Latest / Rachel Oates / BookTok's Worst: Freida McFadden

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BookTok's Worst: Freida McFadden · Rachel Oates

• 0:00
  I love a good crime thriller or psychological thriller or even
• 0:04
  like a cosy mystery. Just like any any kind of book
• 0:07
  like that. I absolutely love it.
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  They are easy to read, there is something satisfying about
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  knowing the bad guy gets caught at the end, and I usually enjoy
• 0:15
  a good ridiculous plot twist every now and again because you
• 0:17
  know me, I'm a big soap fan. I love my EastEnders.
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  Give me that in a crime novel. Love it.
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  Cheesy, dramatic. It's a lot of fun, isn't it?
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  It doesn't necessarily have to be believable, just good camp
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  fun. That said, I do think there are
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  some topics which do need to be handled sensitively and you can
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  do that in a way that is not necessarily mocking or
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  downplaying or even glamorising the crime or issue happening
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  while still being entertaining. So the past few years I've been
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  hearing about kind of like a new massive big name in the thriller
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  genre of books, and that is Freda McFadden.
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  And I was like, oh OK, I'm seeing her on a lot of lists.
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  I'm seeing her name everywhere. I'm seeing just tonne of books
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  out. Let's give her a try.
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  I started with The Housemaid, in which every female character was
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  dripping in internalised misogyny and the twist was lol
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  this woman's not crazy, she's just the victim of domestic
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  violence. Bet you didn't see that coming
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  and it felt a little insensitive.
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  I found the writing average best, although it was quick and
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  easy to read, but I didn't particularly enjoy the plot,
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  setting, or characters. Still, I was like, you know
• 1:28
  what? She's not as bad as, for
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  example, Colleen Hoover or Penelope Douglas by any means,
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  so let's give her another try. Maybe I just picked a bad book,
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  you know? So this time I picked a
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  standalone novel of hers titled With the Teacher, and this one
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  was worse. This one made me so damn angry I
• 1:43
  had to make a video about it. I have thoughts, I have
• 1:46
  feelings. I just cannot handle this book.
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  The teacher and the housemate have very similar setups in that
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  the majority of the book is told from the perspective of two
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  women. Or rather, the teacher is not so
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  much two women but a woman and a young girl.
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  And these two female characters are pitted against each other by
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  an awful man. And everyone does awful stuff
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  all the time. And this book seems really
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  confused about whether it is romanticising or condemning
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  grooming. It cannot make up its mind.
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  Today we're going to be looking at the book.
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  I'm going to be giving you a quick overview of the plot, talk
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  about the characters, talk about what I liked about it, what I
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  didn't, and how it's a very confusing experience which
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  ultimately left me quite angry. Before we get into that, though,
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  I just want to say a huge thank you for all the support on my
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  last video because it was overwhelming.
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  It was really, really damn lovely and there was some
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  amazing feedback from people. So I just have to thank you.
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  And I've been in a little through with my videos recently,
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  and that was a really nice little little way out of that
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  and a little positive thing. And yeah, thank you.
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  The important thing to say before we start is one, this
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  video is going to cover some very, very sensitive topics
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  around the grooming and abuse of children.
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  So please put yourself first and only watch if you are able to.
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  And secondly, there will of course be spoilers for this
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  book. Many of them, all of them.
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  So bear that in mind. Freda Mcfadden's The Teacher is
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  primarily told from the perspective of two characters,
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  neither of which have very distinct voices from each other,
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  which is odd because one is meant to be a naive 16 year old
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  girl and the other a 30 year old maths teacher.
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  I think Freda does a good job of making the girl sound young and
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  naive and quite immature, and yet the Teacher also sounds like
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  that at times, so that's a little annoying.
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  First up, we are introduced to Eve and her husband Nate.
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  Both are teachers of the local secondary school, with him
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  teaching English and her maths. He is several years older than
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  her, but apparently he's just super hot and all the kids have
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  a crush on him. Eve, however, is struggling
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  because she's just turning 30 and that's so disgustingly old.
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  And now her husband, who is at many times described as pushing
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  40, is not attracted to her anymore and won't even touch her
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  because she's so old and disgusting.
