Episode 94 - Also, Don't Give Up the Whole Universe Because Some... Lady is White (The City We Became Part 2)

Spoilers abound in this one, friends. If you want to enjoy this book, now is your chance to pause, check it out, and then give this a listen to see what this title is all about. We dive deeper into The City We Became, and cover a whole city's worth of drama. We (mostly) give this a hearty recommendation, though Ariel is still out from the wormies. Fair, really, from the girl who loves cannibals (hehe.) Tell us with a comment which city you think we'd be - then tell us what city you'd want to be!

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Transcript

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[MUSIC] Welcome back to another episode of the Reading Room Ruffians, your favorite library podcast. The whole crew is here for part two of our group, Deep Dive, into the city we became by N. K. Jemisin. Here we go. Do you see my finger guns? She's a finger gun. I'm here, I'm like, amazing. So we left off with Pidmini. Yeah, we had just talked about the intros for everybody. Yeah, okay. All right, so we talked a bit more about Manny already and we talked a little bit about bronca. Do we want to go like in chronological order with the book or we're just going to like jump around. Jump around. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, to be fair, the book jumps around a lot. It does, it does, yeah. It's a little difficult to not do that. Especially towards the end, it jumps around a lot because they split up. Yeah. All right, so let me see who do we want to start off with? Because really, I think I'll go back to Brooklyn because we don't really talk about her much. Yeah, okay. Yeah, because we learn a lot more about her after her appearance in the book. She has known that she is a city for I guess. Does it say how long is it a couple of days? No, I think it's the same day. It's just earlier in the day. It was earlier that day. I think it was easier for her to accept because she felt so connected to begin with. Okay, I think that's I think you're right. She's she's always been able to continue the city is what she says. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's just gotten I guess more prevalent now. That's part of how she like did all of her music and stuff was that she could hear the city and she just always been there for her in her brain. So yeah, she it was there but she didn't really know that she was a city. Okay, all right, I got that. Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was very cool. And that was her connection was wrapping essentially like whenever she battles the things they were they were spiders. They were like two dimensional spiders. Yeah, tough tough. I said, no, thank you. I think the only thing that would have saved me was that it's a fact there was only four legs instead of eight. Yeah, but I just think picture in them like I don't know how I feel but these worms like why? Why do we talk about like this? I don't know. But yeah, that's how she battles them is by wrapping and essentially it's like a wrap battle and they came unprepared. I love pretty much. Yeah, also her name was MC free. You guys were right last time. But the other thing is. I can remember that. Both, both Manny and his roommate recognized her. Yeah, yeah, which was kind of funny. And she's like, yeah, that was me 30 years ago. So yeah, because she's older too. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely loved her. She, I think she is a very good example of, you know, somebody who was young and did crazy stuff. But then was like, hey, I can do something with what I did and like make where I am better. I really loved that for her. And I loved her for that reason. Especially whenever she and Bronca get into it about how she was as a kid, as a, as a young MC. So she was like, you know what, yeah, you're right. I was not a good person. I was not a good example. I did, I was the reason a lot of these women did things that they weren't supposed to do. You know, like, I've accepted that. There's not anything I can do to change it other than just be better now. I liked that. I thought that was a very good conversation. Because it is hard to accept a lot of things if you've done bad things. Like, if you feel uncomfortable, if somebody says, somebody calls you out. You're like, okay, well, I guess I, you're right. Like, it's hard to accept that you're wrong or you've done wrong to somebody. But accepting it I think is like one of the biggest one of the biggest lessons, I guess, in this book. And strengths. I mean, it takes a lot of strength to do that. Because I don't think that Staten Island really accepted that. Like, she was coming to terms with the fact that something was clearly not right. And that she was part of that not right. But she just genuinely talked herself out of it every single time she thought about it. Like, no, I can't be wrong. She reminded me of someone who's been in a cult their entire life. Yeah. Oh, yes, it seems sort of justification. I mean, it really does. Yeah, justification. Yep. She's another one of those ones. She just want to slap. It's like, wake up. Yeah. So, okay, Brooklyn's other like, I saw really her superpowers side from like the wrapping. But her other sort of superpowers, how she knows everybody. And she's like, always got feelers out. So she's like, in two seconds, she'll like message or call some people and then know exactly where they need to be looking for the other people. Yeah, when her many first meet up, but that's a super power. I mean, pretty much, just because everybody will help her. Because she's so well connected and she just knows a bunch of people. So yeah, I really like the monitoring all the social media and the news and stuff and be able to like point things out or just they know stuff like what was like within just a few minutes of when they were talking about trying to find the rest of the people, they got that picture of Queens at the pool and exactly knew exactly