Bookwild - Learning From Fiction with Steph

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

This week, Steph and I talk about fiction books that taught us about different subjects!Books We Talked AboutPlay Nice by Rachel HarrisonEloquent Rage by Brittney CooperWordslut by Amanda MontellHood Feminism by Mikki KendallThe Great Mann by Kyra Davis LurieFrancine’s Spectacular Crash and Burn Renee SwindleYou Know Her by Meagan JennettThe Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan KamaliWhat Comes After by Joanne TompkinsBlood Sisters by Vanessa LillieThe Whistler by Nick MedinaDo What Godmother Says by Shelley StrattonHarlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher MurrayThe Reformatory by Tananarive DueMy Government Means to Kill Me by Rasheed NewsonThe Great Believers by Rebecca MakkaiThe Yellow Wife by Sadeqa JohnsonThe House of Eve by Sadeqa JohnsonTake My Hand by Dolen Perkins-ValdezHappy Land by Dolen Perkins-ValdezThe Foundling by Ann LearyThe Manor of Dreams by Christina Li 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 

So this week, it's me and Steph, and we have some, we have a fun topic to talk about too, but we were also getting caught up on what we're both reading and watching lately. So that's probably what our icebreaker will be here now. I love knowing what people are reading. I do too. Yeah. Reading wise. So I actually play nice, which is what we were just talking about, a little bit off air by Rachel Harrison is actually, that's the

the last, like, reading, for the sake of, like, everyone involved, we know that when I say listening versus reading, we're not saying that listening isn't reading. So the last book that I, like, read with my eyeballs was play nice. Um, and I just loved it. Yeah. You and Justine have, like, effectively, and I think Halle have just made me a Rachel Harrison fan. I don't know. I think I, I, wonder about horror a lot if I like it and she is like a really approachable yes writes it in a really approachable way where it kind of just feels like a thriller if you're into thrillers that it's digestible and it doesn't like go over your head a lot but it's and her characters are just our style yeah her female main characters are just fantastic

you'll feel all the millennial millennial girl vibes or love is what I meant to say, but I said vibes. I guess both work. But yeah, it's a fun one. So it's about a woman who she basically inherits this house that her mom lived in, that she lived into for a period of her childhood. But her mom became convinced that it was possessed. And she kind of moves back in to renovate it and see what she can do.

with it some crazy stuff starts happening uh it is it's literally on the cover it says a haunted house novel so like no spoilers this is like what you're going in for but she's so snarky i love the many characters amazing and cleo's such a cool name yeah i agree like how many things we have highlighted too and then like she just says things observes the world in in such a a like I guess snarky but just a way that like you don't always see it written and I love it. I do too. Yeah. That one's really good. I was trying to think of oh the one of the audio books I'm listening to right now because now sometimes I have a nonfiction audio book and a fiction. It kind of depends on like when my Libby holds come in and that's what's happening right now.

Yeah. But I'm reading one called Eloquent Rage by Brittany. I'm so sorry, Brittany, by Brittany Cooper. And so my friend McKinsey, who's been on the podcast a few times, she just started a substack. And I'll put the link in these show notes too because I think a lot of you probably are interested in similar stuff. But her substack is all about words. So she's like super into language and like how it matters. She kind of starts the substack, substack off talking about a word slut that we've kind of talked about a couple times here.

And just any of Amanda Montel's books. And that really got her even more into words. So she just loves like sociolinguistics. She loves words. She loves stories. She loves books. So you might want to follow her. But this was one of,

she kind of put like a syllabus together for herself that was like books, read over the next, I don't know, year. I don't know what her time frame was that would help her nerd out even more on words. And so this one is called, it's called Eloquent Rage. A Black Feminist discovers her superpower. Oh, my goodness. This author reads it. She reads it.

And oh, my, like, you can feel how much she means every fucking word that she's saying. And at the very beginning, the first chapter is all about SaaS. and like the different how it has positive and negative connotations and has a line at one point where she's like and not only am I black woman I'm a fat black woman so my sass is like never appreciate or like she's talking about how it gets perceived even more negatively by the way that she said it was just like

it's heavy material but she was making me laugh so much and the whole first chapter two is all about how she has been angry about things her whole whole life and not been afraid to just be the person who will talk about those topics. So I love you, Brittany Cooper is what I'm saying, basically. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Hold on.

I'm scratching. Oh, yeah. She like scratches at the door and then she sits there. And I'm like, oh, you just wanted to know what was going on. Harley's like that. I need to get a cat door seriously. Anyway, that sounds really good. So you're not done with that.

one yeah that one i'm i'm currently listening to right now and i'm really enjoying it um and yeah she's just diving into all kinds of subjects um oh was it in that one no that was another one i read recently but i was i was reading one recently so like in general uh trying to broaden my perspective on feminism because like very mainstream feminism is one thing right and it's not always you know actually about equality for all women and so i've been wanting to read some more of that and i was even just oh it was hood feminism was what i listened to like earlier this month um where she talked about like a big part of the feminist movement when it started like we're talking like 60 70s was mostly a lot of white women employing uh not white women to take care of their house and so they

could go go be feminist or go get a job so like even the origins of it in our country started off where it was like oh these non-white women can handle all the tasks I don't want to handle so that I can go be an empowered woman so it's always been a little bit imbalanced and I'm like that does sadly make sense for our country so I'm just trying to learn about it well it makes sense it's not like anyone ever could really do it all. Right. You know what I mean? It's not that they were doing every piece.

They're like, okay, well, I want to go get a job because I wasn't allowed to, but like that doesn't mean that I'm doing everything. Yeah. I think there's like a, the painting and then there's like. Yeah, definitely. That's really interesting. What are you listening to for your fiction right now? So I just finished it.

