I've recommended it to a lot of people, and I'm gonna continue to do so because it's a genuinely brilliant book.

Hi, I'm Stacey Yu, author of Kitten, and the book I'd like to add to your summer reading pile is Claudine in Paris by Colette.

Mm-hmm.

Like Elif Batuman's The Idiot is an example of, like, a narrator who I would follow anywhere just because, like, her perspective on things is just so interesting, and, like, the way she narrates her life, um, it could just be about listening to a song on her Walkman and I'm like, I'm fascinated [laughs] because she just has such an interesting way of seeing the world.

So I wanted Katie to hopefully strike that, um, tension of, you know, sh- she's, it's, she's relatable but, like, not quite.

Um, she's a little bit idiosyncratic [laughs] and not all that likable sometimes.

But, um, I wanted her to sort of have a perspective that stayed consistent and strong throughout that was different from, like, any other character that you might encounter.

And like you mentioned choices and the lack of choices that she is making, which was an active choice on my part because, you know, like, her whole desire as a character is to resist making choices and to resist the agency that, like, comes with growing up.

Um, but obviously I think, like, a character who doesn't make choices and doesn't do anything isn't very fun to read about.

... things that, uh, inspire you as a reader and a writer.