You Can Still Learn When You’re 90

[00:00:00] One of the dogs just turned on Criminal Minds downstairs. Shut up! She left it playing and I paused it because I was like, she's gonna want to keep her spot. Welcome to The Incoherent Fangirl. Where we are a little bit hangry this week because our book that we read made us pretty hungry. And there's no recipes. And it didn't have recipes. It's not fair. So unfair. I know.

[00:00:29] I'm Karin from Yum Yum Dim Sum. I'm Mandy from Elodia. I know that one! Yes, you do. I understood that reference. In our timeline it is March 13th and in y'all's timeline it is March 21st. I am on a field trip with my kid. Yay! I don't think I have anything going on. I don't have to go to work. It's a magical time.

[00:00:58] Any time I don't have to be in the office is a good time, quite frankly. Agreed. Hard agree. This week in Fangirling, Mandy, what'd you do? So I finished The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I obviously can't tell you anything because it's the third book. I think it's the last one. The way that it ends, it could be or it could not be. Okay.

[00:01:24] There is one point like half an hour before the audio book ended where I was like, if this is how this book ends, I will throw myself immediately off of the nearest bridge. I cannot live through this. And it was okay. The ending was fine. Like it was fine. It wasn't Kingdom of Ash that like destroyed my soul and then tried to put me back together again, but didn't land the same. No, but it was like, it was okay. I enjoyed it. It was worth the read.

[00:01:54] I read, I finished The Fortune of Fractured Fate by Amber D. Lewis. Excellent as always, but obviously I can't tell you a single thing about it because it was a beta read. I'm not quite finished, but I did read some of Hangry Hearts by Jennifer Chen. More on that later. I got to spend yesterday with my baby nephew, which is why I didn't finish reading. And it was the sweetest day. And the only reason I'm really talking about this is because of something that my baby niece said yesterday. My sister had some stuff going on.

[00:02:23] So I sat with the baby all day and then like I got my niece from school and we went to one of the twin soccer game. They won. Yay. And I was like, she won. Let's go tell her congratulations and good job. And this six year old child looks up at me and goes, Oh no, that's weird and cringe. Oh my God. I am sorry. Oh, Jen. Alpha. What? I can't. You would call somebody skibbity toilet. Okay.

[00:02:52] I don't want to hear it. Little girl. I don't want to hear it from you. I can't. I can't. Oh, no, that's weird and cringe. I'm sorry. Are you six or are you 16? I cannot. I cannot. My God. Like I'm your Mimi. I'm supposed to be the cool fun one. And I always have been. But now suddenly I'm weird and cringe. The twins never said that to me. Weird and cringe.

[00:03:21] I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. acknowledge it not a not a thing just hello here we are at your game anyways let's go home now there's a pot roast in the crock pot oh my god the sass i can't the sass so listeners if you know

[00:03:51] anyone who has had any kind of achievements recently do not congratulate do not say good job it's weird and cringe apparently who knew yeah and then last thing i had kind of a very busy but not with reading and books week beta readers have started reading

[00:04:11] and it makes me so barfy it is so scary it is so scary to hand your characters that have been in your head for like four years now yeah they've been in my brain and in my macbook now people have that on their kindle that are not like my three closest friends i mean they're still all still friends obviously they're all still people that like i trust to tell me the truth and you know whatever

[00:04:40] right but it's it's more people you're handing your heart over to and it's just like the craziest feeling i've also been in talks with an editor so hopefully i'll be signing i don't know if we sign a contract i don't know well hopefully that will be official soon fingers crossed and then i have spent the rest of the week just like staring into the abyss and thinking all i want to do is read shatter me or

[00:05:06] throne of glass like i don't everything sucks the world's on fire it's only getting worse we're selling teslers on the white house lawn yeah i just want aaron warner i want dorian i want lorican like i want my people i want my fictional people and so i can't get my head into anything else but just sitting there thinking i could be listening to shatter me i could be reading throne of glass it's been a hard

[00:05:34] week what did you do this week i did a few things i read a few things and i attended a few things yeah i read daughters of the blue moon by millie abacassus i also was in conversation with her for her book launch over the weekend so this is a sapphic and dark retelling of little red riding hood told in dual timelines which follows carmine who in the present is a seasoned huntress that has been

[00:06:03] protected from wolves by a magical back tattoo that her grandmother like put on her when she was younger after she had a dangerous encounter with a wolf on the way to her grandmother's house as a child sounds familiar she in the present has a violent encounter with a she-wolf that leads to the weakening of this protection spell and it causes her to once again have dreams of a singing wolf uh just like when

[00:06:31] she was younger carmine soon realizes that there is more to the spell her grandmother cast on her all those years ago and she has to make some important decisions about to what to do next it is a very quick and easy read it's a novella so it's less than 100 pages uh and it's really like about taking back like control of your body and your destiny and it's it's i loved it it was really fun uh the event was

[00:06:56] really fun millie you know she has a bunch of like local friends which i thought was so sweet like people showed up for her we were just in this like tiny little bookshop that i had never heard of before it was so cute she had little french pastries for everybody to snack on um yeah it was a fun time so that was really fun um next i read dinner for vampires by bethany joy lens the like subtitle

[00:07:23] i guess of the the book is um oh what was it it's like how how i ended up in a cult or how i what was it how i survived a cult while being on a cult tv show or something like that like she was in a cult while they were filming one tree hill and she was like rising like her her star was rising because she was on one tree hill which was like a huge thing during that time and she just kind of recount

[00:07:47] recounts like how she ended up in this cult and how she finally was like oh shit nexium did you say that no is it a cult nexium no okay there was another person who was an actor on a show who was in the nexium cult there's a nexium cult it's like nx i um i'm gonna go to it i was like

[00:08:08] nexium like the medication it's nx ivm vm cult oh and it's yeah this was like this was like a it was like a really like christian religious cults thing but yeah the it it it was really well written and very like descriptive of like what happens and is very i think informative as to like yeah

[00:08:36] things to look out for i will say it is uh quite an interesting read to read about somebody in a cult after having been in a cult right yeah it was uh it was it was one day we're gonna have to tell that lore we will like i know we have friends who like are working on a whole podcast about it yeah but like we'll have to like do a crossover yeah because because guys we were in a cult like for real

