Something Old, Something Debut Episode Transcript: FULL DISCLOSURE by Camryn Garrett
SPEAKERS
GiannaMarie Dobson, Annaliese, Ron, Everyone
[guitar intro; book pages flipping]
CONTENT WARNINGS: This book contains discussion of AIDS, the AIDS epidemic, its effects; HIV, stigma surrounding HIV, treatment, transmission, and health risks; forced outing of HIV status; slut-shaming; bullying of teens by peers and adults; stalking; blackmail; casual and medical discussion of sex and sexuality; light descriptions of sexual acts; pressure to abstain from sex; coming out; questioning identity; self-doubt and imposter syndrome relating to queer identity; being closeted; coming out under duress; mild aphobia; on-page racism; fetishization of a Black woman; discussion of racism; white supremacy; discussion of homophobia; family estrangement due to homophobia; arguments about divorce and broken families; gaslighting; unintentional biphobia; a gynecologists' appointment; catastrophizing in the narration.
Ron 00:10
Hello!! Welcome to Something Old, Something Debut, the podcast where we alternate new books and old books we think you should know about.
GiannaMarie Dobson 00:18
I’m GiannaMarie, and I use she/her pronouns.
Annaliese 00:23
And I’m Annaliese or Ace, and I use they/them pronouns.
GiannaMarie Dobson 00:27
And today we’re talking about Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett, which has actually been on our list to do on the podcast since before we even like, started this podcast. So. Yaaay! [laugh]
Annaliese 00:38
Yayyy.
GiannaMarie Dobson 00:41
I don’t know what comes next. What’s the next part?
Ron 00:44
[exaggeratedly] BUT FIRST?
GiannaMarie Dobson 00:46
Oh, right, right. [extended laughing]
Ron 00:48
We’ll do our warm-up questions.
GiannaMarie Dobson 00:53
So I went out of the house, like, more recently this week than I have in a very long time? And it made me think about the clothes that I never wear anymore. Which is like, anything respectable is gone. So I was thinking, like, what is the like, aesthetic of your wardrobe or that you would like your wardrobe to be at some point? Because mine is like, geek athleisure.
Annaliese 01:25
I’ve been told that my my outfits have a very comforting vibe. I wasn’t aware of this because —
GiannaMarie Dobson 01:33
You always look cozy.
Annaliese 01:33
— I feel like I always look for like, chaotic street wear? [laugh] But, um, I guess the — the cozy large sweaters come out when I’m not doing anything. And then the more like, streetwear type stuff comes out when I dance, because the only things I do these days are get stressed out read and dance. [laugh]
GiannaMarie Dobson 01:54
Pandemic year.
Ron 01:56
Um, I feel like I don’t have any one aesthetic. Like sometimes I’m like, Damn, I wish I could go back to being like, goth, except I’d want to do it like, softer. Like, wear the type of things that like, a librarian, or an English teacher would wear, but just with some added, like, more goth jewelry elements, and everything’s always like, blacks and grays. But then other times, I’m like, No, I just literally want to dress like, wow, I’m just blanking on everyone’s name. I was gonna say, like, ~ a cool reference~.
Annaliese 02:36
[giggling]
Ron 02:36
And then I forgot everything. Dead Poets Society. What’s his face? The main character, very famous actor!
Annaliese 02:44
I forgot his name too, but I know who you’re talking about. [both laughing]
Ron 02:48
I can’t believe I’m blanking on this —
Annaliese 02:49
[incredulously] Robin Williams?
Ron 02:49
— and my mom’s gonna listen. Yes! Thank you. I think you
Annaliese 02:52
I thought you meant the kid.
Ron 02:53
I feel like an idiot. How could you not remember Robin Williams’ name?
Annaliese 02:56
I thought you meant the kid!
Ron 02:57
Like — no!!
Annaliese 03:00
Okay.
Ron 03:00
I meant Robin Williams. [laughing] I forgot who Robin Williams is.
Annaliese 03:03
Shame. I’m keeping that in. [laughing]
Ron 03:06
But then other times, I’m just like, more like, I want to be, I guess kind of like, a street, like skater aesthetic. And I really wish I could wear leather jackets, but I can’t because they’re too uncomfortable. So I’ll wear one and look cool for like, two seconds, then I’ll be like, No, thanks.
Annaliese 03:29
You wore one when you came to visit me, right?
GiannaMarie Dobson 03:32
Your winter coat is like —
Ron 03:33
Well, that’s my winter coat, so it’s lined with like, sherpa fabric. But you can’t just wear that around all the time. Like, you can wear it when you’re outside and it’s very cold, and then as soon as you get inside to go like, grocery shopping, it’s like nope, this is going in the cart. [laughing]
Annaliese 03:46
My — my emo kid aesthetic in high school consisted of my skater sneakers, my Batman snapback and my mom’s bomber jacket. Ron, you remember this. [laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 04:02
I would like photos. I — I didn’t know either of y’all in high school.
Ron 04:07
All my shoes are Vans. But other than my shoes for like, doing student teaching, those are like, dress shoes. But, um. Yeah, I forgot what I was gonna say. The rest of my wardrobe was kind of just a mess. Which I guess comes with being trans and having thrown out all of my old clothes that were like, nicer and also doing that during a pandemic where I have no motivation to buy nice new clothes so I just live in giant sweatshirts and T shirts now.
GiannaMarie Dobson 04:41
This is why I included the part of the question that was like, “or what you would like it to be” —
Ron 04:47
[laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 04:47
— because I knew your pain.
Ron 04:52
Also I have one pair of — well, I have two pairs of jeans. One is a pair of skinny jeans that are women’s jeans that I like, wear every once in a while, but most of the time I don’t feel like wearing. The other pair is the only pair of men’s jeans I’ve been able to find affordably that fit me. [laugh] And they’re from Walmart. And they’re just like, disgusting and baggy. And it’s like, yay, boy pants, big pockets! Don’t look at me.
GiannaMarie Dobson 05:17
Walmart was the only place that had soft enough jeans for me for ages. Don’t — don’t — don’t shit on the Walmart jeans. [both laughing]
Annaliese 05:26
Okay, so Ron, you said that your question has something to do with the book, right?
Ron 05:32
Yeah.
Annaliese 05:33
All right. So I will do my other question then. Because, as we know, it is Black History Month — happy Black history month — what — my question is, what are some of your favorite fun facts related to Black history? And I’ll let you guys think my favorite fact is one that I think needs to be widely spread, especially in schools because nobody teaches this and it’s so important. The first person to refuse to give up her seat bus to a white man was not Rosa Parks. It was a teenager named Claudette Colvin. I have her, like, little autobiography book. I highly recommend reading it or purchasing it. But the reason that she kind of didn’t become the face of the bus boycotts was because she was dark-skinned — — and was a teen mom, she became pregnant while she was in high school. So Rosa Parks kind of became the face of the movement. But even in her autobiography, Claudette talks about how like, Rosa Parks was inspired by her and how everyone in the movement kind of like, you know, were inspired by what she did. And then Claudette just kind of fell off the face of the movement.
GiannaMarie Dobson 06:34
[surprised squeak] I had no idea. Um, I’m going next.
Ron 07:13
I knew that.
GiannaMarie Dobson 07:14
Well, good for you! You went to a real school. [all laughing] Um.
Ron 07:20
I did not learn that in school.
Annaliese 07:21
I didn’t learn it in school, my parents taught me her autobiography. Because it’s like, it’s a large — it’s not like, a small like, you know, classic like, autobiography. It’s a small like, hardback, like, table book type of thing, written basically for kids, but still has all of the important deets anyway.
GiannaMarie Dobson 07:42
So, I’m going next. I just finished reading for class a book that’s like, all about the, like, Harlem Renaissance and like, queer ladies during that time, and I learned about the most iconic woman ever. Her name was Gladys Bentley. You know about her?
Annaliese 08:04
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 08:05
[laughing] Yeah. So I just put some photos in our — in our chat in the Discord just now because she — there are photos of her wearing white fancy tuxedos. And…those need to be shared. And also, she — aside from the — the — the tuxedos, her other thing was, what was it? Dirty poetry on…on, uh, on the piano. [laugh] I was extremely pleased to learn about her. There’s a little documentary about her from BBC.
Ron 08:51
I think that well, okay. Two things come to mind. But one of them, I didn’t have time to Google and I don’t remember the guy’s name. I don’t know if either of you — Annaliese more likely — would know — do you know the name of the guy who put himself in a box and mailed himself to freedom?
Annaliese 09:07
[hyperventilating laughing] No, I don’t.
Ron 09:10
And he became like, I forget his name, but he literally shipped himself to like, he put himself in a box, for I think 26 hours? And he shipped himself to like, an anti-slavery, like —
Annaliese 09:24
Henry “Box” Brown.
Ron 09:26
— hub. Yes. And then after that, he basically became a like, very, fairly well-known abolitionist and like, would give talks about his experience and stuff like that. And I learned about that because I literally like, on Facebook the other day, someone had posted a photo of him in the box. And I was like, Oh my God, that’s amazing! And like mind blowing, and also horrifying, but -
GiannaMarie Dobson 09:52
When was this??
Annaliese 09:53
Ummm, hold on. I just pulled up his information so I can read it. He was a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom at the age of 33 by arranging himself — to have himself mailed in a wooden crate in 1849 to abolitionists in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
GiannaMarie Dobson 10:11
[high pitched in shock] I thought that this was a statement when you said it, Ron, this was literally his escape from slavery! That’s so iconic!!
Ron 10:19
Yes. Yes. No, I was not saying it was — no, he literally escaped slavery by mailing himself out of his state.
GiannaMarie Dobson 10:31
I have so many thoughts about how horrifying I found the mailing of Flat Stanley when he wanted to go on a trip —
Annaliese 10:40
[starting to laugh hysterically]
Ron 10:41
[uproarious, sustained laughter laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 10:41
— and is like, that, so much — like, on steroids, but at least he wasn’t x-rayed? [laughing]
Ron 10:50
Yeah, I mean, they — they didn’t — I don’t think they had that so that definitely wouldn’t have…happened. Also, the other thing that I was just thinking about is like, that — I don’t think a lot of people know that in addition to being protective hairstyles, some Black hairstyles, in the past, they would literally hide food inside of, because it was a way to, like, get through places without like, if you were checked, that they wouldn’t find the food hidden inside your hair —
Annaliese 11:24
Yeah, they would braid rice, corn —
Ron 11:25
— and then you would have a small amount of like, grain inside.
Annaliese 11:29
— maybe beans? I can’t remember. But rice and corn were the two big ones.
GiannaMarie Dobson 11:34
That’s so cool.
Ron 11:35
Yeah, definitely.
Annaliese 11:36
Yeah.
Ron 11:37
Also, just — we’ve already covered this on the podcast before, but please, for the love of god, they’re protective, hh- hairstyles for Black hair, specifically for C hair. And if you’re doing it on white hair, it’s not protective. It’s very damaging, and bad things can happen to you. So not only is it cultural appropriation, it can like —
Annaliese 11:57
It will rip your hair out.
Ron 11:57
— ruin your hair. Okay, so my question is not about the book, but it’s like, very related to the book. And I actually have two different questions. So for anyone who doesn’t know anything about Full Disclosure at all, heard the title, like, Okay, cool, who knows? This book is about a character who has HIV. And that is like, the main like, issue of this book. And so my first question is, what did you know about HIV before this book and like, at what point did you gain the extent of that knowledge? Like, was it from school? Or was it from like, other — Annaliese is like, dancing.
Annaliese 12:44
I — um — and we can get into this later, when they talk about the main character’s friends’ response to her, you know, telling them that she has HIV. But um, so I, like the friend that she told, in high school, it was basically this is the worst thing that you can get from having unprotected sex, this is what it does to you. And kind of left it at that. But in college, in my senior year, I took a class called Sex, Society and Health.
GiannaMarie Dobson 13:24
[laugh] I remember this.
Annaliese 13:25
At that point, I was very, very out asexual, who thought that this class was going to be like, history and society, because I was a sociology minor. So I figured it would be the history and society aspect I thought it would be really good to have under my belt. And then we received the syllabus a week before class started [laugh] and it — and it was very clear in the syllabus that this is going to be like, an extreme sex ed class along with talking about history. And I was like, [dizzily] Whoa, okay. I stuck with it. And I’m really glad that I did. Because we spent a lot of time talking about, you know, safe queer sex, which is nothing that our high school — my high school — went through at all. Um, and, uh, my professor actually had a unit on asexuality, which made me cry. But um, we did have a very large unit on the AIDS epidemic. We watched a documentary on just kind of queer history in general that talked about the AIDS epidemic, which I’m actually going to recommend later, at the end of the podcast, but what documentary, it was called After Stonewall.
