Hello hello! It’s a busy and stressful week, but amongst all the chaos and caucusing, at least there is a new podcast to solace your ears. We’re here this week to talk about our resolutions from last year, the new resolutions we’re making for this year (if any), and how to make sense of The Three Musketeers. (The answer, to nobody’s surprise, is alcohol). We also fail, again, to identify and read a podcast book that will be as delightful as it sounds when we read its synopsis online. One of these days we are going to successfully read a romcom book for podcast. You wait and see. That day will come. But today is not that day, and Permanent Record is not that book.
You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!
0:57 – What we’re reading
3:31 – What we’re making
7:13 – The Three Musketeers readalong (Chapters 8-12)
18:38 – 2019 reading recap and New Year’s Resolutions
27:17 – Superlative reads of 2019
38:15 – Permanent Record, Mary H. K. Choi
52:57 – What we’re reading next time!
And here’s a list of everything we talked about!
The Likeness, Tana French
Harrow the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir
Women Talking, Miriam Toews
Six Seasons, Joshua McFadden
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas, Chapters 8-12
Give Me Some Truth, Eric Gansworth
There, There, Tommy Orange
Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey
That They May Face the Rising Son, John McGahern
Trust Exercise, Susan Choi
Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
Insurrecto, Gina Apostol
The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, Gina Apostol
The Ventriloquists, E. R. Ramzipoor
Circe, Madeleine Miller
The Song of Achilles, Madeleine Miller
Mary Renault!!
This Is How You Lose the Time War, Amal al-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Hangman’s Daughter, Oliver Pötzsch, translated by Lee Chadeayne
Whiskey Jenny’s unhappy Goodreads review of The Hangman’s Daughter
The Psychology of Time Travel, Kate Mascarenhas
Gin Jenny’s Strange Horizons review of The Psychology of Time Travel
Picnic at Hanging Rock, Joan Lindsay
Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Armin
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, Anissa Gray
Gideon the Ninth cover:
American Spy cover:
Permanent Record, Mary H. K. Choi
Public Relations, Katie Heaney and Arianna Rebolini
The Theory of Everything, Prince Gomolvilas
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript
[THEME SONG] You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.GIN JENNY: Welcome to the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And we are back to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast, we will talk about what we are reading and making. We will return to our readalong of The Three Musketeers. We’re going to do a little year in review for 2019. And we will review Mary H.K. Choi’s YA novel Permanent Record. But before we get into all that, Whiskey Jenny, what are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I may have mentioned this last time. I’m still reading it. It is The Likeness, by Tana French.
GIN JENNY: Oh yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have made a lot of progress, though, and it’s like getting really, really exciting at the end now. Some people in the house have figured out that our detective is not their friend. So yeah, I’m excited for some of them to be like, what the hell? You’re a robot from space.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m interested to see how it’s going to pan out. But I’m really worried about Sam, who’s the nicest puppy whoever puppied.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
WHISKEY JENNY: This was Cassie’s boyfriend before this whole thing started, and I just don’t think he’s going to be happy with how things turned out.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: This is a mean to Sam kind of book.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I asked two people who’d read it. I was like, I at least need to know if Sam dies or gets heartbroken. And they’re like, he doesn’t die, but yeah, it’s not good. [LAUGHTER] But I’m excited for the I hope crazy finale shenanigans.
GIN JENNY: That sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. What are you reading?
GIN JENNY: Well, I am reading—and you’ll know this, because I haven’t been able to shut up about it. I got an ARC of Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. I read Gideon the Ninth a while ago. I probably talked about it on podcast. The tagline for it was lesbian necromancers in space, which is so much my shit. And I really liked Gideon the Ninth. Harrow the Ninth is better, like, exponentially.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wow.
GIN JENNY: I am enjoying it SO much. I’m reading it really slowly on purpose, because I’m so sad to think that it’ll be over soon and I’ll never be able to read it for the first time again. It has bananacrackers. It is just absolutely the most insane thing possibly that I’ve ever read in my life.
It’s so wild. It is a ride. It is so full of events, A of all. There’s so many weird reveals. Some of them are things where you’re like, aw, yeah, that makes total sense. And some of them are things where you’re like, WHAT!?
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: God, it’s been incredible. I like it so much. And if you haven’t read Gideon the Ninth yet, I really recommend taking this opportunity to do it before Harrow the Ninth comes out in June of this year, because I just want you to experience it. It’s incredible. It’s one of the most joyous reading experiences that I’ve ever had in my whole life ever.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s a pretty resounding endorsement.
GIN JENNY: [SIGH] So I’m reading that, and then also I started reading Women Talking, by Miriam Toews. Which is about a really— It’s a fictionalized version of a really horrific rape case in a Mennonite community in Bolivia. And I’m just not sure I’m going to make it through this book. I think I might just return it to the library. It’s a really rough read.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sounds like it.
GIN JENNY: So we were going to talk about what we’re making this week. So what are you making?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I’m going foodwise with it.
GIN JENNY: Nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: I am making again an olive oil cake, which I recently made.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right.
WHISKEY JENNY: Because it went over great last time. So I’m bringing it to a Super Bowl party tonight. But I’m really excited. Olive oil cake is a thing. Who knew? No butter, just olive oil.
GIN JENNY: Not me. I didn’t know.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I’ve talked to on this podcast before about my cooking boyfriend Joshua who wrote the cookbook Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables. I tried to make one of his recipes. It’s a cauliflower quote-unquote “couscous” salad, where you’re supposed to put the cauliflower in a food processor and it ends up looking like little couscous balls. But I don’t have a food processor, so I think I basically just made cauliflower salad. It’s the same flavors, but it’s not fake couscous. It’s cauliflower salad. It’s fine. What are you making?
GIN JENNY: So I am making—I started this thing at the start of this year where I made breakfast burritos and then froze them, and I would heat one up for dinner. This has been a fantastic idea. This has been one of the most amazing ideas I’ve ever had.
I make it with scrambled eggs, breakfast sausage, refried beans, rice and corn if I feel like it, Roma tomatoes, cilantro, and cheese. And I made a batch of eight at a time, and I froze them individually. And they have been so delicious. I’ve also been eating them with the cilantro lime crema that they make at Costco, or that they sell at Costco, which is a great idea. [LAUGHTER]
It’s been incredible. It’s the easiest dinner, because all I have to do is stick it in the oven and heat it up, and it’s delicious. So great job, me. Great decision.
WHISKEY JENNY: I would also just like to put my considerable political capital behind breakfast for dinner in general.
GIN JENNY: I am, too. I don’t know why it makes me feel so good. I don’t even like breakfast. But when it’s dinner and I’m eating breakfast foods, I’m like, this is the best. I’m a genius!
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, interesting. See, I love breakfast food, and then I’m like, great, more breakfast food. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: It’s not that I don’t like breakfast food. It’s that I don’t like breakfast.
WHISKEY JENNY: You don’t like eating in the morning.
GIN JENNY: Mm-hmm, correct.
WHISKEY JENNY: I see.
GIN JENNY: So that’s one thing I’m making. Also, I mentioned last podcast that my aunt had died, which is really sad. I did inherit her laminater, however.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you have it?
