99: LILY BRAUN-ARNOLD: Hitting the NYT Bestseller List at 20 with a dystopian love story

This week on LiteraryHype Podcast, Lily Braun-Arnold joins me to talk all about her debut novel, The Last Bookstore on Earth. It's a YA dystopian story where a teen is trading books for items to help keep her alive. This book made Lily a New York Times Bestselling author at just 20 years old, so we're diving in on the emotions that come with such a key moment.

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Transcript

00;00;03;00 - 00;00;24;15
Speaker 1
Hi and welcome to Literary Hype. I am Stephanie, your literary hype man. And today's author conversation is with a debut author who is quite young like she hit The New York Times bestseller list with this book at 19 years old. And she wrote it even earlier than that. And we're talking about Lily Brown Arnold who is the author of the last bookstore on Earth.

00;00;24;26 - 00;00;47;19
Speaker 1
This was a Barnes Noble Way book club pick of the month. So it got a lot of love early on for her first book. So we're talking all about it here from your list well, welcome to Literary Hype. It's so exciting to have you on. Talk about your debut, me debut novel Ready to Go was.

00;00;48;04 - 00;00;53;20
Speaker 2
Very exciting and sort of like I basically been pinching myself for the last 48 hours. I don't know what that does to someone.

00;00;53;20 - 00;01;05;06
Speaker 1
But yeah, we just saw Chloe going and you said that she's like an author that you, like, really love. Absolutely. To be here as a guest with these authors that you love reading, too.

00;01;05;07 - 00;01;26;23
Speaker 2
It's kind of insane, that kind of it's insane. And I work at a bookstore at home and my coworker was texting me this morning, going through the list of all the people that were going to be here and being like, say hi to this person and say hi to that person. But I was when I got my panel assignments for this afternoon, I was like, I'm going to be sitting next to these people who I worship and have learned so much from.

00;01;26;28 - 00;01;34;13
Speaker 2
And I get to pretend that I am able to sit at a table with them. That's so exciting. So it's been really kind of crazy.

00;01;34;23 - 00;01;44;27
Speaker 1
Well, and you just assume that your bookseller which I also do, that is one of my side projects. So talk a little bit about being a bookseller and having your own book on the shelf.

00;01;45;08 - 00;02;02;22
Speaker 2
My book came out in January, the first week of January, when I was home for break. So I was working and sometimes I would be in the back doing something or unpacking boxes or bring anything to the basement, and someone would yell through the counter like, someone's buying your book and, you know, poke out like, Oh my gosh, thank you so much.

00;02;03;20 - 00;02;19;18
Speaker 2
But it's always crazy to see it on shelves. And I also sometimes forget that it's something that I've done. So I was getting books for class earlier for one of my classes, and my book was just there, and I sort of had to do a double take and turn around and go, Oh my gosh, I did that. I read that.

00;02;19;29 - 00;02;24;14
Speaker 1
Do you ever like go sell it and pretend like you didn't write it? When you're trying to talk to somebody about it?

00;02;24;18 - 00;02;37;13
Speaker 2
Sometimes I will just silently ring someone out and I will just take the book and scan it and say, Have a great day and not say anything at all. Because sometimes it's just like, What do I even say in this situation? And so sometimes I keep it quiet.

00;02;37;18 - 00;02;45;16
Speaker 1
Jillian Flynn's parents were frequent customers at one of my daughters, and they would come in at like and sell gone girls.

00;02;46;00 - 00;02;47;12
Speaker 2
I really like this for no reason.

00;02;47;12 - 00;03;09;17
Speaker 1
It's the funniest thing to watch. It's like, you all don't even know that that's her parent. Yeah, she's not there. OK, it's so much fun to be a bookseller because then you get these, like, random encounters of book of authors coming in and customers being like, yeah. And it's going to be on a whole different level for you as the author.

00;03;09;18 - 00;03;10;17
Speaker 2
It's definitely a.

