toxic lesbian vampires and sapphic romance - bury our bones in the midnight soil by v. e. schwab

this month we are reading a sapphic romance about love, power, hunger and toxic lesbian vampires. it’s a novel told across three timelines, spanning almost five centuries and multiple countries, all the while asking the eternal question, what does it mean to be free? this month we are reading bury our bones in the midnight soil by v. e. schwab. we are the literature podcast for recovering book snobs – so join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves from booktok to translated fiction, the classics and beyond.

laura's recs:

• a smart girl's guide to second chances by steph vizard
• the compound by aisling rawle
• I who have never known men by jacqueline harpman
• I am, I am, I am: seventeen brushes with death by maggie o'farrell
• perfect days (2023 film directed by win wenders)
• mickey 17 (2025 film directed by bong joon ho)
• circle by tom misch (2026 album)

bridget's recs:

• the interpreter of maladies by jhumpa lahiri
• the safekeeping by yael van der wouden
• hamnet by maggie o'farrell
• the rot by evelyn araluen
• notes on your sudden disappearance by allison espach
• the other bennet sister (2026 series directed by jennifer sheridan and asim abbasi)

sapphic book recs:

• recs from January's talk lit with us episode
• the three lives of cate kay by kate fagan
• scenes of a graphic nature by caroline o'donoghue
• the safekeep by yael van der wouden
• is this a cry for help? by emily austin

synopsis music by nikita kondrashev

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join talk lit, get hit podcast for deep dives into the hottest BookTok recommendations, trending contemporary fiction, and literary favourites! each episode features book discussions, spoiler-filled chats, and thoughtful literary analysis of novels everyone is talking about - from viral romance and fantasy to modern classics. whether you’re looking for BookTok book reviews, author interviews, or a virtual book club experience, out podcast is your go-to space for readers who love stories and want to explore them in depth.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.  

Transcript

Laura 0:00

We should do a baby themed episode and the whole episode is-sorbing about wild.

Bridget 0:05

Yeah. We have to stop because we keep pooing our pants. That's a really good idea. Write that down. Hello and welcome to Talk Lit Get Hit, a podcast where we read viral books the internet won't shut up about and rate them lit or shit. We're your hosts Bridget and Laura, lovers of sad girl fiction and tragic endings, fearers of smart, urban fantasy, and the Who Did This To You trope? Join us as we pick apart all the books the internet loves and embark on a journey to figure out why. This month we are reading a sapphic romance about love, power, hunger, and toxic lesbian vampires. It's a novel told across three timelines, spanning across almost five centuries and multiple countries, all the while asking the eternal question, what does it mean to be free? This month we're reading Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab. Bridget. Hello, hello. Hello, hello. How are you? I'm so well. How are you? Good. It's been a while since we've had a mouthful of a title. Yeah, it's a big one. Also, I almost couldn't gather my thoughts to say how I was because I was like, Schwab? Schwab? Schwab. Schwub schwob. It feels like a long time since we recorded, and it has actually been a long time since we recorded. It's been so long. I'm so excited. I feel like last time it was hot. There's a chill in the air. The leaves are changing colour. It's so nice. Yeah. You know it. We all know it. We're all excited. How's your month been? My month has been good. It's been quite busy. I've been moving around all over the place. And honestly, I'm just looking forward to staying at home for the, I don't know, foreseeable future. Um, I've been to Sydney a few times. I went and saw Maisie Peters. I went to Mardi Gras, which was an unexpected treat. So fun. I've never been so fun. We actually didn't know it was on because we haven't been on social media. And we just ended up flying in on the night of the parade. So then we just went to the parade and we had this like perfect spot at the start of Oxford Street, and we were just having the best time, and we were like, Wow, look at the blue dresses. And like everyone around us was silent, but we were like, Wow, glitter, wow, wings. So I hope they enjoyed our commentary. Uh, it was insightful. We also went to Madame Tessad's, it was terrifying. I don't know if you've ever been to one of those before. We only went because there's eras to her outfits dotted around the world. So I just wanted to go and see a Tailswift one, but it was so scary. The Harold from Neighbours one I think was the worst. It just looks so realistic. Do you feel like it's better when they look really realistic or when there's something a bit off about them? I don't know if better is the right word. Yeah. I was like, did I just say that? It's so scary. I think it's scary when they're off because it's like, have I been perceiving this person wrong my whole life? Obviously, they put a lot of money and time into this. Delta Gudrum looked nothing like Delta Gudrum. I went back to Sydney another time because Brian had a friend from Yorkshire come and stay from primary school. So we did all the touristy things. That was nice. We went with a group of friends to Noosa and we went to Australia Zoo. I haven't been to Australia Zoo since the Veronica's played there. And I don't remember a single animal from that time. So I was pleased this time to see some actual animals. But our goal was to be barricaded at the Crocoseum. And let me tell you, we were barricaded at the Crocoseum. Yes. We were front row. It was so good. Until they started playing all of these really sad videos of Steve Owen. Oh. And we all just burst into tears. Oh my god. So sad. Like he's up there. I want people to be passionate about nature. And we were just like crying. I think it's just amazing because like we are obviously still getting mileage out of Steve Owen's death, which in itself is quite amazing. But I think like the fact of like who he was and what he stood for and what he said is so like enduring and so moving. It's so upsetting. I'm tearing up thinking about it right now. I can see your eyes glittering. Like me, Maddie, Erin, Shani, we were just crying. Even Brian. Brian was so, so sad. Like, what a waste. Oh my god. And that's about it. How about you? That sounds like a lovely month. Mine's been really nice too. Probably the highlight for me was going to Tasmania with my family and husband. And that's something that I've wanted to do for so long. Like every year, if like five goals that I relentlessly add to my New Year's resolutions, and going to Tassie is almost always one of them. And for some reason I don't. I think it's just always more expensive than I expect it to be. I