Latest / Romancing the Threshold / Romance Book Club Roundtable: A Happily Ever After Every Day

Transcript

Romance Book Club Roundtable: A Happily Ever After Every Day · Romancing the Threshold

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Once a month, a group of women gather at a small indie bookstore to talk about romance novels.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: Epic romanticy,
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: dark romance,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: sports romance,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: and the occasional monster romance inspired by Shrek or Blue Alien Barbarians.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: For most of my life,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I kept book clubs at arm's length
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: because someone else choosing my reading felt too much like schoolwork.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Then, last fall,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I walked into that bookstore anyway for their first romance book club meeting for
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: a book I hadn't even read.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I showed up anyway.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It became the first book club I ever joined and one of the best decisions I've made.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because underneath the books, something else kept surfacing.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: How romance found each of these women...
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: But also how each book,
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: as outrageous as the story might have been,
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: affected these women and the conversations we had that went beyond the plot.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: This season on the podcast,
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: we'll be spending time with the people who write these stories,
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: the people who give them voice,
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: and the folks who think critically about romance as a genre.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But a story comes fully alive in the person reading it.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's where the crossing happens,
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: in a body, in a bedroom, in the middle of a life that doesn't pause for anyone.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I wanted the readers in their own voices.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: We recorded on a school night.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone passed their bedtimes.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: One of us was in her car.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: One was in her garage.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Between us,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: there was a house being packed,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: a kitchen with no cabinets, a first day at a new job.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Lives very much mid-crossing.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to trust that books arrive at the right time,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: even the ones that sit on the shelf for years.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: When I sent a message to our group asking who wanted to come on the show, three women answered.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: The same three I found myself connecting with most at every gathering.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Courtney,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: my fellow monster romance reader,
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: and the reason my to-be-read pile keeps getting taller.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nicole, who brings the Latin heart to the table and reaches for Spanish
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: when English runs out of words.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Erica,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: who reads widely and at a speed that I could only dream of being able to keep up
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: with and has one of the sharpest eyes for how a plot is built.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So pull up a chair, grab your favorite drink.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: Book Club is in session.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, hello, ladies.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: How are you all doing?
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for joining me for finally getting the roundtable that,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: you know, I've been wanting to do since earlier in the year.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess I'll just dive in with one of the questions because we all met at
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: a romance book club at Sherwood Bookstore at the end of last year.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what drew you to the book club?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: For me, definitely a sense of community and to go outside of my home,
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: to leave my kids, to do something outside of just being a mom.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: My friend, Shyla, she helped start the group.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_02: So I was like, heck yeah, brother, let's do it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was it for me.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Sign me up to get me out of my house.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, very similar.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like a couple of my friends had said, hey, let's do this.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_03: We hadn't experienced much with the bookstore.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_03: They'd had trivia over the summer.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: And I've always been an avid reader and having a new local community bookstore.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: It was like the very other very first club they were doing was romance.
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  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, yes, sign me up.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: And yeah,
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  SPEAKER_03: it was like when Nicole was saying a lot of the community and really just getting
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: to meet people that I wouldn't have met otherwise.
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  SPEAKER_03: And it was my first book club.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was your first book club, Erica.
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  SPEAKER_00: My very first book club ever.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Mine too.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: Now that I think about it, I think, yeah, same.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've always never really wanted to be in a book.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I like the idea of a community in a book club, but I always resisted.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have to read a book that they're going to tell me to read.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the whole school.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to have that element.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But it was the best decision I made.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here it is.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And now as they add
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: more book clubs at the bookstore,
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  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, wait, but I, oh, but I want to read that one.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_03: But I want to read that one.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I don't have time.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: When will I read the stuff that I want to read?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
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  SPEAKER_02: It literally just makes the TBR...
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: Endless.
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  SPEAKER_02: Which is great though,
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  SPEAKER_02: because you get a nice mix of genres,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: like with the classic literature club as well as science fiction.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: But the romance is definitely,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: has been really cool in getting a feel for the different sub-genres of romance,
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: which then Courtney comes in.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: How did you say it?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: Resident...
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Monster lady.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: Monster in romance.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Courtney, so what brought you to the book club?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: It was just accident.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to go on an adventure with the husband for the day.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: We ended up at that bookstore because it had just opened.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then he mentioned that they were going to do a romance bookstore.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Husband encouraged me and I was like, sure, why not?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to go to a place where I'm not wife or mom or daughter or anything like that.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just Courtney, the book person.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the master in Aliens Connoisseur.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: I think what we've all been saying, true, it's true.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, yes,
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  SPEAKER_03: I have friends that I met through my kids' activities or through volunteering or
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: for work.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like, this is something that is just for me.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: And that has been everything.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Agreed.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, tell me more about that.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how has that been everything?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: it's like...
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_02: Form of like self identity, self validation, you know, of this is what I like to do.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_02: And like Erica said,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: it's outside of being a mother,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: which is all consuming outside of being wife,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: as Courtney said, which is not as consuming in certain ways.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: But, you know,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: it's really nice in today's society to go somewhere and just be yourself and
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_02: with other women is really empowering because there are always themes that arise
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: from these books that go way deeper.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a safe space.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
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  SPEAKER_02: we've had ladies come in and say this is literally the One,
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  SPEAKER_02: like I look forward to this every month.
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  SPEAKER_02: I mean, myself included.
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  SPEAKER_02: And it's that's what what I mean by everything,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: because it's all of those things encompassed in one night and one time a month.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, it's pretty powerful.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been, it's not even a full year that we've been doing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's, I feel like it's been transformative.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
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  SPEAKER_02: It's become so much bigger than I think the initial intent was.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: Just, it was like, oh, just a romance book club.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_02: Cause it's something that's like trending at the moment.
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  SPEAKER_02: Like everyone's reading romance now, like why not?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: But it has truly become, So much more.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm so excited to celebrate the one-year anniversary.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder what kind of cakes we're going to make this
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: time.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_03: We have to figure out if it's September or October that we started last year.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to have to try and figure that out.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: I think every meeting we've been trying to figure out, when did we actually start?
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was October from my calendar, but,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: you know, it could have been November, but I still feel like it was October, but...
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: It started with a ghosty book, so I think it was October.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Soul Searching.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Soul Searching by Layla Sage.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Layla Sage.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've been soul searching through romance novels.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we've been doing.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so...
