Normal People
Show Notes:
This week on Jelly Pops Book Club we are revisiting our conversation from Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous about Normal People, the book, and the TV series.
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Guest Leah Carey
Transcript:
Julia: Welcome to jelly pops book club, where we read book to screen adaptations and compare them to their screen counterparts. I'm Julia Washington. And on today's show, we are revisiting our conversation on pop culture makes me jealous. With Leah Carey about normal people. Now, I know last week I said we I'd be recapping my summer reading list, but honestly, I'm still working on that because there was so much I read and there's so much that has to be said, and I will bring that to you very, very soon.
Julia: We recorded this episode in the summer of 2022, and I'm so, so proud of this particular episode. It is definitely in my top 10 in this recording. We do summarize the book and the show, so I won't be doing that for you now, but let me tell you a little bit about my guest. Leah Carey is a sex and intimacy coach and host of the podcast.
Julia: Good girls talk about sex, which is what makes her the most perfect guest for this title. Okay, let's talk a little bit about the author. Sally Rooney is an Irish novelist who graduated from Trinity College in Dublin in 2013 with a degree in English literature. At the time of this episode's release, she has published three novels, Conversations with Friends, Normal People, and Beautiful World, Where Are You?
Julia: Her novels highlight class issues, intimacy, and politics, as well as art. In 2017, she won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award. Rooney has been known to describe herself as a feminist and a Marxist, which I believe really does come through in her work. All right, let's get into it. And now here we go to the show,
Julia: Leah, welcome to the show. Thanks so
Leah: much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and I'm so excited to talk about this book and TV
Julia: show. I am too. I would say that you are an excellent source for this conversation, because as I read in your bio, you are experienced in the, in the area of intimacy. And there's a lot of intimacy in both the book and the movie.
Julia: So yeah. They're really, I can't think of a better person to bring on. Okay, friends, let's do a quick summary before we dive in. And this is from the dust cover of the book. So I thought it would be best to pull directly from the book because I think it encompasses the mini series very well as well at school.
Julia: Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He's popular and well adjusted a star of the school football team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up. From her job at Marianne's house, a strange and indelible connection grows between two teenagers.
Julia: One, they are determined to conceal. There's more on the cover than that, but I feel like that's a really great place to start. So we're going to pause in that summary to kick off our talk. At the time of the book's release NPR books had this to say, quote, normal people is a compulsive, psychologically astute, will they or won't they love story involving two of the most sympathetic people you're liable to meet between covers.
Julia: Although hailed as a voice of millennials Rooney offers plenty to appeal to readers across genders and generations, and quote, the mini series is widely accepted and praised as well with variety saying. Thank you. With its trifecta of elegant writing, directing, and acting, Hulu's Normal People is just as bleak and uncompromising as Rooney's novel, a feat and one that takes several episodes to fully absorb.
Julia: So I want to start in where we always start. What did you think of the book and did you like it?
Leah: Um, so I read the book after I watched the show and I am usually a person who's, you know, the book was better than the, the show, but this is a case where I loved the show so much that when I got to the book, um, it.
Leah: And the writing is so spare and so everything is just so stark, um, and there, there's no frilliness in the book at all. And that was, I just, I kept thinking of Daisy Edgar Jones in my head playing Marianne and I was like, Oh, I kind of miss everything she brings to the room. But with that said, yes, I think it's an excellent
Julia: book.
Julia: Yeah. I read the book first when it first came out, everyone was singing its praises and I'm NPR raised me. So if NPR says, read the book, I'm going to read the book. And I, so I did, but in, it threw me a little bit because there isn't like quotation punctuation when the characters are speaking. So I had to kind of get comfortable with that.
Julia: Yeah. But what I realized was. As to your point about just how source, how spare it is. To me, that feels very intentional because you have to sort of try and interpret Mary Anne, just like everyone else is trying to interpret Mary Anne and you don't necessarily get all the things, but when you see her with Connell, you kind of do get all the things about her.
Julia: And I thought that was really interesting.
