Episode 20: Our Last Three Reads - Spring 2024

Hello, Hi, and welcome to Medium Lady Reads this is episode 20, “Our Last Three Reads - Spring 2024.”

In this episode, Jillian and Erin will review the last three books they’ve read, and as they said back in Episode 15, they stay true to listing their actual last three books. They want to appeal to all their listeners' wide and varied tastes. 

Jillian and Erin would love it if you checked in and shared some of your previous 3 reads, just be sure to tag them on Instagram, Jillian is @jillianfindinghappy and Erin is @medium.lady!

In This Episode:

• The ladies celebrate hitting 20 episodes!! Celebrate with them by sharing your favorite episode with them on IG, @mediumladyreads. 
• Erin and Jillian check in on how their reading is going.
• Erin shares how she learned how to read poetry with this YouTube video from Writing with Andrew. 
• It’s time to jump into the meat of the episode where Jillian and Erin share their last three reads.
• Erin mentions Medium Lady Talks episode 100 with Pam Chriton.
• Did you know?! Erin’s hosting an event! Chase the Good - you MUST check out all the details and join her on June 8, 2024.
• Have a book you’d like us to read? Send us a DM on IG and let us know what book(s) we should read.
• It’s time for hot takes - tune in to the episode to hear this week’s thoughts.
• Finally, the ladies share what’s on their library hold lists.

Books In This Episode:

• Bride by Ali Hazelwood
• The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
• Wolfsong by TJ Klune
• Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn 
• Heartstopper: Volume Four by Alice Oseman
• You are a Badass at Making Money: Master the Mindset of Wealth by Jen Sincero
• You are a Badass by Jen Sincero
• Good Material by Dolly Alderton
• Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
• Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
• Butcher & Blackbird by Brynne Weaver
• Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of Life Interrupted by Suleika Jaouad
• The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley by Courtney Walsh
• Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
• Circe by Madeline Miller
• Funny Story by Emily Henry
• Telephone of the Tree by Alison McGhee
• The Midnight Feast Lucy Foley
• The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
• The Guest List by Lucy Foley
• Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway
• An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
• You’re Not Enough (and That’s OK): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love by Allie Beth Stuckey

Transcript

This book has a 4.16 reading on good reads.

What?

Yes.

And while I also don't believe reading a book in order to provide a negative review, I hate when people do that.

This is not that.

Lissards will know, "Virgilian and I," our point of view is generally really positive here on the show.

All books are good books, including Butcher and Blackbird, but I am going to tell you why it was not for me.

Hello and welcome back to Medium Lady Reads.

This is episode 20, our last three reads, May 2024 edition.

Hi everyone, I'm Erin, a mom of three, and a hospital administrator from Ontario, Canada.

And I'm Jillian, an Instagram content strategist for Bookish People, a mom to two based in Buffalo, New York.

Together, we're bringing you Medium Lady Reads, a podcast about reading as self-care, a passionate love for the public library, and plenty of thoughts and opinions about book culture having its moment.

Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 20, Jillian!

Yay, we made it.

That's amazing.

It is amazing.

It is amazing.

We haven't even been doing this a year yet.

No, we haven't.

I was looking at our Riverside because we use the same room every time we record.

And the date on there is like May 29th.

We're almost at a year.

Yeah, yeah.

It's very exciting. 20 episodes after almost a year, I'm really proud of us.

I am really, really proud of us.

And here's to 20 more.

Thanks for being my partner in all of this.

Yeah, thanks for asking me to be your partner.

Okay, so now that we're feeling the love, today's episode, episode 20, is our last three reads.

But before we dive in, we love to do a reading check-in.

So Jillian, tell me, how's your reading going lately?

Not being great.

I feel like I'm in a bit of a slump.

Oh, no.

Yeah, yeah.

So I read one of the books we're going to talk about today.

I read Good Material, and I didn't love it.

And I did finish it.

But then I jumped into the Heaven and Earth grocery store, and it was fine.

I didn't love it, though, because it's all nothing was happening.

Lots of characters were being introduced after character after character.

And then very little plot was happening.

And I like books with plot.

This was just not it.

So maybe that eventually happened after they introduced all the characters.

But I was at page 100, and I decided to DNF it.

So there's an update on my reading goals.

I have now DNF two books.

What even the end of April?

And Jillian's a pure DNF goal?

I might need to up that one.

But because of that, I then started Bride by Ali Hazelwood.

And I've been really struggling to get into it, and I don't think it's the book.

I think it's me.

Oh.

I'm only about 70 pages in, and I've been trying to read it for two days now.

And that's, I know, 70 pages.

And it's probably like that's, that's plenty.

And it is.

But for me, that's not that much.

So I think I'm in a bit of a slump.

But I'm going to, I'm going to push through.

I'm going to read Bride.

I know it's good.

I know I love Ali Hazelwood.

And I'll probably come out the other side feeling good about it.

What do you think your brain wants when it comes to reading?

That, I don't know.

I really, because I went through all the books that I have, that I had any desire to read.

I know when I was thinking about it after having a North grocery store, I'm like, what is it that I want to read?

