Bookmarked by Reese's book Club is presented by Apple Books.

Hey, Hey, I'm Danielle Robe.

Welcome to the very first episode of Bookmarked by Reese's book Club.

We're going to get to know each other well, but I want you to know a little bit about me.

I'm a shoe girl, and I know it may seem odd to open a book club podcast talking about shoes, but I have a point.

I promise great books and great shoes they both take you places, sometimes across continents, sometimes into steamy love stories.

I've been in a few of those, sometimes into a full blown identity crisis.

I've also been in a few of those, and sometimes straight into conversations that stick with you forever.

We're definitely getting into those.

So if you're already a part of Reese's book Club, then you know it's not just a reading list.

It's a lifestyle and a movement.

It's a place where brilliant women and brilliant books get the attention they really deserve.

And if you're new here, welcome.

You have found your people on behalf of the Reese's book Club team.

We are so happy you're here.

We accept you, we embrace you, and we'll probably recommend fourteen books to you by the end of this episode.

So here's how it's going to work.

Every Tuesday, We're diving into the stories behind the stories.

We're talking to authors, actors, musicians, comedians, directors, anyone who's ever made us feel something with their words.

You know what I'm talking about.

Page to screen journeys, book talk of sessions, plot twists not just on the page, but also in life.

Bookmarked is our once a week hangout, our meeting place.

So whether you're out on a walk, driving your work, or hiding from your inbox, or just pretending to clean while you're actually laying on the floor staring at the ceiling like I usually do, I am so glad you're here.

This space is for you.

Welcome to the club.

Let's go somewhere together.

Today's guests are two of the biggest names in the world of romance, Emily Henry and Yuleene Kwang.

Both of them hold so much weight separately, but they are doing an interview for the first time together.

That's what's so fun about this.

They're friends and creative collaborators, and they're both Riese's Book Club alums.

Emily Henry is one of the most prolific romance novelists in the game.

She published six incredible books in five years.

I don't even know how that's possible.

Her most recent book was Great, Big, Beautiful Life, and it was the Reese's Book Club pick in May.

Now Yulin Kwang is a screenwriter, director, and author whose novel How to End a Love Story was last May's Reese's book Club pick.

They're May's Sisters Now.

You've also seen her work on screen, including on Hulu's Doll Face and now Elena's At the Helm of two movie adaptations based on Emily's book The People We Meet on Vacation and Betreat Emily.

Leen.

Welcome to the first episode of Bookmarked.

We're so excited to have you here, Emily.

All of your fans call you m Hen, which is such a fun nickname.

So you Leen, I was thinking maybe we could give you a moniker today.

Are you cool with that?

Oh?

Ooh, okay, you'll be the first tell me.

I'm thinking Youku.

I think it's cool.

Youku.

Oh God, I think it's very close to Yoko.

I'm a big fan of Yoko.

Oh No, I'm like her her artwork, and you know what you know.

Yeah, sure, let's lean in.

Okay, thank you.

I'd love to give you guys a chance to introduce yourselves to the book Club.

And I felt like, what better way than to share all of our favorite nineties rom coms.

We're all love story girlies.

I'll go first, just to set the stage.

I'm pretty woman anything Julia Roberts.

I think it would have.

To be Nodding Hill.

You know, I'm just a girl.

We're all standing in front of a boy asking him to love her.

That's it doesn't get better than that.

Plus there's that sequence where he walks through.

I think it's notting Hill and the Seasons change a cinema.

I agree, love that, I will say surprising, probably no one You've got mail anything all that, I agree like any of the Julia Roberts, any of the Meg Ryan Sandra Bullock had some really good ones, truly.

A golden era.

I also I'm split on the Jennifer Aniston one.

Some of them totally plagued my dating life later on, Like Picture Perfect was such a great movie.

And also I'm like, I think that's why I went for all the bad boys.

Yeah, we did not necessarily always get the right guidance from these movies.

Unless Tom Hanks was playing the lead.

He was always a good guy.

Yeah, he was a good guy, but he was like, you know, running the little indies out of business.

Is he a bad boy?

I feel like he's got like real cinnamon role.

Yeah, a bad boy at all.

What's a cinnamon roll quality?

Oh?

What a question.

He will be a stand up guy.