00;03;10;17 - 00;03;13;02
Speaker 1
Weird, like, fourth, fifth dimension.

00;03;13;02 - 00;03;16;02
Speaker 2
Liminal space situation. Whenever that happens.

00;03;16;12 - 00;03;21;26
Speaker 1
So for anybody who hasn't already seen your books in their store or all over social media, what is it about?

00;03;22;00 - 00;03;50;18
Speaker 2
So my book, The Last Books on Earth, takes place a year after a cataclysmic storm wreaks havoc on the lovely location of suburban New Jersey, really the world, but suburban New Jersey. And it follows. 17 year old Liz who decides to go back to the bookstore. She worked out in high school and she runs into sort of trading posts, trading books for supplies, making connections with the people who are still around the survivors and keeping mail for them, trading messages.

00;03;50;26 - 00;04;11;16
Speaker 2
And one day she finds out that another storm is coming and threatening to destroy whatever sense of normalcy she's been able to create. And her salvation comes in the form of Meave, who breaks into her bookstore late one night and offers her her skills and repairs for a place to stay. And it's about sort of the relationship that blossoms between the two of them.

00;04;11;22 - 00;04;22;23
Speaker 1
It's such a fun little book like I love a good dystopia. So what was it like for you crafting how the world ends and coming up with that situation?

00;04;22;26 - 00;04;44;21
Speaker 2
It really wasn't something that I considered initially while I was writing, and I was like, OK, if something something has happened and then we're here. And so it really started with the bookstore and apocalyptic bookstore was the piece of it that that I started with. And then thinking about, OK, in this day and age, what are the contemporary concerns of young people?

00;04;44;28 - 00;05;07;22
Speaker 2
You know, in the sixties you had a lot of like nuclear war apocalyptic stories coming out of the Cold War in the early 1800s. You had a lot of weird science amalgamations from laboratories because a lot of people cared about. And so for me, climate change was, you know, is is the most pressing threat that I was feeling while I was writing it to the future.

00;05;07;28 - 00;05;29;10
Speaker 2
And I think there are a lot of pressing cuts right now into the future, but that's the one that really drew me in and sort of thinking about like the crazy weather that we've seen because of climate change and sort of heightening that into these sort of crazy dystopian proportions and letting that guide guide the doomsday event. Yeah.

00;05;29;28 - 00;05;42;21
Speaker 1
And you talked about how this bookshop is a trading post. Yes. How did you approach coming up with what items would be worth what and the value system books above all, obviously.

00;05;42;24 - 00;06;09;16
Speaker 2
Obviously, obviously. I mean, she will sometimes she takes batteries at one point, she takes food at another point. Shoot stuff like that. Obviously, things that will keep you alive are probably most important. And and the books probably come second to that. But I think the interesting thing about the way that it's set up is that people still value books and are willing to trade things that will keep them alive for things that will keep them happy.

00;06;09;26 - 00;06;15;14
Speaker 2
It's interesting the way that the two are considered not necessarily equally valuable, but equally. But they both have importance.

00;06;15;18 - 00;06;23;02
Speaker 1
Yeah. There are so many books referenced throughout the book. Do you have a favorite reference that you worked in to this story?

00;06;23;08 - 00;06;37;04
Speaker 2
So every book that I mention in in the novel is one that I have read because I wanted to be able to vouch for everything except for a canticle for words, which I haven't read because my dad wouldn't let me when I was in high school because I wanted to write about it for my final paper, and he said no.

00;06;38;00 - 00;06;39;23
Speaker 1
So that plays into the story.

00;06;39;23 - 00;06;53;12
Speaker 2
Oh, yeah, because I was I was writing it while I was still in high school, and so I was actually maybe, you know, two days after my dad told me no. And I was like and my dad said that, blah, blah, blah. I was just typing away into the manuscript. So it's in there now. My, my moment of rage at my dad.

