(upbeat music)
- So the world is bizarre acknowledging this
as a book intended for adults to read,
which boggles the mind.
- I'm saying his imagination is probably better
than this book, it was just hard write a book.
I'm sure he imagined a better book.
(laughing)
- Four.
- I forgot about the cat,
and that was a real turn off for me,
(laughing)
- Make turn on for me.
- Explode it from the earth.
- Now I get, and I guess I'd rather read this book
than that other orphanage book we read.
It was just like, you're the list of trial
the pieces that happened.
(laughing)
(upbeat music)
- Hello everyone, welcome to Mead Book Club.
This episode we read The House in the Cerulean Sea
by TJ Clune.
- Ooh, what a color.
- Hey, who's?
- What a big word in the title.
- Wow, must be good.
I did not know this was YA until I was in it.
It's not, we'll get into it.
It's not YA.
(laughing)
- Okay, I just can't wait.
We are Mead Book Club reread books
that you guys recommend New York Times Vacellers
that maybe shouldn't be.
We are your host, as always, I'm Sarah.
- What's up, Clara?
- Laura is.
- As ever, Johnna Scravis.
- And Sabrina.
- Why would you both interrupt?
(laughing)
What did I do to you?
- We were just commenting on how
- So nice.
- Time was.
- The timing was right, so this is called Johnna.
So coming on Johnna's, if I waited till after,
it would be weird.
- Maybe you should pause longer
to see if anyone wants to make a comment on how mine goes.
- That would be your problem.
(laughing)
- All right, guys.
Johnna, why are we reading this book?
Where'd this come from?
- Well, we can be very grateful to Aaron C.
And I'm gonna read Aaron C's recommendation in full
because it is so good.
And I sort of regret not having Aaron on the cast
because they sound extremely funny.
Okay, please fucking do.
(laughing)
This is such a great start.
Please fucking do the house in the Cerulean C.
This book tries so hard to be Tweet and quirky
and it makes me so fucking angry.
I wanted to throw this book into the Atlantic Ocean.
It has that awful kind of humor
that feels like a Nickelodeon laugh track
should come after every line.
This entire book felt like a shitty Nickelodeon show
that aired in 2013.
Aside from our protagonist, who wasn't so much of a protagonist,
but an exhausted stereotype of a,
by the book, "Nervous Loser,"
most of the characters make up precocious children,
the worst type of fictional character to ever exist.
The children are either reading a manual Kant.
I wish I was fucking kidding.
(laughing)
Or saying the same weird random shit over and over again
as a comedic plot device.
This entire book has the energy of parents who Tweet
made up, profound shit that their kids say.
Your son is three.
He did not say, "There are cracks in everything.
"That's how the light gets in."
He has a mind-boggling 4.43 on Goodreads,
which affirms my belief that I'm infinitely smarter
and funnier than a vast majority of the Goodreads community.
I totally agree, Aaron.
I need to hear you tear this book apart.
There we go.
- My god, really good. - That doesn't sell us
whatever it could.
- We had good days. - We had good days.
- It was a great sell. - That was a good recommendation.
- I love that recommendation.
Also, is anybody else suspicious
that perhaps Aaron C. was on a Nickelodeon show in 2013?
(laughing)
- Interesting. - Has a personal vendetta.
- I wish I knew more about Nickelodeon in 2013.
I don't think I have any reference for that.
- Is there an actress with the name Aaron C
that you're referring to Sabrina?
- No. - No.
- No. - Okay.
- It just felt so personal.
- Okay, okay, okay.
- So you know that. - I'm like Miranda Cosgrove.
- Yeah, you know that. - Maybe that's who it is.
- So, how did you guys consume this book?
- How'd you read it?
- I did the audio book.
I had to sign up for "Scribid" which I've done before
and then I get off in between seasons
and then I re-sign up when I have to.
- Do you pay? - 'Cause this was kind of late notice
that we were doing it today.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yes, we only found out a few days ago.
I'm so sorry, I found a free YouTube version.
And I searched all it.
- Well, it's not stealing if it's on YouTube.
- Someone else stole it and I reaped the rewards of that.
So. - Well, that's tricky because you have to be
at YouTube.
This would be on YouTube.
- And I had to do that for an entire drive back
from Pittsburgh.
- It is, it's really annoying because you can't close
unless you have like YouTube plus.
- Right. - You have to keep YouTube open.
- Yeah. - Which is annoying.
- Looking at nothing.
- Just a blurry pic.
- Well, that isn't how you like to do it.
- It's just like to lay in bed and look at the wall
when you do a video book if we recall from last episode.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- You're right, you're right.
- I did do it in a car so I had to keep my eyes on the road.
- Unfortunately.
I did audiobooks.com.
I keep doing that app.
I think I paid for it because I don't know how I keep getting
the books for free but this is like the third one.
- Thank you. - It might be signed up
for monthly subscription.
- I'm just a dancer.
- I don't understand.
It keeps saying I have a credit
and I can get another book and I'm like, okay.
- How nice.
- Cool.
- Thank you.
- I double-dipped on this one.
- Thank you.
- Well, I looked at the library for it was short notice
and there were 38 holds on 37 copies.
And I was like, I could get this in time.
So I requested it.
But then I looked and I did find the YouTube.
And so I started on YouTube doing the keep YouTube open thing.
And then, lo and behold, my loan became available.
So I switched to the library audio book, which is nice
because you can speed up the Libby app to times three
whereas YouTube you can only speed up to times two.
- Yeah.
I understand that.
Based on how slowly the audio book narrator read it,
it easily could have been sped up to three or four.
- I can agree with this one.
I was listening to this one at two times speed
and to be honest, I did have to skip chunks
because I was behind on this one.
But I don't feel I missed anything
and I'll be excited to find out if I did,
but I don't think I did.
- I listened to every second
and I could promise you you did not miss
anything. - Great question.
- Actually not possible.
I really dislike the audio book reader on this
and I felt like maybe two.
He could do a lot of different cartoonish voices
so maybe that's why they used to.
But the main voice was a little bit
as hard to get the character I felt
because he was sometimes seemed confident, sometimes.
Which I remember sure is partly the writing,
but it isn't annoying, annoying main voice.
- I think I thought the little kid voices he did
were so much worse than the main voice.
It made me work through the dance voice.
- Yeah the dance voice.
- The dance voice. - The dance voice.
- I recorded it just so that everyone can get a sense
of what we, the hell that we went through
with this audio book reader who I think belongs in prison
to be honest.
So I just, I want you to all hear what we had to hear.
It's just a 30 second clip of him doing
a couple different voices.
This is from the audio book reader's website.
He's proud of this.
Arthur says that we should always make time
for the things we like.
If we don't, we might forget how to be happy.
Are you not happy Mr. Baker?
