101 - Comics Will Break Your Heart by Faith Erin Hicks (w Paige Lavoie)

I'm I've been going to Penis, as a serophanassist, podcast for fans of everything. Welcome. Today, I'm joined by Page of the Lloyd and discuss the young adult romance comics will break your heart by Faith Erin Hicks. I've enjoyed Hicks comic book work for a long time, and I was really curious to read her first prose novel.

We talk about low versus high stakes, the legacy of comic book creators, and of really, really pure teenagers. It's always a great time talking to Paige on the discussion. I'm here once again with Page of the Lloyd, just talk about books. Paige, how you doing?

Good. Hi. Hello. We are discussing comics will break your heart by Faith Erin Hicks today.

We're going to talk a lot about that. But first, before we get to that, we're going to talk a little bit about Paige's sojourn, her shot to, was it New York City? It was New York City. New York City.

Whoa. To book Con, correct? Yes. How was that?

It was so much fun. I've been to like a lot of big nerdy conventions before, but I've never been to one where books are like the star of the event. I heard a lot of things about like waiting in line for arcs. Like people get crazy and like the lines are hours long and all of that was true.

So I didn't actually personally end up waiting in any of these lines for advanced copies, but one of my friends did. And she said it was literally the most cutthroat experience of her life. I mean, how, how advanced are you? How like how far in advance are these books?

She got one book that's not called December. Everything else comes out in about four months. Okay. Well, that's, I'm, I guess, I guess, I'm looking at the guest list now, and John Cena was there.

We didn't see any of his panels. No, the second day, though, we met Meg Cabot, who wrote the Princess Diaries, which was really cool. And then we also met Holly Black. And as an update, I'm like obsessed with her books now.

I, the Wicked King, totally changed all of my thoughts on like, Oh, Cardin and Jude and what's going to happen. And he's a butt and I will say nothing more than that. What else? Oh, but it was just really fun.

Like it was honestly long, crazy lines aside for advanced copies and that stuff. Like everyone was really nice. It was a good mix of authors and people in the book communities. So people who were bloggers, booktubers or just like big readers.

And it was just like a nice, like it felt like a really chill convention to me. And I don't know if that's just the people I was hanging around with because I was hanging around with some pretty chill people, but it was just, it was good. It was good times. I saw you got to go up on stage, read something about it.

I did. Yeah. So that was the, the Spark event by Ingram. And basically, they had indie authors either aspiring or people who have books out in the world come up on stage and read 60 seconds of their books.

So there were signups in advance and my friend Taylor and I were on the wait list. And so we showed up probably like 10 minutes before they got started and it turned out a bunch of people had dropped out. And so it was like, okay, all of a sudden, we're gonna be on the main stage reading from our books. And I think it was almost good that it was so last minute because I didn't have as much of a chance to be nervous.

Their concept was kind of like the spark. Like read the spark that sets your, like the essence of your story where your story really begins. So I read the scene from a girl called Monster, where Monty is just about to escape. And it went really well.

Like, I got a really good response from it. My friend Taylor got to read the first part of her book, Collateral Damage, which is coming out later this month. And it's basically like superheroes or no, a world, it's like a normal person living in a universe where superheroes exist. So her main character works at a coffee shop and she has one of the most funny opening lines that I've ever heard in my life.

But it was, it was really, really, it was fun. I don't know, it was, it was neat to get to be up on stage and do a reading. And I liked it a lot. So it's, it's, all your pictures look really neat, um, over on your, on your Instagram.

And it's, like, that's, I think that's the thing that interests me the most about the idea of that, oh, it's about books. It is not about, I'm sure there's other things there, like, you know, about, you know, I, it's impossible to avoid movies and television and the influence of those, like those things in their greater sphere of pop culture and art. But, you know, it's called book con. It is not anything else.

So I think that's the, you know, that's, that's the exciting thing. It's like, Oh, no, it's about books first, you know, it's not about other stuff first. It is about books. Yeah, it was pretty much just about books.

There was a banner for the, um, Netflix adaptation of the Babysters Club. But even those things were, that were about books that were series, they were still very like book focused, uh, which was, was really neat. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, maybe I want to go back again.

Yeah, maybe I will. We have a Austin has a big book festival too. I, yes, I, it's, we were, I think we just moved when it happened last year. So I didn't go, I may go this year.

Oh, I don't, it might just be Austin Book Fest or something like that. Um, Austin Book Festival. Yeah, I think it's just Austin Book Fest. Um, Texas Book Festival, sorry, it's not Austin Book Festival, Texas.

It's not, it is in October, um, which, yes, that was the same month that we had moved here. So I don't, I was not prepared to go after, because we didn't, I think we'd probably just gotten our bed. But, um, I might, I might give it a, I might go this year. It's October.

So it seems, it seems neat. I looked at it last year. I was like, uh, tired. I just drove across the, the continent.

I'll pass for now. But I mean, there, it's not like there's a lot of, um, necessarily a lot of book focused festivals for the most part. There's, I think there's kind of a, there's a lot of smaller ones, you know, tiny, tiny, tiny indie ones. And then you have the giant ones like book con and I don't know if there's a lot of in-betweens.

I just, I've heard really good things about y'all fest. Uh, it's like a YA focused one in, I can't remember where, but I've heard things about that one. And then other than book con, yeah, I can't think of any other like massive conventions. Let's see, y'all fest is in November.

It doesn't, it doesn't say, it doesn't say where, it doesn't say where you think they would tell you imaginary dimension. South Carolina. If you ask where, where it is, you're not ready. Where's that just the business address?

I guess so it doesn't clean your trip. Yes. Charleston. Charleston.