And I went through probably about six, and I read their description on Goodreads, and I narrowed it down to Bride and against the Loveless World, which are two very, very different books.

Yeah.

And I do that really stood out to me.

And Ali from our buddy read group was reading about to read Bride.

And you had just finished Bride and had raved about it.

And I know I love Ali Hazelwood.

So I decided that that would be the one I would go with.

So I don't really know.

I thought this is what it wanted.

Maybe do you think your brain might want like audio books or a digital book or?

Um, audio book, not really, because I don't have a lot of, I do try to listen to one audio book a month, but it doesn't always happen because I just don't have that time in the car.

Like a lot of people do, and I don't have, like I don't have a commute in the mornings where I don't have kids.

It's one a month is enough, and I think I'm okay with that.

And then digital.

I don't know.

I don't really love, I will read an ebook, but I don't love ebooks because I really love the physical book in my hand.

So I think it's just one of those things where I started reading a book that I had really high hopes for.

I really was looking forward to having an earth grocery store and it just did not deliver at this point anyway.

And so I'm going to, I'm going to just push through with bride.

And I think that I really do think that once I get past, you know, the introduction area of the book, I'll probably be falling love with it and and rape about it after that.

Yeah, bride is a book.

You kind of jump in to a world that is really, she's learning, I think, Ali Hazelwood learning how to world build in a new kind of way.

Yeah.

And so you do kind of have to make your way through that.

And also the world building is kind of happens through that snappy Ali Hazelwood dialogue.

It's not through like some character reflecting on history or some some kid going to a class.

And that being a class that the teacher teaches the student and the audience something like it's all happening through her snappy dialogue.

So I get it.

I get it.

Yeah.

And I don't not like it.

It's just I'm not like you've for pressure on yourself to move through the book.

Yeah.

But I'll be fine.

I'm not worried.

I just think it's a bit of a slump and I, I've been reading for pretty consistently for four years since the pandemic and haven't felt a slump in four years.

So if I'm in a bit of a slump right now, I'm okay with that.

I'm still reading.

I'm just reading a bit slower.

I think I only have five or six books that I'll have read by the end of the month, which is very low for me, but I'm okay.

I'm okay with that.

Feel good about it.

And part of it is I did read a chunker.

I read Wolf song by TJ Clune, which is about 500 some pages.

So I went to a bit of time.

Yeah, definitely for sure.

For sure.

And that was one of your goals.

It was.

It was.

It was.

So yeah, sometimes we're just like we're tinkering with our reading lives and just like our regular lives.

It's not a straight line of just like exactly.

This is my reading life.

And this is how it always is.

Exactly.

Exactly.

All right.

So enough about me, Aaron.

How is your reading going?

I mean, I think it's fine.

I'm feeling like I'm in a little bit of a like a meh zone.

I wouldn't say I'm in a slump.

But a lot of my books have been sort of like three stars, four stars.

I had a number of five star books earlier in the year.

And right now I'm reading Bloodmarked by Tracy Dion, which is the second in the Legend Born series.

And it's a huge book.

And it's good.

I really, really enjoy it.

But it's not quite as propulsive as the first one.

And then the, which I did give five stars.

And then the other books I'm reading are sort of like filling a slot.

Like I'm not reading a physical book right now.

And my audio book is.

Oh, see, I'm not even remembering.

Oh, I'm tandem.

I'm tandem reading.

I have Bloodmarked on audio as well as on digital.

I don't have a physical book that I'm reading right now.

And then I've been reading poetry for April.

I was going to really try to like learn how to actually read poetry rather than like read the words.

And be like next page.

So I'm reading one poem a night.

But one poem a night doesn't move you through like a 200 page book.

You know, like I'm right when a poem is maybe two or three pages at the maximum.

Sometimes just one page.

So I guess I can kind of relate to what you're saying in terms of I just feel like it's sort of like I haven't been in my tracker to update my tracker in a while.

And that also gives me a dopamine hit.

When I'm like, Oh, let's add this and let's change this and let's move this around.

And I haven't had to do that because I haven't really finished a book in.

I don't know maybe like 10 days or so.

But that's, you know, again, it's like all relative.

But I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not not reading.

Yeah.

And I'm not not enjoying myself.

But again, this is helpful because it is sort of like when we call reading self care.

You can't take it for granted.

You always have to be kind of thinking about how it's like serving you in your life.

And that's what I love having these check in.

So thanks for checking in.

Yeah.

How are you enjoying the poetry though?

Are you enjoying now that you're kind of learning how to read it?

Yeah.

I watched a really great YouTube video, which is basically just like how to read poetry.

And it was by this lovely professor man with a bow tie.

And he was sort of like think about poetry the way you think about looking at photographs.

And that I don't know for me kind of unlocked how to look at a poem.

And when you look at a photograph, you first see the subject.

And then if you look around the photograph, you might see other things.

And then if you think about the photograph or the painting giving you a feeling, then that's another layer.

And that's really what reading poetry is about.

And then that's it.

And he sort of said a lot of people think poetry is about solving a puzzle.

