Confession: I decided not to finish our Magpie Book Club pick for November. I wrote last week that my review of The Names would be delayed, but then I was sifting through some of your comments on the post I published in its lieu, and something Stephanie wrote in leapt off the page:
“Thanks for allowing us all to be bad book girls here in our own way.”
I’ve written extensively about granting ourselves permission to read as we please, as we need, and there I was, behind the scenes, white knuckling it to finish a book that I found challenging. When I first picked it up a few weeks ago, I told Landon and I was having trouble clipping in. He asked: “What’s it about?”, and I said, “Well, the set-up is interesting — it’s following three possible lives a boy could have lived depending on what his mother named him — but the beginning is mainly about domestic violence.” I suddenly realized I simply didn’t have the bandwidth to grapple with reading about that hardship and devastation at this moment in my life. It’s inconsistent, of course; I have read (and recently) books that have dealt with similarly gutting themes — child loss, grief, etc. In fact, several of the books that most deeply changed my life address these themes. But this month, it was beyond my ability to go there. Our capacities change; this was not the right month for the book. Very much a “it’s not you, it’s me” situation — so if you loved it, I love that for you, and anticipate that at some point, I will revisit this book and perhaps share thoughts here on the blog. I’m channeling Bukowski: “That’s how it is with books: they’re not in hurry. They’ll wait for you until you’re ready.” (But please, please feel free to add your own notes and comments on the book if you did read it!)
Anyhow, I’ve decided to make this post about being a bad book girl — in this case, the one who DNFs (in BookTok lingua franca, the acronym stands for “did not finish”) for her own obscure and evolving reasons. There are many ways to practice bad book girl energy, too, and here I am going to sneakily, bad-book-girl-style, steal a snippet from my book (coming out in May 2026), in which I draw up a list titled “Acceptable Ways to Read”:
“Against the grain / lowbrow (or any of the other creatively pejorative terms people have invented to thumb their noses at certain categories of text) / on a Kindle / in hard copy / as an escape / as a way in / for companionship / to see the world anew / to forget the world / in large format font / slowly / quickly / on repeat / simultaneously with a second sidecar book / genre-loyally / omnivorously / to find out what’s inside / as you please“
As you please, Magpies — as you please!
In lieu of a review this month, please enjoy –
A Bad Book Girl Playlist.
Full of female anthems and go-your-own-way energy, available on Apple here and Spotify here. I had a fun but hard time putting this together because part of me wanted to go full Lilith Fair, but then I felt the playlist was a little too performative or retro? I decided to go with a mix of newer songs I’m listening to on repeat (Olivia Dean! Chappell! Kacey! Sabrina! Clairo!) – aren’t we lucky to have so many strong female vocalists to listen to these days? On the female vocalist note: a friend of mine recently commented: “I’m all for this recent adult contemporary revival stuff – like Clairo, Olivia Dean, Haim. Just adult women making music for adult women.” But I also had to fold in baddy classics like “Cool Cat” by Queen. Highly recommend rolling up to your next social event blasting that iconic tune.
Last note: the part of “Meet Me at Our Spot” (0:40s) where they sing: “Caught a vibe (woo, woo) //
Baby, are you coming for the ride? (The ride, the ride, the ride)” feels like a great little lyric for our Magpie Book Club. The woo, woo! Love!
Bad Book Girl Side Cars: What I’ve Been Reading Instead…
Instead of The Names, I read about 324 romances this month, including: Pitcher Perfect by Tessa Bailey, Fall I Want by Lyra Parish, Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage, If It Makes You Happy by Julie Olivia, Wild Side by Elsie Silver. Some of these are more in the BRAD (beach-read-after-dark) category, so check descriptions before pursuing.
I’ve also been reading Harry Potter alongside my daughter – neither of us have read the books before so this has been fun, and the season feels just right.
Finally, I read a lot of poetry these days – been enjoying Linda Pastan lately (just treated myself to a hard cover copy of Queen of a Rainy Country — what an epic title), but I also enjoy opening up to a page in one of my anthologies and seeing what the reading gods have in store for me. The best kind of kismet! I do the same thing with Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I love starting a writing session by reading a chapter or section. The imagistic writing is flawless.
(What Is a Bad Book Girl?)
My mom purchased one of my Bad Book Girl hats and wore it golfing a few weeks ago with my Dad, my husband, and me. My Dad, baffled, asked, “What is a bad book girl…?” I loved the opportunity to gloss our Magpie patois. If you’re in the same boat, I wrote about this concept here and here:
“[As a child] I’d been socialized as a book girl, but I felt I was failing at this one identity. I was not a numbers girl, not a sports girl, not a music girl, definitely not a party girl–I was a book girl, and I was secretly bad at it [because I read slowly and selectively]. This view of myself bled into other habits and beliefs that took a long time to recognize as pernicious.
But now it occurs to me that maybe all those years of reading in small quantities was how I learned to read deeply, and thoughtfully. And not to say one is better than the other — I bristle at the word “good readers” now — says who, exactly? the reading police? — but to say that maybe I was a different kind of reader, and that was OK. And that for every destination, there are many legitimate paths.
As recently as this year, I have had people imply or straight-out tell me that you must do x to write well, or you must do y in order to be a true creative, or you can’t do a or b in long-form fiction without c or d. I trust these are well-intentioned, and I often find them interesting, but ultimately, I must remind myself that they are arrows in a corn maze. They are likely to point me nowhere, or far into a horizon-dissolving matrix. I think true creative conviction asks us to be Theseus, forging our ways out of the rule labyrinth.
