how to get out of a reading slump (books that help & hurt) - bonus chapter: slump city, b*tch

one slump to rule them all, one slump to find them. one slump to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. if you, like us, have found yourself caught in the shackles of a mid-year reading slump then find comfort in this episode. we discuss our respective months-long slumps, the perfect formula to finding a book that will lift us out of the murky depths of literary ambivalence and try to define what exactly it is that makes a book a real stinker and the circumstances that lead to a slump in the first place. 

books mentioned:

big little lies - lianne moriarty
the bad beginning - lemony snicket 
the perks of being a wallflower - stephen chbosky
green dot - madeleine grey
love and virtue - diana reid
the rachel incident - caroline o'donoghue
olive kitteridge - elizabeth strout  
no hard feelings - genevieve novak
the paper palace - miranda cowly-heller
twilight - stephenie meyer
the goldfinch - donna tartt
the list - yomi adagoke
the imaginary friend - steven chbosky
the burning chambers - kate mosse
the white album - joan didion
the luminaries - elena catton
a court of silver flames - sarah j. maas
all the light we cannot see - anthony doerr
midnight sun - stephenie meyer    

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Transcript

Laura 0:00

Hello and welcome to a talk lit get hit bonus chapter. The little book chats in between the big ones. We'll talk about reading, authors, and have discussions with people who, like us, can't shut up about books. We might get sidetracked and talk about literally anything else, but this is a bonus chapter we wrote just for you. Hello and welcome to a big fat book slump talk lit get hit bonus chapter. You're joined by talklet get hit hosts Bridget and Laura. Hi Bridget! Hi Laura! Today we are doing the closest thing we could possibly find to reading, and that is talking about reading. If you're like us, you may have been finding reading to be somewhat of a slog lately. Well, we are here to potentially cure you or curse you. We have some books that might dig you further into a slump, but we have some hot wrecks that might help you get out of it as well.

Bridget 0:51

Yeah, maybe you have a lot of things coming up and you need to stop reading. It's always good to give both sides, I think.

Laura 0:56

Yeah. Yeah. We've got some good ones. We're here to hold your hand through the whole affair. I do think most of the books that I will be talking about this episode are books that you haven't read, Bridget. So I will try to keep it vague for your sake and for the sake of everybody else. Agreed. I agree to do the same. So I thought for this episode it could be fun to challenge ourselves not to include podcast books. At least for the initial conversation. Because I think there are some extremely obvious choices we could make, particularly those that will put us into a slump. I didn't rise to the challenge just for one book. I'm happy with that. Okay. Do you think there is a secret formula for a book that gets you out of a reading slump? I'm still in one at the moment. Are you? Yeah. At the time of recording, I am in a reading slump. Yes. And I have been for about three to four months, I would say. Yeah, I'm probably the same, unfortunately. I don't know what it is that gets me into a reading slump. Maybe I can answer that first. It can be a number of things. I think reading a series of books that bum me out or don't meet my expectations is something that can get me into a slump. How about you? I think forcing myself to read a boring book always does it for me. I'm not at the stage of my life yet where I can DNF a book easily. That is a negative byproduct of doing the podcast at times because although it's a little bit different because I do enjoy the act of reading a book that I'm not enjoying reading, because there's a level of anticipation and like glee when I get to think about all the shit things about the book that I will enjoy talking to you about. Yes. So it's like a little bit twisted, but it's not a wholly negative experience. We just read on the podcast what I think is my most hated book ever. And I had a really good time reading it because I was excited to talk about it. So it is weird. And sometimes it's not even the most overtly awful book that puts me in a slump. It's like something that's just merely fine. And I keep going through it expecting it to get better, and it just never does. But if I read something that's kind of horrific, I want to remedy that. And I don't always get it right, but often I read something that's like a lot better after, and then I'm like, I'm back in business, baby. I think to get out of the slump, the secret formula is to read something short, funny, easy to read, possibly trashy, just to get you in the habit again. Yeah, I think that's great advice, and it's already got me looking at my list and going, was that the best choice? But I will try to justify my choices as best I can. Alright, without any further ado, the first book that I have on my get out of a slump book list is Big Little Lies by Leanne Moriarty. Have you read that? No. It is, in my eyes, just like the perfect mystery/slash thriller. I think when people think of like a beach read, that's often the kind of genre that you think of. It still manages to be juicy. It's like contemporary, it's set in Australia. It errs like a little bit closer to sort of like chiclet or whatever you would want to call it. It's still quite modern and upbeat. Like it's not terrifying, but it's just such a good read. It's just one of those books. I'm often so skeptical of those books that make it really big, get turned into a TV show, you know, they're like a Reese with a Spoon-produced TV show or whatever. They're on the Dimmix Top 100. I always think, oh, it must be some dumb shit if everybody thinks they can read it or if everybody finds enjoyment in it. But this was a case where I was like, oh, I'm happy to say I'm one of the masses. I didn't realise that it was set in Australia. So the show isn't, but the book is set in like a Sydney beach town. Yeah, I just think it's like really pacey. It has kind of sharp observations, it's quite funny in parts, and it does deal with like a number of societal issues in a way that has like a crumb of depth. So I think it's a pretty balanced book. I found it really enjoyable. I do think Leanne Moriarty is one of those authors that just kind of delivers hits again and again. Like they're not always my favorite book, but they are a book where I'm like, I know I'm gonna read this start to finish, and I probably won't be that bored in between. It might not be a five-star read, it might not even be a four-star read, but it's a book where I'm like, yeah, I don't really have any problems reading that, and on to the next. So that's my first recommendation. My first recommendation is a children's book. But like with many children's movies, I think there's a lot you can get out of this book, and it's The Bad Beginning, which is the first book in the series of unfortunate events by Lemony Snicket. And I think this series of books, there's 13 in total, and I just think it's some of the best work to have ever been made. And I love it. The movie's great, the TV show is great, the PlayStation 2 game is great. Oh my god, it's so good. But the book itself is filled with a lot of wordplay, and it's for kids, but it's interesting. But I feel like reading it as an adult, you're getting things out of it that are like life lessons, you know, like questions of morality and ethics. I love it. That's a great choice. I really wholeheartedly support that. I'm taking your advice, and I think the next book that I would recommend as my get out of a slump book is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. It is short, it is easy to read, it probably technically falls into young adult fiction. This is a book that I have read so many times before, although I haven't read it in quite a few years. It is a book that informed my actions for at least five years post-school. Like all of my interactions online were just me trying to emulate this writing style, trying to be as like quietly poetic as Charlie is. It's such a beautiful book. It's so expertly written, it's so sensitive and beautiful, and it just has these themes that kind of just carry across so many generations. It's told in a way that I actually normally really hate books to be told in, and that is in letters. But I think what is great about it is that we don't have to have all the faff of the letters, like the date, the time, to and from. We don't have to ever find out who Charlie's friend is. Spoiler alert. I think I've only read this once, and I don't remember it being letters. It starts off and it says, like, dear friend, I am writing to you because they say that you listen and you understand, blah blah blah. I'm pretty certain you never find out who the friend is, and it's just in effect his diary. Even just that is like such a beautiful thing for him to just be sharing these crazy events of his life in such an open way with somebody that he doesn't know. Oh, I just love it so much. I'm getting a bit choked up even just talking about it. It's so quotable. I just feel like everybody on earth will read this book and find one line that resonates with them. Books like these are why I have problems with young adult fiction because this is such a beautiful book and it has beautiful themes of friendship, there's family and trauma and things like that as well. But if this book can do it, why can't these books?

