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In Her Good Books
In Her Good Books
Icky Spice and Parenting: What We're Reading and a Bunch of Other Stuff
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Books mentioned in this episode:
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
Good Inside by Dr. Becky Kennedy
A Court of Sugar and Spice by Rebecca F Kenney
Here is the 13 Moons Reading Challenge! -https://readnburied.tumblr.com/post/734943583626526720/13-moons-reading-challenge-2024-announcement
www.lycanvalley.com
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Hello everyone and welcome to In Her Good Books.
Speaker 2I'm Shanna and I'm Jen, and this is a podcast where two friends talk about books.
Speaker 1That was awful. That was Sorry. I got excited, which is counterintuitive due to my reading yeah, yeah. Well, how are you? I'm good, I'm good, how are you? Oh, good, good, we don't sound very genuine. No, I mean.
Speaker 2I am, I am good.
Speaker 1Are you?
Speaker 2Yeah, good coffee.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's pretty good. I don't know. I'm fine. You have life, goals and stuff. So I'm just kind of jealous of how you have your life planned out and goals and things to do. I'm just over here not reading, laying in bed. My life's actually pretty okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, I'm also not reading and my only plan is go to Mexico and March because we already paid for it.
Speaker 1Okay, Well, I might have been over exaggerating Beyond that no plan, no plans.
Speaker 2No, wake up, go to daycare, go to work, go to daycare, go home, dinner, bed, tv Bed. Yeah, that's my plan. That's what I got Every day, every day.
Speaker 1For years. Yes, that sucks. Yeah, depressed, depressed, yeah, yes, I suppose. Do you remember a few podcasts ago where I told everyone I beat depression? They've spoke like one week too soon. Yeah, no, I didn't beat depression. I'm like, oh God, I'm just so good at it that when I'm not doing it it feels like something's missing. So, you know, you got to go back and just like dive into that nice deep pool of sadness. And I'm just kidding, I'm okay, I'm back on meds, so that helps, that does help. Yeah, thank you, she's still great, yep also good.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'm taking St John's wort.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's probably why he looks so bad.
Speaker 2Just getting beautiful. Oh, there is, but it did make me think like, because you're only supposed to take it for a little while, it's a short term supplement, I was like, hmm, I feel kind of better. Maybe this is definitely a sign that I do in fact need medication.
Speaker 1Maybe it wouldn't hurt. What if you take it and then you're just like a rocket to the moon?
Speaker 2I mean, I'm already like. I know, you know, does it look super good. But what if no one likes me anymore?
Speaker 1I'll still like you. Will you? Uh, yeah, we'll see, yeah, we'll see, we'll see. I feel pretty confident.
Speaker 2I don't know If I'm super happy, you will not get gems like my passport photo that I just got taken yesterday.
Speaker 1You mean your new contact picture. Oh, my God. Oh, I haven't done it yet because I'm afraid that she'll actually slip my throat.
Speaker 2I think I'm okay, but yesterday I was not okay. I went to get my passport photo done. I show up, I'm like I'm looking cute. I have my ghost reading a book sweater on. I'm hoping that the ghost makes it into the picture because it'd be funny. And then the lady says, oh, we're going to need to see both your eyebrows. And I'm like, excuse me, I don't have eyebrows. What if I didn't? I wish I had shaved them off.
Speaker 1I also wish that, because you still would have had to do the best.
Speaker 2She says oh, you can just go over and look at your reflection in the microwaves. So I was at London Drugs and fix your hair. I have hairspray if you need it. And I'm like that is not a solution. My hair doesn't go any other way. So I go over to the microwaves, look in, sweep my bangs to the side, which when you do that, they're no longer straight. Now they're like my eyebrows, which I didn't know they were going to be visible. I didn't do them and I was like sit down. And then she takes the picture and then she's like OK, go, come back in five minutes and I'll be ready. I'm wandering around London Drugs, just tears. I said I sent China a message that said this shouldn't make me want to cry, but it does. And it did. I was like, oh, my God. I was kind of devastated. And then she gives me the pictures and I was like, or? And she had said when she took it, oh, turned out perfect, shows me. I'm like it literally did turn out perfect, are you?
Speaker 1insane. It's the best photo that has been taken of anyone in a while, oh my.
Speaker 2God, I look like I'm about to actually murder someone.
