June at RED: Into the Woods We Go
- Melani Redmiles-Quinley
- 5 hours ago
- 5 min read
June Theme: Spring Awakening & Societal Expectations
There's something about June that feels raw and new. The world has thawed, everything is pushing up through the soil, and suddenly you're supposed to have it all figured out. You're supposed to be blooming. But what if you're not? What if the version of you that's expected — the good daughter, the obedient neighbor, the woman who goes to church every Sunday without question — doesn't quite match the person clawing her way toward the light?
That's the heart of this month's RED gathering. We're heading into the woods.
📖 READ: My Throat An Open Grave by Tori Bovalino
Picture this: a small town in Pennsylvania where growing up feels, as one reader put it, like drowning. Leah goes to church every Sunday, works every spare hour she isn't in school, and takes care of everyone around her. She does everything right. And still, the town finds ways to make her feel like she's doing everything wrong.
My Throat An Open Grave is being described as Labyrinth meets folk horror — and honestly, that's exactly what it is. When Leah wishes her baby brother away to the Lord of the Wood, she has to venture into a dark, mythic forest to get him back. What she finds there isn't just a monster. It's a mirror.
Tori Bovalino has written something genuinely unsettling here, but the horror isn't just in the woods. It's in the church pew. It's in the sideways glances and the whispered judgments and the very specific way a small religious community can make a young woman feel like her body, her choices, and her very existence are up for communal debate. The book tackles themes of guilt, sin, teen pregnancy, and the dangers of small-town religious communities with a precision that is, at times, genuinely uncomfortable. In the best way.
It's also, somehow, a love story. A slow-burn, hard-won, two-damaged-people-finding-each-other kind of love story that earns every page. The romance comes from two people learning to know and accept each other — which, in a book about a world that refuses to accept either of them, feels quietly radical.
This is not a light read. Bovalino doesn't let you off the hook. But it's the kind of book you finish and sit with for a while, turning it over in your hands, thinking about all the ways society has always asked women to pay for sins that aren't theirs. The theme of women paying for what is not their fault runs through every chapter like a vein of dark water. You'll feel it. You'll recognize it. You'll want to talk about it.
Which is, of course, exactly why we picked it.
A note on content: This one comes with some significant trigger warnings — religious trauma, pregnancy, body horror, and more. Come prepared, and come ready to hold space for each other.
🍄 EAT: Mushroom Tartlets
We're leaning all the way into the forest this month, and that means mushrooms. These Mushroom Tartlets are everything a book club bite should be — elegant enough to feel intentional, easy enough that you're not still in the kitchen when everyone arrives, and interesting enough to spark a conversation all on their own.
The base is buttery, flaky puff pastry. The filling is caramelized onions and mushrooms — cremini or shiitake both work beautifully — finished with fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme and topped with a finely shredded alpine-style cheese that crisps up at the edges in the oven. They're bite-sized, vegetarian, and the kind of thing that disappears off the plate before you've had a chance to set it down.
Host tip: Make the mushroom filling the day before. It actually tastes better after sitting overnight, and it means you're just assembling and baking the day of. Pop them in the oven as people start arriving and let the smell do the welcoming.
There's something fitting about serving mushrooms with this book. Fungi thrive in the dark. They grow in the places we don't look. They're part of a vast, underground network that most people never see. Leah would understand.
🥃 DRINK: Fungi Old Fashioned
We're not doing things halfway this month. If we're going into the woods, we're drinking something that tastes like the woods.
The Fungi Old Fashioned is a porcini mushroom-infused whisky cocktail that is, frankly, one of the most interesting drinks we've featured. It takes a classic Old Fashioned — whisky, bitters, a touch of sweetness — and gives it something earthy, something ancient, something that feels like it belongs in a forest clearing at dusk.
The key is the infusion. You'll want to start this 12 hours ahead: combine a bottle of Bearface Triple Oak Canadian Whisky with a half-ounce of dried porcini mushrooms in a canning jar, seal it, and let it sit. Strain it out, and you have a whisky that tastes like it knows things.
To make one drink:
½ tsp demerara sugar
½ oz water
2 oz porcini-infused whisky
2 dashes aromatic bitters
Orange peel and brown shimeji mushrooms to garnish
Stir the sugar and water together in a mixing glass until dissolved. Add the whisky, bitters, and ice. Stir until well chilled, then strain over a single large ice cube in a chilled old-fashioned glass. Express the orange peel over the top (then discard it), and garnish with a few shimeji mushrooms.
It's rich. It's smoky. It's a little strange. It's perfect for tonight.
Non-alcoholic option: Make a simple mushroom-infused simple syrup (dried porcini steeped in hot water with sugar) and combine with a splash of bitters, sparkling water, and a squeeze of orange. Same vibe, no whisky.
💬 Book Club Discussion Starters
Come with your thoughts. These are just to get you going.
On societal expectations and Leah's world:
Leah's town holds her to an impossible standard — good girl, caretaker, obedient daughter of the church. Where do we see those same expectations playing out in the real world today? Have any of us felt them personally?
The book frames religious community as both a source of belonging and a source of control. Can those two things coexist? Where's the line?
On guilt and punishment:
Leah carries guilt that arguably isn't hers to carry. Why do we think women are so often the ones assigned guilt in these stories — and in life? Who benefits from that?
How does the Lord of the Wood function as a symbol? Is he a villain, or something more complicated than that?
On the woods as escape:
The forest in this book is terrifying, but it's also the only place where Leah gets to exist outside the rules of her town. What does that say about the appeal of the "dangerous" or the "forbidden" for people who feel trapped?
Spring is supposed to be about new beginnings. But for Leah, awakening comes at a cost. Is that true to life? Does growth always require something dark?
On the romance:
The love story here is slow and hard-earned. Did it work for you? What made it feel different from a typical YA romance?
Both characters are outcasts in their own way. Do you think their relationship would have been possible in a different setting — one without the woods, without the danger?
The big one:
This book asks what it means to be "good." By the end, do you think Leah has an answer? Do you?
See you around the table. Happy Reading, Eating and Drinking!
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