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: We found the bookstore, the book club, and this has been really wonderful.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: For me, it has been really great as well because even
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: though I resisted book clubs all my life,
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: it's been nice to meet you all and meet all the other ladies and
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: to read books I didn't think I would read and to hear what people are thinking,
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know, a place to talk about these books that we're reading.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I really do miss being able to talk about the books themselves.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And also to have a sense of what attracts people.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm always curious what comes up.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: the book often,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: as we've noticed,
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: has a topic up on the surface, but underneath there's so much more that comes up.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I'm always so curious about.
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  SPEAKER_00: How have you found romance?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or how has it found you?
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  SPEAKER_00: What was happening in your life when romance knocked on your door and says,
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: come hither?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: They actually found me.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was taking my oldest when he was younger to the library and I just stumbled upon
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: a book on the shelf that spoke to me, I guess, if you want to say that.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I took it home.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was an N.A., so new adult.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't read any romance whatsoever prior to.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was born with a dystopian, apocalyptic reader.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I devoured it in one sitting and then I ended up reading her whole backlog
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: and I just went from there.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: What was it, Courtney Spill?
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: The book was called Breathe by Abby Glines.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: It was a rock star romance.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a good time.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have a sense of what grabbed your attention when you when you started reading
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: that book or her backlog?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think one,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: the cover caught my attention to begin with,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: but I think I liked the premise of the rock star, which was the main male character.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then it was the female character was the help.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to see that dynamic play out.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I ended up thoroughly enjoying it.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a whole series that just happened to be the first one.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back to the library, got all the leads to the series and just devoured them.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Support your local libraries.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't read the amount of books I read.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: I still buy a lot of books,
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_03: but I still could not get through it without Libby and
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: library books and audio
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: books
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: and all the things.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's definitely was a gateway for me as well.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: Libby,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: it was the summer that I don't know how my kids survived that I downloaded Libby
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: and I read I don't know how many series that summer, but Libby.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Has definitely been a game changer.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it's amazing.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_02: Again, support your local libraries.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, side tangent, but that's exclusively how my son consumes books.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: He has dyslexia, we found later on.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: And he taught himself,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_03: and he literally will come in the house,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: throw his headphones on, and start listening to a book.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: He's 13.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_03: He's not listening to music.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_03: He's listening to audio books.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: Period.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Libby's our new best friend.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I love how they have those options of not only like the book
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: that you can read either on your phone or on the Kindle,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: but they have also most of the time that same book through audio
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: that you can check out.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how about you, Nicole and Erica?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: How did you how did romance found you?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Erica, do you want to do rock, paper, scissors?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Do you want to go first?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would say I've always been a fairly avid reader, very differing genres.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I think for the longest time, I did more of like historical fiction.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: And just like literary fiction or like for a while,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like they called it Chiclet, which I hate that term now thinking back.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, why was it that?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_03: I guess I don't know if this really counts as like my first epic romance novel.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to go and I'm going to say it counts was Outlander.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_02: It counts.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's an
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_03: epic love story.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's nine books in and they're still going strong.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully that 10th book will come out at some point in time.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_03: I would say that might have been like the gate when I was like, oh,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: and then I think it was just as COVID hit and the historical fiction felt too heavy.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't remember what it was.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_03: I picked up probably one of the super popular book talk, romancy books at the time.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, wait,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_03: this, this gives you the feels like all of a sudden, like, and I know what Yeah.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: You know, is a great, I don't even want to say palate cleanse, it was just like mind clearing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_03: Like I get so busy with everything.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it doesn't take, most of the time, they do not take a lot
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_02: of thought.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_03: Unless you're really getting into the romantic,
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: then you got to figure out the fantasy parts of it, but more contemporary romance.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_03: You know what you're getting into.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: You kind of know the format.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: You don't have to think a lot.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: You just get to listen and enjoy.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's almost like meditative, huh?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: In a way, sometimes I feel like.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's true.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: It can be meditative.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And definitely the feels.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I like the happy ending.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I really like that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_03: Especially during COVID.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, then there's the ones that make you sob.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: You have to be in the mood
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: for that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like a movie that you watch to cry because you know you need a good cry.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: There are books that do the same thing,
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: but I make sure to hopefully get a heads up on some of the authors I know
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_03: that are going to make me cry.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: Steer toward them when I need and others when I don't need.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_02: Which, you know, shout out to the like the warnings in the front of the books.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: Those are disclaimers.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is that is that the term?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: Trigger warning.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: The trigger warnings.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: There you go, Courtney.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: Those are really helpful, too, to kind of get an idea of what you're diving into.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to those.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how about you, Nicole?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: How did romance knock on your door?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, girl, everything has happened to me.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_02: But kind of the same thing.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: My youngest son was born in 21.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it was there was a I mean,
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like the pandemic was such a catalyst for so many people in honestly,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: very positive ways, even though it was such a dark time.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_02: So I started actually with graphic novels.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_02: Shout out to Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful books.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's the story of Hades and Persesany.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I've always loved that.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_02: And the art is beautiful.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that just captivated me.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think because our phones are listening to us, it got
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think BookTok came in and that's when like ACOTAR came in and I was like, oh, you know what?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_02: And again,
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_02: that was like the summer of the Libby download
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: where I don't know how my children survived that summer,
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: but it was wonderful for me.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_02: It just series after series, I was inhaling them.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Again, I was newly postpartum.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: With my late, my youngest son, I have two sons previous.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: One is a homie with an extra cromie.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: So he has Down syndrome and that is a whole thing in itself.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: And shortly after my youngest son was born, I was also diagnosed with MS.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean, it was just a clusterfuck of like one thing after another.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like,
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: I just need,
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_02: like Erica said, something to, you know, Like just kind of quiet everything.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I've always loved San C as a child because I have a very lucrative imagination.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if I can disassociate and go somewhere else, I'm going to check out.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm going to do it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: So give me magic.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Give me dragons.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Give me mermaids.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Give me all of the fantastical creatures because that sounds way awesomer than like real life.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: That reading those series and like the spiciness too was amazing.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: That was like also another thing that really drew me in like,
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_02: oh my gosh, like I'm actually reading this and it's like awesome.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: I loved reading about people fucking and the mythical people getting it on and it's hot.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: It was entertaining and I needed it.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: I needed it during that time.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_02: It honestly, for lack of better terms, saved me because I was a whirlpooling man.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: I was spiraling hard, fast and dark.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: that's what got me back into avidly reading and just being immersed and
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_02: so interested in reading romance.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Really powerful story call.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know how the stories, I like the image you use, you were whirlpooling, you know.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, man, it sucks you
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_02: in.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes you don't even realize that you're going until you're literally in
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: the middle and it's so much harder to get out.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: So you need a real powerful hook.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, reading romance was that hook for me.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can really empathize with that because romance for me was that as well.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't whirlpooling,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: but I was definitely staring at a cliff,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: you know, of sort of flatness, of just exhaustion.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And say something about that spice and the sexy, the wingspan.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: That totally helps.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_02: Hell yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: My joke with romance books is always I go back to the Elle Woods quote.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: It was about exercise, but you can say the same with romance.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, you know, the exercise makes you happy, happy or gives you endorphins.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Endorphins make you happy.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: Happy people don't kill their husbands.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: My husband is very much still alive.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, exactly.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's the same thing,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: I think,
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_03: with the romance novels,
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_03: because you just get that as you're feeling their romance and they're falling
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: for each other.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_03: You just you can feel it in your bones and it gives you those endorphins
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_03: that you need to keep going when life is otherwise crazy.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_03: And you feel it in your nether regions, too.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: OK, well, there is that.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: OK, yes.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it's fun to see not just sexuality, but sensuality.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was even more enticing.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I think here's an element that I talk world.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of talk right now about spice, no spice, closed door, not closed door.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: What does romance give to you that perhaps nothing else is giving to you?
