Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the Webby-nominated podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

This episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books has been sponsored by Himalaya, the best app for discovering, listening, and organizing podcasts.

Himalaya was nice enough to reach out and make me an editor's choice. So now they're a sponsor.

Check them out at Himalaya.com or in the app store. I'm so excited to be interviewing Lauren

Gershiel today. We're here together in the Hamptons. It's such a lovely day, so this is super

fun for me. Lauren is the co-author along with Sophie Littlefield of That's What Frenemies

are for, a novel, a graduate of Columbia University, from which she has a BA and a law degree.

Lauren currently lives in New York City, where she was born and raised, and this is her first

book. So welcome to Lauren. Thank you. Congratulations on your first novel. Thank you. So can you tell listeners what

that's what Frenemies are for is about, and how you and your co-author Sophie decided to do this

book? Sure. So the book is about a woman who lives in New York City, who has it it all and she has everything she thinks she's ever

wanted and she puts a lot of importance on her own social capital and she starts to feel

as though her star is fading and she takes on a young spin instructor and in a very like

pygmalian fashion decides that she's going to make her

into a superstar, not necessarily under the kindness of her own heart, but to regain some of the

social capital that she thinks she's lost. And the book has kind of an interesting story in how it

came to be about, which is that I had an idea and I had never written a book before.

And I reached out to a childhood friend who's a literary agent.

And I said, I have this idea.

What do you think of it?

And she said, I really like that idea.

And I said, I'd love to do it with somebody else.

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