Hi, everyone back to Bad on Paper podcast. I'm Becca Freeman. And I'm Olivia Mentor.

And today is our reading preview episode for the first half of 2026. And we have some excellent book

recommenders here to tell you about books that they're excited for this year. Yeah, get your TBRs ready.

Well, tell me your hi. So my high is that I finished copy edits on book two.

And specifically, I wrote the acknowledgments for it, which was so special to me because I love reading

acknowledgments in other people's books.

But I also feel like this book was such a, I don't know if battle is the right word, but it was so

difficult for me at points. And I feel like I have so many people to thank for its existence,

first and foremost, including my editor, Marie. But, you know, there were also people who

read early drafts, people who were my emotional

support as I was writing the book, people who I interviewed about their jobs or experiences

for research. It just, I have so much gratitude for these people and getting to sit down for

a few hours and really hyper focus on

that and write these acknowledgements felt really good for my soul. I actually kind of wonder if

like the acknowledgments process was invented by someone who there needs to be like a cap on the creation process of a book,

like a period, like, okay, this is the perfect way to end.

Yeah.

And somehow just, you know, editing that final comma or whatever,

it doesn't really feel as nice as thanking everyone.

So that's so lovely.

And it's just such a nice practice.

Yeah, it felt really good.

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