Ep 61 MILLENNIAL NOSTALGIA | Books That Made Us “The College Years”

What iconic things from millennial “yesteryear” do you miss? We kick off this super nostalgic episode with an ode to simpler times. Let’s take a moment of collective silence for: the mall (in general), Borders Books (and more!), cheap concert tickets (like $50!??), and makeup when it was creative (what a time to be alive!). Our faves and fails of the week are all about those things that we miss as we amp up to share our favorite reads from the early to mid 2000’s.

Ashley and Liz present their top five college-age reads that influenced them during this pivotal time, and helped shape them into the readers (and people!) they are today. We bring memoirs, sci-fi reads, some horror and even some feminist theory to the table, put all ten titles in our trusty BATB Beanie and pick one to reread with all of you! Which one will it be?! We can’t wait to share it with you!

And, don’t worry! We’ve got a great smash or pass taking us back to the college days with a smorgasbord of silver foxes, and a man who exploded porta potties for a legit living.

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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Shop bookish apparel worn in this episode!
Ashley is Wearing: Fourth Wing Dragon T Shirt “Fly or D!e” from @caffeineandcurses | https://caffeineandcurses.com
Liz is wearing:  (Vanna White style) our exclusive Bestie and the Books Beanie! DM us to be added to preorder list! | https://www.instagram.com/bestiesandthebookspodcast?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Besties and the Books
• 4:28 Fav and Fail Millennial Nostalgia Edition
• 21:06 The Books That Made Us in our College Years
• 55:38 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:00

[Music] hey guys I'm Ashley and I'm Liz and welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast hey guys hey hey today is a spoilerfree episode part of our nostalgia series that we haven't done an episode for in a while like it's been a while which is kind of fun holiday finally like it's May holidays we finally recovered from so now we can do another nostalgic episode we'll have like two months and then we'll start prepping for the holiday again that's truly that so uh you know if you guys have been following along for a while you know that our nostalgia series we did books that made us elementary school edition um we did books that made us high school edition and so today we're going to be doing books that made us college edition so this is going to be like kind of rough years you know 2006 to 2012 kind of in that zone but basically like very late teens early 20s um so basically the way that this whole system works is Ashley and I have not shared our books ahead of time um so we each have five that we will present and we will talk about to the group present to the group present to the class just give like a little brief um you know description of the book why it really like influenced us in these years changed our brain chemistry who we think might enjoy reading it um and then we're going to write them all on little pieces of paper put them in our handy dandy Besties in the books beanie multi-purpose guys yeah keeps you warm in the winter makes you look cool and you can pick random things out of the hat yeah if you ever need to do that get one today dm us for more details but seriously no we're just kidding um but yeah we're I mean you know we're super hightech over here we're going to write it all down on this good old piece of paper i'm going to crinkle it up throw it in the Besties in the Books beanie and then we're going to pick one out to reread not just amongst ourselves but with you guys on a Besties in the Book Club fable chat as well so that is the method that we're going to use again if you've been following along with us for a while the first goound we ended up reading The Dark is Rising which is one of Ashley's elementary school picks um chaos ensued we read two different books on accident because it was unclear which book was book one so that was a good time um and then for high school we ended up read rereading The Great Gatsby which was actually a really good time so that was great watching the movies and whatnot if there's a movie version of whatever we picked today we'll make sure to watch that too um but yeah so stick around if you want to just kind of go down memory lane with us today millennial memory lane yeah definitely and yeah be here for a spoiler-free episode you know there might be some things that you remember really influencing you so that might bring you back um or maybe you'll add some new books to your TBR we don't know yep um but before we get into that we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here seriously thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day and your book to tune us all tune us all in turn us on no not not that turn on the podcast to tune in to us there we go i'm like mixing up turning on and I was going to say turning us on is funny though that cracked me up okay great to tuning into us there we go i got it we appreciate you guys so much and we would love to hear some what some of your like formative books were of any time period but specifically this college age time frame leave them down in the comments below you can now comment on Spotify which is super exciting and of course we're on YouTube too which you can comment there throw us a like that helps our channel out a lot so if you really are enjoying our podcast subscribing following hitting just a like button if you want to share this with any book besties that helps us with our growth and be able to make sure we can keep bringing these videos to you and it signals to us too you guys you like what you see you like what you hear keep them coming man we're at Besties in the Books podcast everywhere including Instagram and Tik Tok and then over at Fable you can search Besties and the Book Club and that's where all the Fable reads will be buddy reads book club of the month all that fun stuff so yes check us out man okay so should we just kick this off with like a fave and fail millennial nostalgia edition i guess that's what you call it i just wrote down things from yester year that I miss oh yeah for sure okay so why don't you start off this time like buckle up guys if you love a good nostalgia video this is going to be for you you know or podcast or whatever so we'll start okay so my fave is also a fail not of my own but just of life and what happened what happened that's how mine are too though they're like faves and fails because they're like things I miss you know yeah i think us all of us book babes can take a moment of silence for what was fondly known as borders books what is it books music movies and more moment of silence were you a Barnes & Noble babe or a Borders babe because I was Borders borders 100% i would go on my day off and stroll around and then go listen to some of the music because their section was boopping too that's weird word but yeah it was just so great they had a great magazine collection their coffee was top tier was it Seattle's Best they carried yes it was Seattle's best i remember cuz they had the best caramel latte of all time yeah which I think doesn't exist either anymore i don't know seattle's best i don't think so i haven't seen it yeah so it was it was the best it was a good vibe so Barnes & Noble while we love it now cuz it's like the only major chain one that