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 11- Checked Out Challenge
Get ready to read! Episode 11, “Checked Out Challenge,” recounts Sara and Tessa’s trials and triumphs following PopSugar’s 2025 Reading Challenge (featuring a Checked Out flair). From settings in space and sea, characters changing careers and childhood favorites stay to the end to find out who took home the Checked Out Challenge crown.
PopSugar Challenge: https://www.popsugar.com/books/popsugar-reading-challenge-2025-49412160
Interested in hearing your favorite book, topic, or genre discussed?
Send a recommendation to ghpl@greenhillslibrary.org
Find all the books we talked about here:
https://ghs.swanlibraries.net/MyAccount/MyList/80955
Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 11, Checked Out Challenge. I'm Sarah. I'm Tessa, and this is Checked Out with Green Hills Public Library. This is our Super Bowl episode, everyone. We planned to do the Pop Sugar 2025 challenge for this episode. We did do a little twist on it, our own little checked out twist, and it worked out pretty well. It was an intense challenge, I'd say. It was a long month, right? It was a long month. A lot of swaps on my TBR.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. A lot of, does this count?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, a lot of giving each other grace this month.
SPEAKER_00:And so you all must give us grace.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we say go. And if you have an issue with that, you can reach out to us at uh G H P L at greenhillslibrary.org. Exactly. Moving on. So we decided to do something a little different this month, as you know. And just to preface before we get into the meat of this episode, we will be sharing some spoilers of the books we read this month, just due to the nature of some of the challenge prompts that we had to meet. So that's our fair warning, our spoiler warning for the episode. Now, diving into the challenge that we did, we started off with the Pop Sugar 2025 reading challenge. And each one of us selected five core challenges that we would like the other to accomplish during the month. The remaining prompts that were given in the challenge were worth a point each. And you can double up on some of those if you can find a book that works for two prompts. And there's also an advanced section of the challenge that we thought would be appropriate to count for two points each prompt. And we were able to accomplish a few of those as well.
SPEAKER_00:And with the advanced ones, we decided that you can't double them up with anything else. It's just if you meet it, that's all you can use that book for, and you get two points.
SPEAKER_01:We'll have the challenge linked in the description so you all have a chance to take a look at it as well and follow along with us as we break down the prompts that we were able to accomplish.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. So, like we said, we assigned each other five that were non-negotiables. You had to do it or you didn't do the challenge. Uh so we'll go through what I assigned Sarah. She can kind of give us a rundown of what she picked for it, what her thoughts were, and then we'll switch and do it for what I picked. The first one that I picked for Sarah was a book that features magical creatures that aren't dragons. So this one wasn't too bad.
SPEAKER_01:I initially thought that I would have to go the fantasy route, but I ended up going a horror route, and I read Rachel Harrison's Such Sharp Teeth that features a sister duo living together, navigating their relationship, and one of them ends up getting bit in by a werewolf, and the storyline just follows her transitioning into a werewolf and dealing with that alongside dealing with the relationship that she has with her sister.
SPEAKER_00:Anything to not read a fantasy, huh? Hey, I did read a fantasy this month. We'll get to it.
SPEAKER_01:Your rating? What do you think? I enjoyed it. Um, it was one of my favorite books of this month. I like Rachel Harrison as an author. This is my second book by her. I read So Thirsty earlier this year. And I will continue to read her stuff. It it was good.
SPEAKER_00:She's a haunted house book coming out soon. It's like white and purple. It is. It's really good. I liked it. She's got some good covers. She does. Her titles hit too. Yeah. Such sharp teeth. That's great. I think this the new one is play nice.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. Something with play in it. Play along, play nice, something. Play along is Wendy City. Oh, you're right. Thank you. I'm getting all my plays mixed up here.
SPEAKER_00:Moving on. All right. You started strong.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. The next one that I gave you was a book that has two or more books on the cover, or the word book in the title. What'd you do?
SPEAKER_01:So I thought this one would be easy. And I knew that you were, you know, doing me a favor, throwing me a bone here, because I wanted to read this book. And it is Allie Brady's book, Battle of the Bookstores. It was good. I ended up doing a little duo with this one, reading and audiobooking when I could. It was good. Um I So it wasn't that good. No, it was good. I'm trying to figure out the words that I want to use to describe it, but it came to me now. It's very much you've got male nor Nora Efron. It follows two bookstore owners kind of battling for prime property in the area that they're in, and they have an ongoing dialogue online on a book website, and they don't know that one that they're speaking to each other. And it was cute. I felt that it was a little fast-paced for me in the way that the relationship was moving. I flipped the page and suddenly we were together and in love, but two pages before that we were fighting for our lives. So some insta-love there. A little bit, I fear. Well. We we needed to be friends a little bit longer. I think.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Okay. I did throw you a bone on that one. That was already on your TVR. I appreciate that greatly. The next one I also threw you a bone on. For that one, it's a book you got for free. So we constitute it for as anything you didn't pay for, if it's from the library, if it was an ARC, if someone bought you it.