Ron 14:52
Cool. I actually haven’t heard of that one.
Annaliese 14:54
It’s on YouTube! Anyway, I’ll get to it! But not only do we learn about the AIDS epidemic, but we also learned about PReP, and we learned about the pills that HIV-positive people take, and I was — I felt extremely proud of myself while reading this book that I actually knew everything that she was talking about everything that the doctor was talking about. So, guys, if you go — if you happen to go to Emerson College, listeners, take the class called Sex, Society, and Health, it’s so good. [laugh]
GiannaMarie Dobson 15:34
Um, I read a book called Positive: A Memoir by Paige Rawl. And apparently I didn’t mark when I read this, but I think it must have been late 2014, which is a memoir about a girl who, like, was born with HIV, and like, she was not told by her family to like, keep it secret nearly as intensively as Simone’s family. So she like, told someone when she was in middle school, like, unthinkingly, and that didn’t end well, as you may imagine. So there was a lot of like, information in there. But I don’t think I learned anything about HIV/AIDS outside of that book, possibly ever. Like, aside from like, going to Wikipedia and looking into it on my own, following reading that memoir. So there was definitely stuff that I didn’t know, in Full Disclosure, but I knew more than a lot of the people in Full Disclosure knew.
Ron 16:42
[chuckle] So for me personally, growing up, my family likes musicals. So probably my first introduction to HIV and AIDS was literally Rent, because my mom and sister both liked it. And like, I wasn’t allowed to watch it till I was a little bit older, but like, they would talk about it. And I was like, Oh, what’s that? Okay. And had it — like a very vague understanding, but then my sister is bi, and I am queer, and have known that pretty much since middle school. And then also my aunts are lesbians, or like, they’re in a lesbian relationship together. So I’ve been in quite a few, like, gay group meetings in my time, both like, when I was in college, but I also went to some of my sister’s when I would visit her while she was in college. And when she was in college, she and I went to a thing that my aunt’s had at the college that my aunt teaches that. And they talked about various stuff, although that one was mostly about other stuff. So basically, I knew all this stuff, because like, when you are gay, and you are in a gay community, to the extent that I was where you’re like, going to, like, you know, Pride gatherings and stuff like that, and meetings of Pride clubs, then people actually teach you that stuff, because obviously, the AIDS epidemic had such a huge impact on like, the LGBT community. And so actually, probably the point where I learned, like, I learned little bits and pieces along the way, but where I learned the bulk of all this stuff was when I went to Canisius. There was a guy from the MOCA Center in Buffalo who came in — and the MOCA Center is an LGBT health organization specifically aimed at helping people of color. And so he came in and basically did a talk just about like, HIV and like, how to stay safe and the stuff you should know, and encouraged people who are in the community who might be more prone to like, hookup culture to get on PReP, which I think is something that like, I kind of wanted to talk about, just because like, a lot of people who would read this book wouldn’t realize that’s a thing, but like, you don’t just take prep, if you know like, you’re gonna have an HIV positive partner. A lot of gay men especially are encouraged to take PReP, in case they are like, someone who’s — enjoys hooking up, because it’s an extra step you can take and when you decide you want to hook up with someone, hopefully that person discloses and hopefully that person is undetectable at the time anyway, but it’s still good to be on it and it’s not like if you want to hook up with someone tonight you’re gonna like, run to the doctor first and get on PReP and have been on it magically for a while. So, um, yeah. So my other question following this, because I think this is like, an important topic to talk about with this book, is — first of all, have you ever been told that like, have you ever been encouraged? Or like, informed about PReP by any medical professional -
GiannaMarie Dobson 20:27
I didn’t know that PReP existed until I read this book.
Ron 20:29
- or like, anyone in your life? Okay. Annaliese?
Annaliese 20:32
I mean, my professor who taught the Sex, Health, and Society class, did a lot of medical social work in Boston, so I don’t know if you consider her a medical professional, uh, but she did encourage us —
Ron 20:48
I just mean, like, someone who like, it’s their — it’s kind of their job to talk about stuff like that. So I think that would — [inaudible] — the guy who came from the MOCA Center wasn’t a doctor.
Annaliese 20:54
Well, yeah. I mean, my doctor — my doctor asked if I was sexually active, I told him, hell no. And he kind of left it there. [laughter] And same happened with my gynecologist. [laughing] Hell no.
Ron 21:09
So that leads to my other question. But first, I will say I actually have been asked if I wanted to take PReP. Because I go to a, like, LGBT-specific doctor. So basically, at my first appointment, he was just like, hey, do you know about PReP? And I was like, Yeah, I know what that is. And he was like, do you think there’s any reason you would need it? And I was like, definitely not. And he was like, Okay, I believe you. So. My other follow up, and this is my last follow up question, is: do you have any examples of like, weird things that you’re willing to discuss that have happened because a medical professional either understands you are in the LGBT community in some way — LGBTQIA, because ace stuff — so either happens because they know you’re in that community, but like, have weird misconceptions or preconceived notions so they ask you a question that totally did not need to be asked, or B) asks you a question that’s completely irrelevant, because you’re in that community, and they didn’t know. Or didn’t know what it meant.
GiannaMarie Dobson 22:19
Whenever I go to the emergency room, they never believe me when I say that I’m not sexually active. Like, cuz my parents are usually there when I’m in the emergency room, as happens when someone needs to drive you to the emergency room. And you live with your parents. They’re like, Hmm, maybe I should hang out with the kid who needs to be in the emergency room. So they’re always like, any chance you could be pregnant? I’m like, immaculate conception? [all laughing] Like, I don’t think that I’m…a candidate for that? They never believe me. And sometimes they’ll like, like, make me like, come to a different like, part of the room. And I’m like, Can we focus on why I’m at the emergency room instead? Or like, they’ll, like, try to have me pee in a cup for a pregnancy test before something and I’m like, but I’m here because I’m supposed to have this like, surgery, and I haven’t been allowed to drink anything for like, 15 hours. [laugh] [aggressively] how can I pee in the cup?
Ron 23:18
[laughing] Okay, relatedly? One time, I had to go to the emergency room for a concussion. And the whole trip was awful, I’ll get to that at the end of this story. Y’all already know this story. But this is — this is for the — for the — the people.
Annaliese 23:39
The listeners?
Ron 23:40
So this was back when I firmly identified as a girl and a lesbian.
GiannaMarie Dobson 23:49
You have always told me about calling yourself a lesbian!! [laughing]
Ron 23:54
Well, I didn’t like calling myself a lesbian. I said gay, but I meant, you know, lesbian, like, I only like girls. And so, as a seemingly cis girl, saying I only liked girls, I went to the emergency room. They said any chance you could be pregnant? I said, No, I’ve never had sex and I’m gay. And they still made me take a pregnancy test. Which I would have been charged for, except the end of this story is that the hospital told me I didn’t have a concussion when it was a bad enough concussion I forgot I had talked to the doctor when he came back into the room. And he — and someone was like, oh, have you seen any doctors yet today? And I was like, no. And my friends who were with me were like, UH, yeah, you have! And they were like, no, you’re fine. So, I threatened to sue the hospital so I never had to pay for that pregnancy test.
Annaliese 24:51
I — I must say, I am extremely fortunate that my parents teach at a college and I can benefit from their health insurance. And U of R medical is kind of widely known in upstate New York for being like, some of the best? So I would definitely say I’m privileged in that way, I have not been harassed[laughing] for a pregnancy test!! And none of my stories are as — as entertaining as yours, but I feel like my pediatrician asked like, once if I was sexually active, and the fear of God in my eyes when I said no I think [laughing] deterred him from asking any further questions. My — I’ve had like one gynecologist appointment. I need to make my second one. I mean, it’s been months since that little flyer came to my house and — saying I needed a checkup, I need to give them a call, but. My gynecologist seems very nice. And she put me on birth control because my cramps are debilitating, but I — I’m gonna have to have the “I’m asexual” conversation with her at some point, I feel it brewing. [laughing]
Ron 26:19
Imagine having the “I’m actually a man” [Annaliese laughing] conversation with your gynecologist. I did that. [laughing]
Annaliese 26:28
I also can’t wait to have the “I want my uterus out of my body” conversation with her. But I know my insurance doesn’t cover it.
Ron 26:35
So that was actually — let me share like, a positive experience. When I came out to my gynecologist, she clearly — I don’t think has ever personally had another trans patient — I — like she basically it was like, yeah, we have other trans patients here, but said it in a way and also spoke to me in a way that heavily indicated [laughing] she’s never actually had a trans patient. Like, she said transgendered. Because she just didn’t realize that’s not how you conjugate that word.
Annaliese 26:39
[laughing]
Ron 26:50
But she immediately said, Do you think down the road, you would want to have hysterectomy? And I was like, Aww! Like, I’m glad that she already knew to ask that. Even though she clearly has not really dealt with people like me before and that she’s not trying to talk me out of it. Because a lot of doctors even with trans patients would be like, [nasal voice] Well, are you sure? And she was just like, oh, so is that something you want to do? And I was like, yeah, and she was like, awesome! If that comes like, down the road, and like, like, we can work on that with you. And I was like, damn.
Annaliese 27:36
Wholesome! [laughter]
Ron 27:40
So should I read the back of the book? I have so many other stories, honestly, but I don’t need to get into every time I visited the doctor’s office. [laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 27:49
We’ll start another podcast just for medical trauma. [both laughing] Okay, so, so long after we started recording, here the —
Ron 28:01
[laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 28:01
— is the cover copy for Full Disclosure by Camryn Garrett. “In a community that isn’t always understanding, an HIV-positive teen must navigate fear, disclosure, and radical self acceptance when she falls in love and lust for the first time. Powerful and uplifting, Full Disclosure will speak to fans of Angie Thomas and Nicola Yoon. Simone Garcia-Hampton is starting over at a new school, and this time, things will be different. She’s making real friends, making a name for herself as a student director of Rent, and making a play for Miles, the guy who makes her melt every time he walks into a room. The last thing she wants is for word to get out that she’s HIV-positive, because last time…well, last time, things got ugly. Keeping her viral load under control is easy, but keeping her diagnosis under wraps is not so simple. As Simone and Miles start to go out- start going out for real, shy kisses escalating into much more, she feels an uneasiness that goes beyond butterflies. She knows she has to tell him that she’s positive, especially if sex is a possibility. But she’s terrified of how he’ll react. And then she finds an anonymous note in her locker: I know you have HIV. You have until thanksgiving to stop hanging out with Miles or everyone else will know too. Simone’s first instinct is to protect her secret at all costs. But as she gains a deeper understanding of the prejudice and fear in her community, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above is to face the haters head-on.” [quietly, intense] That was a very long cover copy.
Ron 29:35
Damn, that’s a way longer description —
Annaliese 29:37
That was a long cover copy.
Ron 29:38
— than was on my book. My book? That’s the whole thing, right there. It’s two paragraphs.
Annaliese 29:44
It’s like, two fingers long. For the listener. [both laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 29:49
I don’t know what the library app one says. But that’s what Goodreads says.
Ron 29:56
So, I have the UK paperback, cuz I ordered it online and that’s what I ended up with. I didn’t realize it was even the UK paperback till I saw that it said pounds for the price on the back. And there was no US price or Canada price anywhere. But mine just says, “Simone has got high school down. She’s made friends, she’s directing the school musical, and she’s making out with Miles” —
Annaliese 30:20
[laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 30:20
She’s making out with!
Ron 30:20
- the most attractive, making out with she’s also HIV-positive. And that complicates things. Because last time she told someone, the fallout was devastating. And when Simone finds an anonymous threat in her locker, threatening to turn her world upside down, she begins to wonder if the only way to rise above the haters is to face them head-on.” So, the same last line.
Annaliese 30:40
That is exactly the same thing that Goodreads said, but with like, 60% less words. [laughing]
Ron 30:48
It just makes me think of — have you ever had to read the like, oh, what’s it called that like, one style book? The Strunk and White: Elements of Style?
Annaliese 31:00
Yesss.
