Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library District
Welcome to Checked Out! Green Hills Public Library District’s first staff-led podcast. Checked Out is hosted by Sara Shahein, Adult Services Associate, and Tessa Werden, Youth Services Librarian. Join them monthly as they discuss film and television, video games, music, pop culture, and of course books! Listen along when guests join in on the vibrant conversation to discuss their favorite titles, upcoming programs, and how libraries inspire curiosity and strengthen community. Checked Out is available wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
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Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library District
Episode 4 - Recaps, Reviews, and Reading Goals
In Checked Out's episode 4, "Recaps, Review, and Reading Goals," Tessa, Sara, and Klaudia discuss their 2024 favorites and goals for the new year.
Check out the media we talked about in this episode here: https://ghs.swanlibraries.net/MyAccount/MyList/69464
Interested in hearing your favorite book, topic, or genre discussed?
Send a recommendation to ghpl@greenhillslibrary.org
Hi everyone, welcome back to our podcast. This is episode four. I'm Claudia. I'm Sarah. I'm Tessa, and this is Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library. In this episode, we are celebrating the start of a new year by rehashing and reviewing 2024. We're gonna be talking about our favorites, our goals, um, if we made our goals. Before we jump into that, let's see if we made true to our promises. I did, in fact, finish in Termezzo. It was rough. Um, I read it on audio. It took me a minute to get into the narrator. He had an Irish accent, so I couldn't like read it at the speed that I normally would, but I liked it overall. I don't think it's my favorite Sally Rooney, but it was definitely a good one. She does a really excellent job at portraying relationships, whether that's family relationships or you know, significant other relationships. She does a good job at like showing those dynamics and those emotions. And I really enjoy her writing style. So that really kept me going with reading it. But like I said, it did take me a minute to get into it initially.
SPEAKER_02:Final reading.
SPEAKER_03:My final reading for it was a solid three.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, average. Yeah. So I said that I would be keeping up with the web serial seek every week. Um, I had a really busy week and then I ended up falling behind, so I had to catch up a little bit, but I am keeping up with it. I really enjoy it so far. I think it's really great world building, and it's something different. So it's definitely keeping my attention, and I would really recommend it to anyone who enjoys sci-fi and space operas, and maybe even touching upon the topic of AI, which I know is a little bit overdone now, but it's it it kind of very, very lightly reminds me of Detroit Become Human. Very lightly. Okay. If you enjoy that, go ahead and check it out. It's called Seek by Wildbow. So far, five out of five.
SPEAKER_02:I did it. I I accomplished the reach goal. I finished my reread of Way of Kings, and I finished Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson. It was a crazy ride. I finished Words of Radiance in about a week, maybe a little less. It's like 1200 pages. I by far prefer Words of Radiance over Way of Kings. I think that the focus character, because they all kind of all the characters are involved in all of the books, but each book kind of goes into the backstory of one of the main characters. And I really enjoy Shallan, who is the focus character of Words of Radiance, so it worked really well for me. And I had big dreams to suddenly catch up before the release of the fifth book. And after finishing Words of Radiance, I needed a hot minute. I couldn't jump into the other 6,000 pages that I have. That's truly not an exaggerated, but I will get there. I think that if you are intimidated by the length, trying it on audio is worth it. The names can get a little funky. So I do recommend being able to like look. I mean, you could Google it, or if you have the physical coffee, but I think if you're intimidated by the length, starting with the audiobook and getting a chunk done definitely takes the fear of how long it is out of it. And I rated it a five out of five. And I'm excited to continue someday, but I I need a minute. Speaking of me hitting my major goal of finishing Words of Radiance, let's jump into how we feel about reading goals and if we have them, if we met them this year, what we're thinking for next year. I think we all kind of have differing opinions on our goals. Claudia, you want to start us off? Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_04:In my head, I would love to have reading goals that I set on Goodreads, but I feel like at the end of the day, it puts too much pressure on myself and kind of takes the fun out of it. So I do not set reading goals for myself. I guess if I did have a goal, it's just to read something that I enjoy, which I do end up reading things that I enjoy every year.
SPEAKER_03:I can get that. It can be kind of anxiety-inducing, especially if you're using something that is tracking how many books you're behind. It can be like, oh my god, like I'm 17 books behind. How am I gonna make this? And then you start read and consume things that maybe you don't enjoy but will help reach your goal. Or you will just like kind of freeze out and be like, well, then there's no point in doing this. Like I'm just gonna stop and just not read at all because there's no way I'm making this goal. I actually am somebody that has that happen to them a lot, which is why at the start of the year I'll make my goal one on whatever platform I'm using. So I alternate between Goodreads and Story Graph. I use Story Graph mostly because I like the like tables that they have on there. I think they're really cool. Like they have different moods or you know, it keeps track of the pages that you're reading as well. So I like the different types of like data that's on there, but I do update my Goodreads more frequently, and I'll keep both of them at one until I hit my goal, which is a hundred for the year of 2024. But my reach goal is or was 130, and I made it. Woo! We did that, but it was really that I wanted to accomplish reading 100 books, which is not something that I do all of the time. It's something that, you know, this is one of the first years in a long time that I've been able to read this much. So I'm really thankful and happy about that.
