In Her Good Books
It's Our 100th Episode!
It's our 100th Episode! We've read hundreds of books, had two babies and whole lot of other stuff!
Books mentioned in this episode:
Holly by Stephen King
This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron
A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman
Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
Libro.fm.
Use our code GOODBOOKS at checkout and get two books for the price of your first months membership!
Find us at:
www.goodbookspodcast.com
Facebook - In Her Good Books Podcast
Instagram - @inhergoodbookspodcast
TikTok - @inhergoodbookspodcast
We are affiliated with Libro.fm, but all reviews are our true and honest opinions!
It's our 100th Episode! We've read hundreds of books, had two babies and whole lot of other stuff!
Books mentioned in this episode:
Holly by Stephen King
This Wicked Fate by Kalynn Bayron
A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Malerman
Maeve Fly by CJ Leede
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
Libro.fm.
Use our code GOODBOOKS at checkout and get two books for the price of your first months membership!
Find us at:
www.goodbookspodcast.com
Facebook - In Her Good Books Podcast
Instagram - @inhergoodbookspodcast
TikTok - @inhergoodbookspodcast
We are affiliated with Libro.fm, but all reviews are our true and honest opinions!
Hello everyone and welcome to In Her Good Books. I'm Shanna.
Speaker 1:And I'm Jen, and this is a podcast where two friends talk about books.
Speaker 2:And the last 100 episodes. Yes, pew, pew.
Speaker 1:No big deal. No big deal. Yes, this is our 100th episode. That's crazy. That is a good thing. It's actually crazy, yes, that 100 times we have sat down and done this. I mean probably more, probably more, yeah, because some of them did not work.
Speaker 2:Remember way at the beginning when we would record and then find out that actually, no, we didn't. Yes, oh, that was sad. That's a mistake. You only make a couple times, not once. Once would have been better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and remember back in the day when we were, I just felt like we were so prepared. Oh, because we prepared, I'm so professional. Maybe we should take a picture of our setup right now, you know actually here.
Speaker 2:I'll do it. I'll do it.
Speaker 1:Just because it's hilarious.
Speaker 2:It's pretty good. At least I've got this beautiful curtain over top of my toolbox, yep. So I guess, for anybody who's not looking at the picture I just took, we are in my little studio computer room and then I have a toolbox with a curtain on it for presentation and then a big tote and then the microphone is sitting on that.
Speaker 1:It's very professional and we used to. When we started, it was COVID, so we were just on Zoom.
Speaker 2:That was all right. That was all right, except for all the kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were so many kids, so many. That was yeah.
Speaker 2:Between the two of us we have so many kids. It would take us three hours to record, and then editing was just an hour of taking out. Get back to your bed.
Speaker 1:It was kind of nice, though, to be like okay, I'm just going to cut out this five-person. Five minutes of nothing, yes.
Speaker 2:And then you could still hear whoever wasn't off dealing with their kids. Just like squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak, hear a fridge open.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I would think about saying funny things so that you would hear them when you're editing, but I didn't. I was too scared. I probably would now.
Speaker 2:I've come back or I've been editing before it had you and Sam have an entire conversation while I was gone. Nothing exciting Dang.
Speaker 1:I mean thank goodness.
Speaker 2:Could you imagine if you're like wow, shannon just ghosted me Terrible. Or I could just start dropping key points from your conversation into conversations.
Speaker 1:I'm like wow, she's a wedge.
Speaker 2:How does she know these things? Wouldn't it be great if my magic was just like a big, elaborate hoax? I have been pulling this entire time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're just recording everybody constantly.
Speaker 2:Well, it's been pretty good 100 times Three years, which means we've read at least 100 books, which I know.
Speaker 1:I know for a fact. Yeah, we've read. I've read 87 this year, so it's very good.
Speaker 2:You'll definitely hit 90. Yeah, it really gave her hell. You could do it.
Speaker 1:I was supposed to get 100, but no, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 2:Come on, do Murderbot.
Speaker 1:I could.
Speaker 2:Knock seven down.
Speaker 1:Plus you read Murderbot. I already bought them.
Speaker 2:Yes, I have read 31.
Speaker 1:That's really good. That is way more than a normal person.