00;06;53;19 - 00;06;56;19
Speaker 1
Oh, I love it so much. To see was the real story that you.

00;06;56;19 - 00;07;23;18
Speaker 2
Always read dystopian and apocalyptic, like broaden your horizons and so I ended up reading this, like, weird old play, but I read all of them. I think my favorite has to be in a I'm using it to hit someone over the head with because that's the most fun use of a book and in the story. Yeah. And then also there's a local author in my town named Laura Marx Fitzgerald, and she wrote this book called Under the Egg and I did a podcast with her and she does it again.

00;07;24;11 - 00;07;36;09
Speaker 2
So I think someone steps on my book in your book, and you're like, and her foot, you know, was on a cover with a copy of her book. And that was a little bit embarrassing, but it was because of my love for it. Yeah.

00;07;36;20 - 00;07;40;16
Speaker 1
A fun little detail that I enjoyed was using wing dings for an alien language.

00;07;40;16 - 00;07;41;25
Speaker 2
Oh, yes, absolutely. Of course.

00;07;42;10 - 00;07;48;02
Speaker 1
Do the wings actually mean something or did you just put random, do you think?

00;07;48;02 - 00;07;49;21
Speaker 2
I am of course they do.

00;07;50;07 - 00;07;55;07
Speaker 1
I was like, I don't have the time to go research exactly what all these which. Oh, that.

00;07;55;07 - 00;07;57;05
Speaker 2
Would be time consuming. Yes, incredibly time.

00;07;57;05 - 00;08;00;28
Speaker 1
Did you use the same set of wing dings for each one because there are different versions.

00;08;00;28 - 00;08;19;17
Speaker 2
So I used an online alien language translator that used wing dings, but they all do translate to something that is approximately what she translates them to. But it's funny because I've had people like send me an email and they'll include they'll just like copy and paste one of them from the book and say that it means something. And I'm like, actually that means haha sucker.

00;08;19;17 - 00;08;30;22
Speaker 2
And you meant it as a compliment. But yes, they do all mean things. I have. There was a regular, the bookstore that I worked out who went through and did translate all of them just for fun, which is crazy.

00;08;30;22 - 00;08;32;11
Speaker 1
I need that level of free time.

00;08;32;15 - 00;08;40;26
Speaker 2
I know he came in, he was like, Oh yeah, no, of course I went through all of them. What else would I do when Edward something more impactful with your time, perhaps?

00;08;40;26 - 00;08;50;18
Speaker 1
Yeah, Liz's backstory kind of pops up here and there. So how did you approach crafting a backstory that would come back to kind of bite her in the story?

00;08;50;19 - 00;09;12;09
Speaker 2
This is something that came after I finished sort of the present timeline of the book, so the entire story, main story was finished, and then I went back and I sort of crafted these moments and I wanted each one of the moments to say something which is, I guess, sort of like the basic writing thing, but they all needed to do something.

00;09;12;09 - 00;09;27;11
Speaker 2
The same thing with all of the journal entries that are in there. They each have a specific purpose to show something about the world. But I wanted to establish this is what the bookstore means to her. So we have this moment in the bookstore. This is where the relationship of her parents, this is when we find out X, Y, and Z.

00;09;29;03 - 00;09;52;04
Speaker 2
And really a lot of them are based on like the example of the storm drill scene that's in there where she is experiencing this first like inclement weather drill was very much inspired by my experience in like third grade sitting in the floor of my teacher's classroom while she explained what active shooter drills were and why we had to do them and that they were something that they were starting at the school.

00;09;52;04 - 00;10;05;08
Speaker 2
And so a lot of them were inspired by things that I saw in the world around me, and I just sort of embedded them in Liz's world. But they all really serve to explain why she is the way she is in one way or another.

00;10;05;16 - 00;10;12;25
Speaker 1
Some of these people that come into this bookshop leave stories of how they want to be remembered. How do you want to be remembered?

