Let the bells ring out the news that Whiskey Jenny read a book where the protagonist tells a whole bunch of lies to everyone else in the book all the time and she didn’t hate it. Gin Jenny is very excited because it feels like this opens up new worlds of book reading. This episode, we’re chatting about book slumps and how terrible they are but also how to end them; and then we review Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey, a book that both of us liked even though one of us usually doesn’t like books about lying liars. WATERSHED. 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.
1:10 – What we’re reading
4:46 – What we’re watching
13:38 – Busting reading slumps
24:54 – Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey
48:14 – What we’re reading next time!
What we talked about:
24 in 48 Readathon
Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors, Sonali Dev
Unnatural Death, Dorothy Sayers
Whose Body, Dorothy Sayers
Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers
Alias Grace, Margaret Atwood
Cordelia Underwood, or, The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moose-Pack League, Van Reid
Friday Night Dinner (Hulu)
Green Wing
Blown Away (Netflix)
the crayon factory episode of Mr Rogers
Veronica Mars (Hulu)
Dewey’s 24-Hour Readathon
Veronica Speedwell series, Deanna Raybourn
Alexander McCall Smith’s mysteries
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
White Tears, Hari Kunzru
The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanigahara
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, Karen Joy Fowler
Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey
Trust Exercise, Susan Choi
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas, translated by Lawrence Ellsworth
The Three Musketeers readalong schedule:
Chapters 1-7
Chapters 8-12
Chapters 13-19
Chapters 20-26
Chapters 26-29
Chapters 30-38
Chapters 39-45
Chapters 46-51
Chapters 52-60
Chapters 61-67
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.WHISKEY JENNY: Hello, and welcome back to the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’re back as always to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast, we’ll talk about what we are reading, of course, and what we are watching. Our topic for today is reading slumps of various kinds and what we do to combat them. For this podcast we read Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey. And then at the very end, we have some exciting programming news that Gin Jenny is going to announce.
So first up, Gin Jenny, what are you reading right now?
GIN JENNY: So I am actually doing the 24 in 48 readathon this weekend as we record this, which means I’ve been reading a bunch of stuff. But the most recent thing I started—and I just started it, so I can’t tell you too much about it yet—is Pride and Prejudice and Other Flavors, by Sonali Dev. And it’s about a very fancy Indian-American family in California, and the protagonist is a neurosurgeon, and I believe her love interest is a chef. So those are two excellent professions for romance.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, those are very rom com professions, for sure.
GIN JENNY: Right? Especially for them to get together, because know that, their lives are very different.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. They have different work problems.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah. Yeah, we’ll see where it goes. I’m looking forward to it. What about you? What are you reading?
WHISKEY JENNY: I am not reading anything at the moment. I just finished last night the next Dorothy Sayers book.
GIN JENNY: [GASP]
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s not the one that you want.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right. OK, sorry. [LAUGHTER] I’m still happy. I’m still happy, I’m just not Have His Carcase happy. All right, which one was it? Sorry.
WHISKEY JENNY: I just finished Unnatural Death.
GIN JENNY: OK. And how was it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Good. I’m enjoying—I mean, obviously I like Lord Peter, and I like getting to know him and getting to know Parker. This one was a little racist.
GIN JENNY: So a big difference from last time.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Right, exactly. That’s sarcasm, just to be clear. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah, Whose Body was quite, quite anti-Semitic.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes, to be clear. And there’s one in between there where the brother is accused of a murder.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right, right, right, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I forget what that one’s called. And I haven’t started anything after that, and I don’t know what I’m going to start. I am a bit at sea. I have so many options before me. I don’t know. I don’t know what I want, you know? I think that’s the first problem, is I have to look inside myself and I ask myself what I want to read.
I’m also supposed to be reading Alias Grace, by Margaret Atwood, for book club. And I’m obviously not doing that. [LAUGHTER] I mean, I will, but I’m procrastinating on that. So I have to figure out what I’m going to procrastinate with.
GIN JENNY: I tried to read Alias Grace and I did not get very far. I thought it was going to be like Sarah Waters, and it was not that exciting. So I don’t have anything to say about Alias Grace.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I am not looking forward to it. I met up with a dear friend Annalee yesterday who said that she had just read a book that reminded her of Sorcery and Cecelia.
GIN JENNY: [GASP]
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I know. It really made me want to read it. It was a really long title with a name, and it was like a “So and So, So and So, and the Something Something Something.”
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, it sounds like a classic.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cordelia Underwood and the—gosh, what was it? History of the Something Something Group. Actually, I think she said it was her Patreon gift book.
GIN JENNY: I was just about to say, didn’t I send her that? Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so what’s the title? Sorry, this is so rambling.
GIN JENNY: Hang on, let me find it. Yes, OK. It’s Cordelia Underwood, or The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League, by Van Reid.
WHISKEY JENNY: She said it was lovely and it reminded her of Sorcery and Cecelia, and Sorcery and Cecelia is like a siren call to me. And I was like what? Tell me more! So I might read that next. That sounds like a delight.
GIN JENNY: No, it was fun. I read it on a camping trip. It was a lot of fun. I think that I chose that one for Annalee because she wanted something set in Maine, and I haven’t read that many books set in Maine. And I thought this was the perfect thing. So I’m really glad she liked it.
WHISKEY JENNY: She did, yeah.
GIN JENNY: See, listeners, this is what can happen to you, too, if you are a patron at the $15 level. We’ll send you a book every three months.
WHISKEY JENNY: And we’ll also send you a very belated postcard once I get my act together and catch up on postcards. I’m so sorry. [LAUGHTER] But they are coming, and I will send an extra bonus for it being so late. But they’re coming, I swear. They’re all done.
So our something else-ing this time is watching. So Gin Jenny, what are you watching right now? Actually, no, we should do you second, because you’re more excited.
GIN JENNY: OK, yes, I am very excited. Whiskey Jenny, what are you watching right now?
