Babes in Bookland

What happens when you finally stop believing something just because you were told to, and start asking if it's actually true?TikTok creator, singer, and now memoirist Ariel Fitz-Patrick joins me on Babes in Bookland to talk about her new memoir I See for Myself, which takes her viral catchphrase and turns it into a full reckoning with faith, family, and growing up in a strict Pentecostal household. Ariel opens up about being raised by Caribbean immigrant parents in Quebec, the birthday party she wasn't allowed to fully attend, being thrown into a French-language school with zero support at fourteen, and the moment at twelve years old when she realized she didn't actually know God, she just knew of him. This conversation moves through doubt, poverty, spiritual warfare, and what it actually means to build a faith that's yours instead of one you inherited.Please rate and review the show and share this conversation with someone who grew up in the church and is still working out which parts of their faith are actually theirs."I'm telling you to be intentional about how you trust to help you walk through this difficult, confusing, frustrating, maddening thing we call life." - Ariel Fitz-PatrickConnect with Ariel Fitz-Patrick:@arielfitz.patrick@Ariel.fitz (tik tok)Books Referenced:Imma See for Myself by Ariel Fitz-PatrickSupport the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleSubscribe on SubstackThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod 

What is your ripple effect?This week I'm joined by bookstagrammer and journalist Ashley Kritzer (@ashleykrtizer on instagram!) to talk about LABOR by Dr. Mary Afsari, a memoir Ashley championed hard-- and once I read it, I understood exactly why. In under 200 pages, Mary tells two intertwined stories: her own path as an OBGYN pushed to the edge by burnout, policy, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and her search for the truth about her grandmother's death in Iran. The result is a book that is medically intense without ever being gratuitous, and that manages to be both deeply personal and urgently political.Ashley and I dig into what makes the memoir work: its restraint, its refusal to wander into subplots that don't serve the story, and the dual timeline that lets Mary's family history illuminate her present-day fight for women's healthcare. We talk about the hardest case in the book, a child patient whose story exposes how broken the systems meant to protect her really are. We talk about Mary's decision to build a mobile OBGYN practice out of an RV, entirely self-funded, because the traditional system wasn't serving the women who needed her most. And we talk about the eerie, direct line she draws between the crackdown on women's rights in 1979 Iran and what's happening in America right now. We land, as we always seem to, on the same idea: women taking care of women is one of the most beautiful things.Grab a copy of LABOR by Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari, then come back and listen. Share this conversation with someone who needs the reminder that women taking care of women is still one of the most powerful things in the world."My belief that we were doing the right thing as the right time is what kept me going." - Dr. Mary Fariba AsfariConnect with Dr. Mary Fariba Asfari:@maryfaribapdxConnect with Ashley Kritzer:@ashleykritzerAshley Kritzer's SubstackBooks Referenced:LABOR by Dr. Mary Fariba AsfariSupport the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleSubscribe on SubstackThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod 

What happens when the company that promises to change the world asks you to disappear into it?Claire Stapleton spent twelve years at Google, first as the internal voice known as the company's Bard, then as one of the organizers of the 20,000-person walkout that made international headlines. In this episode, we dig into her new memoir, Don't Be Evil, tracing her journey from true believer to whistleblower, and what it actually cost her to tell the truth about a company that built its entire identity on a promise it couldn't keep.Claire opens up about the corporate language that slowly ate her own voice, the manager who pushed her off her team while she was pregnant, and the strange psychological architecture of a workplace designed to feel like a religion. She talks candidly about grief, motherhood, and the brother she lost early in her career, whose old Gchat messages became some of her most important source material while writing this book. It's a conversation about power, complicity, and what happens when a woman decides she's done playing the good girl.Send this episode to the friend who still can't quite explain why she left her dream job, or the one who's trying to figure out how to keep her voice inside a company that would rather she didn't have one.Connect with Claire Stapleton:@clairewavesSupport the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod Books Referenced:Don't Be Evil by Claire StapletonComplaint! by Sara AhmedCareless People Empire of AI by Karen HaoThe Managed Heart by Arlie HochschildWork Rules! Laszlo BockOther Links:Claire's Substack CNN Business — "One year after the Google walkout, key organizers reflect on the risk to their careers"https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/01/tech/google-walkout-one-year-later-risk-takersThe Guardian (via Yahoo News) — "Demoted and sidelined: Google walkout organizers say company retaliated"https://news.yahoo.com/culture-retaliation-google-employees-punished-222552257.htmlGulf News / AFP — "Google walkout organiser quits, citing retaliation fear"https://gulfnews.com/amp/story/world%2Famericas%2Fgoogle-walkout-organiser-quits-citing-retaliation-fear-1.1559966090539CNBC — "Former Google activist Claire Stapleton is starting an advice newsletter for frustrated tech workers"https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/ex-google-activist-claire-stapleton-starts-advice-newsletter.htmlMashable (via Yahoo News) — "Google employees reveal the hidden costs of speaking out"https://news.yahoo.com/google-employees-reveal-hidden-costs-195821971.htmlGrokipedia — bio/timeline overview (useful for quick-reference dates and the full organizer list, though not a traditional outlet, so worth double-checking against primary sources)https://grokipedia.com/page/claire_stapleton