Okay. Yeah, that sounds great. That makes sense. Um, okay.

I just wanted to, you know, I think that's, that's interesting. Some, you're our field reporter. Mm hmm. Yeah, it was fun.

I really liked it. New York, New York City. Wow. Have you ever had a place?

Have you been to New York before? It was my first time in New York and, uh, overall very positive experience. There were definitely some, some very New York things that happened, but, uh, like, oh God, uh, not to get too off topic, but there was a man who, we thought he was walking a dog and then we realized it was a cat and we were like, what is that cat? Like, do they have a cat toy?

What is that? And then a rat came running towards us and we realized that the man had a cat on a leash and was like catching rats and it was horrifying. Um, so that was, your laughter was contagious. Yeah, that was a thing on Friday and we were just like, wow, that was awful and it felt very, um, like it couldn't happen anywhere else, you know?

I mean, there are, I saw this all the other day about there's some article about how rats they had figured, oh yes, uh, wherever there's gentrification, there's rats. And what, what, when you dig down, it's not gentrification that causes rats, it's people. Rats follow the people because people leave food behind and the rats want that. That's all it is.

It's not complicated. Wherever there's lots of people, there will be rats. It's unfortunate. It's just the way it is.

I don't know if the rat got away. I have no closure. What do you want to happen? I mean, I'd like if it lived a nice, happy life in central park with its rat family.

It did. Absolutely. That's what happened. The cat had already eaten like five rats that day and it just, so it didn't quite get there.

It just was too slow for that last round of rat and it escaped back to its, I thought about running a story about like having, like a horror story that is animals where it's like from the perspective of mice and they're the terrifying monster. It's like a monster story, but instead the monster being a monster cat. I mean, that sounds fun. Yeah.

I feel like you could channel your Martin, the warrior, fan. Yeah, exactly. I was also thinking, what's the rabbit? The rabbit story where all the rabbits can terribly murder and run over by cars or whatever.

Oh, I don't know. It's an animated, it's an animated film from the 80s. Rabbits, animated movie. This is going to get me a lot of really interesting watershed down.

Watership down, the original. Apparently, they never seen that. 1978. It's terrible.

I mean, it's a very good movie, but it is about rabbits and they are basically hunted by all the, everything around them is starting to kill them and it's very scary, especially it's an animated movie. So you think, Oh, it's for kids, not for kids. Do not show kids to watershed down. They should never wash.

It's like, it's like, okay, the opening of bandy, but that's the entire movie. No, that sounds awful. Also, now I'm just thinking about chicken run and I don't know why. I saw a chicken run in theaters.

Yeah, I think I did too. It's not a movie. No, no, it's not. It's fine.

I guess. Um, so speaking of things that are fine, I guess. No, that was mean. How did you like the book?

Comics will break your heart? I liked it. Did you? Okay, good.

Why? You think I want to like it? I, I don't know if I liked it. Okay.

All right. That's fair. That's fair. I liked it.

I mean, it's not, I don't know if I love it or anything, but I like it was pleasant. You know, I think that's what I would describe it. It's a, it's a pleasant. I think I, I think if it didn't have the veneer of comic book stuff happening around it, inside the story, I probably wouldn't like as much.

I probably think it was serviceable. I think that's where the, if it didn't have that stuff in there, but it does, it has a lot of that, you know, histories of comics and comics, politics and, and art and all that stuff ingrained in the story. And I think that's what sold it to me, where I go, I liked it. There's parts like, I, I, it's not certainly not perfect, but I, I, overall, I think I like it.

I'm, I, why do you, what are you unsure about? Why you're not sure if you like it or not? So I, you know, it's the thing is, I don't think it's a bad book. I just think that for me, they're, the stakes weren't very high, and it was very slice of life.

I think the dialogue was pretty dry where there wasn't a whole lot of diff, like the characters, I think, were lacking and distinct voices from each other, where any character could be talking. And if there wasn't a name attached to it, it literally could have been anyone from the book for me. So that was something that I got used to after a while, but did stick out to me. The other thing that I think continued to like, great on my nerves is that anytime, I feel like romances, especially contemporary romances, really to make them have that like page turning quality, there needs to be an element of misunderstandings and miscommunication.

And there needs to be silly arguments and assumptions, a lot of assumptions made about each other. And I felt like when there were opportunities for that to happen, the characters and the characters around them were really passive, where the back cover blurb on this book felt to me very like a comics Romeo and Juliet. They are from families that have drama and baggage, and they should not be together, and yet they meet by chance and can't stay away from each other. And I didn't really feel that strong of emotion from the characters.

It just felt like an ordinary summer romance, very realistic. And I guess the slice of life is the term, where I didn't feel like she was in agony over her decisions to see him or not. And their parents weren't like forbidding them to see each other. Their parents were very cool and accepting.

And there were a couple little comments, but overall it was a very easy going plot. And so that's kind of what surprised me, I think most. I think it wasn't the story I thought it was going to be. And that's where my enjoyment of it kind of suffered.

Okay. I mean, I don't think so. I mean, that's pretty fair, for the most part. I think the stakes are really pretty low in it.

I guess I didn't ever, I basically, I didn't have many expectations about it. I've read anything else about Faith there and Hicks. This is her first prose novel. She is a cartoonist, a great cartoonist.

She's one and either. So she's, you know, has a lot of experience. She's drawn, I own four or five of her books. She's drawn, I think, let's see, I own Adventures of Superhero Girl.

I've also owned the Nameless City trilogy, which is really, really good. That's the thing I would suggest for anyone. Like, it's kind of Avatar Last Airbender-ish. It's not really, but it's kind of dealing with similar like themes of like a fantasy setting where like political drama surrounding with your main characters or children.

