[00:00:00] EVIE: I love a sense of dread. I love feeling, if not scared, shivering, like you’re kind of dreading what’s going to happen or you get the chills physically. I love that.
ANNE BOGEL: Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we’ll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.
Readers, it is a big week at What Should I Read Next? HQ because it is Fall Book Preview time. Our sixth annual Fall Book Preview is happening Wednesday, September 18th.
[00:00:59] Now, what that means is that is the day that we release our 12-page digital PDF Fall Book Preview booklet. If you have pre-ordered our print, we’re trying an experiment. We’ve never done this before, but we are offering a print version of this booklet if you’d like to add one on to your Fall Book Preview experience order.
Our pre-order window is closed. If we have any left, you can also order a printed copy. But those ship on Wednesday, September 18th. That is the day that we are hosting our 90-minute live unboxing party where I walk you through our 35 selections, step by step, book by book, tell you why I chose each, why I’m excited about it, what kind of reader may enjoy it, what it means as its place in the fall season.
What we have here are books I’ve loved, books that are going to be everywhere this season, books that are definitely going to fly under the radar this season, but I really want you to know about. Also, I know many of us have gifting on our minds right now because that time is coming quickly, so we’ll talk about that a little bit, too.
Plus, you won’t be surprised to hear I found in a way to work in more books like our Big Books of Fall bonus feature in our PDF digital Fall Book Preview booklet.
[00:02:07] Now, we do this as a big thank you for members of our Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club and What Should I Read Next? Patreon communities. You don’t need any special ticket or access for that. We share the links you need in those communities.
If you’re not a member of those communities, we would invite you to join really any time, but now is such a good time because you can get in on the Fall Book Preview experience action.
What we do here is reader-supported, and we so value your enthusiasm, your thank you, and also your tangible financial support. It’s the reason we can do what we do. And now’s a great time to either purchase the Fall Book Preview a la carte. You’re not just funding the Fall Book Preview experience, you’re funding all our work, or to sign up for membership in one or both of those communities. About 20% of our community members do belong to both.
As it pertains to Fall Book Preview, there are three ways to participate. Join one of those communities, Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club, or our Patreon community, or purchase our popular a la carte ticket. That means that you don’t need to sign up for an ongoing subscription or membership or obligation, if that’s not where you are in your life or your reading life.
[00:03:13] Just buy the a la carte ticket and you’ll have access to our digital PDF Fall Book Preview booklet and our either live unboxing, come live if it hasn’t happened yet, it’s the evening Eastern time of Wednesday, September 18th. But we make a replay available that you can watch whenever and as many times as you want.
Some people come live and then watch the replay three times, some people only watch the replay. But it is there for you as a tool, I mean a really fun and also really useful tool for your reading life to use how you want. Fall is always a big season for books. Fall 2024 is exceptionally good. Go to modernmrsdarcy.com/FBP, for Fall Book Preview, to join us. We would love to have you.
Readers, I believe we have a What Should I Read Next? first today, as my guest is joining me from a small city in northern Greece. Evie grew up in Boston, but as the child of immigrants, she spent a lot of time visiting family in Greece over the years before moving there herself last year.
[00:04:15] These days she enjoys the slow pace of life and social culture in her Greek community, where she also works as a publisher of English language teaching books.
Evie is here for my help because she is struggling with her approach to reading and reviewing books, and it’s causing her a lot of angst. Lately, she’s described herself as a frequent three and one-star giver, and she is not happy about the situation, as you will hear. She told me it makes her feel like she’s hard to please.
She doesn’t like feeling critical, but she’s really not sure what’s going on. Are her standards too high? Is she being pretentious? Does she just not know what she likes? Those are some of the options Evie tossed out as she’s trying to figure out what is happening here with her star rating situation.
Today we’re going to unpack all of it and explore what is causing this dissatisfaction, and we’ll look at solutions. I will offer Evie several potential ways to move forward. I love getting into the nitty-gritty of reading dilemmas, and getting into this one was a lot of fun and I hope brings Evie a lot of satisfaction.
[00:05:16] We also get into the specifics of Evie’s reading taste, discussing the selections she loves and what they have in common. You’ll see that often includes books that invite us into others’ lived experience. It includes medium and fast-paced books with lots of narrative tension and books with a strong sense of novelty. You’ll hear all that and more in today’s conversation. Let’s get to it.
Evie, welcome to the show.
EVIE: Hi, Anne. I’m so excited to be here.
ANNE: Oh, I’m excited to speak with you this morning. Or this afternoon. I think, Evie, this may be a What Should I Read Next? first. Where are you as we’re talking books today?
EVIE: Oh, no way. I’m in northern Greece in a small city right outside of Thessaloniki, which is the second largest city. I’m located, like I said, in the north part of the country, which people don’t usually think about when they think of Greece. They have the islands in mind because they’re beautiful and the water is so clear and it’s all about Santorini and Mykonos and the islands.
[00:06:16] I’m in the northern part, which is the mainland. It’s a lot more green and mountainous and a little bit of a different experience, but we do also have really great beaches.
ANNE: Evie, what took you to that part of the world?
EVIE: My family came to the United States when they were younger. My parents were both born here in Greece, actually in the city that I’m living in right now, and spent most of their lives in the Boston area.
I was born and grew up in Boston, but we came back and forth to Greece a lot as a family. I sort of jumped on the opportunity to come back and experience living here in Greece when my mother and my youngest brother decided to come back and move here permanently back in early 2023.
