**A Unique Reading Experience: An Exploration of Elizabeth Cat's Debut Novel**

As I delved into Elizabeth Cat's debut novel, I was immediately struck by its unique writing style and the sense that this book is an indie gem. The author's prose is indeed gorgeous, with a style that is both poetic and evocative. Her use of language is like a breath of fresh air, transporting me to the rolling hills and wooded landscapes of Southern Ohio. I found myself becoming increasingly invested in the story, despite its weirdness and unpredictability.

**A Sense of Commitment**

The author's willingness to commit to her vision is admirable, even if it means pushing boundaries and taking risks. She doesn't shy away from exploring complex themes, such as bodily difference and religious identity, which are woven throughout the narrative in a way that is both thought-provoking and unsettling. While some readers may find this approach alienating or challenging, I found myself drawn to its uniqueness.

**A Dose of Appalachian Realness**

One of the most striking aspects of the novel is its setting: rural Southern Ohio, where the natural world seems to have a profound impact on the lives of those living there. The author's portrayal of the region's beauty and its inhabitants' connection to the land is both vivid and nuanced, conjuring up images of porches with small orchards, rocking chairs, and cigarette smoke-filled glasses of lemonade. This is indeed Appalachian country, as only Southern Ohio can be.

**A Complex, Multilayered Story**

The plot itself is complex and multifaceted, drawing parallels to classic works like "To Kill a Mockingbird" in its exploration of racial tension, but with a distinctly religious twist. The author's handling of these themes is both sensitive and thought-provoking, offering a nuanced examination of the ways in which societal expectations can shape individual experiences.

**A Debut's Limitations**

While Elizabeth Cat's writing is undoubtedly stellar, it's clear that she's still finding her footing as a writer. Some of the narrative choices may feel a little rough around the edges, and certain themes are handled with a degree of heavy-handedness that may grate on some readers. However, these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a remarkable debut.

**A Promise for the Future**

Given the quality of this novel, I'm excited to think about what Elizabeth Cat might produce next. With her unique writing style and willingness to tackle complex themes, she has the potential to become one of the most exciting young writers working today. As an author who is deeply invested in exploring Appalachian culture and identity, I'm eager to see how she will continue to grow and evolve as a writer.