He's the guy that you kind of do want to marry.

He's Tom Hanks, Yeah, exactly.

His foil would be the Hugh Grant.

I'm sort of obsessed with you Leen's dessert analogy.

So if the cinnamon roll is the good guy, what are we naming this curmudgeon sort of charmingly sarcastic guy.

Crumb cake, now.

Cake, crumb cake, Crumberley, even Cumberly is kind of splitting the difference.

Yeah, there's that little thin crystallized layer on top and then a soft, guey center.

That's probably actually my perfect kind of like the romantic lead.

Okay, you guys are so fun.

So I talked to a book agent one time and she said to me that you can't write a book unless you can't write any other book, meaning you have to get it out of your body and into the world.

And you both written such great love stories.

What pulls you both to love?

Like?

What is it about these love stories that you have to put out into the world and get out of your bodies?

Youku?

Can I start with you?

I was always drawn to romance, like that was always my genre of choice as a reader and as a viewer because it was also you know, movies and TV shows and all of those things.

Even when I was watching something that wasn't very romance forward, I would find a way to become obsessed with the romance.

Like I think the example would be like in the Office, I was very obsessed with Jim and Pam.

And I think that's because in a lot of comedies, the romance is where they kind of hide the heart and it's where the seriousness is.

And I think any good romance it gives me this feeling of like almost like butterflies.

It's like I'm so in love with their love that I am feeling what I would feel falling in love for the first time all over again.

It's kind of like microdosing life.

Yeah, you know that's I feel like my answer wouldn't be too different.

I think a lot about the weird overlap between horror romance.

Yes, I was just thinking that, yeah, because horror gives you the chills, right, it's you also feel it in your body, right.

And also like it's just there's so many weird similarities too, where it's like both are frequently used to kind of comment on the times falling in love and being terrified both are very human, and there's also like tons of overlap.

And I feel similarly like I was not like a romance reader growing up, but same as you lean, I would always be most interested in the romantic subplot of anything.

I loved having crushes.

I think I was ultimately very boy crazy.

Loved having crushes, loved daydreaming about falling in love.

And now I think the reason I stick with it is because I don't think that there's anything more human or more powerful than love.

I think love is a really strange evolutionary habit of ours.

I also think that there's just something really magical and strange about how frequently we as humans put other people before us, not just in a survival means, but just on like a day to day basis, like putting someone someone else's desires and needs before our own, because we have this kind of indescribable feeling for them that just makes us want to like elevate them and give them everything.

I don't know, I just think it's I think it's like the most powerful feeling and the most powerful force in the world.

I have a question about what you just said, Emily, because that idea of putting somebody else's needs ahead of our own is so human.

I think it's also so female.

I know I've felt it my whole life.

And I see this sort of renaissance in the romance genre, both in books and in film, and the types of women that you guys are writing that are on screen are very different.

What do you attribute the renaissance of romance to?

So many things?

First, I feel like to your point Danielle about like it being like kind of different.

I think there is in all the romance that I'm reading and loving, including you Leen's book, there is this female lead who isn't just trying to put a man before her like that's not the situation.

The situation is two people who are broken, who are imperfect, choosing each other and trying really hard to give the other what they need and give them space to be who they are.

I'm sure there have always been love stories like that, but I think that's becoming more normalized in media hopefully.

Yeah.

The romance thread that I feel like is always present is that feeling of is what is it going to take to get the happily ever after?

What am I willing to sacrifice?

What's the thing I'm willing to give up to get the thing that I want?

And ultimately, in a romance, it's worth it.

It's always worth it, but it has to.

I think feel like they're choosing each other now rather than just like one person sacrificing all.

And I think there is a lot more of an appetite for heroines who are a little bit prickly, a little bit complicated, who have the whole spectrum of human emotion and complexity to them.

And I don't want to put down who she has been in the past, Like I.

Don't think it's as simple as saying, oh God, they were all manic pixie dream girls and they were all trash.

Because I don't think that's true.

You know, I still love Summer from five Hundred Days of Summer.

I think she's still one of my favorite characters that I've seen on screen, And so I think what the heroine often does in these pieces is she reflects something of who we are and who we crave to see in the moment, and that tells us something about ourselves.