Speaker 1You know, when you know people who are able to throw daggers for looks you never really genuinely like, capture that, but you caught the essence of wanting to murder somebody in a photo. Yes, she's so mad, you guys, it's the angriest face. So I wanted to change it for my contact picture of her and my phone, because right now, how old are you? 12. 12 year old Jen is what pops up when she calls and it's it's pretty great, but angry Jen.
Speaker 2Angry, with the side swept short bangs. I love it and if you look really closely at the picture you can see little dots of tears as they were starting to pop up.
Speaker 1I was so mad, but they, yeah, they appear to be rage. Yes, yes.
Speaker 2But the ghost is in the picture, so I hope they do hope that when I get my passport it is still there. I don't know if they crop it or anything. I'll be mad again.
Speaker 1I hope they zoom in on just your eyes.
Speaker 2Yeah, now it's funny. At the time I was not happy.
Speaker 1Yeah, I thought I would wait a day or two before I changed the contact.
Speaker 2I went to go to my passport today, every single person at every step had to open it up and make sure the photos are good. It's like, yeah, say something, it dare you Everyone just acted like they're normal. Maybe they see? They see hundreds of terrible passport photos every single day.
Speaker 1You should see my dad's old driver's license. He looks insane. His hair is on end. He looks completely mentally insane, like at the point that we all think it's so funny. Like he saw the picture and they asked like do you like this? He's like, it's so good, it's perfect, it's the. I'll find it for you. Oh my God, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2So it could be worse. So anybody out there who has bangs you should know this is this will happen to you if you go to get your passport photo taken.
Speaker 1Probably won't, it's probably just you Probably.
Speaker 2I wouldn't be surprised.
Speaker 1So that's wasn't reading. No, I just I didn't read anything. Jen, I'm trying to dance around the fact that I have I've read, but I haven't read anything to completion.
Speaker 2Well, when you said you didn't do your homework, you meant it.
Speaker 1No, I meant it. I did not read. I did not look up reading challenges. Oh, yes, I did. I have any other homework. Was that all my homework? Didn't make notes.
Speaker 2I didn't make any notes. She's looking for her notebook like oh, where's my notes? I fucking have notes. I have got no notes, not even close.
Speaker 1I don't even have anything to make notes on and I already told her that I didn't do it, like I don't have to keep lying, yeah.
Speaker 2Well, I did very minimal looking at reading challenges, because the first one that popped up was the 13 moons reading challenge and I thought I like moons, you love moons.
Speaker 1I also love moons, so I was like sure, yeah, did you send that?
Speaker 2to me yeah, did I read it? Well, you didn't say anything, so I assume either you hated it or you hated me. Those were the only two options that I was going with. I mean, I know the real answer is couldn't look at it too depressed.
Speaker 1That's not the answer that I I go with most of the time, and probably the answer was oh, you know what I did? I cleaned my whole basement, you know about it. I made you go through a physical human tour yes, and I've already made you go through several video tours yes, but you know what? I don't care. I worked really hard, it was really good. So that's what I've been doing mostly. Oh, and you know what I did do? Was I started listening to the obituary podcast? Yes, you did. So that's kind of my homework from like a year ago, yep.
Speaker 2I've been saying, hey, there's this podcast, really good, you'll like it. Exactly the thing that you would listen to. Shannon kept saying well, she kept saying nothing, yeah, I kept saying nothing.
Speaker 1Which?
Speaker 2again, she hates me and she hates everything I like, and that's the answer. But you did listen, I did, and you do like it and I do.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm doing that thing, though, where I'm listening to it in a reverse order. Yeah, yeah, they're now referencing, for the first time, the things that they were referencing the episode before. So I feel like I have to choose a spot and then start moving up.
Speaker 2Yeah, maybe like halfway down, so you're not like in the crappy episodes.
Speaker 1Yeah, so that's the thing I did. Oh, and I finished the last of us the TV show.
Speaker 2Me too, just today. Yeah, I'm very behind. We're both very behind Because obviously everyone else in the world has already completed. But why?
Speaker 1Why was I so behind Jen? Was it because you hate me and don't like anything I like?
Speaker 2No, no, I really like Sam's fault. That's right, because I want to watch it and Sam wants to watch it too. But Sam is too like, he gets too. He's too sensitive to watch shows that are like this emotional and scary, so it's harder to convince him to. But then if I watch it without him, then he's like why you watch it without me? And then I'm like, ah, so I did watch it without him and he doesn't know. Luckily he doesn't listen to the podcast, so he won't know. So if he does want to watch it one day I'll be like yeah, sure, and pretend like I haven't seen it. Perfect, that's my plan and it was so good, it's so good and it just punches me in the stomach.