WHISKEY JENNY: I just discovered this very sweet English sitcom called Friday Night Dinner. It’s on Hulu, and it’s got several people from Green Wing, which I also enjoyed, which was a hospital English sitcom.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, yeah. I remember when you were watching that, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s got a couple people from that. And the concept is it’s a family with the two parents and the two sons who are in their mid-20s I would guess. They don’t live at home; they have jobs, but they come home for every Friday night dinner.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
WHISKEY JENNY: And the family is Jewish, so Friday night dinner is particularly significant. And they have a crazy neighbor who always stops over. And they just get in classic sitcom situations. The very first episode they get a sofa stuck in the stairwell. But it has a lot of very cute family interactions that I appreciate. The brothers are always bickering, and the dad is always taking his shirt off because he’s hot. And it’s just a lovely family portrait where they’re bickering, but they all ultimately love each other and support each other, and it’s sweet.
GIN JENNY: That sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so I’ve been enjoying that. What are you watching?
GIN JENNY: So I have two things that I’m excited about. One is the new Netflix show Blown Away. It’s a Netflix original reality competition show for glass blowers. I just watched the first episode, so I haven’t watched any more than that. But it was so charming and interesting. I said on Twitter that it’s the closest thing I’ve seen in my adulthood to the crayon factory of Mr Rogers that we all remember. It’s just—
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] I don’t remember that at all, but it sounds nice.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, Whiskey Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: What’s the crayon factory?
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, it’s incredible. It’s for real, they really went to a crayon factory and videoed all the crayon stuff.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I also I feel like crayon is one of the words that once you say it too much, it loses all meaning for me. And I think it’s also a dialectical marker.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I [LAUGHTER] I can’t say the word anymore. I’m too confused about it. Anyway, tell us about Blown Away.
GIN JENNY: I will. First up, that phenomenon you just described is called semantic satiation, so now you guys know that information.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I am over-satiated.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: But yeah, Blown Away is just really sweet. And like Face Off or The Great British Bake Off. It’s very gentle. So far there was no reality show drama at all. Everyone was just nice and was interested in what everyone else was doing. And yeah, I think it’s terrific and very peaceful. And if you’re in the market for more gentle reality TV like Great British Bake Off, I think Blown Away is your guy.
WHISKEY JENNY: That sounds great. I really need to watch that. I also have a dear friend who is in fact a glass blower, and so I need to talk to her about it and see if there’s any scoop on it in the community. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: And then secondly and more importantly, new Veronica Mars dropped a week early. And I’m so excited. I’ve been so excited for Veronica Mars to come out all along. And I watched the first three episodes—it is so good. It’s so good. I’m so excited. It’s right back on form. Everything that I loved about original Veronica Mars, the show also has. Its dark, it’s funny.
It’s fun that it’s on Hulu, because they can make more grown-up jokes, which is cool, because Veronica is now herself a grown up.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, how old is Veronica now?
GIN JENNY: I guess she’s early 30s? But she’s still working with her dad, and their dynamic continues to be just so delightful and so charming.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay! The best.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it’s great. Keith is talking to her, and he’s like, why would they hire arguably the best father/daughter private detective team in the greater Balboa County area?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Aw!
GIN JENNY: It’s so great. And I’ve heard tell that a fan favorite, Leo, is going to be on it also.
WHISKEY JENNY: Leo! Deputy Leo!
GIN JENNY: Deputy Leo. I love him. All that said, there is a spoiler that I have found out that I have told Whiskey Jenny about, and neither of us—
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, I’m not ready to talk about it yet. I want to keep talking about the fun stuff. Then we can come back to it.
GIN JENNY: OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Does the drinking game that we used to play hold up?
GIN JENNY: You know, Whiskey Jenny, I’m glad you asked that, because I never felt like we exactly nailed down the drinking game for Veronica—
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh!
GIN JENNY: Well, I think that our Vampire Diaries drinking game was flawless.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. And codified. We had a written out hard copy.
GIN JENNY: Yes, yes. I didn’t mean that we didn’t have one. I meant that we never quite got it to the sweet spot of drinking the correct amount while watching an episode of Veronica Mars.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I see, I see.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It was either that the things would happen too much, or they would happen once per episode for each thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right. Well, let’s see. Some of my favorite ones were if Veronica has to put it as a disguise or an accent to get information out of someone. Does that still happen?
GIN JENNY: Not so far, almost at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ah, well.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. But one of our drinking—and actually, I think that we universalized this drinking game rule in the long term. One of them was that if someone calls her by her first and last name then you take a drink. And that is now one of, at least my, universal drinking game rules.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think it is one of mine, but it is now. [LAUGHTER] Oh, actually, it is. Because I play every time they say the title of the thing, ladies and gentlemen we have a title.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yes. Yes, I do, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which would also, if they say Veronica Mars, they would—that’s the title.
GIN JENNY: Oh, and in case anyone had the burning question, do they use the theme song? The answer is yes. Our friend and Friend of the Podcast Alexis doesn’t like the new arrangement that they’re using. And she might be right.
WHISKEY JENNY: They’re using a new arrangement?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, which makes sense to me. I can see doing that. They made the new arrangement for the CW show, which I didn’t like as much as the original. And then they have a new one for this.
WHISKEY JENNY: Interesting.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So like I said, Alexis doesn’t care for it. I can’t really decide, because I didn’t think they would have it at all, because shows have really moved away from theme songs for some very stupid and wrong reason. So I was just so excited when it came on that I really can’t gauge if it’s any good or not.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, that’s exciting. OK, we can talk about the sad thing now.
GIN JENNY: Wait, I have one more happy thing.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, great. Yay.
GIN JENNY: Additional note, there is a new character called Nicole, who is a bar owner in Neptune. And she’s played by Simone from The Good Place who is a character I just loved in The Good Place, and she’s great in this too. And I think that she and Veronica are going to become really terrific friends, because I think they have a lot in common in terms of how much they want to harm others for the cause of justice.
WHISKEY JENNY: For justice!
GIN JENNY: She hasn’t had too much to do yet, but what she has had to do has been solid, solid gold.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great, that’s exciting. Are there any other fan favorite characters?
GIN JENNY: So Wallace is back.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay, Wallace!
GIN JENNY: Wallace. Weevil is in it, although I haven’t seen too much of him yet.
WHISKEY JENNY: Weevil! I was worried about Weevil after the movie.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, me too. And I’m not sure yet what Weevil’s situation is.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, no, Weevil. OK.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. The Irish mob makes a small reappearance.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh! I like—oh God, sorry. That was really high. [LAUGHTER] But I remember really liking the Irish mob.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, me too. And there’s also a plucky girl, there’s a plucky teenage girl who wants to get some answers.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh boy, I wonder if Veronica sees herself in her.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It’s a great question. I won’t spoil it, but the I think it’s the last line of the first episode I just think is so good on so many levels, and just made me unbelievably excited that the show is back. And I really hope they keep making more seasons, because it’s the best of what Veronica Mars is. It still has some flaws, but a lot of what was great about it is great about the new season.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, that’s exciting. Now, now—now we can talk about the sad thing.
