Episode 435 || July Reading Recap
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie recaps the books she read and loved in July. As always, we’re offering a Reading Recap Bundle, which features Annie’s three favorite books she read this past month. You automatically get 10% off your books when you order your Reading Recap Bundle here!
You can get the books mentioned in this episode on our website (type “Episode 435” into the search bar to easily find the books mentioned in this episode):
The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walther
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
This Is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara (releases 9/26)
Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker (releases 10/3)
Once More with Feeling by Elissa Sussman
Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey
The July Reading Recap Bundle ($64) includes:
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
The Summer of Broken Rules by K.L. Walther
Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is listening to The Only One Left by Riley Sager.
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Transcript:
[squeaky porch swing] Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much.”
- R.F. Kuang, Yellowface
[as music fades out] I’m Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week, I’m recapping the books I read in July. Are you following The Bookshelf on Instagram? It’s a great way to learn about upcoming events, to find out about all the new books that release each week, and it’s where you can share your thoughts on this week’s podcast episode. Hop over to Instagram and make sure you’re following us @bookshelftville. (And, if you’ve been missing my book reviews on my personal Instagram account, you can follow my paid-for private account: anniesfivestarbooks.)
Annie Jones [00:01:26] Okay, let's talk July reading and July books. My July was very full with lots of traveling. And when it came time to prepare for this episode I realized-- and this is just full transparency. I realized I had read two books. Two books in July. So if you are also looking at your not dwindling TBR stack or you are realizing summer is coming to a close and you did not read what you thought you were going to read, this is your sign of solidarity. Because reading is part of my job and I knew I could not just talk about two books in a reading recap, I immediately got to work finishing up some books I had started, reading books that I just happened to pick up because I thought I could probably fly through that. And I wound up reading some really, really excellent books to close out the month. But if you are feeling a little bit like, "Wait, I didn't read anything this month," you're not alone. My July was just so much travel and markets and being with friends for the fourth. I did not read a lot. And then I also started a lot of books that I did not finish. That's something that comes up on the podcast a lot, is do you ever not finish a book? And the answer is yes. There are all kinds of books that I start and don't finish either because I didn't like them, because the release date affects Shelf Subscription selections, because somebody else on staff is reading it, because I just don't like it; because it's not for me. And that happened a lot this month. Even a couple of audiobooks Jordan and I started to listen to on road trips just did not work. Even a couple that came recommended just did not work. And so, anyway, if you wanted some solidarity, this is me offering you solidarity. That being said, I did actually finish several books this month, thanks to looking at a looming deadline and realizing I needed to read more. And many of them were really good.
[00:03:19] So I want to start with the Summer of Broken Rules. This is by K.L. Walther, and it's a young adult novel that I believe released last year. This was recommended to me by bookseller Kyndall, and part of the reason she recommended it to me is because last year she and I both read the book that was kind of one of the eBooks of summer last year. It was Carley Fortune's Every Summer After, and I didn't love that book like everybody else did, and Kyndall didn't either. And Kyndall told me, she said, I think this will be what you maybe wanted that book to be. And so, I picked up Summer of Broken Rules on her recommendation. I took it to the beach. That's where much of my-- not all of my reading, but where a lot of my early reading in the months got done was by the beach. And so I took my copy of Summer of Broken Rules. This is a young adult novel set on Martha's Vineyard. The main character is Meredith. She is returning to this kind of family compound. I almost pictured like Kennebunkport and the Kennedy's. This clearly a very well-off waspy family. And Meredith and her family return to the same location every summer. But they haven't been back in a while because Meredith's sister has died. And that's not a spoiler; though, it is something that is kind of just alluded to in the opening pages. But you know tragedy has struck her family. She and her parents are dealing with a lot of grief. And returning to this place on Martha's Vineyard to be with their extended family is both a blessing and also a hardship because they have never been without Meredith's sister.
