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Letters tucked into the rings of a tree. Messages hidden in the dance of a flame. A love story woven across centuries, galaxies, and battlefields. In this episode of Cliterature, we dive headfirst into Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone's award winning novella, This is How You Lose the Time War. 

We're talking enemies to lovers at its most poetic, queer longing that transcends time, and why epistolary form makes this book one of the most devastatingly romantic reads in sapphic literature. 

Join us as we gush, analyze, and sigh over Red and Blue's impossible love story. If you haven't read the book, consider this your sign. If you have, let's lose this time war together! 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
In the words of V.E.
Schwab, holy shit this was good.

SPEAKER_01 (00:11):
Queer lit, no chill.
Some crumbs of academia, mostlychaos.
If queer lit is your lovelanguage, we're fluent.
Heads up babes, we're not hereto tease.
We spill everything.
Listener discretion is stronglyencouraged, but honestly, you
knew that.
Welcome to Clitterature, thepodcast.

(00:38):
All right, guys, it's episodetwo.
We're back.
If you're new, welcome.
We're so happy that you'rejoining us.
You joined at a good time.
This is going to be a journey.
A journey.
Through time.
And space.
And a lot of things.
And a lot of universes.
Emotions.
My psyche.

UNKNOWN (00:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (00:55):
Okay.
All right.
Episode two.
Today we're going to talk aboutThis is How You Lose the Time
War by Amal El-Motar and MaxGladstone.
It was published in 2019 and itis a sci-fi novella.
It's only 209 pages.
You can read it in one sitting.
It's so great.
Super short, but it haseverything.
Mostly it just hits you right inthe feels.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16):
Oh my God.
You have no idea.
It snuck up on me, honestly.
Yeah?
Yeah.
I started reading it and I wasjust like, I don't know.
I don't know how I feel aboutthis.
I don't really understand what'sgoing on.
yeah and then like halfwaythrough I was like I

SPEAKER_01 (01:28):
can't put it

SPEAKER_02 (01:29):
down yeah it grips you for sure it's yeah and it
just

SPEAKER_01 (01:33):
like all of a sudden had me a vice around the heart
oh well I've read it twice andthe first time that I read it I
I honestly just I had no ideawhat I just read I was confused
I had so many questions it wasabsolutely gorgeous the first
time because it's absolutelygorgeous the prose is just
lovely but I was confused and Ihad a lot of questions because

(01:54):
it is a novella and it isshorter and it's sci-fi and
usually when it's like you reada sci-fi or fantasy there's so
much world building like it'susually like 700 pages in the
first like 300 pages is justsetting up where you are in the
world and like what's happeningand yeah the different people
and the different like it youjust have you have to have that
or you're not going tounderstand the story but this is

(02:15):
a novella they threw you rightinto it you just had to accept
it yeah if you can't just acceptit this book might not be for
you and

SPEAKER_02 (02:22):
that's okay but there's a lot of like just
accepting the unknown or orfilling in gaps with your
imagination in this one, forsure.
And I read it twice too.
The first time I was like you, Iput it down and I was like, I
don't even know what that was,but I loved it.
And I think reading it twice waskind of key because reading it
the second time, you aren't socaught up in trying to figure

(02:43):
out what's going on.
And you can really justappreciate what is building
between these two characters forwhat it is.
And also probably pick up onsome things.
I definitely picked up on someof the world build and plot
things that I missed the firsttime around because I wasn't so
distraught about notunderstanding some things.

SPEAKER_01 (03:03):
Yeah, that's the whole thing.
I really spent a lot of time thefirst time around trying to
figure out, I don't know, howare they time traveling?
And like, why is there a war?
And like, what are they fightingfor?
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (03:14):
because you basically like as a reader get
dropped into the end of a battleand one of the characters leaves
a letter for their enemy.
Yep.
They're like...
like enemy counterpart, as itread to me, like very much like
a taunting, teasing, ha ha, Ican one up you letter between
these two people on the oppositesides of this time war.

(03:39):
And yeah, you just get droppedinto that moment and you have to
go from there.
But I will say the dedication inthis book is probably one of my
favorites of all thededications.
It's so simple, but I don'tknow.
It just hit me in the feels.
It was just to you, P.S.
Yes, you.
Yeah.
And I was like, me?
To me?
To me?
Yes, you.

SPEAKER_01 (03:59):
Yeah.
It's to you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, let me read.
I'm going to read the back ofthe book.
If you pick this book up, one,it's gorgeous.
And two, you won't know.
I don't know.
Like, I feel like you're notgoing to know that it is sci-fi.
But let's be honest.
This is a romance.
Like a romance.

SPEAKER_02 (04:16):
And a lot of it reads as like a classical
romance.
Yeah.
As far as the way that theyspeak to each other.

SPEAKER_01 (04:23):
Super literary.
Once it gets that far.
Super heady, prose, poetry, allof it.
But okay, I'm going to read theback of the book.
In the ashes of a dying world,Red finds a letter marked burn
before reading.
So begins an unlikelycorrespondence between two rival
agents in a war that stretchesthrough the vast reaches of time
and space.
Red belongs to the agency, apost singularity technotopia.

(04:45):
Blue belongs to Garden, a singlevast consciousness embedded in
all organic matter.
Their pasts are bloody and theirfutures mutually exclusive.
They have nothing in common.
say that they're the best andthey're alone.
Now what began as a battlefieldboast grows into a dangerous
game.
One both red and blue aredetermined to win because
winning's what you do in war.
Isn't it?

(05:06):
Isn't it?
Maybe not in this war.
I don't know.
Are time wars different?
I don't know.
I still, I'm still, there'sstill a lot of questions.
Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
One of the things that I don't think you really
learn for certain is what doeswinning this time war look like?
What is the goal?
Because you have these twosides, that are one is very tech
driven, one is very organic.
What is their ultimate end game?
Yeah, obviously, what does theywant their side to win?
But what does that look like foreach side?

(05:36):
And you have these warriors that

SPEAKER_01 (05:38):
like mercenaries,

SPEAKER_02 (05:39):
mercenaries, yeah, that are kind of out there on
their own winning or trying towin this.

SPEAKER_01 (05:45):
Yeah, or like making small changes.
And that's the whole thing.
Just if you haven't read thisbook, this is going to sound
absolutely bonkers.
If you haven't read it, you needto go back and read it so that
you can to understand a littlebit better what we're talking
about.
If you have read it, then youknow that both sides send these
mercenaries, red and blue, whichis what the two characters are
called in this book, back intodifferent time periods or

(06:08):
strands, as they call it.
And when they're in thesedifferent strands, they make
small or big changes that willaffect the future that they're
actually living in to what theywant.
Like it affects the future tohelp them win this overarching
war.

