Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: Hey fam Today on the bright Side, we're joined by
Speaker 2: author you Lean Kwang. She's the May pick for Reese's
Speaker 2: Book Club, and she's here to talk all about her
Speaker 2: debut novel, How To End a Love Story. It's so good.
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, May thirtieth. I'm Simone Boyce.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe and this is the bright Side from
Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine. Simone. I came across this article on Cosmo
Speaker 1: that I need to get your opinion on. So this
Speaker 1: writer is endorsing getting drinks with an X, and I
Speaker 1: know we all have strong feelings about that. She says
Speaker 1: she thinks it's okay because of romantic nostalgia. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I agree. I have so many questions. This is raising
Speaker 2: a lot of red flags for me.
Speaker 1: So I don't actually think that it's helpful to go
Speaker 1: back in time very often.
Speaker 2: No, I can't think of very many instances where it
Speaker 2: is helpful.
Speaker 1: I've done this multiple times. Okay, you know I have
Speaker 1: multiple axes.
Speaker 2: Well, you do. It also depends your current relationship status,
Speaker 2: So did you do this while you were single in
Speaker 2: a relationship?
Speaker 1: Right? So I think if you're in a current relationship,
Speaker 1: it's a little spici or trickier, because is that really okay.
Speaker 3: I'm not thinking it's.
Speaker 2: Disrespectful if you don't if you're not upfront about it
Speaker 2: with your partner, oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: But also you need a really good reason even if
Speaker 1: you're upfront. It's like, for why, exactly for why?
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think if my husband was like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to meet up with my ex that
Speaker 2: I would be like why, why why are you doing that?
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, I don't understand the reason. But I've met
Speaker 1: up with exes in the past when I wasn't in
Speaker 1: a current relationship, and I felt so icky after nothing happened.
Speaker 1: We just got a breakfast or a meal or a
Speaker 1: drink or whatever, and I felt like I had so
Speaker 1: outgrown them. It didn't take me back to a time
Speaker 1: and place of myself. It took me to a place
Speaker 1: where I was like, how could I have ever dated you?
Speaker 2: So tell me about the why behind and your ex meetups.
Speaker 1: It was usually at their request, and then I sort
Speaker 1: of just said like sure, but first of all, you
Speaker 1: have to go in looking amazing. You have to look fabulous,
Speaker 1: and the outfit really matters, Like you don't want to
Speaker 1: look like you tried too hard, but like you have
Speaker 1: to try a little bit. I love like a gene
Speaker 1: that makes your butt look really good with like a
Speaker 1: simple white or black tanker T shirt and then great
Speaker 1: simple makeup and some hoop earrings, so like a Calvin kleinad.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's basically my wardrobe. But it's like a
Speaker 1: dry hard, not try hard outfit.
Speaker 2: Doesn't that part feel a little thirsty though, like as
Speaker 2: you're getting ready, Yes, it feels thirsty, right, yes.
Speaker 1: It feels And then you change your shoes multiple times
Speaker 1: because you're like, do I wear heels? Do I wear sneakers? No?
Speaker 1: I definitely should wear sneakers. Why do I care? And
Speaker 1: you start coming.
Speaker 2: Through this is a case for not meeting up with
Speaker 2: them because I don't think they deserve that much of
Speaker 2: your time, your brain space. So when you met up
Speaker 2: with the X, did you get a chance to say
Speaker 2: something that you wish you had said? Did you get
Speaker 2: like one more barb in.
Speaker 1: Error My most recent ex, who is the only one
Speaker 1: that I don't really talk to because he sucks. We
Speaker 1: met up right before COVID happened, at his request, and
Speaker 1: I still had really hurt feelings from the relationship in
Speaker 1: the breakup, and I was like, this is my time
Speaker 1: to communicate it and I got to get everything off
Speaker 1: my chest.
Speaker 2: I cried.
Speaker 1: He looked so uncomfortable, like that is not what he
Speaker 1: came here for.
Speaker 2: I did not want this. I got way more than
Speaker 2: I bargained for.
Speaker 1: I think he was looking to see if we would
Speaker 1: hook up again, and of course he was.
Speaker 2: The only one reason why he's reaching out.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is a moment to have,
Speaker 1: like a closure therapy session. And so after that, I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm never doing this again.
Speaker 2: You would a therapy session.
Speaker 1: I was like, this is great. We get to like
Speaker 1: have all of these unexpressed feelings. No, he was not
Speaker 1: having it. I felt so dumb and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm never doing this again. Oh no, Yeah, But lesson learned.
Speaker 1: Keep it for your journals, keep it for the book.
Speaker 1: If you're going to write a book about your life,
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 2: Watch the movies that remind you of it. You can
Speaker 2: get your fill of romantic nostalgia in other places movies, music, TV.
Speaker 2: Speaking of TV, we got to get into a platonic
Speaker 2: or perhaps not so platonic situation. All right, So the
Speaker 2: internet is investigating whether The Bear castmates Ioadebris and Jeremy
Speaker 2: Allen White are a thing. Have you heard about this?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: Whoo?