And he's like, I don't think it's like that at all.

It's just like read the poem.

Think about the image that it conjures in your mind.

Think about the feelings that it makes you feel.

Think about how much you relate to or don't relate to the poem and move on.

And I was like, oh, that I can do that is a mate.

That is a great way to describe it.

And I love that you found this little man with a bow tie.

Yeah, I'll send you the link we can put it in the show notes if anybody else wants to read.

It was like maybe seven minutes.

It was very and he used very, very good poetry examples to unlock this for me.

So yeah.

How fun.

I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Yeah, I mean, listen, a poetry book's not going to be the kind of thing that contributes to me reading 100 books in a year.

But it's teaching me to read in a different kind of way.

Yeah.

And I think that that skill will translate to reading fiction to absolutely, especially more fiction that has that it more difficult pros that isn't just straight forward, you know, basic literature.

That's exciting.

All right.

Now that we've checked in, we can move into the meat of the episode.

Today's episode is our recurring last three books episode.

Spring 2024.

So Jillian and I, if you're new to medium lady reads, this is an episode that we review the last three books that we read.

And we've mentioned this back in episode 15, which was our last our last our last three briefs.

So awkward.

I thought we could mention it again.

So while it is tempting, Jillian and I both straight true to listing the last actual three books.

And hopefully we are able to appeal to our listeners wide and varied tastes.

But we can also reflect on what we're reading and how it's influencing us to choose our next reads.

So Jillian, tell me about your last three reads any commonalities between them.

So my last three reads once again span the spectrum.

I have a young adult graphic novel contemporary romance and a deep and heartfelt memoir.

The memoir got me some quite a bit of tears when I read that.

But all were very enjoyable.

I all of mine were positive reviews this time.

Unlike last time where I had one where I didn't love it.

Okay, well, that's an interesting mix.

I also have a mix of sweet romance and unhinged romance and a classic personal development book.

And unlike last time I have varied reviews on these three books.

So listeners stay tuned for a bit of a negative review.

I thought that we bring a lot of those to medium lady reads, but today might be a bit of an exception for us.

All right, Jillian, let's dive a little bit deeper.

What is your first book?

So my first book is volume four of the heart stopper series.

If you haven't read these, you need to Aaron.

Have you read any of them?

I don't know.

I've had volume one out from the library.

And I think I've renewed it four times.

I think they're going to come after me and be like, you want our book back.

And so I don't know after this episode, maybe I'll just I'll just go and dive into it.

While I am focusing on volume four, you do need to read from volume one in order to get the full impact because they play up on one another.

But the graphic novel leaves me with all the fields every time I read a new one.

I actually have only one volume left.

There are four, I'm sorry, five volumes in the series.

And then I'm done.

I am hesitating to read the fifth one because I love them so much and I don't want it to end.

But at the same time, I'm itching to see where they end up with the story.

This graphic novel has a lot of young budding romance, but there's also a lot about other relationships as well.

There's the relationship between the main characters and their parents and then also with their friends.

It's really, really good.

So good.

Here's the summary.

Charlie didn't think Nick could ever like him back, but now they're officially boyfriends.

Charlie's beginning to feel ready to say those three little words.

I love you.

Nick's been feeling the same, but he's got a lot on his mind, not least coming out to his dad and the fact that Charlie might have been eating disorder.

As summer turns to autumn and a new school year begins, Charlie and Nick are about to learn a lot about what love means.

Heartstopper is about love, friendship, loyalty and mental illness.

It encompasses all the small stories of Nick and Charlie's lives that together make up something larger, which speaks to all of us.

I would absolutely recommend that you start with volume one and I know I said this already.

You certainly would get a wonderful story if you read four or three or two or whatever, but starting with one gives you the background on Nick and Charlie and how they come to be and it's just it's perfect.

I love it so much.

Jillian, have you watched the mini series?

I have not.

I am terrible at watching TV, meaning I don't watch much of it and there are a lot of book to TV adaptations that I haven't seen and that people are recommending to me, but I haven't.

Have you?

I haven't, but I have heard really good reviews of it.

I've heard it's really bingeable and I actually heard about the TV series before I even learned that it was a graphic novel.

Gotcha.

I had heard my friend actually was reading them about probably when they first came out, she's really good at jumping on the bandwagon of all the books that come out.

And so I heard about it then and I just never thought to read it just it wasn't I wasn't in my graphic novel era.

Now that you're in your graphic novel era.

All right, Erin, what's your first last read?

Okay, onto my first last read.

So during an interview with a guest on medium lady talks Pam Crichton, she mentioned really enjoying all of the self-help gurus we were sort of talking about she had started her own business as a photographer.

She asked her question about who are the people who influence you or keep you motivated and she mentioned she's like, oh, I love self-help, I love personal development genre.

I'm a big fan of all of the gurus, the Mel Robbins, the Jensen's Cheros.

And I was like, oh, who's Jensen's Chero?

And she said, oh, you are a badass.

You've never read, you are a badass.

And I thought, no, I actually haven't.