SPEAKER_01:So I had this one locked down for a really long time, and I ended up swapping it recently to maximize points. And I ended up I'm insanely competitive. I just want everyone to know that that you're listening. You don't know who won quite yet. We'll save that for the end. But I am extremely competitive, and so I was doing anything I could here.
SPEAKER_00:I am not extremely competitive. I just wanted it to be interesting. So I wanted us to be close. And close it was.
SPEAKER_01:Close it was. Down to the wire, some might say.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, what was your free book? Let us know.
SPEAKER_01:My free book was The Night Guest by Hildor Neutstotter. And this was an interesting read, one that I've had on my TBR for a little bit. It's very short and quick. It follows a character that is waking up at night and she is haunted by the death of her sister. And she's like sleepwalking at night. So we kind of follow that and we follow her trying to figure out what is going on and how this is happening to her. And what was your rating on that one? I couldn't say it was really quick. And I think that if it was longer and more fleshed out, and I got to know the characters more and feel more connected to them, that I might enjoy it more. But it wasn't one of my top favorites of the month. It was hard to compete with the other ones.
SPEAKER_00:And do you want to share with us what it originally was supposed to be for that prompt, or do you want to wait for later?
SPEAKER_01:No, I could tell y'all, because it'll come up soon. I originally marked down Leather and Lark by Bryn Weaver for that one, but I ended up moving it because I felt that it fit something else a little bit better.
SPEAKER_00:The fourth one was a book that takes place in or around a body of water. What you got?
SPEAKER_01:Man, do I wish that we had video accompanying this audio because this one really, really put me through the ringer here. It was awful to find something that fit this. But I ended up going with Problematic Summer Romance by Allie Hazelwood, which was a very early-on read for me in the month. And it takes place near well, it takes place on like an island in Italy, and it's surrounded by water, you know, island. And there's like another offshore island that they visit, and we get a lot of time spent on the beach and interacting with the water and gazing at the water lovingly. You don't have to defend it to me.
SPEAKER_00:I have already agreed to this and I think it fits perfectly fine. Thank you. I just feel that I need to like there's like water on the cover of it. We it counts. We're good.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, appreciate that. I liked this. You know, it's Allie Hazelwood. I love I love her work. I will always be a supporter of her work. So this one was good. I didn't feel as connected to the main male character as you know I wanted to, but I loved the female character.
SPEAKER_00:And your last core prompt was a book that music plays an integral part to the story.
SPEAKER_01:So this one, I ended up doing Mother and Lark for placing Mother and Lark here because Lark, the main female character, is a singer-songwriter. And I liked this a decent amount. I didn't like it as much as I liked the first book in the series, but I will be reading the third book just so that I can, you know, round out the series.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I think we missed it. What was your rating for problematic summer romance?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, problematic summer romance. I'll say I think I gave it like a four-star rating. And then Leather and Lark?
SPEAKER_00:Leather and Lark. I feel like you gave that two stars. I think I did give that two stars. And you were just being very generous about it.
SPEAKER_01:You didn't, how if not for my baby? No, I that double counted for something else. Yeah, I think it gave Leather and Lark about two stars there. Alright, so switching gears to the core five that I challenged you to complete. The first one was featuring an LGBTQ character that is not about coming out.
SPEAKER_00:This is really the only flop in my core five, which is crazy because I stand on the pillar that not all queer media has to be about being queer and coming out. However, this book was not good. Dang, okay uh I read The Incandescent by Emily Tesch. It is it's cozy ninth house. Truly. It's cozy ninth house. You got me with the ninth house, but the cozy part the cozy part doesn't work for ninth house. Uh yeah. Very similar in the school setting magic demon circles of salt vibes. Their relationship reminded me a lot of the relationship that is in Arcane, the show. I think we've talked about it on the podcast before. Their relationship reminded me very much of that dynamic. But it was fine. I don't know. Maybe I gave it three stars, maybe I gave it two and a half. It was like, it wasn't offensive to read, but I finished it and I was like, that's all we're doing. It wasn't it, but it wasn't about coming out. So there we go.
SPEAKER_01:That's a win. It counts then. The second challenge I picked for you was a book about space tourism.