GIN JENNY: OK. I’m not going to say specifically what it is, but there is a major spoiler for this season that I have shared with Whiskey Jenny—to help her. She asked me to. And it’s made both of us unhappy. Uhh—so if you want to know, shoot me a DM on Twitter or send me an email and I’ll tell you the thing.
But I think that it is a choice by the show runners that reflects a certain attitude about revivals and fans that I don’t care for and find pretty exhausting. And I wish that they had made a different choice. That’s what I’ll say.
Anyway, I’m excited it’s back. I have some notes, but overall it’s just a great experience so far. And I guess we’ll see if you want to watch it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I do. You gave it a glowing review before the thing that shall not be named happens, that I think I will watch right up until that thing and then perhaps turn it off and pretend like it never happened. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: That sounds great. It sounds like a great strategy.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, and then I don’t know, if they keep making it and season—
GIN JENNY: Five?
WHISKEY JENNY: Five, I guess, yeah—is the end all be all and just so amazing despite the thing, then maybe I will also watch that. But that will, of course, be after great—that’ll be after you watch it, basically, and tell me how it is. [LAUGHTER] I was going to say great research, and then I was like, no, there’s only one person who I know is already planning on watching it and thus I can ask about it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. I promise to give you the scoop.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you very much.
GIN JENNY: So we wanted to talk this week about book slumps and how to get through them. And I think we identified two kinds of books slumps. Have you thought of any other kinds since we last spoke, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: I have not. I just have the two.
GIN JENNY: OK, so what are the two?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, the two are—and I realized when we were first talking about this topic I was like, do you mean this kind of slump or that kind of slump? And then in making my notes I realized that my methods of dealing with them are the exact same, so it was sort of a moo question. [LAUGHTER] It was like a cow’s opinion. It doesn’t matter.
But no, so the two kinds that we were thinking of are slumps where you yourself don’t really feel like reading, and slumps where for some reason you’re just not that into what you are reading, so you just keep reading bad stuff. Accidentally, obviously, but it can be demoralizing.
GIN JENNY: So I was curious if I could get a ruling from you on which of those two kinds is worse.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is worse? Oh God. Wow. Man. That is a question. I think the—oof. Sorry. [LAUGHTER] You really flummoxed me with this question.
Well, they’re differently bad. Because normally when I don’t feel like reading, it’s a sign that something else is going on. It’s like I’m just super exhausted, or I’m sick and I don’t feel well, or I’m just sad that week or something. It’s a sign that something else in my life is amiss. So that’s a bummer, obviously. But then if you want to be reading something great and you just can’t find it, that’s really frustrating. So it’s a different kind of bad.
And oof, I know that I’m avoiding answering the question. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: No, that’s OK. You don’t have to have an answer.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you have an answer?
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I mean, to me it’s worse when I can’t enjoy reading at all. Because if I can’t read at all, then not only am I not enjoying reading—which would be the same as if I were just not enjoying the books I was reading. So not only am I not enjoying reading, but I also have to worry about something has gone awry with me, and that maybe the thing that allowed me to enjoy books previously has been damaged and I have lost one of my chiefest pleasures in life.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh dear.
GIN JENNY: I can get into a real thought spiral.
WHISKEY JENNY: Indeed. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: It’s like when I lose—I never lose things. So if I lose something, I’m upset that I can’t find the thing. But I’m also like, oh my God, who am I?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m not a person who loses things.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so it’s like that with not being able to read. I think the not being able to read at all is worse.
WHISKEY JENNY: Interesting. OK. Gosh, I’m sorry you go through a spiral when the first thing happens. That sounds terrible.
GIN JENNY: That’s OK. I think I have an array of good strategies. And like you, I found that my strategies were basically the same regardless of the kind of reading slump it was.
WHISKEY JENNY: So what are your strategies? What a great segue you just teed me up for there.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, this is a little on the nose because I’m in the middle of one right now, but one of my strategies is doing a readathon!
WHISKEY JENNY: I was going to ask when you first mentioned that. I was like, is that related to slumps perhaps?
GIN JENNY: It’s not in this case, because I love readathons anyway. So the book blogging/book internet world has been doing readathons for decades.
WHISKEY JENNY: Can we just—I’m so sorry, can we just back up for a quick second?
GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: Can you explain to me what a readathon is?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you sleep?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. I don’t think I understood what a readathon is. Could you tell me?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: So a readathon is just basically some stretch of time is set aside, and you plan to read during it. And you can obviously do other things, but the main point of the time is to read.
And there’s two main readathons that I do. One of them is Dewey’s 24 Hour Readathon, which lasts for 24 hours. And the one that I’m doing this weekend is the 24 in 48 readathon, where you try to read 24 hours out of a total of 48. Which I never do, because it doesn’t matter at all.
The only thing is it’s a block of time that I set aside to just read and eat snacks, and talk to other people online who are also reading and eating snacks. You can make a big pile of books, especially short books are good for readathons, because then you feel like you’re really tearing through them. So I’ll get a lot of comics and YA novels.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: And you make a big pile, and you’re like, this in my book pile. And yeah, you just read and eat snacks all weekend. And it’s so great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, this sounds lovely. I think my concern was that it involved not sleeping and reading through the night, and that sounded horrible to me and I didn’t understand why anyone would want to do that. [LAUGHTER] As someone who loves her bed so much. So much that I referred to it as “the beloved.”
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, I love to sleep. I really have to get eight hours a night.
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought so. That was very confusing. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I try not to think too much about how much time I’m actually spending reading, because then I get competitive and weird and it’s not as much fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it’s just like, in the awake available hours to you, you dedicate them to reading.
GIN JENNY: Exactly. And usually the two people—the two groups that run these two readathons, publishers will sponsor prizes. So there’s door prizes every so many hours, and you get entered to win. And it’s fun.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. It does sound fun.
GIN JENNY: I did my first one pretty recently, within the last five years. And it was so much fun I couldn’t believe I had never done it before. It was just terrific.