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what would you say the role of spice or the open door is for you?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: How does that affect you or bring to you in some capacity?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, man.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_02: That was a loaded question, Vanessa, on the end.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'll start just, you know, give you all some time to think.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of you have said something that I agree with all of it.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It has the element of the feels.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: It gives us a sense of feeling things again.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of get to live another life, if you will, through the story.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it also brings us back.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: What are we feeling?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think the spice,
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: the sexuality that is shared in some of the books,
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: an open door in this case,
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: not that the closed doors don't have it either in some capacity,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: but they bring an element of the erotic in terms of the eros,
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: the sense of aliveness.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the spice can be really an interesting place to explore life.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: Not just one's fantasies,
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: but how do we navigate our own relationships with our husbands or if
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: the person is not married with their partners or such and the sense of aliveness
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: to it.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And at a deeper level,
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: I also think how the characters come together is very interesting because one,
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: often we're getting the explanation from the women's perspective.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the female gaze.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's the female's desire.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I particularly like,
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: depending on how the author writes in and depending on the book,
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: how you get sort of the inside psychological transformation the character is going
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: through in the midst of that sort of very steamy scene.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_02: I love like a dual point of view type thing.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my really sort of kind of thoughts around this.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: But how about you guys?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that I appreciate you expanding upon the previous question.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was just, it's been a long day.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: I was short circuiting, but I, what does it, like you said, the female point of view is great.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there is a difference between sexuality and sensuality and seeing
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: the foreplay,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: what everything that it takes to lead up to this one moment,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: like that slow burn, that tension, that that.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a perspective we don't normally get in life, you know, at all.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Barely our own.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it's different than I feel like what you're seeing on, you know, in TV and movies.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: Because you're seeing it versus having it described.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_03: So you don't see the feelings and the thoughts that are running through everybody's heads.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: Where in the books, you totally do.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: in TV or movies,
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_03: you have to kind of make it up for yourself of what they might be thinking
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_03: or feeling.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the something maybe we take for granted in stories
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: when we're reading,
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: but especially in romance,
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: how we get to live on the inside and get to see what is really going on here.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the transformation of the characters feels, I would say, perhaps even more visceral.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: I really do also appreciate the verbiage of the step by step of the comfortableness
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: that will not hold on.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's it can always be.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_02: It's really awkward at first when you undress yourself
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: or you're like completely naked in front of someone.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's a vulnerability that's so raw.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, you're amazing.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: You're a goddess and you're like, hell yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we want to hear.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: This is what women need to hear because it shouldn't be any other way than this way.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that hard, you guys.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: There are books of women characters going to different planets to get pleasure,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: you know, and it shouldn't be that way.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And men, please read more of these.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_02: Take notes.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, it does not take a lot.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's what I really appreciate of reading these spicy scenes of everything
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_02: that goes into this one moment of vulnerability,
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: of connection that anyone can relate to.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think I connected with the spicy scenes and they helped me grow.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: I almost saw them as therapy, to be honest, because I wasn't comfortable with my skin.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've had two kids.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: I have the stretch marks.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I have the extra curves to love.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have all that checklist of what you would want to say.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: But with the combination of books and all these women...
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love that.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I'm okay to love.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: I am beautiful.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: Even if I have goals that I want to change,
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: I can embrace still who I am now and still improve myself for myself.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: And seeing that in the books helped change my mindset almost.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, girl, period.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_02: Because you are beautiful.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, goddess.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, thank you.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: I am here for it.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, being a mother and your body goes through so many changes and it's so hard
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: to come back into yourself.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, we all deserve to be loved as we are, period.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there is someone out there who's gonna do it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it's still fun to play out those fantasies in books that I'm not going to do
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: in real life because I'm not going to want to be chased through the forest
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: because my ass can't run.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: But I like to read it about in books.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it gets the heart pumping.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: OK, right.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: I know my husband has to see me come in when I'm finished reading a book.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Or he might like it.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think it builds confidence as women in our own bodies of like all the we've talked
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: about it at book club in the last couple books of not feeling comfortable
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: in our own bodies.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you've got these mailing characters who are saying don't care.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's teaching us that we can have confidence and be confident about
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_03: who we are,
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: whether we have the stretch marks and the scars and the extra curves,
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_03: all the things.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's okay.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the more confident you are, like they really don't care.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you find the right partner, they don't care.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_03: No,
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: they don't.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: They just love you.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Big thighs save lives.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think I kind of bring in a different perspective because of my age
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: and going through perimenopause.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: When your own libido is shifting, your hormones are changing.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you kind of have a sense of losing yourself a bit.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And reading these novels have helped me come back to the sense of like, oh,
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: it's there and can tap into that desire and activate the libido and help navigate
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: the hormone, you know, whirlpool to use your image, Nicole.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: That it is perimenopause.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole thing.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Have you read any books with older women and that being a topic?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I actually only read one that I found where she was smack in.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she was post perimenopause.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: She was already a little older.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: But when I find it funny when sometimes I see a book being pitched
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: and it's like she's She's an older female character.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: She's 40.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's great.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm already very happy about that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: But so you can go up higher.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can go up higher.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Or like vice versa.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like this 18 year old that has no idea what she's doing.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: But sometimes when they're in college and you read it, it just makes you feel younger.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're like in your mind, I can be back in college.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_03: That was not what my college experience
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: was like.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: But let's pretend.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_03: Or like you were saying, Vanessa, with the whole perimenopause thing.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's like...