ANNE: Evie, what’s it like there? What made you decide to make the move with your family?
EVIE: Because I used to come a lot when I was younger, I honestly feel like this is home in one sense, even though I didn’t grow up here, and even though being here as an American I’m still kind of not 100% Greek Greek as if I grew up here. But I still feel like it’s my home or my second home.
[00:07:32] So I didn’t find it too difficult to decide to up and leave and come here. I felt like I was just going to another place that was mine. In general, I like the feeling of… just the challenge of living here. There’s a lot of differences that you would just not expect as an American. I still don’t know what I don’t know about living here.
It’s difficult in a way that is also fun to be in a totally different environment. People think differently, they approach the world differently, kind of don’t understand you in a lot of ways that you have to explain yourself and you don’t understand them in a way that you ask them to explain themselves. But I feel like that kind of creates a connection with people and it opens you up to really getting to know people on a deep level. It opens your mind a lot and it kind of challenges your worldview.
I kind of think I like that in general. Sometimes I do have my moments where I’m like, “I’m an alien. I don’t belong here. I don’t know what’s happening. It’s too different.” But those are few and far between. Mostly, I think it’s a fun challenge and I’m just having fun.
[00:08:55] ANNE: Oh, I’m listening with a big smile on my face. That sounds amazing. Evie, what has the change meant for you as a reader?
EVIE: So, as a reader, moving here I’ve found myself reading a lot less just because in general, in the summer, I don’t really read that much anyways. And with a big move and everything that goes along with it, the logistics, the life change, my mindset was not really focused on reading.
It’s really hot and summery here a lot, even though we’re in the north. It’s still like summer all the time, sort of. Not as much as the islands in the south, but it is still kind of that feeling of summer. And it can be in the 90s well into September. I think it just kind of didn’t make me feel like reading as much, and I have been reading a lot less.
ANNE: I think I remember from your submission that fall is your big reading season.
[00:09:53] EVIE: Yes. I tend to be more in the mood to read when it’s fall and winter and it’s a little bit cold out or cloudy or drizzly. I’m used to sort of the Boston climate where around four it gets dark in the winter and you’re kind of home a lot more in the evening after work and it just feels really restful to me to sit down and read, especially in bed.
I definitely read in bed before going to sleep because it calms my mind down and focuses me internally and just kind of focuses me and distracts me from the world. It’s kind of like a good grounding for me to read before bed. So it gets me kind of tired and sleepy, and then I go to sleep easier. In general, just the cozy vibes, I tend to gravitate towards that. And that makes me want to read more.
ANNE: Evie, would you tell me a little more about your work there and your reading life?
[00:10:51] EVIE: I started working at a publisher of English language learning books because here the system is that learning a second language or a third language even is very, very important, and students work really hard at it their whole lives. And so there’s a high demand to learn English as well as other languages.
The way that they do that is through books. And so the publisher that I work at creates and publishes books that teach English as a second language. I work there part-time. It’s really great. It helped me meet people and kind of get into the system here and fill my day up in a really positive way.
And then when I’m not reading, I also am writing because I really want to be a novelist. I’m working on a novel right now that it will be my first novel when I finish it.
[00:11:50] When I think about what I want to write about, it usually gravitates around the female experience in the world. I like to talk about this genre. I don’t know if this is a real genre, but I kind of made it up or maybe it does exist. Existential female horror is what I call it.
Sometimes you see it online as weird girl or sad girl fiction. I think of it as novels that explore the experience of being a woman or the experience of being female and connecting it to the horror or the thriller genre in an attempt to say something about the human experience and specifically the female experience. Just also because I think horror is fun. Some horror.
I think that existential horror is really fun and then tying it back to your experience as a woman, which of course, when you write, you have to write your personal experience. And that would be something that would be my personal experience. So I just think that is really fun and interesting to read about.
And it does kind of give a stepping stone to exploring some more serious issues revolving around women in general-
[00:13:04] ANNE: I thought what you said was really interesting when you said that you pay attention to how a book makes you feel and what it makes you think about.
EVIE: Yes. I definitely tend to remember the feeling. When I was even thinking about which books were my top three favorites that I wanted to talk about, I couldn’t even remember the plots of any of them. I didn’t even know the plot points. I didn’t even know what happened. I forgot all the characters’ names. I just remembered this book was amazing and it gave me big feelings.
And then I had to… yes, I had to reread all three right before so that I would know exactly why I liked them or more specifics about them. But it doesn’t really matter. The plot does matter, but the plot doesn’t matter as much as the feeling or making you think about the world or making you think about the human experience or just making you feel big things.
[00:14:03] ANNE: I love that. And also that’s a real pro move. I think I’ve said this on the podcast before out loud to our listeners, but something I tell our guests all the time when they say, Oh, I can’t remember a character’s name or exactly what happened, that’s not where the interesting part is when it comes to hearing people talk about books that they love or books that they despise. Either one.
Sometimes the premise can be really interesting. Like, here’s the question the book poses or here’s the setup. But really “how did the book make you feel? What did it make you think about?” those are the things that I advise readers to focus on. So look, you’re already there.
EVIE: I love it. The thing is, talking about characters, I realized in revisiting these that I do like books with a lot of characters. I don’t remember any of their names-
ANNE: What’s that about?
