(upbeat music)
Hello everyone, welcome to this very special bonus episode
of "Malice" by Danielle Steele.
What, you may be saying, "Didn't you guys do this book
"already in your first season?"
Why, yes, we did.
But this is the very special "Lost Recording" of "Malice".
This is the original record, and we did,
before I had to say that I lost it,
and we had to re-record.
It's a very special episode because it's unhinged,
it's very rough, and we get very drunk during it.
So I hope you guys enjoy this look back
on what it was like to be around us.
What is it, six years ago when we recorded this?
And I hope you're looking forward to next season.
This is just a little teaser.
Enjoy!
(upbeat music)
- Hey everyone, and welcome to episode 101
of "Meen Book Club".
This week we read "Malice" by Danielle Steele,
and that's what we're gonna be talking about.
So first we're just gonna talk about how we got our hands
on these little books, Sarah.
- You wanna know a book,
I'll say I believe I provided three out of four
of the most beautiful books.
I purchased the book from Amazon,
and I accidentally bought two, so I gave one to Clara.
- Hello.
- And I read one and gave it to Sabrina.
- That's what I had.
So, John, you must have a different story.
- I have a really different story,
really original story.
I purchased my book from the Strand,
NYC famous book store.
- Wow.
- I felt real embarrassed about having bought
for Amazon last time.
Wanted to support a local bookstore.
- Oh wow.
- You don't want to support Amazon,
there's an Amazon really bad to use,
to be using, should I not be using it?
- I think, I think it's better to use a local bookstore.
- Okay.
- I have heard that, and also if you've watched the movie,
you've got male, it reinforces that.
- Re-enforces it.
So I wanted to take an opportunity to shame Sarah.
(laughing)
- I banned Amazon all the time.
- Yeah, but she doesn't feel shame.
So it was an impossible thing to do.
(laughing)
- But yeah, so I did this book.
I feel like I picked it, and I'm sorry.
I said I read it.
- You don't care how Claire read it?
- I got my copy of her.
- Oh, I could say, I like Sarah gave me.
- I gave it to her. - I gave it to her.
I provided.
- I didn't finish this week's book.
I got to page 241, and that's because I didn't want
to spend my time reading it because I hated the book.
- I have never hated a book as much as I hated
this book.
- Yes.
- I really hated it at the beginning, and I hated it
at the middle, and I really, really hated it at the end.
- Oh, I don't know.
- I started it last night.
There were 50 pages of it.
And within 50 pages, you can hate it real hard.
- Yeah, you can't.
- Within like 10.
- Oh yeah, yeah.
- Page one, I'll tell you.
- Page one, I was like, okay, this is fine.
- Well, I'm talking about the, the,
- Acknowledgements.
- Yeah. - What made my thing feel like.
- Filled me with hate.
- I didn't read it, let us know.
- It's to her children, and it ends with,
with all thanks and love and apologies for the pain
I may have brought you with this wicked thing
called quote unquote fame.
So right away I was like, I think I might hate her.
- Also, and she signed her thing to her children
is deep-period, as period.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Initial, not mom.
- There you're goddamn children.
- And she's not that famous.
Let me just say I had never felt out her,
but she is a New York Times bestseller for all most.
- She's been in the like record books, I think.
- This was her 37th New York Times bestseller.
- So she's just churning this shit out.
- She's been in five books a year or something like that.
- I mean, cannot believe a woman wrote this.
- Yes, absolutely.
It's insane.
- Let's just, should we just do like a quick,
maybe set up or the back of the book,
how does it have,
we could read the,
- Go ahead, read the back.
- Yeah, the description.
- I find ones, New York Times.
- Yeah, they don't know what we're talking about.
- Okay, so the back of the book that Sarah provided,
this is the description that they give you.
At 17, the night of her mother's funeral,
Grace Adams is attacked.
It's not the first time in a brutal crime in Seuss.
And to everyone's horror, that's actually not true,
and not what happens in the book,
but Grace will not tell the truth.
She's a young woman with secrets too horrible to tell.
With her so deep, they may never heal.
She's also beautiful enough for men to want her,
no matter how much she does not want them.
From an Illinois women's prison
to a Chicago modeling agency,
to a challenging career in New York.
Grace must carry the past with her wherever she goes.
And healing her own pain, she reaches out to battered women,
and children who live a nightmare she knows all too well.
When Grace meets Charles McKenzie,
she's found a man who wants nothing from her,
except to heal her, to heal her secrets,
and to give her the family she so desperately wants,
not what she wants.
- Bye.
- I can hear you, Alphys.
- Oh yeah.
- Oh my does, here.
- Alphys hates the book.
- Yeah, good.
- Yeah, good, he's right too.
- Oh, so Grace is the main character?
- Yes.
- Spoiler, she doesn't die, but every page
you hope that she's gonna die.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Should we maybe go through it,
talk about the horrible things that happen
in this horrible book?
- Yeah, so yeah, it starts out and--
- They'll understand why we want her dead.
We're not bad people.
- Yeah, not bad people.
- This character, Grace, is, her mom just died of cancer.
It's very sad.
- Poor, yeah.
- She's what?
18, 17, 17, 17.
- 17, 17, 17, I guess that is very important.
(laughs)
- And she kind of get from being that she's not super close
to her dad, you don't really know exactly what happened.
- He's like a little short with her,
even though they're at her mother's funeral.
- Yeah.
- But everyone in town loves him.
It's important to know that he's the most love person
that could exist.
- Right.
- Mm-hmm.
And we know that Grace, the first thing we know about Grace
is that she was a pretty girl,
or would have been if she'd allowed herself to be.
Lean and tall, Graceful Shoulders,
Long Thin Arms, beautiful, long legs,
a tiny bust, oh, sorry, a tiny waist and a full bust.
(laughs)
- That's important.
- If she had had a tiny bust,
we wouldn't even have a book here, guys.
- Oh, yeah.
- And that is something, her description,
her bust and her long legs and her face,
something we were reminded of every five pages
for the entirety of this 350 page.
(laughs)
- Yeah.
- And also, I do wanna know that one of the times
they were mine does,
I think I can't find it in particular,
but she's 17, they tell us that in the paragraph,
and she's naked in the tub,
they tell us that in the paragraph,
and that she just doesn't even know how appealing
her perky breasts are, the water or something.
- Yeah, they're pretty appealing.
- I felt, before we got to the big twist,
I literally was saying in my head,
"Please, please, don't let this dad rest his child."
Like, I just felt like where she was going,
and I was just like, but no, but.
- Oh, but then it was like so extreme.
- Yes. - Yeah.
I think what probably bothers me the most
is the graphic violence she included for no reason.
It's horrifying enough.
- You skip over plenty of other details.
Can we skip over this?
- No, no.
- You skip over everything in the book.
I would say it's almost entirely written in passive tense.
- Yes.
- It takes place over literally 155 years.
(laughing)
But she devotes probably 15 pages to the rape of Grace.
And at one point refers to the dad's penis
as the familiarity of him.
- Oh, yes.
- His familiar.
- It was like, and the whole story behind,
what, her mom was awful too.
Like, right?
- Her mom was so bad.
- It was like, her mom, I wrote her mom sucks
and deserved to die.
That's what it is.
- Yeah, do you do that?
- They all does, yeah.
- Everyone in this book that has a speaking line
deserves to die.
- Because that.
- Including Grace, fucking kill yourself.
- Okay, so basically, her mom, her dad was abusive to her mom
and her mom gets cancer when she's like 12 or 13.
And then like, he's like, well now who am I supposed to fuck?
