Lit Vibes Only

62: Lit Recs: International Indigenous Peoples

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Join Kelsey and Amanda as they celebrate Native American Heritage Month by escaping North America's borders and diving into the vibrant world of international indigenous literature. Get ready for a fun and enlightening adventure as they uncover hidden gems from indigenous authors around the globe!

00:00 Welcome to Lit Vibes Only!

00:29 Follow Us on Socials

02:38 Our Current Reads

05:33 Celebrating International Indigenous Authors

07:43 Falling Into Rarohenga by Steph Matuku

12:55 The Yield by Tara June Winch

19:13 When A Flower Is Reborn by Rosa Isolde Reuque Paillalef

28:15 Bugs by Whiti Hereaka

35:43 Final Thoughts and Social Media


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See you on Mondays!

Amanda:

Welcome to Lit Vibes Only, where we lit the shit out of books we love and hate. I'm Amanda, the insightful, thrill seeker, and historical fiction nerd.

Kelsey 2.0:

And I'm Kelsey, the unhinged, diehard romantic and fantasy reader. Welcome to our lit Rex episode. For the month? Yes. First we want to direct you to our socials on Instagram, we are Lit Vibes only podcast. And on TikTok and YouTube, we are Lit Vibes only podcast. So come find us over there. We have a lot of fun. Me too. We want you to engage and get more podcast content.

Amanda:

Come say, hey

Kelsey:

and what else

Amanda:

Kelsey? What else? What else do they need to do that's really helpful for us?

Kelsey:

Go rate and review our podcast. Like what else? Yes. Is there, Amanda?

Amanda:

It's so important. Even if you're not on socials, that is like the most important thing you can do for us. Yeah, because first and foremost we are podcasters and not social media influencers. Please head over to Apple Podcast, head over to Spotify, hit that five star rating if you've got an extra moment. Type a sentence or two about the podcast and how much you're enjoying it, and we will be forever and always grateful to you. So thank you in advance for

Kelsey:

that. It's a good point, Amanda. We are not social media specialists. We're not, but we are becoming, she's a specialist. Yeah. We're also not social media specialists. We're not, or influencers, but we're slowly coming because that is part of the

Amanda:

job. It part of the world, it's part of the job. All of that self-promotion that we have to do happens largely, yeah. If not exclusively through social media. So make sure that you're following like, being, commenting, subscribing. It's also like the way that we engage with all of you. Absolutely. No one's really sending us emails. It really is all through dms or through comments on our post. So be sure to, yeah, be sure to hop on our socials and come say, Hey, we have a lot of fun. Thank you. And also have so many more book recs beyond these Litres episodes. I feel like we're always recommending books in our month wrap up, showcase general books that we're reading authors that we're loving. So if you are someone who's constantly looking for your next good read. Our socials are a great place to find'em. Wonderful place. Super great place to do that. Cute. Cool. Awesome. I guess we wanna talk about books that we're currently reading. That's, oh, we could

Kelsey:

but I, this is what I wanted to tell you last episode or the last recording we were doing. Okay. Is that I. M about to read one of your historical fiction. Novels. That, which one? That's curious. You're not even asking me to read. I'm so curious which one it is. It's um, code name Helene.

Amanda:

Oh yes. The er Lahan book that I was gonna have you read like last spring or this past spring. Yeah.

Kelsey:

Oh my gosh. Were you

Amanda:

yeah, that was deciding between that. Yeah, I was deciding between that and Frozen River. I'll be curious to hear, are you doing the audiobook? It looks like audiobook, yeah. Yes. Okay. I'm curious to. I'll be curious what your experience is.

Kelsey:

Yeah,

Amanda:

because I've learned now that I'm doing audio books

Kelsey:

that.

