Kat Ramsburg [00:00:00] When people ask why I love YA, this book is the perfect example. And it's the book that when someone says, "Oh, I don't like YA," I give them this book and say, "You do. I promise you, you do." And nine times out of ten they come back and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I do."

Anne Bogel [00:00:20] 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 the 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, do a little literary matchmaking with one guest.

I'm excited about today's episode because, one, it's a great conversation, and two, we are going to answer so many questions I know you have about the process by which a book becomes a movie or film. I can't wait for you to listen.

But first, I want to start with a shout-out and special thanks to all our new Patrons in our What Should I Read Next? Patreon community. Their support makes it possible for us to do what we do as an independent show. And we are so grateful. If you would like to support us in this way, thank you. It is easy to do so. That membership is just $5 a month or $10 if you choose the generous support option, the perks are identical.

And your membership comes with special perks like our Summer Reading Guide and Unboxing Party video, bonus episodes devoted to new summer releases that are not in the Summer Reading Guide, new Friday episodes of one great book, and many matchmaking, our upcoming June Ask Us Anything events, and more. Sign up to support the show and get your perks at patreon.com/whatshouldireadnext.

Readers, my guest today is Kat Ramsburg. She is based in LA with her four dogs and has what you just might call your dream job. She reads young adult books often well ahead of their publishing dates to decide which ones will translate beautifully to screen. And then she works on forthcoming TV and film adaptations of these popular titles. While she loves this career and the books are sent her way, Kat says it sometimes feels like she's on the hamster wheel of reading tons of titles that don't fully align with her personal taste.

She also doesn't have quite as much time as she'd like to reflect on the books she does read, and she misses the quiet, contemplative types of stories that don't make for the most exciting television, but often get five stars from Kat as a reader.

Today Kat is here to talk about those book-to-screen adaptations and also for my suggestions for books, YA or otherwise, that she can enjoy during her personal reading time. I am excited to fill in Kat's commercial breaks with some personally rewarding reading selections. And you're going to listen to how that all unfolds. Let's get to it.

Kat, welcome to the show.

Kat Ramsburg [00:03:00] Thank you. I'm so excited.

Anne Bogel [00:03:02] I'm so excited to talk today. So we are talking as part of our YA in May loose two-part series. We did YA in May in Modern Mrs. Darcy Book Club for years, we're not this year. But we have this young adult energy that needs an outlet. We got your submission saying what you do and that you would talk about it with us and our listeners. I've been really looking forward to this conversation, Kat. So thanks for coming on.

Kat Ramsburg [00:03:26] Of course, I'm so excited. I thought about applying for years, I think, as everyone does, but I would just have these conversations with myself about what three books I choose, which book would I say I didn't like. And I just could never come to a consensus so I just didn't apply. And then I got the email saying, like, "Hey, we're looking for YA people," I was like, "This is my shot." I didn't even really think about it. And it was funny because they send you your responses via email afterwards and they were like riddled with typos and incoherent sentences. And I was like, "Well, just shot that shot."

Anne Bogel [00:04:02] Readers, and Kat you too, timing is everything. And we love to feature stories that we haven't talked about before, both in readers' lives and both in the actual titles of books. And thanks for sending in. And readers, that submission form is currently open at whatshouldireadnexpodcast.com/guest. I don't remember any of those typos, Kat. I just remember thinking what a fun story and feeling that your love of books and reading really shone through. So thanks for sending it in. And tell me a little bit about what you told me. So give our audience a glimpse of who you are.

Kat Ramsburg [00:04:33] Well, I live in Los Angeles, California, and I work in television and film development, specifically with a focus on YA originals and adaptations. So I live, breathe, dream, hope, wish, buy everything YA. I'm a full-grown adult and I just never quite grew out of that genre. I mean, I read other things, but I just... I think the evolution of YA, especially in the last 5 to 10 years has been significant and really reflects the world we live in in a way that sometimes I don't find with adult literature.

I also love to travel. I love to just like pick a city in a random country because I know they've got this cool bookstore that I've probably heard about on What Should I Read Next? and I love buying, you know, the different covers from different countries. But also I love to go into their young adult section and see what the big topics are in that country, what are kids reading and what are they interested in. But most of my time is actually filled with all my foster dogs. They currently are four and they're amazing. I have a lot of foster dogs at any point. But they're so sweet. They've only destroyed two of my books so far, which I think is a miracle. So I still let them come into my house.

Anne Bogel [00:05:56] What books were they?

Kat Ramsburg [00:05:59] One-

Anne Bogel [00:06:00] Or should we not talk about that?

Kat Ramsburg [00:06:01] Oh, yeah, let's not.

Anne Bogel [00:06:05] Oh, this is giving me flashbacks to when I had to explain in German to my college German prof that the dog I was housesitting for actually ate my homework. Well, I'm glad the dogs and the books can mostly peacefully coexist.

Kat Ramsburg [00:06:18] Mostly, yes. And they're really good at just sitting quietly when I read 4 hours a day. And I mostly foster senior dogs. So it's a little bit calmer than if I were to foster adult dogs.

Anne Bogel [00:06:30] Mm-hmm, I can appreciate that. So, Kat, without giving the specifics, which are not for podcast consumption, how did you get into your line of work, adapting YA for the screen?

Kat Ramsburg [00:06:40] So I spent about a decade in New York working on Broadway in theater dramaturgy. I worked with a couple of guys who wrote some big Broadway shows. And also were working in film and TV at the time and we sold a show to a big streamer and the show ended up becoming rather popular. So we moved the company out here to Los Angeles. And while in theater, we called it development work dramaturgy, in Hollywood it's just called development.

And we continue to build out the company, creating shows based on YA intellectual property—we call it IP—or original YA content. We've also, you know, done some other stuff that's not YA. But my love is YA. So a lot of my job is just hunting down those properties and seeing if they make for good adaptation, and if so, finding the writer for it and seeing if a streamer is interested in buying it, and then we go from there.