Speaker 2:It's true, for me it feels a little weak, but I didn't start reading again until August, so I feel pretty okay. I think it's a respectable enough number. Not that the number matters, blah, blah, blah, it does. It does yes.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:If you have a certain kind of brain, it does. I'm very achievement focused, so when I set a number, I'm going to get the stupid number, even if it's just a stupid, arbitrary number.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, maybe you could read 19 books in the next month. Murderbot, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I just read a really long one. So yes, we'll see All right, you want to start and tell me what you read.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do. I read Holly by Stephen King. How was it? It was good. Yeah, yeah, it was good. I did not realize that it was a Mr Mercedes book and I guess it's not technically. I think it's its own thing, but they could group them together and sell them together for sure. I never read the Snopsis, which is strange for me. That's more of a you move. Yes, I did, but I haven't really been super interested in a bunch of Stephen King's latest books.
Speaker 1:I just like I haven't, read.
Speaker 2:Fairy Tale. I haven't really read anything he's put out recently. This one had a book, a book, a house on the cover and the word Holly, and it came out in the fall Christmasy time. I assumed it was a Christmas haunted house. I wish it was. That would have been great, but it wasn't. Turns out there was a character I entirely forgot about named Holly in the Mr Mercedes books, which I like, until I mean I can't tell you about the third book. That would be rude. Anyways, there was something about the book that made me go ugh, kind of didn't spoil the series for me, but Made me a little bit not stoked. Anyways, there wasn't any of that in this book. It was following that character Set in the COVID times, which I don't love, but I think he did it COVID accurate. People just had to keep putting on and take it off their mask and at the end there was an author's note. Stephen King comes on. He must have been in our audio setup, which is weird. You're Stephen King, go to the studio.
Speaker 2:The audio quality switches from like professional audio book recording to Stephen King in his bathroom. He talks about any continuity errors in the book and also he touches on COVID and how, like his thoughts align with whatever. Oh, that's brave, I guess you're Stephen King.
Speaker 1:He can say whatever he wants, do say he's right. I mean to an extent, but you know, yeah, yeah, it's about some old people.
Speaker 2:Oh, you wanted me to tell you what the book was about. You guys didn't all just read it as well and know Not this time. Okay, so the book? Not about a Christmas haunted house. It's about the main character, holly, who was a sidekick in the private detective agency Finders Keepers from the Mr Mercedes books. She is now a private investigator and she gets hired because this woman's adult daughter goes missing. You find out right away that it's elderly people. It's in the synopsis too. It is Okay. Am I gonna spoil if I tell you who it is? But no, it's pretty much. It's the first chapter. Yeah, there's an old couple and they take turns pretending to be stuck in an electric wheelchair so that whenever somebody gets close to them then they can drag them back to a cage in their basement and they're just. It's a classic style Stephen King where it's just an actual person monster. I mean, I guess he does lots of supernatural stuff too, but it just like was a bad guy. It was good.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of elderly killers pretending that they're in a wheelchair.
Speaker 2:I think there's something really fun too about knowing Stephen King is getting up there in age and he's just writing it. There's one character who's almost 100 years old it's not one of the bad guys, but she sits down and just farts and there's just lots of those little things where it's just, you know, not this glamorized vision of old age. I liked it. It isn't like my favorite Stephen King. It is a real solid middle of a packer, but that's all I was looking for from it. Well, that's not true. I was looking for a haunted house, but when it wasn't, magically, what I decided it was gonna be about which is, I guess, something that suddenly we do- yeah, I have another one, so I don't know.
Speaker 2:We've forgotten how reading works.
Speaker 1:Well, we're just reading anything. We're like we gotta read for the podcast faster, faster, faster. We don't have time, who cares? We don't have time to know what things are about before we read them. We just like, we just go in.
Speaker 2:Yep, and with this one I mean Stephen King. It's one of our book clubs. Everybody keeps saying, ooh, I'm gonna read it. Somebody's got to start this, so I decided to do that. Sounds good, I want to read it, yeah you should.
Speaker 1:What'd you read? Um, so I read this Wicked Fate by Callan Bayron. This is the second book in the this Poison Heart series, and I read this Poison Heart earlier this year and really, really liked it.
Speaker 2:What was that one about?