What happens when a memoir promises a reckoning but delivers armor instead?In this Babes in Bookland bonus episode, I'm joined by my friend Lizzie to dig into Hayden Panettiere's memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. Lizzie listened to the audiobook first, and warned me it was painful, so I braced for a gutting, Christina Applegate style read, and came out with a completely different experience of the same book. That gap between the two of us became the real story of this episode.Hayden rose to fame before she was old enough to understand what fame meant, from Remember the Titans to Heroes to two Golden Globe nominated seasons of Nashville, all while quietly carrying the pressure of being Hollywood's It Girl. Her memoir promises postpartum depression, addiction, domestic abuse, and loss, and we both went in rooting for her. What we found instead was a book that kept circling its own most painful moments without ever landing on them, a codependent relationship with her mother that never gets fully named, and a custody decision that's never quite explained. We talk through what worked, why the cover and author photo tell you almost everything you need to know before you even open the book, and why they both think the deeper, more vulnerable version of this memoir is still a few years away.Listen to the full episode to hear us work through it, and let us know: would you recommend this one, or wait for the sequel?

What does it take to finally name the thing that happened to you?Sarah is the author of She Journeys, a memoir about a military marriage that devolved into betrayal, a helicopter crash, and years of numbness before she could even recognize her own trauma for what it was. We talk about leaving an abusive relationship, the therapist who validated her martial rape, rebuilding faith on her own terms, and the solo road trip across the country that became the beginning of an entirely different life.Share this one with the friend who's in the in-between place after a loss, and the friend who needs to hear that starting over is possible, even when it feels impossible.Links:Instagram: she_journeysBook: She JourneysSupport the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod 

What happens when the person hired to keep you safe is fighting a system that would rather look the other way?This week's bite-sized episode dives into Lifeguard, A Love Story, the memoir from Janet Fash, one of the first female lifeguard chiefs in New York City history, co-written with Cleo Chang. I read through Janet's decades on Rockaway Beach, from her start as a hazed rookie lifeguard in the debauchery-soaked 1970s to her years-long battle against entrenched union corruption at the top of the Parks Department. It's part coming of age story, part exposé, and I break down where each half succeeds and where the blend gets uneven, plus why that slow first third might test even the most patient reader.I also gets into the harder threads running through the book: the tragedies Janet survives along the way, the sexism and harassment she faces climbing the ranks, and the quietly devastating stakes of what happens when a beach safety system is run for power instead of people. It's a messy, imperfect memoir about what it actually costs to be the one person willing to keep pushing when everyone else has made peace with looking away.Give this one a listen, then let us know if you made it past that first third. Like, review, and share Babes in Bookland with a friend who needs a stubborn woman in their life this summer.Links:Book: Lifeguard: A Love StorySupport the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod 

What happens when the world tells you no, and someone decides to say yes instead?Gaelynn Lea is a folk musician, Broadway composer, and Tiny Desk Contest winner whose memoir It Wasn't Meant to Be Perfect is as funny and warm as she is, even when she's writing about near-death experiences, medical dismissal, and growing up disabled in a world that wasn't built for her. We talk about gatekeepers versus gate openers, the teacher who adapted a violin instead of saying no, sexuality and disability, and the one sentence from a mentor that changed how she thinks about making art at all.Share this one with the friend who's scared to put their creative work out into the world, and the friend who could use a reminder that adapting isn't the same as giving up.Links:Website: violinscratches.comSubstack: gaelynnlea.substack.comInstagram/socials: @gaelynnleaFacebook: Galen Lee CreatesBook: It Wasn't Meant to Be Perfect Support the show:Buy us a bookBuy cute merchon PatreonSubscribe on AppleThis episode is produced, recorded, and its content edited by me. Xx, AlexConnect with us and suggest a great memoir!Follow us on instagram! @babesinbooklandpod 

What if the coziest story of your childhood was only cozy because someone decided what to leave out?This week Brett is back for a book club chat on Little House on the Prairie and the real manuscript behind it, Pioneer Girl. We get into how Laura Ingalls Wilder's actual life story got rewritten by her daughter Rose into something sellable for Depression-era kids, what got cut along the way (a dead baby brother, a murdered family friend, an entire year of their lives), and the Osage history the books erase almost entirely, land that was never actually free, a removal that happened right past their door.We also talk about Pa, who gets remembered as the moral center of the whole series and maybe doesn't deserve it, and about Yesteryear, this year's buzziest book club pick, where a trad-wife influencer wakes up living the 1855 life she's been selling on Instagram.This is a conversation about which parts of our history get to be cozy and which parts get quietly left out, and who decides. If it resonates, subscribe, leave a review, and send it to a friend who loved these books as a kid too.Books & Sources MentionedPioneer Girl: The Annotated AutobiographyThe full Little House series (Laura Ingalls Wilder)The Rose Years series (Roger Lee MacBride)The Caroline Years series (Maria D. Wilkes & Celia Wilkins)Yesteryear by Caro Claire BurkeKillers of the Flower Moon by David GrannPrairie Fires by Caroline FraserFrances Kaye, "Little Squatter on the Osage Diminished Reserve," Great Plains Quarterly (2000)Osage Nation historical documentation (referenced re: 1869–70 removal)PBS American Masters piece on Laura Ingalls WilderComing Up Next Week!Author chat with Gaelynn Lea on her memoir It Wasn't Meant to Be Perfect — a folk musician, Broadway composer, and disability advocate on embracing every kind of body.Thank you!xx, Alex