And then Jillian in our read this not that episode 18, you also mentioned this book, you are a badass by Jensen's Chero.

So I'm happy to say two episodes later you've influenced me and I've now read you are a badass.

In case you two listener, you have not read you are a badass by Jensen's Chero.

Here's the setup in this refreshingly entertaining how to guide number one New York Times best selling author and world traveling success coach Jensen's Chero serves up 27 bite size chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories.

Sage advice easy exercises and the occasional swear word if you're ready to make some serious changes around here, you are a badass will help you identify and change the self sabotaging beliefs and behaviors that stop you from getting what you want.

Blast past your fears so you can take big exciting risks.

Figure out how to make some damn money already and learn to love yourself and others while setting big goals and reaching them.

It will basically show you how to create the life you totally love and how to create it now.

So I gave you a badass four stars, especially on audio Jensen's Chero narrates herself and like Mel Robbins or Brunei Brown or Glenn and Doyle, she has a very very specific style.

The book is a straightforward pep talk.

It doesn't really dive a lot into the how or the what of what you want, but it gets it the why it gets the why actually crystal clear.

Why should you start a business take a risk change your life achieve your dreams because you're a badass and bad asses should get what they want.

By the end of this book, Jen had me believing I could take on the world, at least the part of the world that I was dreaming of taking on.

I think this is a good book to return to every now and then and it's one of those no holds bars, no more excuses kind of manifestos.

I don't think for me the print version would hit in the same way I have other books by Jensen Cheryl on hold now and I think this book found me actually at the perfect time in 2024 when I've found myself ready to really make some things happen.

And I'm hosting an event in Burlington, Ontario, Canada on June 8th.

It's called Chase the Good.

And I do think a lot of that motivation came from the pep talks that I had when I had Jensen Cheros voice in my ear, giving me the motivation and encouragement to market myself, put myself out there and make some things happen.

I love that.

Now, Jillian, you've talked about you are a badass on the show before, but do you want to just for those who might have missed that episode, give people a quick thought on what you think of this book.

Sure, I absolutely love it.

I think that it is one of the for me, one of my top personal development books.

I love I haven't read it in a while, but it is one that I do go back to.

I actually because of your recommendation, I'm going to listen to it on audio.

But it's it's good.

It's you're looking for that pep talk.

You're looking for somebody to motivate you.

She is definitely someone to go to and I do recommend you are a badass at making money as well.

I haven't read her other.

I know she has one or two others and I haven't read.

Yeah, I haven't read those one.

But you are a badass at making money is pretty good.

Yeah, that's the one I have next.

I have up next.

Nice.

Okay, Jillian, what's your next book?

All right, my next last book is contemporary romance and a book that I didn't really love.

It wasn't awful.

I gave it a three and a half stars, but it wasn't as good as I was hoping it would be the book I'm referring to is good material by dolly Alderton.

The main characters through 90% percent of the book is a male, which is fine, but I didn't love being in the head of a man.

But to be perfectly honest, anyone going through a breakup of the magnitude that Andy, the main character went through, would probably drive them mad too.

So here's the setup.

Andy's story wasn't meant to turn out this way, living out of a suitcase in his best friend's spare room, waiting for his career as a standup comedian to finally take off.

He struggles to process the life-rooting end of his relationship with the only woman he ever truly loved as he's tries to solve the seemingly unsolvable mystery of his own broken relationship.

He contends with career catastrophe, social media paranoia, a rapidly dwindling friendship group, and the growing suspicion that at 35, he really should have figured this all out by now.

Andy has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story.

Warm, wise, and funny, and achingly relatable, dolly Alderton's highly anticipated second novel is about the mystery of what draws us together and what pulls us apart.

The pain of really growing up in the stories we tell about our lives.

Like I said, I didn't hate the book.

I think my favorite section is at the end when the ex-girlfriend takes over and she gives her perspective on it.

And it makes me feel like dolly Alderton took a risk in writing a woman that wants to live without a relationship, without having to have children.

And it was written very well.

I almost wished that the book was reversed where the ex-girlfriend was who we were in the head of.

And the ex-boyfriend was the 80% or 5% or whatever at the end.

It was really good and it was probably, it was definitely my favorite section.

Aaron, I know you read this book.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah, I read this book I think back in the early March.

I gave it a four.

I really didn't know what to expect from this book.

And I thought the content was surprising, but it didn't bowl me over.

But dolly Alderton's writing is very sharp and some of what she writes is very observant and I like that part of the book a lot.

But I did feel like I was reading about people, you know, five years younger than I am.

Being 35 is a sort of like central theme in the book.

I didn't like Andy and then I did like him and just as I was ready to cheer for him, his point of view ends and you pick up with the ex-girlfriend Jen.

I thought it was good.

I thought it was a good book.

I liked it, but I totally get your review and this is a good book for anyone looking for like a modern version of Bridget Jones's diary, like the 2024 version of Bridget Jones's diary.

That's a great way to describe it.

And it honestly has a way more contemporary ending.

Yes, yes it does.

I didn't hate it either.

