Second chance romance may be the closest contemporary romance gets to literary fiction. After a big reading month, I spun my book club wheel and made the case, using two recent reads, Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell and No Matter What by Cara Bastone, alongside two all-time favourites, Before I Let Go by Kennedy Ryan and Seven Days in June by Tia Williams. We talk foreshadowing, the scripts romance hands women about bodies, why older characters hit differently, and how much “happily ever after” you actually need.

• Plot-driven vs. character-driven: why second chance romance sits closer to literary fiction
• Which Taylor Swift era each book is (Evermore into Lover)
• Foreshadowing in second chance romance: what broke them, and why the reveal has to be earned
• Why characters who have lived a little (and are nearly 40) are so satisfying to read
• How Cherry Baby pushes back on romance scripts about body size, weight loss, and GLP-1s
• Rating the endings on a “will they make it?” scale
• What your romance taste teaches you about your own needs, and why reading romance can be an escape and still be smart

• The Venn diagram: plot-driven romance and character-driven literary fiction overlap more than you think, and second chance romance lives in the overlap.
• Show your receipts: a good second chance romance has to explain what drove two people apart and what is different enough now to bring them back.
• Happily ever after: probably vs. definitely. Know which one you need before you pick up the book.

• Cherry Baby, Rainbow Rowell
• No Matter What, Cara Bastone
• Before I Let Go, Kennedy Ryan
• Seven Days in June, Tia Williams
• Normal People, Sally Rooney
• Talking at Night, Claire Daverley
• Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding

Content note: Before I Let Go deals with pregnancy and child loss. The episode keeps spoilers light.

I Finished a Book, Chapter One: [link] | Chapter Two: [link]

Which of these four have you read, and which one are you picking up next? Send me a DM on Instagram @medium.lady or a text. Medium Lady Talks, Episode 187.

The leaves are down, the holidays haven't started, and I'm calling this in-between stretch stick season, borrowing the name (and a lot of feelings) from Noah Kahan. In this episode I walk through my November self-care capsule: three simple lists, practical, whimsical, and consumable, that keep me participating in my own life instead of watching it go by. This month also marks seven years since my first Medium Lady post, and I talk about why naming a season and making a loose plan for it is one of the most protective things I do against the disengagement side of burnout. Grab your notes app and make your own.

• Why MY November is stick season, and how to name the season you're in
• The three-list capsule: practical, whimsical, consumable
• Why the plan still works even if you don't finish the list
• Seven years of monthly capsules, and how they became a way of knowing who I am

• Name your season. Don’t just call it “November”; give it a theme or a vibe.
• Build three lists. Practical (what needs doing), whimsical (what brings light), consumable (what to eat, watch, read, and listen to).
• Start with the easiest list. If whimsical feels hard, begin with consumable. Don't overthink it, and don't over-commit.

• Noah Kahan: Stick Season (album), including the song Growing Sideways
• FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity) Reading Challenge, November prompt: a book that celebrates fat bodies and fat joy. thefoldcanada.org
• Body Talk by Katie Sturino
• Cherry Baby by Rainbow Rowell
• When Harry Met Sally

• Episode 185: burnout and disengagement [link]
• Episode 187: I Finished a Book, Chapter three [link] where I discuss Cherry Baby a book about size inclusivity and fat joy
• Episode 181: the August Monthly Capsule [link]

Instagram: @medium.lady Tell me what's on your capsule, or DM me if you don't know where to start.

You can have a lot going on and not be burnt out. After six weeks away from the mic, Erin pulls apart the two ideas: why a full life isn’t the cause of burnout, what burnout actually looks like, and how slowing down helps your body feel safe enough to recover. For any woman who has been told, or has told herself, that burnout is the price of the life she chose.

• Why “once things settle down” is the myth that keeps burnout going
• The viral reel that felt like an indictment of busy lives, and why
• A long to-do list is not the same as burnout
• What burnout actually looks like: disproportionate emotion, withdrawal, feeling like an outsider in your own life, disrupted sleep, tension headaches, loss of pleasure
• Survival mode, hypervigilance, and why rest can start to feel unsafe
• Grounding practices that meet urgency with slowing down

• WHO definition (2019): burnout is an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been successfully managed, with three dimensions: exhaustion, mental distance or cynicism, and reduced professional efficacy.
• Maslach Burnout Inventory: exhaustion, depersonalization, and a reduced sense of personal accomplishment.
• Allostatic load: the cumulative burden of chronic stress. A high baseline means you need more rest to recover.
• The fawn response: from Are You Mad at Me? by Meg Josephson (borrow it on OverDrive).
• Equilibrium isn’t a flat line: a well life expands and contracts like a sound wave. Slowing down is the intervention for survival mode.

Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski.

Above all things, no matter what you have going on, you’re doing a really good job. Come say hi on Instagram at @medium.lady.