Amanda:

Whether you read the physical copy of a book or listen to the audio book can really make or break your perception. Like it could be a great book, but if you listen to a shitty narrator, read it, then you'll hate the book. And you can also have a book that's actually not that great, but have a dynamic narrator or even just like a dynamic cast of characters and you love it. So it, it's true. I always, when I, when people are like, I love this book, or I didn't like it, and then I listen to what format? They read it in or listened to it in I always kinda take things with a grain of salt because it really changes your. Perception of a book. It can, anyway. Quite a lot. Yeah. Actually, yeah, absolutely. Wanted to throw that out there. That would be a good discussion topic for some other time. But I have noticed that Chats for sure. Yeah, I could feel it. Chats episode I am about, I'm also about to start listening to an audiobook as well. It's called On a Quiet Street. It's by an author who I haven't read before. Uh, Fin Nova Glass. Okay. And it's a thriller and that's pretty much all I know about it. I. Was on Instagram. Yes, on my stories, just like looking at different folk stories that I follow and this person is not like a books to grammar or even a big reader, but they just had this story up and they were like, this is an audio book that I've heard great things about from my friends, and I'm just about to start reading it. And I was like, oh, cool, I'll check it out. And I love the good thriller when it comes to audiobook. I find that much easier to engage with and follow along with. So we'll see if this was a good idea or not, to take a recommendation from a random person. Sometimes it, it's a great banger, but then sometimes

Kelsey:

it's not, it's

Amanda:

adult, so it's hit or miss. Hit or miss. We shall see. But that is what I've got on the docket. Nice. Yeah, so then I, as I've said in many episodes, at this point, I've been really, I've been really enjoying my audiobook. Foray into audiobooks, and this is definitely something I'm gonna continue doing. Nice. Because I can read even when I'm not reading and it's fantastic.

Kelsey:

I love, that's what I love about audiobook. Yes. It's

Amanda:

so great. But we have a really fun, slightly different lit recs episode for you all. Today November is Native American Heritage Month, and if you've been with this podcast since day one, you'll know that last year we recommended a bunch of books from indigenous authors here in North America, specifically the United States, but mostly in North America. I don't think we, I don't think we included Canada. So we wanna continue to expand. Right upon the books that we're recommending. Absolutely. So we're not doing the same thing every year. We wanna branch out. Mm-hmm. We wanna try new things. We wanna find new authors and new books. And so Kelsey and I decided that we were gonna expand this month's heritage and dive into international indigenous peoples. Mm-hmm. So the authors we've selected, the books we've selected. They are all folks who are indigenous, but not from North America, not from the United States. So still celebrating indigenous folks, but just not limiting it. Absolutely. So much. And so we're really excited. We've got four different books, four different authors as always. And yeah, we're just gonna jump right into those. And as always if you're listening to this and have books and authors that fit into this category that you think we should check out. Comment on this episode, on Hear on our socials. We do wanna hear them and we like to compile them right at the end of the month. And then share them with our book community. So we'd love to hear from you as well. Yes, Lisa. Thank you. Ah, awesome. Alright.

Kelsey:

Kelsey, do you wanna kick things off with your first wrap? Oh yes. I have some fun reads I'm excited about and I really wanna read them next month. As. We've said many times on this podcast we record a month in advance, essentially.

Kelsey 2.0:

