Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Stories that Shape Us: What Audiophile by Emerie Hart Teaches Us About Healing Through Connection
15 Plays6 days ago
This is the book lover's guide to understanding why solo healing has limits and connection is essential for deeper growth. The moment when you realize that fiction isn't just entertainment - it's medicine that shows us what healthy healing relationships actually look like.
Content note: This episode discusses themes of trauma and healing. The book contains content warnings for depression, stalking, sexual assault, forced pregnancy, miscarriage, and infant loss.
Here's what "Audiophile" by Emerie Hart teaches us about healing through connection:
- People pleasing is a learned behavior - through modeling (watching parents handle conflict), direct teaching ("don't make waves," "what will people think?"), and emotional reinforcement (conditional love based on good behavior)
- Trauma manifests similarly: isolation, pushing people away, avoidance, escapism, hopelessness about dreams and improvement
- How two hurt people can create healing space for each other without waiting to be "perfect" first
- What healthy partnership looks like: encouraging without pushing, respecting boundaries, enthusiastic consent, seeing each other as whole people
- Reed helps Petra come back to life by showing her windows of possibility and respecting her healing pace
- Petra helps Reed trust again by seeing him as a person (not just his persona) and consistently respecting his boundaries
- The beautiful truth that we are meant to heal in community, not isolation - there's a limit to solo healing
From characters who moved back home and gave up on dreams to those running from abusers with strict rules to keep everyone away, this book shows how genuine interest, boundary respect, and creating space for authentic expression can transform lives.
Because here's what I'm convinced of: we cannot fully heal without connection to others. We can heal to a certain extent by ourselves, but eventually we need relationships that call us into deeper growth. Fiction shows us templates for what that looks like.
Get the Book: 📖 "Audiophile" by Emerie Hart - Get the book here
Subscribe. Share. Remember that stories have the power to teach us about real healing.
Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨
Join the conversation! What fiction book taught you something profound about healing or relationships? DM me your book recommendations on Instagram @YourCoachMari
💬 LET'S CONNECT:
Send in questions: contact+podcast@marisolmoran.com
We might just have the same taste in books. Check out my Book List.
(Bookshop affiliate)
🌱 LET’S GROW TOGETHER
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Growing with Sol'
00:00:02
Speaker
Hello beautiful souls and welcome back to the with Sol podcast where we explore the moments and stories that shape who we're becoming. I'm Marisol and this is where I love to have real conversations about growth, self-discovery and learning to put yourself first.
00:00:17
Speaker
Whether we're diving into books that change our perspective or unpacking personal experiences that teach us something new, this podcast is for women who are done playing small and ready to embrace their own journey. If you've struggled with putting everyone else first or battled self-doubt, you're in the right place.
00:00:34
Speaker
This isn't about perfection. It's about the messy, beautiful process of growing into yourself. Come grow with me.
Introducing 'Stories That Shape Us'
00:00:43
Speaker
Today's episode is another installment of the Stories That Shape Us segment of the Growing with Sol podcast, which is essentially a segment in which I talk about fiction books and what we can learn from them.
00:00:55
Speaker
Granted, in the healing and self-improvement and life coaching space, there are an abundance of book recommendations that are within nonfiction, and as valuable as all of those books can be,
00:01:10
Speaker
I think it is also incredibly valuable and much more fun and entertaining to read fiction and be able to see the lessons that are being taught within those books as well.
00:01:24
Speaker
If you've been here for a while, then you know that fiction and literature is my first love and literally have an entire degree in it. so I am very well trained in finding an ana eli finding the the meaning in text and also in analyzing text. So that's pretty much what this segment is about.
Discussion of 'Audiophile' by Emery Hart
00:01:47
Speaker
um This particular episode is about the book Audiophile by Emery Hart. I read it recently. If you follow me on threads, I posted about it there. um and a really enjoyed this book.
00:02:04
Speaker
um It was a little unexpected because again, i do, I have very much enjoyed romanticy and I am a sucker for fantasy in general.
00:02:17
Speaker
And this is a contemporary. I was like, we'll see how much I like it. And I absolutely loved it. So I definitely want to talk about it here. um A little bit of a content warning. One spoiler alert for the entire book, since I am going to be digging into the relationship between the MMC and the FMC.
00:02:36
Speaker
So there will be spoilers ahead. If you care about that, go read the book, save this episode, go read the book and then come back to this episode to listen to it and to see some of the lessons that I gleaned from it.
00:02:49
Speaker
um If you don't care about any spoilers and you want to get a taste of what the book is going to entail, definitely stick along then. Just know that some of the plot points are going to be spoiled for you.