GIN JENNY: Yes, I have it. It’s amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Can you describe it? What does it look like?
GIN JENNY: It’s black plastic, and it’s about the size of a very, very, very tiny printer, but a slightly longer length. And it just has one sort of central slot that you feed the laminated stuff into, and then it comes out the other side laminated.
WHISKEY JENNY: Boy. So what have you laminated so far?
GIN JENNY: So so far I’ve just laminated bookmarks. One of my plans is to do an audit of lamentable materials in my house so that I can determine what else needs to be laminated.
But I’m so excited to be able to laminate my bookmarks. I have a ton of bookmarks from various independent bookstores that I’ve been to. And a lot of the time—and I get why, it’s a cost saving measure—they don’t get very thick or sturdy bookmarks. So they’re a little flimsy. But I love them, and I want to keep them as a record of independent bookstores I’ve been to. And now that I can laminate them—
WHISKEY JENNY: They’ll last forever.
GIN JENNY: They’ll last forever. They’re so sturdy now. So it’s just great. I mean, it’s great. I like it so much. I’m so happy it exists. I don’t even know how much stuff I really have that I need to laminate, but just having the option open to me feels so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: I like imagining also you doing this audit. Like every night you have your little scientific log, auditing, like, milk. Trying to laminate milk and being like, nope, didn’t work. [LAUGHTER] Flattened milk carton, yes. Worked.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: This kind of makes me want to try and laminate milk and just see what happens.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, no, no, don’t put your laminater in danger.
GIN JENNY: No, I won’t. No, I never would. I love my laminater.
WHISKEY JENNY: It makes you so happy.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah, it’s great. It’s just great.
OK, so we actually already recorded the readalong of chapters 8 through 12 of The Three Musketeers. But we lost it in the great Podcast Losening at the end of last year. So we’re going to try it again, because this section was great, and I do not want us to miss out on it, or you to miss out on it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, I agree. There’s a lot we have to cover.
GIN JENNY: And the first thing I want to mention is that one thing we discovered as we were discussing it last time is that everything in this book makes a lot more sense if you assume that all the characters are pretty drunk at all times.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: It really does help.
GIN JENNY: It’s just like, every part that I’m like, why would they do this? If they’re drunk, I’m like, oh, that’s why. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Makes total sense.
GIN JENNY: So we start with, our question about what 40 pistoles can buy you remains unanswered.
WHISKEY JENNY: We have no idea, but they’ve run out.
GIN JENNY: And what’s really great about this is that, D’Artagnan’s money, the 40 pistoles runs out, and so Athos starts paying for everything. And then his money runs out, so Porthos pays. And then his money runs out, so Aramis pays. And then they’re like, well, since we’ve bought meals for all these people while we were in clover, now they can buy us meals. Which is just hilarious, a hilarious insight into the way Parisian society worked at this time.
WHISKEY JENNY: So then they just start inviting themselves, all of them over for dinner to their friends’ houses. But D’Artagnan is new, and he feels bad that he only scored like one and a half invite, because the half invite it was a poor priest who didn’t have much food already. [LAUGHTER] I felt really bad for that priest.
GIN JENNY: So D’Artagnan decides, he’s like, guys, what we should do is we should get a job, as a PI or hired muscle.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I forgot!
GIN JENNY: No sooner does he decide this than a guy shows up at his door with a job.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like, knock knock knock, I’m a potential client. Hello.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: My favorite thing about this conversation is that he talks to D’Artagnan for a really long time about what the job is. And then like 20 minutes in, he’s like, by the way, I’m your landlord and you’ve never paid rent ever. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: So you’re going to do this job for me, right? I would never be so gauche as to bring this issue of unpaid rent to you, but I’m just mentioning it. While also mentioning my poor kidnapped wife, who works for the queen? She’s a lady in waiting, I think, for the queen, or something something?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and she’s been kidnapped for unclear reasons. Maybe something about politics.
WHISKEY JENNY: For political reasons. And the landlord thinks it was the man from Meung who did it. This is the guy that at the very beginning took D’Artagnan’s letter of reference.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and almost killed him.
WHISKEY JENNY: So he just pops out as they’re discussing him. And he’s like, wait, that’s him across the street, and sprints down the stairs to go chase him.
GIN JENNY: The musketeers see him do this and they’re like, eh, he’ll figure it out. It’s just so funny.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re coming to visit him as he’s running down his stairs. And they’re like, where are you going? And he just yells, “the man from Meung!” And they’re like, OK, he’ll be back in a little bit, so we’ll just wait here.
GIN JENNY: And they’re right. He comes back in a minute and has not caught the guy. And so then he tells them what the job is and what he’s going to do and so forth.
There’s a footnote in this conversation, because one of the things under discussion is how Cardinal Richelieu hates the queen. And the endnote says that the reason he hates her is that when he first came to court, she Malvolioed him. She made him dress up in a stupid costume and do a little dance, and she made fun of him to all her friends. That sucks. She sucks.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, that’s kind of mean.
GIN JENNY: And the other thing that I thought was really funny is that there’s some question of whether the queen is potentially having an affair with the Duke of Buckingham in England. And all the Musketeers are like, well, to be fair, the Duke of Buckingham is very hot. [LAUGHTER] Like, you’re going to want to get on that, because he’s so hot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so it makes sense, because he’s super hot. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: And I thought that was really funny, because the Duke of Buckingham of course was famously James I’s boyfriend, and James I was constantly doing special little things for the Duke of Buckingham, his boyfriend. And it’s just very funny that all the men in this book are also like, yeah, he’s so hot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Would super do him. Can’t blame the queen.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh, it’s amazing. So then what happens, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: So then some soldiers arrive and are looking for the landlord. And he’s like, great, you’re going to protect me, right? ‘Cause I just hired you. And D’Artagnan is like, I have a plan. You get arrested. [LAUGHTER] And the landlord’s like, wait, what? And Porthos also is like, wait, what? Poor Porthos. You know, I don’t think he ever does figure out the plan. Which I think is really sweet. They just won’t explain it to him, and he’s like, guys, why are we being mean to the landlord? They’re like, it’s part of a plan. He’s like, but. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: He’s like, can we explain the plan? They’re like, we’re busy now, Porthos, can you just?
WHISKEY JENNY: We’re doing the plan now, we can’t talk about it. He’s like, [SADLY] OK. [LAUGHTER] So they arrest the landlord, and then the book says that they set up what is called a mousetrap at his apartment, which is when soldiers just hang out at the apartment and arrest anyone who shows up. Like, anyone. [LAUGHTER] Even if you’re just a delivery person, you get arrested just for being at that house. It sounds terrible.
GIN JENNY: It sounds awful to live in Paris in this era. No one gets paid rent. The musketeers are always disrupting the roads by having duels.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s just street warfare all the time.
GIN JENNY: However, the cardinal’s men bring the landlord’s wife to the inn where the mousetrap is. D’Artagnan rescues her, stashes her at Athos’s place, and then, Whiskey Jenny, please tell us how he establishes an alibi.
