Pen Pal by J. T. Geissinger

1
00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:14,800
So I was listening to some old episodes today

2
00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:18,400
because we just posted Hooked today,

3
00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:22,600
the day that we're recording this episode. And we recorded

4
00:00:23,100 --> 00:00:26,520
that months ago. Yeah, a long time ago. Yeah. We've just kind of had it

5
00:00:27,020 --> 00:00:30,690
in the reserves just in case something

6
00:00:31,190 --> 00:00:34,050
came up. Exactly. Like, what just came up, which is literally did. Yeah. Yeah.

7
00:00:34,550 --> 00:00:37,890
I got Covid for three weeks, which put us behind schedule. And then Nicole got

8
00:00:38,390 --> 00:00:40,370
Covid, and then Nicole got food poisoning.

9
00:00:41,410 --> 00:00:44,330
So we posted that episode, and I was like,

10
00:00:44,830 --> 00:00:47,330
oh, like, so nostalgic. So I, like, went back to listen to some of the

11
00:00:47,830 --> 00:00:51,010
other episodes, and I was listening to Haunting Adeline, and.

12
00:00:51,890 --> 00:00:55,510
Or no, I was. Yeah, I listened to Haunting Adeline. It played all the

13
00:00:56,010 --> 00:01:00,310
way through and then went on to the next episode, which was Pucking

14
00:01:00,810 --> 00:01:04,110
Around. Okay. And I don't know if you remember this or

15
00:01:04,610 --> 00:01:08,070
not, but we postponed posting Pucking around because the

16
00:01:08,570 --> 00:01:11,390
election results had come out the night before, and we were, like, so devastated.

17
00:01:11,950 --> 00:01:15,790
Our energy has consistently gone down since he's

18
00:01:16,290 --> 00:01:19,950
been in presidency. I could see that. Yeah, it's like, almost like he's, like,

19
00:01:20,450 --> 00:01:23,410
stolen all of the joy from my life. I could see that.

20
00:01:23,810 --> 00:01:27,290
And I just am like, I'm a completely different person. Like, there's a rain

21
00:01:27,790 --> 00:01:31,330
cloud over us at all times now. 100%. Yeah. And it's crazy. So anyways,

22
00:01:31,650 --> 00:01:35,330
then I was like, okay, well, I have to get out of

23
00:01:35,650 --> 00:01:39,330
this thing that I'm in. And I,

24
00:01:40,370 --> 00:01:43,690
like, whatever. I couldn't. But I

25
00:01:44,190 --> 00:01:46,900
don't know if you know this or not. I know that you know about my

26
00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:51,340
obsession with Twilight, but did you also know that I am also madly

27
00:01:51,420 --> 00:01:55,420
crazy obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I did not know that.

28
00:01:55,500 --> 00:01:58,420
Yeah. My grandma and I used to watch it when I was a kid.

29
00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:02,220
Like, when I was really little, she would, like, sneak me over to her house

30
00:02:02,720 --> 00:02:04,980
and we'd watch because my mom and dad wouldn't let us watch Buffy the Vampire

31
00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,180
Slayer. Sure. And my grandma would watch it with me. So I'm completely

32
00:02:09,680 --> 00:02:13,280
obsessed. And I realized it's Buffy the Vampire season. Yes.

33
00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:17,280
Right now. Yes, it is. So now I'm watching that, and I

34
00:02:17,780 --> 00:02:20,760
don't know, I always feel a little extra feisty. So I think it's been,

35
00:02:21,260 --> 00:02:24,280
like, a mild mood booster, and I'm feeling really good about it. I honestly kind

36
00:02:24,780 --> 00:02:27,680
of think fall has also boosted my mood. Like, it's practical magic season.

37
00:02:28,399 --> 00:02:31,960
Sleepy Hollow. Yes. I had a nightmare last night,

38
00:02:32,460 --> 00:02:36,920
though, about. I'm gonna pronounce it wrong, but. La La Rona.

39
00:02:37,420 --> 00:02:40,770
I had a Nightmare about her. Tell me why. Tell me why.

40
00:02:41,010 --> 00:02:44,330
She was in a lake. Oh, Jesus. It was so scary.

41
00:02:44,830 --> 00:02:47,130
And then when she came. But it was kind of combined with. Did you ever

42
00:02:47,630 --> 00:02:50,050
watch the Haunting of Bly Manor?

43
00:02:50,370 --> 00:02:54,530
Oh, my God, I love that series. The Faceless.

44
00:02:54,610 --> 00:02:58,210
When she's faceless. That's what she looked like, though, in the lake.

45
00:02:58,710 --> 00:03:00,810
And then I woke up and at like three in the morning, I couldn't fucking

46
00:03:01,310 --> 00:03:04,450
sleep. So then my cat was like, oh, you're awake. Sure, let's come snuggle.

47
00:03:04,800 --> 00:03:08,480
Sure. You know who else loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though, is Stephanie

48
00:03:08,980 --> 00:03:11,960
Fish. Really? Yes. Oh, my God.

49
00:03:12,460 --> 00:03:15,920
That's amazing to know. Yes. Wow. Yep. I never super

50
00:03:16,420 --> 00:03:20,400
got into it. I was an X Files girly. See, I also

51
00:03:20,900 --> 00:03:24,720
enjoy X Files, but I wouldn't be able to sit down and watch

52
00:03:25,220 --> 00:03:28,440
X Files from beginning to end. The early episodes

53
00:03:28,940 --> 00:03:32,480
of X Files are so fucking slow and they're just

54
00:03:32,980 --> 00:03:35,670
painful. And so I think that's more of an episode where it's like, oh,

55
00:03:36,170 --> 00:03:39,550
if an episode's on, like, I'll watch it. Yeah. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I watch

56
00:03:40,050 --> 00:03:43,430
from beginning to the end of it. Maybe I'll have

57
00:03:43,930 --> 00:03:47,430
to give it a try. Yeah. I'm also in the process of watching all

58
00:03:47,930 --> 00:03:51,190
of the Conjuring Universe, which includes La Llorona.

59
00:03:51,510 --> 00:03:54,830
I'm watching them in like chronological order for

60
00:03:55,330 --> 00:03:58,630
the first time, not in release order. Oh. Which I've never done before.

61
00:03:58,710 --> 00:04:00,930
I know. Which is like. I'm so cool.

62
00:04:02,130 --> 00:04:05,410
You're so spooky. Oh, my God. Well, we've already watched.

63
00:04:05,910 --> 00:04:09,890
We watched all the Chucky movies. We watched all of the available Freddie

64
00:04:10,390 --> 00:04:13,250
movies, all of the available Jason movies. Chucky.

65
00:04:13,810 --> 00:04:17,010
We watch Screech. No, I'm not.

66
00:04:17,490 --> 00:04:20,530
Don't judge me. I'm not really a Scream girly. See, And I like Scream more

67
00:04:21,030 --> 00:04:24,090
than Freddie. I know. I was like watching this TikTok and this guy was talking

68
00:04:24,590 --> 00:04:28,090
about how the reason, but there's such a

69
00:04:28,590 --> 00:04:32,010
fanatical following of Scream is because it's really

70
00:04:32,510 --> 00:04:35,690
the first high budget horror film that

71
00:04:36,190 --> 00:04:39,610
was commercially available. And I

72
00:04:40,110 --> 00:04:43,850
thought that was so interesting because he makes such a good point. But I

73
00:04:44,350 --> 00:04:47,810
really didn't get into horror movies. I've always been a

74
00:04:48,310 --> 00:04:52,010
Chucky girly, but I really didn't get into horror movies until Bride of Chucky

75
00:04:52,510 --> 00:04:56,520
came out. And Bride of Chucky for me was sort of like the portal

76
00:04:57,020 --> 00:05:00,200
opening. Because I'm like absolutely obsessed with that actress. What's her name?

77
00:05:00,280 --> 00:05:04,280
Jennifer Tilly. Yes, I'm obsessed

78
00:05:04,780 --> 00:05:07,840
with her. And so I think like, you know. One year

79
00:05:08,340 --> 00:05:11,799
pagel and I went as Chucky and Tiffany. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's so cute.

80
00:05:12,299 --> 00:05:15,760
It was so adorable. Oh, my God. You were Tiffany, obviously. Tits out.

81
00:05:16,260 --> 00:05:19,480
Yeah. Yes. I love that. Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know, like the Scream

82
00:05:19,980 --> 00:05:23,080
mask. The only really thing that I like about that movie is those two actors.

83
00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:27,040
My God. So the way you.

84
00:05:27,540 --> 00:05:30,200
Oh, my God. We should write some fanfic. Yeah, that could be fun.

85
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:32,920
Yeah. I don't know if you remember the TikTok girl that I was telling you

86
00:05:33,420 --> 00:05:37,040
about who does hot possum? No, it's not a thing anymore. I haven't seen

87
00:05:37,540 --> 00:05:41,040
her in, like, a really long time. Obviously there's only, like, a finite number of

88
00:05:41,540 --> 00:05:45,480
people that would fit this, but she was trying to explain this,

89
00:05:45,980 --> 00:05:49,400
like, very specific category of attractive

90
00:05:49,900 --> 00:05:54,020
men. Yes, I do remember that. And it's hot possum. Yes. And that guy,

91
00:05:54,100 --> 00:05:57,540
the one with, like. The hair that, like. No, not Matthew Lillard.

92
00:05:58,040 --> 00:06:00,180
The other one. Oh, my God. What the hell is that? Matthew Lillard is a

93
00:06:00,680 --> 00:06:04,260
God, I love him so much. I love him in Good Girls. He plays

94
00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:08,420
the husband in Good Girls, and he's such a schmuck, and I just fucking live

95
00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:12,340
for it. Like, Matthew Lillard is that guy. What the hell is the other guy's

96
00:06:12,840 --> 00:06:15,780
name? I. I don't know why I'm blanking on it. He was in Riverdale.

97
00:06:15,860 --> 00:06:19,500
He played the dad in Riverdale. And I never watched Riverdale. Everybody told

98
00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:23,120
me, too. And I couldn't get into that universe. I.

99
00:06:23,620 --> 00:06:26,520
After the first episode I was in. Oh, yeah, that was such a good first

100
00:06:27,020 --> 00:06:30,480
episode. And it went so far downhill so fast. Shoot. But he's

101
00:06:30,980 --> 00:06:34,720
the dad. Oh, interesting. He's a hot possum.

102
00:06:34,960 --> 00:06:38,520
I just think he's hot, but I guess it's. But he is hot.

103
00:06:39,020 --> 00:06:43,040
Yeah, but he's a hot possum. It would be like him, Johnny Depp.

104
00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:46,840
Like, there's a very specific kind of look. Like, kind of

105
00:06:47,340 --> 00:06:50,880
like greasy, dirty rat. Yeah. Kind of like. Kind of like undone.

106
00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:53,790
Like pretty boys that are, like,

107
00:06:54,110 --> 00:06:56,990
not overly groomed or coif.

