Hi Allie. Welcome to What Your Next Podcast.

Hi. Hi, Laura. Thank you so much for having me.

So for listeners, Allie has been a long time guest. We met when we were both podcasting, early days before the Pandemic, the 20 eighteens, living New York,

Yep.

having early podcasts that we're trying to train people. What is a podcast? What is it all about? How do you actually,

the point? Why does it even matter?

Yeah. Where can I listen to a podcast? What, what is happening? So I love chatting with you 'cause you have come to show a couple times, but I've been following your career, your writing career, because it's parallel to what's happening to, the podcast ended. But you are actually debuting your, your first release, your first publication baby, you have another baby, but you know.

Yes, I have a human baby. Yes. It is so funny though because you were on my podcast very early and I remember when you agreed to be on the show. You were one of my first people that I was like, oh my gosh. She has a following. She knows what she's doing. Like you were a get for me early, and that was really cool. And then I think that I came, I forget what we talked about on your show. I've been on once or twice.

ly fiction, you were actually character driven novels and we realized that was a plug driven novels. We were opposites of our reading taste were opposites. It has changed. And now I actually do follow character driven novels in lit fiction. And then I think you came back, I don't remember why you came back around pandemic time but it's been a long time. We've been at this for almost 10 years at this point.

Well, I'm so glad to be here. Glad to be back and thank you so much for having me.

Yeah. So we gotta talk about your writing journey, because I witnessed it. You have been sharing about it. You went to, you move outta New York, you moved to Philly, you went to an MFA program. You also have been freelance writing for a long time, so it's not, writing novels is not the only thing you're doing, but talk to us about the process, because I know this was not the first book that you. Decided to put on submission. There was actually another book. What led you to start writing to Blessed Distress?

Yes. So, I started writing Too Blessed to Stress the Summer between the first and second years of my MFA program, and it became my thesis for my MFA. So it wasn't entirely finished, but the vast majority of the first draft of two Blessed to stress ended up being my thesis. I had written a book in the first year of my MFA program that I didn't query and never went out on submission, but I did finish a book and I was like, I did it. It's done. And we had one professor in the MFA program who had this saying where he said you can break the back of one book in your MFA program, then that's a great thing. And I thought that I had done it and I do think having finished a book, good or bad, like knowing that you can do it is super important. But then I went back and I started editing it because I really thought that this first book was gonna be the thing. I was like, I'm gonna edit this. I'm gonna perfect it. I'll go out and try to get an agent. Then when I was reading it, I was like, this is not only bad, but I don't really care that much to make it better. Because all first drafts are kind of by definition like not great. That's kind of the point. But I wasn't interested enough in the subject material to like really buckle down and do the editing. And so I started to think about what. I really wanted to immerse myself in and what would be fun and what I could dig into in a different way. And because it was pandemic times and we'd all been spending so much time at home on our screens, I had fallen down this. To me, weird rabbit hole of Christian influencers. At some point while we were on lockdown, I was served a video of, quite frankly, like a beautiful young woman talking about her purity and saving herself for marriage, which is. People make all kinds of choices and people are entitled to their choices. But this was a way of talking about that choice that I was relatively unfamiliar with and I thought that it was interesting kind of just from like a sociological perspective. And of course the algorithm. Algorithmed and kept giving me not only Instagram videos, but like my YouTube changed, my Spotify podcast recommendations changed. I started getting weird things on Facebook, like all of a sudden the internet was kind of laying all of this content out for me on a silver platter. And I thought that it was really interesting. It wasn't necessarily coming from a place of judgment for me, even though those. Views are so different from my own. It was a fascination and it was almost about figuring out okay, there's a lot here content-wise that I don't agree with, but where are the places that I kind of feel connected with these women? Why am I so drawn in to this content and where can I like, kind of confer that, that importance and that point of connection with them? Because if I'm getting drawn in as somebody who is like not religious, at all and who quite frankly has political views that directly conflict with what a lot of these women are talking about. Then a lot of people will probably be drawn in. So I wanted to figure that out. And yeah, I spent the whole second year of my MFA program focusing on the first draft and queried the book to agents the following summer, and it just kind of gone on from there.

Yeah, so talk to the To Blessed to Stress What is the elevator pitch?