we have other than Books a Million which we don't have in California um that was like the the sleepy store like the more mature borders at the time was like the hip version in my opinion at least where I live so I loved it ah yeah i mean we So I've never lived in a town with a Barnes & Noble but we did have a borders up here for a long time in Humble County in Eureka um and yeah same thing i used to go there I would say I would dare say on a daily basis yeah it was like something chill to do have some alone time hang out some homies meet friends there is like best of everything yep good coffee i did enjoy the magazine selection too that was such a favorite thing of the time and I would just go and like literally just let the book speak to me no no look it up ahead of time no recommendations just go in blindly yeah and have a nice perusal yeah it's great so the fail is that they closed where were you on the day that Borders announced its closure so I went to one of my local ones that I loved to do like the going out of business sale or whatever it was like one of the last ones and pick up some stuff and it was just like I remember being so sad just like you know touching the books like I wish I could take you all home with me but really I just want this place you know forever mortalized immortalized it was great i I did not go to the closing sale for mine i have a feeling that like that was during like a super busy college time or like maybe beauty school time when I just like couldn't go you know what I mean like just didn't have time to go also there was a weird time when I had gone on a couple dates with one of my co-workers at Victoria's Secret i worked there in the mall for a long time guys so one of my co-workers or one of my old co-workers like brother and it didn't turn out well like it wasn't bad but I just didn't really like him and then he ended up being a barista at at Seattle's Best in Borders and so I kind of avoided it for a while because he would like he would make really good coffees but he would like give me the evil eyes like the whole time he was making it like he was like he was vindictive like you could tell that he just like hated me but like he would still make really good coffee you know what I mean so it was like I was very on the fence about that so I started avoiding it for a while so maybe it was like during that time you know and then they closed and then they were gone it happened fast too it wasn't like one of those fake out like Forever 21 keeps doing you know fake out bankruptcy you know if they could only have held on for 10 to 15 more years we could still have them like Barnes & Noles did what if they came back like if they came back that would be so great my heart my beating heart i know now is our Now ours is a TJ Maxx i'm sorry it just doesn't it I don't about that some TJ Maxxes have books though i don't know if that's a Europe thing might be TK Maxx they call it but I'm not even joking that's what they That's what it is what yeah tk Maxx you guys support me your European listeners tell me I'm right i love that i love that um yeah ours definitely doesn't i go there once a year when me and my sister go shopping for Halloween that's it they do have good Halloween stuff all right what where do you want to take us back to Liz so mine is kind of similar um just Okay so things that I missed from yesterday year i put the mall yeah like I miss the mall being fun you know like it was just a different time it's like you said it's like you'd go to Borders you'd listen to your music you get your coffee i'd go over to Annie's I'd get my pretzel you know you'd go to Victoria's Secret you go to Abberrombie you go to American Eagle it was just a whole thing and I feel like it's making a little bit of a comeback like we had a little bit of a mall day last time I went down there and visited you it's not quite like the same but it's still somewhat satisfying now that you can go to like Barnes & Noble and you know obviously they're doing like incredibly well again um and all that kind of stuff it's fun you know i mean going to the movies at the mall that was always a good time um so that was one of them and then I actually I had two more i had um normal price concert tickets they're out of control they're out of control guys it's so like Oh I know i'm Yeah it's just It's like Don't come at me BS inflation it needed to be done it's like no I just think that a lot of these inflated prices from companies or you know venues whatever just saw that what people were willing to pay so they're just like "Oh we're just going to do that too." Yeah so it's infuriating it is it's crazy just being able to go to a good concert for like a hundred bucks max yeah max that's like for the best seats back then you know yeah totally so that and then my third one that I thought of was makeup back when makeup was fun yeah i don't miss it right now though so no I don't I don't necessarily miss the makeup itself yeah you know especially like us both coming from like makeup artist backgrounds like hey let's both overload us all with makeup for so long that like I don't know it just takes the like new fun exciting like you know unique aspect out of it I think is what I miss like just that excitement well and then you know co completely changed so it's clean girl you know aesthetic which it could couldn't have come at a better time for my life honestly cuz we were like sick of doing it at that point cuz you get burnout but yeah the creativity during that time yeah was next level like the blend and the colors and even just people doing special effects makeup all the time yeah it was a special time it was It was I feel like it was just it was inspiring and it was also just it was like you know we talk about the water cooler thing all the time it was like if you were in that community then you were part of the water cooler talk and so it was like oh my god this new thing is coming out it was also like you guys you know we forget that like when we were in high school it was like drugstore makeup and like you if you were like before drugstore was good like before drugstore makeup you it was you had to that's why I kind of you know I stopped doing makeup reviews on my channel cuz it's like everything's good now it's not you don't really need to review anything they figured it out you know where back then oh it was a dime a dozen to find something actually decent and then you had that product for 10 years yeah yeah there was like five foundation shades you know what I mean like period like at all in all the brands like you know we used to buy our makeup at like Wraid yep like you know it's so crazy to think about and you know if you were really bougie then maybe you could afford to like buy something from Sephora but they were like the only show in town or MAC yeah um you know I would get like my MAC eyeshadow palette once a year on Christmas you know what I mean like so like cool you know and you just wait for that day to like open that one package that you waited all year for you know it was just different times it was so I feel bad for kids these days you know it's like nothing feels special like that sounds harsh but it's some I think things are it's so it's such a mixed thing because things are so accessible and even talking about malls versus online like online is so convenient it really is but there's something different about going in store and experiencing that like my girls obviously they're still pretty