So we try to get that going beforehand and, so we gather these the month before and then the desire is and hope is that we're reading these novels the following month or novels according to the heritage that we're celebrating. And so I'm really excited to get into these because I haven't read either of them. I don't know that you've read yours. I have not read either of mine either. Yeah. This is very much new territory for me. Yeah. But so exciting. The first one I want to highlight is the author, Steph Maku. And it's called Falling into Roen. Roen. And this is a Maori. Author and she lives in Taranaki in New Zealand. And if you're not familiar, the Maori people are from that area, that general area of like Australia, New Zealand. And I do believe that they had been from. Both of those areas or all of those areas, I'm sure they were like on different islands because of course, as we know borders are fake essentially to, they're manmade. Yeah, manmade. And we're not there. Back in the days when it was just like indigenous folks on the land. And so these borders often cross like the ancestral lands of people's. And she was, Steph was a radio advertiser for 15, 15 years, or in radio advertising for 15 years before she started writing novels and short stories. She, like I just said, she writes novels, short stories, plays. Picture books and is a screenwriter as well. Wow. And so she's in a mixture of many realms of writing but I think her niche really is young adult fiction. And what I saw from her collection, her book collection was fantasy. And that's why I was drawn to her work is because I love it when indigenous mythology is incorporated into mm-hmm. Um, a novel storytelling. Her debut novel was published in 2018, which was a flight of the fan tale in way two Tau and the Magician. And so again, it's another, um. ya fantasy read where it incorporates Maori mythology. And she's been awarded several awards where she won an established Maori writer's residency at the Michael King Writer Center. And what I was reading about this was that she, worked on. So this was an opportunity for her to work on something. And she was working on a post-apocalyptic world around centered around, oh God, what is it called? Ah, I don't know why the word's not coming to me. Essentially like. Why can't I describe it either? Climate change. Oh my dear Lord, that's all it was. That was the word I was looking for anyway. In 2024, she also won. This is a hard word for me. Inaugural. Got it. NZSA Shaw Writers Award. She is also a mother of two children and also lives in New Zealand, like I said earlier. Getting into the actual book it is only 208 pages, so it's very accessible. It's also young adult. I think it might be middle level. That makes sense mean it's a high school, so it's not it's not like a super intense novel or fantasy novel. And it was published in 2021, so fairly recent. And the book is about two siblings, tui and Kai return home to find their mother, Maya, missing and a swirling vortex in her room. And they're pulled into Raro Hega which is the Maori underworld, and the story unfolds from there. That's good. And it's actually in the dual POV from both siblings. They're actually twins and obviously it's incorporating Maori mythology and also I found that it's used in like local New Zealand schools for like programming and things. So you might see it in like curriculum. It has a 3.9 rating on good reads. And I have a quote from someone who reviewed the book on Good Reads, and it says, it is crucial to have such wonderful stories of. Maori culture in our school libraries, and this modern urban fantasy is a gem. The banter between the teen twins is relatable and often hilarious teamed with Maori mythology and under world quest, mythical and magical beings and survival. This action packed shortish fantasy is a winner.

Amanda:

Nice. That makes me think of as soon as you said urban fantasy, it made me think of Trail of Lightning. Oh yeah. Because obviously it's an urban fantasy. It's incorporating indigenous mythology. There are magical beings. They don't go to the underworld. But they're very much on a quest, and so mm-hmm. if we were recommended that book last year for our Native American Heritage Month episode if you read that book and liked it, then this sounds like you might like, you probably like this one as well, and it sounds yeah. Pretty quick to get through. Awesome. Thank you. Yay. Yay. Both of my authors are from that same region of the world. The first I'm gonna talk about is Australian, and the second one is also marry woman from New Zealand. But I'm gonna start with the Australian author. And her book. I also wanna preface all this by saying that neither of us right are from either of these tribes and this language is very unfamiliar to us. So we are doing our best to pronounce all of these Yes. Words and names correctly, but apologies in advance if we are butchering them. This is not our native tongue and we're very much learning. My first book is the Yield. By Tara June Winch, she's an Australian writer and her father is from the Wiradjuri Nation in Western New South Wales. And she grew up in a town called Winona. I actually lived in New South Wales when I was in Australia doing my masters. And I lived in a suburb called Warga, which was right outside of Sydney. Okay. Her first novel she published in 2006 and it was called Swallow the Air and it ended up winning several Australian literary awards. And then in 2008 she was actually, and this is very cool, she was mentored by, wille Ska, who is a Nobel Prize winner. I was like, oh, I know that name. As part of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protege Arts Initiative, Rolex, which I'm sure was just like an amazing experience, opportunity for her, especially as a writer, a growing writer. And then her second book wasn't published until 10 years later actually. It's called After The Carnage and was published in 2016. Also received a lot of critical acclaim. And then her third and most recent book, which is the one I'm gonna be talking about today, is The Yield. And that was published in 2019 and she actually. Does not currently live in Australia. She actually lives abroad now in France with her family. So the yield, as I said, was published in 2019. It's 352 pages, so pretty standard length for an adult novel. Has a great good reads rating 4.08. And as with her previous two novels is a well awarded book. So it won seven national Australian Literary Awards in 2020. Wow. The year after it was published, including the book of the year at the New South Wheel, new South Wales Premier's literary awards, the Prime Minister's Literary Award for fiction and the Miles. Franklin Literary Award. So she absolutely knows what she's doing. And the book focuses on a young indigenous woman August ndi. And she has recently returned home after, or in the aftermath, of her grandfather's death, and she realizes when she returned home. Her people's land is about to be repossessed by a mining company, and so she very quickly gets involved in this quest to protect and reclaim both her land and her culture. And a really cool feature of this book is that it really does focus on the Wiradjuri language, and it actually includes a language dictionary in the book. And I think that's really amazing because so much of. Culture and tradition is passed on through language, and we already know that so many languages have essentially become extinct, right? That they're no longer used. And so preserving a people's language is just so critical. And I love that this book is one way that she's helping to do that. The book focuses on a variety of themes, none of which I'm sure will surprise you, but include colonialism, obviously, environmental issues, and also intergenerational trauma. Which unfortunately is a big component for a lot of oppressed and marginalized people around the world. Both indigenous and otherwise. So it sounds like this book is incredibly timely and hard hitting and undoubtedly will give you a, kinda a peak right into the experiences of some of the Aboriginal people in

Kelsey:

Australia.

Amanda:

So that's my

Kelsey:

first one. Yeah. Thank you. When you were in Australia were Aboriginal peoples like pretty present, or were there like museums or like things, you know how we have casinos here? Yeah. It's very prominent. Like it's obvious that we're here. What was the feel? In where you were? It's really, so

Amanda:

at my school I was a boarding residence assistant at an all girls Anglican school. And we did have some aboriginal students who were there. And unsurprisingly, like a lot of them were our scholarships students, so there's just very much this hierarchy between a lot of our like wealthy. Kinda white students and then our our Aboriginal students. But I did, there were students there. And then one of the interesting things about Australia, and we see this here in the United States, especially in a place like Seattle, the p and w. There's a lot of indigenous place names. So Waga, where I lived, like that is the aboriginal name for that area, and they've maintained it. But I lived on the subway line, the tube line. And it was interesting looking at the stops because a lot of them it's either British, like very Colonial British names, like St. James Square, whatever, right? Or Queen of Victoria Boulevard, whatever. Those aren't actual names, by the way, folks, but like those names, and then it would be like, yeah, Winona wga, et cetera. So it was trippy. And at the same time, it's it felt I struggled with it because like you've, these people are gone, have been displaced from their lands and all that remains is this name that you've kept and it just felt, I mean, I think it's good, but also it felt so, such an empty gesture. Yeah. But a lot of aboriginal folks are still, to my understanding, I'm not an expert by any means, but from what I saw when I was there, we're still living in more rural areas or like out in the bush and not necessarily. In urban centers. Not to say that they're not there,'cause obviously they are.

Kelsey:

Yeah.

Amanda:

But their present isn't as obvious. Yeah. From what I experienced as an outsider, as an American living there for a year. So that was my experience in a nutshell. Yeah. I was just

Kelsey:

curious'cause yeah, I've heard that it can be. Like tough with racism and such. Yep. Yep. And so I was curious what your perspective be having been there.