[00:09:03] like real talk right now yeah yeah wild absolutely wild um the person i was thinking of was allison mac she was in smallville oh yeah and the and it's nx ivm but it's pronounced nexium and it was like sex slavery oh my god really bad stuff i'm really shocked that you missed this i it was like a big controversy don't know anything about this and i watched all of smallville

[00:09:33] i know allison not like personally but like i know allison like from from this show like the fact that i don't know anything about this as well she was apparently like high up in it and like people are like you know wow wow yeah i'll have to send you some links after wild but yeah but yeah anyways dinner for vampires it's it's really good it's really good and she reads the audiobook so very cool very

[00:09:57] cool i read momo arashima duels the queen of death by misa sugiura this is the third book in the momo arashima uh series so i really can't say anything about it because it's the third book and third and final book in a series um but it was really good it's also i think like a really good reminder for young readers like it's okay to lean on the people in your life it's okay to like express your emotions

[00:10:25] um like you don't have to do things by yourself and you don't need to take things on you you don't need to like have all the skills about things that happen especially when you're like well this is all my fault but like is it though is it is it though yeah i went to brienne randall's signing with kelly hart um so when we recorded with brienne uh she mentioned the time of the signing and i was like

[00:10:50] wait i have it like two hours earlier turns out i'm not crazy i didn't input it wrong that was the original time it was originally like a conversation with brienne and kelly at four o'clock but they changed it it was it ended up just being a signing line just a signing event at a later time so like i had it right but it was changed so yeah i'm i was like i was seriously was like am i insane like how

[00:11:18] why did i put this in and then i figured it out and i felt so much better yeah for sure um so i drove three hours to get there i stood in a two-hour signing line i pitched both phantasma and unromance to people in line because i saw them eyeing the books while we were standing in line and i was like listen let me tell you about these books and i'm pretty sure i personally sold two copies of each

[00:11:44] book to people so yay me somebody was like they should pay you to do this and i'm like i mean kind if they do like not like with money but like this is this is what i do my job is to pitch books to people right exactly yay and then i immediately drove two hours home so it was a fun time but it was god it was really it was really lovely to meet callie she's very sweet and it was so good to see brienne

[00:12:14] again like yeah it was it was really cool they had like a little wheel um that you could spin like once you got close to the front of the line and you got like a free item like there were friendship bracelets there was a notebook there was pop sockets there were temporary tattoos so it was really cute it was really cute um yeah it was really it was really fun i really enjoyed it and the bookshop was really cute too so and i also i'm really upset about the person who was like in front of us in

[00:12:41] line because they pointed out a tote bag and i couldn't leave without it it was like it was it was it was books and the spines were our taylor swift lyric or taylor swift albums and they were like it's really pretty but i'm like god damn it i didn't need another tote bag yeah but it's i like thanks for that i couldn't leave without it so um but yeah it was really fun i read the atlas

[00:13:06] paradox and the atlas complex by olivie blake which is books two and three in the atlas series so again i can't say much about it uh books one and two i thought were like okay they're like fine it's nothing to write home about book three i thought was the best of the bunch and i like i did i personally felt like there was like steady improvement from book one to book three um but yeah i'm i don't know i feel

[00:13:30] like maybe either i'm not the target audience or this series is like way overhyped um like it's fine it yeah it's it's not bad like it's good there's lots of interesting characters lots of things happen i just didn't find it as engaging as it gets a very tedious feeling yeah like listening to the second book i was like i paused so like i listen at work right to audiobooks at work and like i use it as

[00:14:00] a means of disassociating from my work because i don't really want to like be fully present for the things that i have to like read and do at work and so like the fact that i was pausing so regularly and like not even like pausing because somebody like i would pause and somebody would talk to me and then i'd like go back to work and forget to unpause it and like that doesn't usually happen you

[00:14:25] know like i was just i mean it's not a bad rushing to get back into it yeah like i wasn't i just wasn't like on the edge of my seat like i need to know what happens next i guess it's because there's one single redeeming character in the whole there my god yes there's nobody everybody sucks except nico my god nico de verona i love him um but yeah so but it was like i i would recommend reading it for yourself if that if it seems like an interesting concept to you i would recommend reading it for

[00:14:55] yourself i think this is the kind of series that is going to be very divisive whether people really really like it or they're just kind of like no thanks not for me whatever take it away so yeah uh it's fine like i'm not mad that i read it i enjoyed myself i personally probably would not reread it but yeah it was fine okay i read 44 chapters about four men by bb easton this is like a memoir-esque

[00:15:21] book that was turned into the netflix series sex life it's about yeah so it's about uh bb easton used a secret journal in order to change um her husband's behavior and their sex life after she realizes that he has secretly read it and so she has like a super secret journal that she like hid in a folder with a name that he would never look at and then like her regular like secret journal on like they're both on

[00:15:50] her computer she has a regular like secret journal that she like kind of doesn't do that much to like hide so like every now and then he can like read it yeah and so she realizes like after so she's like our sex life is boring um i'm always the one to initiate it and i wish he did this and that and kind of like like she loves her husband but she's just like man like i wish there was more to this like

[00:16:17] there's no excitement there's no you know like i love him but like god damn it throw me up against a wall right something like um and so like one night he's does something that's like completely out of character and she's like what the heck is this she realizes that he's read her secret journal and so she like texts uh she's a psychologist i think and she texts like a friend who is also a psychologist and

[00:16:43] her friend is like well why don't you like just make up things and put it in your journal i'm pissed off about the invasion of her privacy by her husband like i get it like yeah for her in the end but like yeah i think don't read somebody's journal no for sure i i i think for sure like initially she's like upset about it but then she's also like how do i turn i'm gonna hack this yeah and so she starts

[00:17:07] writing about like her ex-boyfriends right so that's the four men um in in this in in this the book um or i guess it's three men because the fourth is her husband but anyways so she starts making up stories about like her sex life with her previous boyfriends and things like she makes it like really sexier than it then you know she it really was and she tries to get him to like like her goals