Speaker 1: I love this. I love this for them.
Speaker 2: If you watch the show The Bear, they have this
Speaker 2: incredible chemistry and a really tight relationship on screen, so
Speaker 2: it would make a lot of sense if they did
Speaker 2: have that off screen. I mean, fans of the show
Speaker 2: have been rooting for these two for a minute. But
Speaker 2: we got some new evidence. Okay, So a video of
Speaker 2: Io and Jeremy at a Chicago Cubs game. Shout out, Chicago,
Speaker 2: shout out, thanks for that out shout out Brigley Field.
Speaker 2: This video, y'all, is adding more fuel to the fire.
Speaker 2: I saw the clip. It is a video from above,
Speaker 2: so like they're sitting further down in the stadium seats.
Speaker 2: Someone captured it from.
Speaker 1: Above, so creepy.
Speaker 2: It's totally creepy. Jeremy has his hand on Io's back
Speaker 2: and he's like rubbing between her shoulder blades. Once you
Speaker 2: see this video, you realize it is not platonic at all.
Speaker 1: Disagree, and I haven't seen the video.
Speaker 2: You have to see it. Look up the video.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Once you see it, there's no way that they're just friends.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's not friendly. I don't you friendly. This
Speaker 2: is on par with a thigh caresses. This is on
Speaker 2: par with a forehead kiss in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Oh not quite a forehead.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe it's one degree back from a forehead kiss.
Speaker 2: But I mean this is all but confirmed in the
Speaker 2: school of school of thought of Simone boys.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say that they were doing this
Speaker 1: because I think the new season is coming out and
Speaker 1: it's like the great publicity that they're dating. But I
Speaker 1: don't think they're tricking us.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it could really be real after
Speaker 2: seeing this. Okay, right side, bessies, you have to go
Speaker 2: watch the video. Let us know if we are de
Speaker 2: Lulu or if this relationship is the Sululu After the break,
Speaker 2: we're talking about another kind of love story. Yuleen Kwang
Speaker 2: is here. She's the author of the May Pick for
Speaker 2: Reese's Book Club. Her book is How to End a
Speaker 2: Love Story, and we're getting into it.
Speaker 1: Stay with us. We are here with the May Pick
Speaker 1: for Reese's Book Club author Yuleen Kwang. Her debut novel,
Speaker 1: How to End a Love Story, hit the shelves last
Speaker 1: month and it is already becoming a fan favorite, and.
Speaker 2: I'm one of those fans. Danielle. How To End a
Speaker 2: Love Story follows Helen Zang, a best selling author whose
Speaker 2: Ya novel is getting adapted to a TV show. So
Speaker 2: Helen walks into the writer's room on day one, and
Speaker 2: who does she see? Of course it's Grant Shepherd, the
Speaker 2: one person she hoped she'd never see after high school
Speaker 2: and the one person who will always remind her of
Speaker 2: her family's tragedy. I could not put this book down, y'all.
Speaker 3: I swear.
Speaker 2: I blew through it in like a day.
Speaker 1: It took me too, but it was so good. And
Speaker 1: in addition to her work as a novelist, Yuleene is
Speaker 1: a screenwriter and director whose credits include TV shows like
Speaker 1: Dollface and I Ship It. She's currently directing a film
Speaker 1: adaptation of romance author Emily Henry's best selling novel bet Read.
Speaker 1: Everyone's excited for that one, Euleene, Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Hi, thank you so much for having me. Can I
Speaker 4: just say I was listening to your Michelle Kwan episode
Speaker 4: coming in today because I figure skate, but I only
Speaker 4: started as an adult.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I woke up this morning because I had a
Speaker 4: lesson with my coach and I saw Michelle Kwan's face
Speaker 4: and the bright side, and I was like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 4: perfect listening.
Speaker 1: We all got you starting.
Speaker 4: I had been so obsessed with skating when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, but my parents were like, oh no, honey, like,
Speaker 4: we don't have the money for that, And so I
Speaker 4: had disposable income for the first time in my life.
Speaker 4: So I googled and I found a rink and then
Speaker 4: I started skating as an adult.
Speaker 1: That is so cool. Good for you. Isn't it so
Speaker 1: freeing to be on the ice?
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, I love it so much. It feels
Speaker 4: like the closest thing the flying.
Speaker 1: I think, yes, that's how I felt.
Speaker 3: That is so cool.
Speaker 1: You should probably reach out to Michelle Kwan.
Speaker 4: I would love to, Okay, listen if you can connect us,
Speaker 4: because I took a lesson with her former coach, Frank Carroll,
Speaker 4: because I had this like actress friend who she was
Speaker 4: doing something called rejection immersion therapy where every single day
Speaker 4: she had to ask for something where she thought the
Speaker 4: answer was no. I guess the idea is you'll get
Speaker 4: you steering now, or maybe sometimes you'll hear it.