SPEAKER_02:I set my goal every, well, for the past like probably five years. My goal sits at 150. And I like the idea of you putting it at one so you don't see how far behind you are. After hitting 150 a year for like several years in a row, like I'm very comfortable with that number. That's naturally like what my pace is and what I usually keep up with. So it sounds like a lot, but I don't really feel pressure for it because I know that I can do it and like have routinely done it. For a few years, I did a 100 goal, which at that time worked good. And then one year I read 150 and I was like, oh, I can keep doing this, and I've like gone with that since. I don't think I'll ever move it up. Like, if I read more, that's cool. But I don't think I should be like the people that try to read like 200 books a year. I think that with having like a job that isn't like I get the content creators who their job and also their hobby is to be reading things. Yeah. I get when they're getting to that level, but like my job is book adjacent, but not that. Yeah. So I think 150 is a good number for me. If I see it go behind a little bit, I'm never usually that worried because I catch up by the end.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes it like yells at you. It's like you're five books behind. Okay.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, I feel that. My bad, Goodreads. I've I've gone through a few slumps this year, and I would like update it to be like, okay, like let's change it from one to 100 to like see how many books I'm behind. And I was just like, oh my god, this is why I don't do this. This is why I don't have my 100 set as my goal straight out of the bat, because I just can't deal with it yelling at me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it's like intense. Yeah. And as far as like goals go, I don't necessarily think that reading 100 books, 150 books, 200 books, the number doesn't always matter because, like you said, like you find yourself reading things just to hit a number. Like if they're short, or maybe you're reading graphic novels and you don't even really care what they are, and you're just like trying to move through things quickly. And kind of like you said, Claudia, like that pressure of it is gonna take the fun away from it. It's like good to challenge yourself and make an effort to read more, but like setting a crazy high goal just to say you hit a high number, yeah, that's not fun for anyone. I had a goal this year outside of numerically to read more nonfiction. And would we say that I accomplished the goal? No. However, I did read one nonfiction, which is more than I read last year. So technically, sure I did, but I wish that I had done better. The one nonfiction book that I read was Dead Wake by Eric Larson. It's about the sinking of RMS Lusitania. I knew a shipwreck book would be the most interesting nonfiction that's not like a memoir to me. And I had heard that Eric Larson, as far as a nonfiction author goes, that it's pretty like narrative nonfiction and reads more like a story than just like throwing facts at you. And I found that to be true for that, for sure. I also half physically read it and half listened to it on audio. And I think the audiobook is how I was able to get through it all the way through because at that point it kind of just felt like a podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, for me, when it comes to doing non-fic, I can only do them on audio because I feel like it's more of a conversation vibe. So, like you just said, like a podcast, I feel that it's a little bit more entertaining and makes it more bearable for me since it's not my normal wheelhouse.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like nonfiction can feel like dry when you go from reading so much fiction, and like that's not a knock on nonfiction. Like, we need that too. There's something for everybody in it, but when you're used to reading like huge chunks of dialogue or big action scenes, going from that to reading nonfiction can often make it feel not as exciting. And my goal for next year as well, I want to read five, I think. Like, I'm gonna challenge myself to read five. I don't know how that will go. It'll probably be mostly memoirs, but it's still nonfiction. So I read a few good memoirs this year. If you got some recommendations, send them my way.
SPEAKER_04:See, I don't really gravitate towards memoirs when it comes to nonfiction. I usually like to keep up with like things about history or nature, especially like the Salem witch trials. That's my that's my era. I'll read books about the Salem witch trials.
SPEAKER_03:Well, speaking of goals that we're setting for 2025, I am gonna stick with my 100 books goal, and then my reach might be 130. We'll see. Depends on when I hit my 100 goal, and then I'll just base my reach off of that. In terms of sub goals and reading, I usually create a list on Goodreads that are books that I want to finish in that year. I don't always get to every single one of them, and I will add more, like it kind of changes throughout the year, but there are a few books that I want to like reread in order so that I could like re-rate them because I read them in high school. I read them so long ago that I don't really remember them and why I liked them, or books that I already own that are on my shelf or that I have wanted to read for so long, but just haven't gotten the chance to by putting them on this list that I see that's like, okay, reading for 2024, 2025. I'm like always reminded of it. And I'm like, oh, okay, I don't have anything to read. What can I read? And then I'll just go and look at that list. So that's something that I'll probably keep up in 2025.
SPEAKER_02:I should do that. I have so many things that I own that I just like forget about with everything, like all new stuff coming out all the time. Yeah. I have I have a decent amount of backlist. I should go through that and make that list for myself too.
SPEAKER_04:Me too. There are a lot of books that I've just spontaneously picked up at like Barnes and Noble, and they are sitting and dying on my bookshelf.
SPEAKER_03:One of our librarians here, Patrick, he was also talking to me about his goals that he has for reading every year. And he mentioned that he goes and picks one author that he has on his shelf and he will read that author's works. And I was like, oh, that's like a pretty cool way to look at it. I unknowingly kind of did Emily Henry because I read her backlist. I haven't read it, I hadn't read some of her books before, so I read them this year and I was like, this is actually really nice. Like if you like this author and you read all of their books, like it's it's a cool goal to have.
