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Gilmore To Read: Ava Rani Fixes Logan Huntzberger In Her New Book · Gilmore To Say: A Gilmore Girls Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: 5, 6, 7, 8, scroll.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hi y'all, welcome, or welcome back to Gilmour to Read.
• 0:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host, Haley, and I'm so glad to have you here today.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Pasties, let's get straight into today's episode because Eva Ronnie, my guest today, the USA Today Bestowing Author of Poison Ivy, takes the cake with the hottest takes that we've had from a guest on Gilmour to Read or in Gilmour to say.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I genuinely don't think a more controversial opinion has ever been shared on this podcast, and I'm very excited for y'all to hear it.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Eva is a huge fan of Gilmore Girls, and very much Team Logan, which you know, I adored.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her latest release, Poison Ivy, is perfect for the Logan girlies, but also for Team Jess, if you hate a Logan and want to see her, Eva does to quote-unquote Fix Logan Hansperger.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just know regardless of your team.
• 0:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be a book you love.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I certainly did.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let me tell you a little bit about Poison Ivy, because when this came across my feed, I felt like Eva had written a book for me.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is described as never have I ever, meets Maurice College years.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our main character, Malina, is a student at the fictional Ivy Winchester University, living a double-life trying to appease her strict family who has a path set up for her, as well as live her life the way she wants to, with a secret phone and bank account to boot.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In order to fund her double-life, she decides to use her experience as a student or porter to enter a writing competition where she's going to expose the myth of meritocracy at her Ivy League University by writing about a secret society she
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Only to find yourself found out by one Conrad Hastings, a rather attractive rich member of Seds Secret Society.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Malina Khan's Conrad into working with her on the article where they'll share a by-line and uncover a mystery in the catacombs of Winchester University.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was so hooked by this book immediately, and part of it is because of how Avra takes a different approach and exploring the idea of Logan's line from season six,
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: where he says, all I see is one door and I'm being pushed through it, I have no choice you try living with how options.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: In response to that sort of idea, the tension of Malina's double life is her answer to trying to expand her life to more than just one path.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Having that secret second door if you will feels like she's being pushed through the one door that her family has set out for her Well, she is trying to make and escape hatch if you will and I think that you'll love the family drama that ensues from this Especially from Melina as she navigates the expectations of being a child of South East Asian immigrant parents who only want one thing for her and for Conrad who's own family only sees him as an heir
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: While Gilmore Girls was Ava's point of inspiration, this is a story that is entirely its own and it's perfect if you love an academic setting, a little secret society, a mystery of sorts, and a romance unfolding amongst it all.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ava Avarani is a USA today by selling author crafting diverse love stories that sizzle with passion and intrigue.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's the author of the spare the air, the charmer, and her
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: The latest released Poison Ivy, when she's not writing messy rich people navigating love power and scandal in glamorous settings, she's perfecting her role-ups at the Pilate Studio, discovering new wines and bingeing a good mystery.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, I cannot fully express how hot the takes are from Eva about Gomor Girls.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to know how you feel about her thoughts because I may be feeling a little bit like she's right, but that might really upset Team Jess.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just need y'all to hear for yourselves.
• 3:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: In this episode, we also talk about her changing careers from being a doctor, to being a writer of romance, and what inspired her to dive into her new series, the legacies, starting with Poison Divey.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: She got a lot of her inspiration for Melina's double life from her own upbringing, but I'll let her tell you.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think you're going to love this episode Besties, and I think you're going to love Eva as much as I do.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, without further ado, here is Avarani.
• 3:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I had a completely different beginning opening into this conversation, but I would like to start with the fact that you have a Beauty and the Beast Bell ladder on your bookshelf behind you.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I am obsessed.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did this come about?
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Was this like your dream?
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has been.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: So my husband and I both went through a lot of like healthcare medical training.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we've moved around a lot, both for his training and for my own.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so when I told him, like a few years and years ago, when we finally had like our forever house and we were settled and all of that, I wanted a built-in bookshelf that spanned all the walls, so like this wraps around the whole room.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it'll turn.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so this is what I want and I want to do like the bell like rod and kind of like slide which I've done and I fell and don't do it.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so then one one year we he plans to trip over a year for just me and him leave us on it home where would grandma should say we go on a trip just us and it's usually for my birthday and so while we were gone he had like let my parents know that there was going to be a contractor coming in to like
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: redo this my office to become a library.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when we got back, it was done.
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this was a surprise to me.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was the surprise.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was just like over the moon.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I need more books now because I had enough.
• 5:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are the only shelves that are full.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this thing goes all the way around.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was like, well, I guess I need more books.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Need more books.
• 5:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Need to write more books.
• 5:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we got to get on it.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wait, that was like way better than I could have imagined.
• 5:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thought you were going to like, oh, I just really wanted a ladder shelf.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I just
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that the Sue's thing?
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know, he's a good, he's a good man.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh my gosh, I can see why you write characters who make these like beautiful grand gestures for the women in your life because it seems like that.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've got that at home.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would, fun, it took a while to get there, but yes, I kissed many of Frog to get to the prince.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations, honestly.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I wanted to tell you about how I found out about your books because it's not embarrassing in any way, but it was just one of those things that it's like I was it was very surface level because I think it was actually Alley Heslewood that shared to her stories your new cover for the Biotech billionaire series and I saw the spare and I was like oh my gosh That looks like the opening number of the era's tour.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was that orange and purple and pink and I was like this is stunning.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna read this book.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it was really the cover that drew me into it and then of course the story was what pulled me into the series.
• 6:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm currently reading the air which I love like a dramatic sort of like sort of workplace drama so I'm loving that but it really was that cover that you just were like it was so gorgeous that I was like I have to get
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: a reader actually bedazzled those three so those were like oh my gosh I thought they were just like foiled and yeah they're pretty they're bedazzled those are stunning covers I know some people complain about covers and romance novels but I have to say those are gorgeous those are simply stunning like they really did feel like that like the little wave
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Flag things that go up at the beginning of the airs torn.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like this feels like the girlies will love this one But we're not here just talk about the biotech billionaires as much as I love that one We're here to talk about poison ivy, which I love so much after reading the spare I followed you on Instagram and you posted about this book and you said that it was Riga moors college years kind of the life and death brigade and I felt like I had to slide into your DMs because I was like she wrote a book for me She has summoned me the Logan girlies were summoned.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Logan girlies, like I was like, she knew she wrote a book specifically for me.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And as I was reading this, it was one of those things that I was like, I wish I could pass this book back to teenage me who was like 15 and like, down bad for Logan Hansberger, looking like for fan fiction of him, but never feeling that like quite exactly what I wanted where it was like, you get like this like inner world, like his like inner turmoil and everything that's going on for him, like I always wanted his perspective.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: and I feel like this is everything, every bit of that and more.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's actually what kind of a dreamy into writing this book a few things did.
• 7:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Roy's college years were always something I fascinated me.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that dreamy and but I really love the idea of like taking like a person that has a perceived perfect life.
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm in kind of like killing it back because you know, on mass those hierarchy of needs once you have like food,
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: wanting other things right and so like what are the things that these people that like for any normal person would be like you have everything.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why can't you just be happy?
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to know what makes you unhappy, right?
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is it that holds you back from being like a fulfilled version of yourself?
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was home Logan to be very interesting in that regard, right?
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he does the thing that I love most in characters, which has happened, like really beautiful story arc and like a lot of character growth.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so this was kind of like my way of exploring like what makes him tick.
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm putting him up against somebody who kind of like has to at every turn challenge his beliefs, the way Logan sort of challenges worries.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want it someone to kind of do that to him, like interrogate all of his like biases.
• 8:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I put a pair of people together that would fight for a little bit.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, oh, and Voidethay, which I love so much.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But before we get into Poison Ivy and to Gilmour Girls, I want a time travel back a little bit to your history of writing.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Gilmour Girls came out in October 2000.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a 25th anniversary this year.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What were you writing in the year 2000?
• 9:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: a lot of fan-fac.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of fan-fac.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of fan-fac.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was in the year 2000 I was still in middle school and so I was, you know, I didn't think I'd go into writing from a very young age.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew I was going to be a doctor because everyone pulled me.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was going to be a doctor and so very much a Richard Emily upbringing in that respect and so I was just writing because I was like this is fun and I want to write something and so it was creative writing and, you know, writing a German school and it wasn't something I pursued in any type of like extracurricular
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: manner, but it was something that I liked to do.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I wrote a lot of fanfiction.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will tell you what were the fandoms, uh, so many.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of them were like cartoons, entirely too embarrassing.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: One was wingsclub, but it was a lot of just stuff where I'm like, ooh, like this character intrigues me, like what if they did this, you know, and just kind of like the beginnings of being a writer without really recognizing it, so I did that.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: all throughout, you know, school, high school, even college, like when I had a writing minor, but never something I'd plan to pursue.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would kind of like write these characters based off of like characters I'd seen in media or books before that I was like, it would be so cool if we like tilted them, right?
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or like yank them out of their scenario and draw
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: them in a new one.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so when Gilmour Girls came out, I got to see for a person who gets to pursue this thing that she loves.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And a part of me was always very not jealous, but kind of like, and I guess a little jealous, the endiest of like that path, you know, having kind of like,
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Finding this kinship with her and growing up and like seeing a couple of worlds that you know that you can and probably should fit into But also having this like endless world of possibilities ahead of you and so it was interesting like I always like Found her interesting and that like she got to kind of traverse couple of different worlds and like you know growing up South Asian in a very strict household a part of me got to like see myself
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: in those bits of horror where she feels kind of like she's stuck between navigating this like you can't see little like star's hollow life and like the uproachalons society that her grandparents won for her.