Bridget 8:01

Yeah.

Laura 8:02

Just because they're for younger readers doesn't mean they have to be boring or badly written. And so maybe that is like the standard that I hold young adult too. And just like the casual wisdom and parts, like the number one quote from this book, we accept the love we think we deserve. It's something I think most weeks of my life. I just think that's such a profound thing. Stephen Chbosky's probably not the originator of that concept or that idea. I'm sure that's a sentiment that's been expressed many times, but that was the first time I ever heard that kind of line of thinking. I just think it's such oh, I just don't have enough words for this book. Maybe I'll read it when I get home. I'm just always leaves me buzzing. I love it so much. What's your next book? My next book is Green Dot by Madeline Gray, and this is quite a freshly published book. It's February of 2024. And I thought this book was so funny. It's about a girl in her mid-20s working as a news website comment moderator. You must see some shit in those comment sections. The darkest recesses of the internet. And she meets Arthur, who is an older married co-worker, and just the relationship that follows that it's just like one of those books that I like where there's a messy girl living in either Sydney or Melbourne or London or Edinburgh and just like doing bad things, but doing it with humour. It's just endearing, and they're learning from their mistakes. But the thing that I took away from this book is how funny it was, and I felt like it really captured being an Australian woman in her like 20s. That makes me really excited to read it. I haven't read it yet. Funny. It's been on my list. That is exactly the kind of book I enjoy reading, and it ties in nicely to one of my rec's as well, which is also about being a woman in Australia in your 20s, making messy and confusing choices. So the book that I've picked is Love and Virtue by Diana Reed. Diana Reed has only published two books, and they're both excellent. I could have just as easily picked seeing other people, but I've picked Love and Virtue because it is, to a degree, a type of novel that I truly love, and that is a campus novel. I love a campus novel so much. I don't even know how to articulate it or why it is. I'm not smart enough to get there, but I just think that feeling of like prestige, out in the world on your own for the first time, this kind of little insular, like micro social ecosystem is definitely a better word for that. I just love it. I love the whole kind of like academia institution. I don't know, I can't quite articulate the appeal. What do you reckon appeals to you about it? I had a theory that it stems back from playing Sims 2 University. Because, oh God, I love that game. That is the best expansion pack for the Sims. And I think that's what it's from. I don't know, I don't know. Maybe it's that thing of being out on your own in the world for the first time. Everything is new, everything is adult, but you're still sort of in a structured environment like school, but you have freedom. You can use your phone, you can chew gum, wear what you want, wear makeup. It's cool, but better. But it's also not real life. So there's this kind of suspended reality or living in reality. Like you're spending 12 hours a day wanting to do anything but what you're doing, trying to write an essay or whatever. But it's still, it's just such a vibe. It's a vibe. This is how I tricked myself into going back to uni because I was like, God, uni's good. And then you studied online. It's not good, it's not the vibe. It's not this is for future me. Five years' time when you think, oh god, I love studying. No, you do not. Yeah. Memo for me as well. Not a good studier. So we've established that love and virtue is set at a university. Story about two friends, two really bright, smart young women who befriend each other in their first year of college. University of Sydney, I think. So nice to hear a familiar setting, kind of bond through O-week. They're, you know, banding together, being drunk, going on escapades, forming alliances, passing judgments on their peers. Also competing. Competing, yes. So there's like this really fragile element to their friendship, and not to spoil anything, but there's also a professor thrown into the mix. And that is especially tantalizing. And I feel like that could lead in well to another of your recs. We are nothing if not consistent. Yes, and as I was saying before, loving a book about a girl in a city, Sydney, Melbourne, London, or Edinburgh. This one is in Dublin. And that's another city that I would add in there that I love to read about. The Rachel incident. I mean, I don't know how many times we've got a bang on about this book, but we love it. It's great. We read it as an ARC before it came out, and I was just so enamored by these characters. I don't have enough good things to say about it, really. I loved it so much as well. I was completely engrossed. For all the same reasons that I loved Love and Virtue, it was intoxicating. A lot of the time I feel like with American campus novels, it seems unrelatable and unrealistic. Even though this was set in Dublin, it still felt very familiar to me. And I also just like the grittiness of a city like Dublin in a book. It just feels unpolished, a bit messy, which I think is quite realistic. Especially when you're at uni learning how to live as an adult and trying to not step on a landmine, basically. God, I loved that book so much. Okay, my next recommendation to get out of a slump is Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout. I love Elizabeth Strout. I love everything of hers ever written. She has these two kinds of series, one based around the character Olive Kitteridge and one