And it's one that I'm going to talk about today. It's called The Great Man by Kai, Kira. I don't know if it's Kyra or Kira, Davis Lurie. And this is another one. I'm just going to keep talking about McKinsey. She, we were talking over the weekend or like right before the weekend about, I can't remember audiobooks. And there was one that I got really interested in that's like a, it's a great Gatsby

retelling. But it's from a queer Asian-American. perspective so i was like telling her that had popped on my radar and then she told me the great man by kira or kaira davis lorry was she was like that's also a gatsby reselling oh and i was intrigued so i went to liby and i placed a hold as one does and it said there are four people in front of me and the next morning i woke up and it was like your hold is available yeah so i actually got it really quickly and have i mean i have 30 minutes left on it right now um but i loved it it's a really good gatsby retelling and then obviously i'll read the synopsis later but yeah it's it's a

it's a retelling basically that takes place in 1945 and it's a black man instead in the black community i'm curious about that like i remember reading the great gatsby and then when the movie came out i watched it, but I kind of forget, like, some of the main themes of it. So I'm just about that. I just also finished my fiction audio book this morning. Oh, yeah. It's called, I heard of it from Brit Litt, who is on Bookstagram, and she, I'm always, like, into her reviews because I feel like she's not an easy reviewer, but she also really liked Margot's Got Money Troubles and Allison S. Box books, which are notes under some parents in the wedding people. So she posted this book called Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn.

Oh, okay. And it's kind of a similar, like, big topics, but like told in a way where you can find like some humor in them. Yeah. And I've also been like hoping somewhere behind the scenes to find some stories like that that are not always about white women. And so like this one is not. And so it was just really interesting. And I don't know if I learned anything to talk about it today,

but I might talk about it later just because it is like I hadn't read anything like it before, but it was. And Bonnie Turpin, obviously, isn't. amazing. Nice. I love her. I know. Her voice is so unique. I remember the first time I heard her was in Grady Hendricks's vampire book. Oh, wow. And I was like, who is this? Yeah. This is fantastic. Yes. And then I remember like rating it and I'm like the story was fine, but like the narration was incredible. I know. That's what has me almost listening to a book about a pirate. We'll see if happens. Yeah, she's amazing. I really love her and Angel Pien are two of my favorites right now.

So good. Also, speaking of audiobooks and nonfiction, a book that has been on my radar for a while, but like I don't know if I could like handle it, unfortunately right now is the barn. I think it's about Emmett Till because didn't the anniversary of his death just come? That one is on my Libby, just like straight available, but I believe some people's feedback on the audio is that the timelines shift so much. And sometimes it can be challenging on audio. But I'm still very intrigued. If anyone has listened to or read that, I'd be interested to hear what people's feedback.

Yeah, me too. Oh, and then just a real quick drive-by, we finished a documentary on the Dallas Cowboys this weekend. Nice. Yeah, I do like sports documentaries more than sports usually. Same. We finished the catfishing in the high school one. Yeah. Oh, Razy.

And then Gone Girls about the Long Island serial killer. That was, if anyone, it reminded me so much of Please See Us by Caitlin Mullen. Yes. Yeah, I remember you. So we watched a lot this weekend. We don't usually watch that much to you. That's awesome. Every now and then it's nice to have that.

Yeah. I need to. We'll see. We'll see. I've been narrating and editing an audiobook in the time that is normally like watching TV or reading time. But thank God for audiobooks because I can still listen while I'm working. Yeah, TV has definitely become like a buy, like a happens or it doesn't like whatever. Right.

That's why I've been running into. too. Yeah. Well, I guess I can talk about my first one since I kind of teased it a little bit. Yeah, stuff we learned from fiction. Speaking of. Yes, I loved this idea because, one, we love to talk about empathy in general and how much you can develop your empathy muscle with reading. And then there's also the kind of cool part that reading stories that have like some historical significance or just really any significance technically sometimes helps you like learn more about reality as well even if it's what am I trying to say it just left my head completely uh yeah I don't know but something about it being told in like a fictional story sometimes makes it more accessible oh that's what

i was going to say even if you learn it directly from the book or if it i was thinking about it when i was looking at mine if it makes you like google stuff that you hadn't or research stuff you hadn't thought about before so yeah yeah we just love that part of fiction so we wanted to talk about fiction books that taught us stuff. So as I was saying with this The Great Man by Kira Davis Lurie, first off, this probably like her author's note that was at the beginning, which like by the way, more author's notes, let's put them at the beginning because sometimes it just needs to be at the beginning. And like you have so much more context, uh, especially with this. one. So this author, her author's note, she basically talks about how much she loves the Great Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald in general, like when she was in high school, like she loved reading it. And then she stayed a big fan of his work. But she also talks about how like there are some, the way she frames it is while nothing he says ever seems to rise to the level of hate, he definitely. He definitely.

had some racist stuff within his writing is where where she's headed with that essentially um and in the the great gatsby i haven't read it in years so i didn't really remember much at all but in the great gatsby there are three i never know what to call it i think she says that he calls them colored people i know that is not the correct terminology overall but that's how they're referenced in the great gatsby and like they're also wealthy and to her it like stuck out to her that to this man part of like making this fantastical world was like oh it would be fantastical for black people to also be wealthy um and so it was kind of part of the fantasy of the story and so those three characters that only are on like one page stuck with her forever and she was like