that that's what it was, it was her, but they just came out of nowhere basically. She's just like, I need to find weird stuff and then somebody sent her that article immediately. They'd like minutes. She was funny. Or the same thing with she remembered that one art piece that was Bronca's art piece. Yeah, from back in the day. I miss something. When you edit this, put me in gallery beside each other. We guys talking about. I don't know. I don't think it was what I understand. Okay, don't know. They were doing some kind of like telepathic communication over there. Well, of course they were, but looks and gestures. I was trying to focus, so I was talking and it looked like I saw something behind me here and like, so I was like looking and I was like, was did I like drop something or something? I don't really know. So I looked over at Ariel and I told her and she went, so anyway. Well, I hope you pocket viewers got something good out of that because I can't see them at all. So I'm just talking to myself and the camera. Do this one. I'm so glad they can see us now. Yeah. Yeah. They can't see me for the second half of last episode though. Oops. I was put a picture going like this or something. Like what? Just the finger guns. Just the finger guns. Just the finger guns. The finger guns. 30 minutes of. I was put on a loop. Just that. Finger guns. The whole time. People will love that. I'm sure. Yep. Anyway, anyway, continue with whatever you guys were talking about because we were just talking about how Brooklyn can find everything and she has all these connections, which is like her other sort of pseudo superpower because she's a council member, right? Yeah. And I think, I mean, I guess we could count it as a superpower, but I think it's just another testament to how deep her roots are in New York. Yeah. Yeah. She has so many branches out. I mean, she has been Brooklyn before Brooklyn was a thing. Yes. That makes sense. Yeah. And awakened. Yeah. Burrow. Yes. Yeah. Sort of. I think Bronco was kind of like that a little bit too. A little bit. Not to the extent Brooklyn was, but she was very connected. Yeah. Before hand. She was, I think, a different sort of pillar because she was where, I mean, artists came, but I mean, even if they weren't artists, she did not really house people, but people did stay there. Yep. She took care of people. Yeah. And she, I mean, didn't house people. Yeah. I mean, she didn't, but she did. Like, I guess, like, the hall. Now, this is temporary. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So what we're talking about here is. She's been telling people that for like years. How at the, what does it call the, the art gallery? There is these people they call key holders. And these are people of keys to the building and can come in there whenever they need to. And it's supposed to be on a temporary basis, but basically some people basically stay there all the time, right? Because they've got abusive spouses or other issues or they're like on-house. And there are artists. I mean, they're actually artists. They can go there and like stay. So they can come work on their art after hours. Yeah. Work on their art. Yep. You made that sound so much more promiscuous than what it was. What do you mean? Not work on their art after hours. Tee-hee. What are you talking about? I don't think that was that promiscuous. I think so. I think Carol's just got her mind in the gutter. Weirdo. Anyway. Oh, sure. But yeah, I, I think they are two sides of the same coin. Not like good or bad, but just different ways of being rooted in your community. And I think that's another testament to how important women are. Yeah. Because I mean, really, it's like four of the six women. And I mean, even really Pidmini was the same way in her building. I mean, on their way up to her. Every single person stopped her and talked to her. And she knew everybody and everybody knew her. And really, they also care of each other. And they talked about that's how Queens is anyway. Like Queens is a conglomeration of everybody taking care of each other together. But yeah, I, I just now really put that into place. That's pretty cool. Women are the best. And then there's Staten Island. Yeah. Dylan's pretty bad. The more that the more that we learn about her and her, her dad and how she grew up, it gets even worse and worse. Also, yeah, just as an aside, one of the things we learn about is that she sort of has a job, but not really. It's off the books. She works at the library, which I thought was funny, but she doesn't have that. She's got to say she's agree. And apparently, that's not enough to work at the library in Staten Island, or maybe it's just New York in general to the festival. And it's just kind of crazy that that's her. It sounds like it wasn't even full time. It works at a library. Like, I know that there are librarians in the world that are like that. But like, I don't know, like, that just doesn't make sense to me. What doesn't make sense to you? But someone like her would work at a library. Yeah, I was kind of surprised. I guess it's, it's probably in her father's mind, an acceptable sort of thing for her to the job for her to have. I guess, I don't know. Like, all this is like painted through the idea that her father is like, controlling and knows everything and all this stuff. And he's he's the person who decides what she gets to do or whatever. I could never. Oh my god. It's like, you may either, but people also have a misperception of what libraries and librarians are really like. Yeah. I thought it was ironic that somebody was essentially bending or breaking the rules for her. And she really took that for granted because she didn't even think twice about it. She wasn't like, if anybody finds out somebody could get like fired for this, not even just her. And I don't know anything about the librarians there or whatever, but it was just kind of like a librarian would do something like that. Somebody like go out of their way to try and make sure that somebody had like somewhere to work or whatever. And I don't know. It's very in line with I guess with this sort of vibe of the people that are there would be like this who are just very very prejudiced against other people. In the sense that there's almost always lots of hypocrisy. I says with this and they just take things for granted or think they deserve stuff. Yeah. So despite the fact that somebody is risking their jobs for allowing her to work there, it doesn't matter. And also the dad who was a cop and supposed to be law-abiding citizen. Clearly isn't. It's one of the rules for the not-for-me type deals. It's like, oh no, it's fine because it's us. But if it was one of those brown people, it's to rape to jail, you know. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200. Exactly. Don't listen to that new age music. Yeah. Brace the law. That was the most ridiculous new age music. I forgot all about it until you said that. Oh my god. No, no, no. It's ridiculous. But I mean, that's exactly the same sort of thing. People will just justify. But yeah, everything that do is the state and island girl at Aslan or sorry, Iceland. It's all like that. You just get more and more reinforcement of the idea that these are just prejudiced hypocritical awful people. Because then he just brings home an entire random dude. Yeah. So this is a thing. I mean, I think he like wanted her to marry him or whatever, so that he could finally have a son named what was it, Connor? Yeah, who was who was a Irish? Yeah. When Irish. Some because they're Irish. That is the most wild thing. I did not get to that part. Oh, that is wild. And he is such. He's so gross. But like, she talks about how, you know, he has all these tattoos and he's clearly like not something that her dad would normally like be like, yeah, okay, whatever, but his name is Connor and he's Irish. Yeah. I mean, apparently that checks all of his boxes suddenly. To some degree, he's being manipulated by. Well, yeah. A woman of white, but according to her, she just like sort of pushes people in the directions. Yeah. Not, doesn't change what they would actually be like, you know. And yeah, he is gross. No, he has a swastik tattoo also. Yeah. And she just like stares at it and it's kind of like, oh my god, like, you know, mortified. But he's like, oh, well, you didn't run away. So, and then like tries to assault her and she's like, yeah. And like throws him across the pool yard. And then she changes the cameras to show him fighting with some random person. And of course, it's a black guy. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. She sees that this is how her dad is. Right. But she sort of half justifies it. It's like, oh, it's my dad, though, you know. It's like, I'll allow it because it's him, but if there's anybody else, it's not okay. It's like, but, you know, it's like when you hear a friend say something racist or homophobic or something like that. And they're like, well, it's my friend. I'm not going to say anything. Yeah. Then you are just an accessory to this. Yeah. I don't think you have that problem. I'd know. I'll call everybody out. We call people out. I don't care who I make mad. In fact, usually it's my goal. Lunch seed, just how far I can push you. Hey, you know, some people just need to call it. Well, they definitely do too. Honestly, like the people who you know who are closer, you should definitely be calling out more often. Like I mean, yeah, absolutely. It makes it difficult sometimes, but it's something you should definitely do. Well, I mean, obviously, in this case, like, I don't want to blame Iceland entirely because she's had this like, she's basically been brainwashed her entire life by her dad. For sure. You know, I want to blame her entirely for this, but still it's like to some degree, there has to be some personal responsibility, but also it's very difficult if you're stuck this way. And her mom should have been helping her way sooner. Instead of like right there at the, at the end where she starts dropping all these bombs on her. It's like, oh, yeah, no, I know you were that brother you were supposed to have. I aborted him, but then I felt bad and decided I should stay with your dad to make sure that he has something. I felt like I need to make it up to him. I was like, what in the world is going on right here? Yeah, this wild. Also apparently she was a pianist and apparently very good to the point where she was very, very good to the point where she like was going to do that professionally. And that's what she gave up to be with the dad. Hashtag regrets there. Dang. Yeah, for sure. The new of our viewers are women and they're thinking about giving up their dream. I swear to God. Don't do it. If you do it, I'ma find you and I'll smack you. I give up your dreams. Women don't don't do it. Don't do it. That's the rules. I mean, man, don't do it either, but I feel like women are more likely to do it. Yes. There's more pressure as a woman to do it. They're there. You do it. I still will hunt you down. Yes. I don't want to hear about anybody with that. God, no. Yeah. Not in this house, y'all. No. There's actually something like pretty strong pushes to go back towards that. I know by like a lot of them or rich elite people, which is kind of crazy. And some of them, a lot of them are women. That's the thing. I mean, I don't give them a lot but some, but it's like, if that's what you want to do, that should be okay. You do that. But you shouldn't drag everybody into it. It's like not everybody wants to have a career where they don't really have a family. Yeah. Yeah. But and they should be allowed to do that. There should there should be no shame either way. And it's like women ashamed a lot for everything. Yeah. Anything anything and everything. Yeah. It's unfortunate. That being said, also don't, even if it's what you want to do, don't give up the entire universe because some lady is white. That's what I know that she's brainwashed. I understand that. Like I get it. It's been your whole life. But at one point, do