Your Most Goth High School Boyfriend

Jenn Northington May 9, 2019

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Amanda and Jenn discuss funny audiobooks, Marvel reads, monsters, and more in this week’s episode of Get Booked.

This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins, and Hope and Other Punch Lines by Julie Buxbaum.

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The Neapolitan Quartet by Elena Ferrante (rec’d by Michelle)

Questions

1. Hello!

My daughter is 10 and in the 5th grade. She has recently discovered all the Marvel movies and has watched them over and over. Some of the movies are a little…intense…but the genie is well out of the bottle, so . (I can’t say I’m too sad, because I love them also.) She also loves the TV show Agents of SHIELD.

She recently asked me if she could read some of the Marvel graphic novels/comics. I haven’t read a lot myself—some Thor, Vision, and Black Panther, all of which I enjoyed very much. I handed her my Black Panther (Ta-Nehisi Coates), but she had trouble understanding it. The Thor and Vision I have read are graphic in the sex and violence department, which I’m not super crazy about her reading.

So… Are there any Marvel graphic novels appropriate for her age group? And before you rec Ms Marvel, she really wants to read about these MCU characters she has fallen in love with. A little about her: She’s a prolific reader of fantasy, with particular loves for Harry Potter and Percy Jackson. She is reading The List, the Unwanteds series, and the School of Good and Evil series right now (and she’s always re-reading Harry Potter!). Anything you can recommend would be awesome!

Thanks!
-Brooke

2. My name is Candice, & my partner and I are driving from San Antonio, TX to Colorado Springs, CO for our first vacation.
We would like to listen to an audiobook or two along the way; however, we would like something that we can both enjoy. Extra points for a book set in Colorado or with a Road tripping theme, though it is not required.
We are both POCs, so an author that reflects that would be ideal.
Trigger warnings include any form of sexual assault/abuse.
To help: He’s an avid D&D player, and his reading likes include “Gritty Fantasy, Speculative Sci-Fi, & Witty Comedy”.

His favorite authors are Brandon Sanderson, Issac Asimov, William Gibson, & Douglas Adams. He also really enjoyed the book Captain Freedom.

My all-time favorite series is the Wayward Children Novellas by Seanan McGuire (Beneath the Sugar Sky was my Fav) & the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers is a close follow-up.
I am currently reading How Long ‘til Black Future Month by N.K. Jemisin, and cannot get enough of it.
Other Science Fiction & Fantasy books of note for me are Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, Circe by Madeline Miller, Roses and Rot by Kat Howard, & The Themis Files by Sylvain Neuvel.
I also really love atmospheric thrillers & horror novels (the creepier the better).
And if it helps, we both loved the Netflix show Russian Doll.
Thank you so much for your book recommendation assistance!
-Candice

3. I am currently in a reading drought. I am hoping that you will help me find a new series to enjoy. I have enjoyed Still Alice (Lisa Genova), an ember in the ashes (sabba tahir), snow child (eowyn ivey), the giver (Louis Lowry) and the Tattooist Of auschwitz (heather morris).
Please help me find something similar. The snow child and the giver are my two all time favorite books. Open to anything minus non-fiction

Thank you.
-Kelsey

4. I am traveling to West Virginia in July for two reasons: 1. To visit my husbands family and 2. To do research for a short story that I’m writing about a haunted coal mine. For both these reasons, I want to learn a lot more about West Virginian culture, life, history, etc. I have already read Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina and The Stories of Breece D’J Pancake by Breece D’J Pancake and enjoyed both very much. I am not super picky, especially for something like this where I’m just trying to absorb as much knowledge about the history, culture, and how it shaped the lives of those in the region.

I look forward to your recommendations — thanks!
-Daniela

5. Hi all,

I’m looking for some read-alikes for my sister and me.

For my sister, I’m looking for a good book to get her as a graduation present. Her all-time favorite book is Girl Reading by Katie Ward, and I’ve heard her complain on multiple occasions that she can’t find anything else quite like it—which I would love to change! She generally tends towards magical realism, feminist literature, and something-is-slightly-off type plots (like in Never Let You Go by Kazuo Ishiguro).

For me, I have a serious book hangover from Isabel Allende’s Island Beneath the Sea. I originally picked it up because it deals with the Haitian Revolution (I lived in Haiti for a year) but was just blown away by the style and mood of it; I’ve never so wanted to describe a book as sensual! I liked how the time moved so fluidly and the view points shifted subtlety but distinctly and also smaller details, such as the masterful way that Allende handled the continued rape of the main character, a slave woman, both as off-hand in the way that it would be treated at the time and yet as absolutely brutal and despicable. It doesn’t have to be set in the same era/place or deal with the same themes of slavery, etc; I just want something to make me Feel like this book did!

THANK YOU,
-C

6. Hello ! I Need some audiobooks recommendations.
Something I can easily follow while doing my housework after baby goes to bed. One audiobook I LOVED was “The Year of Yes”
I Would really like something non fiction again. Maybe some humour or a memoir but Nothing too sad please.
Thanks
-Stef

7. Hello wonderful people,
I’m trying to deal with lots of the things right now. My wife is traveling a lot and I miss her. So I’m escaping into the world of monsters. Specifically 1890s-1920s monster hunter goodness.
I recently read S.A. Sidor’s fury from the tomb and the Beast of Nightfell Hall as well as the 4 books in Rick Yancey’s Monstrumolgist series and am looking for more in that vein.
I love the arcane vocabulary in those books as well as the sense of the exoticism of travel in the days before tv/ the internet. I also ADORE the relationship between Will Henry and Pellinore in the Monstrumologist. It’s so tortured and full of love and yet so horrible and that poor kid.
Monsters are great but what I really need is a sense of the mysterious as well as a horrible sociopathic nihilist narrator voice combined with the inevitable longing for love and human connection. But monsters too if you can manage it.
Thank you very very much and I hope you and everybody else has a great day.
-Justin

Books Discussed

Captain Marvel Vol 1: In Pursuit of Flight, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Dexter Soy and Emma Rios

Spidey Vol. 1: First Day by Robbie Thompson, illustrated by Nick Bradshaw

Peter and Ned’s Ultimate Travel Journal by Preeti Chhibber, illustrated by George Clements and Stéphane Kardos (out June 4)

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden (TW mention of sexual assault)

The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Sugar Run by Mesha Maren (TW homophobia)

What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte

John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead

The Mere Wife by Maria Dahvana Headley (TW PTSD)