Bookwild - 1989 (Taylor's Version) Book Pairings

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

This week, Kate shares books that pair with the vibes of four songs on 1989 (Taylor's Version)!Follow us on Instagram:Gare @gareindeedreadsKate @thegirlwiththecookonthecouchBooks Kate Talked About Out of the WoodsTheir Vicious GamesAlias Emma Series Bad BloodIt Takes MonstersOne of Us Is Dead Blank SpaceFirst Lie WinsYou Can Trust Me CleanLay Your Body DownMidnight is the Darkest Hour Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

And we are going to be discussing all things, chills, thrills, and kills. Kate and I are going to be talking about our favorite books, TV shows, and movies that are in the thriller or crime fiction genre, as well as some reading habits and other items related to how we met on Bookstagram that will fit in with this podcast. So thank you so much for joining us. And we hope that you have fun and get totally terrified. It is on vacation this week, so it is just me again. And as you all know, I'm sure, because it's hard to escape it. 1989 Taylor's version is coming out this week.

Now, I want to say as quickly as I can hear at the beginning, this is not going to turn into me like talking about Taylor and Travis Kelsey and anything else that you've been hearing about forever and ever on your feed. So for anyone who's like, oh my God, I didn't want to have to hear something about Taylor Swift. I just want to say from the beginning, it's not really going to be about her, okay? It's going to be about books that relate to 1989. And I actually saw, I've seen some cool posts on Bookstagram about it this week. And it got me thinking.

And when I was thinking about it, it reminded me actually of a video interview. I don't know why I called it a video interview, but of an interview I saw with Taylor about 1989, and she was talking about how she really wanted to focus on the production of the songs, really mimicking the, like, strong feeling of what's in the song. So the example she gave is like, out of the woods, is like, are we out of the woods yet?

Are we out of the woods yet? are we out of the woods yet and you feel kind of the anxiety of like are we going to get through it are you going to get through it are you going to get through it and it it it translates into the production of the song and how you kind of feel the song even outside of the lyrics um and i thought that was so cool when i saw that interview i mean the interview wasn't a couple months ago but i saw it a couple months ago and it kind of stuck with me and so then i've always anytime I've listened to anything from 1989 since, I've kind of listened under that lens. And it is really interesting how sonically the each track does most of them.

Some of them are just some good pop hits, in my opinion. But it is interesting how many of them really thoroughly convey a feeling. even if you aren't paying attention to like the plot of the song or the lyrics like you kind of know what it's about so I've always thought that was really cool and so when I was seeing some people posting about um 1989 book recommendations basically it stuck with me and then when I needed to come up with a topic that I could talk about for quite a long time I was like oh yeah that's something I keep seeing so that's where we're going to be headed. Initially, when I thought about it, I was like, okay, but I read mostly thrillers.

Like, I do get into some fiction, some other fiction, but not very often. Like, it is pretty much thrillers and mysteries and suspense for me, as you all know. So when I was thinking about what books am I going to have that really match this album, I was like, maybe that's not even going to be an idea that works. So I looked at the track list, and I was like, you know what? I think there are four songs on here that will apply to thrillers. So I'm going to be talking about thrillers that match the vibes of Out of the Woods, bad blood, blank space, and clean.

So let's get started with Out of the Woods, especially since it was the example that Taylor used in her interview. when she was talking about the feeling of a song, you obviously got to hear my wonderful rendition of it and explaining how much it evokes anxiety with, like, the way that the chorus moves you forward. So that one even just seemed like the most obvious that would fit with a thriller. And when I was thinking back on it,

it really reminded me of their vicious games, which I've read recently. So their vicious games follows Adina Walker, and she is the only black girl in a very, very white school where she's hoping that the fact that she's going to this prep school will help her get into an Ivy League school because that has basically been her dream for a really long time. And so she gets in trouble because she reacts to something that is said to her that's really racially charged at school, loses her chance for the scholarship until she finds out that she actually did get invited to compete in the finish,

which is a kind of clandestine competition that the wealthiest family of the school holds each year. And once she shows up to play the finish, play the finish, compete in the finish, things start getting really creepy. And you have that feeling of like, kind of like always looking over your back the entire book where you're like, are we out of the woods? Are we out of the woods? Are out of this? Are we out of this? It is once it gets going, which like, it's not like it's a slow burn, but once it gets going, that is how you feel the entire book. So that was one of the first ones that came to mind. And the other, this is kind of two, but the, it's a series. The other thing that immediately

came to mind, you've heard me talk about before as well. But the Aalus Emma series, very much the feeling of like, you're constantly looking over. your back, both of them. So the first book is actually called Aalius IMA, and the second is called The Trader. But for those of you who haven't heard me talk about Aalus Emma yet, it is basically a female spy has to secure her asset, which is a child of important political members. She has to secure him one night, and then when things go awry, she has to figure out how to navigate across London without being caught and it all happens in 24 hours and so many things happen and it is just back-to-back action like one of the best one of my favorite actual books I've ever read but it has the

exact same feeling you're just like are we out of it are we out of it are we is it done is it okay yet and you never quite know which I think is common in spy novels so I think that's why I thought of that series as well. So the next track that I was like, you know what, I would have some thriller recommendations for that is bad blood, naturally. We all know how much I love revenge.