WHISKEY JENNY: So how do they help you with slumps?
GIN JENNY: I think there is something about setting aside dedicated reading time and being like, I’m going to read during this. And also, having a big pile of books, because if one’s not working for me, I can be like, well, I gotta move on. I gotta move on. Just gotta power on through. And I also think having short books that don’t take very long to finish just gives me a sense of accomplishment.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, that’s nice. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: What’s one of your strategies?
WHISKEY JENNY: I should say first of all that what I try to do is not obsess over it. And it’s all very self-care-y and like, it’s not a thing. Forgive yourself. There’s not a moral imperative for you to be reading. [LAUGHTER] Obviously I get a lot of good things out of reading that I think help me be a moral person. But reading is not the only way to be a moral person, obviously. So if I don’t feel like reading, I try and let it go and not worry about it.
GIN JENNY: That’s very healthy.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, I try.
GIN JENNY: Same.
WHISKEY JENNY: So then after that, when I’m trying to get back into it—but sometimes you just want to watch Psych and that’s OK.
GIN JENNY: Yes. God, of course, that’s better than OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: When I am like, OK, now I’m going to try and get back into this thing that I do know that I love—so that is why I obviously keep doing it, is because I love it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I would say one of my strategies is to—maybe similar to your readathon strategy—is just concede to every whim that I am feeling at the moment. It’s like food. It’s like, if I want to eat potato chips, then I get to eat potato chips. If I want to eat chocolate chip cookies, then I get to have that very specific kind of chocolate chip cookie.
So yeah, it’s catering to whatever whim I’m feeling at the moment, which is usually something pretty fluffy. So I would say let yourself read the fluff, and just enjoy the fluff and ease back in. And I sometimes save fluffy books for those moments. Like I have not read the next in the Deanna Raybourn Veronica Speedwell book because I’m sort of saving it. I know that’s going to be a good one to get me back into reading the next time this happens.
But yeah, usually it’s something fluffy and something that easy and not taxing to read, but is also extremely engaging. And I think Deanna Raybourn is really good for that. That’s what I’m using the Dorothy Sayers for right now, as a matter of fact. And I think that kind of mystery is also usually well-plotted and engaging and it’s good for that. And I often turn to Alexander McCall Smith, as well, if I need something like—it’s like, it’s just nice. Everything is nice, and it’s great. So yeah, read the fluff is what I do.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that’s a good one. I have one that’s kind of similar, which is that I return to rereads. Which, I reread a lot anyway, but when I’m in a reading slump.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. That’s my other technique.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. It just can be really comforting. I’ll sometimes just stand in front of my bookshelves and just look at all my books and, like a dowsing rod, wait for my brain to be like, towards that direction.
WHISKEY JENNY: Indeed.
GIN JENNY: I think kids’ books in general tend to be great for this, again because they’re short and not taxing and familiar. And then Diana Wynne Jones books are really good for me, because there are so many of them, and I love them all so much. So I tend to find that pretty effective.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. That’s the only other tactic that I have written down is rereads. Because yeah, you know you’re going to like that. So it’s especially—well, it’s especially helpful for both, but if you’ve been reading stuff that you haven’t been enjoying, you know you’re going to like Sorcery and Cecelia, or an Elizabeth Peters, or an Eva Ibbotson, or something like that, where I know I’m just going to fall in love with it again and it’ll be lovely.
And I’m now out of methods. So tell me all the rest of yours.
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh. So I have three more. [LAUGHTER] Well, one is actually related to something you said. One of my methods is to try a genre that I don’t read as often. Because sometimes I think that the slump might be because I’ve gotten in a little bit of a reading rut.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, interesting. OK.
GIN JENNY: So it can help to try something in a genre I don’t read as much of. So you mentioned that mystery was good for getting you out of a rut. I don’t read that much mystery, so to try a mystery book can sometimes help me out with that. But also, reading very academic nonfiction can sometimes help, because—
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] That would not help me. [LAUGHTER] God bless you.
GIN JENNY: Well, it’s like a different reading brain mode engages, and so sometimes then I’m like, oh my God, now I really, really need a piece of fiction to get me through.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, OK. Yeah, interesting.
GIN JENNY: So that’s something that I’ve done. Another thing—I’ve done this for many years. I don’t just do this to get out of reading slumps, but it does help—is I go to the library and just check out a living crap ton of books. Like, anything that even remotely appeals to me, I’ll just get it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! You cater to the whims.
GIN JENNY: Right, exactly. Catering to the whims. And then I sit down and I read a sample from a whole bunch of them until something piques my interest. So I do this all the time when I come back from a library trip. It’s one of my special, special treats. I get a glass of wine and a big pile of books from the library, and I just try 20 pages or so of a bunch of books in a row and see which one I’m the most interested in, and then I proceed with that one.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a question.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do you keep going until something sticks, or do you do them all and then pick one?
GIN JENNY: It depends. If I pick up one and it just really grabs me from the word go, then I’ll stay with it. But typically—I mean, this is the risk, Whiskey Jenny. I mean, you’ve accurately pinpointed the problem with this strategy.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Can you tell my—what is it? The optimizer vs. satisficer shopping brain?
GIN JENNY: What I try and do is tell myself, this way you’ll know what each of the books is, so you’ll have a sense of them when you come back to them. Which is a lie, by the way. I immediately forget all the ones that I don’t continue with. But it’s just nice. It’s just a pleasant thing to do, and it makes me feel pleasant.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great.
GIN JENNY: So I’ve been doing this for so long, but relatively recently an internet friend of mine said she was doing this, and she referred to it as a book tasting menu. And I thought that was so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: A tasting menu! That’s adorable.
GIN JENNY: A tasting menu. Isn’t that nice?
WHISKEY JENNY: I like it, yeah.
GIN JENNY: And then my last strategy is to ask friends for a really, really, really good book, because I feel like everyone has a couple of books ready to go for that recommendation category.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, that’s a great point. Yeah, that’s such a great point. I do that as well, yes. What are yours for that?
GIN JENNY: Oh, I mean, we’ve been friends for a long time, so you’ve read all of mine.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: God dammit. All right, tell the podcast listeners, though.
GIN JENNY: OK. This will not surprise podcast listeners. So some of mine are The Color Purple, the Sarah Waters books, but especially Fingersmith, White Tears, The People in the Trees, and probably We’re All Completely Beside Ourselves. Those would all be books that I would be like, this is really good.
