Ep 60 Sarah J Maas’ “SECRET BOOK” CATWOMAN | Unpopular Books by Popular Authors

Welcome to our newest series reading “UnPopular Books by Popular Authors”! Today we’re kicking it off with Sarah J Maas and Catwoman: Soulstealer! ***A huge thank you to The Bookish Queen for Sponsoring this episode!***
**Check out the ultimate bookish shop and use discount code “BESTIEBOOKS15” to save 15% on your order @ https://bookishqueen.com/discount/BESTIEBOOKS15 Follow and get Inspo from them on Instagram @bookishqueenshop**

Have you already read this somewhat “secret” book by Sarah J. Maas and just want to hear more? Or will you now be picking up this book to read it yourself after hearing our reviews?
We can’t believe booktok and bookstagram forgot to mention this semi secret book by SJM! In this episode we give you our spoiler free reviews and explain why we think this DC Comics collab was a bit of a flop.

First we’ll set the scene, explaining what type of book Catwoman is, what type of series it’s a part of, how the book is rated on Goodreads, and how it stacks up in comparison to SJM’s other notoriously successful works. Then we’ll get into the deep dive, our 5 sentence book summary, our personal thoughts, some outside reviews, and ultimately if it’s worth reading, and if we’ll continue the series. You might be surprised at what we found. 😉

We plan on throwing Suzanne Collins (Hunger Games Genius) and Rebecca Yarros (Romance Author Turned Fourth Wing Sensation) into the mix. But please throw any other suggestions into a comment or our DMs.

And just as it should be, we’ve got a fav and fail allergy / vampire season? edition and an appropriately DC Comics themed character smash or pass and marry, f, 💀. So stick around for that!

Don't be shy, subscribe! New Podcasts every Tuesday!! (And sometimes Friday!…)
Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! | https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk!  https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

Looking for your next murder mystery Romantasy? Preview This Monster of Mine with our interview with debut author Shalini Abeysekara! | https://youtu.be/dMoOSLW1vTE?si=n6z3RXxSutNXN2oa

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 4:20 Favs and Fails of the Week
• 15:27 What is this SJM Catwoman book even about?
• 21:15 Spoiler Free Book Review and Rating
• 26:47 5 Sentence Book Summary
• 31:03 Favorite and Least Fav Tropes, Characters, and Parts
• 48:28 Catwoman Quotes
• 50:00 Bonus Questions
• 53:40 Should this book be more popular or stay a secret?
• 58:00 Why is it called Catwoman SOULSTEALER??
• 1:01:05 Catwoman Reviews
• 1:07:36 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:00

[Music] welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast guys i'm Liz and I'm Ashley and wow are we excited for today's video because we are starting this as a brand new series to our channel we're going to be reading like the most unpopular books from extremely popular authors they're kind of like secret books because we didn't know about this one you guys let us know if you knew about this one and before we begin I just want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor Bookish Queen stay tuned we're going to talk all about her super cute shop in just a minute but we're going to go right onto the video first today we're kicking off this series with Miss Sarah J mass's secret book can you guys guess what it is if you don't know she wrote a book titled Catwoman Soul Stealer wow i didn't know about this liz told me about this book like a year ago I want to say and we've been trying to get to it and we finally have so we found out for you guys is this little book right here part of the DC Icons collection worth a read nobody talks about it so we're going to talk about it talks about it i don't even know how I came across it like I literally have no clue yeah i was think I was trying to figure that out today because I was like it's not like I saw it in any bookstores because I feel like it's never there when you're like looking at you know you you see Throne of Glass you see Crescent City you see Acatar and then where is this book nowhere to be seen um and so I don't know if maybe I came across it on Amazon or something like that when I was just like looking at other stuff i have no clue but here we are so you know it's exceptionally odd too because it's like I I wouldn't call myself a super fan of like DC and Marvel but I enjoy it a lot i've seen all the movies my husband's really into it and like I had no idea that this existed until very recently so here's the thing no one talks about it no one on Bookstagram's talking about it no one on Book Talk is talking about it unless there are and we just haven't happened to see anything i I don't know either i don't know what the deal with this book is um but we're going to tell you whether or not we think you should read it um also we did want to mention that because this is just you know the first one we're doing in this um unpopular books by popular authors series you know we have some popular names that we want to throw in the mix like maybe some Rebecca Yaro some Zuz Suzanne Collins um but if you have other suggestions let us know like good or bad like say there's a I mean if there's bad it's more the mayor too like maybe it's needs to stay a secret I don't know but we want to investigate all of that so definitely let us know that's what this is about yeah like we want to investigate we don't care if it's good or bad like we we're here to give you guys the information basically um so for today same as usual you know the first 15 minutes will be spoilerfree um but the format will be a little bit different we're going to be talking about you maybe some little facts about this book that you didn't know cuz maybe you've never heard of it before or no one talks about it um and then we're going to get into you know our faves least faves some reviews and some surprise questions and things like that too so feel free to stick around if that sounds good to you but before we get into that we just want to say thank you for being here thank you guys so much for being here and taking time out of your day and your book to listen on in to see what we have to say about anything we talk about and especially this Catwoman book make sure to like follow and subscribe anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts including YouTube we're over there just chilling just hanging out just vibing you can also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok at Bessies in the Books podcast everywhere except Fable that's Bessie's the Book Club because that's our little antisocial social virtual book book club where you can like hop on in at any time and join our buddy reads hang out talk in the chats about whatever book that we're all reading or our past reads we'll check up on sometimes too so hey join us join us join us for the fun so let's just kick today's episode off with a fave and fails of the week yeah i feel like it's been a while since we've talked about that let's do it uh do you want to go first or you want me to go first lead the way Liz lead it okay uh I feel like when I was thinking about it I'm like what have I been doing this week like literally just reading and working i'm like that's in podcasting obviously so I'm like what what have I even been doing so I briefly talked about this before but I wanted to mention it on my faves for the week my husband and I went and saw Sinners um and it was great so that was my fave of the week other than just starting filming again cuz Ashley and I took like a little break because she was out of town I was out of town whatever yeah um and so I'm glad that we're back on our filming schedule but aside from that I was like what did I do and here's the thing if you guys are fans of Michael B jordan I didn't know anything because I didn't want to spoil anything for myself okay like I didn't want to spoil anything for myself all I knew is that it had Michael B jordan and it was about vampires that's all I knew what I did not know and what I feel like the bookies need to know is that Michael B jordan plays a twin so there are two Michael B jordan in this movie uh so take with that what you will um and yeah it's like it has classic vampire lore but some kind of like new twist on things the acting's great um you know I know you briefly had mentioned that you were worried about watching it cuz you were afraid it was going to be scary it's not scary like it's definitely like it would be rated R for I mean it's a vampire movie so there's violence there's blood um you know language something you know you'd call it probably like thematic elements um but yeah I it's not scary or at least it's not to me but I'm also not scared of vampires i guess