SPEAKER_04:For me, I am trying to branch out into different genres that I usually don't touch. This year I read some sci-fi books that I really enjoyed. I never really was a sci-fi fan. It wasn't something that I typically read, but I really enjoyed it. So I think next on my list is going to be high fantasy. I don't really read high fantasy, I don't reach for high fantasy. So my goal for 2025 is to read some Brandon Sanders.
SPEAKER_02:My official statement on the matter is you should definitely start with Mistborn Era One. Start with the Final Empire. It is, I mean, all of his books are long. That's where we live. But The Final Empire is among his shorter works. I think that world is super easy to get into. If you don't want to start a series, I would recommend Warbreaker. It's a standalone, but if you want like a contained story to kind of just see if it is your vibe, I would start there. Sounds good. Thanks for the recommendation.
SPEAKER_04:You got it. The way that you guys talk about Goodreads kind of makes me want to have a Goodreads too. I know, Sarah, you mentioned that Story Graft was better. And in what ways like is it better? I know that you mentioned things about like data that kind of piqued my interest.
SPEAKER_03:I will always be a Goodreads girly through and through. I know the interface is like from the early 2000s. Like she looks not that cute. Storygraph is very cute. There's something homey about it though. It is. There's something about being on Goodreads and updating my Goodreads that just feels right to me. I agree wholeheartedly. So I will always use Goodreads, but I have been trying to use StoryGraph. That was one of my goals actually this year was to use StoryGraph more. And for 2025, I want to write more reviews and like use more of the features that they have on there. But like in terms of data, some of the things they have is like the different moods. So you can check off a mood that you feel that the book gives off. So funny, lighthearted, adventurous. It also checks your pace. So like the pace of the book itself. Like, is this book a fast moving pace, slow moving pace, page numbers, your fiction versus nonfic genres? Like it's got a ton of genres here that it like kind of keeps track of. And when you're writing your review for the book or you're rating it, you can also like select and change those things so that your data is included in it. And it's not just like everyone else thinks this is a mystery, but like you're also thinking it's a mystery and you're adding to that. It's pretty cool. That's awesome. They also have an online platform too that is very user-friendly. There's a few other ones that have come out recently. I think Tessa, you mentioned Fable previously. Yeah. I don't know too much about Fable.
SPEAKER_02:I know that I like the way it looks. So my one of my goals in 2025 is to use Fable and kind of try it out for the year. But if it's not really a vibe, I'll leave her behind. It's okay. But I had looked at it, but I didn't want to start tracking stuff. So I wanted to start fresh in the new year using it to fully see if I liked it. I will say I agree about the data with StoryGraph, but I actually use a spreadsheet from she's like a book content creator online. Um, and she has like a huge comprehensive Google Sheet spreadsheet that kind of does everything that StoryGraph does. I like using that for my data, and then I like using Goodreads almost as like a social media, which is kind of how it's like marketed as, and like following people's reviews and like updating it. I've been trying to get better at updating mid-read and Goodreads as well. That's one of my goals because I read at a high volume and a fast pace. So a lot of times, if you ask me a book that I read like four months ago, I know maybe the vibe. Yeah, I probably don't know a character's name, I probably only remember the final scenes, and it's something that I find very frustrating because I like to recommend things to people, but then I'm just like, oh, just read it because I actually don't remember what happened, but like I know I liked it, so just read it. So I'm trying to do more of that. Another app is Bookly. I don't know if you guys have heard of it. No, it is more of like tracking your active reading time so you can like start reading and it'll track on like a timer. At the end of your session, you can put in like what page you got up to, and it'll kind of like break things down that way, like how long you have left in a book. And when you end a session, you can also like throughout it, you can add quotes, characters, and like kind of fill out almost like if you were doing like a book report in like elementary school, where you're like, make sure you talk about the setting and the characters. You like have slots to put all of that in, like while you're reading and how things change. And I recently found out about it and have been experimenting with it this week. So we'll see if I keep implementing it.
SPEAKER_04:That's really cool. Those are some good recommendations for someone like me who maybe like doesn't like to put out reviews because I don't like putting myself out on the internet. Yeah. Which platform would you say is the best for personal organization in terms of like keeping lists of these are books that I would like to read and these are books that I can that I have read. I feel like you should do story graph.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was gonna say story graph, you can tag things differently. And if you're interested in like seeing your personal data with it, it's really nice for that. Yeah, I'll have to check it out then. Thanks, guys. While we're on the topic of data, we did get our Spotify wrapped. Do you guys want to talk about that? Absolutely. Yeah, it was. I would like to preface that I use Apple Music. Well, I use both, but I don't use Spotify as much where like I'm gonna look back at this data and be like, oh yeah, this is very indicative of me and the music that I'm listening to. So I'm gonna just do my Apple replay. My top artists were Taylor Swift, Noah Khan, Chapel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kings of Leon, which I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I like that fully tracks. Yep, it does. Yeah. I just want to preface this by saying that for some reason, every year, some way, somehow, Lana Del Rey ends up sneaking her way onto my Spotify rap. I would consider myself a Lana Del Rey fan when I was like 13. Right. I think we all were, for sure. But for some reason, she just makes her way. She just makes it there. And I don't even feel like I listened to her that much. But this is the second year in a row that Peppers by Lana Del Rey is one of my top songs. Do you consume music a lot? You know, I think in the recent years, my music consumption has been a lot less than what it used to be. Like in college, I think my minutes were like near a hundred thousand, and now this year it was like 24,000. So that's another goal for next year. I would like to listen to more music. I feel like I don't take that time for myself anymore to just like listen to music and vibe. Anyway, here are my top artists. Number one, Adrienne Lenker doesn't surprise me. Number two, Sufian Stevens also doesn't surprise me. They're usually on there. Number three, Lana Del Rey. Number four, Megan the Stallion. And then we're five, Chapel Roan.