SPEAKER_02 (06:23):
Yeah, it's very much like a multiverse situation.
Yeah, because like, Red will goback and save America.

SPEAKER_01 (06:55):
mathematician from dying so that he can create this
formula that will help whateverwhatever and affect them
positively in the future butthen garden might send blue back
in the same timeline to killthat guy kill the mathematician
so that he doesn't create thisformula and it doesn't affect
yeah red you know i felt like

SPEAKER_02 (07:12):
it was very much a tug of war like i didn't feel
like throughout the book and itdidn't even sound like in the
parts of this war that we don'tsee that we just kind of can
infer or hear about It didn'tfeel like either side had made a
lot of progress towards theirgoal.
It was really just like a backand forth.

SPEAKER_01 (07:31):
Yeah.
Well, even in the first letterthat Blue writes to Red that we
see on that first, in the firstchapter, that is a taunt.
She says, this is more like agame of tic-tac-toe.
And she's bored.
I mean...
Which is why she chose to leavea letter.
To leave a letter.
You know, I guess a trap or tryand kill her enemy.
Or just a taunt.
Like, I'm bored with this war.
And I've seen you multiple timesand multiple time periods and...

(07:54):
Well, yeah, they talk aboutmaking eye contact at one point.
Yeah, at another battlesomewhere.
And she knew that they hadunfinished business, which...
So what was that eye contact?
That's what I want to know.
Steamy.

SPEAKER_02 (08:06):
So the book is written in the form of basically
letters back and forth.
It's alternating point of view.
Alternating point of view.
And you get to see thedevelopment of their
relationship, not only in whatthey say, but how they're
addressing each other throughoutthe book.
And I think it's veryinteresting.
You and I had had manyconversations on trying to guess
how we thought the authors wrotethis yes and our top guess was

(08:31):
that or i think maybe what wehoped yeah they wrote it as
letters to each other right itwas somewhat like that i will
say i did learn in reading up alittle bit more about this that
the authors are friends and dowrite each other letters in real
life so i think that that penpal i think that that helped
translate really well into thebook but they physically wrote

(08:53):
this to where one would writeone letter and the other would
be writing the scene in whichthe letter is delivered so Max
wrote Red the character of Redand Amal wrote Blue so Max would
be writing Red's letter at thistime and Amal would be writing
the scene in which that letterwould appear independently and
then pass their laptops I thinkback and forth to each other to

(09:16):
read what they had just writtenthat's so cool and keep moving
so they wrote it like sitting Ithink they said in a gazebo
across from each other just

SPEAKER_01 (09:24):
I I love the idea of collaborating on a work like
this.
I love the idea of writing achapter back and forth to a
writing pal to create somethingfantastic because two
imaginations can have completelydifferent experiences when
they're thinking about thesecharacters, especially if you're
writing one character and that'show you experience it and how
you would speak and how youwould respond.

(09:46):
It'd be so organic.
And these charactersfundamentally

SPEAKER_02 (09:49):
are supposed to be polar opposites.
Polar opposites, yeah.
With, you know, the tech versusorganic side of things Right.
So I feel like writing thatpoint of view and writing a
letter, not knowing what sceneit was going to show up in, you
just have to write in thatcharacter and that other
person's going to deliver itessentially for you is really
cool.

(10:09):
It was, it just kind of made it,I don't know, a little bit more
romantic for me.

SPEAKER_01 (10:12):
It was so romantic.
I mean, you always talk aboutlike in romances, you have these
huge gestures, like, like thelawnmower and the boombox and
showing up on your 16th birthdayand really running into Stop a
wedding from happening.
Or the fist punch in the air,you know, on the football field.
Like you, you have all of thesegrand gestures, but this, this

(10:33):
book takes that to a whole newlevel in the delivery of all of
these letters because theyaren't actual letters.
Yeah.
They're not written on paper

SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
letters.
They're a glass of water in anMRI machine or tea leaves at the
bottom of a cup of tea or ashand an animal.
Yeah.
And my favorite one.
I mean, they're all wonderful.
wonderful.
But I think my favorite, I thinkthe most creative for me was the
the water in the MRI machine.
Yeah, the bubbles like supernerdy.
And I loved the science behindit.

(11:04):
But I think my favorite was therings in a in the tree.
Oh, yeah, where she hid theletter in the rings of a tree.
And I think they said it tooklike 10 years for each ring to
form.
And I mean, you're committingyourself to writing this letter
over hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_01 (11:20):
Yeah.
Which also makes me think aboutare they immortal?
And if it's a multiverse, orwe're talking about talking
about time we just have toaccept that they can just live
forever like they well timedoesn't really it's not linear
nothing about this book islinear i feel like i'm all over
the place because i can'tbecause the book is all my
thoughts in a line because thereis no line to follow there's no
there's just not not i just getit's beautiful and gorgeous and

(11:46):
like wonderful but then you'relike what did you just do i'm
where are we

SPEAKER_02 (11:51):
now it definitely jumps all over the place and the
references are also all over theplace and you know the more of
the letters you read there are apop culture references there's
literary quotes they talk aboutan etiquette book a lot yeah and
using the etiquette like how towrite letters yeah um which i
thought mrs levitz or misslevitz yeah how to write a

(12:13):
letter there's a mario referenceon page 29 where red calls blue
bluser

SPEAKER_01 (12:20):
yeah and and so i'm like they quote percy shelly
yeah talk about Romeo and Julietthey I mean really and truly
Romeo and Juliet this book isvery reminiscent of Romeo and
Juliet oh yeah because twowarring factions two houses that
are at odds you know we haven'teven got to the fact one of them
dies by poison oh yeah spoileralert sorry guys you should have

(12:43):
already read the book we are aspoiler alert we are I feel like
you just have to know whatyou're getting when you go into
this

SPEAKER_02 (12:50):
yeah it does take a little bit of I think pondering

SPEAKER_00 (12:54):
um

SPEAKER_02 (12:54):
to wrap your head around the way that the time
works in this book and i don'teven know after two reads if i
really have a grasp on it but ido think that uh time as far as
like their lifespan doesn'tmatter yeah i mean if they can
commit 100 plus years to writinga letter um but that also brings
up a thought that i kept havingand i kept seeing this a lot