Ron 31:00
And one of the chapters is just all about, like, say things as quickly as possible. [both laughing] Anyway, so now for trigger warnings for this book. Okay, so there is discussion of the AIDS epidemic as well as discussion of AIDS in general and its effects. There’s discussion of HIV, stigma surrounding HIV, treatment, transmission health risks. There’s forced outing of HIV status, there’s slut-shaming, bullying of teens by peers and adults, stalking, blackmail, casual and medical discussion of sex and sexuality throughout as well as some light descriptions of sexual acts. There’s a character in the main character is pressured to abstain from sex, coming out, questioning identity and self-doubt and imposter syndrome come up, all related to like, like, queer identity, being closeted, coming out under duress. So in that situation, it’s not like, a forced coming out, but it’s definitely not an ideal comfortable coming out. There’s some aphobic comments, there’s on-page racism. Specifically, it’s a scene where there’s fetish- fetishization of a Black woman. And there’s also a lot of discussion of racism in the book. And like, you know, white supremacy, that type of stuff. Discussion of homophobia, there’s never homophobia on-page, but it happens to multiple characters off-page and they talk about those experiences. Family estrangement due to homophobia; again, doesn’t happen on page, but it’s discussed. On-page argument about divorce and a lot of — or not a lot, but some discussion of divorce, or like, broken families; gaslighting, and unintentional biphobia. And I will also say that this book opens with a scene at the gynecologist there’s nothing explicit about any physical details, but it can be good to know that. And also, I didn’t really know what to call this one, but the main character does catastrophize a lot, so. It can be a little stressful to see what she’s thinkin’.
GiannaMarie Dobson 33:30
I think that you covered it.
Annaliese 33:31
That was the most succinct listing —
Ron 33:32
[laughing]
Annaliese 33:32
— succinct listing I’ve ever heard. From this podcast.
Ron 33:39
Well, cuz we normally don’t — normally we don’t prepare as well. So.
Annaliese 33:44
Yeah.
Ron 33:44
Today I remembered to prepare. Anyway.
Annaliese 33:46
I was going to suggest to get prepared the other day, but you beat me to it. [both laughing]
Ron 33:53
So yeah, so I think something to dive in with is that as I mentioned, this book opens in a scene at the OB/GYN and it’s awkward and kind of funny, but mostly awkward, because Simone goes to the OB/GYN with her dad. [laugh] And um -
Annaliese 34:15
The amount of stuff that she does with her dads, I — I could not ever imagine allowing my parents anywhere near that amount of my personal life.
GiannaMarie Dobson 34:27
She has very good relationships with her dads!
Annaliese 34:31
She does, it’s very wholesome —
Ron 34:33
Yeah.
Annaliese 34:33
— but I couldn’t relate to like, 50 to 80% of this. [snickering]
GiannaMarie Dobson 34:36
I was my first note was like, I feel like he could have just waited in the car outside?? Like, that was probably the better choice.
Ron 34:46
Definitely.
GiannaMarie Dobson 34:47
But she’s like, not telling him that she wants to ask sex questions. [laugh]
Ron 34:52
Okay, so the same -
GiannaMarie Dobson 34:53
She says “I’m, like, 12!” He’s like, “you’re 17.” [laughing] Like, she’s not telling them like, I want privacy.
Ron 35:02
The thing that was craziest to me, though, is that like, she has a breast exam, and I’m pretty sure he’s still in the room the whole time.
Annaliese 35:11
I —
Ron 35:11
Which is like, it’s one thing to ask sexual questions in front of your parent. And then another thing to have a doctor giving you a breast exam in front of your parent, like, oh god.
Annaliese 35:20
I was a little confused, because when I was in high school, sometimes when I’d go to the pediatrician, my parents would, well, usually it would be one parent who would drive me because the other one is usually teaching, but — usually it was my mom who would come to the pediatrician with me. And she would come in so that like, she could also talk to the doctor, which is like, normal, but when, like, once or twice, my dad would be the one driving me and like, the nurse would make him wait outside the room when I got my physical exam. So I was a little confused [laugh] as to why her doctor didn’t make her dad wait outside.
GiannaMarie Dobson 36:02
[bitterly] ~ They know each other in a professional context. ~
Annaliese 36:04
[dissatisfied moan]
Ron 36:06
But also technically, like, because she’s a minor, um — like, he’s allowed to stay if she’s fine with it.
Annaliese 36:15
Mm-hmm.
GiannaMarie Dobson 36:15
Yes.
Ron 36:17
So and she definitely gave absolutely no indication [laughing] she wouldn’t be okay with it, other than Dad, this is awkward! But like, um, and so like, I don’t think it’s much of a spoiler to say that by the very end of this story, after everything’s done in the epilogue, kind of the, like, closing coming-of-age thing is that she’s like, you know what? I’m going to my next appointment, and I’m goin’ in there alone, y’all can wait in the waiting room. And, um -
Annaliese 36:49
[laughing] Oh my god. Yeah, that — that just reminded me of, because she prepared like a whole speech for them. And they were like, Yeah, no, that’s fine. And it just reminded me of like, the first time that like, when I was in college freshman year, I had a friend who is from Shanghai, and she couldn’t go back to China for Christmas. And I called my mom and I was like, Hey, can we have like, Hailie stay over for Christmas? And I had prepared a PowerPoint presentation on why we should let her stay! Mom was like, yeah, that’s fine. And I was like, whaaaat?? [both laughing]
Ron 37:28
But anyway, this is a segue into the fact that I have a minor in theater. [laugh] And I thought it was funny, just because this is kind of like, a writing thing in general. But I learned it in like, a script writing class — is that a good way to tell whether your story is soundly written is if you have a dramatic question at the beginning. That’s not necessarily like, the whole theme of the show. It’s just a question at the beginning, and then it doesn’t get answered until the end. An example of this would be the book Zeroes. Where at the beginning you open with a character who is trying to get home. And then tons of other stuff happens, but at the end of the book, he finally gets home.
Annaliese 38:15
[giggling]
Ron 38:16
And so this is a book that opens with the question of like, [laughing] Why the heck is your dad with you at the OB/GYN? Are you gonna take care of this? Cuz you clearly don’t want him there! And at the end, there we go.
GiannaMarie Dobson 38:29
Okay. [all laughing]
Annaliese 38:33
Related to theater, she mentions that the reason that she was chosen by Mr. Palumbo to be the student director was because they had like, an hour long discussion on a potential Wicked adaptation. [big sigh] Ex film major poking my nose into say that that concept, just the concept of Wicked— yes, Wicked was one of the first books to do it. First place to do it, first media to do it. But since then, it has been so overdone in movies. Nobody — [laughing] Nobody wants a Wicked adaptation! Nobody wants it!! [laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 39:25
[very amused] Can we talk about the fact that she was like, I’m into this boy. But I don’t want to make any assumptions about his sexuality, because he’s in theater and talks to me about musicals all the time. So this is probably my favorite asking-out scene of all time, ever? So she asks him to go to the GSA meeting with her because she’s like, it’ll be with people like you! She’s like, oh, then let’s go out sometime. Because she realized in that moment that he didn’t actually know anything about musicals. She was like, facepalm like, he’s asking me questions about musicals, if he was really gay he’d know about them! [laughing]
Annaliese 40:11
[laughing] Which is like —
Ron 40:11
Also, though, I think it’s funny that this is another — what was the other book we read? I know there was another book we read that did this but this is the second case we’ve had on the podcast of “bisexual character doesn’t think love interest could possibly be bi, considers love interest could be completely not into me or into me, but definitely not bi.”
GiannaMarie Dobson 40:34
Let’s Talk About Love? No, it was, um —
Ron 40:36
It might have been? I don’t remember.
GiannaMarie Dobson 40:39
It was the purple — lover — Loveless. [long pause]
Annaliese 40:40
Was it LOVELESS?
GiannaMarie Dobson 40:46
Rooney.
Ron 40:47
Oh, yeah!
Annaliese 40:49
Ahhh, yeah.
Ron 40:49
With Rooney.
Annaliese 40:50
Yeahyeahyeah.
Ron 40:50
Yeah. Okay. So it’s like, character who — Well, okay, so in Loveless, the character who’s wandering this isn’t bi, but like, we know, well, like, we know for sure that this character knows that being bi is a thing. And like, why do people never think their love interest could be bi??
GiannaMarie Dobson 41:16
I think she was a possibility —
41:18
[laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 41:18
— but she wanted to make sure that it was a possibility.
Ron 41:20
She never says — she never says that it’s a possibility that he could be bi, she just says that he — he’s, she thinks he might be gay.
GiannaMarie Dobson 41:28
Mmm.
Annaliese 41:28
Yeah, I was thinking that when I read that section I got such — secondhand embarrassment affects me so terribly to the point where like, if stuff happens, like, in TV shows, even like, the secondhand embarrassment in like Avatar: The Last Airbender. I have to skip the scene. Those get me very much, the secondhand embarrassment for Avatar. I have to skip scenes of secondhand embarrassment in this section of the book, I was like, flip, flip, flip flip flap, like skimming, because I know I need to read it so we can talk about it, but I’m like — [intense panting noise]
Ron 42:00
There were multiple times in this book I was like, ooh, Annaliese might need a content warning —
GiannaMarie Dobson 42:04
[laughing]
Ron 42:04
— for second hand embarrassment. [laughing]
Annaliese 42:06
[laughing] I very nearly considered asking you to put that in the beginning, but. I don’t know.
GiannaMarie Dobson 42:11
There were like, four of those scenes! [all laughing]
Annaliese 42:16
Nothing affected me as badly as the scene where she asked him out, though. [sighing] Oooh.
Ron 42:23
That scene was definitely the worst.
Annaliese 42:25
Yeah.
Ron 42:25
I was like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe she did that. But I mean, he was already like, completely head over heels — for her because, like he’d been asking her about, like, things that he didn’t really care about, just because he liked listening to her talk. So like, that wasn’t gonna ruin it.
GiannaMarie Dobson 42:33
[squealing] I knowww!
Annaliese 42:43
I mean, she doesn’t tell — which I can absolutely relate to —
Ron 42:46
Yes.
Annaliese 42:46
— but being so forward the way she was, I could never. [all laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 42:51
She’s an icon. Oh, can we talk about the shade for Cats? Before? Shade for Cats was like…a thing?
Annaliese 42:59
[hyperventilating laughing] I wrote this down! I wrote this down!! Hold on, hold on. Oh, yeah. Okay. On page 219. Miles asks, “Is there even a cat’s movie?” and Simone responds, “God, I hope not.” [dying laughing]
Ron 43:20
It wasn’t — it wasn’t out yet! [all laughing]
Annaliese 43:26
Camryn Garrett, How do you feel? How do you feel? [all laughing]
Ron 43:28
My — my bone to pick with her talking about Cats is that she’s like, Oh, I don’t like people coming in the audience, like, I want to pay attention to the songs and it’s like, honey, No, you don’t.
Annaliese 43:39
[heavy laughter]
Ron 43:39
It’s Cats. Like, nothing happens! [both laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 43:44
Simone says she doesn’t like being like, basically, kind of — like, her boundaries violated by the people in the audience. Which I think is a very valid reason.
Ron 43:55
Yeah, but like, even without that, even if you were all the way in the back in the nosebleed, watching Cats, it’s still gonna be bad. It doesn’t matter. [all laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 44:08
Um, despite the shade on Cats and the shade on any recorded musical, because Simone doesn’t really believe in the movie version of Les Mis because the vocals are ~subpar~ compared to the Broadway version -
Ron 44:24
Autotune. [chuckling]
Annaliese 44:24
Man, I wonder how she felt about Beauty and the Beast.
GiannaMarie Dobson 44:28
All of the love for musicals and rent Actually, this is my note, “Never thought I’d say this. But this book is making me want to watch a musical.” Specifically Rent, which is kind of a big deal, because I don’t…want to, but her love makes me want to. I don’t like musicals! [all laughing]
Annaliese 44:51
The only Broadway musical I’ve ever watched like, on Broadway was Wicked, funnily enough, um — and I have to -
GiannaMarie Dobson 45:00
[shriek of laughter] The little eye-roll Annaliese just did was…so perfect for punctuation. [both laughing]
Annaliese 45:06
I have to- it’s cuz- uh, summer before senior year of high school, I took this like, week-long class at NYU for film. It was wildly expensive and not worth it, but! Part of the class -
GiannaMarie Dobson 45:21
That’s where Camryn Garrett is going to school. At Tisch. For film. Right now. Cuz she’s — younger than us??
Annaliese 45:26
My parents tried to get me to apply to Tisch [laughing]. But um, they had like, fun little extracurriculars for us and one of them was pick a Broadway musical to go to, Phantom of the Opera, or Wicked. And to this day, I regret not seeing Phantom of the Opera. [laughing]
Ron 45:43
You should’ve seen Phantom!
