279. The Bitches Look Back at 2017

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Sarah Wendell: Hello, and welcome to episode number 279 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. I’m Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and this is our last episode of 2017. Amanda, Carrie, Elyse, and Redheadedgirl are with me as we look back at 2017, emphasizing as much as possible the things that we enjoyed and treasured and the books that we loved that got us through this year. We talk a little bit about the high-grade, high-potency, medicinal romances we discovered this year and what authors we count on for that kind of read. We talk about movies and music and other uplifting pieces of entertainment that gave us a lift this year, so expect many recommendations.

And if you’re listening and you’re not in a place where you can write things down, which is pretty typical, I think, for podcast listeners, you can always find links to the books and everything else that we discuss in the show notes or podcast entry, whichever you want to call it, at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast.

Now I have a number of things to say in the intro, because that’s how intros work. First: if you’ve got questions or ideas or suggestions or requests or you want to tell me a thing, you want to tell me a lot of things, this is awesome, and you should totally do that. You can contact us at [email protected], and if you want to ask a question that we can answer in a future episode, record a voice memo and email it to me, because you’re going to sound awesome, and it’s super cool to hear from you in any manner.

We also have a sponsor for this month’s podcasts and this week’s podcast. I also would like to tell you, before I tell you who brought you this episode, that January has availability, so if you’re thinking, I would totally like to sponsor a podcast and talk about my love of knitting upside-down trouser socks, that sounds great; you should totally email me. You can contact me at sbjpodcast at gmail or at [email protected]; that’s Sarah with an H. If you’re interested in sponsoring a podcast or a transcript, that would be super rad!

Today’s podcast is brought to you by The Bad Boy Cowboy by Kate Pearce. The Morgan men thought they left their troubled pasts in the dust, but one by one they find themselves returning to the Northern California ranch where together they have a chance to leave the past behind and forge a new future based on brotherhood, hope, and love in bestselling author Kate Pearce’s popular Morgan Ranch series. In The Bad Boy Cowboy, hotshot rodeo start HW is the last Morgan brother to return home. He wasn’t sure what kind of welcome would await him there, but he certainly didn’t count on spitfire army vet Samantha, vacationing at the ranch, to make the journey entirely worthwhile. The Bad Boy Cowboy by Kate Pearce is available wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com. And a big thank-you to Kensington for sponsoring this month’s episode.

I don’t have a transcript sponsor, but there will always be a transcript, and if you would like to help the show or support what we do, the transcripts are a great place to start. If you make a pledge at Patreon, even as a little as a dollar a month, it makes a massively appreciated difference in helping me transcribe older episodes, because some people like to listen, some people like to read, and both of those things are okay. I want you to have the content in the manner that works best for you.

Now if you are traveling, and you probably are, I would like to invite you to have a look at our affiliate link, audibletrial.com/SmartPodcast; that’s audibletrial.com/SmartPodcast. You can receive a free audiobook and a thirty-day free trial of Audible, and you can try as many audiobooks as you can during that free trial; just dive on in. I would love to tell you, though, that although they are abridged, there are several Georgette Heyer novels that were narrated by Richard Armitage –

Zeb: Woof.

Sarah: – and that’s really the best assembly of words I could give you about audiobooks, right? I mean, they’re incredible. I also want to recommend Lucy Parker’s books, one narrated by Morag Sims –

Zeb: Bark!

Sarah: – that would be Pretty Face – or Act Like It, narrated by Billie Fulford-Brown. Zeb would like you to know that the FedEx person has just arrived, and he is very upset about this, but he also recommends an Audible free trial.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. I will have information at the end of the show as to who this is, but I bet you know, and I bet you could recognize this song. But it’s still my favorite December music, so I hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.

One last thing before we start this big group discussion and party: I have received word of several new reviews for the show at different podcast outlets, including Apple Podcasts and Podbean, and it’s really, really cool! Normally I advise people not to read their own reviews, but the things you say about the show are so lovely. Thank you so much for leaving a review, for subscribing, for telling a friend, for helping the show grow, but most of all for being here.

So let’s get started with our 2017 wrap-up. Redheadedgirl, Elyse, Amanda, Carrie, and I are ready to go.

[music]

Sarah: I have wine! Cheers, everybody.

Carrie: Cheers!

Amanda: I have a drink as well!

Redheadedgirl: Cheers.

Sarah: Yeah. All right, so the hard part of the conversation: so, 2017 was a thing.

Redheadedgirl: That happened.

Amanda: Ugh.

Redheadedgirl: A lot.

Carrie: It was a thing.

Sarah: That did happen.

Redheadedgirl: So much.

Sarah: [Laughs] Everything is happening so much, badly.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs] Pretty much, yeah.

Sarah: Oh, geeze. So one of the interesting things I’ve learned in the past year is that the podcasts when we’re all together are some of the most popular episodes and that they are really very much enjoyed, but especially our end-of-year episodes, and I’m like, wow, this year’s end-of-year episode is going to be like a big old bummer, ‘cause we’re all going to be like, oh, my God!

Amanda: Yeah – [laughs] – no lie.

Sarah: That’s sucked! And so did that, and that other thing, and that other thing sucked, and then the next day it sucked, and then it sucked some more. Oh, my gosh! But there were some good things, a few good things.

Redheadedgirl: There were a few good things, yeah.

Sarah: Yes, I can count them on my hands and my toes, ‘cause that’s how I count things.

[Scratching noises]

Sarah: Oh, and the dog is now digging a hole in the carpet. This is such a podcast. All right. So who would like to go first with their favorite reads of 2017? Who made a list and checked it twice?

Carrie: Well, I made a list of, like, things and trends that I liked, but I didn’t, like, list, like, one favorite, because how would you even do that? That would be wrong.

Sarah: This is true.

Carrie: But I do believe –

Sarah: Quite challenging.

Carrie: – it was this calendar year when I read When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare, and I, I believe it was in the summer, and my husband and daughter and I and occasionally some pets drive two to three times a year from Sacramento to San Diego and then back again, which is not undoable, but it is a long trip, and we’ve done it a lot of times, so it’s sort of lost its novelty, and it’s about –

Sarah: And those of us on the east coast are always so amused that, like, how many hours is that?