(13:17):
when i was looking at thingsabout the book about the way
that letter writing in itself iskind of people kept referring to
letter writing as time travelbecause you were kind of writing
this letter to a future personnot the person that was the
moment you're writing thisletter but you know they're
going to receive that letterdays or weeks or months or

(13:39):
hundreds of years in this caselater and you're writing it to
the person they are now but theymay not be that person when they
get that letter and especially Ithink that's why the rings of
the tree really kind of caughtme is because so much time
passed from the time that thatletter was created or maybe it
didn't because of the way thestrands work but in my head i

(14:01):
just pictured like hundreds ofyears passing before

SPEAKER_01 (14:04):
well the way the two warring factions the agency
which is red's warlords they'rethey they're destruction they
blow things up that's how theygo about winning the time war
and then garden which is whereblue is from is all about growth
and rebuilding and slow it'svery slow so her job my most of

(14:24):
the time she would be embeddedin a strand for years at a time.
So this particular one where shewrote the letter in the rings of
a tree, like she was there forthat long and she took her time
and she really put thought intoevery line that she wrote
because it was 10 years at atime, which sounds really
frustrating, but also soromantic.

SPEAKER_02 (14:44):
Yeah.
I also really loved how thesalutations changed because
there is a very noticeableprogression of they're talking
to each other as enemies andtaunting each other yeah and
threatening each other like ohthis could be poisoned or this
could be a trap to kind of justkind of friends still a little
taunting but also getting morefamiliar yeah to very much

(15:07):
intimate love letters

SPEAKER_01 (15:09):
profound and

SPEAKER_02 (15:10):
the way the salutations change through that
they go from calling each othernames to just my dear lapis

SPEAKER_01 (15:18):
or my red sky in the morning yeah like

SPEAKER_02 (15:20):
yeah

SPEAKER_01 (15:21):
just heart-wrenching yeah I mean just and that's a
whole okay I've read a lot ofreviews about this book because
I knew that it was divisive andI knew that there were going to
be very different opinions whenpeople were reading this book
because you and I are bothEnglish majors we both have a
degree in English we loveliterature we read all the time
we also have done a lot of extrahigher education study on

(15:45):
literature and different thingslike I took a class on poetry so
I love reading poetry just allthese different literature types
we've got a we've got a lot ofbackground in English and in
prose and in like all of youknow all the different types of
literature so I feel like usreading this would be completely
different than somebody whodidn't have that background and
they just picked it up becausethey thought it was a sci-fi

(16:06):
book you know like if theydidn't know that what they were
getting into and they startedreading it definitely not your

SPEAKER_02 (16:11):
average sci-fi book I

SPEAKER_01 (16:13):
don't yeah I've even read some reviews that called it
pretentious like they were likeit's the writing is very
pretentious and it's obviouslytrying to make itself elevated
and which I mean it is I can Imean, it's a choice for sure the
way that they're written.
But I

SPEAKER_02 (16:27):
also think that that's a great like
juxtaposition to what isactually happening with these
characters in real life is thatthey're writing these very
romanticized letters in a worldthat is destructive and chaotic
and the letters are peaceful andsoft and soft.

(16:47):
And I think that without thatcontrast of the softness and the
vulnerability of the letters inthe destruction that it keeps
talking about happening yeah inall of these different strands i
don't think that it would havebeen near as successful without
that

SPEAKER_01 (17:04):
yeah same i agree and i mean the fact that their
whole purpose both of ourcharacters their whole purpose
is war like their whole purposein life is to win the time war
to win this war and so i meantalks about red like she's a
cyborg like half the time shetalks about like organs being
shut off but She has weaponsunder her skin.

(17:25):
Yeah, because the, but she's, Idon't know.
It's just so bizarre.
But then the way that shewrites, it's the complete
opposite of the way that they'resupposed to be.
She's different than everybodyelse.
It talks about her empathy whenshe kills people on the
battlefield, whereas all of theother people that are a part of
the agency don't have thatempathy.

(17:46):
Like they don't care.
They're just machines and theyjust kill and they don't think
about it.
But she thinks about it and itbothers her sometimes, which is
So

SPEAKER_02 (17:54):
I have a theory about her empathy, but we'll get
to that later because it has todo with the ending.
But I do also think that the waythat they write, if you take a
look at how poetic the prose is,how many pop culture references
there are, how many works ofliterature are quoted,
mythology, all of the thingsthat are sprinkled in to all of

(18:18):
these letters.
If you think about these peoplewho are from a time so far
forward removed from everythingthat they're quoting, probably
in a time where traditionalcommunication, written
communication, even just likespoken communication at times
isn't necessary anymore.
Because I think there's evensome references to Blue talking

(18:40):
about kind of like a hive mindsituation or like a telepathic
bond that they all have.
And so, you know, if you thinkof that, all they know is what
they have learned during theirtime in the past.
Yeah.
That is their education.
They've absorbed everything fromall of these strands that
they've been embedded in forhowever many years or hundreds

(19:04):
of years or whatever the timeframe is.
And so that's the only frame ofreference they have for
communication with each other.
So yeah, of course, they'regoing to quote all of these
things because that's the onlything that they know to use as
language.

SPEAKER_01 (19:19):
Yeah, it talks about Red being 13 and reading books
and that was antiquated.
Everybody kind of made fun ofher.
She talked about likedownloading it from the cloud
was much easier.
Yeah.
From the cloud.
She was like a download would beso much faster and I would be
able to retain.
Did she not say the cloud?
Did I just make that up?
She did not say the cloud.
It was not the cloud, but itbasically.

(19:40):
Yeah.
Same thing.
Same premise.
In my head it was the cloud.
It could be.
It could be.
I don't think it had that name.
But yeah, she was like adownload would be so much faster
and I'd be able to retain all ofthe information way quicker
because I could just download itinto my brain.
But she liked to read

SPEAKER_02 (19:54):
yeah

SPEAKER_01 (19:55):
and everybody thought that she was weird for
that and she was 13 years oldand so she was already showing
differences from everybody elsethat was a part of the agency
that early and then blue talksabout loving libraries and
loving books and loving thisbook and she suggests you know
go if you ever are in london atthis time period on this day go
check out this book from thelibrary and then sit down with a

(20:16):
cup of tea and then at thebottom of the tea in the tea
leaves there's a letter oh mygod be still my heart

SPEAKER_02 (20:22):
okay so yeah you just talked about red being
different yeah as when she wasyounger we also hear about blue
having an incident when she waslittle where she was infected
kind of contaminatedcontaminated i think's what they
said by the enemy and was cutoff from garden and because she
was contaminated yeah