Annaliese 45:45
I know! Trust me, I know!
Ron 45:45
It’s so good! I’ve never seen it on Broadway, but I’ve seen it like, off-Broadway.
Annaliese 45:49
It was partially because everyone I knew at the program was going to see Wicked, and I hate doing things alone. [laugh]
GiannaMarie Dobson 45:56
That’s valid.
Ron 45:57
I love going to shows alone. Going to shows alone is good because like, if, especially when it’s something you’ve never seen before, and especially if it’s not like, a comedy.
Annaliese 46:06
Mm-hmm.
Ron 46:07
It just like, lets you pay so much more attention to it, I feel like?
Annaliese 46:10
I’m also like, a Class-A asshole and snob.
GiannaMarie Dobson 46:15
[laughing] No you’re not!
Annaliese 46:16
And the dude who played Fierro, he was a wonderful actor, but he was flat in most of his singing, and I would not shut up about it, and -
Ron 46:26
[sustained laughter]
Annaliese 46:26
[laughing] — everyone who sat next to me hated me. For the listeners, my parents are musicians, I’ve grown up around opera, classical music and musicals for — ever since I was like, in the womb, and it’s turned me into the biggest snob. [laughing]
Ron 46:43
I’ve seen a few things on Broadway. The only one that I hated when I saw it on Broadway was Mary Poppins.
GiannaMarie Dobson 46:49
That’s the only one I’ve ever seen.
Ron 46:50
Just cuz the Mary Poppins musical is a lot more like the books than like, the movie —
Annaliese 46:55
Mmm. Wait, I love the books!
Ron 46:55
— and the books are kind of more like Nanny McPhee than what we think of when we think about Mary Poppins. So it’s not like, quite as…nice?
Annaliese 47:04
I enjoyed the books more than…the musical.
Ron 47:05
And the musical just also, I felt like the plot didn’t move in the musical. I was just like, stop. But it was pretty cool when he tap dances on the proscenium arch. That was cool.
GiannaMarie Dobson 47:12
I…had a heart attack [laughing] when he was doing — that’s the only musical I’ve ever seen that hasn’t been put on by a high school? I think? Um, and I don’t remember there being significant differences between the movie and the musical. But I enj- that’s, that’s like, the only musical that I enjoy.
Ron 47:37
I — when I was a kid, Mary Poppins was my favorite movie. And I went and saw that musical while all the other — so I went with the Girl Scouts, and alllll the other Girl Scouts went to get American Girls. And even then, I never had any interest in American Girls.
Annaliese 47:53
Ohhh, American Girls was my life.
Ron 47:53
So my mom and I went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway and hated it.
GiannaMarie Dobson 47:58
I’m sorry!
Annaliese 47:59
[cackling] To get back — to the topic of the book — [all laughing] — and change — change the topics from musical slightly — this note that I wrote in all-caps is staring at me right now. And I feel the need to ask you, Ron, how do you feel about Simone talking about how she very first masturbated to Vampire Diaries characters? [laughing]
Ron 48:22
Oh my God, that’s in my notes!! I just wrote Vampire Diaries in all caps.
Annaliese 48:28
I wrote that too! [laughing]
Ron 48:28
And just like a screaming face. Oh my god.
GiannaMarie Dobson 48:31
Did she say Vampire Diaries?
Ron 48:32
I was like, seriously?? Yes. Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 48:33
Or am I supposed to like, recognize the character names?
Annaliese 48:36
Yes!
Ron 48:37
No, they said Vampire Diaries.
Annaliese 48:38
No, they say Vampire Diaries.
GiannaMarie Dobson 48:39
This went right over my head. I should have noted it. [laugh]
Ron 48:42
Also just — the way that it happened, just like — noo, everything about that was so painful.
Annaliese 48:49
[laughing] And then Claudia clowns her for having a white man fetish. Photos of young Bruce Willis!
GiannaMarie Dobson 49:06
Young Harrison Ford as well, I think?
Annaliese 49:08
[laughing] Young Harrison Ford is one thing, but Bruce Willis??
Ron 49:11
I also just like — I just — it just heightened — heightened the feelings for me of not being able to understand why anyone would ever masturbate to a photo of a real person —
Annaliese 49:28
Yeahhhh.
Ron 49:28
— like that — no. Unless maybe if you’re in a relationship with that person and like, you are both okay with that scenario, just like — God, it makes me like, never want to be famous.
GiannaMarie Dobson 49:39
Annaliese, we’re circling back — we’re circling back to the conversation that you wanted to have when we talked about Loveless and we didn’t have time to have. [both laughing] In the —
Annaliese 49:52
This did make me think of Loveless, quite a bit.
Ron 49:55
Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 49:55
In Loveless, the — the main character is ace, and she’s done some masturbating, like by herself, and she finds out that people do it to pictures.
Annaliese 50:03
[beginning sustained laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 50:04
And her roommate is like, I have a whole folder of shirtless Henry Cavill photos for this purpose. And she’s like -
Ron 50:10
Noooo.
GiannaMarie Dobson 50:11
— y’all are all aliens. [laughing] Like, doesn’t make any sense. But that’s like when she has her whole breakdown, she’s like, you think — everyone — everyone just goes around thinking about sex all the time? It can’t be real!! [laughing] Simone says it’s real. [all laughing] Everyone is like, you think about sex more than everyone else we know.
Annaliese 50:35
I — I feel bad, I should’ve I really should’ve picked up on the fact that Claudia was ace before it was specifically said in the book. But — I was very —
Ron 50:46
I mean, it’s also said in chapter…6? So.
Annaliese 50:49
Yeah, I know, I said, I — I’m just saying, I feel like I should have picked up on it sooner. But I was getting ready to write in my notes that this is a very, like allo-centric book. So I was pleased. But also, throughout my notes, I have such a love-hate relationship with Claudia. [laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 51:07
I didn’t think she was gonna stick the landing.
Ron 51:09
Yeah.
Annaliese 51:10
I was — I was so disappointed in her reaction to Simone telling her that she had HIV. I was so impressed! At Claudia’s behavior in the sex shop and her knowledge of like, dental dams and stuff like that. And then when Simone ended up telling her and Lydia, and like, Claudia’s first reaction was, “You don’t look sick,” I nearly threw the book. [laugh]
GiannaMarie Dobson 51:34
That’s so common for like, anyone disclosing chronic illness it barely made me blink.
Annaliese 51:41
[big sigh]
Ron 51:41
Yeah, I also think that that stems from people not fully understanding the difference between HIV and AIDS, because —
Annaliese 51:48
Even in high school, I guess, I was taught that like, AIDS is, is the like, one that makes you like, sick and HIV is the precursor.
Ron 51:57
Yeah, but a lot of people don’t understand that like, you can have HIV, and manage it and literally never get AIDS?
Annaliese 52:05
Mm-hmm.
Ron 52:05
Like, a lot of people don’t get that. So that’s definitely where I think they were coming from in that scene. Which is still like, you shouldn’t say that, but it’s like, I see like, why they thought that. I see how it happened.
Annaliese 52:22
I mean, I guess it’s very appropriate for her to — for this book, I guess, to have that kind of interaction for the readers to know why it’s not okay to say stuff like that. But to have it come from Claudia really threw me for a loop, because until then, I basically thought of Claudia as like, the knowing older sister of the friend group.
Ron 52:44
Mmm.
Annaliese 52:44
So I expected that from Lydia, but not from Claudia. [laughing] And I was so disappointed in her.
GiannaMarie Dobson 52:50
When you were winding up to say “I was so disappointed in Claudia, for her reaction,” I was like, already, like, my head was back reacting, like, Yes.
Annaliese 53:00
[laughing]
GiannaMarie Dobson 53:00
Because of how awful she was, when, um, when they were having the argument in the car, and Simone is like, stop assuming I’m straight!! And she’s like, you want to be oppressed so badly, you’re gonna fake being not straight?
Annaliese 53:14
Mm-hmm.
GiannaMarie Dobson 53:14
Like. How will you ever come back from this?
Ron 53:15
[shouting] She’s Black and has HIV!
Annaliese 53:19
I — like, the number one warning sign about Claudia that made me shake my head was like, when — back on the masturbation topic — Simone was talking about how she also like, had a photo of Cate Blanchett. And Claudia was like —
GiannaMarie Dobson 53:32
It doesn’t count.
Annaliese 53:33
Yeah, but you know, that doesn’t count. It’s Cate Blanchett. And I’m like, I don’t know what world you’re coming from, but like, in my queer circle at Emerson, you are gay before you are straight. [laughing, Ron laughing] Like, Claudia, where is this coming from?
GiannaMarie Dobson 53:33
Oh my God. The — speaking of that, I was so skeeved out with — well, first of all, I mean, like, there is a mystery, like, who is stalking Simone? Who is blackmailing Simone? But like, when? What’s his name? Eric? Is that his name?
Ron 54:06
Yeah.
Annaliese 54:06
The one who keeps glaring at her, yeah.
Ron 54:07
The — the one who doesn’t take notes?
GiannaMarie Dobson 54:09
When he was like — and he was like, I’ve been — no, not Eric. Jesse, I’m sorry. It’s Jesse.
Annaliese 54:13
Oh, Jesse.
Ron 54:14
Jesse. Okay.
GiannaMarie Dobson 54:15
Like he was gossiping to her friends about her, like, her discussions with Miles. And — and she was like, Dude, why are you telling them my information before **I** can tell them my information? He’s like, Well, my allegiance to the gay part of the Gay Straight Alliance, and I was like, YEEET.
Annaliese 54:34
Yeeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 54:35
YEEET! Well, this kind of ties into how Simone was — this is the same topic I’m trying to articulate. Simone is heartbroken when in the like, parent-teacher, Principal meeting. She’s like, Miles didn’t stand up to his parents. He didn’t count — he didn’t like, stand up for me when it counted, I’m like, [shouting] Girl, you don’t know anything about his home life!! You’ve never met his parents!! Like, you do not know how —
Ron 54:59
Yeah, but like — I think that was —
GiannaMarie Dobson 55:00
— safe it is for him to talk back to them in public! Which is kind of the same thing as like, like, you don’t know, like, what factors are going on in people’s lives, like, whether it’s safe for them to come out or not, like, stop assuming straight —
Annaliese 55:12
Especially —
GiannaMarie Dobson 55:13
— if they’re in the Gay Straight Alliance club!
Annaliese 55:15
But also like, related to the Miles’s parents thing. They also had another brief conversation, Miles and Simone, about like, there was a point where like, Austin, er- Austin’s his last name, why am I calling him Austin? But when Miles was like, oh, like, you don’t get in trouble, like, are you even Black?
GiannaMarie Dobson 55:33
Yeah!!
Annaliese 55:34
And Simone is like — and Simone is like, well being like, having like, strict parents or aggressive parents isn’t like, a Black thing. It’s like, something else. And I was like, ehhhh? It’s — I think — it’s — there’s a huge, a huge — not — section or portion isn’t — isn’t the right word. But in the Black community, it is very well known that parenting is much stricter — and I don’t know — Simone’s dad, Simone’s dad is someone who’s Black, right?
GiannaMarie Dobson 56:14
Simone’s Pops is Black, her dad is Latinx of some kind.
Annaliese 56:18
Oh, Pops is Black. But I think having grown up in an environment that is just a lot more generally accepting? With like, two gay dads, I think Simone may not have gotten the experience of being brought up in a Black community that is extremely male-oriented, and also queerphobic. My dad’s talked about this quite a bit, about how like, the majority of his community — he grew up in the South Bronx — was incredibly queerphobic. And that’s something that a lot of —
Ron 57:04
That actually leads to a book recommendation I’ll have at the end.
Annaliese 57:08
Yeah, that’s something that a lot of the Black community is struggling with right now. And I think [chuckle] I just found it a little interesting that Simone shrugged off, the, like, “my parents are Black and very strict” aspect of Miles’s home life.
GiannaMarie Dobson 57:25
I don’t think that they ever really talked about it, like she hadn’t even met them before the day at the —
Ron 57:30
No, but — Okay, this is my, this is my contribution to this, this is what I thought Annaliese was gonna say, actually.
Annaliese 57:37
Mm-hmm.
Ron 57:37
They do have a conversation about his parents, and the only thing she knows about his parents? Is negative.
Annaliese 57:43
Mm-hmm.