based around the character Lucy Barton, and they're all kind of interconnected. And these books, honestly, they are just the most soothing, tender, slice of life type books that I could possibly imagine. She has this way of crafting these stories where you're reading the book and it feels like you're just watching a movie, but the movie is just you sitting on a park bench watching people live their lives. You just make an observation about the human condition, and suddenly you're crying. Like, I don't even know. There's someone out here that's gonna explain it so much better than I am, but they just are such rich, nuanced portrayals of just how people live their everyday lives. And she has this really amazing way of just kind of sharply cutting to the heart of things that oh, I just I just don't know. I just love it so much. So Olive Kitteridge is a book about a woman named Olive Kitteridge, and she's not even a particularly likable character. She's this bustling older woman, she's quite bossy, she's always, you know, holding people to a really high standard. She's a retired school teacher, she's always hassling her husband, and she lives in Maine, and she's growing older, and she's trying to make sense of the world around her and all of the changes that are catching up to her. And so it is kind of told through these different narratives. It's not always from Olive's perspective, but it's just like interwoven. It charts quite a few years, and it's just like watching the changes in her life and the seasons of her life, and it's just so beautiful. I love it so much. I've never read any Elizabeth Stroud. I think you'd enjoy it. My next one is Surprise Surprise, another book about a girl in her 20s living in a city. I think she lives in Melbourne in this one, but this is No Hard Feelings by Genevieve Novak. And like you were saying with Diana Reed before, she has two books. I could have picked either one of them, all bangers. Because crushing was also great, and I really feel like Australian women's fiction is really having a moment. Oh, it's so good. This book is described on Goodreads as a sharp, smart, and witty look at adulting, which is gross. But next sentence, Fleabag meets sorrow and bliss with a splash of Dolly Alderton. Oh, you've got me. Sorry. Tick, tick, tick. That's an excellent way of selling it. She's like living her life. She's not sure whether this guy's actually her boyfriend, like she's in this situation ship. Her friends seem to be progressing more than she is. She's got this shit job, trying to get her mental health under control, trying to water her plants, trying to live her life. And it's funny. It's relatable. Same as the other ones, really. It's great. I love it. Rinse and repeat, baby. No, I back you up on all of those. They're all excellent books. Okay, I could have recommended some more books, but I think the last book that I would talk about that encapsulates my perfect book to get me personally out of a slump is a book called The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. And if you've listened to the podcast, you've probably heard me talk about this multiple times on the show. It's not necessarily like a light-hearted summer read, but it is a story set over the course of a singular day, which I always love. It's set in Cape Cod, and the way that they're kind of like summer houses and the lakes and everything or the beaches are described is just so immersive, and it tells the story of a woman named Elle who's 50 years old and happily married, and she's at this place called the Paper Palace, which is a place that she visited with her family every summer of her life. But this particular morning is different because we find out that the night before Elle and her oldest friend Jonas had snuck away and slept together for the first time while their spouses were doing their own things. And so it charts like the 24 hours of them, or of Elle really trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life and reflecting on the events in her life and her summers at the Paper Palace, her summers with Jonas, her interactions with her husband, Peter, and all of the things that like led her to this point in time. It's just, yeah, like a really kind of gritty, emotional, rich story. It touches on themes of abuse. I think I do enjoy books from the perspective of a slightly older woman as well. Like it's just something that I'm just noticing now. Olive Kitteridge, I think that perspective was one I found really refreshing. And this one here, you know, she's 50 years old. It's not a perspective I read from often, and that was a banger as well. So again, it's like really cinematic to me. I felt like I could picture it. I loved this book. My last one is the one that made me fail the challenge, and it's Twilight. I mean, you do read it once a year. I'm going to, yeah. But as we talked about in the episode, there is just something so cozy about Twilight. Her putting the shit in the microwave and like marinating the meat for Charlie's dinner. Going to school and reading a book in the car and reading the It's just something so good about it. It's a long book, but it flies. I agree. It is cozy. I see how you arrived at that conclusion. It's easy to read, it's familiar, it feels good. I opened up the five books that I recommended in Story Graph, and I have to say I'm not really shocked by the tags that are allocated to them. So obviously they're all fiction and then they're all under either literary or contemporary fiction, which is not a shock. I'm not that creative when it comes to reading. And then the most assigned tags to all of these are emotional, reflective, and sad. Medium paced for Olive Kitteridge, Love and Virtue is dark and reflective and medium paced. Perks of being a wallflower, emotional, reflective, sad