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was on terror and I found honestly the lower life probably more intriguing in that regard.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yes, what kind of group writing alongside and watching this show?
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved Gilmour Girls.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had to watch it every fall and I've listened to your podcast long before.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have a full like fan breakout when you reached out.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: No way.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will say like jumping up and down.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: My husband is witness to this.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea, so I always loved it.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's kind of like growing up with it.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It kind of shaped a lot of my pivotal years.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so a part of me really loved the arc where he takes on with her growth and kind of like fumbling to in college.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's why I love her college years is that she makes some college type mistakes.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's very real and it's like very human.
• 11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's kind of what got me here.
• 11:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did you go from having these like fan fictions that you were writing throughout your school days to becoming a doctor to now coming back to writing romance again?
• 12:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I write minors.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Much like someone very familiar to us.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are some similarities between me and the main character was David.
• 12:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, like I knew like the craft.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew how after college I knew how to craft a story.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew, you know, the main elements you need to make something a cohesive work, right, but I never really got a chance to kind of like hone it or do anything more with that.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I went into my life and my career like I was supposed to and I loved it.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I loved that my path that I've chosen, but during COVID everything kind of like flipped on a Ted, like, as it did with so many people.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the things like I was postpartum.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything was shut down.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was not working for a while to time off.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm at home with my son doing a lot of TV watching.
• 12:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've rewatching some watching gossip growing watching succession and watching killing our girls.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just started wanting to beat again.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I started reading again and like my boxes of books that I never got a shelf floor.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then one day I was just like, you know, it'd be fun like if I just started writing again.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I started writing just kind of like a random story that popped into my head.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: That story would eventually become a spare.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like I workshopped that for like five, six months and I decided I wanted to publish it.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had no idea how to go about publishing.
• 13:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know if you want to know how to go into publishing.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the way I did it was wrong.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was under the impression grout going through like,
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: health care in general, like any type of career in health care, there are very much these like milestones you have to hit.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, like you get, you do these things to get this degree, you do these things get the certification, you do this residency, now you can work here, right?
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very stepwise and like neat and orderly in that way.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was like, well, I have a writing liner from all of these years ago.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have trained in a completely different field.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now here I am.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to put this book out, but I don't have an MFA.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not some like literary person, right?
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I had no idea how to go about it.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then thanks to TikTok.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I learned that you go get an agent.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that felt like college admissions and residency and all of that all over again.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 14:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was like, no thank you.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like why don't I just like get this bound, like the spare bound for myself, I'll put it on my big bookshelf one day when I have one and I'll be happy with that.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I sent it to an editor just to like prove that because I wanted it to be like perfect so I could like put from my shelf and read it.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the editor was like, hey, I really think you should probably do something with this.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like you don't have to do like tripod and go find an agent, like I understand that's like a lot, but like there are ways to self publish it.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're interested, like go to Amazon and they sent me a couple of links
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I put the spare up on Amazon to little fanfare.
• 14:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't do much marketing that I didn't know what I was doing.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, if five people will happen to find it and happen to read it, I'll be so pleased.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, more than five people found it.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, at the same time I was writing the air.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, okay, I'm going to make a little do it.
• 14:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, you know, like that's it.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The air, though, kind of like caught fire.
• 14:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: and did really really well.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got noticed by a publisher and by my now agent.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so in the course of like two months, I went from not really understanding anything about the publishing world, so like a crash course in it.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I got picked up by Avan Harbor Collins, an editor at Avan.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was like these are great.
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like let's bring them in.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's what we did.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it happened very quickly.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I always tell people, I'm like, if you want advice on how to publish the right book, come to me.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've done it.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've done all kinds of backwards.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the one thing I have learned and like I tell everyone is like anyone and everyone can be a writer.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's very much like who's dough from Ratatouille like anyone can cook anyone can write and it's just a matter of like how you put your work out there.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so that is how I went from like only having written in college very like amateur to publishing books now.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you feel now, I guess, because you're still independently publishing your poison IVs independently publishing published rather, how do you feel about the difference between the two of those now that you've kind of gotten a taste for both of them?
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think traditional publishing is like one of those giant, like, air force, you know, those boats that carry planes?
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: or one of those, right?
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are big.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can make massive distribution into all of these wonderful things for you, but they don't turn very quickly.
• 16:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like indie publishing is like a speedboat.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you can kind of turn on the dime and I am borrowing this analogy by the way from President Obama.
• 16:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did not think of this.
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, okay.
• 16:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you've heard of him, yes.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, you may be a part of a former President Obama, but Indie publishing is really great, especially for titles that may not have a very specific carved out niche in publishing yet.
• 16:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, and that's generally where Indie books shine.
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so when I kind of like go between shy traditionally publish this or shy independently publish this, I kind of think of like, where does this book have the best place to grow?
• 16:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: and then traditional publishing books with like really solid and well-known comparable books do really well.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so the by-tech billion years, you know, there are a lot of really big books about like rich people being messy.
• 17:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a really good chat book.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like they, you know, no exactly where to put it and exactly how to distribute it.
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Poisoned IDs like a little twist, right?
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a college romance, but there's not a lot of sports in it, which is where a lot of traditional publishing tends to put kind
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's like a mystery, but it's not a dark romance, right?
• 17:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's a lot of things and then kind of like little sprinkles of others.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that for me felt like a really good place to put it in the indie market.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And kind of let the indie market drive where it goes.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And kind of let it thrive there.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for me, it's always kind of like where do you want to put it in terms of like marketability.
• 17:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like in terms of how all the product becomes what it is.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's essentially the same on my end.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: whether it be into your B-trad, so it's kind of just where you think it would thrive the most.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because I think it's not rare, but like I think it's really interesting that you're doing both right now.
• 17:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that's probably a lot of work and overwhelming at times, but I think it's really cool.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it is.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a lot of work.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think especially for like traditionally published authors, the a lot of the work is like behind the scenes, but you still do it.
• 18:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're just kind of like may not recognize that you're doing it in the in the authors.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're doing it right away.
• 18:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, you know you're doing it, right?
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I feel like it's almost the same.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just depends on
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think Indies really great for people who are like very type A like me and I probably annoy my publisher sometimes because I need to see every step of every single thing that we've ever done, you know, under probably just like can you just take stuff back?
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like I like having a lot of control and so my, you know, I see every step of everything, a lot of people don't love that.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people would rather be like, hey, just like, here's the book, put a cover on it, like do your thing.
• 18:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I trust you.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, I have anxiety walking outside.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like I need to
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it really also depends on kind of like what your comfortability is with having, you know, the controls and for me, you know.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's it's interesting that like from being healthcare to kind of stepping back in COVID and then when you wrote, you were like, I don't want to go through all these steps again that you went through for your previous career.
• 19:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But then when it comes to like actually working on it, it almost feels like it was like a, maybe like a little bit of a burnout from where you were at.
• 19:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're like, I just want, I just want to do this.
• 19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now that you're in it, you're like, actually, let's go back to that step by step process because I'm really good at that.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's funny to see where you shine.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like even now, like my publish will be like, hey, we're setting up like you're released week for my next upcoming book in May.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like we don't have to do anything until January.
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, yeah, by the way, I've already scheduled like this this month.
• 19:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is what I'm talking to.
• 19:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know some of this, I mean, even though it's probably like,
• 19:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, thank you, like yeah.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, great.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I want to go back to teenage you.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: A recent number one goal as a teenager was of course getting into Harvard and it was her main focus.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a similar sort of goal or focus even if it was an academic when you were a teenager?
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I was a teenager all I wanted, like literally all I wanted was to get into a good school so that I could go become a doctor.
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I very much like felt worry in those years.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for worry, like I think she was driven by that internal drive, I think Carbard me, he was kind of incepted into her a little bit.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for me, it always felt like there's a line in the book that
• 20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: very much came from my own life which is like how do you know what you want and you've only been allowed to want one thing.
• 20:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think like I remember I was always been happy in my career and I think it's because I genuinely enjoy it but I also never had a chance to try something else.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm like of course I like it, I've never tried anything else, right?
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that of my soul focus undergrad, high school, middle school, middle school is like, you know,
• 20:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: classes, so you get into into advanced classes and then high schools like do all on your SATs and do all on your AP tests and get into like the good undergrad and then undergrad at you know get the proper grades, do all on all the tests and then you know get into the right school and then get into the right residency is always like runs on the ladder and then you get to the top of the ladder and you're like what now?
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So worry was mainly into classics when she was a teenager in terms of your reading journey is that similar to you or like what books were
• 21:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have to say, I must have been such a pretentious kid, and this might have been more is fault, honestly, I'll blame her.
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I read the classics because I thought that's what you read, right?
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what you eat in school.
• 21:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, like, I loved and, like, honestly, to this day.
• 21:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think my favorite book is the Count of Monte Cristo and I don't know if that's because
• 21:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to be Rory Gilmour earlier.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 21:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I wanted to say I'd love the California Christian if anyone asks.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's usually the first book I can think of as my favorite.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I read a lot of the classites and I didn't start reading really any type of like literary fiction or genre fiction until I got to college.
• 21:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would read some romance novels in high school because like friends of mine had them.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: like, either strict parents.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So either I'm like smuggling them out of the library like basically, changing the dust covers on a, and like kind of like putting them in between other books that I've checked out or borrowing them from friends.