For me, three and a half is still pretty good.

So I was, it was an okay read.

It wasn't my favorite.

It definitely wasn't what I was expecting, but I didn't hate it.

I mean, when people say, oh, this book is hilarious.

I go in with way too high of expectations.

I felt the same way about romantic comedy.

People are like that book is hilarious.

And I think I gave romantic comedy a 3.5 and I gave this a 4.

I felt like the I really love the writing, which is why I gave it a higher rating.

But I would also compare those two too.

Like if you love romantic comedy, you might actually really like this book too.

But I don't know you love, no you love.

I did.

I did.

I loved romantic comedy, but I didn't think it was hilarious.

I didn't also didn't think this one was hilarious either.

I don't even know if it got a chuckle on me.

No, no.

I felt bad for the guy half the time.

Yeah, the book is full of like a lot of people doing cringy things or making bad decisions and then paying for the consequences of their bad decisions, which to me is just like not like my favorite kind of plot device, but I did.

I did really I keep saying I did really think the writing was something special.

Yeah, I think if I had maybe gone and expecting it, I did not I'm very bad at reading descriptions of books before I read them because I like to go in blind.

But I am learning that that is not the best for me.

Yeah, hollow kingdom.

I'm just going to say hollow hollow kingdom.

Yes, absolutely.

So I should have read the description had I known what I was going in for I probably would have felt a little differently at the end of the book.

So I partially blame my own self for my review.

It was pretty busy.

It was pretty but it was very alright, Aaron your turn.

What's your second book?

Okay, Jillian, I don't know how this next part of podcasts is going to go, but we're pretty well.

So I'm we're going to see.

My next read is a book that I really didn't like and if listeners also enjoy currently reading, you'll know the host Meredith and Katie.

They usually put their lower ranked books in the middle of their three current reads because they are legends.

I am going to follow their method and put this book in the middle of my three, but this is actually one of my last three reads.

I am not sugarcoding it, but I will be honest with you.

I I don't really want to talk about this book.

The book is called Butcher and Blackbird by Bryn Weaver who is a Canadian author.

Yay.

Butcher and Blackbird is a romantic comedy about serial killers.

And yes, you heard me right.

Here's the premise.

Every serial killer needs a friend and every game must have a winner.

When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloan and Rowan, the two find something elusive, the friendship of a like-minded pitch black soul from small town west Virginia to upscale California from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.

But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind ready to claim more than just their newfound love can Rowan and Sloan dig themselves out of a game of graves or have they finally met their match.

Oh, okay.

Now the setup, Jillian, what do you think of the setup?

It sounds good.

It does sound good.

Yeah.

Have you heard of this book?

I've heard of it.

I've heard of it.

And what have you heard of it?

Other than what I've told you in our book.

So many good things.

Like I so many good things.

I was dying to read it.

The thing that was holding me back was part of the description, not the description you read, but like one of the trigger warnings.

But I was really looking forward to reading it, but I'm not anymore.

Okay.

The setup, I think, positions a book that is adjacent to a lot of the other popular published romcom books out there, not dissimilar to what Ali Hazel what is trying to do with bride, which is this sort of like vampire, where wolf romantic comedy is comedy ish.

It's not.

Yeah.

Now, unfortunately for me, I had read this premise.

I had heard nothing but rave reviews, just like you said, Jillian from a number of independent booksellers that I follow online.

Unfortunately, I gave this book a two.

And at a distance, I might give it even less.

If you are at all interested in this book and in the premise, please forward ahead a few minutes.

I really don't want to yuck your yum.

But I am going to talk about this book honestly and I might reveal a plot pointer to which is also why I feel kind of squarmy having this book is one of my last three reads.

This book has a 4.16 reading on good reads.

Yes.

Yes.

And while I also don't believe reading a book in order to provide a negative review, I hate when people do that.

This is not that.

Lissards will know, for Jillian and I, our point of view is generally really positive here on the show.

All books are good books, including butcher and blackbird.

But I am going to tell you why it was not for me.

I realized that about halfway through and I should have DNFed it.

But there was just enough enough good enough prose in the pros and cons column that I kept going.

But by the end, I really struggled to get into the characters, which is usually for me a big part of enjoying a romantic comedy or a romance novel.

You want to really like the main characters.

I felt like honestly we didn't get enough of time of them on their own, especially them as serial killers.

They meet on the first page.

And I just think I would have benefited from a bit of time getting to know them on their own.

I hated how possessed the Rowan character was.

There's a lot of like good girl, your mind kind of phrasing and language in this book.

Sloan, the female main character, she moves to Boston, she gives up her identity, she gives up her only friend, she gives up her job to be with him.

It just felt like there was a lot of history off the page.

And we were just supposed to accept the chemistry between these two after years of this challenge that has led to a deep passion and friendship.

I also miss the game featured of the premise.

There's this game that they play.

They're serial killers chasing a serial killer.

Whoever gets to kill the killer first wins.

And I kind of hope for a lot more dynamics of cat and mouse storytelling, but that's not part of the plot at all.

They're competing to kill the same person, but the actual game is not really featured as a part of the story.

