A Psychic Reading Inspired Rebecca Serle's Bestselling Novel | Booked & Busy

Rebecca Serle is officially Booked & Busy 📖🌊

Okay so I need to set the scene. I started reading 'In Five Years' on a 6-hour bus ride to the Kelly Slater Surf Ranch surrounded by surfers who absolutely did not care about the emotional spiral I was having. I finished it on the way back... was not okay. Stared at the wall for a minimum of 30 minutes after the last page and had so many questions. A few weeks later I somehow ended up sitting across from the author herself, and that's why I love this podcast!!

We get into EVERYTHING. The full breakdown of In Five Years (spoilers included so be sure to pay attention to the timestamps), the psychic prophecy that actually inspired the entire book and turned out to be true, why Rebecca wrote that ending, and a peek into her brand new book 'Once and Again.' We also talk about motherhood, growing apart from friends, why happy marriages don't make interesting novels, and sooo much more!!!

Grab a drink and snack and let's get into it 🎀

xoxo,
Olivia

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi angels, welcome back to another episode of Booked and Busy. This is my podcast for the girlies who love to read. Hashtag hot girlsread. On this podcast, we deep dive the books that make us ball our eyes out until four o'clock in the morning, or the books that you know you cancel your plans because you're like, I just need to go home and read my book. Aka what I do most nights that I'm supposed to go out. Today we have an author whose book actually left me speechless. A lot of questions I have to deep dive with her. Rebecca Cyril is a best selling author. She has One Italian Summer in Five Years, and then the book that just recently came out, which is Once and Again. Today we're gonna be chit-chatting about both of these and then a little bit about One Italian Summer. So if you're a Rebecca Cyril fan, let's get into it. Rebecca Cyril, welcome to Booked and Busy. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. I finished in five years. This was four days ago. I'm sorry. I was started reading it on my way to the Kelly Slater wave pool. And it's only supposed to be like a two and a half hour drive. It was six hours. So you can I read pretty much the entire time. And then I finished on my way back and I was like, wow, I was on this bus with a bunch of surfers who just like don't really, I mean they have feelings, but they're very just like whatever. And I'm there bawling my eyes out. And I'm like, okay. First of all, for people who have not read the book, I always like to give them like a little synopsis from you. So do you want to give a quick little like elevator pitch? Let's start with In Five Years.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Okay. So In Five Years is um the story of Danny Cohen. She is a young, um, like 30-something corporate lawyer living in New York. And she has like a very airtight five-year plan. Um, we meet her on the night of her engagement to her like perfect boyfriend. Anyway, they come home, she falls asleep on the couch, and she wakes up five years later in an apartment she's never been before with a man she's never met before, lives an hour in that future. I'm so obsessed. And then wakes up up from her normal life and is like, that must have been a dream. And then four and a half years go by and we meet the man who is in that hour with her. It's by the way, it's been a minute. This book came out in six years ago. Actually, exactly six years ago, March 10th of 2020. Today? Yes, today. Wow. March 10th of 2020. And it's been a minute since I it's been a minute since I pitched that book. So how did I do? 10 out of 10.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

I feel like you I have a very toxic trait. I don't read blurbs of books. I judge the book off the cover. And if I like the cover, I'm like, okay, I should be into this. What's this cover giving to you? Well, it's New York City, and nine times out of ten, if a book is based in New York City, I'm gonna like it because I live here and I can kind of relate to it. And I felt like the way that you wrote about the different parts of New York City, like Murray hit, like I could see myself in those situations. Not that I'm a corporate lawyer by any means, but I felt like I know people like that. So it kind of felt like a sense of home to me. So that was my judgment off the cover.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I completely get that. At the time that I wrote in five years, I lived in New York. I no longer do. I now live in Los Angeles, but I'm back here promoting once and again. And um I feel like very nostalgic for in five years every time I publish a new book and I return to New York. Because I feel like I'm returning, like I'm slipping kind of back into that self of mine.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Do these in any world? I mean, I don't think they live in the same world, but but their covers do. Speaking of covers. When I saw, because when I finished this book, I basically stared at a wall for like at least 30 minutes. I'm not, I'm, I was so confused. And we'll get into that into a little bit because I was like, Yeah, what? And I'm sure everyone has the same reaction. But okay, talk to me a little bit about this and what world it lives in.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I feel like it's definitely a return to form in terms of in terms of the cov covers and also some of just the thematics. So once and again, it's about three generations of women, Lauren, Marcella, and Sylvia, a mother, daughter, grandmother. And um, they were each born with a gift, which is a silver ticket, the ability to go back in time and undo one thing from their past. And so it's the story of these three women and their complicated relationships to the ticket and to each other, and the story of how they use their do-over, each one of them. And it takes place, I mean, you were just talking about Kelly Slater's surf rant, like who's like it's mentioned, which is very funny because it's mentioned in the book. Oh, I'm gonna leave this. It's a book that has a lot to do with surf culture, and it takes place in Malibu. Okay. I now live in Los Angeles, takes place in Malibu. Um, and so it's a lot about surf culture, and but also like Kelly Slater's in that book, and they um what is small? ostensibly Stone, who is the like hot, sexy love interest. Not Kelly Slater, but he's opening his own like surf ranch basically. So the whole conceit of what you're talking about is also in the book, which is very just coincidental and funny, and I like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