And her mom's like, oh, I don't want you to cheat on me.
How about instead you fuck our 13 year old daughter.
And then like--
- And I hold her down for you.
- Literally, she holds her down.
And then for some reason, Grace like continues
to like care for her mother and take care of her.
And I'm like, why don't you hate the whole thing?
- I mean, I understand that there could be
some serious like fucked up victim impact
that she is experiencing.
- Yeah.
- But it seems like it never even crosses her mind
that like, they were evil to her.
And so later, I think she realizes.
- So while she's being raped by her father
on the eve of her mother's funeral,
Grace picks up a gun that mom kept in the bedside drawer.
- But never would use it to defend herself or her daughter.
- Right, right.
Mom was a second amendment supporter.
She picks up the gun, shoots dad in the neck.
- While he's on top of her,
- While he's on top of her.
- While he's getting in her mouth and shaking.
- I think, does he then say you little bitch?
- Yeah, when she points the gun at him.
- Oh, okay, it's not as if she pulled the bitch.
- Yeah, but the last thing he's able to get out
is you little bitch.
And the police come and find her,
her night gun is torn off.
I don't even want to talk about how obviously
she's been raped.
And for some reason, all of the police that come are like,
wow, can't believe that 17 year old girl tried to seduce her dad.
He turned her down so she killed him.
It's great.
Like it's just the craziest.
- They justify the seam in everywhere,
but yeah, he must have been touching himself.
He was going through a lot of times.
- He just saw his dead wife's corpse.
Of course he had a damn kid.
- I mean, we're all.
- Yeah, I wrote page 61, someone responds,
like, somebody's like, talked about it's a teenage murderer
and someone's like, nice.
- Oh, I was like, what?
- There was that one young cop who said,
is it possible that it could have been a rape?
And then the old cop goes, absolutely not.
John Adams is the best man that ever lived.
- Also, was this before DNA?
- Right.
- I mean, the book was written in 1996.
- No, yeah, it was really tough to do DNA testing though.
- Thank you.
- Okay, good to know.
- Good to know, because they also--
- But to be clear,
I'm pretty certain it was not before you could.
- Okay, right.
- 'Cause they go into a lot of detail
with what her pelvic exam was like also.
- And they were very nice to the reading.
- Oh, you know what?
- You know what?
- The seamen out.
- I don't, when did this take place?
Because, okay, this was written in 1996
and like, 35 years of lapse in the book.
So, actually maybe the crime was long before DNA testing.
- I don't know the time.
- It doesn't say to us chapter one setting year.
I just assume it's 1996.
- Well, so I assume that maybe they're writing
into the future.
- Yeah, no, yeah, that's okay.
- But there's nothing in,
there's no descriptions in the book
that would make you feel like it was 20 years ago.
Like they don't, you know what I mean?
- I think that's a writing error.
- Yeah, yeah.
- I think a lot of this is a writing error.
(laughing)
- Wow, and a lot of, okay, so,
best of the year, time to best solve it.
Let's all remember that as well.
- Yeah, let's do this.
- Because, so, we bring up the DNA stuff
because they, so they do this pelvic exam
when she goes into a lot of fucking detail on
and they can't say for sure they're like,
well, yeah, it looks abusive.
Maybe this little shy girl just liked it that way.
- Yeah. - So fucked up.
Pissed me off.
- It honestly would have helped my reading of this
to have known this was like the 70s.
- It would have.
- It really changed.
I didn't think about it until literally this moment
because there's no indication in the book whatsoever.
- Right.
- Wow.
- Wow. - Wow.
- Okay, I actually like the book.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I guess we're done here.
- We're done. - We're done.
- Cool. - Great.
- So she goes to jail.
- For killing the father.
And she gets an attorney and a psychologist
and they believe that she is a victim,
but she won't tell anyone else.
- And then she won't even tell them at first.
And in particular,
- So don't tell the woman.
- Yeah, she doesn't trust the female
psychologist who's apparently very talented,
even though her only talent seem to be,
"Tell me what happened, tell me what happened."
But she does trust the male lawyer for some reason.
- Yes, who we later learn in the book
feels both fatherly towards Grace
and also that he would like to have sex with her.
- He would have.
- He's obsessed with her.
- He has to. - He owns a knows that.
There's no reason for him to be attracted to her.
He never comes back into the book.
It's not like at the end they become lovers
and it's like, "Oh, all this time."
- No.
- It was at that point that it made me realize
that, "Oh, this is the story of what happens
if you're super hot and your dad can't help but fuck you
"and everyone wants to fuck you."
- Yeah. - This is your life and that's the story.
- That's what the story is.
- Literally, by the middle of the book,
every single character who was introduced,
I was sitting on the couch reading it
and my roommates were both there and I was like,
"Oh no, they just introduced a priest."
- The priest.
- I was sure that he was gonna rape her.
- But the priest is actually the one character in the book
who has no sexual fetishes.
- Yeah, that's good.
- It wasn't a rapist, which is,
I would say misguided on Danielle Stil's part.
- She's really religious, I think,
so that makes sense.
- That makes sense.
- That's also exciting.
- Nine children.
- Yes it does.
Yes it does.
Five marriages, five divorces.
Anyway, let's continue with the bookied book.
- Okay, so where were you?
Okay, so she tells her secret to the lawyer
and eventually also the psychologist,
but that doesn't matter.
- The court case, yeah, the court case, whatever.
So they are going to plead,
not guilty, self-defense.
- I would like to hear from you guys.
What do you think of that court case description?
- I was furious.
- It was, yeah.
- It lasted two pages.
The entire book at this point has been like two days.
Then this trial, the conviction jail,
it lasts like two passive pages.
So my other like huge problem with it is,
one, okay, does anyone know what state this took place in?
- I could not, I could not have a reason.
- I think it's Illinois because she goes to Chicago.
- She goes to Chicago.
- So I meant to look up the laws in Illinois.
- If you mistakenly believe,
but like you have a reasonable basis to believe
that you are acting in self-defense, that's a defense.
That's a defense.
- No, really not, the jury's logic was perfect, I think.
- But I mean,
- I see why they made the decision.
- I could just be wrong about whatever the law in Illinois is
because I have literally no idea what the law in Illinois is,
but you are,
- But so does justified in thinking that the person
is risking your life, you are justified in defending yourself.
- Yeah.
- It doesn't mean you get a voluntary manslaughter conviction.
It means you're acquitted.
- Oh, there's nothing else they could do.
The lawyer was a really good lawyer
and he couldn't do anything else.
- Even he couldn't do anything.
- Yeah.
- You know, they did try to get the late father's business
partner who was also an attorney to defend grace.
That was a suggestion that her court-appointed psychologist made.
Maybe your father's partner could defend you
on the charge of killing him.
- Yeah.
- Which he wouldn't do it shockingly, wouldn't defend.
- No, he wanted all of the father's money,
so he just wanted her to scram.
Well, that was a nice plot device.
He paid $50,000 and just put it in a savings account for her
so that she would not come after the other half
of the law practice.
They also kept saying like, they'd be like,
the law partners keeping all the money.
There wasn't much, there wasn't much.
There wasn't much.
- There was still a plot point, but there wasn't very much.
- It was such an irrelevant, like everything else in this plot
was saying that happened that never had any bearing came back
or paid off in any way.
(laughing)
- She also had a way of describing characters
that was similar where it was like,
they have XXX quality, but, but, but,
they also have these opposite qualities.
- Like, stop.
- Stop.
- They can't be.
- I'm so she goes to jail.
The one thing she does, Daniel still does,
take time to describe is if a character is a black person,
she makes sure that you get away.
