Caroline is in the Studio and She's Giving Books 5 Million Stars

Jen's in Mexico so we've got our biggest fan, Caroline, to fill in for her! And she's wonderful. 

Books mentioned in this episode:

The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer
Alone with You in the Ether by Olivie Blake
 

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Transcript

July 12

Shanna: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to In Her Good Books. I'm Shanna. And I'm Carolyn. And this is a podcast where two friends talk about books, and you might notice that it's two different friends today. Hi, Carolyn. Hi, Shanna. What are you 

Caroline: doing here? You know, Jen is living her best life in Mexico. Oh, she is? And I'm still here.

And I thought I can pretend to be Jen for 20 minutes. Yeah, 40 minutes. She's, 

Shanna: it's a high bar. That woman says, I'll be 

Caroline: tired by the time I'm done being Jen, I 

Shanna: need a nap. Yes. Oh my God. Honestly, real Jen needs a nap. That's why she's in Mexico. That's why. Yeah, except listen, as, um, I've got best friend status, so I'm allowed to tell her stories.

She has been having a goddamn time. Guys, like it's fun. She loves her family, blah, [00:01:00] blah, blah. 

Caroline: Sunshine, beaches, water. She's 

Shanna: in a resort. They're are monkeys. She keeps sending me videos of monkeys. I'm a little jelly. I know, and like great big lizards and stuff. Cool. I keep telling her to bring me 

Caroline: one, but I want a flower.

A flower, a real beautiful flower, not a lizard. I don't wanna look out for live animals at the 

Shanna: airport. She's gonna get a piece of paper and they're gonna say, you got any live flowers in there? Yeah. 

Caroline: And she's going to have to leave them behind in Mexico. Exactly. In the garbage she'll. Same with the lizard though.

So 

Shanna: I know. Well, I was really hoping that she could just like, I don't know, 

Caroline: ask him to be 

Shanna: quiet, ask him to do real quiet. Maybe she could register it as a pet, maybe. But anyways, so her youngest two have been sick. And having your little two kids sick at home 

Caroline: is a bummer. But in Mexico it's even worse. It's even worse 

Shanna: because you don't know the language or the, I mean, they don't [00:02:00] know the language.

You might, I don't know, I, 

Caroline: I, I personally specific words of 

Shanna: the language. Yeah. Imagine if you only knew specific words of the language and were like, I guess I'll just take my kid to a critical care center and hope for the best. Yeah. Yeah. Stressful. Very stressful. But, Things have evened out. Oh, I guess she's back by the time this goes up.

Hey. And I'm gone. And you are gone. That's right. 

Caroline: Where are you going? Beautiful. Terio to visit all my family. It's gonna be so nice. It's gonna be 

Shanna: beautiful. I guess for anybody who doesn't know who the heck you are. Oh yeah. Um, Carolyn is our biggest 

Caroline: fan. Yes, that's right. I'm infamous. She is. And I've done one other recording, I don't know, in September, November, a while ago.

Shanna: Yeah. She's been picking it up like. Since I've been putting it down, doing my best. Thank you. So yeah, Carolyn and I work together now. We were friends long before that and yeah, she is. She's a big fan, but because she is our real life friend, So [00:03:00] she's in our 

Caroline: book clubs and I love being a real life friend.

Oh, it's 

Shanna: so sweet. Anyways, what are 

Caroline: you reading? Oh, okay. Now it's time for the hard part. Yes. Where I have to remember what I read. So the first book I'm gonna talk about is the adult. It is a debut novel by Bronwyn Fisher. It's Canadian, or she is Canadian. And yeah, I really enjoyed it. I only picked it up because the cover was beautiful.

It was hard cover. Not a hardcover fan. Does that mean I'm gonna get a book? You're probably gonna get another book. 

Shanna: So good you guys. I get the best deals where Carolyn buys hard covers, like she cover buys and then she remembers that she hates hard covers. And then I get a beautiful book. 

Caroline: Yep. And then whenever I need to borrow a book, I just go to Shanna's bookshelf.

Oh my God. Come to Shannon's library. It's, it's way better than my library. Yeah. So it's a hard cover. It's beautiful. It was the local bookstore's, June Reed, so it was a bit on sale, which was also nice. Now [00:04:00] I'm 

Shanna: remembering it is the one of the woman's face with the blue paint tears, correct? 