Speaker 1Yes, yes, it was so, so good. I've played the game so like. For me it was just this nerd fest. And then recently sorry guys, I know that this is a book podcast I didn't read any books, though, so I have not played the second game, the Last of Us, part 2. Haven't played it. This is a big amount of shame for me. So I finally, at Christmas time, I purchased the second game. I used a gift card, I bought it, I went to go and download it and it said 22 days as like a countdown timer. I was like what the hell Turns out? I bought the pre-order. So, oh, jen, now that you're caught up with the series, now you have to come and watch me play this game, and it's going to be torture.
Speaker 2No. I kind of want to play the game because I'm watching it and I'm like I just know that this exact part is in the game. I can tell this is a game part and I want to do it.
Speaker 1So it's really fun. It's a really really well done game, so pretty excited about that.
Speaker 2Okay, well, this 13 Moons reading challenge, I don't know where it originates from because I've seen it's in a whole bunch of places, so I don't know. If anybody does know who made this up, let us know. But there's different levels. So there's like 13 Moons and each one is like the Wolf Moon is January Moon and it has like 10 prompts that you can choose from. So each Moon has a whole bunch of prompts and then, like, if you complete all the prompts, it's 104 books. You have a total lunar eclipse. If you do 52 books, which is at least one prompt from each category, central lunar eclipse. And then there's also one for 26 books and 13 books, different levels of eclipse. So that's fun, yeah, and the prompts are like for Wolf Moon standalone novel a furry creature on the cover, hair on the cover, hair color in the title, a book about found family, a book about adoption, things like that. So there's lots of different ones. So I think, I think that might be fun.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Can you do?
Speaker 1Wolf Moon during a different moon, or is it like that closes now. You can no longer complete this prompts.
Speaker 2There is no judge.
Speaker 1Oh, but what about me? Because I think we know.
Speaker 2I'm going to judge, you are going to judge, so I think you can do it everyone Okay.
Speaker 1So I will make up arbitrary rules that everybody must follow. Yes, okay, perfect. No, I won't do that. I shunt, I shunt, I shunt. But.
Speaker 2I'm sure there's other reading challenges that maybe you would be more interested in.
Speaker 1But we don't know because I haven't looked. Yeah too bad, so sad I get to choose Sucker. That's what I get. Well, have you read anything?
Speaker 2Not very much. One of my kids was sick and you think that sick kid laying on the couch all the time means that you can read. It's not the case. And I just couldn't mentally either. She was asleep a lot, but mentally I was like completely fried.
Book Discussion and Reviews
Speaker 2Cambria was also so freaking sick that like I just couldn't concentrate on anything. There was like a good couple of days where I couldn't even listen to a podcast. I just did my cleaning with silence and my thoughts and my fears of my child's health. Oh, before baby. Yeah, of course we take her to the hospital a couple of times and then she's just fine, which is the best case scenario.
Speaker 1Which is what we want. Yeah, that is like.
Speaker 2Like, why do you have to get that sick? It is upsetting, yeah, but no, she's fine. She's fine and back to normal, but yeah. So I haven't read a ton, but I did read. I have some questions for you by Rebecca Mackay.
Speaker 1I'm sorry, I was busy. Sorry guys, I changed my contact photo. I'm to my mugshot. I am fully invested in hearing what you thought of this book, because I loved it, yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 2So Shanna talked about this a few episodes ago and then Everyone's just jumping on board reading it and I was like, yeah, I'm getting on that train. She has got such great taste.
Speaker 1We should totally read this book.
Speaker 2That's just kind of what I've been doing now. I'm just reading whatever books you talk about on the podcast. So then I'm like, oh, now we're just going to talk about the same book we just talked about two weeks ago. Ooh, should we talk about Holly? I've read Holly by Stephen.
Speaker 1King.
Speaker 2So this one was about the podcaster who goes to her old boarding school to teach a podcasting class and then she encourages one of her students to do a podcast about the murder of a girl that was in her graduating class and, yeah, it was really good. I didn't want to put it down, I needed to know what happened In the end. I was a little bit kind of like, eh, about the conclusion.
Speaker 1That's always the case. It's always the case, it's like a really special book when that doesn't happen.