Amanda:

It very much mirrored. The history of Australia very much mirrored Yeah. Yeah. In a lot of ways. The colonization and the genocide. Yeah. That happened

Kelsey:

here. So moving into my next book, I chose in author from the Mauche Tribe in Chile, and I have been to Chile. And I lived in Valdivia. Southern Chile for four months and I was studying there. And I'll get into like my experience with the indigenous folks there and what that was like. But that's part of why I wanted to highlight this author and book. But it's called When A Flower Is Reborn, the Life and Times of a Mapuche Feminist. And her name. I'm gonna say it slowly because it is, it's about full, it's in. Yes. Rosa is re that is her full name. And she is a Apache che, sorry, Che woman. Born in the community of Chanko. In the commune of, and this is a Che word p. Pitkin Chile and there similar to Australia, like what you were saying, like a lot of these areas will have the traditional mauche names, but there will be an absence of the actual map J people. Yep.

Amanda:

Yeah.

Kelsey:

And this is a semi like auto-biographical work. And I'll get into that a bit more, but she is a longstanding activist in human rights and indigenous rights movements. I don't know if you know any history of Chile, but No, I don't. In 1973, it was overrun by a dictator, Pinochet, and he was a dictator for almost 30 years all the way to 1990. I was there in 2010 and people were still very much afraid to speak up about the dictatorship. Even 20 years later, which like, if you really think about it, it's not that of time. No, it's not. From when they were able to become a democracy versus under a dictatorship it was a very violent time for people. Many people went missing. Were murdered. There were mass graves, if you spoke out against Pinochet or the government, like you were in danger. And so I'm so curious to read this book because of what I know so far about, about what happened during that time. And her. Her narration and like storytelling of that time for her and her people. As the title says, she is a well-known like che feminist and she was also appointed in 2006, so like later on in life. As a laborer, At attache. In Bolivia. And like I was talking about borders don't really cross people and the che obviously spanned a larger slot of land than what what are you thinking?

Amanda:

You said borders don't really cross

Kelsey:

people and I was just like, un

Amanda:

yeah. Un

Kelsey 2.0:

winding that in my head. And so their ancestral lands were. Part of what is now Bolivia. And so I'm also curious about how that happened for her. And this made her the second woman from her people to hold such a diplomatic like office and position. So she was well known in her community or is well known in her community. And as of at least 2021, she's in, she's in her seventies now and continues to be a prominent voice for mauche women and indigenous rights in Chile. And an interesting fact that I wanted to put in here as well is that she's a practicing Catholic and has integrated her faith with her indigenous identity and has taken part in pastoral roles within the Che Catholic context. And, that's so often seen, right? Like one of the first like waves of colonialism was religious beliefs Yeah. Missionaries. And and a lot of peoples took those beliefs on. And of course, in the Americas where Spain colonized, it was Catholicism, right? And so that is definitely woven into a lot of people's lives. She continues to critique the performance of Postic. Dictatorship, Chilean governments in terms of indigenous rights. And what I wanted to highlight is from my experience being there, is that

Kelsey:

um,

Kelsey 2.0:

the che were often like. Really pushed aside, like people didn't want to see them or their perspectives from where I was. I was like, at a university, and we barely talked about them. And I said one time to a man that I was I think I was like having dinner. I can't remember what was going on. And I said, yeah you look like you could be che. And he got really serious. And he was like, never say that to anybody. No one wants to hear that. And it was like, oh my God. Yeah. No, he was so upset that Hayat said that because. Obviously you all look indigenous. You probably all have indigenous blood in you. But no one wanted to be associated with that. And the level of racism down there where I was like, it was very high. And I remember these Mauche folks protesting and they were in like a hunger strike. Against the government, and I can't remember exactly what they were doing. This was in 2010, but there were a hunger strike and so they, they weren't eating and people were making fun of them and wow. Just for their beliefs and like what they were doing. It was really eye-opening. To say the least.

Amanda:

Yeah, it's awful.