young they're not like freerange online shopping but you know so my nine-year-old loves going to Abbercomi and picking stuff out if I show her on my phone she's like I don't know whatever you know so it is it's so different to be able to go and experience these things in person and sus out things and then that excitement for a new launch coming out instead of like right before the makeup bubble burst it was a new launch every 5 seconds you know and then you're already by time you actually get it in the mail nobody's even talking about it anymore so it was that perfect in between it was when makeup was still being very innovative people were still being creative including makeup companies they were having to be cutting edge and then the market just became so saturated and then what does what do trends do when you say "Okay now everybody has a million rainbow palettes we're going to reverse the trends into minimal makeup nude shadow you know and do it that way." So yeah it's it's very right now it's a sad thing to see how quick trends change and I think that's part of like Tik Tok and Instagram and that quick cycle where back back in our day we're walker you know is like you had to you had to save up your allowance to get something and then it was coveted and cherished you know how many people had a Urban Decay Naked palette for 10 years cuz they that was their first palette you know and they use it to the pan you know so special it was I know what you mean you know I think that might be you know just to round it back around to like what this podcast is actually about just to round it back around to book books though I feel like that's one of the reasons why books are having such a resurgence is because it's like it's we're still enjoying the like how to describe this we're enjoying the water cooler talk we're enjoying the whimsical nature of like escaping you know to this other world we're enjoying using our imagination connecting with these characters resonating with these ideas and I feel like that's something that you know a lot of these other things that got really popular like makeup or whatever like they're in my opinion it's not going to have the same longevity as something like a book or an idea that like will forever be evolving and changing you know what I mean in so many different ways and so I think that that's one of the reasons why it's making such a comeback which is great because look at us going to Barnes & Noble and being at the mall yeah we're holding on we're holding on well a lot of it we've talked about this many times on our more millennial themed episodes is like we're kind of reclaiming what we lost during that period in our lives coming out of our college years and having to like put on our big girl pants and work the jobs and do the things that we kind of lose ourselves a little bit in all of that a lot of it honestly for me I know for sure having kids and you know becoming a stay-at-home mom mostly and you lose some of what you loved so in your 30s sometimes the dust is settled a little bit and you have the chance to realize hey wait a second like who am I like I want that you know I want that back like or I want those things that I forgot about because I was busy putting on my pants suit you know so like reclaiming pieces of us and a huge part for Liz and I is getting back into the books that we loved instead of just assigned reading and whatever so yeah so I think that's what also makes this like you know books that made us college edition a little bit more unique perhaps than like the first couple that we've done is like this is really when you know Ashley and I we've always been connected but we're definitely going off and living separate lives and so like I'm really curious to see what Ashley chose i think she's curious to see what I chose and we're just going to kind of see where this episode takes us it's going to be a wild ride of mystery yeah we're excited let us know what you guys miss of yester year a lot of people have told me you know like flip phones you know what I wanted so bad my friend had the sidekick that would like flip up oh yeah and I was like oh that's so cool and I would just watch him flip it and text i'm like a who are you texting he was like it doesn't matter i got a sidekick great i had I had some phone that like I don't know like slid up i was like was it a halfway slide up we might have the same one at one point and I loved that perfect thing man i loved it too mine got stolen at a party we had i was so mad i'm like you come to my house and you stole my phone that's messed up yeah it sucked and I had to go back to like a really crappy one after that cuz my parents were paying for it at the time yeah yeah i went to Blackberry i went to Blackberry i remember I dropped that phone at a Halloween production i think it was a Rocky Horror Picture Show cracked the screen and then had to go get a new phone and that is when the BlackBerry was introduced and did you have the Blackberry Pearl i think so with a little swivel ball in the middle yes and it was pink it was basically our own little fidget it was great yeah yeah gosh there we go more nostalgia for you loved it it was just It was cool like having different phones like everybody right now we all have the rectangle square hey it's efficient it does the job most of the time and like I get it like where do we go from here but that was cool like oh what kind of phone do you have what kind of features do you have like that was exciting there's no innovation i know there's Androids but you guys they all look the same you know yeah yeah i mean I've seen somebody have that one that maybe somebody listened to it and has it that I don't understand the physics of the glass closing on itself it's like a rectangle flip phone it's weird i get it it's cool at least it's different you know so let's get some more innovation we're just going to talk about phones now yeah did you like your Blackberry do you miss it i do i mean it was one of those things though that it seemed like it could do so much but then it couldn't really and like my parents weren't paying for data they're like "No emails you have a computer." Yeah so I didn't use any of the functions on it except calling and text yeah i definitely did i definitely did i remember yeah paying too much for Verizon bills since 2006 great things that have gotten cheaper yeah we could say some kind of in theory you know cell phone bills used to be per text 10 cents per text oh my god i guess I forgot about that per minute phone calls so we we'll give them credit for that there you go all right enough about that let's talk about some other nostalgia stuff more bookreated let's go okay so do you want to go first in this book list or do you want me to go first it does not matter to me okay okay let's hear your first one i'm curious let's do it and no necessarily a particular order but I will save the best for last does that make sense yeah that's what we're doing we're Yeah yeah best for last but the rest don't matter okay great um let's see here okay i've got my piece of paper i'm ready to write it down and put it in the hat okay so Liz and I were discussing this unfortunately there are a couple books that I no longer have in my possession because these were the the years that I was f arounding and finding out okay fafo years uh and I my lesson was don't give books out to people to borrow because they don't care about them the way we do so my first book was given