[00:00:00] CHELSEA SILER: I am thrilled to hear she’s coming out with another book. I have been keeping tabs on her over the last couple of years in a very non-creepy way. But I’m very excited to hear she has another book coming out.

ANNE BOGEL: I’m glad. I’m glad.

Hey readers, I’m Anne Bogel and this is What Should I Read Next?. Welcome to the show that’s dedicated to answering the question that plagues every reader, what should I read next? We don’t get bossy on this show. What we will do here is give you the information you need to choose your next read. Every week we’ll talk all things books and reading and do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

[00:00:50] Readers, summer reading looks different for every reader. Today’s guest is looking for ways to slow down and sink into what she loves most for this summer season.

Chelsea Siler is an early childhood special education teacher in Tacoma, Washington. She’s always found reading to be a source of joy, escape, and growth, and she’d like these positive experiences to be reflected in her reading selections this summer.

For Chelsea, staying true to what she loves most on the page means finding immersive, character-driven stories she will not want to put down. I can’t wait to share ideas and hear more about Chelsea’s plans for a summer of slowly savoring what she reads next.

Let’s get to it.

Chelsea, welcome to the show.

CHELSEA: Oh, Anne, thank you so much for the invitation to be here. I am really excited to get to talk to you today.

ANNE: Oh, the pleasure is mine. I’m so excited to dive in today. And also, I’m really excited about the summer reading you’re envisioning for yourself. We will get to that. But first, Chelsea, would you tell us about yourself a little bit? We just want to give our readers a glimpse of who we’re talking to every week on What Should I Read Next?

[00:01:57] I think it’s so lovely to hear the variety of people and places and experiences that are all joined together in this love of books and reading.

CHELSEA: Absolutely. Well, I live in beautiful Tacoma, Washington.

ANNE: Is that a sales pitch? No, no.

CHELSEA: Not at all. But I love it. It’s a great little city on the Puget Sound outside of Seattle. Been here for about 10 years.

For my professional life, I am a special education teacher. And I always say I have a little bit of a non-traditional teaching job. I work specifically with infants and toddlers who have disabilities. So rather than being in a classroom all day, I am in my car driving to families’ homes and working individually with families.

I do a lot of parent coaching and support to help parents be better able to support their child’s development as they grow. And it’s something I love doing and find a lot of joy in.

[00:03:01] I also have a wonderful partner named Brian. We spend a lot of time outside. We love to hike. We’ve gotten into bike camping the last few years. We love to wine-taste and hunt down the best cup of coffee. And of course, I spend a lot of time reading.

ANNE: Of course you do. Okay. First, my husband, Will Bogel, is listening, and I have to ask, he probably already knows, but what is bike camping?

CHELSEA: Bike camping is rather than backpacking where you’re carrying all your gear on your back, you’re carrying it on your bike. So we load up our bikes with tent, sleeping bags, all our food, gear. There’s a ton of trails in this area so you can get out on some fun gravel and dirt trails that are a little bit more off the beaten path. We usually do a couple nights at a time. And yeah, just get out into nature and carry everything you need with you.

[00:04:04] ANNE: Backpacking with more range.

CHELSEA: Exactly.

ANNE: I didn’t know.

CHELSEA: Yeah.

ANNE: Okay. Thank you.

CHELSEA: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a lot of fun.

ANNE: Chelsea, now tell us about your reading life. So like a lot of your listeners, I’ve been a reader for as long as I can remember. Feels like from the beginning. Always just really had a love of books. We had a lot of books at home. I remember tons of trips to the library with my family. And certainly in elementary and early middle school, blew through a lot of those 80s and 90s series like Baby-Sitter’s Club and Sweet Valley High.

I think my parents trusted that I would eventually find my way to some good literature. But they were also just incredibly encouraging of me reading whenever I could and whatever I wanted. And I certainly did find my way to some better literature eventually.

[00:05:00] As an adult, there’ve been chapters of life that are a little bit busier in college and graduate school when I wasn’t able to read as much. But I’m in a season now where I am able to read quite a bit. It’s something I spend a good portion of leisure time doing, and it’s just been one of life’s constants.