[00:04:55] And I thought the plot points about Meredith's sister were particularly emotionally resonant. I felt like the book was a really accurate portrayal of grief and of losing a close loved one and what that would be like. And I thought it was especially poignant. The book is, I think, supposed to be a romantic comedy, and I liked the romance. Meredith falls in love with a family friend. But the reason I'm not even naming him is because to me the book really wound up being about Meredith and her family in the same way-- so you've probably heard me talk about this book many times on the podcast, but I love the young adult novel Ten Blind Dates by Ashley Elston. I fell in love with that family so much. That book is set at Christmas and this feels like the summer version. Maybe I like Ashley Austin's family that she's writing about a little bit more, but this had the same vibe to me where, yes, there's a love story. Yes, there's a love interest. But really who you're here for is this extended family. They're together for the summer. They're celebrating the wedding of one of the grandchildren. The grandparents are really lovely. Again, these are really upper middle class white New Englanders. But I thought they were very fun. The family is playing the game Assassin, which at first I kind of rolled my eyes at and thought was a ridiculous plot point. But by the end of the book, I was very invested in who would win the game of Assassin. That's not my particular family tradition. But I will admit that my family does have some weird traditions. And so, I just felt like the parts about this family were really lovely and fun and sweet. And it was a great summer book. So that is the Summer of Broken Rules by K.L Walther. It's out in paperback now.
[00:06:48] Then, y'all, I did it. I read the it book of summer, which is Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. I can't believe I'm saying it. I'm so happy. I'm happy that I did it. I am hype averse, but I also get FOMO sometimes because I read a lot of stuff in advance. Or maybe I'm not really into what's happening in pop culture. I'll give you an example. There was a tweet recently-- I feel like it was a tweet about if you've still never seen the movie Titanic, like you have the stamina that very few other people have. I have still never seen Titanic and never watched Game of Thrones. So there are these kind of key pop cultural touchstones that I still have not participated in. And there is a part of my personality that really takes pride in that. And then there's another part of my personality that in the moment feels like I'm missing out. So I didn't really think I'd like Game of Thrones, but I still was kind of bummed that like I couldn't do water cooler talk about Game of Thrones. Nobody's talking around the water cooler anymore, but you know what I mean. So this book, Fourth Wing, came out and it was one of those books I think that really took off on book talk and Instagram, Bookstagram. We at the Bookshelf, none of us had read it. And the book just immediately had to be reprinted and the Bookshelf couldn't keep any copies in stock. No independent bookstore or bookstore that I knew, including Amazon, couldn't keep it in stock and you really couldn't find it anywhere. And so, I kind of decided the book did not sound like something I would particularly like. It's a fantasy. In fact, we'll get to this. But some readers describe it to me as a romantasy which was a new genre for me. But so, I kind of read a little bit about it and thought, "No, I'm not reading a book about dragons, I'm not doing that." We did get in a couple of copies of the Bookshelf that were promised to other people. So I opened it when it came in the store and saw a map, a very detailed map. And I immediately thought, absolutely not. Somebody else on staff is going to read this- Olivia or Kyndall. Somebody's going to have to read this.
[00:08:49] And then long distance customer and friend Jennifer said, you know what, I have a copy and I'll mail it to you when I'm done if you still don't have a copy. And I kind of had thought that's what I would do. I wouldn't go searching for a copy, but if one found its way to me, meaning either Jennifer mailed it to me or it came back in stock at the Bookshelf, I would try it. Because I think as an anthropologist of book culture, I was curious. I thought, well, why is everybody talking about this? Why am I not talking about this? Why did I not know about this? So I did have a little bit of FOMO. And then several readers I trust who have pretty similar tastes to me, including my friend Courtney and her sister Betsy, they read it and couldn't stop talking about it. And I thought, okay, but they're not fantasy readers. They're not romantasy readers. It's like maybe I should give it a try. So Jennifer mailed me her copy. It arrived and I immediately had to go to market. And I thought, well, I'll try this. I'll take it to market, and I'll just read it every night before bed. And I am thrilled to tell you I really liked this book. It's a 500 page book. We could discuss whether it's too long or not. I think it probably is. But the first 50 to 100 pages, I thought this is not going to be for me. The writing sentence by sentence is not great. It's not like the most beautiful thing I've ever read. And I really love beautiful writing. And the book is clearly way more plot-driven and story-driven. It's a really good story. And that's what kind of kept me hooked. Even though those first 50 to 100 pages, I thought, I don't know if I'm going to be able to understand this word-building. I don't know if I'm going to be able to enjoy this writing.