I want to know about like what those characters would have gone through like if they were actually getting to live this American dream. So one of the, one of the big overarching themes of the Great Gatsby is talking about class warfare. It's within white people. But just class warfare as well as like the, the American dream and what you're willing to do for it. So it was, it's been so good listening to this book because she's taking so many different

approaches to the American dream by acting like we're in a world in 19. 1945 where there's like this super wealthy community of black people in LA. So that is me going on and on about just the author's note. But here's the synopsis. Settling in a local actress's energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life, one brimming with opportunity from a promising career at a black owned. Okay, this didn't start at the beginning. I was scrolled too far down. Okay. I will restart and Mark, I was like, I feel like we're missing stuff. So in 1945, Charlie Tremel steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Blurred by his cousin Marguerite's invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights,

Charlie is immediately captivated by the black opulence of LA's newly rechristened Sugar Hill. Settling in at a local actress's energetic. boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life, one brimming with opportunity from a promising career at a black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James Reaper Man. Reapers, extravagant parties attended by luminaries like Lena Horn and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the is it malu? I think so. Bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie's

unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community's well-being with promises of retribution. Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, the great man we've a compelling narrative of wealth in class illuminating the complexities of black identity and education in post-war America. Wow.

Yeah. So she really does a lot of things while using this story that is like super popular, especially in Americana. Most notably, like, can you imagine, this is what was really sticking out to me. Can you imagine being drafted and having to go forward? fight in a war at a time when the government also still says you're only three-fifths of a person you don't you're not even a full person however we can send you to war and then he goes through all of the horrificness that is war and then he comes back to his home in the south and it's back

to like um Jim Crow laws and like you don't get to go in front of them in line like you always have to keep going to the back of the line and I'm just like you're like you're want to talk about rage. Yeah. Can you imagine that? And we don't really talk about the fact that black men also fought in World War II, even when they were considered second-race citizens in their own country. And I'm like, it's just fucked.

Yeah. And the way that like only in so much of our history, the only people that were allowed to be mad or white men. Yeah. You can't, you can't yell, you can't, or like, you're going to get in trouble. Yeah. Like, what can you do without, like, huge, I don't know, like, yes, obviously, eventually. Yeah. We're mad, but, like, I don't know, that's just crazy.

Well, and they're the ones who have the least to be angry about. That's the other crazy part. I know, because I was thinking, like, women, if you yell, you get sent to a mental institution. Yep. And, or you could just get killed. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, nasty.

Just burned at the steak. Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Yeah, it's really good. How long was it? The narration is really good. It's nine hours. Oh, that's not bad. Yeah.

Yeah, so like three days to read it or to listen, really. Nice. Yeah. So the book that got, that made me want to text Kate about this topic. Oh, yeah. It's called You Know Her by Megan Janet. it and I had seen this reel on Instagram about the color haint blue and I was like, wow, I remember that because I was reading this book where this detective paints her house,

her porch roof, hain blue. And she like happens to see haines. And I had never even heard spirits or ghosts referred to that as that before. Same. So I was like, wow, I learned. Yeah, I was like, I learned about that sort of fiction. So I was like, isn't that so interesting? Yeah.

So you know her is, it's one of my most tabbed books I have. Really? It's like a female. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's, I love that. It's like a female who is a serial killer. And just like, once again, her observations are like pretty spot on about things. But the detective, who they kind of play.

like a are they friends does the detective know what she's doing in her free time she's she's her family she i think they're from the south where that's what she painted her porch ceiling two hours before he vanished mark dixon stole a glass of wine that's what bartender sophie brahm tells the cops after they question her about the customer whose mutilated body has just been found what she doesn't tell them is that she's the one who killed him Officer Nora Martin is new to the Bel Air Police Department and is trying very hard to learn the ropes from Detective Murphy while ignoring all her male colleagues griping about a diversity hire. When she meets Sophie, they build an uneasy camaraderie shared over frustrations. As winter, over shared frustrations. As winter slides into spring and bodies start piling up, Nora begins to suspect that something's not quite right with the unnerving, enigmatic,

bartender. But will she be able to convince Murph or will he keep laughing off the idea that the serial killer haunting their little town is a woman? So it has a lot to do with that, but also like I could take a whole other book on just the detective. Oh wow. She's like going to see spirits and I'm like, I love that. I do love that. So like when you said that your book, there was like a lot happening. This book I felt like there was a lot happening as well. And I could use like more in like different books. so I don't know if she's working on anything else. But yeah. This one's 2023.

I wonder if she is. Yeah, it also says killing Eve meets sharp objects. And I'm like, yeah. You know, I need that. Everyone who's listening is like, why is she quiet? My jaw drops. Yeah. Did you ever read Real Easy by Mary Rakowski?

Okay. So that one I almost. This is a strip club, right? Yes. Okay. I want to. that one almost as much, like for one of the quotes was like, or perhaps to give him a hug to placate him for the only way she knew, how early girls learned to soothe the anger of men.

So quotes like that. Yeah. I need to read that one. I don't know why my brain is glitching so much on me. But I just got Boomtown on NetGalley too, which also kind of takes place in a strip club. and those it was just it was just making me think of how I wanted to read real easy but I have not yet I need to look at the audio probably that one has a lot of perspectives that would be really interesting yeah oh yeah you're right because it is known for how many perspectives it has interesting yeah well now I want to read both of those you know her is available on libby for me

and I'm like I bet you're overflowing with audio or the audio or the audio or the audio oh does it say who the narrator is are there two or just one i have no idea what my phone is i closed it so i i was like hey you have to think about it before you do this oh yeah it is too sophie amos and z sands xe oh she's good okay i think that's how you say xe okay i don't know for sure but that's what i hear everybody say okay cool i yeah, I did not know. So yeah. Now I'm interested in that one. Oh boy. So many. I also, I know. I also, now I want to listen to, I'm watching Margaret Atwood's masterclass. It's really good. She is like very darkly funny, as you would probably expect. But she's talking about her book,