SPEAKER_00:And now we remixed this. We did. We did, we did. You agreed to this. I did. I used this too. Exactly. So we're gonna take tourism out. Cause it's what we read for this is simply not space tourism, but it is in space. Um, I read Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed. I would be remiss to not give it five stars based on the emotional reaction that I had to it and the connection that I have with the story and what transpires between our two main characters. This book is about two female astronauts at NASA in the 80s, and you focus on Joan as our main character, and Vanessa is our I would say she's our secondary character. And Joan's journey into becoming an astronaut, what it means to her, falling in love, and then being placed in this situation. I don't think it's a spoiler. I don't think it is. If it is a spoiler, we do we do.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it happens that lets you know.
SPEAKER_00:It happens in the first chapter. The first two chapters are it happening. Um, Joan is in mission control for a mission that her friends who have become astronauts at the same time as her are on when something really not good happens and they are in a life or death situation, and she has to be the one to try to get them out of it. So you bounce back and forth between that happening and then Joan becoming an astronaut and kind of her life and how it leads up to it. I sobbed, like truly full-body sobbing. And I don't think it's something that will happen to everyone. Case in point, Sarah. Yeah, it did not happen to me. I did feel emotional, but yeah. And I think a lot of it has to do with just like personal experiences and how different stories mean different things to different people. I don't necessarily think that it's a unanimous five stars for every person. Like it doesn't shock me that yours will not be five stars. Yeah, mine is five stars. That's not how it sounded when I walked in today.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I, you know, I finished it up prior to this. And okay, there was a moment that really switched things for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it doesn't take the top Taylor Jenkins read spot for me. Mine will always be Daisy, something about it, but I would say the atmosphere and Carrie Soto are very close. All of this to say, I give it five stars. It was really good. It's also very short, a very quick read. I would recommend trying it out. I would also recommend.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it ended up being a five-star read for me too. I really enjoyed it. There's a moment in the last like 30 pages that really changed things up for me. And I, yeah, it was it was a good book. I think for me, it's also up there with Carrie Soto, and Cary Soto is one of my favorites by Taylor Jenkins Reed. So this is like very up there in my hierarchy. It's just so good. It is. It is a good book. And I was worried about it at the start because it's so space heavy. Um, but don't be deterred by that because I managed to get through it. All right. So the next one that I asked you to complete was The Snake on a Cover. And I thought that that one would be very fantasy adjacent.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you did think that. However, this was the one of my core five that caused me the most stress to try to figure it out. But then it's embarrassing because then I just like went home and looked at my shelf and like something that was on my TBR had it. So anyway. I read Dawn of the Cursed Queen by Amber V. Nicole. It is the third book in the It's the third book in the Gods and Monsters series. Not to be confused with City of Gods and Monsters that I've talked about before. Different. The first book in this one is Book of Azreel. I truly can't tell you anything about the plot of this third book.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, that's fair. Because oh, it's the third in the book.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So um I will pitch it as it is extreme enemies to lovers in the first book, like gods and monsters. They're at war with each other. One character is a god, one is a monster. Lots of stuff goes down. Trust and believe, it's good. The first book is fine. The second book hurt my feelings. The third book I was gnawing at the bars of my enclosure. So and they're gonna print that on the cover of the book. And I hope they do. Yeah. I truly do. This was a five-star for me, which I'm impressed by because the first book was a three-star, second book was a four-star, and then by the third book, we got to a five.
SPEAKER_01:We love sticking it out with a series and it just getting better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I like the start of it, like the baseline of what we were doing, was so good that I knew we would get there, but our our beginning was a little rock.
SPEAKER_01:But we go, we got all right. The fourth one was one that we both had, and this was the set in or around a body of water.
SPEAKER_00:This is where things get very sad for me. Because when I received this promo, like best day of my life, I wanted to read the sequel to A Letter to the Luminous Deep, A Letter from the Lonesome Shore, and I was so excited about it. It just came out. I loved a letter to the luminous deep. Respectfully, I DNF. I did, I did DNF a letter to the lonesome shore. I'm sure one day I will return to her. Okay, so like a soft DNF. Like, yes, but she's nowhere on my radar right now. That's fair. She it'll be a while before she comes back. So the time to play. Those looks are written in a very specific way. The characters have very specific voices that are honestly, like, I don't recommend that book to anyone, even though I loved it, because like it's I'm I fear, I have fear that I liked it for that moment and that moment only. Uh, and it's just it was not hitting at the time. And that is disappointing because that was like the easiest slam dunk filling of this prompt of all time. The entire thing takes place underwater. So we pivoted. Yeah, what'd you end up going with? I reread Where the Drown Girls Go, which is one of the novellas in the Wayward Children series by Shauna McGuire. You might call it a cop-out. I don't know. You said it, not me. I don't consider it a cop-out because I reread at least two of those books a year. Check my goodreads. It's true. Sometimes I reread all of them. And there's ten. It's a five-star technically on my Goodreads. I don't know. I've read them all so many times that I don't know that I have separate ratings for them really. That's fair. Yeah. They're rereads, so yeah. This series, I've talked about it before. It's follows children who go to the school after they return from whatever world they were meant to be in back to the real world. You follow some of the novellas are at the school, some of the novellas are in the worlds that these kids go to. Where the Drawn Girls Go follows Cora when she goes to a different school than the one that we've been introduced to, and things are very weird. But she, her world is a mermaid world. When we get the uh flashbacks and stuff of what she's doing, it's in her little underwater mermaid world. And it's not mermaid. It's like scary mermaids. It's not Barbie Mermaid. I don't like that.