108
00:06:57,310 --> 00:07:01,070
Do you know what I'm talking about? So anyways, hot possum. So he's

109
00:07:01,570 --> 00:07:04,030
a hot possum. Should we try to explain this to Carmen and see if she

110
00:07:04,530 --> 00:07:08,309
gets it? Yeah, we should record it. Oh, my gosh. It would just be Carmen

111
00:07:08,809 --> 00:07:11,550
going, oh. She would not get it.

112
00:07:12,050 --> 00:07:15,230
No. She'd be like, nicole, are you a hot possum? Is your sick voice a

113
00:07:15,730 --> 00:07:19,110
hot possum? All right, well, I'm Amanda. And I'm Nicole.

114
00:07:19,610 --> 00:07:23,340
And. And we are plot tarts. We read, recap, and review smutty

115
00:07:23,840 --> 00:07:27,660
books. Let us help you decide if this should stay on your tbr.

116
00:07:28,060 --> 00:07:31,500
This is our unwrapped episode. What book are we reading

117
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,900
today? We are reading pen Pal by J.T. gessinger. Nicole and I

118
00:07:36,460 --> 00:07:40,100
try. We really do. We do it just for

119
00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,300
you. We really try to not talk about these books in between recording.

120
00:07:45,190 --> 00:07:47,750
We did an okay job with this one. We did a pretty okay job.

121
00:07:48,250 --> 00:07:51,550
But I will tell you, I, you know, went down a rabbit hole trying to

122
00:07:52,050 --> 00:07:55,790
learn more about this author because I feel

123
00:07:56,290 --> 00:07:59,830
an obligation to understand the author before we record these episodes.

124
00:08:00,310 --> 00:08:03,990
And the fanatics of this author,

125
00:08:04,790 --> 00:08:08,110
they are ride or die. So if you are one of

126
00:08:08,610 --> 00:08:12,390
those. People, we're so sorry, don't tune in. Yeah, you should just stop listening because

127
00:08:12,890 --> 00:08:15,030
I don't have. You're going to be real mad at us by the time that

128
00:08:15,530 --> 00:08:18,630
we're done with this. We, I think, chose this book just because it's been so

129
00:08:19,130 --> 00:08:22,910
popular. Yeah. And it's given a little bit of the spooky season. And we

130
00:08:23,410 --> 00:08:25,830
had another spooky book that we were going to do, but we ran out of

131
00:08:26,330 --> 00:08:29,870
time because of near death. You guys don't understand. Nicole was in

132
00:08:30,370 --> 00:08:33,870
the hospital. Like, this was not just like. We tried to record this episode and

133
00:08:34,370 --> 00:08:37,710
I couldn't stop vomiting. Yes. This was not just like a little,

134
00:08:37,870 --> 00:08:40,910
like, oops, a little bug. Like, Nicole was so,

135
00:08:40,990 --> 00:08:44,730
so sick. So this will be our spooky episode and then our next.

136
00:08:45,130 --> 00:08:48,490
We're posting every other week. So our next posting, we're actually going to

137
00:08:48,990 --> 00:08:52,650
do Hunting Adeline. Stay tuned for that content. Warnings on this book

138
00:08:52,810 --> 00:08:56,090
include explicit language, graphic sex, power play

139
00:08:56,590 --> 00:09:00,210
dynamics, detailed descriptions of death and grief, miscarriage, domestic violence,

140
00:09:00,710 --> 00:09:04,250
and mental illness. Well, this book is broken

141
00:09:04,750 --> 00:09:07,450
up into parts. We start with part one,

142
00:09:08,340 --> 00:09:11,580
which is named Inferno. I was

143
00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:15,260
kind of annoyed with how she, like, leans into this whole, like,

144
00:09:15,760 --> 00:09:19,940
Dante's Inferno. Oh, my God. First page.

145
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,700
That's the first page of the book. And I was equally annoyed. I was like,

146
00:09:24,200 --> 00:09:27,620
I hate this already. Like, I don't know what this is, but I hate it.

147
00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:30,820
You were trying to do something. You were trying to seem a certain way.

148
00:09:31,780 --> 00:09:34,990
And it didn't. It didn't hit. It didn't land.

149
00:09:35,070 --> 00:09:38,270
It's a smutty book. Yeah, like, take.

150
00:09:38,750 --> 00:09:42,590
You have to take a page out of Trellini Pucci's book because

151
00:09:43,310 --> 00:09:47,190
you can't take these books so fucking seriously. Like, you just

152
00:09:47,690 --> 00:09:50,670
can't and it just. Nothing hit the way she expected it to. No.

153
00:09:50,910 --> 00:09:53,230
At least for us. Yeah.

154
00:09:54,270 --> 00:09:57,910
Sorry for you if it did. The other thing that I noticed

155
00:09:58,410 --> 00:10:01,810
when I was listening to past episodes, I'm so much nicer. I'm so much

156
00:10:02,310 --> 00:10:06,050
more. Yeah. I'm in my past episodes, I'm like, if you are a wet blanket,

157
00:10:06,550 --> 00:10:10,130
that's totally fine. In more recent episodes, I'm like, look it. If you don't fucking

158
00:10:10,630 --> 00:10:14,010
like it, you're an idiot. We've really

159
00:10:14,510 --> 00:10:17,290
digressed a bit in terms of, like, personality here.

160
00:10:17,450 --> 00:10:20,850
I hope that listeners don't mind. We mean nothing

161
00:10:21,350 --> 00:10:25,490
for the most part, offensively. If we mean it offensively, we will say it 100%.

162
00:10:25,990 --> 00:10:29,330
I'll tell you, like, take offense. We are approaching all of our things, all of

163
00:10:29,830 --> 00:10:33,440
our commentary through a lens of entertainment solely.

164
00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:37,960
It's not that serious. It's really not. No. It doesn't need to be titled Inferno,

165
00:10:38,460 --> 00:10:42,240
that's for sure. No. We open on the day of our female

166
00:10:42,740 --> 00:10:46,320
main character. Her name is Kayla. It's her husband's funeral

167
00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:49,440
and his casket is being lowered into the ground.

168
00:10:50,080 --> 00:10:54,160
And she is describing feeling emptied by her

169
00:10:54,660 --> 00:10:58,000
grief. She leaves the funeral early to return home, where she finds

170
00:10:58,500 --> 00:11:01,810
a letter on her table that she assumes was brought in by her

171
00:11:01,890 --> 00:11:05,690
housekeeper. The letter is one line. It says, I'll wait

172
00:11:06,190 --> 00:11:08,850
forever if I have to. And it is signed Dante.

173
00:11:09,490 --> 00:11:13,090
So one thing I will give this author, I did

174
00:11:13,250 --> 00:11:15,810
think that she kind of set the scene well.

175
00:11:16,210 --> 00:11:18,930
As I'm reading this, I am picturing rain,

176
00:11:20,050 --> 00:11:23,810
cloudy, dreary. I was definitely picturing

177
00:11:24,050 --> 00:11:27,510
more of that vibe, which is what

178
00:11:28,010 --> 00:11:30,310
I was looking for when I first read this book. Yes. So I will say

179
00:11:30,810 --> 00:11:34,630
she set that scene well for me. I would agree. I would say she

180
00:11:35,130 --> 00:11:38,270
is an atmospheric writer for sure. You, the energy,

181
00:11:38,430 --> 00:11:41,430
the vibes, everything are very,

182
00:11:41,930 --> 00:11:45,190
very cohesive throughout. Everything else sucks,

183
00:11:45,690 --> 00:11:49,830
though, so. Well, the trouble is that Kayla doesn't

184
00:11:50,330 --> 00:11:54,050
know anybody named Dante. So rather than, I don't

185
00:11:54,550 --> 00:11:57,610
know. Well. And it comes from prison. Yeah, it comes from a prison.

186
00:11:58,090 --> 00:12:01,850
Which. Like, who's writing her from a prison? Well. Right. And then instead of being

187
00:12:02,350 --> 00:12:04,370
like, wow, I should get to the bottom of this, she just, like, stuffs it

188
00:12:04,870 --> 00:12:08,730
into a drawer. Yeah. And I'm like, I realize. Look, I realize that you

189
00:12:09,230 --> 00:12:13,090
just returned home from a funeral, and I, like, I get it. But if a

190
00:12:13,590 --> 00:12:16,810
stranger is sending you love letters from prison,

191
00:12:18,010 --> 00:12:20,930
I don't know that I'd really be able to focus on much else at that

192
00:12:21,430 --> 00:12:24,030
point. I would just be kind of like, the fuck's going on here? Like,

193
00:12:24,530 --> 00:12:27,750
how do you feel? Like, her. Kind of like her grief was written. Did you

194
00:12:28,250 --> 00:12:31,830
feel. Felt real phoned into me, you say?

195
00:12:32,330 --> 00:12:35,550
Yes, and I say it felt kind of phoned in. Yeah, I did feel.

196
00:12:36,750 --> 00:12:39,550
I think I very much felt that,

197
00:12:40,050 --> 00:12:43,550
like, sense of emptiness that she describes. I think that that felt very

198
00:12:44,050 --> 00:12:47,310
consistent to me. See, I like how she writes. The atmosphere.

199
00:12:47,870 --> 00:12:50,380
The rest of it didn't really connect for me. Sure.

200
00:12:51,020 --> 00:12:55,300
All of the characters are just terribly developed. They're caricatures

201
00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:59,220
in a bad way. Not in the way that they are in, like, the Knock

202
00:12:59,720 --> 00:13:02,700
Em out series. Yeah. She was literally, like, sad, grieving widow.

203
00:13:03,100 --> 00:13:06,500
Let's look in the dictionary and see what that looks like. Okay, let's just.

204
00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,020
That's what we're gonna write. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think it gets,

205
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:13,620
like, kind of complicated because we'll talk about it in a little bit. But there

206
00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:17,300
is some additional nuance to, like, the relationship that she had with her husband and

207
00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:20,510
things like that. And so I think that can be kind of, like,

208
00:13:21,310 --> 00:13:24,510
I think, polarizing, probably in a moment when you're,

209
00:13:25,010 --> 00:13:28,510
like, in the process of grieving somebody that you, like, loved,

210
00:13:29,010 --> 00:13:32,590
but also was, like, pretty horrific to you. But I think that

211
00:13:33,230 --> 00:13:36,070
felt more surface level than I think that it should have. I thought we could

212
00:13:36,570 --> 00:13:39,470
have really dived deeper into the nuance of that and, like,

213
00:13:40,110 --> 00:13:43,150
the way that that presents itself.

214
00:13:43,650 --> 00:13:46,640
I mean, again, like, I have to go back to, like. Yeah, like, I realize

215
00:13:47,140 --> 00:13:50,000
you just came home from a funeral, but, like, don't you think there'd be some

216
00:13:50,500 --> 00:13:53,880
sort of level of. Well, and also throwing yourself into something else or something?

217
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:57,480
Right. You know, like, I don't know. Yeah. Grieving widow's her whole personality.