feel like it'll be like 60 bucks for a flight. Yeah. It's not. And I was like, I'm gonna go unschaperoned because I went once in grade seven, once in grade 12, rinse and repeat, went back with my family and had a lovely time. Oh, that's good. That was everything I wanted it to be. There was food, there was nature, there was like fun critters, beautiful flowers, nice views, good walks. All of the boxes were ticked. That sounds lovely. Have you read any good books since we've last recorded? I haven't read much since we last recorded. To be honest, most of my time was spent on holidays and like heavily occupied trying to finish the three books that we're tackling currently. All of them are fairly long as well. Like a couple of them not super easy to breeze through. Excuses, excuses. I did read, thankfully, two other books this month, and they were both really good. I read A Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances by Steph Bizard, and this was an ARC that we received. She's an Australian author. It was a bit of a rom-com set in Australia, but I just thought it was very fresh, very charming, and I had a great time reading it. I want to read that quite soon, I think, because the books that we've been reading for the podcast have been quite serious and deep for the most part. So I really want to get into something a little bit silly and a little bit fun. Yeah, I would really recommend it. It was a really good holiday read. That was what I read at the start of my trip. The other book that I read was The Compound by Ashling Roll. This is described as The Hunger Games meets Love Island. And I didn't really know what to expect from this. I've read a couple of books where it's like women are like in this dystopic future and they're like separated from society or they're in the desert, and there's been some hits like I Who Have Never Known Men, and there have been some real misses, but this was great. So the premise is it's kind of like this dystopic future, and there's a group of, I guess, like influencers that are pulled from society to go to this compound in the desert where they build relationships and complete tasks to earn rewards and stay longer and longer in this paradise. There's a lot of mind games and drama, and I really enjoyed it. I thought while I'm a little light on with the books, I might try to recommend a couple of other things that I've enjoyed this month. And so I do have two movies that I would recommend. The first is a Japanese film called Perfect Days, and I feel like I'm trying as hard as possible to harness the mindset of this film because it was like a really beautiful, cinematic, meditative story about a man who was a toilet cleaner in Tokyo who lives like this very humble, repetitive, monotonous life, but takes pleasure in his simple routine, collecting his secondhand books, his records, cleaning his apartment, taking pride and just sort of doing simple tasks with great seriousness and gravity. I thought it was a really beautiful film, and I loved the message, and I think it hit me at the right time. The next rec is Mickey 17. So this is a movie where Robert Pattinson is the star, and in this movie he plays a quote unquote disposable employee who sent on a human expedition to colonize like somewhere in space. And so when one iteration of him dies, another is generated and it's like a rinse and repeat. He keeps going and exploring. They keep testing like medicines and weapons and all sorts of things on him, but he regenerates with like his memories intact. And again, it was a surprisingly touching film about what it means to be alive and what it means to be human, but also like new Robert Pattinson accent unlocked. It was really funny and charming. Yeah, that's me. I'm Mickey, like kind of you we'll watch the trailer later. Yeah, okay, good. And then the last thing I enjoyed, the very last thing. The only other thing I enjoyed in the month of March was an album called Full Circle by Tom Mish. So I read somewhere that he wanted this album to feel a little bit like some music that you would hear your parents playing when you were growing up, but you wouldn't quite know what it was. That kind of like 1970s to 1990s singer-songwriter type vibe. I just think it's very warm and intimate, kind of like a little bit folky in parts. I really don't know how to classify music, but um kind of like light, shimmery, early morning road trip vibe for me. And I really like it. How about you? I've actually read lots of good ones this month, but I've just picked my top five faves. The first one is a book called Interpreter of Maladies by Jumpa Lahiri. And this is an author that I've tried to read a few times. She's translated a few books that I haven't enjoyed, and I also didn't enjoy another book that she had written, but I kept seeing recommendations and I went through a little bit of a short story phase for a few weeks, and so I thought I would just give it a go, and I'm so glad that I did. It's a collection of short stories about love and family, Indian culture, and immigrants grappling with their new identities in America. It was fantastic, and as each story ended, I was thinking I would read a whole full-size book about that. And I think that is a great measure of the quality of the stories. The second book was The Safekeep by Yale van der Waarden. And I've just guessed how to say that name, so fingers crossed, it's accurate. I know you read this book and love this book. It was so special. It's set 15 years after World War II in the Netherlands, and it focuses on Isabel, who's living in the family home and looking after it after her mother had passed away, and one of her brothers is a notorious womanizer and drops off his girlfriend to stay in the house. I think you should know as little about this story as possible before you go into it. It was so beautiful and sad and just terrific. Agreed. The third book is another very well-known book, Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell. I don't need to say too much about this. I think everybody knows about this, but it was so, so good and so sad. It was so atmospheric. I've only read one other book by Maggie O'Farrell, which was The Marriage Portrait. I think I need to read her other books as soon as possible. It's funny because I had the same hesitation with reading that one that I did with Hamnet. I don't know why, because I've loved both of them, so I just need to not trust myself, I think. Maggie O'Farrell has a really good memoir called I Am, I Am I Am. And it's told through like her near-death experiences. Oh, has she had a few? Yes. Seventeen. Oh my god. I am, I am, I am. 17 Brushes with Death. Which sounds grim, but again, quite life-affirming. Yeah, yeah. That's good. I also read a poetry collection called The Rot by Evelyn or Evelyn Arra Lewin. Um, she's a First Nations author, and I felt that it represented living in modern Australia and the political landscape in a really relatable way. Also felt really cool and intelligent for reading