So LC is getting her room painted so we're in a weird new studio that's all echoey and loud. We can't figure out if we're cool with it or not (feat Chloe whisper-shouting). But that didn't stop us from getting into Lauren Kung Jessen's astrology flavoured rom-com Lunar Love!

• Katie being super sweaty, super aggro about this book for some reason and how she whistles when she orders Subway
• Chloe is trying to bully the girls into adding to 10 years with BTS social media thing. Also she's pretty sure Jungkook is sending her coded messages in his karaoke choices. It's all part of her dealing with her upcoming military wife status
• Chloe low-key forgetting how to read halfway through the author bio. Which might be a side effect of exposure to Bennet's arms. Which she really did not stop talking about. This whole bicep exposure she's getting with the 4th gen KPop groups is making her EVEN thirstier
• How talking about real love has us talking about LC and her bloke's stupid happy marriage - mutual respect, teamwork, and pretending to be a 10 year old boy from Tallaght
• New love vs stable relationships - which is better? And is that harder for folks that are LGBTQ, since straight folks (straight girls anyway) be all flirty but not interested
• Our opinions on the zodiac and whether it takes advantage of vulnerable people or not
• How astrology deep dives can fuel the romance of the beginning of a relationship
• Can you appropriate your own culture? With a sidebar into Chloe's deep-seated fear of traditional Irish music sessions. Which, to be fair, are terrifying

It's all in the latest Chick Lit 4 Life!

We are back! Even a weird & confusingly specific increase in LC's normal job work couldn't keep us from finally getting our episode on Kate Solly's Tuesday Evenings at the Copeton Crochet Collective together!

What do the girls get into? Well, we've got:

- Crochet and it's power to bring people together - no seriously we've seen it - LC's Mam yarnbombs with her knitting club. It's serious shit
- Racism, particularly as it pertains to people migrating from war or famine. A very timely issue in Ireland in 2023
- How having a bunch of young kids seems like the scariest thing in human existence, and Katie & Sersh get into the whole biological countdown they do be feeling
- Yasmin's character - seriously we would have read a whole book just about her
- The 'soft' racism that Yasmin has to deal with - that at least 2 of the girls could imagine themselves perpetrating without meaning to
- Katie's head exploding from loving Harper's character, and digging that Sr Ruth wanted to help her, despite her being a nun and therefore the ANTIKATIE
- The mindreading and judgement going on among the crochet group and how it reminded us of a LOT of the same things we do
- Bad bitch energy and why Katie would thank Megan Thee Stallion for stepping on her neck

Tangents? You got it - the girls also got into:

- How K-Pop powerhouse Stray Kids are Austraian and so is Kate. We don't need more than that for a link you guys. Also Katie is cheating on BTS's Yoongi with SKZ Changbin. She's got a thing for Korean rappers…
- Shout out to Buzzfeed getting Eric Nam to read thirst tweets. It's the best thing that has ever happened in the history of the world
- And Sarah and Clee discussing having their period during bedroom dance party sessions. No seriously

It's all here in the latest Chicklit4Life!!

You guys - it's the last show of 2022! We were able to get one last book into the year - Kiley Dunbar's SPARKLING "Christmas at the Borrow A Bookshop"!

Eagle-eyed listeners will know we've covered this book's predecessor in Series 6, and this second installment in the series is JUST as gorgeous!

Topics covered include (but are not limited to):

• We love that it's not a Hallmark movie Christmas story. That would have triggered us too hard
• Jowan is a bad bitch and Saoirse absolutely would
• Magnus and Alex falling in love at first sight and what that has to do with the unbearable lightness of being (oh we can get wanky if we want you guys)
• Magnus triggering all our internalised misogyny by being a feminist ICON
• The Pride & Prejudice insertion and a related argument over whether that is better content than the time BTS's Jungkook's jacket couldn't withstand his pecs
• The romance of someone taking responsibility for themselves for the sake of the other person
• Ben being the actual worst. Seriously, he is lucky he's not a real person. He would have caught these hands
• The whole book is a death defying balance between high romance, sexy sexual tension, proper melodrama and some serious old school action - anchored in people being human and understanding that dramatic stuff is transient - being okay in yourself is the one thing we can work towards as a constant. And we are HERE FOR IT