Ron 57:44
So like, I was not surprised at all when his parents behaved that way.
Annaliese 57:48
Yeah.
Ron 57:48
Because literally the only detail we ever know about his parents, other than the fact they work in business, is that they told him he’s not allowed to play basketball, because they don’t want him to fill — like, fit the stereotype.
Annaliese 58:01
Mm-hmm.
Ron 58:03
And so like, then when he is afraid to talk back to his parents immediately, I was not surprised at all! Because I was like, that’s the only thing we know about his parents. So that’s definitely gotta be the tip of an iceberg.
Annaliese 58:17
Yeah.
Ron 58:18
Like, but I also understand why Simone doesn’t get it, cuz she’s a kid, she’s very stressed out, and also, she’s never had to experience anything like that? Because that’s not how she was raised. So like, I get why she’s frustrated. But I’m also glad that it’s addressed later that like, she was wrong.
GiannaMarie Dobson 58:34
Yeah.
Annaliese 58:35
She also gets to talk back to her parents quite a bit in front of other people.
Ron 58:39
Yeah.
Annaliese 58:40
I mean, half of my family is white and I don’t get to talk back to my parents [laughing hard] at all.
GiannaMarie Dobson 58:49
What was I going to say? I thought that his thing — I did not expect him to like, talk back to his parents after, like, he was like, I read them the riot act in the parking lot, and she was like, I can’t believe he cursed at them. Like, I did not expect that to happen. I thought that like, the biggest thing he was going to be able to do was say like, I’m still going to see this girl, and that was going to be all he could do and she — and it would be up to her to decide whether that was enough for her not. Which, either is valid. Like, I’m really glad they were able to come to a, like discussion point about it though.
Annaliese 59:24
Mm-hmm.
Ron 59:24
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 59:26
Can we talk about how good Miles is for a second? Because he’s like, too good to be true.
Annaliese 59:30
Half of my notes are “Miles is so precious.” He’s so sweet.
GiannaMarie Dobson 59:34
He reminds me so much boyfriend from — he reminds me so much of the boyfriend from With the Fire on High, I looked it up so I could tell you — so I could remind the readers of how awesome Malachi is from With the Fire on High because he just like, starts flirting and gettin’, with this teen mom and is like really good with her baby and like, I love him so much. He reminds me so much of Miles.
Ron 1:00:00
My biggest question about this book is: So, when Simone comes out to Miles, the first thing he says is, Can I hug you?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:00:08
[screams] I know!
Ron 1:00:09
And we never- I don’t think we know if they ever actually hug!
Annaliese 1:00:11
I don’t think they do.
Ron 1:00:11
I don’t think they do. For all we know, they never hug and that makes me sad.
Annaliese 1:00:16
Well the second time he asks, Can I give you a hug? She does. So that’s good-
Ron 1:00:21
Yeah, later in the book you mean?
Annaliese 1:00:21
Yeah. But I was like, I was like, Girl get that hug!
Ron 1:00:25
[laughs] Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:00:26
I definitely understand, like —
Ron 1:00:28
But instead she’s like, What? What is this reaction? I’m shocked!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:00:32
No she says, “You want to touch me?”
Annaliese 1:00:35
Yeah, well, yeah —
Ron 1:00:36
Yeah, that’s what I was saying.
Annaliese 1:00:37
— they have conversation but after that conversation. I was expecting her to, like, cash in that hug. And she did not.
Ron 1:00:43
Yeah. And she never does.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:00:45
Uh, I think she cashed in enough.
Ron 1:00:46
[laughs loudly]
Annaliese 1:00:47
[wheezes] Um, swerving off the Miles topic. I have another note that —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:01:03
I can’t believe they had ice cream and ruined the ice cream. I have like tears in my notes next to the ice cream.
Annaliese 1:01:09
[laughs]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:01:10
I’m so ace. That’s what I was thinking, like, How dare you go and pay for this ice cream and let it down like that.
Annaliese 1:01:19
Um, firstly, how did how did three high schoolers get fake IDs? Without paying through the ass? In order to go to a sex shop?! [dissolves into wheezing laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:01:34
No, I think they had them before that?
Ron 1:01:37
Yeah, they had the fakes before that.
Annaliese 1:01:39
Did they? It made it sound like they went to get them specifically so they could go to the sex shop. I was like —
Ron 1:01:45
This is unrelated. But I just watched the movie Booksmart —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:01:49
Oh hey! Was it good?
Ron 1:01:50
They have fake IDs. But their fake IDs are college IDs so they can sneak into the college and use the nice library.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:01:57
Oh my God. That’s adorable!
Ron 1:01:58
And so they can use it for like student discounts.
Annaliese 1:02:01
I was just reading an article about the director of Booksmart. But anyway, I have a quote from page 85. And Ron, I sincerely hope you know what I was thinking of when I wrote this quote down. Simone goes- well, Simone, Lydia and Claudia are in the sex shop and they’re trying to look for vibrators. And they get they get sidetracked by a lot of different things. And Simone sees this poster on the wall and says, “Hey, maybe we should come back for one of their upcoming workshops and learn the Beginner Booty Basics. I’ve always had questions about booties.” [laughs] Throughout the entire book, she talks about how much she stares at Miles’ ass. And this brings me back to a conversation I’ve had with one of my ace friends during Pride —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:02:49
[starts laughing]
Annaliese 1:02:49
— three years ago, we texted all of our allosexual friends and asked Why are allosexual people obsessed with butts? Ron was one of the receivers of the question.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:03:05
What did you say back at the time?
Annaliese 1:03:10
What?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:03:11
What did Ron text back at the time?
Annaliese 1:03:15
Oh, I think he got scientific with it.
Ron 1:03:19
No, I was like, basically like, I’m a boob person. So I don’t know. Like, I think the like, contour of a butt can occasionally be nice. But like, I’m never in my life am I like, Oh, I think that person’s cute, what a nice butt they have.
Annaliese 1:03:41
[wheezing laughter] GiannaMarie looks like she wants to pass away.
Ron 1:03:42
Like… but I feel like that’s the same thing as like, someone could have like, nice, shapely arms that you’re like, Wow. Like, their arms look nice because they’re super muscular, or something. It’s like that for me.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:03:42
[heavy breathing]
Annaliese 1:03:44
But like, people are sexually attracted to butts.
Ron 1:03:57
Yeah, no, I don’t- I don’t really get that so much.
Annaliese 1:04:00
The best answer I got from that whole survey was one of my friends from college just texting, Good for a grabby-grab.
Ron 1:04:06
[laughs] I remember that.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:04:09
I also remembered that the moment you started talking.
Annaliese 1:04:14
Oh, I did talk about this during Lovless didn’t I?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:04:16
It’s a memorable anecdote worth repeating.
Annaliese 1:04:23
[laughs] I’m gonna sound like a one trick pony. Every time I come on this podcast, I’m gonna have the same set of stories to tell.
Ron 1:04:33
We actually keep Annaliese cryogenically frozen.
Everyone 1:04:45
[hysterical laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:04:45
I wanna put some love on the fact that when she does disclose her HIV status to Miles, she has note cards with all of her facts and stuff. And —
Ron 1:04:56
And this is made even better by the fact that her group- so, she goes to an HIV support group. And her group literally was like, You should just say it really casually, like it’s not a big deal, because really, it shouldn’t be a huge deal. And [laughs] immediately next scene: note cards.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:05:12
[laughing] That was a really good…. That was a really good scene. I liked it a lot. I have complicated feelings about her friends, but Miles is, as my mother judges boys, a good egg.
Ron 1:05:30
[cackles]
Annaliese 1:05:34
He’s a sweetie.
Ron 1:05:38
I also like that he’s not the only like, really sweet guy. There’s also the other — I forget his name — but the guy in the support group, who’s also like a really good guy.
Annaliese 1:05:49
Uh, Jack. Yeah.
Ron 1:05:50
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:05:51
It looks like Ralph is on his way to trying to become a more sweeter person.
Annaliese 1:05:56
Ralph pissed me off so much. Oh, my God.
Ron 1:06:00
But I like also how like, most… like, she’s constantly just like, I hate Ralph. But on-page, Ralph doesn’t actually do all that much. Like she talks about the bad interaction they had in the past. And like, he’s annoying a couple times on-page. But like, most of the time, he’s not even doing anything. And she’s just like, Ugh, Ralph, don’t even look at me. Ralph makes me wanna Ralph.
Everyone 1:06:24
[laughter]
Annaliese 1:06:26
At the end, where he’s being nice, and she’s like, Ralph, you can’t do that.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:06:30
[sarcastically] I don’t know how to deal with this!
Annaliese 1:06:31
[still mimicking Simone] You can’t be nice!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:06:33
What was I going to say? Um, even though I definitely had a vibe, the entire book, like, the stalker, blackmailer likes Miles, like, I was like, Is It Ralph? Like, I was like, first, Is it Eric? Or is it just- he’s so much of a dick that he’s a red herring. And then Simone is like I think it’s Eric, and I was like, Oh, cool, it’s not.
Ron 1:06:58
Yeah, I wrote that in my notes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:07:00
But like, Ralph was such a dick! Like when, when the two of them ran into him. I was like, Oh, this is basically threatening. Maybe it’s hidden. Maybe he’s somehow who knows Miles… and likes him?!
Annaliese 1:07:11
All right: I would love to know, I would love to know you guys’ like, moment of realization on who was sending the notes, because the second Jesse seemed unhappy with the mention of Javier Muñoz, I was like, it’s him! I very much thought it was Eric, until Jesse had that moment. And I was like, All right, I’m on to you, Jesse!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:07:15
No, I still thought it was one of the friends by then.
Ron 1:07:38
I, like, casually thought about the fact that it could be Jesse. But like, I wasn’t sure it was Jesse until it was literally like, it’s Jesse. And I was like, Oh, okay, that was one of my predictions. But at one point, I even wondered if it could have been someone from her old school, who like went out of their way to ruin her life —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:08:03
I also thought about that.
Ron 1:08:04
— like, specifically her really shitty ex. I was like, Yeah, that could be what’s going on. But… I did pretty much…. At first, I was like, Maybe it’s Eric. Partially because I was thinking about the book Felix Ever After where there’s like, a bully, and the only mean person in the story, pretty much is the bully. And it’s like, Oh… [laughs] but then I was like, No, no, she’s getting too close to the fact that it’s Eric, it’s definitely not Eric. And yeah, but after- after she said it wasn’t Eric, I was like, Oh, it’s someone who likes Miles, isn’t it?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:08:51
My only problem with the fact that like, the idea that it could have been one of her friends — because this book follows a lot of the same beats as one of the books that I’m going to recommend at the end, like, so many of the same beats. I was like, maybe it’s one of her friends. And then I was like, But they didn’t know about her HIV status unless one of them like, already, like, saw her at the hospital and then they faked, like, this reaction to her disclosing her status like but that seems like —
Ron 1:09:17
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:09:17
— too complicated for this book. I definitely thought it was the friends in between the Eric point and the Jesse point.
Annaliese 1:09:28
At one point, I wondered if it was going to be like, one of the- in the, like, doctor’s circle, one of the doctors, like, kids maybe, and there was going to be a whole deal about like, you know, breach of —
GiannaMarie 1:09:40
Confidentiality?
Annaliese 1:09:40
— doctor-patient confidentiality. But I was like, I don’t know if the page count is going to have enough time for that.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:09:50
Can we talk about something ridiculous about this blackmail? It takes, like, five weeks for them to reach the deadline for the blackmail. So he like, thinks that he likes her, I guess, like, that Jessie like, thinks that he likes Simone, like, he’ll do her this favor like, I’ll only ruin your life but like, I’ll give you some time to like, make it work. Like, it’s like, five weeks that they are dealing with this stalking situate. Like —
Ron 1:10:23
Which also in high school, especially five weeks is like —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:10:25
A lot of time!
Ron 1:10:28
Yeah, like, feels like, four months.
Annaliese 1:10:30
I have like, several plot-related questions that I want, like, you guys’s input on but while we’re on the subject of Jesse, [sounds of page-flipping] I just — I don’t, I really don’t understand, like, the whole in, in, in, in, in, you know, apologies in real life, as well as in books and movies, where like one of the first lines is “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You definitely meant to hurt this person. And —
Ron 1:11:01
Yeah.
Annaliese 1:11:01
The fact that —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:11:02
I don’t know if he meant to hurt her. I think he thinks that he’s protecting everyone from her. Like, that’s how the tweet is framed, like just a warning.