Carrie: About ten.

Sarah: Yeah, that’s like all of the east coast –

Carrie: I mean –

Sarah: – depending on where you start. [Laughs]

Carrie: Now, by the way, having said that, like, fifty percent of the ensuing comments are going to be, well, I can do it in six, or, are you kidding? It takes me two days! Like, time varies dramatically.

Sarah: Of course.

Carrie: It depends on how –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: It depends on how often you stop to pee; it depends on if you do any detours to look at stuff; it depends on if you get caught in LA traffic, which you will; and it depends on if there is a horrible, hideous wreck; and right now it depends on if the southern half of the state is actually on fire; but luckily, that has not, that latter thing has no applied when we’ve done our drives, thank goodness. I’m very grateful for that. But, yeah, it’s highly variable. I’ve done the trip in eight hours several times, and we’ve done it in fourteen several times, but I would say ten is a pretty good average. And invariably, right in the middle – I can, I can point to the mile marker where it happens – my husband and I have an epic fight; huge, huge fight; and I swear I’m going to jump out of the moving car. I’m going to hitch a ride with some trucker to some bus station. I’m going to go home, and I’m going to just eat Marie Callender’s pie and watch Netflix and then, like, move out. And, and inevitably, by the time we actually get to our destination I’ve calmed down. So Tessa Dare, in the middle of this argument, I gave up and just started reading When a Scot Ties the Knot, and I believe that she saved my marriage, because if I had jumped out of the moving car, I would have lost my place.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: Right, and we couldn’t have that. And, you know, like –

Sarah: No, that’s not going to work.

Carrie: – so, yeah, it was fine, and, and, and, yes, I do want to reassure anybody who’s invested in the state of my marriage that everything is happy. We’re fine now, and I’ve learned to just pencil in, you get gas here, you get food here, you have the argument here, and you resolve it here. Like, you can mark it on the map. But thank you, Tessa; if I have to pick somebody, I will, I will pick When a Scot Ties the Knot.

Sarah: Are you sure you’re not driving by, like, a hellmouth?

Redheadedgirl: No, it’s just California.

Carrie: Well, I think there’s, it’s –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: There’s a hellmouth there, I’m positive, possibly several, yeah. I mean, there are aspects of that drive that are really lovely, and there are aspects of that drive that are not, but the biggest thing about the drive is just that we’ve done it too many times.

Sarah: That makes sense!

Carrie: Yeah.

Sarah: I understand completely.

Carrie: So anyway, sometimes you have to pout, go to the back seat, read about the mating habits of lobsters and the wedding habits of Highland chiefs, and then you feel better! All of which happens in When a Scot Ties the Knot. And I hope so, ‘cause otherwise I picked the wrong Tessa Dare book, but all of her books are good, so.

Elyse: Nope, that’s the –

Sarah: Yeah, Tessa Dare is sort of like a –

Carrie: It’s like a win-win.

Sarah: Yes, and it’s the kind of book where you’re going to be like, okay, this is, this is exactly what I need, but they’re almost like a very high grade of medicinal read?

Carrie: Yes.

Sarah: Like, if I, it, like, there’s, there are certain occasions where I’m like, okay, I’ve got to save this for when I really need it, and then I get there, I’m like, thank God I saved this.

Carrie: And oh, my God, I really needed it. So, yes, on a personal –

Sarah: Yes.

Carrie: I would say this is on a personal level more than a literary level: it was, it was great. Thank you –

Sarah: Yeah.

Carrie: – for saving my marriage. Crazy.

Sarah: [Laughs] No pressure or anything.

Carrie: Yes. No pressure!

Sarah: No, you know, no high stakes on that one.

Carrie: Yeah.

Sarah: Amanda?

Amanda: Yes.

Sarah: What about you?

Amanda: Also, I tried turning off my Xbox, but it’s still going like some weird phantom machine, so that might be, like, the weird fan you hear in the background, ‘cause I’m installing something that’s still going, apparently, even though the machine is off.

Carrie: Is this like a Skynet situation?

Amanda: I don’t know, maybe.

Carrie: Has it –

Amanda: I, no, I’m installing Wolfenstein II, so I’m going to kill some Nazis –

Sarah: Oooh!

Amanda: – after.

Sarah: I love this plan! I love this plan so much.

Amanda: [Laughs] After this podcast. Okay.

Sarah: Bring it, Amanda. You and your wolf and stein.

Carrie: Woohoo!

Amanda: So I have two books that I planned on talking about that I read in 2017 and that I believe came out in 2017. The first is obviously Dating You/Hating You by Christina Lauren, which I also mentioned in the thank-you podcast that we do, or that we did? I like this one; it’s their first, like, romance standalone that they did, and –

Sarah: Like, it’s not part of a series?

Amanda: No. It’s not part of a series, and then Roomies that just came out is also not part, not part of a series. And this might be an unpopular opinion, I’m not sure, but I’ve been enjoying their standalones better than the, the series, not that the series, each, or either series they wrote was bad, I enjoyed both of them, but I’m really liking what they’ve done in their two recent standalones, and I really liked Dating You/Hating You a lot.

And then the other one which Sarah and I have talked about that was a complete and total surprise that blew me away and was only 99 cents on Amazon was Slouch Witch. It was really fun –

Sarah: Yes!

Amanda: [Laughs] It was –

Sarah: Don’t read book two, but book one is so good!

Amanda: Yeah, I’m not, I’ve decided I probably won’t go on to read book two. I’m, I’m okay where it ended, but it was just so fun and unexpected, and I was really glad that I spent that dollar to give it a shot, so I’m, I was very happy that I took a chance and it, and it worked out. So those are my two that I loved in 2017.

Sarah: I think for you and for a lot of readers, Christina Lauren is also sort of like a very high-grade medicinal level. Like, this is the medication that you need to go and pick up personally at the pharmacy; you can’t just, like, phone it in. You have to go through extra steps and show your driver’s license.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: That’s the sort of high-grade, high-quality, high-grade level of book that we’re talking about there.