SPEAKER_01:Wait, Megan the Stallion got so crazy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that was like a wild turn of events. Everything was so like indie. Yeah. Yeah. And then Megan.
SPEAKER_04:Yes. And then straight to Megan the Stallion, Chapel Roan. Those are my two personalities. Indie girl and like pump. I love that for you.
SPEAKER_03:They meet in the middle and converge at Lonadal Ray. Yeah, they'd be like, she's a nice bow. I was like, yup, yup, yup.
SPEAKER_02:My top artists for this year were Noah Khan, David Kushner, Gracie Abrams, Jose Air, and the 1975. That all sounds very accurate. Yeah. Going along with what you said, Claudia, you guys will probably be so alarmed to know that my listening minutes on Spotify is under 8,000. Wow. I yeah. I often listen to audiobooks, obviously. We talk about that a lot. I consume a lot of YouTube videos, and often with like the types of videos that I'm watching, it's either like commentary or chipwreck videos. That is like more documentary style. So I will listen to that in the car. My phone is locked. I'm not watching the video. I'm just listening to her. Promise. But I will listen to that while I am driving. So music hasn't been like a number one priority in the listen list this past year, but I do I do feel like it is, in fact, accurate. The Nolan Khan one really, he's my man.
SPEAKER_03:He is amazing. He makes really, really good music, yeah. I mean, outside of my like Apple replay, if I were to pick my album of the year, it would be stick season. I I love it. I think it's so great. His um live from Fenway 2 is really, really good. That has main on it, which is like one of my all-time favorite songs.
SPEAKER_02:Pain is cold water.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. That transition between the two. Seamless. Don't even talk about it. I heard that IRL. What's our top song? So my top song this year was My Love, Mine All Mine by Mitsuki, and I played that 122 times. Yeah, I love that for you. Yeah, I feel like it's a short and sweet song, and it is really just something that I like to have in the background. And I feel like this is a song that I can just have playing while I'm reading because it's not taking so much away from what I'm reading.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I I'm also a big repeater. Yeah. Like I will listen to the same song my entire commute if I feel so inclined to. Yep. I love to just start her over. Let's hear that again. Let's run that back. My top song from this year is Homesick by Noah Khan. And I listened to that 157 times.
SPEAKER_04:My top song was Not My Fault by Renee Rapp and Megan the Stallion. And I listened to it 127 times. I was very much into running earlier this year, and that was the song that I listened to over and over and over again while I ran.
SPEAKER_03:Honestly, yeah. My top album of the year was The Tortured Poets Department, the anthology. But I will say that my second one was Stick Season by Noah Khan. Personally, in my heart, that's my favorite album of the year.
SPEAKER_00:I agree. My top is Impact Stick Season.
SPEAKER_04:I don't think I have a top album for this year. Usually I find an album that I really, really like, and um, I'll listen to that a couple of times through, but I don't think any album this year really stuck out to me. Kind of a slow year for music, I feel like.
SPEAKER_02:Is there anything on the playlist that you guys are surprised to see?
SPEAKER_03:So I have a few that I'm kind of surprised to see on my replay 2024, and one of them is Whatever She Wants by Bryson Tiller. I mean, I'm surprised but I'm not surprised because that again is like a gym song that I play a lot because it's really a beat. I'm kind of surprised to see so much Tate McRae on here. I didn't think that I listened to her that much, but I've got a few songs by her on here.
SPEAKER_04:Um I don't have anything in my playlist that I'm super shocked by. I will say though that I'm surprised that Pyramid song by Radiohead is not higher up on the list. Just because I listened to it over and over and over again while I was reading Dune, it would just fit the vibe for me. So I'm honestly kind of shocked that it's as low as it is. It's not super low, but it it's a little far from making the cut. Okay. You guys said normal song.
SPEAKER_02:Mine are a little bit silly, a little bit goofy, if you will. One of them is, in fact, Defying Gravity specifically by the Glee Cass. Oh it's it's good. It's great, even. Some might say. Yeah. And my other one is Thinking of You by Katy Perry. Love. Also a like really good song. And I do scream her in the car sometimes. Yes. Yeah. And that's why she's there. She is a good song.