to someone that I was semidating and they never returned it that jerk i hope they're listening thanks for listening and return the book give me my book back uh so the book was called or is called so it still exists it's cracked by Dr drew Pinsky from the hit radio show if you might not recognize his name Loveline who remembers that oh that's funny i've never heard of this book before but you've heard you remember that show right yeah yeah oh my gosh that was great so and then later on after I don't know if the radio show was still going or not but he did some addiction shows such as VH1 Celebrity Rehab so I would watch all those rehab shows that he did and he's like a psychologist for those that don't know and he is some kind of doctor in addiction i don't know what that I didn't do extensive research sorry guys so he wrote a book doctor supposedly so he wrote a book called Cracked and I actually think I purchased this on the going out of business sale for borders oh it was that or like closely there cuz I remember those two like merging in my brain but who knows so this book um obviously it was a five star back then i don't know now but it is a riveting book this is the thing I got from Amazon okay since I don't have it with me anymore pinsky reveals the intimate and often shocking stories of his patients as they struggle with emotional trauma sexual abuse and a host

of chemical nemesis: 23:18

alcohol marijuana ecstasy heroin speed cocaine prescription drugs at the center of these stories is Pinsky himself who immerses himself passionately almost obsessively into his work so it's kind of like I don't remember it exactly now cuz golly how long has it been 15 years yeah yeah you know but it's kind of like some some insight into what that looks like for different patients and what's that like being the therapist of this person and the different treatments that they do and things like that but I just remember some very insightful quotes so for me how this book helped me I wasn't struggling with addiction personally but he just had a lot of like profound things and I remember this is why I'm mad actually that I didn't get this book back because I actually highlighted this book and annotated it and one of the quotes I'll try to remember off the top of my head but it was something like it is often times we find who we are ourselves by our relationships with others something like that because at the time you know I was I was working at a restaurant i by the way I didn't actually go to college i did trade school i went to Paul Mitchell for hair so then after that I was working on building up the salon and always working at this restaurant so at the time I was like more isolated not super outgoing not depressed by any means but just when I was off work I would just you know go home you know so that this book like was part of the time that kind of helped me get out of my shell a little bit cracked that's kind of funny um yeah so so that and that quote I remember trying to tell myself when I would be nervous or anxious going to do something you know it's like you know what let my guard down it's not that serious go have some fun you know because sometimes we find out more about ourselves through our relationships with others so that is why Yeah i felt like that book helped form me yeah would you reck wreck it would you wreck it to anyone in particular wreck it would you recommend it to anyone in particular well you know and yeah I guess anybody who's has it's it's very trigger warning obviously for all the things that I've mentioned but um yeah anybody who's interested in reading about some of those stories about maybe you've had to deal with people or maybe you yourself have had to deal with it however I'm hesitant to say whether I would recommend it still or not because I don't know what caliber Drew Dr drew is at this point in his life anymore back then it was all fine but I think he's gone off the deep end a little bit oh really kind of Dr oz crack job territory so I don't know like I've seen a lot of like ads for him and his like he's all beefed up and trying to push supplements and then like I don't know i think he's like a little on the red side you know so I don't know exactly though so don't quote me on that definitely fact check me but I just don't know how uh quacky he's gotten you know but back then it was fine so I mean I think that that's another thing that makes these episodes interesting right is that like these books are a product of their time but then it's also like we were looking at them through 20-year-old eyes which is completely different than like mid to late30s eyes you know what I mean so I think that is part of why these series are fun because you know we'll get to pick one reread it and see like is this even useful now is this even a good book now is this problematic now like you know all those things treatments for people with addiction changed drastically i don't know for me I picked up this book because I just wanted Yeah more insight to human nature and different people that weren't myself you know and I ended up gaining not only more empathy for people that are going through this stuff but even some learning lessons for myself so I mean it'd be good for anybody that's willing to explore that realm but I don't even remember how it was formatted or anything now okay what about you Liz okay so I'll just pick one out of the pile here okay so the first one that I wanted to share is Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert what i didn't see Sorry no offense i didn't see it coming i read all kinds of things guys it's okay i do that's true i I freaking loved this book i even loved the movie even though people didn't like the movie with Julia Roberts i loved both i thought it was great um it actually started my A bookmark just shot out of there i don't know if you could see that i saw it was confetti confetti you know this book started my obsession with Elizabeth Gilbert i've read almost everything that she's written she's a fantastic author um yeah non-fiction and fiction alike um I went on to read another book by her that I do have to shout out on here because it was so good called Committed if you have not read that you should read that too um but yeah Eat Pray Love was like the OG I feel like Elizabeth Gilbert book that really um I feel like it affected me when I was at that age because it was about essentially a woman kind of reinventing herself right m and it was like fairly problematic because obviously she was doing so with a fair amount of privilege that allowed her the freedom to like move literally throughout the world on this crazy like um I don't know journey to rediscover herself you know no longer as a married woman cuz she goes through a divorce and all that right i'm pretty sure I'm like it's been a long time since I've read this but I'm pretty sure that's what the gist is um but yeah I just loved it because I found it to be really interesting and just kind of inspirational and like a good you know when I was in school my degree is in journalism but then my minor was in women's studies so basically I would kind of toggle back and forth between how the media is essentially like corrupting us as a nation into believing all these things i won't get too far into it right and then going over to women's studies where we're talking about you know all the different forms of oppression and inequality in the world and how those work together and it was kind