Speaker 1:It's about this adopted girl who has plant powers and she lives with her moms in New York and then she gets noticed that someone in her birth family has died and left her their manor house, yeah, yeah. So she used to go back there and decide what she wants to do with it. But she gets there and it has like an apothecary and a secret garden full of poisonous plants and it's in this nice little town and she kind of feels like she's able to be herself instead of like constantly trying to not show New York her superpowers. Yeah. But then there's this whole thing. There's this group of people that are trying to get something that she has, something that her family has held for years and years and years, but it's supposed to like, give immortality. So people, of course, if there's anything about immortality, people are trying to get it and they'll kill whoever they need to.
Speaker 2:They will kill and eat whoever they need to.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it just kind of turns into fighting against these bad guys and it was a really really good and fun. I really liked it. It was YA, which I'm just at an age where most of the time that's a problem.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:But it's so hard to relate. It's so hard, but in this case the book was so much fun and so interesting that it didn't matter. Main character her name is Bersaas, which is the best, and all these people in her birth family have names like Cersei and Persephone, and then it turns out that they're like descendants of Hecate, so you get to go into like all this Greek mythology stuff, which is really fun. So, yeah, it was really really good. I really liked that one. So then the second one is this Wicked Fate and one of the problems that I had with it. I mean, the book is really good, but it picks up directly from the scene that the first book ended on.
Speaker 2:Sometimes that's good yeah.
Speaker 1:And at first I was like, oh cool, like we're just getting right back into it. But usually in a series the books have like a little bit of a recap.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm yeah. So In case it's been a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is annoying when it hasn't been a year, like if I'm picking it up directly after. I'm like, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:I don't need to know all this. But after it had been a year I was like I don't really remember who some of these characters are. I don't really remember what just happened and they're not telling me and I don't have the book so I can't just look it up. So it kind of took me a little time to get into it because I was like, well, maybe I'll just like ditch it. Maybe if I can't remember where we're at and who these people are, is it worth reading Mm-hmm. But then I kept being like no, like it's really fun, I think it's going to be good. So I kept putting it down, picking it up and then eventually I just kept reading and I was really glad that I did because of it. Like I'm still not 100% clear on who some of the characters were, but they're like really the minor characters, they were super important. So that's OK, but I still don't really know who they were. Oh well, they never explained them again. They weren't that important.
Speaker 1:No, it's just like if they had one huge book and they just kind of cut it into two books. It's kind of like that Is the series finished. So far there's only two books. I don't see anything about a third one, but I would read it if there was.
Speaker 2:Nice, and that's rare with a YA series.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I recommended it to Janelle and Janelle's reading the first one right now and she's really liking it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she would.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was like I'm pretty sure this would be exactly what you like, but also is YA, so it might be exactly what you don't like to know. I don't know. There is a little bit of a love story. Oh, there's nothing worse than a YA love story. At the same time, I kind of liked it because they connected really quickly and have a really intense relationship. But even at the end, when it seems like one of them is going to die and they're saying goodbye to each other, she says I care about you so much. You know how much I care about you, but they never say I love you.
Speaker 2:I love you and I'll give up my life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not. Yes, that is good and healthy behavior for this relationship that has only been happening for one month. Yes, oh good, Maybe two months but not that long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not the die for you instill of makes me so crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was really happy about that. So in this book we pick up right where the first book left off. So we have the absurdist heart, but it's not complete. There's multiple pieces of it and Ooh, Fetch quests, yeah, Fun yeah. So they need to find the final piece, which they think is on IEA, which is Cersei's Island.
Speaker 2:Oh, no wonder you're loving this book. It's called Clants, it's got Greeks.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So they have to like no one knows where this island is, because, I mean, maybe it's invisible, who knows? But so they have to find the island. They come in contact with all these different gods, they come in contact with Hermes, who's like the lighthouse keeper, and they have to get on a ship and they have to sail through the sirens, and so good, I love that.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. There was one thing that I did notice was especially like the first half of the book. I think it was at about 30% or something and I was like I'm pretty sure we're still in the exact same scene that we started in. Oh, I was like a long ways into the book and it was just hours and hours. Just in the one scene, in the one scene where they're just and they're just talking a lot, they're just standing around discussing what's happening and what they're going to do, and I didn't really notice it while it was happening. I was just like, yeah, this is a good story. And then I'm like man, they're talking a lot. I think it's super dialogue heavy. And then I look at I'm like, oh, I'm 30%. I'm like they're still like in the living room.