Yeah, so those are all my reading slump strategies. And you know, I’m always looking for more, because I really like reading. And I don’t want to not be reading.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me neither. Which I think is the ultimate point of why we try and get out of the slump, is because we actually enjoy the activity.
GIN JENNY: Yes. A lot. So much.
WHISKEY JENNY: So much that we started a podcast about it, as a matter of fact. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Well, do you want to talk about Magic for Liars?
WHISKEY JENNY: I do.
GIN JENNY: All right, so for this podcast, we read Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, Can I do it, because it’s my pick?
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, I completely forgot it was your pick! I’m so sorry! I did this last time, too. I tried to make you introduce American Spy. Yup. Yup.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I see why you thought that, though, because of the thing. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: I was actually looking at my notes and being like, oh great, I didn’t write anything in my notes about what it’s about, so I’m just going to have to wing it. But now I remember why I didn’t do that.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so for today’s podcast we read Magic for Liars, by Sarah Gailey, which is part of a new tradition that we’ve just decided upon that I think we should do forever, which is that we each picked a book from each other’s summer—
GIN JENNY: I think it was our summer book preview.
WHISKEY JENNY: Summer book preview. So last time we read American Spy, which I had put on my preview. And this time we read Magic for Liars, which Gin Jenny put on her preview. And we’re going to do this forever now.
But Magic for Liars is about a private detective who gets pulled in to work a murder case, which is pretty big for her, at her estranged sister’s magic boarding school, but she’s not magical, but her estranged twin sister is. And that’s about it. It’s sort of a hard-drinking noir detective story set at a magic boarding school. And what did you think about it?
GIN JENNY: So it was very up my alley, obviously. I really liked it. It’s a first novel. Let me clarify—Sarah Gailey has written several novellas before, but this is their first full length novel. So yeah, there were parts where I would have probably tightened it up or made some changes. But overall, I thought it was really enjoyable, and it made me definitely excited for whatever Sarah Gailey is going to do next.
What did you think? Because I was concerned as I was reading it, because there’s a lot of lying in it.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, yes. There is a lot of lying in it. I overall really enjoyed it. Obviously I also have some notes, which we will talk about, which is the point of this podcast. [LAUGHTER]
But yes, I overall enjoyed it. I think there is a lot of lying in it. In particular, the one that I was nervous about is our main narrator Ivy, who’s the private eye, there’s a boy that she likes, Rahul.
GIN JENNY: Who teaches at the school.
WHISKEY JENNY: And they’re going on dates and having a bit of romance, but she is lying to him and pretending to be magical. And obviously I didn’t like that.
GIN JENNY: Sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: But I could get past it a little bit more easily than I have in other similar situations, because she does actually kind of have a reason to lie to him, which is that she’s kind of lying to everyone that she’s magical, because she thinks that she will lose credibility in this investigation if people think that she’s—
GIN JENNY: A muggle.
WHISKEY JENNY: You know, people will look down on her because she’s a muggle, basically. Yeah, exactly. And that’s not why she’s lying to him specifically. To him it’s because she enjoys pretending to be someone else, and it’s all wrapped up in her feelings about her sister and whatnot. So I know it’s a lie that she’s telling herself. But because there was a practical reason for it, I wasn’t the entire time in my head screaming, just tell him, just tell him, just tell him, just tell him.
And also, I was not super invested in their relationship. I was more worried about her and her sister. And the side romance with the boy was kind of secondary to me, so I just didn’t care as much, honestly. Anyway, that answers the question that you did not ask.
GIN JENNY: No, I did. No, I did ask that question.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Oh, did you?
GIN JENNY: Well, because I was worried about it. I was reading this book and I was thinking, oh gosh, this is the kind of thing that Whiskey Jenny finds very stressful.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did find it stressful, but not so stressful that it outweighed the rest of it. And there’s a lot of really enjoyable stuff in this book, too.
The other thing that did not drive me crazy about her and Rahul is that as soon as she forgets herself and accidentally drops a hint, he figures it out. He’s not, for plot reasons, not realizing the thing, and I appreciated that as well. He’s his own person and has agency and is like, ah, you have made a mistake and I have caught up on it. It wasn’t that annoying where it’s like, ugh, how could you not know?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, how could you fall for this incredibly stupid cover story that you’re being told?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Well, let’s talk about the sister relationship, because I loved it. I was actually just reading a thing on Twitter where someone was saying that sibling relationships in books tend to cluster at one of two extremes where either they’re like ride or die for each other, or they’re totally estranged.
So I liked that this relationship, they were estranged. They didn’t really hang out. But when they got back together, there were all these really interesting interactions that they had where Ivy felt like she was getting something from her sister that she hadn’t had when they were kids. And she feels like she’s progressing towards some greater closeness with Tabitha, and even feels that Tabitha needs her, which I think in their past she really felt like Tabitha did not need her, because Tabitha had magic and Ivy was a muggle.
And so I thought that was all really interesting. And I found very poignant the way that Ivy keeps just really hoping throughout the book that Tabitha will be her sister again, and that she can come out of this investigation with her relationship to her sister restored. I just thought that was very emotionally resonant.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I said, I think this was the most interesting relationship in the book.
But I had a hard time, A of all, because we get so much of Ivy’s story. And Tabitha just seems awful.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh, God, yeah. She seems like a real jerk.
WHISKEY JENNY: She seems so horrible. And I could never—it was never like and Ivy also did bad things to her. Like, I could never see Tabitha’s side of the story. Which obviously is partly because Ivy’s our narrator, but I think it’s helpful in that kind of situation to be able to see both sides. Tabitha just seemed awful. And so I felt really bad for present and past Ivy, because she does still have this hope in her. And Tabitha keeps squashing it whenever she wants to in the cruelest way possible, and like fostering it whenever she wants to. And it’s kind of brutal to watch.
And I also thought, there’s one conversation that they have after Ivy finds Tabitha in her apartment at the school crying. And they actually talk to each other about their mom, basically, their mom who died of cancer when they were in high school. Ivy is like, I’m mad at you because you didn’t heal her. And Tabitha was like, well, that was way more magic than I could do at the time. I was inexperienced. And Ivy was like, oh, I didn’t realize. Sorry. And then they were kind of OK that night.