of a bit depressing at times um it's the reason why I would do things like take acting classes or you know things to kind of like break it up and make me a little bit less like wow the world's just so down in the dumps all the time so sometimes I would take breaks and read books like Eat Pray Love just to kind of mix it up and I mean I really loved it i know it got super popular so I don't really have to like I don't know i feel like I don't need to sell it to you guys you probably read it if you were interested in it did you Did you ever read it no see and just like Fifty Shades of Gray that was another one that like in my life I heard heavily made fun of you know and teased and stuff and it's like hm interesting i wonder it definitely It's going in the hat it definitely got a lot of criticism like I said because you know at the core of it it's about a super privileged white lady going and traveling around to like find herself and it's supposed to be inspirational but it's like a very um inaccessible way to go find yourself for like 99% of people like we can't just leave and go travel the world for 6 months or whatever she does i can't remember you know um wish good um but you know after learning more about Elizabeth Gilbert's story and just her as a person I've listened to a lot of podcasts with her and like lectures that she does and she's just a really fascinating individual and so I really respect her as an author and so yeah I had to throw that one in there because I feel like it influenced a lot of my um future reads um and I would recommend it to anyone who I don't know maybe I feel like it might be a good palette cleanser book if you've been reading a lot of like other genres like a lot of fantasy or a lot of romance or whatever it might be a good just I'm going to take a little detour into this like you know memoir kind of situation um yeah just something kind of light but also that has good themes that I think are relatable to a lot of us yeah yeah but it's been a long time since I've read it so that's why I'm like I don't know maybe it's making me want to reread it yeah hey maybe we'll get it in the hat maybe we'll get it in the hat you never know okay all right so my next one was again just like a random pick in probably Borders i don't remember um but it is The Wolf at the Table by August Augustine Burroughs I think it's how you say so he is known for the book Running with Scissors i don't know if anybody remembers that i just remember I didn't read it but it I remember it was super popular and I don't know why I didn't pick that one but I picked this one instead okay and it was a memoir um about his relationship with his father so definitely trigger warnings for this one but it's about kind of diving into the psych psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope told scorching honesty and penetrating insight augustine makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain and the ra rad radical pendulum swings between love and hate so I don't honestly really remember much about this book either other than what I just kind of grazed over but I remember reading it quickly and it being really sad and terrible but insightful again like this was my era of kind of understanding the world better you know because we grew up in a small town and you know only had so many people like around us in our lives different type of personality so it was just a time of me wanting to gain more perspective about other people's plights in life so um yeah I don't I don't really remember much other than that though yeah I love this because it's like I haven't heard of that one either So look at that very different than someone I than something I would pick up yeah so would I recommend it i mean I I don't remember sure maybe not i don't know trigger warnings though you know for tumultuous tumultuous relationships with parents but it is also I remember some healing towards the end there you know but hey okay well that go that went in the hat there there it goes okay so my next one is Parable of the Sewer by Octavia Butler i recognize the cover but not the name yeah so um I had the privilege and great experience of um getting to take a class in college called feminist science fiction and it was a great class and my teacher introduced us to so many good amazing authors um but this was definitely one of my favorite reads and so just off of Amazon um just their little blurb or whatever 15-year-old Lauren Alamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father family and neighbors sheltered from the surrounding social chaos and anarchy caused by climate change and economic crisis in a society where any vulnerability is a risk she suffers from hypermpathy a debilitating sensitivity to others emotions precocious and cleareyed Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores but what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more the birth of a new faith and a startling vision of human destiny so it's kind of like a Yeah I mean it's feminist science fiction um it's like a post-apocalyptic kind of speculative fiction situation and I remember it just really it was just opening my eyes to I think a genre that many of us don't even really know about cuz it kind of gets overlooked in the sci-fi fantasy space um and so I mean obviously we have like Margaret Atwood and The Handmaid's Tale but like how many other like feminist sci-fi books like before this class would I have been able to name you know what I mean um and so yeah that is definitely going to be my second pick parable of the Sewer by Octavia Butler which I think you would really enjoy reading so yeah it sounds like it for sure i need more time i know right i know i read all the books uh okay what's your next one okay so apparently it was my memoir era okay mhm so this one is called Madness a bipolar life so this is by and about you okay at this time i just was trying to gain a lot of insight about other people yeah yeah okay the human experience apparently I was studying all on my own lonesome you know self i love it uh so this one is by Maria Hornbacher so it's famous for the author of Wasted i don't know if that rings a bell to anybody it doesn't to me but yeah so this is literally about her bipolar life here's a more eloquent synopsis maria chronicles her lifelong battle with her bipolar disorder from early manifestations through devastating mood mood swings creative highs and her ongoing journey of survival through therapy and medication so it was just yeah it was just really interesting and fascinating to learn about so yeah what I gained from all of these books is just that like more understanding to all of the human plights that I could you know so not that I needed to learn empathy but it just is very fascinating to me to learn about different people's lives it is so I enjoy memoir as well yeah i didn't even know that about myself i'm like "Oh hey there's a lot of memoirs in this list." I didn't read a lot of books back then so I was telling Liz like it's Slim Pickins you know cuz hey you know what cracked did it got me out there and then I had my little party phase so and then also working two jobs constantly you know you only have so much time i didn't get back into reading until a year before starting this podcast and then it blew up and I went from one book maybe a year to what was last year 57 I don't know something crazy so I know it's awesome yeah and I'd recommend that book to anybody who again wants to