[00:10:38] And by page 50 or 100, I realized, oh, I think I'm pretty invested. The main character is Violet Sorengale. She is a student at a war college. My friend Jennifer described this to me as Top Gun with dragons, and that is really the only thing that kept me going. I think I said this on Instagram, but Blake Crouch and Andy Weir are really good writers with books that I love, and they deal a lot with science. And any time I start to get bogged down by the science, I just kind of keep reading and let it wash over me and assume that they will tell me what I need to know. And that, I think, is also the case with fantasy books-- and I think well-written fantasy books. I don't like the writing on a sentence by sentence level, but I have to admit I am a non fantasy reader and I, at page 100, finally realized, okay, I think I know what's going on here. And I think that Jennifer really was spot on with her Top Gun with dragons, because it's kind of this military college, this war college. And they are fighters and they participate in war in the air on dragons. Do I fully understand the war? No. Do I fully understand the battle lines that have been drawn? No. But my my basic understanding is that there was a group of people who supposedly 'rebelled'. I almost felt like Star Wars vibes. Violet's mother is a leader in the group that kind of stayed, and that is the current ruling government. And yeah, Violet is 19 years old. She trained her whole life to be a scribe. This is where you kind of get Hunger Games vibes. She thought she was going to be a writer, and instead she's a rider. See what I did there? I'm sure that was totally intentional by Rebecca Yarros. So she is kind of forced into becoming a rider. She is not physically strong. I think there's even perhaps maybe some kind of physical disability that Violet is dealing with that maybe prevents her from being able to keep up with her peers. But she is determined to kind of prove herself.
[00:12:42] And, of course, there are two male love interests. One of them definitely is a love interest. The other I couldn't really tell. And, again, that is where your Hunger Games comparison comes in. Here's what I will say. I went into this book mistakenly, and I want to be clear. I don't know who told me this. I think I just assumed because of the Hunger Games comparisons this book was young adult. And I really wish that I had read this book knowing it was adult because I wound up finding it extremely sexually explicit. I do think it is sexually explicit. There are lots of open door scenes, especially toward the end. The sexual content really does not happen until page 350 or 400. That's another thing is I kept thinking, oh, somebody told me this was open door. It's not open door at all. And then all of a sudden, yes, the door was flung wide open. But I think part of the reason it was so kind of striking to me and attention getting to me is because I thought this was a book written for young adults. And and not that young adults can't read sexual content, but I was just like, wait a minute, this is being shelved in YA section. It's not. This is an adult book about dragons. Yes, there is a Hunger Games comparison and the Hunger Games element, but this is very much written for adult readers. So that kind of helped me after I finished the book. I can't stress enough how much I thought I was going to hate dragon stuff, and I really liked the dragon stuff. I really liked Violet's relationship with her dragon. I didn't mind the romantic elements. The sex scenes were a bit much for me, but you all know that I am a self-proclaimed prudish reader, and so it is not shocking that several open door scenes back to back would not be for me. But if they are for you, great. And even if they aren't, they're not so crucial to the story. I mean, I definitely skimmed them because some of the elements were important for the storytelling. But I think you could read this book and kind of just skim over those parts if you're like me and you're a little sensitive to that subject matter.
[00:14:39] The plot is good. The story is good. I do not know if I will read the sequel, but I felt like I was able to partake in a cultural experience this summer. And for that, I am very grateful. Special thanks to Jennifer for mailing me her copy of the book. If you can find a copy, I do think it would be worth trying, maybe especially if you're like me and you're not a huge fantasy reader. My friend Julianna, who has come on the podcast before, she read a lot more fantasy and sci-fi than I do, and she struggled through the back half. And I will say, again, I think it was a smidge too long and I think it could have been trimmed down a bit. Julianna and I might feel similarly about that. But if you have been hesitant because of the dragon stuff, I don't think you should be hesitant. I think you might want to give it a go. But if by page 100 you are not hooked, you don't need to read this. And I also would just stress there are lots of really hyped books that I don't think you're missing anything. I don't think you're missing anything here, but I think if you want to read it and participate in the cultural discourse about Violet Sorengale and her dragons, I think you should read this. But if you're not interested in any of what I've just said, don't feel pressured. You don't need to read this. Is that helpful? Is that helpful at all?