So the elevator pitch, conveniently now, thanks to Secret Lives of Mormon wives, which has blown up in the time since I wrote the book. The elevator pitch is that the book is for fans of two of Secret lives of Mormon wives and books like Emma Rossenblum Bad Summer People. It is a book about four young women who are members of a mega church community in Charlotte, North Carolina, but who also form kind of the. The guiding. Foundation, the guiding team of a social media collective called The Moral Mavens. And as the unofficial heads of the moral mavens, they are amassing thousands and thousands of followers bringing attention not only to their beliefs, but to their church. To this young charismatic pastor named Kyle Welsh, who is developing a platform of his own sort of in parallel with the mavens. And the book covers each of the women's individual stories. So we learn about what has brought them to moving word, which is their church. They all have very different backgrounds, very different kind of orientations to their faith. And we also follow the journey of the congregation as a whole as they approach this. Big event which is to benefit a human trafficking organization. So yeah it's about kind of how we portray ourselves online what we keep private, what we share publicly, how friendship is sometimes murky online, how we develop community. The public eye. And it's also about powerful institutions, powerful men in big institutions, and how as we like slot ourselves into these communities, we often have to make hard choices. It is, it's a little juicy. It's not salacious. And I really wanted the women to feel extremely nuanced and interesting and relatable to readers, even if they don't come from a community like this. And I wanted it to create. Conversation about what's happening online and what's happening politically and quite frankly, I think the book is more relevant now than I ever imagined that it could be. When I wrote it.

Yeah, it is so relevant to the conversation that we're having now. We saw the rise of mom talk, tech talk, influencers and. We had influencers before 2020 to, but there's now a rise to a sense of like monetization, of like creating and spreading the gospel, spreading the message, and everyone trying to amass because they found money coming in or financial support they're trying to become, A lot of the women are supporting their family. So they're computing, even though they're having multiple babies or they're having their child rearing, they're doing all these different things. I think in some ways it content creation, because I wanna dive deep, dive on. M MLMs, the MLM Hunts, they're my, they're still my go-to. They're what I hone in because

My second book is about MLM, so you'll like that.

so so I see like a lot of women who go into an MLM and they do all this Instagram lives, they do all these different things. They're trying to sell something 'cause they wanna make some money for the household. They wanna contribute to the household or they wanna retire their husband or they want to, there's all these elements of we have this girl boss era that we. RAP that happened that they're still evolving and then, it has, the right wing has done a great job about putting money on influencers and spreading the message. They're the ones who are paying the dark money to have people come and share traditional values and traditional family. And so it is. It's pretty consistent, especially when you think about what they're trying to do. Human trafficking, like we have the kanon in the 2020s and I wanna know where they are now, but we have the mahas and we have the wellness who are raw milk and for their, don't think about, the discrepancy between what is happening, whether social needs are happening, they're missing, and then what they're actually advocating for. Like they're advocating for human trafficking. But not at home,

yeah. And I think all of that is so true and I in recent days, like we don't of course have to get into the politics of it, but I guess I, I just would encourage listeners to think about how. All of the headlines that are happening right now, like all of the big crazy things that are getting us riled up, like most of those things can be traced back to a social media conversation and to a small group of people, maybe like chatting about something and then it grows and then it grows, and then it grows. And so I think whether those conversations are rooted in certain. Religious traditions, whether they're rooted in conspiracy theories, whether they're rooted in like financial concerns, whatever it is, there's so much power in the way we use the internet and we know this, but I almost think we take it for granted now because it just is baked into everything that we do. And so there are a lot of influencer books coming out. There's a lot of influencer content. And I wanted to, in my book, make sure that I was creating opportunities for it to be like a little bit of a bigger conversation. And so I do think having the religious element of it, it forces that conversation a bit because. It's about how, like how do we, how can we honor people's faith traditions and respect what people believe while also recognizing that sometimes those beliefs are a commodified in a way that feels icky, and B, sometimes. Often fly in the face of other people's freedoms to exist and love and be who they are. I hope that is like the unique contribution of two Blessed Distress. It's all wrapped up in what I think is like a really voicey and fresh package. But I really also think that like book clubs in particular will have a lot to talk about with this book because you could read it multiple times and probably see something different happening on the page depending on what's going on in the world.