218
00:13:57,800 --> 00:14:01,360
Yeah. Also, I picked up this book kind. Of expecting

219
00:14:01,860 --> 00:14:03,960
something else. I was like, oh, my gosh. Yes. I love the stalking, and we're

220
00:14:04,460 --> 00:14:08,040
gonna get a prison stalker. And that's super not what you get. A hundred percent.

221
00:14:08,280 --> 00:14:11,160
That is such a great clarification. I thought the exact same thing.

222
00:14:11,660 --> 00:14:14,520
Yeah. Yes. Cause I was. Ugh. I was like, yes, I'm ready.

223
00:14:14,600 --> 00:14:18,360
Yes. And that's not it. No, that's not

224
00:14:18,860 --> 00:14:22,080
it. We learn more about Kayla here. And we learn more about

225
00:14:22,580 --> 00:14:25,400
her. Her late husband, Kayla, is an illustrator for children's books.

226
00:14:25,480 --> 00:14:29,680
She and her husband, a renowned college

227
00:14:30,180 --> 00:14:33,560
professor and documented genius, had purchased a home,

228
00:14:34,120 --> 00:14:37,560
Capeside, that's very old and in constant

229
00:14:37,640 --> 00:14:41,010
need of repair. And we meet Kayla's housekeeper,

230
00:14:41,510 --> 00:14:45,130
Fiona, after the roof springs a leak. And Fiona walks in on Kayla attempting

231
00:14:45,630 --> 00:14:49,490
to Clean up and put buckets under the leak. Startling Fiona, who is

232
00:14:49,990 --> 00:14:53,530
surprised to learn that Kayla will be staying in the house after the

233
00:14:54,030 --> 00:14:57,410
tragedy that occurred there. So we are sort of getting a

234
00:14:57,910 --> 00:15:01,250
sense that, like, somebody has died and it was not in.

235
00:15:02,130 --> 00:15:05,450
It was in a gruesome way. Yeah.

236
00:15:05,950 --> 00:15:09,990
It wasn't in unexpected. It was. Yeah, it was unexpected and tragic

237
00:15:10,490 --> 00:15:13,750
and. But we still don't understand fully, like, what's happening.

238
00:15:14,470 --> 00:15:18,950
After their discussion, Kayla gets up to leave to reply to Dante

239
00:15:19,450 --> 00:15:22,790
responding. What are you waiting for? And a week later, she receives her response.

240
00:15:23,290 --> 00:15:26,510
One word. You. Could you do this? What would you

241
00:15:27,010 --> 00:15:30,630
respond to this prison person? No, I would literally go to the

242
00:15:31,130 --> 00:15:34,470
police. Yes. And be like, look, I got this weird ass fucking letter.

243
00:15:34,550 --> 00:15:37,510
Yeah, I'm gonna need a little bit. Can you look this guy up? Like,

244
00:15:38,010 --> 00:15:41,160
I there. You wouldn't be able to stop me. Yeah. Like, there would be nothing

245
00:15:41,660 --> 00:15:44,280
in my way. She's egging him on. I'd be like, look, I can't come into

246
00:15:44,780 --> 00:15:48,200
work today. I have a stalker from a prison and I have

247
00:15:48,700 --> 00:15:51,640
to figure it out. Like, what is. She doesn't try at all to figure it

248
00:15:52,140 --> 00:15:54,640
out. No. She doesn't even Google the prison. And the thing of it is is

249
00:15:55,140 --> 00:15:58,360
that he sends that letter with the one word that says you and then again

250
00:15:58,860 --> 00:16:00,960
puts it in a drawer and then just goes about her. She's like, I'm all

251
00:16:01,460 --> 00:16:05,280
done. Yes. It's so weird. Well, she calls several roofing

252
00:16:05,780 --> 00:16:10,020
companies and contractors and no one responds. Until one day a handyman wearing

253
00:16:10,520 --> 00:16:14,660
a John Lennon T shirt and smelling like herb shows up and determines that she'll

254
00:16:15,160 --> 00:16:18,940
need professional to help her with the roof and that

255
00:16:19,100 --> 00:16:22,220
the electrical problems that she's been having around the house are

256
00:16:22,720 --> 00:16:26,220
not due to any electrical issues with the home.

257
00:16:26,940 --> 00:16:30,940
This area here with, like the electrical issues. The electrical

258
00:16:31,440 --> 00:16:35,460
problems, this was. I'm not going to give it away. This was the beginning

259
00:16:35,960 --> 00:16:38,710
of me. Like, I knew right here.

260
00:16:38,950 --> 00:16:42,190
I think the author really, really, really thought that

261
00:16:42,690 --> 00:16:46,310
she was going to be able to kind of trick us into feeling like she's

262
00:16:46,810 --> 00:16:50,110
like, mentally losing it. She's like, well, I thought

263
00:16:50,610 --> 00:16:53,750
it might be ghost. So I was like, are we getting like this Haunting Adeline

264
00:16:54,250 --> 00:16:57,590
level ghost story thing? Sure. We didn't. That's not.

265
00:16:57,830 --> 00:17:00,630
And we talked about that because this.

266
00:17:00,870 --> 00:17:05,470
I think we agreed that this book was attempting

267
00:17:05,970 --> 00:17:08,790
to execute what Haunting Adeline was attempting to.

268
00:17:09,190 --> 00:17:13,030
And I would say. And again, I realize that some of this is atmospheric,

269
00:17:13,530 --> 00:17:16,990
but this book, I have to go back. I always go back to this fucking

270
00:17:17,490 --> 00:17:20,990
book. But it's stuck with me forever. This book reminds

271
00:17:21,490 --> 00:17:24,350
me a lot of Rebecca. I don't know if you've ever read that book by

272
00:17:24,850 --> 00:17:28,470
Daphne Devon, but in that book, basically, like, spoiler,

273
00:17:29,360 --> 00:17:32,760
the new. The new mistress of the home after

274
00:17:33,260 --> 00:17:37,040
the previous woman dies, kind of is feeling haunted by sort

275
00:17:37,540 --> 00:17:40,880
of the presence of this previous wife or whatever.

276
00:17:41,280 --> 00:17:45,240
And I kind of thought she was trying to sort of recreate

277
00:17:45,740 --> 00:17:49,120
that sort of vibe where it's kind of like almost like hysteria.

278
00:17:49,620 --> 00:17:52,920
Like you're so, like, fixated on the trauma that

279
00:17:53,420 --> 00:17:56,680
you're kind of, like, spooking yourself and you're kind of creating this sort of,

280
00:17:57,180 --> 00:18:00,620
like, haunting experience and you're disconnected.

281
00:18:00,700 --> 00:18:03,220
She talks a lot about how she, like, goes to sleep and then wakes up

282
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:05,420
and she doesn't know what day it is, and she doesn't know how long it's

283
00:18:05,920 --> 00:18:09,100
been and all these things. And it's just like this right here.

284
00:18:09,740 --> 00:18:12,740
I started to call it right here. Well, and this book kind of almost does

285
00:18:13,240 --> 00:18:16,380
feel like a dream. Like you don't ever get a beginning or an ending.

286
00:18:16,620 --> 00:18:20,140
We're always picking up somewhere. It's disjointed.

287
00:18:20,640 --> 00:18:24,420
Yes. Our chapter break here is another letter from Dante, and this

288
00:18:24,920 --> 00:18:28,390
time it's a much longer, more personal and intimate letter.

289
00:18:28,890 --> 00:18:33,110
And it's very clearly a love letter based on some

290
00:18:33,610 --> 00:18:37,230
sort of premise of a previously existing relationship. And she's still

291
00:18:37,950 --> 00:18:41,630
not understanding what's going on at all, basically,

292
00:18:42,130 --> 00:18:44,910
and still not doing anything about it. No. So she's just like, I have a

293
00:18:45,410 --> 00:18:49,110
stalker from prison, but it's. It's nbd, no big deal. Yeah. Puts it in her

294
00:18:49,610 --> 00:18:53,470
drawer. Yeah. All right. And here we meet Aiden. Aiden is

295
00:18:53,970 --> 00:18:57,530
the roofer, the professional roofer. He here to look at her roof.

296
00:18:57,930 --> 00:19:00,570
He is surly,

297
00:19:00,890 --> 00:19:04,690
unapproachable. She describes him as being like a robot. Just my type.

298
00:19:05,190 --> 00:19:09,090
Wolf. Yeah. After some less than enthusiastic customer

299
00:19:09,590 --> 00:19:13,650
service from Aiden, Kayla calls him out on his bad attitude. And then he

300
00:19:14,150 --> 00:19:17,490
takes the olive branch. He assesses her roof, provides a

301
00:19:17,990 --> 00:19:21,290
price which she's unable to pay. They haggle, and he

302
00:19:21,790 --> 00:19:24,830
offers to do her roof off the books. So deeply discounted,

303
00:19:25,070 --> 00:19:28,550
which she sort of is forced

304
00:19:29,050 --> 00:19:32,670
to accept. Initially, it kind of felt like the. Premise of a bad porno.

305
00:19:33,310 --> 00:19:37,150
Yeah. We're just like, you need somebody to fix your pipes.

306
00:19:37,650 --> 00:19:41,190
Yeah. It wasn't. It again,

307
00:19:41,690 --> 00:19:44,750
felt phoned in. Yeah. Well, my thing is, like,

308
00:19:45,250 --> 00:19:48,990
it seems really out of character for her. Her housekeeper

309
00:19:49,490 --> 00:19:53,670
walks in on her and she's like, what are you doing here?

310
00:19:53,750 --> 00:19:56,870
And this character is like, oh, well,

311
00:19:56,950 --> 00:20:00,510
yeah, I mean, I live here. And she's just kind of this, like, oh,

312
00:20:01,010 --> 00:20:03,470
I'm so lost and alone and I don't know what to do. And then this

313
00:20:03,970 --> 00:20:06,870
guy comes in, is a little surly with her, and she's like, look,

314
00:20:07,370 --> 00:20:10,990
sir, I'm not one to take an attitude. And it's just like, in my

315
00:20:11,490 --> 00:20:14,990
head I'm like, okay, well, Nicole doesn't take any off a man, so maybe it's

316
00:20:15,490 --> 00:20:19,500
something like that. But I just think, like, generally their interactions to

317
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,220
me just don't feel. I can get myself dressed in the morning. And I don't

318
00:20:23,720 --> 00:20:26,740
think Kayla can. Yes, a hundred percent. Anyways,

319
00:20:26,900 --> 00:20:30,780
he returns the next day, they bicker. And then she decides that

320
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:33,859
she doesn't wanna work with him after all. And she asks him to leave.

321
00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:38,220
And the stress of the situation causes her neck to

322
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,900
break out in bruise, like splotches that wring her

323
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,880
entire neck. So she's like, wow, I'm sick.

324
00:20:46,380 --> 00:20:49,600
I got this, like, ring of bruises around my neck and I'm so stressed out.