Speaker 3: Yes, So I put in a request for.
Speaker 4: Frank Carroll to coach me, thinking he would just like
Speaker 4: do me the honor of projecting me, and he said yes,
Speaker 4: And so I still remember like our first lesson together
Speaker 4: where he was like, you have as much right to
Speaker 4: be here as anyone else.
Speaker 3: Show me your forward stroke.
Speaker 1: That's good. Oh so I like rejection therapy, have been
Speaker 1: practicing it my whole life.
Speaker 3: It's so good.
Speaker 2: So you've wanted to be a storyteller, I hear, ever
Speaker 2: since you were a kid. What was the first story
Speaker 2: that you wrote and shared. I would always.
Speaker 4: Watch movies and kind of like rewrite them in my
Speaker 4: head when I was going to bed. I wanted the
Speaker 4: characters to kiss more, like I remember watching a few
Speaker 4: Good Men and then wanting Tom Cruise and to me
Speaker 4: more to kiss. So I would just go to bed
Speaker 4: replaying that scenes and then just being like, what would
Speaker 4: I have to adjust? I wrote a lot of like
Speaker 4: hand scrawled things. Do you remember those Dear America books?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Tell me more about that.
Speaker 4: They were like diary entry type things where it was
Speaker 4: the narrative of some historic event was in a diary
Speaker 4: and so I wanted to do that with Pearl Harbor,
Speaker 4: and so I wrote like a diary entree style novel
Speaker 4: that was like my first one, and you know famously,
Speaker 4: Pearl Harbor happens December seventh, nineteen forty one. And I
Speaker 4: started my story in like nineteen thirty eight because I
Speaker 4: thought we needed a lot of backstory. And then I
Speaker 4: had a friend who told me, you know, this is
Speaker 4: kind of boring. I think you should you should cut
Speaker 4: to the chase. So I abandoned that effort, and then
Speaker 4: I started putting together my next book. At this point
Speaker 4: in time, I'm like in fifth grade. But then I
Speaker 4: discovered fan fiction and that kind of altered my brain chemistry,
Speaker 4: and that was where I really got started writing things
Speaker 4: and sharing them with people.
Speaker 1: I love hearing that historical fiction peaked your literary interest.
Speaker 1: That's how I got into books. I loved like you
Speaker 1: could learn about something that you didn't know about and
Speaker 1: read about these characters that you love. There was always
Speaker 1: like a romance element, which.
Speaker 3: I know you really read with.
Speaker 1: You started your career with adaptations, and you're currently adapting
Speaker 1: Emily Henry's novel People we Meet on Vacation and the
Speaker 1: forthcoming beach Read into feature films. How did you approach
Speaker 1: writing and adaptation. I look at.
Speaker 4: Adaptation as kind of like a puzzle and a love
Speaker 4: letter at the same time, because I personally can't adapt
Speaker 4: anything that I don't love. So I'm looking at what
Speaker 4: is it about it that deeply resonates with me, What
Speaker 4: is the part of it that I'm kind of identifying,
Speaker 4: and then I construct a love letter to that. And
Speaker 4: that's when I go back to my roots when I
Speaker 4: was a fan fiction writer, because that was where I
Speaker 4: first discovered that people would play in these spaces that
Speaker 4: were other people's worlds, but they were finding the parts
Speaker 4: that they gravitated to most. And once I kind of
Speaker 4: unlocked that part of my brain in the ways that
Speaker 4: I approached adaptation, my career went a lot better.
Speaker 1: Now there's something about your story that Simone and I
Speaker 1: are both obsessed with. When we learned this about you,
Speaker 1: we thought this should be on every social media handle
Speaker 1: you have. You were once fired from a Hallmark movie
Speaker 1: for being to quote unquote hip. What happened and how
Speaker 1: did you learn from that experience?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, my co writer Liz Scudlow and I we
Speaker 4: were writing a Hallmark movie called Love on Iceland, where
Speaker 4: these two characters fall in love on Iceland. And I
Speaker 4: think we were writing a lot of jokes that the
Speaker 4: Hallmark Channel just felt like we're off brand, Like we
Speaker 4: had go Thomas Kinkaid joke, and they were like, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: we don't want to touch with Thomas Kinkai joke.
Speaker 3: That might be too controversial.
Speaker 2: So I was like, okay, wait, I'm sorry Thomas Kinkaid
Speaker 2: as in the guy who paints those moody pictures of
Speaker 2: cottages nestled in the forest.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that would be too controversial potentially. And then
Speaker 4: I think we had maybe like a Georgiana and Maal
Speaker 4: Clooney joke in there that they were like, this is
Speaker 4: too much of a pop culture reference for our audience.
Speaker 4: And so I think after one too many of those
Speaker 4: types of notes where they kept telling us these jokes
Speaker 4: are too hip for Hallmark, they called us onto a
Speaker 4: conference call and then they told us we're.
Speaker 3: Going in a different direction.