and medium paced. Paper palace, dark, emotional, reflective, and medium paced. And Big Little Lies is kind of the anomaly. It is emotional, but it is mysterious, tense, and medium paced. I do like a video with Slowburn. I do like something that has like a lot of backstory or you know, necessary backstory that fleshes out the characters. So I'm not really shocked by that outcome. And I think I could have told you that myself. Mine were non-surprisingly all fiction as well. Not really into the non-fiction. I do try to challenge myself to read nonfiction, but boring. For the bad beginning, we have fiction, middle grade, and mystery. It's adventurous, dark, mysterious, and fast-paced. Wow! Which sounds a bit spooky. Green dot, we have fiction, contemporary, LGBTQIA plus, literary, and it's emotional, funny, reflective, medium-paced. That is pretty much exactly the same for the Rachel incident and no hard feelings. That one's just fiction and contemporary. They're all reflective, they're all emotional. And then Twilight, fiction, fantasy, romance, young adult, adventurous, emotional, mysterious, medium-paced. If I go on my profile, and you know how it gives you the little summary of what you like, it's mainly reads fiction books that are emotional, reflective, and dark. And mine is the same. And typically chooses medium-paced books that are less than 300 pages long. Exposed. Me too. Okay, what about the books that have put you into a slump? For me, this is like a bit more varied than the ones that I like. First one for me is what I've just recently read, and I think it's what has put me in a slump this time. The adventures of Huckleberry Finn could also be interchanged with the adventures of Tom Sawyer because I read them in succession, and what can I say other than boring? I actually don't understand why you would do that to yourself. Like, just learn to DNF a book, please. Okay, the reason why is because you know those lists that are like top 100 books. Yeah. That's what I like to read from occasionally. I go through phases that I'm like, I need to tick these books off. If I want to call myself a reader, I have to read all these books and I have to know what they're about. Unfortunately, most of them are. So boring. Yeah, that's the bad news. So I forced myself to read them in the last few months, and since then the dam is dry. They are so boring. I think I read one of them when I was in primary school. So did I. Didn't comprehend any of it. No, I was gonna say red is a generous way of describing what occurred. Ticked it off an accelerated reader. Yeah. But don't remember a thing. In a similar vein, I remember I was trying to read White Fang for probably like a good four or five months as a kid, and I trashed that book every allocated, you know, two o'clock reading time in primary school. I was there fake reading and I was stuck with White Fang for a long term. This isn't in my list, but a book that I was stuck on as a kid other than Gorky Park was Kim by Rudyard Kipling. Oh god. And my aunt gave it to me. I don't know how old I was, primary school, I think. And I tried so hard to finish it. And I don't think I ever have I think why I often get stuck in a slump is because I'm trying to fill a hole. I'm trying to find a book that will echo the feeling or the sentiment or just, you know, fill the void left by a book that I've just read. And one that I'm always trying to fill the void of is the secret history. And so I thought, where better to start than by reading another Donna Tart book? And so I read The Goldfinch. It took me a long time. It's a big book. It's like 700 something pages long. I wouldn't say I didn't enjoy it, but it is a pretty bleak story and it's not at all similar to The Secret History. I found it to be such an unfulfilling story. I think her writing is so beautiful, and it's kind of my own fault. Like I read the blurb and I thought that sounds great, but I was just kind of hoping that magically all of her books would have that same balance of like mystery, murder, sex, intrigue, unreliable narration, whatever. All of those things that I just eat up. I was hoping to find exactly replicated in the Goldfinch. That's my bad, but I was so bummed out and it took me so long to read and it just was so unsatisfying. I was like, I have to finish this book. I read it as well, and I did feel the same. I think it's too long. It's too long. There's so much time. It needs an edit. Fix it, Donna. Fix it. I actually read it so I could watch the movie. Read the book. Never watched the movie. Well, the movie's pretty bad. It looked like it was gonna be so good in the trailer, but it just picks up on all of those slow-paced, like the book is so reflective, and it just doesn't translate well to a movie, I think. Yeah, I I did really like it, but I think it was too long. The next one for me was an ARC that we got for the podcast, and it was The List by Yomi Adagoke. Hmm. I like the concept. I like the cover with the emoji. I don't like anything else about it, really. I felt that this book didn't quite hit the mark that it could have. The first half was enjoyable, but I wasn't sure where the plot was moving towards. And I think it had a real opportunity of being like a sensitive commentary of cancellation and striving for accountability for bad behavior, but I think the message was muddled and I didn't like the characters. I don't know, I felt like it was possibly too forgiving of the men. Yeah. And that's not what I expected at all. No, I was quite shocked as well. I had the same reaction to reading it. Didn't know where it was going, was disappointed where it ended up. Yeah, I was disappointed. Disappointed is the right word. I think that's like a very common reaction to that book. So if you're looking for