Speaker 2:They need to get out of this room and do some of the stuff they keep talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so once I noticed that that was a little bit irritating but it was still so interesting and good that I was like whatever, okay, I can stay in this room with them. But I kind of felt like they were doing a lot of telling instead of showing and I feel like normally that would be more annoying than it was in this book. I was okay with it in this book, but I did read a few reviews and people were like go and do stuff. Yeah, why are we just standing around in one room talking for hours and hours and hours?
Speaker 2:If it was real and I was going to go do something super dangerous. We're not going till tomorrow morning, yeah.
Speaker 1:We've got to plan this, and I heard in some of the reviews I read people were saying, yeah, this is like Percy Jackson, but Percy Jackson did it better. And I was like, well, I don't really know that much about Percy Jackson, but this is a bunch of black women instead of a bunch of white kids.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that's more interesting to me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I wonder if we'll start. I've never read the Percy Jackson books, but I get a second go around now with Ben starting to read, so maybe I'll get a bunch of those series that I missed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I know I'm pretty sure Jorah read them, but she just read them on her own because she's Jorah. Yeah, exactly, yeah, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:If you like, reacophagy, if you like plants, speaking of people that you like to hear talk for hours and hours. I'm not going to tell you a lot about this book, but I will give you a little preview to what I'll be talking about next episode. It's narrated by Julia Whalen oh, nice. So it's been a while since I listened to her narrate anything. So I'm not projecting her onto other characters, it's just nice and fresh.
Speaker 2:It's called I have Some Questions For you by Rebecca McKay, and it is about a woman who is a podcaster Yay, and she is also a teacher. She's going back to her old prep school, boarding school and teaching a class there, like a little mini course, but there was a murder that happened when she was in her last year. So it's also talking about this murder and it's been really, really well done so far. It's kind of like the secret history if and have an old woman breathing and licking her lips the whole time. But yeah, it's got those dark academia vibes to it. I'm not very far, I'm like it looks like I'm almost a quarter, so not enough to tell you if it's awesome or not, but John Green recommended it to me, so I trust him. I trust him. But yeah, so far so good, and then if anybody actually cares for that book, who man? I'm gonna tell you more about it next week. Yeah, just do wait. So that's the week after that.
Speaker 1:Yeah two weeks, two weeks. I was sleeping counseling the other day and I said to the counselor I'll see you in two weeks. I was like you don't know why that's funny. So why did I say?
Speaker 2:it like that. I hope you did the pause and wait for it all to come out.
Speaker 1:I definitely put up two fingers. I love it.
Speaker 2:That's embarrassing. I hope she thinks about it so much.
Speaker 1:She's really excited to come back. I'm not, Okay. What else did you read? Okay, the next thing I read is A House at the Bottom of a Lake by Josh Mallerman. So this was a novella that was published in 2016. It is about a 17-year-old boy and girl who go out on a first date. It's your YA kick I know, I didn't know it was YA. This is the one I was like I thought I was reading a horror novella and it turns out I was reading a YA, not horror.
Speaker 2:No mermaids, because it sounds really horrible. No mermaids, who lives in the house under the water. Then Goose?
Speaker 1:Maybe I don't know. I don't know. Did you finish it?
Speaker 2:Yes, I feel like you should know.
Speaker 1:I mean, maybe if it wasn't about a two 17-year-olds going on a date, I would say you should read it, because you would be like, oh yeah, I understand everything they're trying to say. Oh, it was like that.
Speaker 2:Yes, gotcha.
Speaker 1:It's very open to interpretation and I have some thoughts, so it's not like I don't have any thoughts.
Speaker 2:You just do prefer them told to you. Yes, see you in the book.
Speaker 1:Yes, but I do think that in this case it was kind of obvious. So, yeah, he might sort of go on a date. They go canoeing and they start out in one lake and then they find a little creek to like a next lake. So they go into this next lake and then they find a third lake and they go into that lake. I would be so tired by lake too. Yeah right, well, luckily they're about to find a house so they can rest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of I wouldn't rest in that house.
Speaker 1:No, I mean they kind of do. But, yeah, they go into the third lake and then there's a house submerged in the water and they know that's not normal and they know something is wrong here, something is weird, it's not explainable, but they just like become consumed by it and like obsessed with it. It's pretty cool, yeah. So they're like constantly wanting to go back there. They do all these crazy things to like go down in the house. So they like dive down there. They get diving equipment, they start like spending more and more time in the house. It just is. It's like really it's eerie. It's not scary, I wouldn't call it horror, but it is eerie.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of them being underwater and how things like move in the water and is there something down there with them or not, and you forget how it's dark. It's dark, yeah, so they have like a flashlight. It's a bad idea. Yeah, no, like, no. I imagine Jorah going underwater in the lake with a flashlight and some weird diving equipment that she got from someone's cousin. No, no, I'm not. But what if it?
