Story for the Week
I think everyone understands that our bodies have a built-in fight or flight response to danger. I would imagine people who join the police force, the military, the fire department fall more on the fight side. People like me, who work in human resources for a living, probably lean more toward flight. Although as I age (and get slower), I might be forced to fight in real danger. I likely couldn’t flee fast enough to get away. 🤣
If you’ve been reading my posts for any length of time, you know Corinne is studying musical theater and digital media. Not exactly run-toward-danger fields either. But I think two decades of me scaring her may have turned her flight response into a fight response.
I’ve always thought that scaring is funny. It probably came from my own mother, who once scared my best friend Stephanie so badly that 40-some years later we still talk about it. I still lived at home back then, and we were at my house watching Creepshow. And if you know me at all, you know I wholeheartedly believe horror should always be viewed in the dark.
Stephanie and I were on the couch in the living room watching the movie. The lights were off. It was late at night. My mom and dad were in their room. The way our living room was set up, if you were watching television from the couch, you were facing away from the hallway where the bedrooms are. My mom, ever so silently, snuck up behind us and slammed her hand down on the end table. I laughed hysterically. Stephanie practically jumped out of her skin.
Needless to say, I inherited my mother’s penchant for scaring her children. I have scared Corinne by putting a paper plate at eye level outside the bathroom door. I will wait for her outside of her room if I know she’s coming out soon just to scare her. And the number of times I have randomly screamed in the car when she was on her phone in the passenger seat…well, it’s too many to count.
My favorite scare actually made it to video. She was in my bedroom talking to a friend who was here for the weekend. They stood on opposites sides of my bed. Her friend faced the door, and Corinne had her back to the door. Somehow I was able to sneak up to the door and ever so slowly swing it open. I didn’t say anything. Her friend said, “Hi!” Corinne turned and looked directly at me for a second and then screamed as if I had just jumped out at her from a dark alley.
It makes me laugh so much that I even had a freeze frame of her face on my lock screen for a while until she made me change it. She made me swear not to send the picture to anyone and recently got (justifiably) mad when I sent pieces of it (versus the whole intact picture) to a few of her friends in an effort to have them convince her to let me post it here. Alas…I failed to convince her. The text message probably didn’t help. 🤷🏼♀️
Personally, I think I have worse pictures of her, and I don’t think it’s that bad. But this is how she recently described it: “I look like a sleep paralysis demon, what I see in the corner of my room at 3:33 a.m. when the devil decides it’s my time. Not only do I look like something Satan created himself, I am wearing an ‘I ❤️ Llamas’ shirt with a llama for the heart.”
Did she exaggerate? Maybe a tiny bit…although the llama shirt was real. But she tells me I basically forced her into a fight response, and my recent injury from scaring her is my own fault.
Corinne does most of the laundry each week. She washes and dries, and I fold. A few weeks ago, she was in the laundry room, and I decided to try to scare her. Her back was to the doorway. The machines were noisy and the furnace was probably running because it’s been cold here. She didn’t hear me creeping through the kitchen. I got into position, peeking around the curtain we have to block the doorway, and I waited.
Corinne finished loading the washing machine, and turned around as she turned off the light. Again, I did not say a word. I just stood there…peeking around the curtain. What I did not expect when Corinne jumped was for her to swing because what she had in her hand was the bag from the laundry sorter with a big metal hook on it that clocked me in the head.
I immediately started laughing and crying at the same time, and I couldn’t stop for a good five minutes. Corinne asked me if I was laughing or crying, and I told her both. I was laughing because it was exactly the reaction I was going for. I was crying because it hurt SO badly.
In the book reviewed below, the narrator tells a story about her relationship with the cousin she grew up with:
“ ‘One time I folded myself into the bottom drawer of the dresser in our room,’ I say. ‘Mar was playing peacefully by herself for, like, half an hour, lulled into a sense of solitude. She came to get something out of the drawer and I jumped out. I’ve never heard anyone scream that loud. And it’s the only time I’ve ever been punched in the face.’
“His mouth drops open. ‘She punched you?’
“ ‘It was a fear response, unintentional. I would have pegged her for a flight over fight, but shows what I know.’ ”
Have I learned not to scare Corinne since she clocked me in the head? Heck no! All I learned was to make sure I’m far enough away when I do it that she can’t hit me with whatever she’s holding. The scares will continue. And maybe one of these days I’ll get a picture that she’ll let me post.
Book Review
⭐⭐⭐½
3.5 Stars for The Book Tour by Emily Ohanjanians
308 pages
Publisher: Ballantine | Dell
Publication Date: March 3, 2026
I received an advance copy of this title from NetGalley and Ballantine | Dell.