SPEAKER_04:So my top Spotify songs were obviously not my fault by Renee Rapp. Number two was Redwine Supernova by Chapel Roan. Awesome song. Number three was Sailor Song by Gigi Perez. That came out a little bit later in the year. Then Peppers by Lamontel Rain. And the last one was Anything by Adrienne Lunker. So really kind of surprised by the amount of pop girlies on there, honestly.
SPEAKER_03:So my top songs were My Love, Mine All Mine by Mitsuki. Then Whatever She Wants by Bryson Tiller, Casual by Chapel Roan, Sharpest Tool by Sabrina Carpenter, and My Kink is Karma by Chapel Roan.
SPEAKER_02:My top five are Homesick by Noah Khan, Stick Season by Noah Khan, Venus Flytrap by Breakance, Almost by Jose Air, and Touchy Subject by Peach PRC. Now that we've gone through our top music of 2024 thanks to Spotify and Apple, now we can kind of switch gears, talk a little bit about our best of in books, movies, TV. As a caveat for everyone, we are going off of what we have consumed in 2024, not necessarily what was released in 2024.
SPEAKER_04:So I can start us off with TV. So I think the best thing that I consumed in 2024. I want to preface this by saying I don't really watch much TV, but I did watch Arcane this year. Fantastic. I want to watch it. It's phenomenal. It is amazing in terms of animation, story, music. If you haven't watched it, please do. The second season is their last season, so I really like that they also wrapped it up. I feel like a lot of times, especially with Netflix shows, they kind of want to milk it, even though the story is past being done. So I honestly really appreciate that they wrapped it up in such a great way. It was enjoyable from episode one to the last episode. The characters are all like morally gray characters. You know, no one is ever completely good. You can form your own opinions on that if that's something that you enjoy. Yeah, beautiful show, awesome, well done, 10 out of 10.
SPEAKER_02:I'm in the same boat. I don't watch a ton of TV either. I will say, since I was young, I've watched like Dateline in 2020. So I do consume those on a regular basis. The Summer Olympics, guys. I ate it up. I think it is worth noting. The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, love them. And I think really the only other TV show that I have of note would be Baby Reindeer. Oh yeah. Definitely check your trigger warnings before you watch that show if you have things that might bother you. I feel like it hits on a lot of things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, TV's kind of a tough one. I feel like I just end up falling back on watching things that I like and I've watched a million times.
SPEAKER_02:Like yeah, like the comfort shows that we talked about in episode one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:For me, I also don't consume a lot of TV, but my best of 2024, I think, is The Bear. I love that show so much. The third season did come out in 2024. It's not my favorite season. I think that season two might be my favorite season, but I think that it's a really emotional but comedic show. And I love that it takes place in Chicago. I also love the, you know, chef and culinary restaurant type of setting there. I really love the Chicago restaurant scene. So seeing this in a show and seeing it portrayed, I mean, obviously it's very dramatized, but it's just it's so interesting to watch this family try to run this restaurant and everyone chime in all the time on how they think it should be run. Definitely my favorite of the year, or one of my favorites of the year.
SPEAKER_02:Do we have any top movies of the year? I kind of fell in the same way with TV shows with movies this year. I don't feel like I consumed very many, or at least not very many that were like new to me that I would say really stood out. One of them that I will say though, Inside Out 2, if you guys haven't watched it, I would highly recommend. I think they did a great job at keeping the same like tone as the first movie while aging it up since it is Riley as in her emotions as she is growing up. And I think that there is a lot of guidance for children while also like really making you feel seen as an adult. That looking back on it, you're like, wow, those little characters, that was me.
SPEAKER_03:I want to preface by saying that this wasn't my favorite movie of 2024, but I do like the resurgence of this type of film. And it's anyone but you with Glenn Powell and Sydney Sweeney. I just like that rom-coms are making a comeback, even though, in my opinion, I don't think that they ever died. I feel like there was a period of time where we weren't seeing them as frequently, like in movie theaters or like being produced, but I do like that they are becoming these like larger blockbuster things that people are talking about and consuming, and like everyone is like, oh my god, like you need to watch this. Because I I just like the genre. I think rom coms are so fun, and I'm glad that they're coming back. So I think that I just like the idea that anyone but you is bringing back to the forefront of people's minds.
SPEAKER_04:I agree with that. I I miss the rom-coms of the early 2000s, and um I wish that they would make a comeback. So I'm glad that I'm glad that they are making that kind of comeback. This year in movies, I mostly watched or re-watched movies that I liked before. I think I only saw two movies in theaters this year. I watched, and both of them I enjoyed. So I watched Mean Girls, which I honestly really enjoyed. A lot of people were giving it kind of negative press in the beginning, making fun of it. It was a bit of a meme, if I remember correctly. But I enjoyed it. I thought it was really fun. I thought the cast did a great job and the songs were really good. So I don't know. I don't know why people hated on it so much. Maybe because it's not the original or the classic or everyone holds the original Mean Girls so close to their heart, but I had a good time. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was fun. I also watched Deadpool and Wolverine, which I also thought was really fun. I think this was the last Deadpool movie in the series. I used to be much more into Marvel a couple of years ago, but I think since WandaVision, I kind of fell off the boat for it. But Deadpool is one of those Marvel movies that I think kind of falls away from the main storyline. So if you're not super into Marvel but still want something fun to watch, that was a good movie to watch.