if you're scared of vampires not vampires but it and like I don't like gore but I don't care about vampire gore cuz it's like so fake you know like I don't care about that kind of gore but if they're taking innards out I don't want anything to do with that you know what I mean i mean there was definitely a couple gory parts but it was very vampire gory okay I could deal with that i mean there was a lot of blood but hey that's what you signed up for what was that review that we read of somebody that reviewed a book blood fetish and it's like literally a vampire book like duh you get what you signed up for babes like okay yeah I can deal with that for sure yeah I think that you would like it for sure i think that there might be a couple like I'm like with me I'm like kind of a little cringe part you know where you're like "This is gross." But at the same time it's like it's a vampire yeah yeah uh but yeah it was great if you guys are into that which I know um I'm sure a ton of you guys are into that go watch it u my husband didn't really like it cuz I think that it was a little bit slow for him but I did so hey I don't know um and then my fail of the week I couldn't really think of anything cuz I'm like uh all my fails of the week would just be kind of I think like workrelated which I don't really want to talk about here like um and so cuz none of them are entertaining they're just kind of like I don't know just your run-of-the-mill Yeah i don't know day jobess yeah yeah um so I was trying to think I was like honestly I think it's just that like I feel behind on my reading schedule because I've had so much going on but honestly like it's keeping my brain very occupied so it's kind of a fail but not also really a fail yeah and we've had a lot of like reading homework for just the podcast and book club in general and then just what we want to do so I get that like it's all fun but it's it's a lot on a deadline we're on a timeline you know i mean and I struggle with that cuz it's like I thrive on a deadline like I almost like I need a deadline otherwise I can't get anything done and so um it's like it helps me if I'm like I have to have this done by Monday i have to have this done by Tuesday whatever and then I can kind of stay on track but I feel like things have been so busy it's been hard for harder for me to stay on track than normal but at the same time I think it's good cuz it keeps me focused you know what I mean oh I'm focused i'm focused for me yeah that was hard too because Yeah i don't think we've we pre-f filmed a lot so uh it's been like 3 weeks since we filmed and I'm like who who knows what even happened in that time frame but Liz and I don't like keep on that weekly schedule it throws us all off when it comes to little things like that so I'm going to start with my fail though cuz that one stuck out to me and that is my PSA for today you guys and hey if you're in a really grumpy mood all the time and you don't know why are you taking Zerek are you taking allergy meds cuz it might be that you might not be spiraling into a depression uh so that's to be overdramatic are you a woman are you living in I mean in society i mean yeah other than outside extremities happening like this is just my um also try to remind myself in the future so last year I don't know if you guys remember y'all were here for that when I got a really bad sinus infection from seasonal allergies so I put literally a reminder in my phone in March to start the allergy meds so it's just like Claritin was working fine i was taking Zerek last year but then my sister recommended Claritin so I switched to that but I have a Costco amount of both right and I only take them for a couple months at a time so I put in my calendar to start the meds this year and I was taking Claritin ran out and I only needed a few more weeks of allergy medicine till I go through my parents house which is like Orchard City and that's the worst my allergies get so I wanted to make sure I just took it through there i don't want to take them all year and I don't need to so I switched to Zerek because I'm cheap okay and allergy medicine is super expensive so I'm going to use up what I have obviously not remembering oh I switched not remembering at all until after the fact that I switched from Zerek because I hated it because it made me grumpy so I was grumpy and in a bad mood internally like for three weeks and like in a funk that I couldn't get out of and we paused the gym so I was blaming that and like trying to think about all these other things other than this and then I Googled it one day when I only had like two pills left i'm like"Oh that's like a high like a what's it called a common symptom of all over the counter allergy medicines to be mood you get mood swings and stuff like that." I'm like "Great cool." And guess what i stopped it and two days later I felt great and I've been fine ever since allergy season's mostly done here but I'd rather deal like now I'll just get like a itchy eyes or nose or like my skin's been really itchy since oddly enough so it's weird but I'd rather that than like feel like I'm spiraling into a bad place so yeah totally so that's my little PSA if you're like why what is other than like the world sucks right now why am I in such a terrible mood all the time oh maybe it's my allergy meds because I didn't know i didn't really think about it i think last year when I got off of it and switched to Claritin it was just I hadn't pinpointed what was going on you know so that's my ups and downs it's like it's like messing with you cuz you're like I know for me at least cuz I had to take Zerek for a few years and it was like it was constantly like lots of energy and then crashing lots of energy and then crashing and so I don't know cuz it's like the Zortereek D1 is one that I used to take and so that's one you have to get from the pharmacy so there's like some kind of drugs in there yeah yeah and I never had the energy i just felt crashed all day like a slow like all the time so yeah what whatever they put in Zerekd would make me like feel like I had 10 cups of coffee and then you would crash so I would have to take it like twice a day every day it was like a whole thing but I couldn't function like without it for a while if you got to do it you got to do it but it's not great well I'm glad you're feeling better yeah me too so you know it's a fave in that now I I'll remember not to do Zerek and I don't even I don't know i don't even remember now how did I feel on Claritin that part that month i think you know you were here so I was having a blast so you know hey I was distracted enough h who knows but it is what it is and then my fave is just um see I'm I just I've only been a week off of it so it's hard to see all the rainbows and sunshine right um but we had like Easter and stuff like that was fun you know just good good times yeah totally yeah um I can't I can't think of anything specific we're just in that you know countdown to summer right now just living through dayto day we're reading a lot of good books right now so that's fun this book right here you know it's a good time it's a good time so we'll give you our spoiler-free review here in a second yeah so yeah so that you guys know whether or not you should pick it up if you've been like "What is that what's that weird book hanging out in the corner no one talks about do people not talk about it for a reason?" Yeah so before we go any further into today's episode we want to take a moment to thank the Bookish Queen for sponsoring us today i know so exciting so we're both right now wearing our bookish tees from the Bookish Queen miss Fernanda sent them over to us i have in my bookish era right here on the left side and then on the sleeve is a cute little embroidered book i just love it so much it's so cute yeah mine says I closed my book to be here so it's very on brand for me on the front and then on the side it says Antisocial Book Club over on the sleeve so there's something for every personality at her shop which we love and they aren't just screen printed as Ashley just mentioned they actually are embroidered which is awesome yeah I love that little attention to detail that I've seen on all of the stuff that I've been looking at in her shop and we've been testing these shirts out for the last couple weeks and I love the quality and I can't wait myself to like go in there and order a bunch of goodies cuz she has such a cutesy romantic aesthetic in her selection i've also seen stickers bookmarks those cute little e-reader charms oh my gosh I just love them so much so many cute things something that's really unique about her shop as well is that they actually donate 1% of every month's revenue to the World Literacy Foundation so we love that it's so amazing go support them give