Anne Bogel [00:07:40] Now, we are readers who... I mean, listeners, if you all are like me, you have mixed feelings when you find out one of your favorite books is being adapted. It's mostly, "Ah, I can't wait. How exciting!" And then for me comes the "Oh goodness, what are they going to do with it?" But often, Kat, I find out something is being adapted and then I wait for it to actually be released. And I have the loosest grasp on what happens between acquisition and it showing up on my screen or a big screen somewhere. So tell us a little bit about what your role is in this whole process. Like, what are you specifically doing when you go to work in the morning?

Kat Ramsburg [00:08:20] It is kind of a long process. So when you do see that announcement that this book was optioned by this people, don't get too excited because it could be a couple of years before you see it. You may never see it also, which is really frustrating. So what happens is from the start I go into the office, which is home right now, and we work with a book scout who reads everything that comes. And he'll flag 20 or 30 books for us every day. I go through my email and I look and I'll pick one or two of those that I think might be a match for my company or a writer that we're trying to find something specific for. If they've said, "Well, really I want to find a project and write about this thing," I'll keep my eye out for those books. And then I read them and we decide if we want to go ahead and make an offer on that.

And sometimes you have 24 hours to decide. If it's a really hot book you know, if it's the next Adam Silvera, right, it'll get sent out on a Friday night at 5:00, and by Monday morning at 10 a.m. you have to have offers in and they decide by Tuesday. And that's who gets the book.

Anne Bogel [00:09:24] That's intense. Is that because it's being sent out to multiple companies at once?

Kat Ramsburg [00:09:30] Yes. And it doesn't go like YA. Somebody as big as Adam Silvera, it's not going to go super wide. They might go to like three or four targeted companies that they know that's the brand of that company, but they are setting up a bidding war for sure. And then we go to our respective streamer and we say, "Hey, I want this book. Adam's huge. His last book did this and his next book did this." And they look at the numbers of how many books he sold and international sales and how big he is on TikTok and whatnot. And they decide on that if that is a number that they can support. And if so, they enter the bidding war, and we know and then we get the book.

The book may not even be published yet. In fact, it's not. It's usually 12 to 18 months before the book is out. Oftentimes, we are bidding on a partial, the first 100 pages of the book. So the author hasn't even finished it yet, and we're like, "We know it's going to be the next big book. So let me spend mm a lot of money on this book and say, We win that bid. We get the book, then we find the writer." And that's one of the things I do.

So occasionally, more often now, authors are actually wanting to adopt their own work. Some are really great at it, some they have other strengths, and that's writing novels. So we'll try to match them with someone else who and they can kind of work on it together or will, you know, let them do a draft, and then we'll partner them with someone.

Sometimes it's a matter of finding someone who's already in TV. So we've got a wealth of writers we've worked with. Maybe if they don't quite match it, we'll do what we call an open writing assignment. So I'll send the thing out to a bunch of agents, managers saying, "I have this book, it's this hot property. I'm looking for someone who can speak to these qualities of the book." You know, we want a writer who reflects usually the racial backgrounds of the characters. If it's a queer character, we want someone who can speak to that. If it's an immigrant, maybe someone who can speak to that experience. We really do try to match it as much as possible so that the adaptation still feels authentic.

Once we do that deal... And all of these deals now can take two or three months to put in place, which is why it takes so long to see it come to television once you've heard of the book was optioned. So once we get the writer in place and we do the deal, we'll do several steps. We'll do two or three drafts of it before the studio or network even decide if they're going to actually make it. So just because they bought a book does not mean they're committing to it being made. And that's something I think a lot of people outside of the industry don't quite understand.

So once we've done a few drafts and the network or studio looks and they're like, "Yeah, we think this is viable. Let's go ahead," and they could choose at that point to either just make the first episode, the pilot, we call it, or they might commit to the entire season, the entire first season. And then we start finding the cast and the directors and where we're going to shoot it and when we're going to shoot it. Because, say, it's got this great role and we want this actor for it but he's committed to another show for six months, well, we're probably not going to wait six months. But if he's committed for three months, we might wait for him or her or them. And then that dictates when and where we can shoot. If it's a show that has to shoot in rainy season, obviously we can't start shooting that in July. So there's just so many factors that take place that prolong the process.

And then once we shoot—it takes 6 to 9 months to shoot one season of television—then we need another 3 to 6 months to go through what we call post-production, which is editing it, making sure it sounds right, coloring it, and all of these things, and then it hits your screen. So it's not an easy process at all. It's not a quick process. But I promise you, every moment we're referring back to the book and saying, like, what do people love about this book? What about the characters that people talk about? Because at this point, the book's been published. And we do really want to honor that and we make every effort to. I promise you, we make every effort.

Anne Bogel [00:13:44] Wow. So I can hear what is being unsaid, which is you get a lot of questions about that.

Kat Ramsburg [00:13:49] We do. You know, I think, thankfully, people get really excited about a book. They have in their mind about who should play it, how it should be done, what's the A story and the B story, which sometimes conflicts with what's actually the A story and the B story. Also, you think like a book it takes 4 hours to read it, 4 to 6 hours, depending on your reading speed. But we have 10 hours to fill or 12 hours to fill. So we've got to stretch things out.

We might take a character that was kind of uh and build them out so that we can talk about a theme that maybe was underplayed in the book. Or maybe we want to elevate a character from the book that we thought could have used more page space. And maybe the author. Often we are talking to the authors throughout this process. They're not kept off in a closet somewhere and not allowed to speak to us. So they might say something like, "Hey, you know, I actually have the scene in the book that I cut for editorial reasons, but it would work here." And then we incorporate that scene into the show. And you never know that that was a cut scene from the book, which I always think is the most exciting part when we get the secret page.

Anne Bogel [00:14:56] I didn't know that. Oh, I would love to get secret pages.

Kat Ramsburg [00:14:59] Oh, yeah.

Anne Bogel [00:14:59] Let's go back a little bit. You said that you may get up to 20, 30 books in your inbox a day, and of those you often choose to read one or two.

Kat Ramsburg [00:15:08] Yes.

Anne Bogel [00:15:08] What is it that you are looking for? What kind of stories stand out to you and make you want to learn more?

