, which is fun. So all three kids, the mom so far have all had first person POV chapters and the mom's chapters are even like second person directed at Ninoa as she's like a remembering events. That has made this book really magical for me so far. I really like all of the POVs, except the older brothers. His, his have been the most jarring and like difficult to get into. But that is really because of his inner monologue style and that difficulty has been easing off as I get his POV more and not more and more, but just like the few times I've had it in these 90 pages. So, this feels like it's gonna be an interesting, interesting, okay, shoot. This feels like it's going to be a tail. A tail on the impact of fame that can have on a family, but also like, I think there's going to be some truly like magical elements from Ninoa's specialness is how I'll refer to it for now. But yeah, this book was supposed to be right after Earth flown, but then all of the library books came. And I threw myself into the summer mean, but this is the first of four books that fit my July buzzwordathon prompt, which is the word measurement or not the word measurement. Things related to measurement. So time, sharks in the time of saviors, you can measure that. The other thing I'm currently reading also fits the prompt. I'll give that as a hint. And I had the original plans in my life to read all four of those in July, but with all these library books being thrown at me, I don't know if that's gonna happen. We'll see. But yeah, I've at least started sharks in the times of saviors and I'm actually annotating it just in the simple sense of pretty sentence flag. That's it. That's the simple level of annotating. But so far, the first chapter was really intriguing. It was from Ninoa's mother's perspective. So it had that second person magic to it. - You do love a second person. - I do, but it's only her chapters that are like that. So it makes you wanna get back to her whenever you see her name. And just in the first chapter, she's reflecting on signs that Ninoa was a special boy, even before the shark thing happened. And that was just like, oh, so there is something truly wonderful about this boy. And we're following him grow up. And of course, the rest of the family grew up and the impact of his specialness that's having on their family and the community. So apparently this has profound command of language. It's a powerful debut novel that examines what it means to be both of a place and a stranger in it. And oh, I really, really like that sentiment of just being of a place, but a stranger too. So that's what I'm currently reading. And it's good so far. I mean, I like it. I like it. - Oh, good. And I lied. I will only say one, just 'cause I'm not super far into the other. So I'm about 20% in on audio, which I haven't done an audio book in a while, to Eve, how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution by Kat Bohannon. First off, I think this is phenomenal on audio. It is a nonfiction book, but Kat, the author reads it and is a phenomenal voice, actress, narrator. I was like, I actually looked up, I was like, okay, I'll give credit. And she narrates it. - Wow. - She has a beautiful, gorgeous voice. And she adds, there's so much snark and sass in the way that she writes to, and she really puts it into how she delivers it as well. It's basically what the title says. It's how the female body drove 200 million years of human evolution. She's spent the whole first chapter talking about milk and talking about breast milk and how basically not just we as humans today, but why do we do that? Why do we do that? Where did that come from? An evolution. So she's gone way, way, way, way, way back. And she's looked at like, okay, here's where this started evolution. Here's why it probably happened. So now I'm on the womb chapter, which is going to be all about, okay, like why do we gestate inside our bodies and not outside in an egg, in like a physical egg? So it's absolutely fascinating. It really reminds me a lot of Mary Roach's science writing style, which I love Mary Roach. I love, love, love Mary Roach. So I've heard this one talked a lot about. I've heard really good things about it. I'm super enjoying it so far. That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm about 20%. And like I said, I, yeah, I'm just, I'm really enjoying it. And she's a really great, she's really great on audio. I imagine it's probably easier to follow on the page 'cause there is so much science and data and everything, but it's kind of like a podcast. It's like a long podcast. Long, sciencey podcast, love that. Oh, that is fantastic. And I can't wait to hear both fun and I'm sure gruesome facts next time. Oh my goodness. Those were all of my reading updates. And I believe those were all of yours too. I know, what a packed episode. Woo, we made it. Okay. That is all for today. So we will place the bookmark and pick it up next time. Thanks for listening everyone. Bye. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)