WHISKEY JENNY: We have to talk about what he needs to establish an alibi for.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right, yes. I’m so sorry, yes, yes, yes, I’m so sorry.
WHISKEY JENNY: He has to go do an errand and pass on a message to her great uncle at the palace. But to get in, she has to tell him a super secret password. And she’s like, can I trust you? And he’s like, yes, I give you my word. And she’s like, great. You seem honest. I’m going to tell you the secret password right now, like 10 minutes after meeting you. And I was like, huh, all right. So she’s trusting him pretty easily because he looks nice.
He gives the message. The message receiver is like, do you have a friend whose clocks run slow? Which is code for, you need to get an alibi. And then he does, and this is my favorite part. And I still claim that I think this would work in Paris at this time. So he goes over to the head of the musketeers’ house.
GIN JENNY: Sorry, just, I just want to say, I think it would work in this day and age if everyone was very drunk. Which is what we’re assuming, admittedly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, so he goes over to the head of the musketeers’ house and he secretly turns back the clock. [LAUGHTER] And then the head of the musketeers comes down and D’Artagnan’s like, hey, it’s 9:00. And the head of the musketeers is like, what? That’s weird. And he looks at the clock and he’s like, yeah, guess so. And they talk for a little bit. Then the head of the musketeers leaves, and D’Artagnan puts the clock back right and also leaves.
And I feel like this would work. You know, no one has cell phones, so they’re not confirming that clock on the wall against their phone. There’s just the one clock, and I feel like it would work.
GIN JENNY: I have a question for you.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, what?
GIN JENNY: Are you six drinks in right now? [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I am not, I promise. Maybe I’m just bad with time, and I’m like, well, this would work on me, and therefore I think it would work, period. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: So he goes back to the landlord’s wife, whose name is Constance. And he’s now like totally in love with her, and she’s like, OK, I guess.
WHISKEY JENNY: He goes to Aramis’s place and sees a lady and a lady having a conversation. They exchange significant handkerchiefs yet again. [LAUGHTER] Handkerchiefs are so significant in this book.
GIN JENNY: That’s true.
WHISKEY JENNY: And one of the ladies is Constance. And then that’s when she’s like, OK, but I have to go to this other place now.
GIN JENNY: But she makes him promise not to watch who meets her there, and he agrees and doesn’t do it. Which is very honorable. I would definitely look.
WHISKEY JENNY: I would not look. And I don’t think you would look either. Come on.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I would.
WHISKEY JENNY: If you promised me not to do something, you would then do it?
GIN JENNY: Not you, because you’re my very good friend. But like a total stranger who is involved in shady machinations that I didn’t really understand? Yes, definitely.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, but what if you’re in love with them, like D’Artagnan apparently is.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I mean, I don’t know. I don’t know in that case. If I had met them once, done an errand.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yep, and then fallen in love.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: The normal progression of a relationship. Yeah, you’re right. Maybe in that case I wouldn’t.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, but I do like one line that Constance gets to say during this exchange, when she’s arguing that D’Artagnan about escorting her. And he finally agrees. He’s like, OK, I’ll escort you, but I won’t look. Do you like me now? And she’s like, well, I would have liked you more if you’d agreed to begin with with what I wanted, but sure, fine. [LAUGHTER] And I appreciated that.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I do, too. She’s spunky. I like her.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So then what happens?
GIN JENNY: D’Artagnan goes back to Athos’s place and finds out that Athos has been arrested, and has allowed this to happen because the people arresting him believe that he is D’Artagnan. So he’s buying his friend time.
WHISKEY JENNY: So Athos is being super heroic.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, he’s a good bro. And D’Artagnan goes back out and sees Constance with someone he thinks is Aramis. And he’s really mad, because he’s in love with Constance. Although Aramis has no way of knowing this, so I don’t know why he’s so mad at Aramis, a famous ladies’ man. But he grabs the guy’s shoulder and is like, ah, how dare you! But—who’s the guy?
WHISKEY JENNY: The guy is the Duke of Buckingham!
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Again, as a sidebar, this means that Aramis must be hot as hell, because literally nobody can shut up about how hot the Duke of Buckingham is.
WHISKEY JENNY: So if you mistake Aramis for the Duke of Buckingham, by the transitive property— [LAUGHTER] I don’t know. I don’t know what the transitive property is.
But I really like the turn that happens in an instant here. Because D’Artagnan is like, I’m going to kill this guy. Oh, what’s up? It’s the Duke of Buckingham. I would die for you. And the Duke of Buckingham goes from like, I guess I have to murder this guy. And then the guy pledging his loyalty to him. And then he’s like, OK, cool, so you follow us and kill anyone who spies on us. [LAUGHTER] That all happens so fast. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I also liked in this part that Constance was like, stop blowing up my spot. I’m doing something. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: You keep messing it up.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I did like this part. It all happens very fast. Again, I think if everyone’s drunk that makes sense.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mhm. They’re best friends now.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, like in the ladies’ bathroom at a bar. Everyone you meet, you’re like, ah, you’re so beautiful, an angel from heaven. So I think that’s this.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think you’re right.
GIN JENNY: So then we go to the scene of the Duke of Buckingham talking to the Queen of France. They meet up. And it’s so stupid. I can’t root for it. They’re both married.
WHISKEY JENNY: The Duke of Buckingham tells us that he’s going to start a war between England and France just so he can get sent to be the negotiator for the peace for that war to see the Queen again. And it’s like, man. A lot of people are going to die for this weird plan.
GIN JENNY: It’s such a stupid plan, too. It’s not even a clever plan. It’s so dumb.
WHISKEY JENNY: They keep declaring their passionate, intense love for each other after also having met like one time, probably? I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it seems like they haven’t had that much time together in the past.
WHISKEY JENNY: So there’s a lot of instalove in this book.
GIN JENNY: As with D’Artagnan and Constance, I think that he’s kind of pushing it harder than she is. I think she’s kind of like, yeah, I guess I love you too, since you’re here. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: But then he does have one line at the end that I was like, OK, I kind of like that one line. He says, “Buckingham passionately kissed that beautiful hand, then rose.” I guess he was on his knees. I don’t know. “Within six months, he said, if I’m not dead, I will see you again madame, if I must set the world at war to do it.” I liked the decorations burn the world down.
GIN JENNY: Sure. That’s the whole premise of Black Sails, so obviously, into it.
WHISKEY JENNY: But overall they’re annoying.
GIN JENNY: And then to make him go away basically, she gives him a little box of hers with a special seal on it. Which seems crazy, because anyone who sees this love token will immediately know it’s hers, because it has a special seal on it that identifies it as hers. And I don’t get why she couldn’t give him something romantic that’s less identifiable.
WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe it’s romantic because it’s identifiable?
GIN JENNY: But that’s a terrible idea! That’s so stupid.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I agree. But listen, they’re all drunk, and handkerchiefs matter so much, so I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: So true.
WHISKEY JENNY: The rules are different. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: And then that’s the end of this section.
WHISKEY JENNY: Next time we’re reading chapters, what is it, 13 to—
GIN JENNY: 19.
WHISKEY JENNY: Join us.
GIN JENNY: It promises to be incredible. So far it’s been, ah, just amazing.