It’s September, and if your feed has convinced you it’s time to “lock in” for the last four months of the year, this one’s for you. Erin checks in after a wildly overstimulating (in a good way) summer and names the low-grade insecurity that crept back in once the goal-tracking stopped. The antidote isn’t a new framework — it’s trusting herself. She’s calling this season Trust Yo’Self, a riff on Parks and Recreation’s Treat Yourself and this year’s word of the year, sovereign, and walks through her September self-care capsule across four buckets: read, rest, play, and think.

• Where September’s “back to school” energy and the viral Great Lock In trend actually come from — and why they inflate ordinary goal-setting into pressure
• The insecurity that crept in after losing momentum on tracking since Episode 182 with Stephanie Cunningham
• Trusting two decades of lived experience (20 years at SickKids, 20 years married) over internet expertise
• Read: recommitting to a diverse TBR after drifting from a 45% goal down to about 35%
• Rest: physical (17-minute naps), mental (dance workouts), emotional (leaning into the songs that make her cry), and sensory (phone boundaries) rest for the fall
• Play: a nail polish capsule turned watercolor palette turned playlist turned September wardrobe
• Think: the mantra anchoring the month — “Trust yourself. You already have what you need to do what you want.”

• The Great Lock In — the viral trend framing September–December as a final push before the new year
• Read / Rest / Play / Think — Erin’s self-care capsule buckets for the month
• Word of the year: Sovereign

• The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
• “Wizard and I” from the Wicked soundtrack

• Episode 182: What Happens When You Track the Simple Stuff? with Stephanie Cunningham — listen here
• Episode 115: Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Survive September — listen here
• Episode 81: September Self-Care Guide: Overcoming Resistance to Change — listen here
• The “Wizard and I” reel that inspired this episode’s emotional rest bucket — @darlowbarlow on Instagram

• Instagram: @medium.lady
• Email: mediumladytalks@gmail.com
• More book content on Medium Lady Reads — Instagram: @mediumladyreads

This summer I read two books back to back — one fiction, one nonfiction — and they ended up talking to each other in a way I couldn't have planned. Culpability by Bruce Holsinger is a family drama about an autonomous vehicle accident and the AI-ethicist mother whose secret work sits at the center of it. Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick is the clear-eyed, cautiously optimistic case for engaging with AI as a co-worker, co-teacher, and coach. I used my Claude enabled book-club wheel widget to pull questions from both, and we get into culpability, cultural conditioning, the heat and chaos of this AI moment, and a very fun casting call — plus a real-time gut check on the Meta settlement news that broke the same week.

• Why this episode doubles as entry five of the AI for the Rest of Us series, and the identity growing pains behind that
• Book summaries: Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (fiction) and Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (nonfiction)
• Why Mollick's framing — treating readers as intelligent tool-users rather than potential AI "idiots" — landed differently than most AI commentary
• The Meta settlement: the company's agreement to pay about $18 billion to resolve a multistate lawsuit over addictive platform design and harm to young users, and what it might signal for coming AI regulation

• "I'm one of the good guys" — the culpability question at the heart of the novel: how much moral cover does good intent provide when you're the one building the tool.
• Mollick's core reminder from Co-Intelligence: today's AI models are the "worst" they will ever be — a line that cuts both ways, optimist or not.
• Weather and storm as recurring image in Culpability — oppressive heat driving knee-jerk, binary reactions to AI; the book's real ask is to look past output ("is it good or bad") toward where decisions are actually being made.

• Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (fiction, 2025)
• Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (nonfiction, 2024)

This month's self-care capsule comes out of a real, lived week — five days of wildfire smoke from the Northern Ontario fires reaching southwestern Ontario, and a crash course in AQI and climate anxiety Erin didn't see coming. She shares a hope-forward book pack, a three-part mental reframe for climate anxiety, and a playful "treehouse mindset" for reducing consumption without falling into restriction or scarcity thinking.

What's covered:

• Living through the wildfire smoke from the Northern Ontario fires (including the community of Collins) and what it revealed about her own, previously unrecognized, climate anxiety
• Why climate fiction wasn't the right read for this particular week, and choosing hope-forward books instead
• The August book pack: Becky Chambers' Monk & Robot series, Ursula K. Le Guin's speculative fiction, and a new nonfiction release
• A three-part mental reframe for climate anxiety: reduce consumption playfully in the next 24 hours, connect outward with community, care inward for your body in the next hour
• The "Treehouse Mindset" play prompt — reframing reduced consumption as an imaginative game rather than restriction
• The 100 Days of Gratitude challenge on Instagram (Day 28) and a call to support wildfire-affected communities

Key framework: "Well-regulated, well-rested, well-fed, well-supported communities are what save the world — not individual hypervigilance."

Books mentioned:

• A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy — Becky Chambers (Monk & Robot series)
• Ursula K. Le Guin — exploring her wider body of speculative and utopian fiction; specific title to follow once chosen (will share on Instagram)
• Leave the Lights On: How Joyful Decisions Can Save Our Species — Elizabeth Dunn & Jiaying Zhao

Join in: 100 Days of Gratitude, Instagram @medium.lady

Support: Donate to the Anishinabek Nation 7th Generation Charity — CRA-registered, supporting Anishinabek Nation communities affected by the wildfires.