[00:17:32] are like okay i want him to like give me a pet name that's cute because he doesn't give her nicknames or anything yeah um he she wants him she wants him to get her name somewhere visibly tattooed on him oh my god and so she like she like incorporates these goals that she wants him to like achieve into like these made-up stories about her ex-boyfriends so that like when he reads it like

[00:17:58] then he's like he like it's implanted in him and like at the end of the day like he's you know only so much can change right yeah but um she realizes like oh you know what like he is making an effort and like things are different than when i first started this experiment and like i still love him you know kind of thing and it's like it's i it was a fun read i thought it was really fun um and

[00:18:25] especially since it's like i don't know like this is a real person like it it reads like it's made up like it's a fiction story but like this is somebody's actual real life and i'm like this is wild but it was a fun time i enjoyed it and then um she actually ended up writing like a three book series uh based off of each of the boyfriends that she like talks about in this book yeah and and i'm like

[00:18:53] that's so fascinating like it's she's like am i gonna get sued and her her friend was like why don't you just call it fiction like it doesn't actually have to be about yeah she's like oh shit you're right i could do that so here we are um so yeah it was a good time two can play by ali hazelwood which is like her audible our audio like exclusive it's i don't think there's like a digital version

[00:19:17] or a physical book um but it was produced by spotify so i think it's just audio for now and it's like a really short it's i think it was four hours so i think it's like novella length so you have viola who is a video game developer um at an indie video game like developer company and she has the

[00:19:38] chance to adapt one of her favorite book series of all time into a video game but right but the like owners of the ip are like the other there's this other indie game developer that's also in the running and it's their like rival like it's a rival company and they uh like employees from both sides they

[00:20:04] all clash everybody has some sort of history with everybody else and it's it's wild she specifically has history with jesse who she meets him like before she ever gets into game developing like very early on in her career and she that she thinks he's like super hot but then after because she interviews for this company and he's like one of the people who is on the hiring board or something

[00:20:34] and um whoever was like asking her the questions was like a straight up douchebag and he like catches up to her after she leaves and is like hey i'm sorry about that and she thinks like oh he's cute blah blah kind of thing and she just kind of like is like okay cool thanks you know like for talking and then they like meet again later in life like a couple years later i think her cousin is marrying a family member of his something like that so they're at like the same event and they end up under

[00:21:03] the mistletoe and they're and they're people are like oh you guys should kiss and she's realized she's developed a crush on him and then he like flat out is like no i don't want to do that and so she's convinced that this man hates her right yeah and it's so obvious that he does not he's like figured it's i don't want our first kiss to be public i don't want our first kiss to be

[00:21:27] because of whatever or something like that it's it's even more adorable than that like it's this is okay i know we hit the miscommunication trope but this is the perfect way to build around the miscommunication trope like it's so well done ally is magical um but it's just like it's so cute like it's so cute so the two uh companies are forced to go on like a retreat together to make sure that

[00:21:57] they can work well together because the ip holders are like you guys are it's down to you too so maybe if you guys really want this like they're like if we really want the contract we need to be able to work together right and so it's forced proximity and you know it's just it's oh i really enjoyed it it was really fun and she packs so much into just like a four hours like of a book so it was a good

[00:22:24] time love it uh the serpent's shadow by rick riordan book three in the kane chronicles series so i can't say anything about it but once again it's rick riordan it's excellent nothing like the movies by lynn painter which is the follow-up to better than the movies um this follows elizabeth or liz and wes um they are now like i think the third year after college i will get to that mandy

[00:22:50] um it's the third year of college and so liz is a junior wes is technically a freshman because of reasons that happened after better than the movies before nothing like the movies like in between these two books uh something happens um and wes has to kind of drop out of college and stay home in omaha and help with his family um and they have broken up and it was not a good breakup things

[00:23:19] were said wes uh liz thinks that wes has done something and wes is not confirming or denying it um and so it was a bad breakup liz it's so bad liz is like a romantic like in better than the movies everything for her was about like the romance everything was like a romance trope like she

[00:23:42] loves romance she loves love and now in this book she is like anti-love she doesn't date she doesn't like she works as um like a photographer to uh photograph like the sports events and things and so all of the sports people are like really the sports people the sports events uh yeah sports

[00:24:05] events um and so they're all like really familiar with her and wes is like a a pitcher and so when he goes back to school and joins the team like he's friend he's now friends and teammates with all these people and they're all like she's just like one of the guys like kind of thing because she's so like does not put herself out there to be any kind of like option for dating right and so he like really

[00:24:31] broke her when they broke up and so in uh a moment of uh panic liz tells him that she's dating her roommate and uh so she has to pretend that she's fake dating she's like fake dating him and they are like but they're forced to like see each other all the time because her like mentor is this like

[00:24:58] really great documentary filmmaker and she is helping with this documentary which is basically highlighting the star baseball team that they have at ucla of which wes is now like one of the star prospects so there's a lot of forcing them together and and wes is like quietly like oh my god i'm still in love with her but also she has a boyfriend but oh she doesn't really act like she used to with me

[00:25:25] with him and so is it like so it's a whole thing but i mean it's a romance so it of course ends up very lovely it just takes a while for them to get there um but yeah it was good time and i read uh hangry hearts by jennifer chen which we will talk about shortly and that was my week i have to tell you i am a dummy because i forgot something that i have like been listening to regularly it's a 24

[00:25:51] hour long audiobook and i listen like when i'm when i'm driving if i'm not on the phone wait i have to wait sorry i forgot to say the thing that you were laughing at me about oh yeah um so it took me so there are like three short stories that lynn painter wrote after writing nothing like the movies and so there's three short stories and two books and it took me into the end of book two to realize that

[00:26:15] the female main character is elizabeth bucksbaum and the male main character is wes bennett and i am so you're pretty i'm really pretty my brain is really good anyways tell me tell me about your 20 okay so i didn't write anything down i had the like the story graph page open when i was doing my notes and did i write

[00:26:40] it down no i didn't um so i've been reading city of gods and monsters by kayla edwards so i'm just going to read you the story graph it's a few paragraphs long death is only the beginning loren calla has only ever been ordinary as a human struggling to survive in a city that catches that caters to the needs of vampires werewolves and witches catches and witches are right next to each other yep uh or caters and witches i did it again