WHISKEY JENNY: What a delight. Indeed.
GIN JENNY: OK, well do you want to get into wrapping up 2019, now that we’re in February?
WHISKEY JENNY: We’re barely in February.
GIN JENNY: Yes, barely in February. A salutary time to wrap up 2019.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. We’ve had time to—you know, it’s not a hot take. We’ve had time to process 2019.
GIN JENNY: That’s right, yeah. 2019 was kind of a weird year for us. We read only 15 books, which is the fewest we’ve ever done.
WHISKEY JENNY: I would say from my personal reading, I also read a lot fewer books than normal.
GIN JENNY: I read a lot fewer than last year, for sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Strange year.
GIN JENNY: None of the had co-authors, which makes our statistics very easy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm.
GIN JENNY: We read nine books by women, five books by men, and one by a non-binary author, which is 2/3 of our authors were not men, which is cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did my calculations by percentage-wise.
GIN JENNY: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
WHISKEY JENNY: 71% were by non-white authors and 39% were by white authors, which is definitely up from last year. So that’s good.
GIN JENNY: Yes! We had I think 47% of our authors from last year were not white. So this is great.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then we had 57% American.
GIN JENNY: We had slightly more American authors last year.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m pleased with those numbers. We’ll continue to, obviously, keep an eye on things. Because as we’ve discussed, you have to, or otherwise those white dudes, they just sneak in. They sneak right in.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] OK, do we want to guess each other’s best and worsts?
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I want to do resolutions and then superlatives.
GIN JENNY: OK. What were your 2019 resolutions?
WHISKEY JENNY: I had three. I was going to keep an eye on my own personal reading diversity. I was going to read three books by Native American authors and three books by queer authors. I did read at least three books by queer authors, so that’s good. I did not read three books by Native American authors, unfortunately. I read one and a quarter, I guess. We read Give Me Some Truth for podcast. And then I started There, There by Tommy Orange. And I will pick it back up. It was for book club. I think I was sick that book club, or could not attend or something. And also it was immediately a pretty rough read, so we’ll come back to that one.
And then I was going to keep an eye on my own personal diversity reading. And it would really be helpful if I remembered these resolutions more than three months after I make them.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: In my non-podcast reading, I read 28% nonwhite, 78% white, which is like, eh. I would like that number to be higher. And I was 60/40 for women versus men. And then it was 52% percent American.
GIN JENNY: Wow, that’s very good.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m pleased with the international nature of it, but that’s still pretty white. What were your resolutions?
GIN JENNY: So my resolutions for this past year were read four histories of four African countries, which I didn’t do at all. Like, not even slightly. I did none. I have no explanation for this. I just didn’t do it.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s OK. Moving on.
GIN JENNY: I was going to read 15 of my own books, so books that I owned before the start of 2019, of which 10 had to be fiction. I totally did this. I read 23 of my own books. Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my God, that’s so many more. You crushed this one.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So I think I did great on that one.
WHISKEY JENNY: You crushed it.
GIN JENNY: Thank you so much. And then for every nonfiction book of my own that I read, I was then going to allow myself to check out one nonfiction book from the library. And I couldn’t get any nonfiction books in the library unless I had first previously finished a nonfiction book of my own.
WHISKEY JENNY: How did that go?
GIN JENNY: Yes, I did this. I didn’t count memoirs in either case, because memoirs aren’t really my nonfiction problem. But it worked great. I think my only note was, it didn’t give me enough nonfiction chips from the library, so I just read less nonfiction than I would prefer. So I have a plan for that for the upcoming year.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, Elizabeth Warren. What’s the plan?
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Well, I’ll tell you when we get into our 2020 resolutions.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I thought we weren’t making them.
GIN JENNY: I decided not to make them for the podcast, but I still made them for my life.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooooh.
GIN JENNY: But you don’t have to. That doesn’t mean you have to.
WHISKEY JENNY: Shoot. Well, no. I can’t be the goalless gorm.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Whiskey Jenny, it is an election year. Give yourself a break.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right. Yeah. Maybe I will, and I won’t make any resolutions.
GIN JENNY: Don’t make any resolutions. And then I was going to read 40% non-American authors. I have the opposite problem of you. I have no problem at all reading a lot of authors of color. I still really struggle to keep up my numbers of non-American authors. But I did do this. I ended up with 43% non-American authors, with great effort. And I also in 2020 did the thing I always do, which is at the start of the year I read a whole bunch of books by non-American authors. So I’m off to a strong statistical start.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, great.
GIN JENNY: So I’m going to keep an eye on that still. The modification I’m making for this year to my library nonfiction goal is that for every one nonfiction book of my own or two fiction books of my own that I read, I can earn a chit for library nonfiction. This now includes memoirs under the new regime.
WHISKEY JENNY: In both cases? It gets you chits, and it gets you—
GIN JENNY: A memoir counts as a fiction book if I read it of my own, but it counts as nonfiction if I get it from the library.
WHISKEY JENNY: So you’d have to read two memoirs—
GIN JENNY: Correct.
WHISKEY JENNY: —to check out one memoir.
GIN JENNY: Correct. Exactly, yes. And then I would like to read 25 of my own books this year. I don’t have a specified split between fiction and nonfiction. That’s slightly more than I did in 2019, but it’s not a lot more. So I think that I can do it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sounds great.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Do we want to talk about podcast resolutions?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, let’s.
GIN JENNY: All right, we had three. So for 2019, our podcast resolutions were that we were going to have seven guests, of which two were authors. We did no author interviews last year, I’m sorry to say. We had five episodes with guests, so we didn’t do terrible. But we didn’t do author interviews as we intended.
We were going to read at least one book by a non-binary author, which we did. That was Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey. And then we were going to read at least one book by an Indigenous author, which we did. That was Give Me Some Truth, by Eric Gansworth.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! So two out of three.
GIN JENNY: Pretty good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hopefully we’ll have some author interviews this year.
GIN JENNY: Yes, we are very much hoping to do that. We’re already trying to line some up. And we are trying out Zencastr, a tool that has broken our hearts in the past, but we’re going to see if we can make it work for us this time.
WHISKEY JENNY: We’ve decided to give it another chance. We’re hopeless optimists.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Superlatives!
GIN JENNY: Superlatives. Shall we start with worst books of the year for each of us?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: Worst podcast books, I should say.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s do it.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to guess me first? I feel like—I feel like you’re going to guess right.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like it was the Hatening book, which was That They May Face the Rising Sun.
GIN JENNY: Bleugh. [LAUGHTER] Just the worst. Absolutely awful.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, gosh.
GIN JENNY: Such a bad reading experience in every way.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That was by John McGahern. And it was Irish, and it was so long.
GIN JENNY: There were no chapter breaks.
WHISKEY JENNY: And there was just sort of rambling about small daily life. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Eugh. Oh, how I hated it.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: So a successful Hatening there. [LAUGHTER] Do you and I guess what my worst was?
GIN JENNY: Yes. I guess that your worst was Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi, which was also a Hatening book.
WHISKEY JENNY: That is correct.
GIN JENNY: Yay! A good Hatening, then. A very strong Hatening.