Yes. 

Caroline: So it's pretty awesome.

It is about a girl. She is 18 or so, and she is just starting university. She is at U of T, which is of course a huge university in a huge city. And she's what city? Toronto. Thank you. Please, please say Toronto in West. Toronto. 

Shanna: Yeah. No. Well that's okay. I lived in Calgary. Oh, okay. Which if you're not from there, Calgary, Cal, Gary.

Oh, Cal. Gary. Like the man. Ah, yeah, so, well, I guess it's two men, Cal and Gary, or one man. His first name is Cal, and his middle name is Gary. No, Gary could probably be a last name. Yeah, I 

Caroline: guess it could. Anyways, in Ontario where I grew up, yes. Toronto. Toronto. Yeah. 

Shanna: T R O N O, correct. Toronto. 

Caroline: Perfect. Thank you.

So she, the main character, Natalie is going to U F T, so University of Toronto, but she's from a tiny town. I wanna [00:05:00] say, I don't know, Cornell, maybe her parents own a lodge. Mm-hmm. So it must be scenic. It's on a lake. Okay. So it must be Northern Ontario. And, um, it's her first time. Not the wrong province 

Shanna: on the wrong side of the country.

No. Okay. 

Caroline: Weird British Columbia who would move there and stay for 15 plus years. Yeah, right. But so she goes off to U of T, her parents drop her off. She has a little bit of a tough time saying bye. She's never lived away from home. Toronto is a million times bigger than her tiny, beautiful little town, and she's an introvert.

She is. Shy. She feels awkward anytime she needs to speak with anyone she doesn't know, which is everybody when you start in new dorms. Yeah. It reminded me of starting university as well when I was 17, 18, but I at least went with one of my best friends from high school, so I had a friend and then it was less terrifying, although I'm still [00:06:00] introverted.

Yeah. And I'm still shy and I'm still a total. Book nerd, which was a great thing in university as an English major. 

Shanna: So yeah, it really worked out for you later in life too. Yeah. 

Caroline: Yeah. It has so much to do with all the jobs I've ever had as an adult. Yeah, that's true. But you're also a smarty pants, so thank you.

Thank you. So, uh, yeah, she goes off to university. She does make friends. Um, in her dorm, a girl named Clara becomes her best friend. Uh, there's a girl, she ends up sitting in this one poetry course with all the time named Rachel. Kind of seems like Rachel hates everybody, but fair. But still, have you met everybody?

Yeah. Yeah, I've met a lot of people, but so, and then she is sitting at the park needing to write poetry for her poetry class. It's the one class they talk about the most and it's actually, uh, the teacher of that class, her name is Jones, and she's a very good. Poetry teacher, and I mean, for any adult who would dabble in poetry, it's [00:07:00] actually useful information too.

So, nice. It would actually improve your poems. I 

Shanna: just, so the author must be a poet. Yes. Because imagine having to write really good poems as part of your story and not knowing 

Caroline: how to do that. I know. So there's not actually very much poetry. You don't get to really hear what they're writing. Mm. But there's advice like, As if you're sitting in a classroom and a poetry teacher is telling you how to write better poems.

So there's actually a really good quote that I took down a bit. Jones, the teacher is saying to Natalie because Natalie's asked how, how do I write a good poem? Or how do I know? That my poems are good. And Joan says, imagine writing a poem saying love is this, or love is that just for example, you think a reader will care more because you've been unspecific, because you've told them very broadly and philosophically what love is, but that doesn't work.

It's much better to say, the woman I love lives in Vancouver and is terrible to love because she never meets me on the bridge When she promises she's gonna meet me, then saying love is harsh or [00:08:00] love mistreats me. Oh, I love it. Yeah. So I mean, I feel like that's, Good advice if you. Sprite poetry like I did when I was 20 in emo and would never, ever look at again.

I should burn those. You 

Shanna: should try. Oh, you still have them somewhere? Oh, don't 

Caroline: tell me. I mean, I don't have them anymore. That 

Shanna: was a mistake that Carolyn just made everybody tune in next week for the Carol's emo poetry. Oh, those poem 

Caroline: are coming to Ontario with me, where I will bury my mothers castle. 

Shanna: Just make it.