Speaker 2Yeah, for a little while I was like was it her that killed? I know Because. Why is she so?
Speaker 1like it kept getting more and more like I didn't know who it was. My perception kind of kept shifting throughout the book which, like not being sure you know, I like it when that can happen.
Speaker 2Yeah, they did. She did do a good job of. I never felt I didn't feel like tricked or anything. She kept me interested and even if it didn't pay off in the end, the story was still good. The story was good. And yeah, how are you saying how she is kind of interjecting all these different women murders throughout the story? It was really interesting. And then there's different subplots that are kind of corresponding with the things happening at the school.
Speaker 1Yeah, I thought it was really well crafted yeah.
Speaker 2And, given the subject matter, it was quite clean and not as brutal as some other books have been, and that was kind of nice, yeah, like we kind of get into child grooming quite a bit, but not in the my Dark Vanessa way where you have to put the book down and or throw it, rip your eyeballs out. Yep, I hate that book. So I was happy about that. Yeah, and I really like books about podcasters.
Speaker 1Turns out. Yeah, I really liked it. It was kind of topical in a lot of ways, without feeling in your face.
Speaker 2Yeah, I heard a few people saying that she tried to tackle too many issues in one book, and I sometimes feel like that in other books, but I didn't really feel like that in this one. I thought everything was really relevant. And when you're talking about the murder of a young woman and then a black man gets convicted for the crime, you're gonna have the issue of violence against women and race, and there's gonna be me too, stuff. All of this stuff is stuff that we all have to deal with, but the society is dealing with all the time. They're all overlapping each other, stacked on top of each other, yeah, and none of it felt preachy at me.
Speaker 2And she kind of brought up questions because her husband is kind of canceled because he had a relationship with an early 20s girl when he was in his late 30s and she's like, okay, is this a problem? I don't know what's the difference between this and then the 17-year-old girl going out with a 27-year-old guy.
Speaker 1This age difference is similar but yeah, and then they also bring in power imbalance, because they met at one of his art shows, where he was the artist and she was an aspiring artist. So they're saying that he took advantage of her, but from his perspective, he just met somebody at his show.
Speaker 2Yeah, and then she kind of says both of them were artists at this gallery. Why is it that it's just automatically the man has power over her. Maybe she has power over him. It's just not black and white, I guess, at the same time but I don't know if that's right. She's just asking these questions and kind of putting them out there and giving something to think about. Yeah, I thought it was really good and Julia Whalen was the narrator. She's just so good. I kind of, whenever she's the narrator, I'm just like, yeah, this is her book, yeah, this is a book by Julia Whalen. I'm like, no wait, she's not the author, but I just feel like she just she reads a certain type, not like a certain type of book, but a certain kind of caliber of book that they're always good.
Speaker 1Well, I'm so happy that you read it. That means you and me and Carolyn will have read it at the next book club. Ooh, actually, and Leah, oh, yay, okay, so anyways, there's lots of us, so everybody else, get on board.
Speaker 2I looked on Goodreads and it only has a 3.6.
Speaker 1Really Weird. This is the one that I was watching, a vlogbrothers video and John Green had, I think, called it his favorite read of the year or one of them. So that was what made me check it out. Yeah, because I just trust him. He knows what he's talking about, I guess. Technically I did kind of read a book, but not to the degree that I would write it in my reading log, because it was a quart of sugar and spice. Oh Jen it was so bad.
Speaker 2Yeah, we could go a little bit more in depth into that one.
Speaker 1It was a nutcracker retelling. It was also a quart of thorns and roses. Rip off slash retelling.
Speaker 2Written by Rebecca F Kenny.
Speaker 1Rebecca F Kenny. Yeah, so I have never seen the ballet the nutcracker. I have not even seen the Barbie nutcracker. I have no nutcracker knowledge. I have somehow made it to 34 years and I have never known anything with nutcracker. But here we are. Yeah, so it's these girls. Oh, it was just a blatant rip off of quart of thorns and roses. It really was, but like written badly with killer lines. Like he makes my heart wet.
Speaker 2And so yeah, oh God.
Speaker 1Fuck flesh. They were suddenly in this torture chamber, this like sex chamber, and the rat king used the words like add it to my fuck flesh and I was so upset about it. This was not good spice, this was not spicy spice, this was like icky spice. The sixth Spice Girl yes.
