Bookwild - Some Mid-Year Favorite Reads with Halley Sutton

Episode Date: July 21, 2026

This week, Halley Sutton is back, and we discuss tv shows and movies we've been watching recently, and share some of our favorite reads so far halfway through 2026! Books We Talked About Kate's Books It Came from Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood Our Sister's Keeper by Jasmine Holmes Halley's Books Revenge Plot by Stephanie Wrobel The Chaperones by Amy Meyerson London Falling: A Mysterious Death in a Gilded City and a Family's Search for Truth by Patrick Radden Keefe Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba 

So I am back with Hallie. As far as I know, you have not traveled since we last spoke, but you never know. Did you, did you go anywhere? I did go. I went up to Northern California since we last spoke. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yes, with the house with all of your mom's dolls. All the dolls, the creepy dolls that watch me while I sleep. Yes. And the biggest princess dog in the world who is the spoiled apple of my parents' eye. Oh, yeah. I say that spoiled apple of my eyes over my shoulder if anyone's watching YouTube. So I get that. What else? What other questions do I have for you? Have you been going to movies this summer? No. Okay. Cool. Not a one. Except I do have movies coming up that I will be going to see starting this weekend. So it's been a really busy year for me so far in ways that are both good and a little overwhelming.

And so I haven't gone to the movies as often. But I will be seeing Saturday, July 18th, I will be seeing Rosemary's Baby at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Ooh. What a vibe. Yeah, it's such a vibe. And so you can kind of, it's, have I talked to you about this before? That this is like a thing LA does every summer?

I think I know about it, but I don't think you've told us about it. So it's really fun. They do movie screenings kind of almost every weekend in the summer. in L.A. And like I think a little bit before the summer and extending a little bit into the fall. And so you can come there, you can bring your own picnic, you can bring food, you can bring booze.

People just kind of like camp out on this one like lawn that they have designated. And then they'll have like photo booths and like food trucks and stuff for for people to partake in. Nice. And while we're there, I almost always wind up giving my like favorite little tour of like, look at these graves.

And I'll tell you the story about how they died. And like because they have the Garden of Legends there. So there's a bunch of old Hollywood and new Hollywood people buried there. And so that should be really fun, should be really viby. They also have all these peacocks that kind of run amok in there. It's like a whole. Yeah, it's an experience. It's a really fun. Where peacocks is walking around the cemetery? Yeah. Okay. And then at night they get put into this little pen, but they're just like that's different. And so my favorite piece of trivia about the Hollywood Forever Cemetery is that it shares a plot of land with Paramount Studios, the movie studio

production company and has for, I think, over 100 years now. So what happened was when people came to L.A. and started up different studios, I should know who started Paramount or what it was at that point that I don't know off the top of my head. They came to the cemetery and they were like, hey, you have this whole big plot of land that you haven't leased out. Could we rent part of it? And the people who owned the cemetery were sort of like, eh, the movie business will fold. We'll rent out the land and then we'll get it back and we'll make a profit and it'll be great. And they never have. So the two are kind of like locked onto the same piece parcel of property.

There's like definitely, you know, like there's walls. But like if you take the Paramount Studios haunted tour and Halloween, which I have, they'll take you into the cemetery afterwards as part of it. So they are really like you can just like walk out of the studio into the cemetery basically. Oh my gosh. Is that crazy? Yeah, we don't have anything cool like that here that I know. Well, that's pretty unique, you know, to L.A.

Yeah, yeah. One day I'm going to come get that tour from you. I'm going to demand it from you. Obviously, Kate, it would be my absolute pleasure. We'll do it. Oh, no. We have to make it happen. We really do.

Okay. Yeah. And so then, so I'm seeing that on Saturday. Monday night, I'm going to go see in a, studio a re-released version of picnic at hanging rock the 1970s i believe australian film um and then i am going on my birthday my parents will be in town i'm going to go see um the odyssey in imax at the chinese groundland theater and me too well except not there i was like you're coming to l a for it i wish no my new joke is that um like the bookshop that i'm doing a lot of stuff with wild geese

that wild geese and the 70 millimeter iMacs and the low cost of living are what i'm holding on to as reasons to live in indiana you know those are three important reasons it's kind of all i've got to hold on to right um but so we are going to see it's 70 millimeter but we're seeing the odyssey on Monday night oh nice very nice so you'll see it before me it'll be a spectacle right like no matter what yes yeah i it's like talk about collectivity effervescence. I get even more of it with that huge screen. Like people who have not experienced true IMAX, I say not pretentiously. Just it is what it is 70 millimeter.

It is so different. It makes the experience so immersive in a whole other way. Also, I was LOLing so hardcore last night, but like couldn't quite put my thoughts together well enough to talk about it. Someone did a study on why people have better like movie comprehension when they watch in a theater compared to at home. And I was like, did we need a study? I know. I could be like four reasons. I was like, wait, like, did someone pay for this study? Like, I could tell you all those reasons. sometimes I'll go see like a meh movie just because I know it won't be interrupted totally totally

we'll be interrupted you're not going to have your phone out I mean unless you're real you jerk like well true it's yeah you're you've paid you've paid more money for it you've gone yeah you've invested you know yes yeah okay well I will say because this is going to come out tomorrow it would be a quick turnaround um the invite with uh oh I want to see it oh my god I understand why you people are raving so much. It is so clever. The direction really is awesome. Like Olivia Wilde can direct. Really cool use. A lot of people were saying it felt like a play. And I totally understand why now because it also is kind of like a not a bottle episode because it's a movie. Like 90% of it, you get some like opening images of them outside of their apartment 90% of it is all in that apartment

and she uses like doorways and mirrors really creative ways so even like aesthetically i was not expecting to be like holy shit this was that was really aesthetically pleasing it is very very very very funny and okay uncomfortable ways which does make it kind of fun to see you in public Yeah, totally. And anyone who does see it, I need to talk to someone about the ending. That's all I'm going to say. But it is really good. And also, it's under two hours. And I know that you and I think you and I have talked about it on episodes before. We're like, sometimes like an hour, 40 minutes, that's perfect. Tell a tight story. I, yes, exactly. I always appreciate in whatever medium, whether it's books, TV, movies, when something is exactly as long as it needs to be.