them a follow at Bookish Queen on Instagram and then for our listeners save 15% off of your purchase at bookishween.com with code bestiebooks 15 so that's 15% off your entire purchase with code bestiebooks 15 and we'll have all of that information and the links and the code down in the description box for you to check out and snag some goodies yourself yay thank you so much Bookish Queen for sponsoring this video now let's go back to the show and Catwoman Soul Stealer by Sarah J mass what is that all about so what is this book what is this place who are we where am I as I like to say where did we come from where do we go cotton Joe okay yeah so we thought that it would be useful just to give you guys some context about this book just so that you kind of know like why we chose it and how it exists in the world i I know for me I was curious about these things so that's why we're throwing them in there okay well we want you guys to have a leg up from and not have to do all the research we had to do when we already purchased it we're like "Wait what this is a part of a whole series of different authors that wrote superhero books so cool." Yeah it is yeah so first of all it came out in 2018 so it's not like it's brand new and you guys haven't heard about it because it came out 3 days ago i mean there would ain't no way ain't no way she could sneak that in there without anybody noticing at this point well I guess but then at the same time it's like uh I mean 2018 like she already had Throne of Glass out like she already had right like some Acatar out it's not like this came out like before she was known yeah but like book talk was not like Tik Tok didn't even exist but like you know the book community was small and working doing the best they could you know it wasn't strong yet you know I don't want to offend anybody out there who maybe was chugging along but we can all agree that the book explosion happened in what 2022 i mean part of it being 2020 when everybody's at home that's when it started really creeping so 2018 kind of flew under the radar a little bit yeah i don't think she'd be able to now is what I mean no everyone I think that if this book was released right now today I mean the sales would be insane like it would be a completely different thing i mean a different thing i even the cookbook everybody thought was a new Sarah J mask book you know the I think it's called A Feast of Thorns and Roses so that one people were like"Oh my gosh the book is being announced." And then it wasn't what they thought it was going to be but it's fun it just wasn't what the people knew they were trying to because people try to like sus out her upcoming launches and then I think it was even the Acatar limited edition set that people thought was going to be the sixth Acatar book and then it was the limited so sorry so so yeah it came out in 2018 uh it's YA fiction it's published by Random House and it's 400 pages so it's very standard YA major publishers 300 pages but I will say 350 because the last 50 pages are little like a couple chapters of each book okay like even for the next Yeah like previews for the next books or the other ones in the series so just to kind of put it into perspective you know I mean this is the unpopular books by popular authors series okay this has 26,048 ratings on good readads okay and gets a 4.06 average so that's a pretty decent review mhm but I mean I went and I just quickly skimmed through all the Sarah J mass books and most of them have millions of reviews if not if not millions then at least hundreds of thousands yeah like at least 800,000 you know what I mean and this one has 26,000 like it's just so odd so yeah so that's kind of like where we're coming from where we're looking and we're like that's a huge discre discrepancy it's not like it was just a lesser popular book you know like maybe the Assassin's Blade or Tower of Dawn or whatever it's like literally people are just like I'm not even going to bother without or it doesn't even like come up yeah maybe i don't know yeah i wish I could remember how I heard of it i don't remember so uh if you heard of it randomly please tell us how you heard of it like was it from another person on book talk or Bookstagram or did you just happen to come across it it's like a book we have to like sneak to each other like hey have you read this one yeah secret it's like oh actually it's like a little possible we'll talk about it future treat to you know get that Sarah J mass writing in that you love so much you know cuz you're like hey who knows when she's going to come out with the next one so oh look it what a surprise she has a secret book yeah yeah it is nice for sure yeah um so it is part of an eight-part DC icon series so if you end up liking this um it's up your alley there are seven others so there's Wonder Woman by Lee Bugo Batman by Marie Lou Superman by Matt de Laena Black Canary by Alexandra Monourir and three Harley Quinn books which I was the most excited about i thought you would be too yeah cuz I know that you like Harley Quinn the best um by Rachel Allen so I think that I would probably delve into the Harley Quinn books next if I had um a little extra time i think I might go down that and the covers are really cool i think that they might be redoing the covers but this one's okay but I feel like when um I was looking at the newer ones that came out with Harley Quinn they had more like comic book looking covers yeah but I did a little printed edge i wouldn't even say it's a sprayed edge but it says DC Icons cuz I ordered mine online and so it was like a nice little surprise when I got it in the mail i was like I was just I was expecting obviously because nobody talks about this this dinky little a plane book you know and I was like "Oh this is actually really cool." Yeah hey totally so you know I think most of us are pretty familiar with um you know most of these if not all of these characters um so it's just kind of like I think different takes on these stories which is neat yeah definitely really cool so now that we have some a little background of this sneaky little story lady let's give our spoilerfree star review and if you'd recommend it and to whom so lead the way Liz okay uh I rated it at five stars hey hey look at you um I rated it five stars because it was a nice entertaining well-written oneoff and I feel like from Sarah J mass it's like you know we love her because of the emotional roller coasters she drags us through we do we do but at the end of the day sometimes it's nice to just be like I'm just going to read this really entertaining book that I don't have to really like think too much into that I can just sit down and enjoy and then it's over you know I don't know i liked that about that or is it watch this this is like the secret book that like wraps up everything god that would be so funny and sinister it's so weird it like has all these clues that we didn't know about oh my gosh it'd be amazing i wish it doesn't have that guy sorry or does it no I'm just kidding or does it i mean honestly we don't know we don't know no as far as we know this is not you know related to the quote unquote massiverse as we know it um it's just its own good fun standalone story um and that's why I rated it five stars it was a zero spice so just go into it knowing it's true ya zero spice so what about Oh and I would recommend it okay so I feel kind of a little bit torn about this because after reading the reviews on Goodreads about it I'm like I might be leading people astray however move forward knowing that I might not know what I'm talking about and that's okay you know um so I was gonna say I would recommend it to anyone who's like well first of all if you like Sarah J mass's writing read it that's an easy one um I would say you know at first I was like well maybe if you are into like DC and comic books maybe you should read it but now I'm kind of like I don't know because I feel like if you're a purist about that then it might bother you because I don't know a whole lot about Catwoman lore but I from what I got and we'll talk about more about this um in the review section at the end I kind of got the feeling that diehard DC and Catwoman fans were not very happy with this book um so maybe if you're like me and you're a fair weather DC fan and you just like watching the movies for fun and don't take it too seriously then you'd probably like this yeah it's like some a different artist's take on a famous character yeah yeah totally i don't think that she wrote this with the intention of like being true to all of the lore you know what I mean i don't I was reading I don't know if it was on the back of the cover or something I looked up and they did have direct communication with uh DC to help create their stories so but they were still