Kelsey:

I'm so curious. I feel so grateful that I came across this book and this work, because I cannot wait to dive into it. Yeah. And really understand, from her perspective. So getting into the book it was originally published in 2002, obviously was originally published in Spanish, but has been translated into English. Includes 36 black and white photographs in the novel, in the book. And it's part personal reflection, part political autobiography of her life and leadership in the pa Poche Indigenous rights Movement in Chile. Often cited in scholarly work on the evolution of testimonial literature and indigenous feminist activism. And it gave like a chapter breakdown. It's really interesting how it's broken down. It's goes from Chenko is her family land and culture, like her beginning and then the mapuche movement under dictatorship, which I'm so curious to read about. From 1973 to 1989, the year was born. And then it goes into the transition to democracy and then afterwards the mauche movement under democracy. And those two things, probably are fairly similar, honestly. Yeah. So I'm so curious to hear about it. On Good reads. It's not a, work of fiction, so it's not as popular as you might see on Good Reads. I think it's read in the academic community probably in Chile. But on good Reads, there's one, one written review. Okay. And I wanted to read that here, but it has zero one star ratings. That's good. But I'm so curious why. Why someone would rate it two stars. I just don't know the understanding behind that or the thinking behind that. Yeah I wanna read it and find out, but it currently has a 3.44 goods reads rating which isn't great. It's mid. It's mid. That's the so the one review on good reads I wanted to read here. It says, I've been meaning to read this book forever and finally got around to it by choosing it for a class on indigenous rights. I love the strength of the voice and thought the choice to keep the interview format and questions made it more approachable, thematically, beyond the obvious indigenous and feminist issues. This book has a lot to say about organizing strategies and issues of intersectionality and diversity within people's organizations, political parties, and the complex interactions between all of these institutions Worth reading.

Amanda:

Yeah. Yeah, I could definitely see somebody picking this up. Especially within an academic context, like you mentioned. Oh yeah. Especially based on the topics that it covers. This sounds a amazing Yeah. And incredibly educational and a topic. That most folks probably are. I've never heard of the apoe, right? Oh yeah. So it's also just a topic in an area that a lot of us are probably completely. Know oblivious too. Especially in the United States. And it's exactly

Kelsey:

why we have episodes like this. Yes. Gosh, I was so excited when I came across this world, I was like, oh yeah.

Amanda:

I also love that we both have in a way, a personal connection to one of the books that. We're recommending and that we've spent time living in those places. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredible. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. So I will share my last recommendation. As I mentioned earlier this is another New Zealand woman who is from the Maori tribe. So this book is Bugs by Fi, aka. And she is a New Zealand playwright. Novelist, screenwriter, barrister, and solicitor. So like your first author. What is the barrister author? I think a lawyer I think is just Okay. I think I'll have to look it up. Because I know in, like in, in England there, I think that's the term they use is barrister, not lawyer. Oh, okay. Or attorney. I think you can double check me while I'm reading this. But she was born in 1978 and grew up in tpo and she's married, but she has three different tribes and I'm going to try and pronounce them. I do have a to your best little pronunciation guide, so bear with me. But she's of ti reto. And te, no te awa. And Pcha descent. Good. I literally attempt. It's hard. Yeah. It's very hard. I listened to like multiple videos of them pronouncing it and then tried to write it down what I heard phonetically. But it's very tricky and like this is not my native tongue. So like I said, apologies in advance. She holds a Master of Arts in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University of Wellington, and has written many plays for both the stage and the radio, which is fun, as well as several novels. One of course I'll be recommending here. And she also like your first author, has held a number of writing residencies in 2022, she was appointed as a permanent full-time lecturer in the creative writing program at Mass University. And as I said, she is the author of several novels. Four currently. One is the Graphologist Apprentice, which was published in 2010.