[00:27:07] i understood as a human struggling to survive in a city that caters to the needs of vampires werewolves and witches and other supernatural creatures she always assumed her life would remain simple predictable and as safe as her world would allow until she barely escapes abduction at the hands of dark slayers supernatural bounty hunters that possess the sight a magical tracking ability that allows them to see a person's aura and one of her friends is taken in her place the abductors are demanding a

[00:27:34] ransom loren's life in exchange for her friend's safe return loren will do whatever it takes to get her friend back even if it means accepting help from darian castle the leader of the seven devils the most feared dark slaying circle in the city darian specializes in tracking down demons and criminals that are better off dead than alive so when he takes a job to track down loren and finds out she is human and couldn't hurt a fly if her life depended on it he decides to protect her instead of turning

[00:28:00] her in for a reward as much as loren doesn't want to admit it darian is her best and only chance at finding her friend alive if she can somehow manage to get along with him and not fall head over heels in love with him in the process which is far easier said than done when more women start disappearing and some of them slowly turn up dead loren and darian search for answers take them deep into angel themes corrupt underbelly where they discover a dark secret that threatens to unravel their world

[00:28:27] and when tragedy strikes loren learns that love can make an extraordinary person do extraordinary things i can't believe i forgot about that because i am here for yearning that is all i want out of a book okay just yearning a desperate need and apparently darian castle is just head over heels devastated

[00:28:49] on the ground whatever i need to do for her so yeah i am interested in that love yeah so i did that this week do you have a fictional boyfriend this week nico d verona my god yes i know i know him i love him

[00:29:13] listen i don't i truly do not believe that you read book three i don't like i don't think i did because i probably yeah no that i i'm gonna go on the record there is no way you read book three yeah there is absolutely no way you read book three because there is something that happens and there's there's no way that you'd be okay because i'm not okay um yeah but in addition to that like there's this

[00:29:38] monologue nico d verona gives a monologue that is so good that i rewound it three times to listen to it again this man i clocked him three pages in to the first book this man i was like well that's a sick man that this man my god my god nico nico yeah that's that's all i have to say i'm gonna have to listen to it but listen i'm not gonna listen to it because all i want to listen to is

[00:30:10] help me good luck have fun help enjoy life what about you um i'm gonna go with bash from the fortune of fractured fate so i messaged amber and i am allowed to say that oh there's a child that just came home because since this was a beta read right you don't know you know what you can say and what you should keep under wraps bash is quickly becoming a daddy i love bash i've loved him from

[00:30:38] day one i'm just gonna say i'm booked to the daughter um he has a good girl moment and i just i live for bash i love bash that sound means we have an intruder alert intruder i am so excited we have jennifer chen author of hangry hearts here with us today i literally the moment i saw this

[00:31:06] book i was like please i must have it i'm very hangry yeah we're reading this book we have a bone to pick with you but before we get to that um can you please give us the elevator pitch of the book for anybody who hasn't heard of it sure so hangry hearts is a young adult romance it's my sort of fun comedic version of romeo and juliet but set at a farmer's market in pasadena california and

[00:31:32] randall and julie's grandmothers both own a vent like a food market stand at the farmer's market and they used to be best friends then they had a falling out so their kids also had a falling out and of course they get put together on a school project and obviously go very romeo and juliet on

[00:31:52] their family romance things happen as carol i love it i love it so did you know going in that you wanted this to be kind of a romeo and juliet retelling or did it just kind of organically happen like oh these characters are here and this is their story i've always like i know everybody reads romeo and juliet in high school and i always thought it was really tragic and sad which it is

[00:32:18] and i'm like well why couldn't there be like a fun version where it's like nobody dies nobody poisons nobody you know they don't miss like have that unfortunate timing at the end so when i wanted to work on my second book i had this idea of a farmer's market and then i was like wait a minute um i had read oh my gosh it's a great book a faux love story oh yes and i was like oh i love that idea

[00:32:43] of like these rival restaurants so i'm like i want to do rival food stands and sort of play on romeo and juliet but made it funny so there's a poisoning in the book but it's nobody dies it's a food poisoning i just that's not spoiling it for you but i just wanted to be more fun than tragic i'm glad you did that because i will forever rant that like romeo and juliet is not romantic it's two teenagers who kill

[00:33:09] like get a lot of people killed and then yeah die and it's like a weekend right like that's not romantic that's awful it's sad so we needed a fun sweet yeah actually romantic version yeah exactly i think the only thing that's true about romeo and juliet that i feel like is very teenagers is like how um romeo falls in love with juliet like at a party and just sees her across the room and

[00:33:35] i'm like yeah i fall in love that way yeah all the time that's the most teenage thing yeah like yeah yeah and is it rosalyn is that his his girlfriend that he just completely forgets yeah oh yeah i forgot about you yeah that is a teenage boy yeah yes yes um so speaking of teenage boys we have randall and i let me know if this is like you don't you don't want this in um but it's um we find out that he is

[00:34:05] trans um in in the book and it's something that i i love because i think we definitely do need more representation across the spectrum on everything um but it's something that i also like i went into this not knowing that um is that either yeah was that an active choice to not put that in like the back matter um and if so like what was kind of the thought process behind that you know it was interesting so when i pitched this book and i had told my editor that the character was going to be

[00:34:33] trans a trans boy you know we were like okay great and i don't think we thought about like when we're working on the back cover copy together i i honestly didn't think it was something to like bring up because to me it's it's part of who he is but not like it's not an identity book in that sense so it didn't occur to me and then as we got closer to the publication date i'm like oh i guess people

[00:34:58] should know and that's when i started talking about it more and more and then obviously it's coming out so i wrote this book two years ago now it's coming out in the midst of like post wildfires post administration and i i don't think it occurred to me until now how important it is to keep mentioning that randall is trans you know i i know this seems silly but back then i was just like oh i'm i i

[00:35:24] wanted to have representation asian american trans representation because they don't see it yeah enough and i was like okay that's what i'll do i'm i'm not trans i'm not queer but i'm like i wanted to have that representation and now i realize how important it is to like tell people that because i really didn't think of it as like i should put it on back cover copy yeah no i i i kind of i kind of love like the surprise of it yeah the surprise of it and also that it was just so like normal for

