Hot Girls Read Podcast

Ayesha 

I am back from my trip from England (yes, I did another one hehe) and I will be locking in to read my NetGalley ARCs and physical proofs! Yesterday, I finished A God of Moonlight and Stardust by Mina Brower during my flight back. Julia’s posted a bit on our socials about this read and it’s because we’re interviewing Mina later this week! Stay tuned to hear about our thoughts next week.

Since I had plenty of time left on that long flight, I finally started This Wild Catastrophe by Aarti V. Raman. I feel incredibly bad as she reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested in reading and sharing about her book and I’ve just been so behind. I’m here now and I’m so happy to read about a brown girl in a cricket romance! We’ve had hockey in the spotlight, and now F1 seems to be trending so it’s great to see other sports get picked up in the romance sphere.

If you’ve been around for some time, you know that I like to try and read two books at the same time – one digital and one physical. Since I’m reading This Wild Catastrophe on my Kindle that leaves me open to read something from my pile of physical proofs. Last month, I went to a crime and thriller book festival in London and brought back two proofs: Dead Heat by Sabine Durrant and Artificial Wisdom by Thomas R. Weaver. I’m really feeling a mystery/crime read so I’ll probably start one of these soon!

Julia

This week, I am reading leftovers. Yes, you read that right. Not eating leftovers, because I rarely have any leftovers left to eat. But reading them. Which is to say, I am reading a few books and mags that I have been in the middle of for a couple weeks now.

Leftover #1: Meander Spiral and Explode by Jane Alison. The first time I ever read this book was during my Creative Writing Masters last year, and I found it so eye-opening as a writer! I am currently taking a month-long writing-workshop class and this book is the assigned reading, so I am delving into it once again (which I am happy to do because I knew I didn’t read it as thoroughly as I wanted the first time around). Once again, this book is super inspiring. It takes everything you think you know about a traditional story arc and just flips it on its head, not in a scary way that makes you feel like everything you know is wrong, but in a way that just makes you excited to experiment with your writing and storytelling! This is a must read for anyone who loves writing.

Leftover #2: A God of Moonlight and Stardust by Mina Brower. You might have seen me tease this read on Instagram about a week ago. I won’t say too much about it now, because we will actually be interviewing Mina on our podcast very soon!! It is such a privilege to get to talk to an author about a book of theirs that you have read, and as I am reading it, I am keeping track of the questions I want to ask. 

Leftover #3: Vittles magazine. I know I have already written about this one, but this magazine is just neverending in the best possible way. I have been savouring every single article and have now subscribed to their substack as well. If you want to find out more about my thoughts on Vittles, click on last week’s blog post!
Leftover #4: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. Now, I’m not sure this really counts as a leftover since it is a 12 week ‘course’ of reading, but the point is, it has been on my plate for a while now and is part of my weekly reading rotation. A large part of the reading is also the ‘shadow work’ questions that the author poses throughout the book to help unblock or recover our creativity, and it has been very intriguing to see the patterns that have appeared out of them. So many people have heard about the Artist’s Way, so I won’t go on for too long – since Ayesha is also reading it at the same time, our latest Short Story episode (Short Stories: The Artist’s Way (Part I)) is all about our journey so far with the book, so go check that out if you’re curious!