**A Call for Representation**

As we discussed at the end of this video, representation matters. When it comes to stories about Appalachia, it's essential that we're getting more than just one perspective – we need diverse voices and experiences reflected in our media. Elizabeth Cat's work is an important contribution to this conversation, offering a unique and nuanced exploration of life in rural Southern Ohio.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, Elizabeth Cat's debut novel is a remarkable achievement, marked by its stunning writing style, complex themes, and Appalachian authenticity. While it may not be for everyone – and some readers may find it too weird or challenging – I'm excited to see where this talented author goes from here. With her unique voice and perspective, she has the potential to captivate audiences and leave a lasting impact on the literary world.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enDylan has arrived have you arrived come here good boy look Dylan has arrived that's what everyone wants to see I know who's the true star of my channel don't I yes lovely CGI breath yeah like the breath of fairies are you cute are you going to go get in trouble and chew things I had a box near the trash the other day and I was sitting on the couch and in comes Dylan with a box like twice his size and he proceeded needs to shred it so thank you for recycling Dylan okay well you done okay go play go play oh he went through the tripod normally he's terrified of it I feel like we have made progress today good job Dylan good boy you want to sit with ma'am while she reviews books I don't know guys okay hi my name is Kindra Winchester welcome back to my Channel today I'm going to be talking about some books that I've wanted to talk to you about for a while or should I say a topic I've wanted to talk talk to you about for a while but I don't really know where to start so these are going to be some chatty reviews about books that are all set in the region of Appalachia now if you're not familiar with Appalachia or maybe you're not even from the United States this is the region of Appalachia it extends from New York State all the way down to Alabama But Central Appalachia is obviously West Virginia and that is the only state that has all of its counties within the appalachin region according to the Appalachia Regional Commission that a mouthful but that is still 420 counties over 13 states 14 States somewhere around there and that is actually a huge huge region and there's over 20 to 25 million people within the region of Appalachia so I left where I grew up which was in the Ohio uh Kentucky West Virginia Tri-State region about 10 years ago to leave for college and so I came down south if you have heard anything about Appalachia you've probably heard about this book JD Vance's hology now I will admit when I first read this book I was so happy thank you Dylan I was so happy for any type of representation of appacha at the time I had just started researching appalache and the way that JD Vans talks about feeling out of place and not knowing things and having people talk about where you came from like they're all Hillbillies and they're all white trash and the negative jokes that people say about your region is just really exhausting and JD Vance talks about that and you can tell he's lost his accent he says appalation now which I feel is a sign um because ultimately though reading about this book and reading more reviews about this book I'm slowly more appalled that he makes some very generalized or generalizations about an entire region based on his own family experiences and he also cites some uh people that a white supremacist site for their own benefit and different things but I've got to be be honest and say I have not been able to articulate all of my feelings about this book and why I dislike it so much in in any really tangible way but recently I actually finally picked up a copy of what you're getting wrong about Appalachia now we interviewed Elizabeth cat the author of this book on our podcast reading women and I will link that above my head and you can go check that out but this book I feel like did a much better job of covering the region of Appalachia now you might have noticed since the 2016 election there have been a lot of trump country pieces written about Appalachia and it's where these people from Urban centers whether they're conservative or liberal uh they like parachute in and they spend five days there and they're like I understand Appalachia now and blah blah blah they don't really at all and they're just looking at one region of Appalachia or they'll spin a story a certain way and I find that very frustrating but again I just felt like I did not have enough information or a way to articulate how I felt about those things or explain to people why I felt so frustrated and insulted by many of these pieces uh so when I found this book I feel like she does a great job of explaining why that is and she does a great job of respecting other cultures as well within the community as well as trying to expand people's perspective of what Appalachia means now you probably have lots of questions since especially since I said I really dislike hology and I feel like that's a bit of a darling book right now but I would highly recommend that you go check out this book uh this is from Bel publishing and so you're also supporting Indie press you can find it uh wherever you you get your books but it's only 150 pages I literally almost underlined something on every page I was afraid I would run out of little flags for the book it's really amazing and I could sit here and I could read quotes to you but I would highly recommend that instead you go check out the interview that we did with Elizabeth cat because I feel like she would give you a better primer of what's in this book and why she has taken uh to writing this response to Hill bology and the way the media has been covering uh appalache especially since the 2016 election also before I forgot in the back of this book is a resource list of poetry fiction non-fiction documentaries just's all sorts of different media that you can go check out that she feels represents the Appalachian community and different parts of the Appalachian Community she now lives in the shanoa valley in Virginia