poetry. So there's also uh that going for it. And the last book was Notes on Your Sudden Disappearance by Alison S. Batch, who wrote The Wedding People. This book was so sad. I was reading it on my phone as I was walking to my car after I finished work, and then I had to have a little cry break in the car before I drove home. The narrator is talking to her older sister who dies unexpectedly, and she's telling her about what happened, like as they were growing up together and what happened during the accident and like the direct aftermath, and then just how she grew up without a sister. Very sad, very good. You really need to read The Smart Girl's Guide to Second Chances or something else light because that has been a heavy month. Actually, that's true. Every single one, sad. So sad. I also have been watching The Other Bennett Sister, which is like a reimagining of Mary Bennett's story during and after the happenings of Pride and Prejudice, and I have to say, sobbed in that too. So it's been a month. It's been a month. Okay, so we are reading Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil to cover off on the theme of sapphic romance. Sapphic romance is a genre featuring romantic or sexual relationships between women or more broadly non-male individuals, maybe people who are trans or non-binary. The term's derived from the Greek poet sappho and serves as sort of like an inclusive umbrella for stories involving people who are lesbians, bisexual, pansexual, or queer women, and I think often is focusing on sort of telling more positive, queer-centric narratives as well, rather than focusing on white thing what we more traditionally see, which is that kind of trauma porn trauma story. Nothing but sadness. Yeah. This theme was actually inspired by a question that we got for our talk lit with us episode in January of this year. A listener had written in to say, I love the increase in new LGBTQIA plus media popularity, but where is the sapphic rep? And we tried our best to think of some good recs and we came up with a few. If you are interested in hearing a full list of recommendations, then I recommend you go back and listen to that episode. But since recording that episode, I have a few more to add. The first one is The Three Lives of Kate K by Kate Vagan. And this was a really great story told over 20 years or so about a young girl who starts out in her hometown and has a best friend that she is obsessed with slash in love with the usual story, and then it just follows her through her life, and she has three different names. Really recommend that one. Another one was Scenes of a Graphic Nature by Caroline and Donahue, which was a little bit of a mystery set in a small Irish town. Another one that I've already mentioned this episode is The Safekeep by Yale Van der Wauden. And the last one is Is This a Cry for Help? This was extra interesting to me because the main character is actually a librarian. Oh, just sort of talking about um book banning and the current political climate in the United States and freedom of information. It was very interesting. Well, Bridget, before we get into it in earnest, I would love to know how you were feeling. What were your initial thoughts, expectations, hopes, and dreams heading into Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab. I remember seeing this book everywhere online when it first came out. Um, I've heard mostly good things about it. I vaguely knew it was about Safic vampires, and I liked the title and the cover, and that was where my thoughts ended. So, how about you? So funny because one of my notes was great cover. Yeah. Cool title. I think I was interested in reading this book also mainly based on a vibe and an impression. I didn't really know a lot about it, although I will say that I did know that it had multiple perspectives and storylines, which for me is kind of something that I don't tend to enjoy in a book. So I might eventually have picked this up of my own free will, but that was a significant deterrent. I will also say that I thought it would be more available than it was. So I forgot to buy the book before I went away to Sydney the first time I thought it would be at the airport. Just seems to me like an airport kind of book. Wasn't in any bookstore. Yeah, I think it's burned through the rounds and like target Big W and Kmart as well. Like I know we should be supporting independent bookstores, but sometimes with these podcast books, it's a bit of a gamble. Yeah and you don't want to splash out on a book that you're gonna want to rip to shreds. If hearing spoilers about Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil makes your blood boil, then it is your time to exit the episode now. Make sure you come back when you are ready and subscribe in the meantime. Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil contains mature themes including general vampire behaviors such as violence and murder, along with marital rape, toxic relationships, abuse, grief, and homophobia. This is a story about hunger. 1532. Santo Domingo della Calzada. A young girl grows up wild and wily. Her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But Maria knows she can only ever be a prize or a pawn in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, Maria makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets. This is a story about love. 1827, London. A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family's estate until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte's tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow. But the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined. This is a story about rage. 2019, Boston. College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That's why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers and revenge. This is a story about life, how it ends, and how it starts. Okay, Laura, I am so excited to hear how you felt about Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab. I liked it. I I had a good time. I thought it was really gothic and vibey and atmospheric. The longer I sit with it, do I feel like it was much more than that? Maybe not. But I had a good time reading it overall. How about you? I'm still unsure about how I feel. It's been maybe a week or two since I've read it. I think it was way too long. I think there were whole plot lines in the book that were unnecessary. I think I liked it, but at the same time I wasn't excited by it. And I think if I wasn't reading it for the podcast, I would have DNF'd it. Yeah, I agree. I agree about it being way too long. I agree about there being too many plot lines. I think that's probably like the major weakness for me. I think I probably would have persevered, but then I would have been way more mad about it at the end. Well, let's get into it. What can you tell me about this book? Okay, so V.E. Schwab, or Victoria Elizabeth, I think, has written about 25 books, which is a lot of books. That's a lot of books. That's a lot of books. Okay, Victoria. She's a busy, busy girl. She's born in 1987, grown up in Nashville, Tennessee, to a British mother and American father. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in book design, which is very interesting. And she got her master's in depictions of monstrosity and medieval art. Ooh, I like that. Yeah, same. At the University of Edinburgh. And she has lived in Edinburgh for, I think, the last eight years. The only other work that I am familiar-ish with is The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. But she's also well known for the 2013 novel Vicious and the Shades of Magic series. She also had a supernatural teen drama series called First Killed, which was based on a short story of the same name. She has a podcast called No Right Way with V.E. Schwab, and she talks to authors about their origin stories, creative processes, work-life balance, and how they bring their stories to life. She came out as gay at 28 and she said that this was personally and creatively formative. And she also said that in the writing of Bury Our Bones, the three different storylines are quite representative of her journey coming to terms with her queerness. I watched a lot of interviews with her and listened to a few episodes of her podcast, and her writing process was really interesting to me. She said that it often before she begins a book, she likes to have the characters ironclad so she can focus on the word craft. And she also said that she has a poetry background and she normally writes a line or a poem that forms the book. And I think we see that in Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil. There's that poem that keeps coming up throughout the story. And she also asks herself when she's nearing the completion of a book, has the story achieved its purpose? And she said that Bury Our Bones is actually the closest she's come to achieving the purpose in her mind. Oh, okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I thought that too. Took my breath away. If we start thinking about the book, we have three main characters and then a host of supporting characters. But let's quickly talk about the first three. So we have Sabine, who was originally Maria in 1532, living in Spain. Then we had Charlotte Lottie Hastings, whose story starts in 1827 in London. And the last main character we have is Alice Moore, whose story starts in 2019 in Boston, but she was born in Scotland. I think it's good to know that we have these three different characters set across three different storylines because the book does follow kind of quite a non-linear structure and as we've said, shifts perspective between each of these three narrators. And it's even a little more confusing because the character of Sabine begins named as Maria. We do have a character named Lottie who appears, but then Charlotte Lottie Hastings emerges at some point later in the book. I feel like I can't talk about the characters without talking about the structure of the book because the two things go hand in hand for me and like significantly impact my enjoyment of the others. So I did say at the start of the episode that I personally have problems with books that are told across multiple timelines and multiple points of view. And I think it's kind of like when you're reading The Lord of the Rings, like the Frodo and Sam bits are so boring. And I've often find with stories told in this way that one perspective is weaker or less enjoyable than the others. Or the story doesn't hit as hard because we're constantly shifting perspectives and and beats are missed or not fleshed out or perspectives aren't heard and understood. How did you feel about the structure? The question that I was asking myself when I read the book a second time was would this story be better told chronically? I'm really struggling about whether I think their story being interwoven was the right choice or if it should have been just told as it happened. I think a lot of things were overexplained. Like, for example, the transformation process or even just like figuring out the rules of a vampire. I think a lot of those repeated passages could have been avoided if it was told chronologically. I did like seeing Sabine's character at the end compared to her character at the start at the same time. So I'm not sure. Did you think it would be better told chronologically? It being told chronologically didn't occur to me even one time, but I now that you say it, I think that it could have helped, especially having Sabine's perspective abandoned like halfway through the book. Yeah. I really, really loved seeing her evolution and how terrible and like monstrous she became. Like that was one of my favorite parts of the book. I thought she became truly terrifying, but I also wanted to hear from her. I thought that Charlotte was an incredibly unreliable narrator, which was probably the point. But when we get to her chapter describing her time as a vampire, her life with Sabine, and their uh turbulent relationship, obviously we only had her side of that. And it could be because of the law that's established in this book where Sabine has lost too much of her like humanity to be able to sort of describe her point of the story. But at the same time, she was such a like closed-off character. She had so much of herself that she never opened up to anybody, and we never ended up with an opportunity for those things to be shared. Like her whole life with Andreas, or the sort of abuse that she endured in her family home, the other vampires she encountered along the way. I really enjoyed her story, and then it just sort of felt like it trickled out and went a little bit to waste. Yeah, I think that was the main problem that I had with the book. We had so much description of things at the start of the book from Sabine's point of view or uh Maria's point of view before she was turned into a vampire. And then when we got to the end, like in the last 50 pages, things were just happening and it was just like you blink and you miss it. I think a great example of this is in the beginning where Maria is going on a tour of her marital home. And spoiler alert, she's there for about two weeks before they go into the city. But we have about a page or two of really intense descriptions of the land, of the olive groves, of each room, of the decorations. A lot of the times I hate in books when you can tell that things are just being told to you because something important is gonna happen to that later in the book. But I felt like a lot of the things that happened in this book was kind of the opposite of that. It was like, why did you tell me about this? It's too long already. Nothing's ever gonna happen. Example of this is on page 54 where she's eating cherries and she's like spitting the cherry pits into the ground because she would love to turn the olive grove that is already planted into a cherry grove as sort of like an act of defiance against her husband and his family. And I was really expecting that to become