a book to get into the slump, the list is a great one. Next on my list is another book by Steven Chabosky, and it is actually, I think, his only other book. I read this thinking, my god, I loved Perks of Being a Wallflower. I cannot wait to feel the same. I read it knowing that it was like horror, fiction, mystery, thriller type book, and that's fine. I'm always looking for a spooky book, a horror, something that sends shivers up my spine. I always so desperately want to be a little bit scared. I love watching horror movies. And the premise of this book sounded really good. Single mom on the run, she's trying to improve the life of her son to a flee and abusive relationship. Ah, they move to a tight-knit community in Pennsylvania. Ooh, very spooky. But then suddenly the son vanishes and no one can find him. One day, six days later, he emerges out of the woods, not harmed, but not unchanged. So he now has a voice in his head that only he can hear, and he has a mysterious mission he has to complete. And spooky stuff keeps happening. This book is 720 pages long. You know when you do that thing where you just reserve a library item and you don't know what it's gonna look like, you don't know how it's what the hand feel will be. I thought it was gonna be puny. Like perks of being a woolflower is small. Yeah. 720 pages. Too long. And look, genuinely, I don't enjoy reading from the perspective of a child. I feel like so few people do it well. This was not done well, it was so long, and I just felt like I was just slogging through this out of a sense of loyalty. Like I really, really hoped that it would wrap up and I would enjoy it and it would end well. His point of view was so nagging and whining and like apa apa apa apa apa. Like just it was just such a miss. It was such a drastically frustrating book. I did not enjoy it at all. I don't really have anything else to say. All I just remember about it is that I really hated it, and probably from the first like eighth of the book, I was thinking, oh no, I'll just read a bit more. Yeah. Oh, I'll just read a bit more, and then suddenly I'm, you know, you're halfway and you're like, oh my god, I have to see this, I have to see this through to the end. I don't want to. It was so bad. Sensing a bit of a theme here because this is my next book. It's a long one as well. 608 pages. Oh god. It's The Burning Chambers by Kate Moss. And I think I have talked about this on the podcast before because we were like, Kate Moss, like the bottle. And it's not, but it would have been more interesting if it was, I think. So it's set in 16th century southern France. It was about something that I don't know about. I don't know anything about it. Like about some sort of like religious war or like religious uprising or something. I didn't know about it and I didn't care about it, unfortunately. And I don't even know where this book came from. I don't I didn't buy it. It was just in my house, so I read it. And I wish I didn't. I can't even remember any of the plot. That's how much I how much I paid attention to it. Done. Yeah. I think that I'm gonna struggle in a similar way to talk about the rest of my slump books because I truly have like blocked them from my brain. I think, yeah, like you said, a real common theme in the slumps is that they're long and it's punishing. I think I will switch it up ever so slightly with my next one, which is the White Album or literally anything by Joan Diddy, Allie Smith, Rachel Kusk, Deborah Levy, Ama McBride. There is a limit to how much I can consume by those women without feeling utterly bereft and like depressed and like self-hating because I want so badly to be the girly that reads and understands and just is like thoroughly enjoying these books. And every time, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every time I start reading one of these books, like you know, I was reading Outline, I was reading Transit, I was reading The Year of Magical Thinking, Spring, Autumn, How to Be Both, Girl is a Half-Formed Thing, whatever it is. I have tried it all, and I get, you know, like maybe a third of the way through the book, and I'm like, it's so beautiful. The writing is amazing. Like, oh, this is just gorgeous. Oh, it's so smart, it's so funny. And then after a point, I'm like, I'm not really sure what the plot is, though. Like, I don't think I'm quite smart enough to comprehend what's going on here. And so I have a difficult relationship where I think it's like an aspirational read for me. I really want to get the appeal because I think I'm halfway there. I enjoy the writing and I like it's like this kind of sparse, more prosy style of writing. Like it's definitely more literary-leaning, often quite reflective, I don't know, often very slow-paced, often a little bit philosophical or maybe like allegorical. I don't really know. I never quite get there, and I always feel stupid, and I always feel like I'm missing something, and I just feel like out of the joke, out of the conversation, and just makes me feel bummed out because I really want to like them. And maybe I can just admit that they're not for me, but I don't know that I will. I have so many, I've collected so many from like book fests and whatnot. My next one is a book that I really liked, but it took me 10 months to read it. It's 834 pages. Oh god. And I think if I had focused, I would have obvious obviously I would have been able to finish it in shorter than 10 months, but it's The Luminaries by Elena Eleanor Catton. I mean, it's a great story. It's sprawling, it's mysterious, it's great writing, beautiful cover. It's a gorgeous cover. Probably one of my favorite covers ever. It's just too long. I have wanted to read this book for a really long time, and I have a stunning copy, and I know that you