EVIE: Yeah. All of the books that I chose has a large cast of characters, I realized. Even for my first book, I even had to write down as I was reading, keep a list of the characters, and a little note about each of them so I wouldn’t forget who they were as I was reading. And I don’t mind doing that.
[00:15:12] I kind of like having different characters, especially if each one sort of explores a different theme or is supposed to symbolize a different thing or shows you a different experience that is the subject of the novel. I just kind of like that there’s a lot of people doing a lot of things and that it’s pretty much exploring something that makes me think and feel in a very broad sense, I guess.
ANNE: That’s so interesting. Now, Evie, you mentioned in your submission that you had… oh, what’s the word I want? Is it a problem? Is it dilemma? Is it something that’s befuddled you in your reading life?
EVIE: Yes.
ANNE: You described it as your chronic three-star situation.
EVIE: Yes. I get made fun of by my friends because I always give either three stars or one star. I don’t know. They know me as a chronic low-star giver, which is strange because I have definitely been able to come up with a long list of books that I love that have been four to five stars for this podcast. But I do read a lot, so most of them have ended up being lower-rated and I don’t know if that’s me not knowing which books to choose or if I’m just a very picky person.
[00:16:30] And I don’t want to be a very picky person. I don’t want to be like a pretentious, choosy person. I remember when I… You know when you first discover a new genre or when you even think back to when you first started reading and you liked everything, or at least that was my experience.
When something was new, I kind of liked everything. I kind of wanted to read everything in that genre or read broadly. And everything was just interesting because it was new. I wasn’t so picky, but then I don’t like the feeling of being picky. I don’t know why. I just feel like it’s annoying.
ANNE: Okay. I’m laughing with you in my heart. Also, I’m taking notes. You missed that feeling when everything was interesting.
EVIE: I guess maybe because I said the word “new”. And I do remember saying in my submission that I like when I can’t predict what’s going to happen or when stuff happens that I never saw coming. But that still makes sense within the world of the book.
[00:17:33] So maybe I do like novelty, like something new going on. And maybe when I’m discovering something for the first time and it’s new to me, I’m just like, Oh, wow, this is so interesting just because it’s new.
ANNE: Now, even though you did say that you recently decided to stop rating books because you’re so distressed by your ratings, we’re going to explore them with your permission.
EVIE: Yes, of course. But I did stop. I decided I’m not going to partake in the star ratings. I don’t know why. It just makes me feel bad. I don’t like giving things three, two, one stars. I just don’t want to say this was good or bad. I don’t think that’s as black and white. I kind of just want to say, Okay, I read it. It wasn’t very memorable for me, personally, so I’m going to move on if it was lower-rated. Like I just decided to stop altogether and see how I feel about that moving forward.
[00:18:32] ANNE: Okay. There’s two directions we’re going to go. We’re going to talk about how this doesn’t have to be you saying a book is good or bad, but also I want to explore what your star ratings mean. So when you give a book three stars, what does that mean to you?
EVIE: I use Goodreads as my main reading app and my main tracker, my main list maker. Everything to keep track of my reading life is in Goodreads. I used to review on there, but then I was like, no, this is too much time for me. But then I was like, I’m still going to rate things just because it asks you right at the end to rate it. So I was like, okay.
But then I paid attention very specifically to what Goodreads told me the stars meant. And then I was like, Okay, so if three stars means I liked it, then I went with that. I went exactly with what Goodreads told me. And three stars is supposed to mean I liked it, and two stars is supposed to mean it was okay. Personally, I think if I liked it, it’s like four stars, and if I loved it, it’s five, and if it was three, it was just okay. I know that’s not a really big deal. We’re talking such specific details-
[00:19:43] ANNE: Yeah, we’re talking about you.
EVIE: I feel like we’re overthinking it a little bit when you get too into this whole star thing. And maybe that’s why I’m kind of over it because I feel like it’s overthinking it. I feel like I just want a thumbs up or a thumbs down. That simple.
ANNE: Okay. I hear you and yet I’m going to keep pressing on the star rating.
EVIE: Yeah.
ANNE: So there’s a big difference between it was okay and I liked it. So when it comes to you giving a three-star, which is it? If you’re reading a ton of books that are just okay, we need to do some investigating. If you’re reading a ton of books you like, that’s okay. I should use a different word than “okay”. It’s confusing there.
EVIE: I feel like I’m reading a bunch of books that were not for me. So they were okay in the sense that I wanted to find out what was going to happen so I finished it, but I didn’t particularly enjoy the reading experience or I wouldn’t have said, this is such an awesome book, which I feel bad saying. I mean, I’m just talking about personally, obviously.
[00:20:46] ANNE: We joke at my house about how the word “fine” has a million connotations, depending on how you pronounce and what your posture is. So it sounds like you’re reading a bunch of books that are like, I mean, fine.
EVIE: Yes, exactly. I feel like I’m reading a bunch of books that I was like, That could have been better. And I don’t want to be that judgmental. That’s, I think, what bothers me. Why am I so judgmental? Why don’t I enjoy more things?
I don’t know if it’s just me or if I just am not picking the right books. Because the way I pick books is I read the premise. And if I like the premise, I’m like, Oh, that has the potential to be amazing. I don’t even read people’s reviews like in the comments or in Instagram or anywhere. I don’t read reviews because I feel like they’re all over the place.