Like, sometimes things justify being a lot longer. And sometimes, like, I think that there's a feeling that there's prestige in length. And I'm like, no, like, tell the better story. And if it's shorter, that's the right mode, you know? I agree. I almost didn't go to see Supergirl. And that was because even, like, some of it. I follow, like, there were probably like three or four, like, movie reviewers.

mostly on TikTok, like I followed them on Instagram too. But like I know which movies we might differ on a little bit, but in general, I'm like, oh, these are people who really can actually talk about like if a movie is good and like what is good about it, all of that. Anyway. And a lot of them like even though they weren't like shitting on it, like I'm sure you saw there were like three out of 10. Like there were a lot of like three star reviews like going around. And it's what's hard to know about that For me, I mean, I'm not, not about the people you follow. I believe they're take more.

But like, first of all, we know there's backlash against women. Uh-huh. And the superhero things. We see that time and time again. I also think people are genuinely getting jaded about superhero movies. Like we are, we've seen so much of it. You're kind of like, it needs to be new or different, you know, to really. Right.

So I wasn't, I wasn't sure how much to apply. How did you feel about? That's how. That was a lot of where I was out with it because I, yeah, the superhero Hero fatigue is like definitely real. But I also end up seeing a decent amount of them. You're like, I am qualified to speak to. Right, right.

And there have been some in the last especially two years where I'm like, hmm, okay. So it was like, it was very believable to me that maybe it was going to be meh. But like I also did really love Superman last summer. And James Gunn didn't direct. He didn't direct this one. or did he just not there's something he wasn't as involved but still was involved um so anyway i knew i liked the other one but then when i've seen those reviews i was like i just don't i i just couldn't i couldn't decide um and yeah and then like what i was saying those other reviewers they

weren't even saying it was terrible they were just like hey it wasn't really what it wasn't for me or whatever and i was like maybe it's not for me shout out to rob heart if he's listening right now um He posted a thread about like, do not listen to the haters, like essentially like go see it. And I love a lot of his books. Yeah. They're like action books too. I was like, okay. Rob Hart's not going to say it was great.

Like it'll be at least a six. Was then what that made me feel like. And I was like, okay. But to bring it back, what really sold me was I saw it was an hour and 40 minutes. And I was like, okay. I was like, I can definitely justify like. Like now I have, now I have Rob Hart's belief in me that it might be at least a six. And I know it's under two hours.

I cried so many times in that movie. It is incredible. It's incredible. It's what all of the, what did I say? Soft-hearted, what did I say? Oh, I said like all the eldest daughters was soft hearts and spiky. exteriors and extreme injustice sensitivity need to go see this i was crying so many different times not even just at the end so i think it's a really cathartic and incredible superhero movie

if you don't like mental health in your superhero movies you're not going to like it like that's just the truth of it that's what made it unique and like stand out for me and not just be like every superhero movie so this is just me plugging you know a or whatever. I had a friend DM me when I posted about it. And he was like, I was so scared that this was more IP slop, but maybe I'll go try it. So it's not. Amazing. Okay. I mean, I probably won't go to theaters to see it, but I read it or watch it streaming. I think you will very much appreciate it. And again, like the people I followed, which maybe

obviously it hit home personally for me so like that's probably another part of it but um i i it is interesting that like the main villain is a a like super human villain who lives on a secluded island where he traffics girls not an island a planet but you understand my slip up. I do. So some of me is like how much of the how many of those reviews really were real people like on IMDB all the like threes and twos or was there a little bit of a smear campaign? You never know. It's lots of factors. Never know. Never know. Like what's so depressing, like one of the things we've learned about the, um, I would argue one of the things we learned in that lively trial was that like sometimes it's bots, but it's also pretty easy to,

to tap into misogyny online. Again, and I say that as someone who is not particularly a fan of hers and thinks she has made many unforced errors, including a lot of racism and like different things. But like, it was pretty easy for people to be like, oh, good, I get to be like. Everyone was excited. Yeah. That's why it was tricky for me when it first came out. I didn't talk about it too much.

Yeah. When that first came out. And then I remember when like later she filed the, because I think it was like in November was then when. she filed something, I was like, okay, I'm glad I didn't say anything. I bet she has some stuff. And then now I'm just like, I just don't think that was a good set. And then I'm with you and everything else. The girl got married on a plantation. She got married on a plantation. I do think, I have no sympathy for him, to be honest with you. I don't either.

He is like, I don't know. He's so performative about everything. And it just, like, I know that we need men. who talk about feminism. Yes. Absolutely. The clips that I would see, like, when he still had a man bun and had a podcast and was talking about it, it didn't, it felt icky for some reason. Because it's so clearly ego driven. You know what I mean?

100%. We do need men to be, like, allies and, like, having these conversations. And, like, I shouldn't be denigrating that. But, like, then it's the, you know, the, like, proposal video to his wife. And, like, he centers himself in so many different ways while also being, like, like I'm the ally and it's like and also if you read the stuff that happened on that set, I think there is to me, sorry, we didn't plan to talk about this. No, we didn't know I was getting on for this today, but I guess I'm always ready.