given some creative freedom so the Catwoman's name is Selena right so it's that which was throwing me off okay cuz we got Selena in Throne of Glass i was like "What if it but if it's her?" No so she's secretly Catwoman no uh so so Oh my god that's the answer the whole time is Catwoman at the end of Thrown it was just It was just a dream and she's Catwoman oh golly yeah so she is you know they do have those they have some stuff they try to keep true but then she's given creative freedom for sure so take that information and don't go too hard on the book I think is the best way to say it so for me my rating would be obviously rating it i've never read anything that would be I don't know what you would call this genre like a superhero genre necessarily you know it is still fantasy because it's that superhero but I'm not like I'm not super into superhero stuff but DC Universe is my favorite if I had to choose one cuz I love Batman and all the characters there so just rating the book and the story for what it is in that department would be a five star for me as well specifically because Miss Mass has such a way to get me to care about this superhero story i don't think I would ever have picked up any of these other books you know not or even this book unless she wrote it to get me interested and now I want to read those Harley Quinn ones and maybe some of the other ones you know because it's like she's such a good writer that she can make me care and you could you just you just know it's her when you're right i don't know when you're reading it i don't know something about it so if you love her writing style I think you could get into this book so I would recommend it for anybody who wants like a little tie me over until the next Sarah J mask book someone who you know at least is surface level into superhero books yeah I would recommend it to anybody who is like a surface level superhero fan i feel like I'm saying a lot of words with S's so it's tripping me out um so yeah anybody who's going to be oh no it was supposed to be this way not this person yeah you might critique it too much and it might pull you out I guess yeah probably i don't okay at this day and age how many times have they rewritten and changed sup Spider-Man Superman Thor like give the lady some slack you know let her have her take now cuz it was good it was good yeah okay so should we get into our spoiler section kaka get on oh wait no what a bad What do you Meow you guys i had caffeine today it was a bad choice forgive me for I have sinned okay i feel like my heart's ripping out of my throat right now so anyways the spoilers are coming for Catwoman okay all right all right i got to compose myself i got the gong for those listening so be careful with your headphones five sentence liz shall be doing the five sentence summary for Catwoman yes I'm ready i'm ready okay let's go okay all right 17-year-old Selena Kyle lives in Gotham City with her younger sister Maggie who suffers from cystic fibrosis so Selena uses her skills as a former gymnast to make money fighting for the underground crime lord Falconee as one of his quote unquote leopards and as a stealthy pickpocket to get by and pay her sister's medical bills since their parents are are no longer in the picture one yeah that's set in the scene yeah it was set in the scene well I was talking about the gong i was talking about you so look at us look at that compliments all around great job listening guys good job thank you oh I got to give one to him too yeah gong's roll gong's bro okay social workers come snooping around and will separate the sisters but Selena makes a deal with Nissa and Talia instead two Russian assassins who recruited her who run the league of ghouls an underground group highly skilled and trained to take down the powers that be and enact their own forms of justice selena goes with them in exchange for her sister's safety and adoption by a good family two After 2 years of being away enduring brutal training Selena learns that Nissa and Talia are working with a scientist to develop the technology for a Lazarus pit the key to eternal life and/or curing of all diseases she steals the technology kills the scientist wrecks the lab and escapes the league in order to go back to the States and save her sister three and if you're looking for that fantasy element Oh it's in there so there you go you hear that lazarus pit mhm little little magic it's science the line between science and magic though it's It's a fine line okay yeah selena begins her double life as a wealthy socialite by day and Catwoman her new persona at night evading the police and Batwing who she's having a fun flirty thing with as she steals from the rich to give to the poor and to fund her Lazarus project making an unlikely alliance and friendship with Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn who she originally planned to just use as pawns in her scheme but she eventually gets caught and her identity is revealed before she is thrown into prison with the Joker and all of his cronies four things getting crazy things getting crazy nissa and Talia send their highest trained assassins to kill Selena and bring back the tech for the Lazarus Pit so Selena tricks the Joker into helping her bust out of prison where she saves her sister and fights the League off with the help of Poison Ivy and Batwing amidst the complete chaos of everyone fighting each other but not before almost dying herself five the end the end clip who saw that coming if you stuck around and you haven't read it yet what a ride it was honestly it was Yeah it was great i loved it very fast-paced yeah a lot it happened but not too much i don't know good it was a good balance I think you know what this book this book was a good palette cleanser you know if you want some good writing it's ya so you know I had a little emo moment i did so she has a way of pulling that out of me and it was nice nice time yeah we'll talk about that for sure um the emo moments i'm sure that Yeah they'll come up as we're going through this list so okay so what was one trope that you loved in this book yes let me compile my notes here i loved I'm going to say two sorry badass FMC obviously it's Catwoman i'm so glad she wrote this one you know because not all of those superheroes I care about so Catwoman was an easy sold for me and found family oh cute sarah Jas is so good at that she is agreed making it natural and not forced where you're like "Hey wait that was found family." A I mean that's the thought I had today when I was writing down my notes i was like "Oh hey." A cute it's like a little small little you know thing building what's it called inner circle building up if she was going to continue the series you know but I don't think so imagine she comes out with Catwoman 2 next year instead you're like Cat where's Catwoman one well we didn't even know that been there the whole time what about you listening to our podcast um I put same thing female assassin badass MC FMC yeah that's what I put just really enjoyed it i mean we knew that that was coming but I feel like just the way that she wrote her Yeah i really appreciated her character yeah totally yeah yeah she was just a well-written character I think yeah and I should say I know almost nothing i'm a surface level watcher so I I know nothing about Catwoman like actual lore only whatever movies are out and that's fuzzy so yeah mhm yeah hey yeah same i feel like usually I'll just ask my husband questions and then he'll explain them to me so to me this was like "Oh this is cool i didn't know that." But probably none of it's factual anyway so factual as if this whole universe isn't completely made up yeah exactly and so many people haven't written their takes on it at this point yeah mhm so what about a trope that you didn't like i had a hard time figuring out why yeah me too okay great i mean if I had to nitpick here like the Lazarus Pit's a little crazy but whatever who cares it's all fake so yeah i mean because it is like we said before it's very like magic adjacent yeah if we if I Yeah when I sat back and thought about her superhero stuff I'm like well a lot of times they'll kind of go off onto this weird place you know well most I mean I feel like most superheroes like in order to just become the way they are in general have gone through some sort of insane like you know quote unquote scientific or magic transformation of some kind yeah true true that i mean Poison Ivy literally you know so I mean Superman is an alien what's his name again powell i still don't believe you that was such a funny discussion call that's not right it's not real his name is Superman i take that his name is Superman he's an alien he could have any name yeah i had to Google if that was Catwoman's real name selena because I was like