I tend to just follow a few different booktalkers or bookstagrammers or podcasters, like people who I kind of trust or I’ve noticed that they recommend books that I generally think have good premises, and then I just trust them and go ahead and read.
[00:21:56] ANNE: Okay. What does a four-star book mean to you right now?
EVIE: I liked it and it was fun to read and I’m glad I read it and I’m glad that I spent the time reading it.
ANNE: Oooh. Okay.
EVIE: And I would probably recommend it to a friend.
ANNE: So if it takes four stars to say, I am glad I spent my time reading this book, I totally understand how reading three-star books all the time is unsatisfying.
EVIE: Yes. That’s what it feels like. It feels unsatisfying.
ANNE: And a five-star?
EVIE: A five-star is like I could talk about this book for weeks and days and months and say that it has layers. It’s something that takes up part of my mind for a longer space of time than after I just finished reading it. Like I want to talk to somebody about it because it was so exciting or want to own a physical copy of it and possibly reread it.
[00:22:55] ANNE: I’m just noticing those two questions were real easy to answer.
EVIE: Do I have high standards?
ANNE: I think it’s reasonable to want to feel that you are spending your reading time in a satisfying way more often than not. Not 95% of the time… but I think we could get you over 50.
EVIE: Okay.
ANNE: Hopefully more like 70.
EVIE: My friends have definitely said, when we’ve mentioned a title of a book, they’ve definitely been like, “Well, Evie gave it three stars.” They’re like, “Well, I know Evie rated it like three stars or one star.” I’m like, “I probably did.” It’s so bad because right now I’m not at 50% and I don’t know why. Maybe you know why better because you can see the bigger picture. But like I said, I don’t know if I just have high standards or not, which that sounds pretentious.
ANNE: Having high standards?
EVIE: Yes. That sounds pretentious. It’s like, why? Why do you have such high standards? Just read and have fun.
[00:23:54] ANNE: If your standard is, I want to feel good about the way I’m spending the hours of my life, I don’t think that’s unreasonably high. But we talked about how there’s two things you could do. One is evaluate your star ratings and potentially think about what you like in a book. The other is you could tweak your rating system.
Now, Goodreads is not meant for this. It’s not designed to work this way. But privately, you could give each book two different ratings. You said that you don’t really want to say, is this good or is this bad? You want to say, I liked it or I didn’t. And I’m not proposing that exactly but you could divorce the ideas of “I enjoyed this book” from “I think that what the author wrote is good. I respect the craft. I respect the writing.”
You could then say, like, “Oh, I can see how this is interesting. I can see how it was written well. And also, I’m finding that I wasn’t particularly interested in the topic” or “it wasn’t to my taste” or “the character was so unlikable that it wasn’t a so-bad-it’s-good situation. It was a “I don’t want to spend time with them and I want this book to be over situation.” So that is something you could do.
[00:25:06] And readers, if you heard me talk about this before, like the My Reading Life book journal that you can buy where you get your books that I designed, it has like this rating system broken down where there are… they are actually diamonds, not stars. So I hope that feels a little less loaded for those you have complicated relationship with star ratings.
But you can say, okay, what was my enjoyment? One to five. But what do I think about the craft of this book? One to five. And then you can give it an overall rating, which many people just average. You could decide in your own heart what you want to do. But I invite you to sit with that idea and consider, is that something that would help me?
EVIE: Yes, definitely. I think I’m on board a hundred percent.
ANNE: Do you find yourself in a situation where you’re like, I can see that this is good, but like, Nah, I’d rather spend my time elsewhere?
EVIE: Honestly, I think the more that we’re talking about this… Take like Rebecca, for example, it’s so good and well-written from a craft perspective. I think it’s so, so, so, so good. There came a point in reading it… I think I even rated it like four or five stars, just because I thought the craft of it was really good and the atmosphere was really good and there were a lot of things in it that I loved. So I did rate it high.
[00:26:20] But the experience of reading it, sometimes I did get a little bit bored. I think that the more we’re talking about this, the more I’m realizing that it might even be a pacing issue or like I said before, the novelty of what’s going on and me feeling like I have no idea what’s going to happen might be really important. And I’m kind of just learning this as we’re talking.
ANNE: Okay. Well, that’s why we’re talking.
EVIE: Like maybe it needs to be a medium to fast pace. Also, I do tend to like things that I really feel like I’m thrown into something where it’s going to be a total surprise and I’m not predicting. And like I said, it’s not stale, I’m just riveted. Like I don’t know what’s going to happen.
ANNE: Evie, I think you use the phrase “dread” in your submission, that you appreciate a book with a building sense of dread.
EVIE: I love a sense of dread. I love feeling kind of like, if not scared, shivery, like you’re kind of dreading what’s going to happen or you get the chills, like physically. I love that.
[00:27:33] ANNE: Okay, here’s my working theory. And that is that you really enjoy a book with a strong sense of tension in the plot. I think perhaps that you found such affinity with, especially existential female horror, because those books often have a strong sense of tension. But some of your five-star reads are in totally different genres and yet I think they have that tension.
EVIE: I do think they have tension, yes.
ANNE: So I think you could broaden your horizons a little bit if you want to and also refine the choices you’re making in your home genres. Maybe to find that ingredient that is sometimes missing, but sometimes it’s the reason you love a book. But I think maybe, maybe that’s not been as visible an element to you and it’s affecting your choices in a way that’s leading you in what is often an unsatisfying direction.