Amanda: And they’re the author that I frequently recommend to readers who are new to romance and want something contemporary. Those are, they’re usually my go-to, because I’ve read most of their stuff, and I have really good faith in their writing, so even if they come out with something that I haven’t finished or I haven’t read, I would still feel comfortable recommending them.

Sarah: And they write great dialogue.

Amanda: They do. It’s great. [Laughs]

Sarah: And it’s so interesting that there are some writers who started in fanfic where they didn’t, like, necessarily grow out of that style, ‘cause I think fanfic has a lot of styles in common, and the two of them have grown so much over the books that they have written to the point where I’m surprised not more of their work is optioned, because it is so both visual and auditory in the way that they write.

Elyse: I feel like, as someone who reads a lot of fanfic, one of those styles is, this is definitely not how you should have anal sex.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I’ve read that in Harlequin, though; it’s not exclusive to, to fanfic.

Elyse: Like, someone who has not done adequate research is writing this, and, and don’t, don’t follow these instructions.

Amanda: I feel like their books are very realistic. I liked that in one of their books, Sweet Filthy Boy, like, the heroine gets her period. Like, things happen – [laughs] – that kind of break you out of that normal romance fantasy: no one gets their periods, no one discusses birth control, everything happens as it should be sex-wise, that sort of thing.

Carrie: They have great supporting characters too. In that book they’ve got the couple that’s married, and they have, like, a toddler, and they have this fantasy of themselves as still being really young and hip and partying, but they have to be in bed ten – [laughs] – ‘cause they’re really tired and the babysitter needs to go home, and it was just –

Sarah: Very true.

Carrie: – so cute.

Sarah: [Laughs] All right, Redheadedgirl, what, what did you –

Redheadedgirl: Yes.

Sarah: – most enjoy in 2017?

Redheadedgirl: I’m going to go with two, ‘cause, like Amanda, I too am a rebel, and the first I’m going to say is A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole. And I –

Sarah: [Gasps] That is on my list too, yes.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. [Laughs] ‘Cause I just, I loved it so much! So much! Like, I loved everything about it, and I said many words about what I loved about it in my review, but – like how she works in root working and medic-, medicinal stuff in the, the junction between science and superstition, and how all of that works together is just, made me ridiculously happy, and you know I, I love Alyssa, so. So that was one of the, the best reads that I had of the year. I’ve, I’ve had, like, the past couple of months I’ve just been like, I don’t want to read things. I just, I don’t want to. But that was one that I could not put down and devoured in, like, a day and a half.

Sarah: For me, there have been a number of books this year, when you said I don’t want to read things, there have been a number of times this year where I’ve picked up a book and my brain has been sort of like, look, I have been dealing with you on Twitter, and I have been dealing with reading things on the news, and I have been, I have, I have X amount of processing that I can do, and reading fiction –

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: – is not within my processing now. Like, my brain’s like, you can look at Reddit, or you can look at, like, two things on Instagram, but you need to go stare at a wall. Like, I don’t have the mental energy to read sometimes, and Alyssa Cole’s, both of, both of her books this year, were such good uses of my brain. Like, my mental energy –

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: – it was so worth it to have made that effort, you know what I mean?

Redheadedgirl: Yeah. It was nice having something that was super emotionally intense and just tense that I was like, I can enjoy this tension ‘cause I know it’s going to work out and everything’s going to be fine –

Sarah: Yes!

Redheadedgirl: – and that’s why Happily Ever Afters are important!

Sarah: Thank you!

Redheadedgirl: Just saying!

Sarah: So true.

Redheadedgirl: Anyway. The other book I’m picking is the Romance Readers Guide to Historic London by Sonja Rouillard.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Redheadedgirl: Because I may read, I mean, I read travel guides like, like novels, ‘cause why not? But also it was because of that book that I was able to go take that incredibly hilarious picture in front of White’s where I’m looking very, like, angry at the patriarchy? Because she tells you exactly where White’s Gentlemen’s Club is. There’s no sign or anything; you’re just supposed to know. And they wouldn’t let me in, so I took an angry selfie outside of White’s, because Fuck the Patriarchy!

Sarah: Yes, all of it.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs] Yes. And I, I didn’t make it to the actual pleasure gardens, but – ‘cause it’s just a park now – but the Museum of London has sort of a recreated pleasure garden where you can sit and look at beautiful 18th and 19th century costumes that have been lovingly, extraordinarily lovingly displayed, and little dramas that are projected on the wall, and it’s, it’s a great way to sit and rest your poor tired feet because you walked for fifteen, sixteen, twenty thousand steps that day already. For four days in a row at that point. And I wasn’t planning on going back to the Museum of London, but she was like, it has the Vauxhall – I don’t even know how to say it – the pleasure gardens –

Sarah: Right.

Redheadedgirl: – in the Museum of London, so go and see it, and I was like, okay, I’ll go see it. And they also have the, the Olympic torch from the 2012 games, so it was pretty cool too. It’s not romance related, but it was still cool. I did not see Prince Harry before his engagement though, but congrats, Harry and Meghan! I’m really happy for you! Okay, go on.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Redheadedgirl: Somebody else go. [Laughs]

Sarah: Okay. Elyse, can you holler into your microphone and tell us what you think was your favorite things of this year?

Elyse: I just finished Wrong to Need You by Alisha Rai, and –

Sarah: [Gasps] Also –

Redheadedgirl: That is so good!

Sarah: – also on my list.

Elyse: It was so good, I did not realize I was being peed on while I read it.

Amanda: I just have to say, Elyse –

Elyse: That’s how good it was.

Amanda: – I –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Amanda: Elyse, I just scheduled the tweets for that review for tomorrow, and I did mention the pee, so –

Elyse: I’m sure it’s delightful!

Amanda: – just a heads up, and you’re tagged in it. [Laughs]

Elyse: Got it.

Amanda: Just wanted to let you know.