Speaker 2Picky Spice. So yeah, nutcracker retelling where they go into fairy and have to fight against the unsealing court.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And I thought that the idea behind the story was good. I think that that would have been a fun book had it not been what it was.
Speaker 1Oh, and then not everybody hated it. Can we? Can we embarrass the heck out of one of our friends?
Speaker 2She would not say who she is. Yeah, one of our friends. She knows who she is.
Speaker 1You know who you are.
Speaker 2Read all three. It's a series and she read all three. She just kept going.
Speaker 1Yeah, she was like, oh no, I read all three. But you know what she wasn't telling us until she did she read another trilogy by the same author. She read six of those women's books, yeah.
Speaker 2Shame. And then the whole time she's like I didn't like it, but I just couldn't stop.
Speaker 1Like okay and no, that was a lie. No shame. No shame in that reading game it's strong. I read zero books and I have a podcast about reading.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, she wins. I mean it was, we wanted something that was fun and easy for Christmas.
Speaker 1It was not easy. It was something I do not recommend. One, no half a star. It's not my least favorite book ever. I think that probably still goes to the Queen's Gambit.
Speaker 2Yeah, that was terrible. It was terrible, so bad. Now this one was. I thought it was okay, but there was just some scenes that were so painful and some lines that just was like like she had just written some random lines and just threw them in anywhere.
Speaker 1And it did this thing where they put important stuff in the scenes that you want to skip. So you had to listen to the whole terrible sex scene because something vitally important to the story would happen during it. So I was confused a lot because I was like, no, I'm skipping this, which is why I'm not going to write it in my reading log as like completed One. I didn't even finish it to the end. I listened to it 2.2 and I skipped a bunch of stuff like that dungeon, the dungeon scene. That was not nice for her to do.
Parenting Book Recommendations
Speaker 2And then the only other thing that I've read I just finished today. Everyone who doesn't have kids can just turn the podcast off now, because you're going to be quite bored.
Speaker 1The Peppa Pig goes to school. No, maybe.
Speaker 2Actually it's called Good Inside by Dr Becky Kennedy, so it is a parenting book. Dr Becky is okay, follow her on Instagram and TikTok, so I've been watching her videos for a while and she always says good videos. So then my friend Avery said, oh, you should read Good Inside by Dr Becky. I was like, oh, I know Dr Becky, she's my friend and I just do anything Avery says because she's Because she doesn't hate you, she doesn't hate me, she doesn't hate me, no, she's my emotional education friend.
Speaker 2Oh, so she? What does that mean? It means she is the one who has taught your cold Canadian friend how to feel, oh wow.
Speaker 1All the feeling that I have as a result of Avery. Yeah, oh, I should thank her.
Speaker 2I don't have that much no. So imagine what was there before. I didn't even know you had some no.
Speaker 1I know there is some in there. This is news to me yeah, she's.
Speaker 2she taught me about Brené Brown. Yeah, if you'd hang out with her, you're healed after, really.
Speaker 1Yeah, oh yeah. I don't know if that makes me want to see her more or less. Yeah, she's awesome.
Speaker 2No, she is really nice. I've had her a couple of times, so yeah, good. Inside is a parenting book. It is kind of like I would say she is the Brené Brown of parenting. So I really like Brené Brown Anytime. I feel like I am dying if I put her on one of her books or podcast or whatever. She reminds me not to die.
Speaker 1Yeah, I should probably put something on sometime.
Speaker 2Yeah, she's really good. So Dr Becky talks a lot about shame and resilience, just like Brené Brown does, and the thing with Brené Brown is you can apply some of her stuff to kids and parenting. She does talk about parenting a little bit and stuff, but she has older kids now and it's just not quite applicable for two and three-year-olds.
Speaker 1We are in a very special parenting window.
Speaker 2Yes, so this book just has really real and actionable solutions to my problems, and she talks a lot about how a child's behavior is just a symptom of what's going on for them, and a lot of the ways that parents are taught to handle behavior is to change the behavior when really you want to be changing the situation, or how they're feeling or how you are, which is then affecting them.
Speaker 2Therapy for kids is actually just the parents going to therapy and it was really really good. It was a really, really good book. I felt really excited while listening to it, Like, okay, yes, I can do this, because parenting doesn't come naturally to me and I know that's normal for some people. But there's people like you perfect.
Speaker 1I feel like we were just born different types of parents. I think you're a wonderful mom?