Speaker 4: You know, they hired other writers who got the job done,
Speaker 4: and they went to Iceland and they shot that movie
Speaker 4: and they still fall in Love on Iceland. So we
Speaker 4: are still credited on that project.
Speaker 1: You mean this has to be at the top of
Speaker 1: every bias, so when you walk out on a panel stage,
Speaker 1: everybody knows this.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: At the time, I didn't feel great about it because
Speaker 4: it's to feel like professional failure. They're like very well
Speaker 4: known hallmark in the space of romance, and as somebody
Speaker 4: who loves kissing stories, I was kind of.
Speaker 3: Like, is my career over? Yeah? Will I ever get
Speaker 3: another chance?
Speaker 2: You definitely are just at the beginning of your career,
Speaker 2: and I want to get into the reason why we're
Speaker 2: all here, which is how to end a love story?
Speaker 2: Which came first for you these characters or the storyline?
Speaker 4: I think probably the characters, because I always knew it
Speaker 4: was going to be a novelist and a screenwriter. I
Speaker 4: always knew I kind of wanted to explore an East
Speaker 4: coast West coast dichotomy there, and I knew I wanted
Speaker 4: to kind of give them that tension, and so I
Speaker 4: really started there, and then I knew I wanted to
Speaker 4: force them into a writer's room together because I love
Speaker 4: a forced proximity trope.
Speaker 1: If someone were to ask you what this book is about,
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you would describe it?
Speaker 3: How would I describe it?
Speaker 4: I mean, I would say it's the story of a
Speaker 4: screenwriter and a novelist who find themselves in the same
Speaker 4: TV writer's room thirteen years after this very tragic accident
Speaker 4: that kind of binds them together forever.
Speaker 3: And then they're in this room trying to.
Speaker 4: Work through the work of adaptation, and then they go
Speaker 4: on a healing journey together as well.
Speaker 1: I read that you use the Anagram personality test to
Speaker 1: help you develop these characters. Why do you find that
Speaker 1: to be so useful? That's so interesting?
Speaker 3: Oh, I love it so much.
Speaker 4: So for anybody who doesn't know the Aneagram personality test,
Speaker 4: there's like nine different personality types. It kind of centers
Speaker 4: around what people's wounds are and how maybe the things
Speaker 4: that they encountered and youth shaped them into a person
Speaker 4: who has very specific fears, very specific once, and a
Speaker 4: very specific drive. On some level, I think all personality
Speaker 4: tests are kind of bullshit.
Speaker 3: Can I curse on here?
Speaker 1: You can curse? And also what aneagram are you?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: I think they're all a little bit bullshit, But I
Speaker 4: think that the anagram one is my favorite because it
Speaker 4: tells you what a person is like when they're trending
Speaker 4: towards health versus their most unhealthy. So I am an
Speaker 4: Aneagram three, which is the achiever, and that is the
Speaker 4: type that I gave to Helen, and I gave Grant
Speaker 4: my husband's Enneagram type, which is number two, the helper.
Speaker 4: And I really like the enneagram for mapping what a
Speaker 4: character is like in Act one when they're kind of
Speaker 4: in their normal world, and then you take them to
Speaker 4: an unhealthier place in the conflict section, and then you
Speaker 4: bring them back to a healthier place, hopefully at the end.
Speaker 2: So now that we know that there's a bit of
Speaker 2: you in Helen and a bit of your husband and Grant,
Speaker 2: what is the most Helen thing about you? And what's
Speaker 2: the most Grant thing about your husband? Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 2: the most Helen thing about me.
Speaker 4: I think I resonated with that character so much because
Speaker 4: I gave her all of my insecurities. And it's a
Speaker 4: hard thing for Helen because I feel like she's so
Speaker 4: prickly and uncomfortable all the time, and that's because I
Speaker 4: just gave her all my baggage.
Speaker 3: I was like, do you want to just take this
Speaker 3: all from me? Like that'll be a lighter weight for
Speaker 3: me then.
Speaker 4: And then for Grant, I gave him like my husband's
Speaker 4: ability to be very, very selfless, I would say, in
Speaker 4: the ways that he wants to help others, and I
Speaker 4: can see also how that can sometimes get him into
Speaker 4: trouble where he's not prioritizing himself enough. So I really
Speaker 4: liked how the partnership of Helen and Grant allowed me
Speaker 4: to kind of examine what those dynamics are like.
Speaker 2: As someone who loves kissing in films in stories. What
Speaker 2: is the secret to an epic love story to you,
Speaker 2: I would say romantic tension.
Speaker 4: I think that we need tension in order to really
Speaker 4: feel the narrative thrust of a story, Like we kind
Speaker 4: of need to know why a couple can't be together
Speaker 4: right now. And so if there're just two nice people
Speaker 4: who could just be together.
Speaker 3: Then I'm like, then I don't really want to watch that.
Speaker 4: I think they'd be lovely people to befriend and like
Speaker 4: go to brunch with, But that's not necessarily the story
Speaker 4: I want to go for Shakespearean.