SPEAKER_02:Should we dive into books? Let's do it. I the first would be A Letter to the Luminous Deep by Sylvie Cathrall. I don't hear a lot of people talk about this. It is a fantasy sci-fi underwater situation, and I would almost kind of classify some of it as horror while also still being really light. I literally can't explain any of it to you because it is completely rooted in the main character not knowing what is going on. The entirety of that book is like really rooted in mystery of this thing that she can see from her underwater home window, and it kind of goes from there. And then we're gonna really switch up the vibe here. And I would also say that Daisy Hates by Jessa Hastings is one of my top reads. There's something about that series, The Magnolia Parks universe. There's something about it. I care entirely too deeply and will make excuses for every single person in that series.
SPEAKER_03:I have to second that. Daisy Hait is my favorite book of 2024. The characters are so great, love them. The storyline is always taking twists and turns and really crazy. If you're not familiar with the Magnolia Park series, it's essentially just British socialites and their drama and their relationships and all this like interpersonal stuff that they're dealing with mixed together. And then Daisy Hates specifically is dealing with criminal activity and like art theft. And I think that that makes me enjoy it even more because I really like art history. It's the book that lives on my nightstand, and when I have nothing to read, that's what I pick up.
SPEAKER_04:Um, my book for 2024, I've mentioned it on the podcast, but I will have to nominate Tangled Up in You by Christina Warren. I love Tangled. I know I said this before. I love Tangled. I have not read a good romance in a long time, and I feel as though this book kind of sparked my love for romance again. And what better way to do that than with a book that gets tangled completely right, even though it's in like an alternate universe where they're college students. Um, there was something very homey about it. It was a story that I already knew and loved and watched a million times, but put on paper and in a different way. I have read plenty of tangled books or like tangled-inspired books, and a lot of times I can get like little details wrong that will irk me, but this one did not. I ate it up. I was very giddy while reading it, 10 out of 10. I love that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Alright, we have some honorable mentions.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. One of my honorable mentions is Ninth House. So obsessed with it. Love it. Before I even finished the book, I had to go and buy it because I loved it so much, which is like really rare for me. But I was like really enamored with the world, the characters again, just the dark academia.
SPEAKER_04:Tacked is one of my honorable mentions. I mentioned it before on the podcast. It is a web serial by Wild Bow. It he writes, he tends to write pretty long form things. The magic system is very dark and twisted and very unfair a lot of times. I really enjoyed reading it. I liked the pacing, and I really liked the main character, Blake, even though sometimes he was very stubborn and headstrong, and I just wanted to tell him stop putting yourself in these terrible situations, please.
SPEAKER_02:One of my honorable mentions would be horror movie by Paul Tremblay. I have found in recent years that I haven't loved a lot of new releases from authors that I've read their backlists in the horror genre and really enjoyed. I thought horror movie was great. I really like Paul Tremblay as a horror author. I think he does it a little bit differently, and so it doesn't always hit for the masses. Paul Bears Club by him is one of my top favorite horror books of all time. And I know a lot of people don't like that book, and that's fine. I think it has its audience and it's not for everyone. I think horror movie was a little bit more universal. It is essentially about a horror movie that these young people made in the 90s, and it became kind of like a cult following. The movie never actually came out, there was only like a few minutes of footage that was ever released, and that is all because they say the movie was cursed because people died. So, like, that's the backstory, and then the present-day timeline is these producers are bringing it back and are gonna actually make the movie. And you kind of go back and forth with reading like that screenplay and the character's point of view both in the past and in the present. It was very well done. I will say Paul Tremblay is not overly gory in his writing, and he got gory with that one. So I I was really excited to see him kind of branch out.
SPEAKER_03:Another one of my honorable mentions is coming out soon, and it's Out of the Woods by Hannah Bonham Young, and I requested an advanced reader copy of it in 2024, and I was so happy to get it. It is a second book or like a companion book to her first out on a limb. You don't have to read the first one to read the second one, but it is recommended. Out of the woods follows Sarah and Caleb, who are high school sweethearts and have been together for years, and they are feeling a little lost in their marriage, I guess. Sarah really wants things to change just in her life. She's looking for a new passion. She feels that there are things that she wants to do and accomplish that she hasn't been able to in her life, and it kind of just follows them like rekindling their love on this outdoor couple's retreat where they're in the woods and they're camping. So that's like a really comedic element, and it's them just kind of really re-falling in love, but also on their own separate journeys of finding their own happiness without it being tied to the other person, which I thought was really nice. And overall, I I really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_04:Another one of my honorable mentions is Dune, which by the way, I did finish it. Woo-hoop. It's a fantastic political drama set in a sci-fi backdrop. A lot of times with sci-fi, the authors try to make some sort of statement about the world that we live in. So it was very obvious to me that Frank Herbert was trying to make some sort of stance about religious hysteria and also charismatic leaders, which I think was very prevalent at the time that it was written. And it's still something that people can draw from today.