I really read pretty widely. Usually I think the most satisfying experiences are when I can really sink into a book for an hour or two and really immerse myself in another world, a set of characters, you know, literary and contemporary fiction that keeps me turning the pages and has characters that are written in such a way where I feel like I really come to know them and to care about them.

Those tend to be the most impactful reading experiences, I think. But I also read a lot of mystery and memoir and just kind of whatever catches my attention at the moment.

[00:06:09] ANNE: I love that little picture you painted, and I’m excited to get into it today. Those sound like the perfect kind of reads for a summer season, the way I think you’re envisioning it, and we will talk about that more today.

Chelsea, we didn’t talk about this, but I think what we want to do is talk about your books and then talk about your slow-down summer. Does that sound good?

CHELSEA: Yeah, that sounds great.

ANNE: Okay. Chelsea, I’m excited to find good books for you that feel right for this season. And I think we want to really get started by talking about the books you brought with you today. You ready to do that?

CHELSEA: Absolutely. Let’s drive in.

ANNE: You know how this works. You’re going to tell me three books you love, one book you don’t, and what you’ve been reading lately, and we will talk about what you may enjoy reading next.

Chelsea, how did you choose these titles for today?

CHELSEA: These are three books that gave me the type of reading experience that I’m looking for this summer. Those immersive, well-written, character-driven novels. They are just three books that I read and landed in my heart. Just ones that made a big impact.

[00:07:15] ANNE: Okay. Chelsea, immersive, well-written, character-driven. Tell me about the road to self-diagnosis there. I love how you just declared that with confidence. “This is what these books have in common. This is what I know I enjoy.” Was that a journey?

CHELSEA: It must have been a little bit of a journey to get there. I think I know myself pretty well as a reader. And I’ve kind of fine-tuned over the years what I really like.

I think I enjoy looking for themes and commonalities among books. And so those were just a few common themes that rose to the surface for those three books.

ANNE: I love that. And I can’t wait to hear more. What’s the first book you love?

[00:08:03] CHELSEA: The first book I love is Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson. At the heart of this story is just a really beautiful friendship story among three women. So, we meet Danny, Hannah, and Avery in the year 2000 when they are first-year students at West Point. And we follow them through their college years there and into their 20s afterwards.

And we see tough stuff happen. They are all faced with difficult things as individuals, but the friendship among them is such a beautiful part of each of their stories individually, as well as the three of them together. It felt like a very realistic model of female friendship in that sometimes you make missteps and sometimes you hurt each other, but there’s opportunity for repair.

[00:09:08] They are the type of friends where you can call them at 3 a.m. and they’ll pick up the phone. So we stay with them for a period of years and we just see how they grow together and sometimes come apart, but always come back together. It just felt like a very satisfying, and again, realistic view of female friendship.

I think it’s a type of friendship that I am very fortunate to also experience, and so that part felt very familiar, but set against the backdrop of West Point and the military, which is something I’m not at all familiar with. So it was an interesting reading experience to have this blend of familiarity, but also novelty as well.

ANNE: Okay. I love that for you. When I was at WriterFest last November, Claire, who was in Nashville, drove me around a little bit and I was really excited to hear that she just finished her next book last fall. So I’m excited for more from her.

[00:10:16] CHELSEA: I am thrilled to hear she’s coming out with another book. I have been keeping tabs on her over the last couple of years in a very non-creepy way, but I’m very excited to hear she has another book coming out.

ANNE: I’m glad. I’m glad. She had just typed the words “the end”, I think, in recent weeks as of November. So it’s still on the road. But keep your fingers crossed. We’ll get it sooner rather than later.

CHELSEA: Excellent. I will have to look for that.

ANNE: Chelsea, what’s the second book you love?

CHELSEA: The second book I love is The Family Ship by Sonja Yoerg. I wish I could remember where I came across this book because it was such a hidden gem for me.

ANNE: Oh my gosh. Okay. I remember where I came across it.

CHELSEA: Oh.

ANNE: A reader whose taste I trust sent it to me in the mail. But hi reader who’s probably listening, I am so sorry, it’s on my shelf unread. I’ve been saving it for some reason. So, Chelsea, I want to hear everything.

[00:11:19] CHELSEA: Well, I will try to do it justice.

ANNE: I mean, you’re off to a solid start.