Sensitive Topics and Personal Reflections
00:03:02
Speaker
Additionally, in terms of content warnings, the book does come with quite a few content warnings as well, and I'm going to include some of them here that I'm going to be discussing during this episode, and that includes depression, stalking, sexual assault, forced pregnancy, miscarriage, and infant loss.
00:03:19
Speaker
One of the things that I've been noticing a lot lately with the books that I've been choosing is that they've all been very timely for the things that I've been thinking about ruminating on, if you will, when it comes to my own life and my own healing journey and what it all means for me. i i get very meta about myself, I guess.
00:03:40
Speaker
um And it's just been so odd where like the last few books, I pick them up and I'm i'm just like, is this about me? Like I was literally reading this book and obviously like not everything and the FMC's journey applies to my life. Like it it definitely does not.
00:03:55
Speaker
But there was just so much in the FMC that I... related to that I was like did the author like peer into my soul and then base Petra off of what she found like what the hell so one of the main things that I've been thinking about a lot which again if you've been listening to the last few episodes where I've talked about community and community being in an extremely important aspect to our lives I've been thinking a lot about healing and how
00:04:27
Speaker
We need connection to others as part of the healing journey. And more and more, I am just convinced that we cannot fully heal without connection to and the assistance of others.
00:04:40
Speaker
And when it comes to audiophile by Emily Hart, the tagline is literally a steamy and healing romance. With a tagline like that, how was I not supposed to talk about it on the podcast?
00:04:52
Speaker
Come on, come on. Anyway, the end of the book, I knew I had to talk about it on here. So let's go ahead and get into it.
Character Introduction: Petra
00:05:01
Speaker
In terms of the female main character, the FMC, we have Petrina.
00:05:05
Speaker
Petro. Oh, my God. In terms of the female main character, we have Petronia Diamante. And the male main character, we have Reed Alexander.
00:05:18
Speaker
So I'm going to go ahead and dig into, do a little bit of a explainer analysis on both of the main characters and then go into how they helped one another on their healing journeys.
00:05:32
Speaker
So with Petra... We meet her when she is in an extremely low place in her life, but not just like the lowest place or like the darkest place in her life. It's it's above that. And if you're going to look at it in like layers, she's not in like the depths of hell anymore, but she's still not...
00:05:52
Speaker
living life fully. She's still not experiencing life fully. She's still very much depressed and in a stable yet unhappy, unfulfilling part of her life.
00:06:07
Speaker
She's moved back to her small town in Oregon. She's living with her parents. She's a cashier at a grocery store. And when she's not working, she escapes to creativity.
00:06:19
Speaker
She escapes to a fictional world that she is creating and writing and has absolutely no hopes of ever actually publishing it.
00:06:31
Speaker
But every day when she gets home, that is the one thing that she is looking forward to. Another key detail about Petra is that she listens to Daddy Night Productions.
00:06:44
Speaker
Now, what is Daddy Night Productions? This is where the steamy comes in okay? If you have heard of Quinn, this is basically that.
00:06:56
Speaker
So Daddy Night Productions is basically steamy audios for specifically women, is the target audience for women to listen to. So that is a little bit of a synopsis of Petra. I'm not going into full detail as of yet, but that gives you a snapshot of who she is.
00:07:16
Speaker
Now, if we look at the effects of trauma. So again, kind of sticking with Petra for a little bit longer. That's sort of the snapshot of who she is, but there's so much more to that as well because we might say, okay, well, I'm feeling depressed or I feel hopeless or like, I just feel like I'm stagnant, like I'm stuck.
00:07:37
Speaker
Like, okay, we can kind of relate to that, but how does it manifest? How does it look like when it comes to Petra? What are the effects of trauma essentially? Petra isolates like crazy. She isolates and she pushes people away. She, when it comes to the romantic part of it, girl is super avoidant.
00:07:57
Speaker
So she pushes people away. She does that with her family. We don't really see any friends for her whatsoever. Like at all, actually throughout the entire book. um But very close to her family, but she's pushing them away. And we also see her pushing Reed away once the romance starts.
00:08:17
Speaker
So even though she grew up being very close to her family because she's pushing them away, she finds herself in this very odd point of not being close to them at all and feeling almost like uncomfortable opening up and sharing herself with them.
00:08:32
Speaker
She is dealing with a lot of escapism, especially in the fictional world that she's creating. Like I mentioned, there's a lot of hopelessness there, that stagnation that she's feeling. There's also this hopelessness of...
00:08:45
Speaker
anything ever improving, hopelessness in achieving her dreams, essentially. She has given up on her dreams. Like she moved back home from Los Angeles and her goal in Los Angeles was to graduate college and be a writer.