- Click it.
- If that noise was me touching something in NFL.
- NFL.
- Yeah, thanks.
- Photographs and SD cards.
- Page 82 is when I realized not only was the book
somehow misogynistic, but also racist
because we were introduced to a black woman
and then another black girl and I realized,
oh, all of the characters so far in the book
have been by default white because that's how Daniel
is jail sees the world.
- Oh, and I also do want to comment on like you saying girl,
when we were talking to that psychologist Molly,
they were describing her and they kept saying like,
she was a pretty girl and I kept being like,
oh, did we jump back to talking about the child?
And then I realized, no, we were still talking about
that adult doctor woman, but she was a pretty girl.
- And you're like, oh my God.
I wrote in page, I don't know,
'cause I don't have the book of writing me.
But this was a quote from the book,
in jail, playing with the big girls,
did you steal candy?
I thought that was a good idea.
- That brings of truth to me from a prison environment?
- This is definitely like the original orange
is the new black situation.
- I did think like, oh man, if she had just watched
orange is the new black, 'cause I do think
that she got all of her information from other TV
that she's seen or something.
- I don't think.
- But it was just like, at one point,
she was like, he was a neurosurgeon,
he was an expert in neurosurgery.
(laughing)
- Oh great, now I didn't, so like, obviously,
okay, I wrote, messy nine, like I wrote some notes,
but I'm like, you said this.
Somebody said asked if she was a lesbian.
- Yeah, that happens a couple times, I think,
because all of a sudden doesn't trust men.
- Oh, you're right, you're right.
Later in the book, she switches and doesn't trust men.
- That was a big part of the book for a while,
and you, I mean, there's practically a note
from Danielle's steal the author that's like,
but by the way, the author is not a lesbian.
(laughing)
Just because I'm writing it doesn't mean I am.
- Oh, here's another good line from the jail part.
Clean her latrine with her eyebrows.
- Oh yeah. - I'm gonna make her
a cleaner latrine with her eyebrows.
- Yeah, that's a really wow.
- I think in the three hours that I spent reading
and I must have missed that line.
- I remember it. - Oh, really good one.
- Also, why weren't there fucking guards in that prison?
It's a prison with murderers.
- Oh no, no, no, they're worth.
They just watched the gang of women drag this new young girl
out into the courtyard, you know, where there's a shed
that you can take people in.
- Wendow with face-papets.
- To rape people.
(laughing)
- Yes.
- They stomped on her inhaler.
- Oh yeah, you heard.
- The author is all the asthma and this was like,
made me confused.
It was like, what is, like, what is her,
what induces her asthma?
- Yeah, it seems like being no dress about being raped.
- And it was just like, what?
That's not it.
- 'Cause it's not running.
- They specifically say she ran in prison
because we needed to know that she was toned now.
- Yeah, she was. - She went out with
the woman who saved her from the rape.
- Yeah, so it's even more beautiful now.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, toned.
- But wouldn't the asthma have prevented that
or at least made more difficult?
- I don't know, 'cause it's like either your allergy
induced or your sports induced,
but she didn't seem to make it into--
- She just seared it into--
- Seared it into--
- She's just a delicate wave, guys.
We don't know what it's like, we're not pretty enough.
- We're not being able to tell.
- Okay, we're fast approaching my favorite part
in the book, great, great.
- Fine, okay.
- This is the point in the book when
Grace's only friend in the world,
these prison psychologists, dies in a place--
- Oh, no! - Oh, out of her weight
to her honeybees.
- Yeah, so funny.
That reminded me something I would write
in like a fifth grade.
- Yes, yes, yes, very extreme.
- It is very writer's workshop.
- It's in childhood.
- Incredible, here's the passage as written.
It was over Denver, I think.
They think it was terrorists, blew it up.
It was a flight from Chicago to Honolulu.
Grace felt her skin grow cold in her heart ache,
but it couldn't be, it couldn't be that.
It didn't work like that, not after all these years,
not both of them on their honeymoon,
not her only friend.
(laughing)
Yeah, it's almost like it's so unbelievable
that it could possibly be true.
- To imagine that Daniel still wrote that paragraph
and then was like rereading it
and making little alterations and then like,
there, I've got it.
- Perfect.
I read it in a re-writ where she said
that she often cries as she writes.
I imagine she cried as she wrote that scene.
- That was so incredible.
- As I was reading it, thought she must have never read
over this passage.
You can't just just--
- How did you think it is?
- Or maybe another book.
She's never read another book.
- I told you, I can't remember what I told you guys
about this last time, but like in fifth grade,
I tried to write a novel called "No One to Turn To"
and it really reminded me of this book
because I had an--
- I'm sorry, do you say you tried to write a novel called
"No One to Turn To"
and it was about a young girl who had an abusive father,
a parent's got to forest,
but he gambled and lost all the money, they ended up--
There was no rape, I didn't really guess.
It wasn't there yet, it's the rape.
- So you honestly wrote the good version of this book?
- Five.
- Her brother and mother did, they died in a train accident.
- Oh, that was a sad thing about that.
- She also eventually worked at McDonald's
for the company because I didn't--
- Wasn't it up in St. Barbara's between you?
- You couldn't use it.
- Well, it was just McDonald's, but I started to--
- And then maybe the Ant-O-D suit?
- Yeah, I did, I wasn't afraid of getting sued.
- I think that whole thing is very sweet,
but I don't think Daniel Steele is good at all.
- No, yeah.
- I was honestly reflecting on things
I had written in fifth grade as well.
They weren't the same in any way except for the quality of writing.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Well, don't insult yourself, I'm sure it was better.
- No, no, I really wrote one, it was about a kid turning 16.
It was like so pumped to get his new set of wheels.
And I actually started from the end.
What happened was he was reckless with his car,
and he got a robot car crash,
and then he was in a wheelchair.
- Oh my god.
- Oh wheels, what's called wheels?
- I don't, I think it was, I don't know what it was called.
- I don't know what it was called.
- I think Daniel Steele would as well,
and you better watch out that she doesn't steal this.
- Honestly, yeah.
- Let's wait for her next book.
- Yeah, I can't wait.
- Probably in a month.
- Yeah, yeah, I guess.
- I don't, okay, so this is like a period of time
I stopped taking notes for whatever reason,
until like, 284, so what happened?
She got out of jail, who we just did.
- So, yes.
- 'Cause we just skipped two years pretty much
- Daniel Steele does it for her.
- Yeah, right, right.
So she got out, good for her.
- She went to her parole officer.
Also, a big old pervert.
- Hey, guess what?
The parole officer wants to have sex with her too.
- She's so pretty.
- She kept describing him, oh, she always uses
the same descriptors like four pages away from each other,
and it's like, this isn't a fun callback
to four pages ago.
This is just you being repetitive.
So in four pages, she said that he had BDIs
like six different times.
- Yeah, and that's not a track go.
- Yeah, no.
- He's ugly, he's bad, she's pretty, she's good.
It's so very simple for me.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Did any of you also just think she was the most boring,
like, uninteresting human being in the world, Grace?
- Yeah, and it just seemed like with her background,
like you would have a very interesting personality.
Or like, you know, you would have,
- Right.
- I don't know, so you've had a lot to base stuff on.
You're an adult, very young.
- Yeah.
- Wait, she has very, very boring and milk toast.
- Yeah, like, you'd think like she has to sort of repel
the advances of a lot of men,
and you think that maybe she would be able to have a lie
or a story to do that instead of just kind of saying no,
which is like, why don't you say a whole sentence?
- Yeah.