this is like really stressing not stressing me out but freaking me out cuz it's Selena you know yeah yeah like she went a little too close here oh that is her name so she had to use it got it yeah mhm um yeah i mean I didn't really I didn't dislike any tropes in this book either really i felt like all of them fit however if I did have to nitpick what I put is back from the dead trope because that always bothers me it has all the Sarah J mask things in it guys it's just someone else's story you got found family you got fake what is it called fake death fake out death yeah fake out death they let you literally like if you need that tie over it has it all yeah i mean the only difference though is that I feel like in this book Fake Out Death worked because of the fact that there was a main plot point was the Lazarus pit like right yeah so it it made sense like it wasn't just like oh they died and now they're back it like it actually like made sense with the plot but it still kind of bothered me cuz I'm like really she had to like almost die like basically die and then come back like okay it has all the Sarah J massings you maybe want and don't want there you go exactly so what about like a niche micro trope that stood out to you good or bad i'm ready for this one all right okay so micro tropes would be superhero costumes okay for girls great for girls awesome love it boys I get the major ick if they have like a giant letter across their chest a letter okay because Batwing which also I didn't even know he existed in the DC universe so I thought we were reading a story about Robin and I was like great gross sorry Robin fans out there but so okay Batwing which is like also not great cuz you're just Batman's little tiny bat friend but you're also huge but they she describes tiny bat friend his giant like bee or whatever lighting up and like blinding the enemies or the bad guys or whatever and I'm just like no done i can't get out of here with that stupid costume yeah see I guess like superhero costumes don't give me the ick because like when I picture superheroes I think that I take all of that information they give me about what they look like and I just push it from my brain yeah and I just picture like like Christian Bale yeah for me it's not necessarily the getup it's like specifically like the big giant letters like branding themselves like gives me the Catwoman doesn't like she just has her cool like you know suit that's like an assassin suit even Poison Ivy is just freaking badass and covered in vines but like Harley Quinn she doesn't write Harley Quinn on her little baby doll tea but Batman even he has a bat that's borderline but then bat wing had like a giant bee on it you know and I think of Incredibles so it kind of like makes it kind of dorky hold on hold on i has always been a ick for me so he has a giant S it's like do you really need to name yourself like brand yourself like that i don't know i'm having to nitpick here so I'm going to like this is a micro trope so in this picture that I found from DC Comics because I didn't even think to look up Batwing let me grab it for you it looks like he just has a light up bat not not a I would be okay with that but I specifically remember in here a letter so but even the light up bat I don't know just imagine him like standing there he's like "Oh cool." And then he's like blast it's like "Okay I can't stop." I thought his little boomerang was stupid all right i thought Oh by the way you also get a bat boy hello oh that's all the blessings so hang on let's this real quick found family boom bat boy boom back from the dead fake out death boom sergey mass is writing boom so all the Sergey Mass things yeah that's funny i didn't even realize that literally the bat connection duh that didn't dawn on me until you said it just now that's funny this is like she wrote this probably in like two days she like "Oh I got this it's literally put all my things into this book done." Oh it's about It's about bats that is my wheelhouse great so it's not even That's what's funny though it's not She did Catwoman but she had to sneak the bats in there they said "No you can't do Batman we already have somebody signed up for like oh I'll do it i'll figure it out i got to get one in there i got to get a winged man in there somehow and he does fly so there you go he does fly but that is a little dorky too it is a little bit huh cuz he's doing it at like a weird choice of time but hey whatever and he also fails each time so I can't like my thing okay here's my thing with Batman now we're just going to talk about this i've I've literally always found Batman to be like the most dorky superhero because of the fact that it's like he doesn't actually have any powers other than just being rich right like that's his power like he's smart obviously like he's rich and smart that's basically like his super strong yeah yeah but I mean like you know okay he works out great but it's like but he doesn't have superhuman strength like it's all of his gadgets and everything that he invents that like give him more strength you know like his suit and everything so like I've always had a really hard time with Batman because of those reasons but then I read Under Your Scars by Ariel and Anderson that I've shouted out on the podcast a couple times and it is not actually a Batman book but it's a dark romance where the main character is very Batmanlike um and so it completely changed my entire perception of Batman and now I love him there you go um so I feel like now I just have to like look past all of those things that make him dorky and pretend like they don't exist like the weird flying wings thing i know that he's not Batman but it's very the same you know what I mean yeah yeah yeah like they have a lot of the same powers otherwise it'll give me the X and we don't want that we just try not to think too hard about it try not to think too hard about my favorite micro trope was the Lazarus pit and the lay lines like I thought that was really interesting because weren't lay lines very important in Crescent City yes so that put me in there too that's why it is like it's not going to be like a critically acclaimed like way different than any book she's ever written it's literally like all of our favorite and maybe least favorite things put into a book and it's fun it's just a fun time yeah the lay wines were cool yeah that was cool i thought it was interesting and you know that whole concept of using the Earth's energy to like I don't know bring people back from the dead it's very Frankenstein it was cool it's good so what about your favorite part i loved when she met Poison Ivy and kind of enlisted her into help and then asked for Harley Quinn to be involved too so I loved their moments together like just having all they're like my favorite i love Poison Ivy i love Harley Quinn and I love Catwoman so I get them all in one and they're having fun and they're like vibing and they're like girl power it's great yeah their little girl gang yeah i loved that too that was great mhm um I literally just put her stealing stuff i just I love like that's what makes Catwoman cool right is that it's like she's got all these crazy like gymnastics skills and so I feel like that's one thing that Sarah J mass does so well is she like writes in such a way to where you can literally picture everything so vividly and so you know you're picturing her like doing all these crazy it's like Mission Impossible you know in there she's like doing all these crazy like moves to like steal all this stuff you know ultimately she's you know essentially a Yeah like they even mentioned in the book like a Robin Hood type or vigilante so it's like you can really root for her yeah um so that was my favorite part just like watching her like basically just be this awesome i don't know like I want to call her an assassin but she's not you know like whatever person who does heists what's that called cat b cat burglar a cat burglar that doesn't sound very cool but you guys know what we mean yeah slickster i don't know so that was definitely my favorite around yeah least favorite part again I don't know yeah you couldn't really pick any do you have any yeah least favorite part i definitely I definitely have one cuz I like gasped out loud oh okay go ahead um when she's over in I'm assuming Russia training or whatever and freaking one of the mean Russian ladies pushes her friend off the cliff oh yeah I forgot about that that's mine too horrible she I literally was like I didn't see it coming i was like whoa i thought that she made it and you guys were going to be friends for the rest of the book and then nope she fell to her death that was really sad and then I It's not Ali's favorite part but the most brutal part we'll just change it up was Yeah i was