Like if you read all the stuff that happened on that set, I think it is like undeniably clear that he was engaging in some very unprofessional behavior. Now whether that rose to the level of harassment in different ways. I don't know that I'm the person who gets to say that. But like, Yeah. I mean, there were what sticks in my mind about reading about stuff, the different articles that have come out and podcasts and what to go about it, is that there were people who were like Sony executives who like not weren't necessarily in Blake lively's camp who were writing back to the studio saying this is a problem. Like he can't, we we need, we might need to replace him because he is a problem. Like, yeah. He was like like a problem. Yes. Yeah. Especially when the deposition happens, like when we had access to some of the, I remember seeing those like you were talking. about and I'm like kind of like I said it's the set itself yeah doesn't sound like it was very functional right and Jenny slate had a bunch of issues with him too and she's somebody who's like view and stuff I do trust pretty high little like or at least has not seem to have as much reason

perhaps as Blake lively uh yeah a unreliable narrator yeah that's whoof yeah what a ride that was And it was, wasn't the, it came out short. No, it was probably the next summer. So it had been a year. But then like the summer before, this has been on my mind because of the invite, we had, don't worry, darling. And that's crazy all the rumors coming from that set. That was also a crazy one, which like, again, another moment of sort of,

like, to me, I feel like Olivia Wilde probably has also gotten a lot of flack for being a woman in a man's industry in a way that isn't fair. not super professional to necessarily be having an affair with your lead actor. I don't even mean in terms of marriage. I mean in terms of the tone you set on the set. Yes, the power structures. Yeah.

And then the one that stuck out in my mind, though, as like the one where I was sort of like, this is so bizarre. I'm sure this reveals more about me. But like, she had kind of positioned that movie as being like so feminist because like you only saw women come in it and like all the stuff. But then when you get to the reveal of what the movie is, you're like, no. like no very red pill yeah and so it's like I think it's a cool story like I'm not

but it was strange for her to be like this is so feminist and we're showing sex from a feminist lens and you're like but within this within the movie these women are essentially being raped like even if they're yeah so that was that to me a big disconnect between like wanting to something as feminist and like actually understanding what it was right right well and especially because there's not much time spent on exploring the fact that that's what was happening the whole time since that's like the reveal at the end right we think that that is like the tricky thing with sometimes just telling a story where you're like well the guy was bad it doesn't just make it feminist basically I think we went into that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and especially like

positioning the sex as feminist I found confusing yeah yeah I yeah that this is all part of why I was like how good is the invite really right it's very good now she didn't write it um it it was it is uh Spanish I think it was a Spanish play first yes I think isn't this one that's been remade in a couple different countries like I think there's like a Danish version like I think there's like a couple of people have done it yes yeah yeah so and they played with it a little bit I saw an interview also Seth Rogan is I just he's one of those where I'm like please don't let anything bad come out about no but if it did I would accept it but like please I love him I hear you I have those he's like that for me too and a couple others we're like oh god Josh O'Connor I'm like yes be cool man be cool It's like relative. It's not even that hard to be like above the bar right now. We don't have some weird thing where it's like, well, there was all that time I kidnapped all those puppies.

And you're like, no. He wasn't something else. Did I see that it came out for rent? I don't know. My brain doesn't have the full memory. He's had a couple. There's the one, the one I really want to see of his that I haven't seen yet is the mastermind. Oh, that's what I might be one.

I'm thinking of. Yeah, where he's like the art thief in like the 70s or 80s. Yeah. He also did a great movie the same year as challengers, which I might have talked about before called Lacimera, where he plays an archaeologist who has like dowsing powers and he can like find where there are like ruins in Italy. And it's just this like really beautiful, beautiful shot. I loved it. He's great in it. He's like searching for his lost love. It's like it's a slow but like beautiful, thoughtful movie. I really love. Nice. Yeah. You check that out. What was I going to say? Oh, but for anyone who thinks the invite sounds good, you need to go see it. That's why I was bringing up that it this was coming out so soon. It's one of those that like it was out in LA and New York two weeks ago and it's a very limited, like it's on AMC. It's one of their like artists in films. So if you want to go see it, you probably only have like five more days to go see it. So go see it if you want to go see it in theaters. This is me telling you too. Um, did, oh, did you, are you, did you ever read Anne Rice? I did not, but have you? So I've read a few of hers. I'm trying to remember which ones I've read. I've read interview with the vampire years and years ago.

And a few of the others. I have not been watching the interview with the vampire show, but I've heard it's fantastic. So I need to watch it. This should have been on my radar so much sooner. I got so excited. I got so excited. but really like it's blowing my mind how like this is i've talking about like my god tier books i finally had to make that tier because i can't stop giving five stars but then sometimes there's like a god tier five star um it is so good i've i had never read any of her books yeah um but the way that like it's hard to even explain That's what's like crazy when I try to talk about it. But anyone who is like fans of, I love how the vampire can be used, can be like abstracted

into so many different uses. Like I think that's that's so fun lately. And I think it's cool when you're using something kind of long, where their immortality means you can kind of like cover different periods of history and like actually have a person who has lived through like iterations of history um so that i that has been pretty pretty amazing i don't understand how it i was not like hearing about it before yeah because this is so up my alley and also now i'm like okay i need to go read some of hers however i have seen that the show really does i mean interview with the vampire the book came out in 96 so i see why they would even

want to put the current timeline in modern times if that makes sense to say um i think it's so cool the way that they the things they have pulled in um for like the modern things but then also the the way they play with unreliable narrators is so cool okay um which is kind of the idea of as i now understand it's the series starting with interview with a vampire because you are just getting one person's point of view. So like similar to it was also kind of reminding me of the way well there are a couple of reasons but the way Daisy Jones and the six um does that too where it's like the vampire list that then uh you're basically getting the whole other side of the story is what kind of almost resets by season three but it but it also moves forward in the modern time. They're just

doing so many things with like unreliable. narrators looking at social stuff because Louis is yeah he's black I couldn't remember if he was biracial he's black in this so then they're able to like look at all of like the racial tensions and stuff like that and like explore the whole creator yeah master dynamic in a really fascinating way it is just so good I could probably talk about it for an hour I I really need to watch it I've been, I like you, I feel like I'm seeing more coverage of it this season. We're popping up on more things like Vulture talking about like how great. It is and different stuff.