Leah: Yeah. And I think one of the hallmarks of their relationship is that they don't really communicate very well to each other. And so the fact that we're not getting as the audience, we're not getting a whole lot of communication from them either sort of speaks to the characters that they are.
Julia: Yeah, absolutely. And it's a nice quick short read. It's easy to get through for people, but I do think that it'll throw folks to 73. I think it'll throw people off not having, um, the quotation punctuations. Like that was really
Leah: challenging for me. It took me a good 50 pages to fall into the rhythm of that.
Julia: Yeah. But once you do, and I think 50 is a good marking point. Cause once you do get comfortable and used to it, you kind of realize who's talking and what's happening, you know, what's. What's dialogue and what's not dialogue. And I thought that was an interesting choice. So let's shift gears and talk about the mini series.
Julia: It's 12 episodes. All of them are available on Hulu. What did you think? I
Leah: love this show so much. First of all, I, this was the first time I saw Daisy Edgar Jones and she is a revelation. She is perfect actress for this role. She's just incredible. It's like. Everything you can possibly imagine plays across her face.
Leah: Um, and I thought Connell was really well cast, too. I think his name is Paul, Paul Mescal, Mescal. Yeah, I thought that he was also really well cast because he just really reads as that, like, silent, strong man. Yeah!
Julia: Yeah. Absolutely!
Leah: And I think that again, the spareness of the prose in the book comes across on the screen, but you get so much more like you get to watch their inner life on their faces in a way that I found really, really appealing.
Julia: They, I agree. They absolutely did a great job with taking the dialogue. And infusing personality into it in a way where you don't feel like you're missing something. I mean, you're missing what you're supposed to be missing, right? Cause they're, they're, they have struggles with communication, but you also kind of see that there's more to what they're saying, but the kids, you know, we have a hard time with communication as adults.
Julia: So how can we expect, you know, 17 year olds to communicate? Well, that's so
Leah: true. Yeah. In. There was a New York times article that you and I both read, um, about this where they say that the, um, the creative team for the mini series said we're using the book as a Bible. Like, they weren't just sort of making an adaptation.
Leah: Of the book. They were literally putting the book on screen to the point that the dialogue is literally word for word.
Julia: Yes. Absolutely. Yes. I forgot about that. When I was rereading the book this weekend, I was like, Oh, Oh, this is exactly, this is the exact language they use. And it almost. And I wonder, so sometimes I wonder if authors sort of intentionally do that because I read a story one time about how John Steinbeck was heavy on dialogue and of mice and men on purpose because he wanted it to be adapted into something, whether it was a stage play or screenplay and cause he initially was going to make it a live thing, but then it turned into a book for whatever reason.
Julia: So he kept the heavy dialogue on purpose. So since reading that story now, I'm like, Do some writers go into writing their book with the intention of it being able to be adapted easily? Cause it's not, it's, that's a thing that I talk about a lot on the show and. Dissect into it's not easy. People think it's easy.
Julia: It's not easy because you don't want to lose the integrity and you don't want to lose the essence and the way that they did it. And we'll get more into it later was just, I was just, this is how you do an adapt and adaptation. And there's stuff that they left out, but you don't miss it when you're watching it.
Julia: If you've read the book, you don't miss it. And I think that's a testament.
Julia: The 2019 New York Times book review of normal people offered this of Rooney's writing. Rooney is almost comically talented at keeping the lovers in her novels frustrated and apart. When you are deep into normal people, you may start to feel that she has gone to this particular well. One too many times end quote, within the first 20 pages, Marianne and Connell have embarked on a physical relationship.
Julia: Teenage intimacy isn't new to the world of television or even literature, but the intimacies these two share aren't like what we always see portrayed in mass entertainment. So Leah, I want to talk a little bit about the writing and the representation of the physical intimacy between Connell and Marianne, because it starts in high school, but as we see throughout the book in the series, it moves into adulthood through university.
Julia: So do you think this story is helpful or hurtful to the conversation of sex and intimacy in representation in media?
Leah: I think that's such an interesting question that does not have an easy answer. Um, I think that. In some ways, it's incredibly helpful. In that it's such a real depiction of what real people go through.
