i'm not lonely, baby, i am free

"cinnamon" by hayley williams & an intro to daphne brink

Last month, I introduced Chris Kepler to you through a Glass Animals song, and this month it’s time for you to meet the other half of The Art of Catching Feelings, Daphne Brink.

At the start of the book, Daphne is freshly divorced — she’s been separated from her ex-husband for a year, per South Carolina’s laws requiring a period of separation if there’s no “fault” alleged, but she only just signed the official paperwork a couple days before attending the fateful game that puts her in Chris’ orbit.

Listen, y’all know me and my love of Paramore enough by now that I can be real with you. A lot of my inspiration to write a divorced heroine came from following Hayley Williams’ journey after she and New Found Glory’s Chad Gilbert split — which, GOOD RIDDANCE TO BAD RUBBISH AMIRITE. Check out this section from the book I just annotated the other day:

I only pretended to give a shit about NFG out of support for my girl!!! Now I’m free!

Hayley wrote some really beautiful songs processing her divorce as part of her solo work, and “Cinnamon” in particular kept coming to mind when I was thinking about Daphne. The song is all about reframing what could be seen as bad (being lonely, having only a pet to talk to) into something good (being free, eating breakfast in the nude if you want). It’s about reclaiming your femininity, your desire, your independence. It’s about building your own home, a place where you can care for and nurture yourself in the way that your partner maybe never did (and in fact interfered with your ability to do it for yourself!!).

Home is very important to both Daphne and Chris in The Art of Catching Feelings, because they both have living situations that in some ways reflect exactly what they’ve worked really hard to build . . . but also reveal the ways that they still feel isolated or incomplete.

One thing Daphne did immediately do for herself, though, was get a cat she named Milo. Since my truest joy in life is writing animal characters that are some amalgamation of beloved pets in my own life or the lives of my friends, I can basically introduce you to Milo right here —

the face of a cat low-key judging you for sliding into a baseball player’s DMs

In real life, this is my friend’s cat Linus, who I go WAY back with because I was there the night we rescued him from a Barnes & Noble parking lot by luring him and his bum leg out from underneath a Jeep Wrangler with nothing but a horse treat and a hoodie to wrap him in. He now lives the life of Riley, don’t you worry about him, with a fully healed leg and as many treats intended for his own kind as he can scam you out of. If she goes out of town, I check in on him and when I tell you I’ve never heard a louder purr in my LIFE. I’m also not used to a cat presenting his belly and actually letting you pet him there without trying to nip at you lolol but maybe I’m telling on my own cat a bit.

Anyway. I’ve been tagged in a few early reviews of The Art of Catching Feelings on Instagram, and several refer to Daphne (lovingly!) as a “mess” and I admit at first that kind of hurt my feelings! I mean . . . they’re not wrong. She’s a bit of a mess! She literally starts out the story by drunk heckling a baseball player (on the HOME TEAM lolol girl) and then ends up (okay, accidentally at first, but still) basically catfishing him while she lets him get to know her through an alter ego online without telling him who she is in real life. To call that messy is a . . . kind way to put it.

But I just feel protective of Daphne, because I can see the ways she’s really Going Through It and the ways that her divorce really did do a number on her. She grew up with an older brother who treated her like the annoying little sister, there to be teased or ignored; she found an escape in reading books but never felt fully able to connect with anyone else over it; and then she fell into a marriage where her husband treated her like she wasn’t worth the effort. Of COURSE she’d be immediately drawn into an intimate text relationship where the other person seemed to genuinely want to get to know her. And then OF COURSE she’d end up hurting him, in part because she just . . . never believed that anyone would care about her that much.

Part of my preorder swag! Illustration by Jenifer Prince.

The Art of Catching Feelings comes out in less than a month!!! So there’s still time to preorder if you feel like it, and you can get a bunch of preorder swag including a Carolina Battery sticker, baseball cards for Chris and Daphne, and the above art print illustrated by Jenifer Prince that I am totally obsessed with. Chris’ thin gold chain! The way he’s smiling down at his phone! Daphne twirling her hair and biting her lip as his message comes in! And there’s Milo!

You know the drill, sorry, but if you preorder from my local indie Tombolo Books, you get all the preorder swag automatically AND I’ll sign the book for you. (Just put any personalization request in the comments to your order! ). Or if you preorder from anywhere else (including internationally), you can fill out my Google form and I’ll send the preorder swag to you separately. I’m also doing a bunch of events, including a launch on June 20 at the Trop! Where we can use Lot 6 to park so no need to stress if you’re like Daphne (/me) because for once parking in St. Pete should be NO PROBLEM!

Oh, also — there’s a giveaway going on over at Goodreads! And probably more stuff I should also be sharing but I have exhausted my tolerance for Linking Things so let’s leave it there. I appreciate you letting me talk about these characters; I really love them.

Currently reading . . . I just finished The (Fake) Dating Game by Timothy Janovsky and WOW, I am just in awe of Timothy’s mind tbh. Like this book was a fucking BLAST but also at one point had me legit tearing up as the main character remembered all the ways that he connected with his mom over this fictionalized Supermarket Sweep-esque TV show, all the ways that auditioning for that same show are making him remember her and confront losing her all over again. FUCK. There are touching moments like that, but it’s also just hot and fun and time passed like nothing at all as I was reading it. There’s a simple line at one point like They were vegetarians who hadn’t done their homework (about contestants on the show) that I swear had me snort-laughing even thinking about the next day.

watching . . . I finished the first half of the new Bridgerton series! I have thoughts! But also, I admit, not deeply held opinions, so whatever YOU thought of the show I probably in a roundabout way agree with you. I know that sounds like a copout. I’m just saying, if you came at me with “I LOVED it!” I have things to say in that vein and if you came to me with “My biggest issue was” I also have things to say in that vein.

I do stand by this Take that I posted to my Instagram stories lol

listening to . . . It’s been quite the eclectic mix over here. Jimmy Eat World’s Bleed American; “Outside (feat. Fred Durst) [Family Values Tour]” by Aaron Lewis of Staind (lololol ask me about my mental health); Melanie Martinez; episodes of The Casual Criminalist; my husband walked in on me punching my fists in the air to Cher’s “I Found Someone” and he said that was such an “‘80s” type thing to do WELL THEN I’M RIGHT IN STEP WITH THE MUSIC AREN’T I. (it’s all about that “Now maybe! baby! maybe! baby! I found someone . . .”)

preordering . . . I love Jennifer Dugan’s books, and she has a new adult romance, The Ride of Her Life, out 5/28!! When synopses mention the crushing weight of student loans I’m immediately sold and I’m not even joking.