Kat Ramsburg [00:15:17] I always look for an interesting protagonist first. And by interesting I mean someone who is active, they're really trying to solve a problem or ask a question, they're not sitting back and just watching the story happen. Also really the biggest thing we have to look for is stories that are external, meaning there's a lot happening on the page and not just in the protagonist's head. I personally love a quiet book that's just the protagonist sitting in a chair thinking. I could read those for days. But that does not make for good television.

So it's more that we just need to show that there's an active like start to finish and a lot of things happen in between. And those things add up and build to a point where it just... it has to be on screen. You know, I think I've read a lot of books and go, "Oh, this is a book." And I send that note to my team and just say, "I loved this, but this is a book," or "I love this but this is a movie and we're looking for a TV show right now." So it also has to show that it's like episodic, like this is a book that lends itself well to eight or ten or twelve episodes versus something that lends itself better to a two-hour film or you on your couch with a cup of tea.

Anne Bogel [00:16:38] People have big feelings about books they love. Which I imagine makes things very exciting to bring to the screen. And also... I mean, I would be a little scared sometimes.

Kat Ramsburg [00:16:50] It is. You are. Because I think I'm just as passionate about these books as the readers who email us their thoughts are. I want it to be perfect too. And in fact, there's one book we have right now that it's one of my favorite books and I did not want to option it because I did not want the weight of that on my fingers. But I didn't want some other company to have it and me not be able to dictate how the show was going to get made. So, you know, it's like we are writing the same hate emails to ourselves, trust me.

Anne Bogel [00:17:24] Oh, with great power comes great responsibility. That's really interesting to hear your thought process, Kat Now, I imagine that this work in television has to have had an incredible impact on your reading life. And I don't mean incredible just as in terms of like good or wonderful, but like practically you're reading a ton for your television job. I'd love to hear what your reading life looks like as a whole these days.

Kat Ramsburg [00:17:48] I've always been a reader who will read anything and everything. The library was my babysitter as a child and books were and still are my best friends. So I think that love of reading and problem-solving has really led to my success in this line of work, because I do read a lot of books for work, about 240 or 250 books a year total, and I'd say two-thirds of those are for work. And I enjoy a lot of them and I don't enjoy a lot of them. But it's not my job to only create TV shows that I would watch.

My job is to say like, Oh, we have a need for this kind of show or for this audience member or this demographic or whatnot. And we look for those things. And I think that just being really curious about content in general makes you successful in this job. And honestly, I've learned so much about genres I wouldn't really have been into and I've fallen in love with books I never would have picked up on my own if I didn't have this job. So it's good because it challenges me as a reader. You know, one of the things I do, I always get your Summer Reading List recommendations. Sorry, what's the official title? The Summer Reading List?

Anne Bogel [00:19:02] We know what you're talking about.

Kat Ramsburg [00:19:03] Yes. And I read every book on it, whether I would have or would not, because I think that I trust your taste so much that I know I'm going to get something out of the book. And I would just encourage listeners to do that as well. Just one summer, sit down, say, "I'm going to read every book on this list." And don't save all the ones you were interested in until the end. Just kind of intersperse them so that you're not feeling like you get to the end of the summer and you're like, "Here are the five I didn't want to read." I guarantee you those five you thought you weren't going to read, one of them is going to become your new favorite book. I promise you.

Anne Bogel [00:19:36] Kat, there are 50 books in it this year. That's a lot of books.

Kat Ramsburg [00:19:39] Well, that's like two months.

Anne Bogel [00:19:43] Well, I love how it sounds you've ingrained the habit of asking yourself when you read a book, not just do I like this, but who would like this?

Kat Ramsburg [00:19:52] One of the things I love to do when I read a book that's not for my company in particular or we thought it was us and we don't want to pursue it, is I reach out to my other development friends and say like, "I think this is for your company," or "I think your boss would love this," or "I think your streamer is looking for this." So I like to be a little bit of a book matchmaker. That's not necessarily my job title, but what it does is it really helps me stay engaged with a book that I'm not necessarily enjoying and thinking like, "Well, who is this for?" And getting it into the right hands.

Anne Bogel [00:20:24] That's so interesting. If you only read... "Only" seems like a funny word choice there. But if you only read 70-ish books a year, how are you choosing what to read for yourself, knowing how much and what kind of books you read for work?

Kat Ramsburg [00:20:41] Well, one of the great things about my job is that I do get to read books, you know, 12 to 18 months ahead of time. But what that means is, if I know a book is not going to be for my company, I don't get to read it. So I throw it on my Goodreads list and I'm like, "I'm going to get to it someday," and I don't ever get to it.

So I really do turn to bookish podcasts to remind me what's coming out or what I might have missed. Like listen to all the books every week because every Tuesday they're like, "Here are the books that came out this week." And I'm like, "Right, I meant to read that." And I go and I grab it from the library. Or this podcast. I'll hear you recommend a book that was on my list from two years ago and I'm like, "Yes, that book."

So often that's where I'm being reminded of a book that was on my list that I meant to read that I just let pass and then I'd go pick it up from my library or my local indie and get to dive in. You know, 70 to 100 books a year, I try to make mine, but also I do love my job and I do love the books I get to read for them. So it doesn't feel like, Ah, this is a work book and this is my book. They're all books and I get to take in a lot of them.

Anne Bogel [00:21:50] I'm so glad to hear that's how you feel about your work reading and pleasure reading. Kat, you said something interesting right at the beginning of our conversation about how you've really enjoyed seeing how YA as a genre has evolved in the last 5 to 10 years, and I'm so interested in hearing more about that.

Kat Ramsburg [00:22:06] I think that for a long time YA was a lot of White kids riding their bicycles through town and encountering one surmountable problem and it's all over. And a lot of YA was just about like teenagers in love or a teenager with cancer, you know, and all these things. And I love those stories, too. Clearly, I grew up on those stories.