SPEAKER_01:I only like Barbie Mermadia. The other mermaids scare me, except Ariel. Alright, um, the last one I have for you, and some might say this was me throwing you a bone, was the 2025 most anticipated read or an anticipated read of 2025, since we're only halfway.
SPEAKER_00:This was, in fact, an easy one. I read Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by B. Schwab. I gave it a four, I think, but also I loved it. So I'm confused by myself, but I'll I'll stick by it. I think there are a few things I would change about it. It's not like a perfect read. It follows three three different women and three different time periods. It's toxic lesbian vampires. And like truly need I say more.
SPEAKER_01:No, you don't. I you have me sold. That's on my TBR for July. I know I just borrowed it from you, so I'm excited to get started on that. I've heard really good things.
SPEAKER_00:The level of toxicity, truly incredible. The one I I know we said spoiler, blah, blah, blah. No, because I know you're about to read it. I won't say anybody's names.
SPEAKER_01:Is it the redhead, brunette, or the blonde?
SPEAKER_00:Things change, Sarah. Oh, okay. I'm just going off the photos that I've seen. The the fan edits that are flooding my feed. No, there is one, one of them. She's like literally the worst. The worst character I've ever interacted with in my entire life. And I'm gonna love her. I'm obsessed with love her. She is horrible at every decision she makes, is horrible. She hurts everyone around her, and she like doesn't care. Oh, I'm sold. Yeah, she is for me. Yeah, and there's one character who is like the antithesis of that. And like I think she's who you're supposed to be like, woo-hoo! And I don't care, but like I do think you. Supposed to root for her, but I don't.
SPEAKER_01:I don't I'll keep you all posted next month. That's a good link. I recommend. So that wraps up our core five that we each challenged each other to do. And look at us. We accomplished that. So proud of us. We are going to rapid fire the challenges that we did and the books that we used to accomplish that before we dive into the highs and lows of each of these challenges. You want to start us off?
SPEAKER_00:All right. Bear with me. There's a lot. Things got intense this month. For a book that you wanted to read based on the last sentence, I picked The Bond That Burns by Briar Bowen. For a 2015 pop sugar reading challenge prompt, I picked to do a book that scares you. And I read When the Wolf Comes Home by Nat Cassidy. For Occult, I picked Rain of Shadow and Endings by Melissa K. Rohrick. For under 250 pages, I did Nancy Drew, The Curse of the Arctic Star, I think is what it's called. Got for free. I listened to the first Zodiac Academy book, the dramatized edition on Hoopla. For a less than three-star rating on Goodreads, I did Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca. That's a 2.7 average rating. Whoa. Yeah. For non-traditional education, I did On Wings of Blood by Briar Bolin, which is the first book to the one that I read based on the last sentence. The AI chatbot recommendation based on one of your favorites, I put in One Dark Window and it told me to read Where the Dark Stands Still. For a 2024 prompt, which I chose to read a book with Enemies to Lovers. I doubled up Reign of Shadow and Endings. A happily single protagonist. I doubled up with When the Wolf Comes Home. An unlikely friendship, I doubled up with The Vond That Burns. Reminds you of Childhood. I doubled up with Nancy Drew. Music plays an integral part of the storyline and silver on the cover. I did Insatiable. And it's that's controversial, but Sarah approved. So for a neurodivergent author in Chosen Family, I reread Saving Six by Chloe Walsh. For main characters, an immigrant, a refugee, and an adult character changes careers. I did Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle. Healing Fiction and Road Trip. I read The Poppy Fields by Nikki Ehrlich. And then for the advanced ones, I did Nature as the Antagonist, and I read Servant of Earth, a book titled That Starts With Why. I did You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight. A book you've avoided. I did Say You Swear. Character with Chronic Pain. I did One Among Crows, and a nonverbal character, I read Hunchback. It's a solid list there.