So I definitely want to watch it. I do remember really liking the book. And I enjoyed the movie too, the like old time movie. Yeah. All the time. The Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Kirsten Ducks, you know, like I think they, she does do, as I remember from the book. And it sounds like it feels like maybe they've even turned it up some in that.

But like, what does it mean to be in relationship with these people for like hundreds of years? Yes. I was so fascinated by the like the little girl vampire Claudia where it was sort of like she's stuck forever in a child's body. But like at some point she is not a child anymore and like how to navigate that and like talk about body horror. But it's like it's not gory body horror. No. It's like, oh my gosh. It's like I'm 11 forever, but I'm 400 years old and like I'm starting to be like I'm not even sorry, but like I'm a woman.

Like I have different like feel like. Yeah, it just is this. It is fascinating. Yeah. That is the other part that I think is so it's why you can explore toxic. I think that's why you end up seeing even more of the toxic dynamics because you have like you're saying like maybe a century with the same person. You're going to have to start addressing some things or acting out.

Yeah, totally. And they do that. They do that really well. The other thing it makes it there's also even on like the individual level. It also gives you this like, it's reminding me of, there's like a lot of thoughts coming to my mind right now. But like because like because I did therapy early in my 20s, there was like sometimes I'm like really grateful that I like kind of like learned a lot of coping skills for a lot of different kinds of drama early on. Because why not look for the silver lining? But it is because like it no matter what in anyone's life is like you know that like once you get past something really difficult.

even if it's difficult in a situation in the future that you're a little more confident because you're like oh i've been through this and like i know how i would handle it differently so then like you put you do you spend kind of a whole century with a person yeah or with a character and so then even on the individual level they keep having all of these moments where it's like are you going to address this trauma and like sometimes the trauma changes because of like the time period or the person or because you're lonely and and regular humans die and vampires don't. It's fascinating. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Okay. You're selling me.

I'm going to check it out. I'm in my vampera, vampire era. I don't know if there's a fun way to say that. Yeah. I am. Yeah, they also age her. They also age Claudia up to 14 for the TV show. I was reading like different people's opinions and they're like, it does, it does make it a little easier.

to kind of digest, especially with an even more modern audience now. And I think, I don't know if we've ever talked about that, but I think seeing stuff on a TV show is sometimes even harder than just reading it. 100%. And like, here's the other thing about Anne Rice. Anne Rice goes hard. Like Anne Rice goes hard.

Like she has interview with a vampire, Mayfair, which is some of these that are like horror, But then she also has like erotica books that she's written. I don't remember if they're under her name or if she had a pseudonym at one point. But there's like what about Sleeping Beauty where it's like, oh, it gets raped a lot. Like it's like there is she she like some really dark stuff in her books.

And that's fascinating. And I agree with me because Sleeping Beauty does, it does feel rapey. Yep. In general. Yep. Damn. She kind of like leads into that.

And so. like I totally agree with you. I think there are things that can be tolerated on the that are too much to see. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they're also, the other thing I was thinking, I think they also want to taking a book to a TV series, you're also trying to project out longer threads or like plot lines. So I think, I think they may, some great choices and sometimes I feel bad when I haven't read the book and I'm watching the TV show and I was like but why do I feel bad about it? Because like even when I was just kind of Googling around like I think I probably at this point in my life and at this year basically

was going to love the story more of the way it's being told now probably. Totally. Totally. So yeah there's that. I'm obsessed. I got to watch it. It's like it's all. Also, like the other thing that is so similar to Daisy Jones and the Sixth, did you watch the adaptation? I did watch the adaptation. I read the book and I watched the adaptation. Okay. Their chemistry, especially in like either the final or like penultimate episode, but I think

you know what's seen I'm talking about. They're a chemistry. I remember being like, I feel like I'm walking in on something and it's like not even them having sex. It's just them singing to each other at a mic. Yeah. Sam Reed, who plays listening. dot somehow same level of sexual chemistry in the third season when he's like a

rocker on yeah i'm like watching him i'm like why does this feel like i'm walking into something intimate and it's just too intimate yeah i love the mic so yeah i'm just seeing all the connections but what are the mic i will be watching tonight until i fall asleep that's what i did last night and I was like, oh, I wish I could stay. That sounds great. Yeah, it's a good feeling. I've been winning. I've been winning with TV's, TV shows, and with books.

I want to hear you talk about some of our book winners. And also, let me just pause. Well, yes. Before we move too far away from TV, I assume Widows Bay was also a favorite of yours. I think we talked about it. Yes, I think the finale had it aired. I don't think it had. Yeah.

Oh, I love it so much. So good. It's so memeable too. Like I do kind of love that it's like sticking in the zeitgeist. I think it just will stick in the zeitgeist. Totally. Kind of like how we still use parks and rec. Yeah, exactly.

And memes and stuff. Yeah, I thought that, I mean, the whole season is good. But I think we also talked about like pilot, such a fantastic pilot. Incredible. I can't believe how effectively they gave us so much. information without info dumping. And the ending was like very perfect for a pilot. I can't remember exactly why I thought that.

But then I felt the same way about the finale. I was like they didn't just leave everything open for a cliffhanger. Like there was actually like a talking around it. But like there was like a good hook at the end, but they still answered some questions. I totally agree. I really appreciated that they did a, I think it's a really hard balance to find to be like. Yeah. Give us enough.

Like I still have questions about all the things on the island, but I actually have a pretty good idea of some of what's happening, which I think is nice. But then they've created like a compelling where we're going from here, you know? And like they're not just leaning on like you still don't know what's going on in the island. Right. You know, like there's a way in which another one of my favorites, um,

yellow jackets, I think has been perhaps stringing on one of the, um, conceits a little too long of sort of like, is this supernatural or is this trauma? And to the point where you're starting to be like, okay, but which is it? You know? Yeah. It's like pick one. Yeah. And so I appreciate that I don't think Widows Bay is doing that. They're giving us like enough that you have a pretty good sense of what some of it is. And then there's still a few things unanswered. But then it's more about almost like, oh, what do we do now that we know this? Yeah. Yes. And that's really strong.