Just love it as a plot point. It just really pulls the story forward for me. But the whole vibe of bad blood is like overly done campy bad bitch, cunty revenge.

just everything is to the extreme in that song. And it actually reminded me of a very bloody snarky book that I read here recently from Mandy McHugh called It Takes Monsters. And so the story opens up with Victoria Tate and her husband, Warren, has gotten very controlling. Definitely a case of like doesn't want her to be working as hard as she. she is. And she has decided that she's going to kill him because she's tired of it. She's sick and tired of him trying to undermine her career and force her to be a mom. I don't think that's a spoiler.

It's not in the synopsis, but this isn't going to ruin anything for you. So she has finally decided that she's going to kill him. And the night that she plans to do it, he doesn't come home and it's because someone else killed him. So now she's trying to figure out like, who else could have possibly wanted to kill him? But still from the beginning, her tone is so snarky, Victoria. She's so ready to just like deal with the bad blood, basically, from the get-go and you don't lose that attitude through the whole book. And it is, there's just, just like so many different. There are a lot of things going on.

I don't want to ruin anything. And the other thing that I thought was really cool is there like a hundred, I swear, 100 movie or TV or book references. Like, Mandy McHugh just has them all. And it made it even more enjoyable for me since I enjoy stories and like all of their mediums.

So it's so fun having like tons of movie and TV references in, a book that I'm reading. So that one is very fun. It just came out. So that one you can go get even. But the other one that just the extremely campy, Bad Bich Energy, book that it reminded me of was one of us as dead by Geneva Rose,

which came out last year. And it's about four women in Buckhead, or Buckhead, Alabama, Buckhead, Georgia. Shannon, Crystal, Olivia, and Jenny. And Jenny owns Glow, which is like this really exclusive salon in town. And then Olivia, Crystal, and Shannon are her clients. And she knows all the drama of their very rich housewife-esque lives. And basically the title tells you, someone is dead by the end of it.

But reading the book and shifting through all the perspectives is like kind of like one snarky. character after another. There's some more mellow ones, I guess. But the whole vibe of it is like everyone kind of at each other's necks and very bad blood. So that one, if that is the vibe that you are in, that is a book for you. The ending, I really liked how the ending came together. It was just a really fun one. It was a very fun book. So then earlier this week, I saw someone using blank space for recommendations and they pulled the lyric find out what you want be that girl for a month wait the worst is yet to come um and they recommended stone cold fox which is like so perfect for that because it's another really like snarky book um and since blank space is basically subverting like

all of the things that they say about her by like being like sure i'm all these things really did match Stone Cold Fox but then it had me in the headspace of like con women who find out what a person needs

and they will be that to get what they need from them and I just recently finished a book it's not out until January 9th but set it to pre-order if this sounds really good to you or requested on that galley but first lie wins

by Ashley Elston totally had those vibes and it's about a woman named Evie Porter and her boss, Mr. Smith, just sends her a new identity and tells her who she's going to be and then tells her where to go. And then she goes there and once she's there for a little while, then she gets information that says like, pay attention to this person. Like, this is your mark. And she doesn't necessarily know anything more than that. And she's posted at a job right now where she's kind of starting to like her mark, at least question why he's her mark.

And then someone with her real identity shows up in town. Now, the synopsis is really vague when it says that. It says because the one thing she's worked her entire life to keep clean, the one identity, she could always go back to her real identity, just walked right into this town. And when I read this synopsis, I didn't even catch that that's what that meant. So I worded it differently. I don't feel like it's a spoiler. It happens in the first like 15%.

But even when I read it that way, I didn't realize it as like someone with her real name just like walked up to her. But that's what happens. So that is the beginning of that one. And basically it is kind of another one where you're getting a little bit of a character study or seeing like what got her into this life. as well as how she's navigating what she's up against currently. So right off the bat, you're just like, how would I even handle that situation? So it's really fun watching her navigate it and just be herself, whatever blank space a person needs so that she can get what she wants from them. So that one is great. I loved it so much.