- Or like, if you can't, because what's affected you
in your life, I get that.
But we as the readers who have heard your thoughts
in other scenarios, like, we know that you don't know
that your breasts are super beautiful.
We know that even though he's kind of forcing himself
on you, you're like, he's handsome with the photographer guy.
So it's like, I feel like we could know
that she is a much more complex individual
because any person is.
And for our main character,
for us to not know those things is absolutely insane.
- And we discussed the photographer now.
- Yes, we must.
- So when she gets to Chicago,
she gets a job at a modeling agency.
- Of course.
- They want her to model desperately,
but she does not want to know.
- Even though she'd make a beautiful model.
- Right, well, and every time she tells someone
she works for a modeling agency, she's like,
no, I'm not a model.
And they're not surprised that she would have been a model.
- Yeah, they, yeah.
- They expected her to be a model,
but she's just their receptionist.
But oh my God, she's so good.
And she basically runs the thing.
She's so good at receptionist.
- She's so good at receptionist.
And there she meets this guy named Marcus,
who on their first date says that she needs a man
what makes you so sure she smiles at him.
He was a big, beautiful kid.
And then later on, he says,
this is, we get to hear Marcus's thought.
Tutored by the right man,
he sensed that she could be an extraordinary woman.
- Oh yeah, he was the one who asked if she was a lesbian too.
Right, was that the same guy?
- Yeah, I think the couple was a string of them.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It was in the stage where she was getting asked that a lot.
- I will say, when I broke up with my college boyfriend,
my family was like, are you a lesbian?
Are you a lesbian?
'Cause I didn't date anybody for a while.
Then I dated a woman.
(laughing)
So, so it's fair.
She could have that could have been a problem.
- She could have also liked women.
- Absolutely.
- I think it would have made sense.
- It would have made me like her a lot of
- Past experience.
- Yeah, there was that game of women.
- Oh, but she would be, yeah, I guess that's right.
- We can be very free anyway.
So eventually they go on,
this, he like convinces her to take,
he's gonna take photos, but they're just for him.
And they have some alcohol and he,
- Roofies her.
- Yeah, she gets very dizzy from the alcohol,
assumes it's because she didn't eat breakfast,
so stupid, so right.
- She's never had a glass and a half of wine
and felt like this before.
- Yeah, I guess she said a guy's not have a wine before.
We don't know, we've never been told.
- We've never seen her doing anything fun or enjoyable
before this moment.
- Just getting assorted.
- Yeah.
So you know that it's gonna lead to something horrible.
And in fact, it was a date rape drug that he gives her.
She passes out and he takes photographs of her half naked
and he, when she wakes up, he is naked.
- Yeah.
- And he's being a real dick about it.
- And it's weird because she's like, he didn't rate me,
but like, it sounds like he raped her.
- Yeah, it definitely seems like it.
- You know what that is, you've didn't rate no more.
- You did, like, why would he roof you if he wasn't quite a-
- I just, it's like, why you, I don't know.
Everything about that was like very upsetting.
The character was upset even how she reacted was very,
like, he was upset, he was like, oh,
look, a corpse or something.
- Yeah.
- He did say that exact line.
- Great.
- So he does this to her and then he shows her boss
at the modeling agency, the photos, and who is a man,
and her boss at the modeling agency,
then tries to take her out and sleep with her.
- Yeah.
- Well, I mean, it's her birthday.
- And it's her birthday.
- Right.
- And they're having lunch.
- Yeah, first is it her first birthday out of prison?
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yes, yes.
- And then she won't sleep with him, so he fires her.
- Yeah, well, yeah.
- Yeah, something you could, well, maybe,
I guess, if this was a long time ago.
- Yeah, I think the whole book could have been about that.
- Yeah, but what a real struggle.
- Yep.
- Like, it's true, there is sexual harassment,
the workplace.
I would tell Danielle to go back and focus on key moments.
- Yeah.
- You know, it doesn't have to be a life-longer.
- Why do you like she does that?
- Because then she does like two days, 20 pages,
and then she skips for years.
- That's true, that's true.
- It's like two 25 years later.
- Yeah.
So, yeah, that ends her employment
at the modeling agency.
- Yeah.
- Oh, no, no, no, it doesn't.
She comes in the next morning.
- Right.
- The wife is back, right?
- And she's like, "Oh, I heard you got sick at lunch yesterday."
Oh, and then she's like, "Oh, I got it."
And the husband's like, "No, no, no, we can forget about that, can't we?"
And she's got two months left on her parole,
so, and she needs to have a job for her own.
- And she's hidden this all from them.
All of her best.
- Oh, yeah, pastoring.
- She's not asking.
- She's not asking if you've previously been convicted
of manslaughter.
- I'm not asking if you've been in a normal thing.
- I mean, every job application I've ever filled out
just says, like, have you been charged or convicted
of charged with or convicted of a felony?
- Mm-hmm.
- They don't ask for misdemeanors.
I mean, the sentence of two years for this manslaughter
makes me think, like, well, maybe they don't take it that seriously.
In Illinois?
- Yeah.
- It was different times.
- It was different things.
- It was different times.
- It was different things.
- In potentially the 19-sundants.
- Illinois, yeah.
- What I thought was gonna happen when she got drugged
by that photographer was that she would then have to take a p-test
for her probation officer, and there'd be drugs in it.
Like, I was sure that's where we were going.
- Oh, that would have been good.
- But no, nothing, nothing happened like that.
She got off of probation.
And continued on.
- She just moved to New York City.
- New to New York City.
The only part I enjoyed in the book was like,
she walked out Madison Avenue, and it was like, cool.
- That actually kind of pissed me off
because it was like, how is she thriving in New York
and I'm struggling?
(laughing)
- I have to read my least favorite moment in the book.
Chapter 11, The Start of it, great.
- What?
- This is my notes are all based on paintings.
- Chapter 11, let me--
- Okay, where is--
- It doesn't mind book.
- 15, I'm sure it's about a church similar.
It's a little, it's gonna be--
- Chapter 11, I got it, I got it.
- What page is it?
- We are at 224.
- 224, you guys, okay, that's great.
- Hardback, beep, paperback, something.
- 224.
- Something to consider when you pick up a book for your son.
- And Amazon, you can call it the best.
- No, that's a nice, clear as a chapter.
- I'm a chapter 10, sorry.
- Chapter 11 is 249.
- Everyone writes this version of the book.
- Up, this is beyond where I got it.
And everyone's falling along with her.
- Head to 250.
- So it starts with, June was incredible in New York that year.
It was warm and lush with hot, breezy days and balmy nights.
- That sounds goddamn terrible.
- Yeah, hot trash, hot trash is here,
exiting the subway.
- Does she even have air conditioning?
What year is it?
- And later she decides to take the subway
because instead of a cab,
because it was kinda hot that day.
- What?
- I'm not lying in the subway, if it's hot.
- She's a lot dire.
- I'm sure that the air conditioning wasn't great
in whatever year this was, in the subway.
- Yeah, that's what we can do.
- The kind of weather that made people fall in love
or wish they had someone to fall in love with.
- New York and June is like, don't touch me.
- I know, yeah.
I've never felt more disgusting in my life than New York and June.
- But I feel like she could find another place to volunteer.
We didn't talk about that at all,
but Chicago, she was also a volunteer at a bad women shelter.
Which actually is probably the most like, that makes sense
for her care and for her.
- Yeah, I love to that.
- Except we never heard any exchanges.
It was like, she was so good with the badgered women
and the badgered children.
- You would tell Danielle?
- Yeah.
- One conversation.