• 21:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is before the the world of e-beers.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was, you know.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: the clinch covers and so I didn't really start reading more genre fiction until I was kind of out of my parents' house and then I started kind of just doing really anything I wanted once I was out of my parents' house but once I got to college I started reading a lot more genre fiction thrillers, romance, mystery, whenever I had time, granted I didn't happen to my time.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I prioritized school, and then I think partying, I did want to be a college kid while I was out of my parents' house, coming out of this pressure career, just like I need to go do everything.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I read as I could, but I found my love of writing in college and really like, it kind of cemented there.
• 22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it was one of those things where I'm like, this is a cool hobby.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then like, never really touched it again until much more later.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I love that.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like that you went to college and wanted to be in college, because like, that's one thing that I kind of missed from Rory that I really love about Poison Ivy is that she didn't seem to like really experience college outside.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, granted, you go to college and you're supposed to be studying, you're supposed to be learning, you're supposed to be in class.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: She actually absolutely did it right.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the outside of it, the socialization, the parties, that sort of thing, she just, that was never her.
• 23:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was always like, me.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Shouldn't there be like parties, or do you be having fun, shouldn't things be happening?
• 23:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that was really when Logan came on the scene that I was like, oh, here we go.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here you're the same like you wanted that like after, because that makes sense to me, like someone who had a lot of pressure put on them as a teenager on their parents' house, very strict that you would leave and you're like, oh, I can do anything.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, strict parents' rights, sneaky children.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about Gamarko's.
• 23:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why is your history with it?
• 23:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, when did you start watching it?
• 23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think the earliest I remember it.
• 23:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it came out in 2000.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was 11 at the time.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, a little probably little young to be watching it, but I was like plugged into the WB.
• 23:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Every show they did, and then I eventually I think I moved to the CW and I was still very much plugged in.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so like, I watch everything they put out.
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, and so I started Gilmobro's very early on, and so I watched it like as the new episodes came out.
• 24:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I love that.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So where do we find someone who was like an original WB every Tuesday?
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Gilmobro's to say night was Gilmobro's night.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like the WB was great, so it had something every Sunday.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think Wednesday was like one tree hill, but I would watch it kind of looks seriously, and one of my really close friends of high school would watch it as well.
• 24:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we would kind of like watch it and this is like, you know, before texting was like all that frequently hit a pay for your texts.
• 24:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we would like kind of like save up all of our notes.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We would like jot little notes down in our homework planers long the side spell like what we thought.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we thought so cute.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I stay in home room.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We would like have a little yaps session and discuss.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get more to say before get more to say.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, Mike.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's just the two of us.
• 24:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we were always kind of like chat about it.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then remember when I was a senior, this is reaching towards the end of the series.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, maybe I was a junior, I can't remember, but we were talking about like going to college.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And being like, oh my god, I want to do like all of these like fun things.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We both ended up with these like new England, it's like East Coast elite schools.
• 25:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we were like all of these all four things we're going to do.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to find a secret society.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like we're going to do all these things.
• 25:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like not a better habit.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it was very much like her college experience, very much kind of like shaped what we wanted from college really like all we want to do like all these cool things so like I I can't really like parse the parts of myself that weren't like a little influence by the show especially growing up when you're at like pivotal age he's like so much it was kind of like interspersed there and like other parts of my like personality may been sprinkled in like work Davis from a healthy work where well-dores or from gossip girl that
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's just like a wonderful time to be a teenager watching television.
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think so too because it's like you weren't really influenced by social media at the time because like social media was like you had to be in college to be on Facebook and then if you were on Facebook it's because you lied about your age and so like going down that route of like it was more so that the shows that you were watching which is why everyone was all parents were horrified for everyone watching gossip girl.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which if you haven't read the biotech billionaires, it's Gossip Girl meets Succession, which like, that sold me on that real fast and it really loves up to it, it's fantastic.
• 26:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like that's like so perfect for like the parts of you for teenagers to now have these books, the kind of have those TV show cops to them.
• 26:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so it was very much like a I think everything I write has this like almost like inspiration point from some media I consumed as a teenager and like I've always been fascinated with the idea of like what if I took this character and just like pluck them up from where they are and then just like drop them into something else right and like kind of like change a few things and like how would they react right you keep the bones of that person but like push them into something else.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, like actually, kind of we're talking about the place Navey, but the charmer is the last and the biotech billionaire series.
• 26:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was fully inspired by the idea of like what if you took Astrid Young from Crazy Rich Asians and like had her be the main character of that movie.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, I'm like had her be the one who to New York and to find the family.
• 27:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so like that's like a lot of like the books that I write now or kind of like these like offsuits of like things that I've like always kind of like wondered about and the characters always like I think this is why I found romance to be so compelling.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the books are character driven mostly.
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like Logan Hemsberger, I was like what's this just like put him through the ringer.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I will say, before we get into talking about Poison Ivy, something that I love so much is like, you really spoke to Teenage Me with this book, because I was like a Logan girl in an unhealthy way.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I call myself like joking, like the CEO of Teen Logan now, and like I've since as like an adult woman, like recognized a lot of the issues with him, whatever, whatever, but Teenage Me saw none.
• 27:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But she was already like, she was reading tons of romance books.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I call her She Me.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was reading tons of romance books and I was like, but like, where is he in this show?
• 27:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because like, he doesn't have like that internal monologue.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's not going through anything.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We kind of see it, but like, not in the way that we saw a jazz, where we saw just his life.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was only a love interest slogan.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I was reading these fanfictions, trying to find the version of him that I wanted.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're like, he was like really sensitive.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he had this like misunderstood, like, kind of,
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: anxiety about him but like he wanted to be understood and like he distanced himself from his family but like in a way that he couldn't quite get to and when I started reading this I was like able gets me.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: She understands what I wanted because like Conrad who is like I guess the Logan equivalent like I'll just say much bigger heart like he just like the way that he goes about his life is like distinctly different than that of Logan but it's like sometimes where I'm like oh this is where I wish he would have
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: like, do I still love Logan on screen?
• 28:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But like, Conrad, I'm like, um, okay.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like to think I fix Logan with Conrad, but um, you did.
• 28:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: You did.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is like, I love Logan's character for that reason.
• 28:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I feel like there was so much we could have like sunk our teeth into with him.
• 29:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we did.
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like,
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it was a show about Rory and, you know, the Gilmour Girls, right?
• 29:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Emily Loreline Rory.
• 29:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so obviously it's not about him, but like I feel like, you know, with Jess, we get to see all of the different shades of like what has made him the person that he is, right?
• 29:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: What has made him kind of solid and or what has made him mistrustful.
• 29:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't see that with Logan.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get very tiny glances into his dad is not great.
• 29:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's flandering.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: for lack of a better word.
• 29:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's not great.
• 29:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's up a ladder, right?
• 29:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like he's cheating on his mom.
• 29:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: His mom is also really just like riddle and like harsh about societal expectations.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he is expected to just sort of like fit this mold and move forward, right?
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like one line from the show always like gets me.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just like I only see one door and I'm being pushed through it.
• 29:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have no choice, so you try living without options.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, I was like, I have never connected with a character more than I have with a rich kid.
• 30:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's what I was talking about.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: While you were talking, I was like, wait, she's kind of Logan.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was just like, you know, like, if it's a minus though, like, money.
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, minus the money, the blonde hair, hopefully the evil dad.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: All the privilege.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 30:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And no evil dad included.
• 30:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I remember, like, just thinking I'm like,
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I need to know more about this person, right?
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because like, how is it that me, South Asian regular person, can connect with this one line?
• 30:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, it resonated with me in so many different ways.
• 30:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I really wanted to interrogate that.
• 30:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I was just like, there is so much there, right?
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, we don't get that in the show.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like, with anything else, I'm just like, I want to,
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: kind of like craft a character that feels like they are being pushed through one door.
• 30:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then so instead of just doing one, I did too.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So in Woiz and I, we both conjured in Molina, feel that way.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the fun with them is I get to choose how they react.
• 30:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Molina is kind of like, well, I'm going to be creative and I'm going to create two doors.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I can just like go in and out of both of them as long as I let this double life.
• 31:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And conjured is like, I have seen this world and how it kind of like trees people
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's very solid, but almost like kind of like holier than that one was like the world is black and white and like either you're good or you're bad, you're my dad or you're my mom, you're you know, the perpetrator, you're the victim.
• 31:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so he doesn't really see the shades of gray and then you know, Moena steps into his life and it's just varying shades of gray, right?
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so with their both these characters they're faced with the same dilemma of like
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is one door I'm being shoved through it and you both go about it in like starkly different ways.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as they start on, you know, polls of each other and as the story goes on, they kind of like move to the center and kind of understand what it means to really like live in that middle area.
• 31:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that's kind of like the the origin, Logan is very much like want my favorite character and go across because we didn't get a lot of his backstory, so there's a lot to kind of like sink your teeth into kind of like let your imagination run wild.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: What first drew you to him before like we get like because when we first meet him in season five, we don't have this like kind of context that like he doesn't do anything but enjoy his privilege and enjoy his life, what like first drew you to him as a character.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like him at first.
• 32:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember watching the show being like, I hate this guy.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hate this guy.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It wasn't until that dinner he has with his family.
• 32:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The dinner that when Boris deals the yacht that like I became like truly I was like oh my god it like I love this man But like in the in between the key was the little sweet gestures he has to worry
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: They did get me like begrudgingly, they got me.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't really love jazz, but I was like, oh, he's fine.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I never really liked any of our boyfriends.