enjoyed it, and I know that it took you a long time to read, and that does not fill me with confidence. I think it's so hard to enjoy a story when you lose momentum on it. It wasn't even that long, but I read tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow, and I think I would have enjoyed that a lot longer if I hadn't somehow stretched it out over three months. And that's not exclusive to that story. I do that with so many things, and you just kind of lose the impact. I think you lose track of the characters as well. And this one's not on my list, and this might be a little bit controversial, but I feel the same about pachinko. I think pachinko was too long. I think it took me too long to read to really get the impact that I was hoping for, and that other people had told me that I was gonna get. When I finished it, I was like, ugh. Yeah, I was so confident you were gonna like pachinko. But I think it's because I listened as an audiobook, there was just too many gaps in between. Isn't it weird how some books just click as audiobooks and others don't? Like I'm listening to Big Swiss at the moment, and I tried reading that when we got it as an ARC. I tried reading it as a book, and I was like, I don't think this is for me. I really want to like this, but I'm not sure I will. But then as soon as I started listening to the audiobook, I thought, this is incredible. This is like one of the funniest, smartest, most hilarious books I've ever read. And it makes me wonder what else I'm missing out on. Like, if it's a book that I feel like based on the blurb I'm gonna enjoy, I kind of want to give it more than one chance. So I that's like an audiobook is great for that. Yeah, and I think like because the characters are quite I hate this word, but quirky. Yeah. And I feel like an audiobook would sort of bring them to life. Yeah, it really does. An excellent book is A Cautionary Tale Against Reaching Your Saturation Point. The A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Mass is responsible for the conception of this podcast. We read those books in a fever, in an absolute haze, in a flurry of excitement, were desperate to talk about them. By the time we reached the end of the third book, A Court of Wings and Ruin, if I'm being honest, I'd had enough. And then we had to go through that silly little blue book. Frost and Starlight. The Christmas fan fiction. Yeah. And then I already knew that I didn't really care for Nesta and I didn't really care for Cassian. I still went into it with dread in my heart, if I'm being honest, but I was like, I have to see this through to the end. I I want it to be good. Bridget and Erin are reading it, and you also were both like uh if we must. Even though we were in a fever for Aqua Forza Roses, I think every book I read was an if we must. Yeah. But it was enjoyable. Yeah, I was enjoying them. But it was because I wanted to talk shit about them. It's that thing we were talking about before. Yeah. By this point, I was like, I don't even want to talk about this. Like, I don't want this in my brain. I don't want to retain this. I don't want to talk about the stairs. I don't want to talk about how the house is like sentient and has to like witness them having sex and then provide soup or like more female novels or like whatever the heck the house does, I can't even remember. I don't want to hear about like the domestic life of Re-Sand and Farah. I don't want to hear about like that little throwaway fan service line about like, yes, we even have sex in the same room. Like it was so annoying. I don't want a training montage, and I normally love a training montage. Like, I just don't, I just had had had enough. I'd had enough of that shit like up to my neck. I don't need more, and it was so much more. I would agree. I don't hate Nesta with the same like burning rage that you and Erin did. You might have cooled off a bit now. I I don't mind Nesta. Honestly, I would probably prefer her over Fera after I don't know how many months has passed since we've read those. And if I read it again now, you know, I reserve the right to change my mind. I didn't hate A Court of Silver Flanes, but it was too long. And there were so many parts of that book that I was like, shut up, get rid of it. Yeah. Don't give a shit. And like what it was was the feeling of reading A Court of Thorns and Roses was like rediscovering Twilight as an adult. It was like almost that same kind of feeling. It was such a nostalgic throwback. And then the series progressed, it wasn't really that satisfying, but I kept chasing that high and not receiving it, and then that was the last straw. Because of all those reasons, we never recorded an episode about a court of silver flames. And we get so many messages saying, please, please, please record a Court of Silver Flames. Don't make me. I don't even remember what happened in the books now. No. So I feel like if we were gonna do that, we'd have to do some pretty hectic googling or a reread. Oh, it's such a turn off. I know. But I mean, we are we are a slave to what the listeners want, so I feel like I've said this a lot in the last few episodes, but anything for attention or engagement we'll do with. We aim to please. My last book on the list is another book that I would say I enjoyed, but once again, too long. It was All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerdauer. This book is set in France, Paris, and Germany. It's like a split perspective book. I feel like everyone sort of knows this. It was very popular. It had one of those covers that every book seemed to have at the time where there was a girl dressed in like a 1940s outfit running away from something holding a suitcase. Like every single book had that so true. Some like iteration of that cover. It took me a month