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, hmm,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: if I'm reading romance books and I'm feeling nothing,
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's time to have that discussion again about switching up the hormones.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_03: Like, so maybe now we can actually say it's medication.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: There it is.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully,
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: my husband has no problems when I say I'm going to the bookstore and he knows
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: to ask, what are you bringing home?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it becomes like, no, this is just
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: part of the treatment.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: But you touched on something important, Erica.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think as well that Even in reading characters who are 18 or 20s,
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: not only can they take you back to your own life,
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: you didn't live that experience, but it activates that element.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I also think it touches on something.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: That we all have the inner child,
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: the young adult within us that still wants to be participating, I think.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes depending on what you're going through your life,
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: you might not be that age, but you are kind of beginning something.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then reading about a character who is discovering something or going
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: to another world or whatever kind of helps you navigate that very change
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: in your own life.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what we have found.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: In the book club, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Whatever we are reading,
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_02: whatever the female,
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_02: the FMC is going through,
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_02: whatever age,
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_02: whatever background, we will always find something that we can connect to.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what's so beautiful about women.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_02: We can always find something to connect with.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we can find something in that character that was reflective of our own lives.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: And like you said,
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_02: even if my college life wasn't like that,
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_02: I could totally maybe see myself doing something like that.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_02: Or that sounds like a good time.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_02: That sounds like a bitching time.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you're reading these books,
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: when you're going through a hard phase, what do these books give you?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: What do you notice?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: I always reach for like hardcore fantasy dragons.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Give me the dragons and I'm a hopeless romantic.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: So this like love story.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_02: Or this male main character that is just steadfast.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_02: That always gives me going on like your anchor in the storm.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_02: I always tend to reach for that because that gives me like a sense of peace.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_02: It is very anchoring when everything else, everything is happening.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Everything is going on.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, oh, this like Erica previously said is going to end well.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so comforting.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: Go ahead.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was just going to say the hope that I feel with that it's going to end well.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I will rage for happily ever after.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: So generally it's small town romance.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: So predictable, comforting.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_01: I always know they're going to fall in love at the end.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: So don't have to fear the unknown.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_03: You don't get that sense of dread.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: Like if you're reading something suspenseful of like, what's going to happen?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_03: Are they, aren't they?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: Like, you know,
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: they might go through some ups and downs,
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: but like you said, they're going to get that happily ever after in the end.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I think really that spotlight...
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: The light at the end of the tunnel is really helpful because they go through trials
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: and tribulations also,
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_02: but you know there is an end and the end is going to be a good one.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_02: And even though you're going through it, you're getting tribulated.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: But you also knowing that even though you're going through it,
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_02: you will come out the other side eventually.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: But it's nice to read about it in that moment that, oh, like it happened to these characters.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like that happy ending really is that shot of endorphins or what is it, dopamine?
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, hope, like Vanessa said, definitely.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: The serotonin?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, all of
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: them.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever all of those.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_03: The good brain chemicals.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_03: The ones that make you happy.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I think as,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_03: slightly older women too,
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_03: it's like you need some of that in times in your life
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_03: when Other hormones are going different directions.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's like,
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_03: at least,
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: if you're having a bad day, you're not feeling good, your body might be hurting.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know which way is up or down because all of a sudden we're like,
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: we're 16 year olds again.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hormone wise, like this is something that will turn your day around.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that, Erica, you know.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_03: One of my friends, it's cougar puberty.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: It's in reverse.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: Cougar puberty.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: We credit Shannon for that.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's a t-shirt waiting to happen.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, Shannon, my girl.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's a t-shirt waiting to happen, for sure.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, puberty.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: We touched on the spice and how it has affected our lives.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what else have you noticed changing within yourself since you started reading romance?
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, this goes on for me, girls.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And who wants to go first?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: I play communication.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: I struggled with it in the beginning.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: So did my husband.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: With him listening to audiobooks,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: and yes, he does listen to some romance when I tell him he needs to.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: We used to struggle.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And now that we see the miscommunication trope,
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: and I've seen how it plays out badly most of the time for characters,
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: the third act breakup and all that, I've learned to...
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_01: Almost analyze what they did, what they should have done.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we've applied that to real life,
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: to our relationship from the simplest conversations to what we're going to have
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: for dinner night or,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: money or to what we desire in the bedroom that has helped us apply it a lot.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love that, Courtney, because miscommunication trope is one of my least favorites.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: But as you just explained, it's like miscommunication trope for couples counseling.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's not my favorite either to read, but it has helped.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: And with my husband listening to audio books on occasion, and yes, they have been romance.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's helped because he sees what I read and the perspectives of it.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's taking notes.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_02: Very good notes.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_02: She said very good notes.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Courtney.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: How about you, Nicole and Erica?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, man.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_02: Erica, you want to go?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know, Nicole.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_03: You said you had all the things in a huge list, so.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, no, you put me on the spot.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_02: Dang.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm...
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like I said, very big on fantasy.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I love reading about woman,
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_02: girl power,
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_02: especially like Courtney has mentioned,
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: body image,
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_02: being comfortable in my own skin,
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: finding my voice and being comfortable in expressing myself and not feeling shamed.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, yeah.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, really coming into myself and being comfortable on this whole journey of life.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_02: I love thinking of my life as this odyssey,
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_02: this epic,
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_02: just super story that maybe like Aylin,
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'll find my terrace in and just like live happily ever after.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_02: Which, you know, I live it every day.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_02: I find a happily ever after every day.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_02: And that is what also reading has helped me really zone in on.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: I can have a happily ever after every day.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because I can't even plan next week.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I'm real.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: I'm real in the present.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I got to figure out what's going to happen today.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that has really helped with like grounding and living in the present.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, there's always a happily ever after in a day.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's got to be one.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like Hope,
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_02: you said,
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_02: the romancing,
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: the routine, I can only think of the word as vaginish, the day-to-day.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_02: The day-to-day, yeah.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_02: That romance really helped me hone in on and helped me personally.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm a big believer of if you're okay, you and your husband are okay.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_02: And if you and your husband are okay, everything else is okay.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Like including your family.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_02: So very much on that happy wife, happy life motto.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_02: So communication, like Courtney mentioned about her and her husband.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen it also.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_02: Seeing how these characters communicate has definitely helped.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_02: My communication with my husband and the communication in the bedroom has definitely improved.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love the idea that every day you can end the day with a happy after.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Happy ever, ever after.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's a life motto.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: That should be on the shirt.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's a t-shirt.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's also a life motto.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good one.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: I think I would just echo kind of what Nicole Courtney has said to you in terms
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_03: of just like,
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's helped me be just more confident in who I am and more of
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_03: the body positivity and things like that.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because I've always struggled with that through my whole life and knowing
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: that like it doesn't matter.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_03: Like you can be any shape,
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: size and still be more confident and just be a more confident person and kind
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: of stand up for yourself.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_02: You see the tropes that you don't like
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_03: and you don't want to become them.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: Whether you don't want the miscommunication or it's like, you know, a fantasy romance where...