That interaction really rang untrue to me, which was unusual, because the rest of their interactions I thought, as you said, had a lot of emotional resonance. But that one I was like, I don’t think that’s what Ivy was actually mad—I think she was more mad at her for not being there. And also for not healing her, but for not being there. And they never talked about that. And Ivy was like, oh, I never thought of that. Like, it was just such a dumb realization for Ivy to come to, that healing someone of cancer throughout their body would be hard in any situation? I don’t know. And I was just like, for some reason this interaction doesn’t ring true.
GIN JENNY: Well, I think to me the reason that it did ring true is that, although, yes, Ivy is primarily angry at Tabitha for not coming home when the mom had cancer, that she’s able to articulate something about what she was mad at and have Tabitha say, it’s fair that you’re mad. Here’s the explanation. And also to see Tabitha be really upset about it. Because what Ivy’s been imagining is that Tabitha didn’t care enough to come home. So seeing her visibly care a lot about it, I think, goes a long way to patching that up.
And also, I don’t think the problem is solved, but I think for Ivy to see Tabitha being vulnerable to her and talking about her own emotional pain when the mom was going through cancer and then dying, I think those two things made enough of a bridge that they were able to get past that moment. I liked that moment a lot, actually.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m so sorry. I did not. I get your point. I get your point, but it just didn’t work for me. And I didn’t think Ivy would have such a quick turnabout. Maybe it was just the turnabout that she made was too quick for me, and the things were there, and it just happened so suddenly. She was like, oh, I never thought of that, and now we’re talking.
GIN JENNY: I don’t think we’re meant to think that now that whole problem is solved. I just think it was—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, no, totally. As we both said, I think it’s the most interesting relationship in the book, even though Tabitha is [LAUGHTER] such a jerk.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, the detail where Ivy says that Tabitha went off to school one time and gave her—
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, Jesus Christ.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And gave her what she said was a magic mirror that would allow her to talk to Tabitha at school, and that was a lie. It was just a cruel lie. And Ivy was just at home all semester being like, when’s Tabitha going to talk to me in the magic mirror?
WHISKEY JENNY: She’s talking into the mirror and thinks she’s leaving her messages and stuff, and Tabitha is just not responding to her, she thinks. And then she figured—oh God, it was brutal.
GIN JENNY: It was really, really, really, really, really mean.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I also really appreciated the way that this book used the magical divide between them to talk about really common sibling issues. Like they have jealousy between them, and appearance issues, and insecurities that’s brought to the forefront because of the magic, and that was just really fascinating to witness.
The other thing—they’re fraternal twins who look really similar. And so Tabitha puts a lot of magical charms on herself to make her eyes brighter, and her hair shinier, and disappear her freckles—which I did not appreciate as person who has freckles.
GIN JENNY: I love freckles. She’s wrong for that.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] But won’t do those things for Ivy when they were younger. And there’s one really like oof line where Ivy is talking about her own feelings and saying I’m still mad about the fact that she took a look at our eyes and decided that they needed to be better.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that was a really good line. Overall I really thought this book was so attentive to emotional nuance in a way that I found really, really fascinating and great. And not just between Ivy and Tabitha, but among the teenage characters as well.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, totally. Yeah.
The other thing that overall I wanted to address is, I really appreciated how visceral the entire book was.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: So the murder at the beginning, it’s really gross. A woman has been bisected, essentially, cut in half. And there’s an enormous pool of blood on the floor, and it’s just really gross, and that kind of reminder that we’re all meat sacks is throughout the book. There’s so much language in this book where it’s talking about other things that was really—yeah, just visceral, is the only word I can think about. She’s describing San Francisco one time and says, “it bled money like an unzipped artery.”
GIN JENNY: Eugh.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know, right? She said something beautiful is like “the Novocaine that comes before the drill.”
GIN JENNY: Ooh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s all in relation to things in your body, and flesh and blood, and pain, and sensation. And I was just so impressed at how that theme carried throughout everything in the book.
GIN JENNY: Me too. And there’s a part early on, and it was a detail about magic that I’ve never seen done this way before that I thought was really interesting. So early on Ivy gets injured in her line of duty as a PI. And when she goes to a magic school, the receptionist—guidance counselor? Principal? What’s the lady’s job?
WHISKEY JENNY: She’s the receptionist. But she is the coolest. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: The receptionist who retired from a life of being the best healer in the world.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mrs. Webb, yeah.
GIN JENNY: —goes to heal Ivy’s shoulder. And the way you have to do it, apparently, is to take apart the whole shoulder, fix whatever’s wrong, and put it back together again. So her whole shoulder kind of explodes in the office, and there’s just blood and viscera all around, and then it goes whoomp, back together.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Ivy does not know that that is how the magic works and thinks she’s just talking to Mrs. Webb and then suddenly she doesn’t have an arm and it’s floating in exploded pieces before her. There’s a cloud of blood. [LAUGHTER] That was such a horrifying and also kind of humorous situation to be in.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was It was good. I think it can be really hard to make a system of magic that is interesting and consistent. And I think Sarah Gailey doesn’t really try and do that much with it, which I think is a good call.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree.
GIN JENNY: But this part and the way the magic healing works is just really interesting and strange. And it made the rest of magic feel more plausible, because there was this one really—again, I don’t know another word to say other than visceral, even though we are in fact talking about viscera.
WHISKEY JENNY: Exactly. But even the system of magic is never in this ethereal plane where it’s like, ooh, you say a couple words and poof. It’s very still grounded in our physical bodies.
GIN JENNY: And the physical world in general.
WHISKEY JENNY: And the physical world in general, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, for sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I also agree with regard to the system of magic, I think because we get this outsider’s perspective the whole time, I think I totally agree it’s the right choice not to make the entire framework for it, but that what we do find out is really interesting and is really important for the resolution of the mystery.
GIN JENNY: Well and also, the other thing I would say about Ivy’s outsider status to magic is that when Tabitha tries to tell her how magic works and feels, Ivy’s like, what are you—literally what the hell are you talking about? [LAUGHTER] And it just makes no sense to her. And it makes no sense to you as the reader either. And I thought that was very clever, too.
WHISKEY JENNY: I completely agree. So here is the one thing that I will say about that, which is that some of that stuff was really funny to me.