00:09:02
Speaker
That all went to shit. She moved back home eventually has completely given up on that. Effectively, she is there in a stable location at least, but dealing with depression.
00:09:13
Speaker
Now if we look at the male main character, Reid Alexander, he finds himself in almost a mirrored situation, also in a dark place.
Character Introduction: Reed Alexander
00:09:23
Speaker
We meet him when he is traveling through this small town that Petra's in, that Petra is from.
00:09:29
Speaker
He's traveling through and his first, we get to see his first interaction with Petra. That very first interaction being little flirtatious, here for it. And we are also very aware very quickly when we meet him that he is Daddy Knight of Daddy Knight Productions, which is like, come on now.
00:09:50
Speaker
like In terms of a romance novel, that's exactly what I want to see. Anyway, getting to know Reed a little bit more. he We also learn that Reed is looking to shut down Daddy Night Productions.
00:10:07
Speaker
And why is that? Because of the trauma that he endured at the hands of someone who was effectively his abuser. She was stalking him. She abused him in a myriad of different ways, took advantage of him and is kind kind of his ex as well.
00:10:21
Speaker
um Unfortunately, this is someone that he brought into his life and trusted even though she repeatedly ignored and pushed his boundaries as well as various other abusive things.
00:10:34
Speaker
In terms of the effect of the trauma when it comes to Reed, do we see him dealing with it? He refuses to trust others. We see him list out rules of like engagement when it comes to other people and specifically women.
00:10:48
Speaker
um We also see him effectively start to like ignore those rules um when it comes to Petra, but he has them listed from the very beginning and he's been living by them while he's been traveling.
00:11:00
Speaker
Additionally, he feels like he needs to constantly be on the run, constantly moving. Again, with a stalker, that kind of makes sense. You don't want to be in the same place where they're going to be able to find you. So he is constantly moving about.
00:11:12
Speaker
And it seems like he was like driving up the coast from California, from Los Angeles, which is where he originally was living up the coast, up into Oregon. He also is pushing people away, just like Petra. He is isolating.
00:11:25
Speaker
He is pushing his family away, except for his sister, kind of, and then definitely pushing friends away as well. So in all of that, we see that these people are both very much hurting, very much in a dark place and isolating in their own ways and trying to navigate the pain in their
Healing Through Relationships
00:11:47
Speaker
lives.
00:11:47
Speaker
But then they come across each other. And there is attraction. There is definitely a lot of like giggles and like shyness on Petra's side. And Reed definitely picks up on that attraction.
00:11:59
Speaker
But how exactly do we then see these two characters help each other? Where does the healing come into play with the steamy and healing romance? Ultimately, Reed helps Petra come back to life.
00:12:15
Speaker
And Petra helps Reed trust people again. We see this through Reed's courting of Petra, where she allows herself through his courting to essentially live again, to be open to new experiences, and to essentially see the beauty in life again.
00:12:33
Speaker
Because she's in this world, which we even see it in the descriptions of things in the book itself, where she is very like her life is very drab it's gray it's monotone like it's like her life is in gray scale but then she's with reed and she's describing how things are vibrant again and she's describing how like colors are more colorful and more vibrant when reed is there and when reed is around and his eyes are this beautiful like amber color and like just things just have so much life
00:13:04
Speaker
again because of Reed. And he, it's not just because he's there, but it's also the way in which he interacts with her and facilitates this to happen again. Reed though, on his end, who is kind of in denial about his courting with Petra,
00:13:22
Speaker
finds himself wanting to trust Petra and being open to creating a bigger community eventually and ultimately creating a family for himself.
00:13:34
Speaker
So with Reed, he has these rules that essentially... By following them, keeps everybody at a distance, especially romantically. But when it comes to Petra, he sees that sadness, that but like melancholy in Petra and is intrigued by it.
00:13:53
Speaker
And I think he's intrigued by it because he sees sort of that mirror image of himself because he as well is essentially very melancholic. So he's like, hmm, here's this beautiful woman, but she's so unhappy.
00:14:06
Speaker
But like I can relate and I want to... Learn more. So in that, he does get to know her. ah But in getting to know her, he then is even more attracted to her, even though he doesn't see that as overtly yet.
00:14:24
Speaker
Essentially, with all of that, with that dynamic, both end up exhibiting qualities and traits of a healthy partner. So what exactly did Reid do as a healthy partner?
00:14:35
Speaker
He encouraged Petra to step into the light and beauty. He never pushed her to do things. But he definitely encouraged her. He also took her to experiences that one, she used to really enjoy doing and kind of stepped away from, but also then encouraged her to do things that she might might have felt were out of reach.