[00:35:54] you that you're like this is not like the most important thing about him you know like i love that it's just normalized yeah you're reading and you're like he's randall he's a boy and then you're like oh he's a boy like yeah it wasn't like it's like you doubled down on it it's not a big like it's not a big deal and it's not like a big thing in the book where it's like there's you know a lot of times we do see like trauma and things like that but it's like it's just normal it's just a thing that

[00:36:21] he is he just is he just exists and i i like i i also understand like you know with our current administration like the the lot like oh i got it we we should be talking about this more but yeah i can also see where it's just like oh i didn't think about it because like yeah that's just normal that's just people just exist um so it's like it's so hard because you're like i want to do

[00:36:47] right by them but at the same time i'm like it's it's so normal like why am i pushing yeah so but i shouldn't have to we shouldn't have to scream about it because yeah right it's normal it's normal people like really but yeah but i really loved it was such a fun surprise i really enjoyed that good yeah that was lovely so this is just a little bit light-hearted but yeah can you give us some recipes can you release some recipes because my god everything that they mentioned

[00:37:17] eating i am like i need that i need that right now i'm starving i'm in the middle of georgia we don't have good we don't have good korean food yeah we had one good korean place that closed that is like we don't have i think the closest dim sum place to me is two hours away oh wow okay it's awful tragic it's awful so i need help i need help i need to know how to make it

[00:37:43] you know what i am i'm not a recipe writer for what i should do is put a collection of links to um awesome asian food blogs because there's so many good recipes i should do that for this book but um did you know you were going to make readers hangry reading this that's my goal with this one i mean i love new year food it's like yes it's because you you're supposed to eat it special and

[00:38:09] so it's sort of like annual but also just like it's my favorite stuff yeah yeah i was like and then i'm not korean but i just really like the traditions that they have with their celebration and the food also sounds good yeah for sure my gosh i really i so i didn't going into this obviously i knew it was kind of inspired by romeo and juliet yeah but you mentioned the food poisoning and it literally just

[00:38:38] connected to me right now like oh that is part of it like a kind of a take off of romeo and juliet like they do get poison did you did you know like how much of the source material were you kind of wanting to reference back to versus how much did you just kind of want to tell their story the way that it came to you so when i before i started drafting i reread romeo and juliet because it's not

[00:39:05] it's not very long and then i made like a beat sheet of like what happens and then i was like okay i'll try to mirror like kind of use it as an outline and then all of the characters names are references to the characters tyler who's tybalt and paris is london park yeah that's where i was like let me include that but i the it's funny because some some early readers have been like oh it's just very lightly romeo and juliet and i was like i guess to me the poisoning because i know it's at the end and

[00:39:34] it's tragic and it's like you know if they had just waited a few minutes they figured yeah yeah but i wanted specifically i wanted it to be a food poisoning because they that's what they you know they eat their their own food before they sell it but i also was like what what's to me i don't know if this is romantic to anybody else i think it's really romantic how someone takes care of you when you're sick yeah the fact that and i thought it would force the grandmothers who've had this grudge

[00:40:01] to kind of have to be in the same space physically because they're at the hospital together and they're not well and sort of what that means for family and friends like when you're really down and out not feeling well like the fact that they show up for each other means more than all the yeah so i wanted to sort of use it in a different way than i feel like the end of romeo and julia it's very much like these families being like oh we should have done things differently yeah right

[00:40:30] right i love it so randall volunteers at a local elementary school um hosting a garden club and these kids know so much about plants and gardening do you have a green thumb are you a gardener is that like self-insert or um so my grandmother did when i was growing up we had like a garden in the backyard and she this is i grew up in new jersey she had like tomatoes and chinese eggplant and all these like

[00:40:56] asian vegetables i grew up eating and so i like helped take care of the garden with her and that was my experience but then the reason i wanted like i i do some gardening i am not my grandmother whatsoever but i started a garden inspired by my grandmother at home and like work with my kids to show them how to garden and so i feel like it's just trying to carry on that tradition that my grandmother had and so they get to see where like food comes from and but i'm not nowhere near

[00:41:24] the gardener that she is but with randall i was like i thought there was a beautiful metaphor for transitioning and also being like gardening like you have to kind of sow the seed and it takes its time and it grows and i thought it was just a nice way to kind of match who he was as a character oh that's special though yeah it's a nod to your grandmother yeah yeah speaking of grandmothers i spent the whole book

[00:41:52] i was like reading it and i was like why does she call her ama like that's that's her mom's mom and i speak cantonese right so i'm like that should be her popo and so i was talking to my mom about it and she was like okay but are they taiwanese and i was like oh is it different i was like wait this is so cool i like learned something about like i mean i'm not talking where we're you know where

[00:42:18] my family comes from hong kong so like but like it was so cool that i was still able to kind of learn something that is in like a very close culture to mine right yeah and and i was just that was so fun i was like wait a minute i feel very silly because i've spent this whole time being like what happened and it was it was fun um but the the grandmothers themselves they both are such forces just in and

[00:42:47] of themselves and um did you is that is that reminiscent of like your your grandmother growing up and and other women like role models that you've grown up around you know it's twofold it's definitely my grandmother my ama which is funny because when i was trying to figure out how to spell ama in like english i was like i don't know because i've never written it and so i tried this and then my other cousins were like no it you should spell it this way and i was like i i picked one way and

[00:43:16] we're gonna go with this way yeah i don't actually know what the spelling is but my grandmother like came gosh she had she came and didn't know much english and she really like she passed away when she was 95 and wow in that time period i saw so much stuff change but also lived through like the passing

[00:43:39] of two of her sons and um seeing her grandchildren grow and all this stuff and i felt very like her journey here and her like resilience and just determination she even when she was older she was trying to learn english and i would teach her and and stuff and i feel like that taught me so much about like

[00:44:01] you can still learn when you're 90s and still like i mean my grandma stopped learning she was a firecracker so then the other part of this is that i wrote this book probably on the tail end of also reporting on anti-asian hate around the same time and so unfortunately a lot of elders were getting hurt i mean people in general were getting hurt but a lot of elders were because i feel like they were easy targets