kind of understand it's almost kind of written diaryesque like so you can see like her high highs and her low lows and her guilt that she would feel and then sometimes not feel and just like just the mix so trigger warning obviously for sure with the context but it was just very insightful yeah so so yeah you know we forget that trigger warnings are super new but basically you know if you're concerned about any of these older books and you're thinking about getting into them and you're just not really sure if there's something in there that might bother you like reach out you know via email to the author go to their website sometimes it's on there DM them on social media someone might get back to you um or just you know we're all readers here so maybe post something on your stories and see if someone can explain it to you but yeah we just kind of forget that trigger warnings the beginning of books are pretty a fairly new development yeah definitely such a good positive thing that's come to the community for sure though yeah absolutely so the next book that I wanted to bring up coming off of um the last one that I was just talking about is Orics and Craig by Margaret Atwood so another one um that we read in my feminist science fiction class um most people obviously know Margaret Atwood from The Handmaid's Tale her probably most famous work um but this one is my favorite and it's actually part one in a trilogy so it's the Madam trilogy um and yeah I just wanted to show you guys like literally like this has so many like highlights annotations like it was I learned so much from this book even though it is fiction which is pretty interesting mhm yeah um so just to give like a little you know blurb summary from Amazon about it um Snowman known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human and mourning the loss of his best friend Craig and the beautiful and elusive Orics whom they both loved in search of answers Snowman embarks on a journey with the help of the green-eyed children of Craig through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining yeah so very sci-fi very dystopian um you know it just it brought up a lot of really interesting feminist themes environmental themes um you know it's just between books like Parable of the Sewer and Orcs and Craig I feel like it it almost helped me like process a lot of the other dystopian books that we had read before that don't have that explicit feminist lens because you can't pull those ideas and topics out of other books you can just choose not to really talk about them yeah um and so I think that it really helped me kind of like put a lot of other books into perspective but yeah I'm always like if you like science fiction if you like fantasy if you like dystopian books if you liked anything else written by Margaret Atwood um if you like Yeah feminist science fiction specifically like please pick up Orics and Craig and start this trilogy you won't be able to put it down it's all three books are excellent yeah definitely hey a moment of shout out for our uh our well-loved books let's take a look at her book there we got some beautiful aging like a fine wine so as much like as we love our perfect condition you know pristine books check out these bad boys you know I don't know what the hell happened to my book here but it's been through it and it's well loved right there's a special place i used to not buy hard covers i mean they're expensive also so there's that but I prefer reading paperback just cuz it's not heavy and awkward for my wrist but now we mostly read Kindle I think you know like now we mostly read ebooks and I mostly have back covers but those that's because it's my trophies yeah exactly i feel like back then it was like all my books were pretty much paperback cuz that's what I could afford and then also like there wasn't Kindle or ebooks yeah and I feel like they used to I now at least in fantasy which is what we mostly read they usually send out hardbacks first and then paperbacks you have to wait for sometimes like a year which like I don't understand that like why can't we just have both at the same time i don't know it was weird i don't know 50/50 split up the stock maybe they're trying to gauge like how many to make yeah but it's weird to start with I I don't like that they start with the more expensive option first it should be paperback first you would think but hey whatever so I mean other than my depressing memoirs that I read um I also heavily was reading Chuck Palanuick you know leaving high school because it was towards the end of high school that you got me into it so most of my reads were actually after high school for him so I picked my two favorite ones i was going to not but like all the other books like I barely remember but I definitely remember these and I loved them and I read so many of his books at the time not all of them were good I got to say but uh these were my two favorites um like we've already talked about one of my favorites that were in high school Invisible Monsters but I'm going to go with Choke that was a really good one so that one I mean I wouldn't say it changed me at all but I was just eating up all of his books and I just loved it you know so we have a little synopsis here for you so Victor is a medical school dropout and is the anti-hero for our deranged times needing to pay for elder care for his mother Victor has devised an ingenious scam he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants and he allows himself to be saved by fellow patrons who feel responsible for Victor's life and go on to send him checks and support him and this was adapted to a movie which I do own actually now that I realize this but I remember seeing in the movie theaters with some of my roommates um funnily enough though I don't remember if I liked the movie or not but it was Sam Rock i don't think I did yeah I don't think I did i feel like I loved the book and then I watched the movie and I was like "What is this?" Cuz I don't even remember watching it a second time like I think I just watched it once and then just kind of forgot about it yeah exactly cuz I don't remember it now i feel like probably it was like that wasn't what the book was about at all but okay also obviously for those that don't know Chuck Palanuick is the uh writer and creator of Fight Club which obviously they did such a good job with that movie so there's really high expectations and there's been so many rumors about adaptations of his books since that one that never come to fruition invisible monsters was always up there and then for Choke to get the green light it was like okay and then it was just kind of like whatever there are some really good actors though i remember his mom was actually the one who plays the mom in Adam's family i don't remember her name but I remember her doing a good job but little pieces are coming back to me now but anyways um yeah anybody who likes Palaninoic books you know hey give it a go it's a good time it's not a good time really enjoying it yeah it's interesting okay all right that one goes in the hat so then my next one I wonder if this one will surprise you too now I'm like is it going to be another jump scare this one I loaned out and I have not gotten it back but it is Wild by Cheryl Stra oh I think I read that one i don't remember i don't know or you just told me about it front to back oh no i saw the movie the movie that was Reese Witherspoon yes yeah yeah yes okay um so yeah I mean I