I think. I'm excited. Yes. And without spoilers. But, but, but, but, anyone who also has watched it will know what we mean the way that they like slow burn developed like three or four different i mean there's more that were characters are not timelines but like trajectories so that we get to the point it it it's almost similar to how fantasy series will do that where it was very weird to say it's kind of like game of thrones but the way like you spend all the time with them and then all of a sudden you're like oh this is why they hate each or like this is why they have warring motivations basically but you've spent time there there are a couple reveals where I'm like to your point of it being like where do we go from here it's like

people who care about each other are going to have to make like some big decisions that are at war with each other basically 100% and I thought that was brilliant I thought it was brilliant too And I thought it was brilliant the way, like again, not trying to spoil anything, but there are characters in there, for example, Ruth, being a little bit in the beginning, but hasn't played seemingly a huge role. And then you will start to understand more and more why she's there. And like, I love, like, I thought it just hit the balance of all of those things so well. You know?

We need to try to get the writer on. That would be so cool. That would be a main thing. I don't know. I will reach out to anyone. so we'll be a DM when second season rumors come up or something yeah yeah it's fantastic i could i could watch so many seasons of that also maximum pleasure guaranteed is amazing i did watch that one too i did not like it as much as widows bay but i well you're enjoyable i think you're right i would i would

agree i i but what the things that i had been telling people like widows bay is so effective with horror and comedy and I think maximum pleasure guarantee I always almost mess up that title is such a good version of suspense and comedy so it was like fun kind of watching those together where I was like oh I've got a little bit

you know it's the one way I'm going to sneak some comedy into my life they're like it must be tucked in around the more yes I just I don't know if you've ever used story graph but they have a feature that especially like if you do pretty detailed reviews like um not detailed in what you write but it'll you can like put a lot of tags of like the the feelings the pacing like that with

and what you like about books and so no some people are angry because it is their own AI that they created you can create algorithms that are not like data center AI so I'm just I'm just I'm just saying that because some people thought this was like running on gpt no they created it you can go see their video about it it's from all the data that like you're like essentially giving it when you give reviews i there was a book i won't say what it was but i can tell you um if you're like dying to know but there's a book or i was like maybe well i guess it's not mean to say this about a book there's a book called pot shot that just came out and it's kind of like a comedy i know it's kind of a romance and then it's also about like chronic illness which like in some ways i use CBD a lot for

like some like pain management and stuff so anyway i was like and it takes place in like a two worrying dispensaries essentially and i was like maybe i would like yeah i don't know so i like pull it up on story graph i have never had the personalized one have the first that didn't say i don't think this is great fit for you i've never had it which it was pretty pretty far out there. So like it's not like shocking, shocking. But it literally said it was like one of the largest conflicts is how many people report it being lighthearted, which is something you express not enjoying reading. Okay. Like, oh my God. Okay. It was like, girl, you don't like fun. Get out of here. That's what it felt like. I was like, hey. Ouch. So I guess I'm not going to pick it up.

Oh, well, good to know. You never. know though um but yeah i'm sad with those ways done i's not done done done but no i got 19 emmy nominations it's been greenlit for a second season like it's happening 19 is amazing it's amazing it's amazing for like a genre mashup first season but so earned and i was so thrilled to nato klin nominated for an emmy and to see dale dicky in there too she's was incredible the whole time too i'm worried they're going to split the vote but like i know you know that is what sucks sometimes yeah i bet generally they're happy to be there but yeah it does suck when you're like kind of have dueling totally uh co-cast members or whatever i guess i could

just said cast members didn't need to say co-cast but let's start in on the books um so i've been talking about a lot of books and i had like literally four author episodes come out on two Tuesday. There are a lot of books that I have loved this year, but this is like kind of a midyear, like three faves. Yes. So I have plenty more and I'm letting my OCD make me over explain. So I should probably just like get at it with one that I haven't talked about as much. So I think you will love this one too. This was another, apparently I've been thinking about you all. I've been reading a lot. but it's called it came from Neverland by Cynthia. I don't know if it's Palaya or Palio.

Oh, yeah. I have not read this book. I do. And I actually have not read any of her books, but her books are always on my radar because she always is doing this like very cool, like urban fairy tale horror aesthetic thing that I think it's like really interesting. I need to look at her other ones. Yes.

Yeah. So it came out very recently. It came out on June 9th. I'm like trying to make sure I don't. Okay. So it takes place in 1914 London. Okay. And it is pitched as Peter Pan meets Stephen King's It.

So basically Wendy Darling is now like in her 20s working as a nurse and is literally taking care of soldiers, which is important to note because then she will. leaves this narrative about lost boys and war. And like boys who never grow up. Yep. Because of war. So like she takes so many Peter Pan concepts. And like every time there was like another thing where I was like, oh my God, she just like did this too.

I just like I was it was an audio book too though. And I would be like cleaning and I would literally just like pause sometimes and be like, oh my goodness. That's, I have a lot of respect for this book. So but Wendy starts being haunted by the entity that took her from her home when she was a kid, which is Peter. And she does all kinds of fun stuff with his shadow and horror elements with that. Like you can only imagine. But one of my favorite structural elements to tell people about it, especially because I had a couple of people that are like, I love Peter Pan.

Is this going to ruin it for me? Yeah. Yeah. And the structural element that I think is so cool is she writes it that Wendy was like had a traumatic experience where this entity took her and her brothers. And he wanted her to do everything for him and essentially be his mom. That social horror she really works with. And so she returned and she told her parents how horrible it was and the police. but no one believed her and then like five years later an author named j m berry wrote a fantasized sanitized version of it so it frames peter pan the like book or the play and then peter and wendy

the book that came from it as like people not believing her yeah so it feels very unique it is like its own world entirely it is so good but basically she gets haunted by him again and has to confront psychosocial horrors to finally get rid of him. Yeah, this is going on my TBR for sure. Yes. Absolutely. That sounds amazing. I think you will love it.