- I'm perfectly happy.
You're not happy being round.
So you can't be perfectly happy?
- I'm not round.
What if your job, Mr. Baker, is it in the city?
- I, yes, it's in the city.
I love the city.
All of hotels that need bell hops
it sounds like paradise.
- So, I think I need to defend this guy.
- But oh, I've been reading a lot of books to my child
recently that have a lot of different characters
requiring different voices.
And I've got to say, it's really fucking hard.
It's hard to maintain.
It's hard to make the distinct voices.
Remember the voice you had for each character
as you're going.
And in that regard, I was like mad respect.
He's got a wide variety of voices
and he's pretty consistent with them.
I thought I was impressed in that regard.
- How would Karen react to these voices
would he allow them to continue
or would he be like, no!
(laughs)
I don't know, he'd probably love them.
Bill loves them.
- This guy struck me as someone who's like,
I can do 80 accents and impressions,
but what he means by that is I can do a list.
I can do the thing where my L sound a little bit weird.
I can talk in a high voice.
I can talk in a low voice.
I can talk in a silly voice.
- Those are in different voices.
- I still think maintaining it's impressive.
- I didn't care for his portrayal of women.
They all felt so stupid and sexless to me.
- Well, it was a pretty sexless book, I was like.
- Yeah, but you can have a sexless book without all of your characters being sexless.
- Pretty funny characters to pick up on though, sexless.
- They were in sexless.
- Completely sexless.
They had never nor will they ever have sex.
- They were also all nagging shrews.
It's something I want to talk about, but this is like an in-sell book.
Like every woman in it is just trying to push this van away
from ever interacting with a woman again.
- Who were the women?
Oh, okay, wait, there's, there's, wait, you know what?
Goddamn it, we're going too far in the movie.
- Yeah, we haven't had that.
- We haven't had that.
- Check, Dara.
- Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, we need to sum it up.
Janna, you got it.
There is a part for Sarah and there's a part for Sabrina
and there's an important part for Clara
and that is listener and enjoyer.
(laughs)
- Oh my gosh, I'm so excited.
- I assume the narrator is not in all caps and then Sarah's part is in all caps.
- Yes.
- Yeah, okay.
- After I did the donkey thing last week.
- You did really good with that, but it didn't hurt you as much as I wanted it to.
(laughs)
- Once upon a time, nope.
(laughs)
- Once you say once, once upon a time, it would have worked.
- I'm just sitting here, without a role listening to this.
(laughs)
- Once upon the fluffiest cloud in the cotton candy sky,
there dwelt a darling soul.
- Happy face emoji!
- Named Linus Baker, who worked in the most naughty and dirty place
in the whole wide world.
The department in charge of magical youth.
- Sad face emoji.
- One day.
- Sad emoji!
- Something absolutely magical happens.
- Rainbow emoji!
- Linus receives a fancy, shmancy invitation from the extremely upper management.
- Yep.
- That's really what it's called in the book.
- To go on a super secret, super special and very important assignment
to a real, live, island, palm tree emoji to kill emoji.
- And the island is an orphanage.
- Oh, sobbing face emoji.
- Of six misfit, but charming.
Children and headmaster, Arthur Parnassus.
- And you know he's fun because he wears colorful socks.
- Grr, I love me emoji!
- At first, Linus felt a teensy, eansy, weener, little bit,
scared of all the magical cuteness,
but oh, my goodness.
Did he soon learn that these precious beings were just the same
as normal kids?
- Sparkles, glitter emoji, hard eyes emoji face with arms sort of giving hug emoji.
- And so Linus, who has always been such a rule follower,
realizes that there's nothing wrong with these sweet little cutems at all.
- And smile with teeth emojis.
- And that that Mr. Funny socks, man, is actually a cute,
like he likes likes like sim and Arthur likes like likes him back.
- Oh, M.G.
- Smile with beat of sweat emoji.
- And so the kids can all keep their island home forever.
- Yay!
- So mean emoji is hard emoji is non-alcoholic champagne emojis.
- But hold on to your magical hats.
It gets even better.
The town mayor realizes that the kids are just kids,
not spooky monsters, and so the town better be nice to them forever.
Magic racism is so!
- Troll the emoji.
- Scene.
- This is a book.
- Really giving up all the book.
- Yeah, well sometimes I get shit for making it too undetailed.
- Wow, I got this on my shirt.
- In the past.
- For now you're gonna get shit for length.
- Giving the go.
- It was long.
- John and I hated my part.
- I loved my part.
I do have a question.
- Okay.
- Some of them seemed intentional.
But when I said and read verbatim, weener,
was that what I was to be reading or was it to be?
- Absolutely.
- Weener.
- Of course I was supposed to be weener.
- That's a funny word.
- Teency, ANSI, weener.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
- It's funny here.
It's good.
That's a good joke both of you.
- Good joke.
- All right.
- I love you.
- So I think we're supposed to talk about the author next,
so we're gonna have to go into how this is a good example
of like John is out,
summary here was a good example of like what you might think
would be YA but is for adults actually.
- I don't understand.
I really, this is not YA.
I'm actually, I'm sure we'll go over it when you talk about the book.
But I still believed it to be YA.
- Why is it entire time?
- It's not a children's book but it feels YA.
- It feels very YA.
- It is not YA.
- Because there are gay characters you think they're not ready for that.
- That's what I'm like, that's the only thing that like would to me.
- I thought maybe because the main characters the adult man
and usually in YA it would be from like a kid or a teen's point of view.
- Steve from Bulls is an adult man.
- That's a whole new thing.
- So this book, Steve from Bruce Chris is an adult man,
Sabrina said.
So this book was a published Steve Hitchell.
- Science fiction fantasy.
And I know that it's not YA for two reasons.
Number one, his debut YA novel came out a few months later.
And number two, this book was one in Alex Award,
which is when in--
- It's for children.
- For children.
- It's an award for adult books that might have special appeal to young adults.
So the world is bizarrely acknowledging this as a book intended for adults
to read, which boggles the mind.
- It's hard to imagine an adult feeling, I'm going to read a chapter of this before bed.
- Oh, the squid, I see through character, wants to be a bell.
- I know, this is a book for middle schoolers.
And I don't, I will hear no argument.
- Like, or a medial.
- I think it's immature for middle schoolers.
I think it's like, yeah, it's for like, manuals.
- No, it's not immature.
- Or a middle schoolers.
- All right, we're going to talk about first half of middle school.
- They have a manual con, they're like, I'm sorry, that's middle school.
That's like middle school makes you feel smart, middle school.
- I feel like it is totally fine of gender bending.
Like YA to a magical cozy type.
Like, you know, what's your name?
The famous author of "Aget the Christie."
It's like Harry Potter meets Agatha Christie.
- There's no mystery.