More fun venture for me. Okay. I'll burn them in a 

Caroline: bonfire 

Shanna: at my sister's house. No, don't burn them if you bury them and I have to fly all the way to Ontario, go to your parents' castle, dig up poems in the dirt in the middle of the night and 

Caroline: make many acres. So good 

Shanna: luck. Yes. If I find them, I feel like I deserve them.

Caroline: If you go through all the hard work you can. Reap the reward of reading my terrible, terrible poems. Well, who 

Shanna: knows? Tune in one day. Tune in. Never tune in. [00:09:00] Never. Yeah. Honestly, if somebody threatened to read my. Teenage emo poetry, I would actually just roll over and die. 

Caroline: Like That's very emo of you. 

Shanna: I probably wrote a poem about it.

Caroline: Yeah. So anyways, I wanna be in Jones's class. She's an awesome teacher and she really cares about her students, which is great, but it's really good. Well, and you enjoyed it? Yeah, I recommend it. I gave it four stars, which. My world means I'll probably reread it one day. Yeah. So I will come back to your shelf and pull my hard cover off.

Perfect. And enjoy it again 

Shanna: in the future, I'll just have you sign it out. Oh, you guys, you wanna hear a really sad story. What? So Jen bought me this beautiful embosser. A library embosser for um, Christmas one year and I love it, but as everybody knows, cause I never shut up about it. I'm getting divorced.

No, I know. Did you know? I had no idea. Oh my God. Yeah, totally. Getting divorced and I'm going back to my maiden name. [00:10:00] So now I've got this thing. And pages that are embossed with this. 

Caroline: Oh, I forgot you would've embossed pages. The embosser itself, I was like, yeah, it can be replaced. But now you have books. I have books that are already 

Shanna: involved with your dead name in it.

Yes. So, oh, well, it'll be fine. I'll just get another one. 

Caroline: Books or another embosser? No, I'll just cut it out. 

Shanna: Perfect Circles of all of my books. Be like, don't ask. Nobody has to ask. I will just 

Caroline: tell them I'm the only one shopping in your 

Shanna: library, so it doesn't matter. She's my only friend Guys, you 

Caroline: Mexico heard it here first.

Shanna: Sorry. She's one of my only two friends. Well, Jen's not here. Who else is gonna read your.

Caroline: Who else knows where your new house is there? Oh, that's true. Oh yeah. New house. I got a 

Shanna: new house, guys. I sold my house. Got a new house. Ugh. You might be thinking, wow, you're [00:11:00] sure not talking about books, you're just talking about other stuff, but. There 

Caroline: will be at least one more book, at least 

Shanna: one more book read by you.

Caroline: Yes. My favorite book that I have read three times since March 12th. I 

Shanna: really feel like I have to read this book cause you're reading it so much. I 

Caroline: know. And it has all, it's the first book that I have read and then immediately restarted. And when I restarted it, I actually took a nice pen and a ruler and like underlined everything I loved.

And then when I read it again this weekend, I did more underlines. Wow. Pretty soon 

Shanna: the book gonna even more highlighted book, but 

Caroline: I will never lend this one out. That's 

Shanna: fair. Honestly, this is this one of those ones that you're gonna travel and get copies of? 

Caroline: Yes. Because I know there's a more beautiful cover than the one I have, which is also hard cover.

So one day when it comes out in paperback, you can just buy that one and then I'll just re underline it. Mm-hmm. It's like my Achilles shelf. Yes. How many Achilles do you guys have? Um, 

Shanna: four or five. Probably around five. Yeah. I've got the black one. The blue [00:12:00] one. The original hardcover, the Spanish 

Caroline: one. Do you have a French one?

Oh, I was gonna go to the bookstore in Montreal, but it was closed the day I went. Oh, okay. Because I was actually gonna look for it for you. So where, what are you doing this time? Well, I'm not going to Montreal. 

Shanna: Oh. Well I don't know. Once you get far enough east, I just blank out. Yeah, I guess it would 

Caroline: just be like a eight hour drive.

It's 

Shanna: funny. Not how far is that? Like if somebody says like, I'm going to Cologne and they're like, oh, could you just 

Caroline: jump out to Vancouver for me? Yeah, yeah. Cuz I'm in Niagara. So even to Toronto is an hour and a half or two. And then, Ontario is huge, and Ottawa is six hours away from where I live, so Montreal's another two hours.