[00:15:49] Okay. Moving on to my next book was Yellowface. This is my R.F. Kuang. Jordan and I came home. I came home from market, and we spent a Saturday in Tallahassee running errands. And I wanted to stop by Midtown Reader, which is the independent bookstore in Tallahassee. And I just wanted to see if they had a copy of Yellow Face. The Bookshelf had a copy, but I was really trying to not go to the Bookshelf because it was my day off. And so, luckily for me, Midtown Reader had a copy. And so I grabbed a copy of Yellowface at Midtown Reader. I picked this up because to me this is the other it book of summer. I think it's like the it literary book of summer. And I don't think it is, by the way, too literary. I think it's quite accessible. But R.F. Kuang is known for her fantasy book actually called Babel, which is a book I had not read and will not read because my foray into fantasy lit is probably limited to Fourth Wing. But I was really intrigued by this one. I kept seeing it everywhere. Several readers had asked me if I had read it, and it was one of those books that I said,"No, I just haven't gotten to." And I'm pleased to say that I did, and it might have been my favorite book I read in July. I think this one is a little bit reminiscent of Everything's Fine, which is the book by Cecelia Rabess that I read earlier this year. I know Olivia read a book called The Other Black Girl, which came out a couple of years ago. I think there are some similarities there. Weirdly, I also think it's a little bit of Maud Dixon. Remember that suspense book, Who Is Maud Dixon? I think there's some elements of that here. And then the book by Rebecca Makkai that came out earlier this year called I Have Some Questions for You. I think there are similarities with all of those books in Yellowface.
[00:17:32] So if you're not familiar, Yellowface is about June Hayward. June is a white woman, a Yale grad, an aspiring writer who is friends with Athena Yiu. I say friends, but it's almost like a frenemy type of relationship. Athena Yiu was also a Yale grad. She's an Asian-American woman who has had a ton of writerly success post-graduation. And, of course, there is definitely, I think, a scarcity mindset. If you are a writer or an aspiring writer, you can feel like other people are having the success that you were supposed to have. And that is certainly the case with June. She feels like Athena has had more success than she has, perhaps in part because she is a diverse voice in literature. Part of the reason I also was intrigued by this book is it's very much a satire and a social commentary on the publishing world, racism in the publishing world, cultural appropriation. And on last week's episode of From the Front Porch, we did a literary therapy episode. And one of the questions was, what do we do with controversial books? And part of the question was particularly controversies around own voices type literature, and who is allowed to write what book. And I think Yellowface is a fantastic book to read if you have those questions. If you, like me, are constantly kind of scratching your head and thinking, well, what am I supposed to do? Yes, as a consumer, as a reader, for me, as a bookseller and as a purveyor of literature, as a curator of a store, what am I supposed to stock? What am I not supposed to stock? What am I supposed to push? What am I supposed to read? If those are questions that are plaguing you or questions you have found yourself asking, or questions that have been brought up in your book club, I think this would be such a good book to read.
[00:19:22] And, look, I think this is where this book becomes not only a social commentary and satire, it's also a lot of fun, which it doesn't sound like it would be but I assure you that it is. It feels quite campy at parts. So June and Athena are out celebrating one of Athena's recent wins. She got a deal with Netflix and her books are going to be kind of turned into TV shows or movies. And June is kind of eye rolling and they're out celebrating together. Their relationship is really interesting. And this is no spoilers. Athena dies during that night out. She chokes and she dies. June is present and she calls the police and she leaves Athena's apartment with Athena's manuscript. And Athena's manuscript happens to be, I believe, a World War One narrative. I was almost thinking about In Memoriam or something. But it's a war narrative dealing with the Chinese Labor Corps in World War One. Again, remembering June is a white woman, June decides (after some thought, not enough thought) she is going to fix up Athena's manuscript and send it out into the world to be published. But she is going to publish it as herself. So many things June does are so very wrong. And immediately you just are kind of reading-- it's a lot how I felt while reading Everything's fine. You're reading with like your hand over your eyes and you're peeking out to see what is June going to do next. There are quite a few heinous things that June does and mistakes that she makes. But one particular that I just was mortified, June decides her name is June Hayward but her middle name is Song. Her mom was kind of this hippie woman and her middle name is Song, but the publisher and she decide that she's going to write under the name June Song.
