Are we getting excited for book club next week? I'm just getting started on Broken Country, and am really looking forward to an amazing discussion. I hope a lot of you will be able to join!

Wednesday, January 28th

8pm EST

https://meet.google.com/jgu-yhdc-fet

“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

Reminder that our book club meeting for Broken Country will take place Wednesday, January 28th at 8pm EST! Link will be posted closer to meeting time ☺️

I haven't yet started reading, but I did a little digging, and there are a few content warnings I want to mention.

• Child death

• Animal death

• Infidelity

• Gun violence

• Suicidal thoughts

If you've already finished or just have more to add, feel free to leave in the comments! And please keep these in mind when choosing whether or not to read it. You are always more than welcome to hang out in the chat, whether or not you read the book!

Synopsis:

“The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.”

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

Our meeting will take place Wednesday, January 28th at 8pm EST.

Feel free to discuss in the chat til then!

Note: When I woke up this morning, I told myself I wasn’t going to touch my computer today. The last day of 2025 was going to be spent reading and checking in with myself. But I felt like I had so much to say about this book and how it relates to my dad, and I couldn’t help myself. So here we are. I hope you enjoy these ramblings from my little brain.

Months ago, one of my subscribers recommended I read the book “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. I bought it right away, but it’s been sitting on my shelf ever since. It’s not uncommon for me to purchase a book and have it sit around for a while before I read it, but this one was intentional. Every time I’d attempt it, just reading the introduction would bring me to tears. This book is about a man’s literal “last lecture” as a professor at Carnegie Mellon University after getting a pancreatic cancer diagnosis (what my dad died from). He had three young children at the time of his death and used this lecture as a way to teach his kids the life lessons he wouldn’t be there to teach them in person. Last New Year’s Eve was surprisingly difficult for me (as in, I didn’t realize how hard it would feel. New Year’s is not a particularly big deal in my family), so I figured that if I was going to be miserable on this day again, may as well top it off with this book I’d been avoiding. I read it in one sitting.

While a lot of the book reads as a memoir, so much of what Randy preached reminded me of things my dad would have said. So many times since I lost my dad, I’ll hear something that sounds like it could have come directly from his mouth and respond as though he actually said it. It’s not something I do on purpose, but I like to think I knew him well enough to know what he’d say in certain situations. So much of what Randy wanted his kids to know are things my dad wanted my sister and me to carry with us always. In a sentence, being a good person is more important than anything else. It’s our duty to care of people who weren’t born with the same advantages that we were. (Okay that’s two sentences, but it truly sums up his philosophy on life.)

While 68 was still way too young for my dad to go, I’m so glad he didn’t spend too much time feeling miserable trying treatments while knowing the cancer would inevitably kill him. He lived in a state of realistic optimism, and it served us all well. He lived far longer than most people with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, so while we always knew the end was coming, we also enjoyed every day we got with him. Anytime I’d ask how he was feeling, he’d respond with “I’m not dead yet!” His biggest concern was never about himself and the pain of dying. Of course he was sad for all he wouldn’t get to be there for, but he was far sadder for those of us left behind who would be missing him for the rest of our lives.

I wish my dad could see how my YouTube channel has grown and evolved. He watched every single video over and over again, just to hear my voice and support me. I wish I could talk baseball with him and tell him how the Guardians came back from a 15.5 game deficit to win the division. I wish he got to spend more time with his grandson, my baby nephew Ben, and see what a great mom my sister is. I wish I could tell him that I’m going to be a barre3 instructor after not passing my audition the first time. (He’d say “that’s my Laura! When she says she going to do something, she does it!”)

While I’ve shed a lot of tears today, I’m really happy to have spent my last day of 2025 writing about my dad and reflecting on my first calendar year without him. I’ll never stop missing him, but I try to honor his memory by being the person he always saw me as: empathetic, hard-working, loving, and helpful. And he’d want me to remember that three things in life are certain: death, taxes, and how much my daddy loved me.

I want to end this with some quotes that could have been straight from my dad. And the first one down here is something I feel so strongly that it made me laugh. (Page numbers noted, in case anyone wants more context.)