the blind assassin and there's it is like there are four levels of book within a book in it yeah so it's like apparently the most meta fiction meta fiction out there but she had so much fun putting it together and so the way she was talking about how intricate the storytelling structure is had me like oh my god i'm going to love it like i love having to follow a lot of those details but then i saw in story graph it said if you're prepared for glacial pacing and it scared me because i can do medium pace now way more than i used to yeah actually i think i tend to do medium more lately um but glacial i was like oh no and it's 600 pages it's an 18 hour audio book so i just can't decide but i'm so intrigued and I had a couple people respond and say like no you'll still like it. I'm like

calatial is such a big word to use. Right. I guess the reviews say that or that because that was on the front like the main page of the yeah. Yeah there are a lot of people who are like why is it this long. Oh. Like any book that that's length. But I listened to catabasis last week and that one was 18 hours. So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what I end up. doing. I wonder if it's just like if it's four books within a book, I imagine you have to spend a decent amount of time. It's probably like preparing for the next. So I wonder if that's why. Yeah. So much. Yeah. Because apparently it's like there's like I think there's maybe like a biography level and then there's a level of like what the newspapers were saying. So then you have all

these perspectives to try to figure out what actually happened in this family. So it sounds interesting to me. so i don't know but that was why i was like you don't have to get you know her right now kate because i'm so torn i just put it i made a list called interested yeah that's a good one everything lives yeah i need to do that too oh also by the way julia haberlin gave the great man five stars oh oh yeah yeah it's very it is very good she is talking about a lot of stuff in one story. It's pretty impressive. I love it. But I had to talk about this one. I know we've talked about it before, but this is technically the one that got, I would say, is the one that most recently opened me to historical fiction. If we don't count like

seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo, like, yes, it's historical, but, um, so the Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali last year, before I knew I was. It's going to be an audio book, girlie. This was probably the one that helped me realize, like, I love badass women in almost any time period. Yeah. So in 1950s, Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother's endless grievances,

Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation. Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa's warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming lion women. But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. not a popular student now a popular student at the best girls high school in iran elie's memories of homa begin to fade years later however her sudden reappearance in ellie's privileged world alters the course of both of their lives together the young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures but as the political turmoil in iran builds to a breaking point one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences there's just so much about this book the friendship is amazing and just something i really love is

both girls approach life like super differently and like for me i it i realized how much i recognize myself in both of them like sometimes you are like a big loud like i'm going to stand up against this type person and sometimes you do act out of self-preservation And I resonate with both technically. And so I thought it was a very empathetic and like fair analysis or whatever, like story of how you, how both, both women can be very different. And then, but their friendship is still so meaningful. So there's that part. Historically, I was not aware how liberal Iran was or progressive.

I mean, liberal is what we're saying. Like the women were not like forced to wear religious garb if that was not their religion and they didn't want to. They had careers. Like I did not know that like that was how Iran was until this fundamental religious takeover. And I read it like I think like three months before the election last year. Yeah, August of last year. Wow. So it was like literally a year ago.

And I remember being like, we need to care about this story because things can change this quickly. And a year later, it just feels more relevant. So there's that. But it's just, it's a very powerful story. Yeah. I admire Homo so much because I like wish I was like that. So, but it is nice to know that there's like. quieter ways to make a difference too.

That too. Yeah. Yeah, I will say that's something fascinating that this book does and actually the great man does a really good job of that where it's like, do you betray your gender? Do you betray your race when you do stuff that you just kind of have to to survive, but maybe like hurts the race overall? Like how do you even begin to make those decisions as a person? Both of those books really flesh that out and how different? difficult that choices. Right. If you could just like say screw it all and just go

balls to the wall. Yeah. Especially the older we get, you know, there's like more consequences. Yeah. But then sometimes that sounds so stupid. But like it's true. Right. It's true. It is. Yeah, that one's so good and the audio's incredible. I know. I wish I was into audiobooks then. But think i need to listen to the stationary shop you said the audio is good for that too yeah well speaking of religion um i am not a religious person but i find religion very interesting um and i just finished if anyone listened to the last episode about knife river that garrs were talking about um one of the characters talked about how their mom was like a quaker or like visited i don't know they called a church, I forgot.

But I was like, oh, I read this other book where the main character is a Quaker, and I found it so fascinating, like how he dealt with grief, like, in that world. And this one is called What Comes After by Joanne Tompkins. Okay. This one is, I would say it was kind of slower, but I gave it five stars. I was like dying, crying. I won't know. After the shocking deaths of two teenage boys tear apart a community in the Pacific Northwest,

an unfamiliar pregnant girl emerges out of the woods and into the lives of those same boy's families. Why the boys died and what their tragedy has to do with this girl are the propulsive mysteries at the center of Joanne Tomkin's story. But just as urgent is the question of how the families will move forward. What comes after grief? What does forgiveness look like? In Misty Coastal, Washington, Isaac's teenage son Daniel is gone, leaving Isaac alone in a rambling Victorian home, shocked and grieving. The friendships and faith that once nourished him are flickering. Next door, Lori, a single working mother, struggles with the final act committed by her own teenage son. The two parents are separated by only a silvery stretch of trees, but emotionally they are stranded, isolated by their great losses, until they meet Evangelion.