SPEAKER_01 (20:44):
they didn't want everybody to be contaminated so
whatever she was contaminated to

SPEAKER_02 (20:47):
save everybody else they kind of isolated her which
kind of i feel like stunted herin a way and As the warrior they
were, you know, trying to createlike everyone else around her,
but it ended up working out andmaking her the person that she
is, but we have two instanceswhere each of them have kind of

(21:07):
something that makes themdifferent.
Yeah.
warns

SPEAKER_01 (21:24):
her don't read my last letter yeah don't read this
letter don't i love you don'tread the last letter it's a trap
it's not good they found nouncertain terms don't read don't
read it yeah and blue

SPEAKER_02 (21:35):
can't help herself she has to read it and she reads
it and she dies yeah and i thinka little part of my soul died
with her me

SPEAKER_01 (21:41):
too because i thought something i mean i
didn't i as she was eating anddying terribly horrifically
painfully painfully i i thoughtsomething was gonna i thought
red was gonna show up i thoughtthat somebody was gonna eat her
fear like there's no way there'sno way that she's gonna eat all
of this poison and well there'sno way we've

SPEAKER_02 (22:00):
done all this work and then she's gonna eat a
letter and die yeah like there'ssomething's gonna save her and
she dies she dies and you'relike what where do we go from
here because and

SPEAKER_01 (22:10):
then you just see Red like wailing at the sky
beating her chest andquestioning God and if there is
one why did they and like whatare we you know like just coming
apart absolutely coming apart atthe seams

SPEAKER_02 (22:23):
and then she gets a sign from blue in the form of a
poster it was a little boy butit was set up the exact scene of
the way that red found her aftershe had died and it kind of
answered a question and wehaven't touched on this yet but
throughout the book red keepstalking about a shadow right she
feels like she's being watchedor followed yeah and at the end

(22:44):
of almost every scene whateverremnants are left because they
try their best to destroy theseletters or any evidence of right
because they are illicit.
Whatever little evidence isleft, like the water in the jar
in the MRI machine, it says theshadow comes and drinks it or
picks up the ashes and ingeststhem or whatever.

(23:04):
And so the entire book, you'rekind of led to believe that
they're being watched.
Yeah, they're being watched.
There's some sort of spyfollowing them and trying to
gather evidence.
That's what I thought the entiretime.
And then as Red is looking atthis poster, that's obviously a
sign that Blue has left for hersomehow.
She gets It's the idea of how tofix it.

(23:26):
Yeah.
And so she goes back through allthe strands for all the letters
and all of the evidence.
And you find out that she washer shadow.
The entire time.
The entire time.
And this scene where she like,she set a trap for herself.
She didn't realize it washerself, but she set a trap for
the shadow and like pretended tocry on this riverbank and then
ended up getting into a fightwith it and like breaking her

(23:48):
hip and getting really hurt.
And seeing that scene with heras the shadow where She sees
herself and she can't help buttry and comfort herself and
reaches out and touches her ownshoulder.
And then that's what's into afight with herself.
But I felt the desperation inall of those actions.

(24:08):
Yeah.
Because her plan was so crazy.
Yeah.
So harebrained.
And she ended up gatheringpieces of blue.
Through the letters.
Through the letters.
Little pieces of DNA and littletouches of this and little
touches of that.
and ingesting them into herselfand physically changing her body
to be able to fool garden andsneak in in a strand where Blue

(24:34):
is a child.
And is contaminated.
And she contaminates Blue andcauses her to be cut off.
And my head was like, what?
Like really mind blown doesn'teven begin to describe how I
felt reading the scene where shesneaks in and contaminates a
young Blue.
Which is a story you've alreadyheard.

(24:56):
Right.
So

SPEAKER_01 (24:57):
was this...
And Blue didn't know that shewas the reason that she was
contaminated or either she did.
And like, that's the wholequestion.
Like, did she know?
And she's telling Red this sothat she's like planting that
seed.
No pun intended, but also punintended.
Like planting that seed in Redthat, you know, this is what
made me different.
I was cut off.
I was contaminated.

(25:17):
I was whatever.
I was given this hunger formore, you know?
Oh, the hunger that they talkabout.
Yeah.
Continuous.
Hunger

SPEAKER_02 (25:24):
in every way.
Hunger for each other.
Hunger for knowledge.
Hunger for physical food and

SPEAKER_01 (25:31):
experience.
Everything.
Everything.
Hunger.
I looked it up.
It's mentioned 30 times in thebook.
Yeah.
Because everybody's hungry inthis book.
Not everybody.
We only have two characters.
Really.
But they're real hungry.
They're real hungry.
I

SPEAKER_02 (25:42):
and this this goes to like I think where there's a
lot of room for interpretationfor the reader.
Right.
You can kind of make a lot ofthis book what you want it to
be.
Especially at the end.
I kind of feel like they were ina time loop yeah so they kept
trying to be together and youknow red kept trying to go and

(26:02):
save blue and for whateverreason it wouldn't work out
after that and so they wouldkind of reset

SPEAKER_01 (26:09):
yeah and do it all over again yeah i mean the way
that this multiverse like allthese different time strands
like the way that it sounded isthat they like i said like are
they immortal like can theyactually die we see blue die but
she's not dead because she'salso living in other strands in
another place yeah right in adifferent time in a different
and like it's not linear so youcan just hop skip and jump to

(26:30):
whatever you want whenever youwant yeah but if that's the case
and red's time didn't overlapwith blue's time blue would be
in a different headspace or bluewouldn't know red in a different
strand yeah so this strand thatthey were in together that they
were writing these letters toeach other that they were
conscious of each other in abigger way i feel it could have

(26:51):
been a loop that they got stuckin

SPEAKER_02 (26:52):
and i wonder if that explains some of Red's
surprising empathy is that thelonger they were in this loop
she picked up more and moreempathy from interacting with
Blue and changing and evolvingas a person.
So she sneaks in and she poisonsBlue and there's a huge battle.
That's one of like probably thebiggest and it's a very short

(27:15):
part of the book but it was avery vivid scene of her escape
out of Garden.
Yeah.
Into a

SPEAKER_01 (27:22):
place

SPEAKER_02 (27:22):
that

SPEAKER_01 (27:23):
is kind of beyond strands.