[00:28:34] EVIE: Yes. And you know what’s also interesting? I sometimes can appreciate that I read a book… like for example, Our Wives Under the Sea, when I was reading it, I thought it was too slow and I was like, “Okay, let’s see. What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen? What’s going to happen?”
But after I finished it and digested it for a few days and then read some posts about it… like the reason I bring this up is that would categorize as existential female dread. I also wouldn’t because I think it was about grief in general, but just because they were both female characters. There was a sense of dread or a mystery element to that. It was a little bit touching on horror, perhaps. It was like-
ANNE: Yeah, I would say so.
EVIE: Okay.
ANNE: She went to the ocean and came back, uh, changed. Yes.
EVIE: Yes. I thought it was too slow. But then, after the fact, now I’m so glad I read it. Especially since just on an intellectual level, if I’m comparing and contrasting it in my mind with other books in the same genre, I do feel like there’s a lot to say in conversation when you take that book.
[00:29:44] So maybe it’s just about the experience that I want to have right now. And I think that maybe I do just want books that I’m just truly enjoying the process of reading. Because there’s a lot of books that I’m glad I read or a lot of books that I appreciate. But maybe I just want books that are fun to read. But at the same time, I could read thrillers all day long. I mean, not just that are fun to read. Maybe like a blend of both. I hope I’m not being really confusing.
ANNE: What we’re doing today is giving you some language and some ideas about your reading life that you can think about and pay attention to and test. And then my hope is that after you think about those things, reflect on what they mean for your reading life, and test them with actual book choices, you will then feel more empowered to trust your gut.
EVIE: Yes. Awesome. That feels perfect.
ANNE: I love it. Let’s make some recommendations for you. Evie, you’re going to tell me three books you love when you don’t and what you’ve been reading lately and we’ll see if we can pick some books with a nice sense of tension, some books that have interesting themes and characters for you. But first I want to hear what has already worked and not in your reading life. How did you choose these?
[00:31:04] EVIE: I chose these by books that I remember left an impression.
ANNE: Books with staying power, as you said.
EVIE: Yeah, staying power. I don’t remember exactly what happened in any of them and I had to read them again. But I remember that they were memorable just because they did make me feel and think about a lot of things in general, about life in general.
ANNE: Okay, Evie, what’s the first book you love?
EVIE: If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha. This book takes place in modern Seoul, South Korea and it follows four different women who live in Seoul. It alternates between their points of view as they go through life. If you don’t mind, I kind of want to read what Frances Cha said herself about why she wrote it.
ANNE: I’d love to hear.
EVIE: Yes, because that kind of describes what I love about it and why I wanted to read it. So in the notes at the end of the eBook, she was interviewed and she said, “I want to write a story where all the characters are Korean women and it is set in Seoul and they are not discussing a man, nothing about love and I want to write a modern story about contemporary issues that are specific to Korea.”
[00:32:21] So that appealed to me right away. Something about the fact that it was contemporary issues that these women have to deal with in modern-day present Korea. I love just learning about other people’s lives in general, just the lived experience of another place or the lived experience of another time if it’s historical. But I was attracted to the fact that this was a modern story.
I don’t know why she said there’s nothing about love because there is a lot to do with men and love in this story. But I can tell what she meant after reading the book. It’s not a romance. It gives you kind of like this window into what it might be like to be a woman in South Korea right now.
I find that extremely interesting. That alone is all I had to hear. But it does have to do a lot with themes of beauty, plastic surgery, which is huge in South Korea, and how that affects women navigating work, navigating relationships, navigating their economic status.
[00:33:42] I mean, it all ties back to this theme of the beauty industry navigating family. It just all ties back to that and I thought that was very interesting. The title makes so much sense, If I Had Your Face, because people change their entire faces sometimes and there’s very specific beauty standards.
I like that it made me think about the differences between the beauty standards in the United States and in South Korea and are they really that different? It kind of seems as though or people might have the impression that because plastic surgery is booming over there that the standards are stricter. But plastic surgery is booming in the United States as well. And there’s different standards, although they might be just as strict or just as narrow and full of pressure on women. Anyways, it was about their lives navigating all those things.
[00:34:39] I liked that there was a large cast of characters. I actually had to keep track of everyone. I liked that the girls kind of… there was different men involved in their lives and they kind of all had interpersonal relationships with each other. They were all kind of connected loosely, how all their lives intersected.
There was a lot in there just about their daily lives, like just feels like it picked you up and physically plopped you in Seoul and you were living life with them. And I enjoyed that. I thought it was fascinating.
ANNE: Since we’ve talked star ratings, how many would you give that one?
EVIE: I would give it five stars.
ANNE: Are all your favorites five-star reads?
EVIE: Yes.
ANNE: Okay, great. Evie, what’s the second book you love?
EVIE: The second book I love is Ghosts by Dolly Alderton. This is kind of similar because it’s in a modern setting. It’s set in London at this time and it follows the main character. Again, it’s about her navigating life, navigating career, navigating love and friendship and family as she goes about her daily life in London. It’s kind of like how to live a millennial life in London right now.
[00:35:59] It was full of different characters. It’s really reflective. It has a sense of depth. I wouldn’t characterize the tone as vapid or surface level when it talks about emotions or life concepts. I would definitely not say it was breezy or even a rom-com, even though there were romantic elements. But it’s not like drama in the sense that you’re gonna be bawling reading this book.