Speaker 2:was us. It still sounds pretty rad, it's true.
Speaker 1:I don't think so. There isn't really a plot. It's just why you didn't like it. But it is like a novella too. So, like there usually isn't that much plot, there isn't that much character development or anything, it's just kind of like it's. Usually, I find, in novellas. It's just like ooh, maybe not all novellas Not all of them.
Speaker 2:But like Martha Wells in the Murder Bots, she manages to cram like an entire book into a novella.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's a skill she is very talented at that but I think this is kind of like a short story that got out of control.
Speaker 2:That got out of control, but that's out of control that it became a book.
Speaker 1:Yes. So I think what it was really obviously trying to say was it was just like kind of showing this parallel between this stuff that's happening with the house and then also kind of like first love and like teenage love and how it is like all consuming and even though you see red flags, you're like I don't care, I'm going for it and you just make bad decisions around it, and so they're like kind of developing this relationship on the one side and then also having this relationship with this house, and I mean I think that's probably maybe it would be a good book for a 17 year old to read.
Speaker 2:Kind of hard ends. Do they get married?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of an open ending where it's like what did that mean? And there's one interpretation that I saw that I was like ooh, that one is spooky.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe I will read it sometime.
Speaker 1:It was really short.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't need to get how many?
Speaker 1:19 books, yeah, so you could bang it out, I'm sure, speaking of that, there was teenage sex in the book, which I also don't love. Not my favorite, no, I feel guilty by associate.
Speaker 2:Yeah Like, why are my?
Speaker 1:eyes like that is horror, yeah, but overall, like I don't, I didn't like it. I didn't like the book.
Speaker 2:You're selling it to me like it's sounding more and more like I will, yeah.
Speaker 1:I didn't want it. I kind of wanted to like stop reading it. Lots of times I was like no sure I'm just going to keep going. But it's one that I keep kind of thinking about and then I keep going back to and wondering about this, wondering about that, and I think it's probably one of those ones, that one, if I had read the book like a physical book, it may have been better. And also there's just things that you can kind of pick apart and I think, a lot of metaphors and symbolism which I kind of suck at. But I think if I got at least like one of the things, that's pretty good yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh well, now I am actually really interested in it. Like it sounds like something I would like. No plot Open to interpretation. I really like.
Speaker 1:Josh Malerman's writing. So what else did he do? Bird box.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, I didn't read that. I held your book hostage for you.
Speaker 1:I missed those Good.
Speaker 2:At last, book club. Janelle lent me the Paris apartment because I tried to read that one on audio, but the French accents were just so strong I could not understand anything and I was like well, this is not fun for me, so I DNF'd it. So she said oh, you can take mine. I was like no, no, I can't, I don't give me a book, I will not read it, I don't care about it. Like you can take it. I was like OK, well, it lives in my house now.
Speaker 1:I have two.
Speaker 2:Janelle's books on my shelf. It just is how we ensure that we'll all always know each other. I have been reading a novella and the problem with physical books since I haven't been reading them like now, that I suddenly have time that I can actually read a physical book that's cool, that's great and I'm doing it more, but I keep forgetting that that's an option. Yeah, I just do other things, but this novella, I've got like a quarter of it left and it's very small and it's the same one I was reading like a week ago.
Speaker 1:I bought it the day it came out. Yeah, it's hard, it's hard. And now I keep picking up my Kindle, being like I'm going to read a book and then she's like I don't know what to read, and then I just, by the time I even thought of something to read, I ran out of time.