So, for people who don't know, I was at the Kelly Slater wave pool this past Tuesday and Wednesday, I believe it was. I went with Red Bull, and I've dreamed of going to the wave pool, but it's like a ridiculous amount of money for one day. I'm not paying for that. So Red Bull did it. Thanks, guys. And I got barreled for the first time, and that was a crazy emotion to feel. Have you surfed for a while? Um, I probably started two-ish years ago. Okay. And where? Like here or Oahu. Oh, okay. I used to like live on and off in Hawaii for like about a year and a half-ish, two years. I would just like rent places for the winter, and then I would my one of my best friends lived there, so I would just go and visit her. I'm from Maui. I know. Not Oahu, crazy. Like very I've never been to Maui and I don't know how I never have. I've been to, I think, four of the islands. Kauai. I've been to Kawaii. Yeah. I've been to Lanai and I've been to Big Island. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

Maui's so close. Maui is a very interesting island in that it has a little bit of everything. Like I would say it has a lot of just like the kind of untouched and raw beauty that Kawaii has, but there's some in the city of like Oahu. Um, I also really love Big Island. I had a baby last year and we took, we did a baby moon and we we were like my parents still live on Maui. We were like, we're not coming to see you, we're going to the Big Island. And we stayed at the Montalani, and it was so just like those beaches, like the beaches on Big Island, I feel like are untouched. But anyway, it's like it's definitely informed by, I mean, I have never been a big surfer, but I grew up in Hawaii. Like I went to the kind of high school where in the morning everybody had their surfboards in the back of their pickup trucks and we're like toweling off from the beach. Like that's just like what you did at 5 a.m. Sorry before school. I did a little, I did a little bit, but like I never really took to it. Why? I don't know. It's so crazy to me. I was honestly like a born New Yorker, just like trapped in the body of somebody who was like living, like cosplaying somebody who lived in Hawaii. But I feel like Hawaii and Malibu have a lot in common in terms of like when you live in a place where the water is so like omnipresent, I think it really establishes a lot about what the culture is. And I think people are like really drawn back to the water. Like I think people who are who grew up surfing in particular like want to return to the place where they can be in conversation with the water in that way.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah, a lot of my friends that live in Hawaii, they also go to Los Angeles for a few months. I mean, honestly, a lot of my friends are like tour surfers, so they're like going to 12 different countries and boffing all around. Yes. But the ones that are a little bit more chill, I feel like they go to either like pepper dine for surfing or just live in the Malibu lifestyle if they can. Because you still get that sense of like city and you're able to work, but you also kind of sometimes have waves all the time. But sometimes. Yes, but sometimes. That was my hardest part with Hawaii's. It's a very slow lifestyle. Yeah. And coming from New York to there, I'd love it for like four weeks. And then after four weeks, I'd be like, I'm going crazy. Why does no one have a job? I know. I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I know. I know. I say to my husband all the time, and every time inevitably we get back there, like you're saying, for like the first four days, I'm like, we should live here. Like, what a beautiful place to raise our daughter. Like LA's awesome, but it has its its share of issues. I think particularly I'm feeling it now, like now that I'm a mom. But but yeah, we get a weekend and I'm like, okay, now what?