[00:21:21] There are all kinds of 'reasons' for that, but perhaps the biggest reason is because it sounds Asian-American or of Asian heritage. And the book deals with the Chinese Labor Corps. Anyway, just if you had questions about the American Dirt debacle, I just kept reading this and thinking, "Oh, my gosh, this is so timely." But it never felt preachy. Instead, it felt really funny and interesting. And I keep talking about June and her horrible decisions. And she's a really, really problematic character, but she's not without her pain. Although I did not find her sympathetic, I do think R.F. Kuang paints her with a complicated brush. And you see her motivations. You may not be able to understand them, but you see them and you may not like them, you may not understand them, but you can see how she gets there. Anyway, I thought this one was so great. I've seen a lot of people talking about it and I am pleased, pleased, pleased to say that this book to me is very much worth the hype, worth the conversation. I think this would make an excellent book club book. It's just so much to discuss. In fact, as I'm saying it out loud, I'm thinking maybe it'll be our Reader Retreat Book club book. I've been looking for one. Anyway, it's fantastic. Highly recommended. Yellowface by R.F. Kuang. It's out now.
[00:22:44] Okay, then this is to the point where I kind of realized, oh, I haven't read very much this month. So I picked up a short story collection called This is Salvaged by Vauhini Vara. I really, truly picked this up primarily because it was short in length. So I picked up, I went through my book cart and I looked at the books that I thought, "Could I finish these in a certain period of time?" This one was particularly thin, so I pulled it off the shelf and I read the first few pages and immediately was transfixed. I talk in an upcoming podcast episode a little bit about the fractured state of our brains and the issue of our attention spans. And I think short story collections are such a great solution for that. I know short stories are not often purchased-- at least at the Bookshelf. They're not one of our particularly best selling at the store. And that's a shame because there are some really great collections out there. I think many people prefer to just get enmeshed in a book and maybe you think with a short story collection you can't do that. But I think if you are like me and you find yourself wondering, "Oh, gosh, I can't pay attention to anything. I have this short attention span. I am in and out of town all summer long," I really think a short story collection could be the answer. Vauhini Vara has written a gorgeous collection of short stories. Every single one of them was fantastic. There are 10 short stories in this collection. This book releases on September 26, so this would be a preorder. But all of the stories, I think, after reading through-- because some short story collections are all connected either by a character like Elizabeth Strout's, Olive Kitteridge or something like that, this book is not that. Each book is separate. In fact, when I got to the acknowledgments, I think one of her professors is Adam Johnson and his collection (I think it was called Fortune Smiles) is one of my favorites. I mean, there's some brutal stuff in that book, but I think he's a really great short story writer. Anyway, she references him and that was, interestingly enough, who I was it reminded of as I was reading these short stories.
[00:24:53] So I don't know if it will matter to you or not, but my favorite stories were the Hormone Hypothesis. And then a really beautiful, poignant story called The 18 Girls. Much of the stories, while they do not have connecting characters, I think the themes that connect the stories together are grief and growing up and girlhood. The opening short story is these two best friends. They're post 18. They're in adulthood, but they're young women and both of them really are dealing with a loss. But it's the loss of one of their sisters. And so it's a friend and then a sister. And in their grief, they kind of look for summer jobs. And this rather creepy guy offers them a job at a call center. But soon they learned that part of the jobs at the call center, some of the jobs there are to do phone sex. And anyway, two young women kind of deal with that. And so, a lot of the stories in the book deal with at what point do you become a grown up? And, in fact, there's a really great line about girlhood in the short story, You Are Not Alone. She writes, "She was not a girl anymore; she had not been one for a long time, though on some level she wanted to tell the girl, 'We feel like girls for all our lives even after we choose careers, get married. It's all playacting." Oh, gosh, I thought the writing is so great. If you are a short story lover, then these will for sure be for you. And if you are a little bit on the fence, I would encourage you to give these a go. I really, really liked these and I will be reading whatever Vauhini Vara writes next because I really, really appreciate this collection. It comes out on September 26th. It's called This is Salvaged. Actually, the title story is about a man who's an artist, like a performance artist and a textile artists, and he decides to build a replica of Noah's Ark. And that is where the phrase This Is Salvaged comes from. Just fantastic. I really love this book a lot.