something later in the book, but it never really did. And then I was trying to think, is it like a weak metaphor knowing that Maria and Sabine will never be satisfied? But I think if you start to stretch too far, like this the book sort of becomes a bit farcical. Another example of this is when Matteo made mention of the fact that he knew the original Sabine, and that never really eventuated into anything either. I actually really enjoyed those things that you just described, but I think it was maybe trying to be too much at once. Like I thought that kind of metaphor-laden description was perfect for a vampire novel. And I think at the start I was very much enjoying it because I just thought it was gonna be this really like lush, sensory, sumptuous kind of vampire novel in the vein of like the interview with a vampire. Like it was so focused on like tastes and smell and touch and like lace and velvet and you know, like environment. It was like really, really tactile, which I think I although I haven't read much vampire literature, makes a lot of sense. But then as the story progressed and these narratives intersected and it became clear that there was like a lot more going on and a lot more online, that's when it started to become a bit frustrating. Like I think things like that little nod to the original Sabine are kind of charming when it's just like a suggestion of, oh, you know, you're an old person who's lived such a rich life. There's mystery and unknown in the life of a vampire. Like, I kind of like that. But when it becomes evident that Sabine is going down this really treacherous path and she's probably gonna come to harm or do harm to other characters in this book, and that's the point of the book, then that becomes really distracting and kind of like irritating. I think by the time we got to the second set of people she was hanging out with, Sebastian and Matteo, I was kind of like, Yeah, we get it. She's like going on these jaunts, she's like learning about life. Everyone's here to teach her a lesson, but she's gonna do her own thing anyway. But I didn't want to spend that much time. Yeah, that is exactly the plot line that I was referring to at the beginning when I said that I think some of them should have been cut. I think that was nice to create that atmosphere and like imagine her walking through Venice, but I think for me that's where it ended. I feel like it's kind of illustrative of so much about this book where it's like, I get why it's there and I get what she's saying or hoping to achieve with it, but it's just not landing for me. We get the first set of vampires that she comes across, Hector and Renata, and they teach her this kind of like really reckless devil may care, like the world is ours to seize, like pillage, yeah, like take what's yours kind of mentality. And that kind of is how she had been living her life and continued to live her life anyway. So I guess like Sebastian and Matteo were there to illustrate, like, yes, she has been given options, but she's always gonna be hungry for more. But I think by that point in the book it was pretty clear. I think also by the point that Matteo and Sebastian came in, like we were also getting those really long, dense chapters from the point of view of Alice. I think that was where I found the most to be annoyed about. I thought Sabine's parts were really beautiful and written really well, and I felt like I knew her as a character. But unfortunately, when it came to Alice's point of view, I just felt annoyance and I felt like I was being dragged down to the bottom of the sea with the length of the sentences, especially in the flashback moments. I think the best example that I could find of this is on page 35. And I was reading it, and at some point I was like, wait, this sentence is still going more than half of the page is one sentence. I might not read all of it. I'm gonna read until I run out of breath. Wait, try to read it in one breath. Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do because we will be here for hours if I read all of it. Big breath. Never doubt yourself, by the way. You can do it. Thank you. Leans in so hard that she feels like she's falling, even though it's the other girl being pulled down into the bed on top of her, skin so velvet, petal soft and warm where it fits against hers, and her whole body hums because still they are not close enough. Alice Family goes, I've run out of breath. And that was four lines of a 21-line long sentence. And that was not the only time that happened. And I just thought this is too much, and this is why your book is uh how many pages is this book? 533 pages. It's long. I tend to agree about Alice's sections, and I guess each perspective or character in this story is sort of meant to represent something. So, like, I think Sabine is representing power and control, Charlotte's probably like connection and acceptance, and Alice's like purpose, identity, and meaning. And like as we see in the flashbacks, Alice has a really complicated relationship with her older sister Caddy. She's constantly in her sister's shadow. And in fact, so much of Alice's chapters consist of flashbacks to memories with Caddy, who you spend the whole book thinking is probably dead. And then, spoiler alert, in the last like 50 pages, it's like, yeah, oh yeah, she is dead. I wish that hadn't been drawn out so much. I think I get what she was trying to do with those sections, but I just think it weakened the narrative because it really disrupted the flow. It didn't actually really tell me anything about Alice. And so I guess you could argue that it was effective, but I don't know. I think it was a distraction. I think waiting for the reveal of how she died was a distraction because from the very first mention of her, I think maybe like her phone rings and it's the ringtone that her sister used to have or the song that her sister used to love. I was like, okay, well, she's dead. And so I was searching each flashback for like how she died. And at one point they were at like a bonfire or something, and there was a firework, and I was like, Oh, so she's killed by the firework. Yes. Like I was just guessing how she died, and I was really taken out of that story as well. And I think one of the saddest parts of the book for me was when Caddy died. I thought that was a really sad and tragic ending to quite a vibrant personality, but at the same time, I had been waiting for that for 500 pages, and so I don't know if it really hit as much as it could have. I think probably some of Alice's strongest scenes were after she had just become a vampire, because those were maybe some of the longest sections of just Alice. Um, and I kind of liked, although, yeah, like we had heard it before, I kind of liked her being like, oh my god, like sunlight for real, like, okay, yeah, all the myths are coming true. And sort of like keeping track of like what was commonly accepted law and like what's different, and yeah, sort of trying to convince herself