CHELSEA: It is just a beautiful, quiet, heartfelt story of a family. It is set in the early 1980s in the Chesapeake Bay. We have this beautiful setting that the author brings to light in a really, really lovely way.

It’s the story of a family. We’re focused especially on Verity, who is one of the older siblings of nine. And really it’s her coming into her own as a young adult and making sense of the relationships that she has within her family and also how she is learning to individualize herself and step away from her family a little bit, as many young adults do.

[00:12:18] We just get this beautiful understanding of the role that she plays in her family, especially with her siblings. And I think that’s a really unique thing that we don’t always see in books about families is just a beautiful, shining spotlight on the bonds between siblings.

She has eight siblings, I believe, and her role in their life is a really meaningful one. The family is faced with, again, some difficult things, and it’s a sad story in a lot of ways, but there’s a lot of hope, a lot of understanding of who all of these family members are and who they are to each other. It landed in my heart and it stayed there. It really is a quiet, well-told, but really profound experience of what family is and who we are in the context of our family.

[00:13:27] ANNE: Ooh, okay. Thank you. Chelsea, what is the third book you love?

CHELSEA: The third book I love is Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Moloka’i is a story that could not take place in any other setting other than Moloka’i. The author brought it to life in an incredible way, which is something that I love in books when the setting is just as much a character as any of the actual characters. And we see it because it’s written so beautifully and so intentionally.

The main focus of this story is on Rachel. We meet her in the late 1800s. She’s about seven and lives with her family in Hawaii, and is discovered to have leprosy. And from that point on, she is separated from her family and taken to the island of Moloka’i in which there’s a leper colony. This is based on the true story of Moloka’i.

[00:14:40] We see her life unfold from there over the decades. It’s a beautiful, expansive book about one woman throughout her childhood, early adulthood, and well into her later adulthood. And it’s about the family that she creates, given that she is separated from her family of origin. It’s the relationships that shape her and how her life proceeds.

It’s immersive and very intentional about how Rachel’s life is written against this incredible and very real backdrop of Moloka’i at that time.

ANNE: Chelsea, you’re painting a really helpful picture. Now, let’s round it out in contrast. Tell us about a book that was not right for you. And I’d love to hear, did it not align with your taste, was the timing wrong, was the topic not something you needed or wanted right now? What are you thinking?

[00:15:45] CHELSEA: The book that wasn’t for me was Chemistry by Weike Wang. I picked this one because I think I hoped going in that it might give me that similar experience that we’ve already spoken of in terms of really coming to know a character deeply, being in their head, seeing their life and relationships unfold. For me, it just stayed pretty surface level. I think it was missing the character depth that I really enjoy.

We see our narrator struggle with her relationship and graduate school and her family relationship, but in a way that just didn’t feel as sprawling or immersive as some of the other books that I’ve really loved.

I think the writing style also was a little bit different. I remember it being a bit more stream of conscious, perhaps more fragmented writing. I think all of that together just led to a reading experience that wasn’t awful. It just wasn’t the character depth that I was really looking for.

[00:16:59] ANNE: What I’m noticing about this book, tell me how this fits or doesn’t. I’m wondering if you are looking for emotional insights into what the characters are thinking and feeling, ideally that you’re going to hear from them directly. Well, the tone is just very different in Weike Wang compared to the books you love.

CHELSEA: I think that’s accurate. Yeah. I think it was definitely a tone difference and really being with a character, being in that character’s shoes is more the reading experience that I’m looking for.

ANNE: Chemistry. It hasn’t been so long since I’ve read this. My experience with Weike Wang was I picked up… I think Joan is okay because it had been on my reading list forever. And then very quickly read Chemistry and her book that we had in last year’s Fall Book Preview, Rental House, as soon as it came out. So now I’m all caught up on Weike Wang.

[00:17:58] But I would describe her writing as being very observational. “This is what is happening.” And she leaves it to the reader to draw the conclusions. And I think you want to muse alongside the character. What’s happening for you? What’s going on? How are you feeling? Tell me more.

CHELSEA: Oh, that totally resonates. I think you captured that perfectly.

ANNE: That’s helpful. Chelsea, what have you been reading lately?

CHELSEA: Heartwood by Amity Gaige. I think that’s a really good example of the type of mystery that I enjoy reading in that also great writing, great character development. Definitely kept me turning the pages. But had a lot of substance to it and set against this great backdrop of the Appalachian Trail. So that one was a winner for me.

