Welcome back, my perfect poptarts! Also, what are your favorite flavors? I personally love Brown Sugar Cinnamon and S’mores. So good. Well now I want poptarts.
I leave for Germany in a week and I can hardly believe it. I’ll be doing a lot of day trips during the week while my brother is at work and I have some ideas already. I’m nervous, of course, but once I get there, I think I’ll be more excited than anything. However, that doesn’t stop the stress from causing me to break out like crazy. Fun!
How has your week been? I hope some of these links bring you joy!
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Wonderful authors Helen Hoang and Emily Henry were on WBUR’s Here and Now. The interview is a little less than 11 minutes, but the article has clipped some great highlights.
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I was heavily invested in this recommendation thread on Twitter. I added so many books, especially since the request wanted to focus on books where the main character continues with sex work after finding their person.
Romance about sex workers with sex workers as MC where they at?
— Colorfully Bookish (@jamilacomelibro) February 19, 2022
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What are your thoughts about gin flavored with Cheez-Its? As someone who loves cheese and also Cheez-Its, I’m intrigued.
View this post on Instagram
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Bonnie (hi, Bonnie!) sent this one in a couple weeks ago. Sarah’s husband, Adam, was on The Great American Pop Culture Quiz Show! He was kind enough to mention SBTB.
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If you are in your 30s, you will have such a visceral (like me) reaction to this cover of “Wonderwall” in the style of Blink-182.
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Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
Wow… I’m in my “ahem” early 40s and that Blink 182-ish cover of ‘Wonderwall’ is so weirdly correct that deep in my bones I feel sure someone was playing it on loop in my dorm in 1999.
I’m not on Twitter, but I can think of several romances featuring MCs who are sex workers: Skye Warren’s ESCORT, Claire Kent’s ESCORTED, Cara Dee’s WE HAVE TILL DAWN, Aleksandr Voinov’s and L.A. Witt’s Market Garden series, and a number of books by both Garrett Leigh (including MCs who work in the adult film industry) and Nicky James. I’m sure there are many others, but these are the first ones that popped into my head.
Slightly O/T, but I was just realizing that in all of the books I listed above, even the m/f ones, the sex worker is always a male. Is that a coincidence or are we more accepting of a sex-worker hero than a sex-worker heroine?
Brown Sugar Cinammon pop tarts are definitely the best. I’m actually staring at some on the top of my fridge now and thinking about toasting one right now.
I don’t have them often anymore, but I wasn’t allowed to have them as a kid, therefore they were my breakfast of choice (with lots of coffee!) all through college.
Hell, I’m 53 and that Wonderwall cover made me LOL.
@DiscoDollyDeb – all of the romances with female sex workers that I can think of were mentioned in the twitter thread but I’ll mention them here too:
So Sweet by Rebekah Weatherspoon – m/f sugar baby / billionaire, bi heroine
Treasure by Rebekah Weatherspoon – f/f, NA, stripper
You, Me, U.S. by Brigitte Bautista – f/f, bi heroines, set in Manila
The Jade Temptress by Jeannie Lin – m/f historical, set in Tang Dynasty
Haha. Thanks for the reminder, Amanda. I used to love Pop Tarts and the brown sugar were my faves. My co-workers used to laugh about my not-so-secret desk stash. When our office was robbed one night and all (and I do mean all) of our electronics were stolen, I was mostly outraged that the brazen thieves apparently took a break during their labors, found my supply, and ate all my goodies. The nerve! I still crave Pop Tarts on occasion, but haven’t had one in decades.
Have a good trip!
Those are my favorite Pop tarts too!
14 year old me would have thought this “Wonderwall” was the best thing ever, and 36 year old me kind of agrees?
Some hot guy at my weird private school had a Blink-182 cover band and the adults let them play at an assembly once (I’m sure they regretted it). If I ever had what you could call a sexual awakening it occurred during “What’s My Age Again?”
I actually really like unfrosted strawberry poptarts and my partner totally laughed at me for that. I understand completely tbh! It’s such a plain choice. I also like brown sugar & cinnamon and s’mores, too!
Loved the Helen Hoang / Emily Henry interview! The part about women making art that’s important to us really resonated.
If anyone else needs a catchy song to dislodge Blink-182 from their brain, here is “Give That Wolf a Banana” by Subwoolfer. It’s exactly what it says.
https://eurovisionworld.com/esc/subwoolfer-wins-mgp-2022-in-norway-to-eurovision-with-give-that-wolf-a-banana
I’m a traditionalist, and frosted strawberry are my favorite poptarts. They’re clearly not good for me, but strawberries start life as a fruit, so somehow, that makes it ok. I’m not really interested in the even SWEETER (fingers typed sweater-not really interested in eating those either?) versions
@footiepjs, YES. Unfrosted strawberry Pop Tarts, toasted and buttered. Damn I want some right now.
There was something called, I think, Wild Berry Pop Tarts? With purple icing? I remember liking those too. Ah, junk food nostalgia. 🙂
Also A Gentleman Undone by Cecilia Grant for a sex worker heroine.
Ha! Under my real name of Mary Pagones I have an equestrian fiction series, and the hero’s fondness for Pop Tarts is a running theme throughout.
I can’t eat them like I did in grad school, though. For a time, I was having them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (this is back when there were only three sleeves in a package).
Paula Poundstone, the prophet of Pop Tarts:
@Quinn/Mary, Horsey romance! I just downloaded Fortune’s Fool.
@Escapeologist, how did you know Wonderwall has been stuck in my head since yesterday?
When my agency still had a real office, there was a Big Lots store about a block away that always had weird limited editions of Pop Tarts so it became a thing in the office, to the point where we mentioned it in job listings as a perk.
@Kate thank you so much for reading! <3
Like many, I'm way behind in sampling Pop Tarts flavors (there are so many new ones), so perhaps I should make that a new project. I actually like them best toasted (though I do like them "raw" as well) and I know some people even eat certain flavors frozen.