Emma Noyes, GUY'S GIRL
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[1:03]Emma Noyes is the author of Guy's Girl.
[1:06]Emma told her mother she wanted to be an author when she was six.
[1:09]She grew up in a suburb outside Chicago and attended Harvard University, where she studied
[1:13]history and literature.
[1:14]She started her career at a beer company, but left because she wanted to write about
[1:18]mermaids and witches, eventually publishing her first YA fantasy series The Sunken City.
[1:23]She now lives in Chicago with her Swedish boyfriend and miniature Pomeranian.
[1:28]Guy's Girl is her adult debut.
[1:30]Welcome Emma.
[1:31]Thank you so much for coming on mom's screen of time to read books, discuss Guy's Girl.
[1:34]Thank you for having me.
[1:36]You're welcome.
[1:37]I've really, really enjoyed this book.
[1:39]I feel like you created characters so well, like the scenes, the friendship dynamics, what
[1:44]it's like to be that girl in the mix, what it's like to be a young girl at all in New York
[1:49]City, in a new environment, navigating all of it, the job that you think you want that
[1:55]you don't really want.
[1:57]And all the eating stuff on top of it is just, I really, I found it quite delightful.
[2:04]So thank you.
[2:06]So why don't you tell listeners about the book?
[2:09]Absolutely.
[2:10]So Guy's Girl is, I say it's a love story, but it's a love story between both Jenny and
[2:15]Adrienne, who are the main characters, but also Jenny and herself, as she navigates recovering
[2:21]from anorexia and bulimia and learning to love herself for who she is.
[2:27]It's also my selling line for it is often a new girl, but if Sally Rooney had written
[2:33]new girls.
[2:34]So a little bit darker, a little bit more psychological, but you still got the fun dynamics
[2:39]of the group of guy friends and being a girl amongst the guys.
[2:43]Yeah, these guys, I mean, like like just like fash them across the head, not in a mean
[2:50]way.
[2:52]It's going to look just mean, you know, they're like joking around so silly.
[2:57]We all know those guys and we all know that time of life and now of course I'm in my
[3:01]mid 40s and those guys are still around.
[3:03]It's a strange, yeah, never a change, maybe it's like slightly fun, hard to disguise.
[3:11]So where did this book come from?
[3:13]It's your debut novel, congratulations.
[3:15]Thank you.
[3:16]How did this come to be?
[3:17]I myself was in recovery.
[3:19]I got into recovery like properly, I would say around July 2020.
[3:26]And as I was going through recovery, I journaled a ton and I never had like a like a
[3:31]book in my I never had a novel in mind.
[3:34]But when I would be writing like books on the side, I was working on a YF and a C series
[3:40]as well as some other projects and I always find myself wanting to have a main character
[3:45]with needing disorder.
[3:46]But it never really felt right.
[3:47]Like I would start a book and I would think, okay, maybe this will be the one and it never
[3:51]really felt right.
[3:52]And then in 2021, I went through a breakup with a guy that I'd been seeing for a long
[3:57]time and I was like devastated afterward and I, you know, couldn't get out of bed and just
[4:05]really was and I relapsed.
[4:07]I'd been in recovery for a while and I had been purged free for a while and I relapsed
[4:11]and it was then when I was feeling like at my lowest, you know, couldn't get out of
[4:16]bed that I started writing about Ginny and it just immediately felt right.
[4:20]I was like, this is this is the character that's going to be the one where I really like
[4:25]work through all of this and it ended up being like as I was going through my relapse
[4:29]and then fighting my way out of it, Ginny started doing the same in the book.
[4:33]So it really just kind of like dovetailed with my life.
[4:36]Oh my gosh.
[4:37]And that's how it came about.
[4:38]Wow.
[4:39]That's amazing.
[4:41]How these characters can like actually make a dent in reality.
[4:45]Totally.
[4:46]Absolutely.
[4:47]Otherworldly.
[4:48]And yet.
[4:49]She will feel like we're crazy, but it's true.
[4:52]Absolutely.
[4:53]Well, thank you for being so open about your own through journey through eating disorders.
[4:57]Can you talk?
[4:58]Do you mind talking a little bit about it when it started and, you know, how it has affected
[5:03]your life?
[5:04]Absolutely.
[5:05]So I would say that I first developed anorexia when I was 18 and I have, I was diagnosed
[5:12]with OCD at a really early age, it developed when I was like 11 or 12 of my symptoms.