that something's not happening that actually is happening. I sort of thought her monologue of like internal reasoning and bargaining was very realistic and like sort of gave her a voice that she didn't really have until then. Yeah. I also liked when she seduced that man and took him home and killed him in his garage. I thought that was one of the most like sort of evocative scenes from her point of view. But then again, still kind of a little bit at odds with the rest of her chapters and what we know about her so far. I think what you said is exactly right. And I think that if we had had more chapters of just Alice making her way through the world, then maybe the ending wouldn't have felt so disjointed. Like for me, I found it really hard to sort of marry the character of Alice that we were seeing in the flashbacks with the character of Alice that ends up being able to destroy Sabine and Lottie. I thought they were sort of at odds with one another, but there was a big time jump in between those two moments. Like most of the flashbacks, she was a child. So when it came to the end, I was like, she's ruthless. Like, where is this coming from? But if we had had more of just Alice at the present day, it wouldn't have seemed so different. Because I do think you get the sense that it's boiling up. Yeah. And I did like that. Like she was getting angry. Yeah, I do think V.E. Schwab did a good job of making separate narrative voices, but I will say that I didn't really like Alice's. It was probably the one that wanged on the most. It was really, really overladen. I think you've already mentioned this earlier in the episode, but I did see a comment from V.E. Schwab that said that Charlotte is actually an unreliable narrator, which is something that I always find so interesting because that is not ever something I accuse a character of being. I just sort of take what they say as gospel. And I'm like, okay, cool. This is what we're doing now. How did you feel about Charlotte? I really liked the character of Charlotte and kind of same. Like it never occurred to me on face value to think of her as an unreliable narrator. But at the same time, there was something like an undercurrent in her story that felt a little bit sly. I can't and couldn't put my finger on what that was. But one of my notes said something about Charlotte's chapters being the first chapters to kind of question the ethics of being a vampire. Up until then, we've had Sabine who's like on an absolute rampage. And we've had Alice who barely understands what's happening. But when we get to Charlotte, she's the one that's like, you guys, shouldn't we be doing something different to this? I couldn't possibly do this. Yeah, that is exactly how she was. Yeah. And so I'm kind of like, oh that's convenient. Yeah. Another thing I thought was really convenient was like the weak links to historical events. Yeah. The really weak commentary that was like given to us by Charlotte. She's like, this is about World War One. The world is so dark, whispers Charlotte, so full of death. There must be something we can do. Sabine brings her fingertips to Charlotte's chin and lifts her face. Yes, she says, we can live. It's like, okay, peace. And then again, she is naive enough to think the worst is over now, and she marvels at the beauty that rises in the horror's wake. The defiant way the world recovers grows back stronger than before. And then a few years later, World War II hits. It just sort of felt a bit like Forest Gump. Yeah, and I think the juxtaposition of Charlotte making those observations about like what a heavy and dark time it was, but continuing to live her life in this kind of like frivolous, hedonistic kind of way tells you a lot about that character. Now, obviously, at the same time, Charlotte is absolutely in an abusive relationship with Sabine, as she would tell it. I tend to believe that's the truth because some law that's established quite early on is that the longer you live as a vampire, the more parts of your soul or humanity erode until you're just like a shell of nothing filled with bloodlust. And I'm not sure if that's something that V. Ishwab has created or if that maybe appears in some other kind of vampire literature, but I really liked that. I liked that too. So obviously it's not all sunshine and roses in Charlotte's life, but when she is years down the track free of Sabine and sort of living her life as per normal, with her freedom, does she go and study like a medical degree? Does she go and take up the arts? Like, no, she just goes on hookups and keeps a little journal with like dyes her hair purple. We've been alive so many years. We can do anything we like, and what you want to do is get laid. Yeah. I just think that we have been raised on the Cullens as the you know perfect people. That is very clever because it does tell you a lot about that character, or show you a lot about that character without telling you that she's selfish and that she needs to be loved, and like those are what the things that motivate her. I was listening to an interview with V. Schwab and she actually said that Lottie is the villain of the story, which was so interesting to me. I think I mentioned earlier that she also said that the three storylines represent the three eras of her coming out journey. So Sabine, she said the version of her who was able to write this book. She was unapologetic, she was uninterested in conforming. Alice was the version of her that was trying to find her identity while dealing with the whiplash of realizing that you are gay. And Lottie was the toxic years and the person who wants to be loved at the expense of others. And I think that is just a perfect description of the character. Because you're right, she never does anything other than hookups, and she thinks she's doing them a a service, like she thinks she's doing them a favour by like writing them in her little book. Yeah. And like, yeah, this is so sweet, you guys. And you know, I watched to make sure that she never came and ate you or whatever. I see you. So funny. I did overall really enjoy her chapters though, and I think at that point I was really happy to go along for the ride because I could sense what was happening with Sabine. And some of the scenes where she described Sabine's sort of like descent into madness were really creepy and really evocative. In this scene, Charlotte has popped out to get a bunch of flowers, and when she comes back, an horrific scene awaits her. Well, it pops out to get a bunch of flowers in the midst of being like, wow guys, World War II is bad. I'm gonna go pick up the moon. She arrives, the flowers in one hand and the keys in the other, and finds blood. Blood on the doorknob, blood on the stairs, blood sliding like fingers down the wall. The gruesome trail leads to their bedroom where she finds Sabine standing in the centre of the room, covered head to toe in red. It streaks her face, drips from her hands, pulls beneath her bare feet on the floor. Charlotte recoils