The best scene is the trigger warning cannibalism scene.

That scene actually had me thinking this book could end up being really funny, but unfortunately after that scene, the book spends way more time as a romance and way less time as a book about serial killers.

Finally, I'm gonna wrap up.

I've been talking way too long and way too negatively about this book.

I'm worried about the sex scenes in this book, which are the most openness of doors.

I said in our buddy reads book chat that these scenes were not my fantasy.

And honestly, this took me out of the book every time, and the book is full of quite a lot of scenes.

It just made me feel like I was peeping on somebody's very kinky relationship.

I have a five number rating for steamy scenes, and a five usually is the books like the alley haze of woods or the teoweliums where you just get a lot of words that you don't say in polite company, but it's a really great scene and it advances the plot.

This book but you're in blackbird.

If that's a five, this is like an eight or a nine.

It's just definitely for some people, and I really don't have a problem with that writing at all.

It wasn't what I expected from the premise.

And as I said before, that is something that I just kind of want to relate to listeners.

Okay.

I'm looking back and I probably should have held back in some points and maybe I'll edit.

I don't know.

I feel like that was a lot.

I'm sorry, Jillian.

No, don't be sorry.

And I don't think you should edit because while you your opinion of it isn't positive, you weren't actually negative.

You literally gave a review and gave your thoughts on it.

I don't I think you should leave it.

I think you should leave it all alone.

And I also will say that I likely will not be reading the book.

The cannibalism scene is what had me unsure if I wanted to read it anyway.

And then now with your review, I'm even more like, I don't think so.

There's too many other books to read.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair.

Okay, Jillian, let's move on.

Let's move on.

What's your final book for the episode?

All right.

My third book is heavy with a capital H or at least it was for me.

My third book is between two kingdoms, a memoir of life interrupted by Sulayka Jawad.

This is a memoir and it is absolutely beautifully written.

But I've been lying if it didn't have leave me thinking about my own mortality and leave me in tears.

Here's the premise, a searing deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman's journey from diagnosis to remission and ultimately a road trip of healing and self discovery.

In the summer after graduating from college, Sulayka Jawad was preparing as they say in commencement speeches to enter the real world.

She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent.

The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.

It started with an itch first on her feet, then up her legs like 1000 invisible mosquito bites.

Next came the exhaustion and the six hour naps it only deepened her fatigue.

Then a trip to the doctor in a few weeks shy of her 23rd birthday, a diagnosis, leukemia, with a 35% chance of survival.

Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames.

By the time Jawad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence.

She would soon spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for the New York Times.

When Jawad finally walked out of the cancer ward after three and a half years of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant, she was, according to doctors, cured.

But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends.

It's where it begins.

She had spent the past 1500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal to survive.

And now that she'd done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.

How would she re into the world and live again?

How could she reclaim what she had been lost?

Jawad embarked with her new best friend Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt, on a 100 day, 15,000 mile road trip across the country.

She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital.

A teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer.

A teacher in California grieving the death of her son, a death row in maiden Texas who had spent his own years confined to a room.

What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous.

That the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives.

Between two kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and fierce tender and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.

Oh, heavy.

Aaron, could you see yourself reading that book?

I don't know.

I mean, it's very compelling and I love the themes in the premise.

I find generally I avoid a lot of sad content when people say like, "Oh, that book made me cry or that movie is so sad."

I generally feel this like self-protective barrier come up and I'm like, "I think I'll probably opt out of that."

My day-to-day work is kind of sad already and I don't know if that's necessarily why I mentally protect myself from sad content.

But this does sound really beautiful and chronicling survivorship I think is very compelling.

It was good, but I completely understand your stance and what you're saying.

And anybody who is obviously going through something like this or has gone through something like this, this might not be the book for you because she gets real and there are really sad, choking up right now.

There are really sad moments in the book.

So I would recommend just doing your due diligence and looking for trigger warnings on maybe story graph or somewhere else probably has some.

But it's a beautiful book.

Beautiful book.

Yeah, memoir is such an amazing genre.

I wonder if we should think about maybe doing a future episode on memoir as a genre.

It's just like, generally I find these are books that will just make you feel things.

Yeah, absolutely.

I would love that.

You don't have to share the lived experience of this person to really feel it.

You know, it's a really great way to be in touch with our humanity.

Yeah, I agree.

I'm glad you brought this book to the show.

I think a lot of people will pick it up and I hope they do and I hope they enjoy it as well.

Okay, Aaron, what is your third book?

Okay, my third book is the polar opposite of butcher and blackbird.

This is a sweet contemporary fiction romance novel called The Happy Life of Is it Or Evently by Courtney Walsh?

This book is published by Thomas Nelson, which we don't usually mention the publishers, but Thomas Nelson features contemporary Christian writers.

And that's kind of why I make that distinct comparison to butcher and blackbird.

The book was recommended to me by Andrea King, who is an awesome member of the Media and Lady Talks and Media and Lady Reads community.

She read it and then she hopped into my DMs and she said, "Please read this."

