Things get romantic this week on #BookSquadGoals as we discuss “Evvie Drake Starts Over,” the debut novel by Linda Holmes. Special guest Liberty Hardy joins us to talk about pop culture in books, the romance genre, themes of grief and guilt, and of course, our favorite rom-coms. Then we read some listener feedback on “The Mars Room” and “Fruit of the Drunken Tree” and tell you all about the awesome content on the #BookSquadBlog — recaps, reviews and more! Go see “The Lion King” for our next #othersode on July 29, and grab a copy of “Circe” by Madeline Miller for our next #bookpisode on August 12! Send us your feedback on this or any other episode by emailing thesquad@booksquadgoals.com!

TOC

:30 — Introductions/What’s your favorite rom-com?
9:00 — Intro to the novel/ Goodreads summary
11:00 — Let’s talk about Linda Holmes and pop culture in the novel
20:08 — What does it mean to be a romance? (Linda Holmes’s tweet on the matter is here: https://twitter.com/lindaholmes/status/1145309905454280705)
33:00 — Grief and mourning
39:37 — Failure and a different sort of grief
47:17 — Women supporting women!
52:28 — Last thoughts/misc.
56:55 — Ratings
1:02:04 — Check out Hey YA! https://bookriot.com/listen/shows/heyya/
1:03:00 — Feedback
1:08:15 — What’s on the blog? What’s up next?

Thanks again to our guest, Liberty Hardy! You can find her on Book Riot and @FranzenComesAlive on Instagram.