at the sight, the wood creaking beneath her shoes. Sabine's head drifts up, her eyes black, the pupils wide. She smiles dreamily. There you are, she says in an airy voice, too kind to be the stranger's, too wrong to be her own. My love, Charlotte says, fighting to sound gentle, what have you done? Sabine lets her head fall back. Her gaze trails across the ceiling. They came apart like Christmas paper. Her arms drift at her sides as if through water. Ribbons everywhere. Charlotte shivers. There is no violence in her voice, but what's left is somehow worse. This languid monster in her lover's flesh. I liked that. Spooky. Spooky. There's a little passage that's quite close to what you just read out, and I thought it was a really true representation of what it is to be an inner domestic violence relationship. And it says, Why does Charlotte stay? That is like asking, why stay inside a house on fire? Easy to say when you are standing on the street a safe distance from the flames. Harder when you are still inside, convinced you can douse the blaze before it spreads, or rushing room to room, trying to save what you love before it burns. Lovely. There's so many passages like that where you're like, oh, that's fantastic. Yes. But kind of like we found with Song of Achilles, sometimes it can be too much. It can lose meaning, it can obscure the plot, it can distract from the characters. Um I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as I found it in the Song of Achilles, but it was pretty meandering, and I think it loses points there for me. I feel like the ending was so rushed because so much time had been spent giving us beautiful passages time after time, like in every chapter, there had to be some really nice, um, yeah, meandering prose. But like when the action was happening, it was like, we're done. Yeah, and I mean I guess there could be some sort of literary device at play here where we want to show like the richness and endlessness of a vampire life and how quickly a life can come to a close. But like, I mean maybe that's one way of looking at it, but the fact is that it just it didn't really work that much for me. By the end, I was just willing it to be over, and I wasn't even really thinking about what was happening. Like when Lottie said, if you kill her, you'll go back into a human. Like in the back of my mind, I knew that wasn't possible because Maria had killed Sabine and she didn't turn back into a human, but I was like, Yeah, whatever, just like ready for it to be done, rolling with whatever was happening. And I also was like, as if, as if that is how Sabine would meet her downfall. She's wearing literal chain mail, and as if 10 minutes in, she's like, Yep, let's have a shower, babe. You're so hot. You know what? I do want to get laid. Sabine been lonely so long. Sabine, mommy, likey. It's just like, doesn't make any sense. Um, so I thought it was a really disappointing, disappointing end to the book. It was a bit like that meme where there's the beautiful horse for like seven eighths of the horse, and the last one is just like a child's finish the picture. That's how I felt the ending was. Although I'd have to say, I think it was redeemed a little bit by Lottie drinking the the blood that had been poisoned with the dirt. Love that. I like that too. I liked Lottie's ending. Yes. Because I think, yeah, she is the villain. Yeah. And I like that she had this scheme and this plot that didn't come off. Um, but I really don't like that Alice had to do her dirty work for her. No, neither. I guess Alice shifts from being just a porn to having some agency in killing Lottie, but I don't know enough about Alice still by this point in the novel to know if that makes any sense. To me, it doesn't. I know we've kind of flogged it to death at this point, but in the end as well, the kind of the final scene is Alice just walking off. She just ran. She just goes to begin the rest of her life, and we're two miss. Um like that kind of uh coming-of-age uh film music plays. I didn't know where I was gonna go, but I knew I was gonna be just fine. Yeah. And look, I do think that's the vibe that she's going for here because like who is Alice? What is she going to do? The possibilities are endless, and I think that's probably the point. But if you could guess where Alice goes from here, like what do you think she's getting up to? Oh, that's a good question. Hmm. I mean, I don't know if she's gonna go the Dexter way only killing people that are bad, or if she's gonna go the Carlisle Cullen way of, you know, becoming a doctor and trying to help people. I can't remember what she was studying at university. Me either. Did we find out? Maybe not. Maybe we never knew. I'd like to think that she would be traveling and seeing all the places that Caddy mentioned her mother had been to, but I also think that she would have a relationship with her family. I think she would try to maintain some sense of normalcy for as long as she can. I don't see her doing anything too exciting, to be honest. I think she just wants to live her life and just do as she pleases. What do you think her future looks like? Oh, I hoped she'd never ask. Um, I didn't really have too many thoughts either, but I I didn't think she would go down a sort of vigilante justice route. Maybe I thought she could go from country to country like Learning languages and doing like car safety awareness campaigns. I could see that. Maybe she could become like a family therapist. I don't want to read any of these books. I don't want to read a sequel about any this is why we shouldn't write books. She could have moved anywhere in the world and she went to Boston. Boston? Yeah. What's next? I don't know. Sorry. Never been. Sorry to Bostonians. Sorry, Bostonians. I guess the last sort of major element of this book that we haven't really touched on is the kind of vampire of it all. Because this book has actually, I think we may have nominated this previously, like at the end of last year in a vampire novel. We had the good fortune of reading Interview with a Vampire, which introduced us to our favourite actor, Tom Cruise. Don't know if you've heard of him. Love him. He's really cool. He's really cool. Just ignore the Scientology stuff. Yeah. And I'm kind of glad that we didn't read this to cover off on the vampire genre, because although, yeah, we do hear a lot about the blood and the aching teeth and the sunlight making them sick and all of that, I do think like them being a vampire was kind of secondary to these characters finding themselves. Yeah, I think it was barely vampire. I'm not well versed at all in vampire literature. Like Twilight and Bride by Ali Hazelwood is pretty much where it starts and ends for me. But themes of searching for meaning, what it means to be alive, what it means to be human, and a vampire story do go hand in hand. But I think that search for meaning, control, power, connection, whatever, particularly set against like a patriarchal society, was the focus of this