I also just recently finished Home of the American Circus by Allison Larkin.

[00:18:53] ANNE: Sorry, I’m laughing because this book has been on my mind. I just featured it in a Patreon bonus we did on books I read, enjoyed, but are not for reasons I tell you about in the Summer Reading Guide. So that’s scrawled in my notes here. Okay, tell me how it worked for you, please.

CHELSEA: It was a total win for me. I really, really enjoyed it. I feel like I’m repeating myself, but just that wonderful character development, relationships between characters were really well developed, and the writing just was such that I could sing into it and really get lost in that story. So I really enjoyed that one too.

ANNE: Chelsea, I actually think it’s really helpful that you are repeating yourself. I mean, when you know what you want, especially if what you love is a wonderful character development, it’s not like there are only four books out there that are going to fit for you. There are whole worlds, but it helps us know which worlds to focus on.

CHELSEA: Sure. That makes a lot of sense.

[00:19:53] ANNE: Okay. I’m glad that works for you. Now, Chelsea, as we continue to think which worlds we want to explore, and just also we as readers collectively are thinking about what we want from our reading lives right now, I would love to hear about what you are looking for in your reading life right now. And specifically, you used the phrase “slow-down summer” in your submission that just made me go, “Oh, yes” and also “tell me more”. So would you please tell us more about that?

CHELSEA: You know, I think the energy of summer sometime can be fast and busy, and there’s a lot going on. I think really what I’m feeling pulled for, pulled towards this summer is just being mindful of not going too fast, and just really trying to be intentional about how I’m spending time, where I’m devoting energy. I think as it relates to my reading life, you know, I have a good sense of the kind of books that I enjoy and that give me that slow-down, immersive feeling.

[00:21:06] And I think I just want to really be focused on taking those opportunities to settle in with the books that will give me that type of reading experience rather than, you know, reading books quickly or getting too caught up in the new and exciting all the time.

I think reading fewer books is totally fine with me in order to have just the really most ideal reading experience. I think there’s this bookish fire hose in some ways of new releases that are always coming out, and it’s easier than ever to stay in the know with that and also easy to get overwhelmed with that.

So I really want to be mindful of finding those books that I know will work for me, whether they’re front list or back list, and just stepping away from the nonstop energy of that and embracing slowing down and simplicity and hopefully finding some great reading experiences.

[00:22:25] ANNE: I love that for you. Also, I’m holding that alongside what you said in your submission, that there have been seasons when you’ve stretched and challenged yourself as a reader. You know what that’s like. I’m presuming that there are times and will be times when that feels like what you want and need, but now is not that time.

CHELSEA: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, I love to read to learn and grow and that challenge as you mentioned, and those are really meaningful experiences too. There’s times when I just want to sit down and whiz through a light, fun book, and that’s a valid reading experience. But I think really what I’m looking for now is just slowing down and going back to what I know really gets me excited as a reader.

I will carve out reading time wherever I can get it but I especially love just being able to take an hour or two and sink into the couch or the deck chair and just really get lost in a wonderfully told story with characters that come to life on the page. And that is really where I want to devote my energy this summer.

[00:23:51] ANNE: That sounds lovely. You didn’t use this word, but what you’re saying is putting me in mind of a good friend of mine who has declared this her summer of restoration. Like her word is “restore”, and she’s talking about restoring order and restoring calm and restoring peace and restoring joy. I hope you can see why what you were saying about what you’re seeking right now put that friend in mind as well.

CHELSEA: That is a wonderful word. I am going to hold that in mind. Yeah, restorative, that absolutely resonates.

ANNE: Okay. Well, let’s see what we can find for you. Now, a challenge here for me in my chair is there are so many directions we could go with this. So I’m going to give you some titles and you can tell me what you think. Maybe a little bit new, a little bit older. How’s that sound?

CHELSEA: That sounds wonderful. I think there’s probably a good chunk of contemporary literature that I have just missed over the decades during the periods when I was reading less and in school. And so I know there’s some wonderful older books out there that would probably land really, really well. So I’m always up for finding some of those older hidden gems.