SPEAKER_01:All right, I will run through mine. So for a favorite prompt from 2025, I chose Finish a Book and I read The Passion Project by London Sperry, which I also doubled up with a book that is considered healing fiction. For my highly anticipated read of 2025, I read Overruled by Lana Ferguson, and I doubled that up with a happily single woman protagonist. For an adult character changes careers, I chose Caught Up by Navessa Allen. That is the second book in the Into Darkness series. For the prompt that will fulfill a 2024 prompt that you'd like to do over, I chose the Enemies to Lovers plot and I read Love is a War Song by Danica Nava. And I also used that book to fulfill an unlikely friendship challenge. For my book that was under 250 pages, I chose Out of the Gate by Elsie Silver, and I doubled up there with the featuring an activity on your bucket list. They do a lot of horseback riding and like going to a derby, so that was interesting to me. For my AI recommends a book based on your favorite book, I put in Happy Place by Emily Henry and was recommended The Expo by Jessica Joyce. And I also doubled up on this one for a chosen family challenge. I then read Party of Two by Jasmine Gilroy, and this counted for my main character is a politician, as well as a POC experiencing joy, not trauma. I doubled up again with Serpent and the Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent, and I fulfilled the Snake on a Cover or in the title, as well as Silver on the Cover in the title. Then I finished up Aftertaste by Daria LaBelle for a main character that is an immigrant or refugee. I read The Magic Treehouse Soccer on Sunday by Mary Pope Osborne, and that reminded me of my childhood. And I doubled up since it is also about soccer. I read Love and Focus by Lila Lee, which accomplished the centering on an LGBTQ ⁇ character that is not about coming out. And then finally I did Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reed, which accomplished the space tourism one, which we remixed a little to just be about space. As for my double points or my advanced ones, I chose a left-handed character and I read Love on the Brain by Allie Hazelwood. Then my title that starts with Why, I read You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogel. For a book that features nature as the antagonist, I read Flirting with Disaster by Nina Kumar. And I also read If Not For My Baby by Kate Golden, and that features a character with chronic pain. And finally, I read The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren, and that accomplished the married couple who don't live together challenge.
SPEAKER_00:I did forget one. It wasn't on my list, but I used On Wings of Blood by Briar Bowen to also fulfill the main character as a politician pro. That one got moved around a lot. Okay, so let's talk favorite book of the month you read.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that is hard. Because I've got a lot that I really enjoyed this month, but I'm gonna go with You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogel. So not as hard as I thought it would be, apparently. Over the expo? Oh my god. You were literally like you were dreaming of that. Way it's tied for me then. It's because I knew that this question was gonna come up, and even in my preparation, it was tied for me, but now I just got a little No, I love them equally. I love them equally, I fear. Don't make me choose between my children.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I won't. Thank you. Obviously, two of my core five were five stars. But if we're we're doing something outside of the core five.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I included my core five in that, but just none of them were were my favorite of them all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we just already really dove into the core five, so to give to give some variety on the matter. Um, Servant of Earth by Sarah Hawley was an unexpected hit. It is a more fantasy focus with a subplot of romance versus like a fantasy romance romanticy situation. Has a lot of politics going on. Fae are involved, but it's like traditional fee where they're like spooky, scary, and mean. Those are the good kinds. Yeah. It was good, it was really good. Also, When the Wolf comes home. You did like that. I did.
SPEAKER_01:You didn't finish it. I didn't finish it. I soft DNF'd it for right now. And that's fair. Yeah. Did you get to the twist? No, I didn't even make it into that. Okay. You know, I got really caught up with this, and seeing as how that wasn't accounting for anything for me, I was like, I can't jump and shit.
SPEAKER_00:I don't even think I don't think I rated it like super high. It just was like a very enjoyable fast read. And I think that comes from I was reading a lot of fantasy. Yeah. And then threw in like a quick short horror.
SPEAKER_01:So I had two favorites: The Expoused by Jessica Joyce. I loved that, especially after having not a great experience with her debut, which is you with the view. I ended up DNFing that. And this was really refreshing. And I can see why this would be recommended to me all around. It's a second chance romance. This couple has, you know, broken up and now they are trying to help get their friend's wedding, you know, in the swing of things. And so they are back in the location where they initially fell in love with each other, and they are trying to reconcile the feelings that they have for each other and see what happens next for them. So I really loved that. And I really loved You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogel, which was just announced that it's going to be a film, and I'm so excited, and I cannot wait. This was, I think, one of the books of my dreams because they're already in a relationship with each other. They, these two characters are engaged and they are trying to get married soon. Um, but they seem to have fallen a little bit out of sync with each other. And so it's a little bit of a second chance romance, a little bit of marriage and crisis. We all know how I feel about Out of the Woods by Hannah Bodham Young, which is also marriage in crisis. So I think that I need to read more of this trope. But they kind of just prank each other throughout the entire storyline. And it's a little silly and a little childish, but you see that they again fall back in love with each other and face the feelings that they are having for each other and even with you know what they want in their own lives. And I just thought it was so fun and so meaningful. And the love declarations in both of these top-tier chef's kiss.