We hear all the conversation with the man
who also works there who likes her,
but we don't hear one conversation
between the children she's so good with.
- I will say, one thing that really drove me insane
was the reason that Danielle still gave
behind her doing that is because this character Grace,
who had been raped by her father for four years,
held down by her mother so that her father could rape her,
sent to prison and then raped by women in prison.
She just felt so lucky and fortunate
and knew that she had to give back,
which is why she did this for these people.
- Yeah, I'm very grateful that she did this for these people
and I hope it was cathartic to her, but.
- Yes, we did, if it was cathartic,
that would have been great to know.
- Right, right.
- I would not know.
- At a long point, she said it might have been right.
- She said it was like her,
it was her get to pay to her mother
who she betrayed by shooting her father.
- That's really my goal, my God.
- That at one point for her volunteer is a super fucked.
- Which is a different reason than you she gave earlier,
but both are fucked.
- Okay, so then she finds a new place, it's great.
She loves it.
She gets a job at a law firm.
- Yeah, really easy for her to get a job.
- Let me just bring that up.
- Oh, it took literally no time.
And she got that apartment on 84th and 1st.
Which it also seemed like there was a subway real close
to that apartment as far as I know.
- The thing trained did not exist.
- No, I heard she was paying a dollar a month.
- Oh yeah.
- Right, you drove the ad definitely.
It's beautiful.
- I hate it more.
- Yep.
- All right, so I guess it was like,
she had a friend who was like,
- Why aren't you dating anyone?
- I'm not married.
Like an older woman who kept telling her she needed
to get married.
- The older woman was sad because she never got married.
- Yeah, that was all empathetic.
It's like you would think that her character maybe
would be more independent and now I wanna rely on a man.
But that's not where this plot's going.
- No, no, this is leading in one direction.
And it's, I mean, we're trying to,
Daniel's trying to suburb our expectations a little bit.
Grace is never gonna wanna be with a man.
- Right.
- We're building towards something which is,
we're gonna be the guy who's gonna change all that.
- Yeah, thanks.
- Thanks for being a part of this.
- And then, I thought it might be the priest.
- I thought it might be the priest too.
I would have been into that.
- 'Cause he was like joking about how he was also a doctor
and I was like maybe he'll leave the priest with it.
- That would be pretty cool.
But in Daniel's steel world, a priest would never leave the priest.
- Yeah, that's not very good.
- Instead Grace meets Charles McKenzie
and attorney who is 20 years her senior.
I guess she's over the fact that her attorney,
her father raped her for four years of life.
- Yeah, I thought that was particularly insane to make
that kind of like correlation, but never note
that it was a correlation.
- Or have her discuss it or be concerned about it.
- But she was scared of him.
- Yes, yes.
- She was scared of him.
- But that was all men, I think, all men.
- Yeah, scared of him.
- Right, she, at this point, had learned she was so beautiful
that she should just assume everyone wants to rape her.
So she assumes that this much of Mr. McKenzie.
- What she didn't realize is that not all men
want to rape her, some men just want to have consensual sex.
- Yeah, and that's the way that they're different.
- With Charles McKenzie, but he doesn't let on
how much he likes Grace.
Until one night she was walking home from St. Andrews,
the shelter that she volunteers.
And she is attacked by Danielle Steele,
make sure to note a black man.
She is attacked brutally by this guy.
- No, not brutally again.
This is beyond this all new.
- Oh, you haven't gotten yet, no she's not.
- This isn't that terror for a liar.
- Is she raped again or just beaten up?
- Just beaten the fuck up.
- Just beaten up.
Not pretty enough anymore, huh?
- Yep, too much.
- Yeah, she showed it.
- She recovered her beauty recovered.
Don't worry about that.
- Don't worry, they say that 20 goddamn times.
- That's pretty rough, that's pretty rough, huh?
The sister said she's a nice looking girl,
though it's a little hard to tell at the moment.
Like people in the hospital would be commenting on her looks.
- Yep.
- And they assured the reader, they assured the reader
multiple times, like, don't worry.
They were able to stitch her face right up.
We wouldn't even be able to tell.
- She'd be prettier now.
- So that's not something to worry about.
The only thing we have to worry about now is whether she's,
is whether she's,
(laughing)
but we know that she's looking pretty good.
- She must have explained, though.
- She must have explained that.
- But Danielle Steele says it's not a big deal.
- No, she can.
- And it does.
- Because it makes you actually look skinny or so.
- It actually is like having a boyfriend for her.
- Yeah.
- I have a question about the beating.
Was it just a random robbery?
- Well, it related to the battered women's shelter.
So there was like,
don't you know my wife?
- Yeah, I can't, basically.
- It's not a big deal.
- Okay, great, I'm up to speed.
- But she, the funny thing was,
she wasn't even helping that.
- That's the thing.
- That was, I don't know why.
- No one cares on the land she's shooting.
- Why wouldn't it have been a plot point that,
like, there was this woman she cared about
and was struggling to help get away from this guy.
And then that was the guy who came out,
like, no, it was just like,
- Yeah.
- Random and-
- Yeah, it was, it was random.
- It was like everything else in this book.
A random act.
- Yeah, a random plane crash.
- Yep.
- But it actually brings Grace and Charles and Kenzie together.
- Yes, he starts to visit her in the hospital.
- Her boss, who by the way is 20 years her senior,
and again, her boss.
- And her boss.
He starts to spend every waking moment in the hospital.
- Oh, my favorite part of the hospital is,
so the boss and the priest are both there in the hospital.
And this is how the boss, like, finds out all about
her background and stuff.
Because the priest just starts, I don't know,
spewing theories on her life.
And he's like, she was really scared to go to California with you
'cause they had taken a business trip together.
I think she thought he was gonna rape you,
or something, or other life.
- Which is a thing, I could think, to tell someone.
- Right, exactly.
- You're a priest.
And I mean, maybe she didn't like tell--
- I said to her, I mean, confessions,
but it was a confidential--
- Yeah, it was, and then he was just like,
he was embarrassed that she would be afraid of that
and say it out loud to somebody else.
But then the priest continues to hypothesize
about what might be underlying all this.
And he thinks that she was a battered child
and suffered abuse at the hands of her parents.
And it's just like, why would you tell someone,
it was the worst betrayal in the book?
- Why would you tell a stranger that,
a stranger who this woman thought was going to rape her at one point?
- Yeah.
- But that turned him on.
- A parent who always like--
- God.
- Staring at him.
Because it worked for them.
- She finally found a man to help her.
And she's gonna be okay.
- Oh my God.
- Guys, it's so exciting.
- Guys, so here's what happens, Clara.
She sleeps with Charles McKenzie.
They start dating, okay?
- Wait, wait, wait, wait.
- I said just say this before that,
but there was a point in it.
Obviously he's trying, he says something like he was going to save her,
which just like to me, oh he's gonna fuck her.
And he basically says something that's like,
I hear that you're saying sex might remind you
of your father raping you, but I want to have sex.
- That was like, yeah, something like that.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- But go ahead, yeah, please go.
- So they sleep together for the first time,
they go on this weekend trip.
And...
- Can I just say it really quickly?
Every time, right before they have sex,
and right after she demands that he
by her up in Anna's split, which Super Haas has been
in Anna's and Anna's desert.
- And really reminisce
and over father daughter relationship.
- Yes, it is.
- Yeah.
- So they sleep together.
- It's really disturbing.
- They get back to her apartment.
- Oh, they simultaneously orgasm.
I have two friends.
- They say to me.
- I believe they explode.
Which, you know what?