And so right now it seems like we're craving women who need therapy.

And men who are willing to go yes, and men who are willing to go and and yeah, I mean we have a lot of conversations in this biz about like, you know, is romance realistic?

Is it aspirational?

And it's like to me, I'm like, no, it is.

It is absolutely realistic.

It's just you're writing about the exception, not the rule.

Like, mostly dating is horrible, But if you're watching, like your friends go through that dating experience when they meet someone who's clearly so right for them and so good to them and who they're so like wild about, you're not like, oh, this is impossible.

There's not just a nice person out there that you could be with, Like, it's not unrealistic to write two characters who are capable of getting past these obstacles, who are willing to do these hard things, willing to heal and grow.

If it means that they can be together and be the best versions of themselves.

Like, that's not it's it's only unrealistic until it happens.

You know, Like, there's until it's not til it's not.

And yeah, most of the time, that's not how dating is going to go.

But when you're writing a romance novel, you're not typically writing about like someone meeting their shitty college boyfriend.

You're writing about that person who's like worth writing about.

I went on a date the other night with a guy who used a French fry as a knife to get salad onto his fork.

Oh, and I'm like, I don't want to read about that.

I want to read about the happily ever after.

But you know what, that's actually like a great romance novel.

Detail, fascinating behavior.

It only works when it's the right person.

It doesn't work when it's like and also he was wearing SpongeBob pajama pants and crocs and like this was our first date.

You know, I mean, maybe it does, maybe it does work.

You both write different romance.

I want to hear from each of you what the secret sauce of your love story is.

If you can kind of take me behind the scenes into your writing, something that maybe I wouldn't know as a reader, even what is the secret sauce for you?

Honestly, there's there are two components that are kind of tied together for me.

One of them is that they do have to be flawed.

I again, like, I think there's this misconception that when people are reading romance, it is because they're reaching for an aspirational story about two perfect people.

It's like something that would never happen.

But I really specifically feel like I write flawed female and male characters, and you know, my books are pretty popular, so clearly people like that.

People want that.

I think people feel more drawn to characters when they have a flaw that's recognizable and relatable, because it feels like someone real that they could know.

And like, I think that we're all just craving connection.

Even just you know, talking more about what might have caused this romance renaissance, I think part of it is that need for human connection in a time where we're all so disconnected.

We want real characters.

So them having a flaw that is a central and significant part of the book, a flaw that's something they actually do have to overcome.

And work through in order to be together, I think is something that is always going to be what I reach for when I'm pairing characters together.

And then the second part of that is, I specifically really love pairing two characters together who have, you know, history, and flaws and issues that kind of chafe against each other.

Like I want their specific issues to kind of exacerbate each other's, like, you know, to trigger.

I want them to trigger each other a little bit.

Emily, you're a little toxic.

I love it, but no, But like the thing is, that's like why else would they ever work through those things?

Like when you fall in love, you find out really fast what your toxic traits are.

You find out what you're most afraid of when you're falling in love.

I love using a romance to take two characters with flaws, put them together, have those flaws chafe against each other, and then the only way those two people can be together is if they kind of work through their own individual issues.

M I love it so much.

It's very real.

Yeah, that is what romance is in real life.

Ewleen, what's it for you?

I think a lot about the Susan Elizabeth Phillips quote.

I think where she says something like if your hero is a firefighter, then your heroin better be an arsenalistic Yes, And I think that's such a great kind of distillation of a dynamic where it's these two people they should be something.

To each other.

And what I'm most drawn to is people that like they something's combustible there.

So that's kind of what I'm drawn to in a dynamic.

And then similar to Emily's like flaw theory, I like to look for a wound like I like to find a character wound because I think we all kind of you know, you go through life and things hurt you, things bump against you, you develop some scars, and it kind of it does become this moment of like do you want to know how I.

Got these stars?

I think when it's falling in love with somebody else and you're finding those things.

So it makes sense that we're drawn to similar things.

I was thinking that just hearing you talk about it, like, I really feel like there's just even though obviously our writing styles are different, whatever, there is like a similar baseline DNA there.

And I think it makes sense that our readership has such overlap too, because I think our readers do.

Tend to be people who have great taste.

So great taste first of all, really pretty.

Not that it matters, so smart, really.