She's also worked on Avatar Last Airbender comic book. So yeah, her art is beautiful. And I think because I like am familiar with her art and I also love comics and because of the theme, I just had like maybe too high of hopes, you know? Yeah, I wasn't sure.

I know like the title is comics will break your heart. It is a quote, like it's the first page to epigraph like Jack Herbie, cleaned artist and co-creator of basically every Marvel character that's ever existed. All the ones that are in every Marvel movie, he co-created all of them with Stanley. And his story is kind of sad because he, you know, how much money did the Last Avengers movie make, you know?

So much. Billions of over a billion dollars for sure. And the Kirby family, he's passed past the 90s. I'm fairly certain Kirby family is not getting even 1% of that.

You know, and he basically built these characters from the ground up. And you know, Stanley certainly got a lot of credit for doing a lot of the work for those characters, but Jack Herbie deserves as much or more credit as the artist who designed these characters, how they look, how they feel. And I think, you know, they wouldn't exist without him. They'd be very different with them at least.

So I'm immediately, I read that quote and I go, you know, it latches on to something in the eye of strong feelings about, you know, comics and comic straighters. And now I hear, oh, it's actually the story is about, you know, all I got was the story about like the grandchildren of these older comic creators who had a, you know, conflict and trauma about who owns the rights of these characters, who's getting enough money about them, etc, etc. And them, you know, having a, you know, I didn't even know about the Romeo and Juliet. I didn't, I don't know if I even read that, but I think I just went fake there in Hicks's prose novel about comic book things.

I'm like, I'm in, I don't, you know, I don't need to get the trailer, so to speak. I'm sight unseen. I'll buy it. I faith in their Hicks, I guess is, I didn't really intend to say that, but it happened.

I'm not, she is in not, it doesn't always work. We're like, Hey, they're a great cartoonist. I mean, she writes her own comics. So they're, but it's not the same.

Pros and comic books are not the same. When you say writing, they're not, it's incredibly different. You, you yourself know that. Sure, it's very different.

And the Romeo and Juliet thing, so that wasn't an actual blurb. It was with the way that the blurb was written. The stakes and tensions, tensions between the characters seemed like they would be higher. So that was kind of like the mental image that I had.

They even talk about it in the novel. They say Romeo and Juliet about, I mean, they die. There's people dying, it's a tragedy. So of course, they all don't die in Romeo and Juliet.

No surprise. It's not, it is, it feels like a Ghibli movie to me in a lot of ways. Okay, describe that to me because I want to see it kind of through your lens. Okay, there it's, and that's, I don't know, I have to be in the mood for that.

Like, there's, I say Ghibli movie and that is become like a catch-all term to describe a lot of different stories nowadays because of how popular the Ghibli movies have become. But it feels like in the same kind of way that like my favorite Totoro works where, and I'm, this is all about all Ghibli movies because some Ghibli movies have incredibly high stakes, like Nazica Valley of the Wind is like, Hey, the entire Earth's gonna die or whatever. Like there's a lot of Ghibli movies that are full of conflict and death and high, high, high stakes. Totoro is on the low end of that.

It is the lowest end I would say probably. Oh, I haven't seen Tom Poco. I haven't seen, um, that one, I feel like, it has, I don't have raccoons with balls in it. So I'm not.

Oh god, that one. No, that's not, I thought you were talking about the fish girl. No, no, that's, that's a, that's an experience. We won't talk about that.

Yeah, I'm the raccoons with the testicles. It's not, I mean, it's, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but 90 return row is like incredibly low stakes and it's like, a family moves into a place, a couple of girls, the little girls get lost, and then they find them. That's, that's the, that's the plot of Totoro. It is, there's not a lot.

It's mostly about mood and kind of the, the charm of these forest creatures, you know, Totoro and self and all the little guys that are around him and sleep with him and stuff like that. And the kind of feeling that the, the, that world treats. And I, I don't know, I'm, I honestly don't mind the kind of low stakes, at least in this because it felt, I didn't, I don't necessarily need a lot of, like, a lot of conflict in a book like this, I guess. I don't know.

It's not what I, it's not necessarily what I want or don't want. I just, I don't think I need it. I think it can work without it. And I think that there are points in here where I think they could have escalated or she could have escalated a little bit more to, like, make, to increase the drama and increase the tension and make it more of a page turn, so to speak.

But I was kind of, I kind of enjoyed the, the Canadian pace of it, I guess. Oh, were they from Canada? I didn't, I'm not one for like, did you notice, you never noticed the Canada? There were some, some imagery that I really liked.

I liked the vegetable garden that her parents had. I feel like there was that, that part where he like ends up getting invited for dinner, which like, sure, I think once we kind of learn a little bit more about her mom, it makes sense. Okay, we are, wait, okay, I'm gonna finish this thought and then jump into a different thought. Okay.

So I felt like that scene, like, was kind of cute where they were like picking vegetables and like, okay. And there were, there were little moments I liked their coffee dates. I, I think I, maybe I wanted more Smoochin. Okay, I'm gonna, that is actually probably my biggest point of criticism in this, in this story.

Because there's a thing that stood out to me and the thing that made me, that's the, my first question was like, maybe a little my confusion. Like, these are, they're about 17, right? Okay, these are the most, the chassist most, most pure children. Yeah, they're 17 years old.

And they're, you know, swimming hole, there's, they're, I was assuming there would be some, at least some Smoochin at the swimming at the lake. Yeah, I think that's, the criticism beyond just like, more Smoochin was, um, I want, I wanted them to act a little bit more like stupid, immature teenagers falling in love. And I felt like they were very, um, mature, very guarded. Maybe it's the Canadian blood brushing through their veins.