you hear someone directly to your face say, I'm going to ruin your entire life. I'm actually going to end you. But I don't want to. Yeah. I don't want to. You're my friend. And you say, that's okay. Because she's white. That's like literally her thought process. It's like, oh, she doesn't want to do it, but she has to do, you know, I absolutely not. Well, she has no self-worth. I think that's the thing the difference between the other three women and her. Yeah. She has none. No self-worth and is not redeeming herself. I think I don't understand that though. Like has even if you don't have self-worth, you not have worth any other people you care about. Well, I think in this case, not her dad or mom. Yeah, I'm not really no. I mean, I really don't think that she has anybody that actually cares about her. But at the same time, like I just can't reconcile that. I cannot. Somebody to your face is saying, hey, I'm going to ruin your life and everything else. And you're like, oh, well, okay, I guess. If you have to know how many people do it that in real life. They do. They do. It sucks. They're just usually not that blatant. Not that to your face. Yeah. Yeah. She's multiple times. Multiple times, she says a tour face. Like, isn't like one of the first interactions they have is it's going to be so unfortunate killing you or something like that. Like it's not something to that ending you, isn't it? Yeah. Ending you. I don't know. Something like that. And I was like, I mean, I kind of forget about that one because she was still so stupid up in her head. Yeah, that's what you know, maybe that was like again. And again, and again, she was crazy. Oh my god. It also seems like she's sort of brainwashing you're just directly too, because she has two times. Um, I like injected something into her. Right. This is a thing because she, uh, she gets as well as the times or whatever. Yeah. The first time. And then the second time she's talking to her again and puts her hand on the woman. And why puts her hand on the back of her neck and also inject something. It feels like because she feels pain, but then it goes away and she feels good. So she's like being drugged, effective for certain. And I think that's another like the easily manipulated are going to be easily manipulated, no matter what. Now, the question is, is she going to like have some sort of reconciliation in the next book? I know. I'm going to spoil this for you guys right now. And the first book, and spoilers for I guess the listeners, but in the first book, she doesn't end up going with them. She doesn't know. Yeah. Like she, she becomes like a haven for the woman and white after they beat her. Yeah. She ejects them from Staten Island because was it three of them? There were the three of them plus, uh, haung. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And um, she ejects them from Staten Island. And um, and so essentially they know from that point on, like we're definitely not going to have all five burrows. So we're not going to be able to come together. So they decide to go, um, find New York anyway. Um, and yeah, it's really nice. It's a nice moment because they're all like freaking out about it. Oh my god. What's going to happen? And Vanessa goes with them. And Jersey City becomes the fifth burrow. That's an honorary city. Yeah. The honorary burrow. It's kind of funny. She's like, uh, what's happening? I will say there was a cute part. I felt a little bit rushed there at the end though. I got to say, I agree. Like everything else was very methodical, like the whole rest of the book. And then this last little part, it just boom right there. And it was like, oh, but weren't all the awakenings kind of rushed. I guess kind of, yeah. I mean, it's like wake up and you're attacked. Yeah. They were. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And then Manny turned into what was it? Godzilla? No, no, no, King Kong, uh, King Kong. Yeah. Because King Kong was, uh, was it kind of the Empire State Building with the lady in that movie? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was so funny. It was also, like, that scene was pretty terrifying because you know, they have to take, um, the subway. It was a closed subway channel to what was it under the mayor's office or something? A city hall. A city hall? Yeah. And, um, so they go there and, you know, just waiting, protecting the kid and, um, then suddenly the subway car turns into a monster. Oh, lovely. Yeah. It sounded scary. Like it actually sounded kind of former. Yeah. But gross also. I don't know. It was definitely, it was definitely the whole time I was just, my face was like, yeah, it was kind of wild. But then Manny was like, I don't have any constructs and then he becomes King Kong. That's kind of the King Kong, like the whole style. Yeah. You ripped out of his clothes. Yep. Wow. Yeah. All right. It's definitely fun. Oh, go ahead. No, I just said that it was definitely fun. It was. It was fun. All right. So going back to, um, I guess one of the big parts that we didn't talk about very much was the stuff that Bronca had her, um, gallery at the gallery. So first off, she knows about she's the one who gets all of the knowledge, right? Yeah. Apparently, everybody's supposed to be getting knowledge, or at least all the cities always get knowledge with, uh, when they wake up, but she has gotten all the knowledge this time. Just her basically. Everybody has good vibes, but she knows everything effectively. Yeah. Or at least seems to, but then like, uh, doesn't seem to know other stuff later. I don't know. It's a little confusing, but she knows everything. And we find out later this because, uh, uh, the Bronx has apparently like the most history in New York, I guess. So that's reason when she gets it. That's their, their vibe. That's what their thought is, but she gets all the knowledge anyway. Um, she's there. She learns all this stuff. She explains it to Vanessa. But while they're there, that, um, this, uh, group comes in and one of the guys she