[00:25:09] ANNE: All right, Chelsea, let’s recap. You Loved Beyond the Point by Claire Gibson, The Family Ship by Sonja Yoerg, and Moloka’i by Alan Brennert. Chemistry by Weike Wang was not for you.

We’re thinking that you want to be really let inside your character’s emotional worlds instead of drawing your own conclusions based on what you see of their behavior and dialogue. Lately, you’ve been reading Heartwood by Alan Brennert and Home of the American Circus by Alison Larkin. They were both wins for you.

And you know what you’re looking for. You love immersive, well-written, character-driven. You kind of laughed when you said character-driven. Again, novels with wonderful character development. And something that I’m really looking for, as I’m thinking about what may work for you, is books with a certain kind of pacing, tone, and breadth to them. How’s that sounding? Also, is there anything I’m missing that we should really make sure we include?

[00:26:13] CHELSEA: All of that sounds wonderful. I think the only other thing I would add is bonus points for books where the setting really comes alive as an important part of the story also.

ANNE: Well, that changes everything. No, I’m kidding. Okay. That’s great. That’s great.

Chelsea, we are not the same readers, but listening to you describe what you really enjoy, I’m thinking of my own experience of sometimes sitting down with a new novel, getting to page, I don’t know, somewhere between like 3 and 20, depending on the book, and feeling like a light comes on in my readerly mind that’s like, “Oh, oh, like I am in good hands. I’m just going to sink into the story in a way that I haven’t yet.”

CHELSEA: Yeah, I think that sounds wonderful. And I try to be intentional about how I start books so that I can give myself that little chunk of time to really settle into it.

[00:27:16] ANNE: I want to start with something fairly recently because as I was just describing that, ah, sinking into a story feeling, I thought of a book that just came out early 2025, in January, called Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. Is this one that you’ve read?

CHELSEA: I haven’t read it. I’ve heard of it, but no, it’s not been on my immediate radar.

ANNE: Okay. Wilkerson really made a huge splash with her debut Black Cake, and deservedly so. And now it’s a series on… I want to say Hulu, but I haven’t seen that. So maybe you’ve seen that adaptation news as well.

But this is a story that has family drama, historical fiction, contemporary issues. It covers a lot of ground and also feels wonderfully coherent and like a journey that I think maybe you want to be on.

So for readers who read Black Cake, this is again an exploration of grief, trauma, and social justice issues through the lens of one family and a precious heirloom.

[00:28:17] In Black Cake, that heirloom was a family recipe for the Caribbean sweet treat. In Good Dirt, it’s this giant pottery stoneware jar made by Black artisans ages ago. It absolutely had me Googling like “What does this thing look like?” so I can picture it.

Our protagonist here, that we’re going to get to know really well and spend a lot of time with, is named Ebony Freeman. Everybody who knows her calls her Ebby. She’s 29 and she is the daughter of an affluent Black New England family. I think they’re in Connecticut.

At the very beginning of the book, she suffers a painful and very public romantic betrayal and is just devastated. She’s also been devastated in the past by watching just a heinous crime unfold in her family home before her eyes. I think she was 10 at the time. And the new trauma really brings to mind the old one and makes it felt in a big way.

[00:29:18] So she flees to France to heal. But even while there, she just feels this pull to untangle past events, both the recent thing that went wrong with her fiancé, and the still unanswered questions from the crime she witnessed like two decades before.

But also in alternating timelines, we go back and see the history of this family’s heirloom stoneware jar and follow each generation that first made it and then possessed it in their trip from the American South, working as enslaved artisans to free New England and the literal road that brought them there.

What I like about this for you is you get to spend so much time with this character who is enduring hard, hard things. It also like lets you into what she’s feeling, what she’s thinking, what she’s experiencing, what it means to her, how it fits into the family history.

[00:30:18] She’s not the only character you get to know, but she’s the character you get to know best. And Wilkerson pops out to other characters in the story to give you some insight on how events are impacting Ebony and to like fill in the picture a little bit. So you as a reader know more than she does at some points in the story.

I don’t want to overframe expectations, but I mean the setting’s kind of everything here. I don’t think her family could have lived anywhere else but this small coastal Connecticut enclave where they live as the only Black family in this White, well-to-do community. And then, of course, we’re featuring her enslaved artisan ancestors making this jar originally in the American South.