Smart, and then like just yeah, want real people who they can see as mirrors.

Like Daniel said, they can see as a mirror and see their own stuff that they need to like figure out, work through.

It's cool to hear that a lot of your readers overlap.

Is that part of the reason that you guys became collaborators, Emily, do you remember the first time you read something of you leans?

The first time I read something of you Leen's actually was just a draft of The People We Meet on Vacation script like weirdly, like so we got hooked up before your book had published.

So I was sent the People We Meet on Vacation manuscript before it was published as this kind of like a four year consideration to adapt.

I knew it was being sent to multiple people around town, and I read it in one sitting, and I remember thinking one, yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes, like this has all the thousand thread count pining that I need from a romance, but also it had like a titanic number of locations.

Yeah, and go to there, yeah, and I was like, well, I was like, this is such a fascinating kind of Rubik's cube of adaptation.

It was a really interesting puzzle and that intrigued me rather than other things I'd been sent before where you could kind of see it was like almost like written to be adapted, and that was compelling somehow.

And so that was how Emily's writing was first sent to me.

Was I kind of describe it as like a marriage of convenience.

It was like an arranged marriage through through like the publishing industry and Hollywood.

They were kind of like, you two seem like you have a certain vibe maybe like.

Kind of sad girl romance, sad girl romance.

Yeah, girls making jokes.

In romance, hot girls.

Yeah, And so I think we were set up just kind of on a oom meeting.

I remember you using this phrase that I've heard you used since then about being drawn to the blue shades in romance, and that was really appealing to me because I knew that going into adaptation, there was every chance in the world that it was going to just go this route where it could become really broad and just just tonally very different from the book in a way.

That I thought would be disappointing to the readers because I think that they, like we've already discussed, they want that depth.

They want to feel like emotionally engaged, like a deeper level.

And Yeah, it was just like, I feel like you the way you talked about, first of all what you like in romance, but also adapting, because I remember you talking about being like such a huge reader and then being really disappointed.

Shady, I'm just kidding, but she was just.

Talking about being kind of like as a reader, being disappointed with how adaptations went.

And that was a huge green flag to me because I knew that while she has talent and vision and voice, she doesn't have ego in the way that I think a lot of people do.

Like you're confident in your work, you know your value, I think, but you don't have ego insomuch as you're like, I'm going to make this mine and I don't care if that makes it good or bad.

Yeah, it's kind of a fascinating process adaptation.

And I will say we met, I want to say back in twenty twenty one, and so it's been a four year journey.

I do think in the process of doing the work.

I would watch these other things get made, and I would I would read the books, and then I would watch the movies, and I would always wonder like, well, why.

Did they cut this, Why did they cut that?

Why didn't that?

And things do change.

And so seeing kind of people we meet on vacation through the process, that has been very interesting and informed more of my thoughts on adaptation now.

Like, so I was the first writer on people we meet on vacation, I was not the last writer, but.

You were also like you were the writer multiple times.

I was the writer multiple times, press writer, second to last writer, I think too.

So when when there are this many writers, this is going to get very inside baseball.

But they take every draft and they read through them all and they determine who gets credit, who's done enough work that shows up on the screen that they'll get credit.

And so part of that process meant that I got to read every draft as well, and so I found that to be very fascinating to change from my drafts to the next writer's draft, to the next writer's draft to the next writer's draft, and I could see things that I had struggled with early on structurally that then became an issue for somebody else later and then got removed completely by another writer, and I was like, that's brilliant.

Why didn't I think to just.

That's interesting.

I came at it more as a reader.

That was mostly my experience of watching these adaptations of my favorite books and just being fucking disappointed because they did not match the movie.

In my head.

And I think now on this side of it, that part of me still is very much alive and well, but I think there is also another part of me that, having gone through the process, I can kind of see how we get there, Because I think in order for a movie to stand on its own, it needs to be a work of art that stands apart from the book.

And I truly do believe the purpose of adaptation is not to provide one hundred percent faithful thing.

Oh yeah, it's to bring new readers to the source material, and so for it to do that, it has to stand as a work art on its own.

Well, there's that phrase, the book is better, And it came from the idea that people like the adaptations didn't live up to people's ideas of what these characters were.