WHISKEY JENNY: A very strong Hatening. I don’t know if we’ve ever done that, where we both picked that as our worst.
GIN JENNY: I think we did last year.
WHISKEY JENNY: We’re getting really good at Hatening, then.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I think we’re becoming very talented. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Boy, yeah, Trust Exercise. Do not want to read that ever again. I will say it was a lot more crazy that I was expecting. That book was crazy. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Nobody was expecting someone’s dick to get shot off. That was unexpected.
WHISKEY JENNY: I rarely expect that. And yet it happened. [LAUGHTER] So what was your best podcast book?
GIN JENNY: Well, guess. Guess it.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s right. So I will say that I believe this is unprecedented in podcast history, which is that I’m guessing the same one for you that I’m picking.
GIN JENNY: Wait, then you can’t tell me. I have to guess you first.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. What do you think my favorite was?
GIN JENNY: Man, I felt sure and now I’m questioning myself. I thought your best of the year was Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi.
WHISKEY JENNY: Interesting. I liked it a lot, I will definitely say. It was in the running. My definite best and my guess for you is Insurrecto, by Gina Apostol.
GIN JENNY: Yes, it definitely was. We had a lot of good books this year that I enjoyed a lot, but Insurrecto was the easy best for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me too. I sure love that book.
GIN JENNY: God, me too.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was so sweeping and ambitious and amazing. We also have some superlatives coming up, and I will say that for all of the positive ones I basically could have just picked Insurrecto. I unexpectedly loved it, I wish it had gotten more attention, I feel like it had a great title and a great cover. But I forced myself not to pick it, because I already picked it for best podcast. But it’s silver medal for all of these other ones as well. It was just so great. I was so impressed.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I loved it. And I’m really excited because the author has another book coming out this year with Soho that also sounds a really, really weird in all the same ways. And it’s about Filipino history and just looks really great. So I’m looking forward to that a lot. Maybe we can read it for podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: That sounds great. I hadn’t heard that. Speaking of our other superlatives, what was a book in your podcast or non-podcast reading that you unexpectedly loved?
GIN JENNY: For this I chose The Ventriloquists by E.R. Ramzipoor. This is a very long historical novel, and I don’t really like historical novels, especially if they’re about Nazis, which this is. And I don’t tend to like books that are super long, because I’m old and tired now.
But this book was just great. I thought it was so lovely. It was—gosh, it was just great. And the lesbian characters survived. And that was just— It really, really meant a lot to me in these dark, dark grim times.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hooray!
GIN JENNY: It’s about a group of resistance people in Belgium under Nazi rule who—and it’s based on a true story—who created a spoof version of the collaborationist newspaper. They created this spoof version that just made relentless fun of the Nazis. They distributed it in place of the real one, so a lot of people read it thinking at first that it was the real one. And you know, they all face consequences, as you can imagine.
And I just liked this book a lot. I thought it was really playful with language in a way that I enjoyed. I really liked all the characters. I thought it did a great job of creating stakes for this active resistance that ultimately didn’t change the course of the war, but meant a lot to the people in Brussels. It was really great. I’m really glad it exists, and I’m excited to see what the author does next. What is a book that you unexpectedly loved?
WHISKEY JENNY: So I picked Circe, by Madeline Miller. It’s about Circe, obviously.
GIN JENNY: From The Odyssey.
WHISKEY JENNY: From The Odyssey. So sort of a centering a kind of minor character in that mythology as the main character. And I’m not a huge Odyssey-head.
GIN JENNY: [CHORTLES]
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m not like, oh great, another version of The Odyssey, you know? I’m not anti Odyssey. [LAUGHTER] But I just wasn’t expecting to love it quite as much as I did, which was so much.
GIN JENNY: Aw, yay!
WHISKEY JENNY: It was surprisingly romantic. It was beautifully written. It was so lovely to read such a strong female character set in that time period, who’s a witch. I loved everything about it basically.
When I first heard about it. It wasn’t on my radar. But then it got picked for book club, and our podcast theme composer Jessie started it before I did and said how much she loved it. So then I did get an inkling. And I loved it so much I gave it to my mom for Christmas. I just, boy. Really behind that book.
GIN JENNY: I’ll have to try it. I read her first book, and because The Song of Achilles covered some similar ground to Mary Renault, I kept comparing it to Mary Renault in my mind. And that’s not an ideal reading experience, as you can imagine.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: But Circe is a totally different set of things. So I think that it would be easier for me to enjoy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay. What was a book that you unexpectedly hated this year? Or last year?
GIN JENNY: The book that I unexpectedly hated this year was a queer epistolary time travel novel. Everything about that is Gin Jenny bait. It was This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal al-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. It got a ton of hype. It sounds so up my alley. But it ended up being much more about the prose than about the plot, and I didn’t enjoy the prose. And I think that when you’re writing a book where the prose is the most important thing, you kind of inherently have a small audience, because the description of the book doesn’t tell the audience if the prose is going to be for them. And if it’s not, as it was not for me, it can be really off-putting.
When it is, it can create this feeling of incredible closeness and astonishment. And it was interesting to think about that beautiful sentences are enough to carry you through a book if they’re really resonating with you. But if not, then really not.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think you’re on record in general as often beautiful sentences aren’t your favorite thing about a book.
GIN JENNY: And I think that’s the reason. I think they often don’t resonate with me in the way that they do with some others, and I think that’s why.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so really sad. I love epistolary books. I love time travel books. I want someone else to write this book, but have it be about plot so I can enjoy it. [LAUGHTER] What’s the book you unexpectedly hated this year, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: So for this one I picked a mystery, The Hangman’s Daughter, by Oliver Potzsch. Sorry, I did not look up how to pronounce his last name. So this is a mystery. It was lent to me by a co-worker, so I feel really bad, but I don’t think he listens to this podcast, so I feel safe in talking about my true feelings about this book.
GIN JENNY: Great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so it’s a mystery. The year is 1659, I’m seeing now in the description, so that’s specific. [LAUGHTER] In Bavaria. And the daughter of the hangman is supposed to be one of our main characters. And children start dying, and everyone thinks it’s due to witchcraft. The hangman’s daughter and the hangman and her paramour, the doctor’s son, have to solve it so that an innocent woman doesn’t get murdered for allegedly being a witch.
The premise I’m into, and I really liked the hangman character. But everything else I really didn’t like about this book. It’s called The Hangman’s Daughter, and that character got the least screen time, I would say.
GIN JENNY: Boo.
WHISKEY JENNY: So few point of view chapters from her. The doctor’s son I hated so much. He just talks about his fancy clothes all the time. He’s annoyed whenever they get dirty doing the stuff. And then—spoiler, I guess—there’s one character who’s mentioned as gay at the end, and he’s a villain, obviously. Because we can’t have nice things, I guess. There’s some scenes of torture that I was like eh, ah. [WHIMPER]
And then the resolution of the mystery was not even satisfying, because it was one of the townspeople. Surprise! And like, you haven’t met anyone else in the town, and they’ve only been painted beforehand as their social class. So it was like, the peasants and the non-peasants. And then it was like, yup, it was one of the non-peasants. And you’re like, I don’t know—what? I don’t care. I don’t know who this person is. I don’t have any sense of this character. I was so annoyed.