loved this book i felt like the book was excellent the movie was excellent i love Reese Witherspoon though she's great you know um but you know it just again it was not unlike Eat Pray Love in the way that it was about you know a woman going through a hard time in her life and then going on this like literal you know and figurative journey to like refind herself under these different circumstances yeah um you know so in Eat Pray Love is about a divorce and then in uh Wild it was about a death and so um she chooses to hike the Pacific Crest Trail i can't remember if it's the whole if she does the whole thing from Mexico to Canada i can't remember now but she does at least a large chunk of it by herself um and just takes that time to like refigure out who she is without this person who's passed um and yeah I just remember it really resonated with me at the time and it was just well written and interesting and also an adventure story right where like the main character is a woman which I feel like in non-fiction because this is technically a memoir um it would be harder to find so or I think it's technically a memoir anyways but it's been a long time since I've read it obviously but yeah I loved this book i mean I would recommend it for kind of same you know as um like I was saying for Eat Pray Love like if you're looking for a good um you know just memoir kind of story about someone's life if you're maybe going through a hard time yourself and you need some inspiration or just to kind of like escape and hear someone else's story and how they dealt with it um or you want a palette cleanser in between different series yeah um yeah I really enjoyed it i'd be curious to Did you figure out if you read it or not or do you just think you would just watch the movie i don't know yeah it could go either way but yeah I really liked it i would really I haven't reread Trying to think i don't think I've reread any of these recently so yeah I reread it for sure mhm all right do you have one more for us your your favorite out of the five you chose so and I think I might have talked about this on a Halloween episode or something but we're gonna have to say it again haunted by Chuck Pelanick this is another worn and weathered book i love that this book glows in the dark though i can see the imprint did you know it glows in the dark so cool no I didn't know that my copy is signed though it was one of my first signed books that I ever got okay can I tell this story do you know what a fail is okay mr chuck Palanuick okay I'm 98% sure that I sat him at the restaurant that I was working at one time and I didn't figure it out until like I kind of was figuring it out and then he already left you know a like he has a very specific face and set of ears I will say and haircut like and demeanor and I remember so I had sat him and I wasn't actually the hostess I think but I think I was serving at that time but I happened see sat him and he was meeting some friends so he was like running late and so I didn't get it have I didn't like write his name down or anything there's no wait list but I was like oh no like and I missed my chance when I was like in the back or something I'm like is that freaking Chuck Charles is that you was too late and he was already gone it's like the one chance 98% sure we had a lot of famous people come into that restaurant so I don't think he's f maybe he's famous I don't know but it was crazy he was really nice too he was like very like thank you thank you you know like that thanks for seeing me like and he like he had like this certain walk and like lean that if I meet him in person ever like definitely it was you I'll know I'll know when I see him anyways oh so let me talk about tell the people what Haunted's about yeah yeah so Haunted is a novel made up of 23 horrifying hilarious and stomach turning stories they're told by people who have answered an ad for a writer's retreat and unwittingly joined a survivorlike scenario where the host withholds heat power and food as the storytellers grow more desperate their tales become more extreme and ruthless i don't want to say anything else but there is a very dramatic twist at the end that I just ate right up so it was very fast-paced it's thicker but it was a quick quick read that's what I think is so great about his books too is his pacing is Excellent so you don't have to like even some of these memoirs took me I remember a long time to read through i think that's why my other copy I just showed you is so like wrecked because you had to be in the right mindset to like listen about somebody's struggles with addiction or bipolar and then you know the pacing isn't as fast chuck Palano's books fast-paced straight to the point you know riveting and then there's always a twist at the end so you know what you're signing up for with that and then they're page turners for real anybody who's a writer or in the book world should read Haunted for sure this is very interesting yeah or likes Yeah likes horror like I I haven't read that in a really long time i'd love to reread and I don't love horror and I still loved that book but there are some definitely trigger warnings in pretty much all his books but definitely Haunted there's some pretty gross stories in there for sure yeah yep okay so my last one so as I said before I a big part of my college experience was determining that the real department that I resonated with was the women's studies department um like they call it the critical race gender and sexuality studies department now so that just kind of gives you an idea of what it was yeah most of the reading I did I'd say you know cuz there is a fair amount in journalism classes but the most that I read was always some type of like book surrounding like feminist theory which ended up basically shaping my entire personality from there on forward um and so this is the reason why I included this book and it's a little guy so anyone can read it and enjoy it so it's called Feminist Theory from Margin to Center and it's written by Bell Hooks who's one of the most influential feminist theory thinkers i guess you could say theorists um and the reason why I shared this one specifically is because I feel like it's accessible like I said it's you know how many pages is this it's like under 200 pages m um and I think that her ideas are really important just in life in general and really useful for anyone um she also has a book called Feminism is for Everybody which I think is good um but this one I you know when I was looking through my collection and I was really like looking at all the highlighted passages and what really resonated to me I felt like this one um was one of the most influential and so that's why I decided to suggest it um yeah I feel like I don't without delving into like you know the actual content I don't have a whole lot more to say about that except for you know if you're interested in learning um more about you know feminist theory and intersectionality Bel Hooks is um is one of your ladies who could really help you with that and I would love to reread anything by her yeah yeah yeah nice um okay so that's going in the hat let me write it down really quick okay any final words before I pick any last words before I pick what we will be rereading for our college edition book i don't know i kind of hope I get one of your books cuz I feel like mine was picked the first time and then the second time we both put Great Gatsby in so Oh that's true that's true