I got mad at that point because I was like,
so I guess she's like, has found her own sexuality
over a time, like the hell.
- Or it took her one time.
- It took her one time to orgasm.
Just a man coming inside her.
You know, dance savage says,
you have to figure out yourself
before you can have partner sex.
And I just never had an opportunity
to see if Grace was figuring out her own life.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Okay, but I'm rickside.
I think I know where you're going, so I'm wondering.
- So they have sex.
And they go back to her apartment.
And Charles decided it was even better in their apartment.
By the way, he rolled over sleepily afterwards
and whispered to her, "You're fired, Grace."
He was half asleep, but she sat bolt upright.
What was this about?
What?
What do you mean?
You heard me, you're fired.
- Why?
She was near tears.
She loved working for him, especially now.
And she was due back that week.
- What was he doing?
- I don't sleep with my secretaries.
He explained, "Don't look so worried.
I have a new job in mind for you."
- Oh no.
- It's a step up or it could be,
how would you like to be my wife?
Are you my wife?
(laughing)
Is that why you wanted to get to this part
of the books he gave you, my wife?
(laughing)
- He was just like, yeah, you got a promotion
from second to a real wife.
I've been like, oh, you've been forced to stay in home life.
Which clearly, you've evinced you don't want to
because you've avoided being in relationships
and have been very devoted to your career up to this point.
- Yeah, you've been sitting there so...
It's weird to me that Daniel Steele, who's like,
oh, she does.
- She does, she does it.
She writes so many books.
- A mother, I've read her, I've read her.
- She does all these independent.
What the, why the fuck would she write a line like that?
Like, I couldn't believe it.
- I guess like, you could write a line like that,
but your main character who's supposed to be
a strong independent woman coming through all this
would presumably have a different reaction.
- I guess that would end their relationship then.
- Or she'd be like, are you joking, who talks like that?
What is this?
- It's like, funny joke, Charles McKenzie, my boss.
- Yeah.
- Yes.
I'll marry you.
- Yeah.
- But no, it turns out that is what she wanted
because after that, the rest of the book is basically
devoted to her being a wife and mother.
- Interesting.
- Either she wanted that all along.
- It's what she wanted all along.
- And we never knew. - We didn't know that.
- We didn't know.
- And in fact, in the part where I stopped reading,
she was telling that older matron that she didn't ever,
she maybe would never be married.
She likes being by herself.
She likes it.
- Yeah, but yeah, we, there's no real,
we don't get to really look inside her soul at all.
- Yeah, that's true.
I know how long her legs are long,
which I didn't know was that attractive of a quality.
- It's okay, Clara.
- Man, I'm sort of curious.
- I'm just saying that from my,
people love long legs.
- I think one of the most.
- I really told she's got long legs.
- Just these both, these boots are really long legs.
(laughing)
- Stupid, really.
- And she also had my hair.
- Maybe, yeah, yeah.
- Their first child had red hair.
- Yes, she does.
- She has a golden hair.
- She had an easy pregnancy, I wrote that down.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Oh, despite having her pelvis previously shattered.
- Right, and she said that she's all scarred up, do.
- Yeah, she's all scarred up.
But I do, I wanna go back to that point.
Yes, the heroines in both of our last two books
have both had red hair.
- They have been described as legging in four months.
- Yeah, despite being different authors.
- Hopefully that continues.
- Yeah, so yeah, I wrote the doctor said they,
the doctor preferred natural childbirth.
- Yeah, that was so different.
- Also, why is that the doctor's choice?
- I don't, I don't know.
- I mean, the doctor insisted that she couldn't have pain meds.
- Yeah.
- So then she's like, I miss helping battered women.
And then she's like, they get this idea,
that I guess started charity, the charity.
The name of the charity is help kids.
(laughing)
- Explanation, basic need.
- It's a very basic human being thought of, not Danielle.
- And so, yeah, basically, she's gonna help battered women
in their kids, but like not just regular battered women,
like middle class or upper middle class.
- Right, yeah, that's the greatest need.
- That's the greatest need.
- Yeah, tired of how the shelters only help really needy women
and she's realizing that actually upper middle class
women get looked over a lot.
- Yeah, and it's wow, it's like wow.
- Which to be clear is fair and true,
but a very weird character choice for this person.
- So she never went back and got her psychology degree,
which was something that came up a couple of times?
- No, no, no, no, no, no.
- Oh, no, no.
- She's a mother now.
(laughing)
- She has no need for those things, you know?
- Oh, so this is where, I guess, the malice part,
I actually don't understand the title of the book ever.
- Malice is the title, you might have forgotten,
because it makes no sense.
- Her new husband is gonna run for office,
and this is what.
- He's so great, yeah.
- Yeah, so great, so, and they love her
because it was clear children and husband
were her first priority, so the people liked that about her.
- Yeah.
- She was very popular.
He was also running against an incumbent,
like eight of 18 years or something?
- Oh, 18 years passed in 50 pages,
that's what 50 pages, 18 years passed in 50 pages.
- Yeah, that's right.
- So is her kid 18 now?
- Or, yeah, high school age.
- But she has that little baby too,
'cause she just keeps, she's really fertile.
- She's really young, she's really young,
and she first started, so.
So the big, this is the big plot,
so people are digging into his past,
and so they're gonna dig into her past,
so she can keep in its secret from it.
That's the one consistent thing that she,
except for the priest, she's kept secret,
so what do you think is gonna happen?
- Claire.
- Oh God, Claire.
- They find out she's a murderer.
This man running for office is married to a murderer.
- They do, they do.
- But I would say that wasn't,
that wasn't the biggest issue,
because something, what else happens is,
those sexy pics that photographer took?
- Oh no, they come out.
- Can you go of it?
- Oh no.
- They come out all those years later.
- And so that is, I think people,
they heard the Killing Father thing
and they got over it.
- Oh, they're not really good interview,
and she was really beautiful, so people were like,
oh yeah.
- But then the sexy pics came out,
and they were like, I'm sorry,
we, a kill a father, we can excuse,
a whore, nothing.
- No, no, no.
- She's clothed in the pictures,
but promiscuously leaning.
- Wow.
- No, she's naked in the pictures.
- Oh my God. - Except for a black,
satin tie around her neck.
- Like that character from the fairy tale
that was beheaded.
- It has to wear a really, yes.
- Oh yes, I remember that horror story.
Fairy tale, I don't think so.
(laughing)
So that's what comes out.
- So that's why he roofied her.
He probably didn't rape her.
- So apparently, yeah, and he couldn't,
she, she did sign something to like--
- So she was like, I didn't sign her release,
but then she looked at the release papers
and even she couldn't deny that though shaky,
it was her signature.
- So like, if you're drugged and you sign it--
- Yeah, that doesn't fall up before.
- And she went to a doctor after that
who confirmed she had been drugged,
so why doesn't she just say that?
- Yeah. - But that wasn't.
- No, no, no, no.
- She has nothing, there's nothing she can do
clear at that point.
- So now is, he's a rape her now
'cause he's mad at her.
- No, the only thing that she--
- So, surprisingly no.
- That's great.
- Yeah, actually,
it was a high point.
- It was a high point.
The only thing that she can think to do actually is,
she said she has so lever family.
- Yeah.
- I forgot, I was like, I stopped making notes,
so I was like, I don't remember what happened after this.
She's like, she has so levered her down.
- She's like, you know what?
I'm pregnant right now, she's pregnant again.
I'm very fertile.
And she leaves a note for her husband,
she leaves notes for her kid.
She's like, I've just brought too much pain on you guys.