I don't know. I mean, one's only half Canadian technically, I guess. That's true. But I mean, he did have, he had some thoughts, he had some.

He did. Oh, he looked at her. I don't. He looked at her once.

I'll tell you. Yes, I know. That was the, that was the thing that actually frustrated me. Like, everything else, I think I could, I could sweep away for the most part.

And I appreciated a lot. There's a lot of, I really, really liking it. Um, but I, I was a teenage boy once upon a time. And I was, I was not stealing cars.

All right. I was an emotional, I was a relatively stable person as a centimeter boy. I was so miserable because I was a teenager, but I was a good grades. I was a good kid.

This kid, this, this, uh, the welding, welding work. That's quite a name too. Uh, I like his literature. Yeah.

The alliteration is good. Uh, you got it. He has to have a superhero name. Um, there's no way in hell.

No way in hell. He is, he likes this girl. And he's just like, oh darn, she's, oh, she has a bikini top on. Oh, her back is cute.

Like, oh my God, kid, don't give me that. Don't give me this. No, no, no, no. This is not, no, no, no.

Your mind is not on. Oh, her skin is nice. That's not, don't give me that. All right.

You don't have to, you're 17 year old boy. All right. I mean, same, same with her though. She was also, yes.

She thought about her smile, his smile, like a couple of times. And like, I think maybe, uh, she touched the skin on his neck or something. Yeah. There was the Evan, the other, the other boy, poor Evan, Evan touched her neck once and she was like, oh, that was it.

Evan was a sweetie pie though. I don't say poor Evan because he didn't like her back. I feel bad about the comic script, script thing. Uh, and I also feel like, I feel like Evan will find love someday.

Oh, sure. Evan's, uh, Evan seems like a good egg. He's just, he'll, he'll get someone. He'll find someone that says speed.

Um, I, I, yeah, she's also full of hormones. They're teenagers. I think that's the, I think that is, that illustrates maybe a little bit of your point earlier is about, yeah, they are emotionally very mature. And yet, sexually, they are like 11 year olds.

They're like, oh, I'll hold hands. I think you can have a sweet romance. Uh, but you have to, like not, you don't have to do anything. It's a fine book.

Like I'm not, like, but, but for the purposes of critique, uh, I think, I think a little bit more romantic tension would be nice. Yes. I, I think my favorite, like there, there were moments where they could, uh, I think that they alluded to it a couple of times where like, uh, it stood out because I really liked it was when she, when they were just beginning to like get, they got over the fact that she hates his family or at least hated his family. They're over that.

And now they're kind of semi-dating. Yeah. Yeah. They're not dating dating, but they're, they're seeing each other.

They're holding hands. They're courting, I guess. I don't know what to, they're Canadian courting. And she, I wish I'd highlighted it.

I should have at the, at where it was, but she says something like, oh, he, he, he, there's a, I think they're at the lake even when she looks, she's looking at him. And she understands that he could break her heart. And then she recognizes the fact that she could crush him or something along those lines. Like she, she is able to destroy him if she actually wanted to do so.

And I feel like that is kind of a, you put, that's like a, you know, uh, check offs going a little bit where you're like, I think they could have got a lot closer to that point. She could have got a lot closer to that point. And without it happening, with them still getting together at the end, but it never, they never actually hurt each other. They don't, you know, the, the, their schism is about him lying once.

Yeah. When he was, when they worked dating, when they were, I believe the second time they met. And it was just a lie, but yeah, I'll give this guy a script to my dad. And you're like, Oh, and he's like, no, I can't.

I'm sorry. He's like, why did you lie? Uh, because I was trying to impress you. It's not complicated.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. I think they could have done made it a, I think it could have been more about tying into, thematically into the, like the legacy of betrayal and, and art and stuff, something along those lines of him, maybe selling her mother's artwork for a reason. Mm. Oh, that would have been interesting if, because she talks so much about the troubles with school.

It would have been really interesting if he would have sold the comic to help her get tuition. And she would have had like that like, that conflicting, oh, that was really nice, but also very wrong. Like, you know, like, how could you do that? That wasn't your place to do that kind of thing.

Yeah, that would have been interesting. I mean, I think that's the, and I think that's it. I don't know. I don't mind.

I guess it's just it sometimes page, our little art book club is kind of a break for me. Yeah, when we read Pleasant Books, not because I write horror and I revise, and I revise my own books, and I'm just, when I'm right, when I'm doing deep in one, it's just constant, like I get in that world. I'm like in some terrible place where monsters are live, real and figure, real monsters I figured out monsters where I'm reading more are to just, you know, be, be studied in my genre. And then I come and read, hey, comics will break your hearts in nice romance.

It's sweet. It's very low stakes. It is sweet and low stakes. Yeah, and very like chill slice of life.

So like, I get that as an escape. Like, if you want to just kind of fall into a book and forget about monsters trying to kill your characters for a minute. And I think that's the, it's, it's, we've had, I had the discussion on my comic book podcast about this. Like a month ago, maybe we read the most recent runaways run, which is written by Rainbow Rowell.

Nice. Yeah. Oh, she was at book on. I heard her talking about that.

And it's good. It's good. It's, it's, it's, it's, we have, we, there's some criticisms of it, I think that are fair, but I think largely it's, it's good in satisfactory. It's a good comic, Chris Honkentrop, Johnson, it's beautiful.