That you know, when you read something, you just think your teeth in so deeply, and you have your own imagination.

You Lean, You're now you're writing People we Meet on Vacation, but you're also writing and directing bet Read.

Can you take me into the writer's room?

Like Emily, I heard you talk about how your involvement and all of these adaptations is really different.

It sounds like you're maybe is it fair to say you're closer with Uleen than some of the other.

Yeah, well yeah, I mean you Lean rank us, Yeah, yeah, so your favorite screenwriter, yeah.

You Leen and Brett Haley, our director from People we Meet on Vacation.

Both of them we have now I've been friends with them now for years because of this process, and we've had a lot of back and forth.

But you Leen, it's nice because we've been through this already once before, and I really trust her and I have read a lot of her work at this point because I've read her novel, I've read multiple drafts of her People Meet on Vacation script.

I read other writers scripts in between those, which was really, like you said, it was really illuminating, and I think while there were things from all of them that I appreciate, like it also deepened my appreciation for your work, because I think what you do is really special.

So I don't.

Yeah, it's like you lean she basically, it's just like when there's a new draft, she sends it to me.

If she has a question, she'll send it to me.

Like there was a point where she was like, does Poppy have a middle name?

And I was like, oh, no, does she I don't remember?

And I was like, well, I do think it would be this, So I like gave Poppy a middle.

Name, and it made it into a draft that I remember, and it turned it into a joke, and then that joke got rewritten and it's no longer.

But I know Poppy, yeah exactly, and like we're the only two people in the world possibly who know it.

Well now you just shared it with us, thank you, not the actual Yeah.

Do you want to care?

Can we tell them?

Sure?

Can you tell us sure?

Do you remember on three one two three?

Diana?

I feel like you waited and we did.

We decide that it was after Princess die.

I feel yeah, her mom totally named her Poppy Diana.

Yeah.

Okay, So you guys both talked about adaptations gone wrong.

Is there any adaptation in your mind?

That has gone right, Like when you think, what's like the North Star for each of you for an adaptation.

Oh my gosh, okay, these are so different, but the Hunger Games adaptations are phenomenal.

Ooh, that's a great are great?

Oh man, this is such a hard question.

Two thousand and five North and South miniseries on the BBC.

It's probably one of my favorite at the two thousand starres.

Richard Armitage.

It's based and Daniella Denby ash I believe, and it is an adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell's like eighteen hundred's novel on the Industrial Revolution.

That also reminds me of another phenomenal adaptation, Gone Girl.

Oh yeah, we talked about Gone Girl in our initial meetings.

I remember, right.

It's so good.

It's really faithful.

It's like, I think, what we should call it is faithful.

Plus, it's like faithful in that the heart of the story is the same, the heart of the characters is the same.

You understand that it's the same story.

But plus is that they took the fact that they have living, breathing actors and are performing this and they use that to make it feel in some ways bigger like and I think people does that really well?

But gone, girl, like the whole thing with ben Affleck having the butt chin, and she's like, I just you just like don't look trustworthy because of your like butt the little like crease into your chin.

And so whenever he's like saying I'm telling the truth, like he covers his chin with his thumb and he's like, I'm not lying whatever, that little detail is not in the book.

That little detail was written because ben Affleck was cast.

Okay, so this is actually my next question because Emily, I can imagine when you're writing this character is fully baked out and then you lean when you're writing the adaptation, do you have a cast in mind?

Like, do you have an actor in mind for People?

I did?

Not?

For beatreate I did?

Are you able to share who for bea tread?

No?

Do I know?

Text me later?

Yeah, okay, you're gonna have to come back on.

Yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

Emily is known for her easter eggs.

Are there any that you can drop with us about the adaptation?

Oh, egal eyed viewers may already know.

So I am going to share maybe one easter egg, which is that in the very first draft of People we meet on vacation.

I knew what I would want as a reader was a recreation of the cover, and so I wrote something that was like a recreation of the cover that I think book lovers will identify.

I think I even wrote into the text it was like book lovers will recognize them.

That was like a nod also to book Lovers, which was out at the time.

But I was like, this is a cover recreation, and that is one thing that you know as much as things change from the first draft to the last and what actually gets produced.

I am so proud to know that that book cover recreation did make it into the final And this is.