literally tearing up when her sister was dying you know and she's having and freaking Harley Quinn stabs her anyways throws the knife and then she's I'm like"Oh this is so much harder now." You know it I read those last like 50 pages you know how she gets us Sarah J mass where you're just like "Oh my gosh." Just breezing through it cuz it's crazy so much is happening but it's also concise and clear what's happening yeah totally controlled chaos yeah it's not just like chaotic like where you have to go back and reread pages cuz you're like"What just happened?" Yeah so I can like feel the moment even though I don't really like have a specific bond to the sister the sister's dying and I'm tearing up because all this hard work that she's doing to save her sister she might not live you know yeah and then she dies oh like her them coming in and she's like dead on the freaking thing i'm like "Oh my gosh what if they don't bring her back?" It's crazy i guess like at that point I had a hard time being sad about her dying because I was like "This is SJM this is going to be a fake out death she's going to come back she's going to come back." I mean it didn't make sense anyways that they're like "It's only enough for one person." And the sister at that point is like probably 70 lb little tiny frail thing like there's got to be enough liquid left over and sure enough there was just enough of course just enough to heal her wounds and resuscitate her i did like though that Batwing was like"Okay I'm going to go get this electrical shock to save her." But Sarah J ass still wrote the sister saving her yeah yeah cuz she was resuscitating her and it wasn't working and sometimes it takes a while so he's like "Okay I am going to do this and then you know at the last minute she was able to fully resuscitate her on her own." Thought that was a powerful moment yeah I agree it was a very frozen frozen moment mhm it was nice um so what about your favorite character was Selena your favorite character yeah totally same totally she was great loved her she made me She made in this universe because I would always say Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn would be my favorite so in this universe it was Catwoman hands down i know we don't have their full backstory but team Catwoman right now see I've always been a Wonder Woman lady uh I mean I fully enjoyed this don't get me wrong but like I'm a lowkey afraid to read Wonder Woman because Lee Bugo wrote it we talked about that before and we had such a an experience with Shadow and Bone that I'm like "Okay I can do this." Um but I mean if it's good it's good because yeah I've always loved Wonder Woman who was your least favorite character then i mean Joker sucks and I usually love him so yeah i mean he was such a small part though too such a small part such a small part so um Oh god i'm an idiot uh the head of the assassins guild yeah you know those girls sending they're like literally sending people to like go kill her i understand that they were trying to kill her because of the formula but I also don't because like you're bad people so yeah I kind of I needed more information about that cuz like I also put Nissa and Talia i feel like they were tied for my least favorite characters cuz they were kind of like one person even though they were sister were they sisters or were they just co-workers i don't know i don't know um but either way it was like you know one of them was in charge of like the psychological training and one of them was in charge of the physical training whatever so you know but at the same time like I did find them to be pretty interesting like I would almost want to know like it reminded me a lot about of like watching um you know like the Black Widow movies mhm it was it was very similar to like that kind of vibe just in the that kind of training and so I would want to know more about their their backstory even though I were not supposed to like them and I didn't like them i bet they have an interesting story yeah i just didn't like when they started freaking killing all the scientists and then pushing the friend over the letting the girl die you know like they're just they're a little brutal so yeah totally but I always wonder though like what made you that way like how did you end up being a part of this organization and like really at the end of the day like what is the point of that organization too oh it was their dad right oh was it i think at one point they mentioned their they took over their family business oh okay so their dad was trying to do the Lazarus pits interesting yeah yeah crazy they were like "What if what if that existed in real life that'd be so crazy that would be crazy imagine a quote that I really liked because we haven't talked a whole lot about Luke at this point in time like you know we've talked you know it's like he's got his batwing persona but then he also has his like you know wealthy kind of like socialite um you know like alter ego like his real personality as well retired military vet yeah um and so he was a cool character i thought like I feel like she really like created an interesting character for him too that there's this point where they're like getting to know each other and you can tell that they're like on some level like like you know they're starting to like each other like as more than just you know I guess you could say like acquaintances or enemies or whatever and he says don't leave me alone in the darkness this place where we both exist yet serve different callings and I was like what a interesting like way to say that you know what I mean cuz it's like eventually they kind of come to that conclusion that they can both help fight evil together just on opposing sides of the coin almost um yes yeah and I really liked that i thought that that was a really cool quote but that's the only one that really Yeah there was a lot of good profound moments in there for sure so if you haven't read it yet I mean I definitely think it's worth the read especially the more we talk about it you know for sure that there's some profound Sarah J mass for sure for sure but yeah that I think you know you couldn't really call because this is so uh you know ya I you couldn't really call it enemies to lovers because they don't become lovers but it's like enemies to like they'll probably end up having a thing and that was cute and satisfying yeah cuz as both their persona and as their normal person they like slash kind of who they put on as well so really three parts of them are attracted to each other yeah totally who they are at their core who they put on you know to the world is that kind of mask and then they're literal masks they're literal alios so in all three scenarios they're drawn to each other so yeah it leaves off kind of ambiguous but you can fill in the blanks yeah like they kiss and they you know obviously he helps you know her in that final battle he doesn't turn her in to the Gotham PD like you know I think this is it's and I think that's how it is when you're watching the movies as well like I haven't read the comic books but like that's how it is in the movies like they never really fully have a thing but it's like they have an understanding and obviously they like each other you know so I like that that was conveyed really well so while there's you know cuz we talk about like how the spice was like while there was no spice it was like still like a fun relationship that they were building throughout the book that I liked yeah definitely yeah so we've already kind of talked about this but um will you read I put here sequels but in this case it would be more applicable to say other books in this series yeah um I think if I wanted to have like get like a little palette cleanser or something I would be interested in these Harley Quinn books but I also don't want to sign up for three of them you know feels like too much to take on yeah yeah for sure cuz I was thinking of I don't remember which one cuz it has some pictures on the back i was like "Oh I don't know." Yeah wonder Woman for science we might need to consider doing you know what about you which one would you be interested in um like I said I'd be most interested I think in uh Wonder Woman and Harley Quinn for sure i don't know but maybe I don't know batman might be cool i'm kind of like if I were to choose one to read right now right off the bat it would probably be the Harley Quinn one because of the fact that it kind of leaves the Harley Quinn side story on a little bit of a cliffhanger at the end of this yes you know it does so and we get glimpses of her story a little bit which we do i would love a Poison Ivy one honestly but I don't see one in there right now so yeah no yeah that would be good too for sure do you think that this book should be adapted into