But it functions in that kind of same space where, yeah, there's conflict, but a lot of it is easily resolved and it feels, and we had the discussion about like, oh, well, it's kind of, it can work, it works kind of a contrary to how I, you know, art, you're told how art works, you know, like how, when you're told to write, when, you know, when you're struggling, I think when you're struggling, I know, I, you look out for advice, I'm like, oh, I'm stuck on something in a book, I'm writing, I don't know what to do. You know, usually the vice is, well, give your character's hardship, make, make life hard on them, do something bad happens to them and they have to overcome it. And we had this, and we had, like, you know, that, and there's more and more of it, I think, as the, as, as time goes by, I think there's more and more appetite for art that is, for comic books and novels and everything that is very low stakes, that is slice of life that is, yeah, there's a conflict, but no one's gonna get hurt, there's not, you don't have to really worry about your characters, your precious friends and family and all these guys, they're gonna make it out on their side and no one's gonna have any real damage. And I'm actually the end, they're gonna be even better than ever, and you can just hang out with us.

And it's not, there's no trouble, it's okay, everything's fine, don't worry. And it's, I know, I can't, honestly, I can't look at it, anything but it's just a response to, like, the time we live in where we are constantly exposed to all the bad stuff happening, like you'll be, go ahead. I really like that response of like, kind of in defense of the cozy slice of life, low stakes plot, like, sometimes you just need that. And it actually reminded me there's this anime and I cannot remember how to pronounce the name, which makes me feel bad, but it's like bookmarked on Crunchyroll.

And every episode is just this very sweet, low stakes, like problem or like little adventure that these characters who run like an old restaurant face. And it's still got like a lot of heart and, you know, there's still like plot to it, but you really never have to worry. Like, I've watched it with people because I'm like, you have to see that this is my favorite anime ever and they're like, does anything happen in the show? What is the point?

I'm like, it's, yeah, it's too relaxed. It's just to, to not worry for a little while and, and get to chill out with your friends. Like you said, yeah, you make friends with these people and you're like, Oh, and they have, it's not like they don't have any problems, but it's very low. It's not like, Oh, they're going to die tomorrow.

It's more like, Oh, they're friend, they yelled at their friend, or their friends boyfriend yelled at them. And boyfriend was that jerk. He was a jerk, absolutely a jerk. I don't know.

There you, that's the one he's actually the one actual like severe like blow up. I think in the entire book is that guy just screaming for Miriam. Yeah. Yeah.

But he also, I, I felt like that whole side plot, it felt like it fit into her life, but not necessarily the story. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. But, but I didn't, you know, I think it gave us a little bit more, I guess depth on what's going on in her world and things are changing and she doesn't want to leave her friends behind.

But in a way, she kind of doesn't feel like she has the same place in the world of her friends and her best friend. And so she has to move on. But at the same time, yeah, I think, you know, I wonder if I was going in expecting more of a cozy slice of life. If I would have found more enjoyment, I tried to switch my perspective about midway through the book.

And I think that helped a little bit, but I felt like I was always waiting for something to happen. I was waiting for his dad to find out who she was and freak out and send him back to California. And then, you know, just, just, I was waiting for drama. And it's not a drama book.

And that's okay. I do want to say it sounds like you're a Disney princess over there, because there's like birds chirping in the background. I think it's very, very, very funny. I can't, while I'm like complaining, it's like chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.

It just makes me laugh. I'm just smiling and laughing at the doctor. There's nothing I can do about these birds. It's literally everything around my house.

It's like just so much nature happening, where there's like blue birds and blue jays like swarming around in the backyard. That makes it sound scary. They're not swarming. They're gently fluttering.

They're chirping. There's like butterflies. I think there's a family of raccoons that live in the neighbor's yard. It's just, it's a family of raccoons.

I keep seeing them, I keep seeing them just like, they've never, they haven't been in our yard yet. I just see them in the front yard sometimes like scampering around and I'm like, what is happening? We had a couple of fat raccoons. When we lived in the milk district, there was a couple of fat raccoons that hung around our house, had to chase them away.

They kept stealing the food for the, or the straight guy that lived next to our fat raccoons. Go, go on. Sorry. I don't know.

This podcast's got raccoons now. Raccoons and rats. That's our, it's a raccoon podcast. Rat coon.

I think, and I, I, I like, I like Miriam and I like Wilton. I think that's, I think that is basically what the metric was for me. And like, if I didn't like probably both of them, I probably would be more negative on the book in general. But I like, I like, I like Miriam.

I like, well, and I like how their family structures are contrast each other. I wish we got a little bit more of Miriam's family. I do too. I, I wish we got more of both families, if I'm honest.

Since the book seemed to be about family dynamics, like, I feel like we like could have had less of the friend drama and more of the family. I, I think I had a good understanding of, I think I more time spent, like, I feel like we got, weldon's family, I understood, I, we got a lot of about, I really like her, his mom. His mom is pretty cool. Yeah, she ended up being really cool.

Um, there were, uh, he described her as like, you know, kind of like an ice queen, uh, very like cold and hard to read and like all this stuff. Um, and I feel like we saw that, but I almost wish, I feel like she was almost too understanding when she found out that he was dating Miriam. And I, like, it's nice that she was understanding, especially so late in the book, like for her to blow up would have been weird. But considering all the damage, uh, I think it was an interesting choice to have her like healed from like, I never got the role of my dreams.

And I'm gonna fly this girl to California so she can be with my son. Uh, we're, I think, I don't know, there's something about that that felt a little unrealistic, but it also was really like sweet and kind, you know, like you kind of, you can't, you can't complain. Then she gets all these like cool original art pieces that her grandfather did and there's her college tuition. And yeah.