00;10;13;13 - 00;10;36;11
Speaker 2
The nicest sort of offshoot of getting this book published is I have like a contact box on my website and sometimes like middle school and high school students will write me and they'll be like, This book really impacted me. I felt I finally felt really seen. And that, I think, is the way that I would want to be remembered if it's just like the small moments of people reading a book and going to me on the page.

00;10;36;11 - 00;10;55;04
Speaker 2
You know, I really resonate with this because that's always something. That's why I've always loved reading. And something that's always been very important to me is it's the books that I find where I'm like, Wow, they really captured this feeling that I have that I wasn't able to put into words, but someone else has for me. And so I think that I'm not sure if that's the way that I want to be remembered, but the way I would want to impact other people.

00;10;55;18 - 00;11;21;01
Speaker 1
Which you being so young and writing this in high school and like you're almost half my age, it's it's kind of sad for me. But as someone who is that age writing that book, what special moments did you have that you infused into this story that resonate so well with young adult readers? Because you were.

00;11;21;04 - 00;11;48;15
Speaker 2
Like, Yeah, I think there are a lot of just small moments that are very contemporary that I personally don't really think about. I'm just like, Well, this is the way it was for me. So I'm going to, you know, sort of fictionalize that. And but it's just like turns of phrase. It is in small situations and like someone was like the way that the characters text and this is the way that I text, just like small things where I think being young lends a level of authenticity to the characters, which I think works well.

00;11;48;15 - 00;11;48;24
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;11;48;24 - 00;11;56;08
Speaker 1
What it does, you have that that vibe of it actually is how a teenager would think because you were a teenager, you are.

00;11;56;09 - 00;11;58;05
Speaker 2
But I'm not a teenager anyway. Don't read.

00;11;58;07 - 00;12;00;16
Speaker 1
OK? Because I like I was not 19 and I was.

00;12;00;16 - 00;12;03;08
Speaker 2
Like, No, we're drowning now. It's like, OK, so we're glad about birthday.

00;12;03;08 - 00;12;04;26
Speaker 1
Yeah, we're not having she's not my.

00;12;04;29 - 00;12;05;14
Speaker 2
OK, we're going.

00;12;05;18 - 00;12;19;29
Speaker 1
We're great. Yeah, we're great. I feel so much better now at age so this book hit The New York Times bestseller list. What was it like to hit that list before you turned 20?

00;12;20;01 - 00;12;39;24
Speaker 2
That was crazy. I was at work. I got a call at like 4:00 on a Wednesday because it's always come out on Wednesdays and I had to like duck into the stock room in the back, and I think I shared some choice expletives and I had to apologize for immediately after it. But what else are you going to say in that moment?

00;12;40;00 - 00;12;57;02
Speaker 2
Yeah, it was like a weird conference call that I've never done one of those before. And my agent was like, Oh, I have your editor on the phone. We have something to say. And I'm like, This is feels like getting called to the principal's office. I'm going to pee my pants in the back office. And then I, like, went back to work for three more hours because I was on the clock.

00;12;57;21 - 00;13;14;13
Speaker 2
But it was really fun that I was able to then come out of the supply closet and say to my coworkers, I just found out that. And that was really crazy. And then I kept I am horrible at keeping secrets. I love to yap, but I kept the secret until both of my parents were home because my 11 of my dad's got home really late.

00;13;14;13 - 00;13;24;05
Speaker 2
And so I waited until 9:00 to tell anyone. And that was really brave of me. But that was really fun as well. Telling them and getting to witness them freaking out together.

00;13;24;15 - 00;13;35;02
Speaker 1
You see girls in situations where they have to build trust with a total stranger. So a little bit about crafting that tension of Am I safe? Can I actually trust this person?