SPEAKER_00:The quotes that you showed me from the ex-fouse did make me, in fact, purchase the ex-fouse. Who knows when I'll get to it? We know that's not really my my vibe, but I was about to cry about it. So it's come to my attention. I didn't summarize when the wolf comes home whatsoever. Yeah, yeah. When the wolf comes home, we follow our main character who is a struggling actress. She works at a diner. One night some weird stuff goes on, she gets stuck with a dirty needle cleaning a bathroom, and she's gotta get out of there. And kind of from there on out, it is just hit after hit after hit after hit of weird things occurring. She finds this boy who needs to get away from his dad, and then there's a huge attack of a wolf of some kind, and that's really your starting point. Things veer off. I would caution people that it has horrific elements, but I would say that it would fall more into like a sci-fi horror. But I don't think I want to tell you much more than that because there is like a twist. That's maybe a bad word for it. There's a turning point in the story where it kind of goes a different way than you thought it would. So I don't want to say too much.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've only read one Nat Cassidy, and that was Rest Stop, and that really his writing is excellent.
SPEAKER_00:It's a definite less intense situation than Rest Stop for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Nat Cassidy's writing is excellent. I just, yeah, this wasn't counting for anything for me, and so we did not. Yeah. I guess we'll swap. I know you wanted to talk about our least favorites of the month.
SPEAKER_00:I do, and I have two. Go for it. One is Say You Swear by Megan Brandy. And to my aunt, I apologize. I read it for the prompt of a book you've avoided. She has told me to read that book so many times in my life, and uh, we went to an event together for Megan Brandy. And so I read it, and I am not the target audience. It's a romance, it's brother's best friend, but actually not really. There's a lot going on. We have a love interest, he's not a real love interest. There's a lot of back and forth, and they are teenagers that just finished high school, but the dialogue between them I simply could not do. It very much read like a mother of a teenager who was trying to emulate those teenagers. That's just the truth. She has teenage children. Dang. Um, it was bad. It was the dialogue was really not good. Because in romance, I can forgive like your your very basic descriptions of scenes and settings. Like that's not what we're really here for. It's not world building. Right. And I don't care. I need I would like straightforward because I don't really care about what's going on out there. I need I need the characters and their dynamics and how they think of each other and how they communicate with each other. And that just really wasn't there for me in this. But I'm the first one. That's just it was not ever going to be anything that I loved so much, but it was definitely less enjoyable than I thought. We're the Dark Stand Still by A.B. Pornick, and it I listened to it on audio, and my Goodreads rating truly, it's a three-star, but my review is unbelievably average. And I had to give it a three-star because it didn't do anything wrong, but also it didn't do anything right. It was just like quite literally nothing. There are books that do that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We all have those books. We do. Um, luckily I didn't have that this time around. I had some books that I was extremely excited for that fell kind of flat for me. We got two here. One was Caught Up by Novessa Allen, and I'm sure that I've talked about Lights Out by Nevessa Allen that I did on audio and really loved. So I was very excited for the follow-up to that. I felt that it lacked plot a little bit. We did have some moving parts here, some goals that we were working towards with each of these characters, and some attributes of the main female character that I really enjoyed and was happy to see represented in a book. But overall, it just was a mafia romance sort of. He's moving away from mafia life, the mafia lifestyle, hence why it counted for an adult character changes careers. I was battling with his character in general. I felt like he was a little flat for me, especially since the main male character in Lights Out played such a large role in the story and was such a dynamic character, just didn't hit for me. The second book that I was surprisingly let down by was Love is a War Song by Danica Nava. This was, it hurt. It hurt me to not rate this five stars and to not enjoy it as much as I wanted to. So it's giving Hannah Montana the movie in the very best way. I just, again, didn't feel as connected to the main male character as I wanted to. There were some redeeming qualities that he had there, some good plot points, but overall it just fell flat for me, which is unfortunate. I'm glad that I had a lot of good this month rather than bad.
SPEAKER_00:I think I had just a lot of average experiences. Which prompt did you find that you really wanted to fulfill, but it was hard for you to find it?