[00:26:58] Okay, next up is Kill Show. This is by Daniel Sweren-Becker. This is another book that doesn't release until the fall. It releases on October 3rd. But I again picked this one up because of its relatively slim size, but was hooked from page one. Again, when I am in a reading slump-- or in this case, I wasn't in a reading slump, but I knew I needed to read more books than I had read. I really do like to sit in front of my TBR stack and pull out. I think I pulled out six that looked interesting, short enough that I could finish them in time to meet this deadline because I don't want to recap books I haven't finished. And then I start them and kind of put them down. Like, I'll read the back or I'll read the first couple of pages and then I just go with whichever hooks me. And so, This Is Salvaged hooked me. And Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker immediately hooked me. I was struck by this one too because the subtitle is a true crime novel. And I wondered, okay, what is this going to do? Like, is this a novel? Is this true crime? Is this loosely based on a story? What is this? And, in fact, it's a fictional oral history format. So think Daisy Jones and the Six or The Appeal. The Appeal might be genre the- more accurate call. But basically a young woman named Sarah Parcell had been missing. She was 16 years old. And this is like the 10th anniversary of her going missing. And you know that we have since figured out in those 10 years her crime has been solved. But you, the reader, don't know how it was solved. And the book, it's really like a book within a book format.
[00:28:36] The book is a 10 year anniversary revisiting of that crime and then the 26 different people who were involved in the crime. Twenty six people sounds like too many, but I assure you that it's not. Because of the oral history format and the interview format, that's how the whole book is told. I just I just flew through it because I wanted to know what happened. And I found it's her mother and father and her sibling, it's her friends being interviewed. It's a reporter being interviewed, a local news guy. And what makes Sarah's case, and the book perhaps, unique and kind of gives it this twist is that Sarah went missing and after two days there were no leads in her case. And a reality TV producer came to town and convinced Sarah's parents to participate in a reality TV show that would try to solve the crime in real time. This is all fiction. I know I've already talked about social satire and social commentary, thanks to Yellowface, but this is very much dealing with the social commentary around true crime, reality television, the ethics of both of those things. I just thought it was really timely. Occasionally, maybe I felt like everything was a little too on the nose, but for the most part I really liked it. I really wanted to know what happened to Sarah. I also, much like in Yellowface, I'm investigating my own worldview, my own ways that I read in this. I was examining my own penchant for true crime. What did it mean that I grew up watching Dateline every weekend? Like that kind of thing. I appreciate books that kind of make me think and make me self-reflect. So this is Kill Show by Daniel Sweren-Becker. It is a social commentary, but is very much also just, I think, a really good suspense novel. I really liked it quite a bit. I'm going to pass it along to Olivia and we'll see what she thinks. But I really liked this one.
[00:30:42] Okay. Then I picked up Once More with Feeling. Finally, this is the new Elissa Sussman book. I read and loved Funny You Should Ask last year. Much like Anabel Monaghan's new book this year, Same Time Next Summer, I think I was kind of putting off reading Elissa Sussman because I love Funny You Should Ask so much. And I definitely have a wariness about writers who write something I really love writing something else, which is exactly what they're supposed to do, and it's exactly what we want them to do. But I was a little torn in how I was going to feel about this one. And you know what? I liked it. I certainly preferred Funny You Should Ask. I just loved that story so much. I was familiar with the subject matter already. I was familiar with that Chris Evans profile, so was just kind of fun to read. This is very different. It is a romantic comedy, but it is very different, except there are still flashbacks. Which I think if I'm remembering right, also take place in Funny You Should Ask. So this book is about Katee or Kathleen Rosenberg really is her given name. Kathleen was once a pop superstar named Katee Rose, who grew up dreaming that she would one day be on Broadway. After a scandal with a couple of members of a boy band emerges, her career just kind of goes up in flames. And now Kathleen Rosenberg is in her thirties and she has the opportunity to be in a Broadway show written by her childhood best friend, Harriet. Harriet's a really fun character, a really great side character. And then directed by her former love interest, Cal. Cal is also somebody sh e has known since childhood, and he was one of the boy band members who she had kind of a romantic fling with that caused her career to go up in flames.