I think that the author wanted to explore different themes through the plot and the characters that she chose. So she kind of had a layer in mind when she went into writing it. And I could definitely tell through reading it that she wanted to explore what it felt like to live in this moment and in this place. I just thought it was a fun look into this girl’s daily life.
ANNE: Evie, what’s the third book you love?
[00:36:58] EVIE: Okay, here’s where we get into the creeping sense of dread. This one’s a little bit different from the first two in the sense that it touches a little bit more on horror and that creep factor.
So Melmoth by Sarah Perry. It’s set in Prague. It follows this woman, Helen, who is being followed by this mysterious figure who is wearing black robes. You do get a larger cast. She does have friends and things around.
Through different manuscripts that she discovers about this character named Melmoth, she finds out a little bit about this mysterious history of this biblical character. It’s only biblical in Sarah Perry’s world. But you don’t know why Melmoth is following her around.
It’s very emotive. This novel is, I think, the most emotive of the three. You don’t know why Melmoth’s following her, but you do know that she follows people who are lonely and that have secrets. And so you’re kind of trying to figure out what is this big secret that Helen has that is making Melmoth follow her.
[00:38:09] And I like that there was kind of like this creepy element, this mysterious figure. I like the magical realism element. It does make you feel a lot of things.
ANNE: What did this book call you to think about?
EVIE: Melmoth supposedly follows people around who have done something really, really terrible that is almost unforgivable or they’re just in a deep sense of despair. It makes you have this feeling of horror because you’re like, that, first of all, is a horrifying image or idea.
And then you also kind of have to figure out, as you’re reading, what each of the characters did that kind of merits them having this stalking figure following them around all the time, and then if the stalking figure is going to win.
[00:39:06] So the point of Melmoth is she kind of reaches out to you in your darkest moment and has you take her hand and follow her. And you don’t know until the end if Helen is going to take her hand or not. It made me feel just very pensive. It makes you also wonder if Melmoth is actually a hero or a villain because of some of the people that she kind of follows and stalks in the book and what they have done.
I thought it was interesting that she was a woman monster. I just thought it was extremely interesting and I thought the prose was very beautiful. Sarah Perry’s writing is really descriptive and really poetic. She writes in a way that you kind of viscerally feel everything that she’s talking about.
ANNE: Okay, that’s helpful. Evie, tell me about a book that was not right for you.
[00:40:07] EVIE: The book that was not right for me that you would think was perfect for me and I thought it was going to be perfect for me was I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. I had a lot of fun reading this book because the premise was so interesting.
It’s about a bunch of women who are stuck in these underground bunkers. And it’s very mysterious. You don’t really know why at the beginning of the book. I don’t really want to say too much because it tends to get very spoilery if you say too much. But you follow this one woman who eventually escapes or they all escape because something happens.
The reason that I didn’t like it, and this is not a spoiler because this is just my impression, I just found it extremely bleak. It weighed really heavily on the despair part. Maybe that’s a testament to Jacqueline Hartman’s writing that she was just so good at creating these feelings. So maybe this negative review is kind of a positive review. She’s just such a good writer.
[00:41:16] But I felt like it was just exactly what she wanted. It was extremely bleak but it was a strong sense of despair. Personally, I would prefer not to experience that, not to go there. It was just too much and I wasn’t happy about that.
ANNE: Extremely well done and not a fit for you right now.
EVIE: Yes.
ANNE: Okay. Evie, what have you been reading lately?
EVIE: Something that I read lately that I absolutely loved was Earthlings by Sayaka Murata. It is following this girl who doesn’t feel like she fits in. It’s so weird and wacky and there’s a lot going on that you just do not expect. Everything about it from the writing style to every plot point I was just fascinated by. I was dying to know what was going to happen. I love the themes.
This is set in Japan. I don’t know if that has anything to do with it. I’ve realized every book I’ve talked about has been set somewhere in the world that I have personally never been. It was awesome. I love this. This was a five-star for me.
[00:42:18] And I did recently read another book by Sarah Perry because I loved Melmoth so much. But I read The Essex Serpent and it wasn’t 100% for me. I love the writing. Again, her writing style is perfect. I absolutely adore it. So that was great as usual.
Something about the plot, I don’t know, it just wasn’t gripping me. I cannot even tell you more because I didn’t even finish it. I tried to watch the series thinking maybe that was going to be better. I think there just wasn’t enough dread to be honest. There wasn’t enough sense of horror and dread.
ANNE: Well, I hope that was an interesting experience to read an author you love and realize that it was the book not necessarily the author or the writing style.
EVIE: Yeah, it was interesting. I mean, I definitely want to read all the rest of her books. I’m going to keep reading any book she publishes. Not every plot, I guess, or premise is for everyone and that’s fine. That’s okay.
[00:43:16] ANNE: Well said. Evie, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?
EVIE: I think I’m looking for books that are medium to fast-paced and that are a fun reading experience but that are also kind of hefty in the sense that they do describe something about the world or something about what it’s like to be here. Something a little bit bigger than themselves. So fun reading experience, a little bit layered if possible, and something where I really will not be able to predict what’s going to happen or that has something new and novel going on.
That would be my ideal list. But mostly I’m just looking for anything that you think I would love because I am very excited to hear what your take is on it, Annie. I’m very grateful to be able to get your recommendations.