- That's what this book is?
- You know, it's like, it's like a cozy magical book.
It's a cozy magical mystery.
- It is that okay.
- The mystery.
- Okay, cozy magical book is a good description of it, I think.
- Yeah, plotless, I would just add is the only other thing.
- It's not the plot.
- It's free of any conflict of any kind.
- Oh my gosh, these children are cast aside.
They're beautiful little souls.
- And they're living the best life they possibly could.
- All right, guys, let's get to the, Jonathan's show.
- Back it up.
- Unfortunately, Jonathan was a Johnny, Jonathan have a episode of Jonathan.
- Unfortunately.
- I don't know what you're saying.
- I said fortunately, I said so many words that were sort of half words and didn't make sense.
- Jonathan, what you're trying to get us to is, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's Jonathan's, Jonathan's.
- So the pairing for this book, I was torn between half a glass of warm skim milk,
which felt right, or actually have that right here.
- Okay, so that might be the official wine drink pairing.
The unofficial drink pairing is I tried to think of what is something just sickly sweet that I hated from the very first sip,
and I've thought about ever since.
And the answer is ice wine, my friends.
Ice wine.
I want to introduce you to the concept of ice wine.
It is when grapes are frozen on the divine, and then smashed and used to make a sickly sweet,
and a lot of wine, a lot of local wineries will do it.
And I think it is the perfect pairing for this book because it's bad and it's overly sweet,
and every sip is worse than the last.
- Wow, that is savage.
- Yeah, very thought out though, so.
- Thank you.
- I think you're commendable.
- Yeah, and I don't think we've introduced ice wine before, and it's now going to be my code for
the most important thing ever.
- Wow.
- Oh my God.
- Wow.
- I mean, I kind of don't want to live in a world where this book exists.
- Oh my God.
- Do you think this is colored by the fact that you had to drive many hours and take many stops?
- Yeah, I wonder.
- Not in a good mental place when you read this book.
- No, when it started, I was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to love this book.
It's going to be one of them.
- Really?
- I'm going to love it.
- And within two pages I had--
- Oh, okay.
- Curd, oh my gosh.
- You'll say, are you saying basically you liked the look of the cover?
- I don't get it started.
- Oh, did you want to do a judge book by its covers?
We move into that?
- Yeah, it's not in the outline.
- I actually, I can't do it because I just did the audio books.
- Oh, the YouTube.
- I didn't even have a picture of the book.
- Yeah, it did, but it was kind of blurry.
- All right, all right, all right, well.
- You know what?
- It's a beautiful cover.
- Yeah, I think it's a nice cover.
- I think it's a nice cover.
- Let's take a quick commercial break and then we'll be back with...
John is going to give us some book background, all the background.
- BRB.
(upbeat music)
- And we're back.
- John, it's all about this book.
- So I do want to say I have again because I did the research,
fallen into the trap of liking the author personally,
and I'm trying to...
- Oh, to say that you still hit the book and you did the research,
usually that.
- Yeah, it's hard.
- It humanizes it.
- Yeah, it humanizes it.
I wanted to get in there and make fun of them.
I found some of his videos on Instagram, but they were just nice.
And he's a nice man.
So it's hard, I want you to know how hard it is for me to separate
the author from the book here, but that is how much I hate this book.
I can still...
- That's so crazy.
- Wow.
(laughing)
I do say it's hard for me to share the same Earth as this book, right?
Like I'm struggling to survive a little bit.
- Yeah.
- Okay, so I want to tell you a few things about this book
just to get us in a mindset.
The Washington Post called it a witty wholesome fantasy
that's likely to cause heart swelling,
so they have now made an enemy of me.
The library journal called it a delightful tale about chosen family
and how to celebrate difference, so you can just fuck off
library journal, if you're dead to me.
And someone named David Levithan, I don't know who you are,
said, "Is it possible to fund love with someone's imagination
if so consider me smitten?"
- Barf, barf, barf, barf.
- If that's his imagination is pretty lame.
- No, it's not.
What is wrong with you guys?
This is a very sweet imaginative story.
- I'm giving his imagination more credit.
I'm saying his imagination is probably better than this book.
It was just hard to write a book.
- Sure.
- I'm sure he imagined a better book.
- Sure.
- Yeah, anyone would.
I mean, I think any child over the age of six
could imagine a better story.
- Oh my God.
I'm enjoying this, but I am surprised
at how much you hate this book, John.
- Yeah, like what sent this apart for John?
I like we read a lot of bad books.
- I'm not interested in writing it.
- There's something that triggered you in this book,
and I'm excited to find out what that was.
- Okay, I feel like I know.
- I know.
- Go on the journey together.
It came out in 2020.
It is a New York Times USA Today in Washington Post Best Seller.
I already told you it's not inexplicably
it's not why I hate books.
This is apparently intended for adults.
A little controversy, which I want to get into.
It is a fantasy novel set in a world where people can be born
with unique magical traits,
and then those children are unwanted or abandoned,
and so they are sent to orphanages or schools
where they are monitored.
- So kind of like X-Men.
- So that's the basis of X-Men.
- Yeah, X-Men.
- So, but in this case, it is similar to a story in Canada
where indigenous children who were taken from their families
and placed into government sanctioned facilities.
And this review that I read continues,
does the inspiration clue took from the tragedy make the house
to really see a bad book?
If Clune merely took inspiration from the cultural genocide
of Canadian indigenous peoples
and based his novel on those ideas,
I'd be inclined to say no.
Many books draw from unfortunate circumstances
of those throughout history.
However, I draw the line based on some of his remarks
surrounding his inspiration for the novel.
I don't want to co-opt, you know, a history that wasn't mine.
I'm a cis white dude,
so I can't ever really go through something like
what those children had to go through.
So I sat down and I was like,
I'm just gonna write it as a fantasy.
This is the wrong approach to taking inspiration
from a historical tragedy.
Cultural genocide isn't something you can write up as a fantasy.
I think I can be almost positive that no case worker ever visited
a Canadian residential school and found themselves thinking,
"Well, these children are thriving," as Baker did in his story.
Clune's intentions did nothing short of sugarcoding
and synthesizing a tragedy.
And so that sentiment is shared by many people.
It's a controversial statement.
A lot of people defend the book.
A lot of people think that that was maybe an appropriation
that shouldn't have been taken.
Yeah, I read about this controversy
and I kind of think it's a big, like, I quite honestly.
I get what he said and like,
how you could take that as sounding bad,
but I don't think he meant it that way.
I'm gonna take a genocide and make a fantasy.
It's literally all he took was like orphanages.
And then nothing else was saying.
Right, that's why I was gonna say I'm surprised
that it is based on something.
It's not saying I had an absolute concept.
That's what I mean.