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Well, this kind of all ties back to in five years. Yeah. Because the topic of friendship is obviously very prominent prominent in this book. Is it prominent in this?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

In Once and Again, I would say it's more about familial dynamics and it's a lot about mothers and daughters. Like I've talked a little bit about before. I have a book called One Italian Summer that takes place in in Italy in Positano and is a mother-daughter love story. And once and again is as well. It just comes at it from a little bit of a different angle, I would say. Okay. Interesting. But I like to write, like I think mostly what I do is I write love stories that are not necessarily romantic love stories at their core. Like there is a romance in Once and Again. Um, but the love story predominantly is between Lauren and Marcella and Marcella and Sylvia and Lauren and Sylvia. Um and I think in In Five Years, you know, there is a romance in it, but the book is really predominantly about Danny and Bella's friendship and and relationship. And so I'm very interested in exploring like kind of alt love stories at the center and letting romance kind of be like the surrounding atmosphere.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Which I applaud you for that because I feel like I haven't read that many books. Cause you do such an excellent job where at the core it is about a friendship romance or like just a friendship soulmateness of it. And because again, I didn't really know what I was walking myself into. You know, I'm starting the book and I'm like, okay, New York, like this is my vibe. That like immediately drawed me in because I was like, I can relate to this. This is familiar to me. I can like see myself walking down the street that she's explaining. And then it kind of takes this turn where Bella's introduced, and I saw myself in Bella a lot in a lot of the ways where she's very spontaneous and she flies to Paris for whatever reason, then flies to Spain. And it's like that is literally me. When I was 18, I was had no sense of responsibility. And honestly, until I was like 21, I was like this. And I would just go to Spain for a month, and I'd go to south of France for three weeks, and I would just like kind of pop around, go to Tahiti, go to Hawaii, and just had no responsibilities with my life. And I saw that within Bella, and I was like, wow, I can relate to that. Obviously, throughout the book, I do not relate to her because of what she goes through. But having that sense of friendship with Danny, like almost kind of made me emotionally sad because I've always craved that friendship that you've had with someone where it's like, no matter where in the world, Danny will always be there for you. And that's the part that I feel like I resonated with the most in this book. And honestly, I think I was just jealous.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Like that at the core of it. I think that that's well said. I mean, I think that the friendship love story is very aspirational. And I think that when I wrote it, I was single and my friends were really like my family. And I think in a way that they really can be before people have families. I think part of the like unglamorous reality of that kind of friendship is that inevitably some sacrifices have to be made for like the differing lives that you start to lead, right? Like your lives grow in different directions and some people get married or some people don't, or and it becomes more and more challenging to prioritize each other, which is why I say it's so aspirational because I feel like it it becomes very rare to have friendships like that that are like really so core. I'm I'm very lucky that I do, but I think that they've also changed as we've like started families of our own because I think there's just a logistical practical reality to life where we can't always drop everything to be there for your best friend. Yes. The idea of it sounds like really lovely. The practical reality is just not always that way. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that I even myself find like I long for.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

You were saying that you kind of drew inspiration from like the friend group that you had. Was there like a specific person that kind of inspired this book, or was it just like what you were going through?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I think that the like Bella isn't necessarily based off of anyone in my life, but I think the relationship between Danny and Bella is based off of like three very close friends of mine. Um, and I pulled a little bit from each relationship.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

I think that's so cute.

SPEAKER_00 11:43

Yeah. It was a like a very particular moment writing that book. It was the last book I wrote uh before I left New York for Los Angeles. And I actually ended up I I wrote it when I was still living here, and by the time it published, I was living in LA. And um I wrote a large portion of it LA in LA, which was also really different because it is like to me, it's like such a New York book. And again, I was like, I feel nostalgic for it even uh when I'm here. And so yeah, it really it brings me back to that particular moment in my life, and I always really enjoyed talking about it. Wow. Oh well, I can see it like radiating off your face.

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Were you a Hamptons girl when you lived here?

SPEAKER_00 12:18

A little bit, a little bit because you had it. I mean, I I think it's hard not like I was here for so long, I was here for 12 years, and so I think, yes, at a certain point I I did became and we did the summer thing kind of a little off and on. Um, I would also like travel a lot in in the summers, and I was I don't I did a lot of traveling alone, I did a lot of traveling with friends, and then I also like I started getting more and more into sort of the world of my adaptations, and I think in about 2015 or 2016, I had a television show called Famous and Love that shot in Los Angeles. It was based off of a young adult series of mine, and so I started spending like summers and long periods of time in LA, and then the two kind of like merged together living there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

How long have you been in New York? 2021, so five years. Yeah, coming up. I don't know how I feel about it yet. I lived in Los Angeles for about a year. Not really a fan. Yeah. Not really a fan, but also equally, if I could relate this back to my life, when I moved to LA, if you would have told me that I lived in New York, I would have not believed you. Right. Like this book hit me with a lot of realizations that I feel like I have not experienced through any other piece of literature. Is that something that you were trying to get people to feel while you were writing it, like in the writing process, or was that something that just like came about?