ANNE: Well, I am happy to have this conversation. Let’s see what we can do here. Evie, I realized that we didn’t really get into that sense of dread and tension that I hinted at but we didn’t really explore it further.
[00:44:24] EVIE: Yeah. I think that the only book I kind of brought with that sense of dread was Melmoth.
ANNE: Oh, I don’t know. I think if I had your face and ghosts also have… it’s different but it’s not absent.
EVIE: I think if you read Earthlings, you would also consider that.
ANNE: I put Earthlings down because I couldn’t handle the sense of it because of something that happened in the midpoint of the book.
EVIE: I didn’t even feel like there was a sense of dread. The atmospheric sense of a visceral dread never happened for me. I thought it was just really fun and interesting. I just loved that it was really thought-provoking and feeling-provoking.
ANNE: I came to mistrust a character because of something that was done. And I could foresee where that might go and I did not want to go there.
EVIE: Did you read I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid?
ANNE: No.
EVIE: Okay.
[00:45:25] ANNE: No. But that book is always discussed in a conversation about this topic.
EVIE: I would say if I didn’t bring Melmoth I would have brought that one. That is one of my all-time favorite books and that was truly like… When you just said, I’m kind of scared that something bad is going to happen, that is my favorite feeling.
Also, The Awakening by Kate Chopin for something more classic, that is kind of started to have a building sense of dread. And I really like that.
ANNE: Okay. So I think that sense of tension makes you pay attention. I think that really holds your interest as a reader.
EVIE: Yes, it does.
ANNE: Okay. So keeping that in mind, all the elements that you enjoy. So we have talked about a strong sense of place, that you like to drop into the lived experience of a character in a story. You also like a large cast of characters in a story, and then medium to fast-paced that have an interestingness to them for you that is born about… We talked about how you like seeing how a character interacts with others, but also that sense that something might happen and you are going to watch for it.
EVIE: Yes.
[00:46:38] ANNE: Also, you like a sense of novelty, things that are weird, things that are interesting, things that surprise you.
EVIE: I do think I have a high tolerance for things that are weird.
ANNE: Since you said you have a high tolerance for things that are weird and since you really loved Earthlings by Sayaka Murata, I’m thinking, tell me if I’m wrong, that you’ve not found a lot of books that scratch that same itch.
EVIE: Yes, I would say so. I tried to read Convenience Store Woman to get the same, but it wasn’t as intense and I was like, No, I need the intense-
ANNE: That’s quirky.
EVIE: Yes, it was.
ANNE: But it’s not weird.
EVIE: Yes, yes. There’s definitely something not like Earthlings. But Earthlings was like perfectly horrifying.
ANNE: There’s another Japanese author that I think you may be happy to meet, Hiromi Kawakami. I’m thinking of People from My Neighborhood. This is a short story collection, they’re interlinked, that was published in fall 2021. Is this a book you know?
EVIE: No.
[00:47:42] ANNE: Okay. Now, many readers know Kawakami from Strange Weather in Tokyo. And just like Earthlings and Convenience Store Woman are very different books. These two works we’re talking about from Kawakami have very different vibes.
Because People from My Neighborhood is weird. There are 36, the author calls them short shorts, like they are very short stories. It almost reminds me of that Beth Ann Fennelly collection that some readers will know called Heating and Cooling, which are 52 micro memoirs that still add up to a very, very slim book.
But these are totally different. They are these linked short shorts that are set in a small Japanese town. I don’t want to take away the element of surprise for you, but they have this combination of just the everyday, quotidian, normal, normal, small town life and the magical and mythical.
[00:48:41] And you’ve mentioned that you liked the book that had magical realism. This I think may go beyond magical realism into the downright strange and weird for sure. But we meet an obnoxious kid who lives under a white cloth all the time. There’s a student who keeps the brains of her dolls in a desk drawer. There’s a man with two shadows. I’m just interested in you picking this up and seeing what you think.
Lots of characters. We don’t spend a lot of time with them, but really well done and I think will deliver on that sense of novelty.
EVIE: You know what’s so funny? I just looked at my Goodreads and I did have it as a want to read. I didn’t even remember it.
ANNE: What?
EVIE: Yeah. So this is awesome. Right on track.
ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. Now I want to talk about a book that’s coming out this fall. In fact, when this airs, our Fall Book Preview will be tomorrow, September 18th, I’m going to talk about it then, but listeners are going to hear about it a day early.
[00:49:43] I’m thinking of a new book that comes out in November called Clean. This is by the Chilean author Alia Trabucco Zerán. It’s translated by Sophie Hughes. It’s set in Chile. This is the story of a maid. When the story begins, a young girl is dead. We know this and we know that it is the maid. She’s also the nanny. It is her fault.
It’s told in this really interesting, I think weird first-person point of view. And it’s just a little bit off. Like she’s telling us this horrible story because we know that her charge has died. Like tragedy has happened. The worst has happened.
And she seems to be… we’re not sure if she’s been imprisoned or if she’s being kept, but we know that she is inside a locked room and she’s telling her story just a little bit at a time. And we know it because she’ll interrupt herself and be like, “Go away. That’s enough for today. You know, I’m tired.”
[00:50:41] But we don’t know why she’s in that locked room, who put her in that locked room, what happened to the child. We don’t know any of that. But it’s not a mystery. Instead, oh, it’s a really creepy look at the family life that she was living in.
