Summary: Today Holly is joined by a special guest - Sara Hildreth, the creator behind FictionMatters - a literary Instagram account, newsletter, and book club focused on putting thought-provoking books into the hands of adventurous readers. Sara also co-hosts Novel Pairings, a podcast dedicated to making the classics readable, relevant, and fun. As a former English teacher, Sara’s literary knowledge and thoughtfulness has greatly enriched the reading lives of thousands, including Holly’s.

Keep an eye out for Sara’s Paperback Summer Reading Guide 2024 and the Novel Pairings summer readalong of Les Miserables by Victor Hugo! 

Topics Discussed:

• Genre Fiction (2:03 ):

• For Sara, Genre Fiction signals to the reader that it will be following certain templates, patterns, and tropes. There are expectations set through the genre, which is why some genre fiction is the most disappointing for readers because of those expectations. 

• No genre or designation is mutually exclusive - romances and mysteries can also be literary. Sara underlines that a lot of genre designations are more about marketing the books than they are about the actual content. 

• Genre fiction is important; to be a good reader of literary fiction you should know a lot about genre fiction. Genre fiction is a playground for tropes and knowing and understanding them can help readers recognize when authors are doing things with those tropes. 

• Dark Literature (15:37 ):

• When Sara thinks of “Dark Literature,” she thinks of darker themes that explore those aspects of human nature and relationships. It can also describe the atmosphere of a book - think dark academia, for example. However, for Sara this remains loosely defined and really targets the “vibe” more than a hard definition. 

• Sara divides books in her mind between Light and Dark and Cold and Warm. Less of a fan of Light books, Sara does appreciate Warm and Cold books that have more or less heart and emotional depth. There can be aesthetic darkness without being psychologically bleak, and a lot of readers are drawn to subgenres like “cozy horror” that fit in different places in the quadrants. 

• Gothic Literature is often hallmarked by a heroine in a creepy house as she explores her own psychology. Sara extends the definition to books that play with the interior vs. exterior trust and reliability of a protagonist and macabre settings with a sprinkling of horror tropes to explore human motivation and psychology. 

• Classic + Modern Dark/Literary Books (24:49 ):

• Classic:

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

• Modern:

• Never Let Me Go by Kazu Ishiguro

• Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

• In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

• The Keep by Jennifer Egan

• Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

• Hot on the Shelf (41:51 ): 

• Sara: This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud

• What’s Making Our Hearts Race (44:21 ):

• Sara: Top Chef on Bravo

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Website: www.heartsanddaggerspod.com

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