Ron 1:11:10
Like, he literally thought that she was also, like, I don’t think he understood that she was completely safe for Miles to be with.
Annaliese 1:11:26
I just, I don’t understand his logic of, She is being — she looks healthy. Like, he even said in his letter that like, You look way healthier than my dad, and I thought that was unfair. And I was like, You see her being happy. And you see her being healthy. And you’re like, I must ruin this. What? Like, wouldn’t you want to, you know, support someone who is, you know, give someone else the chance to be healthy…?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:11:51
That’s extremely, like —
Ron 1:11:52
I don’t know that he was aware that like, first, I don’t think he was aware that someone who’s HIV positive can, like, have it too and, like, have their stuff managed so that it’s untransmittable. Because his dad obviously never managed it that well. So there’s a chance that he literally didn’t know.
Annaliese 1:12:14
But he mentioned that he knew that it was because his dad stopped taking the pills.
Ron 1:12:17
Yeah, but he doesn’t know what happens when his dad does take them.
Annaliese 1:12:21
Mm.
Ron 1:12:21
He just knows his dad got really sick because he didn’t take them.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:12:23
If he spent so much time at the hospital —
Ron 1:12:24
And the other thing is —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:12:26
— it’s kind of weird that he doesn’t know more about HIV/AIDS, though.
Ron 1:12:30
But I mean, when your parent is, like, really sick like that, you’re not usually like, learning a ton about it. If you’re a kid, especially if like, it’s a condition that like, is not getting better and not being managed. Like, it’s more likely that you’re just there being stressed out. And people aren’t telling you anything. But also even if he did know, like, it’s a completely normal reaction for someone who was really stressed out to see someone who has what they want, and like, lash out, Like a little kid who drops their ice cream, and then another kid still has their ice cream because they didn’t drop it. And that little kid is like, Hey, that’s not fair. Like, why do they have that. Even though those two things are completely unrelated.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:13:18
If I can’t have it, no one can.
Ron 1:13:21
Yeah, and like, being overwhelmed by emotion and not, like. Really seeing logic.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:13:26
Um, a bit more of a deeper cut here. That’s not actually that uncommon of a reaction among able-bodied people, like, to find out —
Ron 1:13:35
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:13:36
— that you have chronic illness and they’re like, Disabled people must be visibly disabled. Otherwise, it doesn’t count. They’re lying, they’re getting — they’re, they’re getting paid to do this. Like, they get free parking spots for this bullshit! It’s very eugenicist. It’s like a really, it was… I wasn’t surprised that was his… his whole background, reaction feelings, etc.
Ron 1:13:59
Yeah. I also think that like, the fact that that’s like, why he was blackmailing plays very well into the themes of the book.
Annaliese 1:14:08
Mm-hmm.
Ron 1:14:08
Because it’s about like, HIV, and especially AIDS are like, this illness that people don’t understand, and just like, fear, because they’re ignorant and don’t educate themselves or like, they know minimal things about it and just think, Oh, scary! And like, make assumptions and stuff like that. And then like, those assumptions, like, she literally says when she addresses people who are being shitty to her, she says, “My HIV isn’t a threat to you, but your ignorance is a threat to me.”
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:14:48
Ahh, that line.
Ron 1:14:49
And like, he literally proved that to be true.
Annaliese 1:14:52
Mm-hmm.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:14:53
We should mention, what was I going to say? During the course of this book, her viral load becomes undetectable, again, it has been before and it wasn’t for a little while. And u=u so undetectable equals untransmittable. So her doctors say that after six months it’ll be pretty safe to have sex with Miles. And as long as he’s on Prep, everything is good.
Annaliese 1:15:21
They did not wait six months though.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:23
What do you mean?
Ron 1:15:23
Yeah they did.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:24
There’s like a whole discussion about how he’s going to wait for her, and —
Annaliese 1:15:28
Didn’t eat her out?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:30
Something happened….
Annaliese 1:15:32
He ate her out.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:33
[helpless] I don’t — I don’t know.
Annaliese 1:15:38
I’m pretty sure he ate her out.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:40
I thought it was just licking on the inside of her thighs —
Ron 1:15:43
I don’t think he used…. I don’t think he used his mouth.
Annaliese 1:15:47
Oh.
Ron 1:15:47
I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure.
Annaliese 1:15:49
Alright.
Ron 1:15:49
Like, isn’t that supposed to be implied that he just used his hands? Because —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:54
Wait a second. Isn’t that scene before she discloses to him?
Annaliese 1:15:57
No, it’s after.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:15:58
Oh, I was like, because I don’t — she’d never have let that happen. Um —
Annaliese 1:16:02
No no no no, yeah, it was after. I — I am fully prepared to believe that I read it wrong. [laughs]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:16:10
It leads up to like, like it’s that.
Ron 1:16:14
I think like, it leads up to it in a way that like, you could believe that they did. But like, because of everything else in the book and context… I would not really believe that they would.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:16:27
Yeah.
Annaliese 1:16:27
Mm-hmm.
Ron 1:16:27
You know, so I think he just probably used his hands.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:16:32
Some more notes about Miles before I forget. He has a lucky sweatshirt.
Annaliese 1:16:36
Yes!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:16:37
And for different occasions, they swap it back and forth, which is so adorable. I can’t even stand it. Um, there was another Miles note. Oh, my note says “Boys who use multiple exclamation points in texts are good.” [laughs]
Annaliese 1:16:55
Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:16:56
Boys who are not afraid to express themselves over text are the good boys.
Ron 1:17:01
Okay, I think I just remembered something —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:17:03
I think I have more about highlights. But I should have organized them first.
Ron 1:17:09
This is just a side note. I’m very upset that she never gave him flowers.
Annaliese 1:17:15
Yeeaaaah!
Ron 1:17:18
I’m very upset about that. Because when her half-brother suggested that I was like, That’s a brilliant idea, and I bet he would love it because, like, he’s a good guy. And then at the end, she’s like, I’m gonna give him a gift!
Annaliese 1:17:33
And it’s condoms!
Ron 1:17:34
And then it was condoms.
Annaliese 1:17:35
That scene —
Ron 1:17:35
I was like No! It should have been flowerrrrrrs!
Annaliese 1:17:37
That made me crack up.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:17:39
Wait, wait, wait, I have — I haven’t related quote from that section. Um, I don’t. This is Chapter 20- 35. So these are my favorite quotes from this section. “‘You don’t get any condoms,’ I say, reaching for the box. ‘They’re for people who are nice to me, okay!’” Like, not only is that an excellent joke, but also an excellent point. Good girl!
Annaliese 1:18:02
[laughs]
Ron 1:18:02
[chuckles]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:18:04
And the other one is, I think the last line before the, epilogue: “I don’t need acceptance from some random judges. Not when I have this: heaps of condoms and excellent people.”
Everyone 1:18:18
[laughter]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:18:24
I love Claudia running into like, Is sex happening?!?!?! And they’re like, No, and she’s like, Thank God!
Annaliese 1:18:30
Simone’s little, like. asides and comments just made this entire book. Like, there was the Ebony and Ivory thing were like, a mildly homophobic student was like, [mocking voice] Oh, what do you call your two dads? [normal voice] And she turns and goes, Ebony and Ivory!
Ron 1:18:46
[laughs] Oh, my god, no, there’s one scene where- so the first time that she and Miles, like, really start talking, they stay up late at night, and they’re watching Netflix over the phone, which I was like, Oh wow, I could almost believe that it’s COVID because like, that’s what a date is like now.
Annaliese 1:19:02
[wheezes]
Ron 1:19:03
And then actually at the end when everyone’s at her house to support her, I was like, Oh, god, this is like making me stressed out! Don’t do this! Don’t have that many people in your house!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:19:12
I loved that everyone was getting together.
Ron 1:19:13
But anyway, so she wakes up in the morning. She wakes up in the morning after they stayed up late talking, and her Pops, which is what- she calls her dads Dad and Pops. And her pops is awake and he’s drinking out of a mug that says —
Annaliese 1:19:28
White tears!
Ron 1:19:29
White tears!
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:19:30
I loved that part.
Annaliese 1:19:32
And then she’s talking to Mr. Palumbo about her, like, future. He’s like, Oh, isn’t it better for you to like, do something you’re passionate about than something that will like, make you money but make you depressed? She goes, What if I’m passionate and depressed? [laughs]
Ron 1:19:50
[laughs]
Annaliese 1:19:50
I was like, girl, same! [laughs]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:19:53
Ah, what was I going to say? I just- I just- It made me so like, full of happiness, like, all of the different parts of her life coming into support her. Like she’s got her like, I was going to say, like, bio family, but they’re not. I mean, like her, her, like, her family of origin family, all of the extended family of origin family over there. And she and Dave are connecting for the first time. And then she’s got her like school friends who are like, getting over some problems. And then she’s got group friends. And she’s like, How do you even know where I live? And they’re like, We — we coerced it from the woman in charge of the group, which is illegal, but we’re here.
Everyone 1:20:35
[laughs]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:20:36
And then just Miles, and like, it’s so full of happiness, like —
Annaliese 1:20:41
I very much appreciate that this didn’t turn into like, trying to find the bio mom, because I know a lot of like, adoption books have that as a big plot point. And while that is a valid plot for a book, I’ve seen it so many times.
Ron 1:21:02
I also think they might mention that they think her bio mom’s dead.
Annaliese 1:21:08
Maybe. I thought it was more like —
Ron 1:21:10
I could be wrong.
Annaliese 1:21:10
— they just completely lost contact. And she thought she might be dead but they don’t know for sure.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:21:16
I definitely also got the implication that she’s all — dead or like, too sick that they couldn’t keep in contact.
Ron 1:21:26
Yeah, but even so, like —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:21:28
That she was disenfranchised to a point —
Ron 1:21:29
— there would still be the possibility of like, a lot of books would still have the main character go like, looking for grandma or something like that. Or like, looking for Mom’s ex best friend or something.
Annaliese 1:21:40
And she does talk about that at the end of the chapter.
Ron 1:21:42
Yes.
Annaliese 1:21:42
And I forget which chapter, where she’s like, Oh for the first time, like I’m thinking about, like, what my mom would say or I’m thinking about, like, you know, watching those documentaries about adopted children —
Ron 1:21:54
Yeah, that’s chapter eight.
Annaliese 1:21:54
— yeah, about adopted children who like find their bio parents. But I like how there are plenty of other things in her life that deserve a spotlight that got a spotlight, as opposed to something that is a very popular topic in a lot of other books, to the point of being overdone.
Ron 1:22:15
The emphasis put on biological parents in books is often like, very dramatized.
Annaliese 1:22:20
Mm-hmm.
Ron 1:22:21
Um, so anyway, but what I was saying is, I like how many things this book manages to address, in addition to like, the point of the book, which is like HIV —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:22:34
Yeah —
Ron 1:22:34
— and relationships and sex —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:22:36
— like, I thought this was going to be an issue book, but it doesn’t feel like it.
Ron 1:22:42
Yeah, so there’s obviously HIV and sex and that stuff. There’s also a lot of like, queer discourse kind of thrown in, like, there’s even an offhand line at one point, like someone in GSA is like, Hey, can like non binary people be lesbian?
Annaliese 1:23:01
I wrote that down!
Ron 1:23:01
And someone’s like, Yeah, I think so. But I’m not non-binary. So you should ask someone else who’s non-binary, just to be sure. And then there’s like, obviously, the adoption stuff. Did I already say that?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:23:14
No.
Ron 1:23:15
Might have already said that. And um, a little bit of like, a glimpse into kind of the, like, the Latinex side of her family. And I’m trying to think of like, what other stuff but like, this does a good job hitting a lot of points. Which also leads me to my one complaint about this book is that the slut shaming people do is never addressed. Like it’s never specifically spoken out. Like, even if I had gotten HIV from sex, that’s okay. And you have no right to judge me for having sex. And you don’t know whether it was protected or unprotected. And you wouldn’t know like, whether it was, like, sleeping around or relationship, and either way, it like, literally doesn’t matter. And I wished like, that was addressed, just because so many other things are addressed and handled so well. And I’m sure that like, Camryn Garrett would probably agree with what I said just now.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:24:23
Yes, of course.
Ron 1:24:24
So like, I just wish someone had come out and said, like, It’s not okay for anyone, like, not that anyone would have necessarily changed their mind or listened. But like, I almost feel like for some people who hear Simone’s story, like, people in the book, they would be like, Oh, well, she was born with it. Like, it’s not her fault. Bla bla bla bla bla, like, Oh, it’s different with her, or something. But it’s not, like, you have no right to shame anyone who has HIV regardless of how they got it.