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I'm always hoping that people read what I write and say, like, yeah, it's like recognize portions of their life in it. And I think like actually, I just like to give a little writer advice. Um, I think the more specific you can make something, the more general it can be felt. So, like if you really drill down into a character's life, which is always what I try to do, ultimately you get to like the bottom, bottom, bottom, and at the like bottom, bottom, bottom is the truth. And I'm always hopeful that I will hit that at some point in my books and that it will make the reader say like yes, to recognize it, to say, like, you're saying something that I feel about my own life. And so I try to do that in all of in all of my books. But the one thing I'll say, just to return to your personal, like your your personal geographic life for a second. I feel like LA is many different things. And I lived there, I went to USC, so I like lived there for a while in college, and I absolutely hated it. I felt like it was so materialistic. Like I was just like in a scene that was like just very I don't know what else to say it. It was like very materialistic. It was very like just the town, and that's not my life anymore. And so I think like I had like miscategorized LA as being just like this one thing, and I think that actually LA is many different things and is kind of reflective of like the era that you are in. And so what I would say is like you don't like you could return to a totally different Los Angeles if at any point you decided that you wanted to do that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Does that make sense? No, I I would agree because I've recently been spending, I came last night, I took a red eye from LA. Similarly, when I was there what five years ago, it felt very plastic and fake, and people weren't necessarily the nicest. And I it it just felt very like what can you offer me? And if you can't offer me anything, then I don't want to be your friend. And that was a really weird dynamic for me to be in when I was 18. Because I was like, oh, this is how the whole world works.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

It's very claustrophobic and like and um transactional.

SPEAKER_02 15:19

It can be. But then the most recent time that I went, I just tanned every day, went surfing, then hung out with like a few people. I feel like I relate to what you were saying. It was like a different era that I'm in now that I'm older now that I can like kind of decipher people and put up those boundaries of like, okay, I actually don't want to be friends with you, and that is okay. We are at points of our life. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

That's a lot actually of like once and again as well. It's like the main character, Lauren. She grew up in Malibu, but she doesn't live there anymore. She lives in West Hollywood, and like the book kind of brings her back to Malibu, back to her childhood home and back to her ex, actually Stone, who like who returns to the beach also. And I think it's about that. It's about like coming back to a place changed, like you you being changed, and kind of like seeing the different elements of what what a location can offer, I think, in the different eras of our lives. And it's something that I think about, and I think is really interesting. One of the big things of Once and Again is like wherever you go, there you are. Um that's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah, but like we take our take ourselves and our our circumstances and our set of issues with us because they're real they're ours to face no matter where we are in the world.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

That's really gonna be a therapy read for me. I'm not gonna lie. Because I feel like part of my life is like romanticizing and fantasizing about places that I can go and be a different version of myself. Yeah. Does that make any sense? Of course. That when I first went to Hawaii and I just like lived a completely different lifestyle, nobody knew me, so I had no like expectations of what people wanted out of me or things like that. And well, that just made me an entire group of friends, and that was something that I'd never really had before growing up with my childhood. I I wasn't in like the friend group that you had in middle school and high school, and that was the first time where it like it kind of healed me because I was like, whoa. I do want to deep dive this a little bit. Yeah, you have some questions, but please I think you wrote the perfect nightmare. That's how I kind of describe it. I don't know if you've heard that before. Because I think like an icebreaker question that you get asked quite often when you're younger is like, what's your five-year plan? Even when you're going into a job interview, like, where do you see yourself in five years? And that's always been a very weird question for someone to ask me because I don't want to know. I'm like, I don't know, I could be living in Thailand and I would be the happiest girl ever. So I say like perfect nightmare because in a weird world that would be cool to see. And I think when you hear the question, you're like, wow, like maybe I would really enjoy doing that and having that hour nightmare or dream where you wake up and you're in your current living situation with whomever you may end up with. But at the same time, then for those four and a half years, I mean, Danny quite literally takes us through. I don't know if she necessarily feels anxiety with it, but like she knows what's coming and she tries to stop it, but doesn't really end up stopping it. So, what was the process of like those four and a half years? How did you write that? Was it always going to be that she was going to end up in the apartment that Bella created for her with him? Or was that something that like came as you write as you were writing?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I talk a lot about how I am really interested in exploring just the dialogue and the conversation between fate and free will, how much is in our control and how much is gonna happen regardless of the choices that we make. Like I find that sort of that conversation to be very compelling. And so I knew ultimately that we were gonna live that hour again, but I knew that it was gonna have very different meaning. I'll tell you something. In five years was inspired almost entirely from this medium reading who gave me a psychic prophecy about my love life. Wait, yeah, that's kind of crazy. I I was I think 24 and she told me who my future husband would be. And like, what if you're gonna be able to do that? You wanted to know that? Yeah, at the time, at the time. Now I'm like, now like five years really scares me because I'm like, oh my god, I hope everyone I love is healthy. But like anyway, I um I she told me she told me a prophecy about like who my future husband would be and like what his name was and like how I would meet him and when.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Was it true?