• 32:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I get to Logan, and I kind of like begrudgingly was like, oh, this sweet, like that's very nice.
• 32:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like rich, so he can do that.
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right?
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then finally, him with his family, and I think the struck a chord with meeting someone who would grow on a very like, you know, stringent type of like strict parents.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Him kind of like just looking at his family being like, you're not going to talk to her this way.
• 32:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: kind of leaving.
• 32:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like full swim.
• 32:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 33:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: After that, I was like, all right, you got a buddy.
• 33:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think we are going to be here a year.
• 33:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want you all.
• 33:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like that you like kind of had to be one over in the same way that worried it.
• 33:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like she was kind of like, she found him cute, but like at the same time she was kind of like, well, you're a privileged kid who like, I've been told my whole life.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't be into.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you kind of like followed that same trajectory of like,
• 33:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I've been one over.
• 33:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I guess I mean, while like them bantering in that first like interaction that they have, I'm like, I'm done.
• 33:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he also like it was in a time period where like that like he had the same like, look, I want to say like Chad Michael Murray, but like hair.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like the charming little smile he gave Tristan energy from that first season and I liked Tristan because he was like You could see the like shadows interest in very early and so like I sort of kind of like you know I compared him to Tristan being like oh like you're just very one-dimensional
• 33:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I don't think like, you know, 15-year-old me was like, you're one-dimensional.
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's on some level.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I don't really like connect with this person.
• 34:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Something that you've mentioned earlier is being more intrigued by four-alight than four-year times.
• 34:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was your, I guess, relationship to like the three different Gilmar girls as you were watching it?
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I remember watching, when I first started watching, and game like, or Emily Gilmore is absolutely the villain, right?
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I did not, this teenage me was like, you know, very black and white thinking.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not a lot of nuance there.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was just like, oh my god, Emily Gilmore is my mother.
• 34:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, like, she's like being in stringent and like, really only cares about what people think, right?
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that drives her being.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it wasn't, you know, until as much older than I'm like, they're shades to like, what?
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: with nuances to why she is that way, right?
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our product of her own environment.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I immediately, like, from the jump, felt very connected to Laura lying, because I was like, you get it, right?
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, you ran away from that life.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: The life that I chose not to, I kind of did the non-law life thing I did, but I was supposed to do.
• 34:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I remember as a teenage me being like, that's what I want.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just want to run away and like, start it in.
• 34:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 34:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Skip the child.
• 34:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Something like that.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 35:00
  [UNKNOWN]: I don't want to do that.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, like kind of like strike it on my own and do whatever I want.
• 35:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did not have the hoods before it.
• 35:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I remember connecting with Laura, like kind of like so deeply there because I was just like she grew up in an environment that felt very similar to me.
• 35:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then as I got older, I got very interested in kind of like how that pendulum swings.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because we get we have Emily who creates, you know, make her the product of her parenting is Laura Lye.
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the practice of Lorelai's parenting is Rory and like surface Rory is so, you know, quote unquote perfect.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, but I feel like as a character, she is very much a mirror of like who she's around, whereas Lorelai you would never confuse her with anyone else.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, like Lorelai is is opaque, like you cannot get your reflection and there she's always going to be herself.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Rory, I think, growing up around more like who struggled, growing up around more like who maybe, you know, was it always ready to be a parent, right?
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And do the tough task of parenting?
• 35:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Rory came a mirror, right?
• 35:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of like the person you want to see.
• 36:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you see, or kind of be the person her grandparents want.
• 36:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: You see her be the person her mom wants.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You see her be the person just wants.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: and it's not really until she gets to college that she realizes like all of these like reflections are not her and she needs to figure out who she is and kind of like be okay with the fact that that is going to cause some like internal and external strife.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there a least favorite part of the show that you maybe don't like or as you've got an older you have liked it less?
• 36:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't like the year in the life.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could not.
• 36:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, maybe it's because I feel like they have done Logan wrong.
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: I waited nine years and then that man came on screen and he had a fiance and it wasn't where he'd go more, but they were still together.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've never been more disappointed in my life.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm like, look, I think Logan is the type of, I feel for Logan.
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, this may not be the same for Roy, but for Logan, like he would have like drank Roy's bathwater.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So like, if she's like, hey, he's having a fair.
• 36:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's going to be like, okay, get some happiness here.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's you.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 37:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so part of me was like, if she had just told you to end it, you would have ended it.
• 37:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like, she doesn't want to be with you.
• 37:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, kill me.
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh, just as for Logan.
• 37:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: It really does kill you because like that's a thing like especially going back to like Logan's kind of like inner world what drives him and what doesn't is it's so fascinating to me to have a father who is like so careless like even like with his own relationship cheating on his wife to like a mother who as you call her is so brittle to then have this character who like their son be someone who like falls so hard for someone that like it ruins his life.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I was like, what gives you that ability to love her as much as you did to the point that like you have you have to stop You can't do this anymore.
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I always find that really fascinating.
• 37:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I and it makes me sad because I know we don't know the paternity of worries child spoiler.
• 37:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do right.
• 37:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: We do.
• 37:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so others make more bothers me, but like kind of like
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: right, the she's the new boy line, but I'm like the way it set up is we're going to be led to believe that like Logan is not going to act like Christopher in this regard, right?
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I cannot imagine a world where Logan doesn't find out and immediately ends his relationship.
• 38:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't think he would do what Christopher did, because Christopher inherently was not as, you know, like self-assured as Logan is.
• 38:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so in that world, I'm like, okay, so like the next episode is
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: and being his relationship, right?
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Being like, I'm going to be a father, even if you don't want to be with me, like, I'm going to be this child's father.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it kind of like robs us of a lot of things.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just like, it puts a Logan in this terrible position, and I cannot help with your bad form, because like, I know, like, after watching that show that, like, if worried said, like, drop her, he would have, you know, if he said, she says jump, like, he's just like, how high.
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right?
• 38:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, for what scaffolding, right?
• 38:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, right, but exactly, like, you know,
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: however you'd like for me to like live my life I will for you right and just like kind of break your heart to see him with someone else and then also knowing that like he's going to have a child he's going to want to be there and I wonder like how worry reacts to that right because like a new hope shouldn't react in the same way that Laura like did as you know a very much younger person but you don't know.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't know and I personally as like a team Logan Gerley who like wants the best for him.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I always think that he would show up that like he would learn about it and do the right thing.
• 39:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of people who hate him say otherwise, but like because like everyone wants it to be like the Luke and Jess of it all were like Jess's worries Luke and shows up and helps her raise the baby.
• 39:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm like no he just wouldn't Logan just wouldn't do that.
• 39:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, I always call him kind of a tragic character in the sense that like, he drove Roy to make a choice to make choices and like showed her that her whole world was wide open and she could choose whatever she wanted to.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, he couldn't do that same thing because his life was one door and using push through it and then the choice that he made was Roy ultimately and she did not choose him back.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like,
• 40:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's really hard.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so when you get to the end of the revival or like when you get to the revival, you think that maybe something will have changed.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe because like of course, she didn't write season seven.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we kind of have to disregard it a little bit when we're going into what she thinks is going to happen.
• 40:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we feel that same way on the podcast that like.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: while there are elements of it that we really love and we were really grateful to go back to our favorite town and see all our friends again.
• 40:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just too different than the show that we know and love with choices that were made in those nine years that either felt frozen or they felt too just out of the realm of what we would have expected from them that were not the biggest fans.
• 40:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But we're glad that she was able to go back as a writer and do the story the way she wanted to, but yeah, we feel the same way over here.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think I would've, you know, I was easily swayable back to Team Jazz if they had made Logan a little less like perfect and lovable, but Milo in the revival he's one of the best parts and so like when you see him, I'm like, I could be convinced he was amazing.
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, arms like that.
• 41:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's been in the gym like he's been working hard to be the choice of where he can more.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's been doing the wraps.
• 41:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's been doing the wraps.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's been doing the work.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: We could do this.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's been doing emotional strength training, physical strength training.
• 41:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, all we have to do is make Logan a little, like you said, a little more sinister, a little worse.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I would have believed it.
• 41:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they could have destroyed his character.
• 41:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if it would have, it would still be hard to believe, but like, believable enough.
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they didn't, right?
• 41:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, they gave him what?
• 41:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a believable art up until the very, very end.
• 41:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, wow.
• 41:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 41:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel the same.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's so nice to talk to someone who's like full team Logan, and who can like go there with me, because like my co-host hair, she's team Jess.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so like sometimes I like pull back a little bit, but I'm like, oh, this is my dream.
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just talk to someone about why Logan is really just the best, the better choice.
• 41:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I also think like, is are you team Jess or are you team Milo?
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I can go a lot of us.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really?
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I loved Milo.
• 41:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Specifically for me, Milo.
• 41:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, team Jess for them.
• 41:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for Lori, I do think Logan is probably the only person that ever pushed her to be herself, rather than that mirror.
• 42:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because when Jess says why did you drop out of Yale, very iconic moment, but not something I want to hear from my ex.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't need a yelled at me in my face.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's giving Emily Gilmore, honestly.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm just like, it's hard to take.
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you talking about?
• 42:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, Emily Gilmore right now, you know?
• 42:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it, a part of me always, always felt really like, but trade, but annoyed with Jess for being, he's like, very much his love, or his acceptance came with this idea that like, you have to reject this part of you.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: right like you have to reject that like rich people society up for you what have you right if you reject that we're square and like everything can be happy but when you don't reject that when you choose to see the shades of gray I don't like that and like that always really stuck to me and probably just from like an upbringing where you had to pick like black and white and gray on nuanced
• 42:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: The idea that like someone doesn't want to see every shade of you really just kind of like turned me off to Jess and I think that is like one of the reasons where I like even now I'm just like, I'm always like I think that you romanticize this version of her that inspired you that seemed to write a book and to come back and she's completely different and it's like, what do you then do with your version of or you go more that you don't know anymore.