Elyse: I think this book was so good I was be-, I didn’t realize I was being peed on, is, like, the perfect back cover copy blurb. I don’t know how much say Pam has in those things. I don’t know if she can, she can make that happen?

Sarah: We’re, we’re going to find out, basically.

Elyse: Okay, well, that’s good to know. No, so the pee story, for those of you who aren’t going to read the review, so it doesn’t sound like I have some weird fetish – I shouldn’t fetish-shame; I apologize if you’re into pee. That’s your own business; I’m sorry – I was at the cat café reading, and one of the cats there is partially paralyzed and so periodically has issues with incontinence, like you have to be very careful picking her up, because if her bladder is full she will leak, and so she was sitting next to me, and I knew that I was supposed to be vigilant for pee, and I was not vigilant for pee ‘cause I was super involved in the book, and all of a sudden I’m like, why are my pants really warm? And it was because a puddle of urine was slowly making its way over to where I was sitting, and I actually had to leave work early that day and call my boss from the car, where I was sitting on a towel –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: – and explain to him that I had to go home now because my jeans were soaked in cat urine. So that was cool!

Sarah: I mean, as far as excuses go, that’s got to be in the top ten.

Elyse: He said he’s actually never had anyone tell him that before. Like, he was, he was impressed!

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: Yeah.

Redheadedgirl: So next time keep spare pants in the car.

Elyse: Right! People are like, oh, are you not going to go back to the cat café? And I was like, fuck that! I’m just going to keep spare pants in the car. Exactly!

Redheadedgirl: Are you not going to go back to the cat café? Have they met you?

Sarah: What kind of dumb question is that?

Elyse: Just because I got, just ‘cause I got peed on the once. My niece and nephew have peed on me multiple times; it’s not like I never see them anymore.

Sarah: Both of my neighbors do not have pets, and their children desperately wants pets, and every time they are seeing me, I’m dealing with some kind of noxious thing that has come out of a pet that I am now, like, processing, like I’m carrying a bag full of poop, because, you know, when you have a dog and you take it for a walk, you pick up its poop and bring it home because it’s very special. That’s what the dog thinks, anyway. Like –

Elyse: Right.

Sarah: – their poop is the most special; you have to bring it home. Like, you can’t leave it out in the world; you have to bring it home and make sure it’s, that it’s, you know, safe. So I am always dealing with something disgusting that has come out of one of my animals at one end or the other, and that’s the only time my neighbors really see me in the middle of the day, so I’m pretty much convinced that they are relatively sure my house is mostly poop, pee, and vomit at this point. Which is not an unfair assessment, given that I have two boys, two cats, two dogs, and, you know, they all live in the same house with me. Pee happens, right?

Elyse: Right, there’s going to be, there’s going to be a lot of pee.

Sarah: Pee happens!

Redheadedgirl: Hmm.

Sarah: So what else is on your list, Elyse?

Elyse: Of things that I enjoyed in 2017?

Sarah: Yeah, you know, like wine? Possibly also Vicodin.

Elyse: Lidocaine.

Sarah: I’m enjoying wine right now.

Elyse: Yeah, my alcohol consumption went, like, way up in 2017; I’m, I’m not going to lie. Like, I can’t imagine why, what the correlation would be there, but –

Sarah: No. Not at all.

Amanda: [Laughs]

Elyse: Man, I thought we were only supposed to have one! God damn it, Sarah, I came prepared.

Sarah: [Laughs] I have, like, five!

Elyse: You need to, you need to give us better work instructions.

Sarah: I did say plural –

Redheadedgirl: She did say plural.

Sarah: – favorite reads in 2017. I didn’t say only one. I did tell Amanda that she couldn’t say that a book that’s not out yet was her favorite read of 2017, even though she read it in 2017, but I did say reads. I mean, you can say more than one!

Elyse: I kind of feel like anything that brought us joy last year or this year counts. Like, just put it on the table.

Carrie: I have movies on my list too. Do they count?

Sarah: Oh, yeah, I have, I have an album on my list, you know, so go ahead, Carrie; bring it!

Carrie: Oh, so I discovered that, like, I feel like my theme for this year, unsurprisingly, was people getting kind of shot down by a circumstance and then rising up again, and bonus points if they ended up hitting dudes really hard in the face, so I read tons of Gothic stuff. I read a lot of Lovecraft stuff, like the, the feminist Lovecraft that’s coming out now and the racially and sexually inclusive Lovecraft that’s coming out now. I, like, have read a lot of that.

And Atomic Blonde, which stars Charlize Theron, I don’t know what the hell my deal is. It’s super male-gaze-y. I’m not sure I would recommend it as the most feminist movie I’ve ever seen, but at one point I watched that movie three times in two days. Like, I just, I would just sit there; like, I was doing busy work, so I just had it on in the background and just, you know, she just kept punching guys, and it was so satisfying. And she was only punching really bad men, so, you know, I, I don’t know; I needed that. Wonder Woman, of course, was fantastic. Like, truly wonderful, and that made me super, super, super happy. And also Their Finest made me really happy. That was that little British movie that – and I’m not actually positive what year it came out, but this was the year that I finally got to see it, and it was really wonderful. And they were, you know, very different stories, but stories that made it seem worthwhile to get up and call my fucking senator one more fucking time about fucking net neutrality and then, you know, put on socks and –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Carrie: – you know, get up for another day. You know, that kind of thing.

Elyse: Can we talk about Thor: Ragnarok too? That is was amazing?

Carrie: I loved it!

Sarah: I loved so much about it, but I loved most of all that everyone in that movie seemed to be having a really good time.

Elyse: That movie, like, it, it restored my faith in the Marvel universe that Doctor Strange broke into a thousand tiny pieces with its ableism. So it looked, yeah, it was like everyone was having fun, and they recorded it.

Redheadedgirl: What I find fascinating is that 2017 is the year of the Dunkirk triptych: Their Finest was, involves Dunkirk; there’s, you know, Dunkirk; and then Darkest Hour, which I have not seen yet, involves Churchill on his lead up to the we will never surrender speech, and I feel like this was a, a massive global coincidence, but there’s something about that story that’s really resonating for people.

