Sep 23, 2026 · 43 min · 34 segments
This week we're reviewing *Waist Deep*, the debut novel by Danish author Linea Maja Ernst that became a smash hit across Scandinavia. Five university friends and their partners spend seven days at a…
Eli RalloHost
Um, if you've forgotten, a brief overview of our book, or if you didn't read it and you're just listening to this, thanks, but also, like, read it.
It's really a chance to catch up and reminisce, but then tensions begin to rise as old feelings of love and lust are uncovered, and it winds up being a story that asks the question: who makes the rules for how we live our lives, and which is the right way? Which, like, I don't know how old everybody is, but I'm 28, and I'm like, yeah, who does make the rules for how we live our lives, and which way is the right way? I mean, on our Culture Catch Up last week, I was talking about, like, motherhood and, like, my feelings about, like, that, and, like, I...
It's just, like, such a thing of, like, you know, some people get married, and they have kids right away, and, like, that's their journey, and then other people wait, and then other people don't have children at all.
Like, I do relate to Sylvia in that sense where I'm like, I kinda wanna do everything and try everything and be everywhere, but, like, you can't.
Like, the underlying thing of the book is, like, you have to choose something at some point.
But anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about the author, Linea Maya Ernst, I believe that's exactly how you pronounce her name, is a staff writer at the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.
Waist Deep is her debut novel, and this is a crazy fucking story to how she came to writing this novel.
She wrote a review of Beautiful World, Where Are You?, which is Sally Rooney's third book, and in the review, she said she sound, found some parts beige.
Rooney's characters, who are from the same generation as Ernst, she claimed had joyless sex.
And she did ultimately say she liked the book, but she did not like how Rooney wrote about sex and intimacy.
But a Danish publisher called her and was like, "Okay, girl, if you think Sally Rooney's sex scenes are so beige, could you do it better?" And she was like, "Hell yeah." Isn't that crazy? Like, I love a story like that.
Um, if you've forgotten, a brief overview of our book, or if you didn't read it and you're just listening to this, thanks, but also, like, read it.
It's really a chance to catch up and reminisce, but then tensions begin to rise as old feelings of love and lust are uncovered, and it winds up being a story that asks the question: who makes the rules for how we live our lives, and which is the right way? Which, like, I don't know how old everybody is, but I'm 28, and I'm like, yeah, who does make the rules for how we live our lives, and which way is the right way? I mean, on our Culture Catch Up last week, I was talking about, like, motherhood and, like, my feelings about, like, that, and, like, I...
It's just, like, such a thing of, like, you know, some people get married, and they have kids right away, and, like, that's their journey, and then other people wait, and then other people don't have children at all.
Like, I do relate to Sylvia in that sense where I'm like, I kinda wanna do everything and try everything and be everywhere, but, like, you can't.
Like, the underlying thing of the book is, like, you have to choose something at some point.
But anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about the author, Linea Maya Ernst, I believe that's exactly how you pronounce her name, is a staff writer at the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen.
Waist Deep is her debut novel, and this is a crazy fucking story to how she came to writing this novel.
She wrote a review of Beautiful World, Where Are You?, which is Sally Rooney's third book, and in the review, she said she sound, found some parts beige.
Rooney's characters, who are from the same generation as Ernst, she claimed had joyless sex.
And she did ultimately say she liked the book, but she did not like how Rooney wrote about sex and intimacy.
But a Danish publisher called her and was like, "Okay, girl, if you think Sally Rooney's sex scenes are so beige, could you do it better?" And she was like, "Hell yeah." Isn't that crazy? Like, I love a story like that.
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