• 43:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: right you wanted a portrait someone static who wouldn't change and I find that the other person in that series who is very much has those level that level of expectation is Emily Gilmore right like Emily wants a portrait she wants this picture perfect thing that does not change that does not talk back and in that moment like they're like why did drop out of hell which a reader asked me to write into this book and like I saw that I'm like you're breaking my heart out of your story and you were like I'll do it but like I'm not happy.
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, they have one part that one scene, like for me, I know everyone loves it because it's just like the dramatic kind of like, you know, grand type of like gesture type thing, but like for me, I'm like, how are you going to screen the most cold space after not seeing her for all of this time and then report to the person who knows her best.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: when you only want a version, right?
• 44:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that is so Emily Gilmore, this person that you claim is like the ultimate eagle, right?
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like Jess hates Emily Gilmore.
• 44:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I am just like, you are, I think, exactly like her in that moment.
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just, I can, after that, I was like, I can't, like, worry with anyone, but not worry with just, like, that really just kind of like, did something to my brain.
• 44:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I like low-key think that's the hottest take that has ever been said on this podcast about them or girls in general.
• 44:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that justice, like, I'm only going more in that moment, because that is like a beloved moment that people really adore me now.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna be just girls mad.
• 44:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're going to let the Jessicaals mad.
• 44:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can't wait to bring this back to Tara and see what she says about this because the Jessicaals are, they might have turned, they might have turned this off, but the Logan girlies, I think they're turning it up.
• 44:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a Jessica.
• 44:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I loved Jessica.
• 44:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I loved Jessica.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved the character.
• 44:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved him as a character.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I loved that he was a brooding and sad.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, oh my god, teenage mage's to eight that up.
• 45:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, honestly, like, especially,
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: like having Philanized Emily, but she did on her own.
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: But like for most of the time that I watched the show, I was like fully teen Jess, like even during those moments.
• 45:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember being like, you know, whoever she chooses is like, I wasn't really like fully taking stock of in that moment.
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember being like, Yuck, like, how dare you?
• 45:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: How dare you?
• 45:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry to the just girlies.
• 45:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love Milo.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll always love Milo.
• 45:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And continue working out my guy.
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you were talking about
• 45:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you have an opinion on Laura Liesman?
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, let's funny is like actually agree with most people about Christopher.
• 45:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: When I was younger, I think I loved the idea of just a family being a family again.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was very like, so you were a little bit Emily.
• 45:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was like, you know what, like, let her cook.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could see what's going on.
• 45:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: But no, like, so in the beginning I remember being like I understand like someone wanting a family to be a family and then as I grow So I can know what a family is what you make it right and like lower lies created this beautiful like found family and stars hollow She should have that and I really liked the Luke for it The April stuff really kind of not at me because I didn't think it was a kind of thing Luke would lie about But like that was something I didn't love but I will say I think the perfect guy for this is a hot take for lower I was Jason's dials.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: I agree.
• 46:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love Jason
• 46:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I looked, I didn't love my body was kind of weird in awkward, like as a character, but how do you let Lora lie?
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's kind of weird.
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like the Lora lies weird in a little awkward.
• 46:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lora lie.
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: GSM traverses both worlds.
• 46:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like Lora lie does.
• 46:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jason doesn't ask her to be some other version, right?
• 46:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because I feel like when she's with Christopher, she's supposed to be this one Lora lie.
• 46:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: When she's with Luke, she's like the star's hollow Lora lie.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: But with Jason,
• 46:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like, she got to be both.
• 46:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got to be whoever she wanted.
• 46:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: She got to be a moving character rather than a portrait.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I feel like that's the only time where I got that, I'm like, I love Luke.
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I'm happy.
• 46:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: But they're happy.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, but like I never really felt strongly about like any of the men in her life.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Other than, I just bought bad for Max.
• 47:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, you didn't deserve that, buddy.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, I always just, he gave me the egg.
• 47:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, they're just, if you, when you start, like, diving into Max, you're like, what is going on here?
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was like one of those people that like for me feels like was ready to be a husband and a father, but didn't want to wait to find the right person for it.
• 47:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So was just like, I will be a husband and a father too in this family.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I think Jason was the perfect mix of all of these people.
• 47:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that everyone would have been Team Jason if he was played by Theo James.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I have this theory that like if Jason was like a traditionally hot man, yes people would have loved him because they would have been like he's weird who cares he's hot.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he's sexy, you know what I mean?
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like I have this like Theo James theory in my mind as I call it that like it is good.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: If he was Jason, the Theo James now because he was quite young at the time.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he is doing that character.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But today it's a virgin.
• 48:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think at the time I think
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like even like way before that.
• 48:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like I think that if we like popped him in like the I forget what the British series is that he was the gentleman and I'm yes if he was if him from the gentleman we gave him an American accent he was Richard's business partner.
• 48:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would be like yeah in game.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 48:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've you've offered some of the hottest takes I think that we've had from a guest and I'm obsessed with that.
• 48:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, I have a question for you about Poison Ivy slash Gilmore Girls.
• 48:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you could bring a character from Gilmore Girls into Poison Ivy, who would it be, and if you could bring a character from Poison Ivy into Gilmore Girls, who would you switch out?
• 48:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, I kind of do that with the the newspaper editor.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is a character, the newspaper editor, his name is Dylan.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is based off of Doyle.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, very not even trying to like hide it.
• 48:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, he wears like a baller cap.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at some point, but I think I would put that in because he's a level of like quirky that I love and I think it's just like a he adds like a kind of nice like background to to the show and I love I love Doyle's character because like I know he is often used to comic relief, but he is also this person that like he is privileged to some degree has to work really hard also.
• 49:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: like sort of like toes that line and we don't get a lot of those characters, especially in worries college years.
• 49:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, we get Marty who is very much we know is disadvantaged, right?
• 49:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, we get Paris who was previously very advantageed and then like, you know, I guess we're parents and best little us often.
• 49:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm less advantage.
• 49:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But we don't get like kind of like the normal quote unquote.
• 49:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ivy kid who is like, you know, probably from suburban America who had some level of like leg up in life but not all of them and like what they would like look like right and that's your more normal Ivy student and I think that's Doyle and so a young came out and put him in poison diving and if I could put someone else into Roy's college years I think
• 49:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I would take Kora.
• 49:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Kora is Malena's best friend.
• 49:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kora.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a Malena's got this girl gang and really support her and her living a double life.
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Kora is this kind of very like stable character who's like very sure of herself sure of what she wants out of line.
• 50:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm very supportive.
• 50:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: She feels a lot like Paris, but just like
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: West teeth, and I think Rory needed someone in college to be like, hey, I'm going to be here for you in a very calm and stable manner because Paris was like, one, the diametric opposite right she always would be people that were very much on the pole.
• 50:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It shouldn't have someone kind of like centered and stable to be like her own age to just like run things by right that that could be like hey that's kind of wild But like I support it and like I'll help you right she appears being like that's crazy And like someone else being like, no, this is great, but never that with one stable person to be like hey
• 50:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm worried about you, but I will just take a step back, let you do what you feel if you need to do, and when you need me, I will step in, right?
• 51:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that good friend you make in college.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We always talk about how Laura Lai has suki, we caught suki on a sea hour in the kitchen, where she tells her these things and suki's out sometimes, like early on, a little bit too honest, that it feels like whoa.
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, okay, like chalk to the system, but with Rory, she kind of has that lane, but like when she tells Lane that she slept with Dean when he was married.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's all like, oh, that's so nice.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was your first and you're like, Lane, like you're good.
• 51:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you gotta come on you can't you gotta you gotta step up here and so it's like boy Lies meant to be her best friend of course because it's the whole like premise of the show Mother and daughter whom were like less friends, but like I always wanted her to have a best friend that was like hey What you're doing is kind of like you know awful?
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where's Lane was always like oh you guys will make up and I like I wanted that honest friend and so I think Core would have been great for that
• 51:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think for her mental state, it probably would have been good if she had a Cora.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which is a perfect segue and to talking about Poison Ivy, which I'm hoping this whole episode is just convincing everyone that this book needs to be either your next read, you need to add it to your TBR, you need to order it right now.
• 52:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: because I think this is like so perfectly suited for what Gamarkos lovers like to read.
• 52:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's interesting about this one and why I was so instantly drawn to it is when you get the comparison to Gamarkos, it's usually that there is a small town.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably a friend's to lovers.
• 52:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's probably autumn.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Someone's probably a baker.
• 52:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And none of those are like bad qualities to have about a book, like whether or not it's all in one book, or it's like spread out in multiple different racks.
• 52:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like those are some of my favorite books to read, but they happen time and time again that that's like kind of what the Gilmour Girls comparison is.
• 52:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so to have one that was like, oh, this is where he's college years.
• 52:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're stepping outside of Star's Hollow.
• 52:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're going in a different direction of the show with this book.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, oh my gosh, this book is for me, because this is my favorite time.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I season five is my favorite season of the show.
• 52:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I kept getting sent this book from because I guess I get was popping up on people's explore pages, they're like, oh my gosh, she's writing a book like about worries like college days about Logan and I was like, oh, I'm locked in.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I have the book.