I'm so clever. Yeah, that's very clever. Also reminds me of like one of my favorite childhood movies and I still love it and it is like so dark and strange is a movie called Return to Oz. Yeah. And it's, so like, it's basically like Dorothy has come back from Oz and Wizard of Oz. And she's played by Farooza Balc, a very young Farooza Balc, like a much, like much closer to the age that like Dorothy was meant to be. Dorothy wasn't really supposed to be like 15, 16. She was like a child. And Auntie M and everyone on the farm doesn't believe her about Oz. And so Auntie M takes her to a mental institution.

where they're going to perform a lobotomy on her so that she stopped talking about Oz. And then she gets whisked away back to Oz where there has been a fascist takeover and she has to help restore. And it's like I, bitch, is this play about or, it doesn't play about Oz? I can't remember if it's bitch or not.

Because anyway, go ahead. Totally. And it just like I, I love that movie more than I love the original Wizard of Oz. I feel like this one is like this like this, dark 80s nightmare back when they used to make a scary movie for children and I like watch it again as an adult and was like oh this movie's why I'm a writer like I like looked at so many different

elements of it and I'm like this is like part of my like writing evolution there's like an evil queen who has a hall full of heads that she changes every day like it's her outfit and I like one day I aspire to write something this freaky that I that I remember you telling me that specific part a few years ago. All of a sudden, I remembered the image of that. Well, and if you're craving any, it's like near future fantasy. It's kind of sci-fi. You'll get what I'm saying, though.

Queen of Faces, oh, my goodness, is by Petro Lord. Same concept is like the ultra-elite own different bodies, that they can put their consciousness into. Cool. And so when like she, the author really talks about class warfare without like hitting you over the head with it. Because it's like poor people will just die and rich people will just be able to have access to what is essentially healthcare if you think of being able to have another body.

So another fun concepts like that. Interesting. Yeah. The second one in the series just got announced. I'm very excited. for it. It's like 2027. You're like a future. Yeah. But yeah, I need to watch Return to Oz.

It's streaming on Disney. Nice. You may watch it like I think it is entirely possible to watch it without the lens that I had where it was like my favorite childhood movie. Like you may watch it and be like, this is crazy. But like, those themes almost always work for me. Yeah. Kind of anywhere. Yeah.

Yeah. I got it. Yeah. I'm a big fan of exploring gaslighting horror, apparently. I mean, yeah, I mean, we are women in America. Right, right. That's of interest to our life. Yeah.

Let's see. Okay, one of my favorites of the year has to be, I think I've probably talked about both of these books with you potentially, but I have to talk about them again. Revenge Plot by Stephanie Roble will be out in November, and it is so good. Did I tell you I got approved since last time? Yes, I got approved. So I will be reading it soon. I think you'll love it. And she's like, they're doing like a very cool rollout campaign with it where it's like they're setting out arcs that are like written from the point of view of the literary agent who's like the first narrator in the book.

There's multiple narrators. But it's like this literary agent for Christmas goes to this tree house Airbnb and she has, she's there by herself for reasons you'll understand. And she has this bestselling. author whose books have stopped selling as well. And then this man shows up with a kid. And it's not a spoiler to say he's there to find her because that's clear in like the first chapter. She thinks he's gotten in a car accident outside their house and he's just in there waiting. But like what you find out pretty immediately is he's there for her specifically. And he's got a book and he needs her to read it. So it's like obviously the plot itself sounds meta. Um, But then even the cover, like with like a bare manuscripts on a book for a book cover. Like they, I like everything they're doing.

I didn't realize it comes out until November. I know. September. So. No, because I think they're trying because it's set at Christmas. Yes, because it's Christmas. Yeah. Yeah.

I just saw that. Okay. Well, I will be reading it at some point. It's great. And Stephanie and I are friends. So if you want to reach. That's what I was just, that was the other reason I was looking where I was like, wait, we should probably interview her together. Totally.

I'm actually going to, she's doing a book event tonight in Santa Monica with Caitlin Mullen for Heather. Yeah. And so I'm going to go to that. So that'll be fun. That's so cool. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Let's do that because I don't have any in November. That's like where I'm finally open again, essentially. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to talk about another one that I read very recently because I feel like more people need to know about this book. It's called The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed in Massoud. And I think I saw someone share this during, I can't remember. Someone shared something on Instagram. And I was like, okay, that does sound interesting. And what I have found is shocking to know. no one but family dramas that have like a lot of sardonic wit to them and really explore how complex those relationships are but especially within the context of fundamentalist religion no matter what which denomination it is those stories are interesting to me in like every sense I am such a fan girl of this author this is why I like really really had to talk about this one

and it caught me by surprise how much I love it. His prose is fantastic. Oh, wonderful. He really, I do love someone who really carries multiple themes all the way through a story. And also, I think we've talked about this kind of before too, isn't even picking sides in some stuff. It's just exploring it for the sake of like, hey, we all can feel differently about this. But like, anyway, okay. So, but this one, I'm just going to read because I read it long enough ago that I think I'll probably just read this like blurb part.

But following two families from Pakistan and Iraq in the 1990s to San Francisco in 2016, bad Muslim discount, the bad Muslim discount is a hilarious, timely and provocative comic novel about being Muslim immigrants in modern America. One of the characters on Var, his like sarcastic annoyance with like dogma is just so amazing. But he also doesn't let him just get away with like what what we all sometimes go through when we move away from a religion. It's like, hey, also you don't have to like be haughty about the fact that you don't believe in it too. So there's some really fascinating character growth. But I'm really finding that I like, I mean, there's really not really a thriller element to this at all. And then Safwa is this girl who's like other timeline you're hearing. And it is, I think there's something very, you know, Bruce just shook his ears.