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so the one that I really wanted to fulfill that was hard to find was the married couple who don't live together in the advanced section. I really thought that with the romance genre that something would come to me. And it took me very much like until the last week to accomplish this because I simply couldn't find anything. A lot of these times they're two married people, like a marriage of convenience where and they end up living together because they have to because of the circumstances, but not very many times do they not live together. But then I ended up finding the paradise problem by Christina Lauren. And initially I read this or I put this on my radar because I wanted to hit the lives in a luxury or takes place in a luxury resort one. And it ended up being that these two people have been married for three years and have been living apart. That's perfect. It was great. So, so a little bit of a backstory here. They get married so that they can get discounted housing while they're in school. And then after they complete their schooling, they go their separate ways. And a couple years later, five years to be exact, they end up reconnecting and he needs her assistance to pretend to be his wife, but she is legally still his wife from when they lived together three years prior. And she goes on this trip with him to the destination wedding of his sister, and find out that he needs to be married for five years in order to get his inheritance. And so he was married to her for two years and they were living together. And then for the final three years, they were still married and not living together. I really enjoyed it. This was my first Christina Lawrence book in a long time. And I feel like they're back for me. This is something that I want to feel again. I liked, I liked their writing style here. They're so back? They are so back.
SPEAKER_00:Let's go, Christina Lauren. The one that I was really hoping I could fulfill, but based on what my reading trend with reading so much fantasy romance right now, I didn't really know if it was gonna happen. Was the heavily single woman protagonist. Just because we don't like, there's a reason it's a prompt. That's not something that people are reading or writing very frequently. And I was very pleasantly surprised when I picked up When the Wolf Comes Home, because usually in horror there is some like weird little side quest, but that just like truly never comes to fruition. You have her like make a joke about a bad date she had, but at no point is anyone ever a romantic interest for her. So I was glad that I could fulfill it.
SPEAKER_01:I wasn't expecting it to be one that would fit for that, but I was surprised that I was able to fill that, fulfill that one too. And I guess like she ends up in a relationship, but that's not what she sets out to want. Which won't ever. This is overruled by Lana Ferguson. Okay. She has a certain type of dynamic with the main male character, and she's simply happy with that. She's also a divorce lawyer, so she thinks that I don't need to be in a relationship. I don't want a relationship. I'm fine with the way that things are. And then suddenly this man's out here whisking her off her feet and she's like, um, not really interested in this. I would like to keep things as they are, and he's like really trying. And ultimately she's like, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00:Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe I like this guy. Maybe I want to be in a relationship. But for a big chunk of it, she is perfectly fine being single. What about a prompt that we wish that we could have accomplished this month?
SPEAKER_00:I think mine for this challenge that I wish I could have done was a POC character experiencing joy, not trauma. I exclusively read fantasy or trauma-based contemporary real world books this month. So any chance, any semblance I had of that gone out the window. Everything was tragic, everything was sad. Or obviously in fantasy, there is like a lot of struggle and there's trauma and stuff. But I also we kind of talked about it when we were talking about this challenge in general because some of these things I had to take liberties with with what I read. Like a politician, I mean, he's not a senator, but he is a politician within the world that he exists in. And there were a few that me and you talked about where I was like, I just don't feel like like I can interpret it. The refugee one or immigrant one was one we had also dissected. And like, it's not what the challenge is trying to do. Like, yeah, in a lot of my fantasy books, there are people that are immigrants or refugees, but that's not what the challenge is trying to do. The challenge is trying to get you to read diversity in our world. And so, sure, there were things that like I probably could have counted somewhere, some character who is a a POC, but like what does that mean in a fantasy world? Yeah. Like it's just it's not equating the same way. So that's definitely one that if I had a different selection of books, I would have definitely liked to check off.
SPEAKER_01:That's fair. For me, it is probably the interconnected short stories. Cause I do a lot of short stories. Throughout the year. I just could not find something that was fitting for me for this. And I tried. I just ended up DNFing. It was not sitting right with me.
SPEAKER_00:Interconnected is hard. Because like what what do you deem that as? It is. Because like, do you deem the one Eric LaRocca that's all about animals? They're not technically interconnected, but they have an interconnected theme and topic.
SPEAKER_01:So like where do you where do you draw the line of interconnected? Like as you know, Tommy Orange. He has they're interconnected. It's it's the same like story or place, just told through different POVs, and you get different people's backgrounds and their thoughts. So is that interconnected short stories, or is that just different POVs? I know that I just mentioned it's different POVs, but it's every chapter focuses on one single person. And sometimes we get that person back and sometimes we don't. So is the subtitle a novel?
SPEAKER_00:If it isn't, I think if it isn't, you can count it.