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Um, yeah, and it was all true, and I ended up meeting him, except one thing was off. Um we're grazing over that. That's crazy. We met under the guise, and she said this. It would be like work, but also like maybe like a setup and whatever. And then, and then like the timing was just like it was honestly off by a day. It was the craziest thing ever. And so I ended up, thank God it didn't work out, because I ended up meeting my husband. Oh, you didn't and oh, you didn't know. No, who was like my genuine, like true soulmate. And like honestly, like I could not imagine my life without him. But when I was thinking like about how crazy, like this prophecy, and then I ended up meeting him, but like it's not it's him, but it like's not him. And this idea that even if we can see what's coming, we can't see what it will mean. And that was like the thesis became the entry point of in five years that you can see, you could maybe see what's coming. Like we have ideas about our lives and like how they're gonna turn out and what we want, and we can build and we can plan, but we can't ever actually know what the things that we want will look like or feel like in our actual life once we're there. And so I think like for me, the things that I'm like the most grateful for in my life that are so foundational are things that like really honestly, I wasn't building or planning for at all. They were just in line with the feeling that I wanted to create in my life. I I would never have like necessarily envisioned that like I would end up in my husband with my husband in the way that we met. We actually we met online and then he looked really familiar and I asked him if we had ever been out before, and he's like, No. Um, but I had we had been set up by somebody like seven years before that, but we never met in person. And he always like will joke with me and say, like, we could have had those seven years, but you stood me up. And I say, like, isn't it amazing and beautiful to know that what's meant to be becomes like no matter how long it takes, like what is meant to be becomes. And so I always knew that Danny would live that hour, but it would when she got there, it would be the exact same hour, but because of the knowledge she had about how she got there, it would have a totally different meaning. And that was the point.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

You set me up perfectly for my next question because while I was reading, I was very confused and I would love some clarifying clarification. So obviously, but Bella, unfortunately, this is a spoiler if you have not read the book. Bella unfortunately passes away, gives her this beautiful apartment. He brings her there. I felt like it went from them grieving to them being together, and then to him leaving. Like how I was literally left speechless. I was like, what just happened? Why did they s why did they hook up? Is that is that a reason normal question?

SPEAKER_00 21:53

No, totally. It's always funny, like like what ends up really sticking or like bothering, and I'm like interested to know what it will be with one. Again, because definitely within five years, it's that. Like, I get it. Like, the book's been out for six years now, and like people talk about this all the time to me. But I think the idea being like, she's so overcome in that first hour, she's so overcome by this feeling of like what it feels like to be in that environment. And she thinks it's she names it as love because it feels so intense. And when she gets to that hour, she realizes that feeling of what she's feeling is actually grief. It made sense to me in the writing that they would be together because I think that they're drawn together by their mutual love of this person and like the great, great loss that's taken place between them. And like I think in being together, they're trying to just like bring her back to recapture that. And it also made perfect sense to me that, of course, that they, you know, spoiler alert, that they wouldn't ultimately end up being together because it's not a like it's not about that. There's a little bit of like, I don't know how to say it, but like infidelity in all of my books.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

And um because I thought I came up from a place where I was like, when she meets him, she obviously recognizes him from the dream, but she never tells Bella. So that I kind of felt bad for Bella on because I'm like, well, clearly they end up together, but then it's kind of like really sad that I'm like, she can, I don't really think she can ever tell him. Yeah, there's a lot of emotions going through my head when I was reading this.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Cause I think that that that's just like that's a lot of life. I think the reality is is very messy and complicated. And I think oftentimes like situations and like real relationships are never one thing. There are many emotions layered on top of each other. Um, and I think like all of my books have a little bit, people people tend to like not like it so much that my books have a little bit of infidelity. And once and again, like definitely deals with um with like an ex from the past. And um I always like to say to my husband, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, honey, just to remember, like, happy marriages don't make interesting novels. Like they just don't. Like nobody wants to read about a happy marriage. Like, that's not interesting to people. Like, where's the like where's the conflict? Um, this is not like my feeling. Yeah. This is this is just like the reality of the situation.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Makes sense. Okay. If you were to hope someone would take one thing away, we'll start with in five years. What do you hope that they would take from this?