Plus, it wouldn't have been an episode without some tangents right? We found ourselves talking, for some reason, about:

• How we're freezing
• Chloe's stance on bobble hats
• BTS's Jin going into the military and the weirdly biased Wikipedia page about women in the Korean military
• What is quite possibly our very first masturbation joke ever (how did we make it this long?
• Katie's mam makes her own mince pies. No one is surprised.
• Though all her adorableness is harnessed at this time of the year to help the St Vincent de Paul Christmas appeal and we encourage our listeners to support similar organisations if they're in the position to do so :)

It's all here in this week's Chick Lit 4 Life!

You guys, do you have any idea - any idea - how romantic and compelling Malinda Lo's "Last Night At The Telegraph Club" is?
Seriously, I hope you have all had your coffee because this is a WHIRLWIND of fangirling - including, but not limited to:

• The super intense level of grossness McCarthyism introduced for immigrant communities in the US in the 1950s (and what is McCarthyism anyway?*)
• Contradictory expectations of womanhood - what people want from you sexually vs what they want you to be in public. Which, from our view, was even worse for the community of young women in this book
• How sexuality and puberty can be really scary at the beginning (and all the way through, let's be real). And whether that makes us less sex-positive (we don't think it does. But we've been wrong before...)
• Kath is scarily similar to Katie and we don't know how we're only realising it now
• Fear for your own community making it next to impossible to empathise with others in a similar situation (and therefore, somehow, Chloe's first ever Woke Alert)
• How making a character's misery just a tad less miserable gets us as readers into their shoes SO much quicker (which, in turn, makes us just as miserable as they are, instead of just looking at someone suffering)
• Sarah saying "advantage" instead of "advances" and no one noticing
• Clee and Katie saying "level" way too much, and have since signed up for a vocabulary building course
• Katie getting too excited reading a bit from the book about a newspaper article and barely explains what she's talking about

I mean, of course there are tangents - it wouldn't be CL4L without them!
This week, the girls also talk:

• Poking your Mam in the boob age 4
• How Sarah has managed to pee herself while working out
• The fact we can all have a go at each other and not worry about our friendship being affected by unsaid things
• The girls' top 5 Katie Murphy intro songs
• Birth of the name "TeQuliodhna"

I mean, it does NOT get better than that you guys!

*If you want to read more about the effect of McCarthyism on the Asian American community we loved this article that PBS published as part of their “Asian American and Pacific Islander Experience” feature collection: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/mccarthy-numbed-with-fear-chinese-americans/

Oh people, this episode of CL4L was supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows, discussing Mhairi McFarlane's sparkling "Mad About You", but somehow it ended up with Katie getting super upset about something her bloke Dave said, but it all getting twisted and her thinking Chloe and the girls think she's dumb or something for being with him in the first place? It was super weird, but luckily, that was only one small, weird-ass part of the show

We did get to talk about lovely book related things, including but not limited to:

• The energy Harriet puts into not allowing her past to define her being equal parts inspiring and sad-making
• How everyone in this novel gets the wrong end of the stick about something or someone and we are HERE for that type of content (and no the irony is not lost on us)
• Misreading your place in a relationship vs being possessive vs actual emotional abuse. And hell do we get into it you guys
• Cal essentially being Ryan Gosling but in the North of England, also his shirts be real nice

And we even had time for some non-Dave related sadness tangents! We got into:

• How Chloe can still broadcast effectively while ugly-crying
• Tom Segura and Bert Kreischer (Thicc Boy Nation Represent) having an unexpectedly strong influence on Clee
• Chloe's improved Korean
• How we all have very different opinions on the whole incoming winter situation (Clee, for one, can't wait to get back into her standard issue ginger girl knitwear)

It's all here in this month's Chick Lit 4 Life!!

Oh gorgeous humans - the girls are back and they are COVID free! (Note: there is still a slight sinus infection within the group but that's not what we're here to talk about is it?!)