But what I really appreciated about YA is, I think that genre as a whole is ahead of the curve in telling more diverse stories, to be frank. In YA, I see more characters of color. I see more characters across the gender spectrum, across the sexuality spectrum. I see issues that aren't just, you know, teenagers in love, but teenagers dealing with things that teenagers do deal with. And we're acknowledging that in books. I feel like in reading YA I have a better understanding of the world as a whole and the world around me and people who are going to be leading our world when I'm like an old person in a rocking chair. And I'm really encouraged by that.

Anne Bogel [00:23:17] Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. I'm so interested in hearing what you specifically are drawn to, which I think that means it's time to talk about your books.

Kat Ramsburg [00:23:27] Yay, okay. This is the part I'm nervous about.

Anne Bogel [00:23:32] So you've been thinking about this for many, many years and you landed on these three, which it sounds like you had to go from the gut because you didn't have time to overthink it, you just wanted to send in that form. How did you choose these, Kat?

Kat Ramsburg [00:23:44] I literally just the three books that popped into my brain when I sat down to fill out the application. I didn't let myself go through Goodreads. I didn't let myself revisit my bookshelves. I just said, like, what are the three books that I want to talk about that I have not heard discussed on the show? I did give myself that parameter.

When I think about books that I'm drawn to, Gordon Lish has this incredible quote. It's "Write your heart on the page and people will read to find out how you solved being alive." I just think that is stunning. So these three books that I want to talk about are all books where I feel the writer on the page, I feel their heart, and literally in one case, it is the writer on the page. It's nonfiction. I feel their heart. I feel them problem-solving their own existence.

I'm just really drawn to that where people will lay themselves bare for their readers. Because I think that even if it's a very specific story and one that maybe I didn't personally identify with, I can watch them traverse their situation or their trauma or their life or their joy and learn from it. But I also really dig like YA romcom and just happy stories too. Really do.

Anne Bogel [00:25:05] I hope we get to talk about both today. So you get to tell me three books you love, one book you don't, and what you've been reading lately. Let's jump in. What's the first book you love?

Kat Ramsburg [00:25:14] The first book is The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan. This is one of my top five books forever and ever. So Marina was 22 years old when she graduated from Yale in 2012. She'd already been published by the Paris Review, The New York Times, The New Yorker. She had a show going up in and off Broadway festival. She was a highly accomplished writer and was leaving Yale to start an internship.

And five days after graduation, she tragically died in a car accident. Her mom and her teacher at Yale Ann Fadiman also, an accomplished writer, put together a book of Marina's work. And the first half are some of her fiction stories and the second half is her nonfiction. And when I tell you these stories are so good, you will do what I probably do. When I finished the book, I got so angry that I would never get to read anything else of hers again. And I sat on my couch and I cried. And I don't cry when I read, and I cried because I was like, "This is all we get from her." And I turned the book over and started again. She is just so good. She's so good.

She writes about, you know, first love and first cars. She's got this great story about, you know, finally having to move on from that car you inherit in high school and all the memories and the stories and you find that piece of trash, and what did that trash represent. She talks about first loves and moving away from that when you're young and think that is the forever love.

But also, she has these, like, profound stories that I just don't understand how a 22-year-old ever came up with. One of my favorite pieces of fiction in the book is called Reading Aloud. It's about an older woman, I think she's in her 60s, 70s, somewhere in there, who works as a... not a caregiver, but a companion to a young blind man. So she goes to his house and she reads his mail to him and he notices that have come or whatnot.

And over the course of this time at this house, she starts to undress and not in a sexual way, just in a way of like she feels bold and seen. Like she's doing something crazy in this life of hers that has started to feel a little stagnant. And where, as an older person, she's starting to experience being unseen in our world. And you read that... It's just a beautiful story on its own. I mean, if Barbara Kingsolver wrote that, we'd be like, "Whoa." But a 22-year-old wrote that.

There's so many stories like that in the book where I just don't know how Marina possibly felt and understood things that deeply because at 22, I certainly didn't. And it's just one of those books that I can go back to over and over and over again and find something new.

She has this beautiful quote: "I want enough time to be in love with everything." And she did write about that a lot. She wrote about, you know, we're only 22, we have so much time left. Take a risk. Do something crazy. You know, don't settle down and be a consultant at 22, 23, 24. These are the best years of our lives." And yet she also had this prescient understanding of her own passing and that every moment is a gift. And she writes a lot about, "Well, when I die, this, and when I'm gone, this. And I want this to be my calling card. And so in a way like you knew she knew that her time was limited. I don't know. I read it and it takes me on these highs and lows.

It's the book I give so many people. And if you have a graduate in your life coming up, it's the perfect graduation gift. It's not maudlin. Don't think like, I'm not going to give this book about this girl who died. That's not at all what the book's about at all. It's about connection and love and living every moment. I cannot recommend it more highly. Please go buy it.

Anne Bogel [00:29:22] I won't even try to add anything to that. Kat, that was beautiful. What's the next book you love?

Kat Ramsburg [00:29:29] All right. The next book, big turn here, Slay by Brittney Morris, which I think I have heard you recommend once or twice, but I don't think it's gotten its total due on the podcast.

Anne Bogel [00:29:39] Let's see what we can do then.

Kat Ramsburg [00:29:40] Yes. So when people ask why I love YA, this book is the perfect example. And it's the book that when someone says, "Oh, I don't like YA," I give them this book and say, "You do. I promise you, you do." And nine times out of ten, they come back and they're like, "Oh my gosh, I do."

So the story Slay is about a 17-year-old girl named Kiera Johnson. She is African-American and she's a coder. She's super smart. And she creates this, and develops and codes and everything, this game called Slay. And it's about Black culture and it's for Black people. So how you get an invitation to this game is kind of word of mouth. Like this little, you know, you pass it to your Black friend and you pass it to their Black parent or the teacher or whatever. So people are secretly invited to it and not in a way to be exclusionary, but just, you know, to keep the game for the people it was intended for.

What's special about the game is they play gods and kings and queens as opposed to slaves, which is where in the video games that are more mainstream, that's a lot of where we see the Black characters. They're slaves or they're sex workers and whatnot. And this is like they get to be in their power. The players duel each other with these cards that are about Black culture. So you really have to be in the know in a fun way. And because the game is really open to and relevant to Black players, you know, they don't really experience the racism that they get when they're playing more mainstream games.