co-strawberryman, but anyway, and this art is like very awful bigoted stuff. Just like terrible art, very gross, very, um, misogynistic, racist, all this stuff, brings all that stuff in. And then, uh, she is supposed to decide whether or not they can be put in the gallery. And she's sort of being pressured by the board to do this, right, to put in the stuff in the gallery, but the art is all terrible. And then when they bring in the last painting, which is this really big painting, apparently it's like, uh, it acts as sort like a psychic attack on her. And it takes her a second to figure out what it was, but it almost like sucks, right? Because it's a portal to another dimension or whatever, effectively, where people look like weird paintings. That, that was a sort of strange part about the book in general. The whole thing is that there's this multiverse, right? And basically anything that can happen will happen is very, it's the many worlds sort of theory, except it goes even more book wild because it's not just decisions that make these things different. There's also just different makeups and physics and stuff and all these different universes. Very strange. But yeah, so she almost gets sucked in and she figures it out right beforehand and tells all the people, heck, no, this is not happening. We're not, we're not getting this. This is all terrible stuff. And we have this, uh, this rule that we can't have art that is bigoted or racist or whatever at our gallery, etc, etc. But then afterwards these people, they've already prepared this like set of videos effectively because every YouTube channel. And, uh, they're trying to say that, you know, people are racist against them because they're so oppressed as white men. Yeah. As a white man, I always feel very oppressed. Always. Oh, good. I'm sorry. That's an intrusion of fun. It's funny. Yeah. I've seen that. YouTube videos like this before where people will like go off. So like basically the rage bait people. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a thing. Um, and then they like docs, they docks all of them at the gallery. Um, they get like death threats at home. Um, are like followed by people, etc, etc. And, um, they essentially have to go on their own like reverse attack just for the gallery itself. Like call everybody you know and tell them we're getting like literally bombed with horrible reviews and threats and everything like that. And so the town did put a lot of pressure and said, if anything happens to the gallery like or bronca or anybody else here, like, no way. There's no way this can happen. So the board's like, oh, well, I guess, yes, we have to listen to the people actually. I was very glad. Me too. I really was not, I really was not expecting it. Me either. I thought for sure. It's because we can bully the big people. It's like what happened with Sonic. Yep. Oh, you're talking about Sonic 3. No, like the very first song. Okay. And then to re making Sonic. I was like, don't spoil Sonic. We haven't seen it yet. No. No. God, it looked horrible. He was so bad. I was so bad. I don't find cartoons scary normally, but that thing looked terrifying. Like the internet bullied him enough that they remade it. So I mean, obviously what we can learn from that and from this book is if you bully the people in charge enough, you can get what you want. I mean, that's the hope. Yeah. It did. Yeah, the original song look crazy. I will say that this whole like period, all this stuff happens in like a few hours, which seemed kind of crazy to me. It happened that fast. Yeah. But they were going to get the gallery was going to get like $23 million from. Yeah. That was like we're doing it. Who's manipulating all this stuff? It was going to get $23 million and was getting pressured by the board to accept the stuff, but they would have to remove all these paintings from the gallery that were done by New York. Actual local artists. Well, no, specifically it's New York. That's right. New York's. Yeah. That's kind of name. I don't know. I don't remember it. I don't remember them saying his name at all in the book. Actually, in the book at the very beginning, I was even sure it was him. Me either. But it's it's a woman narrating. So like and I didn't catch ever if he had said like what he looked like. And at one point, he was talking about how he had taken an art class or something like that and was talking about the V on a woman's body and then talked about his own. And I was just like, okay, this must be a girl. I was reading it. I was reading it. I was a queer black man though. Like a young queer black man. But I didn't get that vibe first because again, like you said, the reader and that the thing. And I was like, and then I was just like, I liked it clearly. Yeah. And I was like, that's where my mind went. But then, you know, turns out he said he was a dude. Yeah. See, I knew he was a dude because you had already talked to me about it. So I went in knowing that it was a dude. But I could see where that would be confusing. And it wasn't just the woman's voice reading it. Yeah. Because I was reading the actual book. Yeah. And I was. See, that's what I had to get back and read it twice to make sure that something. There were no pronouns I wanted used up to that point. Because it was talking to the first person. Also, I had wondered if I had just like missed something. And I thought about going back. And I was like, no, it's okay. Like in my mind, it was just like, oh, it's because of women's reading. And I just wasn't like thinking. I was just, you know, whatever. No, this is. Yeah. I'm glad that I wasn't the only one embedded assumptions that we have. Yeah. Which is, I mean, that's the thing that you just got to be aware of. But yeah. Like, once I, once I found out that he was a dude, I was like, Oh, okay, this, this whole whole thing makes a little bit more sense now. Agreed. But, uh, yeah. Now, I was surprised. I didn't think it made more sense. I didn't think, I mean, I didn't separate it. I guess enough to have it