It's such a universal concept that
one wanted children, like, we were just saying,
"X-Men, X-Men, X-Men."
Like, there's a million things
or musical children in a moment.
Because if he didn't say that, that, like, he had read something
and he was like, "I basically, I wouldn't write about orphanages
or something."
Nobody would have ever made those connections,
'cause there's absolutely nothing in it
that would make you think it is about that historical issue
and it's crazy for me.
Right. Like, I think a big, for example,
a big part of the historical issues, like,
the children are taken from their parents
because of who they are.
Right.
And that does not come up in this book.
There's no, I miss my parents in this book.
There's no real mention of the parents in this book.
I don't know if this is like--
I didn't know them.
It was like a fancy orphanage, too.
It was like an orphanage that does it.
And also, their bad part was the government.
It wasn't like, I don't know.
I just think, when I write about this controversy,
it was just like, 'cause I was looking for stuff.
I was like, "Let me get some ammo against this book
for us to talk about."
And I was just like, "Oh, man."
And this is sweet little books.
I think we have plenty to talk about without this.
No, no. That's my opinion.
I don't think this is--
I really can start to elevate it by saying, by saying,
by saying, it's a entire business.
Right, I think maybe it would be stupid on his part.
It is, honestly, but I don't think he meant it that way.
And I think to take it that way is like a really big jump.
I don't disagree.
Just a quick, a little bit about TJ Clune.
His name is Travis John.
He's a Taurus.
I got my TJ.
Four Taurus.
He's up.
I don't know.
I like it.
It's impressive now.
He has been open about his lived experience
with asexuality, queerness, and neurodiversity,
and how they influence his writing.
And he tries to write accurate representations
of queer relationships that are not stereotypical,
and instead are relatable and positive.
He began to write when he was eight years old.
And he's like, "So, I hear three out of here."
Yeah, come on.
This eight-year-old thing pissed me off.
I think he wrote this when he was eight years old.
[LAUGHTER]
And for here's the thing, he seems everly nice little Instagram
president, and he has a rescue dog named Hendrix,
and he did a post-reductor.
Stop planning out about author's dogs.
I know.
This is ridiculous.
He said six years ago today, I'm my best friend.
When I heard his story, which by the way, the story is fucking heart-wrenching.
Well, he should have based his book, said he based his book on wrist-wraps.
Yeah, Jesus Christ.
He could have.
I made him a promise.
If he went with me, I would spend every day making sure he knew
he was safe and loved, and I like to think I've kept that promise.
I could go on.
I have chills.
I don't know.
I know.
It sounds like he's using his dog for some PR.
It's a bad friend.
I don't know.
I just think that everyone on this call treats their pets better than he does.
And we don't make a show about it.
Wow, probably.
And we don't make a show about it.
We could.
And for that, I'm busy with my dog.
I'm busy helping him have his best life.
So anyway, book, bad, author, good, and I like what he's doing.
I like the fact that he's trying to tell stories about queer relationships.
Sure.
But there's just kind of at the end, they sort of just a little bit, right?
I just thought they just got married.
I thought they'd walked to the bed.
They did cast.
Oh, I missed.
Oh, a tip of the nose.
And suddenly he was being cast.
Yeah, it was really sweet and it made my heart warm.
And I really did.
You made you feel something?
Yeah, I did.
I did think it was a little sweet.
I didn't.
I agree.
I think this is really the only thing the book, his character, the main character, was like the only interesting part I thought of the book.
Because he's the only one who had to go through a transformation and to get see him be a lovely and fall love was nice.
I thought it was so obvious and annoying.
Exactly.
And he like delayed it and was like, I have a life.
Yeah, that's stupid.
You don't.
You just said your son flowers were the only thing you missed and you have no friends or loved ones and you hate your neighbor.
Okay.
You don't know what it is.
He has a cat.
Who cat was with him?
It's not like he has to leave the cat behind.
But you said you have no loved ones.
You have to have a life.
Okay.
That's what you're doing.
You're right.
I forgot about the cat and that was a real turn off for me at the beginning.
A big turn on for me.
I was like, I was pretty good.
Clara though, this guy didn't go through a transformation.
He went through the most obvious like, oh geez, a character who's uptight and by the book makes a friend and like, wouldn't you know it?
His heart grew ten sizes that day and now he's a little less stuffy.
If anything, I would doubt the relationship because he's never even had a friend before.
How does he know he's in love?
How could he possibly?
Sure.
What love is?
He's asexual.
They were going to have an asexual relation.
It did feel like an asexual relationship and I actually, I wish they had maybe gone into that more.
That I've not really seen that portrayed often in literature.
Like I think that would be much more interesting than whatever this was.
You know like gay people?
You'd rather no sex at all.
Yeah.
You can be gay and asexual Sabrina.
Let me educate you, okay?
No, what you said was you'd rather it have been asexual as opposed to what it was.
She got you.
Let me educate myself.
If we're putting like a dog book and a YA book and we're making little telling marks, this is a tick in YA that there was no physicality once or ever.
Yeah, it was like he was being kissed.
No murder, no sex.
It was in a complicated love story.
It was just like a, oh, we're figuring out we do love each other.
We're not able to say it out loud and oh, I went away from you and up.
Yeah, I definitely miss you and now we're together.
It was simple, but that's why it.
Well, but also just because something would be appropriate for a younger person doesn't mean it's just for a younger person.
Okay, so we should make a tick in the adult book column because there's no physicality in the book one.
No, I'm just saying it doesn't have one or the other.
I think it's I mean, I need I'm keeping a tablety of YA to adopt a better adult magic.
What are the ticks in the adult category for you?
Was it when you learned that a house isn't always the place we live?
It's the people that we surround ourselves with.
I thought where you were like, oh, wow, that's a really cool insight.
I an adult didn't know.
No, I guess I think I don't have to learn something for it to be for the question though.
No, but what I'm saying is like everything I was an adult who enjoyed the story.
Adults can enjoy YA though.
That doesn't mean it's not a YA.
That's what I'm saying.
I mean, I guess it was about there was a lot of talk about the antichrist, which you don't see a lot in YA.
That also felt so kid to me.
I like a magical kid.
Because the way it was dealt with, it wasn't dealt with it with any like serious way or like there wasn't any deep diving into like that.
Or what the religious, what that implied with like religion and the bigger world.
There was nothing it was just like a funny thing to be like there.
It's just like a stand in for like really naughty sounds naughty, but which is just like something kids love.
Kids love things that sound bad.
And the antichrist was in a booster seat.
Yeah.
This was a character named Lucy short for Lucifer.
Like my dog.
Like the devil.
That's true.
Six years old.
Also it's in a disenchantment that Mac reigning show that's been around for that.
Okay.
Also has a Lucy that's short for Lucifer that is funny or funny or but similar.
Harmless says little dark things.