[5:17]And the type that I had was very not the typical like OCD that you see on, you know,
[5:24]monk or like in different TV shows and movies where you have to like touch things a certain
[5:28]amount of times or like wash your hands obsessively.
[5:31]And was like really debilitating intrusive thoughts.
[5:35]And I was in therapy for that and nothing was really working.
[5:38]And I went on this mission trip with my church and they like didn't really feed us very
[5:44]much when we were there.
[5:45]And so it was just by chance that I kind of became like, I didn't know it, but I was
[5:50]like starving.
[5:51]Like I needed more food.
[5:53]And I found that like all I could think about when that was happening was food.
[5:59]And I came back from this mission trip and I had lost weight and I looked in the mirror
[6:04]and I really liked the way that I looked.
[6:07]But what I liked even more than that was how quiet my brain felt because when you're starving
[6:14]or when you're not getting the nutrients that you need, you can't think about, you
[6:18]know, oh, this like crazy obsessive thought, all you can think about is food.
[6:22]And like where your next meal is going to come from and whatever.
[6:25]And I didn't know it at the time, but I was developing anorexia.
[6:27]It felt to me at the time, like I was fixing my OCD.
[6:30]I was like, oh my gosh, it lasts like I'm having some relief from these thoughts.
[6:34]But is it, but weren't the thoughts replaced, sorry to interrupt, weren't the thoughts
[6:37]replaced by thoughts about food?
[6:40]Absolutely.
[6:41]But when you go your whole life worrying about things that like my OCD thoughts were very
[6:50]much like moral faced.
[6:53]So like when I was little, when I first developed it, I would think about every bad thing
[6:57]I'd ever done as a kid and I had to apologize to my parents.
[7:00]And like the thoughts were so persistent and obsessive, but it's very like torturous.
[7:06]My next novel that's coming out next year is actually an OCD, the protagonist has OCD.
[7:11]So if you read it, you'll get to see exactly what I mean.
[7:15]But it's to me, like thinking about anything that wasn't the sort of like worry, like
[7:20]tense thoughts that I had for years.
[7:22]It was a relief.
[7:23]Okay.
[7:24]And eventually I would realize that I had come to replace one monster with a different
[7:28]monster, but it took me a long time to realize that.
[7:32]Okay.
[7:33]How did that, do you mind?
[7:34]I'm like doing it.
[7:35]Not at all.
[7:36]You know, this is the whole reason I published this book because I want to talk more openly
[7:39]about this stuff.
[7:40]When you had the intrusive thoughts and they started off, you know, apologizing and
[7:44]ruminating through on that type of thing, how did it change as you became a teenager?
[7:49]And what were you obsessing about when the trip happened?
[7:53]Like what was like the week before the trip?
[7:56]Yeah.
[7:57]So it morphed as I got older and I didn't realize it at the time, but I would learn later
[8:02]in therapy that like OCD kind of switches often to like attack whatever is like most important
[8:08]to you in your life.
[8:10]So when I was a kid, my parents and my parents opinion of me was really important to me.
[8:15]So every bad thing I'd ever done, I had to apologize for and like get their forgiveness
[8:19]for.
[8:20]Eventually it turned into things more like I remember I had my first boyfriend in 8th grade
[8:27]and I was totally obsessed with him, you know, loved him.
[8:30]And I started obsessing over cheating.
[8:33]Like I started being afraid that if so, I mean it got to the point and this is the
[8:37]same thing that happens to my protagonist in the books called How to Hide and Plain
[8:41]Sight that comes out next year.
[8:43]I would think it wasn't even just like oh like you talked to a boy and you get scared that
[8:48]means you're cheating.
[8:49]Like I would think that if a boy like a spit droplet landed on my hand and I didn't immediately
[8:54]wash it away that it could then get into my mouth and that would count as me cheating
[8:58]on him.
[8:59]Like it's very like got it.
[9:01]It's very persistent thoughts and it affects every moment of your life.
[9:05]Like it's I would have like specific routines for like washing things off my hands,
[9:09]so like ways I had to shower to make sure I was getting all of like any spit that could
[9:14]have landed on my body that day off.
[9:15]Like so as I started dating, it morphed into that.
[9:19]I had for a period, I had a period of harm OCD which is where you think that even though
[9:25]you've never hurt someone before you might actually be a murderer because you have you
[9:29]look and you see a knife and you have a thought of like what if I picked up the knife and
[9:32]hurt someone with it.
[9:34]And then your brain instead of being like oh that was a weird thought like why did I have
[9:38]that?