[00:31:16] Eventually something really tragic happens in the community and the game is blamed. People start hearing about it and it's blamed for kind of the controversies that start to come about. And in fact, Kiera is threatened with a lawsuit for anti-White discrimination, which readers, listeners, not a thing. So she kind of has to confront like, is this game problematic? Did I do the right thing in excluding non-Black people from this game and whatnot?

Without saying more, what I really love about this book is first, Kiera is an exceptionally wonderful protagonist. She's intelligent and she's unapologetically Black. She's a coder, which we don't see a lot of girls in STEM in books. We're starting to, but we certainly don't see a lot of women, girls of color in STEMS. That was exciting to me. It's a book about Black identity. And I am not Black. I am very, very White, and I learned so much from it. Not that I feel like it gave me every answer, but that's not for me. I just felt like it was praising Black identity in a really beautiful way.

[00:32:29] But I think my biggest takeaway from this book, and one I've carried actually throughout the rest of my life, is that it's important to have sacred spaces for people of color. And I, as a white person, can work towards equality and inclusion but I also need to be okay with sacred spaces that are not for me, and that being just as important as inclusion. And I think this book really speaks to that in a beautiful way.

It's compared a lot to like Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give. And sure, I think like if you were in a bookstore and they're like, "If you liked this, you'll love this," absolutely. But this book stands on its own in an incredible way, and I don't want to see it reduced to something beneath those two books. If you have a youth who is interested in these types of stories, please put this on their bookshelf.

Anne Bogel [00:33:24] Now. I think I know the answer, but I'm not the professional here. Kat, would this make a good book-to-screen adaptation?

Kat Ramsburg [00:33:34] I think this would make an incredible adaptation. I don't know if it's been optioned. I don't have it at my company. I know that, which makes me sad. But, you know, you could really do something cool with it where you've got the two worlds, right? We see Kiera in her real world dealing with... she goes to an all-White school. She's there because of her academics. I don't remember if she's on scholarship or not. But, you know, she definitely is like having to code-switch a lot.

So we're seeing her in that world and then we get to see her as Emerald, her alter ego in this game where she gets to be in her power and not have to worry about who's around her. And she's interacting with people in a way where she feels like her authentic self. And I just think it'd be so cool to see those two worlds juxtaposed on screen and where they start to conflict and whatnot.

Oh, a really cool thing I meant to mention is if you go to the website for the book, I just discovered this, they have the cards on the website. So you don't get to play the full video game, but you can kind of get a feel for what kind of cards are being flipped. I flipped a couple and again, I'm super White and I just was like, "I don't know what these represent, but this is so cool."

Anne Bogel [00:34:43] That is so cool that that exists. Well, with the potential adaptation, I was thinking it's fast-paced, the writing is so cinematic. Kiera is a protagonist that you want to follow around and see how she's living her life. But I love to hear how your brain works with the two worlds and like the potentials you can see just as a reader and the potential you can see in the story for adaptation.

Kat, what is the third book you love?

Kat Ramsburg [00:35:08] The third book. Get ready. Don't fast forward, people. Stay with me on this one. It's My Dark Vanessa. It's not a YA book, but it does have a central young adult character. And I would argue that the adult protagonist is stunted by her experience as a teenager. It's a dark book. It's necessary, though. And I think that what I love about this book is we often shield teenagers from things we think we don't want them to know about. They know already. I promise you they know.

And this book does deal with grooming. So I think when it came out, a lot of people were like, "Well, I can't read that." I encourage you to give it a second shot because this isn't your typical book about grooming. I think it's rather nuanced and there's so much to learn from it. So My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell.

It's told in two timelines. Vanessa Wye, she's our protagonist. We see her at 15 years old and at 32. And at 15 it's 2000. The year is 2000. She's at her boarding school, not really fitting in. It's not like the greatest boarding school. But she got in and she's a middling student, doesn't really have a lot of friends. She's kind of a loner from the backwoods. And it's not a school where like the rich kids versus the poor kids at all. She's just kind of one of those teenagers who doesn't fit in.

And she meets her teacher, Jacob Strane, who really encourages her in her writing. And Vanessa finds herself in her writing. She's like, "Wow, I'm actually good at something. This is amazing." And she is. She is truly good at it. And of course, we see over the time that Mr. Strane is grooming her and that relationship starts to happen.

The majority of the book is in 2017. So the height of the #MeToo Movement and Vanessa's now 32, she's still kind of just, you know, wandering through life. She's working at a hotel, she's dating, but nothing serious. She hasn't quite got her life together. And it's just clear she's very stunted. A woman reaches out to her and says, like, "Hey, I think that I was groomed by Mr. Strane when we were at the school and I am coming forward with it and I want you to join me." And Vanessa is shocked. And she's like, "I wasn't groomed by him. I don't know what you're talking about."

So this book is really about Vanessa coming to understand what happened to her, because she never saw it that way. She never saw herself as a victim. She never saw it as anything except a consensual relationship. And in the height of this #MeToo Movement, she's starting to hear these stories from women and reading all these reports coming out and she's really begins to recontextualize that relationship. And I think that's what I really loved about the story, is it's a version we hadn't seen before.

We now have a lot of #MeToo stories coming out. They're so important. I'm not diminishing them. But I know for a few friends of mine during the #MeToo Movement, that was what was going on, is them realizing that a relationship they had actually couldn't have been consensual or it was based in power versus what they still classified as, you know, kind of not great romance.

And I think it's important for women to understand that. That like it doesn't have to be a big, huge thing for it to have been wrong. It could have been at the time you might have perceived it as lovely and it was still wrong and you still might have scars from that. I think it's a good book for not young readers, but certainly, you know, teenagers, early 20s is really understanding these relationships and how they happen.

Because I think what Kate Elizabeth Russell does so well in the book is shows that it's not obvious at all what's going on. He's just an encouraging teacher and he's just saying, "You're really good at this. Don't let the school beat you down like, please." And then one day it's a hand on a knee. That could just be an encouraging like, "Hey, you're doing great today," but then that hand on the knee becomes something else and becomes something else. This is a place where I feel like when we shield our children from this understanding, they're more likely to fall victim to the situation.