Leah: It's not a sort of aspirational vision of teenage romance and love. It's also not sort of the, um, you know, the horrific, this is how bad it can be. If you like, you don't know what love is, you're only 17, you know, it's neither of those. It's really real. Um, there's. Very early in the book, there's a description of Connell's sex life before he, um, he met Marianne or before they started their physical relationship where, um, she writes, he doesn't even really know what desire is supposed to feel like.
Leah: Anytime he's had sex in real life, he's found it so stressful as to be largely unpleasant, leading him to suspect that there's something wrong with him. And that is. Such a beautiful encapsulation of not just teenage sex, but so many of the clients I work with today who are adults are saying, I'm doing sex the way I think it's supposed to be done, but it doesn't feel great to me.
Leah: So there's something wrong with me. When in reality, the problem is that nobody is talking about the fact that we all get to do sex the way we want to. And we. You know, we get to feel it the way we want to feel it. Our body gets to respond the way that our body responds rather than taking, you know, the latest Cosmo quiz that says, here's the way to give your whoever a whatever, you know, like, and they presented as if there's one way.
Leah: This, I think is a. Beautiful encapsulation of what real sex and real discomfort around sex really looks like. With that said, I think there's some, I have some really complicated feelings about how she handles, how Rooney handles kink and BDSM.
Julia: Yeah, I actually was going to ask you about that. And we do have a, um, a top, we can get really in depth in it and a little bit.
Julia: Cause I think I have a question about that later that I want to explore with you, but you can continue.
Leah: Well, I think that, um, there is potentially some harmful stuff going on. In that part of the story that I, I would have liked to potentially see handled a little bit differently.
Julia: Yeah, for sure. And, and, and I'm curious about your thoughts on that.
Julia: So when we get to that point in the show, I'm going to ask you some questions. I, I really appreciated. How, I don't know if you, if you felt this way too, cause you said it feels raw and authentic. It also, to me kind of felt clunky. What really struck me in the book was there was a point where he says, he's talking about, I think it's pride and prejudice or Emma.
Julia: It's the Jane Austen novel. And you know, he. He's moved by this particular scene, but he's annoyed with himself because he has to stop. He has, because he doesn't have time to finish the scene and he's frustrated by that. Rooney writes him. He's amused at himself getting wrapped up in the drama of novels like that.
Julia: It feels intellectually. Unserious to concern himself with fictional people, marrying one another, but literature moves him. One of his professors calls it the pleasure of being touched by great art. And I kind of liked that tie in because there's so much of the, like bringing that to the forefront of how Connell thinks.
Julia: And, you know, the professor saying that, because there is so much when it comes to the conversation of touch, when they get later in the series and later in the book. So I really, I really thought that was a beautiful way to like, you know, bring in Austin and show that he is a little different than some of the other guys that we see, um, Maryanne encounter later in their life or in this particular later, they're like 24 when the show that much later in life, but you know what I mean?
Leah: Um, and there's also, and I, this is what you're referring to. I think when you say touch becomes, uh, an issue between them, one of the things she's, he says to her, why do you let all these other men touch you? Why do you flirt with them? And she says, well, you don't touch me in public. And so much of their relationship happens behind closed doors.
Leah: They don't acknowledge it. So she says, you don't touch me. So nobody else is allowed to touch me either. And that's such a real conversation that so many people don't have. They just sit with the resentment. And let it fester. And so I really loved that. They actually had that conversation out loud.
Julia: Yeah.
Julia: And it's, and it's highlighting that we make. We create stories in our mind and rather than addressing it or having that blunt conversation because of whatever reason, we just allow it to become resentment. The article that you sent me from the New York times. Um, I wanted to read this quote really quickly, so we can also talk about this as well.
Julia: And thank you for sending that. I don't know why it didn't show up when I was Googling, but you know, the algorithms. The New York times. And I think this was in 2020. Um, and I'll link it in the show notes friends. Cause I actually think it's worth the read quote, the production hired an intimacy coordinator and thought carefully about how to translate the physical and emotional vulnerability of the book for television in a way that was respectful to both the original story and the actors performing it.