Publisher’s Description
Despite her popular podcast and sold-out speaking events, Ana Movilian still feels like she has to prove herself. To her family, who can’t believe she quit med school to build an influencer career, and to literary snobs, who decry her buzzy self-help book. Happily, her upcoming book tour is the perfect chance to show the world just how bright her star can shine.
That is, until her beloved publicist resigns the night before their plane is set to take off, announcing that her replacement is none other than Ryan bleeping Grant.
Ryan specializes in highbrow, “important” books, and his perma-scowl in every interaction with Ana makes one thing clear: he does not get her book. Or her. He’s the last person who should be promoting her work, the last person she should be stuck with for two weeks…and the last person who should look that damn good in business casual.
As they travel from city to city, however, Ana’s assumptions about Ryan take new shape. A decidedly more appealing shape. Soon, their growing attraction starts to feel like a ticking time bomb. But crossing that line could derail each of their careers faster than you can say “conflict of interest,” and they both have bigger dreams at stake than the bestseller list.
************
Main Characters:
- Ana – 34 years old, top-rated host of the So Proud of You podcast created after a viral video she sent to her cousin, interviews focus on second-generation immigrant experiences, dropped out of her Harvard medical residency after her father died, recently released her first book based on the podcast
- Maral – Ana’s cousin, co-host and producer of the podcast, she and Ana grew up together
- Shanthi – Ana’s social media content manager
- Ryan Grant – director of publicity for Woodsworth Press, Ana requested that he be pulled from her publicity team because she thought he was intentionally tanking her book at his high-brow clients, he takes the place of Ana’s publicist on the book tour when she leaves Woodsworth for another job
Emily Ohanjanians’ The Book Tour is a solid debut.
Told from the first-person perspective of Ana Movilian, this book has an interesting role reversal from what I normally read in the romance genre. Not to say these types of novels have gender stereotypes, but generally the male main character resists relationships. Ana wants nothing to do with relationships and seems satisfied with a handful of men she uses for casual hookups. She records her So Proud of You podcast from her apartment with her cousin Maral, and they are about to embark on a two-week publicity tour for the book she just released.
As a second-generation immigrant from Armenia, Ana always felt the pressure from her parents to succeed. She was the valedictorian of her high school class, attended Harvard Medical School and was well on her way to becoming a successful doctor. After her father died, however, and her boyfriend left her, Ana dropped out of her residency program to focus on the podcast full-time…much to her mother’s disappointment. Ana hopes that the book and her speaking engagements will parlay into a talk show, which she also expects would impress her mother.
When Ana’s publicist leaves the publishing company for a new job just before the tour starts, Ana supports her but dislikes the replacement. Ryan never seemed to like the concept of Ana’s book, and when all of his usual contacts gave poor reviews, Ana asked that he be removed from her team. But with her publicist’s departure, Ryan becomes the face of the company for the book tour.
We all know that the story is going to revolve around the will-they-or-won’t-they between Ana and Ryan. Along the way we discover why Ana is so driven in her career and standoffish about relationships. And we also find out how Ryan really feels about Ana’s book and podcast.
I liked Ana’s character arc by the end of the book, but I spent a lot of pages not liking her very much. Her podcast and her book don’t tell her story (by her own design), and the entire podcast launched from a video she sent to Maral to lift her up…a video that went viral. So even though Ana’s success derives from lifting up others, somehow she still comes off as extremely self-centered and cocky to me, which I find ridiculously unattractive in both men and women.
- “Wait. Did he just…express compunction? I didn’t know men were capable of doing that. In my experience, they only double down when you refute them.”
- “So he’s got a side dish in San Francisco. Who cares? I could probably find one by just walking out into the street. God knows there are plenty of takers in New York, and this is the land of sexless tech bros—there are dudes in Patagonias who’d line up around the block for a piece of this.”
I did like her softer side when she showed it. I just wish we could have seen more of it. Ryan’s character is fantastic, and I did love finding out his history and why he comes off the way he does to Ana. Everyone could probably use someone like Ryan in their life.
The book also includes a good number of Armenian phrases, which is a great way to add authenticity to Ana’s voice. I just wish the author had defined them more so I didn’t have to Google Translate so much. The one that she did translate was funny and effective. “I take a sip of the vodka soda. ‘Boyid mernem,’ I whisper. An Armenian expression that translates literally to I’ll die on your height but somehow means I love you. Aggressive devotion is an endearing quirk in our culture.”
One of my favorite authors started with a 3.5-star review, and I now have her entire collection on my shelf. I would definitely give Ohanjanians another look when she has a second release.
If you enjoyed this post, please comment below. Subscribe for regular updates, and share it with your friends. If you’re interested in starting a conversation, send an email to booksundertheblanket@gmail.com.
As an Amazon affiliate, I earn a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using the links on my site.