The book is dark, it's raw and it's sad, but it's just so important. And it's so beautifully written. There's not a big happy ending, but there is hope. Kate writes this beautiful moment of hope just at the very end of the book. It's like the last two pages. You just get this breath of like, Vanessa is going to be okay. And that, to me, makes everything else in the book just perfect, so relevant and important and perfect.

Anne Bogel [00:39:57] That's a wonderful description. Kat, tell me about a book that was not a good fit for you.

Kat Ramsburg [00:40:04] This is not technically a YA book, but we all have to read it in high school. So I'm just getting it out there. I think The Great Gatsby is trash. I despise this book. I was first introduced to it in ninth grade. Part of regular curriculum. And I got to the point that Daisy says about her daughter, "I hope she'll be a fool, that's the best thing a girl can be in the world." And I was like, "No." I tried and tried and tried.

So finally I went to my English teacher and I was like, "Look," she knew I was a big reader, and I was like, "Look, I can't read this one. Give me something else." And she was like, "Okay, that's interesting to me." She goes, "I personally thought you would really dig this book." I was enrolled as the student of a teacher at a pretty prestigious private school. I was the poor kid. I never fit in there, you know. And now, in retrospect, I understand what the teacher was saying.

He was, "Here, I'll make you a deal. You don't have to read this book if you just write me three pages on why you don't think this book is relevant to you." And I was like, "Great. Deal." I was a smart kid, but apparently not smart enough to understand that I would have to read the book in order to write that paper.

So I ended up reading the book a few times because I was like, "Oh, I gotta find... where was that passage on this? And this means this and whatnot." So brilliant, teacher. I wish I remember her name. If you happen to be listening, well done you. It's interesting because maybe every decade since high school I revisit it because I meet someone who it's their favorite book and they give me a compelling reason why. I have read this book now probably ten times just to prove how much I hate it.

When I think about the books that I really respond to, it's about grounded problems and grounded people. And what I find about The Great Gatsby is, I think, I'm annoyed that Gatsby wants to fit in with the crew on Easter Egg and that so much so that he like sacrifices himself in so many ways to be like them. And then in the end, they still sacrifice him for their own security.

And the one redeeming thing is that, Nick, you know, Nick is sitting there the whole book being like, "Oh, and Gatsby is so cool." And Gatsby is like, "Oh, Daisy and Tom are so cool." Gatsby, spoiler alert, dies, and then Tom's like, "Oh, maybe he wasn't so cool." Yeah, dude, I could have told you that 200 pages ago. And yes, it was a different time. He was commenting on a different era. It's about the disillusionment of the American dream. The green light is a metaphor. I know, and I just don't care.

Anne Bogel [00:42:47] I feel it's deeply uncool to say so, but I love this book. Kat, what have you been reading lately?

Kat Ramsburg [00:42:53] The first book is Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli. It just came out this May. I think it's Becky's best and I stand by it. It is absolutely best. And I'm a big fan of Becky Albertalli. So the story is about Imogen Scott. She's a senior in high school. She's committed to this college that she's really excited to go to. She's a hopeless romantic, hopelessly heterosexual. And then she decides to go to this college that she's committed to for a weekend visit. She knows a friend of hers from home is there and she goes and spends a weekend there.

And the friends are all... they identify as queer in various ways. And she spends a weekend with them and she's like, "This is cool. A great group of people." And while she's there, she meets this girl, Tessa. And Imogen feels things she's not felt before and gets those butterflies in a way that she's only really had four boys before. So she leaves that weekend and starts to really question what she's feeling. And she gets home and she shares that with a friend of hers who identifies as a lesbian, and that friend of hers at home kind of takes it in the wrong direction and accuses Imogen of wanting to fit in with this new group of friends and that she was just being gay for the weekend and whatnot.

And I don't want to say more than that, but most of the story is about Imogen really trying to reconcile like, is that true, or do I really have these feelings and really starting to understand who she is internally while also dealing with external feelings about her sexual identity?

If you know anything about Becky Albertalli, you'll know it's a deeply personal story for her. I think because of that, it's the best writing we've seen from her. And I would encourage everyone to give it a shot, particularly those of you who might have negative feelings about Becky's own journey or the book she's written before. Because I think it really can open one's eyes about the personal journey people go on to figure out their sexuality and that it isn't always a thing that's clean cut. It doesn't always happen at 16 years old and you know forever. It can be a journey. It can be something you don't realize until you're in your 30s or 40s. Our job is not to judge, but to give space for that questioning. And I think the book really does that in a beautiful way.

Anne Bogel [00:45:17] I've heard great things about it and I'm so excited to hear how much you loved it. What else have you been reading lately, Kat?

Kat Ramsburg [00:45:21] The other one... Oh gosh, I wish I could just buy a thousand copies and send them to everyone today. It's I Loved You in Another Life by David Arnold. It is being published. I believe the date is October 23. It's about Evan and Shosh. There are two teenagers. Evan is a senior in high school. Shosh has just graduated. They both experience tremendous loss in different ways, and they're just trying to survive when we meet them.

They're in each other's orbits, but not really connected other than by this weird song they both often hear. It might be coming from like mom's bedroom or a bird seems to be tweeting it, or a car drives by and they hear it on the radio. And that's really our only connection between these two.

The book mostly lives in present day as the two of them navigate their changed realities. But what's really cool is it weaves in these seemingly random vignettes from other times and places. I think the first one we go to is like mid-1800s in Paris, and we meet these people who are just... you know, it's a two-page vignette about their life and their story. And we don't know what's going on, but you know, you're smart. You've read the title I Loved You in Another Life, you know what's going on.

So these threads that hold the story together they're delicate but like really profound. I always love a book about grief and how to carry on when your heart is broken beyond repair. And I love a story about two people who are running out of hope finding each other. David's writing is incredible. I think this is another book where anyone who underestimates YA writing should take a look. Because I would argue that David Arnold's prose would absolutely compete with any and all literary fiction.