I mean, it, it does, everything does come kind of easy. You know, I think there are a lot of solutions that just come, did they just happen? And I, I don't think I mind, I don't think, I don't think I mind, I think that I am, is it realistic? I don't know, it's, I, but I don't, you know, kids falling in love and staying in love is also not necessarily realistic.

So I'm not, I don't know if Miriam and Weldon are gonna stay together just a couple for the rest of their lives, but it's really good. They kind of kind of ship it. If they keep, honestly, with, with, um, if things keep going as easy breezy as they did in the book, they're fine. That's fair.

They live in the charm world. You know, everything happens. I'm sure the movie is going to make a, is there going to be a movie? No, the, some, I mean, the movie in the book, the tomorrow.

Oh, there's not, I mean, I don't think I doubt they, I mean, I don't know anymore. They, they similarly often writes for everything's, yeah. I know, Netflix is like, coming in hard with the, the YA book, uh, uh, adaptations and it's cool. Like, yeah.

So I, I, you know, I don't know how well there's every day there are books that I've never heard of that are becoming movies. I'm like, okay, cool. I guess. Uh, and, and think in comic books that are very good, but I'm sure didn't sell very many copies.

They're not like super popular. And yeah, they're making a movie. Okay. They're making a TV show.

Okay. I either, I, it feels very much like people are just trying to everything. Well, it's by the right for everything and try and make something out of it. It might be the next Hunger Games.

We don't know for sure how we hope it is. We might be our fault in our stars. We have to try out all the books. Yeah.

Um, they, yeah, I like, again, I think it is, it's a feedback loop again of like, oh yeah, it worked out quite easily, but that's fine. I think, I, I think, I think, and I think, um, it is that the veneer of all the comic book stuff, like it does, it is, I, I like that story that, uh, when Weldon talks about going to comic con with his parents when he was a little kid, that's what I did. I went to, I was, I was going, I went to main con when I was five years old, six years old, like the first main con 1990, I think it was, uh, when it was what they were talking like, and they have like a very, they talk about that about how comic con and San Diego has suddenly turned into this giant entertainment expo where this, it's a place for movie trailers to premiere. And it's not really got comic books anymore.

Certainly some of the movies are comic book movies, but it's not about literal comic books. It's not about artists. It's not about writers. It is about movies.

And you know, I've lived that journey of like seeing going to a little, like you go to a little tiny, you go to some hotel that's off of the, out near the airport in Orlando, and it has a little tiny convention room. It's just a room, a little tiny room, and it has, you know, like filled with art with comic book dealers and maybe one famous comic book creator, maybe, maybe one will come. Uh, and then everyone else is just selling comics and that's me and my dad would go and we would, my dad and I would, I would, he would buy me whatever comic, a couple comic books that I wanted and he buy some comic books. He was a huge collector and you, I saw that the change.

I saw the change in like, in through megacomb, but it's all comic cons are like this now where you go and you're like, okay, there are some people still selling comic books and there's certainly artists out here are selling. There's still plenty of, you know, artists and writers of actual books, but most people are there to see the guy from The Walking Dead or, uh, to see, meet the cast of Star Trek or whatever. Like, they're not there for comic books, which is fine, but there is a part of me that is nostalgic for, it was just about comics. So that's all there was, uh, and there certainly still are like heroes con in, in North Carolina.

That is still a very comic book centric comic con. There's very little like encroachment upon from other media there and there's other ones like it, but for the most part, it's not how it is anymore. And them kind of waxing a subject about it in the book got to me when well then talks about his dad then going to comic con and they had him and I just like seeing all this comic book stuff with his dad and it's, you know, when you're little and it's, it's so impressive and you get older and it's not as impressive, but you still remember that feeling you had as a kid and him walking into the store and seeing a painting and the way, the way they describe Miriam how she looks like Skylark, she looks like the character because her grandfather was kind of drawing himself in a way and she's carrying that the same and then you have her, his mom is gonna play, wants to play Skylark in the movies and they have that connection right there. I did really like that moment too where they meet at the airport and she's like, oh my god, you look like Skylark and she looks sorry, that was weird.

Like, I thought that was a really kind of cute interaction where she was just, I don't know, I don't know, maybe it's because they described her so like, like, total and elegant and perfect and then having her have like this like really awkward thing to say, like, I enjoyed that. I mean, she's, his mother is, she's constantly like, yeah, back when nerds were nerds. I know, natural for me nuts. I was like, stop.

I mean, I think they, they were really pretty much kind of generational thing. I agree, I agree. Because well, himself is as he's yelling by, I think he's running, there's no fake nerds, that doesn't, there's no such thing. So I think that was, but you know, and they had the little, the week in the knob of the artist, the current artist of the comic book at the very end of the book and he's just like, fuck this, stupid.

I don't want to be, I don't want to hear, be here from movie. I got a comic book to draw. I'm not going to, after my contracts up, I'm going to go make my own thing. Yeah, I just feel like it was a lot of, there were a lot of in jokes, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, her friends and people in the industry reading this book would be like, ha, ha, like, like, to like these little tiny little moments scattered throughout the book. Yeah. And I mean, I think whenever you do fanservice like that, you know, weeks and nods and inside jokes and stuff, it can be, it can sometimes be detrimental, I think, too, because it feels indulgent in a way that I feel like, I don't know, I'm one of those people that it's targeted at.

So I don't care. You know, I'm the person that Easter egg is for. If you're coming at this and you don't know anything about comic books, some of that stuff would probably be lost on you. I don't know if you notice it and feel like it's stuck out like a sore thumb.