SPEAKER_02:And my last honorable mention is the book That Wouldn't Burn by Mark Moritz. It is a fantasy, it takes place in like a magical library and it's a portal fantasy. There's just like a lot, a lot going on. It's one of those books that I don't want to explain super in-depth to you because what you start with is certainly not where you end up. And I think that it's good to just like go on the journey. But for the most part, you are following a young girl who lived in the outer lands and is being taken into a city where she is sent to work in a library, and you are also following a younger man in a library that is oddly similar to the one that our main female character is in, but is in fact not the same. And somehow their storylines converge.
SPEAKER_03:So, speaking of our top favorites of the year and our honorable mentions, I think it's worth talking about platforms like Goodreads that put out these yearly contests for the best book of the year. Um, as are hot or not.
SPEAKER_02:I like the idea of Goodreads Choice Awards in theory. I like that it is. Crowd voted situation, but I feel like it's not regulated enough to make it like actually correct for what people would actually vote for. Like Claudia, you don't use Goodreads, but like you have read some of the books that are on there, you have opinions about them. And so like it's not a be-all end all. It's not like they're winning like the Pulitzer, but like there's like a lot of external factors that kind of make them unreliable.
SPEAKER_04:So I don't have a Goodreads account, so I don't know. I can't really speak too much about it. I do know of these awards that they have and and the voting that they have. My take on it is that I feel like as though it can be a bit of a popularity contest. I'm not really sure how things like maybe publishers can be factored into this, if maybe they're pushing these platforms to push their books out a little bit more for marketing. Maybe you guys can help answer my question if, like, do you feel as though the mass-produced books have somewhat of an advantage over maybe like indie pub or maybe smaller press books on Goodreads? However, I do think that it's nice to have these kinds of awards. I think that authors should be celebrated. But I think maybe it would be nicer to have I know that we have the Pulitzer, but maybe something a bit more publicized, like the way that we have Emmys and Grammys and Oscars and Tony's and things like that for books. I think it would be maybe personally, I think it would be cool to tune in on the TV one day and just see like an award show for books. Maybe one day we can have that, but for now we have good reads, I guess.
SPEAKER_03:I would like to see that too. I think it'd be pretty fun um to kind of watch that happen. In terms of your like asking if it's like a popularity contest, I feel like there is an element of that. I don't know how much like publishers are involved in pushing out content or like pushing out the books that they're releasing through Goodreads or partnerships that they might have with, you know, publishers and authors. But I do think that there is a large reader base on Goodreads that reads a certain type of book. And when you're doing these, like this voting, you're voting for the books that you've read. Like, I don't think that anyone is gonna be like, oh, I haven't read this, but I'm gonna vote for it because I think it deserves it. But you're gonna vote for what you like. And I think that a lot of people that are on Goodreads, again, are reading a certain type of genre. It might be romance, it might be mystery. And when I say that, I'm thinking like Emily Henry, Allie Hazelwood, or like Freedom McFadden. Like those are very popular authors that are usually always in the Goodreads awards and are typically winning the categories that they're in. So I think that that plays like a big role in it. Because like if your reader or your user base on Goodreads is not reading litvic or horror, then books that are in a category like debut novel or like best overall fiction might fall through the cracks because they're not getting voted for based on the user's preferences.
SPEAKER_02:Along with that, it absolutely is a popularity contest, in my opinion, for very specific genres. You talked about mystery thriller romance. I also feel like romantic, fantasy romance, whatever you want to call it, is the same way. There are specific names that are very well known, and it's going to have the most amount of readers because it is traditionally published, it's heavily marketed, it's a well-known author. This year, well, 2024, House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Mass won romanticy. But a large majority of those readers were disappointed or like flat out did not like that book. And it is like a general consensus that she like really dropped the ball, she really lost it, but it won when there's 10 or 15 in the final round that people have been raving about for the last six months, and that came out in January, and that's another way that I don't know that it makes a ton of sense. Like we have House of Flame and Shadow that came out in January, and then in just like the general fiction, Intermezzo, which Sarah already talked about reading, has literally just come out. So you have books like House of Flame and Shadow that came out in January of 2024, and then you have books like Intermezzo, I know they're in different categories, but whatever, that came out early to mid-November. And obviously, those books, even with Sally Rooney being a well-known author, aren't going to have as many readers by the time it's time to vote for it. Going along with the popularity contest, Stephen King's always gonna win horror. And like this year, he won horror for You Like It Darker, but You Like It Darker is a collection of short stories, and everything else in horror is novel. Personally, I don't think that short stories versus like linear prose novels should be put against each other. Like if we're gonna throw short stories in at, I think we need a short stories category. When I read short story collections versus reading a novel, I feel like I have very differing opinions. And I feel like they try to get specific because they created the romanticy category.
SPEAKER_03:They, I think, get specific based on what's popular. Yeah. Romanticy is a new, new I use quotes on that thing that is existing in book genres. And they were like, okay, let's do it. I think it's maybe in like what two, three years that they've had romantic. I think this is the second year. Yeah. So like it's again, even their categories are based on what is being consumed.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So from what I'm hearing, it sounds to me a lot like book talk is kind of influencing these Goodreads genres. Would you say so?