[9:39]My brain goes oh that means you're actually a murderer and deep down you want to kill people
[9:42]and then I would obsess over that for weeks or months or even years.
[9:45]So it really just changes and it always attacks the things that like morally you care
[9:51]about.
[9:52]Like I would never want to hurt someone and so my OCD said no but actually you are a murderer
[9:56]and then it's like it hurts so much.
[10:00]that then when I learned, what I didn't learn, I just felt that like starving myself would turn
[10:06]those thoughts off. Of course I wanted to. Of course I wanted to escape that. Did you know you had
[10:11]OCD and did you ever get any treatment for it? I knew that I had OCD, but I was only ever in,
[10:16]when I was a kid, I was only ever in like general therapy. I didn't go into like specialist,
[10:22]which I now know like if you have OCD, the best type of treatment, like the gold standard is
[10:27]exposure therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy, but I never did that as a kid. I was only ever in
[10:32]like general talk therapy. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I don't know. Yeah. Of course. I do know a lot
[10:39]about I was, I love psychology and I was a psych major. I worked in eating disorders, like Yale Center
[10:44]for eating away disorders. Oh my gosh. Wow. And I worked at the adolescent inpatient unit at Westchester
[10:49]Hospital. And I am just sort of obsessed with psychology. And I've learned a lot about OCD. And yeah, it can
[10:54]even be like inappropriate sexual thoughts. And like you're totally blurred out things. And it could
[10:59]be like all like the stereotype of OCD is not, I guess we should save this for your next book. But
[11:03]the stereotype of OCD is not like in the movies is so not what it is. Not at all. It's so much
[11:09]of it is internal that no one would ever see or guess is happening to the person. Okay. So you go on
[11:15]the trip. You don't eat. You find relief from these things. You no longer. I worried your
[11:22]you know that like all you have to think about is how to get food because you're so hungry.
[11:25]Yes. First of all, what has happened to these church leaders who took you on this trip
[11:29]as a result of this? Oh my gosh. I won't name any names or say anything because I'm sure it wasn't
[11:37]on purpose. Like, you know, they're, they're, I remember that there were opportunities on the trip
[11:42]to like go have like candy at some points throughout the day. But I had gotten into this head space
[11:48]where I was like, I'm just going to try and eat like as cleanly as possible. I hate, I hate that
[11:53]turn now. Like clean eating. It's so triggering to me. Most of it on the trip. Delete, delete, delete.
[12:00]And so I think there were opportunities to have like more like candy and desserts or whatever. But I
[12:05]had gotten into this sort of like very rigid mindset, which would become my mindset for the next,
[12:10]you know, a couple of years. And so when I came back, I had lost 10 pounds. And I was like,
[12:16]and I didn't, I didn't need to lose weight. I was a perfectly healthy and normal 18 year old girl,
[12:22]but I loved it. And I thought, oh, I'm going to try, I'm going to try and keep this off. You know,
[12:26]I'm going to college in, in the fall. And I'm going to really try and have like quote unquote
[12:31]the perfect diet. So I became really obsessed with no starch. So I wouldn't allow myself bread, rice,
[12:40]corn, potatoes, anything like that. And I just became really obsessed with
[12:44]creating what at the time, because I had been exposed to things like the zone diet and the
[12:51]paleo diet and you know, whatever. In my mind, I thought, okay, these, it's the perfect diet
[12:56]involves no starch whatsoever, which I now know is not true. But that kicked off. I got to college.
[13:02]And then that kicked off the years of just like, it took me three years to even admit to myself
[13:10]that I had anorexia. And even once I did, it took me another one, two, three years to get into
[13:18]proper treatment. I tried to like quote unquote fix myself, which I think a lot of people who go through
[13:25]who suffer from eating disorders think that they can do it on their own. And you just, it's almost
[13:29]impossible. Like once I started getting the support and like help from specialists and therapists
[13:36]nutritionists, like it completely changed the game because doing it on your own is like
[13:41]impossible because you don't know that it's your brain, your brain thinks that it's keeping you safe.
[13:48]So when you try to argue with it and like and say, no, I want to make a change, I want to do
[13:52]things differently. You're really arguing with yourself. And it's, it's really hard to tell the
[13:57]difference between what's the healthy thought and what's it disorder with God.
[14:01]Did you have like a low weight? Did you have to be hospitalized?