[00:32:24] So here's what I liked about this book. I loved the Broadway of it all. I love a book that's set around a musical. I think theater is having a moment. The new book by Ann Patchett is going to deal with the theater production company. Summer Stage, which is a book my mom read earlier this summer and loved. All these books kind of are dealing with the theater. A book I read earlier this year by the singer of The Bangles, This Bird Has Flown, which was a book that I wanted to love more than I did. And I actually think this book is that book. I think This Bird Has Flown was fine, but I think Once More with Feeling is dealing with that aging pop star. What do they do when they look different than they looked when they were in their twenties? What were women in their twenties treated like in the eighties, nineties, whatever, and versus what would they be treated like now in 2023? Now that we hopefully know better. Anyway, I think Once More with Feeling is dealing with all of those things. I love those elements. I liked the friendship between Harriet and Kathleen. And then I liked the love story. I thought they had good chemistry. I think Elissa Sussman writes romance scenes pretty well. There's one chapter that is open door that, again, prude party of one, I skimmed a little bit. But the story of this theater production, which is like a musical based on Rosie the Riveter, I thought it was so delightful. And when I got to the acknowledgments-- acknowledgments are so important to me. When I got to the acknowledgments, Elissa Sussman said this is her love story to theater. And she says she can't sing or dance, but she can write. And so this is what she did. And I think that is charming. If you, like me, love the theater, I think you will appreciate this book. Even if for me the romance kind of played second fiddle. I liked Cal a lot, but it just wasn't as important to me as some other elements in the story. So that's called Once More With Feeling by Elissa Sussman. It's a paperback original. It's out now, and I would encourage you to check out her now backlist title, Funny You Should Ask.
[00:34:28] And then I closed out the month by listening to Social Engagement. This is a book-- I believe it's a debut novel by Avery Carpenter Forrey. Listen, I tried this book. This is why I think books are fascinating. Really any art form is interesting because I think all art is impacted by our own projection onto that art. And so here's what I mean. I started listening to Social Engagement like two months ago as an advance listening copy on Libro.fm. I did not enjoy it. Then I picked it up again, started listening to it again because I saw somebody positively review it. A reader I trust. And so I was like, oh, maybe I need to give that one a shot. Listened to it again, could not get into it. And then when I was looking, like I was going through-- much like I went through my physical TBR list, I went through my audiobook list because I thought, I'm going to clean my house, I'm going to do my laundry, catch up from all of this traveling I've been doing, I'd love to listen to a book while I did it. What is in my queue? What's in my stack? And I thought, you know what, let me try Social Engagement again. And, hey, this time I really enjoyed it. So it just goes to show that you just never know. This is narrated by Eileen Stevens. This very much reminded me of Pineapple Street meets Seating Arrangements with Bad Summer People kind of mixed in. The book takes place over the course of a year. A year that is spent dealing with a lot of weddings, like kind of a wedding-heavy year. So there were also parts of it reminded me a little bit of Hey Ladies, because there is a lot of text conversation in this one. And, in fact, I liked Eileen Stevens narration a lot. But I do think I would read this one in physical format because of that. I actually think that was part of the reason I struggled with the audiobook at first. So the book opens with our main character, Callie. The book opens with Callie in a bathtub in her wedding dress, eating pizza, and something has gone horribly wrong. She says her marriage, which is only 7 hours old, has completely ended and is upended. And she then spends that evening in her wedding dress, in the bathtub, in the honeymoon suite where she should have been with her husband. She spends that evening kind of trying to figure out where it all went wrong.
[00:36:44] And so part of the reason texts play a role in this is because she gets out her phone and she tries to pinpoint where did she make her biggest mistake. Or was it a bunch of little things leading up to this horrifying moment in her life. So deals with definitely uber wealthy family. Callie is kind of the-- hanger-on is too unkind of a word. But Callie is dear friends with the Murphy family. The Murphy's are extremely well off and Callie is best friends with Virginia. Virginia's family allows Callie to kind of stay in their Upper East Side home. Virginia's cousin Ollie has a love interest for Callie until Callie falls in love with this finance bro named Whit. Anyway, it just all kind of culminates. At the same time, Callie is self reflecting upon the death of her father and the role that grief played in her adult life and her father's dreams of being a writer and the book that he wanted to write. Anyway, all of this is at play. It's very much, I think, a commentary. A lot of the books I read this month were kind of a commentary on our times. This one, I think, is dealing a lot with social media and texting and communication and how we talk to the people we love and what we share and what we don't share on the Internet. How much of ourselves are really online, what parts of ourselves were hiding? And then it's also just really compelling the kind of funny story crass in parts about kind of social climbing and making your way in the world when you want to be in a higher echelon of people than you perhaps were born into. It's a very interesting look at class. And particularly in the upper middle class. Like I said, reminds me a little bit of Pineapple Street. I think Pineapple Street is the better book, but I do think this is fun for summer. Again, Pineapple Street meets Seating Arrangements. That's the Maggie Shipstead book with Bad Summer People. Because these people are so messy. So messy. As Hunter likes to say, very messy. That is Social Engagement by Avery Carpenter Forrey. And it is out now as well.