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: They're just this really kick-butt, confident main character.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like,
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: wait a minute,
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_03: they have issues and they have problems, but I can still do all the things.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: Like, that's one thing,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_03: if we look at something like a fourth wing, where, yes,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: it is fantasy,
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: it's wrong,
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_03: but the main character,
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_03: the female main character has disabilities and it doesn't matter.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: And she just keeps going.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: So it's like in days when I feel like my body's failing,
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's like, wait, well, she can do those things.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: Why can't I do normal everyday life?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: So it may not be romance related,
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_03: but there's those different things that are happening in some of those novels.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, girl.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_02: Coming from someone who has an autoimmune condition,
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: disease,
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_02: it's so refreshing and it's so comforting reading about these characters
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: that are going through things that is so out of their control.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_02: And it's literally their body,
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_02: you know, that you obviously need to just like walk and to see them.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_02: Accommodate.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: That has been really helpful for me in voicing,
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know what,
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: I need help with this,
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_02: that part, in voicing their needs was really helpful on my journey.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: And reading like fourth wing about Violet and her bones was definitely very enlightening.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_02: And there's nothing wrong with me expressing my physical need.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: I literally just cannot do this today,
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: but we'll come back harder tomorrow and that we will overcome.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_02: We will overcome that.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: We will get shit done.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: We will get shit done.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: And that is the beauty of also being like women.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: We will always get shit done.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I totally resonate with that.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: I hide my pain.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know,
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_03: when there were days when I didn't want to get out of bed
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_03: because my endometriosis pain was so bad and you don't really want to tell people
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: about it.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_03: But now I'm like, you know what?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_03: I can be honest with people and say, this is how I'm feeling right now.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: I can't do it today, but maybe tomorrow.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_03: And just having, I think that goes along with that confidence and things like that.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, endometriosis, girl.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's something that really needs to be.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's so common.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_02: It's so common.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so many women are living through this.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_02: And the very fact that women...
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_02: That could be a podcast in and of itself.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: That could be many episodes and a whole podcast.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, for sure.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: But it's that, how do you turn that around and say, you know what, it's okay.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_03: We can talk about whatever it is,
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_03: whether it's an illness or our bodies or whatever is going on and say,
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_03: hey, it's okay.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_03: And we can normalize it.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you do see some of that.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: And you see more of these authors because romance does tend to be written by women.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_03: They're bringing some of those things in and saying, we're going to talk about these things now.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: We're not going to keep brushing the stuff under the rug.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: This is what people are dealing with.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_03: We're going to meet women where they're at.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: Preached because being in pain does not make you any less of a woman
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: or does not make you any less in any way,
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_03: shape or form.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not just pain.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: It's other.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's anything from what we're all dealing with.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: Discomfort.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: That we've been taught to just strip it under the rug and just keep just keep moving on.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think what surprised me in reading a lot of these stories is How many things
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: that are spoken within the stories that are so deeply psychological
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: that are way better written in romance than I've seen it written
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: in psychology books.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: For me, that was for sure grief.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_00: How grief has been tackled in some of these books has really impressed me.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was so well done and allows you to have the feels like you,
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: Erica said,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: and allows us to have that moment with whatever is going on with our lives with
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: that.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's so powerful.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm hearing you all say is that reading these stories is a sense
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: of being seen and Much like the heroine is often seen by the love interest in
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: the stories,
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: that fully recognition,
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_00: the vulnerability of feeling really naked, but being seen and accepted.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the stories allow us to do that inner work for ourselves as well.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: In real life.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_03: I think the other thing romance does really well in terms of those themes
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_03: to help you work through is the found family.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_03: You think about so many of the interconnected standalones or some of these things
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_03: that you're reading.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I know they're doing it to sell more books, right?
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: Because you get to see your characters.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_03: But I love how they're doing that.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_03: And just like you can find family anywhere and you can find community
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_03: and you can find even some of the small town stuff, right?
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's about finding your community.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_03: And how do you do what you need to do for yourself?
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you read a lot of Catherine Cowell's.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: They're glorious.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: She does it.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, even some of the sports romance ones
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_03: where I've read like Becca Mack has done it really well with like,
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: was it the Playing for Keep series?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_03: Or, you know,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: even like the Witwick,
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: we're reading the next one that we're reading next month for romance.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: Or no, two weeks from now for romance.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_03: It's a side shoot of...
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_03: Was it Liz Tom Forty's Her Windy City series
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_03: where those people are professional athletes that have had to come together
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: and find each other because they're living away from their families.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_03: So what do they have to do?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_03: They have to find family and connection and community.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_02: Dang, we got to read that in two weeks?
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I need to hear it.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have that for two weeks from now.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to do it.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, thanks for the reminder.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_02: But I love, yes, Erica, and continuing on that in that found family.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_02: I moved up here from San Diego to Oregon about six years ago.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: I have one aunt, and that was also a really big thing for me in friendships.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_02: How...
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be a good friend, one, to yourself to be a good friend to others.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly,
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_02: finding the book club and putting myself out there and being involved
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_02: in my community and reading about that in books and applying it to my everyday life.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's okay to put yourself out there.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Not everyone is going to accept you,
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_02: but you can put yourself out there and there's nothing wrong with trying.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_00: Look at all of us.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: We just went to the book club, didn't know what was going to happen.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Planning our outies and movies.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: T-shirts.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think we...
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_03: We got lucky.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_03: And there is not, I mean,
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_03: if we think about it,
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_03: our local bookstore that where we all met, like they have several other book clubs.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think any are quite as successful of the group that we have found.