Carrie: I felt like, too, with, with Wonder Woman was set in World War I, but I felt like they used –

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Carrie: – a lot of imagery to give you the feel of World War I but to give you the, sort of the purpose and, and ideology involved in World War II. Like, I don’t know if anybody else felt like this was – like, in real life, World War I was kind of a prequel to World War II, and I felt like that was really evident in Wonder Woman. It’s –

Redheadedgirl: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Oh, absolutely.

Carrie: – so –

Sarah: Absolutely.

Redheadedgirl: Totally.

Carrie: Yeah, I don’t know if I would have noticed it if there weren’t all these World War II movies coming out, but I thought that was really interesting. It was almost like, you know, there’s, like, 3.5. You know, this is – [laughs] –

Redheadedgirl: Mm-hmm. But specifically, like, the Dunkirk story that’s, something that’s resonating with the Dunkirk story and the, the survival of so many with such small odds and by, like, the people, ordinary people pulling together and saying, what can I do?

Sarah: Yeah.

Redheadedgirl: Like, that, that is, I think, that feels like it’s the story of 2017.

Sarah: With more white people in boats.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs] So, so, like, there, there was something a couple years ago when these movies started getting green lit that, that twigged that, and it just sort of all cosmically came together? And that’s kind of cool.

Elyse: So –

Sarah: That is kind of cool.

Elyse: So I would like to redirect this conversation back to Thor: Ragnarok, because it has led to Elyse doing a lot of Pinterest about Tom Hiddleston, and now I am pretty solidly convinced he’s a serial killer.

Sarah: All right, I, I’ve got to say something. I, I’ve got to say something horrible here.

Elyse: Go for it; you hate him.

Sarah: I think he is so talented, and I think he is so intelligent, but he does not do it for me, I am sorry, so if you want to tell me –

Amanda: Same!

Sarah: – he’s a serial killer, go right ahead.

[Laughter]

Sarah: ‘Cause, you know, I will also say that I know a lot of people think Bandersnatch Cummerbund is really hot, and he also does not do it for me –

Amanda: Same!

Sarah: – so there’s clearly something wrong with me and my brain. If you want to convince me that Tom Hiddleston is a serial killer, I am listening. Please explain.

Redheadedgirl: Okay –

Elyse: Wait, wait, wait –

Redheadedgirl: – but let me go off just a second, Sarah. There is nothing wrong with you in your brain; there’s a lid for every pot. I mean –

Elyse: Right.

Redheadedgirl: – if everybody liked all of the same people, that would be a very boring world, wouldn’t it? So clear, there’s nothing wrong with you.

Sarah: No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with me.

Redheadedgirl: Most definitely not.

Elyse: So this is –

Redheadedgirl: Go on, Elyse.

Sarah: But, but, that said, I have made –

Redheadedgirl: And show your work.

[Laughter]

Sarah: But, that said, I have made my entire career in romance, and romance is trying to sell me books by putting waxed-chested, muscular men on the covers for how many decades now? And I am still like, yeah, no. What, what, what, what – eh? I am clearly a minor market segment, so please tell me about the serial killer Hiddleston –

Elyse: Okay, so first of all –

Sarah: – ‘cause I’m very curious now.

Elyse: – first of all, let me explain my theory behind why Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston have the following that they do, ‘cause Tom Hiddleston obviously is, like, a traditionally attractive person, where Benedict Cumberbatch, I think, kind of falls outside of that line, but they’ve both played – this is my theory – they’ve both played characters who were attractive and intelligent but not sexual, and so I think that there’s this element of, like, the fan base that, like, what would it take to get them to be carnal? Does that make sense?

Carrie: Uh, yeah!

Elyse: ‘Kay, so it makes sense to Carrie. Okay, so my working theory on Tom Hiddleston being a serial killer is that I have read, I think, at this point, every interview with Tom Hiddleston, and he is always, like, super nice, never seems to have a bad day, very articulate, which means clearly he has, like, a head, or human heads in his freezer, right, ‘cause nobody’s that nice and nobody’s, like, that practiced, so clearly he’s pretending to be a nice person because he’s killed people. That’s what I’m working on right now.

Sarah: So his niceness is a cover for the fact –

Elyse: It’s gone too far, we’ve gone too far in the niceness, right? It’s just now, now I think it’s an act, and he’s murdered people.

Sarah: I don’t know; there’s a couple of celebrities who are unfailingly charming and interesting in interviews, but I don’t think that they’ve killed anybody.

Elyse: I’m always suspicious –

Amanda: That you know of.

Elyse: I’m always suspicious –

Sarah: That I know of.

Elyse: – of anyone who’s unfailingly charming. Like, everybody has a bad day, right? You can’t be that charming unless you have to work at it every day, and you’re working at it every day because you’re really a sociopath who kills people.

Carrie: Yeah, this is the most 2017 conversation of 2017.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: We were actually talking about this at work –

Sarah: So can I –

Elyse: – yes-, or the other day, because the Matt Lauer news broke, and it broke the same day that they arrested a, an actual serial killer in Tampa, Florida, I think? And, like, nobody was talking about the fact that they found a serial killer because it was like, oh, here’s another douchebag who sexually assaults women. Great. Like, that’s officially more important than a serial killer. Like, that’s where we’re at this year.

Sarah: Well, I mean, part of that was that it was a serial killer in Florida.

Elyse: That is true. Fair.

Sarah: Like, we’ve done that. Florida Man. Florida Man does everything. Like, he does all the things, the good things and the bad things; it’s Florida Man. So if I can bring it back to 2017 –

Amanda: [Laughs]

Sarah: – the nice thing about all of your lists is that they overlap so very much with mine, and I had the weird experience – well, it’s not weird, but I don’t talk about it much; it’s pretty common, actually, but I don’t talk about it a lot – that I read a book that was written by someone that I know and am friends, and then I get to just sort of sit there and go, oh, my gosh, I know the person who wrote this, and it is so good, and I am so proud.

Redheadedgirl: Aw!