00:14:56
Speaker
So he took her hiking. He took her down the coast to the beach. He encouraged her riding when she opened up about it. And he encouraged her and essentially told her that if she wanted to publish, she definitely could. He even talked about her doing like voice acting. He even talked about where if she wanted audio book, like he would be happy to like narrate essentially and just created possibility.
00:15:23
Speaker
Just kind of showed her essentially like the window of possibility. And that was something that Petra was really struggling to do. Additionally, Reed definitely respected her brown jeans once we get to the more steamy, spicy scenes.
00:15:39
Speaker
Like reid was all about that enthusiastic consent, informed, enthusiastic consent every single time. And even when Petra might've gotten in a little bit overly excited about something and, you know, you talk about boundaries beforehand and then you kind of get a little carried away in the middle.
00:15:59
Speaker
And Reed was like, Hey, we talked about your boundaries before this. If we do this, there's going to be a point of no return. Are you sure you want to do this? And, That, I think, is incredibly important as well, especially for Petra, who unfortunately has a history of forced pregnancy and someone crossing her boundaries and ultimately someone not caring about her.
00:16:24
Speaker
So seeing that in Reed and Reed providing that for her was definitely a very healing thing. So what did Petra do in this situation that helped Reed heal? She presented a very genuine interest and curiosity about him as a person.
00:16:44
Speaker
And in that showed him a lot of respect. When Reed is coming from a background of somebody who only saw him as Daddy Knight and didn't see him for who he was as a person, as an individual, and didn't care and couldn't get to know him as Reed Alexander, but only as Daddy Knight.
00:17:02
Speaker
So that moment when Petra tells Reed that she's going to have to cancel her subscription now and Reed was shocked, I think that sealed the deal for Reed when it came to wanting to continue pursuing Petra and getting to know her and begin to really date her.
00:17:21
Speaker
Because he came from place where somebody who was his abuser only saw him as Daddy Knight and only sexualized him. and didn't see him as a person. So Petra gave him that, gave him that respect and saw him as who he was.
00:17:38
Speaker
With that, I think that also is a form of a boundary. And with that as well, Petra also respected his boundaries when he set them. Again, similarly, she also was always there for consent on his end as well and always actively sought it as well during all of those steamy scenes.
00:18:02
Speaker
Additionally, given that all of this was taking place, that she gave him that consent and ensured that she had his consent for things, respected his boundaries, and also genuinely, like actively expressed how she saw him for who he was as a person,
00:18:21
Speaker
All of that together showed Reed that it was possible to have eventually a healthy relationship with a woman. And the fact that she was, even though she was pushing her family away, she still was very much tied to them.
00:18:36
Speaker
And it was evident being in that small town and he was able to pick up on it. With that, it also showed Reed that it was possible to have community in a difficult time.
00:18:50
Speaker
So Petra essentially showed him that he could have close relationships again and that he can be vulnerable, he can be seen, and still be accepted. There are definitely a lot of things that I did not go into in terms of plot points for this book because Part of me does want you to go and like read the book for the first time if you're here and you haven't read it um But there is so much that is in the book that really exemplifies how two people can be in an imperfect time, imperfect space in their life and be together to find deeper healing.
The Role of Community in Healing
00:19:30
Speaker
and Like I mentioned at the very beginning, i am very much of the belief that we are not able to heal by ourselves. I think that we are able to heal to a certain extent by ourselves, but we are meant to be in community.
00:19:46
Speaker
We are not meant to be in silos. So there is only ah ah an amount, there's a limit essentially, to how much you can heal by yourself. And eventually, you are going to be in some type of relationship, some type of community with others, and that is going to call for deeper and continued healing.
00:20:05
Speaker
I think that this book really exemplifies that when it comes to romance, because both of these people come from
00:20:14
Speaker
unhealthy relationships. Both of these people were previously in very unhealthy, dysfunctional relationships, abusive relationships, and were able to still find each other and were able to create a healthy environment for each other to continue to grow and eventually build a beautiful, healthy, fulfilling life to together.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:20:38
Speaker
If you have not read this book and you've liked everything I've said so far, I will be linking it in the show notes. If you have stayed this far, I greatly appreciate it. if you appreciated the episode, don't forget to give it a like, a review, and to subscribe to the podcast.
00:20:55
Speaker
All of that definitely helps get the podcast out to the people who need to hear it. And if you would like some support in your healing journey, i am a certified life coach and I am accepting clients.
00:21:07
Speaker
And you can go ahead and schedule your very own discovery call through the link in the show notes. Until next time, keep growing.