Julia: The environment was warm and supportive. Daisy Edgar Jones, the British actor who plays Marianne set on set. But she added that some of the heavier scenes had stayed with her filming the period when Marianne is very depressed and looking to violent sex for comfort left Edgar Jones, 21 at the time, feeling really strange for a few days.
Julia: It's hard not to take that stuff on. Overall, though, the shows prevailing themes as represented Connell's relationship are inspirational she said, and quote, and I think it's interesting because intimacy coordinators. I feel like that's a new concept. Yeah, it very much is in Hollywood.
Leah: This is in fact, the show that sort of brought intimacy coordinators to the, the sort of mainstream consciousness.
Leah: As far as I know, there were, there were a few theater companies that were starting to use them in a couple of years before that. Um, And I think that it really started to gain some steam with the whole me too movement, um, where suddenly women were coming forward and saying. I was doing this scene and things happened that shouldn't have, or that I was, you know, we were rehearsing this scene and, or I was, you know, we filmed this scene and there was no, uh, there wasn't enough rehearsal time.
Leah: And so like, I didn't know what was going to happen and things got really awkward. You know, there's just so much that can go. First of all, there's so much that can go wrong and awkward when it's two people who are actually making love. But then you take two people who are not necessarily in a relationship who don't necessarily have that personal.
Leah: Connection with each other who maybe are not fully comfortable with each other's bodies and you ask them to do those things and it is a recipe for disaster. Yeah. And so these intimacy coordinators are doing such an amazing, like, this is such important work where they're, they're doing a few different things.
Leah: They're helping the actors to be fully comfortable. So one of the things that they do is they sit down and have conversations about Like this scene, does it bring anything up for you? Are there any trigger points here for you that we need to be careful about? How do you want to play this out? Are there parts of your body that you don't want to engage?
Leah: Are there things that you don't want to do? And how can we bring each of your sensibilities and your sensitivities To this scene and make it still really fulfill the mission of the director and the writer. Then they all, so they do all of that sort of talking and emotional work. And then when they get to set, they actually do the choreography.
Leah: So it becomes more like a dance piece than like two people, groping each other's bodies. And so they're the actual choreographers making sure that everybody's needs get taken care of. And one of the things that I think is so brilliant about the TV show is that It looks like real sex. Yeah. It does not look like romanticized gauzy sex.
Leah: It looks like real awkward, you know, like, Oh, where does my knee go? Kind of sex. It's really vulnerable. And that makes. I just, I feel so much less separated from it than I do when I'm watching a movie that has really gauzy, pretty sex in it, where I'm like, that's pretty.
Julia: We're looking at you Bridgerton and your over romanticized ness.
Julia: None of that's real. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Because you, they are doing sort of weird exploration, um, and not understanding how to fit their bodies together. And I noticed too, there was a lot of like, is this okay? Kind of, you know, happening,
Leah: which, Oh my God. Is that is consent conversation that is the stuff that we never get to see unless there's a reason for it, you know, unless somebody is about to be triggered and there's going to be a meltdown or, you know, like there has to be some story propulsive.
Leah: Um, and this book and this show really weave consent in. Um, I, I pulled out a few different quotes about consent. There's the night where they go to the party and she wants to kiss him. And he says, not tonight, you're wasted. Yeah. Which is. I mean, bravo to a teenage man. Yes. Understands that you cannot give consent when you're, um, when you're altered.
Leah: And then there's another, I think every woman who hears this is going to recognize this as something she has done under. You know, a variety of different circumstances. He puts it, this is one of the other characters, Jamie or Lucas, he puts his hand around her throat. The gesture doesn't frighten her. It only exhausts her so entirely that she can't speak or move anymore.
Leah: She's tired of making evasive efforts when it's easier, effortless to just give in. That is so true of so Many experiences that those of us who grew up as little girls have, where I could go into a whole rant about the way that we bring up our little girls and our little boys. Um, the Top line of that is that we bring up our little boys to not take no for an answer.