Yeah, and I think it's an interesting time because I don't think you planned that there was gonna be Mormon wives coming out in March, or gonna

No.

be a bachelorette, and

I didn't. Yeah, when I wrote the book, Laura, people were, when I was like querying and even early on in the process of being out on submission, my agent was like, this might be a tough sell because of their religion piece. People don't wanna, people don't wanna, touch religion. And so I actually think that writing about religion, even though the consensus is that there's no punching down in the book. The goal of the book is to show it in a very balanced way and just kind of put it on the page and let people decide. But if anything, I actually think like going there with the religious aspect sort of slowed things down a little bit. But in some ways that worked out well because it was like, now the world is ready for it. And now I think if I'd gone out with it now, people would be like, oh, of course we're writing about. Religion and influencers and like reality TV stars, like you said, like the Taylor, Frankie Paul of it all. But by the time that book came out, two or three years, like who know, who knows how much it would be part of the conversation. So I guess timing is everything. And I also think like the Mormon piece of things has become so. And so everybody's talking about like the Mormon wives and the Mormon mom talk, and that's great. But there is, as I have found, like this whole other side of the internet that is kind of like a non-denominational, evangelical Christian piece of things that based on what I've seen is actually even more kind of open about their theology and their beliefs than a lot of the Mormon influencers are.

Yeah, because I think Mormon influencers, we've had them since the 20 10th. They're the early mommy bloggers. They're the early og Mormon. The Mormon church foster that and said, you should definitely talk about it. This is your mission and a specific thing. I think maybe other churches saw this as oh, this is another opportunity, like a PR opportunity. Like it's, how alcoholic and alcoholic anonymous, it's like it's, it's promotion. No, you don't do promotion attraction as opposed to promotion like you're not supposed to. Tall you're supposed to. So there probably is the same idea. We're gonna attract you, we're gonna use the experience of I'm doing so well, I have all these kids, or I have all this like very cost, very loving family, and everyone cares about it. And now attracts more congregants and more congruence, more money and more money because it's a business at the end of the

yeah. And when you, I've been thinking a lot about this as I've prepared to go on book tour because I recognize that it's sensitive for somebody who doesn't come from this culture to show up and be like, I wrote a book about a megachurch. And so I've been very mindful in reflecting like how I came to this material. And I do think it's because I happen to meet people along the way in my life who. Were just like lovely, wonderful people, and I didn't know that they happened to be part of these like non-denominational churches and they weren't trying to evangelize me or convert me, but I was very charmed. By then we became great friends and it was only later on that I realized that they had this whole other part of their life. And again, there was nothing insidious going on, but I think I realized oh, interesting. There is this kind of magic that happens. In communities where people are encouraged to let their light shine, like your light shines. It works. And in the height of COVID when we were all stuck in our homes and I hadn't made any new friends in my new city and I was like looking for content other than golden retrievers, like ice skating or whatever these really beautiful, like enthusiastic hey girl style young women. Were like making me feel safe. And it was appealing to me in the same way that some of these people I'd met in real life were. And it works. And I also think it's authentic. I think I don't say any of this out from a place of people are lying. I, and I think the women in my book as well, it's i, I come from a place of, for the most part, people are, people truly believe things they say they believe, and they're coming at it from a place of, genuinely wanting to make the world a better place. That's how I like to see the world. And so when I approached my characters from that perspective, it was a little bit easier for me to connect with them. And that's how I felt about the real influencers that I modeled my characters after. Like I thought that they were kind of in it for the right reasons. In bachelor speak, I didn't agree, but I was like, I go you. Like you're out there doing it. You're sharing what you believe. Please don't be offensive. Please don't be bigoted once you are. I'm done. But it's an interesting balance to strike and I learned a lot while researching for the book.

Yeah, as someone who has been in the periphery observing it and not having knowledge and knowing you, I was like, wait, how does she know? I quit thinking through reading. I was like, Ali, like Sally, part of this denominational church or like what, like how involved it is and at the same time like, oh no, it's, I think it, it shows like a love respect for the characters and a love respect for looking at the nuance of like their lives. Like it's not just black or white, it's not as easy. Just say, we're just gonna say no. We're opposed. Everything on principle is to actually look at their experience and see how did it come about to this church? What is this church feeling for them? What is this friend group allowing them to have? Because we're experiencing in the post pandemic world, we're experiencing like not a lot of community, not a lot of sense of of fostering a place where you can be yourself. That people actually will have friends coming over and specific things. And so having this, having a friend group. It's a unique thing and it's something that, especially as a young woman, is you take it for granted. I think we took it for granted in the s when we thought it was sex and the city and girls, like our media was like, oh, we're just gonna have a friend group, and it's toxic and it's just there. But in

We're messy. Yeah.