GIN JENNY: All right. Well, sounds terrible.
WHISKEY JENNY: Did not like it at all. Sorry, I wrote a review of it on Goodreads also, which I don’t usually do. I thought I got all of my feelings out about it, but apparently not. [LAUGHTER] What’s a book that you wish had gotten more attention?
GIN JENNY: Surprising nobody, my choice for this is The Psychology of Time Travel, by Kate Mascarenhas. I so much wished this book would get more attention that after I read it I wrote and pitched a review of it to Strange Horizons, because I didn’t want to be the only person I knew who had read it.
It’s just a really smart, weird, interesting take on time travel. It does a lot of this thing that you and I have talked about really enjoying where it’s not so much about the superpower as it is about the edges of your life around the superpower. So it’s really talking a lot more about the culture and the bureaucracy of the time travel agency. So that’s really cool.
It’s got a queer romance, which is really kind of sweet. There’s a whodunit element. It’s just really fun. It’s this really fun, well-constructed, weird little puzzle box of a novel. I loved it so much. I really wish everyone would read it. God, it’s so good. It’s so, so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sounds lovely.
GIN JENNY: It is. It’s wonderful. What about you?
WHISKEY JENNY: So this is kind of weird, but I’m picking Picnic at Hanging Rock, by Joan Lindsay, which I read this year for work book club. It did not come out this year. It came out in 1967. [LAUGHTER] But it still only has like 13,000 reviews on Goodreads, which for a book that’s ostensibly a classic and has had many years to accumulate reviews, it’s not that many. I had never heard about it before it got picked for this book club.
And it was just so weird. It’s set in the 1900s in an all-girls school in Australia, and they go on a picnic to Hanging Rock, and weird stuff happens. And then weird stuff happens in the aftermath, and like maybe it’s magic. It was about girls in their adolescence, which to have that treated at that time by a female writer is so rare.
And I just—why didn’t we read this in school? I would have so much rather read this than so many of the books that we did read in school.
GIN JENNY: A Separate Peace.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Exactly. [LAUGHTER] For example. [LAUGHTER] I wish this book got more attention.
GIN JENNY: Well, I would like to read that this year. I want to read that and Enchanted April, which are two older books about women that you and Friend of the Podcast Ashley have talked up a lot. So those are on my list for this year.
WHISKEY JENNY: I, too, would like to read Enchanted April. I’ve heard good things about it, as well. So maybe we could read it for podcast.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, maybe that’ll be my next pick.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to do best book title next?
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: My best book title from this year was The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls, which is a book by Anissa Gray. I love that title. It’s about a Black couple who goes to jail for running a fraudulent charity, and they have three grown daughters. So it’s about them and their daughters dealing with the aftermath of the crime. It wasn’t my favorite book of the year, but I thought it had a lot of really interesting insights and dealt with a pretty wide range of issues in thoughtful ways. But mainly I just really love this title. I think it’s a very cool and evocative title.
WHISKEY JENNY: Agreed, yeah.
GIN JENNY: What about you? What’s your best title of the year?
WHISKEY JENNY: So this may be controversial, but I still really like the title That They May Face the Rising Sun.
GIN JENNY: Eugh. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I was looking through all the books I read this year, and that was the one that most stuck with me. I know it’s very blah to you, and I don’t think I the most loved the book, even though I did enjoy it. Yeah, there’s something about that title that I’m like, huh. All right.
GIN JENNY: OK, I’ll say this. I do in fact like that title, and if it had been the title of a book that I hated less I think that I would have had a more positive reaction to it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely.
GIN JENNY: I can totally see what you mean.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s very evocative.
GIN JENNY: I don’t want to say it’s good, because that’s just hard to get those words out of my mouth.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ll say it for you. It’s a good title. [LAUGHTER] What was your favorite cover of the books that you read this year?
GIN JENNY: I’m sorry to do this again after I went on and on about it two minutes to go. But my favorite cover from 2019 was Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir. I love the cover so much. It’s very necromancer-y. There’s a girl with kind of a skeletal face, and there’s sort of spooky stuff in the background. But when you look closely, you realize the girl on the cover is wearing aviator sunglasses, which is so perfect for this book. It’s a very attractive cover, and I also think it represents the book really, really well.
Also it’s so good. Everyone please read Gideon the Ninth and talk to me about it on Twitter! [LAUGHTER] What about you? What was your best book cover?
WHISKEY JENNY: So I thought about doing Gingerbread, because I really did like that cover, by Helen Oyeyemi. But I think my absolute favorite one was American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah, that is a good cover.
WHISKEY JENNY: I just think it’s great. It’s so jaunty, but also a little bit you’re like, ooh, what’s up there? It’s bright, bright yellow, and then there’s a figure of a woman, and the like dress or clothing that she’s wearing is evocative of the American flag. And this was a book about a Black woman who becomes a spy in the Cold War, basically, stuff. [LAUGHTER] Like, a whole lot happened. I can’t get into it now. [LAUGHTER] It does a really good job of telling you that this is a book about what it means to be American and what it means to be a Black woman and all of those issues all tied up, which is pretty impressive to get across in an image. So way to go cover designers.
GIN JENNY: I mean, as always, way to go cover designers. That is a skill set so foreign to me, and I just admire it so much.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s always really impressive.
GIN JENNY: So that was our 2019. Hit us up in the comments or on Twitter and let us know what some of your favorite 2019 books were. Especially if there’s a book. you wanted to get more attention. Because I always love it when people answer that question.
WHISKEY JENNY: Absolutely, let us know.
GIN JENNY: All right, so I’m going to do this right this time, Whiskey Jenny. Do you want to hear about the book that I chose for this podcast?
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] I do. Please tell us about the book that you chose for this podcast.
GIN JENNY: All right. This is a book that I chose from your anticipated list. This has been very hard for me to wrap my head around historically. [LAUGHTER] So the book that I chose was Permanent Record, by Mary H.K. Choi. It is a YA novel. It’s about a regular guy who works in a neighborhood grocery store, and he meets a famous singer and they have a relationship. And Friend of the Podcast Ashley read this author’s first book and didn’t like it. And Whiskey Jenny and I both were like, yeah, but it’s normal person falls in love with famous person. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, God, which we love. I’m such a sucker for that.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, it’s so much fun. So Whiskey Jenny, what did you think?
WHISKEY JENNY: [SIGH] What did I think?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that’s my review, too. Go ahead. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I guess there’s lot I liked about it. It was certainly not what I was expecting, which was I guess more straightforward rom-commy story about a famous and a normal. This was not that. I was so anxious so much during most of this book. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Same! Yes, same! Me, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: So that was a surprising reading experience. But there was a lot I did like about it. What did you think about it in general?
GIN JENNY: Pretty much the same. There was a lot that I found really enjoyable and thought was really clever and emotionally true, and funny, and moving. I, too, found the experience of reading it pretty stressful, and I hated how it ended. So I think that overall I would say, I found it an enjoyable and engaging and funny and winning book, but ultimately I don’t think I liked it. I think it felt unexpectedly dark, and not always in ways that I was sure the author was doing on purpose.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Do you want to start with the stuff we did like, though?