And, you know, Jillian, who am I to say no?

Listeners, please know if there are books you would love for us to read, all you have to do is ask.

Here's the setup.

Is it Or Evently is all about rules, order, and her own secluded world?

She's convinced happiness is a myth and she's fine with that.

As a university researcher, she keeps her distance from everyone, sticking to her routines in her tidy apartment.

Love?

Nope, not on her agenda, especially not with another academic.

But, on her 30th birthday, she impulsively buys a magazine suggesting 31 ways to be happy.

Isadora, the queen of control, decides to embark on a secret project to debunk its claims.

As she delves into her experiment and crosses paths with the charming professor, Isadora realizes she might be wrong about happiness and the rigidity of her life.

Maybe, just maybe.

There's joy in spontaneity and letting go.

So, I gave this book four stars.

It's probably with time feeling more like 4.5 stars.

It is also the kind of book that I think works for a lot of readers.

Listener, if you enjoy medium-lady reads, but you haven't been reading in a while, and you're kind of overwhelmed with choices, you really want to pick up something you like.

You don't want to pick up a book and take a chance on something that you're not going to like because you want to get into reading more.

You want an easy win.

This is the best start here book I have read in a while.

The happy life of Isadora Bentley is a story about a person you will care about, outcomes that will make you happy and happily ever after.

It's not saccharine, but a lot of the book will have you saying, "Awww."

The female main character Isadora is someone you will cheer for, and the found family includes the BFF you wish you had, the elderly old man, Sirigat Grandpa, the precocious child, and a one of the good ones, male main character.

For all the tropes, this book might fall into, it rises above all of them.

My qualms with this book is actually with one specific character, who exists only off the page, who is truly an abusive person.

This is never called out in the story, but you know, I am being kind of picky about a book that was really well written with good storytelling, and was quite honestly a lovely way to spend time reading.

Jillian, I'll be honest, I think you would like this book.

I did cry at one point.

I'm just saying.

It does sound like something I would enjoy.

It almost sounds reminiscent of Eleanor Elephant.

It's completely fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I haven't read that.

It's been a while since I read it, but just the way the characters are laid out, it sounds a little bit like that.

So I probably would like it.

I'll have to add it to my list.

And especially the fact that you said that this is a great start here book.

Maybe it'll bust me out of my slump.

All right, those are our last three reads.

That was a pretty wild ride.

Yeah, we had quite a variety.

I love it.

It's time for hot takes and our current thoughts on book culture.

A hot take is an opinion usually formed off the cuff and with little research, sometimes provocative.

Today's topic should graphic novels count as chapter books.

Aaron, what do you think?

Hmm, I'm off two minds on this.

When we specifically say chapter books, not all graphic novels have chapters, some do.

If the graphic novel doesn't have chapters, then it's not a chapter book.

And if the graphic novel does have chapters, then it is a chapter book.

I also think of the phrase chapter books as something that teachers use to sort of qualify the degree of difficulty that they want their students to engage in when reading.

I mean, I'm hopeful that our teachers are kind of moving away from that in terms of like literacy education.

And why a graphic novel wouldn't offer the same opportunities that a chapter book might offer students.

But the other side of that is to say, no, graphic novels aren't chapter books.

They're graphic novels.

They're different form of the medium.

And they should be celebrated for being what they are, not for not avoided for what they're not.

You know what I mean?

So I don't know.

That's not a very hot take.

No.

And I mean, the question is kind of tepid itself.

It's not really that spicy.

But I agree with you in that I think teachers should absolutely be stepping away from what they consider a child should be reading when they say chapter book because reading is reading.

If you sit down with a book, if it's a graphic novel, if it's a magazine, if it's a comic book, if it's a 300 page novel, you're reading.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My too.

And I think that that's most important for me to say with this, whether it's a graphic novel can be considered a chapter book.

I go in the same vein that you said, heart stopper that book has chapters.

But other graphic novels that don't, I wouldn't consider them a chapter book just because they don't have the chapters.

But I do think that they should count as reading for students in school for adults for anybody who is reading a book or in need of syncing themselves into some fantasy world where they're able to escape for a little bit.

I think that's their perfect for that.

Yeah.

I mean, actually, while I was listening to you, we have also complained by text message about how chapters have kind of like been out of trend.

Chapters, chapter one through whatever.

And then those chapters having titles.

It's like listeners pay attention to the next book you're reading and see if those chapters A have numbers or B actually even have a title that distinguishes them as part of a plot in a series of chapters.

Because we just, I just find like more and more often that the chapter maybe breaks off and begins on another page, but it might not have a number.

And it usually definitely does not have like a chapter for the grocery store.

I agree with you.

And I was reading, I don't know what book it was, but I was reading something with Esther the other day.

And it had a table of contents and everything.

And I'm like, this is beautiful.

I'm so glad for this, but it didn't, you know, it's not necessarily a book that I'm going to read on my own, which I wish it was.

I wish more books to table of contents.

Yeah, take a picture of your books table of contents and tag us on Instagram so we can, we can get back to believing that there are really good books with good chapters, titles.