Something that's okay to share because you literally will not be able to tell.

I don't think in this but in that scene, we do have a little easter egg, which is that Alex is reading an Augustus Everett book in that scene, a book that does not exist.

Funnily enough, I mean none of them exists, but it doesn't exist in print.

Like I have not named this novel in an existing book.

Because Hollywood is weird, and because there are different studios making the Beach Read movie than the people we meet on vacation movie I could use the Augustus Everett name because he gets name checked in people we meet on vacation.

This is so probably boring to other people.

I think this is fascinating.

And so we weren't allowed to use any of the book titles that are included in Beach Read, so we had to come up with a new book.

So I came up with a new book title, and I got to choose from like a couple of different covers.

And Alex is reading this book, which you will not be able to see whatsoever, I don't think, but in the cover recreation, so that's an easter egg on an easter egg, a hat on a hat.

Okay, so for me to know as the director of the next film, Like, where does that fit into Gus's bibliography?

I feel like this is some.

Later But did you know that there is another unnamed happy place?

Yes?

Yes, Okay, good Emily, I am an Emily Henry scholar.

Okay, oh my god, you mentioned book lovers.

I'm wondering how much influence book talk and fans actually have over both your book, Emily, all of your writing, and then you lean on the adaptation, like do you try to put fans' wishes in there.

I can tell you, I can.

See the diplomacy wheels turning in your head.

Like give me a percentage if you can't answer.

So I'll tell you this last summer, I had a wonderful summer intern and I was like trawl the depths of book Talk, book Twitter, all of the places that I cannot look and just kind of come back to me with like a PowerPoint of what these people want.

I had my list, and then I also had my intern create this other list for me as well, and there was some overlap which was fun to see, but it was just a little piece I wanted to add to my research process just to kind of honor my former fangirl self.

Yeah, I mean, and I remember the very first conversation that I had with Brett about people was him saying, can you make me a list of the things that the readers will riot if they don't make it into the final cut.

And so I did that.

But I will say for books, I'm not I'm not doing that because I feel like for books, my attitude is like everything we write will hopefully be someone's favorite book.

But for the adaptations, because there is already this readership to like honor like.

I was very grateful that I knew you would be factoring that in on some level.

Yeah, I remember in our very first meeting, I did ask you if you could only save one scene from this book, what scene would it be?

I do remember?

Do you want me to think?

Tell me, because I have no memory.

It's the condom scene.

Oh you know what didn't make it?

Clearly?

Did it obviously?

Would make it obviously?

No?

Oh wait, no, no, no, you're right, you're right.

Oh I thought you were talking about Oh my god, I thought you were talking about a different condom scene.

There are two.

There are two different condom scenes in that book.

One is funny and one is sweet.

And also, you lean you love a sex scene.

Yeah, I've gotten to interview you before.

You love a sex scene?

Well, this condom scene is a comedic.

Comedic, the sexy condom scene did not make it in.

Sadly, do you guys feel like book talk has changed romance because I remember growing up I would read my favorite books.

I didn't even think about what the author looked like, and now not at all, like there are I mean, you both are famous authors.

People know what you look like.

They care, they're they're following you on TikTok and Instagram.

It's really changed.

Do you think BookTalk has changed romance as a genre.

Yeah, I think it's.

Certainly left like a mark on it.

From what I've studied of book talk, A lot of it also comes from kind of fandom, and specifically this fan fiction archive archive of our own.

I think the distillation of tropes that we know and love in fan fiction was not actually as prevalent in romance before a certain point in time, Like they weren't as codified as like there's only one bed once.

That language of fandom infiltrated romance like BookTalk, which I think makes so much sense because fandom people are extremely online people.

Extremely online people are more likely to make content on BookTalk, and then they're more likely to talk about it, and why not use this vocabulary that we are all already kind of conversant in to describe it.

But then I think that's when publishing starts to see it as a marketing tool.

Yeah, and then they're like, it becomes this shorthand for us all.

And so I do feel like I've seen the fanficification a little bit of romance.

Would you say we completely.

I agree, And that's not like just a good or bad thing.

I think it's a kind of a neutral thing.

But I will say tropes literally only matter if you care about the characters, like it really only matters if I get to see how these two very specific characters operate in this situation and what happens when they are in this situation.