And, but in the post pandemic, it's all online. We're just being sharing. It's normal for us to share each other reels and not talk to each other. Have friends that I can just send them like, here's the latest rage bay and here's the latest thing, or here's the puppy video. As opposed to be like, actually let's just go out for dinner. Like our lives are so fragmented. Especially mothers who have kids who have a different schedule that's actually, more, more tight, more like there's more stuff going on. And so it's hard. And so having this place to see, hey, these churches are places where you get community. You go for one hour, you go for after hours, you have a social aspect of it, you

Yeah, there's a real value proposition for everybody.

Like I had a similar experience when I was actually, I was in recovery for a while. I'm, I actually deconstructed a lot of what I learned in 12 Steps, but a lot of the 12 steps, what it does is it's a community aspect. You learn to share your experience, strength, and health. You learn this. The specific language that you use. You learn not to have advice. You learn not to have crosstalk how they say it, like you should be doing this. Like you learn to honor that space. And a lot of times when I was early recovery, I was actually just going through meetings 'cause I needed something to do to get out. And so that was the. Place like it was like you go to a random church, you go talk to people, talk to strangers, and those strangers become your friends. And then you have someone to talk to. It's normal to share phone numbers and then have this idea. And along the way it's like attraction or the promotion you wanna track. You don't wanna say who's there, who is that? And I still have friends from that experience. I still have people I'm close to because we are, we all came from that place, like that place of despair. And so a lot of churches provide that space, that spiritual, place that we're meaning that we don't have because capitalism doesn't allow us to have meaning. And a positive community aspect of it. It's easy to look down and say oh, they would a first so and so this, and they're horrible, but look at the nuance of where they're coming from,

yeah. There's a lot of parallels there to what you're describing and, think it's important to have the full conversation about people's intentions, and there's of course the intention versus impact conversation, which we all got to know very well in 2020 and 2021, and I think that's another discussion that can probably come out of the book. But yeah, I mean, community is important for everybody and we all, some of us are born into certain communities. Some of us find our way into certain communities and we are fed or not by those communities in different ways.

So I'm looking forward to the MLM book as someone who is obsessed with M lms and I watch every YouTube and I have my favorite M lms. I got like shampoo, I got the crypto, I got the water machine. All kinds. I'm excited, but I'm really excited for the books that you're writing. There are more book club books are enjoy conversation and are timely to two days. Conversation. So I love your writing. I love the fact that it felt very nuanced, but it felt very like juicy. Like it felt like the place where I was like, I'm just like hanging out with friends and I'm just like observing. It's essentially watching your algorithm in a, and

good. I mean, that's what I hope it feels like. And I'm looking forward when the book comes out, because of course we're talking now about three weeks away from when the book comes out. I'm so excited for more people to have the book in their hands so we can talk about these people and talk about. How we feel about all of this having read the book, because for so long I have had this like little obsession. I nursed this like private fascination with this community and while more people I think are exposed to it, thanks to the secret lives, warm and wives of it all, and also just like everybody's algorithms changing I think this will be a corner of it that some people are new to. So I can't wait to chat about it with them.

All right. Talk to us about the Behind the Scene podcast.

Oh, so I was like, oh, right. 'cause I have this wild acronym for it. So it's B-T-S-T-B-T-S behind the Scenes Too Blessed to Stress. And it's a six part mini series that I decided to put together, really exploring the question that I brought up earlier, which is like, how did I come to this subject material again? I've spent a lot of time thinking about like how I wanna talk about these questions when I'm at events and on podcasts because there are going to be people in every audience who have their own personal experiences with religion and they might still be involved and plugged into religious communities. So, even though I spent a lot of time researching for this book, I still want to own the fact that I come to it largely as an outsider. And so, B-T-S-T-B-T-S is really an exploration of how I got to this fascination. It unpacks kind of my, like really young life observing people, missing school for their first holy communions, attending over the top batan Bar Mitzvah parties. Always kind of being on the outside of it as somebody who is from a mixed. Faith family and whose parents were divorced. And so I was never really involved in either of those religious traditions. It talks about the friends that I mentioned earlier who I kind of didn't realize were extremely involved in their church, but who I fell in love with because they were so kind. It talks about the rabbit hole I fell into over COVID. It talks about some of the hard decisions that I had to make in editing the book based on these contexts that I learned about over time. And it's. Been a lot of fun. Each episode is 20 minutes or less. So it's like kind of easy light narrative listening new episodes out every Tuesday. And I think it will be a, hopefully a great supplement for people reading the book, especially if you can't come see me on tour and talk more about this in person. And if you also, just like behind the scenes writing stuff, there's a whole episode about what I had to cut really and why I made those decisions and why those decisions were especially hard to make based on what I learned while researching and based on kind of what I'd figured out about myself. So it was really fun to put together. I learned a lot about myself which is a pleasant surprise.