It's not like he has a big part or anything. He's a very, I do like the fact that the golf course manager is like, okay, yeah, you can, you can go if you get your signature. Yeah, I like that. Gosh, that reminded me at the hotel we were staying at in New York.

We were just going down to ask if there was like coffee available. And as we were down, there was a girl at the register being like, oh, we got mail. My comic is here and just like excitedly ripping open this package. And we're like, oh, this is really cute and pure, like, because she didn't necessarily like, I don't know, not that you can tell who reads comics, but like, it was just unexpected.

It was like an unexpected little moment. And that's what that golf course lady reminded me of, like, because you never know who's going to be a fan girl for what? And I don't know, it was nice. I mean, I think that the book generally does have a very kind of inclusive feeling about, yeah, anyone can be a fan, you know, and it's, and I think it does hint at a kind of generational change as people are, as younger people are becoming fans of things.

And we're, obviously, we're much more connected with the internet. And it's not so much like you feel like you're isolated. If you like something and someone else doesn't, everyone isn't heard now, as they say, in the book. And I think that's largely true is just, you know, people are nervous about different things.

I think a lot of the problems problems, when I quote, are largely just, it's their first book as a first prose book problems. Like, it's not like a comic book, it's not like a prose novel, they're very different from each other and writing them is incredibly different from each other. And she herself says that she had, she's revised this way more time since she would ever revise her in comics. I think that it's like some of it, like it's that the questions are focused, like you said, like about having, you know, the drama with her friend and her friend's boyfriend, where you could maybe spend more time with the family instead, or families instead, or questions of like, Oh, does this belong here?

Could there be more conflict, etc, etc. I think some of it is just, it's a first prose novel. So I think also some of it comes down to taste to, you know, like, yeah, I personally would have cared for all of the drama and all of the crazy teenage romance stuff, but that wouldn't have had, like, a mellow slice of life feeling. So it's, you know, that would have changed the entire book.

And it seems like a lot of people really love this book and connected with it. So I think a lot of it, besides it being her first book just comes down to like what you're looking for in a novel to read. I think the other thing was, as this person was most very recently lived in Canada, all that Canadian stuff felt real, like it was a dog. She's from, that's where she's from.

She's from these guys, Canada. So, okay, because, because honestly, I didn't mind it, but there were moments when it felt a little much, like, like, I'm like, okay, I know Canada, Canada. I think it didn't bother me too much. Like, there were moments when it was like kind of funny and cute.

But hearing that from you, when you literally just moved from Canada is, uh, it's fine. That's fine. Well, they're like, and I, you know, he's the dad, her dad talks about, yeah, my, my, my brothers moved to Alberta to the oil flats, and they never, they never left. They never come back, we've seen him twice and, you know, how many years.

And he's like, this country is too damn big. And I'm like, well, Canada is very big. It's very big and mostly empty. And, you know, I lived in Alberta.

I lived not close to the oil flats, but close enough, closer than I am now. And that, I don't know, there's a certain, she captures that. I think she captures the feeling of, of Canada pretty well. Like, that's, there's, there really aren't that, like, when she says, I'm going to Toronto and she, that's where she wants to be.

She wants to be a big city. And like, that's what you have to do. There's not, there's like Toronto and Vancouver and Montreal. And then, there's other cities, but I lived in Edmonton.

And Edmonton is like the 5th largest city in Canada. It doesn't feel that big. It doesn't feel like a big city. It certainly has, you know, it has towers and it has, you know, it's capital, the province and all that stuff, but it doesn't feel like near city feels.

It doesn't, it doesn't feel like Chicago feels. It doesn't feel like, you know, doesn't feel even as big as Orlando or Tampa or Miami for sure. It doesn't feel like Austin. It doesn't feel like Dallas, like many other big cities in US.

It feels smaller. It feels like it has a small town feel. So I can't even imagine what living on like the East coast of Canada is like living on like a little tiny town where, you know, and there's a lot of things that she hints at that I kind of wanted more of. But at the end of the day, like when I go, oh, I wish I had more of this and I wish there was more of this.

And that just tells me I liked a lot of it. And I wish there was more flavor around it. Like, I like the idea that the town is divided into with the haves and the have-nots. And you cross this bridge and suddenly it's the lower-class people, like that kind of weird social schism in this little town.

You know, the fact that her, the, the aunt, weldens aunt is like, has been like harboring this resentment towards the speak. Oh, we won in court. That's, it was legal. Why are they so upset?

Why is everyone angry at me and our families? Why are they telling us that we're bad when all we, we, we follow the rules and like the uncle is the guy and I like, that stuff's really fascinating to me because you see on human levels so often you get just the corporate response of rap above. This is the rules and we're a big company. But when you have a person representing that and she's like, oh, we followed the rules and I'm sorry that he signed a bad contract 60 years ago.

But I, what am I supposed to do? And it's, you know, that is, that's very like, that's the interesting stuff to me that's the really like nuanced stuff. I wish there was more of it. But I don't, I think like what you said earlier, that kind of changes what the book is.

Yeah, I, I think you're right. I feel like she really did capture that small town feeling really well. The railroad track sort of like this side versus this side felt very like 80s movie to me and not, not a bad way and kind of a familiar way where I could visualize it. And I, I, I liked those conversations that like, okay, well, just because it was legal doesn't mean it was right.

And I feel like I also could have done with like, like, like I'm curious to know more, which is a good thing. There was a moment when the aunt was talking where this red flag went off in my head. And I was like, Oh, I was still pretty early on in the book. So I hadn't really, I was still waiting for like the shoe to drop, like waiting for something to happen.

And she said something about Miriam's mom Stella. Oh, right. Right. Right.