Speaker 1: It's also my toxic love life anyway. I learned that
Speaker 1: actually through the West Wing, because Josh and Donna were
Speaker 1: never Oh my gosh, and Aaron Sorkin made that happen
Speaker 1: right like for three seasons, and then he left the
Speaker 1: show and the new showrunner and writer's room had them kiss,
Speaker 1: and the show was kind of over.
Speaker 4: I was so obsessed with them. I remember there was
Speaker 4: like a fan site where you could read every single
Speaker 4: interaction that they had. It just like cataloged them all
Speaker 4: and you could just read the transcript of each scene.
Speaker 4: And I would just go to that like twenty times
Speaker 4: a day.
Speaker 1: Can you bring that show back, please? You'd be so
Speaker 1: good writing it.
Speaker 2: I would love to ilimans my like forever crush.
Speaker 1: Okay, I know he's like, you're hearing me.
Speaker 2: Out, not even he's not even to hear me out.
Speaker 3: He is a straightforward yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you don't have to hear her out.
Speaker 2: You're right.
Speaker 1: He's hot. He's hot and smart. It's a win when. Yeah,
Speaker 1: your book is called How to End a Love Story,
Speaker 1: but there's more than one love story in the book.
Speaker 1: There's romantic love and family love. Why did you juxtapose
Speaker 1: the love stories that exist within families with romantic love.
Speaker 4: I think because they often go hand in hand, you know,
Speaker 4: I think your your family, those are often the people
Speaker 4: that first teach you what you know about love. They
Speaker 4: kind of define it for you through their daily actions,
Speaker 4: and you spend all of this time in your childhood
Speaker 4: and you're like just a person who's trying to make
Speaker 4: your way through and find love and give love. And
Speaker 4: then it becomes this thing where sometimes sometimes you'll stumble
Speaker 4: and you'll be like, oh, why am I so activated?
Speaker 4: Why are all these things happening that I don't understand?
Speaker 4: And then you look back and you're like, Oh, it's
Speaker 4: because of like this thing that happened in my life
Speaker 4: at one point.
Speaker 3: I think those two for me are.
Speaker 4: Very, very connected because of how love is kind of
Speaker 4: taught to us.
Speaker 2: Okay, I want to ask you about the other horny
Speaker 2: books you read, because I have a few in my
Speaker 2: library and I want to cross reference.
Speaker 1: What did you call them?
Speaker 4: Mud?
Speaker 2: It's mutt, Yeah, smut smutty books.
Speaker 1: YEA Simone taught me that I'd never heard that term.
Speaker 1: I prefer money books to like spice. There's something about
Speaker 1: spice that to me sometimes feels like we're like whitewashing
Speaker 1: it again, and I'm like, no, just called it smutt.
Speaker 1: There is not a derogatory connotation to smut. To me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like it's okay for us giving ourselves permission
Speaker 2: to love these books and all their yeazziness and raunchiness.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: For for a long time, I used to keep all
Speaker 4: of my romance novels under a tab in my Kindle
Speaker 4: called Trashy Romance Novels. And it was like a big
Speaker 4: moment for me when I deleted the trashy and I
Speaker 4: was like.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, this is literature. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, there are a lot of women around the world
Speaker 2: right now who are fighting back against that stigma and
Speaker 2: saying no, we are going to be unabashed in our
Speaker 2: embrace of these stories and like let us live, like.
Speaker 3: Let's exactly life, you know, truly.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you about something that I read
Speaker 2: in the back acknowledgments of the book. You tell your
Speaker 2: parents not to tell you if they've read certain chaps.
Speaker 2: Why did you say that and what did you mean
Speaker 2: by that?
Speaker 4: I mean they are all the chapters with any reference
Speaker 4: to sex, Like one of them is like pretty tame,
Speaker 4: even it's the one where she goes to his house
Speaker 4: and I think he has the brief thought a couple
Speaker 4: hours ago she came on my tongue, So I was
Speaker 4: just like, yeah, no, that's that's too much for them.
Speaker 4: I would say like sex was a very taboo subject
Speaker 4: in my household growing up. It was like not a
Speaker 4: safe space for those conversations. And I don't know, maybe
Speaker 4: I had my sexual awakening too early. I feel like
Speaker 4: I watched like Anastasia in a theater and I saw
Speaker 4: Dimitri with his Adam's apple, and I was just like,
Speaker 4: what's happening to me? So I was just like baseline,
Speaker 4: pretty horny. And I remember watching porn really young. I
Speaker 4: was maybe like fourteen fifteen. Actually that might not even
Speaker 4: be that young. That might be about the age when
Speaker 4: people discover it. And I was kind of curious about
Speaker 4: sex because it was such a taboo topic that I
Speaker 4: was like, where am I going to learn about this?
Speaker 4: So I started going to porn sites just to you know,
Speaker 4: educate myself. I was always a good student. And then
Speaker 4: I accidentally downloaded a virus to the family computer and
Speaker 4: so I came home one day and my parents are
Speaker 4: sitting They're like, Uleen, we need to talk to you.