[14:05]I never had to be hospitalized, which like, I mean, I'm thankful. I'm grateful for that because
[14:12]I know how insane it is to like just from my experience of reading about like treatment centers,
[14:19]I think that there were times when I probably should have gone to a treatment center and like
[14:23]done things like done inpatient. I never had to be hospitalized, but I think like that's another
[14:31]thing that I feel very strongly about with eating disorders is like the misconceptions that people
[14:37]have of like, oh, in order to be anorexic, you have to look really scary. But there are so many
[14:43]people out there who have different eating disorders. And you would never know just from looking
[14:48]at them, like they look like a quote unquote normal person. And I've had like when I started talking
[14:53]about my recovery process on social media, I had people comment and say, you were never anorexic,
[14:59]like you don't look like you were anorexic. Oh my gosh. So had it's just like people don't know,
[15:04]they have no idea. Well, I'm sorry for this terrible humor. Yeah, you know, the internet is full
[15:10]of them. And how did you finally get yourself into the proper treatment? And then what did that look
[15:18]like from then? So it took the same way that Jenny, her anorexia turns into bulimia. It took the
[15:25]same for me to finally get into treatment. And I would later learn this in recovery. It's more
[15:30]common than you think for one to turn into the other. I had gone six years of basically like
[15:38]starving myself. And when I started trying to repeat myself, my brain went into like, you know,
[15:45]my brain thought that I'd had been in a famine basically for six years, like the primal part
[15:49]of my brain. And so when I finally started eating bread and and starts again, it said, oh, we're
[15:55]finally eating great. We have to shove as much food into our body as possible. And then of course,
[16:00]I panic internally because I feel like I'm out of control. And then it turns into binging and
[16:05]then the binging turns into purging. And that's what happens for a lot of people when they try to
[16:09]recover. But it was a pretty seamless transition from anorexia into bulimia for me. And I was
[16:14]seeing my like childhood therapist at the time, just doing like general therapy, talking about
[16:20]anxiety and OCD and like just, you know, it was during COVID. So everything was kind of, you know,
[16:26]heightened for people then their their mental health. And I remember my therapist being like,
[16:31]and I would say, yeah, and I threw up today. And I threw up yesterday. But I still was kind of
[16:35]like in denial that I was really believing. And my therapist was like, I think we need to get you
[16:40]into like to see a specialist. And so I did. I called she gave me a number of a person or a
[16:45]referral. I called the number. And I left a voicemail. And then she called me back. And it was like,
[16:51]I had thought that I had needed to go into treatment for a while. But I had never,
[16:57]I don't know, had the guts or like never had the like something really pushed me to do it. And
[17:02]something just felt right about this woman when I talked to her. And I started treatment. And
[17:07]that was like July 2020. And that's it went from there. I guess. Well, it's not like that
[17:11]was an easy time period for anybody. No, no, my gosh. So you've overcome so much stuff. Not to say that
[17:18]something is ever like tied up with the bone, right? The set are minds. No, you're always in the process.
[17:26]Like anything else. And I feel like food is so hard because it's not like not to minimize
[17:31]alcoholism, which is of course, perfect. But you could theoretically like avoid
[17:38]drinking, but you could not avoid eating. You got to eat and you got to eat three times a day. And
[17:43]that's three times plus snacks. And that's multiple times that you have to face what scares you
[17:49]when you're in recovery. I got so tell me how it felt and how the process was creating
[18:00]and giving her all of these things. And you know, were there moments where you're like, I don't
[18:04]even want her to go through this. I think because I was also in the thick of it when I was writing
[18:11]about Jenny, I had just relapsed and I had and I got onto a new meal plan and that was really
[18:16]helpful for me. But it was still hard, obviously, you know, recovery is always hard.
[18:22]Hardest thing I've ever done. Also, most rewarding thing I've ever done. I think because I was kind
[18:27]of like in the thick of it with her, I never had a moment where I was like, oh, I don't want to do
[18:32]this to her. It felt more like I'm going through something that I know that thousands, hundreds of
[18:40]thousands, potentially even millions of other people are also going through at the same time.
[18:45]And bulimia in particular, like no one wants to talk openly about that. Like with anorexia,
[18:53]your behaviors are, society sees your behaviors as good, eating a certain way, exercising a ton.