GIN JENNY: Same. To me, too, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I couldn’t quite tell—I think I wish the book had gone a little bit further in exploring that humor. There’s one—so Ivy finds this journal that basically seems like someone’s murder-walling, essentially. It’s the crazy writings of a madman trying to solve this one specific theoretical magical problem. And it’s describing all the different approaches, which are sort of similar to Tabitha’s explanations. They make no sense.
And then later on when some students are talking to her, she’s interviewing them as she’s trying to solve this mystery, they ask her to put up a spell to hide their voices so that people don’t know that they’re talking to the PI. And Ivy lies and says she can’t do it and uses one of the explanations from the book. And I just burst out laughing. It was really funny to me, but I wish there had been more moments of that, and that that humor had been explored more. She’s like, well, that requires more of a blood and sand approach, and the light levels won’t take that here, as you know. [LAUGHTER] And it was such nonsense, and it was really funny to me.
GIN JENNY: Well, I you think it was supposed to be funny. I enjoyed that a lot.
WHISKEY JENNY: But I wish there was more moments of that, and that it had leaned in a little bit more to that. And the “magic of learning” poster in the library really made me crack up, and thinking about all the dopey high school guidance counselor magic puns that a magic boarding school would have. So I wanted a little bit more of that. But I know that that’s a tough line to walk, between the humor of it and the horrifying viscera that’s literally floating around.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I generally liked the balance. I genuinely thought the author had that balance work well.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Well, I think that’s all I can say without getting into spoilers.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yep. Spoilers ahoy. Let’s do it.
GIN JENNY: All right, so now it is all spoilers all the time. Do you want to start with the resolution of the murder? Because I also had something about Dylan and Alexandria.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s do the resolution of the murder first.
GIN JENNY: So I loved the resolution of the murder. I love a mystery resolution where it’s basically like, nobody had malice in their hearts, but shit just went to hell. And in this case it’s that the dead lady was Tabitha’s girlfriend and she had cancer, and Tabitha was working really hard to figure out how to get rid of all the cancer. It was very complicated. And she’d been working so hard at it she hadn’t slept. And she fell asleep for one second and Sylvia fell apart in half. And I thought that was just a very, very good and horrifying resolution to this murder.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, she fell asleep for one second after she had exploded Sylvia’s entire body and was trying to do the healing thing that Mrs. Webb did on a smaller scale. So when she fell asleep she stopped holding the body together.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which, again, is just like, oh God. That it just plops down in half on the ground.
GIN JENNY: Yeah
WHISKEY JENNY: Ugh. Uck.
GIN JENNY: It’s really just horrifying to envision. But I will say, a strong endorsement of the importance of sleep.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: There you go. Yeah. And she’d been trying to hold this body together for three straight days, didn’t she say?
GIN JENNY: Right. A really long time.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so that’s the resolution.
GIN JENNY: I mean, I liked that, but I was sad that it meant that the sisters couldn’t reconcile.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was really, too, because I had been rooting for them so hard all along. So that was tough.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was. Especially, I read—I think probably Rose Lerner said this. Someone said this about romance novels, that they’re about solving an emotional problem. And I thought that this book was doing such an interesting and good job of solving the emotional problem of Tabitha and Ivy’s estrangement. And like you I was really, really pulling for them. Even though Tabitha had been a real butthead in the past, I was hoping that she was going to straighten up and fly right. I was just a little sad about that.
I mean, it’s clearly the right choice. You should definitely not try to reconcile with your murderer sister. It’s fine to estrange in that case.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I think Ivy realizes that Tabitha is never going to change, is never going to care about—not other people, but that, yeah, she did something terrible to another student in service of trying to fix her girlfriend. And Ivy just can’t get on board with that. It makes sense that they couldn’t come together in the end. It’s just sad.
GIN JENNY: The other real problem that I have with the book, and this was probably the biggest, to me, flaw. And I want to preface this by saying I love—I love a deconstruction of the chosen one trope. There’s a plot line, and at first you think it has to do with the resolution of the mystery, and it turns out not really to have much to do with it at all. It’s a red herring basically. Where there is a kid called Dylan who believes he’s the chosen one in his family. And it turns out actually at the end, you learn that the real chosen one is his half sister Alexandria, who’s kind of the Regina George of this school.
I thought that it worked really well as a red herring, but I don’t think it worked really well as a B plot. And I didn’t think that the relationship between Alexandria and Dylan was explored enough, and I also didn’t think the prophecy itself and the chosen one idea felt quite all the way cooked.
WHISKEY JENNY: I will totally agree with that. But the only reason that that bothered me is because I thought that that storyline was fascinating and I wanted more of it. I don’t know, if it had just been a red herring I didn’t care about, I’d have been like, oh, you got me, and then moved on. But I was really into it. I thought this idea that—so Alexandria it turns out has the ability to emotionally manipulate people, and I think has been doing it unawares, and accidentally explodes her brother then puts him back together. And I just thought she was such a fascinating character that I wanted to explore that a little bit more.
And then because it turns out the chosen one prophecy is real and it’s Alexandria, I think then we have to know more about that chosen one prophecy. Like if you’re going to engage with it and be like, yep, it’s real, it’s her and she’s going to change the world forever, then we have to engage with it a little bit more, and we don’t. But yeah, I’m just mad because I was interested in it and we didn’t get more.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And I think that if it were my book, I would have tied in that whole thing more to the emotional themes of the main plot. Because I think Sarah Gailey really missed a trick by not doing much with the relationship between Alexandria and Dillon. And I think that knowing more about them and how they each function within the context of their bigger family would have made it—I mean, it would’ve been really easy to do that while exploring what the prophecy means and what chosen one status means, and da da da.
But then to also give them a more interesting sibling relationship could have included some explicit parallels to what’s going on with Tabitha and Ivy. I don’t know, I just think there were a lot of ways to make it work really, really, really well, instead of being just OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. No, agreed. Because obviously Ivy has sort of been thinking about Tabitha in their family as the chosen one.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it would have been great to draw that parallel.
GIN JENNY: Especially because we really don’t know that much about what Alexandria and Dylan feel about each other.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, we just know the surface level—
GIN JENNY: Conflict, I guess.
WHISKEY JENNY: Like one’s popular at school and one’s not.