Speaker 2:Kindle is my bedtime book, so that's why my Kindle books take me so long is because I can sleepy. But you should get like five, 10 pages done, then I can read one Kindle book a month. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's pretty good, okay. Well, when you add it to my three or four audiobooks and then, who knows, maybe author of physical book in there just to spice it up. This is how normal people feel. Yes, all the people I know Thank God for audiobooks. Oh my God, so you cannot have three children and a job and read? Don't tell me that you can. No, lady O, they're doing it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no it's not possible. It's so hard. Although now I've just kind of gotten to the point where if I'm not listening to something, I'm doing anything. I'm in hell. I'm like where I need something in my ears, right. I went to the mall the other day and I walked in and I was like I had this whole idea that I was going to go to the mall and I was going to do my Christmas shopping and it was going to be nice. And then I walked in and I was like why didn't I bring my headphone? I don't want to hear anybody else talking, I just want to hear my book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so nice because then you turn invisible. Yes, it's the best. You just go in the world, you put your book in. Nobody can see you anymore. You just do your thing. Yeah, nobody's going to talk to you, not with that face. No, definitely not it looks like somebody's being murdered in your ears.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm like, most likely horrifically murdered. Speaking of horrifically murdered, I read Maeve Fly by CJ Lee.
Speaker 2:And, oh my God, how'd you feel about that one? It was really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was brutal. So Shanna read this one in October and so I don't want to talk about it too much, but I'll say it's about a woman named Maeve who works at Disneyland playing the part of Elsa from Frozen, which I feel like Disney should have a problem with this.
Speaker 2:She did not say Disney and she did not say Elsa. She's saying let it go. Oh, yes, that's true, that is. I noticed like they were doing a lot of skirting around the actual things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was like, okay, so they're not like saying it, but they're like it is heavily implied. Yeah, like there's no mistaking it at all. And then at one point, yeah, she sings let it go. And I'm like, ew, I feel like that's now pushed it too far. Yes, you should change to like stop it now. Yeah, anything else? Yeah, so she plays Elsa at Disneyland by day, by night. She basically brutally murders people. Yes, and yeah, I just think Disney would have a big problem with that. Maybe they don't know.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's probably better.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm sure this book is published, so it went through. It went through lawyers and stuff, but I know that Disney can be pretty hardcore, so I don't know if I would want to go up against them.
Speaker 2:How did you like her bedroom? It's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yes, the Halloween themed room with, like the coffin bed.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, what a weird thing for this man to do who just met her.
Speaker 2:The day that I decide that I'm just going to be single forever. Yeah, coffin bed.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, I mean if you meet someone and they don't like your coffin bed?
Speaker 2:I'd say that makes sense.
Speaker 1:I'd say that's a green play, but I don't know how nice your like pink blanket would look in a coffin bed.
Speaker 2:I don't do like a vampire coffin, I do like a casket, I don't really want to be here. Oh, just ivory. Yeah, I'm sure it'd be comfortable. You probably would, probably more than what I'm sleeping on.
Speaker 1:Serum for just one person Perfect.
Speaker 2:My kids would definitely crawl in. Oh my god, yes, I mean. The worst to have anybody walk in is just me and my three kids asleep.
Speaker 1:If anyone walked in, they would be like, yeah, that makes sense, that's true, if anybody walked in they had the code.
Speaker 2:Haji, I felt a little bit gutted at the end, yeah.
Speaker 1:I was like no, no.
Speaker 2:Listen to what he's saying, and then I remembered I was like, oh wait, maybe, yeah, I know, but yeah, it was a good one. Hey, it followed the American Psycho template.
Speaker 1:She takes all these terrible books, but books of terrible things, and it's like I'm getting my life advice from these books. One of them is American Psycho.
Speaker 2:That was when I was like OK, good, so she knows that she's doing this. It felt pretty obvious to me that this was kind of a retelling, not a retelling.
Speaker 1:It's like an O2. Yeah, heavily inspired by See. I haven't read or watched it, so I don't really even know anything about what it's about.
Speaker 2:One point for Shanna in the movies Winner. That gives me five points.
Speaker 1:I've got one million points. But I think that, paired with the Frozen thing and the level of horror, and just she says it has these weird quirky things, I just think it was really well done. I think she did a good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so too. The longer I've been sitting with it too, I like it more. At the time it kind of feels yucky because it's like American Psycho in the brutality. It's not fooling.
Speaker 1:No, I was like oh, what are you doing? I was like cool.