[19:00]Like you can kind of get by, you can skate by on like the pot like being seen as like culturally
[19:06]positive thing. But with bulimia, like there's nothing positive about throwing up. It's like dirty,
[19:11]it's shameful. It's if you had told me in the thick of my bulimia that I was going to be like on a podcast
[19:17]talking about my period of time throwing up, like I would have laughed. I would have been like,
[19:21]no way. Like I can barely even tell my own mom what's happening to me. Like, yep. And when I started,
[19:27]when I really got into writing this book, I was like, this needs to be a book. This needs to be a
[19:32]story that is seen by the rest of the world. I need other people who are going through what I'm
[19:36]going through right now to read this and see that they're not alone and that healing is possible.
[19:42]So I never, I haven't really had a moment of being like, oh, like, you know, maybe this is too much
[19:47]or maybe like it just felt like this is my experience. And I'm sure it's other people's experience
[19:52]as well. And I want to put this out there. And I want Jenny's story to be read.
[19:57]I mean, one of the things that you did
[20:00]Also is when you are going through something like this and then you have a partner added to the mix like what does that do and so you examine that right like tell me what that was like to write and yeah when I wrote Adrian I mean Adrian has a lot of his own issues but especially at the point in in Budapest with his grandparents like I really wanted his character.
[20:22]I imagined I was okay for myself like what would the perfect supportive partner be because I was single at the time when I wrote this and I had been dating like on and off unsuccessfully for for years you know I was on the apps and swiping and I really it was kind of like wish fulfillment like what would the perfect partner look like for someone who's trying to recover and six months after I finished writing the book I met my now fiance and he is everything
[20:52]that Adrian is for Jenny and more it's crazy it's like I manifested him truly that's amazing. I don't know the universe has done stranger things I know the universe is always listening. Wow that's crazy amazing where did the whole Hungarian childhood thing come from I went to Budapest with my mom like right after I had first
[21:22]admitted to myself that I had anorexia is at the end of my time studying abroad and I actually think a lot of college girls especially when they study abroad like I know at least off the top of my head four or five different stories of girls who went abroad and developed eating disorders like it's just a very common way when you feel like alone or distant from home to like have a sense of control so mine got really bad when I studied abroad. And then at the end of my time there my mom came and we
[21:52]to this trip in Budapest and it was just this kind of bright spot for me like we did the ruin pub crawl we had wonderful meals together we had just like a really wonderful mother daughter time and I wanted to have that be a part of the story in some way and then Adrian ended up being from Hungary and then it just kind of naturally all fit together. But I've had I've had a lot of people after they read the book say oh now I want to visit Budapest like it sounds like.
[22:22]it's like an unexpected you know journey and that would know like this is where we're going that's the great thing about picking up a book it's like look where my self today. That's wild so your next book is coming out when exactly we don't have a set date but right now it's going approximately September of next year so exciting yeah so how long does it take for you to whip out these books.
[22:52]hands on the book the longest it's ever taken me to write a book that was two and a half years. And the shortest is a month and a half and that was guys girl guys girl was. But that was like it was like a fever dream like I. Had relapsed I was in the middle of a breakup and then this was just like. All of a sudden my heart was like flowing out onto the page.
[23:22]and maybe they have a loved one with any disorder or they're worried about their child or their themselves and maybe they haven't reached recovery or maybe they have but it's always you know part of their lives what would you say to them and are there resources. You know they should turn to or anything like that like what next. My first piece of advice would be.
[23:52]how much more and just feeling like you have people in your corner. Did so much for me and it takes it does like you said sometimes it takes time to find your way to treatment but if you can if you are financially able to like getting yourself or them the support that they need of a professional is so important because it. It is so hard to recover by yourself.
[24:22]just the support of big people in your life family loved ones like it's so important check in on the people you love. See how they're doing ask them if it's someone who you know struggles with eating even just asking hey how's your eating going like that means a lot to me when people in my life do that so. And when you getting married. I'm getting married July of next year. Yeah. Yeah. You're going to switch your name to your new name.
[24:52]personally in my personal life but for writing I'll keep. That's my name. Amazing. Yeah. I'm a this is a delightful. I feel like I just like totally probed into your life like it's like I could have just kept asking you questions. It's so nice to have to someone who's so open about going through a hard time because that's how other people get helped. Right. And so exactly like I do it so that other people can can benefit and know they're not alone.
[25:22]not and plus plus you wrote a great book on top of it. So thank you. It's also enjoyable. It's like it's how fun in the midst of all the stuff like I feel like our conversation might lead people to think it's the super heavy bug but it's very fun. So there's some their laughs and fun along the way. Yeah. I don't like the way. All right. Well, it's great to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. I have pleasure. Bye. Bye.
[25:52]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zebi Owens and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Also sign up for my newsletter at zebiowens.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Textures Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.