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. One of my favorite things was our main dude Pablo and his roommates, I thought they—
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, delightful.
WHISKEY JENNY: –had great chemistry, and I wanted so many more scenes of just all five of the roommates hanging out together. That was great. And it’s a very diverse group of roommates basically.
GIN JENNY: Which felt like New York. You know, it’s set in New York, so I appreciated that it reflects what New York is like.
WHISKEY JENNY: Poor Wyn, I thought, got a little bit of short shrift by Pablo. Because Pablo is like, uck, he’s so annoying. But also he gets up early to make a cake for me on my birthday, and I guess that’s nice. And I was like, that’s really nice! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: That’s super nice, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s so sweet! But yeah, so I thought the chemistry with the roommates was really great. There were some legit funny jokes in here that made me laugh, so I thought that was very engaging. There was one early on about, so the main dude Pablo is talking about being a brown person in America, and how if he’s in like a Best Buy or something, or a CVS, he always gets mistaken for an employee, but also he always gets followed around as a potential shoplifter. And the character makes a joke that I guess shoplifting is an inside job. [LAUGHTER] I was really impressed he made a legit funny joke about racism in America, basically.
A lot of the tone, things like that I liked. And then there’s some other stuff about the tone that I was like, uh?
GIN JENNY: Me, too. We’ll get to it, but.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s some stuff you liked about it?
GIN JENNY: I really enjoyed the chemistry that Pab and Lee had together. I thought they were really funny and enjoyable. I could see why they liked each other. And I thought one thing that was so clever is that Pab is internet meme famous. And I loved that, because I think the tricky part of a famous person dating a normal person book is like, how do they meet? And why is the famous person going to let down their guard enough to get to know the unfamous person? And I thought this is such a good way of doing it, because she recognizes him first and mentions it. And then he’s able to be like, oh yeah, I recognize you, too. And I thought that was a really good way of kind of easing into them both feeling a little more comfortable with each other.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, agreed. Speaking of her fame, I have a pretty dumb question.
GIN JENNY: No, I’m sure it’s not dumb. Go ahead.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is her real name Carolina or Caroline-ah Suarez and her famous name is Leanna Smart?
GIN JENNY: I assumed that they didn’t want her—I think they wanted her to have a more white-sounding name, and so for purposes of fame, Leanna Smart is her fake name.
WHISKEY JENNY: I just was trying to—I mean, I know there’s a lot of fake name celebrities—not fake name—sorry. I know that the names by which we know celebrities are often not their real name, but in that case I usually don’t know their real name. And I couldn’t think of a single person whose real name I also know, especially with someone that I’m a super fan of. Like, Pablo was familiar with her, but not a big fan who follows her. So I was like, why does he know both names?
GIN JENNY: I haven’t thought about that at all, but that’s a great point. I love Oscar Isaac, and I have no idea what his real name is.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, see?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, it’s a great point. I really like him. I talk about how great he is a lot, and I’d just, you give me $100, you give me a million dollars, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you the man’s real name without consulting the internet.
Another thing that I liked—and again, this is something that because of the tonal shifts I had mixed feelings about all the things I liked. But I thought there were some absolutely terrific insights here, and I liked in many ways, although not all ways, I liked that the author didn’t try to make relationships tidy just for the sake of the book. There’s this line that Lee says that I think is so on the money, where she says, “Families are a trip. You think you know them so well that you stay wrong about each other,” which I thought was so real, and so smart.
And there’s a later confrontation between Pab and his mother where she’s expressing disappointment in him. And he’s like, you know, if you don’t forgive people when they mess up, you’re going to lose them. And it’s clearly true. It’s clearly a true criticism of her. But at the same time, later on he comes to her and says he’s in trouble, and she’s right there to help him out. So family relationships are these very complicated things that don’t have easy answers, where you do each other harm but you also back each other up, and those things exist alongside each other in this really hard to reconcile way.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s very interesting. Because I kind of felt like Pab was pretty hard on his mom, and read her the riot act, and is a jerk to her a lot of the time. I didn’t get the sense that it was a complex relationship for him, that he was just against his mom, but then still asked for her help and received her help. So that’s interesting.
GIN JENNY: I mean, going back to the ways that this did not work for me, at other times that thing that I just said I admired felt really bad. Because Pab was such a jerk to everyone in most of this book. And I found it really, really stressful.
WHISKEY JENNY: To everyone. He leaves for like three days. I think he maybe calls his job like an hour before he’s supposed to show up, but doesn’t tell his roommates. He doesn’t tell his mom. And this is important appointments that he was supposed to go to, and he doesn’t call her for like two weeks after it, like, a long time after that. And she only knows he’s OK by hearing from the brother.
He finally at the end a little bit gets read the riot act by one of the roommates, who’s like, you are not happy for any of us when things go right. You don’t ask us any questions. You don’t care about anyone but yourself. So I was glad that he was told that, but for most of the book, he’s being that jerk, and he doesn’t realize it, and it’s really annoying.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was really—he’s making such huge mistakes with his job, with his money, with his family, with his friends. And he does it all so casually, and I felt so tired and stressed, because I kept thinking, you can’t just make that choice and then go back to normal. You’re stuck with the person you’re making yourself into. And I thought the book cushioned his fall more than I wanted it to. I don’t think he apologized and atoned enough for how terrible he was for the bulk of this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I completely agree. He never apologizes to his roommates. He never apologizes to his mom. And that’s not OK.
GIN JENNY: The other thing that really bugged me is I don’t think he ever apologizes to his brother for completely blowing him off. Like, there’s a giant, there’s a huge betrayal there. And then he just disappears, and that never comes up again, I don’t think.
WHISKEY JENNY: He is not there for his little 13-year-old brother so many times. And it was nigh unforgivable for my eyes.
GIN JENNY: This is what I mean, I think, when I said that the book is dark in ways that I’m not sure the author always intends. Because I don’t think she fully realized how much he would have damaged these relationships.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think you’re right. I think we’re supposed to be rooting for Pablo, and I’m happy that he is on the mend and all these relationships are on the mend at the end.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, but I didn’t. I was really angry, especially for the thing with his brother. I was like, that kid is 13 years old. He needs you in his life.
WHISKEY JENNY: He has told you that he needs you. It’s not just you picking up on it and then you’re not there.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Also the money thing was incredibly anxiety.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God. I felt so much anxiety. He has college debt and he has credit card debt. He never does anything about it, and he’s not making enough money to pay it down, and he’s just not dealing with it at all. I had physical symptoms of anxiety reading about that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yep. My stomach hurt. He just keeps adding to it, and he just keeps throwing the bills into the bill drawer and ignoring the calls.
GIN JENNY: It was horrible.
WHISKEY JENNY: He also lies to Lee and tells her that he is going to NYU when he is not. Didn’t like that.