to read it. These days I would definitely say it's too long. I would lose interest or like lose knowledge very quickly. I read it in 2018, and I think at the time I was like, this book is so good. But I remember after reading it, I didn't read anything for a long time. Were you too sad? Or you just were burnt out and exhausted? I think I was just burnt out and exhausted. I think that was also like the first year I started teaching. So also like I was busy. I really liked that book. I do remember it being long, and it took me a long time though, as well. And it was definitely one of those books where I thought, damn, if only I'd just actually properly read this, so I could have gotten more of an impact. Have you seen the movie? No. Me neither. I probably will never watch it. Me neither. I don't think it's a story that would be improved with a movie. I would agree. My lucky last pick was one where I was kind of just searching for something to chuck in. I think I had the happy discovery, like going through my Goodreads for this, that although I often find myself in a slump, on my actual list of books that I've read, I cannot very frequently point a finger at a book and say, that one right there put me in a slump. I think it's because I often start books and think, nah, not for me, and I move on. So I don't finish them, so they don't end up on a list, but I will go through maybe like five or six books before I settle on one that will either make things better or worse. So Midnight Sun is one that I chucked on because common theme. It was very, very long. It took me a long time to get through. And although I think it's better than some of the other Twilight books, it's still pretty bad. It's still not really adding a lot of value to my life. So it's like a lot of work for not that much reward for me. If I wanted something in that universe, I would just read Twilight. It's a long book to read when you already know the story. Yes. You're not getting anything new other than like I'm so sad. I looked out the window. Yeah. I think something that shocked me when I first read it was that there was so much of the story that I did already know. Like there was so much that was the leaked chapter, and I thought, God, I've I'm doing all of this work reading this stuff that I've already read, but I just don't know how far into the book that's gonna go. And then there were a bunch of scenes that I may as well not really have read because they were just a mirror image of the scene in Twilight. So I don't know, it's it's gonna go on my list, but I don't feel this one with the same conviction. Amazingly, I don't feel this one with the same conviction that I did for the other ones. Were there common threads between your books? Yeah, it wasn't a thread, it was like a steel pipe. There was a steel cable connecting four out of five of the books that were on my shit list, and it's historical fiction. All but the list were historical fiction. The list was challenging, emotional, tense, fast-paced and contemporary and literary, but the rest of them were fiction, historical, literary, adventurous, mysterious, slow-paced, could have told you that. Challenging, mystery, and reflective. Very interesting. Historical fiction, I think that's the genre that I just tend to avoid, and it's one I like to be surprised by occasionally. Like when I read Pachinko and I enjoyed it. Nice treat. Before today, I thought that I enjoyed historical literacy, but maybe I don't. I think it's a hit or miss. I guess it depends what period of history we're talking about as well. 2011 tick. Yeah, I love it. For me, there is a pretty clear theme as well, but it's not necessarily in the tags, it's in the page numbers. So the goldfinch was 784 pages, The Imaginary Friend, 720, A Court of Silver Flames, 757, Midnight Sun, 662, and then the White Album is kind of like a blanket for all Joan Diddy, but they're normally quite short. So this is only 224, and I think that the same goes for like Rachel Cusk, Allie Smith, blah blah blah. If we're looking at the tags, two of them are tagged as slow-paced, so the goldfinch and imaginary friend, and I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Looking at the tags, I would think the goldfinch is exactly what I'm after. It's dark, emotional, reflective, but I think it's that not living up to my own expectations, not filling the hole I needed filled. Imaginary Friend is dark and mysterious. We have dark, emotional, and adventurous for a chord of silver flames, dark, emotional, medium pace for Midnight Sun. Young Adult, as well, I think, is another detractor here. It's like it's giving me all of that, and it's still not giving me what I wanted, which is like actual, logical, emotional through lines, character development, a little bit of depth. And then the white album is non-fiction, essays, and history, informative and reflective, and I think that's something I probably could have told you about myself. I want to enjoy non-fiction, I don't always, I don't really like essays and short stories, although I'm trying. And yeah, historical is something that I dabble in, but I normally stay clear of just because it is often a miss. I know we said we were not gonna do it, but if you were to put a podcast book that would put you into a slump, what would be top of your list? Actually, I already know. Excluding Fifty Shades of Grey. I have three other than Fifty Shades of Grey. First one was Before the Coffee Gets Cold. I was immensely bored by that book. It's short and so boring. I had to force myself to finish that. The second was Romancing Mr. Bridgetton. Like you were talking about before, it was Fatigue. That was the fourth Bridgetton book I had read. They all have the same plot, they're all the same book, and obviously I hate Colin.