And she's-- - I like Danielle still did
by being famous.
- Yeah, that's true.
- She has this person, the person,
thing called fame.
She's gonna have her baby soon,
but she realizes she can have the baby
and she can just give it to her husband.
- Oh great, so yeah, yeah, no problem.
- Maybe, dot, dot, dot, he'll let her keep this one.
- Yeah.
So maybe she can start a new life again
with my one baby.
- With just with the one baby.
- Yeah.
- After growing up with like, actually abusive parents,
wouldn't she be able to contrast
that she is not abusive?
(laughing)
- You might think.
And so she decides to leave.
Surprisingly, her husband later finds her
and forgives her.
- Yeah, she does.
- She doesn't know New York.
- She makes it to New York.
She's involved in a horrible car accident.
- Oh, this is terrible too.
(laughing)
This is really terrible.
I forgot about this.
- She loses the baby.
She hemorrhages horribly.
And then the tabloids cover it
as though she snuck off to New York to get an abortion.
- Which, the author says in the book,
just as an attorney working for her.
Well, if the tabloids publish something
that is patently untrue, you can sue.
And then they publish something that is provably,
verifiably untrue, no recourse.
- No recourse.
- Nothing we can do except suffer.
- Yeah.
- Nothing we can do except suffer.
So she has the secret abortion.
- Yes.
- Charles finds her in the hospital.
She's within inches of death.
- Mm-hmm.
- Her against the most beautiful in her
- Was it the same hospital?
- Yeah.
- Her baby is still tight.
- Still tight.
She's very resilient.
- Was it the same hospital?
- Yeah, I was wondering that,
but didn't feel like leaving back
through the bigger, - I thought it was Lennox Hill Hospital.
- That was the second one, but was the first one.
- I can't remember.
- I don't care.
(laughing)
- I thought it couldn't have been like,
that's where they fell in love the first time.
- Oh, you thought of, oh, there might be something,
but she didn't bring anything back, so.
- No, no, there's no.
- So what happened?
- Was he even, was he like unfairly met her
when all those pictures came out and stuff?
- He was definitely met her.
- I feel like I'm gonna give him just like
a little, little bit of a pass.
Oh, we forgot to mention that when the kids found out,
they like really lost their minds,
and they were like, oh yeah, Mom,
who raped you that time?
- She was like telling all these--
- She's like this photographer, or something.
- I mean, the kids were calling out
like how unbelievable the story had been up to her.
- Yeah, they were.
- They were finally the police.
- I wanted to have you found out
that the whole story had been alive,
which happened telling about it a bit before.
- I would've been amazing.
- I was hoping that one had--
- It would've been so good.
I would've been like, I love this one.
- Anything to hurt the main character.
- I see.
(laughing)
But the kids really called it out a bunch,
and then the husband felt like he had been lied to
because she was like, no, I never took naked photos,
and he was like obviously did.
And he like didn't remember that she had kind of told him
about the incident before.
And so he was really mad at her.
Again, I was reading quickly.
I don't think he like kicked her.
I think he specifically said like, you're not going anywhere.
I'm just mad.
- He called her a fool.
- Oh no.
- Yeah.
- But she's been called so much worse.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, I know.
- He had an okay reaction, but not the best reaction.
- Oh, but I have the best reaction, but like,
look what he's faced with.
- How does this book resolve?
I don't remember.
- Oh my god, you don't remember.
- I really don't remember.
- I'm so excited.
- My god.
- Well, before it resolves, she decides,
well, I can't believe I didn't think of this weeks ago.
- Kills yourself.
- I know.
- No, no, no, sorry.
- But she gets her husband's gun.
And she finds Marcus, the photographer,
and she goes to his office,
and she's just going to kill him.
- What?
- Yeah, she's done it before.
- But it was different.
- He ruined her life.
And so she goes there, and she's like, about to kill him.
And he's like, callus, he's coped up.
She just doesn't know.
- He's coped up.
He's also bending over to photograph a bullet fruit
when she locks it.
(all laughing)
- He's like, "He's the dog, bro, he's the food."
- He's so fun.
- He's alone in his office.
No one's there, just him and the bullet.
- Him and the fruit.
- Her purposely going to kill someone
when her other killing was like, the other murder she did
was like, pure self-defense, horror situation.
It does not line up at all.
There's nothing in the character.
- You know, once you kill once, it doesn't matter
if it's self-defense.
- And you just, you can kill, she's so horrified by that.
- Yeah, okay.
All right, she's killing her.
- So she goes. - So she goes.
- And he is like, very callus about the whole thing,
but also he seems to be crying,
'cause he doesn't wanna be murdered.
- Yeah. - Which is a failure.
- It's fair.
- And then her, her, it's clear that she only likes
her youngest son.
He flashes in her mind, I believe his name is Matt,
and her husband, and she's like,
I can't believe I thought that Marcus would be worth
losing my entire family, which we can't believe either.
- Yeah, yeah, which was pretty unbelievable.
- It's crazy.
And so then she just leaves.
She doesn't shoot him.
She goes back to her husband, her husband's like,
oh my gosh, you know what,
I'm withdrawing from the Senate race.
This is too much for all of us.
Let's move to France or London, or somewhere like that,
and then the best thing in the world happens.
The president calls.
- The president of the United States calls Charles McKenzie
and invites him to the Oval Office.
- And then he's like, you know what, McKenzie?
I hope we work together again.
And McKenzie's like me too, but you know
that the president meant it.
And he's like, you know, the ambassador to France
is gonna be retiring in the spring.
Maybe you wanna be the ambassador to France.
- I work so hard.
- And move to France.
He knows French, I think.
- Yeah, it's the same for carrying his whole life
for the position.
- That's the end of the book.
- Stand in the back.
So she's moving on the old man to France?
They're just going to France.
That man, the kids?
That's it.
Or of war!
Why do the kids don't know what's the last line?
Oh my god.
Okay.
This is French.
I'm going to do my best to pronounce it.
Or of war.
Or of war Washington.
So she's happy for some reason?
She is.
She just almost killed someone.
Smiles and looks at the window.
She didn't care.
They actually laughed about it.
She had a Charles, like chuckle about, like that was so crazy.
Grace.
Oh my god.
You don't need a therapist at all.
Oh, also they're having a baby.
And they're having a baby.
And then the book ends and then there's, I assume what happens is she blows up in a plane
crash.
Right, right.
Where they edited that out.
Yeah.
What actually happened is everybody else would die in the plane crash and she would survive
it and feel guilty for it.
Yes.
So what did everyone think?
There is something, I did hate the book and I do hate Daniel's deal, but there is something
in the front where it says other book she's written.
Okay.
And I'm now not sure that I hate her because she has a nonfiction book called Pure Joy,
the dogs we love.
So she might actually be really smart because it sounds like she gets it.
That is true.
That's the one you are joy.
Okay.
So then does that change?
How would you vote on a scale of your own choosing?
Okay.
That's the way the choose written, Pure Joy.
Yeah.
Okay.
I am still going to give this book a zero because I don't expose my things to self to things
like this.
I will not watch law in order SVU.
And so I can't, I don't like that these, this was in my head.
I don't like the graphic descriptions.
I had to watch so much comedy just to fall asleep every night this week because I didn't
want to think about it.
I would definitely not recommend this book to anyone I know.
In fact, in my building in the laundry room people leave books they're done with and I thought
oh I could just put it there.
No I can't.
Yeah.
I would never set someone up like that.
That's horrible.
Oh my god.
It's funny you say that because I do love a law in order SVU and I do love tantalizing
horrible things.