a movie uh yes i would eat the sub it's like perfect right i watch it i watch it i mean I watch all of them anyways so yeah yeah and I don't and I would so what does that tell you i think hey why not throw your hat in the ring you know like you talked about those superhero purists whatever like come on we're making like 10,000 Thors at this point they're trying to get it right maybe we get Catwoman right this time they'll never do it because a woman wrote it but they should yeah okay yeah i mean yeah I'd watch it for sure um I mean but like I said I'm kind of like a shoe in because I'm I'm going to go see regard I'm going to go see all those movies regardless yeah that'd be so cool if they I don't mean I haven't read the other ones but if they're anything like this if they could make a separate like you know maybe everybody should go buy this and maybe one day they'll figure it out that we like it and they'll make a movie from it yeah okay okay well Liz what say you should this book be more popular or should it kind of stay a secret i mean I think that it deserves to be popular for sure like I don't know that it would get to the level like to the Acatar level but like you know I do feel like perhaps it deserves more than like how many whatever 20,000 reviews on Goodreads like that's just so odd it's so weird for we as readers you know who read everything like if we love an author we read it all well how many of you all have read this one you know or like if you have why didn't anyone tell us or talk about it why didn't you tell us now we're mad at you no I'm just kidding well we thought maybe maybe it's like really bad you know what I mean like that's what we were expecting so that now we're we're like "Huh?" Because it's not bad so other than like some people don't like when you take the same tropes over and over and you put them in a book so I could see how you know obviously we've talked about it's like this a lot of similar things that she already uses across her books but they make sense in it and it's like we're um comfort trope readers so the more the marrier for us frankly yeah I agree so it's just a little treat to tie us over until she comes out with another book yeah so and it's easy on the brain which I feel like once you get real deep in the SJM Massiverse it's like it's not super easy on the brain because all your wheels are constantly turning to try to put two and two together you know what I mean it was kind of nice that this was just is what it is it's open and close y case shut yeah so I can understand because it's so such a separate entity that it doesn't get roped into her fantasy category yeah yeah but yeah it deserves more credit i guess deserves to be on people's list because it's real well written yeah I agree yeah so should she quit her day job and switch genre careers paths writing what do you think should she just exclusively write superhero books from now on i mean no she should definitely keep writing fantasy for sure but like I feel like that's the thing like why can't we like if we have an author we really like why can't we support all of their endeavors like instead of picking and choosing you know what I mean like it'd be one thing if this book was trash but I don't feel like it is so far this is only a very small case study yeah we're this we're on number one that's it we've done no more find out if authors should stay in their lane right yeah oh man i'm excited to like continue the series because I feel like we might find some really good treasures moving forward for sure yeah yeah for sure do you feel like she was as good writing in this genre so it's almost like as a piece of creative writing um work right okay kind of putting her brain to use in a different category do you think it's as good as her high fantasy that she writes it's just different i feel like it's like to me I couldn't really say like "Oh this is better than Throne of Glass or whatever because it's like apples and oranges to me it's just not the same." And it's also preference too yeah um I mean I would definitely say that like as far as writing quality goes I would compare it more to like mid Throne of Glass series yeah yeah yeah like I wouldn't say that it's quite as complex as like later acar books or certainly not Crescent City um but yeah you could compare it more to like not the early YA of Throne of Glass but like I said more of like the mid Yeah I would agree to that yeah mid level which is like literally I think had she finished Throne of Glass series by this time i think so huh i honestly don't know when it wrapped up i'd have to look it up that's all right but yeah it was a good It's her good you could tell it's her writing it's good she like you mentioned she puts you in the scene really easily and effortlessly it's not clunky like my wording right now it's just straight to the point but you're in it as well easy to get into so that was nice okay i want to know if you have any ideas why the hell this is called Catwoman Soul Stealer cuz I got nothing okay all right yeah i was actually thinking that when I was writing down all the titles for all the other books too i was like what cuz let's see here i'm like I feel like I included these right okay so Wonder Woman is Warbringer and obviously like she's been in lots of wars over the centuries cuz she's very old batman is Night Walker so it's like okay that makes sense to me cuz he you know uh whatever superman Dawn Breaker i could see him like shooting up into the sky with the dawn I guess i don't know i don't know who Black Canary is so I can't speak to that one and then Harley Quinn is Reckoning Redemption and I put Reckoning here twice so that's wrong there was something else reckoning again i don't know book three but basically Reckoning Redemption that makes sense to me too so like all of them kind of make sense but then the Soul Stealer thing doesn't make sense to me so is there something we're missing about Catwoman maybe we need to like rewatch a Batman movie and see what that's all about i don't know i finished it i'm like wait am I dumb okay what did I miss cuz obviously it led me to believe that there was going to be some weird soul sucking magic powers Catwoman was going to have totally that doesn't happen so I guess it wouldn't be a soul stealer or like maybe you use a Lazarus pit and you like accidentally steal somebody else's soul to be revived that's what happened so I Googled it okay great as you do okay yeah this is what Google We can't leave the people hanging they want to know too okay so Selena Kyle is not inherently a soul stealer in the literal sense the book uses soul stealer as a title to reflect the fact that Selena disguised as socialite Holly Vanderhe leads a group of criminals including Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn on a series of elaborate robberies in Gotham City she's essentially orchestrating a large-scale criminal operation which some might perceive as stealing the city's resources and destabilizing it the title also hints at the complex motivations behind her actions which include seeking revenge on corrupt in uh corrupt officials and disrupting the established order that still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me but okay i mean okay whatever it says it's not even reaching it's like slightly leaning to maybe a point but they didn't even get there she is not literally stealing souls but rather taking away the city's stability and its sense of order still that's the only thing they could come up with either so great well that's weird but it's a little dramatic but it was eye-catching it was eye-catching hey great okay so let's just get into the reviews section real quick so we'll start with the lows and then have you go to the highs great we'll end on a high note okay yeah i just pulled a few one stars from Goodreads dracula says "One star thank you Sarah J mass for this massive disappointment this should be titled How to Destroy One of the Most Interesting

Characters from DC: 1:01:28