All right, before we wrap up, let's talk about our library holds, Jillian, what's on your little holds list right now?

Yesterday I picked up Sirce and Legend Born.

The Sirce is our buddy readbook from May, which I'm very excited about.

It's something I've wanted to read for a long time.

And then on hold, I have Funny Story, which is Emily Henry, and I'm only 13 on that, which I thought was going to be much higher, but I must have gotten in right on the nick of time.

And then I'm waiting for telephone of the tree, which was recommended to me.

It's, I believe, a middle grade or a young adult book.

It was recommended to me by my friend Liz, and it's supposed to be this really heartfelt story about this little girl, and I think it's a middle grade book.

Mmm, nice.

And I'm looking forward to that, but it's not, it's just book on order at the moment.

It's not out yet.

And then also I have the Midnight Feast Unhold, which is Lucy Foley.

Again, that is not releasing until I think May.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm waiting for that one.

That's the same author of the Paris apartment.

The Paris apartment and something else too that I really loved.

Is it the guest list, I think?

Yeah.

The guest list I read in one day.

I'm not somebody who often reads a book in a day.

I usually take for a good book about three days.

And that book I read in a day, it was just so damn good.

And then I have titanium noir unhold for Shamus, because he does not have a library card.

I know shame, but...

No shame.

It's working for him.

So I take books out for him when he needs one, but he or he'll just...

Yeah.

I take books out for Nick too sometimes, not when he needs them, but just because I'm like, I think you should read this and then he reads four pages in the DNS it, which is fine.

So those are the books I have unhold right now.

What about you?

What do you have unhold?

Okay, so because we're on an evens episode, I'll share my digital Libbyholds list.

I've had actually a bunch of books come available, and I've been using the Deliver Later feature, Jillian to use that feature.

I don't.

I don't use Libby enough.

Okay, so if your Libbyhold comes available, it will say borrow is the biggest button, but if you look down, you can also say deliver later.

And when you go to deliver later, you can say how long you want them to wait before they put you back in the queue for the book.

And so I usually say seven days or 14 days, but you can even go up to 180 days.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it is cool.

And I've had a couple books come up and I've just put them back in because I'm not sure I still want to read them and I'm reading other stuff right now.

I have a tons of other stuff.

I am 68th in line for Emily Henry.

And I'm impressed actually my library has 30 copies in use, which is pretty good.

There are 336 people waiting for that book.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah, Emily Henry, yay you.

Like happy for you.

Great job.

Recent book I put on hold is an Ember in the Ashes by Sabata here, which is on audio book.

I was first exposed to Sabata here.

She wrote this beautiful contemporary fiction novel called All My Rage.

Jillian, did you read that?

Yes, I did.

I love it.

Beautiful book.

But I didn't know if she's actually the author of a pretty prolific fantasy YA series.

And because I'm enjoying the Legend Born series so much, I'm like, well, maybe I'll have another series to hop into.

So this is the first in the series and I'm excited to get that.

And another audio book I have coming up is called You're Not Enough.

And that's okay by Ellie Beth Stuckley.

I've had this book on hold for so long that I can't even remember why I put it on hold in the first place.

One of those.

But because it's audio and I feel like I always appreciate having a book in the audio slot, I will be happy when that finally comes up.

And that's what I have on hold.

You'll have to let me know how you feel about or what you think about an Ember in the Ashes because I love fantasy series as well.

And I'm very excited about Legend Born because of you.

So I'll be curious to hear what you think of that one.

And I know she's such a great writer.

Yeah, I'm really excited.

I like to see that kind of genre jumping.

And then the other series I don't have on hold, but I'm digressing is The Poppy Wars by RF Kwong.

I have not heard of that.

Yeah.

So RF Kwong wrote Babel and she also wrote Yellow Face with our, which are like beloved and highly acclaimed.

But she's before all of that wrote this YA fantasy series.

Huh.

I'll have to check that one out too.

I had not heard of that.

I'm familiar with her, but I read Yellow Face last year.

Yeah, she gets a bit of criticism for kind of jumping around a little bit.

Some people think she's not mastering any of those.

But I mean, honestly, she's like maybe 30 years old.

So I say, like, go for it.

I mean, she's talented enough to write a book and have it published.

I think she's doing okay.

Definitely, definitely.

All right.

That wraps up episode 20 of Medium Lady Reads.

Medium Lady Reads is a spin off of the Medium Lady Talks podcast and Instagram community.

You can find me, Jillian, at Jillian Finding Happy, and you can find Aaron at Medium.Lady for more of our current reads and other shenanigans.

If you like this episode, please share it with another bookish friend or post on Instagram and be sure to tag us.

We would be tickled to be here for you.

Thank you so much for listening.

I'm your host, Aaron.

And I'm your other host, Jillian.

Until next time, we hope that your holds arrive quickly.

And your next book finds you right when you need it most.

We'll talk to you soon.

Bye.

Bye.

Hello, and welcome back to Medium Lady Reads.

This is episode 21.

Nope, it's not episode type, literally just said. (laughing)