00;13;35;11 - 00;13;57;27
Speaker 2
Some people will describe this book as enemies to lovers, which I don't think is entirely accurate because they just don't know anything about each other. And because they're complete strangers, the way that they meet forces them to view each other. And sort of this, I'm afraid of you sort of late, just because of the apocalyptic setting, because of the end of the world, it's easier to be afraid of someone than it is to trust them.

00;13;58;16 - 00;14;21;15
Speaker 2
The gut reaction is, Oh, this is a total stranger, like, let me go over and shake their hand. This is a total stranger. What are they going to do to me? And so the most important part in sort of breaking that down was reminding them, reminding each other of their humanity. And so the moment that they have when they're eating together and they start to share a little bit about like their childhood and they didn't grow up super far from each other.

00;14;21;15 - 00;14;39;03
Speaker 2
One of them was in New York City. One of them is from northern Jersey. So they're what, 15 miles away from each other. But we're talking about, you know, the house they lived in and their parents and just like small moments, I didn't want it to be like, here's my whole life story, blah, blah, blah, like tiny, small moments.

00;14;39;03 - 00;14;53;13
Speaker 2
Memories that sort of build this level of compassion and I guess reciprocity between the characters. Oh, I will share this, you will share that. And then there's this level of understanding between each other where they remember what it's like to be friends.

00;14;53;26 - 00;15;00;09
Speaker 1
And I hear you've got another book in the works. I do what can you tell us about book two?

00;15;00;22 - 00;15;35;14
Speaker 2
So Book two is, hey, I'm not like practice. So talking about this. Oh, yeah, fresh and fresh. So Book two is another way novel. It's more in the horror thriller area. It takes place on a secluded college campus. Historically, women's college campus in Massachusetts. And it follows a girl as she goes and visits her somewhat estranged someone. Radio silent best friend from high school who graduated the year before her, and they intend to spend the weekend before Thanksgiving break together.

00;15;35;19 - 00;15;49;10
Speaker 2
But when they get snowed in and sinister arcs begin appearing on campus, they get themselves caught in a fight for survival, which I love really do have a love of favors revival.

00;15;49;15 - 00;15;53;24
Speaker 1
Yeah. Last question we always ask because this is literary hype. What books are you hyped about?

00;15;53;27 - 00;16;12;07
Speaker 2
Oh, my gosh. One that I got to read because she had me blurb her book, which was crazy. Getting that email saying I want a quote from you was incredible. But Jill, too, who's here, she has a book coming out called An Ocean Apart that is based in the same world as her other book, The Dividing Sky, but a long time before it.

00;16;12;07 - 00;16;28;07
Speaker 2
And it's sort of like the selection, like it's like the selection meets The Hunger Games means it's great, it's great. I was blown away by it. And so that was something that I was really high about. I'm really excited for it to come out so that everyone can start screaming about it and I can talk to people about it.

00;16;29;17 - 00;16;47;17
Speaker 2
I'm really excited for Chloe Gongs Cold Wire. Obviously Repower has a new book coming out called Kill Creature is that I'm really excited for. And there's another book and I can't reveal the name of the author called The River Drags You Down, but I'm also really excited for it. So anything creepy, crawly and.

00;16;47;26 - 00;16;54;16
Speaker 1
Fun and dystopian I'm into. Thank you for it. Well, thanks so much for taking time to talk all about last bit.

00;16;54;16 - 00;16;56;16
Speaker 3
So thank you for having me.

00;17;00;05 - 00;17;19;14
Speaker 1
Thanks again to Lily for taking time out of her day. Alice, which is very busy to talk about her brand new book, The Last Bookstore on Earth and a little bit about her book. That's coming up. Book two is on the way. If you'd like to get your hands on this book, which you should, the links to do so are down in the description for you as well as Where to find Lily on social media.

00;17;19;14 - 00;17;25;14
Speaker 1
If you enjoy this conversation, don't forget to subscribe to literary podcast. Give us some stars and share with the friends.

00;17;25;21 - 00;17;26;19
Speaker 3
Thanks so much for listening.