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_03: Shout out to Sherwood Bookstore.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: Support your local indie bookstores.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think so much so that they're considering,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_03: he says he's considering adding just one that's romanticy because that's some
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_03: that some people only want to read.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: I suggested him to do that one every other month because those can be thick.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thick.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_02: We like them thick.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, I was drooling at the one that I don't get for a week.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_03: I saw it on the shelf tonight.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: Burn.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's there.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: It was on the shelf.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: I couldn't have it, but I could look at it.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us are not very fast readers,
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: so we need to do it every other month, you know, it takes a minute.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just changing gears a little bit,
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: if somebody comes to you or have you had any encounters like this
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: when you tell people that you like to read romance and what kind
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_00: of reactions do you get or do you notice that?
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't gotten any bad reactions when it comes to romance as a whole.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: But when I say that I read Monster or Alien,
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: that's when I get the nose turned up or kind of like a stink face or anything like
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: that.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I get my reactions, unfortunately.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you sometimes say anything back if it warrants it?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it depends on the situation that I'm in.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I was at a bookstore, I was at Barnes & Noble.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was overhearing a conversation.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_01: These two ladies were talking and they came across Opal Renee's
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Duskwalker Bride
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: series.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_01: And they were just dogging on it so bad because of the covers because you see the MMC.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: He's a Duskwalker.
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I just kind of walked away because I was like,
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to engage or anything like that.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_01: But if it was a friend or someone I was having a conversation with,
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_01: I give them a recommendation.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: Try something closed door-ish or a slow burn or easy palate type cleanser like
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: the Alien Cowboy by Ursa Depp.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_01: So as an introduction, you need to read them.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: What's a Deathwalker Bride series?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm intrigued.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very good book.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible series.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: I have yet to finish it because they aren't thick and they get thicker as they go.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_01: But there's eight of them.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, they do.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: But they're incredible.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_01: Dystopian, but spice and magic and voids and fairies and all sorts of stuff.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Give it to me.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_01: But if I was having a conversation with somebody, I'd give them a recommendation to just try.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_01: And if they didn't want to, that's on them.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: But I just hate it when I get, you know, looked down upon by liking that sub-genre in itself.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I got my friends, you know, first of all, they were shocked that I was reading romance.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: But once I started saying,
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reading about orcs, they would look at me like, wait, Tolkien's orcs, you know?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: And minotaurs, the faces were getting ever more surprised.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really interesting to see people's reaction to romance.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you say you're reading romance or some people even still refer to as chick lit,
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: which surprises me.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: But the monster romance is the one that I would say I think people are a bit,
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know, they raise the eyebrow a little bit.
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, wait, what?
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_00: That and dark romance.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sign me up for whatever, honestly.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: Give me an ogre.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: Give me an ice planet barbarian.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_02: Is he blue?
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's going on in that nether region?
• 54:16
  SPEAKER_03: We got ridges.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_03: We got two.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_03: Sign me up.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_02: Because I am of Mexican descent.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_02: So in Mexican culture,
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: we would have what they call libros vaqueros,
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: which literally translates to cowboy books.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: But they were literally magazines that they would publish.
• 54:33
  SPEAKER_02: And you would have...
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember telling my mom about my book club and I'm like,
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: yeah, it's about Libros Vaqueros.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: She was just like giggling.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_02: She was like, oh my gosh, really?
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, girl.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_02: Don't you want to know?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't know if I've come across someone that or I don't know,
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: maybe because it's not like a monster.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_02: I can totally see how some people are like,
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_02: oh, my gosh, what do you mean you're reading about an ogre?
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_02: What do you what do you mean?
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_02: And those actually tend to be the books with such like deep, like emotional themes.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, absolutely.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_02: And they are so like, that's what I've heard, like so sweet.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_02: And they it goes beyond the monster, right?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is the monster?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: OK, that's the question.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, I don't think I've come.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_02: What would I say to someone?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: You're sad.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_02: You try it.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_02: Sex is suck, man.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, you could be having a good time.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just throwing it out there.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_03: Well, for some people, too, they're gateway books to other genres and just reading.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_03: If we're getting people into reading and all that benefits them, was I ever big into fantasy?
• 56:00
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_03: But then as I started reading more romance and I was getting sucked into some of
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_03: the popular, like,
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_03: romanticy,
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: then it's like, wait,
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_03: what about all these other fantasy series that aren't romantic, but they're fantasy?
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_03: Wait, this is a genre I kind of like.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_03: Or...
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_03: Side quests of different things.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's a gateway for people.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_03: So who cares if it's romance?
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know why it gets a bad name.
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_03: People watch all kinds of things on TV,
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_03: but yet if you're reading it in a book, it's somehow different.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_02: I like how you said that.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's so normal to watch something,
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_02: but when you're reading it,
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: it's almost like taboo or And I love how you said it's like it's definitely
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_02: a gateway.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_02: You are just opened up to so many things and other people and you get recommendations.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_02: And this is just that's I think also what's awesome about the book club
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_02: that not only that we get to know other people through their like taste
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_02: and we get book recommendations and then we can chat about it.
• 57:02
  SPEAKER_02: And then you get more recommendations or you look, you know, in that.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_02: Genre or subgenre as well.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that's always such a good time and such an adventure, honestly.
• 57:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, even within romance, we've pushed each other.
• 57:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, several of us hadn't read any really monstery stuff.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was like, let's read Ice Planet Barbarians.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know what?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_03: That wasn't as bad as I thought it was.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, get in my swamp.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure what the redeeming qualities were of that one.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_03: I struggled with that one.
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: That wasn't a good gateway one.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_03: But it's just opening up to see what's out there.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, wait, these aren't that odd of a book.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_03: If you look past the oddities that are the different subgenres
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_03: or just different people you're reading about, it's still at the heart of it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's two people, sometimes more than two people, but most of the time two people.
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: What is it?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_03: The Twizzlers?
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: The Starbursts.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_03: The Starbursts.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_03: But it's people falling in love.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_03: At the heart of everything.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_03: That's what it's about.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the key thing.
• 58:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why romance to me feels a much needed medicine for now,
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: because we can have enough stories about violence and all that and nobody blinks
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: an eye.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: But wow, stories about people falling in love and enjoying the ride.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like, no, we need this now more than ever.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's my soapbox on that.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: I will stand up
• 58:36
  SPEAKER_02: there with you too.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_02: Love is the strongest magic and it's what connects literally everyone in this world.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_02: And we need so much more of it.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_02: Or it's all about love.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_02: What is the Beatles?
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_02: It's all you need is love.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_02: Like literally.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: Literally.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: Before we turn to what I like to call the rapid fire
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_01: questions here for you all.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have anything...