but she grew up in Eastern Tennessee in Knoxville so that's pretty cool Autumn is also from Knoxville so they had a great time chatting that after we ended the recording so another book set in the shann andoa valley and that Elizabeth cat actually blurbed is dopesick by Beth mayy and she her blurb says dopesick is both a tribute to those who lost and a fierce rebuke to those who took and the new guide book for understanding this quintessentially American crisis now this is set in the shenoa valley and I feel like I can't talk about this book about the opioid epidemic without talking about Dreamland by San kones now this is a book that came out in 2015 and I interviewed SAS for um my hometown's paper because I am from Portsmouth which is one of the towns that he profiles in this book he profiles Portsmouth in Southern Ohio as well as a town of Mexico and he parallels black tar heroin's arrival to United States with this town of Mexico and the opioid crisis and pill Mills uh starting in uh Portsmouth area this book though is more technical it's an overall view of the opioid crisis and I feel like I understood how opiates connect to Black toar heroin on a Down to Earth scale so much better with Dreamland however his is a more overview book he he touches down and and talks to some people but we don't know exactly what happens to them per se so what Beth Macy does she takes a totally different tactic than Sam kinon is and she follows people so if you want something more Technical and that's an overview beautifully gorgeously written it definitely deserve that National book National book critic Circle award there we go it definitely deserve that award but Beth Macy is all about people it's more of an evicted kind of tact where she just follows certain people through their experiences and illustrates how devastating this crisis is to families and how dangerous it is to Doctors Now who are refusing to prescribe things and it's dangerous for people who are given wrong information and find themselves addicted to opioids and just how that changes your brain and just what it looks like on an everyday basis and I feel like she just does this so incredibly well and I really en enjoyed that part of the book I will say when it came to actually describing how The Crisis began and how the two drugs connected to each other and people who were addicted to opioids then were addicted to heroin I did not understand her book but I understood because I'd already read Dreamland so I would say Sam kones is better at the technical side of things and the overview of the crisis well Beth Macy is more about people so it depends on what kind of book you want to read I prefer Dreamland but you might prefer a book where she focuses on people and character so I feel like it's definitely a topic that people need to read about but now you have more choices and you can decide what book you want to read for your own education and both of these books are heavily cited so you have more resources at the end also Beth Macy's is newer so she has more updated information but I will say as many of you have commented when I've talked about this opioid crisis that uh the laws in certain states are changing and people who are now terminally ill cannot get opiates to ease their passing and it's a problem so she does talk about that updated information in here so um there you go go forth and read so the last book I'm going to tell you about today is set in my home region now I have to say I've never read a book set in my home region besides Dreamland and that's kind of I should say I've never read fiction in my home region so I was so excited to finally read this book set in Southern Ohio and that is the summer that melted everything by Tiffany McDaniel now this book is a little different um this is a almost like a religious allegory only it's an atheist religious allegory complicated but by that I mean it's super heavy-handed and the way that it uses religious symbolism and to promote the atheist perspective that I'm assuming that the author has but I guess we could never assume but you know I'm just going to go go out on a limb there and that's what I'm assuming her perspective is you know as a woman of Faith who does love to study Theology and spiritual topics within books not also not just within Christianity but in other religions as well I found this very interesting because this is a tradition that is not really written in very much not only is this a crisis of Faith kind of Novel but it's also that allegory element there this book starts when feeling is walking down the road and he's thinking how his dad has recently put an ad in the newspaper inviting the devil to town long story but that's what's happened and so he meets a little black boy on the road about the same age as him and he holds up the ad from the newspaper and says I'm the devil and he's like what he's like I am the devil and I have come to town this kid is really well spoken and it's just so smart and so uh Fielding begins to think maybe this this kid is really the devil so he's like well I'll take you to my dad so they're walking to their dad see his dad and they meet a one of the neighbors and one of the neighbors is a little person and his name is Elohim uh and if you don't know that's another name used for God in uh the Bible and so you could see the heavy-handed nature of the story but she kind of goes for it she just is like okay well this is what I'm doing so I'm just going to go there just go there commit to it and she does so this book is really weird it makes me think that this is kind of like an indie book like it's very strange very different very weird and not everyone will like it because it is all of these things but her writing style is just gorgeous I really began to pay attention to this book and realized that I might just have a real gem on my hands when I saw this uh it says at the beginning of chapter 2 once I once heard someone refer to bread as the scar of the paradise we lost so it was in many ways a place with a perfect wound just below the surface it was a resting in the southern low of Ohio in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains where each porch had a small Orchard of small talk and rocking chairs where cigarette tongues flapped over glasses of lemonade they said the wooded Hills were