SPEAKER_03:I think that it's just what is being talked about a lot and like whether that is on like book talk, Bookstagram, even like Goodreads, again, like going back to it being sort of like this social media book platform. It's just it's really what's being talked about.
SPEAKER_04:Another question I have is do you think that people are voting based on like whether or not they like the book, or are they just voting based on author?
SPEAKER_02:I think a little bit of both. I also think that there's probably people that vote on recognition. We said that like I'm not gonna vote for a book I didn't read. And if I've only read like one book in a category, unless I was like, this is one of my top favorite books, I'm probably not gonna vote for it because like that doesn't feel fair to me. That's another thing with Goodreads, the time frame when they put these awards out. If you want to take it super seriously and you wanna read all the nominees and try and figure out what you actually think, you don't have enough time for that. It's been, I'm pretty sure, like start to finish of them first announcing it to the award winners. I think it's been like two, three weeks.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no more than a month for yeah.
SPEAKER_02:That's not enough time to read all of them for even one category if you've only read one or two. And so I feel like that also kind of plays a role, and that is where like the popularity contest comes in because it's gonna be those authors that are like auto-by-authors for people that they've read before that they know they can trust. Emily Henry won romance, right? I'm not gonna say that she shouldn't have. I think that Emily Henry is great, but everyone loves Emily Henry, but there are other authors in that category that maybe some people might like more, they just haven't read yet, because a lot of people stay in like the same lane of the authors that they like. I mean, I do it, I'm guilty of it. And you get excited for their new releases, so you put that to the top of your list to read, so they're going to be the most read. And young adult is snubbed for adult. You have general fiction, you have horror, you have fantasy, you have sci-fi, romantic, you have debut, you have audiobooks, and then you have like the nonfiction ones, which I think it's general nonfiction and then like memoir bio, right? YA. They said why fantasy, YA fiction. No way. That's all they said. There's so many shit. And just for yeah, just for like context, right? These are what the nominees for just young adult fiction are. Heartstopper. That's a graphic novel. Okay, okay, the reappearance of Rachel Price.
SPEAKER_04:That's a thriller.
SPEAKER_02:Correct. Nothing like the movies, that's a romance.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, it's a pretty big Mod Podge of things. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Why? How are those even comparable? Right. That's like taking fantasy out and then putting every single nominee for adult in like one category and being like, here you go. That's not a fair contest. Yeah, it's weird. And like Heartstopper 1. And like, don't get me wrong, I love Heartstopper. Which, like, yeah, but like Heartstopper is a graphic novel, the same way that I feel with short stories. Those like aren't the same to me. Like, I'm not looking for the same features of a graphic novel that I am in like a traditional prose story.
SPEAKER_03:So, any final thoughts?
SPEAKER_04:My official stance is not. My official stance is it could be hot. It sounds like it's not lukewarm, very lukewarm.
SPEAKER_03:I have to agree. I feel like the premise is hot. I love the idea, the idea is hot. Execution is just not. Yeah. Yep. Agreed. We're almost done with this episode, y'all, but we have one more thing left to do, and that's make our promises for what we will finish the next time we get together.
SPEAKER_02:I can start us off. I think that I am going to, I was gonna say another like long epic fantasy, but we'll switch it up. I am going to read Darkly by Marisha Pessel. It's a YA, like gothic thriller situation, maybe. The book is about a girl who gets accepted to an internship, and it is for a like notorious board game maker who like her games are a curse, and they're like really detailed games from what I can tell. Like, it's almost like escape room vibes and like how these board games are. The main character is like obsessed with them, and she gets accepted into this internship.
SPEAKER_04:Is it like an internship with the makers of Jumanji? Is that the vibe? Maybe, maybe I will keep everyone updated. I will continue reading Seek because it comes out like on a weekly basis. I have no idea when it's going to finish. His things are pretty long form, but in the meantime, I think I'm not saying that I'm gonna finish it by our next episode because it's it's gonna be long, but I want to start reading Mistborn.
SPEAKER_02:You'll love it. I think so too. Also, like Dune is longer than Mistborn. Oh. Perfect. Yeah, Final Empire is not bad. Okay. I would recommend reading it on your Kindle. I will. Because those books are annoying to hold.
SPEAKER_03:I recently got the ARC for Wild and Wrangled, which is book four and Lila Sage's Rebel Blue Ranch. So I'm hoping to finish that. The book doesn't officially come out until April, but I do want to finish it in January. It follows one of the friends from the group. She is a lawyer who has a daughter. It's kind of like a little bit of a second chance romance, he's been pining for her for a very long time, and we will finally get their love story. Woo! You love those books. I do. I think that concludes this episode. Just remember that if you guys would like to reach out to us with any book recommendations or anything you guys would like us to discuss on the podcast, you can send us an email at ghpl at greenhillslibrary.org.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you guys so much for listening. This has been episode four recaps, reviews, and reading goals. I'm Tessa. I'm Sarah. I'm Claudia, and we're checked out.