make sense, you know? Yeah. It was just like, this is the person. I was just surprised to find out that she was a hey, because I was not. That's where your brain goes based on how stuff is described in the book, just because it's the most likely outcome. I don't know if this was intentional by NK Jemisin or not. I am assuming it was. Because it feels like, yeah, she was at some sort earlier. If that was a, not the case. I don't know. Either way, I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't make a huge difference, but yeah, I did surprise me at first. But yeah, he, apparently, he doesn't have a name. They just call him New York. What are you talking about? Oh, we were talking about, um, bronca, right? And the painting. Uh-huh. Yeah, the color will be in the game. I mean, in the, the game in the book. Yes, it's a big and pressured. This all happens in like a 10-hour period, something like that. It's very quick. I don't remember exactly how long it takes, but bronca is like very stubborn the whole time. She doesn't want to hang out with the, any of the other people until they actually show up at her door, then she kicks them out. And Vanessa's like, now you really shouldn't have kicked them out. Yeah. If she's like, fine, tell them to come back in an hour. I thought that was funny. I thought so too. Uh, yeah, she just really, she wanted to help, but then she was like, I'm tired. I'm tired. I shouldn't have to do this. And, you know, I get that. Like I said, I identified with her. It's fair. I said, fellow old, I'm sure you get that. Yeah, I did. It was that, it was that geriatric five. I definitely understood where she was coming from, because I mean, especially if you get all of that knowledge, and she knew that she was the only one that got all that knowledge. Like that would be exhausting alone. Like, oh, yeah. And then you have like all these kids that are like literally clueless. And you're just like, that's that's a huge undertaking on its own. Just teaching a bunch of people you don't know, but on top of that, fighting some existential dread from elsewhere is like, okay, well, you know, that's even worse. I should do. Yeah. I definitely got it, because I don't really think Brooklyn really wanted to do it either. She was like, I gotta get home. Yeah. She just was like, and, and, um, I got things to do. Really? I mean, Manny was the only one who was like, well, whatever, because he didn't really have anybody. So yeah, yeah, he didn't, well, he didn't even have any past it at that point. Yeah, he was the only one who was fully on board. He was like very much, uh, also obsessed with defending New York. Yeah, like a little bit on the like in love too. Like it was a weird. Yeah. It's still weird, but it was weird, but it wasn't like, because he was like, I don't know this, I don't know this person. Why do I feel this way? I feel yeah. Now how old was New York? Because when I, like, like I said, I've only released 20s. Early 20s is what sounded like so much younger than that. I think it changed because he's not new-trish. He's got no new-trish, you know? New-trish. But yeah, now he's in like early 20s is what it sounded like. I affirm it correctly. See, I really thought at most 16, I was thinking he was younger too. I originally thought like around 18 or something like that, which is still really young. I get it right there, yeah. It's still really young, but I, um, yeah, I, you see, I don't know, he just seems so much younger to me. Yeah, now I get shown. And I think it also is because we don't really get to interact with him very much. Yeah, there's not much of that. There's like a lot of mystery to it. So we just kind of insert our own thoughts into it until we get to the part where it's like, oh, well, okay. Yeah, he's only in the first chapter and like the last chapter. And that's it. Yeah. And not very much in the last chapter either. I guess the epilogue, but whatever it is, it's a very short section at the point. Yeah. Which was weird. I'd like to, I'm hoping in the next book, I already started it. I hope in the next book, we get a little bit more of that of him. I need to find that doing stuff. What's that one called? Uh, the world. I believe the world. It's like a lot. I have a hard bug copy in the office for Susie gave us. And then she just said she wanted a back. I'm like, I got a really cool cover. By the way, if you guys haven't seen the cover, I do love the. I can hold it up. That's going to say she held it up earlier, but I, um, I had seen them before anyway. And then Susie talked about them. And I couldn't remember the name of the book, but she described the cover and I was like, I know exactly what you're talking about. I wanted to read that. Yeah. I, well, I mostly wanted to read it because of the cover, if I'm honest. Yeah. It just looked really cool. Uh, so I guess that's the other thing. It's like all the tentacles and stuff. And it reminded me when I first saw it, it was like some sort of like weird cthulhu thing. And then the name of the other woman and white is like rely A or something like that, which is a very cthulhu-esque name. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And uh, yeah, no, she, she actually straight up points out lovecraft. And it's like, Oh, have you read any lovecraft? Because he got it right. This is what it's like, you know, yeah. Some sort of elder torque sneaking through. When Zach said that he wanted to read it because of the cover, I made a face like that makes their sense. So that cover. My face just did it. I like the cover. I think it's really cool. But it's not like something. I'd be like, you don't like the cover, are you? Oh, I think it's just because of the neon, like, I think it's not bad. I think you need, uh, three glasses. I think you'd probably see more of a cause of the way it's with the glittering. Yeah. It gives it that vibe. Yeah. I like it because of the neon vibes. Like the, I don't know, it just is like neon lights. And I know that's kind of more of a biggest thing, but I also