This is not a large cast of characters. It’s larger than the people in the home, but it’s mostly the people in the home. We have the mother, — and her relationship with the mother is very weird— the father, her husband, another very weird relationship, a weird relationship between those two, the spouses as well, and the child who you do not want anything bad to happen to her, but also you are not going to like her.
But this is set in Chile. I was unable to get a read on when is this set exactly. There are some social events going on, there’s some political unrest, but I wasn’t able to pin it to any specific event.
It’s got thriller-ish vibes. There’s definitely this ominous sense hanging over the novel because you know that the girl dies. But also the characters just… they creep you out. They do weird things. They want the maid to feel uncomfortable. And as the reader, you’re watching this feeling uncomfortable on her behalf.
[00:51:55] But it’s also a social critique. So her mother warned her about being a maid and how you can’t get out. You always think, “Next week or next week. No, I just need a little more money.” But her mother has told her that she will never leave. And even though the maid is unhappy in her work, it is true that she stays and she stays and she stays even though she’s underpaid and overworked.
The prose is really taught. The characters are well-drawn, even if there aren’t dozens of them. And I think this has that combination of novelty, the ominous sense. It’s not fast-paced, but there’s enough momentum in the plot, I think, to keep you more than interested in what’s going to happen next. How does that sound?
EVIE: That sounds really fascinating. I’m definitely interested in reading it because I’m already like, what’s going on?
ANNE: Okay. Have you read Mariana Enríquez? Because I feel like you need to if you haven’t.
EVIE: No. I need to look her up.
[00:52:54] ANNE: She is prolific in Spanish. She’s an Argentine author. But this is her third or fourth novel. Oh, let me tell you what we’re talking about. We’re talking about Our Share of Nights. But it is her first novel translated into English. And it’s a long novel with a larger cast of characters. I think it’s about 600 pages.
So this begins with a young father and son setting out on a road trip. They are mourning the death of the mother and the family, and they are grieving. They’re glad to have each other. Things are a little bit off from the very beginning. And that is the sense that pervades this novel. Everything is a little off-kilter.
There’s so much symbolism here, even though you might not clock it exactly consciously. But I think subconsciously, you’re like, hang on, this is weird. The whole thing just feels off-kilter.
EVIE: I love that.
ANNE: Like the father wakes up his son on the first page who’s sleeping under a sheet. Because people sleep under sheets, but they don’t sleep under a sheet. First of all, the translator is brilliant. I think it’s Megan McDowell. But that imagery is purposeful.
[00:54:05] So a quote from early in the book is, “We have children so we can continue. They are our immortality.” Which sounds in one sense, like we’re talking about legacy and what we leave behind. But there’s another way to interpret that, and that’s what’s going on in this book.
So what we find out is that things are not quite right with this family. Or at least they’re not what we expect, us normies who aren’t part of a secret society that uses human sacrifice, including that of our heirs to prolong our lives for immortality.
So this book starts a little off-kilter and gets progressively stranger. Like the father knows because of his position in the order, is what it’s called, that just commits these atrocious acts because those acts will earn them eternal life.
[00:55:03] The order has its eyes on the son. The father knows this, the son does not. And so the father is fleeing. And he’s not sure what his son knows. But you know, they’re just having a normal breakfast, but then we realize shortly thereafter, like wait, the father is seeing spirits everywhere. Like can the son see them too? He’s not really sure.
But this book, while on its surface is very much your existential female horror, it’s also about these big themes, like legacy and survival, trauma, memory. There’s a lot of class in politics. There’s queerness. There’s a large and complex family.
This book is also very much in the Argentine tradition of literature, specifically Borges. So if any of you literary nerds find that fascinating, there is so much to unpack here, socially and politically.
The title’s from Emily Dickinson, which is always fun. I have used the phrase existential female horror several times, so this probably doesn’t need explicit content warnings. But there is a lot of body horror here. Some of you are going to do a lot of skimming or want to skip it entirely. But Evie, how does that sound to you?
[00:56:15] EVIE: That sounds really fun. I am definitely interested because I already want to know what’s going to happen. Like I definitely am going to read this. I’m going to read all three of these. I think these were really, really good recommendations. Like I love them. I love all of them.
ANNE: Okay, well, I’m happy to hear it. So of the books we talked about today, they were People From My Neighbourhood by Hiromi Kawakami, then we talked about Clean by Alia Trabucco Zerán, and we ended with Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, which I should say has been out several years. I think this is her 2021 novel in the U.S. or thereabouts. Of those books, Evie, what do you think you’ll read next?
EVIE: I think I’m going to start in exactly the order you said them. I think I’m going to start with a short story collection and then I’m going to go to Clean and then I’m going to go to Our Share of Night. I’m going to read all of them. I am so excited.
ANNE: Oh, I love that. I’m so excited to hear what you think. And I’m also interested to hear what you settle on as you mull over the things we talked about in terms of star ratings. So keep me posted. I’d love to hear.
[00:57:24] EVIE: I will. Thank you so much. This was so, so fun.
ANNE: I so enjoyed it. Thanks for talking books with me today, Evie.
Hey, readers. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Evie, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. You can find Evie on Instagram @moodreadingonly. We’ll have that link to her profile, as well as all the titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.
Come join us over on Instagram, where you will find our show @WhatShouldIReadNext. Make sure you’re on our email list. We send out updates on the show, events like our Fall Book Preview, and more. Sign up at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.
Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.