Yeah.
Says like I'm going to eat your soul and then they're like Lucy go back to bed.
He's like all right.
Oh yeah.
I'm not I'm not a big fan.
I actually I actually dislike the fact that it was antichrist that part the most because I think that confuses the magical.
Like if you're talking about like Phoenixes and trolls or I can't even I don't even can't remember all the things that everyone was.
To bring antichrist into it is like a religious thing so it's like a weird to me switch between like are we talking about magical stuff are we talking about like.
Religious undertone magic which is I to me a very different thing so I did not actually like the antichrist character I found it distracting and like I just kept thinking like.
What does this mean for the rest of the world that there's an ancient Christ child.
Like because our main character was so affected by being like the antichrist child is there made him fast out just to learn that information.
Yeah it's like so is he deeply religious no like why like is there some lore in this world is just odd right like I'm not out.
I'm not deeply religious but if I met the antichrist I think I would be read it struck by a paper and passed out.
The fact that the antichrist exists you have to accept that like this is there's the Christ and then there's an like you have to have a base level of belief in Christ in the concepts to believe that antichrist is a thing.
It should just he should have just made a different creature like it made up something a vamp I don't know what it is but something I would have preferred or make the kid a tween which is far scarier.
I think that's all you need to do to make a villain in a story is like they are twelve and they're going to look at you and say something cold and calculating about you physically that you didn't know is true and now you know deeply inside that it's true.
Instead they made him six so he's just like adorable but also he's not six because none of the shit he says is something a six right.
Which sure maybe it's because he's the antichrist but then explain that he is like intellectually the age of a fifteen year old or whatever I think they said something about like his soul is hundreds of years old or something at some point and I was like is that was suggestive I know I'm also not a big fan of the like kids.
It would have been fine for me one of the kids like spoke more intelligently and there was good explanation for it but they all seem to be like hyper intelligent.
It was it was annoying I did I do find that annoying just like the reviewer.
I'm okay with it. They're magical magical people we know you know what I know why I like this book so much because it is like it was my childhood fear to be magical being sent to an island.
When my fear every night when I like check to make sure that my windows were locked was because I thought that the superheroes were going to come and steal me away to be a part of their superhero world because obviously I am special.
And they need such confidence and such a misunderstanding of super here.
They're not villains.
I didn't I didn't think they were villains I just I just thought they don't kidnap.
Well how do they get into the life they all have.
It's just so funny because I was a kind of like murder.
What about the X-Men?
Evil people getting me but you were you were like no no no who's going to come after me the good people the like super heroes I'm so special.
And then want me to be a part of their world which is like all of these special little kids are swept away onto this island not did you think this should like.
You know the universe in support of you.
I actually thought you all knew that information I don't remember that I know it's very funny.
That was my biggest fear and so this at home.
So we want to go over all the we start talking about the characters but I feel like we should just quickly hit them all.
Like Linus Baker being the lead we've talked about a little bit and I think this is the best argument for it not being a YA because it's like you start from the adult perspective.
He's like has a boring corporate job but it's he's like basically a CPS case worker but it's like.
In inspecting orphanages of magical children is how it's I found yeah I found his character very inconsistent like when he is dealing with people at work like his manager whatever he's quite sniveling and yeah like that but then when he's dealing with his like nosy neighbor he's like extremely confident and good at standing up for himself.
It just felt like two different people yeah he's also in such a toxic workplace that and there's no explanation for why he stays at first I thought we were in a dystopian society where you had to just work where you were assigned but then it was like revealed that you could work anywhere and he chooses to work somewhere where all of literally every woman is abusive to him.
Look some people as some people here have jobs where all the women in their workplace are abusive to them and you know it's something are you referring to this job the podcast.
Okay I do see now yeah I see why people might stay yeah.
Yeah because Pinto validation every couple years but I just found that confusing it was such a it was again such a I put it in the tick for not even YA but like you know Toddler.
Oh my God you're gonna be shocked when you have a baby what they're reading at that age.
Also I did ever realization in the beginning when I was complaining about the audio book reader and was saying that he made all the women sexless then I subsequently found out that the author himself is asexual.
I didn't mean that type of sex.
Oh no no no no I don't think I don't want to know you did.
Because I didn't know the information but I thought it was just a poor reading choice the way that he read women they felt not the same.
You wanted them to have a sexy voice like this.
No that's right.
No I got away from you.
I got away from you.
My name is Maggie Maver.
Hi I'm nagging receptionist and you can go in to see extremely upper management now.
That's a good one.
That was a good one.
No one can follow it.
I could but I want to.
You don't want to turn our listeners on too much.
Honestly I don't.
It's not that kind of cast.
I understand.
I already have to clean up after that.
Maybe we should do a mean book club after dark cast.
That'd be fun.
Oh my god.
I would love if it was just using those voices but not being particularly naughty.
It's just the regular cast but we just talking that voice.
Yes.
Okay maybe we will.
Alright bonus episode three coming at you.
We're making a lot of promises.
Alright.
One of the characters we have then we have the guy runs the place Arthur Pernassus who is like typical.
A great name that line is school.
Line is gets assigned to it and it's a big deal.
It's like super secret upper upper management or whatever the fact they call it.
And he is it's very secretive and he shows up and Arthur Pernassus is the guy who as Claire was saying is in charge.
And he's also gay.
And he wears brightly colored socks.
So that's how you know he is cool and fun.
I do love when I see a fun sock.
I'm like this person knows I don't let loose.
Not if it's the person's whole personality.
It's not enough.
Oh I'm he was really good with the children.
Yeah always suspicious.
Yeah.
But he was like I thought he was convincingly non creepy with the children.
And it seemed like he really let them come out of their shells and let them thrive.
And the reason is amazingly good with the children.
If you can imagine it there was no like bullying or yeah.
Any sort of competition between the children they were always supportive of each other.
And if you can do it attitude.
All best friends cuddling.
This is part of the reason why I don't think I missed anything when I skipped a few hours.
A few hours the whole audiobooks only 12 hours.
Yeah.
It was it was a little unbelievable just how I will friendly all the kids were.
Considering how annoying some of them were.
And wow.
It was emblematic of just how black and white good and bad the book was.
Yeah.
And his he he's one of those characters like his lips are always twitching.
His eyes are always twinkling.
He's always saying like things like oh my dear boy like you do do you.
He does doesn't she?
He was a little d it's like shut up.
Yeah they do do oh my oh dear.
Fall into the sea.
Fallen.
What are the characters we got we talked about Lucy.
Then there's a.
You like Johnson.
He's like a jelly.
This book and she said that it reminds trance reminded her of me.
Wait.
What is the one that like messes up a lot is always asking for more money or like tip he wants to be a bell hop.
Chancies the one that sounds like.
Oh.