SPEAKER_02 (27:24):
Yeah.
And she gets caught.
Commandant finds her and theyarrest her and they put her in
jail and they torture her tofind out what happened.
Or why she's doing it.
Yeah.
You know.
And she keeps her mouth shut andjust hoping that all the work
she did to Blue and all the workwas worth it.
And it ends with her gettinganother letter.
It ends with a letter from Blue.

(27:45):
And it just, yeah.
Yeah.
It just ends.
But you pointed something out.
I didn't notice that the firstand the last letter

SPEAKER_01 (27:53):
Oh, yeah, right.
So the first letter and the lastletter reflect each other.
The first one is from Blue toRed.
And it's taunting and theyaren't in love yet.
No.
This is actually on thebattlefield.
First letter ever.
They're real smart asses too,which I like.
Yeah, and Blue is like, Blue is,she's telling her about all of
the things that the garden doesbetter.

(28:13):
And if you tell your superiorsabout this letter, then I've
already infiltrated.
You're going to be

SPEAKER_02 (28:19):
telling on

SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
yourself.
You're going to tell on yourselfbecause you've already
infiltrated.
ingested this letter basicallybecause the first letter is just
in flames the first letter isjust fire and she's reading the
letter as the fire burns but asthe fire burns out the letters
gone there's nothing left butashes so you have to just absorb
it as you're reading it andthat's what she's saying she's
like you've already absorbedthis letter like I've already
infiltrated you and so I'vealready won basically and she

(28:44):
says in order to report my wordsto your superiors you must admit
yourself already infiltratedanother casualty of this most
unfortunate day this is howwe'll win and she talking about
garden at that point.
The very last letter that shesends to Red, she says, but
maybe this is how we win, Red.
You and me.
This is how we'll win.
And it's just so good.
I mean, it's just like, I mean,that in and of itself, like the

(29:07):
way that it started and the waythat it ended are the same, but
so vastly different.

SPEAKER_02 (29:11):
But yeah, you're left with Red in a cell with
this letter and the desire toescape because now she has
confirmation that Blue is outthere and has found her.
But we don't know.
Does she she make it?
Does she not make it?
Do they ride off into the sunsetand live happily ever after?
Yeah.
That's the only way I believe inthat.

SPEAKER_01 (29:30):
That's the only way.
Yeah.
No, they're together on somelike random strand on an island
with some chickens, you know.
And some books.
And some books.
And some tea.
And some

SPEAKER_02 (29:39):
tea.

SPEAKER_01 (29:41):
Yeah.
They're

SPEAKER_02 (29:41):
living like their best time war cottage core life.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
That's the only future I chooseto believe happened.
But yeah, it just kind of endsand it just hits you right in
the face.
It does.
So hard.
Yeah.
Can we read some of our favoritequotes?
Absolutely.
Because they're all so gorgeous.
And the way that- I mean, Icould just quote the entire book
probably, but- How much time yougot?

SPEAKER_01 (30:04):
Let's just read it

SPEAKER_02 (30:04):
all.
There was one.
I was going back through myannotations.
Yeah.
Like preparing for this episode.
And at the end of one of theletters, I just wrote, quote,
this entire letter.
Yeah.
The whole thing.
The whole letter.
So good.
Yeah.
There were so many.
So I had two really standoutones for me.
Page 95, red writing to blue.

(30:25):
I have built a you within me oryou have.
I wonder what of me there is inyou.
And I just got to thinking likethey didn't spend time together
in person.
This entire relationship wasthrough quote unquote written
communication.
Yeah.
And sometimes them physicallyabsorbing or ingesting or taking

(30:48):
into themselves somehow thewords that the other person had
left for them and whatever thatform.
was but also just when you shareso much of yourself with someone
it is impossible I feel like notto take in what they give you in
return and vice versa and thisidea of wondering what of me you

(31:10):
have taken in is just lovelyabsolutely gorgeous my other one
also read writing to blue I feltlike I identified with blue more
but I think red like red'swriting spoke to me a little
harder for some reason but page142 i want flowers from cephalus
and diamonds from neptune and iwant to scorch the thousand

(31:34):
earths between us to see whatblooms from the ash so we can
discover it hand in hand contentin context intelligible only to
each other i want to meet you inevery place i have loved i mean
come on

SPEAKER_01 (31:50):
i mean i

SPEAKER_02 (31:51):
want to meet you in every place i have loved again
the idea of just sharing thethings that you love and that
make you you with this personthat you love so much and be
like look look at this this isme love this and love me yeah
and yeah oh my gosh

SPEAKER_01 (32:09):
oh

SPEAKER_02 (32:09):
it makes me melt

SPEAKER_01 (32:10):
it does it really does like we're reading and
that's the whole thing like thiswhole book you're reading like
and red reached inside of thedead body and like crushed its
spine and dropped its body onthe ground and then you get a
letter that's like i want you tolove every place i've ever loved
like i like it the like you saidthe juxtaposition between
absolute chaos and war and thesebeautiful words beautiful words

(32:33):
and admissions of love yeah yeahit's so like also can we like
love just it spans time andspace and that is what this
entire book is about

SPEAKER_00 (32:45):
it's a literal and it's a like a metaphor and a
literal

SPEAKER_01 (32:48):
metaphor of love time space everything like
universe we don't know where weare but they're in love that's
all we know and that's all wecare about really like who
really cares about how they timejump I just want to know that
they're together also

SPEAKER_02 (33:00):
you and I are self-proclaimed romantics I mean
honestly let's be real we areand so I think maybe that's why
this book hit us a little harderis the romance of the letters
yeah the wooing from a distance

SPEAKER_01 (33:15):
oh my

SPEAKER_02 (33:16):
god the wooing the wooing

SPEAKER_01 (33:17):
yeah it's next level but it had to be because they
couldn't be together Yeah.
Because they were both.
They had no choice.
They had no choice.
That's all they had.
All they had was.
It was

SPEAKER_02 (33:26):
the ultimate long distance relationship.
Yeah.
100%.
Like.
Distance.

SPEAKER_01 (33:33):
Time.
I'm sorry.
I'm living in Atlantis before itsinks.
And she's like, oh, I'm inLondon in the 19th century.
But I see you girl.
Does anybody care how

SPEAKER_02 (33:39):
many times Atlantis sunk in this book?
Because it was

SPEAKER_01 (33:42):
a lot.
It was a lot.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (33:43):
They, one of them even said like, I'm so tired of

SPEAKER_01 (33:46):
Atlantis.
I'm so tired of Atlantis.
It ends this way every time.
Like in every strand.
I hate it.
I loathe Atlantis, she said.
Alright, what's your quote?
Okay, so my favorite quote was,and I think this is because I am
also a writer.
It says, Red wrote too much toofast.
Her pen had a hardened side, andthe nib was a wound in a vein.