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  Instead of having a happy marriage and trying to have the
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  baby that she supposedly wants to have, she instead spends her
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  time getting into debt, buying designer shoes for thousands of
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  pounds or dollars I guess that she can't actually afford, and
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  she hides them from her husband. She also seems to hate her job
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  as a teacher, or at least gets no joy out of it whatsoever.
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  The students hate her, she hates the students.
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  It's all very awkward. I'm not entirely sure what she's
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  doing with her life other than being miserable.
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  That's her main character trait, misery and debt.
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  Up next we have 16 year old Addy who has no friends at school and
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  some serious unaddressed mental health issues.
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  We find out of the course of the first half of the book that in
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  the last school year, Addie became really obsessed with one
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  of her male math teachers, a 50 something year old man called
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  Art Tuttle, who she saw as a sort of surrogate father figure.
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  Her and her mother would often, like go round to the Tuttles for
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  dinner. At the Tuttles, Art and his wife
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  joined them for dinner and Addie kind of got obsessed with him to
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  the point where she literally stalked them and would just turn
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  up outside their house and watch them going about their business,
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  you know, watching them through the kitchen window as she camped
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  out in the garden. She got caught doing this and it
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  all got blown out of proportion. And instead of people saying, oh
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  God, Addy are you OK, let's get you some therapy, everyone
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  jumped to the conclusion that, ah, there must be a sexually
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  explicit relationship going on between this 50 year old man and
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  at the time 15 year old girl. And then he lost his job and
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  everyone blames her for it and is mad about it.
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  And half the people think she was sleeping with him and the
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  other half think she lied about it just to be malicious and
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  whatever. But in reality, she just didn't
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  say anything. She was like, nothing happened
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  and no one believed her. And now, like several months
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  later, instead of getting this child the therapy that she
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  clearly so desperately needs, either because she was abused or
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  she is a stalker, it's the latter.
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  And either way, she needs help, you know?
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  And but everyone is just trying to brush it under the rug or
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  bully her for it. And that goes for adults and
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  students alike. In particular, one student,
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  Kenzie, is relentlessly bullying her in the meanest ways, which
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  genuinely gave me anxiety to read.
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  It's a really, really disgusting portrayal of bullying that is
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  quite accurate, but it gave me a lot of anxiety.
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  Eve, the maths teacher, was good friends with art and so she
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  blames Addie for him losing his job and turning to an alcoholic.
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  And now she resents the fact that she has to teach Addie this
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  year in her class. Addie also hates Eve because she
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  thinks she's a mean teacher who isn't interested in her job.
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  And to be honest, she's right. Addie also struggles with maths
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  in general. So that's the thing, in the very
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  first few chapters, Freda is setting up the narrative of this
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  whole book, which is basically setting up these two women, or
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  rather a woman and a young girl who should be supporting each
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  other. Or again, rather this adult
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  woman should be supporting her young vulnerable student who is
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  very likely mentally ill. But instead she sets them up to
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  be fighting each other over a man.
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  And this continues throughout the book.
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  They just fight over men throughout the whole book.
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  It only gets worse. They're very short chapters, so
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  as of chapter 5 it ends with Eve saying I didn't want her in my
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  class. Or is the best person I've ever
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  had the honour of knowing a dedicated teacher who truly
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  cared about every single one of his students.
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  If he weren't that way, he would have never gotten into trouble
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  in the 1st place. And now because of this girl,
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  his life is ruined. But if I'd really thought about
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  it, I would have known that it doesn't make a difference all if
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  Addie Severson is in my class. The thing I really need to worry
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  about Addie is in my husband's class too.
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  We also find out at this point that one of the reasons that
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  Addie was struggling and kind of latched on so much to her maths
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  teacher is because last year her dad died.
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  And about halfway through the book or something like that, we
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  get this. It's one of the first big twists
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  in the book, and that is that Addie actually killed her dad
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  and her best friend Hudson helped cover it up.
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  So that's fun. And Hudson, we are explicitly
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  told very, very, very clearly, he turned 1610 months ago, which
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  is important to know, apparently.
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  And they were studying at her house when her dad came home,
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  his usual drunk self. And he started being abusive and
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  aggressive as he usually was. And he started on Addie, he
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  started on Hudson. He lunged to attack Hudson.