Shanna: So anybody who is not Canadian, you just heard firsthand how we describe distance. 

Caroline: Oh, in time. Oh, in time. Not in actual kilometers. Not in actual kilometers or miles or 

Shanna: anything. Yeah, no, honestly. Tell me how far it is in time or I'm not going. Yeah, 

Caroline: because how am I supposed to know how long a hundred kilometers is gonna take me?

Well, yeah. [00:13:00] 

Shanna: If you're like in town here where we have stoplights every five feet. Seconds. Yeah. It's horrible. 

Caroline: Feet, seconds. Yeah. See I'm more Canadian. 

Shanna: She's very Canadian. Just cuz she's from the east. Um, I don't know. I guess I could talk about. The book that we're reading for book club? Yeah. Tell me, so do you know?

No. Oh, we're reading Pamela. Oh, I think I 

Caroline: was aware. No, I think that you were not stoked. I'm not gonna buy it, but I'll borrow it from somebody. Yes. I'm gonna 

Shanna: be listening to our audio. What is it, Pamela? I don't think that's actually what it's called. Oh, okay. It's called Love Pamela, A memoir of Prose. It's spoke Pamela Anderson, and we chose it because, I can only seem to take in memoirs or biographies or non-fiction.

Non-fiction right now. So like a strata textbook? Like a strata textbook? No, not even that. That's too nonfic. Like that's That's real. That is real. That's not just non-fiction. That is, and [00:14:00] it's not real boring. It's really boring. It's literally the most boring thing I've ever read 

in, 

Caroline: in my life and the best career ever.

Shanna: And really actually, it's a really good career. I'm quite happy with it. If it wasn't for all the learning. It was making me do, but yeah, so basically, guys, I'm just too busy being. Amazing. Bomb ass adult. 

Caroline: Buying houses. Selling houses, just changing your career. Yeah. Taking an exam, 

Shanna: getting divorced. Haven't mentioned that.

Oh 

Caroline: yeah, that's right. 

Shanna: I keep forgetting. Okay. What else did you read, Gar? Oh 

Caroline: yeah. So back to the book that I love so much, I read, oh, that's right. Three times into the ether, along with you in the ether. Yes. And let me tell you how I thought it was ether until I said that word out loud to one of my friends.

And, uh, Was corrected. Oh. And made fun of and still brought up once in a while. 

Shanna: Oh. So I didn't realize I was supposed to be calling it Ether. No, it's to get fun of 

Caroline: you all the time. Yeah, please do. Please make fun of me all the time. That's what everybody else does. Five stars [00:15:00] guys. 5 million stars, actually, yeah.

Shanna: Honestly, this is 

Caroline: a six outta five for her. It is so good. Um, it is about Charlotte. She's the main character, but she, well, Charlotte's her given name and the name she uses when she's with her family. Her last name is Reagan and that's, How she thinks of herself. And then she meets a guy named Aldo. And Aldo, she meets at the museum where she works.

It's an art museum. She's an artist, and Aldo is short. For Ronaldo. It's kind of this thing with names, how like they think of themselves. So when Ronaldo or Aldo goes and visits his dad, his dad calls him Ronaldo. But when he speaks about himself, or anytime he references himself amongst like his friends in the city they live, which.

I should know is maybe, I think it's New York could be wrong. Probably I'm wrong. I'm really good at remembering about books, guys. Honestly, 

Shanna: the fact that she just knows this off my heart is, 

Caroline: is because I read it three 

Shanna: times. Three times. And recently you wouldn't believe 

Caroline: how terrible I am 

Shanna: at [00:16:00] remembering books.

So funny. She'll be like, I love this book. Let me read the back. Cause I remember nothing about it 

Caroline: because I can't remember the names. I can't remember what city they're 

Shanna: in. She can like vaguely tell us how it made her feel. Yeah. But 

Caroline: that's, that's all a book is for me. That really is, yes. It's how it makes me feel.

There was a lot of, uh, heart skin in this book. Mm. So, um, Reagan has a boyfriend at the beginning of the book. He kind of waivers between boyfriend and ex-boyfriend. His name is Mark and he is an asshole. He's very much like, ah, do whatever you want. I know you're always gonna come back to me. He like pisses her off on purpose.