Fiery and Heron Spirit, 16, pregnant and alone, Evangeline's unexplained arrival, changes everything. At first, it feels like a blessing and a bridge across a divide, but the girl clearly is hiding something about her connection to the boys and their deaths. Soon all three characters are forced to examine what really happened in their overlapping pasts and what it all possibly means for a shared future. Wow. Yeah, I think like when we were talking with about just like bleak kind of books and and like processing what happens after a really tragic event. There's something about books about grief that it's like they're not fast paced but they'd be like so incredibly hooking like they like you can hook you. It's like the stakes are still so high. I think that's some of it is like emotionally it's such a huge. It's like

huge thing to work through. Correct. And there's so many ways you can go about it and the decisions are typically not always great. No. But like you can understand why they're made. So the Isaac, he is a Quaker and so he talks about how he like will just sit in silence for a long time or like he sits with other people from his church and they're like asked questions but you're not like if the second it gets um not neutral i guess you could say like it's over like it's just like it's such an interesting process like yeah what it is is so foreign to me um there are pieces of it that sound like really nice yeah there's other pieces of it where i'm like i don't know so it's it was fascinating to me i know i've i felt that way to you because i know a lot of their church or whatever same same as you

I'm like, I can't remember if it's called church is sitting in silence together. And I'm like, like there is the whole part of like being able to be alone with yourself. Or I mean, you're in a group in that case. But like for a lot of, I'm not saying that it's like always easy for me. But it's not totally difficult for me to sit in silence. Actually, I kind of love it. But when you're having that heavier stuff, it's like more intimidating to do that. but you're like a lot healthier if you can kind of like connect with the part of yourself that's like

you are okay right now yeah right so that stuff always I think it's the same stuff um some of the same stuff in quakerism or whatever it is is probably the same stuff that intrigues me with like Buddhism as well yeah I could see that because I think one of the things that was really hard is like the anger that like pushes through um like to truly um like to truly and overcome that and to sit in that like yeah you're so mad yeah and it just was like yeah it's hard for him and maybe not wouldn't be your kid died i know yeah i don't yeah i don't know how parents move on from that i was like trying to think of the way to word it and i'm like that's that's literally it that has to be one of the worst things to live through i would assume

is like outliving your children. Yeah, there's some really interesting things online, like not to be super morbid, but somehow this account came up of like, I think if you ever read books like the collected regrets of Clover where she's like a death dula. Oh, okay. Like now that I've read about that, it's such, I guess I could have talked about that today. Oh, you are. It's such a fascinating topic and how important those people.

are and um like somehow it came up on my feed and it was just like such a fascinating thing to like make it like not scary and like how you move through it and I was like I don't know how much this is going to come up now because I kind of like went into it a little bit yeah but like I don't know it it was it was just fascinating it is fascinating because there are people like I think almost all cultures maybe other than ours talk about death more and it's like not. not as like nerve-wracking and like, oh, we don't we don't talk about that. Like, uh, and they have more rituals around it, I think, too. But like, yeah, the people who are death doulas are fascinating.

Yeah, there was this clip that I've seen multiple times now about this Australian mom on a podcast with three guys. She talks about losing her daughter and like the way she talks because it's been like 10 years. So she's able to talk about it without like breaking down at this point because she's like, I've gone through it. And I think that's the only thing you can do. That's true. And so and it was, I'll never remember the clip. But like I've seen it now like three times and it was such a interesting thing to listen to this woman talk about.

Yeah. Yeah. Really it. Well, my next one has some loss in it. I definitely thought. of this one because I just read Vanessa Lily's second in this series. So Blood Sisters is the first one. Um, obviously I could have talked about the bone thief, but it doesn't come out until October. So I just kind of like, but I will say the bone thief covers even more kind of historical

stuff. There's some more specific historical stuff that like I learned about reading that one, but the first one does as well. So, um, here we go. The, there are secrets and the, land. As an archaeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Sid Walker spends her days in Rhode Island trying to protect the land's indigenous past, even as she's escaping her own. While Sid is dedicated to her job, she's haunted by a night of violence she barely escaped in her Oklahoma town 15 years ago. Though she swore she'd never go back, the past comes calling. When a skull is found near the crime scene of her youth, just as her sister, Emma Lou, vanished. She says Sid knows she must return home. She refuses to let her sister's disappearance or the remains go ignored, as so often happens in cases of missing native women. But not everyone is glad to have Sid home and she can feel the crosshairs on her. Still, the deeper Sid digs the more she uncovers about a string of missing indigenous women cases going back decades. To save her sister, she must expose a darkness in the town that no one wants to face.

not even Sid. This one's just so good. And it's like action-packed. Yeah. And the storm at the end too. It's like from all angles. Yeah. She,

I just love it. She's very good at these like actiony thrillers. So I like, I definitely by the time I read this one like knew about like missing and murdered indigenous women and like how many. have gone missing or been murdered or assumed murdered for decades. But there were parts of this that still had me like kind of researching some of it. And she also kind of woven some of the details of like, like the disrespect to the land that was

happening in Oklahoma at this time too. When we had our conversation about what is historical fiction, she commented and said how some people consider this historical fiction because it takes place in 2008, which like might be stretching it a little bit. Like I didn't think of it as historical fiction, but she does touch on some things that were happening in Oklahoma as well, where you're just like, wow. People have just yesterday. Historical fiction? Jesus. Yeah, for real. Yeah, especially indigenous people have just not been treated well and it continues on. So there's a lot of that that gets covered in this one, but there's even more of it in the next one that is just like, whoa.

I think that indigenous literature is so interesting in the sense that there's like the actual historical fiction part. And then I also find it fascinating when they are like storytelling, like the lore and like the spiritual pieces of it are so interesting. to me and like I don't know I think there's so much there's so much opportunity by reading more yeah like I loved um one of the books I read by Nick Medina his first book was like so interesting because it had like a horror piece to it so like yes it talked about like some of the injustices within like reality but then like the storytelling too was like so good That's crazy because right before you were saying that, I was going to say that the book I'm physically reading is The Whistler by Nick Medina right now.