A Short Guide this was not cool." So that cracked me up let's see sydney says one star technically she says 1.5 stars i hate to say this but I am thoroughly disappointed in this book it is now known that anything outside the realm of fantasy is not for Sarah her writing style does not work for these types of books i don't know oh that was that was it i thought you No she goes No she goes like on and on and on but I feel like that was like the main gist of it and I'm like I don't know i thought that she wrote it just fine i don't know what you're freaking out about but okay hard disagree whatever so and then I included one extra because I feel like this one kind of like encapsulated a lot of the reasons why people did not like this book so Cameron one star on good readads says SJM is such a hit or miss for me and this book was a big whopping dose of miss worst by far the book is basically comic book heresy so yeah it's like if you go into it as a purist you probably will hate it it sounds like also she uh mentions her review is very long but she mentions too that um there's too many parallels between Selena and Selena um so I could see why somebody would be bothered by that because there are a lot there are i wonder I should because my husband's been reading Throne of Glass for a long time he's on Kingdom of Ash he's like eking his way through he'll be done with the series soon um but he really his biggest thing that he doesn't like about Throne of Glass is um Selena and so he cannot stand her and so I'm wondering if he read this because he's a fairly big fan of DC and Marvel and all that stuff i wonder if he wouldn't like it because she's similar or if it would make sense in the context of this book and he would like it i don't know maybe someday i was going to say maybe have him try something else from this series first and then go to this one i don't know maybe cuz like Yes they have similarities but also not because she's not nearly as sassy as Selena or um she's like a quiet This Selena is like a quiet uh confidence yeah totally where Selena is a little bit more arrogant so I think that is the difference in personality but I could definitely see the similarities they're both badass FMC kind of assassin like had that uh assassin training that Selena also has yeah so yep all right let's do some five stars here may says "I'm not even gonna pretend to be an objective reviewer who dissects and rates books according to the elements of the book." Hell no i'm gonna review this purely on how it made me feel which was effing fantastic catwoman is an evil queen i absolutely adore her character luga is an adorable baby ivy and Harley I'm screaming what a trio of icons my thoughts exactly olivia Bookish Places and Spaces says SJM at her absolute best writing in a story about a badass FMC superhero doesn't get much better than that any of you guys interested i found uh an interview of an excerpt she did about this book i'll have to look into that later and then Elena says "Bad girls have more fun bad girls do it well." Either way loved this book i'm not a cat person i never will be and I'm okay with that little fact because I personally love dogs a whole lot better dogs rule cats drool okay Catwoman was actually pretty good i was a bit hesitant before diving into it because sometimes books that I've been anticipating for kind of suck i don't even want to think about the last books that disappointed me but just Selena is a badass and I loved her in this book absolutely loved when Harley and Ivy came into the scene and that was like right when this book came out so this was somebody that was anticipating the book and loved it cute love that yeah yeah so it's good good so yeah overall kind of the same stuff we were saying like it's great it's good keep them coming she writes something I'll read it yep good yep and then the people that don't like it were doesn't sound like they were SJM fans they are the superhero fans so those are two sides of a coin if you will yeah yeah yeah so you love it if you love Sarah J mass you might not love it if you just love superheroes and you want to keep to a particular comic book lore so you might be disappointed or maybe not don't take it too seriously you might like it fine how about Yeah how about Think of it as a separate entity think of it as Yeah like creative writing like a creative writing what's the word creative writing i don't know um not technique not example exercise a creative writing exercise okay like here like here Sarah J mass use your great writing techniques and write us a story fill in the blanks for Catwoman's life yeah mhm change a couple things around yeah cuz that would be boring what if she just made it exactly as her life was would anybody read it then it's already out there right well there's already probably so many iterations you know of her story anyway it's like just throw another one in the pile yeah a lot of people said that it read like bad fanfiction and I was like I don't Oh I don't I disagree with that i thought it read really well anything that I can like binge read in basically a day I feel like is a five star for me like you know unless I am I mean technically I'm being forced to read it for the podcast but not really because I enjoyed it the whole time you know what I mean i wasn't like oh my god I have to like go finish this it was like oh I get to sit down and listen to this some more you know we didn't prioritize it cuz we've been sitting on this book for almost a year yeah because we were just like h whatever i don't know but then we both finished it in like a couple days each like Yeah oh we could have done this a lot sooner it was not because you just don't know cuz there have been books that are 300 pages that were like slogging through this was easy it was easy so should we wrap this up with a smasher pass let's do it okay i have an F Mary kill for you great excited great catwoman Poison Ivy Harley Quinn okay I think about it for a second yeah I appreciate it um I'm definitely killing Harley Quinn she's too much of a loose cannon for me i'm marrying Poison Ivy because we would be so happy together as vegans a Yeah um and I'm effing Catwoman because she seems fun very nice very nice what about you this book changed my list for sure because we had different sides your previous list yeah I do you know I got a running list they're my favorite girls what can I say so I always include Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn when I'm doing like you know female inspiration and stuff for posts and videos and whatever so anyways yeah according to this book I'm going to have to kill Harley Quinn cuz Yeah she's loose cannon for sure um little shifty i don't think I can earn her trust shifty a little shifty she might stab me yeah yeah roll me up oh no it's like you could make one wrong move next to her you know she's too early in her breakup from Joker maybe Harley Quinn later would be fine but this one not so much uh for me I would marry Catwoman because she'd be a good little protector so thanks she'd get me all the things that I needed and then f Poison Ivy she's hot yeah so she's great cool vines man cool vines mine's real simple because I just have to know it's just for science uh smash or pass Ben Affleck as Batman pass i figured you might say that hard ben Affleck is always a pass for me really all the time even Yeah he just seems so freaking arrogant and like I can't anything as the person as the actor as the people he plays i never have liked anytime he comes on screen really see uh shout out for anyone who is like a weirdly obsessed dogma fan i guess the it's it's either the 20th or the 25th anniversary is coming up so they're putting it back in theaters yeah that's so cool i'm so excited for you i know i've loved Ben Affleck since I saw him as an angel and it was just all downhill from there um for me Ben Affleck as Batman is definitely a smash however he is not the best Batman who do you think is the best Batman christian Bale yeah Christian Bale will win that all day long every day i don't even think I watched the Ben Affleck Batman that's how much I not interested in it they're good even I even watched the Robert Patterson that was not I didn't like that no no he tried he tried his best yeah he tried his best robert Patterson is Edward and I love Batman no it was weird yeah he's been good as other things not just Edward i think he's a good actor not as Batman though it's kind of like because he because he is a small guy and you could just tell even at all the you could just tell like with all the camera angles and everything they try to do they tried to make him look like a big Batman's a big guy you know i do know so let's all just gaze off into the distance and think about Christian Dale instead so there you go who's your favorite Batman we'll ask you guys put it to the people we'll put it to the polls and our F Mary Kill for all the girls all the fabulous ladies yeah go find out on our stories on Instagram so make sure to follow us over on Instagram and Tik Tok at Messies in the Books podcast as well as like follow and subscribe everywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube where you can see these cute frigin shirts that we're wearing you guys check out Bookish Queen like we said we're going to have everything linked down in the description box so you can check them out too and get yourself some cute little bookish apparel or little chachkis so fun and thank you so much to Bookish Queen for sponsoring today's video but you guys we'll see you next Tuesday next Tuesday bye bye[Music]