325
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:54,040
And she's also in amongst all of this, she's been writing back

326
00:20:54,540 --> 00:20:56,960
and forth with Dante and, like, they've been like,

327
00:20:57,760 --> 00:21:01,200
that badly. Like, and she.

328
00:21:01,700 --> 00:21:03,360
Yeah, and she is, like,

329
00:21:04,080 --> 00:21:07,600
actively being haunted by, like, creaky floorboards and

330
00:21:08,100 --> 00:21:12,080
flickering lights and exploding light bulbs. Exploding light bulbs. And again,

331
00:21:12,400 --> 00:21:15,890
like, atmospherically, this felt very, very creepy.

332
00:21:16,290 --> 00:21:19,810
For sure. Without question. But the whole

333
00:21:20,310 --> 00:21:23,970
thing is, I mean, we're just like, I get what

334
00:21:24,470 --> 00:21:27,650
we're doing. I like, I get it. Like, I'm smart enough to understand what

335
00:21:28,150 --> 00:21:31,330
the author was going for. Yeah, you missed. You fucking missed,

336
00:21:31,830 --> 00:21:35,090
babe. And we're going to get there. She goes to a local grief group,

337
00:21:35,410 --> 00:21:38,610
meets a woman who's been going for six years since

338
00:21:39,110 --> 00:21:42,400
her four year old was kidnapped, and decides to not stay.

339
00:21:42,900 --> 00:21:46,400
And then goes to the bar across the street instead, where she

340
00:21:46,900 --> 00:21:50,640
unexpectedly runs into Aiden. And this again, felt very much

341
00:21:51,140 --> 00:21:54,320
like I googled. Grieving widow can't stay through a support group either.

342
00:21:54,400 --> 00:21:57,840
It's all just very. She made a checklist. Like, we've got to make sure we

343
00:21:58,340 --> 00:22:00,960
do these things. And then, of course, she runs into Aiden at the bar.

344
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:03,480
Why was she even going to the. I don't even. She just doesn't seem like

345
00:22:03,980 --> 00:22:06,560
the type to just go to a bar. Yeah. And have a drink by herself.

346
00:22:07,230 --> 00:22:11,270
But I guess we don't see her. Like, she has no fucking friends. So she

347
00:22:11,770 --> 00:22:15,390
and Aiden share a drink where he sort of like, offers her comfort

348
00:22:15,890 --> 00:22:20,190
and then discusses that he finds her attractive and basically propositions

349
00:22:20,690 --> 00:22:24,110
her for sex. And I'm not. That's not an exaggeration.

350
00:22:24,610 --> 00:22:28,390
That literally. That's literally what happens. Come up. My room is upstairs. I want.

351
00:22:28,890 --> 00:22:31,670
I come upstairs. Yes, I would like to have sex with you. I find you

352
00:22:32,170 --> 00:22:34,190
incredibly attractive and I would like to have sex with you right now. And she's

353
00:22:34,690 --> 00:22:38,090
like, what? She's a feral cat. She's like, I don't understand what's going

354
00:22:38,590 --> 00:22:41,330
on. Well, and also. But isn't this just such a man, though? Like,

355
00:22:41,410 --> 00:22:44,490
he takes her from the bar. He's like, come. Don't make

356
00:22:44,990 --> 00:22:48,410
a scene here. Let's go to this booth. I'll shield you. Yes. I'm gonna let

357
00:22:48,910 --> 00:22:52,050
you cry. Yeah. Only because I want to tell you that I want to have

358
00:22:52,550 --> 00:22:55,690
sex with you. Yes. 100. I'm gonna comfort you, but only if you'll have sex

359
00:22:56,190 --> 00:22:57,970
with me. Yes. And it's such a man.

360
00:22:59,730 --> 00:23:02,210
It is. Yeah, very much.

361
00:23:02,790 --> 00:23:05,830
Nicole is mad. Oh, you should see her face.

362
00:23:05,990 --> 00:23:10,070
Oh, my God, I love it. So she's

363
00:23:10,570 --> 00:23:14,310
like freaking out. Deer in the headlights. She's like, this is not.

364
00:23:14,810 --> 00:23:17,470
She. I think she asks him, like, do you always talk to people like this?

365
00:23:17,970 --> 00:23:20,870
Like, she's like, I'm such a lady.

366
00:23:21,110 --> 00:23:24,750
And she goes home and she gets spooked

367
00:23:25,250 --> 00:23:29,640
by something by like a creaky board, and then is completely

368
00:23:30,140 --> 00:23:33,760
distraught, launches herself from her house, half dressed.

369
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,960
And for some reason, actually. Half dressed. Half dressed.

370
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:41,160
T shirt and panties. Yes. No panties. No panties, no panties.

371
00:23:41,660 --> 00:23:43,920
T shirt. Oh. T shirt and jeans. T shirt and jeans. Yes, that's it.

372
00:23:44,240 --> 00:23:47,600
And then for some God knows reason,

373
00:23:48,100 --> 00:23:50,680
I. No, it doesn't make any sense to me. She goes to fucking Aiden's house.

374
00:23:51,180 --> 00:23:54,400
And it doesn't track for her character either. No, her husband just died.

375
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:58,280
Yes. She's spiraling and she goes to seek comfort

376
00:23:58,780 --> 00:24:02,060
in a man she just met. Who she says in later things that

377
00:24:02,560 --> 00:24:06,500
she's never done anything, like what she does with Aiden. So it just is such

378
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:10,100
a. Like it's such a leap. So you're telling me that you as

379
00:24:10,600 --> 00:24:14,540
a person have the capacity to pursue a relationship and to seek comfort

380
00:24:14,940 --> 00:24:18,140
from some stranger, but you don't

381
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,780
want to try to figure out why some fucking weirdo is writing you

382
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:25,980
from prison and talking about knowing you for lifetimes? Like,

383
00:24:26,700 --> 00:24:29,740
what the fuck, dude? What are. You're actually insane.

384
00:24:30,300 --> 00:24:33,300
Actually, it's just. It doesn't work for me. I don't.

385
00:24:33,800 --> 00:24:37,100
Yeah, she gets there. So she's soaking wet.

386
00:24:37,180 --> 00:24:40,500
Oh, the reason that she knows where he lives is because he tells her that

387
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:43,660
he lives above the bar and that he's gonna be there all night. Basically,

388
00:24:43,740 --> 00:24:47,220
he's like, I'm up until at least midnight, so anytime you're ready for

389
00:24:47,720 --> 00:24:51,340
the dip. Yeah, exactly. Come on over. Yeah. She shows up.

390
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:55,400
She's soaking wet. She's got no bra, no panties. Aiden gets her a towel.

391
00:24:55,900 --> 00:24:59,720
And then all Aiden has is, like, an oversized T shirt,

392
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,280
and it, like, leaves her coochie, as she calls

393
00:25:04,780 --> 00:25:08,640
it, hanging out. He tells her he likes looking at her,

394
00:25:09,140 --> 00:25:11,640
and she tells him she wants him to do more than look.

395
00:25:11,880 --> 00:25:14,760
They make out. And then he lays her back on his bed,

396
00:25:15,240 --> 00:25:19,160
licking and kissing her body. He goes down on her to orgasm. And then he

397
00:25:19,400 --> 00:25:23,000
herself then rolls them over and tells her to move,

398
00:25:23,500 --> 00:25:26,960
and she rides him until they both come again. Can we talk about how this

399
00:25:27,460 --> 00:25:30,760
author writes a sex scene? Because I have a quote.

400
00:25:31,400 --> 00:25:34,600
Oh, my God. I am. If you have the same quote I do.

401
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,800
Literally, I am dying. I have asterisks here. And I say I have to

402
00:25:39,300 --> 00:25:42,440
address how bad the scene is. And then, quote. Go ahead.

403
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:45,800
You go. You go. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. This is the best.

404
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,200
This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I'm so excited about this.

405
00:25:49,280 --> 00:25:53,080
Can't. He suckles on her clit like he's drawing milk from

406
00:25:53,580 --> 00:25:56,480
a nipple. That is the exact quote that I have. That.

407
00:25:57,040 --> 00:26:00,240
Oh, my God. The. Oh, my God.

408
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,200
The unbearable. Why that. That's.

409
00:26:04,700 --> 00:26:07,600
That is the quote, you guys. I'm not exaggerating. She's not.

410
00:26:08,100 --> 00:26:10,560
That is the literal quote. I have it written down right here. It is.

411
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:14,800
I couldn't have gotten turned on by this book if I tried.

412
00:26:15,120 --> 00:26:16,480
Nope. Even if I was ovul.

413
00:26:19,580 --> 00:26:23,620
Suckles. I Even the word suckles. But then saying drying

414
00:26:24,120 --> 00:26:27,540
milk from a nipple, I can't honestly look at. The thing of it is,

415
00:26:28,040 --> 00:26:30,860
is, like, I get it. There's only so many ways that you can write a

416
00:26:31,360 --> 00:26:34,299
sex scene. And I honestly. But honestly, what works, works. Yeah.

417
00:26:34,460 --> 00:26:37,860
Come on. I understand wanting to have, like, a different way of

418
00:26:38,360 --> 00:26:42,300
saying something. There's a reason you've never heard this written like this before.

419
00:26:42,940 --> 00:26:46,220
I also have another quote here later. She says I

420
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,280
bounce up and down on his hard cock until my thighs are ach. And it's

421
00:26:50,780 --> 00:26:53,920
just like the way that she describes it. Like, I bounce up and down on

422
00:26:54,420 --> 00:26:57,960
his hard cock. Like, yeah, what the f. What type of. No.

423
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:01,320
What are we describing? Writing, grinding. Anything else.

424
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,360
Anything else. Oh, God. But everything in this book is so

425
00:27:05,860 --> 00:27:09,680
bad. Yeah, it is. They bask. Aiden tells her she's

426
00:27:10,180 --> 00:27:12,480
staying the night, and then they have sex again. And then they wake up the

427
00:27:12,980 --> 00:27:16,160
next morning together. Aiden asks if she's awake,

428
00:27:16,660 --> 00:27:20,410
and when she confirms, he says, good. I need to fuck you again. And then

429
00:27:20,910 --> 00:27:24,410
this is where he adopts her nickname, Bunny Rabbit.

430
00:27:24,570 --> 00:27:26,970
Nicole is. Nicole is offended.

431
00:27:28,570 --> 00:27:32,010
And the way, like, he started, he calls her Bunny, which I didn't.

432
00:27:32,170 --> 00:27:35,969
I don't like it. Yeah, it wasn't the worst. But then he evolves

433
00:27:36,469 --> 00:27:39,730
into calling her Rabbit. Yeah, I'm sorry.

434
00:27:40,230 --> 00:27:43,130
Authors, take note. There doesn't always have to be a nickname. Oh, my. There does

435
00:27:43,630 --> 00:27:46,970
not always need a pet name so much. So 100% if you can't.