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  Addie jumped in and pushed her dad down the stairs.
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  And he died. Instead of calling for help,
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  calling for an ambulance, whatever, they were like, Nah,
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  let's leave him to die. Cool, cool.
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  And Hudson helped her cover up the murder of her father.
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  Kind of accidental murder, but, you know, still murder.
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  Now Hudson doesn't talk to her, because apparently asking your
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  bestie to help you cover up a little bit of casual patricide
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  puts a little downer on the friendship.
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  And Addie is actually, quite understandably upset about this.
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  Instead, Hudson is now actively hanging out with a girl who is
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  bullying Addie Kenzie. And Addie thinks they're dating,
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  but they're not. This doesn't make it any better,
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  because Hudson at many times just stands by and watches
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  Kenzie humiliate and degrade and abuse Addie.
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  And I'm like, that kind of feels unforgivable to me, but OK.
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  Like I say, Kenzie's bullying is genuinely hard to read because
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  it's so damn nasty. And honestly, it brings back a
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  lot of bad memories for me. It's also through a lot of these
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  bullying scenes that we learn just how young and naive and,
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  and kind of immature both emotionally and physically that
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  Addie is, especially a physical side because we're told she's
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  made-up, because we're told she's made fun of for a lot of
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  things like not shaving her legs and not having developed
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  breasts. So, so despite being 16, she's
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  still very, very young looking, still very, very childlike in
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  her appearance. And that is important to
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  remember one day when Kenzie is distracted, Addie randomly
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  decides to steal her house keys just because she wants to.
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  And so even early on in the book, we're still seeing that
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  these mental health problems and like weird obsessions and straw
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  crush behaviour is still affecting Addie.
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  And again, maybe not surprising after the whole killing your dad
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  thing, but I'll just say all the adults in this book have failed
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  Addie and continue to fail her. About 1/4 of the way into the
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  book, we find out that Eve is having an affair with someone
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  who works at Simon's Shoes, a shoe shop she likes to shop at.
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  That's not easy for me to say. And she describes him like this.
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  The voice belongs to a man wearing a dark pair of brown
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  rock boots. I glance up at the salesman
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  standing over me, looking appreciatively at the shoes I'm
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  holding. The salesman lowers the zippers
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  of my boots and slides some of my feet.
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  He has muscular forearms and strong looking hands.
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  Cinderella. He smiles up at me with a
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  lopsided grin. He has a slightly chipped
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  incisor on the right, but his teeth are white and otherwise
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  well cared for. She calls him Jay throughout
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  this whole book. Smile lingers on Jay's lips as
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  his eyes filled with desire. I haven't seen my husband look
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  at me that way in a long time, and I'll have to admit, it's a
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  rush. Enough of a rush to keep me
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  coming back here every single week for the last three months.
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  Remember the timeline. And I don't even feel guilty
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  about it. Well, a tiny bit guilty, but I
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  wouldn't do it if my own husband didn't act like he was scared of
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  touching me. Now, I'm not a fan of cheating
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  plot lines in general, as you might be able to tell if you've
• 10:54
  watched any of my other book review videos.
• 10:56
  Especially of, you know, stuff like Colleen Hoover, who just
• 10:59
  repeatedly glamorises and excuses cheating.
• 11:03
  But this one sickens me for another reason, which we don't
• 11:06
  find out until the end of the book.
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  But this is the one spoiler that I'm not going to give you.
• 11:11
  I'm going to keep you in the dark, but I'm going to point out
• 11:13
  a few things you need to remember, and then we will
• 11:16
  address it at the end of this video.
• 11:18
  But take note of this for now. Because she constantly refers to
• 11:21
  him as a man, and she only feels a tiny bit guilty of repeatedly
• 11:28
  sleeping with him. This affair started well.
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  It started four months ago, but she's been going back every week
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  for the last three months, so take note of that.
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  She says what she says. It started about four months
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  ago. It was innocent enough at first.
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  I was at Simon's to buy a pair of shoes.
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  There was something familiar about him, although I couldn't
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  quite place it at first. Of course.