Yeah, okay, Well, speaking of book talk, we have a fan question for you.

Hi.

My name is Michel from Texas.

I love how you described Little Crescent Island in Great, big, beautiful Life, So I want to ask Emily if you could live in any place you've written about, where would it be and why?

Oh my gosh, I want to live in all of them.

I feel like i'm torn Wayneing Bay, Michigan fictional place northern Michigan from Funny Story, but in the winter, I would like to live in Palm Springs, where Alex and Poppy go.

I would take either of us happily.

Oh.

My name is Nna.

I live in New York and I'm huge fans of both of you.

I'd love to know, as writers, how do you come up with those swoony moments that make readers like me go wild For example, you lean, I still think about that scene and how to end a love story where he writes on her thigh, and then I'd love to know how do you work on translating those moments to the screen and showing the chemistry between the two romantic leads Oh.

So good moment.

As I was writing it, I was just like watching the movie in my mind, and I was like, what do I want to happen next?

And I was like, well, that would be compelling, And so I think that was what happened there, and I think I'm always chasing that feeling, and so when it comes to translating that to the screen, I think it's it's kind of different if I'm directing versus when I'm writing.

When I'm writing, I'm creating a blueprint that's for production.

And so I knew that I really wanted Emily's books are sexy.

I wanted it to be a sexy movie, and I didn't want that to get lost somewhere along the game of telephone that is production.

And so I remember writing into the script for one of the sex scenes, it was, this is a sex scene that makes you wish you were having sex right now, and that line.

That line made it into the final.

Such a good line.

It's a great one, Emily.

I heard you say, I'm saying yes to things for my future self.

I'm wondering for each of you, what is something that you are terrified of saying yes too, but you're going to do anyway?

Oh gosh, you're doing it for future?

Yeah, Emily, can I start with you?

No?

You lean?

Do you already have an answer that can buy me time?

Sure?

Yeah, right now?

I would say.

It's dance class.

So I figure skate and I was talking to my coach about how do I get more graceful, and she said, we'll take a dance class.

And she's been saying this for the last seven years that I've been skating, and finally I decided, Okay, I'll take a dance class.

I think right now for future me.

That's the thing is I'm committing to doing I'm committing to the suck a little bit, yeah, in the hopes that it will get better.

And it has gotten better.

Actually, when I look at the videos, I'm like, oh wow, there's like a marked difference, but it's it's hard.

Yeah.

I love that answer, and like something I respect and admire about you so much, Euleen, is that you, I feel like, consistently push yourself to try new things, like as we get older, especially when we find something that we're good at, it's really really really hard and scary to try something new, and I hate being bad at things.

And so I guess my answer if I'm just going to piggyback off of yours, which I am, is I have been playing tennis and the same thing, I am so on athletic, and I don't know, like, I think that is kind of a huge deal for me, as like a perfectionist, to be like, yeah, I'm bad at this thing and I keep doing it like I can't ever be I'm not going to be a professional tennis player.

You're never going to make your money doing.

Yes, I will never.

No one wants to pay to see.

That, but you'll eventually be good totally.

Okay, I'm giving you guys internet class.

Oh those were great answer, Thank you, great, great answers.

Okay, we're coming up on the end of our conversation, which means it's time for speed read.

Here's how it works.

We put sixty seconds on the clock and we're going to see just how many rapid fire questions.

I should say rapid fire literary questions that you can get through.

We're going to go popcorn style, so you Lean, you'll get a question, and then Emily you get a question after you Ready, Let's do it.

You're lacked in Okay, three?

Two?

One?

Okay.

One literary trope you would ban forever, Emily.

Billionaire, romance, secret pregnancy.

Oh.

One that you'll defend with your life.

Ooh, Friends to Lovers, Forced Proximity.

Yes.

Favorite book to recommend to people.

Anything by Varry McFarlane or Kennedy Ryan.

Luck of the Draw by Kate Claiborne writing it down?

What book do you wish you could read again for the first time?

Gone Girl?

Probably Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

Honestly, you know, like take it back.

I just watched a Yeah, man, I just watched a movie recently.

If you could live vicariously through one fictional character, who would that be?

This is so messed up, but I want to say Amy from.

