This week, we're pretty sure we both read Andre Dubus III's House of Sand and Fog, but you'd never know it from our opinions. We're partnering our vastly different thoughts about the characters in this book with some chat about culture in 1990s California - from pre-9/11 mentality to the prevalence of police brutality. Grab your sugar cubes and tea and listen to our take on this thriller/drama/suspense novel.

This week we checked out Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman, and we'd like to know if Bobbi is available to do our makeup. This book has a lot: a variety of undiagnosed issues, hot takes on addiction cures, rock and roll, and how to properly sign off on text messages and emails. We're tackling some of that and chatting about beaches, refilleries, and some birthday fun.

Happy April Fool's Day, friends! We didn't plan to do this book, but it really spoke to us, and we thought you could listen without a heads up. Princess Penelope by Todd Mack brings up lots of opinions about what it really means to be royalty, and somehow Jenn and Anna are also discussing snakes, Hollister, and Costco, so make sure you don't miss a second of this one.

This week, we are slipping and sliding into your feed with Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers, by Jesse Q. Sutanto. This is our first repeat author (kind of accidentally), and we're having fun with the grandma lit genre. We're on the fence about whether we want this grandma in our lives, but we both agree that we're probably going to need some antacids later (but that's not the book's fault).

We're indulging our inner teenagers today with Jessica Drake's The Last True Poets of the Sea, a YA novel about shipwrecks. Somehow, we're also talking about fishbones and nearly surgical removal, but everything is okay in the end -- both with our main characters and with Anna's tonsils.

Ernest J. Gaines' A Lesson Before Dying has taught us a few things, but appropriate beverage sharing behavior was not one of them. This novel of a wrongfully convicted teenager on death row is set in the '40s, published in the '90s, and unfortunately, feels like it may have happened yesterday. Listen in as we discuss this banned book!

This week we finished up Lisa See's The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, and we would love to try some pu'er, even if we aren't convinced we'll love it. We'll also take some scallion pancakes, and Anna would like to try a burger from Five Guys, or something like that. For now, we'll settle for talking about how much we love some characters, hate others, and how much we're shipping a couple we like. So grab your business class seat and fly over to get the tea with us!

We are celebrating a successful book sale and cupcakes, and we read the first half (parts 1 and 2) of Lisa See's novel about a young woman in a small village in rural China. We're excited to be learning about something more than the Great Wall of China, and we're eager to see what happens as this girl grows up and experiences a much bigger world than anyone in her family ever has.

Funny Story --- or is it? We're tackling this wildly popular Emily Henry read this week, and we'll just say we aren't quite sure we're on board (is that a kayak pun?). Everything has its place, and sometimes, that place is what must be a very overcrowded apartment in Michigan. Put on your cardigan, practice your children's book reading voice, and kill some time with us while we chat about this little book.

Is our review of Tara Conklin's The House Girl affected by paint stripping chemicals? Maybe! Is our episode affected by paint stripping chemicals? Also maybe! We're talking about dog names, puns, dinners, and oh, yeah, we read a book. The dual timeline in this novel is connected in an interesting way and we're having fun exploring it amidst the fumes.