Bridget 42:40

That'll do.

Laura 42:42

So I think that was one as well. The last one was Cemetery Boys, and we were talking about this when we were sort of planning the episode, and we s we sort of discussed that cemetery boys was responsible for the current slump that we're in. I agree. I think I have not really read anything properly since Cemetery Boys. Looking back on the episode, I think I was just like so overjoyed to finally like a young adult book that I sort of talked about it as if I liked it a bit more than I actually did. But I I can't really decide on that. I'm still a bit confused about cemetery boys. Yeah, me too. I think it's because of that blasted two-point rating system. I wouldn't rate it shit, but is it truly lit? That's a good question. That'll keep you up at night. How about you? Before the coffee gets cold is a great one. It was such a surprisingly difficult book to get through. Like you said, it's so short, but we were both up the night before, desperately scrambling to finish it. I don't know what it is. It just had so many mind-numbingly stupid viewpoints. It just was like one of those ones where you just have to constantly ask yourself what the hell are these characters thinking? It's frustrating. It's frustrating to read, and I think that probably contributes to the slump. Similarly, I think The Song of Achilles probably put me in a bit of a slump. A little bit of expectation versus reality. I thought I would enjoy it a lot, didn't really like the prose. didn't really understand the character motivations, was left feeling frustrated. Wildfire and Icebreaker pretty obvious ones. They just kind of leave me feeling nothing. It kind of makes me feel like if that's a book, then I don't want to read any more of them. The next ones I've seen the ARCs are being sent out. Isn't it shocking that we didn't receive one? I'm confused. Hello, please. Please, hello, please. What about a podcast book that you would recommend to get out of a slump? Hmm. I mean, I think it depends on what you're looking for at the time. Because yes, I would agree that Icebreaker and Wildfire are like and make me worry for the future of reading in general. But when you were just talking about it, I did remember my sister was over the other night. She said, Have you got any books for me to read? And I was like, Read this. Check out this shit. And it was icebreaker. I mean, obviously, there's many different purposes for reading. Reading icebreaker was peak entertainment. It's true. Because it's like, I don't know. I don't even know like how to describe it. Obviously, we have a whole podcast episode describing it. But just the sheer insanity of that book is unparalleled. So I don't know. I might recommend reading that just to just to get like your just to get you know your like your juices, your juices flowing. And just like inspire you to read anything but that, I think, as well. Like and it's trashy, it's stupid, absolutely mind-numbing. But sometimes that's what you need. Motivate you to get off your ass and work. No one knows how to break these things. How about you? I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. I think, I mean, it's a chip on my own shoulder. I would probably never actually recommend one of those books, but I would probably go a level up or down, I don't know which way you want to look at it, and recommend any of the Emily Henry books. Emily Henry's writing is still riddled with plenty of those like things that people put down icebreaker and wildfire for. So they're pretty, like, you know, they're lighthearted, they're silly, they're fun. I think they have a lot more heart and depth. But they're still easy breezy, cheesy books. I'm not too sure about this. Another that I might recommend is The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. But that kind of ties in to a point in time where I was like, I never read more faster than when I was reading The Hunger Games last year. Oh my god, that's young adult fiction. I've cured myself. I've been healed. It's just a good time. But I don't know if it would make sense if you hadn't read The Hunger Games. So maybe I just forget that I said that. When the movie of The Ballad and Song Birds and Snakes came out, I had a friend who went to watch the movie without seeing any of the Hunger Games movies or reading any of the books. He had no idea what it was about. And his opinions enraged me so much. And he was like, I didn't get it. The compulsion I felt to defend this book, I sent paragraphs and paragraphs explaining the book and why it was good. I sent voice messages when I was at Woolworths. And he was like, That's how urgent it was. I was like, you need to understand that this is not like skin deep. This is like this is deeper than skin deep. Like, you just gotta you gotta you gotta read it. Get on my level. You gotta do it with Hunger Game. Like, you can't do it without. Part and parcel. Yeah. I think that's kind of what we concluded at the time. The book probably wouldn't be as interesting or rewarding if you had no knowledge of the series. Maybe I take it back or I offer it as a complete set. That's a big chunk to chew off. It's a big book as well. Yeah. And there's a lot of songs. You will be well and truly out of your slump. There are so many songs. You'll have met your reading goal of reads, unlike me. I'm so far behind. Don't talk about it. I'm gonna I think I'm just gonna, you know, let the chips fall where they may. What I read, I read. That's how I'm sort of feeling at the moment. Read all of the hearts. Good. We've come to the end of Slump City Bitch, and we sincerely hope that it is also the end of your reading Slumps and ours. Our spooky October episode is our Mystery Thriller special, and we are reading A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson. Have your say on what we read next by keeping an eye on a link in our show notes and on our socials. Make sure you subscribe to the show, and if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talkbit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.