(34:08):
She stained the page withherself.
She sometimes forgets what shewrote, save that it was true,
and the writing hurt.
But butterfly wings break whentouched.
Red knows her own weaknesses aswell as anyone.
She presses too hard, breakswhat she would embrace, tears
what she would touch to herteeth and i'm just i'm just yeah
i mean if you are a writer or ifyou have written anything ever i

(34:31):
feel like writing in and ofitself is so vulnerable and
you're putting you're puttingyourself out feelings and the
and your heart out on paper andthe way that that was described
just made me feel from

SPEAKER_02 (34:43):
a character who's supposed to be hardened and
emotionless

SPEAKER_01 (34:47):
yeah and i think that i like like you said i
think i identified more withwith blue just being, I don't
know, I don't identify with awar-torn cyborg.
I don't know why that is, butit's just not me.
Maybe in another strand.
Maybe in another strand I'd bebadass like that, but right now
I'd rather just sip tea inLondon.

(35:07):
Red was badass.
Yeah, Red was so badass.
But her growth and her empathyand her feelings, even in the
very first letter that she wroteback to Blue, before they were
even in love, when she was justwriting back, she was just
figuring out how to write aletter which is why they brought
up miss levitt's like guide toetiquette she looked it up

SPEAKER_02 (35:26):
because she was talking about the different
parts of a letter and i had likeflashback to elementary school
when they were written on thechalkboard yeah

SPEAKER_01 (35:34):
or like opening what was it like

SPEAKER_02 (35:35):
the salutation

SPEAKER_01 (35:37):
all

SPEAKER_02 (35:38):
of it all the different parts of the good i
did have to look up what thebeginning of a letter was called
and learned that it wassalutation i totally forgot that
part but yeah i think she didhave to learn how to communicate
so she researched it and whichis cute cute.
It's very

SPEAKER_01 (35:53):
cute.
It's really cute.
It's dedicated.
She's like, if I'm going towrite a letter back to this
girl, it's going to be a damngood letter.
I

SPEAKER_02 (35:58):
mean, I feel like it was essentially learning a new
language for someone almost.

SPEAKER_01 (36:02):
Yeah.
Okay.
I also want to talk about thenarrators because I did listen
to this book as well as read itbecause most of the time, like I
said in episode one, I will readand listen to the book because I
listen during the day and I readat night.

SPEAKER_02 (36:13):
And I read.
I mean, I listen to audiobooks,but for this purpose, I just

SPEAKER_01 (36:17):
have to have a physical book.
Listening to audiobooks justhelps me make mundane tasks a
little bit more fun if i go on awalk i listen to an audiobook if
i do the dishes i listen to anaudiobook laundry audiobook it's
just i'm trying to get betterabout

SPEAKER_02 (36:30):
that i'm trying to like like i took a little
speaker into the bathroom solike when i'm getting ready or
whatever like the audiobook isplaying or like when i'm doing
tasks around the house insteadof listening music i'll put on
audiobooks sometimes my problemwith audiobooks is that like my
mind wonders yeah so i end uplosing track and having to
rewind

SPEAKER_01 (36:50):
yeah i think if i'm doing an action this is probably
my ADHD.
But if I'm doing something withmy hands, like if I'm washing
the dishes, then I can listenand focus.
It's just like in school, whenI'm writing notes, I had to
doodle while I was listening tothe teacher or the professor.
And I would retain so much moreif I had my hands moving.
But if I was just sitting stilland listening, I would not

(37:12):
understand.
I love this

SPEAKER_02 (37:13):
because I think it's my ADHD that makes me not able
to listen to them all the time.
So I just love that it manifestsin like opposite ways.
Like we're so quirky, but Indifferent ways.
But like, even when I'm, I thinkreading, that's why I pick
retain a little bit betterbecause my brain has to focus on
the words, but I also have tofidget a lot.
Like I have like fidgets or I'mplaying with a pen or something

(37:37):
while I'm reading.
I also, I love all forms, audiobooks, eBooks, physical books.
But when I really want to likedig into something like for this
podcast, the physical book andannotating is the only way like
my brain can really dig in ifi'm just reading for just
straight up fun any old formwill do yeah but like when i

(37:58):
really need to get into it uhand i was the same way in school
i would have to like handwritestuff like hand copy stuff and
then read the

SPEAKER_01 (38:06):
physical form of it yeah or like recopy your notes
to help yourself oh all the timeyeah so many recopies also
that's i'm just a perfectionistwhen it comes to handwriting and
so if it was ugly i had torewrite it anyway oh i love that
for you mine looks terriblethat's why i love my kindle
scribe because it lets me writeand write beautifully.
I don't know if it's just, Idon't know if it's the scribe or

(38:28):
if it's my beautiful handwritingand the scribe.
You do have really nicehandwriting.
Thank you.
I agree.
I have really great handwriting.
I love my handwriting and I takepride in it.
I have a good personality.
Well, I mean, handwriting isgoing away.
Like nobody can read cursiveanymore.
So like, who cares?
No, they're bringing it back ina lot of schools.
I feel like it's a waste of timenow, but like, whatever.
I know.
I mean, I feel

SPEAKER_02 (38:48):
like it's, I mean, it's less of a waste of time
than like us learning therecorder That's, I mean,

SPEAKER_01 (38:53):
that was hand-eye coordination and like breath
work.
I don't know.
I feel like playing a recorderwould calm you down.
Yeah, no one would play hot

SPEAKER_02 (38:58):
cross buns on a like plastic flute has really served
me in adulthood.

SPEAKER_01 (39:04):
Okay, I'll give you that.
But also, I don't know.
I just don't feel like, I don'tfeel like time should be wasted
on cursive when nobody's evenhaving to sign anything anymore.
Everything's e-sign and youcould just

SPEAKER_00 (39:15):
tap it and it signs it for you.
I mean, have you seen people's

SPEAKER_01 (39:19):
e-signatures?
Crap, it's horrible.
That's true.
Mine looks like I sneezed.

UNKNOWN (39:24):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (39:24):
Holding a pen.
Well, anyway, I have beautifulhandwriting and I love my Kindle
Scribe because it lets me writebeautifully on the margins of my
book while I'm

SPEAKER_02 (39:34):
reading.
I would just love a stranger toget a hold of all the books that
I've annotated.
Yeah.
And my just chaos.
That is my notes and the marginsand the scribbles.