Anne Bogel [00:47:14] Kat, what are you looking for in your reading life right now?

Kat Ramsburg [00:47:19] Well, my 2023 reading goal is to read fewer books and really cherish them. I think because of the hamster wheel of my job, I will finish a book and immediately start the next one. Like not get up and get a drink of water. I literally just opened the next book. So I don't really get to sit and contemplate them. And because of that, I don't remember them. I feel terrible. But I just kind of have to, especially if it's not something we're interested in, I just have to kind of delete it and move on.

And I've read some incredible books. I mean, one really great example is Lauren Groff's upcoming book, The Vaster Wilds. Absolutely her best. It is stunning. It is incredible. I read it in one sitting. I pre-ordered my own hardback copy. I have told everyone I know to pre-order this book. And other than maybe being able to tell you a two-sentence logline, I could not tell you anything about this book anymore, other than the feeling in my body that it is one of the best books I've ever read.

Anne Bogel [00:48:25] Wow.

Kat Ramsburg [00:48:26] So I think what I'm looking for are backlist titles that I've maybe had to pass up on when they first were published. Like they didn't get the attention they deserve, they weren't going to be something my company was going to pursue. Because I often have to chase what we hope will be like the hottest, most buzz-worthy title when it publishes in a year from now, I often miss some of the less buzzy titles. I throw them on my Goodreads and I'm not really able to revisit them.

I'm personally drawn to stories that are quieter and more internal, which, as I've said, don't make for good TV. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour is my absolute favorite book. And it's like deliciously slow burn and very internal. And yet, like every time I revisit it, my heart explodes with how stunning it is.

Anne Bogel [00:49:12] Okay, Kat, I'm thinking of a bunch of new titles that I think would work for you, but we got to go to the backlist to make you happy. Although I do really appreciate knowing that you have found yourself able to be happy with any number of things.

So the books you loved were The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan, Slay by Brittney Morris, and My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. Not for you was The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. You want your problems and your worlds to feel more relatable. Is that right?

Kat Ramsburg [00:49:41] Yes, that's exactly right.

Anne Bogel [00:49:43] Lately, you have loved Imogen, Obviously by Becky Albertalli and I Loved You in Another Life by David Arnold. I do want to go back for you per your request. Okay. YA backlist?

Kat Ramsburg [00:49:58] I'm so excited. Hit me. I'm going to get them all and probably read them all this week.

Anne Bogel [00:50:04] I have a deceptively sweet book for you from 2017 that seems like a Girl Next Door kind of story. I mean, it is a Girl Next Door kind of story. This is A Short History of the Girl Next Door by Jared Reck. This was his debut. Is this one you're familiar with, Kat?

Kat Ramsburg [00:50:20] No. I'm so excited. It's rare I haven't heard of a book.

Anne Bogel [00:50:24] I feel like this one flew under the radar. And I want you to know that Jared Reck is a teacher. So I feel like that makes me think that he knows how teenagers talk, how teenagers act. It's his job to get up in their brains every day.

He has a newer book that's called Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love, which is great. But this new one is about trauma. And the books that we talked about today make me feel like this is a really excellent fit for you, but I don't want to give you the details. If you were talking about this book with someone who'd read it, you'd have a very different conversation with them than we're having right now completely avoiding spoilers because they're big and they're hard and they matter significantly to the plot.

But this is about a teenage boy who is in love with the girl next door. They're great friends, he wants it to be more, the relationship is so sweet. He's so hung up on her. But meanwhile, she starts dating the star basketball player across the street. He's not literally across the street, but... And then when tragedy strikes, everyone gains a whole different understanding of appreciation for reluctant acceptance of the fact that relationships can't always be what we want them to be, that love takes all kinds of different shapes.

I feel like I'm not doing this justice because I can't tell you what happened. So obviously, you know, it's not something good. Like I'm stepping around it so much. But the way normal childhood first love is so deeply interrupted in this book, and I think unexpected direction Reck takes the plot as a result, is something that makes me... I mean, I read this in one day in 2017 and we're talking about it now and it still feels really like fresh and visceral to me. And it's because of the story.

Kat Ramsburg [00:52:07] I love this. And I truly cannot believe that I've never even heard of it. That's special.

Anne Bogel [00:52:13] I'm glad to hear it. How about Lamar Giles?

Kat Ramsburg [00:52:17] I really love Not So Pure and Simple. I don't know that I've read anything else of his, though.

Anne Bogel [00:52:22] Okay. I'm glad to hear it because I think you may really enjoy Spin by him.

Kat Ramsburg [00:52:28] Ooh.

Anne Bogel [00:52:28] Listeners, I should say that Lamar has been a podcast guest. So if you want to hear him talk about his work in his own words, you can go back and do that in our archives. So this book sounds a little bit like Slay in that there's a strong, like almost mystery component and definitely like Let Me Hear a Rhyme because of the musical connection. And really it has echoes of the opposite of loneliness.

So this is about a 16-year-old deejay with a super promising career, like destined for greatness, so talented, people can't wait to see what she does next. But she dies at 16. There's a huge impact on the local music scene. When it comes out that she has been murdered, of course, everybody wants to get to the bottom of the crime. But also it's discovered that she was on the verge of signing a major, major deal that would have made her an even bigger star at 16 than she already is. So that brings everybody's motivations into question.

So you get to hear about the music, the mystery, the relationship drama and all those elements I think you really enjoy in your books. There's hard things, there's friendships, there's race and identity and the arts and finding your way and coming of age. And you said you're surprised that you missed it, but does that sound like something that is a fit for you now?

Kat Ramsburg [00:53:47] Absolutely. I think what I really love about Lamar Giles writing is he's so good with nuance. I think he takes these issues that could just be broad strokes and really gets into the crevices of them. I always walk away from his books with like a greater understanding of an idea or topic that changes me in a way.

His book, Not So Pure and Simple, was life-changing for me as an adult. I grew up in the church and in the purity culture and it just kind of shined a light on things I hadn't yet processed. So I'm really excited to just dive into this one and see what things I can learn. Because it also feels like it ties a little bit into Run Towards the Danger and I'm Glad My Mom Died, of a young person being heavily influenced in an industry that could easily take advantage of them and like what did happen. So I am very excited to read this.