And I read this book rather quickly but it is a shit, shit book and I can't, I can't recommend
to anyone.
I would be too afraid especially somebody younger that they would learn horrible lessons
from it.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Zero out of zero.
Yeah.
Zero out of zero.
So I did the best and the worst that it could do.
Yeah.
I think I'm also going to give it a zero out of any amount of stars.
Yeah.
Like it could be a thousand I wouldn't be like is it worth a tenth of a percentage?
No.
I don't think that it is miraculously I think Danielle Steele is a lot more sexist than John
Grimmie.
Yeah.
That's a horrible sexist book we read last week.
And I gave that book I think two or three stars.
I'm just reading the reviews in the front of the book.
One of them is one of the world's most popular authors period.
Yeah.
It's a very obscure though.
Another fact.
Just a fact.
But another thing said says Miss Steele's fans won't be disappointed.
I mean yeah I guess if you already know that she writes garbage and you love garbage you
will not be disappointed by this pile of garbage.
Well I'll tell you what I got four or five stars reviews for.
But we'll let it go.
Oh yeah, Jadie.
Yeah, because our scale doesn't allow us to go less than zero, give it a zero out of I'll
give it a zero out of ten.
I absolutely hated this.
Mostly because of the passive writing.
It was poorly written.
It was a poor idea.
Mixed in with two graphic.
Mixed in with graphic stuff which I love.
I didn't mean to put words on this mouth.
I'm just so excited.
Which I love and I would have enjoyed potentially.
Yeah, that's all.
It really would you recommend it?
Would I recommend it?
I mean absolutely not.
To an enemy even.
To an enemy?
Yeah like the writing is bad.
And I'm normally like very forgiving of bad writing if I think it's like interesting story.
So you have story like I can get past good writing or bad writing.
It's fine for me.
But this was like I didn't know books could be this bad.
Yes, yes.
We had selling books.
Yeah, we had a we made a rule when we started this that like if the book is ever so bad
you can stop reading like you don't have to finish if you think the book is bad but
I never imagined it would be this bad.
Yeah, yep.
I guess anybody can write a book.
Yeah, that's what we've learned.
But she writes five books a year so no, I'd rank you do that.
Okay, this is some people who really liked her.
Okay.
This is just Samina.
These are good reads.
My first book by Danielle Steele I found it incredibly insightful and beautifully heart
breaking.
Grace, a girl who is victimized and has endured far more than should be fair her
strength and character are important part of the story and leave you inspired.
No.
Okay.
So we deal with abuse both physical mental it captured my complete attention and didn't
give me any time to get bored.
But for me the best part was in the beginning i.e. the court case.
What was the best part for you?
What was your favorite paragraph?
Legal disputes are always far more interesting to me which I guess is a result of reading
too much Perry Mason.
One thing I wasn't impressed by was the ending but probably because I didn't want it to
end.
Oh wow.
Malice is the correct term to describe what leads to the events of this story and it
is disturbing me to think how realistic it is.
This is a kind of book which makes you think about a lot of issues and emphasize, empathize
and reconsider your views on people.
I would summarize it as intense, feminine and powerful.
Wow.
I like genuine, what year was that review?
Yeah.
2012.
I can.
Wow.
What part of the country?
Don't know.
I don't know.
Sure.
We can't tell.
We can't tell, okay.
I just wanted to find it.
Is it that place?
Yeah.
I'll assume that one person is representative of this entire state.
I think that's true.
Here's another one I liked.
So five serve you loved it.
This is a book I read when I was nine years old.
No.
You must know.
I read a book like this.
Well I was.
The book was so good.
What?
No, no.
I was so into it.
I don't think people might think that details are too graphic, but if it wasn't for the
graphic details, I don't think the book would be successful.
Do you think that that nine year old actually wrote this book?
Or can we get into the pen name, Danielle?
Yeah.
I also, this is a four star review, but I included it because I thought it was like a pretty good
defense.
This is Amy 2010.
I don't understand why other people thought this book was terrible.
I thought it was a great book.
Although there were some sentences that seemed like run ons to me.
Now in that review was that always.
No, sadly.
Back on topic.
I know I'm still very young and haven't developed a vast knowledge of what kind of book
seemed right for me and what doesn't.
I literally thought this book was great.
I wasn't really too keen on the idea of how Danielle went into a lot of detail on the
rape scenes.
I thought it was a little too much.
I agree.
I know.
I walked in.
Oh, then she said I was a story.
I walked into borders and asked one of them plays to point me to Danielle's book collections
and there weren't any that seemed as good as Malice.
But I must say, Danielle's writing style is easy to read and enjoyable.
One more thing.
I don't know why I typed this in almost every review, but this book should be turned into
a movie.
Well, not really a movie, but maybe pictures of how the characters look like.
I would love to see how beautiful Grace is and I'll hand some trousers.
No way to do it otherwise.
Oh my god.
No way to do it.
No way to imagine.
Oh my god.
Wow.
I was in conclusion.
I wouldn't really recommend this book to anybody because not many people do like this book.
And I don't think the people I was thinking of recommending this to are going to like you.
I'm glad she has friends.
I would love to get that person on the podcast.
I would.
I love whoever that is.
Wow.
I would love to see you in a review.
Yeah, I heard Amy.
So Amy, if it was an Amy, you can email us at meanbookclub@gmail.com.
I don't see we have that.
We'll see.
Oh, we'll see if maybe we'll get that.
Yeah, maybe we'll get that.
Do you name El Steven Bams' back?
We have to tell you how it goes.
We have to tell you a few more Danielle Steels stuff that I, this was a 2016 interview near
times.
What genres do you especially enjoy reading and which do you avoid?
Danielle Steels says, "I like books that inspire me in my own life.
I don't like depressing books or books."
Danielle Steels says this.
We're terrible things happen to children.
I won't read either.
She said Danielle Steels says this.
I just read her own work.
She said, "I just read her own work."
Yeah, she said, "I read her own work."
She said, "I read her own work."
Yeah, the problems.
This girl started out as being a 13 year old rape victim.
Yeah, in incest rape victim.
Like it doesn't get worse than that.
It doesn't really do.
And then they asked, "The last book they made you laugh, I love Jolosteen's books."
Oh no.
If you had to name one book that made you, who you are today, what would it be?
The Bible.
Oh!
I didn't see any influences of the Bible in this.
There was a good phrase.
So do you think you're right?
And good, please.
You need to be a more careful reader.
I don't know.
I know the story of Job and that wasn't in here.
Oh, was it?
What?
Was it?
Oh, was this like Job?
He has the suffer a lot in a row.
This is like a--
I'm sorry, this is a--
Whoa.
I'm getting low on batteries.
Okay, that's okay.
I don't want to give her any merit to let's end it quickly.
One thing I can try to say is a bigger message.
Yeah, really quickly is I think all of us can agree that rape is really serious and helping
the victims of rape is a very important thing.
And we don't want to ever disparage anybody who's been through that kind of thing.
This book does a disservice to anybody who's been through honestly any kind of struggle.
I mean, dehumanized her in a way that was really, really offensive to me.
And that's the main reason why I hated it, but definitely not the only.
Yep.
Great.
I think we'll leave it there.
Come back next week when we read a new book.
Yeah.
And I will definitely tell you somehow.
Yep.
We'll talk about it.
We'll talk about it too.
And it's not going to be another Daniel steal.
We're going to do one.
Maybe with somebody with short legs.
We'll see.
I don't know if they're right.
Yeah.
Hot, short women.
Well, they should.
The sucks.
Oh, there.
Come back.
All right.
Bye-bye guys.
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