We’re back in South Carolina this week as we continue Amanda Stevens’ The Graveyard Queen book series. 

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Hey Kids,

Thanks for listening. Thanks for the downloads. We appreciate your support and hope we make your commutes a wee bit happier. Or maybe you hate-listen to us. That's fine too. Just keep the downloads coming.

This episode is our Ode to Bill Hader. Amy Shumer, you're cool too though, especially since you wrote our favorite Bill Hader movie.

Watch the movie. Our hot take is that it gender swaps most romcoms, with an alpha female and cinnamon roll hero, but while other gender swapped movies and books are played for cheap laughs, Trainwreck is surprisingly honest and the humor comes from genuine and underplayed moments--making them even hilariouser.

If you want to read that interview with Bill, here she is. 

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Sometimes, a wonderful thing happens and Megan’s lack of planning works out. This is one of those times.

Okay, not really that big of a deal, but I (Megan) forgot there was a bonus, 5th Monday in the month of June so you kids get extra content. Yay!

This week, we’re talking about romance novellas. They’re short. They’re (hopefully) sweet. And we got to squeeze two books into one time slot!

Book 1: Alyssa Cole’s Once Ghosted, Twice shy
Book 2: Lucy Eden’s Blind Date with a Book Boyfriend

Kids, we loved these books. (One of them might even be Johnathon’s new favorite romance.)

And here’s a link to a great interview with Alyssa Cole from BookRiot. 

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This week, we watched Nora Ephron’s beloved romcom classic, You’ve Got Mail as well as the lesser known (by modern generations) 1940 Ernst Lubitch film, The Shop Around the Corner. 

Did you recognize that name? 
Yep! 
The Shop Around the Corner is the name of Kathleen Kelly’s magical children’s bookstore in You’ve Got Mail. (Nice nod, Nora.) 

Johnathon was pleasantly surprised by the old movie and if you get the chance to watch it, you’ll find it Cracker Jack full of witty banter and colorful characters (looking at you, Pepi). 

And if you haven’t seen You’ve Got Mail in a few years, you owe yourself a rewatch. 

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Fasten your seatbealts. It's going to be a bumpy podcast.
Not really, but we have reached a major turning point. Johnathon loved a book! (What's that chord the angels sing? Is it G Major? I feel like its G Major. Regardless, the angels are singing it right now.)

Kids, we have entered the RLU (that's Reid Literary Universe). 

Let's just stop right there and think about this.
Penny. Reid's. UNIVERSE. (If you're a big fan of cursing, you can just go ahead and put the MF-ing word right there in front of UNIVERSE.)

Let's take a look.

Neanderthal Seeks Human is our dear friend Penny's very first book. (by "dear friend" I mean, we don't know her at all.) It was rejected by literary agents because it was considered "too odd, with a lead character who “had too many thoughts and used too many big words,” and subject matter that was “too challenging” for romance readers – meaning women. So Reid chose self-publishing." (https://www.forbes.com/sites/meimeifox/2019/05/14/how-to-build-a-successful-writing-career-through-self-publishing/#25734a053e93) 

Penny Reid is the embodiment of Rage Against the Machine's phrase, "fuck you. I won't do what you tell me." 

And lucky for us "Reiders," her rebellion was a success. In fact, she's so brilliant and so commercially successful that her books are now industry-standard must-reads and so beloved by reviewers, readers, book bloggers, and other writers that she now operates a publishing company for other authors who write in her universe. Literary agents ask for Penny Reid-like submissions.

Boy, when the publishing industry gets something wrong, they get it really, really wrong. And Penny is the ultimate middle finger to those former gatekeepers of "literary success." 

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