I love this. So listeners, you can also listen to B-T-S-T-B-T-S,

So many

many letters. So let's talk about your book recommendations. 'cause you have a mix of really good book recommendations. Some of them I'm familiar, some of them I'm like, oh, I need to read this just based on your pay.

Okay, so my first recommendation is Little One by Olivia Muenter As we're talking, it's been out for less than a week. I was lucky enough to be with Olivia for her launch event here in Philly a couple of days ago. Olivia is well known on Substack and as a co-host of the Bat on Paper Podcast, her first book, such A Bad Influence, came out a few years ago and I am lucky to be her friend. And we've really kind of, gotten to know each other well over the last year or so. And little one is. Number one, it's beautifully written. Every single word of little one is stunning. And Olivia has really labored over every sentence to make sure that it is precise and evocative. So if you just wanna read anything that is. Stunning, like on a line level. Little one is for you, but it also is a cult story. And so if you like cult stories, you like this too. It is a dual timeline novel about a woman named Catherine in the past timeline. She is growing up in central Florida as part of a wellness cult, which is run by her father. And as you might imagine with a wellness cult, there are a lot of unhealthy habits that are building for her. In her present day timeline, she is living in New York, having tried to outrun all of those hard parts of her past. And then a journalist comes to interview her because he is trying to write a story about this cult. And so she kind of has to figure out how to reengage with her past and it's just great. It's a wonderful read. I think it, it is, it has some parallels with two blessed distress just because of these like kind of extremist ideas. And I am so fascinated by the big concepts that are showing up in conversations online and like in big groups. And my book talks about like faith and how faith overlaps with. Things like fashion according to these groups, but Olivia's book explores wellness culture and how that can be so harmful.

I read a little one and I found it. For me it was like interesting 'cause I had my own triggers with physician of power and food and the specifics. That's where the recovery comes from because God bless lots we're great place to have an eating disorder. And so, so it just, it was an interesting dynamic to see how. We had to purify because it was the same idea, purification through food, through exercise, through no ac, like just the idea. And it's all these concepts, all these high level concepts. And then at the end of the day, it's control. It's how do we control the narrative? How do we control the action? And seeing Catherine looking for freedom by learning how to drive,

Yes. Yeah, just being able to leave, Imagine not being able to leave.

Yeah. And I thought that was like a really interesting dynamic. 'cause I wouldn't think of it set in central Florida just because I like. We're not excited. I would be like, oh, maybe California. But I'm like, no, central Florida is such a, now that I live in Florida and I live in around central Florida, I'm like, oh yeah, I can see this happening here. This idea of the emergence of like pur purification and control and power and, and seeing this larger than life men, trying to. Reach alignment in his own way

Yeah,

just, community.

Yeah. I'm currently reading Paper Cut by Rachel Taff I don't know if that book is on your radar.

just got the audio book.

Yes. And Ra Rachel is another friend of mine. We're in like a 2026 debut group together. And I'm so excited for her. Her book has been everywhere. But there's some similar themes in Paper Cut. It's about this like larger than life father figure, as far as I know. It is not and I haven't seen yet that there's, as much of an emphasis on like food and power, but there is some similar like exploration of these dynamics. And so if you're interested in that kind of thing, I would also recommend paper cut also beautifully written. But I would echo Laura that it is. That little one in particular is a tough read, especially if you grew up in the odds, especially if you have personal triggers with respect to food and body image. I share in that experience. So if you are somebody who likes to read trigger warnings, I would read those and take care of yourself before you read it. But it's worth a read if you feel up for it.

it makes great conversation with a therapist,

That's true.