He's rude to her. I weirdly feel he does love her, but in the most toxic way ever, they are the most toxic relationship ever. Ugh. And then Reagan and Aldo are so like, Hmm, I love them together. Uh, Reagan struggles with a mood disorder. It never says exactly which one, but I believe it's bipolar. Um, the author herself, um, Olivie Blake, she [00:17:00] doesn't afterwards saying This is what the book is about, and that she.

Has struggled with the same mood disorder and that's how come she can write it so accurately. There's parts where it's almost stream of consciousness of Reagan like talking negatively to herself, but then her mother's words, cuz her mother's really judgmental of her kind of meld with her own and it's her own self perception.

So it 

Shanna: sounds like it's written in such an interesting way. Because I know you told me there's like some timey 

Caroline: wimy stuff. Yeah. Um, Aldo is obsessed with time travel and with, um, multiverse. I love multiverse. I know I love multiverse too. Um, he's also obsessed with bees and hexagons. He believes Hexagon is the perfect shape.

And so one of the cute things is like one of their first conversations he tells her about bees and it becomes a theme throughout the entire, um, story and like, Later on, she's like jokingly, like she jokes with him if he spoke with an ex-girlfriend about bees. And he's like, no, I didn't, just with you. And [00:18:00] it's just like, cute, just cute.

And then there's number six is huge throughout it. Um, and so when. They meet at the museum. She has to tell 'em, what are you doing sitting alone in this room? Like, I have to do a, essentially a showing or a tour. You need to move along. Mm-hmm. Person that I don't know who's sitting here in leather drawing hexagons on a piece of paper alone, but then she runs into him a week later or something, and so she's like, why didn't you join me for lunch?

It turns into them having agreed that they will have six conversations and that's it. Oh, that's, and so each conversation only counts as a conversation if they learn something about each other. Oh. And so 

Shanna: I feel like if you only got to see each other, if you learned something, you would try not to 

Caroline: learn anything every time.

Well, they do have one where she asks him to come to. Birthday party or anniversary at her parents' house, and she asks him instead of Mark, just to like piss her parents off. Um, because while they [00:19:00] don't love Mark, they like Mark better than stranger, some other stranger who is all those very, in his head, he's like super brilliant.

He's a. Theoretical mathematician or something and Oh yeah. My specialty. Yeah. Yeah, mine too. 

Shanna: I never make mistakes. Yeah. I mean, I would explain it to you guys, but you won't get it. Don't 

Caroline: worry about it. Yeah. So he is trying to sort out time travel and multiverse. Me too, me too. I am just as smart as he is.

He's probably closer than I'm, and uh, so he is also like super introverted, kind of awkward. He. Struggles as well with mental health. It's just such a relatable relationship. It starts as a friendship and then grows of like two people who are not perfect, but aren't like completely broken either. They're just normal.

I have anxiety all the time. You love normal people. Oh, normal people. It makes me think a little bit of normal. The adult made me [00:20:00] think more of normal people. So the one oh that I talked about first, that it's actually a recommendation of Nikki who also loves normal people and Sweet Bitter and every other book that Oh, she recommended alone if you in the ether as well.

Shanna: Oh, and her and I have a closer inline reading taste I think, than you and I do. 

Caroline: Is it because you like, like sci-fi fantasy? I think it's sci-fi fantasy. Um, but she also loves just the like moody relationshipy. Like I love mood, 

Shanna: I love atmosphere. I hate, 

Caroline: it's not lovey-dovey. I hate romance. I'm not a beach read romance kind of person.

I don't even really mind 

Shanna: romance that much. It's like the toxic. If I have to read 200 pages of people arguing over stupid crap, 

Caroline: no, I just don't like the, oh, I met you on a plane. Oh, we're at the same resort. Oh, you're gonna move back to my tiny little [00:21:00] town and save my family's business. We're gonna get married and have 17 children.

But wait. My ex-boyfriend comes back for a really brief time to screw everything up 

Shanna: on his motorcycle. 

Caroline: Oh yes. Definitely a motorcycle. Lots of leather lot, although lots of leather. Although rides a motorcycle. Yes. Lots of leather. Uh, yeah. Yeah. 

Shanna: Lots of leather. You know, I like a book with lots of leather.

You sure 

Caroline: do. As much as I love a paperback. Yes. So my favorite scene, which I've reread a thousand million times, is she joins him. At mass, she discovers that he goes to mass and he's not religious at all, but it's just part of his routine. This is like Catholic mass. This is Catholic mass. Okay. And she's never been before, so I'm sure it was a delightful wake up for, I've never been either, by the way, on Protestant.