So, I suppose Conroy and I are on tenuous footing — or perhaps I needed the wall of those words to hurl myself against. Sometimes I find the writing of others fills the exact shape of a wound in my heart, and sometimes I find it a convenient whetstone. And both, by the way, are correct, as are hundreds of other ways and reasons to read.”
Landon hyping all the bad book girls out there
A Bad Book Girl Question: Do Good Books “Destroy” You?
One of the conversation threads I found most interesting among Magpies in response to this post circled around the idea that “a good book destroys you.” Several Magpies pushed back on this. (Pause for applause — Queen’s “Cool Cat” blasting.) Stephanie wrote: “I think the main obstacle is that I don’t read to be destroyed. I’m mainly it in for entertainment and escape – or learning (non-fiction). My book hangovers are more like “wow, that was fun! I’m sad it’s over! Is there a sequel coming??”” and Mia wrote: “I don’t have the desire to use my sparse leisure time to think about child loss, and since having children any apocalyptic themes also make me anxious. I love to read serious literature that makes me think, and I wish I was a little less tender, as you put it, but in the end I know those will make it hard for me to sleep.” Later in the conversation, there was some discourse around A Little Life, which I’ve elsewhere seen discussed as on a razor’s edge between (excuse the terminology) “grief porn and serious literature.”
An interesting provocation for you to think about or comment on here: why do so many of us equate “good books” with “books that emotionally upset us”? Much of it has to be the shock of feeling deeply about something that lives only in the imagination, between the page and ourselves. But there is this subtext that for a book to be “good,” it must deal with “serious subject matters.” Why? And can we come up with new qualifiers for “goodness”? Or perhaps different terms for books that do different things: the ones that destroy, the ones that soothe, the ones that delight? I’m turning over a new rating system in my mind…suggestions welcome.
A Bad Book Girl Question: Is BookTok about Subversive Joy or Simply the Aesthetics of Reading?
I’m not a Tok person (I don’t publish anything there, but occasionally fall down a rabbit hole when sick, and two of my girlfriends send me their favorite clips via text — lol, absolute millennialism), but I am intrigued by the concept of BookTok. What do you make of it? I’ve read some takes that suggest it’s a celebration of “subversive joy” (bad book girl energy!) but others describe is as a thin capture of “the aesthetics of reading” rather than its substance. Curious to hear from those of you a little better-versed in the world. Tell us your thoughts…!
Bad Book Girl Conversation Starters.
A few things that jumped out at me as being a part of the Bad Book Girl discourse (possible topics for your next book club):
+Jacob Elordi carrying books in his back pocket (fetishizing or genuine?);
+”Your bookshelf is a memory of everyone you’ve been“;
+Last book you DNF and why;
+Driving a car with an open mug of coffee (pls discuss — this is such a chaotic and confident energy, and I somehow I feel it belongs here);
+”That’s how it is with books: they’re not in hurry. They’ll wait for you until you’re ready.” – Bukowski
+Last book that gave you a book hangover;
+The lyrics of “I could drive you crazy yes I can” by Sierra Ferrell (“Blow out your birthday candles, steal your cake” — and please enjoy how she performs this lyric on NPR’s TinyDesk);
+What do you do to get out of a reading rut?
+What are the best book-to-screen adaptations?
+”An HBO miniseries where everyone has an accent should count towards your goodreads goal” (LOL – just for fun, via @molllllusk)
Bad Book Girl Starter Pack.
BEST NOISE CANCELING HEADPHONES // WELL-READ HAT // IT GIRL LEATHER JACKET FROM NOUR HAMMOUR (LOOK FOR LESS HERE) // FORGRAVE “SMOKING JACKET” TEA BLEND* // A BAD BOOK GIRL CLASSIC** // JENNI KAYNE SWEATER (20% OFF!) // SURPRISING HOT PINK LIP OIL (WE’RE FULL OF SURPRISES) // BAGGY AYLA JEANS // PERFECT $48 TEE // A FAVORITE SCENT** // CLASSIC SNEAKS // MOLESKINE FOR NOTES // GERMAN PEN BECAUSE WHY NOT // ESPRESSO CUP WITH A COOKIE SAUCER?!?!?
*This tea company is owned by a Magpie reader!!!
**I mean, isn’t this the avatar for our group chat?! The title alone. It’s genre-bending qualities. I cannot wait (!) to see the miniseries — did you see the trailer?! Gillian Anderson!!!
***I absolutely love this clean, slightly floral and creamy scent. The description is perfect for a bad book girl: “Blanche is a tribute to the beauty of contrasts, where purity meets intimacy with tenderness and character.”
Our November Book Club Pick: Wuthering Heights.
Throwing it BACK and also forward (per the screenshot in the collage: does anyone have any opinions on Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights that they would like to share?”): next month’s book club is the classic Wuthering Heights (I ordered this gorgeous hardback copy). I’m currently listening to this an audiobook, as read by Joanne Froggatt, whom you might remember from Downton Abbey. A treasure and delight. Let’s read and discuss and then prepare ourselves for the film adaptation next spring.
It’s also a perfect seasonal read — more great books for witchy/autumnal season here.
P.S. Little treats for book lovers.
P.P.S. Leopard and fringe for fall. (Trends I’m loving.)
P.P.P.S. I’m heading upstate starter pack. And updated Shopbop hearts!
This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase through the links above, I may receive compensation.