It's homework. You can just bring it up to your therapist and dissect it and have a conversation around it, and it's just. It is okay. It doesn't make you good or bad, it's just is oh, we gotta practice radical acceptance at this point,

yes. I love that idea. Maybe I'll bring it up with my therapist. All right, so let's talk all the other recommendations. I feel like you have one about reality tv, Angelenos. It's the last one. I cannot say the name of the book. that one I'm actually curious about. Yes, so the book is called Tereangelos and it is by Por Chita Kaur. And it is about, it's for, I will say upfront, it's a satire and it is a way over the top satire. We read this in my book club and it was actually very polarizing because satire I think is by nature very polarizing. Some people love it, some people hate it. This is another one. You have to read the trigger warnings. If you are triggered by conversations about food eating disorders for me it was okay because it was so clear to me that this was a satire, that it was over the top. But it's also sensitive. I get it. So, if you are triggered, please make sure you read the warnings. But it is about a family that is from Iran and they're living in la their father has. Earned a lot of money by becoming an entrepreneur. I believe he runs like a fast casual pizza restaurant, which in itself is kind of funny because he's not Italian and they like don't eat pizza at home. And it is about the Four Sisters primarily. So there's some like light little women parallels little women as my favorite classic. And I actually read Tar Angela shortly after I read Blues Sisters. And so I was in this kind of like little women. Retelling moment, which was fun. And it set in the middle, well, I guess sort of at the very beginning of the pandemic because it kind of follows what happens when one of the sisters becomes hellbent on getting the family a reality TV show that is very clearly like a Kardashians esque. Premise. It's about like they're just like over the top wealth and these amazing parties they have. But Peak COVID is like not a great time to show that you're hosting huge parties without masks. And so it's kind of about like just the hysteria that happens in the family when they are not agreeing about how to pursue this opportunity. One of the sisters gets totally radicalized by the right, and it sort of goes into a Maha direction. And I just thought that it was really, I just love like a very voicey book. It felt super different and fresh. It is absurd and it's meant to be. And I just thought that it was a really interesting take on a lot of family stories that I tend to gravitate toward. And it was just like zany and off the wall. So if you're ready for that, I think you would really like this book.

I think this book sounds perfect for the Valley Persians. The New Valley show, like the shots of sunsets, the Iranian, la larger than live family,

yes. Yep.

So I think, and obviously the Valley person, it is pretty good. So I, it's better than the Valley than, with Jack Sailor. We, this one's actually a fabulous,

anything's better than Jax Taylor. Let's be real. But yes. it is, it kind of is funny that those things, 'cause this book came out I believe last February. So I'm glad that maybe it inspired this take on the valley. But I have a lot of fun with this book and I know a lot of people in my book club didn't agree, but maybe that's what makes it a good book club book. So another book I wanted to talk about is Glossy by Marissa Meltzer, and I don't read a lot of nonfiction. I kind of have a very particular taste for nonfiction. I like when it's written by a journalist. I like when it's like a super deep dive on a narrow subject. And this is a book about the CEO of Glossier, the beauty brand, which I. Know of because I was in my twenties in New York when it was like on the rise, and I had friends that were highly devoted to Glossier. I have never purchased a Glossier product, but the book is pitched and I think is this like very. Interesting portrait of a millennial, CEO. And we don't get a lot of those for women. Like we're starting to get these in-depth profiles of men who are CEOs, who are millennials. But this is really like the first of its kind. It's it was written with Emily's permission, so she was interviewed for it, but she was a little bit nervous. And the author talks about that, how, like in their early conversation, she wasn't quite sure if she wanted to participate. So I think it's a very fair portrait of her rise. And I don't know that I would call it a fall, but Glossier has definitely had its ups and downs. And it had a meteoric rise, but I would say it's leveled out a little bit over the last couple of years. And I just loved reading it. It it was a really. Great kind of just detailed account of ambition and that was something I was really interested in my book is like just ambitious women and how that can look different in different contexts than in different communities, but like ambition is and should be allowed in all of these places. That was a way that I can connected with my, one of my main characters in particular where I was like, I don't get this person at all, but she is ambitious as hell and she like really wants to. She wants to achieve what she wants to achieve, and I get that about her. And so, I liked that about glossy. It also was the reason that I liked another book that I had recommended on my list, which is Workhorse by Caroline Palmer. Huge book. It's 500 plus pages. Built is kind of like a new take on The Devil Wears Prada. For me, it was more grounded than the Devil Wears Prada. It doesn't have that like larger than life Miranda Priestly vibe. It's much more like. This is maybe what it was actually like to work at a magazine post nine 11. But it's about this like extremely ambitious young assistant named Chloe and how she, again, this is all about power, like how she chases down power, how she works in the power dynamics that are given to her. She's an extremely unlikable protagonist, but it is done in like the best way that I've ever seen. So much so that I found myself at multiple points being like. Wait, she's doing, she's a terrible person. But I forgot because the book was written in such a way that I was so rooting for her and I kept having to step back and be like, she's amoral. This is so bad. And I also, every once in a while you just wanna dig into a 500 plus page book. So I would recommend workhorse as well.