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_00: That to say more about romance in your life and what you notice or what you'd like
• 59:09
  SPEAKER_00: to see happen.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'd like some more time in a day
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: so that I can actually read more.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_02: Being a woman of color,
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited to read and see more authors,
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_02: Latinas,
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: African-American writers,
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_02: really get out there and get the recognition that they deserve.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's wonderful.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's obviously not new.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_02: There have been authors forever,
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_02: but seeing them rise in the romance sector,
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_02: because they've always been there, but getting, again, that recognition.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: That they so deserve.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: That representation, okay, is also so important for people of color or not.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: And all of the things, all you need is love.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what I'm saying at this point.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: I would say in the potluck of romance, we need all the dishes.
• 1:00:16
  SPEAKER_00: Bring it.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_00: All the dishes, okay.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_02: It's a Thanksgiving plate.
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_02: Everything fits and we're going to put everything on it.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would just like to see the taboos of things go away.
• 1:00:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's not real reading or it's not real,
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_03: fiction or something,
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_03: whatever the people are saying about it, that it's somehow lesser than.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_03: Or why do we not just call these some of the books fantasy?
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_03: Why is it now romanticy?
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_03: It's fantasy with a side of love story,
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_03: but they're trying to make it less than,
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_03: you know, your standard quote unquote fantasy.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: I agree on that one, too.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: Don't knock it till you try it.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_03: Once you try it, you get something.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_03: I resisted for the longest time.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then it was like, wait, why did I resist some of these books?
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_02: The taboo.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: You said it's the taboo.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_03: I just didn't think I would like fantasy.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_03: And now I'm like, give me the romantic.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:01:21
  SPEAKER_02: Give it to me.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's give me an eye riding dragons
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_03: and, you know, wingspans and wingspans.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_03: And yes, I'm here for all of it.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_03: Let me get a bump of that.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_00: How about you, Courtney?
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would say something a little bit more simple,
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: like I would love for more men,
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: husbands,
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: partners to embrace reading romanticity or reading romance in general,
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: because I think they can learn a lot.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like the men that actually genuinely want to listen to it,
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: not the men that I've seen on social media that just want to come into the space
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: and, you know, take advantage of it and or make profit off of it.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: That would be so helpful.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_00: Preach.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like right there.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: And while they talk about men's loneliness epidemic, I'm like, really?
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole other podcast
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_02: episode.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_02: But that part where it's like,
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_02: but not taking advantage of, you know, these things, that part right there.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, and inviting men to, you know, you can...
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: Even find things that you like.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_02: There's something for everyone out there.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay?
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:03:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that also feeds into what Erica said about the taboo.
• 1:03:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you mean men...
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_02: You know,
• 1:03:17
  SPEAKER_02: are going to be reading this stuff or like,
• 1:03:19
  SPEAKER_02: what do you mean men are going to be reading about dragons or monsters or romance?
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it plays very heavily into that theme of taboo and like, let's just go away.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's, for me,
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_00: I see it's really kind of a deep rooted misogyny,
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: that is both Cultural and inherited when we poo-poo it because it's in general.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: Again, another episode for that.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going there on that soapbox.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04:00
  SPEAKER_00: Switching gears a little.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the rapid fire, it's only five questions.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: Answer, shoot it from the hip.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: And...
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: What I'll do is I think, okay, I'll ask the question.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: Then you just, each one goes and we can elaborate on them.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: So are you ready?
• 1:04:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: What is your favorite trope that you can't get enough of?
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: Faded lovers.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_02: Faded lovers.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good one too.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I'd say either enemies to lovers or kind of that like second chance.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love me some enemies to lovers, but I also do love the faded lovers
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_02: too.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_02: All of the above.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_02: All of the above.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a hopeless romantic, man.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_02: I love telling the story of how I met my husband because faded lovers.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what trope?
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_00: You think should retire and never return.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: Third act breakup.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God, yes.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_01: I also think that pregnancy trope at the end of like a book or epilogue or whatever,
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_01: doesn't have to always end with a pregnancy or a marriage.
• 1:05:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's a trope.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_01: It happens a lot.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think the accidental pregnancy.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I bet.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so bad with tropes.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: I always have to Google them, but I don't... Yeah.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_02: For me, it's like sibling.
• 1:05:46
  SPEAKER_02: Ooh.
• 1:05:47
  SPEAKER_02: Sibling or like family...
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's just weird.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just not.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_02: That's weird, you guys.
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_00: Which one is that is like falling in love with your sibling's best friend or something?
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or like half or like step half or like uncle cousin.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or sister.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_02: Just anything like best friend's dad.
• 1:06:11
  SPEAKER_02: Or ex-boyfriend's dad.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's icky.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is problematic.
• 1:06:21
  SPEAKER_00: That is a counseling issue.
• 1:06:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_00: But now, who is your favorite book boyfriend?
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, crap.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_03: I knew I was like, she's going to ask that and I can't decide.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's OK.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll give you, you know, what are your favorite ones?
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_03: OK, because I said, Jamie, Jamie.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_03: Because I said in the beginning,
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_02: yes, because I said in the
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_03: beginning, I love me some
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_02: Outlander.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:06:50
  SPEAKER_03: But then I just did a reread of Spark of the Everflame series,
• 1:06:53
  SPEAKER_03: and, like, Luther was pretty fantastic, too.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, too.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, can't go wrong with Jamie.
• 1:07:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oh.
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, no.
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember any of their names because they just,
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm stuck at names,
• 1:07:11
  SPEAKER_01: but Bailey Hanna has a cowboy romance series that's now complete.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: Any one of those men, hands down, 100%.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: Love me a cowboy.
• 1:07:22
  SPEAKER_01: Love me a cowboy.
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_01: That do I.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_02: My most recent, I'm actually not like a heavy rereader.
• 1:07:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a very like in the present, inhale and move on.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just read a Fear the Flames book.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then the second book, Wrath of the Dragons.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_02: And then the third book is coming out.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm really excited.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_02: In March, Ashes of the Fallen or something.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_02: And for some reason, it's late.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_02: It's been a long day.
• 1:07:54
  SPEAKER_02: The MMC, I forget his name, but he is just...
• 1:08:02
  That says it all.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_02: That says it all.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_02: That says it all.
• 1:08:08
  SPEAKER_02: He is, I will burn the world for my girl.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I absolutely love that.