And perhaps her getaway destination to heal and get some distance from recent and not-so-recent tragedy could have been someplace besides this village in France, but it’s a really fun place to go on the page. How is all this sounding to you?

[00:31:21] CHELSEA: This sounds wonderful. I love the idea of being with her and knowing her as a character so deeply and also getting a lot of backstory on the family over time. It sounds like a total winner.

ANNE: I am glad to hear it. I feel like I’ve been talking about this book and recommending this book a lot. I was really surprised to consult our super secret spreadsheet that’s available to patrons and see we have not talked about this yet on What Should I Read Next?.

CHELSEA: Well, perfect. It sounds like it could absolutely be a great fit for the summer.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. You didn’t mention anything about the setting of Home of the American Circus, but that book starts in Maine before we move to upstate New York. I want to take you back to Maine if you’ll go there with me with a book from the past five years called Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark. Do you know this one?

CHELSEA: Yes, I have read it and absolutely, absolutely adored that book. I want to say that was maybe a few summers ago that that came out and definitely a top read for the year. I really enjoyed that experience of being in Maine and being with those characters.

[00:32:34] ANNE: So I am in the right headspace?

CHELSEA: Absolutely.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. How do you feel about something off the beaten path?

CHELSEA: I am good with off the beaten path. That’s intriguing.

ANNE: It’s Moloka’i that’s putting this in. And I know I’m pronouncing that like a Kentuckian. But that’s the book really putting this in mind as well as the idea of finding you a moving story that has really rich details that’s character-driven. Those characters are complex. You’ve got a sense of atmosphere.

I’m thinking of King of the Armadillos by Wendy Chin-Tanner that came out a few summers back. Do you know this one?

CHELSEA: No, I don’t recognize that title or the author at all.

ANNE: Okay. You’ll immediately recognize the connection to Moloka’i. The author begins in the… it might be the dedication. She says that this book is written for her dad and for Carville, for without them, I would not be here.

[00:33:35] What you’ll find out if you pick up this book is from the late 19th century to 1999, there was a place in Louisiana called the Carville National Leprosarium. It was the only place where people would go for inpatient treatment in the continental U.S. for what they called Hansen’s disease. Many of us know that disease by the more common name, leprosy.

This story is set in the 50s and it follows a Chinese-American family. Well, we begin in the family, but we really focus on the teenage son, Victor. He arrives to the U.S. in the 50s. He was born in China. He comes with his older brother. And they’ve come with their father to New York City, leaving their mother behind — and that’s fraught, you’ll hear about that — to begin a new life in the U.S.

But everything changes for Victor when his stepmother notices that he has lesions. She knows he needs treatment. And she is the one who helps him find his way to Carville in Louisiana, where he makes new friends, falls in love, discovers hidden talents. But also it is fraught, fraught, fraught.

[00:34:48] This is the kind of story that I wouldn’t even have known to ask for or look for, but was really glad to have found. You mentioned that you discovered history in one of your books that you didn’t know anything about. It was all new to you, but you really enjoyed the journey of learning about it.

I don’t think this is a stretch and grow kind of book. I think this is a story you can sink into. But I do think those unfamiliar elements that will feel like, oh my gosh, I had no idea, could be really welcome to you. How does that sound?

CHELSEA: That sounds wonderful. I am really intrigued about the idea of, you know, continuing to learn about that topic from Moloka’i, but in a different setting of Louisiana. That sounds great.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. I am thinking about where to go next. And I am very aware that I have Joyce Maynard on the brain after talking to Jill Jaclin back in Episode 475 in April. Is she an author that you’ve ever read?

[00:35:50] CHELSEA: Yes. She… gosh, is it Count the Ways? Is that the…?

ANNE: That’s her. Mm-hmm.

CHELSEA: Okay. I read and loved that book. Really, really enjoyed that. I easily could have included that as one of my three. Gosh.

So I read Count the Ways and then her most recent one-

ANNE: Which was the follow-up. How the Light Gets In?

CHELSEA: Yes, How the Light Gets In. That’s right. I was kind of blown away that she did a follow-up to it, which I also really enjoyed. But Count the Ways in particular, I really, really enjoyed.