And that is you're something your fiance said she reminded her of you.
Well to be clear she read the book so the voice wasn't part of the voice.
She didn't hear that voice associated with it which I think would make a big difference.
But he was just so cute and earnest and just wanted to be a bell hop to help people.
Yeah I was fine.
So often is portrayed in adult books.
Yeah again.
Why are you?
There are children in adult books.
And the children do child things.
Normally not as many adult draw conclusions.
I feel like you guys are not you guys.
Somebody is conflating adult book with porn.
Oh yeah that child was having a nice time in that book.
Couldn't be for adults.
I guess for me personally I needed more than like a nice Barney story.
That's like that was just all this one.
If you consider this a YA book though like I know what you write in your like it's like.
I don't I consider a children's book.
Okay if you consider it fine.
If you consider it a children's book so like what the fuck child you're talking about but whatever.
Consider it a children's book.
How do you feel about the book if you think that it's just a children's book.
If this was just a children's book.
I think that is a fine children's book that you could read up until about seven or eight when you're ready to.
Oh my god.
Advance to something that has.
I'm already reading a seven or eight.
Conflict.
Honestly I was reading Dean Coon's very early.
Are you the weirdo here then Johnna.
Yeah.
Coons at seven get the fuck out of here.
You're a weirdo.
I don't know if I was seven but I do know that for example flowers in the attic was a very early read for me.
Well that one's got a lot of popularity because of the TV movie.
I'm sure I didn't know about that.
Yeah I might have a feeling I wouldn't want my child reading this book because it's not a good example of story.
It's such fluff.
I don't know.
I think it was fine.
I think I maybe would have really liked this when I was like ten or something.
I think I would have.
Really?
Yeah.
I think I would have.
So does it really?
What about down you guys read Harry Potter?
Yeah.
I'm not saying this is as good as Harry Potter but it's like in that vein of like when I was reading a lot of like fantasy stuff.
And it was like fun to see new worlds and like the concept of it is like being like except people and like people who may seem bad on their face.
Like you shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
It's like just some simple messages but it was like I don't know.
Do you remember I can this is actually so horrible and I know they don't do this anymore at schools.
But I remember like sixth grade our teacher doing the thing where they like split us in half to teach us about racism.
This was a thing they used to do to teach you about racism and that's half like the brown eyed kids and the blue or light eyed kids were on one side.
And then she was treating us because the school was predominantly white.
Well, it's fucked up.
It was also it's just a fucked up thing to do.
But but I remember it like blowing my mind being like once we figured out that like that's what she was doing.
It was like really I don't know.
I always think about that though even though it sounds like it was maybe a good teaching moment.
Yeah, yeah, I know but in in retrospect now they don't do it anymore for obvious reasons.
You can't do that.
But just the idea of like being the lesson about people's difference like this kind of simple ideas were like we're big when I was in sixth grade to be like because I think up till then I didn't like.
Do you guys remember the giver?
Yeah, great book excellent book.
That's a middle school book.
Yes.
This is like a just a bunch of stuff that happened.
I don't know.
I think that I agree Sarah.
This feels in the vein to me, especially like the first Harry Potter book like as an adult, I would enjoy reading that story probably.
I haven't re-read it as an adult, but I think I would.
And once I saw a man on the subway, this is several years ago, but he was he's a businessman and he was reading a book and I was like,
this man's having the best time in his life, what's he reading? And it was the first Harry Potter book.
Similarly, I think you can enjoy this book as an adult, but sure if you're a Dean Kooz, seven year old, you might not be this might not be for you.
You know what? I think if you're an adult that like you like to go into an office and just see a string of motivational posters along the wall, like the hangar and the cat.
And you could just spend all day looking at those posters, the eagle flying, a little lion, then I think this book is perfect.
I do, I do have a theory.
And I think it's a very maybe obvious theory for why this book has such high ratings because it does.
It does have like very high ratings on good reads as our as our fan who recommended it pointed out.
I think it's because it came out in 2020 and it was like people depressed pandemic era and that people like just wanted to read it just felt like something people read that like made them forget about all that and feel positive about the rental.
I really don't I think if it came out now, I don't think it would get as high of ratings. I definitely don't. I think that affected it.
I hope not. I hope if nothing else, the pandemic hardened.
I think also like anytime, you know, like maybe this is why Meg liked it so much because she sees so many bad things.
That's true. That's true.
And it's just like a nice story about kids succeeding against odds.
Knowing Meg likes it makes it harder for me to want to explode it from the earth.
And I guess I'd rather read this book than that other orphanage book we read that was just like here's a list of child abuses that happened.
I did not well read that.
So I guess I should consider that this was a more pleasant read.
Yeah.
I hate to leave it on that note, but let's take a quick commercial break.
Come back, maybe do some good reads, some hate rates, maybe an answer is the author and let's get away from this book.
[Laughter]
Okay, and we're back. I've never gotten to do that before.
Feels good. So we're going to do a quick answer is the author.
I had one which is what is your favorite snack while you're writing and I just want to let you all know.
It's tea and granola in case that wasn't the obvious answer for the simplest little book I've ever read.
Tea and granola.
But the other question was for the author, TJ. Yes, TJ.
Which character from this book would you like to follow and do another book about?
They're also well developed.
They could all carry a book for sure.
I think the sprite who owns the island and then just saw it's a little unclear in what I wrote.
[Laughter]
Because it's her island so it seems like in this world, sprites own the land.
And she's sort of hiding from the government. She's unregistered.
And sort of I had a little narrative in there where she was afraid of the orphanage people and then she came around and loves them and helps them for free for some reason.
And I'd love to do that as a book and just tackle, you know, go sort of like a prequel with her.
Okay, that's because it doesn't make sense.
I would love to figure it out. It doesn't make sense that she was afraid of them but she also let them on her island that she's in charge of.
It doesn't make sense and I think a book would figure it out.
Well, I'd love to not read more from you.
T.J.
Excuse me.
Which character would you like to follow?
Who do we want to see more from?
Well, obviously, Trumpsy.
And I'm talking like him because I love Trumpsy.
And I think that I would just love to watch him build up his bare hopping skills.
And so, Trumpsy would start off small but then go to a five-star hotel.
Thank you. And T.J. are you there?
Yes. I just wanted to know who do you think deserves their own spin-off?
I think it's obvious. I think I have. I'm right, get a right about the anti-Christ.
Teenageeers meeting Christ, falling in love.
It's gotta be it.
With Christ?
Incredible.
So thank you all for participating. There was one winner. It is Sabrina.
Yes!
The correct answer is that character.
I have one to write.
A bunch of shorter books starring Choncy.
A bunch of f**kers.
A bunch of shorter books starring Choncy where he's the manager of a hotel, the bell hop
and he'll also solve mysteries like who stole the time in necklace from the woman in room 617.