So I have to tell you, I read glossy a couple years ago, and the reason I was not familiar with Glossier, for some reason I think it escaped me in my Millennial girl Boss era of the 2010 I was involved in the wellness part. I was in the wellness, the girlies who were wellness mafia, who then became manifestation girlies and. Grif and Gring and so Beachbody turn it up like

Ugh, tone. Oh, I was in to tone it up. Mm-hmm.

But I remember Emily from The Hills because she.

I, which I didn't know Laura until I read the book, and I was like, oh my God, it's a super intern. And then I, of course went down the YouTube rabbit hole and I was like, okay, I have to look at all these clips from the hills of her. And then I had to go down the other rabbit hole of her talking about Glossier. And I again, talk about ambition. You start on the hills, you have this really weird guest spot on the hills that could totally have made everybody hate you. And I somewhat argue that it did, and maybe that carried into Glossier. But she figured it out. And yes, she had a lot of privilege of course, but I just, I, that blew my mind. I had no idea going into reading the

She is the super intern. She's the the one that Lauren gets compared to Whitney gets compared because they're lazy. They're from la, she's a New Yorker, she's a go-getter, she's a hustler, and then seeing her rise for the block and like having conversations and the idea like that's how we. A lot of the girl bosses in the 2010s were just up and coming. These are early OG influencers. Like these are where the influencers started. It didn't start with Instagram, the algorithm. It started before that. It started with blocks. It started from having that as a calling car and just talking about a street wear and makeup and what's in your, what's in your bag.

So good.

So yes, but if you wanna read another good nonfiction, kingdom of Prep, but it's the rise and fall of J. Crew that actually talks about Alliance, but it talks about J Crew before that, how it got started as a mail order. It's delightful.

Okay.

great thing. And then I was like, I went back and I was like, wait, I had a piece of J Crew that still stands to this day. My only code that left over that made it through all the moves is from 1909 in Tampa. It's actually from j Crew Catalog before the Gen Alliance years. So it talks about Madewell and how they like this brand has evolved over time and that's a pretty good one to see the Bry and Fall of J Crew that actually has a little bit of. Fall and like glossy. The glossy was kinda like, if it's ambivalent, it wasn't so like salacious about it.

Oh, okay. I'm gonna go put that on hold to the library right now. That sounds right up my alley right now. Yeah. Okay, so you can find me on Instagram primarily at alli h Kasic, A-L-L-I-H-O-F-F-K-O-S-I-K. I am at the same place on TikTok, although I am not on TikTok quite as much. I'm trying not to be too millennial. Cringey on TikTok. You can find me on Substack under my name, find me at my website, alleh kasik.com. I always have different things going on, so, Instagram and the website are probably the places. To find all of it, and obviously it would mean so much to me if you either ordered my book from all of the places where you buy books, especially independent bookstores, request it from your library, tell your friends, and then come on over and send me a DM and we can talk about it.

And the audiobook narrated by four different narrators. So each character has it own narrator. So if you're an audiobook listener

yes.

the audiobook, get it from f.

Yes. Get it from Libra fm. I actually just got my author copy of the audio book last week and I started listening to it and I was, I didn't know when we were casting it that if I was gonna get one narrator or four, and I was so pleasantly surprised that they were casting four. And I love all four narrators who are. Involved, and I hope you like listening to it. I am primarily an on paper reader, but I I know how much of a difference like that well-produced audio can make to experience. So, happy listening to that.

Yes. Awesome. Thank you, Ali, for being in the show.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to the What three next. For more book lists, cozy reads and library tips, visit the what three Next block.com. Your next great read might be waiting there.