SPEAKER_01 (39:46):
I love that though.
I love that.
I mean, if you really caredabout somebody and you gave them
a book that you annotated, itwould be spectacular.
Yeah.
Somebody did that.
for me and it was pretty coolit's a fantastic book that's a
really great gift because thenyou get to see what they were
thinking when they were readingthe same pages it's like

SPEAKER_02 (40:02):
reading a book with somebody yeah like along and
getting the an insight intotheir brain yeah I love

SPEAKER_01 (40:09):
that

SPEAKER_02 (40:09):
so much I turned around and annotated the same
book and not that same copy buta copy of that same book and
sent it back so that they couldread my reaction but yeah I love
that I love that that's such agreat gift yeah it was really
sweet and probably one of thecoolest gifts that I've ever
gotten it's also now my favoritebook and maybe that had
something to do with it I don'tknow but I probably never would

(40:31):
have read that book had someonenot gifted it to me that's

SPEAKER_01 (40:34):
fantastic okay well I loved the narration it was
really fantastic there were twonarrators because it is
alternating point of view and Iknow that one voice actor can do
two characters and they do itall the time and they do it well
but this one I feel like calledfor two narrators and they 100%
nailed it their names areCynthia Farrell and Emily Woo

(40:54):
Zeller and I gave the audiobookfive stars because it was just
so like the characters hadcharacter I mean it was like
shocking wow but they had verydistinct voices blue was
grounded and earthy and a littleflirty and just more I don't

(41:18):
know not fluid but kind of morefluid and then red was also warm
and wonderful but also kind ofcalculated in a way like kind of
harder but you got to see thecharacter arc of red through the
voice you got to hear more andmore emotion as she got closer
and closer to blue and i reallyenjoyed that

SPEAKER_02 (41:37):
i did not listen to this one or i have not listened
to it yet but after hearing youtalk about it i think i'm gonna
put it on my list to listen tovery soon but that i feel like
would absolutely make sense forthat character and kudos to
those narrators

SPEAKER_01 (41:49):
yeah they did such a good job really bringing

SPEAKER_02 (41:51):
it in it

SPEAKER_01 (41:51):
was only like four and a half hours for like it
wasn't i don't even think it wasfive hours.
It's like a really short audiobook.
I

SPEAKER_02 (41:56):
wonder if a lot of the people and I'm sure there
are people who are just notgoing to like this book.
And that's totally that's fine.
Yeah.
But I wonder if some of thepeople who didn't like it, yeah,
maybe only tried to read it, ifit would change if they listen
to it.

SPEAKER_01 (42:10):
Yeah, I know that for me, listening to it, and
being able to use my imaginationfor the world or for the
characters or whatever, while Iwas listening was different than
me reading it.
And like having to to use myimagination there.
I don't know.
It was just easier for me tohear the emotion and hear the
flow and just experience itversus working to read it.

(42:34):
And maybe because it is

SPEAKER_02 (42:35):
a novella and we don't have a lot of chance to
build the world and learn what'sgoing on and you just have to
jump right in the middle of it.
Maybe listening to it kind ofeases a little bit of that
learning curve.
I also think too, like some, itis, we've talked about this
plenty of times in this episode,but it is very like heavy prose.
at times a lot of times yeah andi think sometimes like like

(42:58):
shakespeare reading shakespeareand then watching shakespeare
being performed

SPEAKER_01 (43:04):
yeah

SPEAKER_02 (43:04):
can be a completely different experience

SPEAKER_01 (43:07):
right because you have to work really hard to
understand shakespeare andpentameter and how it's supposed
to sound and where you'resupposed to pause and all of
that and then if you watch astage play they do that work for
you and it's kind of like thatyeah like so

SPEAKER_02 (43:20):
maybe if you didn't like reading it

SPEAKER_01 (43:22):
give it a listen

SPEAKER_02 (43:22):
maybe give it a listen let us know hit us up in
the comments somewhere and letus know if that changed anything
because i'm curious i do want totalk

SPEAKER_01 (43:30):
about all of the awards that this novella won so
many yeah it won the hugo awardfor best novella in 2020 the
nebula award for best novella in2019 which is when it came out
the locus award for the bestnovella in 2020 the british
sci-fi fiction association awardfor best shorter fiction in 2019
when it came out and the shirleyjackson award for best novella

(43:50):
in 2020 so it just i didn't evenhave that many girl scout badges
like dang I mean it just keepsgaining accolades because I feel
like it's timeless which isironic because it's all about a
time war but is it about a timewar I'm still in that loop I'm
still in that loop in my mindit's not about the time war it's
about love

SPEAKER_02 (44:10):
there's our episode

SPEAKER_01 (44:11):
title it's not a love story it's not about the
time war it's about love it isit's romantic and it's wonderful
the way they speak to each otherlike I swear I would just sit
here and read all of the letters

SPEAKER_02 (44:23):
I'm gonna read this book a hundred more times yeah
like this is this is easilypermanently in my top 10 high in
the top 10 probably top fiveyeah I think this is top five
for me for sure and so yeah uh Ican't wait to hear what all the
listeners think about it

SPEAKER_01 (44:39):
if you hate it let us know I really want to hear I
want to hear from you guys thathate it yeah

SPEAKER_02 (44:43):
either way we're curious ratings so there's not
really any spice there isthere's spice in the hunger kind
of but not spice in thetraditional sense of they get it
on they don't they don't they'renever in the same space so ever
oh

SPEAKER_01 (44:59):
well not when they're both alive at least well
that would no no there's nospice

SPEAKER_02 (45:07):
there's no

SPEAKER_01 (45:07):
spice there's also no necrophilia so let's not go
there that's not what i

SPEAKER_02 (45:11):
meant and you know it so uh spice rating is really
uh irrelevant i wrotenon-existent but oh the love but
oh the love i don't even theyearning the yearning rating on
this is like

SPEAKER_01 (45:26):
10 i mean god yeah and i'm i'm telling you i didn't
even miss this i didn't evenmiss spice in this because i was
so your girl loves some spicelike oh yeah really love some
spice we're

SPEAKER_02 (45:36):
here for did not miss it at all no because it
just kept giving everything else

SPEAKER_01 (45:41):
so i was so satiated by all of the just absolute
gorgeous yeah like love lettersjust reading love letters in
general satiated that's a goodword for it yeah good job yeah

SPEAKER_02 (45:53):
um

SPEAKER_01 (45:53):
right regular star rating I said 4.5 I'm not gonna
give anything a 5 because I justcan't but I you know what it's
close though