436
00:27:47,690 --> 00:27:51,450
I actually think it's sexier when people use their names, their real names.

437
00:27:51,690 --> 00:27:54,970
So if we're choosing between fluffy

438
00:27:55,470 --> 00:27:59,250
animals and fucking somebody's real name, Rabbit, stick with their

439
00:27:59,750 --> 00:28:03,649
real fucking name. No, if somebody calls me Rabbit, I. I am out 100%.

440
00:28:04,149 --> 00:28:06,850
I don't care what the dick looks like. Could you imagine trying to have sex

441
00:28:07,350 --> 00:28:11,010
with somebody while they're calling you Rabbit? I know. It reminds

442
00:28:11,510 --> 00:28:15,130
me of Super Troopers. Like, I think one of them is, like, rabbit or something,

443
00:28:15,290 --> 00:28:17,690
and it icks me out to another.

444
00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:22,200
The thing of it is, is, like, don't fucking ruin them for me because I

445
00:28:22,700 --> 00:28:26,280
am obsessed with rabbits. And I just, like, you're ruining

446
00:28:26,780 --> 00:28:29,600
it. You're ruining rabbits for me. All right,

447
00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:33,440
well, so now here he says he's going to fuck her rough,

448
00:28:33,940 --> 00:28:37,960
and she says, not if you can't catch me. And then they proceed

449
00:28:38,460 --> 00:28:41,320
to play catch, like, catch me if you can, in his living room.

450
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,030
He catches her and, air quotes, punishes her with

451
00:28:46,530 --> 00:28:49,670
spankings. She manages to get away by, like,

452
00:28:50,170 --> 00:28:53,470
feigning a trip to the bathroom, which I just, like, also fucking hated. So stupid.

453
00:28:53,630 --> 00:28:56,670
So fucking stupid. What are you, like, Kayla, you're a fucking

454
00:28:57,170 --> 00:29:00,510
idiot. Honest to God. Well, and I just, like, this is the thing is,

455
00:29:01,010 --> 00:29:04,110
like, I've never played a primal game of chase before.

456
00:29:04,190 --> 00:29:06,990
So, like, maybe I don't understand, but, like,

457
00:29:07,550 --> 00:29:11,590
in my mind, I feel like the physicality

458
00:29:12,090 --> 00:29:15,880
of it is. Is the fun of it. Like, if you get caught and

459
00:29:16,380 --> 00:29:20,400
you can't physically get your way out of it, then you don't get to

460
00:29:20,900 --> 00:29:23,240
cheat. You get fucked. You don't get to cheat and be like, oh, I have

461
00:29:23,740 --> 00:29:26,920
to go to the bathroom. Like, yeah, that. You weren't doing anything there. No.

462
00:29:27,420 --> 00:29:31,120
Like, what are you doing? No. Anyways, she gets caught again, of course,

463
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:35,480
and then she gets fucked bent over the dining room table until they

464
00:29:35,980 --> 00:29:39,210
both come. And then he praises her

465
00:29:39,530 --> 00:29:42,490
for taking his cum like a good bunny.

466
00:29:42,730 --> 00:29:46,290
Also, this is, like, date. This is. They've known each other for

467
00:29:46,790 --> 00:29:50,530
12 hours, and they're at this point where they're basically at,

468
00:29:51,030 --> 00:29:55,530
like, master slave. They have not had any conversations

469
00:29:55,690 --> 00:29:59,610
about consent or boundaries or no safe words or

470
00:29:59,850 --> 00:30:03,290
anything. I have another quote here. Never in my life

471
00:30:03,790 --> 00:30:07,070
would I think that I would have to hate quote something. But apparently this

472
00:30:07,570 --> 00:30:10,710
book, I'm gonna do that. This is the writing. This is what we're dealing with.

473
00:30:10,790 --> 00:30:14,390
This sentence. She says, he kisses me hard

474
00:30:14,710 --> 00:30:19,030
and then flips me onto my belly so easily. It's ridiculous.

475
00:30:19,750 --> 00:30:23,190
That's the type of, like, elementary writing.

476
00:30:23,590 --> 00:30:27,150
If you don't know what I'm gonna fucking give this book for prose by this

477
00:30:27,650 --> 00:30:31,910
point, I like. I don't know what to tell you because it's so fucking

478
00:30:31,990 --> 00:30:35,630
bad. Like, also, he fucks

479
00:30:36,130 --> 00:30:39,510
her three times in 15 minutes. He gets it back up each

480
00:30:40,010 --> 00:30:42,590
time. Not realistic.

481
00:30:42,910 --> 00:30:46,190
Oh, no. Three times and back to

482
00:30:46,690 --> 00:30:50,070
back. Oh, my God. I have been with. I have

483
00:30:50,570 --> 00:30:52,830
not been with a ton of men. I have never had that.

484
00:30:53,310 --> 00:30:56,390
My husband can do that. Jesus Christ. Well, fine.

485
00:30:56,890 --> 00:30:59,830
I take that back. Well, I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to go the

486
00:31:00,330 --> 00:31:03,300
rest of your life thinking that it was not possible because it is. Honestly,

487
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,140
I could have. Because I'm with this one, my one soulmate for the

488
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,460
rest of my life, and he cannot do

489
00:31:11,960 --> 00:31:15,340
that. I'm so sorry, Dave. But it's still so good. Yeah. You guys

490
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:18,900
are happy. You love him. Exactly. You guys have good sex. So it's fine.

491
00:31:20,260 --> 00:31:23,780
There's aftercare. They here. They decide to establish a safe

492
00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:28,180
word, and he discloses that he previously

493
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,610
spent time in prison. And it's insinuated that it's because he killed his father,

494
00:31:33,010 --> 00:31:36,250
which doesn't bother her or send up any red flags to her at

495
00:31:36,750 --> 00:31:39,810
all. She doesn't even ask about it. She's like. She says something along the lines

496
00:31:40,310 --> 00:31:43,250
of, like, you know what? It's his life and it's his business.

497
00:31:43,750 --> 00:31:46,770
It's not my business. And I don't. And it's like, ma', am, ma', am,

498
00:31:47,730 --> 00:31:50,810
if you are having primal sex

499
00:31:51,310 --> 00:31:54,530
with a murderer, I think, like, you should probably get some. Yes.

500
00:31:54,610 --> 00:31:57,840
Context. Yeah. Haunting Adeline was written so much better

501
00:31:58,340 --> 00:32:01,360
because what's her name from Haunting Adeline did have a problem with Zade chopping people's

502
00:32:01,860 --> 00:32:04,240
hands off. 100%. Yeah. And Kayla is just, like,

503
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:09,800
not my monkeys. He honestly so

504
00:32:10,300 --> 00:32:14,080
True. Aiden pays for his friend Jake to

505
00:32:14,580 --> 00:32:18,960
install a security system at Kayla's house. And Kayla is again.

506
00:32:19,460 --> 00:32:23,320
This is a checklist. Yes. Is creeped out after seeing a man staring

507
00:32:23,820 --> 00:32:26,240
at her from the tree line. And upon investigating,

508
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:31,240
finds her ex husband's favorite buffalo nickel amongst

509
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:34,920
the undisturbed ground where she saw the man standing.

510
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:39,040
We again have to go back to the fact that they have known each other

511
00:32:39,540 --> 00:32:43,320
12 hours and he just paid somebody to install a high tech

512
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:47,400
security system in her home. It's a checklist. She googled protective

513
00:32:47,900 --> 00:32:51,600
man. Oh, God. Mildly obsessed protective man. And he

514
00:32:52,100 --> 00:32:55,290
will always. That's so true. Put in a security system for you.

515
00:32:55,790 --> 00:32:59,530
That's so true. I just want to point out that Lucian waited until

516
00:33:00,030 --> 00:33:03,170
he and Sloan and know each other for like 25 years. Before he installed his

517
00:33:03,670 --> 00:33:06,930
security and Zay did it without what's her name's permission.

518
00:33:07,090 --> 00:33:10,290
Yeah. That's what you're. That's the way to do it. Yeah.

519
00:33:10,370 --> 00:33:13,370
Yeah. If you're gonna ask permission or you're gonna do it when she knows about

520
00:33:13,870 --> 00:33:17,010
it, you got a month. Yeah. 12 hours.

521
00:33:17,510 --> 00:33:21,500
You've had three good sex. Yeah. Good dicks. And now you're

522
00:33:21,660 --> 00:33:25,100
ready for. Now you're ready for me. For you to buy things for me.

523
00:33:25,820 --> 00:33:26,780
I mean, actually.

524
00:33:28,620 --> 00:33:32,220
Dream. All right. She has

525
00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:35,940
also begun corresponding regularly with her pen pal Dante,

526
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:40,420
and is feeling more and more haunted in her home. Time is

527
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:44,340
unclear here. Has it been a few days, a week? We really don't

528
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:48,220
know. And Kayla is drinking a lot and experiencing like,

529
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:52,460
memory loss and like blackout and drawing

530
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:56,780
photos of the man she saw at the tree and seeing

531
00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,180
bruises on her body in photographs.

532
00:34:00,580 --> 00:34:03,940
She's just like. There's just. There's. So honestly,

533
00:34:04,020 --> 00:34:07,180
recapping this, I was like, I could include that. I could include that. I could

534
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:09,580
include that. And I was like, I'm not fucking including any of it because it

535
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,980
all just fucking sucks. Yeah, there's a lot I skipped a lot. Yeah.

536
00:34:13,220 --> 00:34:16,420
So the most of the book is sex. Like, it could have been

537
00:34:16,740 --> 00:34:20,620
truly Pucci. And fun if the

538
00:34:21,120 --> 00:34:24,660
sex scenes were well done. I don't want to hear about somebody suckling milk from

539
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:28,500
my nipple. No. All right. She goes to Aiden's to seek comfort.

540
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:32,180
He pulls her inside. He starts kissing her. He lays her back on

541
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:36,420
his mattress. And after accusing her of using

542
00:34:36,900 --> 00:34:40,100
love frequently when describing what she likes,

543
00:34:40,340 --> 00:34:44,180
he flips her over and he spanks her. He fingers her from behind,

544
00:34:44,260 --> 00:34:47,460
telling her to beg him to let her come, which she does.

545
00:34:47,970 --> 00:34:51,930
And just as she's about to come he withdraws his fingers and fucks her from

546
00:34:52,430 --> 00:34:55,930
behind, eventually letting her come, followed by his own

547
00:34:56,430 --> 00:34:59,610
orgasm. And these people have never used protection and they never talk about

548
00:35:00,110 --> 00:35:03,090
using protection. Nope. No. She's like, oh, stranger who lives above a bar,

549
00:35:03,490 --> 00:35:05,330
I am definitely gonna let you fuck me. Wrong.