I wish she was out already, but add it to your lists, if it sounds like. good. Another one that was giving me, another book that was giving me the kind of con woman energy that you could kind of interpret from Blank's face is you can trust me by Wendy Hurd, which is about Summer and Leo. She's mostly been surviving by being a pickpocket. And Leo finds marks or men who enjoy her company. And they read the benefits of that when those types of relationships are established. So they've been surviving together for years that way. And when Leo has a bigger mark, one time she doesn't come back and summer has to go to this self-made billionaire's island. It's not necessarily his island. It's his company is there to try to find Leo and what happened

to her. So yeah, you could say blank space brought out the con women in me that have snarky attitudes as they go about it. So my last one might not sound like it would fit with the books that I read, but clean is the last one that I have some recommendations for. And it's such an interesting song because it's a really powerful song for people who've overcome addictions. It's a really powerful song for people who got out of relationships that felt like a toxic addiction or a toxic cycle. And I've just, I've always loved the song. One of the cool things that she did sonically, speaking of that, is when you get to the chorus and it starts talking about the rain falling down, I am not technical enough to know exactly what this is in music. but the like kind of tinkling the instruments in the background sound like rain.

And so the first time I listened to the song, I was just like, I'm going to stem on this like rain feeling in my ears of music forever. Like I was so obsessed with it just for that little piece. And it feels like it like ties back into her comment that she was. wanted that album to feel the music to feel so much like what the song's really about. So that's a fun tidbit about clean that you may or may not have wanted to know. But another thing that's really interesting about it to me, having grown up in purity culture and like a religion that was obsessed with cleanliness in a way that is just not possible or human. I've also thought

of this song in connection to a couple books. that like explore the process of like cleaning yourself of like ideologies and patterns that are just hurtful for you or hurtful to you. So it's interesting to me how I also find myself thinking of the song in these stories where shedding like painful ideology or painful relationships that perpetuate that ideology is like one of the core parts of what the character goes through. So it specifically has reminded me of, Lay Your Body Down by Amy Souter Clark,

which is about a woman named Dell who basically kind of gets pulled back into her small towns, cultish-like church, because the man that she loves, and always thought she would be with. Lars has been killed. And she basically goes back for the funeral, but she's just not convinced that it was an accident

like everyone else is buying into. And so she has to face a lot of the trauma that she had from growing up in that church environment and just with her parents being such devoted people. the book itself really dives into purity culture and the way that we the way that we expect women to be in some extreme more extreme Christian communities the way that we expect women to be compared to men and her journey of like confronting the things that happened to her

is what helps her figure out what happened to Lars and There's just a moment at the end of that book that reminded me of the way the song Clean feels when you're just, you finally flushed out all of the like hurtful stuff. In her case, from like multiple broken relationships. And I love how it kind of flips purity culture on its head for her to be clean of the obsession with a puretural. clean. So that might be goofy. That might be just me thinking something out loud here, but that's what it reminded me of. So not surprisingly, speaking of religious themes and the way women are seen, of course, the most reason Ashley Wins said also made me think of clean. It's called Midnight is the Darkest Hour, and it's about Ruth Cornyier, who is,

She is the daughter of a very like fire and brimstone Baptist preacher. She's in her 20s. And they live in Bottom Springs where like everyone is obsessed with God and the devil. And they're all really scared of someone called the low man who is this like vampiric figure that they say sneaks into sinners bedrooms and kills them. So that's who they believe is killing people. people recently. And basically a skull is found. And Ruth is all of a sudden really interested in what's happening.

And her old childhood friend slash crush is back in town. And basically they discover what was going on in the town. And I understand with this synopsis, you're like, Kate, what the fuck are you talking about saying that this is related to clean. But I will tell you, same thing. We have a main character who is grown up in a really intense church setting. And it feels like the process of letting go of that ideology is what actually like cleans her of those limitations. So this is another one where I think it's kind of when there are journeys inward

and having to like clean out what is you and what isn't you based on other people's interactions with you is where this book reminds me of the song again. This is another book that like really plays at what like coming clean means. It takes Ruth like really like cleaning some toxic beliefs out of her and believing that she can actually like rise above them and live without them. To really, it drives the plot and it drives solving the mystery that's actually happening.

So it's another thing where her like letting go of needing to be pure and perfect is actually like a cleansing process for her. Which I always love in a story. And that story has so many other things going on. So don't expect that to be like a. very literal translation on this song. There's a lot going on. But I think what I'm saying is I end up really intrigued by stories where going through something messy actually like makes things better.

And maybe that's what I'm picking up on in the song. Because she's talking about the pain you go through to get to the other side. So I'm sure it could apply to all kinds of books actually now that I think about it. But it's also kind of a stretch. But I wanted to pick enough tracks to have some stuff to talk about. So those are my recommendations. I would love to hear if you guys have any. Also, it would be fun vault tracks come out tonight.

So there are going to be like four or five. I can't remember right now. New songs that were like previously considered for the 1989 album. So if you have any thoughts on books that make, those definitely DM me those too and before I go if any of you guys have topics that you have been kind of hoping we would talk about also send me messages about those