Grew up Protestant, but. It's, uh, 

Shanna: yeah, Ben, my oldest son really wants to go to church for some reason, so we'll have to bring you with us when we go. I would 

Caroline: really like to see what Catholic mass is like. I think [00:22:00] I'm gonna be in for a treat. Yeah, 

Shanna: you're gonna get to watch me, but 

Caroline: anyways, read your, oh yeah.

They go to mass and then they end up holding hands and it's so cute. Oh 

Shanna: yes. You do hold hands when you 

Caroline: pray. Yeah. And, but then the prayer ends and they don't. Let go. Aw. And then at the end, in her head, so there's parts in here where they think one thing, but immediately say something else like they think their true thought and then they say, what's.

Socially acceptable or way less awkward. 

Shanna: I hate that. I hate having to live life. 

Caroline: There's, oh, I'm so glad that my thoughts are in my head and that nobody can hear them. 

Shanna: My favorite is when your thoughts come out of your head accidentally. They're never nice though. They're, it's so funny though. Oh my God.

Carolyn is a very kind person, but every once in a while she'll be like, oh, you're like, whoa. Carolyn, you stupid idiot it. Yeah. Fucking Carolyn. And it just, I'm dying every time. I think it's so funny. 

Caroline: [00:23:00] Yeah. Shannon gets interior access to my thoughts because we share an office and that's where a lot of my inside voice comes out.

Yes. It's pretty great. Yes. So they hold hands and then they have to let go when it's time to walk out and in her head. She's like, don't hold hands with anyone ever again. Aw. And I love it. It's so cute. Aw. This one also talks about art because Reagan is an artist. Um, she's an artist who has used her art for good and for bad, which you learn about.

And although asks her, what about art? Isn't that storytelling? And Reagan's like, no, not really. Art isn't about explaining shit. It's about sharing things, experiences, feelings. Art is something we do to feel human, not because we are aw. And I just like it. It's 

Shanna: great. It's fantastic. I do art all the time, 

Caroline: baby.

Me too. You are doing 500 

Shanna: skulls. 500 skulls. I don't think I've actually, have I told them about? I don't think so. The project? Yeah. Why would I, I may as well. 

Caroline: Shannon's doing 500 skulls. 500 skulls twice. Are you on? 42? 

Shanna: 42. I finished number 42 today. [00:24:00] So basically like my whole idea is I've got, uh, no talent as far as skull drawing goes.

I realized one day when I went to draw one that I dunno how to draw one. So for some reason my brain said, well do it 

Caroline: 500 times. Yeah. Not just like five times or 50 times. Mm-hmm. 500. 500. 

Shanna: Aim for the stars. Yeah. And so it got cemented in my brain and now goddammit, 42 skulls later. 

Caroline: I'm still bad guys. No, most of them are actually decent.

There is one that is so bad. It's so bad. It's that every time I need a laugh I'm like, show me the skull. It's 

Shanna: terrible. May maybe if you remind me. We'll post the skull. 

Caroline: Please, please do. Last time I looked at it too. I'm like, why are there pen scribbles? 

Shanna: So okay, we'll post the bad skull, but maybe we'll post a couple of my favorite skulls too.

Yeah, I just, so that you'll only think that that's, I mean, they're not great, but they're like, 

Caroline: they're shockingly good considering you've never drawn them before. That's true. Except the one. 

Shanna: Well, there's a couple bad ones, but anyways, I'm sorry. Yes, your book is 

Caroline: the best and [00:25:00] you're in love with it. It's the best.

It's 5 million stars. I, uh, Nikki loved it, obviously. I loved it. I bought a copy for my sister for her birthday who said I struggled to finish it, but I did it. 

Shanna: That's a friend I know. 

Caroline: Although she's your sister, so she's my sister. Sometimes we overlap, sometimes we don't. When I love a book, I love it so much that I have to lend it out and I'm like, oh, you don't read.

Guess what you're reading? Normal people. Yes. Yeah. You wanna understand my brain read normal people. Actually. You wanna understand my brain read alone with you in the ether. 

Shanna: Yeah. Beautiful. One day I'll read it. I do wanna pick it up. It does sound really, really good. I just know I'm not in the head space for anything.