Oh my god, that is nearly what I said.
Yeah, that's amazing.
However, the character doesn't have the skills to solve the mystery if anything.
He's gonna block that a closet in that room.
I do like it as a cozy mystery where the lead detective can never get past a point.
We have to go to the scene of the crime.
So yeah, what about, do we have any good reads, Sarah?
Let's do a few good reads. The first is from Regan. She says,
"Oh, MFG, this was so cute. I am dying."
Five stars.
Loved it simple to the point.
This is from Jessica. Jessica says, "I have actively avoided this book.
Even with all the hype it's gotten over the past year and a half. The story just didn't interest me in the slightest."
But then I read TJ's under the whispering door and it broke me.
So here I am, hoping to have a similar experience.
And I did.
Gosh, there are so many little nuggets of wisdom and truth embedded in this.
There are also moments of pure happiness and love.
I can't really add much to the thousands of reviews that have been posted for this book.
But for me personally, the story is wonderfully life-affirming and gives me hope and humanity that I desperately need.
Five stars.
Wow, she needs hope and humanity.
Hope and humanity is all magic people.
No, one human was nice at the end.
Yeah, it was one human.
But hey, I guess I feel like we didn't talk about what happened.
Now that we're going through these things.
He's writing reviews for them. He writes pretty positive reviews for the orphanage in his reports or whatever.
Obviously.
It's obviously a good orphanage.
And then there's no fucking way it's getting shut.
He goes back to his job and he steals some files.
Can somebody else explain this?
Well, I think my understanding was that he's going back to his old life.
And he wrote the final reports. He's going back to his old life.
A bunch of people there are like, I thought you got canned.
He's like, no, I was on a special assignment.
And then some lady in charge of his job was like, you don't deserve a promotion.
He was like, okay, well, that's fine. I don't want one.
And then he realized all his sunflowers were dead.
And it just wasn't as beautiful at home.
And his neighbor was still a rancid bitch.
And so then he was like, oh my god, I was so happy at the house in the Cerulean Sea.
With my Phoenix love man Arthur Persons.
I was a phoenix.
That's fine. That's awesome.
It doesn't matter.
And so then he was like, I'm going to strong recommend to the extremely upper management.
Which by the way was something I liked that it was called.
I know that the summary shitted, shitted, shitted on it.
But yeah, the impartial summary shot.
Yeah, the impartial summary shot. And that's not anyone's opinion.
That was just the summary.
But then he like recommends that it be a house and not an orphanage because no one is coming there to adopt.
And then he they are like, yeah, we agree.
Also, oh my god, this was a cool twist.
The former person who had been there scoping things out tried to like romantically trick Arthur Pernassus.
And was like, what did I know that the magicals could be in love?
And so he was an evil prick who then locked Arthur Pernassus in a basement.
And there's like all these like etchings on the wall.
And that was something maybe we're conflating two things.
I think when Arthur Arthur was a kid, he was locked in there.
Yeah, you're right.
You're right.
He wasn't locked in there.
I was listening on three times speed, but I didn't get you.
I liked my version where it was his fake lover locked in in a basement.
I wait, wasn't there was there not something with him stealing files and then like leaking information?
Yeah, oh yeah.
So I was getting to that.
But then I realized there was another thing that we forgot, which was like there was scandal beforehand.
So the last guy though is now an extremely upper management. And so they were like this guy, fuck him.
But they like granted the house status to the house in the surveillance.
And then what's his name?
Linus was like, I'm happy there.
I'm going to go live there. But first I'm going to steal all the files on this house.
And so that no one will ever touch us or bother us ever, ever again.
Not a bulletproof plan.
I guess they don't have computers, I guess.
They don't have computers in this world.
Where is this? What country are we? I'd never, we don't know. It doesn't matter.
What is the writing technique where you wrap everything up so completely that there's not a hint of like doubt or good writer meant?
Not not setting up for a sequel.
No, see how no sequel.
A little package with a bow. Are you looking for like a, there's a term you're looking for or something?
No, there should be, I think.
There should be.
Sacrific.
We was great when Erin used, we I love that.
True door hair.
Yeah.
Denu Mont.
No.
I think that's it. Yeah, it's it. There was no word.
It was just me trying to make further fun of it.
I thought John was setting us up to say she was going to say that didn't really mean but she didn't have it.
I didn't get there.
The book sucked the intelligence and went out of my brain.
I do worry that we are doing that with the podcast.
Are worsening our brains.
Yes, definitely.
Okay, my hate rate is a three out of five, which is really high.
I didn't like the book but it didn't hurt me or caused me to have nightmares or upset me like the other or finished book.
I didn't get nightmares from the other or finished book but I also didn't want to read it before bed and stuff.
So it was annoying. It was kind of long.
Not good but not offensive and not horror or so.
Zero out of five. It was offensive.
It offended me as a human being.
It offends me that this was written that people like it.
We've read so many bad books that you've given five out of five.
It's crazy.
I love it though.
I love it.
Yeah, I encourage it.
I just it made me so mad.
I'm just so angry.
I leave this book with so much anger.
I feel like we didn't even find the pressure point with you.
I don't think we actually found it.
All I can say is that my least favorite movie in the world, well, other than the whale, is the movie 500 days of summer.
And this made me feel similar ways, sort of.
I think the manic pixie lead care.
Orphan is the orphan guy of the manic pixie orphanage running boy.
Because he was kind of perfect, I guess.
Yeah, everything was just too perfect.
I was supposed to learn some sort of moral lesson that like anyone who's ever watched a single episode of Winnie the Pooh or
like this book was just the equivalent of live left love to over and over and over again for 12 hours.
So I think what I have my thoughts on why John I hated it so much.
Yeah, okay.
And I think help me.
I think it's a little bit of nature, a little bit of nurture here.
I think you were not in a great environment to like it.
You were rushed.
You had to use technology.
You had to open you to you have to keep it open.
You hate that.
You had to be in a car for a lot longer than you wanted to.
Admittedly the reading really was putting me off for quite some time.
And I think the trancey voice was maybe a little reminiscent of Willow's voice, which made me miss Willow.
It made you miss Willow, but also like be, no, no, but be like upset because it isn't actually will.
Actually willows voice and so then it was just this John is weird.
I'll turn it universe willow voice.
And so then it's just that it's nothing like willow voice.
Do willows voice.
Okay, it's hard on the spot.
No, I can do it.
It's like willow willow.
Do you want to go outside for a walk?
Yes.
Oh, it's a list.
Okay, I think it's a list.
It's a list, but it's nothing like John's voices.
It's a list.
I think it's a fair criticism.
It's a fair criticism.
But part of Willow's voice is that he's always sort of negative about everything, even if it's something happy, like a walk.