SPEAKER_00 24:11

I think that for in five years, I would say that like life is gonna happen and doing our best with what we're given. Um, and also like enjoying the moment and not worrying too much because I think the things that we worry about happening don't, and the things that like actually end up blindsiding us like come out of left field. And so I would say like live presently is probably the theme of in five years.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Now, similarly for once and again.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

For once and again, I would say it's about second chances, and it's I think it's the reason I say it's similar to In Five Years is that I think it's a lot about um the choices we make versus the life that we're given and like how much power do we have. Obviously, in this one, Lauren has the power to go back and to and to undo something, but like how much of a difference actually does the past necessarily and different pasts make in like where we ultimately end up. Um, and I would say it's also really a book about how like our our mothers, ourselves, like the lineage of women, like we're all doing the best that we can. It's our first time too. Um, I wrote this book when I was like newly married and um and like very much wanting to be a mother and and like thinking about my my journey to get there. And um, and I think that like becoming a mom has just made me really appreciate and realize my mom so much more because I I see like, oh, it's your five first time too. Like you don't like nobody gets a manual for how to do this, for how to be human. We're all we're all just doing our best. Um and so I would say that that's a big part of Once and Again. Wow. I'm gonna read this and then like cry to my mom. I really, I really think you're gonna enjoy it because it it's so like kismet that you came in talking about surfing.

SPEAKER_02 25:48

When they sent that you were from Miami, I was like, wait a damn minute.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yeah. Hold on, we have some stuff to talk about. Yeah. Because I think you would also agree that like surfing, you know, I think once and again is also really a book about like presence and like being present in the moment that we're in in our life. And I think like there is no sport, there's nothing that requires that level of presence, like being like surfing and being in sync with the ocean in that way. The ocean is really like I think a metaphor for life itself. Like you can do everything right and still be blindsided out of nowhere. Yeah. Shark could just come up and fumble you, you know, you never know. But it's beautiful in that way too.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

But so if there was a perfect reader for this, who would you give it to?

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I would give it to like any mother of an adult daughter. I would give it to any any daughter of an adult mother, which I guess makes no sense, but like women. Um, and I think like one thing that I find really fun and interesting about Once and Again, which which was really true on One Italian Summer, would was that like the book was read across so many generations and there were so many mother-daughter book clubs, and that made me so happy. And people, you know, still take the one Italian summer trip to go to Positano with their moms. And so my hope is that Once and Again does the same thing that it becomes a book that can be read across generations. Mothers and daughters, I would say. Um, and then I also think like anyone contemplating, I think like the moment that they're at in their life, whether you're it's a book about young marriage too, um, and being on the precipice of motherhood. And so I think for all of my readers in in their 30s, that's that's I think a big part of it too. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

If you could make this book have two parents. Two parents? Yes. Of other books? Like of other books.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Well, I no one's I've made like a lot of questions over the course of my career. No one has ever asked me that before.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

This was a baby of two books. What was two books?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

That's a good question. Like a little sliver. I'm honored. Oh, I love that. I mean, I would say I guess that there's definitely like there has to be some Taylor Jenkins read, like some Malibu rising in there. I could see that. I just think it would be like hard to talk necessarily about like Malibu and different, also like different eras of Malibu and not reference that book. Um, I also this is like this is so niche, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Um, there's a book called The Hours, and it was made into a movie like many, many years ago. Julianne Moore and uh Virginia Wolf, and then also like one of her characters, Mrs. Dalloway. I'm pretty sure I'm getting this right, but it's about kind of like these three generations of women living in three different eras. And um, I would say, I would say that in Malibu Rising, which is the craziest mathem ever. But by the way, like I actually think, right? Yeah, yeah, I actually think that that's accurate about once and again. So I'm gonna go with that.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

