Emperor of Gladness reveals itself to be way different than initially expected, regardless it ends up being quite an interesting read.

Come with us to visit East Gladness, CT and hang out with our special guest and friend, Marry Tran. Our goal is not to visit the USofA typically, but we are wanting to understand the perspective of those who experience life differently than us. Who best to explore that with than a 2nd generation Vietnamese American born on the east coast.

Can you count the amount of books that are mentioned in this one episode? and then count how many are mentioned by Tiah alone…

Ethiopia is the next stop on our journey. This month we take a moment to breathe and listen to a less demanding read. I know, I know, this is not our norm, but sometimes that is necessary. honestly, we should do this more often.

All of that being said, we jump into a sci-fi with ancient space wars, augmented tournaments, secret princes and robot lions. I hope you were able to enjoy this story as we did or will take a peak when you have a chance.

~as always, spoilers!

To Egypt we went, knowing we were exploring content that we were already familiar with. However, the story shared by Basma Abdel Aziz took us much closer to home than any of us would have originally thought. We had to come to terms with how easily the normalization of extremism can create a reality that was once unfathomable.

Do not be fooled by this mere 6 hour audiobook. Much like other shorter novels such as Animal Farm, the Lord of the Flies and even one of our more recent reads Tender is the Flesh, this shortie was not easily digestible. Instead, we were forced to witness very uncomfortable situations arise amid the most routine of interactions.

Was it just us or did you also cringe at the mention of "the Certificate of True Citizenship?"