And it is like, this is my first one. I haven't read his other ones, but I want to now. It is like the prologue is terrifying and super creepy and builds like all of this huge horror momentum. And then like then you get into like the regular chapters still so. terrifying and creepy but like also uh like they're like on the reservation or not on the reservation so there's like also that kind of folklore that you're kind of talking about getting woven into it and it's like it just works so well so i'm liking his new one that way too yeah one of the only times i was like i did not anticipate being creeped out and i was like laying there in bed at night

thinking about this like head rolling around yeah and I was like why am I creeped out by this and sometimes this like sticks in your head yeah and it's probably has like me nay you know what I mean there's like so much reason behind it all right metaphors instead I don't know it's like okay yeah totally I love that yeah some good ones I love Vanessa too. Yeah. And then she's part of the quad group

that has a new book coming out as well. Wicked? Something widows? I thought it was two W-Ws. I thought so too. Well, I guess Wicked and Widows. Let's see what it says here.

Wicked wanted widows. I thought it was three. Yep. I'm with Kimberly Bell. and Kate Hollahan, Hollahan, and Lane Fargo. Nice. I'm not sure about how to. That's okay.

How many do we have left, too? Uh-huh. I have two. Okay. Well, I think that one that I thought was really interesting and has a really gorgeous cover, was do what Godmother says. Yes. by L.S. Stratton, Shelly Stratton. This is one of the most beautiful covers I think I have.

I, like, a little floridly black and, like, a vintage gold frame. You're going to get me every time. And the, like, paint drips from the text. Yeah. So this is dual timelines, and it takes place, well, it'll say, but it's probably one of my favorite, like, going back in time. Yeah. Shanice Pierce knows better than to heed bad omens, but she has a hard time ignoring the signs when she finds herself newly single and out of a job on the same seemingly cursed day. Then, while cleaning out her grandmother's house, Shenees comes across a painting she hasn't seen in years. Drawn to the haunting portrait in a way she can't explain,

Shanice accepts her grandmother's offer to keep the family heirloom. She soon uncovers the story of the artist. a Harlem Renaissance painter named Estelle Johnson. The young woman was taken underwing by the wealthy art patron Maude Bachman, or godmother, as she insisted her artists called her, and vanished shortly after the Bachman's brutal murder a century ago. As Janice digs deeper, she becomes convinced she's being stalked and that the deaths happening around her are connected to the staggering offer

she turned down for the painting. But the truth hiding in plain sight is, even more shocking and deadly than Chenice could have possibly imagined. So there's like this psychological aspect of it of like, am I going crazy? Yes. So much stuff is happening to me. But then also, so like there's a major thriller part. Yes.

And then you're wondering like what's happening to her relative in the past who like you talked about earlier. Like she thinks she got this like amazing opportunity. But, like, is anything in that era as good as it seems or is it good to be true? Black women, yeah. Yeah. Especially if you have some talent and someone else could make money off of it. Yeah. Yeah.

So I had never really heard about, like, how many times we're going to talk about this today? Granted, it's not always about, like, I didn't know much about Quakerism either, besides maybe when we talked about, like, the Pilgrims. I don't know. but I am like how many times can we say like I didn't know much about this and that's so stupid and so depressing but I didn't know about the Harlem Renaissance or like anything like this happening but it tracks with that time I'm sure yeah I didn't know about the Harlem Renaissance until the last two years maybe maybe two years I don't know um there's just so much where I'm like we could have included more in history class like because there's so many like not even like I think some people get hung up on thinking that means only bad things and it's like no not even that we're just like not including some of the great things that happened in history too it's crazy I am I I got with um audible uh they had the like buy one get one um I love they kind of do it every other month

And like, oh, I understand their Amazon, but you can't pass up the deal at the moment. And I got. Right. Exactly. That's what sometimes I'm like, guys, like the author still wants us to consume their content if they can or if we can. But I got Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria, Christopher Murray. And I'm excited to listen to that one. But it takes place during the Harlem Renaissance as well. and is about W.E.B. Du. Boyce. I think the S is pronounced for some reason. I didn't realize that until recently. But my friend McKinsey responded. She was like, this book is so messy. And I was like, really? So apparently. It's a little book. My friend McKenzie. Yeah. She responded and said it's really messy. So I'm kind of excited. Like it has like Langston Hughes, Nella Larson. Like it incorporates people. So I'm excited about that one. But yeah, it's like something else I just never heard about. And now I'm like finding it in all kinds of books. And it's like fun to read about. Yeah. Yeah.

I will say do what godmother says has some sinners vibes. So if you liked the idea of like wanting to kind of vampirically feed off of someone else's talent, especially in relation to race, like you probably love this book too. Yeah, that whole art. Art of all types. Yeah. it's interesting you say i was going to just do it as like a drive-by today but when you talk about um like the famous people that are mentioned in in carlum rhapsody i think there is like a famous artist that is talked about and do what godmother says i can't remember the name i recognize the name

and then also um if you read the reformatory by ton of romew do there are pieces that talk about like lawyers from the time or like there's there's real people like inserted in fictional ways which is kind of cool that was the other one and that was my bogo that was the other one i got with audible what is the reformatory and so incredible narrator oh really nice that's good to know she reminds me of i think the one that you like angel oh okay that's what i'm thinking of yeah there's kind of like this wispiness to their voice a little bit yeah Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. It's another one that's obviously like 19 hours. And I just started getting a bunch of my holds came in. So I'll just like listen to it when I eventually don't have Libby holds. I think it would be good for October. That too. That's a good point. Yeah, there's some paranormal. Yeah. Well, speaking of books that incorporate real life people into fiction.