He just had him say yes, I do want to go on a walk.
But he says it like, yes.
Oh no, it's getting even more like John's voice.
It's getting more and more like John's voice, everyone.
It's me doing the Chonsey voice and me doing the willow voice.
Obviously going to be similar.
It's the same no voice.
We heard a lot of people do the Chonsey voice.
We heard the author.
I wasn't sure.
I thought Sabrina was being mean, but I think she might just be right.
And to be clear, it's not the exact same voice, but I think it's enough to like invoke that, make you miss the dog, and then make you get angry.
Sabrina, do you have a rating?
My rating is a four.
I gave it a four.
I thought it was 3.9.
I thought it was enjoyable.
I liked it.
And genuinely made me happy.
I loved that they got together.
It was cute.
Part of what put me off so much is I...
A lot of points that are taken away is definitely because of the audiobook reader.
Did not like.
And when I started the book, I'm heteronormative.
I thought the first female character that we have meet other than the old shrew neighbor.
When he meets the sprite and he comes into the town, I thought, oh, surely this is the love interest.
Wait, did I read you a game?
He had already said he was gay.
He was not an idea.
Well, listen, there was not a lot of time to read this book before the re-hopeing he would convert to be straight.
What did he say that made him gay?
The old lady was gay.
The old lady was trying to set him up with his grandson.
He said something snarky about like we knew you weren't a lady's man and he was like, yeah, I'd never open.
It was clear he was gay.
It was clear.
Anyway, it took me a long time to discover his sexuality.
So anyway, I really hated how the women were portrayed.
And so that loses the points and then the other loss of the point one extra is because I was super excited when I found it on YouTube.
And saw that it was a six hour book, but that was just part one and there was a second six hour part.
So it was still a very good book amount, but when you think you're getting six.
Yeah, that hurts.
When did you find out like when the six hours ended and it was like CS and point two?
It wasn't quite that long into it, but it was like four hours into it because I accidentally exited YouTube and then had to get back in.
And I was like, oh, that's weird.
It says I haven't listened at all.
And then I was like, oh, that's just a different video.
Oh, that's part two.
Yeah.
I that happened to me too.
Yeah.
Not a lot of service through the Pennsylvania mountains.
Yeah.
All right, I'll just do this quick.
Overall, this book was boring and slow for me.
Does it get put?
But I had to fast forward through a bunch of it because I didn't have enough time.
But I do think I would have liked this as a kid.
I refused to classify it as anything other than YA.
Really the biggest downside.
I thought was just like there wasn't enough conflict.
And I didn't like using bringing the anti-crystance up and then there was no real like scarier dark anything with it.
Like it was not really explored and that bothered me.
So I'm going to take a point off of that.
But other than that, I think it's pretty good.
Pretty fine.
Maybe not the, not a very funny book, but maybe you'd find it amusing as a middle schooler.
So I'm going to give it a four out of five.
Wow.
Nice.
Wow.
Put that on the book jacket.
Not funny, but maybe you'd find it amusing.
It's really interesting.
As a, as a young middle schooler.
Do you ladies might if I start the hate right?
Sure.
I wonder who it's going to be.
Great.
So it's everyone.
Wow.
Oh, fuck.
It's Sarah for defending the book so ardently.
When it is becoming increasingly clear, I don't even know how much she listened to.
It is Clara for not standing by me and how much I hated the book.
I know part of you inside must hate it as much as I do and you're not letting yourself express it.
I don't know why.
And Sabrina for being an adamant defender of the book, giving it such a high rating, I will say I did feel very seen when you explained why you did the book actually and it made me happy.
The only person that's not really the little fucker of the cast is Meg and the fact that she liked it so much, it does make me wonder if I'm wrong.
Why are we even bringing Meg into this?
It makes me question.
It's insane that you can question it after how strongly you express yourself.
This feels very strongly.
I want to search myself a little bit and just see if I can live on the same earth as the book after all.
That's all.
I don't think you can vote for all of us.
Okay fine, it's Sarah.
Alright.
Wow.
I have a vote.
It's Clara.
Fuck.
Honestly you were so good the whole cast except very start when you interrupted me when I was introducing myself and then laughed about it.
Did you know how it was?
And so you know, Jon and I were on opposite sides of the book but I felt like you know she really defended her position and I respect that.
So there's nothing right?
One interruption.
Jon also interrupt you.
You just interrupted me too say.
Well I'm already I'm pissed now.
Why would I let you know you're saying?
Jon and I were responding to your interruptions.
Mine's gonna feel retaliatory but it's Sabrina.
But here's why.
Sarah didn't read the book we've got that but she also didn't have a strong opinion that was ridiculous.
She rated it higher than I did just to be clear.
Point one.
Okay but throughout the cast she wasn't as annoying to me.
And so that's an unbiased measure.
Because Sabrina I'm not sure how much of the book you actually read because you've made some gigantic errors in your rigour to be called.
Yes.
And his adult lover locked him in her room and it was like no, it was where he was trying to get a bad orphanage.
And there was another one that's escaping me.
Oh you didn't know he was gay?
I found out.
So to have retained so little of what happened but to fight that for the books so strongly it creates an irritant.
So it's her.
Sure.
Obviously I recognize it be so cute if I vote for Jon because then we would all together be a little fucker of the cast.
But like it's not it's not.
It's not Jonna like because she was crazy this cast and I really enjoyed it.
No problems.
But I'm going to stick with what my initial reaction was is the plus one for Voting for Sabrina because she she's done this before.
But it's so funny that the gay member of our cast has like no gay door and that's in box like when reading books on characters.
And that's so funny.
And gay door he said it.
You're right.
It's so funny.
So it's Sabrina for me which makes Sabrina a little fucker of the cast.
Congratulations.
And Sabrina let me clarify when I say annoying to me you know I enjoy you as a person.
Wow she's crying.
No.
Listen it was not obvious despite him saying he wasn't a ladies man.
Etc.
There's another book where you did this where you were like didn't know a character was gay.
Was it the cute one?
It was so funny.
These two ladies are such good friends.
I will say it was certainly a fun book pick so thank you Aaron.
Right.
Even though I really did really hate it.
What are next book though?
Supermarket by logic.
Special guest Joey Price.
Very excited.
Very excited to have Joey on the cast all the way from Send the California closer to me guys.
Well, it might just drive down record with him.
Oh how far is it?
It's not it's like two hours.
I'm not going to do that.
Maybe he'll come to you.
Maybe maybe.
We are mean book club on all the socials as always become a patron of the mean art.
Please join our patreon.
We get you get bonus episodes you get email photos and other things that john it does that I'm unaware of but I know she does things.
Yeah.
She sounds.
Yeah.
So we'll see you guys next up.
All right.
Good bye miss you already.
See you soon.
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