Lately, I find myself quoting my dad even if it was something he didn't say. Whatever my point, it might as well have come from him. He seemed to know everything. (23)

As he saw things: When you're frustrated with people when they've made you angry, it just may be because yo haven't given them enough time. Jon warned me that sometimes this took great patience-even years. "But in the end," he said, "people will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out.” (145)

Students would say to me: "What if I apologize and the other person doesn't apologize back?" I'd tell them: "That's not something you can control, so don't let it eat at you." (162)

When I was fifteen, I worked at an orchard hoeing straw-berries, and most of my coworkers were day laborers. A couple of teachers worked there, too, earning a little extra cash for the summer. I made a comment to my dad about the job being beneath those teachers. (I guess I was implying that the job was beneath me, too.) My dad gave me the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. He believed manual labor was beneath no one. He said he'd prefer that I worked hard and became the best ditch-digger in the world rather than coasting along as a self-impressed elitist behind a desk. (169)

Brick walls are there for a reason. And once you get over them—even if someone has practically had to throw you over—it can be helpful to others to tell them how you did it. (174)

Everyone has to contribute to the common good. To not do so can be described in one word: selfish. (176)

Look, I'm not in denial about my situation. I am maintaining my clear-eyed sense of the inevitable. I'm living like I'm dying. But at the same time, I'm very much living like I'm still living. (182)

So my dreams for my kids are very exact: I want them to find their own path to fulfillment. And given that I won't be there, I want to make this clear: Kids, don't try to figure out what I wanted you to become. I want you to become what you want to become. (198)

Shameless plug: I know times are tough for a lot of folks right now, but I am raising money for the PanCan Purple Stride Walk. I’ll leave the link to my fundraising page if anyone feels so inclined to donate.

https://secure.pancan.org/site/TR/PurpleStride/PurpleStride?pg=personal&fr_id=3102&px=3764161

Me all puffy-eyed after finishing this

Here is the link for tonight's discussion of The Names!

https://meet.google.com/roa-vsjv-vwp

Hi my friends!

I can't wait for book club tomorrow night at 8pm Eastern! Keep an eye on this space for the link sent tomorrow, and I'll also post it in the Discord.

Time to choose our January book! 'The Team' tier members are encouraged to vote on the month's pick, and the winner will be revealed January 2nd.

Maine Characters by Hannah Orenstein

Every summer, Vivian Levy and Lucy Webster spend a month with their father at his lake house — separately. Raised in New York City, Vivian is an ambitious sommelier with a secret that could derail her future. Lucy grew up in a tiny Maine town, where she now teaches high school English while watching her marriage unravel. They’ve never met. While Lucy envied her half-sister from afar, their father kept Vivian in the dark.

When Vivian arrives at the lake to spread his ashes and sell his cabin, she's shocked to find Lucy there, awaiting his return. In an ideal world, they’d help each other through their grief. Instead, forced to spend the summer together, they fight through a storm of suspicion and hostility to untangle the messy truth about their parents’ pasts. While Lucy is desperate to hold onto the house, Vivian is scrambling after a betrayal. After thirty years apart, is it too late for them to be a family?

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

Before I Forget by Tory Henwood Hoen

Call it inertia. Call it a quarter-life crisis. Whatever you call it, Cricket Campbell is stuck. Despite working at a zeitgeist-y wellness company, the twenty-six-year-old feels anything but well. Still adrift after a tragedy that upended her world a decade ago, she has entered early adulthood under the weight of a new burden: her father’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

When Cricket’s older sister Nina announces it is time to move Arthur from his beloved Adirondack lake house into a memory-care facility, Cricket has a better idea. In returning home to become her father’s caretaker, she hopes to repair their strained relationship and shake herself out of her perma-funk. But even deeply familiar places can hold surprises.

As Cricket settles back into the family house at Catwood Pond―a place she once loved, but hasn’t visited since she was a teenager―she discovers that her father possesses a rare gift: as he loses his grasp of the past, he is increasingly able to predict the future. Before long, Arthur cements his reputation as an unlikely oracle, but for Cricket, believing in her father’s prophecies might also mean facing the most painful parts of her history. As she begins to remember who she once was, she uncovers a vital truth: the path forward often starts by going back.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s space shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easygoing even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warmhearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, it all changes in an instant.

Reminder for our book club meeting on 12/30 at 8:00pm EST.

Link will be posted here and on the discord!