I'm just going to keep talking about McKinsey today. Sound like I'm obsessed with her. I'm like McKinsey wore a pink shirt, so I wore a shirt. And I'm like, am I following her? She's Miss USA to MBA for anyone who's like, I really need to follow this McKinsey person. But she has pollinated my reading style for sure. And then she loves to send me DMs, like in all caps, like stop influencing me when I'm talking about So it goes both ways.

But she recommended this when she came on at the beginning of the year. My government means to kill me by Rashid Newson. And it's also this author is the writer and producer of The Shy. I think you say shy, right? Chicago, the Shy. Narcos and Bel Air. So this dude has been writing some stuff for a while. But this one.

Oh, Andy's from Indianapolis. That's what made me pick this up because you and I saw it as a local. author when you were in Indianapolis. Yeah. So I listened to it. But born into a wealthy black Indianapolis family, Earl Trey Singleton, the third, leaves his overbearing parents and their expectations behind by running away to New York City with only a few dollars in his pocket. In the city, Trey meets up with a cast of characters that changes his life forever.

He volunteers at a renegade home hospice for AIDS patients. and after being put to the test by gay rights activists becomes a member of the AIDS coalition to unleash power. Act up is the acronym. Along the way, Trey attempts to navigate past traumas and searches for ways to maintain familial relationships, all while seeking the meaning of life amidst so much death. So this one is heavy in a lot of ways, as you can probably tell. Yeah. Because it's obviously like very much talking about what it was like to be both black and gay in the 80s.

Yep, in the 80s. Which like would just be so difficult because even like within, I mean it covers all of it. Even within like the black community, it was like extra look down on to not be a super masculine man. And so there's all kinds of stuff that was going on for someone in that time period. But he also kind of writes it. He writes like the chapters are like lesson one. So it almost kind of, it's almost written like it's like essays of a memoir. It's kind of like that's the structure it reminded me of.

And he kind of like each chapter is a lesson he learned in his time in New York City. So yeah. it's it's it's so unique and like the i mean it's not spoilery like the trumps are a large presence in new york city like the whole the whole family is in the 80s and so like all of a sudden like there's like fred trump popping up and you're like whoa um and unfair housing practices from him in the 80s 40 years ago so there there are these really life people that pop up and you're just like oh yeah I guess I see how we got to where we are in 2025 which has also been a theme for me this year is trying to figure out how we got to where we are

or just have a better understanding I generally know how but you know what I'm right yeah like the details and the yeah small things that like had a bigger effect probably than people thought they would at the time yeah so but it's not a memoir right it's no it's fiction it's just kind of like written like like the characters looking back on his time there and what he learned. Yeah. And it's pretty short. I think it was like a six and a half hour audio book. Yeah, two 70 pages.

Tell me it's shorter than eight hours. I know. Yeah. Sometimes when I'm like 13. Right. I know. I know. Yeah, that's really fascinating sounding.

Have you ever read, it's not Rebecca McKenna, it's Rebecca, she did, I think it's called The Great Believers. It's got a yellow cover. She also wrote, like, I have some questions for you or something. Oh, Rebecca McKay? Oh, yeah. Yes. That one, I believe, took place during, or at least part of it takes place during the AIDS epidemic. And I've.

In Chicago. It's really a powerful story. Wow. Yeah, I didn't realize she wrote non-thrillers. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, I've heard it. I mean, I think in 1980s, Chicago, that's going to be heavy.

Mm-hmm. Well, speaking of yellow covers, did it to myself. The one, probably one of the first non-thriller books I had read in a while was the Yellow Wife by Sadaica Johnson. she i mean people were like posting this all over the place at that time um this one's also pretty short it's under 300 pages and i would say for like a historical fiction i felt like the pacing was like really fast nice um born on a plantation in charles city of virginia phoebe dolores brown has lived a sheltered life shielded by her mother's position as the estates medicine woman and cherished by her master's sister, she is sent, hold on a second.

Shielded by her mother's position as the estate's medicine woman and cherished by the master's sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world. She'd been promised freedom on her 18th birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Phoebe is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil's Halfacre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Phoebe is exposed to not just her jailer's cruelty, but also to his contradictions. To survive, Phoebe will have to out with them, even if it means making the ultimate sacrifice.

So the contradiction is that like I think she was a little bit like fairer skin tone and she was like married to one of the slave holders and like they had kids and so I think that was like yeah pretty common that oh yeah like these women were like all of a sudden in higher class high society yeah I hadn't read the full synopsis. That sounds intense. It is a hard read at times, but it moves. And then the author's note, because I had read this like a couple years ago, the author traveled there with her family and was like looking at all the sites and like learning about this woman. And she's like, wow, what the heck?

Like there's this enslaved woman that's all of a sudden married to this guy at this awful place. Wow. So. Yeah, I have three of her books on my TBR. Yeah, I read this one. And then the House of Eve is interesting as well. I really love the narrator. One of the narrators for that one is Ariel Blake.

She's really good. She actually read the one that you had. told me about the vicious these vicious games oh nice yeah they're vicious games that's how i found her and i was like who are you i like your voice nice yeah i have fallen graces though there's the daco johnson one that i have oh that's the one coming out soon i believe oh it's not out yet i don't know it's probably it's 20 24 oh really this is 50 pages okay so that that that's a short oh there's one coming out soon i thing okay yeah that makes sense keeper of lost children oh that's a cool cover and i think it's like oh it's sad never mind it's also it's world war two but like not the typical world war two

okay yeah i'm entering a giveaway on good reads as we speak same um my last i just had like a drive-by I think a couple times we've talked about like Happy Land recently by Deline Perkins Valdez and her other book, Take My Hand, is also a really good one. Because I thought that it was going to be about like abortion for some reason. And it was not. Yeah. It was about like forced sterilization. Oh, yes. And it took place like it had a little more like courtroom drama than I anticipated.