SPEAKER_02 (46:03):
you know what I know okay I'm really hard on my fives
and this one gets a 5 whoa thisone hit it it hit the marks

SPEAKER_01 (46:10):
yeah I heard somebody talking about one time
like a perfect album you knowlike the like you get a you get
a CD or you get a record and youlisten to every single song and
there's not a dud and it's likeone of those that you can put on
and you're not not gonna skipanything and you're not gonna
like hate a song and have tolike go to the end you're gonna
listen to it from front to backand it's all great and it's

(46:32):
perfect and they said that thisbook to them was a perfect album
same it's like the perfect bookI wouldn't change like give or
take anything I think myfrustration not frustration
because I'm not frustrated withthis book like I said I'm
satiated but I think the reasonthat I can't give it a five is
that I wanted more like I wantto read more yeah I mean I get

(46:53):
that it's a novella So it'sperfect for a novella.
You know you're not getting it.
I know.
You know what you signed up for.
I do.
I do.
Maybe like a 4.75.
4.99.
Almost a five.
I just refuse to give it a five.

SPEAKER_02 (47:07):
I honestly.
It should be a five.
I'm really hard with my fives.
I don't throw them out therevery easily.
This one, for what it is, hitsevery mark for me.
Like you said, every track is abanger.
I could not, would not make anychanges to this book.
10 out of 10 will read again.
So.
Oh.
100% we'll read it again so fivestars for me it'll be one of the

(47:27):
few but yeah I feel like anasshole I mean you are but not
for that reason

SPEAKER_01 (47:32):
and in the first episode I'm like I'm like Oprah
with my stars I just give themout to everybody and I'm like
there is no way that

SPEAKER_02 (47:38):
I'm giving anyone a five ever I loved everything
about this book 4.5 oh my godand now for the Russian judges
score

SPEAKER_01 (47:50):
I do want to revisit the fact that we're both English
majors and we love this book idon't want anybody to think that
i'm being pretentious when italk about the fact that i have
an english degree

SPEAKER_02 (47:59):
revisiting this because i told her

SPEAKER_01 (48:01):
she was like wow you're being pretentious i'm not
trying to be pretentious and idon't think that this book is
pretentious i just think thatbecause i've had so many classes
of higher education in englishthat i like it more because
other people who haven't beenforced to sit through bronte
aren't gonna

SPEAKER_02 (48:19):
really vibe with forced to sit through bronte is
an accurate description of howyou get Get an English degree.
100%.
Forced to sit through Bronte.
We're

SPEAKER_01 (48:29):
like, hey, Percy Shelley.
Hey,

SPEAKER_02 (48:30):
Bronte.
With your diploma, you shouldget a shirt that says, I
survived Bronte.

SPEAKER_01 (48:35):
Both sisters.
Not even just one.
Both Brontes.
Yeah.
No, I think that I love thisbook because I have already been
exposed to all kinds of proseand poetry like this.
I actually sent it to my poetryprofessor from college and told
him that he would absolutelyadore it.
And he questioned my motivesbecause it was sci-fi And I'm
like, just read it.
Just read it.

(48:55):
Just read it and then reportback.
It's so short.
Just read it.
And he absolutely loved it.
I wonder if there

SPEAKER_02 (49:00):
are, if there are classes that are using this.

SPEAKER_01 (49:03):
Man, I don't know.
It would be a good one.
It would be really good.
Like genre crossover.
And it's so short.
You can read it in a day.
Just, just read it.

SPEAKER_02 (49:11):
If you haven't read it, just read it.
I actually read it the firsttime on my birthday.
Yeah.
Sitting next to a pool inMexico.
Oh.
So.

SPEAKER_01 (49:18):
Nice.
That's a good way to read.
It was a

SPEAKER_02 (49:19):
family trip.
It just.

SPEAKER_01 (49:21):
Happened to be.
I don't roll like that, but.
Talk about pretension.
When I was poolside in Mexico.
The

SPEAKER_02 (49:28):
cabana boy bringing me drinks.
That was, I mean, that actuallydid happen.

SPEAKER_01 (49:33):
It was the drink she was looking at, though, not the
cabana boy.

SPEAKER_00 (49:36):
Let's get

SPEAKER_01 (49:37):
that straight.
Yeah, let's be for real.
Keep that

SPEAKER_02 (49:39):
speedo, son.
It was 100% the Mai Tais.
Okay, everybody.
Enough of our pretentiousness.

UNKNOWN (49:49):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (49:50):
We've delved into Cabana Boys and Speedos.
I think it's time for us to signoff.
That's the time to cut it off.
That is the time war that we arelosing tonight.
Okay.
Thank you so much for being herewith us.
We really enjoy doing this.
Absolutely.
If you enjoyed doing it with usand listening to our episodes,
let us know because we want tohear, I mean, positive
reinforcement.
I am a millennial.

(50:11):
I love to hear good feedback.
So please let me know.
Please

SPEAKER_02 (50:14):
tell her how awesome

SPEAKER_01 (50:15):
she is.
how great it is so I don't haveto if you hate it keep it to
yourself no I'm just kiddingtell us gently gently no I'm
just kidding I have a I have athick

SPEAKER_02 (50:26):
skin I can hear it I can I can be okay with it I'll
let you hear it and then you cantell it to me a little gentler
cause

SPEAKER_01 (50:32):
deal cry hey I mean it's true but hey hit us up on
all the things follow us onInstagram at clitterturepod

SPEAKER_02 (50:43):
the website clitterturepod.com
clitterturepod.com dot com andby the time this comes out the
patreon will also be liveabsolutely so if you're liking
what you're hearing and you wantto help support us and keep us
doing this get better andimprove things yeah go hit us up
there's all kinds of options forsupport on there and you get

(51:04):
some goodies yeah we'll send yousome goodies and some extras and
some behind the scenes you cansupport us on there if you like
hit us up on instagram all theother places let us know what
you think we can't wait to readyour comments

SPEAKER_01 (51:14):
yes and episode three will drop October 1st.
Don't forget to check out thebook ahead of time.
We're going to be reviewing TheNarrow by Kate Alice Marshall,
which is one of my favoritethriller authors.
I absolutely adore her and haveread a lot of her books.
It has queer representation.
It's almost YA, but set in aboarding school.
It's super great.
And I think everybody's going toenjoy it.

(51:35):
So read The Narrow and then hitus back up on October 1st to
hear all of our thoughts.
Until then, thanks for beinghere.
See you next time.
See you next time.