550
00:35:06,850 --> 00:35:10,690
Afterwards, they talk briefly about her husband and

551
00:35:10,850 --> 00:35:14,350
her guilt. And then he tells her to sit on his

552
00:35:14,850 --> 00:35:18,230
face. Here starts this command

553
00:35:18,550 --> 00:35:22,150
that she call him master, which she

554
00:35:22,650 --> 00:35:26,390
does willingly. We have the

555
00:35:26,470 --> 00:35:29,630
obligatory I'm going to smother you and I don't care

556
00:35:30,130 --> 00:35:33,270
conversation. And then she rides his face until he pulls

557
00:35:33,770 --> 00:35:36,990
her down and flips around to make her suck his cock.

558
00:35:37,490 --> 00:35:42,050
And then he gives her head. They both come and she swallows.

559
00:35:42,370 --> 00:35:45,810
I can't even begin to express to you how bad

560
00:35:46,310 --> 00:35:49,730
all of that was. Literally, it's to your point.

561
00:35:50,230 --> 00:35:53,250
It does feel like really badly written porn. Yes, like,

562
00:35:53,750 --> 00:35:57,650
it does. It feels like it. This is like the type of that

563
00:35:58,150 --> 00:36:01,770
like you see in like an AO3 fanfic

564
00:36:02,270 --> 00:36:05,970
room written by somebody who is like way too young to be in

565
00:36:06,290 --> 00:36:09,490
on that website. This is a fanfic Melissa wrote in High School. 100%.

566
00:36:09,990 --> 00:36:12,540
Yes. Yes, absolutely. It's fucking crazy.

567
00:36:12,780 --> 00:36:15,940
Also, I think, like, I didn't really talk about it. Another weird

568
00:36:16,440 --> 00:36:20,020
kind of thing is that she never tells Aiden

569
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,900
that she. That her husband is dead. She just says that he went away and

570
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:28,060
like continues to wear. He's gone. Her ring. Yeah. And he's like,

571
00:36:28,220 --> 00:36:30,980
you're not taking off your ring. And it's just like, oh, God, I don't know.

572
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,740
It's the whole thing. They had the relationship label conversation,

573
00:36:35,240 --> 00:36:39,380
deciding their in despite Kayla

574
00:36:39,880 --> 00:36:43,300
still wearing her ring. And then he sends her home in

575
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,820
her car. Yeah. Is this where he's like not having it? Where he's like,

576
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,300
well, they like decide. And then he's like, what you need is space.

577
00:36:50,540 --> 00:36:54,060
Yes. And he sends her home. And in her

578
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:58,420
car she finds the. That buffalo nickel again. Of her. Of her

579
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:02,500
ex husband or her dead husband. It's on the dashboard.

580
00:37:03,000 --> 00:37:06,620
And then she returns home totally spooked. She finds

581
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,620
Fiona cleaning. Fiona makes them tea. And it's revealed that Fiona

582
00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:14,540
thinks Kayla's house has ghosts. She recommends a seance.

583
00:37:15,180 --> 00:37:18,300
Honestly, Fiona has the solutions. Yeah. Fiona's like, girl,

584
00:37:18,780 --> 00:37:22,180
it's haunted. Let's come up with a plan. Yeah. Whereas Kayla's just been for

585
00:37:22,680 --> 00:37:25,780
weeks. Like, yeah. Meh. Yeah. Kayla's like,

586
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:29,100
well, I might work on my art. I might drink a little. I might pass

587
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:31,740
out and lose a couple of days and I might have sex With Aiden,

588
00:37:32,240 --> 00:37:35,720
but there might be. A guy watching me. I'm definitely corresponding with her roof.

589
00:37:36,120 --> 00:37:39,160
Her roof is still, like, not fixed all the way.

590
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,560
There's a tarp on her roof. There's a tarp on her roof. And it's just

591
00:37:43,060 --> 00:37:46,160
like, so. Thank God. Honestly, without Fiona, Kayla would be dead.

592
00:37:46,660 --> 00:37:50,040
Honest to God, Fiona is like, all right, we can

593
00:37:50,540 --> 00:37:54,000
do a seance. And, like, conveniently, her sister is a

594
00:37:54,500 --> 00:37:58,200
medium. Kayla agrees and then goes back over to Aiden's again

595
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,210
with no sense of time. Apparently, according to Aiden,

596
00:38:02,710 --> 00:38:06,250
it's been, like, a week. And he rushes to

597
00:38:06,750 --> 00:38:10,330
greet her and has her get on her knees, ordering her to suck his

598
00:38:10,830 --> 00:38:14,570
cock. And she does. And then he tells her to finger herself

599
00:38:15,070 --> 00:38:18,130
but not to come. And eventually he moves

600
00:38:18,630 --> 00:38:21,250
her to her back, ordering her to be silent while he finger fucks her.

601
00:38:21,650 --> 00:38:25,450
She gets away from him briefly. They indulge

602
00:38:25,950 --> 00:38:30,250
in a chase before Aiden catches her and fingers

603
00:38:30,750 --> 00:38:34,050
her ass and then fucks her ass to orgasm. When she

604
00:38:34,550 --> 00:38:36,610
gets there, he literally says, bunny, get over here.

605
00:38:37,890 --> 00:38:41,410
Like, how do you get turned on after that? God, I don't

606
00:38:41,490 --> 00:38:45,570
know. And it's like, could you guys just, like, have a normal conversation?

607
00:38:46,290 --> 00:38:49,250
Honestly, it's a bad porno. It is.

608
00:38:49,330 --> 00:38:54,460
It's. I realized, like, that, like, you can hear the music. It's bounce.

609
00:38:56,780 --> 00:39:00,780
The next day, Aiden takes Kayla out to his property, which is a

610
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:04,780
large Capeside lot that he's started constructing his

611
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:08,620
own home on from scratch. And she still hasn't

612
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:12,660
told Aiden that her husband is dead, but does disclose that she had

613
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:15,180
a miscarriage when she was,

614
00:39:16,220 --> 00:39:19,620
like, pretty far along. And she

615
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:24,310
has, like, a brief memory here from the day that she miscarried.

616
00:39:24,470 --> 00:39:28,110
Sorry, trigger warning. And the memory is specifically, like,

617
00:39:28,610 --> 00:39:31,990
the blood. And then the screaming. And then she realizes

618
00:39:32,490 --> 00:39:35,590
that it's not her screaming. It's like, an angry, like,

619
00:39:35,990 --> 00:39:39,430
voice. And then the memory just kind of fades away. And then

620
00:39:39,910 --> 00:39:42,870
to Nicole's point, she's just like, all right, la di da.

621
00:39:42,950 --> 00:39:46,790
And then just, like, goes on with her life. So she just clearly having

622
00:39:47,290 --> 00:39:51,110
a mentivity. Yeah, a hundred percent. She literally just associate disassociated

623
00:39:51,610 --> 00:39:55,840
and, like, had this, like, really traumatic memory. And then after

624
00:39:56,340 --> 00:40:00,080
this, they engage again in a cat and mouse chase. He literally.

625
00:40:00,580 --> 00:40:02,880
And then she's like, all right, I'm back to the present. You want to chase

626
00:40:03,380 --> 00:40:05,960
me now? And then this whole book is Kayla.

627
00:40:06,460 --> 00:40:09,560
Spiraling and disassociating her fucking

628
00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:12,520
Aiden and writing Dante.

629
00:40:13,320 --> 00:40:16,440
It's like, every chapter. We gotta get all three of those things in here.

630
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:21,100
Yeah. Aiden Catches her twice,

631
00:40:21,660 --> 00:40:25,340
eventually catching her up against a tree and then fingering her and making

632
00:40:25,420 --> 00:40:28,860
her clean his fingers. And then

633
00:40:29,180 --> 00:40:33,420
he, like, throws her over his shoulder and, like, manhandles her to

634
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:37,460
the perfect spot, whatever that is. And then he makes

635
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,020
her beg him to fuck her and then to come, and then they

636
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:45,180
both do. And afterwards he cries and then she comforts

637
00:40:45,680 --> 00:40:48,880
him. What's happening? Literally, what's happening? That's what I

638
00:40:49,380 --> 00:40:51,640
want to know. She's trying to do something. I kind of. I feel like I

639
00:40:52,140 --> 00:40:55,040
figured it out. If this was like a Trulina poochie and it wasn't taking itself

640
00:40:55,540 --> 00:40:59,200
too seriously and it really leaned into the whole, like, 70s porno, honestly,

641
00:40:59,700 --> 00:41:02,400
I think I might have liked it. Sure. If this could have been written for

642
00:41:02,900 --> 00:41:06,320
what it is. But she's trying so hard. Yeah, for sure. Actually,

643
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:08,960
like, do something. Yeah, for sure.

644
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:13,600
Yes. It's gotta be deep. There's gotta be a twist that nobody sees coming.

645
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,710
But everybody saw coming. Yes, absolutely.

646
00:41:17,270 --> 00:41:20,550
When she gets home, Fiona is there again,

647
00:41:21,110 --> 00:41:24,870
but she doesn't remember giving her the code, even though

648
00:41:25,750 --> 00:41:29,150
she was in the house once before, and that didn't seem to

649
00:41:29,650 --> 00:41:33,790
surprise her, so. But whatever. And then Kayla informs

650
00:41:34,290 --> 00:41:37,510
her that she's going to skip the seance and go to therapy instead.

651
00:41:37,750 --> 00:41:42,150
But then the therapist that the handyman recommended is unreachable,

652
00:41:42,650 --> 00:41:45,760
so she goes to town to run some errands. She sees

653
00:41:46,260 --> 00:41:50,240
Aiden with a woman, gets jealous. Aiden spots her

654
00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:54,880
and confronts her. And then clarifies that the

655
00:41:55,380 --> 00:41:58,759
woman is his friend Jake's wife. They have

656
00:41:59,259 --> 00:42:01,840
a tense double date. Aiden sends her home.

657
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,880
And then. Oh, and then Aiden sends her home alone that night.

658
00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:10,520
And then feeling listless, she decides to go into town to see if the therapist

659
00:42:11,020 --> 00:42:14,410
is in his office and gets a reading instead from a

660
00:42:14,910 --> 00:42:18,130
psychic. And then she starts having dreams

661
00:42:18,630 --> 00:42:22,570
that she's drowning. And then she agrees to the seance with Fiona's sister.

662
00:42:22,970 --> 00:42:26,250
That was a pretty good summary. I skipped all of that.

663
00:42:26,750 --> 00:42:30,330
Honestly. Have you ever done a seance? I haven't. Did you ever play?

664
00:42:30,650 --> 00:42:33,010
Not that this is a seance, but when I was a kid, we did that,

665
00:42:33,510 --> 00:42:36,850
like, Bloody Mary game. Oh. Where you're in the bathroom and you say Bloody Mary

666
00:42:37,350 --> 00:42:39,130
three times and, like, spin around and she's supposed to, like, come out of mirror

667
00:42:39,630 --> 00:42:42,520
and kill you? Yes. Yeah. As close as I've gotten, and we never even really

668
00:42:43,020 --> 00:42:45,400
did the Ouija board thing. I didn't have a ton of friends, to be honest.