Great, great parents to have. Because I was even thinking for this, like in five years, if this could be a baby who would be the mom and dad.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Honestly, I think like the two opening quotes would probably be I feel bad about my neck, Nora Efron, and then Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins. Well, because the quote at the beginning is about um Do you wanna read it? You read it. Okay. Okay, so the future is the one thing you can count on not abandoning you, kid, he'd said. The future always finds you. Stand still and it will find you the way the land just has to run to see. That's Evidence of Things Unseen by Marianne Wiggins, who fun fact was my was my mentor in college. Wow. But I think like that really encapsulates the book. Yeah. The future's gonna find you. Like even if you stand still, even if you never leave your house. These things have a way of like, if they're meant for you, they do find you. And then coming over the bridge to Manhattan, pie, nor ephron. And that's I'm pretty sure from I feel bad about my neck. Wow. Are there quotes in this one? There's not an opening quote in once in a get. I only really do it if there's something that like so distinctly nails the book. Okay. The real inside truth is that most of the time what you want to do is quote song lyrics. And because of a very complicated legal permission structure, you can't. Really? Yes. Most of the time when you don't see an opening quote in my book, it's because like I want it. You can, you can, you can ask me. Like, DM me and ask me because it's usually a song lyric that I just like couldn't get permissions to.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Since this book is about do-overs, obviously. If you could have a do-over, would you take that do-over? And what would the do-over be?

SPEAKER_00 29:58

No, I would not take the do-over. And I think that I'm in a very like privileged position to get to say that because I think that I'm like, knockwood, my parents are here, um, my in-laws are here, my husband, my daughter is healthy. Like we have a very, very blessed life. And so I think that blessed life allows me to say no. I mean, God forbid, if something tragic happened, of course, like anybody I think in a story of total tragedy would use it. And so I'm lucky to get to say no. But like, certainly there are hard things that I've gone through in my life, but I I feel like all of it has really brought me to where I am now. And I'd be afraid, which is a little bit of Sylvia's story, the grandmother, is that like she keeps well, I'm not gonna say that because the book just came out today. I'm not I'm not prepared to spoil it yet. But yeah, I I wouldn't, would you?

SPEAKER_02 30:45

No.

unknown 30:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

There's some things that when I was younger, I wish I could have changed about my childhood and treatment that I received. But that treatment is what made me so strong and have such strong boundaries within my life. From when I was 17, 18, I was forced to grow up like literally in six months. And I went from being treated like a kid by my parents to being treated like a 30-year-old adult by people in the industry. So that was like I shut up. And yeah, that was immensely hard for my mental health and like honestly very jarring. But I wouldn't be who I am today. I definitely I do not think that I act like the average 23-year-old. That could be wrong, I'm not sure. No, it's not true. But thank you. But I wouldn't rather it be any other way. Yeah. I'm interested on both of these because the concept of traveling in time or having the ability to travel back in time is very interesting because I feel like a lot of people would take that chance.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

Listen, time is our most precious resource. And I always my grandmother used to say, no one gets out of here alive. And like we know for certain that we we have a finite amount of it, that we all do. But I think our whole lives are really kind of set up in in like antithesis to that idea. Like we are in opposition towards it. We don't want to think about it. Yeah. And so I think a lot of times as a writer, like I am interested in delving into the uncomfortable corners. Like, I'm I I like to write about what it is that I'm wrestling with that ends up coming out.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Beautiful writer. Beautiful writer.

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

I'd never been so like in cat like I was just like it really means a lot to me. I mean, listen, I grew up only wanting to be a novelist. I was writing like little stories and books since the time I was a kid. The fact that I get to do this full time, the fact that I have like readers who who like love and wait for my books, like the fact that this is now my I don't even know, like eighth novel, maybe. Um, once and again. I'm just I'm just really, really grateful and and very blessed that I get to do it. And I genuinely really love it. Like I can't imagine. I always say, like, I'm really lucky it worked out because I have no other discernible skills.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Like that. I'm like, um, would you ever in any world make a sequel to this book? Because what's up with Dr. Shaw? I know. You you left that, and that's why I was guaranteed there was a sequel.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

I don't know. In five years is one of those things like You want to leave it? Yes. I feel like it feels finished to me. Um, I never thought about re-entering a world before the last couple months. And I'm I'm like I'm thinking about it now, and I'm not gonna say on which book, but like I'm starting to think about it a little bit more. Well I don't know. In five years is an interesting one because I think there's definitely, I mean, there are definitely stories to tell, but at the same time, In Five Years had a very magical ending. And I don't mean that in terms of like magical realism, although of course that's present in the book. I mean that in terms of my experience writing it. Like I remember, I remember like finishing it and finishing the last paragraph and then those two final sentences, and nothing about the last chapter changed. Like in all of the rounds of edits, like I never, I never got rid of a single word of them. It just felt like it came out really whole and complete and concise, and it was the ending. Like it was, it felt very finite and it still does to me, if that makes sense. Wow. It's very open. And I also, you know, I I feel like this is very true. People often ask my opinion on like, oh, what happens after in five years, or what happen happens after dinner list, or and I'll say, I don't like I have an opinion, but I feel like my opinion is just one opinion. Like yours, once a book is published, it belongs to you as much as it belongs to me. So I feel like we both just have opinions on the matter. Like I am not the authority on what goes on crazy after that final page ends. Because everything that I've had to say concretely, I've said already. Fair. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