GIN JENNY: Right.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did like that Sarah Gailey was aware of the fact that there are dangerous waters ahead if you write a horrifying manipulative teenage girl character and lampshaded it by having Ivy say, like, I didn’t want to say this because it made me go into Humbert Humbert territory. I really appreciated that the writer knew the danger and the threat of, I guess, demonizing teenage girls in that way.
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I really appreciated the carefulness around that plot line. And the fact that at the end Alexandria—she’s not been controlling people’s emotions on purpose, which was a really gross, horrifying thing to do, I think. So I think it’s the right choice to have her be doing it accidentally. So now having found that out, and that she’s just your regular Regina George. She’s not whoever David Tennant was in Jessica Jones.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: She’s not that. Now I’m rooting for her to learn to be a good person.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, and I also think it was smart to have a bunch of other teenage girl characters who aren’t super, super important to the plot, but who get their own motivations and interests, and we learn more about them. And I think that helps to balance out even the initial depiction of Alexandria as being sinister.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. No, I totally agree.
GIN JENNY: I mean, overall I think the depiction of teenagers was pretty good.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree. Yeah and Ivy keeps being mad that they’re using their magic for—
GIN JENNY: Dumb stuff.
WHISKEY JENNY: Dumb teenager stuff. Which made sense on both sides. It made sense why Ivy would be like, ugh, you’re wasting this gift that I didn’t get. And it made sense that that’s exactly what teenagers would do. They would still be teenagers and do dumb stuff.
GIN JENNY: Well, and I think that they were dumb in the way that teenagers are dumb, but also very smart and insightful in the way that teenagers are. And I think it’s often the case that authors forget about one of those two things.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. It was a good balance.
GIN JENNY: Oh, you know what else? I liked Rahul. I know that I didn’t care that much about the romance, but he was a delight.
WHISKEY JENNY: Very interesting. He was—yeah, he was— Sorry. Gosh. I did not have that feeling. And I felt like I was supposed to be having that feeling towards him, and I just did not.
GIN JENNY: Interesting. OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was just like, yeah, he was fine. And then that moment where Ivy has figured out—I feel like I need a little bit more exploration also of why Ivy is suddenly the only one able to see that Alexandria is manipulating people. But she’s like, hey, tell me more about emotional manipulation. And Rahul freaks out and is like, even if I—all the words that he was saying I agreed with, but the way in which he reacted so strongly against it immediately made me suspect him. And I thought he was going to turn out to be evil, and that was really hard to come back from.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, I read the end. So I knew he wasn’t the murderer. So that helps.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true. That would be good, as well. Can I tell you two other things that bothered me, one small and one large?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: The small one is that I think I’m done with dreams in fiction. And I don’t know—I can’t quite articulate what drives me so nuts about it.
GIN JENNY: I think to me it feels a little bit like the author is cheating and trying to tell us. You know?
WHISKEY JENNY: Exactly! But that doesn’t make any sense, because the entire thing is written by the author. The author is cheating the whole time. [LAUGHTER] You know what I mean? Like, they made up this entire thing, but yet when they make up this dream that is so conveniently related to what’s swirling around inside of our character’s feelings, I’m like, oh, how convenient! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I feel like it’s trying to make sure that you have enough clues as a reader, but not really actually give you any new clues. Just be like, and here’s some symbolism! Do with it what you will!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s always so symbolic. And also, so there’s this predator character teacher, and I really wanted him to get his at the end. And at the end, nothing happens.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. That sucks, but is very consonant with my own experience.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. But our main character didn’t even try to do anything about it.
GIN JENNY: That’s true. That’s true, and she should have. I so agree.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I felt like Ivy would have tried to do something about it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: But yeah, overall—I flew through it, also. I found it very engaging.
GIN JENNY: I did as well. Well I’m really just so pleased you liked it. I thought that the lying would get to you too much and that you would just hate it intensely.
WHISKEY JENNY: It didn’t. I’m really proud that it didn’t.
GIN JENNY: Yay!
WHISKEY JENNY: Because yeah, I’m glad that I was able to get past it and get what I got out of it.
GIN JENNY: Woo hoo.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so what are we reading next time?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so speaking of books that I think you’ll hate, we’re ready to start the Hatening for this year. And I have found a book they truly think you’ll loathe and I think that I’ll enjoy like crazy.
It is Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi. It’s about two kids who fall in love at an elite art school, and they experience some dramatic events. And what’s great about it, Whiskey Jenny, is that it’s been compared to Curtis Sittenfeld in how it captures the interior life—
WHISKEY JENNY: No!
GIN JENNY: —of teenagers.
WHISKEY JENNY: No! You didn’t! You didn’t! How dare you?
GIN JENNY: But wait, I’m not finished. New York Magazine describes it as, quote, “a Russian nesting doll of unreliable narrators.”
WHISKEY JENNY: [HORRIFIED GASP]
GIN JENNY: “And a slippery MeToo puzzle box about the fallibility of memory.” [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: No.
GIN JENNY: I think you’re going to genuinely really hate it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think am, too. [LAUGHTER] Oh no.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I think I did a great job this year.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: No, I don’t want to.
GIN JENNY: I don’t think it’s super long, though. I don’t think it’s—it’s not Alias Grace, you know?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Oh man, you’re too good at this.
GIN JENNY: I’m worried that I lean too heavily on the unreliable narrator thing, so I wanted to find some additional way to twist the knife. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: You did. Oh boy. All right. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: In positive podcast programming news, we have each gotten our copy of The Three Musketeers, and we’re going to start next podcast. So we got the translation by Lawrence Ellsworth. It came out last year from Pegasus Books.
And we have made a chapter breakdown. We’re going to be reading it in ten installments. So for next podcast, we’re going to be reading chapters one through seven. And I’m going to post the full breakdown in the show notes of what chapters we’ll be reading each week. But for our next podcast it’s going to be chapters one through seven. I am so excited.
WHISKEY JENNY: Me too. I’m also really excited that we picked this translation, because apparently it is faithful to the bawdiness of the original. And I’m so excited for 17th century bawdy Frenchmen.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, me too. And I also read that it was less stilted and flowed more smoothly than other translations, which I think will be great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, absolutely. And I also didn’t realize this, but apparently it was originally written as a serial, so I feel like we are approaching it in the right way.
GIN JENNY: Oh, way to go, us!
Well, 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, please 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.
Until next time, a quote from The Old Drift by Namwali Surpell. “There’s naught like a nemesis for truth.”
[GLASSES CLINK] [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.