669
00:42:45,640 --> 00:42:49,760
Sure. But I would do a seance. I should.

670
00:42:50,260 --> 00:42:53,920
We do a seance yeah, we can do a seance. Okay. I grew

671
00:42:54,420 --> 00:42:58,320
up. I went to, like, a Christian church because my best friend Reina went

672
00:42:58,820 --> 00:43:01,520
to a Christian church. And I, like, wanted to spend more time with Reyna.

673
00:43:02,020 --> 00:43:05,600
Yeah. But so I've been, like, confirmed and, like, all of that shit. But I

674
00:43:06,100 --> 00:43:10,160
have always very much taken, like, any type

675
00:43:10,660 --> 00:43:14,320
of, like, pagan or cult or

676
00:43:14,560 --> 00:43:17,600
any of those type of, like, spiritualities,

677
00:43:18,100 --> 00:43:21,840
like, really, really seriously. Oh. And growing up, like, I don't know that I ever

678
00:43:22,340 --> 00:43:25,920
really trusted my friend. I had multiple friends who had Ouija boards that wanted

679
00:43:26,420 --> 00:43:29,280
to do Ouija board with me. And I was like, I don't trust you guys

680
00:43:29,780 --> 00:43:34,070
to do a Ouija board with, like, I don't trust you enough. To be contacting

681
00:43:34,570 --> 00:43:38,270
demons. Yeah. With you. Who, like, convinced me to

682
00:43:38,770 --> 00:43:41,870
smoke that, like, cigarette butt from the ashtray at Perkins.

683
00:43:42,370 --> 00:43:45,630
Like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't know. So there's

684
00:43:46,130 --> 00:43:48,630
a reason that I've never done them before, but I totally would okay with you.

685
00:43:48,950 --> 00:43:52,430
All right. Well, they make contact with a ghost. And after

686
00:43:52,930 --> 00:43:56,310
making contact, it's, like, so intense. And they decide to take a break.

687
00:43:57,030 --> 00:44:00,540
And here is where, for whatever

688
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,700
reason, Fiona decides to share her correspondence with Dante

689
00:44:05,200 --> 00:44:09,020
with the sister. With the sisters. And then Fiona's sister

690
00:44:09,520 --> 00:44:12,940
Claire encourages Kayla to call the detective that she

691
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:17,260
spoke with on her husband's case when he died to

692
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,620
ask him if he knows anything about Dante. And so she does. And then she

693
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:25,260
learns that he's since passed away.

694
00:44:25,970 --> 00:44:29,810
And then they look up the history of the house. They discover that it's been

695
00:44:29,890 --> 00:44:33,850
deeded in another couple's name from months

696
00:44:34,350 --> 00:44:38,450
prior. Yeah, it was like, six months ago. Yeah. Confused, Claire calls

697
00:44:38,950 --> 00:44:42,370
the police station back and asks about when the detective died,

698
00:44:43,010 --> 00:44:46,770
but the timeline is all wrong. The detective had died six

699
00:44:47,270 --> 00:44:50,690
months ago, but according to Kayla, her husband died two months ago.

700
00:44:50,930 --> 00:44:54,150
It all starts to fall into place. Kayla starts to put it together,

701
00:44:54,470 --> 00:44:57,350
and she realizes that her husband didn't die.

702
00:44:57,430 --> 00:45:00,790
He murdered Aiden right before. Da da da.

703
00:45:01,190 --> 00:45:04,790
He murdered Kayla. You knew it from

704
00:45:05,290 --> 00:45:09,150
the first light bulb bursting. You were like, she's dead. Yeah. We were

705
00:45:09,650 --> 00:45:13,430
at work. Nicole was like, we, like. She asked me about,

706
00:45:13,930 --> 00:45:17,030
like, how it was going. Yeah. And I was like. I was at the part

707
00:45:17,530 --> 00:45:21,320
in the book where he had just chased her around the

708
00:45:21,820 --> 00:45:25,000
table for the first time really fucking early into this book.

709
00:45:25,160 --> 00:45:28,440
And I was like, nicole, is she fucking dead? And Nicole,

710
00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:32,760
I was like, what the fuck? I don't. Didn't know

711
00:45:33,260 --> 00:45:36,760
what to say. Nicole just, like, laughed. And I was like, it was

712
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:40,440
when I found out that that's what it was. I. When I fucking tell

713
00:45:40,940 --> 00:45:44,440
you for all the hoops that this fucking author made me go through

714
00:45:44,520 --> 00:45:47,890
to get here, I'm mad about it, but you wasted my

715
00:45:48,390 --> 00:45:51,450
fucking time. That's how I feel. Don't love these books

716
00:45:51,530 --> 00:45:54,810
where we read the whole thing and at the end you find out that the

717
00:45:55,310 --> 00:45:58,810
character's been dead the whole time. And all of this is either memories

718
00:45:58,970 --> 00:46:02,250
or her, like, imagining things now

719
00:46:02,750 --> 00:46:06,010
or being a ghost now. It just is annoying. And the other thing, too is,

720
00:46:06,510 --> 00:46:10,050
like, the way that this all is unraveled and explained happens

721
00:46:10,550 --> 00:46:14,010
in a matter of six pages, literally. So, like, we read this whole book

722
00:46:14,510 --> 00:46:17,570
and then all that gets explained well. And the whole premise, too, is that,

723
00:46:18,070 --> 00:46:20,790
like, in the beginning, Fiona's like, so when we do the seance, the one thing

724
00:46:21,290 --> 00:46:24,030
you can't. If you do approach these ghosts, you can't tell them they're dead because

725
00:46:24,530 --> 00:46:27,750
they could freak out and get trapped here. And then Kayla finds out in six

726
00:46:28,250 --> 00:46:32,070
pages that she's a ghost, and she's just like, yeah, yeah, yeah,

727
00:46:32,570 --> 00:46:36,430
I am. Yeah. Yep. So this whole big, like, lead up was just

728
00:46:36,930 --> 00:46:40,710
for nothing. Well, and the other thing, too, with this is like,

729
00:46:41,190 --> 00:46:44,430
I think that she really kind of

730
00:46:44,930 --> 00:46:48,920
had to jump through hoops to explain sort

731
00:46:49,420 --> 00:46:53,800
of like the timeline of everything, because I think what

732
00:46:54,300 --> 00:46:58,240
we kind of figure out or whatever, this author is

733
00:46:58,740 --> 00:47:02,040
interspersing memories with her death.

734
00:47:02,359 --> 00:47:05,640
Yeah. So the thing. It's two different timelines. Two different timelines.

735
00:47:06,140 --> 00:47:08,920
So the things that are happening with Aiden happened in real life,

736
00:47:09,560 --> 00:47:12,520
but then the things that are happening around her house are, like,

737
00:47:12,960 --> 00:47:16,640
real time. Yep. She's, you know, she's the ghost causing all.

738
00:47:17,140 --> 00:47:20,080
She's the ghost. All right, well, so we'll go to part two. We're on part

739
00:47:20,580 --> 00:47:24,000
two now, which is Purgatorio. And really,

740
00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:28,480
like, I didn't even make notes here. My notes here are the story

741
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:32,080
started notes. And then I kept stopping them because I'm like, oh, nothing happens.

742
00:47:32,580 --> 00:47:35,680
No, yeah, it's. We get the story of Michael. We get the story of Aiden

743
00:47:36,180 --> 00:47:39,280
and Kayla. We learn about the abuse. We learn about the separation anxiety.

744
00:47:39,820 --> 00:47:42,940
We learn about her meeting Aiden. We learn about them falling in love.

745
00:47:43,100 --> 00:47:47,180
And then we get their boat cruise on New Year's Eve, which is interrupted

746
00:47:47,420 --> 00:47:50,700
by Michael, who is upset with Kayla for moving on,

747
00:47:51,180 --> 00:47:54,860
and he shoots Aiden and then he drowns Kayla. And that's.

748
00:47:55,100 --> 00:47:58,660
Well, but Aiden is like, kill me if

749
00:47:59,160 --> 00:48:01,340
I let him kill me. Because we get this from, like, Aiden's perspective. We get

750
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,980
a little bit from Aiden's perspective. He's like, if he can kill me. He'Ll let

751
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:07,540
her live. Which, like, first of all, if you. Guys are this much in love

752
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,620
and, like, soulmates, like, you're kind of trying to be written. She doesn't want to

753
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:14,320
live without you. Right. Second, like, why would you think

754
00:48:14,820 --> 00:48:18,720
that? Right? Why tell me when a domestic abuser

755
00:48:19,220 --> 00:48:22,320
has let the woman live? Well, right? And, like, what. That doesn't happen? Like,

756
00:48:22,820 --> 00:48:25,600
what good are you once you're dead? Like, you're a big, strong roofing man.

757
00:48:26,100 --> 00:48:29,320
Like, why? You could have gone down fighting, and you're just like,

758
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:33,200
shoot me in the head. Let's get this over with. Yeah. You'll let her

759
00:48:33,700 --> 00:48:36,080
live. I know you. I know you've got a heart in there somewhere. Honest to

760
00:48:36,580 --> 00:48:39,800
God, you killed her baby. But, like, you'll let her live. I know it.

761
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:43,080
Yeah. Fucking idiot. And the thing of it is, is, like, I have to go

762
00:48:43,580 --> 00:48:46,440
back to. So I. I said that we were going to circle back to it.

763
00:48:46,940 --> 00:48:50,720
So we learn about this, like, horrific abuse here. Like, we learn about

764
00:48:51,220 --> 00:48:54,480
the way that Kayla was just monstrously abused by this

765
00:48:54,980 --> 00:48:58,360
man. He, like, kicked her and beat her to the

766
00:48:58,860 --> 00:49:02,880
point of having a miscarriage. And then this surly,

767
00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,720
grumpy roofer comes into her kitchen with a bad attitude,

768
00:49:07,220 --> 00:49:10,620
and she's like, listen here, sir, you're not gonna have a bad attitude with me.

769
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:12,020
And it's like, ma', am.

770
00:49:14,580 --> 00:49:18,060
Like, what you doing? What author on

771
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:21,940
the face of this planet would think that that is,

772
00:49:22,020 --> 00:49:25,580
like, actually in line with that character after something like that?

773
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:29,380
Like, yeah, no, it just. Absolutely not. Oh, my God. It's so annoying.

774
00:49:30,020 --> 00:49:34,590
Well, then we get part three. Part three is Paradiso,

775
00:49:35,150 --> 00:49:39,310
and Aiden and Kayla are reunited in the afterlife.

776
00:49:39,630 --> 00:49:43,150
So the whole thing is that, like, his name,

777
00:49:43,650 --> 00:49:47,070
Aiden Lighthouse, was an anagram for Dante, blah, blah, blah.

778
00:49:47,390 --> 00:49:50,710
He's in purgatory, which is prison. So he's in

779
00:49:51,210 --> 00:49:54,750
purgatory writing her letters to try to help her remember him.