I was like, oh. I heard it. Okay, you did too. I've basically been home alone for six days because Tyler's gone. So sometimes when I hear something, I'm like, wait a second. With his, oh, there is something really uniquely interesting, interesting, emotional and whatever about stories of immigrants. Yeah.

Who have to move here because we are bombing their homeland. Totally. How complicated, you know. Yes. It's like it, it is, I've read a few stories like that. Actually, I'm probably the third one I talk about. Um, where it like really gives me, this is like that example for me where fiction really gives me like nuance into like so many different things. But like that existence, like having to move here because it's safe here. But you're not. having to leave here because our country doesn't trust quote unquote your people or people that look like you. It is a very captivating topic. Totally. It's also like that's fascinating to me though they even call it a comic novel. It's also very funny. So it's like that like blend is really interesting to me. I love that. Yeah. But I'm also listening to he had a book come out in 25 called The Last Man in Paradise. And it's an entirely different story about a son of an imam in, I can't remember.

Oh, California in Reading is where it is. I have family in Reading. I used to go to Reading every summer to visit them. Reading sucks. This character would agree. There were the water slides there and that was it. Redding sucks. well this one is like when he when um when uh he was a boy it starts out with him at like 14

and his dad sees him who's in a mom which is the kind of like a think a pastor to a mosque yeah um sees that he he kissed a girl uh-huh uh he banishes him to basically to somewhere in Africa to like force him into becoming any mom. Wow. But his dad's uncle who's like all about gaming the system. And so like being able to say you're religious, but like finding loopholes. So he's a shady character himself. He helps him not go there but maintain the lie that that's what he's been doing.

Interesting. And then they haven't. spoken for 13 years and then his dad's dad is dying and he's like you have to come back. And so he has to pretend like he has been at Imam school this whole time. And he's an actor. It's like a successful in London. So it plays with all of these themes where he's like, I've like acted a lot of shit, but like I don't know how I don't know how I'm going to do this. And so he like explores really fundamentalist religion in a whole other way but like the other i think i'm just i don't think it's a spoiler to really even say this the way he opens books um makes me think of like you know how in story

genius she talks about how like you should almost say the entirety of your book in like the first one or two sentences if you can his opening line is like something about like did it was the was the apple sour that Adam ate. And he kisses a girl who has green apple lip gloss. And then his dad banishes him from paradise. And the book title is The Last Man in Paradise. So he's also doing all these like Paradise Lost comparisons. And Dante, Dante, or Dante's Inferno?

Dante's Inferno, baby. Yes. I don't know why it sounded wrong. Okay. So anyway, I'm obsessed with this office. author and that book came out in 2025. Oh, wow. And it has 70, like 70 ratings.

That's it. What? It made me so sad. So I'll read these. This sounds amazing. They're incredible. I'm really impressed with them. Yeah.

Yeah. That's painful. It's painful to see these stories not getting the eyeballs on them for, I mean, first of all, it is genuinely harder than ever. I think to stand out in the book marketplace, but it is also painful when it feels like there's likely a political reason that some of these aren't getting the attention that maybe they deserve. I agree. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, my next recommendation is like not quite as devastating. It's okay. I also really loved in the realm of thrillers. book coming out in November called The Chaperones by Amy Meyerson, wrote The Water Lies that came out last great and she's also a friend of mine, but I genuinely loved this book. I got to read it early and it is the story of these like she-she parents in Los Angeles who put together a field trip to the Channel Islands, which are these islands off the coast of California.

I've never been. They're supposed to be very beautiful and very like nature filled. And the first night of the field trip, one of the mothers wakes up and her son is missing and she realizes him and his two best friends have wandered somewhere on this island. And there's like a storm coming. They are stuck. There's all these pieces to it. But as they search for the boys, they find a body. And then we reverse to the start of the weekend. And what she does so well is I do, I do love that setup when when there's still meat to the story. I love that setup. Yeah, totally. And so, and it's this very much like the one of those really fun thrillers where it's like, everybody's got a secret.

We're put everybody on an island and things are coming out left and right about, you know, affairs and different. And it just is like, it's just very a juicy fun read on a setting. And she makes the setting come like so alive that I have not really read a book set there before. So it's, it's a fun, fun read. Well, and she, I have not read her books before. the water lies. Uh-huh.

But in that one, like, setting is very prominent as well. Like, it's like, it becomes like so much of a character that then I was like Googling the, like the, that area basically. Totally. But also water. Water. She's really good with thrillers near water. We have, we have talked to her. Like, again, she's a friend of mine.

I'm lucky. I'm lucky. And she is like, I do. Water is a big part of mine. It's also part of like California, I guess. That's true. That's true. If you're in L.A., you're obsessed with water because you don't have any.

We're stealing it from the Colorado River and like eventually that'll be up. So, oh, Bruce. Also, this chaperones cover really reminds me of not Lucy Foley, but also kind of her covers. Yeah, I can see that. What am I? I can't think of it. It does have a Lucy Foley-esque. I could see that.

I love the cover for the chaperone. Yeah, I really do. It is funny, though, once you notice, once we talked about blueish covers with yellow. Yeah. For thrillers. And, like, this one isn't even an overt version of it, but it is so funny, like, once you notice something and then... It's so funny, the inherent tension in publishing between we want something original and we want something that's actually like something else. so that we can sell it.

Like, okay, confusing. I have to say it. It's not even a bad hot sake. But like the, like oil painting with neon, it doesn't mean anything anymore. No, it doesn't. And it's cool. It always grabs my eye.