• 53:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I just was so excited and I just feel like people will really love it because I think that as like a jumping off point of like the inspiration for it that like you can see very familiar people in it,
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: but at no point did I feel like I was actually reading Gilmore Girls fanfiction.
• 53:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like you were like Logan's name is Conrad and where his name is Malina.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just like it didn't feel like at any point like I was like, could easily just like map on to who these characters were.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was just more like a setup.
• 53:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: which I love because one of our favorite episodes from the podcast is not Romulan pregnant, which is the episode where we find out about the life and death brigade and she confronts Logan and like the hottest scene of the whole show, we're boring Logan or I aming in the newsroom.
• 53:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you like that moment, I feel like Poison Ivy is like absolutely your next favorite read, but in your own words could you tell us what the synopsis of Poison Ivy is?
• 54:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so we have, again, a lot of comparisons to our Gilma's college years, but it is very much its own kind of like being.
• 54:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is a ambitious college student, Molina, she works with the paper.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she lives these two lives.
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: She is South Asian, has very strict parents who don't let her really do a lot of the fun things and normal college students would do.
• 54:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she, you know, no partying, the pool is in a bad.
• 54:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she kind of gets around her parents by living it to a life.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she keeps the secret bank account kind of like filled to the brim with enough money to get by for parties and clothes and to pay for the phone by like tutoring or like doing little like contests here and there to get you know just enough cash to keep it stopped She runs up beginning of her junior year and her tutoring job that she normally does falls through and so she's kind of we start the story with her kind of stuck
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: trying to figure out how she's going to like make ends meet to keep like her double life going.
• 54:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she really kind of locks in on this feature writing contest at the paper.
• 55:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's been on the paper for three years.
• 55:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: She loves it.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her very expected South Asian parents, expected to be a doctor.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she doesn't really like clock it as something she can do.
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: but she just loves to do it.
• 55:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she's like, I'm going to win this feature writing contest.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then that night, Sarah Dividestly, she intercepts an invitation to the Skull and Ivy.
• 55:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it is a secret society on campus.
• 55:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of lore built into it.
• 55:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she decides, she's like, I'm going to go to this party.
• 55:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to like it as much information as I can.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to write this like skating piece about the myth of the meritocracy.
• 55:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she's like taking it the
• 55:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Courgis, man, uh, Conrad Hastings, who promptly but politely kicks her out.
• 55:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the fun thing about Conrad is that he is the heir to the, uh, Hastings media fortune, right?
• 55:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's one of three boys, the youngest.
• 55:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has a lot of expectations on him as well chooses to ignore all of them.
• 55:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of them is the paper.
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she kind of gets this ultimatum that's from his father to like either shape up or like his dad's going to like systematically ruin his life.
• 56:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so Malina uses that.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, let's strategic think of that one.
• 56:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: She uses that to sort of like, believe him, blackmail him a little bit, into letting her into the secret society.
• 56:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The school that they go to when Chester, you could have gone the route of establishing them an IV that already exists.
• 56:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was the process of deciding to create a fictional IV?
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, so if you ever, if you read when you read, uh, ways and dice when you read, you'll get little bits of every IV in winchesters.
• 56:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: first thing it was I wanted to make an IV that was all of the IVs in different ways.
• 56:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so you get that there's a sculpture walk that comes from pen.
• 56:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are the secret societies are mix of Cornell, Harvard and Yale.
• 56:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are crimson tigers.
• 56:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's from Princeton.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I kind of wanted to make an amalgamation of all the IVs into one school.
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then they are located in New Harbor.
• 56:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: it's that of New Haven.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the primary reason was I get to be a little more free with what I make when Chester.
• 57:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Secondly, I love creating like artistically like crests and you know like fun little like
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: the emblems and things like that and logos and so I got to go wild making just like all of this fun like Winchester related stuff so like there is you know I designed for no one for myself mostly I designed like the cruise shirts that the the rowing team uses we have a crest for the school and the crest says Cognito rather than Harvard's very tough and so it's a pull from a lot of different places.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it's just like let's maybe a little bit more creative with how I build the school.
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I got to go a little bit wild and world building there and like create the lore that I wanted.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really liked that.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think the thing is it's like you definitely could have set it at Yale, New Haven, like in Connecticut, which is where this is set in New Harbor, Connecticut.
• 57:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I love the idea of the fictional IV, like,
• 57:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: there's so many elements of it that like lend really well to being able to create like your own world for them that is rooted in like a fictional history which is I just thought it was really cool but I have to tell y'all the coolest package I've ever gotten in my life was the poison ivy book because it came with a scroll and like the crest that was on it and like the map of the school and I got a postcard from a school like I saved it all I have it like a little scrapbook journal because I'm like this is like the
• 58:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: the best marketing that has ever existed for a book, honestly.
• 58:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can like tell that you had like so much fun doing that.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a bit of a blast.
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was so much fun.
• 58:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got to make like admissions letters.
• 58:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think I ended up using the admissions letters, but I used them in like adding socials.
• 58:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's fun.
• 58:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a college and it's college very much based in like academics.
• 58:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so because of that, I get to live be, you know, a regular college.
• 58:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get to send you like an acceptance letter and then
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, like you get to like have these like fun little ecology things that I always associate like fall with college with young girls, so those three are very like tightly tied with me, which speaking of design the cover of this book is quite simply gorgeous like the two of them on the front.
• 59:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just like hottest can be love them, but I love like how a thumbnail it is because I was saying like one of like the qualities of like a quote unquote Gilmore girl's coded book is like It's very a thumbnail in the cover that one definitely is like the leaves the art all of it is just perfect It's perfect for the time.
• 59:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was the first idea that you had for this book like that you immediately had that were like, okay This is exactly what I'm going to do when I'm gonna start working on it now
• 59:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: us the first idea for this book was it was inspired by where his college years but I wanted to make I was like how would I had done it right like kind of just like thinking about it from like a you know the perspective of a South Asian person who didn't have as many freedoms as she did so my first idea was like oh
• 59:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: like, it'll be a story about someone kind of like finding themselves through school, I'm in through their writing.
• 59:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I was watching white collar.
• 59:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, there, and I'm like, this like, the entire setup of like an Ivy Luke school, that's a very old, I was like, this is right for a mystery.
• 1:00:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I decided to kind of like make a little turn and go into like art crimes as I like to call it.
• 1:00:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that when I solidify that
• 1:00:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: foraging something and like them figuring it out was when I was like, okay, I know this is the book.
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I found like the book I'm gonna write and this is it.
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I think it was right around the time where I'd I'd created the characters.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I knew who Mal was.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew who Malina was.
• 1:00:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew Conrad were and I didn't really know what was going to like pull them together.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, they were going to work on an article, but I didn't know what the article was going to be about.
• 1:00:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I'm like, oh my god, this is like an Ivy League school.
• 1:00:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's, you know, money all around.
• 1:00:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like someone is taking kind of like vantage of like the art situation here.
• 1:00:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as well like a total aside, the art world like high art is filled with crime.
• 1:00:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, those are my favorite documentaries to watch.
• 1:00:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's a crime.
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right, with crime.
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Louvre just got robbed.
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
• 1:00:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Perfect time.
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you're interested in the Louvre.
• 1:00:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, like it's kind of the same thing.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're like, I said, all of these things have really matched up to this bug.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, since I decided I was like, I'm going to do an art crime.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: everything sort of like solidified and exactly how I was going to do it.
• 1:01:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew who was like, I didn't figure out who it was going to be until a little bit later, but I knew exactly like how we were going to find clues and like unravel this thing.
• 1:01:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I thought like the secret society was like the perfect backdrop for it.
• 1:01:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it all kind of came together.
• 1:01:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: App for watching season one white color.
• 1:01:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love see like when I'm Massachusetts like we I love this like art crime element to it.
• 1:01:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love white color like this was like an example of how like Gilmourge like not like a more girls but like media that I consume influenced my life.
• 1:01:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I watched one season of white color and then had an art history minor for a little while because I was like so obsessed with the art from this and I like quickly dropped it because I was like I don't have time to have a second minor right now.
• 1:01:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: from a TV show that I'm watching, but like to see that, it was like literally, I am the perfect audience.
• 1:01:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm the perfect reader for this book, like she wrote this book for me.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was specifically great.
• 1:01:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And there's like a little white collar reference which I love so much.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they have a little, they have a few references in there that I always go in like TV references because growing up TV was a thing I could actually hide.
• 1:02:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I grew up very much like the kid that like hit a lot of
• 1:02:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a media room in my parent's house in the basement and that was always where I studied because it was quiet And so they were just assumed I was down there studying because like I never did a thing at a line So like why would they have reason to believe I was doing anything at a line?
• 1:02:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was always down there like every week every week night I was down there until like ten o'clock doing something studying reading what happened And so like I would just watch whatever I wanted down there's T.D.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I watched whatever I wanted
• 1:02:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Probably things I shouldn't have been watching.
• 1:02:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Gorgeous.
• 1:02:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were talking about the set up for the art mystery in this.
• 1:02:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And not only is it a really fun set up for the Ivy itself, like with that of the backdrop, it's a really good backdrop for romance, to be sneaking around.
• 1:02:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I love that so much, but it's like adding this depth to Melina's double life.