Speaker 2Oh, yes, well, I am, and she tells me that every time, like Dr Becky, I'm talking about I was going to say, is it? Me, do I do it Every chapter? She says you are good inside and I'm like thank you.
Speaker 1I'm just the kind of parent that gets down on the floor. Is, I think, the difference? Yeah, and I prefer standing.
Speaker 2I prefer standing and I'm not that chill.
Speaker 1My kids are throwing stuff at me. I'm like, yeah, come on over, I'll throw stuff back. And I'm like, please stop hurting me. Tears rolling down her face.
Speaker 2Why do you hate?
Speaker 1me. Why do you hate me? I don't like anything I like.
Speaker 2Yes, yeah, I definitely recommend it. I think like if I knew someone who was having babies, I would now give this as a Just on the library, yes, okay, well then it's not on one of our apps.
Speaker 1No, I'm going to have to remind me of the title.
Speaker 2Yeah, dr Becky. She's a clinical psychologist that specializes in family and kids, so she's an actual professional person who went to school for this and has research and Love research. Yeah, so everything she says makes sense and even just like watching her videos. If you follow her, she's what is it? She's Dr Becky at Good Inside on Instagram and TikTok and she's a bit loud and she roleplays stuff a lot, so she'd be yelling as a kid and then yelling as an adult, so for me it's a bit jarring sometimes. Yeah, so the book was actually kind of better, I think, than her videos, but I don't know, it was really good.
Speaker 1How to be for us divorced losers. I'm not a loser, I'm really cool. Parents is the word I was looking for. Yeah, is there anything like? Because I was just thinking about it, I just had this epiphany I should listen to a book about divorced parents. Yeah, maybe. And how the hell I should do this with my kids? Yeah, because I've just been weighing it for a year.
Speaker 2Well, there's things like they're like. Oh, you might have some regrets of certain things that have happened with your kids or things that they've seen or things that they've had to experience, based on whatever's happening in your life and how to handle that or how to handle your own feelings about that, even just things like bedtime or eating or not eating, just regular parent stuff. I don't know if it's not particularly for any single kind of parent I should check it out.
Speaker 2And also she's like oh, these things, these work with kids, but these also work with your friends and these work with the other relationships that you have. It's funny there's one I was laughing because she's like so you tell your kids, oh, you need to love your siblings. They're your best friends. Why are you being so mean to them? You have to love them.
Speaker 2And like now, imagine if one day your spouse comes home and is like great news, we are getting a new wife. And you're like but wait what? I'm supposed to be the only one. And then, nine months later, this new wife shows up and everyone starts being like oh, they're so beautiful, getting them gifts, spending all their time with them. You're not interesting anymore. And then one day you see this new wife using your stuff, so you take it away from her and then everyone goes what are you doing? That is just a little wife. You can't just take stuff away from her. You probably feel pretty, pretty bad, wouldn't you? Yeah, it's like that makes a lot of sense actually. Yes, yeah, I recommend it's good, it's great.
Speaker 1Yeah, I've definitely had the moments of like you have to love your sibling, but also like, do you? Yeah, I think that's why mothers like each other because they like each other, not because I tell them that they have to like each other. Yeah, right. So yeah, they're different, they're different kids, but overall they all like each other. Yeah, but yeah, I could definitely use a refresher Ah, maybe next month it'll just be me and like a thousand self-help books. They can be helpful, they can yeah.
Speaker 2I enjoy a good one. I need them, Like my brain needs someone to tell me how to be.
Speaker 1I think I might need that too. Honestly, yes, because clearly I'm not doing it yeah.
Speaker 2Because I'm really good at just kind of being in my life doing the things that I need to do. I can be on autopilot forever and I'm happy, but people around me less happy, less happy, yeah. So, yeah, sometimes I definitely need reminders to stop being a robot, be a human being. Remember there's other human beings and they have feelings and they matter, and I'm also allowed to have feelings and I'm good inside.
Speaker 1If you are good inside, you're a good mama. Mama, that's nice, that's a good book, that's good, but yeah that's all.
Speaker 2That's all, that's it. That's it. Two books, and I barely squeezed those out.
Speaker 1Well, yeah, I got to pick up my reading, but I feel like everything in my life is just laying out before me and every single thing says I don't really matter that much. And I'm like, oh yeah, you're right, none of you really matters that much. Guess I'll do none of it, and that has not been working for me, so got to work on that. I mean, nothing is bad, nothing is going wrong, but it is.