[00:44:27] unfortunately they don't speak back they don't typically report hate crimes or even know that they've been um yeah treated that way yeah so at the time i thought you know i really want to highlight um the older generation and really kind of show their power and i wanted their friendship to be born out of like survival together you know that they meet at a lax airport and if you've ever

[00:44:54] been to any major airport it is super confusing so i was like well maybe they like find each other and they're like even though they don't speak the same language they feel at least some comfort in knowing that they're not alone and then they both become widows later and so i just really wanted to cement this friendship in coming to a new country trying to figure things out surviving and then also like losing people that they loved so it's a tribute to my grandmother but also like all the unfortunately

[00:45:22] all the stories i was reading i was like in reporting on i wanted to highlight elders in a very like positive fun i wanted these grandmothers to be like badass but also like terrifying to their grandchildren in the sense of like i don't want grandma to know i'm dating the other family but also so that the grandkids like have that reverence for their grandmothers and like that they would give up the crush or the you know the person they're in love with for their grandmother

[00:45:51] and they don't want to hurt um so yeah oh yeah i love them both um i want to take a little bit of a left for a second can you tell us more about right girl yes so right girl is this amazing organization in los angeles it's based on los angeles but in the pandemic um went we all went on zoom and so each month we have a writing workshop for teens and at this point there's teens from all around the country

[00:46:19] and the world we have some writers teen writers in the philippines and uganda oh wow and there are mentors from around the country too because because we're on zoom um we just all meet at the same time and so once a month we do a writing workshop um and i've also been a weekly mentor which means that i meet with a teen once a week um on zoom and we do writing together and we talk um my my last mentee

[00:46:46] is now at uc san diego so we're still in touch um and like for example this month is the screenwriting workshop but what's really cool is that we'll have the workshop in the morning teens will learn how to screenwrite from like amazing screenwriter female screenwriters women writers um and non-binary as well and then from like in the later afternoon we have actors come and they will read those scenes

[00:47:13] like oh my gosh for the teens who just wrote them like you know a few hours ago and that's incredible it's not every single workshop but the screenwriting and we have a songwriting workshop and there's songwriters who come on and like sing and play their songs it's amazing that is so amazing yeah it's a great organization that i love that on kind of a the a similar track what um what what

[00:47:42] would you what advice would you give for young writers who are you know maybe just starting out and aren't quite sure if they enjoy writing or who are like ready to kind of go down that path you know it's funny my mentee um she i was with her for two years before she graduated and she very much was like such an amazing reader read like so many she loved fantasy novels and so she read a lot

[00:48:10] but she was like i've always wanted to write a book but i don't think i can and i said you know i totally understand so what we did was we like each session would like work on some characters and then we work on settings and taking it step by step i'm like you're not going to write a book tonight but we're going to write like let's write about some characters and then let's write about the setting and let's write about if it's fantasy you know world building and sort of the magic what are the magic

[00:48:34] elements um and then like a few months into this i had i'd been taking notes and so each session after i would write down what we had done and i showed it to her and i was like look at all the stuff that you did in the past like three months and she was like oh wow and i think that's something that like people take for granted is like you don't you're not going to do it overnight right but if you do it little by little you'll get there and even if you know you don't write the whole book

[00:49:02] in like a month it's like these little parts she was really proud of herself and i said like see you could do it like and and we started out and she told me i can't write more than 100 words i was like okay let's try it no and that sounded so impossible at the time and so we would work on it little by little i'm like okay let's write this let's write this and i just i i'm such a strong believer in like little by little because i think it's really intimidating to think oh i really wanted

[00:49:30] to write a book that's that's like trying to climb a mountain and you've never done that before so just breaking it down small and then seeing your progress like i i think keeping track of your progress because otherwise you're just like oh i didn't do anything but then i'd show it to her and she was like oh my god and i was like i know you did a lot i love that yeah people sell themselves short because they think that because they've never done it before they can't and it's like no one on

[00:49:57] this earth comes out of the womb an author yeah right like everybody writes their first story everybody it doesn't matter if it's stephen king or if it's an independent author who's going to self-publish like yeah yeah nobody knows what they're doing until they do it yeah exactly i love the idea of taking it in bite-sized chunks too because like a lot of times you see like people are like

[00:50:21] oh i you know my finished manuscript it's 80k and it's like yeah yeah 80 000 words i don't know i do i know 80 000 words um but like to take it but then you're like oh they spent two years doing that right and then you're like oh well i just i can just write about this this character and who this person is and then oh i can write about the setting and where it's gonna be and then you've got 80k yeah like that's

[00:50:44] that's yeah i love that advice yeah that's beautiful okay we don't want to keep you too long um but we have a few questions that we always ask our guests please um this is the point in the interview where every bit of media you've ever consumed goes out the window okay um so we have a segment that we call fictional boyfriend of the week so we pick we pick from this week but you can pick from all time

[00:51:09] but we pick a fictional character that we think the world needs to know about so we'll have a fictional love interest we'll have um karen's had fictional grannies i've had a fictional son um so it's their movie tvs books are there like any fictional characters where you were like that is my comfort character that is my heart that is who i'm here for okay can i name like different like so movie wise

[00:51:38] um can i name somebody from a movie yeah any fictional characters um i thought this movie was going to be i love rom-coms i don't think that's a surprise as a romance author but um i watched hot frosty and i thought it was just going to be silly and i ended up really loving the main character the um dustin mulligan's character because i thought he played it so sweet and so genuine and i loved the fact

[00:52:05] like the premise of it is that he's a snowman that comes to life right which is ridiculous but the thing that i loved about the movie is like literally her best friend's the doctor in town and the doctor is like well his temperature is very cold so he must be a snowman and then she tells the whole town in the local cafe and the whole town's like all right cool like they totally buy that he was a snowman in the town square and now he's like standing there as this hot guy and i'm like nobody's questioning

[00:52:35] anything nobody at all he was also like so sweet and cute and like it just was like i was like i don't i love you and i'm like this is ridiculous but i love you so i'm kind of fell in love with it's like snowman character i love that i haven't watched it yet and i keep saying that i'm gonna watch it and like that's such a good like like oh it's good to hear it's a good one yeah i love that