• 1:03:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love her so much like I think that she is such a good female main character like everything about her because like as as always reading it I was trying to of course like compare her to like who she might be like and go more girls But I felt like she was Paris because she was like premed but like working on the paper and like we've always been confused by what she was doing there But like Molina seems to like give an explanation to that she was like I like writing but like I want to be premed
• 1:03:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: um but she's also a little lane because she's like hiding things from her parents but she is like worry in the cheese like very studious but she's like Laura lie and she's a little bit rebellious but really it came back to me that like she was the most like Logan and we always compare Logan and Laura lie a very similar character is like on different paths and it really feels like she is those two characters trying to like wrestle with who they are.
• 1:03:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: How I guess far into the development process of this
• 1:03:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: early on.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Early on, I think that when I decided to write the college element of it, I was like, she needs to be doing something, she's not supposed to be doing.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Primarily because I was like, if I want to write this true to the South Asian identity, we are adept at lying to our parents unfortunately.
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, not all of us, you know, we are not a monolith, but a lot of South Asians, especially those growing up in the west.
• 1:04:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just can't always be honest because our parents are not ready to hear the honesty.
• 1:04:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, there's a line in the book where she's like, I think my parents social morays were locked in the year that they left their home country.
• 1:04:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, I think that's true of a lot of children of immigrants, like their parents.
• 1:04:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: think what's you know quote socially normal is what was socially normal for them when they left their home right and so for me it was really important that Molina kind of be mischievous and it was funny is I was talking to my best friend who I met in college and I was like how would we have done it because she's South Asian as well
• 1:04:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as we have done it, if we were doing it now, and we could thought of it all.
• 1:04:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We were like two phones, like the burner stays at home, we have like we found the apps that you would use for call forwarding and all of that.
• 1:05:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh.
• 1:05:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so if we did figure it out, girlies, if you need a way to fly.
• 1:05:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: This book is a roadbab.
• 1:05:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Ava's DMs are open with all of the rags.
• 1:05:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I like that like it beyond just like the double life.
• 1:05:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so much that she's like contending with that like just like fully putting the show aside, that she has like her own arc of what she is trying to
• 1:05:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: like learn about herself and figure out who she is in the spot of like she has always understood her history and her culture as it relates to her parents and what she doesn't like as it relates to them but then she starts to meet people on campus that make her feel even worse about it and I think that so many people can relate to like trying to be one type of person and
• 1:05:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: that everyone else is trying to be, but when it goes deeper than that and it goes into your family's history and culture, I imagine that's really upsetting, but then to meet people and to have this other extended found family who can kind of help you through that and realize that not everyone's experience is going to be the same.
• 1:06:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really, really loved that element of it of her finding friends that like thought the way that she did.
• 1:06:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I think that that's another part of the experience from the Lena that I really needed to make sure I included was her fitting in a lot of books when especially the diverse cast you have trouble fitting into, you know, the world that you're in right let the Western world would have you but like in this world or in the Lena's life she wants to fit in obviously with her Ivy League campus and the students there.
• 1:06:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: but she wants to also fit in with the people that are from her culture, right?
• 1:06:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: She wants to connect with her culture in a way that she's only ever connected through her family.
• 1:06:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's growing more and more different than her family, right?
• 1:06:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she is terrified that if that rift grows, she's going to lose that part of herself.
• 1:06:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so, you know, Melina doesn't just say, you know, whatever mom and dad, like, I don't need you to sound me if you want.
• 1:07:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: simply because, you know, they have financial power over her and all of this other stuff, but also, she doesn't want to be disowned because that is a huge part of her life as her culture, and she's only of our access to it through her family.
• 1:07:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's this deep-seated fear that she'll lose it if...
• 1:07:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: she doesn't have her family, right?
• 1:07:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she has to lie.
• 1:07:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: But almost becomes a requirement to look be herself.
• 1:07:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then when she does try to find other places to like explore her culture, she's rejected, right?
• 1:07:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because she is a little bit too, you know, liberal with how she lives her life.
• 1:07:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so she gets kind of stuck, right?
• 1:07:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, and all of that is to help kind of like illustrate to the reader, like she really has no choice but to be these two people.
• 1:07:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: people.
• 1:07:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's constantly trying to find ways to like bridge that gap and every time she tries she kind of fails.
• 1:07:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we have Conrad, Conrad Hastings, and I feel like I told you before.
• 1:07:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's just like the sensitive, like internal monologue of what I wanted from Logan, but like I feel like more of the Logan.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: characterization falls on Molina.
• 1:08:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: That like he is maybe the outline of him, but like colored in very differently than the Logan that we see.
• 1:08:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: He does crew, he's a rower, so he's an athletic guy.
• 1:08:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's very clearly has like a strong commitment to what he does, whereas like I feel like Logan is a little bit more like let the wind take him where he may, but I feel like Conrad is really dedicated to what he does and like really wants to be really good at what he does, but
• 1:08:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: it's that horrible voice in the back of his head, which actually comes out full force in front of him as his dad.
• 1:08:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did he come first or did Malina come first when you were figuring out the characters?
• 1:08:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Malina came first and Malina was always going to be like,
• 1:08:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: the Logan in the story, right, just like minus all the trappings of Logan Huntsburger.
• 1:08:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so with Melina was always meant to like have to traverse that path.
• 1:08:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that kind of left me with how I wanted to build Conrad, because he does have like Melina doesn't have the trappings of Logan Conrad does, but Melina has like that internal struggle.
• 1:09:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I needed to choose an internal struggle for Conrad to have.
• 1:09:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so whenever I'm making characters, I try to think of like,
• 1:09:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: how I want them to grow and like how in this kind of me, like how you can hurt them, right?
• 1:09:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so like what does that mean?
• 1:09:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's like fortunate change.
• 1:09:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and so from Malina, I knew exactly how I needed to hurt her, right?
• 1:09:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I needed to make her choose.
• 1:09:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: To take the one thing that makes her feel safe, the two lives, and make her choose one, right?
• 1:09:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I kind of knew from the beginning, I had to do that to her.
• 1:09:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: But for Conrad, I was kind of
• 1:09:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: between a few things with like how I wanted to force his change.
• 1:09:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so a lot of how I built him was around how I needed him to confront his demons, essentially, right?
• 1:09:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so Conrad is very afraid of the gray, right?
• 1:09:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like the safety for Conrad is living in black and white.
• 1:09:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: right like he knows he's a good person because he's not like his dad right he knows he isn't ever going to achieve what he's expected to achieve and he's fine with that like he likes to like live in this binary right and so the hardest thing I can do for him is make him live in the gray right which is what Molina forces him to do
• 1:10:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so then I kind of like reverse engineered him to be very much this person that is committed to things that has a solid friend group he is not super likable in the beginning of the book but he grows right and so I needed him to have these like internal struggles that proved to him in the beginning of the world is black and white right so he early on in the book doesn't like his father because we learned that his father is very open the cheating on his mom.
• 1:10:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right and Conrad sees his mom as like the victim and his father is the perpetrator.
• 1:10:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: His father's evil.
• 1:10:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: His mom is good And as we move through the book, he Almost like that judges his mom, but he almost like gets frustrated with her or for like putting up with it Choosing not to see the gray in why his mom stays.
• 1:10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 1:10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's just like it's frustrating that she is not leaving
• 1:10:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: this horrible man like I deem him and evil you should leave evil right and I make him struggle with like the the binary that he sort of lives in and so I kind of built him knowing that he would eventually have to live in the gray right because Molina lives in the gray.
• 1:11:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I knew Malina would grow in change, right?
• 1:11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I needed a character that would kind of push her to do that.
• 1:11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so Malina, very dishonest for good reasons.
• 1:11:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Conrad is very honest.
• 1:11:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so they kind of like are a little bit of opposites to each other, but they pull each other to the center and force growth from the other person.
• 1:11:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like how so much of like while on the flip side occasionally like cause it's a break through for the other person Like I specifically like you were talking about his mom of like loneliness like well, why would why would she blow up her life like that?
• 1:11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't know anything else and it kind of like finally something funny clicks for him.
• 1:11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, oh, she can't just like
• 1:11:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: decide to walk away from bad because that's her whole life is centered around that and I like that while we have those like really like fun flirtatious friction between the two of them because they are such opposites that like when that turns around that their opposites like really breaks open and starts to like they start to think a little bit more like each other and I really I love that because I think it makes them really I think the way that you built them they're really well suited to be love interests for each other.
• 1:12:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, whenever I write a book, and I think about how the love interests are going to interact, my first thought is always like, I need to hurt both of you for good reasons.
• 1:12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I need to hurt you in order to like help you grow.
• 1:12:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so that is usually how I begin any of my character growth or like character like developments is figuring out one and then figuring out how that one person can really just
• 1:12:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That feels very like going through the process of like a differential like of like I get to hurt you You're not coming in to me as like a doctor.
• 1:12:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not coming in to me hurt.
• 1:12:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I get to hurt you and then I can figure out how to heal you Based on what I know from how I hurt you.
• 1:13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like if you like that's that's a cure
• 1:13:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're old career coming in just like a little peeking in just in there just a little bit.
• 1:13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: We talked a little bit about like the the banter between the two of them because this is like a rather spicy book but I feel like the mysterious element really adds to that like heightened like tension and friction between the two of them.
• 1:13:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you someone or are you an author that kind of fits into that like you want to think about it very last like you're kind of uncomfortable with it or is it like a scene that when you get to it you're like let's do this like let's let's get into these
• 1:13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I always see the spicy scenes for last.
• 1:13:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, primarily because I'm not always in the headspace to write them.
• 1:13:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: A spicy scene can go from really good and tense and like hot to an anatomy lesson.
• 1:13:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So quickly.
• 1:13:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so you kind of have to be in like the right headspace to do it.
• 1:13:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so usually I want to be in some out of an emotional place.
