Hi, everyone, and welcome to Bad on Paper podcast. I'm Olivia Mentor.

And I'm Becca Freeman. And today is our last book club episode of 2025, which is very hard to believe,

but we are discussing, I think, a book that most people we know have read or will be reading in the next couple months.

Yeah, I've been seeing this book everywhere, so it feels very

timely. And it also has a very nice holiday tie-in, even though there's nothing about the book

that's holiday-centric, because so much of it deals with the theme of family. So I think it's a

perfect time for it. But before we get into talking about the book, I want to talk about

highs and lows. Tell me what your high is. I once again have two highs, which I recognize is a little

annoying, but I have two high highs. I don't think you ever have to apologize for having

multiple things that are exciting going on. I'm thrilled. Thanks.

Well, I wanted to mention them both. And the first one is I met one of my best friend's new baby

and we drove to meet her and her partner and the baby. And I'm not around babies that much. So I'm

a little bit uncomfortable with them.

But she kind of just thrust the child into my arms, which is, I think, the way to do it.

And weirdly, it gave me a sense of confidence with the babies.

So I was, like, holding him, and he was so cute and cuddly.

And it was just so nice to see her and her partner just so happy. And

like, it was just really nice. It's so wild to see friends who you have known for a very long time

becoming parents and acting as parents and seeing that identity shift or seeing that

role shift in real time. It's like, it's really cool.

It is. It's strange, too. Like, I kept just thinking, wow, how weird that this person that I

lived with when I was 18 years old, it's like raising a child. But they're both just so clearly

...