Yeah. But we've seen a lot of it. There was one. And it doesn't tell me enough about it anymore. Yes. There's one. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

I was going to, I'm trying to think. It was a Putnam book and it was about this girl, I want to say Kristen, something, rather, this girl, a good person, Kirsten King. This is the reason I was going to bring it up because Lori Brand DMs me and she was like, did you read a good person? And I didn't even know that it was somewhat thrillery. Yeah, totally. But I also want to point out this picture, which is a famous picture, was used on another book cover this year. I don't remember which one it was. And it's slightly different, but it's like it is the same.

And okay, maybe that's why I got it confused too. Yeah, there are two that are out that have. And so it's just this like, it's so interesting when you can see trends. A couple of years it was what they called the unicorn vomit, you know, where it would be like this multi-color like explosion on the car. Especially memoirs. Yeah. And so it's just like, okay, well, I guess that's what's in this year, you know? Right.

Yeah. I know. It's like some of them like I still, the blue and yellow, like that's like a vaguer one and a broader. one and I still feel like um that cover for the chaperones like I still know what that book is about it's just like a blue and yellow shows up a good person like this never would have like stuck in my mind I guess we have one picture of a uh somewhat renaissancey woman with an expression on her face that is less than just like serene and so like everything like it's about the like okay, now I sound like I'm making fun of this book and I don't mean to, but like,

like, I'm assuming that just the cover style trend. Yeah, and I assume it's meant to hint at like the dichotomy, like of a, you know, unlikable woman or something in there with the kind of snarl on her faces. She's biting the thing. But it is funny where it's like, okay, so we're seeing the same image over and over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway. Anyway, what's your third book? My third book. Okay. So our sisters keeper, oh, this is actually another, this is off air. We were talking about Ardvark, but this was another Ardvark one. I did read it as an arc, but I love, as you can imagine. Look at that cover.

Purple, pink, white. Yeah, you're like, this is on brand for me. I was like, this was going to grab my attention no matter what, but Ardvarc did an addition of it as well. But Southern Gothic horror, because. I am so horror in 2026. I love it. So in, I think it's 19, it is 1927 in Mississippi.

And in a supposedly or seemingly utopian town where only black people live there, but they have created a seeming utopia. But the way that they do that is the women. of the town have a spiritual ability to like take the men's traumatic memories. Oh, you have told me about this. Yes. Uh-huh. And like, so they are carrying their trauma so the men can go on with their life. And so then there's more and more sinister levels of horror happening basically to keep this town the way that it is. And then the women are the only ones who see everything that the town is haunted by as well. So not a great existence for the women. No. When we talk about like massage noir, this is like this is like truly abstracting that

into horror and in the 1920s. And being like this is how even within an all black community, women still were taking on a lot of the burdens. Yeah, totally. And it still kind of happens to this day a little bit. Yep. Oh, yes. Yeah. It's really good.

It's by Jasmine Holmes. I can't remember if I said her name. More people need to, like if you love the reformatory. Like, it's that type of psychosocial horror. And then there's some fun crossover. That sounds amazing. Mm-hmm. It's very good.

It is pretty. And it's pretty. So we got that, yeah. Yes. Excellent. My last one is a book by Patrick Braddon Keefe, who is somebody I have read. He wrote Say Nothing, which was about the Irish Troubles and particularly about these two teenage girls who became kind of figureheads of the troubles and was turned into a TV show. and writes for the New Yorker.

He also has a great book called Rokes, which is basically a collection of his profiles of crazy people. There's one that's like the sister of this Danish gangster. There's one guy who becomes obsessed with solving the like, like apportioning blame to the locker be bombing. Like it's fascinating. There's one guy, the opening anecdote I think is about a wine forger

and the billionaire who gets like conned by him and how the billionaire basically decides it's like going to be his mission to ruin this guy's life. Like he finds fascinating subjects. I knew I needed to read this, but now I'm like, oh, I have to. It's like I have to read this. And your article was so enjoyable. So London falling is a beautiful, devastating book. It's called Mysterious Death in a Guild of City and a family search for the truth. So in 2019, this young man jumps into the Thames. And there's footage captured of him oddly enough at

MI6 because the building he jumped off of was right across from MI6. And so you see him out on this balcony by himself and he kind of walks side to side on the balcony and then he goes over. And so they're like, what happened? His family's devastated. It's horrible. He's younger son of two boys. And they're like, what, what happened? What could have possibly happened? And they find out, this isn't a spoiler because I think it's on the back of that cover, but he just like winds you through it really well, that this young man had been impersonating that he was the son of like a Russian oligarch and had gotten involved with kind of these like gangster-ish people in London. And so the question is what happened that put him on the balcony that night and why did he feel like jumping into the Thames was

a better often than staying in that apartment. And it's a devastating, fascinating, true crime. story and still doesn't really like he paints a pretty vivid picture of what is probably the most likely thing to have happened but like we we don't have a huge resolution to this day about it and it kind of grew out of like him I think he was actually in London filming say nothing and had a friend who was friends with this family and kind of was like you should profile them for the New Yorker and he wrote an article about it and like as he's writing an article he's like this is a book. And it's like, he's an amazing writer. Everything he writes reads like the most compelling thriller, but it's weird. And it's amazing. He, I think he was on the Stacks podcast. Probably.

So if anyone, because that was another reason. I was like, I really do need to read it. Like I read a lot of what she posts. Or like a decent amount. I am really. really correcting myself a lot today. What's happening today? Something to look at later. But yeah, I knew she was such a huge fan of say nothing. I mean, so many people are too.

And then I think I saw he had him on when London falling came out. Yeah. It's like I have seen so much about both and still not read with him. But I'm listening to the. warmth of other sons by isabel wilkerson and it's like a 20 hour nonfiction so it's just going to be a second like we're we've got our nonfiction quota right now so yeah totally um but yeah

highly recommend and all of his books that i there might be other ones but i those are the three of his i've read rogues incredible they're like basically a collection of some of his like most interesting profiles um say nothing is amazing and then london falling is really really good too Yeah. Well, on that note, this has been some of our favorites.