Speaker 4: And they're sitting stone faced in front of the computer
Speaker 4: and there is on the monitor I can only describe
Speaker 4: as like a snake of pop ups that are all
Speaker 4: just each one more graphic than the last, and my Dad's.
Speaker 3: Like, we have to talk to you about something.
Speaker 4: My mom looks and she just bursts into tears and
Speaker 4: leaves the room, and then my dad goes, you know what,
Speaker 4: never mind, you can go. And that was about the
Speaker 4: sex talk that I received. So I think with that
Speaker 4: key memory in mind, I was just like, I'm not
Speaker 4: going to subject them to this book.
Speaker 2: I can so relate to not having a safe space
Speaker 2: to talk about sex. Growing up, we did not talk
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: I had to figure it out on my own.
Speaker 2: My sexual awakening was watching Patrick Swayze gyrate his hips
Speaker 2: in Dirty Dancing and a Sleepover. That was the first
Speaker 2: time I got the tingles.
Speaker 4: I feel like maybe the reason I love historical romance
Speaker 4: so much is because I was so repressed that now
Speaker 4: there is something on like an id level that really
Speaker 4: appeals to me about the fact that it's like we
Speaker 4: mustn't like a single touch is too much, Yeah, and
Speaker 4: we have to go recover.
Speaker 3: Yeah, something something got hard coded into me.
Speaker 1: There's something there, for sure.
Speaker 2: But I think that's why you're so good at inserting
Speaker 2: romantic tension into the stories, because you know what it
Speaker 2: feels like to suppress.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, but we mustn't quality I'm very familiar.
Speaker 1: With you're the master, we mustn't.
Speaker 4: It's yeah, thank you for that. Yeah, well, thank you
Speaker 4: to my parents for that.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to give anything away, but I'm
Speaker 1: dying to know about writing a sex scene because people
Speaker 1: are using into to see coordinators on screen these days.
Speaker 1: How do you coordinate these scenes within yourself?
Speaker 4: It honestly would have been much easier for me to
Speaker 4: write like a fade to Black romance, because I think
Speaker 4: that's what I've would have been much more comfortable with.
Speaker 4: And I think that's why I did decide to write
Speaker 4: sex on the page, because I wanted to push myself
Speaker 4: a little bit, and so I was chasing what was
Speaker 4: appealing to me. It was kind of like a self
Speaker 4: discovery exercise. I feel like a sex therapist should probably
Speaker 4: tell people to write a scene that feels horny to them,
Speaker 4: because I learned so much about myself and what turns
Speaker 4: me on in the process of writing this, and then,
Speaker 4: you know, it was fun because then I would hand
Speaker 4: it to my husband at the end of every night
Speaker 4: of drafting and I'd be.
Speaker 3: Like read this, you'd be like, oh, interesting, this is.
Speaker 4: Feeling a little instructional, and so I think it was
Speaker 4: good for us honestly.
Speaker 1: So we both are big fans of you and this book,
Speaker 1: and we want to give our listeners a little window
Speaker 1: into your words. Will you do us the huge honor
Speaker 1: of reading us a passage from the book?
Speaker 3: Yes, of course.
Speaker 2: Okay, Bessie's let's get to my favorite part of our
Speaker 2: author interviews. Here on the bright side, Julien Kwang is
Speaker 2: going to read us a passage from her book this
Speaker 2: month's Reese's Book Club pick, How to End a Love Story.
Speaker 4: She pulls up her call log and her thumb hovers
Speaker 4: over his name. He'd pick up, She's sure of it.
Speaker 4: She'd call and he'd pick up, and she'd tell him
Speaker 4: she's moved back into her old apartment in New York
Speaker 4: that doesn't feel like home anymore, and she misses him
Speaker 4: so much that her heart hurts all the time, and
Speaker 4: she loves him so much she sometimes can't fathom a
Speaker 4: world where she's ever truly happy again. He'd come back,
Speaker 4: and she'd blow off her plans for a reconciliation dinner
Speaker 4: with her parents tomorrow and she'd be able to touch
Speaker 4: him again, and and she would make it impossible for
Speaker 4: either of them to move on. Let him go, she
Speaker 4: reminds herself sharply. He deserves a happy, normal life with
Speaker 4: a happy, extraordinary someone. The kind of woman who deserves
Speaker 4: Grant would have found him on the right coast, the
Speaker 4: one he calls home. He would have opened his arms
Speaker 4: and she would have fallen into them for the first
Speaker 4: time and known it was her favorite place in the
Speaker 4: world right away. She wouldn't have had to fight a terrible,
Speaker 4: confusing mixture of compulsions to flee and burrow at the
Speaker 4: same time, choosing ultimately to flee. The kind of woman
Speaker 4: who deserves Grant would have known what she had when
Speaker 4: she had it, and wouldn't have waited until weeks later
Speaker 4: to weep and wallow over the loss of him in
Speaker 4: a bathtub for so long she now knows what her
Speaker 4: toes would look like if she drowned. The kind of
Speaker 4: woman who deserves Grant would be capable of the kind
Speaker 4: of love that keeps little sisters alive. Grant Shepherd deserves
Speaker 4: a Hollywood movie ending with swelling music and sweeping camera
Speaker 4: movements and kissing in the rain. This movie would have
Speaker 4: an epilogue with warm lighting and dad jokes and family
Speaker 4: dinners in the summer garden over the end credits, and
Speaker 4: Helen Sang has never been built for that kind of
Speaker 4: uncomplicated happily.