Leah: That is what makes a great business leader is they just keep driving until they get the thing that they want. And we teach our little girls to say no a couple of times and then give in. And then we shame those little girls or the. You know, when they become women, we shame the women for not knowing how to hold their no in a sexual situation.
Leah: We shame them when they have sex, they don't want to have, and then come out the other side and say, that kind of didn't feel good. That kind of felt like assault. And we say, well, you didn't say no. So what are you complaining about? You just changed your mind. That's not how consent works. And that is such a beautiful example of how that dynamic happens.
Leah: It's just easier to give
Julia: it. Yeah. Were there other scenes that struck you? Um, because this is your area of expertise. So were there other street scenes that struck you, um, in a positive way? Um,
Leah: well, I, I mean, In a positive way as they demonstrated something so well, but sometimes it was negative.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah.
Julia: That's true. That's true. Yeah. The
Leah: ways that Marianne and Connell just can't figure out how to communicate with each other. So there's the moment when they're in his bedroom and she's getting ready to leave. And she says, well, I guess I'm going to leave now. And he says, I think it's pretty obvious. I don't want you to leave.
Leah: And she says, I don't think it's obvious what you want at all. And that is like the first moment where they actually communicate about who wants what, because they're constantly having, like, there's hmm.
Leah: And he doesn't say it out loud. So she doesn't know to offer that he can stay with her. And so he says, well, then I guess I have to go home. And she says, well, then I guess you're going to want to see other people. Cause she's trying to figure out what the hell's going on. Get her feet back under her. And he says, yeah, I guess.
Leah: And it becomes a breakup that they're both traumatized by. Yeah. Because these two characters. Like so many teenagers and so many adults don't know how to communicate. Um, some other things that I really loved is, um, are you familiar with the term sex brain? No. So when we start to have touch, that's bringing us pleasure, we're starting to get turned on, um, chemicals, flutter brains.
Leah: It's just like when you get high, there's some of the same chemicals. And so literally when you're actively in the process of, of touching and being touched, you really are no longer sober enough to make. Consent decisions. One of the things about a real consent conversation is that it should happen before your clothes come off so that you're not in sex brain.
Leah: And there's a great example of this. Um, this is at one of the moments after Marianne has been through her sort of, um, kinky phase. Um, where she's actively seeking kink, um, she, she's back with Connell and Rooney writes his touch has a narcotic effect. A pleasurable stupidity comes over her and what she's describing is sex brain.
Leah: Interesting. Yeah. And it hits everybody differently. Some people will become extremely vocal and extremely, um, you're writhe and moan. Other people will become very quiet and very sort of that pleasurable stupidity. Everybody has it differently, but it is good to know that once you're in that state, you are effectively high and you should not be making, having consent conversations.
Leah: At that point. Wow. Wow. Yeah. So if somebody gets you, like if you are making out with somebody and you are in that sort of high fun place and they say, Hey, can we go a little further than we initially said? Your answer should be No. Yeah. Even if you want to, because that's your high brain. saying yes, your sober brain before the fact was saying no.
Leah: And so, um, the, the goal here is to remember that there's always going to be another chance. So leave yourself wanting more, leave yourself room to go back and say, yes, the next time, but this time hold your boundaries that you set up. Before you started playing. Yeah.
Julia: The scene that you talk about talked about earlier where Marianne said, no, actually it's not obvious to me.
Julia: I was so proud of her. Yeah. Or finally. Saying what she wanted because for the entire book for like 10 episodes, maybe it's 11. We're watching her make decisions, not for herself. It's always whatever you want. You can have whatever you want from me. You can do whatever you want. And I'm sitting here like, I just want you to say what you want, Marianne.
Julia: Yeah. You're in this too. And then when she finally says to him that, I was just like, fine, girl, good
Leah: for you.
Julia: That is a really good step forward for you. Yes. And I think it really laid the groundwork for that final scene when he gets accepted to the MFA program and her willingness to let him go for a little bit.
Julia: At least that's how it played out in my mind. Yeah.