Speaker 2:In American Psycho I think it's more veiled for whether or not the things were really happening or whether or not he's just psychotic and imagining these things vividly Right, Whereas in this one Definitely happening. It's definitely happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, really good Good horror. You love horror? Read this one. Okay, good, I've been the only one who's read it for too long An entire month I was hesitant for some reason, I don't know, like the cover is good, the cover is so good, I don't know Something. I was like I don't know and then I went for it and I was like nope, good, glad I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the cover is great. You should definitely look it up if you have not seen it. It's one that I would buy for myself just because it's gorgeous.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So I have one more. So I read Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Pauley. I read it on the recommendation of a customer. She was reading it and she was like, oh, my daughter said that this book was life changing and like I already like her daughters and I was like okay, and then she's reading it and she's like, only a couple pages in she comes and she's like, oh, my goodness, like the things that this woman went through are just heartbreaking, and I'm like, ooh, tell me more.
Speaker 2:Is she underestimating the level of reading that you have done? Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, and I remember her, she had picked up a Richard Wagamee's book from the book exchange at the shop and she brought it back like the next day and was like I couldn't read this. It was too hard and too dark and he's heavy, yeah, and I was like okay, sorry.
Speaker 1:And then so she's telling me that this woman in this book had to go through these horrible things and she was like, oh, I don't know, maybe you don't want to read it. Then I was like, oh, beth, I think you have like a much more gentle, sensitive soul than me. And she was like, oh okay. I was like, oh, maybe it was that mean. No, was it meant to be you?
Speaker 2:guys can do a book exchange. You get her made fly.
Speaker 1:She would actually die Like uh Cough in bed, she will die, she will die. So this one is about. So Sarah Pauley is a Canadian actress, screenwriter, director. I didn't know who she was at all, but turns out I did know because she played the main character on a show called the Road to Evanlee.
Speaker 2:No, I only have one point per year.
Speaker 1:So it was a show that I watched a lot when I was a kid. It's set in PEI and it's inspired by a lot of LM Montgomery's writing. So she's the one that wrote Anne of Green Gables. So they're all kind of like in the same pool, Like all these stories that she wrote and then Anne of Green Gables. Like the characters kind of intermingle a little bit and stuff it's kind of set in the same place.
Speaker 1:And then that time. So I loved Anne of Green Gables when I was a kid. Also loved Road to Evanlee, also loved, you know, little House on the Prairie.
Speaker 2:You also loved. You weren't literally talking about making butter yesterday, it's.
Speaker 1:I love this kind of stuff, so I've always been into it.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, your nightgown.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's from them. This is what I grew up with. Like I'm still wish that I was Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. That is my dream. So that time it could still happen. So the book is a collection of six essays Again, essays. I'm going to do it. I'm reading weird stuff lately.
Speaker 2:I'm in a book slump, I don't know what.
Speaker 1:Just reading all the things. I don't usually like Blindly picking up YA novellas. Yeah, so it's a collection of six essays, although it says that, but I didn't. When I was reading it it didn't feel like it was six different things, it felt like it was just one memoir. She talks a lot about being like a child actor and how terrible it was and it really sucked, because I really liked that show.
Speaker 2:And it really sounds like it's a terrible job that exploits and hurts children. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1:She was definitely exploited and hurt, and lots of other people on the show also said the same thing.
Speaker 2:Man, I hope they're fixing that. I hope that's getting better now?
Speaker 1:I hope so. She said that she sent an email to the director on a movie that she was on and said I just want to tell you what my experience was working on that movie and how terrible and traumatic it was. Because she knew that another young child was going to be in another movie of his and she's like I just want you to know this going in so that maybe you can give this kid a different experience. And the guy was kind of like well, you said that you felt really unsafe in all these moments, but you were a kid and you didn't realize that you were safe because we had all these things in place to make sure that you weren't exploded or you weren't drowned. Yeah, and she's like, yeah, but the point is, is that as a kid, I didn't know that Somebody needed to tell me and show me, yeah, and yeah, you need to keep that in mind when you're working with children in the future. And he was kind of like yeah, Well, yeah, that sounds right. It's like, oh, annoying.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, she talks a lot about being a child actor. She talks a lot about lots of different invisible illnesses and disorders that she had throughout her whole life and how that kind of impacted her life and how people never really believed that anything was wrong with her because they couldn't see it. And it was really good. It was good, I enjoyed it and I don't think it would be like when I'd be like this is life changing. What if it was your first?
Speaker 2:and only memoir.
Speaker 1:Maybe no, I don't know. I think because I was a fan of Roe Taven Lee, I was kind of a little bit more interested in it because I was like, oh yeah, I remember her, I wanted to be that little girl when I was a little girl. But if I didn't have that connection I don't think I would have found it as interesting. So I wouldn't really I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but like it's not a book that I would like put into someone's hands and be like you need to read this.
