Booksmart

Does depicting taboo relationships automatically mean endorsing them? Does having an interesting personal story automatically make you a good storyteller? And further, how does an author follow up a seminal debut? These are the central questions that Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King set out to answer in today's episode of Booksmart, using writer and former child actor Jennette McCurdy's fiction debut, 'Half His Age', and her best-selling memoir, 'I'm Glad My Mom Died', as their case studies.

You can buy 'Half His Age' at the following link: https://bit.ly/4u5sL0v

Welcome to our first book club episode, where we delve into the wonderful and traumatic world of Yulin Kuang and How to End a Love Story. Kuang is an author, director, and screenwriter, known for the adaptation of People We Meet on Vacation. Today’s episode sees hosts Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King discuss all things trauma bonds, pretty privilege, and if this book is actually a love story.

What do book-to-screen adaptations owe their readers? And further, what makes a good adaptation? Should the goal of any adaptation be to appease existing fandoms or attract new ones? These are the central questions that Sunny Adcock and Allie Daisy King set out to answer in today’s episode of Booksmart, using Emily Henry’s 'People We Meet on Vacation', recently released on Netflix, as their case study.

In the final episode of Booksmart for the year, Soaliha Iqbal sits down with acclaimed writer Zeynab Gamieldien to unpack her powerful new novel, Learned Behaviours. 
A gripping literary mystery set between western Sydney and the sharply stratified world of the legal profession, the novel follows Zaid Saban: a young man on the cusp of becoming a barrister, whose carefully curated life is disrupted when the past resurfaces in the form of his former best friend’s diary.
As Zaid and Amira, the sister of his childhood friend Hass, attempt to unravel what really happened the year Hass was arrested for murder, Learned Behaviours becomes a deeply moving exploration of guilt, innocence, privilege, belonging and the quiet violences we carry long after we’ve left home.
In this chat, Soaliha and Zeynab dive into the novel’s big questions: What does it mean to grow up between worlds? How does class shape the stories we tell about ourselves? And how can crime fiction be a tool for exposing injustice rather than reinforcing stereotypes? They discuss Zeynab’s process for writing place with nuance, the emotional weight of returning to western Sydney on the page, and why this story resonates so profoundly with readers who have walked similar paths.
With praise from critics calling the novel “a warm-hearted analysis of human nature,” “compelling and pacy,” and “a clear-eyed exploration of injustice and belonging,” this is a conversation that goes beyond the page: into craft, community, and the inherited narratives that shape who we become. We say this about every ep...but it's one not to be missed!!

In this week’s episode of Booksmart, host Soaliha Iqbal sits down with award-winning author, artist, and screenwriter Dylin Hardcastle - the creative force behind Below Deck, Breathing Underwater, Running Like China, and the critically acclaimed A Language of Limbs, winner of the 2023 Kathleen Mitchell Award and longlisted for the 2025 Stella Prize (casually). 
Together, they dive deep into the making of A Language of Limbs - a sweeping, dual-perspective novel set across three decades, following two unnamed protagonists whose lives almost touch, collide, and diverge. Dylin shares how the novel’s distinctive structure emerged, why they played with form (from fragmented vignettes to poetic passages and the absence of quotation marks), and the ways their own queer and trans embodiment shaped the book’s language, texture, and emotional core.
Soaliha and Dylin also unpack the novel’s central focus: chosen family; the intimacy of sex as character development; the dance between pleasure and pain; and the intergenerational grief, rage, resilience, and joy of queer communities from the 1970s through the AIDS crisis to now. Dylin reflects on the responsibility of writing towards history with tenderness and accuracy, the surprising generational differences in how readers respond to depictions of violence and trauma, and why joy had to sit alongside devastation.
They also explore the fascinating evolution of the book’s cover (including the story behind the now-iconic photograph), how A Language of Limbs was optioned for television before publication (!!!), and how the adaptation expands the book's universe. 
ALSO - be sure to listen to the whole ep as Dylin offers an early glimpse into their next novel!