780
00:49:55,070 --> 00:49:58,350
Because, again, he can't just tell her. She'll go crazy. Yep. Because he's

781
00:49:58,850 --> 00:50:02,180
stuck. She's stuck, and he's stuck, and they're not together. And he wants her to

782
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,260
pass over, and they pass over into the app. She literally,

783
00:50:05,980 --> 00:50:09,820
literally sees a light. Like, that is

784
00:50:10,320 --> 00:50:13,700
how this is described. Yeah. I have been strangled to the point

785
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,260
where I was literally dead. You do not see a light.

786
00:50:17,820 --> 00:50:21,540
You will hear things. You will smell things. You do not see light. That's not

787
00:50:22,040 --> 00:50:25,420
a thing. Then we get an epilogue and in the epilogue, they haunt Michael.

788
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:29,450
I fucking hated it, though. It's. You could have done more.

789
00:50:29,950 --> 00:50:32,410
Now you made him seem crazy. So he's getting off on a psych defense.

790
00:50:32,910 --> 00:50:35,610
Right. Because that's the other thing too, is like, in case I have to clarify

791
00:50:36,110 --> 00:50:38,250
this, Michael is not dead. It wasn't her husband's funeral that she was at in

792
00:50:38,750 --> 00:50:41,050
the beginning of the book. It was her own funeral that she was at in

793
00:50:41,550 --> 00:50:43,690
the beginning of the book. The only clever thing that I feel like she did

794
00:50:44,190 --> 00:50:47,890
here is when she had Dante writing from the prison that Michael was incarcerated

795
00:50:48,390 --> 00:50:50,690
at. That's the only clever thing I feel that this book did. Sure, sure,

796
00:50:51,190 --> 00:50:53,850
sure, sure. But then they just go and they haunt him so that he's crazy

797
00:50:54,350 --> 00:50:56,530
and cowering in a corner seeing things. And now he's got enough on a psych

798
00:50:57,030 --> 00:50:59,830
defense and he's out murdering his next wife. Yep.

799
00:50:59,990 --> 00:51:03,270
Cool ending, bro. Wow. At least wait

800
00:51:03,770 --> 00:51:07,430
until he's in prison to haunt him. Like Jesus. Yeah. All right,

801
00:51:08,390 --> 00:51:12,230
well, that was that book. I actually feel

802
00:51:12,310 --> 00:51:15,670
like a little bit. Lighter now that we're past this.

803
00:51:15,990 --> 00:51:18,710
We're on the other side of pen pal. Yes.

804
00:51:19,670 --> 00:51:23,350
Thank God for that. All right, should we.

805
00:51:23,850 --> 00:51:26,390
Oh, I suppose I have to talk about the author. Yeah, tell me about her

806
00:51:26,890 --> 00:51:30,180
because I don't know anything about her. Oh, she's gorgeous.

807
00:51:30,740 --> 00:51:33,140
Really? Yeah. Wow.

808
00:51:34,420 --> 00:51:37,460
See, I can say nice things. Yeah. When they're true.

809
00:51:37,700 --> 00:51:41,180
J.C. geisinger is a New York Times, USA Today,

810
00:51:41,680 --> 00:51:45,780
Publishers Weekly and Amazon charts best selling author of

811
00:51:46,020 --> 00:51:49,220
35 novels and novellas.

812
00:51:49,380 --> 00:51:52,860
What? Oh. Ranging from funny,

813
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,900
feisty rom coms to intense erotic thrillers. Her books have sold over 20 million

814
00:51:57,400 --> 00:52:00,440
copies worldwide, been translated into more than two dozen languages.

815
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:04,440
She's a three time finalist in both contemporary and paranormal romance for the

816
00:52:04,940 --> 00:52:08,640
RITA Award, the highest distinction in romance fiction from the Romance Writers of America.

817
00:52:09,140 --> 00:52:12,880
She's also a recipient of the Prism Award for Best first book, the Golden Quill

818
00:52:13,380 --> 00:52:17,160
Award for best Paranormal Urban Fantasy, and the Holt Medallion for best Erotic

819
00:52:17,660 --> 00:52:21,640
Romance. I have to be very honest, that's incredibly surprising

820
00:52:22,140 --> 00:52:26,210
to me. I. I just went to Barnes and Noble the other day and

821
00:52:27,090 --> 00:52:31,090
her section on that shelf only has two books.

822
00:52:31,570 --> 00:52:35,170
Interesting. So for somebody to have such a large catalog

823
00:52:35,650 --> 00:52:39,370
have only two books and one of them be pen pal at Barnes and

824
00:52:39,870 --> 00:52:43,010
Noble? I don't know. My Barnes and Nobles are pretty stacked.

825
00:52:43,170 --> 00:52:45,730
I don't know. Those accolades seem a little inflated to me.

826
00:52:46,450 --> 00:52:49,930
Well, stay tuned for our ratings. Before we jump into that, just a

827
00:52:50,430 --> 00:52:53,650
friendly reminder to like and follow us on social media.

828
00:52:54,150 --> 00:52:57,420
We are platartartspod on all platforms. We are

829
00:52:57,920 --> 00:53:01,380
on. We are still on booksletspodcast.com if you want

830
00:53:01,880 --> 00:53:05,100
to link to all of our socials. We just haven't updated the website name

831
00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:09,140
yet. And then, of course, we always want to do our customary thank you to

832
00:53:09,640 --> 00:53:13,780
Pagel, who is letting us record in her greenhouse

833
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:16,940
on the front of her house. So thank you so much to paggle for that.

834
00:53:17,340 --> 00:53:19,900
Let's jump into ratings. All right. Spice level.

835
00:53:20,460 --> 00:53:24,830
Spice level. I'm going to give this book A1. This book was terrible.

836
00:53:25,330 --> 00:53:27,550
And I did not think it was spicy at all. I thought it was actually

837
00:53:28,050 --> 00:53:31,070
grotesque most of the time. Sure. Maybe I should have.

838
00:53:31,310 --> 00:53:34,630
I gave it a four. Yeah. I was like, there is a lot of sex.

839
00:53:35,130 --> 00:53:38,350
It is graphic. Ish. Graphic. Ish. Yep. It's.

840
00:53:38,850 --> 00:53:42,110
It's graphic. Yeah. It's horrifying and it won't get you there.

841
00:53:42,350 --> 00:53:45,910
Yeah. But if you are. Maybe. Maybe it will. I don't.

842
00:53:46,410 --> 00:53:49,550
It seems like it works for some people, I guess. Yeah. For sure.

843
00:53:50,110 --> 00:53:53,530
This will be fun writing. Yeah. Spice frequency.

844
00:53:53,770 --> 00:53:56,570
I would probably give it a 5. There's a lot of it. I'd give it

845
00:53:57,070 --> 00:54:00,570
a 4.5. There's a lot of sex. It just was horribly executed.

846
00:54:01,070 --> 00:54:04,930
Yeah. Yeah. Pros. I would give this book solid one

847
00:54:05,430 --> 00:54:07,370
and a half. Two. I think I'm gonna give it a two. Yeah. I gave

848
00:54:07,870 --> 00:54:11,090
it a two. Dramatically. It's not like. It's not unreadable. It's not

849
00:54:11,590 --> 00:54:15,130
unreadable. And I've definitely read somebody books that are borderline unreadable.

850
00:54:15,450 --> 00:54:18,690
This is a coherent novel. Well.

851
00:54:20,770 --> 00:54:24,930
It'S a readable novel. Yeah. That's good clarification.

852
00:54:25,430 --> 00:54:28,530
Yeah. Yeah. Storyline. Storyline. I would give it 5.

853
00:54:28,930 --> 00:54:32,210
Interesting. The premise of this is. But that's

854
00:54:32,710 --> 00:54:36,490
the problem. Which premise? Are we talking ghost story? Are we talking pen pal?

855
00:54:36,990 --> 00:54:40,330
Are we talking, like, what are we talking? I gave it

856
00:54:40,830 --> 00:54:43,330
a one because I felt like it was too many stories.

857
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:47,120
Sure. Jumbled into one story. Sure. And nothing

858
00:54:47,620 --> 00:54:50,880
was finalized, so I gave it a one. Yeah. I'm gonna stick with my five.

859
00:54:51,380 --> 00:54:54,840
It's okay. Overall. Overall, I give this book a one. Okay.

860
00:54:55,340 --> 00:54:58,760
I gave it a 2.5. Yep. It's not the worst thing I've read.

861
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:03,520
I read it twice. Yeah. I can't say that about a lot

862
00:55:04,020 --> 00:55:07,600
of books I hated that much. Sure. How many times did you read Banging Blue?

863
00:55:08,100 --> 00:55:11,570
Winner. Just once. Just once. That one was a

864
00:55:11,650 --> 00:55:13,170
one too many times.

865
00:55:16,290 --> 00:55:20,250
I would literally never read this

866
00:55:20,750 --> 00:55:24,050
book again. I would never recommend it to anybody. This is an ABSTAIN

867
00:55:24,550 --> 00:55:27,810
for me. Same. Abstain hard. Nicole, if you

868
00:55:28,310 --> 00:55:31,970
like books that I like. Abstain. Yes. We're out on this one.

869
00:55:32,470 --> 00:55:36,060
Yeah. So sorry. Yikes. Yeah,

870
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:39,500
I actually. I do feel lighter. Like, my chest feels lighter. I'm really glad that

871
00:55:40,000 --> 00:55:43,140
I could just. Like, we got over this. We got to, like, really express

872
00:55:43,640 --> 00:55:47,620
ourselves. Oh, my God.

873
00:55:48,420 --> 00:55:51,140
All right, so, well, thank you so much for listening.

874
00:55:51,380 --> 00:55:54,420
Join us next time. We are. If we.

875
00:55:55,780 --> 00:55:58,980
I know we said that we weren't gonna do it, you guys. And we.

876
00:55:59,480 --> 00:56:02,540
You guys are obsessed with haunting Adeline, so now we have to. We need the

877
00:56:03,040 --> 00:56:06,330
resolution. Amanda needs a good resolution. Yeah, the thing of it is,

878
00:56:06,830 --> 00:56:10,570
is, like, I re. Listened to the episode today, and I got

879
00:56:11,070 --> 00:56:13,850
all the way to the end, and I kind of forgot that it was.

880
00:56:14,350 --> 00:56:17,610
It ended on a cliffhanger shoot. I know.

881
00:56:18,110 --> 00:56:21,050
Which doesn't, like, set a good tone for how much I actually like the book.

882
00:56:21,290 --> 00:56:24,610
No, you know that I forgot that. But we'll see.

883
00:56:25,110 --> 00:56:28,490
It doesn't sound like I'm writing either. Oh, God. Yeah.

884
00:56:28,570 --> 00:56:31,610
She's. Yeah. Gonna be better than this.

885
00:56:32,650 --> 00:56:36,050
All right, well, I'm Amanda. And I'm Nicole. And we are

886
00:56:36,550 --> 00:56:37,410
Plot charts. We'll see you next time.