Sarah: And it’s, it’s like, sometimes when you say you’re proud of someone it can sound very condescending, and there isn’t a word for when you just admire and am, are so excited and, and impressed and aware of how much that cost someone that when you see what they made and have, like, given to the world, you’re just like, look, look, look at what – I know the person who made this thing. This is amazing.

Elyse: There’s probably a word in German.

Sarah: Or Yiddish. Like, I’m sure there’s a word in Yiddish. Like, nine or probably ten words in Yiddish. Everyone’s going to email me: here’s the word. But, like, I finished, I, I finished Hate to Want You, and I was like, I, I know the person who wrote this, and I am just so amazed. Like, wow! This is incredible. Like, it, that is the best feeling, especially when you know, and – there’s, there’s a lot of talk about how, you know, when authors are online and interacting with readers in reader spaces and in, in public spaces that, you know, authors are very public now about what the creative process costs emotionally and physically and financially, and I’m fully aware of all those things, ‘cause the same thing happens to me, so on some level, I don’t know the particulars, but when I read something so wonderful I think, I cannot imagine how much this cost, and I am so glad that it is here. Like, oh, wow, this is incredible. So I got to read something in a year when I desperately needed it and was so honored, almost, just, just deeply, deeply grateful that I got to read these books that got me out of such a crappy situation, whether it was just a really bad day or a really bad month or, you know, year, year and a half, maybe? So for me, my 2017 list is a lot of books that are all women helping each other in different ways.

So early, early, early in the year, I read the second Diablo Lake book by Lauren Dane, and the thing about this series is that – and I’ve talked about this – it’s, it’s almost like there’s these people and they’re sitting on the porch, and they’re telling you this completely bananas, off-the-wall story about this small town with supernatural creatures, and you’re just like, okay, yeah, keep going. So it’s very storytelling style, it’s very casual, the language is very casual, and then once you’re, once I got on board with that it was so fun, but the best part about the second book for me was that the heroine ran for mayor against an incumbent who had been in that position for years and years and years, and it was all of these different dichotomies coming together in an election that went the way I wanted it to? [Laughs] And that was much more cathartic than I expected it to be, and it was lovely.

I also loved Beverly Jenkins’ Breathless, not only because there’s a bad guy who dies of stupid, and I have a lot of admiration for anytime a bad guy dies of just being stupid, but there’re so many scenes of women helping each other. You know, if, if everyone is getting together, then the women are going to make sure that there’s enough food, and if two girls from town go off to college, everyone is going to send them letters and combs and, and care packages just to say, I’m thinking of you. And that particularly resonated with me because I went to an extremely small women’s college in South Carolina where for most of the time I was there I didn’t feel like I belonged very much, ‘cause I think I was the only Yankee there for the first three years I was there, but this year I was asked to write a letter of encouragement during Finals Week to whoever has my mailbox, and there’s not more than eleven hundred resident students? It’s not a big school. So somebody has my mailbox; there’s no way that it’s unoccupied, so I got to write a letter to this total stranger, and it made me think of, of Breathless, that this person’s going to get a piece of mail that’s not a bill, that’s not something random, that’s from a person saying, I want you to do well, and I want you to keep going, and you can do this? That feeling was lovely, and when I discovered that in a book, it was just the best.

And then there were Crows, and I really liked them a lot. I don’t know if you’ve heard me talk about that?

Some Bitch: No.

Sarah: I mean, there were some Crows, and I liked them –

Elyse: I –

Sarah: – a little, and I listened to them, like, I listened to that trilogy probably twice this year.

Elyse: I remembered another one, but it’s not romance.

Sarah: That’s okay! I love it. Bring it.

Elyse: The Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemisin?

Sarah: Oh, my goodness, Adam just finished that, and he really liked it.

Elyse: So one of the things that I think kind of gets old with epic fantasy is that it’s super, super Eurocentric, right, where it’s, like, kind of vaguely medieval, and you’re kind of getting, like, the same world recycled a lot of the time? And she does this job, this amazing job of bringing a world together that is completely foreign and not familiar at all and still makes complete sense to the reader, and it’s just amazing.

Sarah: Did you finish The Bloodprint?

Elyse: I have not finished The Bloodprint. It’s currently in the Bookmas tree, and I need to, I’m going to try and, like, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom swap it out with –

Sarah: [Laughs]

Elyse: ‘Cause I was –

Carrie: Did I not tell you that that would, was the problem with the, the Bookmas tree concept?

Elyse: I know, ‘cause, yeah, if you want to read a book that’s in the Bookmas tree you’re kind of fucked, but I have the, the ARC of the Amelia Grey book that you didn’t like, and so now I’m probably not going to read that, and I want to read The Bloodprint instead, but it’s going to –

Sarah: Oh, the one with the duke-bro?

Elyse: The duke-bro, right. So, I’ve got to, like –

Sarah: Duke-bro: fuck him.

Elyse: It’s going to, it’s going to be dicey. Maybe I’ll have Rich film it.

Sarah: Yeah, I think it would, I think it would be quite a, a dexterous, a dexterous experience. The one other thing of 2017 that I want to make sure that I mention is Kesha’s album.

Elyse: Yes!

Sarah: The whole thing is so good, and I cannot tell you the last time I just played an album top to bottom on repeat over and over. I think it was probably deep in my Indigo Girls phase when I last did that? Like, a long-ass time ago. Because you can’t go to an all-women’s college with a theater department and not play Indigo Girls on endless loop, right? Like, that’s the law? At least, that’s my understanding of the law. Kesha’s album was so good and exactly what I needed, and I didn’t know I needed it, and it is, the most wonderful piece of musical art I discovered this year that was released this year. I mean, I’m sure there are other albums that are wonderful; that one just made me so happy.

Elyse: I play “Woman” on my way to work almost every day, like, just to remind myself.

Sarah: [Laughs] My favorite part of that album is, I’ve decided all the haters everywhere can suck my dick.

[Laughter]

Sarah: I, I was, like, singing along with that, and one of my children came in the kitchen and was like, you know we’re home, right?

[More laughter]

Sarah: I was like, yes, I’m aware that you’re home. You’ve heard these words before, children.