Speaker 2I mean, it's the first two weeks of January, so that is just a weird. It's just the vibe, it's the vibe, yeah.
Speaker 1I don't know how my year is going to go. I don't know what I'm doing, and I mean like sometimes you just are going right Like I don't have a destination of event tomorrow.
Speaker 2Yeah, so you're just what you're supposed to do is just be like today's my day. I'm going to do things. I like playing the game, so you have to go to work. I mean, that's fine, go to work, take care of yourself, yeah.
Speaker 1And at the end of the day, you're just like well, that was fine, yeah, and then I lay down and I go to sleep, yeah, and then I wake up the next day and I'm like again, christ, but keep doing it, yeah, so that's good, that is good, that is preferable. But, yeah, my reading has been suffering, so I have to get back on that. I've been playing a game. I've been playing the ghost, or ghost of Tsushima for any of you out there who just went, whoo. So that's been awesome.
Speaker 2I picked up my switch, turned on Hollow Knight, jumped around a little bit and went gah, yeah, I'm like put it down and I was like no.
Speaker 1I can't do it. She'll slowly finish the game, but it'll be, because every time I go over I play for like 20 minutes and just get a little bit further.
Speaker 2I'm trying so hard, there I go and like, nope, can't go there. Oh, nope, that's closed. Oh, why can't I jump high?
Speaker 1So what you got to do? You have to Google how to get the shadow cape.
Speaker 2I feel like that's all I've been Googling and it doesn't, for some reason it's not possible.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's what you're missing.
Speaker 1That is the next thing I think you need to unlock to be able to get through, to get the map, to unlock the next part.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm playing this game, ghost of Tsushima really, really weird. Really you would play a game and you would be going through the main storyline, but this game is so big and open world and gorgeous, so there's like a thousand side quests and like little fox shrines and other shrines and like secret places, so I'll be kind of following whatever quest line I'm on, but then I get high and I just see a fox and I go chase that little fox and then I'm at a fort and I'm like, okay, I guess I'm taking over this fort, and then it's been an hour and I have gotten nowhere in the game except like I've got a bunch of resource, like I've done a bunch of stuff. So I am just playing it. Very, very strangely, I feel like I'll be playing this game for the next seven years, but enjoying every single minute of it, despite the main quest line taking me a thousand years, because I am relentlessly distracted. But it's so beautiful and it's been so fun, so that's okay, yeah whatever that works for you, that wouldn't work for me.
Speaker 2I'm like to the next level or whatever. To the next major thought point.
Speaker 1Well, I've got friends, though. My brother and my friend Alex, specifically, who are both like love this game, are so excited that I'm playing it and they keep asking me where am I? And I'm like I know I should not be where I am, but I understand.
Speaker 2Next to the front door. Yes, I've just walked into the game and I'm still there.
Speaker 1Yes, and I've been playing this game for like two weeks now and I am nowhere near where they expect me to be plot wise. But yeah, I'm just like slowly unlocking the map in just the craziest way. But it's the kind of game where you can do that, like you've got your main quest points and they're big, you can see them. So, should I choose to do that, I would just go and do that. That's just not how I'm doing it. I'm walking my ass there and doing weird stuff on the way. Yeah, it's been great, that's good. Well, I think that's all we have for you this week. That's all we got for you this week, guys.
Speaker 2We've really, we've really stretched those two books out to 48 minutes of recording time.
Speaker 1Yes, I will do better next week, guys. I promise I will be here with a book or two that I have read. Ooh, although I did get a gift, that was a book the book wayward for our Secret Santa. I was just talking about it last podcast, about how I wanted it because it was so beautiful, and now I have it. So thanks, jen slash. Actually Demi, yes, but also actually Jen.
Speaker 2I did give multiple options and that was the one that she chose. When we do Secret Santa at a book club, everyone just asks everyone else what to catch.
Speaker 1Usually when you put out the Secret Santa thing and then I just wait for people to text me.
Speaker 2Yes, Everyone's like is this supposed to be a secret?
Speaker 1I'm like it doesn't matter yeah. It's okay, there's only six of us.
Speaker 2Yeah, we're going to know. Okay, well, jen, where can we find us? You can find us at In Her Good Books podcast on Instagram, facebook and TikTok.
Speaker 1I sure have gotten myself off the hook for having to ever do that part. Yes, but yeah, otherwise, see you in two weeks. We'll see you in two weeks Two weeks, two weeks, bye. Bye.