the fence God himself built for us Hills I always thought were the busiest Hills in all the world busy rising and rolling and surr surrounding from Main Lane the town unfurled into Lanes of houses and eventually Lanes of farms the farther out you got breid was the combination of flower and weed of the overgrown and the mode it was Appalachian country as only Southern Ohio can be and it was beautiful as a Sunbeam and waste High Grass so this stylistic writing of course is My Kryptonite and I I just love it so much her writing is just so stellar and it's set in 1984 so as the story story about this orphan boy who shows up at this house and he is a local prosecutor and in many ways it's giving me like to Kill a Mocking Bird Vibes only about religion as opposed to race relations though that is a heavy theme in the book considering that is a young African-American boy but there's also themes of bodily difference there's just a lot going on I will say I think in some ways you can tell that it's a debut because she falls into some of the common traps of writing about certain topics and I can't tell you what those are CU those are spoilers so this isn't perfect and in fact many ways it's a hot mess but because it's so unique her writing on a sentence level is so Stellar I felt like I really enjoyed this book and if this is her debut I feel like she's going to be able to tighten things up in the future and just write even better and better books so I'm very much looking forward to her next novel and since this came out in 2016 there's time for it like it should be coming like in the next you know few years right CU I write I don't know how she writes I don't want to put too much pressure on her but it it is really an interesting book so if that's something that you like you don't mind a heavy symbolism and you don't mind something a little weird uh something more focused on religious topics or different things then this is something I think you'll definitely like it's definitely in Kendra's wheelhouse it has like almost all the check boxes for things that I want to read like my kryptonite and my just a Kendra book so I find that very interesting uh also by the way Public Service announce if you're watching this around the time it came out I saw this on Book Outlet today so you should definitely go check it out because it's just so different it's just so different so I'd be interested to see what other people think about it because it might be a Love or hate book depending on how you like your books but I really enjoyed this one and we'll be keeping it and hopefully rereading it and making notes in it because it's just so interesting so I hope to do more of these videos about books about appal and why it's important to me that we have better representation in media and not just representation about Appalachia but the different communities within Appalachia as I said in the beginning of the video we are not a monolith they're people with different accents than I do autumns from Knoxville she's also from Appalachia but she has a totally different take on things so it's not like we're a singular perspective but I would like a more well-rounded perspective for people outside of the region yeah we definitely need more representation in so many areas but this particular one is close to my heart so I hope to be telling you more about it so thank you for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it all the things I've talked about will be linked down in the description box and you can go check that out and definitely go check out the interview with Elizabeth cat but until next time I'll talk to you later guys byeDylan has arrived have you arrived come here good boy look Dylan has arrived that's what everyone wants to see I know who's the true star of my channel don't I yes lovely CGI breath yeah like the breath of fairies are you cute are you going to go get in trouble and chew things I had a box near the trash the other day and I was sitting on the couch and in comes Dylan with a box like twice his size and he proceeded needs to shred it so thank you for recycling Dylan okay well you done okay go play go play oh he went through the tripod normally he's terrified of it I feel like we have made progress today good job Dylan good boy you want to sit with ma'am while she reviews books I don't know guys okay hi my name is Kindra Winchester welcome back to my Channel today I'm going to be talking about some books that I've wanted to talk to you about for a while or should I say a topic I've wanted to talk talk to you about for a while but I don't really know where to start so these are going to be some chatty reviews about books that are all set in the region of Appalachia now if you're not familiar with Appalachia or maybe you're not even from the United States this is the region of Appalachia it extends from New York State all the way down to Alabama But Central Appalachia is obviously West Virginia and that is the only state that has all of its counties within the appalachin region according to the Appalachia Regional Commission that a mouthful but that is still 420 counties over 13 states 14 States somewhere around there and that is actually a huge huge region and there's over 20 to 25 million people within the region of Appalachia so I left where I grew up which was in the Ohio uh Kentucky West Virginia Tri-State region about 10 years ago to leave for college and so I came down south if you have heard anything about Appalachia you've probably heard about this book JD Vance's hology now I will admit when I first read this book I was so happy thank you Dylan I was so happy for any type of representation of appacha at the time I had just started researching appalache and the way that JD Vans talks about feeling out of place and not knowing things and having people talk about where you came from like they're all Hillbillies and they're all white trash and the negative jokes that people say about your region is just really exhausting and JD Vance talks about that and you can tell he's lost his accent he says appalation now which I feel is a sign um because ultimately though reading about this book and reading more reviews about this book I'm slowly more appalled that he makes some very generalized or generalizations about an entire region based on his own family experiences