Annaliese 1:24:59
Speaking of agreeing with Simone’s decisions, that brings me to another question that I have.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:25:03
Uh oh. Is there a decision that I’m not going to agree with?
Annaliese 1:25:07
No, no, I just had a question for the class.
Everyone 1:25:10
[laughs]
Annaliese 1:25:11
So I made a note about how in like, a lot of YA — cuz like, blackmail teen bullying YA is a popular subject — in a lot of the books that I’ve read — it — there’s like, the main character’s like, Oh, I’m not going to tell anyone, like, I’m not going to tell my parents I’m not gonna tell the principal. And in these books, I’m like, Damn, like, you — like, these other main characters, you have no reason not to tell an adult. In this book, I think Camryn Garrett does an amazing job of explaining and highlighting why — not only why Simone does not want to go to an adult, but making me think, Wow, if I were in Simone’s position, I would not want to go to an adult either.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:25:56
There’s a lot of reasons why it might not be safe for Simone to get help.
Annaliese 1:26:01
Yeah. So I agree with her not going to her reasoning for not going to an adult. But my question is, do you think were you in Simone’s place, would you tell Miles about the blackmail? Because it does somewhat involve him.
Ron 1:26:15
I think like… she says repeatedly and like, no, Miles, like, this isn’t your problem. Like, this isn’t your fault. This doesn’t involve you. And I think partially she says that because she doesn’t want him to feel guilty. Because it kind of is directly because she’s seeing him. Like… but she also addresses it would have happened anyway, at some point, it just would have happened differently. And I think that’s totally true. But I do think like, I completely get why she didn’t tell Miles, and I don’t think it was like, something that I would expect her to have done differently. But I do think like, it would have been a good thing to do differently. But like I completely understand why she didn’t do it that way, and why she wasn’t comfortable doing that it that way, and like, don’t fault her for it.
Annaliese 1:27:08
I guess my — just my — like, I understand, and I, I completely agree with and respect Simone’s reasoning for not telling Miles. But I almost feel like if I were in Miles’ place, and even like, in other aspects of my life, if someone is talking about me and making very like, creepy comments in regards to my love life, I’d want to know.
Ron 1:27:31
Yes. Also like, Miles is also technically being stalked.
Annaliese 1:27:36
Yeah.
Ron 1:27:36
So he has a right to know about that. Because like Simone is the target, but Miles is in the creepy stalker photo that gets sent to the phone.
Annaliese 1:27:44
Yeah.
Ron 1:27:44
So like….
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:27:46
Hmm. Okay, my thoughts are kind of split down the middle between the two of you. Because I — I believe that Miles has a right to know, but I don’t think I would have told him because I think it would have just increased his guilt and stress. Because — for what I consider not really a helpful reason, because she has her friends to like, help rest the burden on, at least until they fall out for a second. Um, and because I really don’t think it’s about him. Like, he’s involved. But I — it’s really about Jesse’s problem, like, this girl with HIV acts like she’s not sick. How dare. Like, like, it’s a little bit about like, Oh, no, maybe she’ll get Miles sick. But like, it’s mostly like, How dare this girl with a condition act like she’s a regular human being? And not have a whole list of disabilities pinned to like, her shirt? You know? Like, that’s what it’s… yeah, so I don’t really think it’s about him.
Annaliese 1:28:56
Do you think that if she got with someone else, and not the dude that Jesse had a crush on, that Jesse was still blackmail her? Like, that’s an honest question. That’s not a leading question. I’ve been wondering.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:29:09
I think so.
Annaliese 1:29:09
Really?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:29:09
I think yeah, I think it was intense because of Miles, but —
Ron 1:29:12
I think it might not have happened- I think it might not have happened as quickly. Especially if it was someone like, completely outside of drama club because like, how would he even know as quickly, but like, I think it probably still would have happened. I also think like, the fact that he doesn’t just want to tell Miles, and he tells the whole school, ultimately makes it a lot less about Miles than it seems like it is at the beginning. And like, that’s kind of the biggest point in Simone’s defense for not telling Miles. But also, it’s weird that like, honestly, he doesn’t deserve to get any information because like, he’s a terrible person. But it’s weird that when he calls her and asks if Miles knows, she never tells him that he does. Because like, he probably would have done what he was going to do anyway. And like, he doesn’t need to know that information. It’s literally none of his business. And he’s a terrible person. And he like, shouldn’t like, he has no right to any of this. But it’s also kind of weird that she doesn’t say that, because like, maybe if she had that would have satisfied him. Probably not. But like, it’s weird to me that she didn’t try.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:30:29
Oh, it’s not weird to me that she doesn’t try. She was way beyond giving in to him.
Annaliese 1:30:36
Well it’s also like, none of his business. But —
Ron 1:30:37
It’s weird to me that she literally never considers telling him, like, on page, it’s never even, like, Oh, I could tell him but I’m not going to for this reason, or something. It, like, it never even seems to occur to her to try that.
Annaliese 1:30:53
Side note, Jesse gets kicked out. Which, like —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:30:56
No, he does not.
Annaliese 1:30:58
Wait he doesn’t?
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:30:59
Well, he gets suspended. But it’s right near the end of the semester, and they’re not going to invite him back next year. Because it’s a private school. So you have to like, apply and pay and stuff. So he wasn’t even kicked out. So it’s all about like, what you can put on a record. So, they could have gone further.
Annaliese 1:31:18
So I’m less — I’m less shocked because like, I went to Brighton and like, nobody got kicked out for doing anything. Even people who wrote slurs on the steps or started fights in the cafeteria. But um, anyway, I, I had the immediate thought —
Ron 1:31:38
Okay, just a side note. That fight in the cafeteria was the most pathetic fight I’ve ever seen in my life.
Annaliese 1:31:44
I know, but it’s Brighton. It’s Brighton, you’d think that they get kicked out for even just pushing someone.
Ron 1:31:51
[laughing] Yeah.
Annaliese 1:31:53
But anyway, I was like, Isn’t Jesse? the stage manager? How is — how did that show get it’s shit together so fast when it’s stage manager got suspended?!
Ron 1:32:06
[hysterical laughter] Well, because the stage manager like, clearly Jesse wasn’t actually doing anything because he was too busy stalking. So like, people already know how to take care of their stuff.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:32:15
They promoted someone.
Annaliese 1:32:16
I guess the book made it sound like he was doing a lot more work. I don’t know.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:32:22
Annaliese! I forgot to say when you were talking about Simone’s life, or like, rapid shift into asking Miles out, she started the day with a gynecology appointment where she was like, I’m gonna ask sex questions — that was before class, before she went to school that day — and then by the end of the day, she is kissing the boy that she likes! She is a smooth operator!
Annaliese 1:32:44
[laughing] She was on a roll that day.
Ron 1:32:49
Yeah, that’s the other thing about this story too, is that like, there is no complication with getting into the relationship, like it starts with her having a crush, but like, they’re instantly in that relationship. There is no hesitation they both already are into each other. Bada bing, bada boom, okay, keep going.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:33:06
Sometimes it happens that way in high school.
Annaliese 1:33:08
That just made me think of, I have definitely sent these YouTube videos into the group chat because my new obsession YouTuber is Overly Sarcastic Productions comprised of Red and Blue, Red makes myths and media trope videos and Blue does history videos. But one of Red’s videos was on like, relationships in movies and TV specifically, but also in books. And she was talking about how, like, she just does not understand why like, a movie with a sequel or a TV show with several seasons will spend all this damn time getting two characters together. And then in the next season, or the next movie, they’ve broken up off screen, or all of a sudden they’re having issues. And so I’m like, Oh, it’s so refreshing that like, getting together was like, half a chapter. And now we have the rest of the book for amazing, adorable Miles.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:34:16
You just made me think of another movie that you and I have to watch that I like that no one else likes, which is The Amazing Spider-Man, which, they get together pretty quickly in that movie. And then like a year and a half later in the second movie, they’ve gotten together and broken up like 10 times. She’s like, I can’t do this anymore, go away! [laughs]
Annaliese 1:34:36
I watched The Amazing Spider-Man 2 because it was filmed in Rochester.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:34:40
But you haven’t seen the first one, and we have to do it together. I love the first one so much.
Annaliese 1:34:44
[talking about the second movie] It was filmed in front of my mom’s workplace and she was getting so mad at not being able to drive to work for while that was going on. Anyway, we’ve gone off-topic.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:34:54
Okay, I want to talk about Simone’s friends real quick before we do the recommendations, because we haven’t talked about them super in-depth. So there’s Lydia and Claudia and I was so irritated that they didn’t have names that were a bit more different. The — “ia” end made me confused at many times. [laughs] So, Lydia is bisexual, I believe. I have a note.
Annaliese 1:35:22
Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:35:23
And Claudia is a lesbian asexual, and they assume for no real reason that Simone is straight.
Ron 1:35:34
Simone, I think, did like, tell them at one point that she’s straight.
Annaliese 1:35:40
Did she? I feel like they assumed because every single time she’s talked about anything to do with love and sex, it’s been in a heterosexual context.
Ron 1:35:50
Yeah, I know she definitely like, but led them to believe she was straight. And she says to Miles that she’s straight. So….
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:36:01
I have no idea anything I wanted to say other than I wanted to highlight a moment where I think everyone forgot when we were talking about — when we like, think about Claudia, is the fact that her parents had her institutionalized for being asexual!
Annaliese 1:36:15
Yeah.
Ron 1:36:16
No, that was definitely something I was referencing in the trigger warnings. But yeah, but also, they — let me say they did not have her institutionalized. They sent her to a therapist, that is extremely different.
Annaliese 1:36:33
No, no —
Ron 1:36:33
They said that they sent her to a therapist.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:36:36
No, it’s, I just undid my highlight, but it said her, her father had her — “Her father had her sent to a mental hospital once, I shit you not.”
Ron 1:36:49
Oh, okay. I thought it — for some reason, I thought it said they sent her to a therapist.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:36:54
That’s in Chapter 9. Um, a good Claudia moment, from the very beginning, about how Simone is like, I can, like, no one would ever want to have sex with me. And Claudia doesn’t know that she’s HIV positive: “‘Why not?’ Her voice is sharp. ‘I’d have sex with you if I were into it. You’re awesome!’” Simone is like, You know what, I am a boss.
Annaliese 1:37:16
I love that! I love Simone’s her self-confidence —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:37:19
Her self-confidence is amazing!
Annaliese 1:37:20
She’s like, I am that bitch. I look gorgeous.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:37:24
I love her. I love her so much. She’s so much more real than most YA teens. Um, Claudia keeps threatening- keeps like, like, being in that very teen girl way, like, Tell me who this person is, I’ll beat them up. But then when they actually find out, they’re like, Hmm, maybe we shouldn’t get suspended for this. And Lydia goes, I guess I could help. But I’m not good at fights. I’d be the first one to get hit. Like, girl same. I know. I was, I think when I was having really bad roommate problems at Canisius, Ron was like, if it ever gets to a point where it’s like, really bad, you can just sleep here and also like, I’ll protect you. And I was like, What? And Ron was like, I went to public school. I’ve been in fights. [laughs]
Annaliese 1:38:15
I always threaten to — I always threatened to eat people who are bullying my friends.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:38:21
[shrieks with laughter]
Annaliese 1:38:22
And it definitely comes from a point where in college, my ex and I were having a fight. And my best friend’s girlfriend at the time, texted me and was like, I’m part of this Facebook group that said, I will- that’s called I WILL EAT THIS MAN FOR FREE. So I just want to let you know, I will eat this man for free. [laughs]
Ron 1:38:46
See, all you have to do in half of the fights if you’re fighting a cis girl, is to just be bigger than her and to be completely 100% prepared to fight. And she will usually be like Okay, let’s see if we can figure this out some other way, or like, I’m gonna leave, you know? That’s all you gotta do —
Annaliese 1:39:06
Cis, asterisk, white girl.
Ron 1:39:09
Yes, that is 100% true. Yes, cis white girls.
Annaliese 1:39:11
The cis brown girls will throw down.
Ron 1:39:17
All of GiannaMarie’s roommates were white girls that I could definitely have beat up. [laughs]
Annaliese 1:39:26
GiannaMarie looks like she’s gonna pass out.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:39:27
It was so bad. So I — I don’t know, they’re, they’re good friends a lot of the times. They drop the ball a couple of times, but they mentioned pick it back up. I didn’t really think that Claudia was going to be able to come back from it, but she did. Or at least Simone forgives her.