• 1:08:16
  SPEAKER_02: I am here for it.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_02: And in the third book, he's literally going to hell for his girl.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like,
• 1:08:26
  SPEAKER_00: yes, you
• 1:08:27
  SPEAKER_02: go get her.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 1:08:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I have one.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it moves with the changes of the mood.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_00: But recently I've been reading a lot of books where the MMC is Death or the Grim Reaper.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think all of them together, you know, I really like Death in the Four Horsemen.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, such a good series.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I like Deaths now in Belladonna and the Grim Reaper in A Date with Deaths.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I also really liked Blake from The Night Prince.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_00: So those are some of them.
• 1:09:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's hard to pick.
• 1:09:12
  SPEAKER_03: I just want to mash them all together depending on the day I'm having.
• 1:09:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, another one.
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_00: If your life was made into a romance novel,
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_00: what would be the trope or the setting of your life as a romance novel?
• 1:09:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be a mermaid.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: You'd be a what?
• 1:09:34
  SPEAKER_00: A mermaid.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's all I got to say on that.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: Mine would probably be small town romance.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it'd be small town romance or falling through the stones and going to Scotland.
• 1:09:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_00: Mine would have like some sort of magical library or, you know.
• 1:10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Beauty and the Beast.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Totally Beauty and the Beast.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I love that Vanessa Burke.
• 1:10:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_03: Maybe that's a story waiting to happen.
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_03: It's waiting to happen.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_03: I vaguely remember reading a synopsis for a book where like she keeps jumping
• 1:10:18
  SPEAKER_03: into her favorite books.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, another one.
• 1:10:22
  SPEAKER_02: No, there's another one.
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_02: That's a
• 1:10:24
  SPEAKER_00: good one.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_02: Give me 50 of them.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And now to our last one.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_00: So as you know, the podcast is called Romancing the Threshold.
• 1:10:36
  SPEAKER_00: So when you hear that, Romancing the Threshold, what comes to mind for you?
• 1:10:43
  SPEAKER_02: I'm at a threshold, okay?
• 1:10:46
  SPEAKER_02: I am at a threshold.
• 1:10:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I've texted you, Vanessa, because I just got a new job.
• 1:10:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm moving.
• 1:10:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm literally at that precipice of like...
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: This is happening.
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_02: It's time, right?
• 1:11:01
  SPEAKER_02: Like go for it.
• 1:11:03
  SPEAKER_02: And how am I greeting it as a lover?
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like that's been really, I've been really, that's been like the front of my mind.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_02: How can I, instead of meeting it with fear, How can I romance it?
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: How can I seduce all of these changes and not make it as scary or as anxiety-ridden
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_02: as it could be?
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_02: And definitely reading...
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_02: Something while it's happening is helpful,
• 1:11:39
  SPEAKER_02: even though I'm always reading something,
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_02: but finding those little things like the happily ever after.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_02: There is a happily ever after every day,
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_02: like silver linings and maybe cleaner
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_02: and more generalized term has been has been pivotal.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sometimes it doesn't work because life just gets overwhelming
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: and I get overwhelmed even by the slightest inconveniences.
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_02: But having that thought that you introduced...
• 1:12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Really,
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_02: and it always happens at the end of the day when I can decompress, like, okay,
• 1:12:15
  SPEAKER_02: how can I,
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_02: how can I like twist this or how can I like look at this maybe romantically,
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: maybe like with a little sweet treat,
• 1:12:25
  SPEAKER_02: something like indulgent, like throughout the day is nice, right?
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like who doesn't like a sweet treat?
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_02: But that's what comes to mind, especially because I'm going fucking through it right now.
• 1:12:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's really, it's really there.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's happening.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing it.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're actually practicing the very name.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's happening.
• 1:12:45
  SPEAKER_00: How about you, Courtney?
• 1:12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Courtney?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I would have to piggyback on Nicole a little bit with the change
• 1:12:55
  SPEAKER_01: when life throws you so much at once that coming back to the comfort of books,
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_01: comfort of the romance,
• 1:13:06
  SPEAKER_01: comfort of all of that, and hitting the threshold of life, coming back to the books.
• 1:13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I lost my train of thought.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 1:13:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's late.
• 1:13:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's past my bedtime.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was that time of day.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was on.
• 1:13:24
  SPEAKER_01: You'll have to come back to me.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_00: No, but, you know, I think it's, but I think you touched on this coming back to the stories.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_00: They help you, you know, keep the, keep crossing the thresholds.
• 1:13:36
  SPEAKER_03: They do.
• 1:13:37
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:13:38
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's just piggybacking on that.
• 1:13:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah, when you hit that threshold of life.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_03: You got to romance it.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like to me,
• 1:13:45
  SPEAKER_03: it's like to figure out how do you escape and,
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_03: you know,
• 1:13:49
  SPEAKER_03: reset your brain and find that safe place so that you can cross those thresholds
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_03: and deal with all the stress that life is throwing at us.
• 1:13:58
  SPEAKER_03: You know, that's really kind of what it's about.
• 1:14:00
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_02: Finding comfort in it.
• 1:14:04
  SPEAKER_02: How can I dance with danger?
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a coping mechanism to get through those hard parts of life.
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_02: They're definitely tools.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Definitely tools.
• 1:14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:14:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, ladies, thank you so much for taking the time.
• 1:14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's past our bedtimes, even my own.
• 1:14:28
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much.
• 1:14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's a lot of good stuff here.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there's at least three T-shirts here from what, you know, all that's been said.
• 1:14:36
  SPEAKER_02: So we need some merch.
• 1:14:40
  SPEAKER_02: We need some merch.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll meet you all at the book club.
• 1:14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we gotta read that book.
• 1:14:49
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta read that book.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta read the book.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_02: I know, I'm behind.
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Oh shit, if I can't even find it.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you're standing at a threshold of your own, know that you're not walking alone.
• 1:15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Find out which threshold lover walks with you.
• 1:15:07
  SPEAKER_00: The quiz is at my website, vanessacouto.com.
• 1:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: If this episode gave you something,
• 1:15:14
  SPEAKER_00: an idea,
• 1:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: a feeling,
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_00: an insight, share it with the person who came to mind while you were listening.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: There's usually one person that comes to mind.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how the show travels,
• 1:15:29
  SPEAKER_00: through one person sharing it with another, word of mouth, but via shareable links.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And remember,
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_00: whether the crossing is your own or the one we're all making collectively,
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_00: we don't have to white-knuckle our way through it.
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can meet change with the curiosity of lovers.
• 1:15:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Vanessa Couto.
• 1:15:52
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Romancing the Threshold, and I'll see you at the next crossing.