[00:53:05] it's a good suggestion it's good around the holidays when you're just like i want something fun yeah oh for sure yeah now if i watched a christmas movie i think it would make me sad because it's not christmas and it's not close yeah i'll have to put it on the list for for later this year yeah for sure okay so kind of along a similar line the other question we always ask is we know we love your books and so we'll recommend those but we want to know what you're reading what

[00:53:32] you're recommending what you're loving can be like currently or of all time kind of what do you want people to know about okay oh goodness so i when i read i read like three or four books at the same time because like i have my adult romance and then i have ya and then i have sometimes i have a non-fiction or celebrity memoir like i don't i need a few different reads so um um i'm reading

[00:53:58] this not the sequel but the second book of jenny howe's she had on the plus side and then the second book is how to get a life in 10 dates so that's what i'm reading right now oh which i really like i i'm a sucker for anybody who has characters who are good to animals and she oh same yeah i'm like her for on the plus side had a um the main character guy was like so amazing with dogs and

[00:54:23] he was like the grumpy sunshine guy but he was great with dogs and wanted to start the shelter with his vet friend and i was like you sir are the person you're just amazing and i want 45 more books with just you and the dogs early into shatter me everybody's like really aaron warner and i'm like but did you see him with the puppy though this is a dog that's all i care about

[00:54:50] yeah yeah yeah um and i'm reading jessica perra's the quince project which is kind of like j-lo's wedding planner meets quinceañeras oh yeah fun that's fun very cool that does sound fun um okay so i know that you are releasing a book right now yes but what comes next what can we expect in the future yeah i'm actually in the middle of revising book three which will be out

[00:55:20] spring or summer 2026 probably summer 2026 um and i pitch it sort of as dash and lily the tv show but set in a public library oh okay so notes are left in um in the public library for each other i love that yeah i love that especially the public library like yeah as a setting like i love libraries

[00:55:47] they're the best i do too and like oh sorry no go ahead i was gonna say the how i got the idea was i saw somebody on facebook post like a library seat from the new york public library and it was like in the book that they had just checked out and they're like oh my god if i had met this person we'd be best friends because we have like all the same book tastes and i'm like what if it was like that but you like fell in love with that person because they had the same books that you loved

[00:56:13] and so then i had seen dash and lily and i was like wouldn't it be fun if i did the same thing but in a library so that they kind of leave each other i won't give any spoilers but they leave each other notes in their favorite books a little scavenger honestly what better way to fall in love than in a library through books through books yeah like i i love that so much please i love it okay well this is

[00:56:40] the perfect time to let you know um a little bit of bad news now that you have been on the podcast you're actually legally obligated to come back for all future book releases um so sorry no i'm not sorry not sorry at all you have to come back and we have to talk about the library book yes and it's also set in like a um they're both volunteers at the kitten nursery where i am also a volunteer at so

[00:57:04] there's a lot of kittens and a lot of cute cat games and he's very good with kittens and that's what i wanted i was like i want a character who's like kind of a big old jock but is like super sweet and he's kind of too big to be in the kitten nursery you kind of like this i love that oh that's the best i'm obsessed i love that so much i can just picture it already like the scene from beauty

[00:57:31] and the beast where all the birds are on his back but the kittens are falling all over him like oh my god help me what is happening oh because when you're in the kitten nursery you're supposed to wear like you have to wear certain things so that you don't pass on any germs you've got to change your gown so i want him to not fit in the hospital or the not hospital gown but the thing works like too small on his body but i was like it just be so cute to see like a big guy working with like

[00:57:59] a very little teeny kittens where he could fit five in the palm of his hand right oh my gosh i love it i can't wait i cannot wait i am so excited well in the meantime when this episode airs everybody hangry hearts is out in the world so look at this cover it's so cute i'm obsessed with this cover i know when they sent it sent me some early drafts i loved the steamed heart i had not i

[00:58:25] like i had sent reference photos for the food and then when she did that i was like that's sold this is this is lenny kaufman right yeah yeah she did my first book and with this one she was like she just was like i love all the food and i was like i just had reference photos for the food i had no idea you're gonna do the little steamed heart and i'm like it's so cute it's so cute oh my gosh yes everybody go it's out now you can walk into a bookstore and pick it up

[00:58:54] and read it and make sure get food on the way home yeah i i always joke i'm like i'm gonna go to a dim sum restaurant sit down with the book and eat while i'm reading because i know i'm gonna be hungry and i was hungry i was yeah so yeah have some food on hand karen did you grow up with the dim sum carts yes ours we still have them the one the dim sum place that we go to still has carts so they don't

[00:59:21] have them anymore here and i'm just like oh my gosh you just bring them to you at the table i'm like i want the cart and i want somebody who's like kind of pissed off that they have to stop at your table and snap the thing i read that and i was like wait does southern california not have that anymore like i was so upset for you guys where are you i'm in the bay area how i'm like i can't i've never been able that's why like so in the farmer's market they do that distraction they

[00:59:48] bring the cart because i'm like i don't see that i grew up eating dim sum from the cart and yeah every time i take my kids to something and there's it's they just bring it out we have one we have one specific restaurant dim sum restaurant that we always go to like anytime my brother's in town or we have people visiting and this is the like we go to the same dim sum restaurant every time and they still have carts i i can't speak to like all the dim sum restaurants but the one that we go to still has

[01:00:16] the carts and it's like so like nostalgic because i grew up with it and then to read like places don't have that is so heartbreaking i've been looking i've been i've been going to like san gabriel valley i'm like there's got to be something i i haven't found oh my gosh that just means you need to do a book tour where you stop in the bay area and karen's got a place i got i got i got the place for you she's got the recommendation yes i want i want the servers to

[01:00:44] be slightly like just don't talk to you stamp and go right like what do you what do you mean like you want me to stop i just want to walk around yeah yeah i don't want to serve you food even though that's what the cart is for right right i we went to a new like restaurant recently where they give you just like the menu and like you mark how many of each thing you want and then they bring it i'm like i