ANNE: I’m glad to hear it. And I’m glad that I’m in the right place. I am wondering now about taking you… this one is more recent. This is from last summer. But I’m wondering about taking you to Portland, right down, is it I-5? You can tell I’m not a West Coaster.

CHELSEA: It is I-5. Yeah, straight down to Portland.

ANNE: With Renee Watson’s Skin & Bones. Is this one you know?

CHELSEA: No, not at all.

[00:36:46] ANNE: Okay. Well, Renee Watson has been a long-time YA author, and she’s written middle grade as well. This was her adult debut which came out last summer. She’s also a poet.

And something I love about novels by poets is I feel like a poet has a way of making the words fall in just the right order. I mean, to give you a rhythm, you can really sink into as you’re taking in the story. I also think they’re really great at character-driven because that’s the only thing they know how to do is to evoke these images and impressions of people’s experiences with the well-chosen words.

So this is a book where you get to know one character really well. And something else that really bumped it up my mental list for you is it portrays female friendship so beautifully. At the center of the story, there’s a 40-year-old woman named Lena. She has a good job. She has wonderful relationships with her parents and her daughter. She has a handsome fiancé. She is set to marry in just a few weeks.

[00:37:56] But the morning they are supposed to get married, he decides, “You know what? I can’t go into this wedding faithfully with you not knowing the whole truth about something.” And so he tells her on her wedding day something that makes her cancel the wedding.

So she goes in a flash from feeling like she has a firm foundation and a good life that she has carefully constructed, and then she feels like that’s gone. But it’s not all gone because she still has these close female friendships and these close family relationships. And she really leans on those. And you see them show up for her as she makes sense of what has happened to her.

So throughout, Watson is unpacking these beliefs surrounding beauty, love. Lena’s a fat woman, so there’s a lot of fatness. Faith. Her fiancé is a, I think, Christian pastor. And we see how those values and beliefs are handed down from one generation to the next.

[00:38:57] It’s lyrical and kaleidoscopic because we get very short chapters of reflections on various topics, which might make it sound disjointed, but I thought it was just a beautiful portrait that I felt was being colored in a little more every time I turned the page.

But this is about what it means to love your body and love others. I love being let inside Lena’s mind as she’s figuring out all these things.

Also, Lena’s a Black woman. Portland’s rich Black history, which I knew nothing about, is very prominent in these pages through the women’s work and just little quotidian details like where they’re meeting up for drinks. How does this sound to you?

CHELSEA: That sounds wonderful. Yeah, this was not one that’s been on my radar at all, but it’s hitting all the right beats.

ANNE: I got to tell you, I was also wondering about maybe some Tara Conklin, some J. Courtney Sullivan, some old Margaret Walker, some Nadia Hashimi. I think there’s lots and lots of different directions you can go in for your character-driven, immersive, sweeping, slow-down summer. But I hope those three books are a good place to start.

[00:40:08] CHELSEA: All three of those sound like a wonderful starting point. I will have to also look up some of the authors you just mentioned because some of those are new names for me. So it sounds like there’s a lot to dive into.

ANNE: And readers, you may not know this, but every week we share the fullest of titles we talk about on the podcast on whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. And we welcome your ideas for Chelsea and all our guests on what you think they may enjoy reading next.

So if you’re yelling, “Oh, I can’t believe she didn’t say” whatever book at your car speaker right now, go to whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com and leave a note for Chelsea saying what you would recommend.

All right, Chelsea, today we talked about Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson, King of the Armadillos by Wendy Chin-Tanner, and Skin & Bones by Renee Watson. Of those books, what do you think you may pick up next?

CHELSEA: Well, I am really excited to explore all three of those this summer, but I think the one that’s calling to me first is Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson.

[00:41:14] ANNE: Chelsea, I’m so glad to hear it. I can’t wait to hear what you think. And thank you so much for talking about your reading life and where it finds you right now with me today on the show.

CHELSEA: Oh, Anne, thank you so much. This has been an absolute pleasure, and I’m really excited for all three of these books.

ANNE: Hey, readers, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Chelsea, and I’d love to hear what you think she should read next. Find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com. And if you have suggestions for Chelsea, that is the place to put them in comments. We’ll see you there.

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Thanks to the people who make this show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that is it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. And as Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Ah, how good it is to be among people who are reading.” Happy reading, everyone.