SPEAKER_01:It might be.
SPEAKER_00:Because you read there there, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01:Not this mom. So yeah, that was a little hard for me to kind of um it was hard for me to navigate that challenge. But I am like pretty proud of myself and surprised of the ones that I was able to accomplish. Sometimes those are things I not overlook in a story, but I get so engrossed in the story that I'm not focusing on that element of it.
SPEAKER_00:One thing that I will say that I was shocked, I didn't like that nothing that I was reading qualified for it was a left-handed main character. Because I read a lot of fantasy and I feel like fantasy is probably the best place to look for someone to mention what their dominant hand is because of fighting, swords, training, whatever. And yeah, nothing that I had. And I was I was shocked. I thought that that would be one that was like a sneak, a sneak one for me, but no, nothing.
SPEAKER_01:I'm still surprised about the luxury resort one. Like you did try to con yeah, I didn't try to con you did.
SPEAKER_00:You did not expect me to remember that I asked you that. Well, it's falling apart.
SPEAKER_01:To be fair, it fell apart because they got hit by like a tornado or a bad rainstorm.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, but it's not a luxury resort when everything is falling apart and it's some Neva Valley. Anyway, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So that wraps up our highs and lows of the month. But let's talk about how the challenge went for us. Because this was fun. It it doesn't sound like that's believable, but it was fun.
SPEAKER_00:It was fun until it wasn't.
SPEAKER_01:It was fun until I got too competitive. But in all seriousness, though, it was very enjoyable. And I think that I want to do the pop sugar challenge just personally for myself, just to see what I can accomplish throughout the year. It also gives me things to look out for while I'm reading. And if I don't have a book that fits that, then going and searching for that, which was fun because it opened up to my backlog TBR.
SPEAKER_00:I agree with that. As someone who like certifiably is a mood reader. Like I have concepts of like new releases and stuff that I want to read. And like usually those happen, but I you're a little bit more regimented with like this is what I want to read, this is what I have to read for review. Like, you're a little bit more regimented. I'm not as much. And so that was fun for me. But then it also got to a point where I was like, okay, I simply need to be free of the shackles, and I need to read literally anything that is not something I've already predetermined for this challenge. But that didn't really happen until the last like week or so. It was fun. It was fun to find the books. I won't say that I always thought it was fun feeling like boxed in by things. It was fun to see different things that like we both fulfill but with different books. And it was a good, a good testament to like we do read and like the same thing sometimes. I feel like on this podcast it doesn't always sound like that because we're trying to provide a big like range of different things. And um we we kinda go in like our tried and true like fantasy romance when we come together on horror. But I feel like we we did some sim like we did some of the same litfic this mom. I swear, we do like the same thing sometimes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, this was a good testament to that for sure. I do agree with you that last week dragged and there was a point where I said, It's over, I'm done, I can't do it anymore. Um then she did through. And then she still tried to win. I still did. Um, but yeah, it you know, you still try to pull through at the end there and see if you can squeeze one last book in, even though you've given up earlier in the week. It's it's like you said, you you're feeling boxed in by the choices that you made early on, and you want to be able to just choose anything sometimes and be a mood reader. So it's gonna be good to have that choice. It's felt in July.
SPEAKER_00:Like last night.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_00:I'm looking forward to it. We're done. I have time that I could I could have finished something that would have given me two more points, and I'm already in the middle of it. And I was like, I can't, I can't, I can't have this happening to me anymore. So naturally, because I mean I don't ever do anything normally, I started three different books last night.
SPEAKER_01:Three, three, and I'll let y'all sit with that as we tell you who won um our checked out challenge of 2025. Drumroll, please. As we tell you who won our pop sugar checked out challenge of 2025, I amassed a total of 35 points this month, Tessa.
SPEAKER_00:I got 37 points. Woo! And it truly hurts Sarah to hear. It does.
SPEAKER_01:No, it does hurt, actually. I've got tears in my eyes, but it's fine. I will bring you your Big B drink next week. I forgot there was something on the line. Oh, then I shouldn't even have said anything. Well, now you have. I will.
SPEAKER_00:You wouldn't have been disingenuous like that.
SPEAKER_01:No, I wouldn't have just kept that from you. No. That concludes this month's episode. We will catch up with you next month, where we will be discussing Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle, which is a book that we both read for this challenge, but didn't get a chance to dive into. So that's what we will be covering for our checked out book club. And if you would like to hear more content like this, please reach out to us at ghpl at greenhillslibrary.org.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you guys so much for listening. This has been episode 11, Checked Out Challenge. I'm Tessa. I'm Sarah, and we're checked out.