No, not 

Caroline: right 

Shanna: now. Not right now. And if I'm gonna, I don't wanna like ruin my own. I 

Caroline: want you love it. Yeah. If you're gonna read it now you're gonna be like, I couldn't get into 

Shanna: it. And I'll never know if I didn't like it because I didn't like it or because I don't like 

Caroline: anything. Yeah. Yeah. But also my next tattoo, it's gonna be [00:26:00] honeycomb.

Hexagons with a B and a key because there's a theme of like multiple keys. He thinks that there's multiple keys to understanding Reagan, so there will be a key in there. Love it. That's it. Those are fantastic, the two books I have to talk 

Shanna: about. I love it. Great job. Thank you for reading a book or two. Yes, because yeah, I, three times last night I was like, I could throw down a book like let's find the shortest.

I almost listened to my own recording. Of the yellow wallpaper. Hmm. And 

Caroline: that would've 

Shanna: counted. That would've counted. But it's weird to listen to yourself, read a book. Yeah, it 

Caroline: was, it's probably like, it's weird to listen to myself on the podcast. Yeah. 

Shanna: So, so, you know. Anyways, if you ever want to read the yellow wallpaper, uh, it's on this podcast somewhere.

I did a whole reading of it. Bedtime reading. Bedtime, yeah. Go ahead, go read it. If you wanna hear my soft, sultry voice. Reading you a scary story. At bedtime. At [00:27:00] bedtime, you go for it. You go for it. You're never gonna sleep again in that scary attic. 

Caroline: So, okay, one more question though. Okay. Because there was the forest fire here last weekend and some people ended up being briefly on, what was it?

Evacuation watch. I was thinking, what's the one book that I would save if I could only pack one book on my way out the door? And we know what it is along with you and Mether It is. But what would you pick? What would I 

Shanna: pick on my shelf that can't be replaced? Ooh, I don't know. You cock me off guard. I know.

I mean, I feel like one of my Achilles, but that's, I also feel like I can mostly replace those if I had my original Hobbit, but I don't. It's gone. Oh, what? I know what happened. It just had to live with me for 

Caroline: too long. Ah, 

Shanna: and three children. Yeah. It, no, it was gone before then. Immer, I think, uh, I had a boyfriend who, uh, 

Caroline: really liked the Hobbit and kept it, no, 

Shanna: he, um, [00:28:00] I moved out cuz we broke up and then he moved out.

But he didn't tell me and the landlord dumped all of our stuff. Oh no. So I lost literally everything I owned. Mm. Um, I kind of had it coming. I did cheat on him and leave with another guy. Oh. So I'm, I'm no fucking treat guys. I'm not like, Shannon's a 

Caroline: fucking delight. 

Shanna: I'm a delight. I was an asshole though.

I was like 17 A break. Yeah. You were a child. I was an actual child, yeah. And then I married the fucking guy, which look how that went. 

Caroline: How about laughing? You're laughing. 

Shanna: Okay. Any other crimes I wanna admit too, I.

Oh, Carolyn, thank you so much. No problem for coming and doing this with 

Caroline: me. Thank you for inviting me back. Uh, 

Shanna: I hope that Jen appreciates that I tried. You did great. Thank you. Um, yes, Gabe. That's it. That's all. Okay. That's all that we have for you today. You can find us@goodbookspodcast.com, and we are in [00:29:00] her Good Books podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.

I wonder if Jen's been doing any TikTok lately? 

Caroline: I don't know. I'm not a talker. I'm way too old for that. Guys. I'm almost 40. She's almost 40. 

Shanna: No offense to anybody else. He was also that like, come on, Shanna's a baby. I'm just a baby. Oh, this comes out on my birthday. 

Caroline: This comes out the day before. The day before your birthday.

Birthday. Which I am specifically making sure I was back from Ontario for. You're so sweet. 

Shanna: Uh, what am I talking about? Oh, head over there to give us a follow. That was TikTok that we both clearly are on. Uh, head over there. Give us a follow. You never miss what we're doing. And while you're at it, rate and review this podcast.

It helps you get into our good books by supporting the show and also helps other people find us. Otherwise, we'll see you in two 

Caroline: weeks. I will listen to you in two weeks. 

Shanna: Bye bye.

We did it.