• 1:13:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'll definitely like read the chapters beforehand.
• 1:13:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I'll always say them for last.
• 1:13:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'll read the chapters beforehand just to get in like the mind space of like where the characters are.
• 1:14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: to make sure like the moment fits like you know everything that just happened but I will always save them to the end because I like to write them in sequence right and so like the first time is always you know it could be you know for this book anyway it's looks a little bit more meaningful than like the flash decision or something or they're like that like this is like kind of a slow burn when they finally do it there there are feelings involved.
• 1:14:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then like as we move forward, I want to like whatever is happening with them kind of like externally and emotionally to kind of bleed through into the scene and so there are some scenes where it's very emotional and other scenes where it's just like a cut I want to have you right now or like I'm jealous and I want to have you right now and like you kind of have to like balance that and so I try to write them all together when I'm in that like headspace.
• 1:14:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: And because, again, like, if I've tried to write them separately, I'm like, I, the revisions were tough because that you have to toe this line of being descriptive, right, obviously, but not so descriptive that like the readers like, okay, and I get it like yeah, like you leave some things to the imagine.
• 1:15:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:15:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because then sometimes you're like, wait, if her hand is over there and his hand is over there, however that close together, like what they can't be facing that way.
• 1:15:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because then it becomes like a too scientific about like, where is everyone?
• 1:15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where is everything?
• 1:15:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Where is everything?
• 1:15:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I will say after I write all of it, but after the first draft is done, and like we're in different revisions.
• 1:15:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of the first revisions I do after I do a read through is I read every spicy scene, and I stick figure draw it out to make sure myself.
• 1:15:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, the first character is for me, oh, yeah, it's terrible, um, and it's usually, um, just kind of like figuring out like the library ladder scene.
• 1:15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, I sat on this ladder like four different times being like, wait, how about I'm like, wait.
• 1:15:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't move this way.
• 1:15:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's like, oh, like, you know, make sure he hits the brakes, the ladder.
• 1:15:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: the things like that.
• 1:15:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we've learned.
• 1:15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You got to hit the brakes.
• 1:15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:15:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will like sketch it out.
• 1:15:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then usually I will actually send one of those like sketches, the terrible, their stick figures.
• 1:16:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will send that to like a character artist to actually make the art.
• 1:16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I always do like a sweet scene and a spicy character.
• 1:16:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the spicy thing I'm like, hey, this is the latter.
• 1:16:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: These are the stick figures.
• 1:16:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you do this in this relative configuration?
• 1:16:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the artists I work with are so amazing.
• 1:16:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're like, don't worry.
• 1:16:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, we'll make this look right.
• 1:16:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: We, I kind of need you to do like a before and after of like this is the inspiration.
• 1:16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are the stick figures.
• 1:16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is what the artist gave me as like a trust the process sort of moment.
• 1:16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I should, I should, I still have them.
• 1:16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I keep them all in a entirely different know.
• 1:16:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite parts of the book is the found family.
• 1:16:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like Melina has one with Sabrina and Korra and then Conrad has his with his boarding school friends that like, I just love how they all intersect and cross over.
• 1:16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I imagine that came from your own life of good friends that you have because these are like, these feel like writer dies.
• 1:16:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, this is something that you are familiar with.
• 1:16:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, and I I love writing college because I think this is the time when you're out of your parents house long enough that like you can decide who you are like who you want to be around Like you're choosing who you could be around right especially in high school like your parents don't choose your friends But like a part of you like I'll pay these people have to be around my mom and dad like you have to be so poor I'm on the dad but in college you can you know the world's you're always there And so I specifically like the friends I made in college are my closest friends today They've
• 1:17:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: you know, been through every season of life with me.
• 1:17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think, for me, it is very interesting but important, I should say, to include these people because they shape, we are kind of like at the end of any story, right?
• 1:17:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or, you know, I like to think that like, you know, the the happily ever after that our characters get, or is only there because they are the people that they are thanks to their found family.
• 1:17:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: is you're usually your most honest self around the people you choose to be around rather than the people that you've always been around.
• 1:17:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that's kind of a really good way to like provide some like self exploration.
• 1:17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I also like series that are set up like yours where it's like the found family is kind of hinting at what's happening in the rest of the series, which there's one character in particular, who she will be in the next book.
• 1:18:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'd be like talked about that at all.
• 1:18:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Sabrina is our next character.
• 1:18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: She is an alters and so the the alters family is this like political loyalty tech family modeled after the candidates and Sabrina is Molina's best friend and remain and the reason that she stole the skull and IV invitation is because Sabrina was a night that Ben says Sabrina's book.
• 1:18:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: is next.
• 1:18:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: She has spent the entire semester away and the UK doing a semester abroad.
• 1:18:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, her dad runs for president and we do this isn't a spoiler.
• 1:18:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Really, we find out in Poison Ivy that her dad won.
• 1:18:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's president and starting in January.
• 1:18:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: She is first daughter.
• 1:18:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we also find out in the first book that she has a secret service agent assigned to her.
• 1:18:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they have been away alone in the U.K. on a semester of rod doing we don't know, um, but we're texting that protecting her body, um, guarding the body.
• 1:19:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 1:19:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we find out everything that happens.
• 1:19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: on Sabrina's semester abroad in the second book.
• 1:19:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, be still my heart.
• 1:19:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like there's nothing I love more than a bodyguard wrote my answer.
• 1:19:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like that's my favorite.
• 1:19:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: So like when we got this like hinting that Sabrina, because like we see her, like there's a little bit of Sabrina and then she has this bodyguard, but it's not her old bodyguard.
• 1:19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is this brooding hot man.
• 1:19:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh, and then at the end of the book, you give us the name and like you tell it, that tells it it's Sabrina's story.
• 1:19:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, oh,
• 1:19:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've been shot down like this is like I cannot be resuscitated.
• 1:19:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so excited for that one.
• 1:19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm writing it now.
• 1:19:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's still like early drafting.
• 1:19:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, the Sabrina.
• 1:19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So ready for Sabrina's book.
• 1:19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: But love, Melina's.
• 1:19:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I think this book is something that Gammor Golds fans will love.
• 1:19:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just like a good jumping off point into the legacies, which is what the series is called.
• 1:19:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And Sabrina's book take place in England where she was studying abroad or do we see Winchester again?
• 1:20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: She comes back to when Chester, it starts at the same time, Poise and Viby starts.
• 1:20:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Our stuff of book, she's across the pond.
• 1:20:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's in the UK at an old building doing library stuff there.
• 1:20:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then she comes back.
• 1:20:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Library stuff, like library ladders.
• 1:20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is a library ladder.
• 1:20:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Less spicy this time.
• 1:20:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there is a Spoony little library ladder moment.
• 1:20:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love a ladder.
• 1:20:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, so the first half, she is in the UK and on the second half, she comes back for the spring semester at Winchester.
• 1:20:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, of course, this whole episode is convincing everyone that they have to read Poison Ivy, which I hope they have.
• 1:20:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if there is one thing that you could tell our listeners that isn't a spoiler, but will make sense to them when they read it, do you have something that you could entice them with?
• 1:20:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Ooh, well, if you wanted Logan Huntsburg to be fixed, I fixed him.
• 1:20:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would say that's true.
• 1:20:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are, if you are a just girlie, I promise you will still like it, because I think I fixed him in all the ways that like, if you mushed, just and looking together, you probably get caught red.
• 1:21:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's so true.
• 1:21:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this actually is the book for the Jescarlies, because we fixed Logan.
• 1:21:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think we kind of like merged him with Jes.
• 1:21:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we take like the positive qualities of Jes and we take the positive qualities of Logan, the strength training.
• 1:21:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody is great for arms.
• 1:21:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you kind of like,
• 1:21:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: push them into one character.
• 1:21:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so if you haven't read this book already, read it because you get the best of both Jess and Logan in one person.
• 1:21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the best of both worlds with Melina being the Hannah Montana, he was living a double life exactly.
• 1:21:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Perfect.
• 1:21:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so the last question I have for you is a question I ask every author and that is, what is a book that you would recommend for Gilmour Girls fans?
• 1:21:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will say that Dana can now have a recommended your book.
• 1:21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I love that.
• 1:21:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I go.
• 1:21:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I actually, I think you've already had them on the pod, but if it makes you happy, if I Julie, Olivia, you know, it is very, it starts, although it's like the opposite vibe of poison nightbee and that it is very star's hollow, Luke and Laura lie type.
• 1:22:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's also set in the 90s.
• 1:22:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I left it because of set in the 90s and just reminded me of a simpler time, just so nostalgic.
• 1:22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
• 1:22:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:22:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: But Eva, thank you so much for coming on.
• 1:22:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope that all of you are convinced to read this book.
• 1:22:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not, I'm going to slide into all of your DMs because I know that you would love this.
• 1:22:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: But thank you for sharing everything that you did today.
• 1:22:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I hope to get a ladder just like yours one day.
• 1:22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope that I hope that everyone listening, that all of you get a library ladder, and have all the fun you want on it, that just be careful.
• 1:22:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And thank you for having me.
• 1:22:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: My book Loving Besties, thank you so much for joining me today for another episode of Gilmour to Read.
• 1:22:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to join the book Club Conversation, head over to Patreon, where you can join for free.
• 1:22:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, we're reading Julia Song is Endatable by Season Lee, and in December, we'll be reading Good Spirits by B.K.
• 1:22:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Borsan.
• 1:22:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: My next guest will be Season Lee, but until then, happy reading friends!