What we are we're here to talk at length about Bonnie Garmus's luminous "Lessons in Chemistry" and man alive we have much to say

Points of note include:

• Respect = Love. You can't have one without the other
• The idea of being with someone and never running out of something to talk about is goals
• A writing style and tone that treats inequality as the farce it is - more effective than a thousand angry monologues
• Judgement and how it becomes a habit.
• Internalised migogyny turning women against each other
• Elizabeth having no one to lean on
• People are so much more than their trauma, and Elizabeth is kind of the president of that place
• Closet allies and non-human hero allies (we can't handle how much we love Six-Thirty)
• The hate you catch when you find joy and live joyously on your own terms

Tangents you ask? Oh they were plentiful. Including, but not limited to:

• LC's holiday to Gran Canaria has weirdly reminded the girls that they'll be out of their teens soon. No we don't know how that happened either
• Talking about BTS's upcoming break to work on solo projects led to some weird ass conspiracy theories we were NOT prepared for...
• Chloe low-key bullying Sarah because she does Multimedia and not Science (Chloe has since apologised)
• Chloe coins the phrases "You can't beat a bit of Regency Ridin" and "Queen to Queen Combat". You're all welcome

Lessons in Chemistry is available at all reputable booksellers - YOU NEED IT IN YOUR LIFE

Beautiful people, MAGNIFICENT people! We are back and we are ready to talk about the last book in our series on People What We Love Loads - Elaine Feeney's "As You Were"!

Points of note include:

• Clee is quite taken with Elaine. Like it could be a problem
• These characters being some of the most compelling we've seen in FOREVER
• The toll that patriarchal abuse takes on a person - often turning them into someone doling out their own share of pain to others
• The indignity of illness
• Is taking a decision out of someone's hands or keeping secrets to protect someone a good or bad thing?
• And a healthy aside about the atrocity that was the Irish Mother & Baby Home industry (Katie insisted we term it as such)

Tangents you ask? Oh they were plentiful. Including, but not limited to:

• The 2011 performance poetry crew, of which LC was briefly part
• Saoirse doesn't need your thoughts and prayers. No seriously. She'll scratch your eyes right out man
• Chloe's boobs are unexpectedly climate conscious
• Chloe needing to go to Vegas to see BTS - and the fact the girls all went to see the PTS in Seoul show a week or 2 ago
• Cliodhna, Saoirse and Chloe can still remember all of the stuff a bishop carries around with him. They insist they are not religious. Katie is still not talking to them.

As You Were is available at all reputable booksellers - go get yourselves a copy!

Oh holy crap you guys. Today, we are not here to talk about just any book. We are here to talk about the new novel from the QUEEN of warm, affecting, hilarious fiction herself, MS MARIAN KEYES (thunderous applause)

Not only are we talking a new Marian Keyes novel, we are also talking a return to our beloved Walsh family, and arguably our favourite Walsh - Rachel! When we last saw Rachel in The Mystery of Mercy Close she was happily married to sexy, tight-pantsed Luke and living in New York as a serene addiction therapist. But now she's back in Ireland and has had many changes in her life. What's going on and WHY ARE WE SO TRAUMATIZED BY THE FAMILY TREE GRAPHIC AT THE BEGINNING

Points of note include:

• The aforementioned Most Traumatizing Family Tree Graphic Ever Drawn
• The Walshes and OH MY GOD HOW MUCH WE LOVE THEM
• Addiction and the reality of how it effects so so many of us - more than we're willing to admit
• The effect of trauma on your reality
• The corrosive nature of shame
• The undeniable human miracle of recovery
• And how we are 100% on board with Mammy Walsh's funeral demands

Tangents you ask? Oh they were plentiful. Including, but not limited to:

• Chloe's weirdly specific fantasy about buying wind chimes with Queen Marian in Busan, South Korean (before or after marrying BTS's Jungkook, she is not particular)
• The theory that success in business is inextricably linked to the volume and quality of your coat wardrobe, and hence the cultural moment that was K-Drama Itaewon Class
• A very strange interlude about Chloe's fanny and Soap and Glory products (don't ask)
• An introduction to Saoirse and Cliodhna's plant babies
• Katie's middle name is Veronica and for some reason that's hilarious
• "Childhood horseriding = abnormally muscular adult calves"

Again, Rachel is out on 17-Feb, pre-order your copy now. NOW DAMNIT!