Speaker 2:I know it's from your conversation about how much you both love the show growing up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but actually I did recommend it to someone because Jen you liar.
Speaker 2:I know you dirty rotten liar.
Speaker 1:The worst. The last essay is about her getting a really bad concussion that just really affected her life for years and years. So it's about how that happened and how it affected her and how she got through it and then how she eventually was able to recover from it. And my hairdresser kind of had a similar situation where she got a concussion at a swimming pool, the same like Sarah Polly also got her concussion at a swimming pool. Yeah, she, my hairdresser, got a concussion and she's had multiple concussions. So she like talks about it and how it affects her and it's really hard to recover from and she still has issues. And so I messaged her and was like, hey, I read this book and the last essay is about her concussion and I just thought maybe it might be like at least validating for you, just to be like, yes, someone else also feels this way. Yeah, but I did recommend it to someone, so maybe that was why I read it.
Speaker 2:Maybe somebody else needed it. Yes, and you were the vessel, I was. So yeah, perfectly fine book. Nothing really bad this batch.
Speaker 1:Nope, lots of things that I wouldn't normally read. I don't know, I've just been a little bit of a slump, so I don't really know. I haven't been able to go and like, be like, yes, I'm excited about this book and this is what I want to read. I'm just like, oh, what is there? I guess I'll read this one, yeah, and then it turns out fine, which is good, better than the other way.
Speaker 2:But and we got to start thinking about what we're going to put in the secret book exchange.
Speaker 1:Oh, I've been thinking about it constantly and like it every year. It just tears me up inside.
Speaker 2:Because sometimes the books that get picked end up going around the entire group and there are hits and it's great. Yeah, you want to be that winner.
Speaker 1:Yes, I loved it when it happened to me, which was it was the Richard Wagamese book. It was a Ragged company, ragged company. So, yeah, I've just been trying to think of any of the books I read this year. They were good enough for like. The problem is we all talk about all the books that we like and then everybody reads them all. So by the end of the year Everyone's already read all the books, so you have to pick like a new one. Yeah, that hasn't been talked about.
Speaker 2:Going into the next year. That's right now. I'm currently doing my research. Yes, you too.
Speaker 1:But I actually have, while doing this research, found a few that I might be excited about reading. So, yeah, I'm going to read everything about, and then it turns out to be a dud. But I guess there's like what Nine of us average, so usually there's eight duds.
Speaker 2:It might just not be our year.
Speaker 1:The other ones aren't duds, they're just not the winner.
Speaker 2:I should really read that one. It's called, it's spelt knives, but that's not how you say it, because it's a French name and it was one Corey put in and it's a novella and it sounds so good. I want to be able to be like you did. Good, yeah, but it's been like two years. He's like what are you talking about? But it looks really good. I think it's going to be good. Maybe I'll do it. It's a physical book. You can do it. I can do novellas, yeah. Yeah, I'll work my way back up. Yeah, I read the entire Game of Thrones series in physical books in like eight months. Yeah, it's amazing, I can do it.
Speaker 1:I was just thinking we should probably clarify that the secret book thing is. At one of our book clubs for our Christmas party we all bring like a blind date with a book type thing where we have our book and we wrap it in brown paper and we write little clues on it and then everyone gets a number and we get to go up and choose which book we want.
Speaker 2:And we have the option to steal.
Speaker 1:I always find that well, no people do steal. Yeah, sometimes I find that I've stolen. Sometimes I find, when the game is, that people are too nice and they don't do it.
Speaker 2:You always had a few wild cards there.
Speaker 1:Sometimes there's some, that is, people like they sound really good, so you have to steal.
Speaker 2:Whoever has that last number, it's you know you're getting the one that you want. Yes, well, we've done it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah for the 112. You can find us at In Her Good Books podcast on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
Speaker 2:And why don't you go and give us a five star? You love us review?
Speaker 1:Yeah for 100th episode present. Thank you, this holiday season. Five star. Five star review. Five star review. Or share this episode with your friends, then they can be our friends too. Follow us on our social medias and comment on our stuff and give us all the things we want.
Speaker 2:Yes, please Come on, we'll start planning better.
Speaker 1:New Year's resolution yes. Otherwise we're going to see you in two weeks.
Speaker 2:See you in two weeks, two weeks. Bye, we did it, bye, we did it.