Anne Bogel [00:54:44] Kat, there's a new story on the tip of my tongue. It's not backlist. It comes out in June. But can we go there anyway?

Kat Ramsburg [00:54:49] I would love that.

Anne Bogel [00:54:50] You mentioned really loving stories about two characters who are running out of hope. And it's interesting you've mentioned that you love quiet books where so much of the action happens internally, and yet I also think of you as really enjoying stories that have lots of big feelings. Am I wrong about any of that, or can all these things be true?

Kat Ramsburg [00:55:10] I think they can all be true. I think that's what I love about teenagers and teenage characters is they can have these huge feelings and then they get in front of the person that they have these feelings for and nothing is said. And so, you know what's bubbling underneath and you're just waiting for it to come out. And it usually does. I think that's what Becky Albertalli does so well, especially in Imogen, Obviously. Like you're just waiting for the explosion of feelings.

Anne Bogel [00:55:35] Okay, then we need to talk about this book. It's a debut. It's called Talking at Night and it's by Claire Daverley. I'm not making any promises, but I inhaled this debut in a day. And it's not short. It's 300 to 400 pages. But it is a passionate, deeply felt love story. And it is an adult novel. But so much of the book, I'm going to say a third, I am making that up from memory, might not be completely factually accurate, but it happens when the three main protagonists are teenagers.

There's a girl named Rosie short for Rosemary, her twin brother Jack, and their bad boyfriend Will. They're all friends sort of. And I can't tell you about the plot, but I need you to read it so we can talk all about the plot. But this story is about pursuing what you love and what fills you. For Rosie, it's music. For her brother Jack, it's something else. For Will, it's fixing cars.

Rosie and Jack have parents that are very absent. The mom's a lawyer. I don't remember what the dad does. They're never around. These kids don't feel loved, but they have each other to love. And Will has a loving grandmother, but a mother who is a drug addict and is just completely off the scene. That's obviously a big hole in his life. And they are an unlikely trio. Actually, it's two pairs. Will and Jack is friends, they bond over Math tutoring. And Will and Rosie. Rosie's a good girl, Will's a bad boy, but there's still a spark there. She's really into him and she never thought he'd be. And they start becoming friends.

And the three of them becoming friends together is almost impossible. And then stuff happens. And when I say stuff happens, I mean, stuff happens for years and years and years and years. The story takes them from, I'm going to say 16 or 17 to 20, 25 years later. And it is about finding what you love. It's about finding the person that feels like a perfect fit. It's about lots of big feelings. It's about knowing what you want, but feeling it's impossible to make it happen because getting what you want will hurt those who are closest to you.

It is full of big drama, which I think will exhaust some readers but will just delight others. They definitely included me. I love this book. And I think is going to include you. If you've read the book One Day by David Nicholls, the story is not the same. It doesn't have that kind of structure. It doesn't have that kind of writing. But the tone was so strongly reminiscent of that David Nicholls book I read a long time ago. This is out in June. I can't wait for readers to read it so we can all talk about it together. I think it might be a fit for you. How does that sound?

Kat Ramsburg [00:58:21] I am so excited, (a) to get a jump on the Summer Reading List because as I've said, I read the entire thing. It also feels like what I really loved about Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, of these three friendships, big feelings, expansive world, and how getting what you want sometimes is damaging to other people. So I'm really excited to dive into this because I have had a Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow hole in my world.

Anne Bogel [00:58:55] I'm so glad that sounds good to you. I do want to say that there are some pretty serious content warnings that come along with this book, readers. So if you are sensitive, you know, I always invite readers to check out the Summer Reading Guide. But trust me, I've read everything cover to cover, reach out, say, "Anne, you got to tell me real talk. What is happening in this book?" And I will let you know. But there are obviously massive spoilers involved in sharing that, so I'm not going to do that without you asking for it. But, Kat, knowing what you read, I think you're good to go and I think you're going to love it.

We covered a lot of ground today. We touched on A Short History of The Girl Next Door by Jared Reck, Spin by Lamar Giles, and Talking at Night by Claire Daverley. Of those books, what do you think you'll read next?

Kat Ramsburg [00:59:39] Ooooh. I think what's going to happen is I'm going to go to my library and pick up Spin and A Short History of The Girl Next Door and probably start Spin tonight. And then I'm going to immediately email my book scout and ask for him to slip me Talking at Night so I can read it ASAP. But there's something about Spin and my love for Lamar Giles that's got to be number one.

Anne Bogel [01:00:06] I'm happy to hear it. Kat, this has been so much fun. Thank you for sharing your insights into the world of book to screen and talking YA with me today. I really enjoyed it.

Kat Ramsburg [01:00:14] Thank you. It was such a pleasure to speak with you and to hear about books. And I'm really fascinated by the fact that you came up with three books I haven't heard of before. So you really are magical.

Anne Bogel [01:00:31] Hey readers, I hope you enjoyed my discussion with Kat, and I'd love to hear what you think she should read next. Find Kat on Instagram @Katramsburg, and find the full list of titles we talked about today at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com.

Readers, reviews are our love language as podcasters. Here's one from listener Becky who recently said, "I love getting so many good book recommendations from this podcast. And even when the guest has very different tastes than mine, the interview alone is still worth listening to." Thank you, Becky. And I also want to point out that so many readers say every week they find wonderful suggestions that are perfect for them from the books that aren't the taste of a particular guest, and they learn something about their own reading life by listening to another reader talk about theirs.

If you have a review to share, we would be thrilled to hear it. Pop on over to Apple Podcasts and let us know what you love about the show. And make sure you're following along in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up for our free email list to make sure you keep up to date on all our news and happenings. Get on that list at whatshouldireadnextpodcast.com/newsletter.

Thanks to the people who make the show happen. What Should I Read Next? is created each week by Will Bogel, Holly Wielkoszewski, and Studio D Podcast Production. Readers, that's 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.