Elyse: I, I also found one – I don’t think it’s, it’s, came out in 2017, but it made my 2017 brighter. I’m not a big comic reader, but my husband introduced me to the comics of Atomic Robo, which are completely ridiculous and so fucking funny. So it is a giant, five-hundred-pound, sentient robot who’s also a spy, and his archnemesis is a velociraptor named Dr. Dinosaur, and, like, there’s a whole period of time where they’re, like, in a firefight; Dr. Dinosaur has atomic weapons inside an Igloo cooler strapped to his back; and the robot is, like, he’s always, like, the voice of reason in every situation, like, despite the fact that he’s a sentient, five-hundred-pound robot, about why there would not be an anthropomorphic dinosaur who traveled through time, because you couldn’t really travel through time because the Earth wouldn’t be in the same place it was when you left, so you would just be floating out there in space, and, like, he’s having this whole argument with the giant dinosaur about how he really can’t exist and how stupid this is, and it’s hard to describe, but you have to read these comics. They are so Goddamn funny, and they’re on ComiXology. I believe the first group of them is free.

Sarah: Perfect.

Redheadedgirl: I have one more thing.

Sarah: Please bring.

Redheadedgirl: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Sarah: Oh, please tell me all about this! I have not started watching it.

Carrie: Oh, yeah –

Redheadedgirl: Yeah, I, I’m working on the Stuff You Should Be Watching post about this, but The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is an Amazon Prime original series by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who you may remember as the show runner for the Gilmore Girls. So her dialogue is fast, and she’s very good at writing female friendships and women who talk very, very, very fast. And the show is set in the Jewish community in the Upper West Side, the 1950s, and Midge Maisel, her husband leaves her on Yom Kippur – this is all in the pilot episode –

Sarah: As you do.

Redheadedgirl: – where he’s like, I’m not happy, and she said, it’s Yom Kippur! No one’s happy!

[Laughter]

Sarah: Story checks out.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah! And she drinks all the kosher wine – like, all of it – and ends up at a, an open-mic café down in the Village and just launches a comedy career.

Sarah: As you do! As one does.

Redheadedgirl: As you do! And it’s hilarious. It’s unapologetically Jewish. Like, there are jokes that I know I didn’t get, and I, I have Jewish friends, so I’m not unversed in Jewish humor, but – [laughs] – it’s hilarious. There is an amazing friendship with the woman who runs the booking at the café, who’s played by Alex Borstein, who is an incredibly butch – it’s implied she’s lesbian, but I don’t believe it’s outright stated – and just the, the opposites-attract friendship. Lenny Bruce has cameos.

Sarah: Of course.

Redheadedgirl: There’s a number of other cameos that I don’t want to spoil for you, because they’re delightful surprises.

Sarah: Awesome.

Redheadedgirl: Yes, and –

Sarah: But we should be watching this is what you’re saying.

Redheadedgirl: You should be watching this.

Sarah: It’s delightful; it’s going to make you happy?

Redheadedgirl: It’s eight episodes, and if you watched Gilmore Girls and loved it but want to know what Amy Sherman-Palladino’s writing is like when she doesn’t need to censor herself for broadcast?

Sarah: Mmm!

Redheadedgirl: Yeah! Yeah, so that just dropped a, like, a week ago. And it’s amazing.

Sarah: We just started watching, is it, crazy, ugly, Crazyhead! Not ugly face; Crazyhead.

Amanda: Isn’t it great?

Sarah: I, I just, like, I was so delighted. I did not expect to like it as much, and I, then, and then after the first episode I’m like, okay – turning to Adam on the couch, ‘cause obviously this is not something the kids are going to watch? – let me just explain to you how interesting it was that every situation where she was in peril with, from a demon, she was in a place where ordinarily women are also in peril: alone at work, being left in the building after everyone has gone home, alone in a parking lot, having a cigarette, alone at home, not sure if you remembered to lock the door. Like, these are all normal situations of peril, and then there’re demons! Oh, my gosh. It’s so good.

Amanda: I binged it and then got real disappointed and depressed that there will not be a season two.

Sarah: There’s not going to be a season two?

Amanda: Nope. [Laughs]

Sarah: Well, that sucks! God damn it, 2017 –

Amanda: I know.

Sarah: – what the hell? You know, on one hand, I love how much good television there is that I have now been able to enjoy, and, and the thing is, there’s an end.

Redheadedgirl: Mm-hmm.

Sarah: Like the television season or the, or the show or the story, there’s an end. Like, it’s already built in; I know that they know where they’re going, and they’re not just going to, you know, wander aimlessly towards Syndication Land, but then there’s no season two, or it doesn’t continue, and that’s just a total bummer.

Redheadedgirl: Yeah.

Sarah: Woe. Woe is us. All right, anyone have any last comments about 2017?

Elyse: I’m glad it’s done.

Sarah: [Laughs]

Redheadedgirl and Carrie: Yeah.

Carrie: I, I feel like we have some tough years ahead of us, but I just, I’m just crossing ‘em off. I’m like, all right, that one’s down.

Sarah: Oh, one more thing I just remembered! I love how much technology has made it easier for me to agitate my representatives from wherever I am.

Redheadedgirl: [Laughs]

Carrie: Oh, preach!

Sarah: Like, I was –

Elyse: Yes.