Speaker 3: Ever after.
Speaker 1: You lean it closed my eyes and just let it
Speaker 1: wash over me, and that was so great. I love
Speaker 1: all the details that you add. It feels so real
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 4: I like that section all lot. I kind of wanted
Speaker 4: to say to readers, I am not trying to be
Speaker 4: Emily Henry because I love Emily's work and I love
Speaker 4: her writing so much, and I know exactly from the
Speaker 4: adaptation work I do what kind of movie I want
Speaker 4: to watch when I'm watching an Emily Henry book to
Speaker 4: screen adaptation.
Speaker 3: And I think that passage was a little bit.
Speaker 4: Of my ode to that where I'm like, I know
Speaker 4: where this would go if if I were doing that,
Speaker 4: But that's not what I am as an author, and
Speaker 4: that's not who this character is either.
Speaker 2: Yuleen, we're having a blast with you, but we got
Speaker 2: to take a quick break. When we come back, we're
Speaker 2: going to learn more about who you are as an author.
Speaker 2: With a little help from our bright Side Besties.
Speaker 1: We're back with Yuleen Kwang talking all about her debut book,
Speaker 1: How To End a Love Story. We have readers with questions,
Speaker 1: so let's get in it. Hi. This is Larissa from Toronto.
Speaker 5: I really loved this book, especially how generous you were
Speaker 5: with writing what I like to call micro moments like
Speaker 5: Grant playing with Helen's hair or caressing her jaw, or
Speaker 5: Helen kissing Grant's fingertips. You were very visual in your
Speaker 5: descriptions and it gifted the reader these tender, sensual snapshots
Speaker 5: that practically suspended time.
Speaker 3: So I have two parts to my question.
Speaker 5: First, do you feel like your skills as a screenwriter
Speaker 5: allowed you to get more visual when writing these scenes?
Speaker 5: And secondly, how did you balance writing these beautifully steamy
Speaker 5: moments while also managing to leave space for the grief
Speaker 5: that Helen and Grant were grappling with.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for that question. I think my work
Speaker 4: as a screenwriter definitely did help me in that way,
Speaker 4: because I wanted to create a visual and I think
Speaker 4: I was thinking almost about like giable moments, maybe not
Speaker 4: like deliberately, but I just knew that as somebody who
Speaker 4: consumes media very obsessively, there are certain moments that I
Speaker 4: obsess over in movies and TV shows that I then
Speaker 4: end up replaying over and over again. So when the
Speaker 4: technology was invented that I could reblog that to Tumblr,
Speaker 4: I was thrilled. And so I think when I was writing,
Speaker 4: I was chasing those types of moments when you talk
Speaker 4: about the caressing of the jaw and those types of things,
Speaker 4: And then in terms of balancing those kind of steamier
Speaker 4: moments with the more serious topics like grief and things
Speaker 4: like that, I think that is how I experience life.
Speaker 4: I think I am both horny and sad and happy
Speaker 4: and hopeful and depressed, and so I wanted to write
Speaker 4: a book that kind of reflected that experience.
Speaker 1: Eileene, I can hear our producers giggling in the other room.
Speaker 1: That's how hard they're laughing with you.
Speaker 3: Perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, I'm excited for this next one. This
Speaker 2: question is a bit controversial.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: I'm Rachel from Connecticut.
Speaker 6: I absolutely we love the interactions between Helen and Grant.
Speaker 6: They're so heartbreaking and raw. It's so so beautiful. My
Speaker 6: question is about adaptation. You've said that this book is
Speaker 6: a love letter to adaptation, but whenever people watch an adaptation,
Speaker 6: they say that the book is always better. As a screenwriter,
Speaker 6: what does that mean to you now that you've written
Speaker 6: your book, And how does this question make you feel
Speaker 6: as an adapt to yourself.
Speaker 3: What a tricky mindfield of question. No, I love it.
Speaker 4: I will challenge the idea that the book is always
Speaker 4: better when you come to the movie, you have all
Speaker 4: of these preconceived notions about it.
Speaker 3: But there are also a lot of books that get
Speaker 3: adapted that are kind of flawed.