[01:01:08] this is not dim sum i don't like this give me back my metal carts yes you're the season um i'm assuming you've seen always be my maybe with randall park yes and um my god why i can't ali wong and it's just the part when they're eating in there and she's like not nice to her ali wong but she's nice to randall park and he's like well because i learned a little bit of cantonese or whatever and she's

[01:01:35] like i was like yep they're really nice to you right it's very different when i go with my family versus when i go with my friends yeah oh my goodness thank you so much jennifer this was so much fun we're we can't wait for whatever comes next and everybody seriously go pick up this book it's so much go get it it's so cute it's so cute thank you thank you we'll talk soon we'll talk soon

[01:02:04] bye bye i love your cup oh oh thank you i got it for valentine's day look there's even a heart with an arrow obsessed obsessed my valentine got it for me love her she's great she's so fun yeah i love i'm still hangry though i'm still hungry but like right girl sounds amazing yeah like that is we are going to become best sellers and we are going to join right girl listen as mentors if you've got

[01:02:31] teens look into it who want to write who want to be creative look into my god that sounds so cool i have to fix something that i've stared at for three episodes and every time i'm like i'll fix it when we get done recording and then i haven't done it my dragons are back i had put them up to take a picture of something and forgot to bring them back down and for like three weeks now patreon you'll go see it i can't three of them have been folded up oh it's been killing me and i'm like when we get done

[01:02:59] recording i'm gonna turn around and fix them and then i forget i now i don't have to worry about it anymore amazing anyways let's make an announcement okay well i have to i have to get it ready first it turned off my cover is not a cover mine either okay yeah making sure i didn't have the wrong thing no okay anyways next week we are talking to kate ballinger author of original sinner i'm so excited

[01:03:26] this sounds so good i can't wait yeah and i'm just i i'm it's still wild to me that we just have people emailing us like out of the blue like hey how do you feel about this book what do you mean you give it to me now why isn't it in my kindle yet i love it so i'm so excited but yeah i'm so so excited to read this one i can't wait yay me too all right we want to do our spiel

[01:03:54] my eyes watering so bad like i'm gonna have to go wash my face oh no i feel like i got sunscreen in it or spf in it yeah no go fix that okay let's do a spiel so quickly if you enjoyed this episode please like follow and subscribe wherever you are listening to us follow us on social media we are at the incoherent fangirl on all the things visit our website the incoherent fangirl.com where you can also stream all of our episodes as well as read our blog subscribe to our patreon for early

[01:04:21] access to podcast episodes full video episodes and special bonus content and if you are a merch girly girly is gender neutral hair um you can head to our merch shop the incoherent fangirl.com shop lots of cute things designed by mandy sometimes i get bored with an ipad yay and we all win um if you have any comments questions concerns suggestions design ideas you want to tell us

[01:04:50] that we're pretty we will accept all of that in our inbox the incoherent fangirl at gmail.com we love hearing from y'all and of course one last way to support the podcast is to rate and review on whatever platform you're listening to us on you know we love words give us those words all of them all 80k of them single words yeah head them over she is at mandy perv on all the things she's at miss made in china on all the things and once you followed us on social media and you

[01:05:18] follow the podcast on social media you can head on over and do some self-care because the world is yes still on fire even though today it was raining really hard where i am at um he's still the president though yeah yeah the world's still on fire it still sucks so self-care very important first up you're gonna head to here comes to nerd.com add some pins and artsy goodies to your cart and then use code fangirl to get 20 off your first order and then you're gonna head to once upon

[01:05:44] a book club.com you're going to subscribe you're gonna get some standalone boxes you're gonna get some extra spare goodies they have um we have two codes you can choose from you cannot stack them but we don't care which one you use we'll love you either way you can use either code mandy 10 or karen 10 for 10 off just make sure you spell up karen right or your dim sum restaurant is gonna get rid of the cart and never bring them back that it's so tragic truly so tragic and you're gonna get food

[01:06:13] poisoning from the dim sum place without the carts and also zero percent off and zero percent off lose lose lose all around loser all the loss uh but uh epic win would be to head over and visit our friend amber d lewis at amber d lewis.com you're gonna add 10 of everything to your cart and then use code fangirl 10 and you'll get 10 off of your 10 of everything which means you've gotten one of everything for free and that is math

[01:06:41] that is math look at me don't question us don't question us we know what we're talking about yeah um and last but not least you're gonna go support the show husband um you're gonna follow searchers believe on all the things that's this paranormal investigation group you can go to searchers believe.com shop and get some merch designed by yours truly because sometimes i get

[01:07:03] bored with an ipad um you're gonna go follow again i don't know what it is the paranormal podcast paranormal podcast the searchers podcast not the paranormal podcast they changed the name and i made this social media and then i forgot what it's called um the searchers podcast on all the things new episodes coming soon they've just been super busy but they have some very exciting news coming that i will tell

[01:07:32] you when we get done recording but i can't tell the general populace yet very cool things coming um so yeah follow along um and you can also follow stream beacon tv on all the things go to stream beacon tv.com and subscribe using fangirl 10 for 10 off um so beacon tv is our new streaming platform it's paranormal horror and true crime content and it's seriously some really really cool things are

[01:08:00] coming that they are negotiations with now so stay tuned go support the show husband yes yes yeah that same coupon code will also work at the searcher searchers shop i didn't say it yeah fangirl 10 10 off on both the things yes yes um is the new social media like it's it's a brand new social media for the

[01:08:24] podcast or you changed the name of the that's a great question karen let me look because i think i went looking and i could not figure it out myself to change our episode notes let me see so i don't know the answer of course it's searchers podcast i made a new one okay i wonder if i could delete the new one and change the old one just change the old one that would make more and more sense than doing

[01:08:51] it this way and be so much easier yeah and you'd still have all all the same stuff what a good day for me to know that all right i had elizabeth and west i had listen i had the brain cell at that point okay there yeah you had the brain cell and i was left in the dust for a moment i had the brain cell okay

[01:09:17] you can have a back now oh goodness that was the incoherent fangirl thanks for listening thank you love you bye we are sponsored by our friends at here comes the nerd pins stickers magnets and more here comes the nerd has happy art for all fandom loving hearts new customers can use coupon code fangirl during checkout for 20 off their first order at here comesthenerd.com coupon applies to ready to ship items only