I'm Natalie Moore. I fell in love with soap operas when I was just five years old, and I still

watch them. Their television's longest scripted series and have zero reruns. Now let me tell you,

soap operas aren't just some silly art form. They are significant. In this season of making,

Stories Without End from WB EZ Chicago.

Join me as I share how the genre began, their social impact, and why these stories endure.

Listen, wherever you get your podcast.

From WBEZ Chicago, I'm Greta Johnson, and this is the Nerd at Book Club.

This month's selection is Susie Yang's White Ivy, and Susie is our guest today. If you haven't read the book yet,

don't worry. This discussion is totally spoiler-free. We will have a super-spoilery panel chat

later this month. The book is a page turner. It's about Ivy Lynn, who's the daughter of Chinese immigrants. And as a kid,

she kind of falls for her classmate Gideon Spire, who's sort of like the ultimate New England,

waspy golden child. And essentially, her obsession just never really ends. And as a result,

Ivy can be really ruthless in her attempts to kind of fit into some of the more gilded

corners of American society.

Susie, welcome to Nournette.

Thanks for having me, Greta.

So I really loved the review that was written in the Washington Post about White Ivy,

partly because it placed this in the genre of books about high society and social climbing, like The Great Gatsby or Talented Mr. Ripley or the House of Mirth.

White Ivy, I think, does really set itself apart because, you know, you're framing this story around a young Chinese woman, Chinese American woman.

And I wonder, like, how do you feel about that lineage? Were those books that you were kind of

hoping that White Ivy might be in conversation with as you wrote it? Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

when I was writing it, I was sort of just writing it, you know, in the dark. I didn't have

...