novel. I'm actually not upset about it not being like heavy on the vampire. Because if I think about my favourite book of all time, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer, I don't like that book because it's a vampire book. That is not what draws me to that book. Yeah. And although parts of it were overexplained, some of the best parts were the bits that weren't explained, like the tears of blood. Freaky. Yeah. Death calls to death. I liked that. Love that. I also like that not drinking human blood was never entertained as an option. I think it's maybe in Charlotte's point of view where she's given a cup of blood and it's the first time it's even occurred to her as a possibility. Sabine's certainly never done it. Yes. But no one's ever like, should we be killing humans? Everybody's just like, yeah, we gotta get on with it. They gotta die. Sorry. Big gals gotta eat. A lot of this is probably like really stock standard vampire lore, but I enjoyed the sprinkling of it. I think my favorite part of these vampires was the fact that they are slowly losing their humanity over time. I think it opens it up to so many other discussions. Like, is it possible for them to be aware of their empathy? And if so, can they like stave off the rot? Can you live forever if you remain self-aware? There were a couple of really nice quotes around that theme that, I mean, really hammered at home, but were nice all the same. One said, Death comes and sometimes it is kind and often it is cruel, and very rarely it is welcome, but it comes all the same. There's another short quote that comes from Sebastian, who's Mateo's human companion. He says, Is it life he counters if there is never death to balance it? Or is it its brevity that makes it beautiful? Okay, we're at the pointy end of the episode. Pointy like vampire teeth. Um it's time for, thank you for laughing so much at that. Um, your most it's time for most and least favorite characters, and I can never remember what order we do this in, but we'll start with most. Bridget. I just realise I haven't thought about this at all. It shocks us every time. Yeah. Almost as if we made up this format. Um, okay. I think my favorite character might have been Ezra. I think if I were a vampire, I would like to be in control of some sort of shop. Thinking about it now, it is a little bit like before the coffee gets together. That's what it was, yeah. Yeah. The whole time. Revolving characters, revolving fronts for the business, maybe a record store, maybe a cafe. I think he was cool. How about you? Hard to make the distinction, but I think my favourite character was Charlotte. Although she is terrible, very enjoyable to read. I would have liked a book about Charlotte growing up, and I like a Bridgetton, because it was kind of going into the Bridgerton territory there for a bit, and I was like, I like where this is going. Yeah, we haven't addressed that. I think that's also why I like that so much. Actually, we haven't addressed the fact that the first part of the book is like Akatar, when Farah goes to Tamlin's villa. So true. And then she's being taught how to read. Yeah. And then the middle when she's with um Mateo is like Twilight. Mateo is Carlisle, and then it ends and it is like Bridgetton. So we have a Akatar, Twilight, Bridgetton merge. Get this in a review. Yeah. The people need to know. We can't end the episode without addressing that. Who is your least favourite character? Um, I mean, I guess an easy choice is Andreas' mummy. Oh, she was awful. She was a nasty piece of work. But if we're talking about the main players, then probably Alice, because I just really wanted to shake her. She was the most frustrating perspective to read. I feel like I barely knew her. As I've said before, maybe that was the point. Unfortunately, I just I didn't enjoy it that much. I think Sabine was my least favourite character, but maybe Sabine when she was still Maria. I just think that she did not turn out to be the character that I thought she'd be. I was expecting her to be kind of Jo March, like witty, smart, tomboy-ish character that enjoys reading and like doesn't want to submit to gender expectations, but also still fiercely kind. I didn't see any of those qualities that I was expecting, and that was disappointing for me. I think she was rude and dismissive and selfish. And I know that was the point, but I just couldn't really enjoy her. If you want me to read that many pages about a character, I think there has to be some redeemable qualities. But I was also wondering, could this be a commentary of people who don't read having no empathy? Because she never became like a voracious reader. So I was like trying to find grasping at things to try to make it make sense, but I just didn't really like her. Good character, but I just didn't really like her. I think what doesn't help that as well is that there's not really that much reflection or introspection from her. She's just constantly pushing forward, wanting more, taking more, demanding more of the world, which again is her character. Yes. But is harder as a reader or harder for me to get behind. I wanted her to think about her life so far. Yeah. And her childhood and her youth and all of the things that had made her and like drove her. And I I guess we got that as a reader, but some shit went down. I wanted her to acknowledge that. And I would also argue that the version of Sabine at the end wasn't too far removed from Maria as a human. Like I think Maria as a human would have thrown anyone under the bus to get what she wanted. Um, I guess maybe she wouldn't be shredding people into ribbons, but she just didn't have that ability yet. So I don't know. Okay, well, now that we've got all of that out of the way, it is time for the most important question of all. Did you find Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V.E. Schwab, lit or shit? I think overall I still found it lit. I for the most part still had a good time reading this, and it isn't until I've stopped to actually think about it and talk about it that I've been able to sort of understand the problems that I've had with the book. I think it was really, really lush and atmospheric. Great gothic fiction, probably like a good winter read, but really, really slow. I saw one review that said something like slim plot, big vibes. Yes. Agreed. And if that's the kind of book you like, which it often is for me, you'll probably enjoy this. And I think that is the book I like, but I like it to be a 300 pager. Yeah, it's too long. Yeah. I think this is a soft lit for me. If it was shorter, it would be lit all the way. I definitely had a better time than I could have. And that's all I'll say. For our bonus chapter this month, we will be conducting a little bit of reader advisory and dishing out book recommendations based on your hyper specific requests. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on the link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.get on Instagram and TikTok.