Well. Okay. So we have once and again, obviously it came out today. Yeah. Do you have any plans for releasing anything else coming up? Or are you just like bathing in the success of just being like, thing, oh my God, I'm so happy this is out.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

So right now I'm trying to get through a book tour with my husband and my baby daughter, which is insane. Like, I I really it seemed like a really good idea to bring them. And now, like halfway into day one, I'm like SOS. Um, so right now I'm trying to get through a book tour um that I hope I'll get to see a lot of readers at and and chat because it's been two years since I've been on the road because last year I was like, I was like very, very pregnant and about to deliver, so I wasn't able to get out. So I'm really excited to do that. And then I am working on five film adaptations of these books. So, and I'm producing all of them. Really? So they're all set up in in varying degrees, and two of them are kind of like beginning to get at a gallop. Um of course, it's a happy coincidence when films get made. I feel like I always have to caveat that because it's such, I mean, you know, it's just like the most complicated process. And it's like an old airplane, and like in the in like one part breaks in the time it tapes to like source that part, another part has broken. So, like actually getting something off the ground is a Herculean effort. But two of them are I think are are very close to lift off, which is really exciting. Um, and so I'm a lot, I'm a lot in that world right now. And then I am, I'm kicking around another idea. Um, but that will be a a ways down the road. Right now, it's just all about once it again. Yeah. Well, as it should be.

SPEAKER_02 35:57

That's what I was like. Sometimes when I go into podcasts and they ask me what's next, I'm like, I'm just happy I'm here.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I know. I'm like, I need it here.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah. And I feel like sometimes I've talked about this many times. It's like people are always kind of like, what's next? What's next? What's next? And it gets it becomes exhausting because I'm like, is what I'm doing right now not good enough? And I'm like, sometimes I put, like, even doing this podcast, it took me like a year and a half just to get it off the get it off the ground. And it's like, that's what I was basking in. I was like, I'm just happy that I'm here. I'm just happy like the whole point was like, I finish books like this, and I'm staring at the wall and I'm confused on what's happening and why this character is acting the way that it it is. And I have questions, and this all just came about because I just used to DM authors on my questions. I'd be like, well, what happened after this? Why did why did it why did they do that? And then I started meeting them in person and I would just have these conversations with them. And I was like, if I'm wondering this, there's definitely someone else wondering the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

It's amazing that you do this, and congratulations on all the success of it. And I feel like we both know that like I think the antidote to the to the way our society is set up now, which is, to your excellent point, like more and more and more and more, is reading. Like there is no activity besides maybe surfing on the planet that I think like just allows you to really sink into the moment, like reading. And I think like for me at least, like time really opens up. I was actually having this conversation with my husband the other night because he reads before bed. And I've been like just like watching love story. Have you watched it? No, I'm in the middle of watching Game of Thrones right now. So I'm gonna watch Love Story. It's really fun. But I'm noticing even like if I'm watching Love Story or I'm like scrolling TikTok, I feel like time goes by so much faster. Speaking of time, when I'm like scrolling on my phone, all of a sudden I'm like, oh my god, where did 45 minutes go? Whereas I feel like 45 minutes reading a book, like you actually get to live and breathe and like be in that universe for a minute and like just like chill your cortisone down and like actually, I think feel more connected to yourself. It's such an incredible activity. I'm saying this to myself as much as I am to you or anyone listening. Like, we all need to be reading more. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

And start with once and again one. Yeah. My not reading for me has always just been like a form of escapism because it's like obviously I do social media as my job. So it's like I'm on my phone for nine hours a day, and then I'm like, okay, I want to relax now. But if I scroll in TikTok, then I'm thinking about work. Yes. And then it's like 11 p.m. and at night, and I'm having this crazy idea that I want to execute, and I'm like, this is just not what I should be doing at 11 p.m. at night. I should be opening my Kindle or opening a book if I'm in New York and like not living my life. And that's my favorite part about reading is I am Danny when I'm reading this book. I am that main character. And whatever they're going through, I'm going through with them.

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I love that. I love I just love that you do this. It's really amazing. I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much for coming on for you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

For this conversation, I got my clarity. I needed my clarity. I'm so glad.