let's see all right crinkle crinkle crinkle magic it's not really Yeah it's not really making much noise cuz it's in a knitted beanie yeah a really comfortable warm knitted beanie yeah exactly with such a cute logo on it yeah so stylish okay here we go the unveiling wild we picked Wild that's exciting it is exciting because I think that it'll be a really interesting book to read now as 36 and 37 year olds very different oh it's also summertime so this is when I hike and stuff occasionally so very viby definitely the same as hiking like a thousand miles totally by yourself yeah um and there's a movie so we'll be able to watch the movie as well so that's extra cool cool there we go guys so join us on Fable we'll put a Fable up for that you can read that with us too cuz we're going to have a video going into that and if it hit the same for Liz Ashley will find out has she read this before has she not you know answer the ad will I be able to track down my copy and find it for the first time we will see we will see but I would like to cuz back then during my college years I was so used to annotating everything that I read that everything that I read for fun I also annotated so I'd be curious to see if I made any notes in that original copy so I'm going to see if I can track it down definitely hopefully you do if not I guess I'll have to get a new copy yeah make new annotations oh well that's fun i'm looking forward to that look at us go and we didn't rig it liz truly won fair and square yeah I did not rig it i put I literally put them all in here okay like I Everybody's like "Wait no nobody is." So that's great okay so you guys don't go yet we got an unhinged smasher pass college theme college edition okay well since we talked about him already I'm going to hit you with this so just for that time period like I said I don't know who he is as a person now he is ripped though but still mentally I don't know what kind of state he's in but back then let me tell you Dr drew Pinsky Smasher Pass i have no idea anything else oh my gosh look him up i know he was a radio show host so if he But the voice he had a good voice too so hey um yeah i have no idea what he looks like then or now i did not read the book so look at Dr drew 2006 or whatever 2008 2010 when was he on Celebrity Rehab i don't know okay so just like 2008 yeah while you look that up obviously it was a smash for me back then silver Fox okay through and through but it's a vibe that's the problem with looking at pictures yeah what do you put that it's That's why the picture doesn't n it doesn't make sense you have to know you have to like It's the vibe it's the vibe it's the vibe the whole thing that picture doesn't do it the like I have to show you the Yeah like I have to show you guys like the picture of his book cuz it has like his picture on it like I'm sorry but it's a pass for me like there's nothing about the whole situation people some people know that are listening to this 50% of you get it the other 50% are where Liz is at and I get it i get it but listen yeah yeah i mean that's why it's unhinged okay yeah well mine is Mine's unhinged but like in the opposite direction okay okay okay okay he's like It's like the Okay who's that guy who is also a silver fox and then he came out as gay later on so everybody was like "Oh man." As if we had a chance um he's also a silver fox he's on like he's a news reporter he's a journalist he's a good one oh oh oh anderson Cooper yes him so Anderson Cooper is a smash all day all day but he was like along those lines back then like people would compare them so obviously you know Dr dr drew was a little more nerdy but he still had that same vibe before I think he flew over the cuckoo's nest so flew over the cuckoo's nest like he was smart he was sensitive you know like I said anyways yeah okay okay anderson Cooper we were all sad we couldn't get with him i remember that that was what was stopping us yeah oh man now I really don't have a chance yeah okay good luck all right what do you got for me so mine's a smasher pass for one of my biggest crushes during my later high school years and then all throughout college uh but I don't know how you feel about this person so Smasher Pass Johnny Knoxville oh yeah forgot about that for you um out of respect for you it's a pass for me save him for you no it was it's a it's a pass i He's cool and stuff i would hang out with him but like That's Liz's taste that's for Liz you know what I mean i save it for you i feel like you know but that's the thing about Johnny Knoxville is he withstands the test of time because I loved him when I was in high school and then in college and then I would say somewhat recently within the last 5 years you know they came out with the new Jackass movie and my husband and I watched it and he's gray now and still looking good this is the silver fox smasher pass right here he's getting fine wine for sure like I can see it like for me it's no thanks but I get it a thousand% i mean yeah look at who I'm talking about obviously if you put all three out I mean Anderson Cooper but he wouldn't be interested i like I like how he's like the unlikely hero of this episode it's like how did we get here how did we get like now we're just you know like a fan account for Anderson Cooper great yeah but if I had if you if you were like "Okay you know Johnny Knoxville now versus Dr drew then." Yeah johnny Knoxville because Yeah i don't know i get it yeah too there's just there's something also super attractive about a man who can do the dumbest crap oh see that's what I don't like and still Well and still be hot anyway oh yeah you know because most guys I feel like if you did any of the stuff that Johnny Knoxell does I would immediately give me the ick and I would just be like goodbye i can't with you yeah I did listen to that or I started to the podcast i don't know if you sent it to me or if I sent it to you where he was on it and he was talk he's like really smart like how he came up with everything so I give him credit for that he's one of those guys that's like yeah you would think he's an idiot but he's not so yeah he totally deserves more credit maybe i don't know that's what he said at least i don't know from the half an hour I listened to him talk I was like "Oh yeah smart guy." Okay well it was all intentional that's what basically I'm coming to say you know yeah yeah it was all part of a strategy it seems like someone that just got lucky being an idiot and it wasn't yeah mhm so totally yeah hey all right well I think that about wraps this up how exciting we're going to be going on our journey into the wilds here soon with Cheryl Straend yep yep i love it yeah sounds good sounds good guys and if you want to join us too like we said jump on Fable and search Besties in the Book Club because we will have it already posted by time this video goes up so you can join us there for that read and come back and check out that video once it gets posted so make sure to follow subscribe like anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube we would love to hear what you guys read too in college and books that stuck out to you for that time period we want to hear because maybe we'll try some out maybe we'll be like "Oo I want to do that." Or you guys can talk in the comments together and be like "I love that book too it's awesome." Bond i'll give you guys a topic you know like SNL okay okay we got to go i'm getting weird i'll see you guys later bye bye[Music]