Leah: I thought that was really, it was. Beautifully done. And I have to say I did not get the same response to it reading it as I did watching it. Yeah. When I watched it, the way that I understood it, watching it on screen was that the two of them had spent so much time worrying about what other people would think and sort of just being buffeted around by the wind at any given moment that this was the first time they were making an actual decision and having an actual communication about the decision that they wanted to have together and they were willing to let each other go as a And I think of that.
Leah: And it was sort of because things crumbled. As opposed to saying, this is a good place for us to move on. In the book, I didn't get that nearly as much. And I'm not sure why. I'm not sure if she, she wrote it with a different intention or if it was just the prose that didn't catch me the same way. I don't know.
Leah: Yeah,
Julia: you know, I'm going to agree because watching that scene, I, I had all the emotions and I felt pride in them for making such a rational decision and they communicated, I thought very well with each other. And maybe that's because we see the growth of them throughout and we are actually seeing it as opposed to reading it.
Julia: I don't know. It felt like there's room for a sequel, not that I don't think they'll do a sequel, but she left it. I like how she left that sort of air of he's only supposed to be gone for a year. So who knows when he comes back, if they could rekindle, cause they have that back and forth so much through the, through the book.
Julia: It's like, you get the payoff. Like, I'm so glad you finally, you guys finally actually figured out how to talk to each other. This is so happy. As far as book to screen adaptations go, do you think the mini series gets it right? Oh
Leah: my God. Yes. Yeah. I mean, like I said, that New York times article says that they used the book as the Bible.
Leah: I think that's, uh, yeah, they get it right from soup to nuts. I think, what do you think? I agree.
Julia: I forgot. Cause I read, again, I read the book when it first came out because everyone was raving about it. Cause conversations with friends was so amazing. And da da da da. So when the series came out, it had been a while, maybe a year or two.
Julia: When did the, it's a, I have a first printed edition of the book. So it, I definitely bought it a 2018. So I bought it in 2018. Um, and I'm watching the series, like all of this feels very familiar. I, I, I'm not missing, like, I don't feel like anything's missing. I feel like everything they pulled out from the book or pulled, pulled out and left out of the series that was in the book.
Julia: You could probably do the same thing too. Like Sally Rooney didn't need to have those scenes that didn't make it into the show for this to still work. And I really, really loved that. And I loved it. They pulled the straight. Straight pulled the scenes almost verbatim. And when I was reading the first couple of chapters, I thought this kind of feels like it reads like a script because the way that she has her description, it feels like it's not, you know, it's not stage direction.
Julia: Cause it's not a stage show, but it feels like it's that basic, simple, um, direction in the script. So you get enough. So that way someone understands what's going on, but it's not so much that a director or an actor can't infuse their own interpretation of what's happening. And I thought that was really interesting too.
Julia: And again, I would love to know what she was thinking when she wrote it. Did she write it with the intention of it coming to screen one day because it lends itself so well to be a screen. I think you could even pull it off as a stage production if they, if they, if they tried. Yeah. Cause it is simple.
Julia: It's, you know, when you think about the way that the sets are, it's still simple enough that you could probably pull it off on stage. You don't need a whole lot cause they're in one location for a lot of the scenes. There isn't a lot of, yeah, I mean, yeah, there's some car scenes here and there in the series and in the book, but you could figure a way around that.
Leah: Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I think so much of the success of the TV series. And it's not that these characters couldn't have been played by other people, they certainly could have, but I think The vast majority of the success, the success of the mini series for me is laid at the feet of Daisy Edgar Jones.
Leah: She is just remarkable in this. She
Julia: understood the assignment big
Leah: time. Oh my God. She did. Yeah. Yeah. And now I'm like. I am a Daisy Edgar Jones stan. I want to see everything she's in.
Julia: But I think that if you're going to study book to screen adaptations, I think this is a really good place to start because they kept the integrity of the book, the message and the themes that Sally was trying to give are still there in the movie.
Julia: The mini series. And you really get the sense that everybody involved has an appreciation and understanding for the source material. And I'm we'll die on this Hill. And I've said this so many times on the show, when we've done book to screen adaptations. When the people involved in the creative process for the screen adaptation have an affection for the source material, you get a really good product that you really feel fulfilled by artistically.
