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2 brothers, 1 girl, 0 chance we're onboard with this love triangle. In The Summer I Turned Pretty, we follow Isabel "Belly" Conklin, who hasn't had much luck with boys finding her attractive, especially the one boy she's been pining over for forever, Conrad Fisher. That all changes the summer she turns 16, where not only does she catch Conrad's attention, but also the attention of his younger brother, Jeremiah. Add in a third love interest, Cam Cameron, and what follows is a messy summer for Belly where she's navigating her feelings, her newfound attractiveness, and her insecurities.

In this episode, we talk about pretty privilege, the damaging effects of the broody guy trope and the depiction of female friendships. Heather clocks Jennie Han's age as a fellow Xennial (she's really not 60, guys), Hannah tells us about the Westermarck effect and we find out Hawa really doesn't read our group chat. We may not be onboard with this brother love triangle but the book gave us a lot to talk about.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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Wow. Truly, we are so glad we took a detour to the affluent and completely bananas town of Sweet Valley, California to meet Jessica and Elizabeth Wakefield. These books have everything: an evil twin, a greaser who carjacks people and takes them to dive bars, an art teacher named Stuart who has no boundaries, and a lie detector test that measures your pulse with a thimble. In this episode we dive into books 1 and 57 of the enormous Sweet Valley High series, Double Love and Teacher Crush. Who knew books about high school sororities (?!?) and mandatory electives could be so compelling? In this episode of TBMM, we play the vintage SVH board game, learn about Hawa's twinness, hear about Hannah's faux twinness, and Hawa implies that Heather is 60. These books are really struggling to pass the Bechdel test, but we kind of love them. There are no deep themes, beautiful writing, or well developed characters here, folks, just teen soap opera nonsense that you can't put down.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

Music during the author bio is Neon Waves by Starfall.

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In a TBMM first, we read a book with substantially different editions! That's right, we all came to the podcasting table calling the main character by different names. We got that sorted out (and we're defaulting to the most current edition) and dove right in to this lovely book, The Birchbark House, by Louise Erdrich. This book made us laugh and cry and everything in between as we follow Omakakiins and her family through the seasons. This week we discuss whether Old Tallow is a feminist legend, whether a baby can be reincarnated as a bird, and the pretty disturbing origins of the smallpox vaccine. We compare and contrast today's title with the Little House books and examine femininity and our central characters' relationships with their environment.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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While Canada has Anne of Green Gables about a girl growing up in the late 19th century, America has the Little House on the Prairie series. This episode we look at 2 books from the Prairie series, Little House in the Big Woods and Little House on the Prairie by author Laura Ingalls Wilder. These semi-autobiographical books follow Laura, her parents (Charles and Caroline) and her sisters (Mary and Carrie) from their quiet life in woods of Wisconsin to their perilous journey out to the prairie in the Kansas. Given the time period, Wilder and the Prairie series are not without controversy. We discuss women's roles during the time period, Charles's hasty and ill-advised decisions, and the overt racist depictions of Native Americans. We recognize these books' place in the children's literature canon but we also discuss what space they occupy in our present day.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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We love a little 90s nostalgia and The Hate U Give delivers on that front. It also delivers on the well drawn characters and hard hitting plot elements front. Angie Thomas took us on an emotional roller coaster with Starr in this book and we laughed, cried, and loved right along with her. We loved the Tupac references and Maverick's take on Harry Potter and cheered for Starr when she grabbed that megaphone. We are discussing all sorts of big issues in this book from microaggressions, code switching, police brutality, and interracial relationships. As always we learned something about ourselves and each other along the way. We narrowly avoid a tragic Vanilla Ice moment and debate whether being known as the Fresh Princess is cute or cringe.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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We're back post-merge and our Mattel and Pleasant tribes are now the Pattel tribe. Will there be friction in the now combined tribe? Who will be the first member of the jury? Will any of the immunity idols come into play? We're debating personality traits, just how far Katniss's Rue guilt will go, whether Kirsten even needs the money given her dead man's chest of treasure back home, and much more in this, our final TBMM tribal council.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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Have you ever wished your favorite characters from different books could meet each other? Have you ever wished they could fight each other for food, resources, and prizes while sleeping in the sand in Fiji? No? Well we have. In this very special season ending edition of TBMM, we bring back a special guest host, Survivor Superfan Kelsey, to Jeff Probst us through a battle between some of our favorite heroines from past TBMM episodes. Will Katniss quietly dominate with her skills from the arena? Will Kirsten accidentally burn down the camp? Is Turtle going to kick her teammates if they lose a challenge or will she Russell Hantz her way to immunity idol glory? And what exactly is a pastry bar and will it be enough to keep Claudia playing? We contemplate these questions and more as we decide which of our girls will outwit, outplay, and outlast.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.

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We're back with part 2 of Gabi, a Girl in Pieces because we needed more than one episode to sing its praises. What can we say, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces just does so much right. Gabi is a complex and interesting character, who doesn't dim her light for any man. The book accurately captured the vibes of border towns, like Tijuana, and the realities of meth addiction. It even managed to be a much better depiction of teen sexuality than Planned Parenthood Pamphlet, Forever by Judy Blume (the bar is super low, we know...).

Honestly, Gabi's only fault is she leaves us hanging on whether the wings she had to sign a waiver for at Pepe's House of Wings were truly that hot. The Hot Ones fans in us want to know. And for our quiz, we found the answer to, "Which Romantic Poet Are you" and spoiler, someone did not like her results.

These Books Made Me is a podcast about the literary heroines who shaped us and is a product of the Prince George's County Memorial Library System podcast network. Stay in touch with us via Twitter @PGCMLS with #TheseBooksMadeMe, on Instagram @TheseBooksMadeMe or by email at TheseBooksMadeMe@pgcmls.info. For recommended readalikes and deep dives into topics related to each episode, visit our blog at https://pgcmls.medium.com/.