But like sometimes when you don't. know what a book is going to be about it's like even more yes enlightening so um her books in general like have both taught me something that i didn't really know much about wow i was just reading about for sterilization in the original sins book that i read um that was about like just i mean the miseducation of america so specifically black and indigenous children, but they, it literally got, became so common. I'm looking at my notes here. It was called a Mississippi appendectomy. And so they would tell black and indigenous women that their appendix needed to be taken out and they would entirely remove their reproductive organs.

And they just, it was so commonplace that it became called Mississippi appendectomy. So and the book pretty much said that they justified. it because not allowing more of those children to be born would save them money because the children would be so stupid that the government would have to take. They use a different word than stupid. But yeah, it's fucked up. It is really fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. I've read a few books also about just like eugenics in general. Like there's been a few, there's one called the foundling, I think, by Anne Leary. Okay. that I don't know the whole thing is like so fascinating like people want everyone to have like all these kids but it's like but only these kind actually right right oh my gosh yeah so lots to learn from fiction folks

from fiction well the other one that came to mind for me I loves this one it was it this year was it last year no it was this year in May um the manner of dreams by christina lee I love this one. I talked about it a lot at the time, but it's like a lot of books, but definitely like, did you hear about Kitty Carr meet Gothic horror, which is impressive to do both of those. So Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing enjanoe rose to fame in the 80s, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career and live out the rest of her life as a recluse. Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will, and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood,

their childhood home. Home is missing there. Vivian's grand sprawling Southern California Garden Estate. But due to the last minute change to the will, the house has passed on to another family instead, one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement, in hopes of staking their claim both families move into the mansion amidst the grief and paranoia of the family's unhappy reunion vivian's daughters raced to peace together what happened in the last week of their mother's life only to realize they are being haunted by something much more sinister and vengeful than their regrets after so many years of silence will the families finally confront the painful truth about the last fateful summer they spent in the house or will they cling to their secrets until it's too.

too late. Yeah, there's so much that happens in this one, but you get like three generations because you're getting like you get Vivian Yin like at the beginning of her career who's who is dead at like the beginning of the book. So we see her career. But what kind of does it, what's not even really touched on in the synopsis is that like some some of the haunting is a little bit related to. but not entirely.

I don't want to give everything away. But like how many Chinese Americans were essentially enslaved to build the railroads and like the horrific conditions that they lived through. And so then also that then we also, especially with Vivian, you're getting that narrative of like someone who sees Hollywood for like the opportunity that it is to get herself like out of a situation essentially. but it really isn't saying the amount of non-white people, our country enslaved to build some of like the most important parts of it.

So this one touches on that too. Yeah. Oh my God. I saw this post from an account just called like history. And it was this like beautiful black and white photo of like an indigenous man on a cliff. it almost looked like Yellowstone or not Yosemite or something. And like just the comment section of like the way we would think that to me it's like obviously we did a bad thing.

Yeah. Just like. Yes. Taking everything. And the comments being like, well, they could have won the fight or whatever. And I was like, I did not know. Like am I so naive and stupid that people think this way? And like I couldn't.

Believe it. That's like one of my things that's making me aware, I guess, of my whiteness is like I didn't know how many truly terrible white people there still are out there who think things like that and post it on the internet. I know. I'm like, wow, that's so bold of you. Yeah. I don't understand that at all. Because it's probably someone who could not win a fight if someone tried to come take their home. Right.

there's these there's these cultures that didn't have those type of weapons and now you're saying that they should have won yeah what yeah like and they're up against like a man that was theirs like all kinds of a sudden we just tromping and I'm like oh but you didn't beat me yeah I know and then I think of like how many generations have taught their kids that and so it's like the person making that comment was taught that that's that was a good thing that we should be proud of that yeah earned it and i'm like it's this manifest destiny thing that like the founding father said where it's like we were meant to have this and so then like it takes on this like godly quality of like it was meant for us yes like the sun is shining today yeah for me because yeah yeah yeah and

It's, I don't understand it. It's been interesting too, because, like, I all hear, I've just been listening to more people and sometimes, like, I may cut this out because I don't know if I'm going to say it eloquently enough, but like, it'll, like, even at the beginning of hood feminism, she was like, this is an uncomfortable book for white people to listen to. And I'm like, it's not even uncomfortable for me. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I'm just, like, it makes me very angry on your behalf.

There's like that part going on. But I'm like, like I both see my privilege and also I'm like I didn't do that. I'm just trying to understand why I there's like understand more of the privilege that I have and like what I didn't have to. But like I'm not uncomfortable hearing that a white person did bad things. Like I know they did. I don't know why people get so defensive of them. But clearly people, some people are even just uncomfortable. I'm like, it's not that uncomfortable to just listen to someone's perspective.

But I guess it is. Who are you defending? Why are you defending that? Yeah. Just not even. Yeah. It's okay to say you were wrong. Like I think that's one of this really interesting.

I'm hoping that it's becoming, well, judging on the divisiveness, it's not. But like I hope, like on a micro level, like I see therapy, emotional intelligence, like being aware of like what you've done wrong and not feeling like you can't apologize. Like, I believe that there's this shift happening, but I'm not really sure. I know. Maybe it's just, like, in the current moment of, like, in my relationship, I can take responsibility. Yeah. But it's, once it's, I'm like, what do you care of or defending these people that are long dead?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I agree.