Leah: Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to it just being a money grab.
Julia: Yeah. Yeah. IndieWire called this adaptation immaculate. And honestly, I have to agree the creative team behind the scene lifted all the elements and pulled all the scenes necessary to make this still feel full and whole something that could stand alone.
Julia: The idea that the book is better could be argued, but the integrity of the story still rings loud and clear without leaving the viewer feeling like something is missing.
Julia: Hey friends. I have a new segment that I'm so excited to share with you. It's called book friends rec amends, and we are going to offer some recommendations by some friends of the podcast. This week's book friends recommends is brought to you by capital books in Sacramento. You can find them on the web at.
Julia: Capital books on k. com or you can follow them on Instagram, capital books on K peruse their website, find, find all kinds of stuff, support Indy. So they have three recommendations for the month of September for us. The first one is forget me not by Julie Soto, local Sacramento author, Julie Soto's debut novel, forget me not is based in Sacramento.
Julia: Ama Torres is a wedding planner. Facing the biggest challenge of her life. Yes, it's a huge wedding with a budget triple, what she's used to working with, but that's not the issue. Elliot Bloom, brooding florist, extraordinary had his heart broken by Ama Torres two years ago after a whirlwind romance that ended in disaster.
Julia: When they're forced to work together again for the Upcoming wedding set at McKinley Park. Will sparks fly or will it crash and burn like the relationship did before? Oh my God, this book sounds like it's up my alley. I cannot wait. I'm so excited. Our second recommendation is called School for Good Mothers by Jessamyn Chan.
Julia: Frida can't earn her parents blessing, nor can she gain her husband's affection, but she can be a great mother, and she is. That is, until her motherly merits are put into question by a Big Brother esque government that threatens to strip her of her child, her purpose, and her life, the School for Good Mothers paints a frighteningly pertinent picture of a dystopia that in many ways mirrors our own and touches on how our society views motherhood.
Julia: Oh my gosh, another book that sounds like it's right up my alley. I definitely can't wait to get my hands on it. Okay, the third and final recommendation from our pals at Capital Books for the month of September is Psalm for the Wild, built by Becky Chambers. It's been centuries since the robots of Penga gained sentience, put down their tools and wandered into the forest, never to be seen again.
Julia: A myth to be remembered until one day a tea selling monk comes upon one. The robot refuses to leave, at least until its question is answered. What do people need? Thus begins the journey of the monk and the robot as they try to learn the answer to the question, causing them to ask many more along the way.
Julia: In a world where people have everything they want. Does anything else really matter? It's a cozy but insightful dystopian book that you won't be able to put down. Okay. So, uh, I feel like Capital Books crushed their recommendations this month and I'm so excited to buy these and dive in. They sound so So head on over to capitalbooksonk.
Julia: com to order those three recommendations. And once you do, and once you read them, please email me and tell me what you thought of them. And if I've already read them too, I will have a full on discussion with you about them because dang it, these sounds so good. Good. So thank you to our friends at Capital Books in Sacramento for those recs.
Julia: We're so excited about them and I'm so excited to share them with you, our friends at home. Be sure to follow Capital Books on Instagram as well as shop their selection outside of these recommendations. We want to continue to support our independent booksellers. Without our independent local booksellers, what do we even have?
Julia: We can't go and experience the joy of books without independent booksellers.
Julia: It has been over a year since I've had this conversation with Leah, but you can find her at leahcary. com to learn more about her, the work that she does, and I think also to listen to her podcast. Our book club pick this month is the sun is also a star by Nicola Yoon. We are meeting Sunday, September 17th.
Julia: And in order to get in on that chat, you've got to join us on Patreon. Just go to patreon. com slash Julia Washington, pick the jelly pops book club tier, and you not only get access to our live book club, but bonus content as well. Jelly pops book club is written and edited by me, your host. Next week on the pod, I will, in fact, be recapping my summer reading list for reals this time.
Julia: I promise. Thanks for tuning in, y'all. Until next time.
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