Episode 191: What we're reading May edition

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This week on Fable and the Verbivore, instead of doing our typical bookclub episode we’re talking about several things we’ve recently read and enjoyed.

In this episode, we each brought several books that we’ve read in the last month and are talking a little about what we liked (or didn’t) and some of what we learned from them.

Fable brings four BookTok TikTok dark romance darlings (A Not So Meet Cute by Meghan Quinn, The Fine Print by Lauren Asher, Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score, and Twisted Love by Ana Huang) and compares and contrasts different elements and choices in these books. Things like:

  • Alpha male characters - aspects that she likes and areas where she feels like there’s a bit of a red flag with these characters (possessiveness, being overly controlling, lack of consent)

  • Trends, patterns, and common tropes within these stories

  • The importance of word choice in conveying meaning to your reader

  • Holding things back, so that your reader leans in

  • Which of these books have great plotting, character arcs, and plot twists

The Verbivore starts by sharing a Japanese anime film by director and writer Makoto Shinkai called Suzume which focused on a story of healing after grief and tragic loss that did an amazing job of balancing extreme emotions (laughter and tears - sometimes at the same time).

She also talks about enjoying Jasmine’s Guillory bibliophile contemporary romance retelling of Beauty and the Beast called By the Book, as well as two fantastic historical mysteries - Victorian era set A Tempest at Sea (Lady Sherlock book 7) by Sherry Thomas and 1930s British speakeasy set Miss Aldredge Regrets by Louise Hare. She wraps up by sharing the funny and messy romance in The Trouble with Hating You by Sajni Patel.

Towards the end, we talk about how we can’t wait to do this again. It was such a fun way to unpack things we’ve experienced and also pass on book and movie recommendations.

We hope you enjoy this episode. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

The Verbivore talks about the anime Suzume (2023) and says that we’ve been calling it “The Girl, the Cat, the Chair, and the Door” based on the trailer. Here is a link to that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UuwS0mTBNM

Books and Films Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

book clubBethany Stedman