[00:39:00] And those are the books I read in July. As usual, with our Reading Recap episodes, we are offering a reading recap bundle for this month. Our July Reading Recap bundle is $64 and includes Yellowface, The Summer of Broken Rules, and Social Engagement. You can find more details and the July bundle online through the link in our show notes or go to: Bookshelfthomasville.com and type today's episode number, that's 435, in the search bar. Then go on Instagram @bookshelftville and tell us what books you read in July. I'd love to know how your reading life looked this summer, particularly this month. Let me know what you've been reading.
[00:39:44] This week, what I am reading is brought to you by Visit Thomasville. Summer is a wonderful time to see Thomasville, Georgia. If it's time to hit the road for a quick getaway, we are exactly what you're looking for. You can rekindle your spark, explore historical sites, indulge in dining out, shop at amazing independent stores, and finally relax and unwind. There's no better getaway than Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are just passing through, we hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia-- it's worth the trip! Plan your visit at ThomasvilleGa.com. We are in the dog days of summer here at The Bookshelf. I know because every year my front door swells tighter and tighter. And so it is very hot and humid here in Thomasville. But I still think we make the perfect pit stop if you are on your way to maybe do the whole Disney thing in Central Florida or if you are headed to the Gulf Coast. Whether you're doing the Gulf Shores 30A or my personal favorite 98 and St George Island, Mexico Beach, those kind of things.
[00:40:49] If you need a place to stop with your family, I think Thomasville is a great place to do that. We have just enough restaurants and just enough shopping to make planning super easy. And so if you are looking for a place to relax with your family before you're headed on to your next destination, I do think Thomasville is a good place to do that. Despite the humidity, despite the doors swelling shut, summer is a fun time. There's still plenty of stuff going on. That's also a great time to be planning your Fall visit. Believe it or not, this past weekend my cousin and I already bought our tickets for the Thomasville Entertainment Foundation's seasonal programming. So if you are interested in cultural events happening in Thomasville at our local Center for the Arts, I would encourage you to check out their websites as well so that you can go ahead and get things on the books. I think July and August are a good time to start preparing some fun things for Fall, and so it might be a good time for you to do that as well.
[00:41:45] This week, I'm listening to the Only One Left by Riley Sager. Thank you again to our sponsor. Visit Thomasville. Whether you live close by or are just passing through, we hope you'll visit beautiful Thomasville, Georgia. Plan your visit at ThomasvilleGa.com.
Annie Jones: From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram at @bookshelftville, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website: bookshelfthomasville.com A full transcript of today’s episode can be found at:
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Our Executive Producers of today’s episode are…
Cammy Tidwell, Chantalle Carl, Kate O'Connell, Kristin May, Linda Lee Drozt, Martha, Stacy Laue, Chanta Combs, Stephanie Dean, Ashley Ferrell
Executive Producers (Read Their Own Names): Nicole Marsee, Wendi Jenkins, Laurie Johnson, Susan Hulings Annie Jones: If you’d like to support From the Front Porch, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your input helps us make the show even better and reach new listeners. All you have to do is open up the Podcast App on your phone, look for From the Front Porch, scroll down until you see ‘Write a Review’ and tell us what you think. Or, if you’re so inclined, support us over on Patreon, where we have 3 levels of support - Front Porch Friends, Book Club Companions, and Bookshelf Benefactors. Each level has an amazing number of benefits like bonus content, access to live events, discounts, and giveaways. Just go to: patreon.com/fromthefrontporch We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.