Kelsey:

Bugs,

Amanda:

which was published in 2013. Legacy in 2018, and this one I did not write down the pronunciation for, but it looks like mm-hmm. ku, which was published in 2021. She has won the 2019 Young Adult Fiction Award in the New Zealand book, awards for Children and Young Adults for her Book Legacy. And the Graphologist Apprentice was shortlisted for best. First book and the Commonwealth Writers Prize back in 2011. Again well-respected, awarded author, and she does still live in New Zealand in Wellington. So this book Bugs, which we're gonna talk about, which is published in 2013, she actually developed this book while she was part of a cohort at this incubator program for emerging Maori writers in 2012. And so that's where she started getting this idea down on paper, and then went on to publish it the following year. It's another short book. It's only 250 pages and it has a 3.9 Good Reads rating. So not. Phenomenal, but also not too bad. It is a young adult fiction book and as with the two novels that I mentioned previously, has also won a couple of awards. It was a young adult fiction finalist in the 2014 New Zealand Post book Awards for Children and young Adults, and it won an honor. And it was also named a storylines notable book and was a finalist in the 2014 ZA Awards. So this book tells the story of 16-year-old bugs which is why the novel is called Bugs. Cute. And she is a young woman living in the small town of tpo, which is where Viti grew up. She's right in the middle of completing her final year of school. She has a best friend named Jess and like life is good, right? They're just here to get through this final year and move on with their life. And then a new girl, her name is Stone Cold. She shows up and I can't tell from the book, jacket of Stone Cold is like actually her name or like the nickname they give her. But anyhow, she shows up in town and essentially like. Starts to shake things up, right? And she is the catalyst for this plot kicking off. And all three of these women ultimately come to different conclusions about how to deal with being trapped in a small town and also being at the bottom of the heap as indigenous young women. As I said, the story is based on AKA's own childhood growing up in this town, and it was also inspired very cool by the the Uncle Rema story, bra Rabbit, and the Tar Baby. And I remember being younger and reading so many bra rabbit stories and. In that story in particular, it features a character whose personality both gets them into trouble, but those same characteristics are also the things that get them out of trouble. And so that's what she was thinking of when she created the character of. Bugs. So it sounds like, uh, a fun read, it sounds like very much a coming of age story and I love a good coming of age story, especially, you know, ya fiction. And undoubtedly again will give you a little bit of insight about what it looks like to grow up Maori in New Zealand in recent times. So another great book, an author to check out.

Kelsey:

This month. Love it. I feel like I wanna read all of these. You can. Oh,

Amanda:

it's definitely possible. But yeah. Do you wanna quickly recap your two books?

Kelsey:

Oh my gosh. I know. I was like, gimme a second. Such it, such a mouthful. I know. The first book written by Steph Maku falling into Rohingya which is the YA book. I also highlighted from a Maori writer. And then the next one is when a Flower is Reborn, the full title, the Life and Times of a Mauche Feminist by Rosa is Sode Reque. Got it. Got it. And then

Amanda:

my two are the Yield by Tara June Winch and Bugs by aka. So definitely let us know if you end up checking out these books and if you have your own recommendations. So again, you can let us know those things on our socials. Head over to Instagram at Lit Vibes Only Podcast or YouTube and TikTok at Lit Vibes. Only you can share your recommendations for us. If you've read these books and already have thoughts, oh my gosh. And wanna let us know whether they were litted or credits for you, please let us know. On Thursday of this week, we'll be dropping a video on our socials, essentially recapping these four books and asking you again for your recommendation. So you can also wait until Thursday and comment on that post, and we'll collect those suggestions and share this out with our larger community. But yeah, we're just so glad that you guys joined us today. Again, hopefully these are new authors and new books for all of you, and we ex. Expanded your reading horizons a little bit more today, so we're expanding hours. Yes, absolutely. Like we have not read any of these and we're excited to check them out. So join us on this journey this month. Read along with us and we'll see you next Monday. Bye bye.