She said something along the lines of like, Oh, well, implying that she was like, loose in high school and saying like, you should have seen the way she was around your father. And I was like, Oh God, are they going to be secret siblings? Please no. And then there were a couple of times when Miriam kept talking about how she like didn't have a resemblance to her family members and then stress on she didn't have a resemblance to her mom.

And I'm like, okay, maybe you're adopted. I don't know. Like it was like, in thinking this, I did not want it to go in that direction at all. But there was a red flag where my brain was just going mirror, mirror, like this could go wrong so quick.

And I was glad that it didn't. I was really glad that the drama wasn't escalated in that fashion. I just kept saying to myself, I wanted more drama, but not like this. Please don't.

And it did. I mean, I, yeah, there is that that's part of that small town kind of feelings about sure about the, you know, that the all these people have grown up together. They all know each other. They're own secrets.

And the fact that, you know, his wellness aunt and uncle, and her she still kind of resents Stella because Stella and I'm assuming Stella dated her, his uncle at one point or another. And you know, God forbid, they, they, they were a couple once and now forever we have to be suspicious. Yeah, like for the rest of time. And I mean, I think that's it.

It is interesting. I don't think she was trying to do that with that line. I think she was just trying to show what kind of people they were in high school. But immediately, I was like, oh, why would you mention this?

If it's not going to be important, like, oh, they're going to be related, like, and I did not think that at any one point I was never concerned of that. I assumed it was just more the legacy of this kind of conflict, the legacy of these families and they're kind of war with each other. But I think that is another reason I end up liking it. And I think it's not, it might be even because there isn't a lot of like big conflict about it.

Like, it's all resolved, technically, you know, like the lawsuit, Stella dropped the lawsuit long ago. She went, she took, she took a buyout, and she said, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to make this my life. That's what I had on my dad.

He got sick and died because of it. And I don't want to, I don't want to be that. I just want to live a simple life here in this town with my husband and my kids. And that's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to drop this move on. I have to move on. I have to let go. And I think that's the use, like, I think it is kind of a two house where I think it's very good because it kind of hints at excellent kind of construction because that's what Miriam grew up in.

She grew up in a family that hadn't had moved on, that had dropped, dropped that, that the kind of the conflict and grudge that had defined their family up to that point. While Wellness parents are still dealing with the aftermath of that. Wellness parents had certain expectations about their lives and it hinged upon the decisions of their their parents, of his father's parents, of his grandfather and how they are still dealing with the aftermath of the stuff in a very direct way. While Stella and Miriam father and all, they are kind of very indirect.

It's more about just like, oh yeah, the aunt uncle, the other end of town, they are kind of the cold to us whenever we talk. And that's it. You don't see them much. It doesn't really matter.

But they're kind of, it's very because they settled down in the small town while Wellness parents are like they live in LA and he wants to make a movie. And now she has aged out of the role that she wanted to play her entire life. And you know, she's held on to that feeling. And I think that we see that at the end of the book is when she's like, No, I've realized that I need to let go of this.

I need to let go of this, this unhealthy grudge I have. It's not anyone's anyone's alive. Anyone who's alive, it's not their fault. I didn't, I didn't get this role.

It's not fair. But you can't even, you know, it's like, have you seen no country for old men page in this, in this, in this week's has page seen this movie? No, it's always the same where I'm like, no, no country for old men. It's a common brothers movie, violent modern western.

It has a Josh Brolin and Tommy Lee Jones and the Spanish actor that I can't remember his name, he plays a psychopath murder in it. The character's name is Anton Shiger. I can't remember his actual name. I don't know why I can't remember his the actor's name.

But there's a moment in that book where in a book in the movie, there's a book too, in the movie where John, where Tommy Jones is visiting his brother, his brother is is in a wheelchair, he can't walk, he's disabled. And it happened because Tommy Jones is a sheriff, his brother was also a lawman, a police officer, a sheriff or something. And he got wounded in a robbery or something. And now he can't walk anymore.

And he lives alone. It's kind of a sad life out by himself with some cats, there's a bunch of cats that some are his and some are just wild cats. And Tommy Lee Jones asks him if he ever held, if he holds a grudge still about the men who did it to him, who left him in a wheelchair. He's like, no, it's not, it's not worth it.

You know, I'm holding open that door, trying to get back what I lost. And the whole time, I'm holding that door open, more stuff's going outside. I'm just losing more the longer I hold. And that's always the thing I come back to when I'm thinking about stories that are dealing with trauma and histories of conflicts and history of grudges and stuff like that.

And I think the fact that it's there at all is really cool and really awesome. I think I just wanted to develop a little bit more. Although I think coming back to again, I don't think it's like a YA, you know, cozy romance anymore. It's, it's not low stakes anymore.

If that makes it a different novel, maybe I'll write it. But it's there, that's a, it's really neat that's that's there. I really like that a lot. And it's not, it doesn't really take up most of the novel.

Most of the novel is Miriam and Weldon and her working at a golf course and poor comic book store that can't stand business. I really, that poor guy, Berg. I know. She's just like, if he was a better business owner.

But I mean, she could be right. We don't know a lot about Berg. That's true. Maybe Berg.

I mean, maybe Berg was not, he was pre-ordering too many comics that didn't sell. No, he got too invested in the Funko Pops, you know? Yeah, it's true. It's like GameStop over there.

Just pull wall of a Funko Pops and no one wants to buy. Yeah, this is what the kids want. And they're like, not anymore. No, there's too many of them.

They all look with their dead eyes. They're kind of get tired of them. Yeah, I have three or four Funko Pops. I don't need 400.

Yeah. I don't need any more. I have one. I think we have more than probably most people do.