Speaker 4: But with a good screenwriter and a great premise, the adaptation,
Speaker 4: I think can sometimes really really sing. I won't say
Speaker 4: the adaptation is better necessarily, but the adaptation becomes the
Speaker 4: thing that introduces people back to the book. Legally Blonde,
Speaker 4: I think, is a really great example of that. Not
Speaker 4: a lot of people know that is an adaptation, but
Speaker 4: it is if you watch the opening credits as often
Speaker 4: as I did as a child, because I was obsessed
Speaker 4: with that movie and I liked the book. But I
Speaker 4: think the movie is still what I think of definitively
Speaker 4: when I think of Legally Blonde. When I approach adaptation,
Speaker 4: I am always thinking about what will service this story
Speaker 4: best in its new medium, Because that is my goal.
Speaker 4: I'm not really chasing a strictly faithful adaptation of the book,
Speaker 4: because the book will always exist. I don't want to
Speaker 4: be compared to the thing and be found lacking every
Speaker 4: single time because I was trying to be so faithful
Speaker 4: that I betrayed the screen audience. So I think ultimately
Speaker 4: the purpose of successful adaptation is to bring new audiences
Speaker 4: back to the source material, rather than to please only
Speaker 4: the book fans.
Speaker 1: So one of the goals of Reese's Book Club is
Speaker 1: to uplift and empower female authors. You've posted that you
Speaker 1: have been training for this moment your entire life. What
Speaker 1: has it meant to you to be an RBC pick?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, It's like.
Speaker 4: It is hard for me to describe that other than
Speaker 4: through that one screenshot of Ellwood's walking up to the
Speaker 4: bulletin board to see her name on the list of
Speaker 4: people that Victor Garber has selected to be in his
Speaker 4: summer internship, and she's just likeing to he Yes. I
Speaker 4: watched that movie so many times that I memorized it.
Speaker 4: I remember writing in the back of an old Lisa
Speaker 4: Frank diary my memorized transcript of the movie.
Speaker 1: You're kidding me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I was just kind of wanting to experience
Speaker 4: the movie again in my mind before bed.
Speaker 1: You Transcrip drived legally Blonde in your journal.
Speaker 4: Yes, as much as I could remember it, and so
Speaker 4: it was like perfect day by Hoku is playing blonde hair.
Speaker 4: We followed down, yeah, and so there was that. I
Speaker 4: love you literally so much.
Speaker 1: Meant to be here right now. It is so cute,
Speaker 1: e Lean.
Speaker 2: So your wildest dreams have come true. Ellwoods picked your
Speaker 2: book for her book club, and you're making your debut
Speaker 2: as a director with an adaptation of one of the
Speaker 2: most popular romance writers out right. Now, what are you
Speaker 2: most proud of? With all the success?
Speaker 4: I feel like I am a little superstitious about calling
Speaker 4: it success because we don't know, guys.
Speaker 2: I mean, let's call it. Let's call it like it
Speaker 2: is an absolutely success.
Speaker 4: I listened to your Michelle Kwan episode and somebody said
Speaker 4: something about I didn't come this far, yeah, just to
Speaker 4: come this far, and that is kind of how I feel.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't know that I would define this
Speaker 4: as success, and this all feels like part of the journey.
Speaker 4: What am I proud of?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: I have been working on.
Speaker 4: Feeling my feelings more because I grew up in an
Speaker 4: immigrant household. And I don't blame my parents for this
Speaker 4: at all, because they came from like such a totally
Speaker 4: different world than me. But I don't think there was
Speaker 4: a culture of sitting with our feelings. It was always
Speaker 4: let's focus on what needs to be done, and emotions
Speaker 4: often were seen as something that would get in the
Speaker 4: way of being effective. For a very long time, I
Speaker 4: feel like I was very removed from my body, from
Speaker 4: my emotions. I didn't really know how I felt about anything.
Speaker 4: So I think maybe the thing I am proudest of
Speaker 4: is I am sitting with those emotions a lot more
Speaker 4: throughout this process. Right now, for instance, I feel anxious
Speaker 4: in their books and also joy.
Speaker 1: Well, we are both so excited to see the success
Speaker 1: of this and also all that is to come for you.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for joining us on the
Speaker 1: bright side. Brought a lot of sunshine to us today.
Speaker 2: Sunshine and laughter and legally blonde references.
Speaker 3: Ah, I love that. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Yuline Kwang is the author of the may Reese's book
Speaker 1: Club pick How to End a Love Story. Check it
Speaker 1: out wherever you get your books.
Speaker 2: We'll be announcing the June pick for Reese's book Club
Speaker 2: next week, so don't miss it, and you can only
Speaker 2: send us your Reese's book Club questions to Hello at
Speaker 2: the brightsidepodcast dot com.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, Award winning comedian, actor
Speaker 1: and producer Alana Glazer is here to talk about her
Speaker 1: new movie Babes. You don't want to miss it.
Speaker 2: Listen and follow the bright Side on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Simone Boys.
Speaker 2: You can find me at Simone Boice on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 1: I'm Danielle Robe on Instagram and TikTok. That's ro Ba.
Speaker 1: Y see you tomorrow. Keep get on the bright Side.