Sarah: – I dropped my kids at their music lessons, and I’m walking up the hill to go to the grocery store, and I get a text message from, I think it’s Everytown was this one, which is all about gun control, and there was a text message: The House is going to vote on this bill, and you’ve indicated that, you know, this is a thing that you’re interested in. Would you be interested in calling your representative right now? And I’m like, I’m walking to the grocery store; what else do I have to do? I mean, that’s fine. So I text back: Call. So then they connect me to the organization where there’s a recording that tells me what the bill number is, what they would like me to say, who they’re connecting me to, what the issue is, and when the vote is, so that I can say on this date, this, this vote is happening, and I would like this representative to vote no. So I’m like, oh! Okay. But then, because they know I’m, they just, they just know I’m walking into the Safeway, they’re like, let me run that by you one more time, and I’m like, you guys are brilliant! Whose idea was this? This, it’s like you know me. So they run through it again. I even remembered the number of the bill, and I don’t remember numbers ever. And I’m standing in the middle of the Safeway shopping for lentils, talking to a, a staffer for my congressperson about, it was – [snaps fingers] – concealed carry reciprocity, which, of course, fucking passed, because God damn it! But I get this guy on the phone; he’s like, yeah, I’m getting a lot of calls about this all of a sudden. I’m like, yeah, you’re probably going to get some more, but thanks for letting me know my representative is voting the way I want him to. And I’m leaving the grocery store, and I’m like, I just called Congress while shopping in the grocery store and walking up the street, and all I had to do was hold my phone? It could not have been more easy, and I don’t like talking to people on the phone. So I love how many ways there are to use technology to agitate and, and, and get, get that feeling of okay, I did a, I did something. I didn’t do everything, but I did something. And to quote my former senator, Cory Booker, don’t let your inability to do everything get in the way of your ability to do something.

[music]

Sarah: And that brings us to the end of the episode and, for the podcast, the end of the 2017 season. I want to thank Amanda, Carrie, Elyse, and Redheadedgirl for hanging out with me. Next week, the four of us – well, five: four of them plus me; I’m really good at math – will look ahead to 2018, and we will tell you about so many things that we are looking forward to, especially books that we cannot, cannot wait to read. We also have a number of recommendations for you, because, well, that’s kind of how we roll. We’re really expensive people to listen to, I know.

So if you’ve been hanging out with us this year, I want to say thank you as well. I love doing the podcast. I’ve always wanted my own radio show, and now I, I kind of have one, and it’s super fun to know how much this show helps you out. I met a number of you this year who said that the podcast has gotten you through days and weeks where you’d thought, okay, well, Friday there’s going to be a Bitches podcast, so I might as well stick around for that. Thank you for sticking around, and thank you for listening, and thank you for hanging out with us. It is the very best thing to know how much you enjoy the show, because I really enjoy producing it.

I also want to thank you for subscribing, for leaving a review, for telling people about the show, for recommending us, and for leaving reviews in different places where you listen to podcasts to help other people find the show. There are – I don’t know if you’ve noticed this – a lot of podcasts, and it is amazing to me that people still find the show and, and recommend it, and our audience grows week to week. This was the year that we surpassed a million downloads, which blows my mind. So thank you for subscribing, for being part of our listening audience, for reading the transcripts, for tweeting at me and leaving comments and leaving reviews and letting people and myself know how much you enjoy it. That means the world.

This podcast is brought to you by The Bad Boy Cowboy by Kate Pearce. The Morgan men thought that they’d left their troubled pasts in the dust, but one by one, they find themselves returning to the Northern California ranch where together they have a chance to leave the past behind and forge a new future based on brotherhood, hope, and love in bestselling author Kate Pearce’s popular Morgan Ranch series. In The Bad Boy Cowboy, hotshot rodeo star HW is the last Morgan brother to return home. He wasn’t sure what kind of welcome would await him there, but he certainly didn’t count on spitfire army vet Samantha, vacationing at the ranch, to make the journey entirely worthwhile. The Bad Boy Cowboy by Kate Pearce is available wherever books are sold and at kensingtonbooks.com, and thanks and Happy New Year to Kensington and everyone there for sponsoring the show this month.

The show will always have a transcript, and while I don’t have a transcript sponsor for this episode, transcripts always happen. And if you would like to help me continue to grow the show and create podcasts for older episodes in our archives, I would like to humbly invite you to have a look at our podcast Patreon. Thank you, Patreon, for going back on your announced decision to pass the fees from the creator – that’s me – to the pledges – that would be you – and saying, yeah, that was a bad idea; let’s not do that. Thank you for going back to not doing that; that’s a really good plan to not make that change. So many of you have asked me for alternatives, so I am researching them as well, but if you are curious, you can have a look at our Patreon page at patreon.com/SmartBitches. Pledges of as little as one dollar a month make a deeply, deeply appreciated difference in my ability to grow the show. Grow your show! You’re helping me, you’re helping the show, you’re helping me commission transcript, and you’re going to help me create the podcast into the New Year. I always ask the patrons first what guest ideas they have, what questions I should, I should ask a big guest, what would they like to know, what would they like to listen to, and it’s lovely to hear from them, so I hope you join the group! Thank you again so much for even considering it.

The music you’re listening to is provided by Sassy Outwater. She’s on Twitter @SassyOutwater. This is Deviations Project; this is Adeste Fiddles. It’s my favorite holiday music, and this is “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. It’s pretty awesome. I hope you are enjoying this as much as I do, and if you go to the podcast entry at smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast, you will find a link to Adeste Fiddles as well as links to every other piece of entertainment we talked about in this episode. There’re a lot of books; there’re albums; there’s music; there’re movies. Seriously? Kesha’s Rainbow album got me through a lot this year, so thank you especially to Kesha for being amazing. I’m sure she doesn’t listen, but on the off chance she’s like, hey, what’s this podcast? Kesha, you’re amazing! Thank you for kicking ass and taking names.

And while I’m thanking people, thank you, garlicknitter, for transcribing this and every podcast episode. It would not be possible without you, so thank you so much. [You’re very welcome! – gk]

Now I always end with a terrible joke, and I have a terrible joke. Are you ready? Okay.

Why did the Clydesdale give the pony a glass of water?

I’m actually taking a sip of water. Why did the Clydesdale give the pony a glass of water?

Because he was a little horse!

[Laughs] Amazing! I love bad jokes, and I love dad jokes, and I get both; it’s pretty rad.

So on behalf of everyone here, we want to wish you a wonderful weekend, a very Happy New Year, the very best of reading, and I know that this year has been particularly difficult and challenging for many of you. Thank you for being here. Your being here in the world with us makes everything better. Thank you for being part of the podcast, thank you for listening, thank you for being part of Smart Bitches, and we will see you back here next year! Bye for now.

[funkiest ballet/Christmas music]