Previously, in This Book Series I Forgot Everything About…

The Case for Book Recaps: A Formal Petition

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Series need to take a cue from television.

One of the biggest problems with series—made worse by the long waits between releases—is the dual expectation of immediately hooking the reader while also reminding them what the hell happened in the preceding novels.

Three times in the past few months, I’ve picked up the third book in a series only to spend 100+ pages floundering—because the author is trying to do too much and I don’t remember a damn thing. If I had unlimited time, I’d happily reread the earlier novels before diving in. Oftentimes, I do. But it’s not always practical for me and it definitely isn’t practical for most people.

I’m often forgetting who is who (are you really going to randomly name drop Panchek and not remind me why I am supposed to care??), thinking someone is going to come back from the dead because I don’t remember the exact details of the death (Laurie Forest, you did me dirty on this front), or I can’t remember where we stand in the love triangle (I felt like I loved Sel and now I care for Nick again, whiplash!).

No. We need something simpler, for both the writer and the reader.

TV watchers accept and expect recaps. They’re not beneath the story but companions to it. They keep the audience in the moment. Why should novels—which require even more cognitive investment—expect us to just remember all the factions, betrayals, magic systems, and plot twists?

Please consider this my formal petition for 2 page recaps before the story begins. “Previously on Survivor…” should be adapted to “Previously in The Empyrean, or Legendborn, or The Black Witch Chronicles. In these few paragraphs the author can remind the reader where we stand and of the main emotional beats.

Now, I know what you are thinking… isn’t that telling, not showing?

Yes, it absolutely is. And it would still save my sanity. I already had the emotional roller coaster of reading the first few books, just remind me of that roller coaster. The beats don’t hit as hard when I’m trying to remember why I am supposed to care about a character or incident.

As it stands, there are enthusiasts out in the bookstagram and booktok world that do this already, but it’s not readily accessible or discoverable by the average Joe Schmo (me) reading the book.

Here’s what I suggest as a bare minimum:

• 1 paragraph: plot refresher

• 1 paragraph: key relationships (who kissed whom, who betrayed whom, etc.)

• 1 paragraph: magic system/political stakes summary

• “Characters to Remember” cheat sheet

I don’t actually need to know all the particulars, those come back as my memory is jogged. Just tell me if the man is possessed or not, okay?

Here’s an example:

Previously, in The Lord of the Rings: A wizard showed up late (on brand), a shy hobbit inherited the world’s most cursed accessory, and nine very mismatched hikers set off to destroy it. Along the way, an elf and a dwarf discovered the enemies-to-besties pipeline; Aragorn revealed himself as a reluctant king and expert brooder; and Boromir couldn’t resist the urge to borrow the ring just for a second—and paid the ultimate price via multiple arrows. Frodo ran off with Sam, who declared “I made a promise, Mr. Frodo,” and then followed him into what is essentially a slow-moving hellscape.

Also:

• The ring is still evil.

• Gollum is lurking.

• Sauron is a giant flaming eyeball who can apparently see everything but couldn’t find nine dudes on a mountain.

Let’s make this a thing. Just a simple “Previously on…” recap at the start of each new installment—like TV does, but with fewer dramatic zooms and more emotional devastation—would save us all from blindly flipping pages and pretending we know who Panchek is. (We don’t remember.) Readers want to care. We already cared—we just need help remembering why we were crying in the first place. So please, give us the emotional CliffsNotes and let us return to what we came here for: weeping over fictional deaths, angsty love triangles, and the devastating friendships that ruin us in the best ways (Fenrys blinks four times).

Book and wine pairing

Lorrie Moore’s Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? is supposedly funny. And maybe it is—if you find yourself laughing at the absurdity of growing up, trying to be loved, and realizing only too late that the people who shaped your heart have long since moved on without looking back. I didn’t laugh. Not really. But I did ache, quietly and fully, the way one does for a version of yourself you half-remember but know you miss. For a past you wish you could change but hold on to at the same time.

This is a novella soaked in nostalgia—not quite the sweet kind. The narrator, Berie, recounts her girlhood through the lens of her adult life, her marriage, her regrets. She longs for a specific feeling: “the one of approaching a room but of not yet having entered it.” That anteroom of girlhood, when the future was still fabulous and unwritten, when friendship was a lifeline, not a relic. Berie’s love for her best friend Sils is the kind of obsessive teenage tether that defines you long after it ends—its loss leaving behind only the faint imprint of who you were when someone saw all of you, and still made you feel invisible, and how that relationship shaped you.

The titular painting—two little girls tending to injured frogs—says everything the book never quite dares. It’s about wounds and wishes, about caring for things that cannot be saved. Frogs that will never become princes. Futures that will never be. And what becomes of the girls who loved too much and were loved too little?

Berie’s marriage, too, is quietly brutal. She makes “an affectionate farce” of her husband but admits, plainly, that she feels his lack of love for her. She has sacrificed again—this time for stability, or maybe simply the hope that he’ll come around. “I’ll wait for him, my heart in epilogue,” she says, in a line that made me close the book and stare off into space.

If this book were a wine, it would be a slightly aged Chenin Blanc from the Loire—restrained sweetness, surprising acidity, and the kind of complexity that doesn’t show itself right away. There’s a honeyed note on the nose, maybe even some orchard fruit, but on the tongue it finishes sharp—mineral, unresolved. A little like Berie herself.

Drink it while remembering someone you no longer speak to, or rereading old journal entries and cringing at your sincerity. Drink it to remember the hope and excitement for the future, and the bathe in that glow for a little while longer.

Writing Update

Just this morning I received feedback from

Alyssa Matesic

at

Chapter Break

for Susie Sweetheart is Back From the Dead. The feedback is spot on, and… going to be quite a bit of work to address. If you see me laying on the lawn, staring at the clouds… don’t worry, I’m just brainstorming. Good thing it’s slow season?

What I’ve been enjoying recently

Who Will Run the Frog Hospital by Lorrie Moore - I seesawed in this book so hard. Still 4 stars. I loved loved loved parts of it and other times I annotated, “Wow, she’s such a b!tch.”

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry - I’m not surprised by the vitriol spewed at this book so far, but I heartily disagree with it. I hate that readers pigeon-hole authors into genres. I loved this story, I loved the romance (even though it didn’t take center stage), and I thought there were some beautiful messages in here. Haters gonna hate.

The Life Impossible by Matt Haig - It’s an easy read, it’s enjoyable, and it’s great for a book club discussion. That’s about all I can say :)

1984 by George Orwell - Reading this for a book club and SO glad I finally am. This is one I wish I read in high school, or at the very least earlier in my life, but I’m not sure I would have gotten the same things from it.

Say You’ll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez - I’m a little nervous for this one. Hearing very mixed things…

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xx,
bb