Gone Okay, Yuleen, how about you Elouise at the Plaza?

I just want to be rich with a drunk nanny and a plug a turtle.

You have ten minutes in a bookstore.

Which area are you going to?

First?

Romance?

It says on the day romance or sci fi?

Weirdly?

Oh really?

Yeah, Emily, that was a left turn, I know.

Okay, what's your red flag reading happened?

Oh this is a new one.

People are skimming books.

Some people only read the dialogue.

People who leave restar Goodreads reviews give it a one or a five.

Commit Yes, okay, a book that's shaped the way you see the world.

I'm going to say the Giver, but mostly because it taught me about like what writing could do.

I think it's Sanford Meisner's book on acting.

Do you ever read the last page first?

I used to, really, but not anymore.

No.

I did it consistently through high school and then I stopped.

Danielle, do you do that?

No?

Never?

Never?

Okay.

My last question to you both is what have you bookmarked this week?

It doesn't have to be about reading.

It could be anything that you've you know, like kind of like saved on your Instagram or anything.

I know, I'm going to buy screenshots because it's like I do that thing of screen chatting an article I want to read later.

Yeah, I feel like mine is going to be like embarrassing because even.

Better, you Lean, I just screenshotted to Google and read this later from BBC Science Focus magazine.

Scientists say are chances of finding alien life just skyrocketed.

I don't know why because I haven't googled it yet.

Very sci fi.

This makes sense now, Okay, you Leen.

So the last thing I saved was a New York Times article dancing to the beating Heart of the New York Public Library.

The mission behind the Monica, Bill Barnes and Company is to bring dance where it doesn't belong.

And it's an experiential art company that it does dance in places where dance doesn't belong.

And I was like, oh, how interesting.

Clearly dance is on my mind.

So yeah, and you know what, dance belongs everywhere.

First of all, that's true.

Oh, I do have another one.

I don't know anything about where this is going.

So the Dad O'Brien posted a thing about I think I knew podcast she has maybe called Murder on the Toepath.

Okay, so that's something I wanted to look into.

Can I tell you My second thing I've bookmarked is how to rewax your barber jacket, which is a YouTube video on YouTube and I need to rewax my jacket and I watch it.

It's the most sexual thing I've seen me.

Yeah, it's this very handsome man and he like and just like works it into.

The jacket book mark that you're like, I'm coming back to this and we're gonna circle back.

This has gotten so weird.

Thank you so much.

The perfect way to end any podcast.

Absolute perfect.

No, Emily, you lean.

It's so fun to listen to you because you're so descriptive even in your speech.

Like I I if I had to like close my eyes and I hadn't read any of your books, I would know both of you were writers.

So thank you so much for taking the time.

This was so fun.

Thank you so much.

This was a joy.

This was great.

And that's a wrap for our very first episode of Bookmarked by Reese's book Club.

We are so excited you tuned in.

Thank you, and a huge shout out to Emily and Yuline for setting the stage.

This is just the beginning and if you want a little bit more from us, come hang with us on socials.

We're at Reese's book Club on Instagram serving up books Vibes and Behind the Scenes Magic and I'm at Danielle Robe, Roba Y, come say hi and df me and if you want to go nineties on us, call us.

Okay, our phone line is open, so call now at one five ero one two nine one three three seven nine.

That's one five oh one two nine one three seven nine.

Share your literary hot takes, book recommendations, questions about the monthly pick, or let us know what you think about the episode you just heard.

And who knows, you might just hear yourself in our next episode, so don't be shy, give us a ring, and of course, make sure to follow Bookmarked by Reese's book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your shows until then VI in the next chapter.

Bookmarked is a production of Hello, Sunshine and iHeart Podcast.

It's executive produced by Reese Witherspoon and Me Danielle Robe.

Production is by Acast Creative Studios.

Our producers are Matty Foley, Aliah Yates, Britney Martinez and Darby Masters.

Our production assistant is Avery Loftus.

Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder are the executive producers for a Cast Creative Studios.

Maureene Polo and Reese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello, Sunshine, Oga, Caminwa.

Chris Ston, Perla, Kelly Turner, and Ashley Rappaport are associate producers for Reese's book Club.

Ali Perry and Christina Everett are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and Tim Palazola is our showrunner