and he also cites some uh people that a white supremacist site for their own benefit and different things but I've got to be be honest and say I have not been able to articulate all of my feelings about this book and why I dislike it so much in in any really tangible way but recently I actually finally picked up a copy of what you're getting wrong about Appalachia now we interviewed Elizabeth cat the author of this book on our podcast reading women and I will link that above my head and you can go check that out but this book I feel like did a much better job of covering the region of Appalachia now you might have noticed since the 2016 election there have been a lot of trump country pieces written about Appalachia and it's where these people from Urban centers whether they're conservative or liberal uh they like parachute in and they spend five days there and they're like I understand Appalachia now and blah blah blah they don't really at all and they're just looking at one region of Appalachia or they'll spin a story a certain way and I find that very frustrating but again I just felt like I did not have enough information or a way to articulate how I felt about those things or explain to people why I felt so frustrated and insulted by many of these pieces uh so when I found this book I feel like she does a great job of explaining why that is and she does a great job of respecting other cultures as well within the community as well as trying to expand people's perspective of what Appalachia means now you probably have lots of questions since especially since I said I really dislike hology and I feel like that's a bit of a darling book right now but I would highly recommend that you go check out this book uh this is from Bel publishing and so you're also supporting Indie press you can find it uh wherever you you get your books but it's only 150 pages I literally almost underlined something on every page I was afraid I would run out of little flags for the book it's really amazing and I could sit here and I could read quotes to you but I would highly recommend that instead you go check out the interview that we did with Elizabeth cat because I feel like she would give you a better primer of what's in this book and why she has taken uh to writing this response to Hill bology and the way the media has been covering uh appalache especially since the 2016 election also before I forgot in the back of this book is a resource list of poetry fiction non-fiction documentaries just's all sorts of different media that you can go check out that she feels represents the Appalachian community and different parts of the Appalachian Community she now lives in the shanoa valley in Virginia but she grew up in Eastern Tennessee in Knoxville so that's pretty cool Autumn is also from Knoxville so they had a great time chatting that after we ended the recording so another book set in the shann andoa valley and that Elizabeth cat actually blurbed is dopesick by Beth mayy and she her blurb says dopesick is both a tribute to those who lost and a fierce rebuke to those who took and the new guide book for understanding this quintessentially American crisis now this is set in the shenoa valley and I feel like I can't talk about this book about the opioid epidemic without talking about Dreamland by San kones now this is a book that came out in 2015 and I interviewed SAS for um my hometown's paper because I am from Portsmouth which is one of the towns that he profiles in this book he profiles Portsmouth in Southern Ohio as well as a town of Mexico and he parallels black tar heroin's arrival to United States with this town of Mexico and the opioid crisis and pill Mills uh starting in uh Portsmouth area this book though is more technical it's an overall view of the opioid crisis and I feel like I understood how opiates connect to Black toar heroin on a Down to Earth scale so much better with Dreamland however his is a more overview book he he touches down and and talks to some people but we don't know exactly what happens to them per se so what Beth Macy does she takes a totally different tactic than Sam kinon is and she follows people so if you want something more Technical and that's an overview beautifully gorgeously written it definitely deserve that National book National book critic Circle award there we go it definitely deserve that award but Beth Macy is all about people it's more of an evicted kind of tact where she just follows certain people through their experiences and illustrates how devastating this crisis is to families and how dangerous it is to Doctors Now who are refusing to prescribe things and it's dangerous for people who are given wrong information and find themselves addicted to opioids and just how that changes your brain and just what it looks like on an everyday basis and I feel like she just does this so incredibly well and I really en enjoyed that part of the book I will say when it came to actually describing how The Crisis began and how the two drugs connected to each other and people who were addicted to opioids then were addicted to heroin I did not understand her book but I understood because I'd already read Dreamland so I would say Sam kones is better at the technical side of things and the overview of the crisis well Beth Macy is more about people so it depends on what kind of book you want to read I prefer Dreamland but you might prefer a book where she focuses on people and character so I feel like it's definitely a topic that people need to read about but now you have more choices and you can decide what book you want to read for your own education and both of these books are heavily cited so you have more resources at the end also Beth Macy's is newer so she has more updated information but I will say as many of you have commented when I've talked about this opioid crisis that uh the laws in certain states are changing and people who are now terminally ill cannot get opiates to ease their passing and it's a problem so she does talk about that updated information in here so um there you go go forth and read so the last book I'm going to tell you about today is set in my home region now I have to say I've never read a book set in my home region besides Dreamland and that's kind of I should say I've never read fiction in my home region so I was so excited