GIN JENNY: Didn’t like that, either. And I was going to say that one thing that I liked about their relationship is that there’s not a big drama about telling each other lies, but I also don’t think he faces consequences for telling lies to her. I don’t know, it just felt kind of weird and gross.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. One of the things I was surprised at starting it was that it’s only from Pablo’s perspective. I don’t know why, but for some reason I thought it was going to be alternating perspectives with Pablo and Lee-ahna. Leanna. Lee.
GIN JENNY: That would’ve been great.
WHISKEY JENNY: I especially missed that more at the beginning, because I think without that, the famous female character runs a real risk of being objectified basically. I think it skirted that line mostly. Ultimately it’s not a book about their romance. It’s about like Pab getting his life back together, I guess. So I guess maybe I just want to read a different book that is, A, about their romance, and B—
GIN JENNY: I’m nodding vigorously.
WHISKEY JENNY: –she gets perspective.
I guess one thing I did like is that at the end, she’s not portrayed as—I think it says, she’s not just someone in the middle of this bubble getting herded from place to place. She’s running the show. She’s the CEO of her company, which is her brand. And I did like that the book gave her more agency and power like that, but I don’t know what she did to show that to Pablo. He has to make that transition in his mind from thinking of her as this poor little rich girl, basically, to, oh no, she’s calling the shots here. I have no idea how he figured that out.
Another thing I didn’t—think in more talking about it I’m coming down on it. I did not like how angry Pablo gets at the fact—
GIN JENNY: That she has to work?
WHISKEY JENNY: That she has to work. They go on a work trip together and she goes to work, and he loses it, basically. He also gets really mad that she might have had sex with someone before him, and doesn’t get mad at the fact that apparently she moved into her manager’s house when she was 14 and then they started sleeping together at some unspecified date. Like, that never got addressed as a really, really gross thing. And he didn’t get mad at that. Then he’s like, oh, OK, that makes sense. When before they were consensually sleeping together before she met him and he was furious. And I was like, what? What? You do not have a right.
GIN JENNY: What are your priorities, kid? Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And also, can we talk more about poor 14-year-old Leanna Smart. But anyway.
GIN JENNY: I think one thing that I did like—can we get into spoilers about the ending?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes.
GIN JENNY: So they don’t end up together, which makes sense. And one thing that I liked about that ending is that there is not really some big drama about why they don’t end up together. They don’t work out because their lives are too far apart, and they can’t bridge that gap. And I think that’s legitimate.
At the same time, the way that it actually happened felt really grim and sordid in ways that I can’t exactly articulate, but that made me feel bad. It felt bad to finish this book.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And I would say not that they can’t bridge that, but don’t want to, and decide they don’t want to like meet in the middle, I guess.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
WHISKEY JENNY: I do think they had sort of a dramatic ending, because Pablo is a real jerk in Korea, and that was the big fight that they had.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, which to me doesn’t feel that dramatic. That feels like an incredibly standard couple goes on a trip argument. Like, that seems very surmountable. But what they eventually decided was, we don’t want to. Like you said. Yeah, totally.
WHISKEY JENNY: One thing that I did like about it was the store owners, Mr. and Mrs. Kim at the store that he works for, they gave him more chances than he deserved.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, so many more.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mrs. Kim writes the most sweet, beautiful letter and gives it to his mom at the hospital, and extra money with the last paycheck. This is when he just didn’t show up to work one day, did not resign. He just didn’t show up one day. And that letter from Mrs. Kim really made me cry a lot. So I think there’s a lot of peripheral characters in this book who felt really real and compassionate.
GIN JENNY: But I think that ultimately contributed to my feeling negatively about the book, because he was such a jerk to all of them, and nobody deserved it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: The other thing that really bummed me out—the thing that I think maximally bums me out about this ending, is that there’s a scene and kind of the late middle of their relationship where she takes him to get fitted for a suit, and he looks great in the suit, but he doesn’t want her to buy it for him. And I got that. I understood totally why he felt weird about that. I, too, would not have let her buy me the suit.
But later on, after they’ve broken up, she invites him to her movie premiere, and she sends him that suit, and he decides not to wear it. He sends it back to her. And something about that made me really sad. And I think it was because she’s offering something with the resources she has available to her, and him turning it down kind of felt like he was turning down the fact of their relationship, like just turning down their shared history, in a way. And it just felt so crummy as a book ending to me.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I feel like the ending was not terribly kind to Leanna. I think it’s trying to make her come off as a money-grubbing ambition snake. I’m exaggerating a little bit, but like that all she has to give him his her money, and that all she can gift him is fancy suits and things like that. And I don’t think that was who she was the rest of the book.
And his rejection of that feels like he’s rejecting, no, you can’t buy things for me because I care about things other than money. I just wish that the ending for her had been a little more nuanced.
GIN JENNY: Especially because to me, the gesture of sending him the suit felt extremely—in fact, it felt like a good use of her resources. I thought it was a lovely and kind gesture. She’s not asking him for anything by giving him that suit. She’s offering him a token of their relationship. And he turns it down, and that to me felt unkind. The way that the book frames it is not how it hit me, and so I felt just in general bummed out about it. It felt sordid when I didn’t think it needed to be.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Agreed.
GIN JENNY: So I guess Friend of the Podcast Ashley was right. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Do you member that Public Relations book? Did you read that? Maybe I just want to read that again.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I enjoyed Public Relations a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so if you want a famous/normal rom com, read Public Relations.
GIN JENNY: And also, if y’all have any recommendations of other YA or romance novels about a famous person falling in love with a normal person, we’d love those. So please hit us up with those recs.
WHISKEY JENNY: Please, please! I’m dying for them.
GIN JENNY: OK. So what are we reading for next time?
WHISKEY JENNY: We are reading a play next time. We read a play in early 2019, and I thought we could continue that tradition.
GIN JENNY: Love it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Since we both like them. So we’re reading The Theory of Everything, by Prince Gomolvilas. The first line of the synopsis is, “Seven Asian-Americans gather atop a Las Vegas wedding chapel every week for a UFO watch.”
GIN JENNY: Love it.
WHISKEY JENNY: And then something happens, and maybe they see one, and then they all have to deal with what’s going on in their life plus the possible UFO sighting. And I think it supposed to be fun and heartfelt, and I’m looking forward to reading it.
GIN JENNY: I’m really, really looking forward to it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I specifically was looking for fun plays, because I think just in general, as with many kinds of fiction, the serious drama gets so much more attention and awards, and so I just really wanted to throw some love to the comedies out there.
GIN JENNY: Thank you. I appreciate that. I’m really looking forward to it. As I keep saying, it’s an election year. So we’re going to need some light in our lives. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Maybe we’ll read Noises Off later.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: Which I’ve never read or seen.
GIN JENNY: I don’t think I’ve ever read it. I think I’ve only seen the movie, which is terrific, with Christopher Reeve.
WHISKEY JENNY: Look, we have three options for a future podcast picks.
GIN JENNY: Yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. Doing great. Thanks for listening. Until next time, a quote from Circe, by Madeline Miller. “But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the Earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
[GLASSES CLINK]GIN JENNY: This has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow us on Twitter @readingtheend. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us, we love it when you do, at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, you can become a podcast patron at patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review. It helps other people find the podcast.
[THEME SONG] You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.