kind of equate it with New York City, too. Well, it's the city that never sleeps. Yeah. Also, you're doing sleeping. It's kind of like the weird subtle ghostly tentacles, too, on it. Where? I don't know. I thought it was a neat cover. I'm not saying it's not bad. Like, it's not good. Like, it's like, okay, cover. It's just not one that would, like, oh, I see a ghost. I pick up and be like, it's on the spot. That's what I need to read. You know? Oh, no, I 100% did. I'm like, I saw that. I was like, there's very much. I see him now. I'll wait a second. Are you talking about it? You might be talking about the different cover or is there more? Shining. I see if it'll shine for y'all. Oh, yeah. Nailed it. Yes, see if they, if they described in the look like actual tentacles, it wouldn't be so bad. They did. They did some of the time, but not all the time. It was a little wormy. Yes. Yeah, little wormies. You know, like, little wormy worms. That is cool. I don't think I ever noticed that. I knew that there were tentacles on it. I just don't think I ever noticed that they were shiny where everything else is mostly matte. It's a good cover. Yeah. I'm not saying it's not a good cover. I just it's not one that I would pick up that I would be like, oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah. You know, I like to glance at it and be like, it's like, that's not bad. It's like the book always. Who would ever read holes? If you did, it's like, that was, yeah. And it's a great book. It's an absolutely good book. Yeah, but yeah, it's got a head. It's got a bad cover. The book was great. The book was. All right. Well, I think we're rolling up on two hours. Do we want to? We have to answer questions. Yes. But yeah, is there anything else that we want to talk about for this? Do you know what city you would be? Oh, that's right. We were going to talk about that. Honestly, I'd have to be some sort like wonky, secluded city somewhere. I don't think I'd be a city. I would like to say Tokyo, but I'm not going to be Tokyo. Although me. Maybe because nobody in Tokyo talks to anybody else in Tokyo. I feel like I'd be that weird trash city out in the Midwest where there's no laws. That's me. I don't know what I don't I don't know. I don't know. I don't think what I'm talking about. Is it slap cities? Maybe I guess that there's like no laws. And they're in the desert. And they just make their houses out of whatever they do whatever they want. That's me. I think that's slap city. That's that's me. I don't know what I would be because it's weird and it's ungoverned. Yeah. Portland would be cool. I'd like to be Portland. You know. I like Portland. And you know, when people need killing, they just it happens. Accidents happen. Accidents happen. I don't think I'd be a city. I'd be a place and I think it would be here because I'm very rooted here. Yeah. I get that. I don't. I don't know. Take you don't mess with my stuff. Like Tiffany aching. It's mine. I claim it all. Yeah. If I had to pick a city, though, that's that's the one I would pick. That's a trash city up there. What is the city called? I think it's Slab City. I think that's what it's called. Maybe I'll pick one of the hills. There's like a couple of hills in the United States. Oh, okay. I know what you're talking about. Now I see it. The one where it freezes over a lunch in Michigan. Maybe. Oh, maybe. Yeah. They have good cherry one in Michigan. Yeah. I'll let that. Huh. Did you find it, Zach? Yeah, I looked up a picture. Maybe had her. That wouldn't be bad. I mean, it's a thing. They're bucksed and that would be bad. I think I'd be like Portland because of my kind of kind of run down and gross. That would be fun. But still. So charming. That would make the library turn into anything. Literally. I just imagined. I know that we do. But we could just tell the building to change. Why don't I have to think of that? That'd be nice. Maybe you can get that building next door. You guys. Keep putting that out there. Keep putting that out there. Oh, she could find a place to be. I want the Tom Pieden building real bad. That would be amazing. That would be amazing. I would miss this building. But that would be amazing. Yeah. Oh, what about our library ghost? Maybe we'll bring him with us. There you go. If he's hungry, guys, freaked me out the other way. I think library ghost. Does library ghost want a thing or is it just a library? Mostly the back corner. Sometimes I'll see. Sometimes I'll see library ghost like walking the hallway. If I'm in one of these rooms by myself, I'll see him walking the hallway. And I'll just be like no more from you. And then he'll leave me alone. Yeah. The other night when I was making cookies, I was taking cookies into the main part of the library. And I heard something and I stopped and I stared back down at that corner. I just like stared at it for a long time. And I thought I'm not turning on my flashlight because then you'll know that I know. The stare didn't give it away at all. Yeah. But if you're staring back there, there's just an assumption that you think there's something back there. They don't know for sure that you saw that, right? Are you imagining that this is like an intruder or library ghost? No, library ghost. Library ghost. Well, I mean, I feel like library ghost would know, right? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe library ghost isn't that aware of its surroundings. I don't ever feel like I actually threatened by library ghost. I just feel like this, by the way. Sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Because especially when we were finishing up, many con. I think I was the last one in here one night. And I was listening to a book with my noise canceling headphones on too. And so I kept seeing something walk. And I was just like, I know nobody else is here, but maybe I didn't hear it. Like I just like finally caught it and was like, no, no, I know you're in here. And I want you to stop because I need to finish this. You're distracting me. I've done stuff like that. Like that night, I was like, no, we're not doing this. And I went back out to the meeting rooms because I didn't see it anymore that night. That's what I do with like at my house too. Like when weird things happen. Yeah. I'm like, can we not? I'm so sassy with the things in my house. They're going to like attack one day, I'm sure. Yep. Yeah. It sounds silly, but I mean, I'd really just hey, stop. I need to do this. I was going to say usually if you just follow them, stop. They do. We're talking about pain rent. If they don't quit. We do say so. It is a lived experience. I'm sure it is. Deal with it. I have gotten mad at mine. I mean, like I have to pick up after three children. I ain't picking up after you too. Leave it alone. All right. I feel like we've gotten a little off topic here. Yeah. We have. Overall. Yeah. We all like the book. Yes. Aside from the fact that Ariel and Carla didn't finish it. Yeah. Ariel, if you can't do it, it's pretty good. I liked the book. The writing style was great. And Kijima is a fantastic author. You guys should check out her other book series, The Broken Earth Chilogy. It's very, very good. I don't think I've even heard that. Sorry. I definitely read the whole first book and it was excellent. And then the second book is very interesting too. It's more about like outsider women who are very, people are very prejudiced against, you know. It says it's like very much, you could see where in Kijima says, is coming from with all this stuff. I think a lot of its lived experience, type stuff that she has just made into a difference sort of a different sort of setting in this case. Yeah. But, yeah. She's an excellent author. And she's a fantastic character. That's her main thing. Her world building is also pretty good. I think it's less good in this book than the other one is just because of some of the details with the multiple universes stuff. But aside from that, very good book. Very interesting. I've liked what I've read so far and I do want to finish it because I'm going to point where it's like, oh, I got to know what happens. Yeah. I don't know. And I like the characters for the most part. Yeah. One. Yeah. I don't think it's a bad book. I think it's a good book. It's just not really anything I'm interested in. You know, like that just doesn't hit that for me. I get that. All right. We have found your nemesis. You can do horror, but you can't do worms. Exactly. No, I almost dropped enough bomb there. That's not a, that's not a work word. That's a home word. That's a whole word. Well, you know, what they're about everywhere words. We were when we were in Virginia the other day, Angela, that we pet a car past us. And it had bombs like three bombs and it took me a second to register. There were efforts on each one of them. I'm like, I need that sticker. That's fantastic. That's fantastic. It's kind of funny. Yeah. F bombs. Yeah. That's great. I dropped those a lot. I'm like, what is the bombing raids in Europe? Whatever happened. You know, I'm the blitz. The blitz. There we go. I was like, I can't remember. That's me with that box. My God. But I would recommend this book. I would do. Read it. Read the second one. Yeah. I don't think you need to read the second one. I thought that this one was fine as a standalone. I'm interested in the next one. So I'm reading it already. But uh-huh. Are New York characters in this one? It's the same people. Yeah. Okay. Oh, by the way, I just want to say this. I ordered this book on Libby. And eight hours later, because you have to give it time to get in there. Okay. I went to check it out. It was already checked out. You do this. This is like the second or third time you've done it. It must be immediate. I think it might be good for people. Give me a chance. No, it's kind of funny. I mean, I waited like five or ten minutes and I tried and it wasn't there yet. Yeah. But then it's like, keep refreshing that page. It's like, oh, it's like maybe, maybe half an hour. I've been done with it had I got because I had these big long trips down the malls. Yeah. So that's like six hours right there. But uh, yeah, I was like, oh, it's kind of funny. But it's hard to read a book and drive. Yeah. It's a good idea. Yeah, I know. I've seen Zach do it. I would be puking. I mean, yeah, I can, I can read in the car. If I'm not if I'm driving, I'm not going to do that. I'm too anxious for that. That makes me anxious. I vividly remember. Very anxious. Anyway, good book. Yeah, very good book. Make sure to think, I like this guy. Yeah. I feel like we talked for two hours. I have not even discussed this book that much. We did really. I mean, well, there's a lot going on there. There is like, we didn't talk about everything that happens in it. But I mean, if we did that, it would probably have to be like four episodes. No, this is this is a long book. There's a bunch of stuff that happened. Yeah. So it's definitely, it doesn't lack action or like stuff happening. It's, I don't know. It kind of just starts and then. It's like a pinball. It's like bounce bounce bounce all over the place. Yeah, I just feel like it could have been a little bit tighter, you know. But aside from that, like there's a little bit too much dialogue at times, but aside from that, it's great. And I think that the length is for the most part justified. Yeah. I agree. All right. Our next couple of episodes, we have guest author, JD Burn. We'll be discussing his book more hollow. I almost said city. It's like that's not right. Then we're going to have a curiosity is from second Carla. Ariel's nonfiction, which will be Melania. And then we're going to have our first book chat of the year. I think we didn't have anything there, but I'm, I just want to have a book chat because we haven't had one for the year yet. All right. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. It's time for us to sign off. But before we go, only the best libraries have librarians who don't show you. Or worm you. Worms. I can eat and put a good new fish.[Music][BLANK_AUDIO]