to finally read this book set in Southern Ohio and that is the summer that melted everything by Tiffany McDaniel now this book is a little different um this is a almost like a religious allegory only it's an atheist religious allegory complicated but by that I mean it's super heavy-handed and the way that it uses religious symbolism and to promote the atheist perspective that I'm assuming that the author has but I guess we could never assume but you know I'm just going to go go out on a limb there and that's what I'm assuming her perspective is you know as a woman of Faith who does love to study Theology and spiritual topics within books not also not just within Christianity but in other religions as well I found this very interesting because this is a tradition that is not really written in very much not only is this a crisis of Faith kind of Novel but it's also that allegory element there this book starts when feeling is walking down the road and he's thinking how his dad has recently put an ad in the newspaper inviting the devil to town long story but that's what's happened and so he meets a little black boy on the road about the same age as him and he holds up the ad from the newspaper and says I'm the devil and he's like what he's like I am the devil and I have come to town this kid is really well spoken and it's just so smart and so uh Fielding begins to think maybe this this kid is really the devil so he's like well I'll take you to my dad so they're walking to their dad see his dad and they meet a one of the neighbors and one of the neighbors is a little person and his name is Elohim uh and if you don't know that's another name used for God in uh the Bible and so you could see the heavy-handed nature of the story but she kind of goes for it she just is like okay well this is what I'm doing so I'm just going to go there just go there commit to it and she does so this book is really weird it makes me think that this is kind of like an indie book like it's very strange very different very weird and not everyone will like it because it is all of these things but her writing style is just gorgeous I really began to pay attention to this book and realized that I might just have a real gem on my hands when I saw this uh it says at the beginning of chapter 2 once I once heard someone refer to bread as the scar of the paradise we lost so it was in many ways a place with a perfect wound just below the surface it was a resting in the southern low of Ohio in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains where each porch had a small Orchard of small talk and rocking chairs where cigarette tongues flapped over glasses of lemonade they said the wooded Hills were the fence God himself built for us Hills I always thought were the busiest Hills in all the world busy rising and rolling and surr surrounding from Main Lane the town unfurled into Lanes of houses and eventually Lanes of farms the farther out you got breid was the combination of flower and weed of the overgrown and the mode it was Appalachian country as only Southern Ohio can be and it was beautiful as a Sunbeam and waste High Grass so this stylistic writing of course is My Kryptonite and I I just love it so much her writing is just so stellar and it's set in 1984 so as the story story about this orphan boy who shows up at this house and he is a local prosecutor and in many ways it's giving me like to Kill a Mocking Bird Vibes only about religion as opposed to race relations though that is a heavy theme in the book considering that is a young African-American boy but there's also themes of bodily difference there's just a lot going on I will say I think in some ways you can tell that it's a debut because she falls into some of the common traps of writing about certain topics and I can't tell you what those are CU those are spoilers so this isn't perfect and in fact many ways it's a hot mess but because it's so unique her writing on a sentence level is so Stellar I felt like I really enjoyed this book and if this is her debut I feel like she's going to be able to tighten things up in the future and just write even better and better books so I'm very much looking forward to her next novel and since this came out in 2016 there's time for it like it should be coming like in the next you know few years right CU I write I don't know how she writes I don't want to put too much pressure on her but it it is really an interesting book so if that's something that you like you don't mind a heavy symbolism and you don't mind something a little weird uh something more focused on religious topics or different things then this is something I think you'll definitely like it's definitely in Kendra's wheelhouse it has like almost all the check boxes for things that I want to read like my kryptonite and my just a Kendra book so I find that very interesting uh also by the way Public Service announce if you're watching this around the time it came out I saw this on Book Outlet today so you should definitely go check it out because it's just so different it's just so different so I'd be interested to see what other people think about it because it might be a Love or hate book depending on how you like your books but I really enjoyed this one and we'll be keeping it and hopefully rereading it and making notes in it because it's just so interesting so I hope to do more of these videos about books about appal and why it's important to me that we have better representation in media and not just representation about Appalachia but the different communities within Appalachia as I said in the beginning of the video we are not a monolith they're people with different accents than I do autumns from Knoxville she's also from Appalachia but she has a totally different take on things so it's not like we're a singular perspective but I would like a more well-rounded perspective for people outside of the region yeah we definitely need more representation in so many areas but this particular one is close to my heart so I hope to be telling you more about it so thank you for watching this video I hope you enjoyed it all the things I've talked about will be linked down in the description box and you can go check that out and definitely go check out the interview with Elizabeth cat but until next time I'll talk to you later guys bye\n"