Annaliese 1:39:49
I mean, at one point before the whole like, the… everything exploded into that big fight. At one point I wrote down like I’m kind of on Claudia’s side a little bit, because while Simone is telling us as the audience the reasons why she’s not going to GSA as much, she never tells Simone [meaning Claudia] or Lydia, and I think, like, it sounded very much like it was, it — she was not feeling as included, which I think is something that she very much should have told them.
Ron 1:40:22
Yeah.
Annaliese 1:40:23
I mean, at the point where everything blew up, and Claudia was just going off the rails, and Lydia was just sitting there and letting her, I was like, We’re beyond the point where Simone needs to apologize for anything. But before that happened, I was like, I definitely think you need to actually talk to them and not just be like, because like, they had a small conversation. And — and Simone is just like, It’s not, you know, you were happy for me to like, be dating Miles. I’m not just like, you know, I’m not just blowing you off for some boy, and I’m sitting there like, But you definitely have issues with how they’re treating you, especially in GSA, and you need to tell them, and she never did.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:41:02
She does stand up to them, like, calls them out on their bullshit, though, which I appreciate.
Ron 1:41:07
But I also do like that this does address the fact that like in high school relationships, what does happen a lot is like, a person gets in a relationship and starts ditching their friends a lot. So I did like that that was in there.
Annaliese 1:41:22
Alright, why don’t we move into recs, cuz I have quite a few. [laughs]
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:41:29
Um, I forgot my second one. But the one that has all of the like, same story beats here is None of the Above by I. W. Gregorio, which is about a girl who is like, I’m very eager to have sex with my boyfriend. And then when they do, she’s like, Oh, no, something is very wrong. I’m in a lot of pain. And it turns out that she’s intersex. And then she’s like, I have to keep this, I have to tell this, like, no one is ever going to love me again, what is gender? Um, it’s a really good book that I have recommended before. And I appreciate, and I totally forgot the other one that I was going to recommend. So if that ever comes back to me, I guess I’ll say it, but go ahead y’all, get excited.
Ron 1:42:08
Okay. So first of all, obviously, this move- this book talks about Rent a lot. But personally, I think Rent is really important because it is like, the big like, super well known, gay AIDS musical. And so like, for a lot of people, that is their only exposure. And that’s awesome. And like, we need that. But something that is actually mentioned in the like, authors note, at the end, recommending some other titles you might be interested in, and a musical that — er, not a musical, a play that I like better is Angels in America. And it’s mentioned in the end of the book that you can, like, find a miniseries of it online. And I think that’s a lot more nuanced depiction of, like, gay people living during AIDS, and also has a lot more emphasis on like, a Black character than Rent does, because Rent does have a prominent Black character, but like, we don’t really care about him as much as we care about like, the other people and what’s going on with them. Also, one of the main characters in Angels in America is also Jewish, I think, just one I haven’t, I haven’t read the play in a really long time or watched it. So I don’t remember. But it’s just a more, like, diverse and nuanced depiction, I think. And I personally prefer it, I think both are good and I think both are important for like, what they do, as, like, media that is proliferated to the public to actually teach people some things and representation and stuff like that. So that’s one of them. Another one that’s also recommended at the end of this book that I was going to recommend that we kind of talked about related stuff at the beginning is All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. In the back of the book, George M. Johnson is referred to as a man. And in the title, obviously, it’s All Boys Aren’t Blue. But George M. Johnson, just so you know, has —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:44:14
Has since come out —
Ron 1:44:15
— has come out as non-binary. So, and in the book, it talks a lot about gender. And it also talks a lot about queerness in general, and it talks a lot about the relationship between the Black community and queerness in a really, like, thoughtful way. And it’s also like, funny at times, but also like, super heartfelt and serious and it’s like a YA memoir. It’s really good. So then, I was also just going to recommend books that talk a lot about sex that we’ve read on this podcast, and those are both ace books, actually.
Everyone 1:44:53
[laughter]
Ron 1:44:54
There’s Loveless by Claire Kann. And Let’s Talk About Love by Alice —
Annaliese 1:45:00
Nope, nope, you switched those up.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:45:02
Yeah.
Ron 1:45:02
Oh yeah, I did, sorry.
Everyone 1:45:06
[laughter]
Ron 1:45:08
I was like, reading them in the order that they’re on here for the titles, but looking up at the order we read them for the podcast for the authors. And yeah, so sorry. Loveless by Alice Oseman. And Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann. They’re both about ace characters. One is about — so Let’s Talk About Love is about an ace character who’s biromantic, and then Loveless is about an aroace character. But they’re both very much stories about like, younger adults. So — these both actually take place in the first year of college. So, you know, younger adults dealing with, like thinking about sexuality and sex, and queerness. And I believe that is everything for the ones that I was going to say. But I would also say, pick up a copy of Full Disclosure and look at all the recommendations of stuff in the back. Because they’re very good.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:46:05
There’s a lot of references.
Ron 1:46:08
Yeah.
Annaliese 1:46:08
All right. I have all the mediums right here. Loveless was on my list so I can cross that off. High School Black girl magic book that reminded — that this reminded me of this You Should See Me in A Crown by Leah Johnson. Also queer, very feel-goodie. Very like, your teen high school drama.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:46:39
Ron has recommended it so many times.
Annaliese 1:46:41
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:46:41
We have a lot of love for it on this podcast.
Annaliese 1:46:43
I read it in one day, I couldn’t put it down. I also want to recommend Goodbye, Stranger by Rebecca Stead. It’s I believe, middle grade. It reads — it reads very YA. Not because of subject matter necessarily, but just because of the way that the author writes. But I do believe it is about middle grade characters. It’s a very like, coming of age, coming into what is okay and not okay in terms of like, sex and relationships when you’re younger. And what- you know, what society expects of you versus what you want to do. Research wise: I, last year during Sex, Society and Health, did my research province- [sighs] research province on project town. Research project on Provincetown. Provincetown, Massachusetts, which is my favorite town in the United States. It is a very queer hub. And I did a lot of research on the history of Provincetown. And while doing that research, I found a book called Provincetown: From Pilgrim Landing to Gay Resort by Karen Christel — I can’t pronounce the last name, it starts with the K [it’s Krahulik]. But I’m sure if you search Karen Christel, it will come up. But it talks a lot about how Provincetown came together during the AIDS epidemic. And if you want to learn about a cute, queer little town with a lot of non-white history, you should check that book out and do some research. I also mentioned in the beginning, a documentary called After Stonewall, which talks about queer history in general in the US, and that talks about the AIDS epidemic, the ACT UP organization… that is available on YouTube. So free… free learnin’s, free watchin’s. I also, in terms of TV, want to recommend the show Sex Education. It’s on Netflix — now for my ace pals, there is quite a lot of sex. It’s not like, porn explicit, but but there’s a lot of on-screen sex, and I know that a lot of sex-repulsed aces have communicated that they are not able to get through it which is valid and understandable. However, there is a lot of heal- discussion of health, discussion of body positivity, discussion of asexuality actually, in the second season —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:49:24
I was going to say, that’s the reason why I know about Sex Education is because all the ace circles I’m in have been like, a weeping over that.
Annaliese 1:49:32
Yes, I cried. When I watched that episode, I cried. I sobbed. But, sex-positive show that is very educational and hilarious. Sex Education on Netflix. And then finally, a movie that I would like her to recommend in honor of Simone’s love of musicals, Black Cinderella. it’s not actually called Black Cinderella. It’s just called Cinderella, but —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:49:57
It’s getting added to Disney+ this week.
Annaliese 1:50:00
It does?! Oh my gosh I don’t own Disney+ but I do have that DVD, because my parents were like, You’re not- when I was little my parents were like, You’re not getting the Disney Cinderella. You’re getting Black Cinderella, and it’s the it’s the Rodgers and Hammerstein Cinderella, so it’s not the songs from the animated Disney, it’s from the actual musical, and it’s produced by Disney but Whitney Houston was one of the executive producers…. She was also the fairy godmother. Cinderella is played by a Black woman, she’s played by Brandy…. Whoopi Goldberg is in the movie, Bernadette Peters the late Natalie Desselle-Reid, and Paolo Montalban — I can’t pronounce it, I’m so sorry. But um, Cinderella is Black, the queen — the Queen is Black. The king is white and the prince is Asian. It’s such a lovely diverse amalgamation of people and the songs are very, like. R&B. And it’s such a wonderful version of Cinderella that more people need to know about. If you take nothing else from my recommendations, watch Black Cinderella.
Ron 1:51:15
I need to rewatch it. Because I know I saw when I was like, a child, like a very small child. I remember watching it but I remember nothing. So I’m excited to rewatch it soon when it’s like, up online easily.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:51:30
I didn’t know about it until recently.
Annaliese 1:51:34
I have the DVD. I have that DVD, I have the actual animated Cinderella, and I have the one — the Julie Andrews Cinderella. [laughs] I have three Cinderellas in my house.
Ron 1:51:50
And I believe —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:51:51
This was a really good book though.
Ron 1:51:54
I believe also, stay tuned for Camryn Garrett’s next book, because it’s been so long since we read this, or like, since this came out, I mean —
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:52:03
Yes.
Ron 1:52:05
— that now she’s gearing up for a second book.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:52:08
So I think it’s gonna be out in like, two months. It’s about like, a teen reporter making Me Too reporting decisions. I think it’s called Off the Record.
Annaliese 1:52:20
Mm-hmm.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:52:21
I’m excited. I’m definitely keeping an eye on Camryn Garrett now. Wait! What was I going to say? I have a note, um, about — to make sure that we told people on the podcast about the Garrett group chat. Do you remember that? That she accidentally got added to —
Ron 1:52:41
Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:52:42
— a group chat of boys that all of their names were Garrett. But her surname is Garrett.
Ron 1:52:46
Yes.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:52:47
And then they were like having a Garrett, like, a wholesome boy, like, conference about whether she should be allowed to stay in the group chat. And they were like, It counts because it’s spelled the right way. Because like, like, two R’s versus one R, something like that.
Ron 1:53:02
Two R’s and two T’s.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:53:03
They were like, Okay, you’re one of us now, we’re gonna give you like, proper emotional support. Everyone go buy her book, like, like they all went and bought her book or something, it was so cute!
Ron 1:53:13
It is called Off the Record, by the way.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:53:16
I wanted to make sure we talked about the Garrett group chat because I love that so much. I want Garrett group chat updates.
Ron 1:53:25
I was just gonna say before we wrap up, also a reminder again, that it’s Black History Month. So in addition to us recommending this book, and some of the other books that we recommended because of this book, stay — pay attention to the Instagram because I’ve been putting Black History Month reading recommendations in our story, and I’m doing a few posts of books that we’re not actually reading on the podcast.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:53:52
I think that wraps it up. We’ll say goodbye, but we’re not actually gone because Annaliese is right here.
Annaliese 1:54:00
[giggles]
Ron 1:54:00
Yeah.
GiannaMarie Dobson 1:54:02
Byyyyeeeee?
Ron 1:54:04
I will say, if I was going to recommend a song from this episode, obviously I’d have to recommend a song from Rent. But I wouldn’t recommend Seasons of Love. I would recommend my favorite song from Rent, which is… what’s the actual name of the song? It might be called Santa Fe. It is called Santa Fe. And I like that song better. I just think that one sounds nice. I like it.
Annaliese 1:54:32
Maybe I’ll add that, but in this book, we live in a Nina Simone supremacy, so! Goodbye, you too. For recording purposes. Don’t actually go anywhere. [chuckles] And hello, everyone else! Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Something Old, Something Debut, I hope you enjoyed it! If you would like to contact us on social media, our Instagram is @some_old_some_debut and our Twitter is @debutold. The song that I would like to recommend to you guys this week is “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone. I know some of you may have heard the Michael Buble version. Like I said, we live in a world of Nina Simone supremacy and you must listen to this version, it is vastly superior and beautiful. Just listen to all of Nina Simone’s songs, honestly, it’s Black History Month, celebrate this wonderful Black queen. And as usual, that song will be on our music recs playlist on Spotify, which you can find by going to our Twitter and clicking the link in our bio. Also, we now have transcripts available if you would like to read a transcript of this or any episode, they will be available on Medium which you can also find by clicking the link in any of our social media bios. That’s it for this week. Stay safe and healthy and we’ll see you in two weeks for a new episode. Bye!