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  He was the sort of man any woman would notice, as handsome as
• 11:52
  Nate, but in a different way, broad and strong, whereas Nate
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  is thinner and lankier. We're led to believe through a
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  series of like red herringy clues, I did not phrase that
• 12:02
  properly, that Jay must be a married man because there's a
• 12:06
  couple of times when he gets a phone call from a woman.
• 12:09
  There's a couple of times there's a baby crying in the
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  background with the phone calls. And like I said, I'll tell you
• 12:14
  this now. This is this is a red herring.
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  He is not a married man with a baby.
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  But let's go back to Addie quickly because what has been
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  happening to her is the main plot of this book.
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  She has slowly been groomed by her English teacher Nate
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  Bennett, Mr Bennett, Eve's husband and and see what she did
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  there. Totally original, right?
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  An English teacher called Bennett, Nathaniel Bennett,
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  which even in book Addie points out, oh, he's called Nathaniel.
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  This reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote the Scarlet
• 12:46
  Letter. I I have to ask at this point,
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  right? Why is it that all the groomer
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  teachers in books are primarily English teachers and named after
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  famous authors? Yeah, Little, little qualm I
• 12:58
  have. I think Freda may have intended
• 13:02
  the grooming to be quite subtle in the first half of this book,
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  but it's not at all. It's just very, very well.
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  Maybe that's me being cynical and speaking from experience,
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  but it was quite obvious. Everyone knows Addie is a
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  vulnerable child. She lost her dad.
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  People think she was sexually assaulted by another teacher,
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  all in the space of a couple of months.
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  So when Mr Bennett starts paying her special attention, of course
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  Addie is going to start going on and on about how handsome he is,
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  how much of A crush she has on him.
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  And he basically starts love bombing her, especially about
• 13:35
  like the poetry that she writes. And it's all very obvious to the
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  reader at least, what is happening.
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  Addie thinks this is like a reciprocal crush.
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  It's true love, they're soul mates, but it's very clearly
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  grooming. Addie constantly gushes over
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  Nate, and to give credit where it's due here, Freda does a
• 13:52
  really good job of writing what an actual child with a crush
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  sounds like. Addie does sound naive and young
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  and immature and like like a teenager with a crush, she does.
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  Let's read a couple of excerpts to give you an example.
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  I love the way Mr Bennett's eyes crinkle when he smiles.
• 14:08
  In the months I've been in his class, I've noticed he has two
• 14:10
  kinds of smile. The one he uses in class when
• 14:12
  he's trying to encourage students, but it's not as
• 14:14
  genuine. When his eyes crinkle, that's
• 14:17
  when I can tell he's actually happy.
• 14:19
  After the bell rings for class to begin, Mr Bennett lifts his
• 14:21
  eyes from the roster. His face crinkles in a smile.
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  As the corners of his lips turn up, I get a little jolt.
• 14:27
  I'd seen Mr Bennett a bunch of times before in the hallway, but
• 14:30
  until that second, watching him smile from about two feet away,
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  I never realised how stupidly handsome he truly is.
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  I can't even say why exactly, but there's something about the
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  ruggedness of his features and the twinkle in his eye.
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  Of course he's super old. He's in his mid or even late 30s
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  and married, of course, to a woman who gave us homework on
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  the very first day of school. So wrong.
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  But I can't say he isn't hot. This class is not going to be
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  torture. So she's got a crush.
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  I think this is quite normal for a teenager, and a lot of
• 14:59
  teenagers have crush on older adults.
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  Authority figures. It's a normal thing.
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  It's just up to the adult in that situations to shut it down,
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  to not reciprocate, to be the responsible person.
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  You know, Nate starts to, as I said earlier, love bomb her like
• 15:15
  crazy. He starts flattering her about
• 15:17
  the poetry she's written so that he can invite her to join the
• 15:21
  poetry magazine club that he runs.
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  He's basically trying to get more one-on-one alone time with
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  her without other adults around who could protect her and get
• 15:29
  her into situations where he can also isolate her from other
• 15:31
  students. He says things like, your poem
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  is amazing. His brown eyes hold my gaze.
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  You're amazing, OK? You're a master of this craft,
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  even at 16. A little later, we get this
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  passage. I mean, he says, your poem is
• 15:45
  amazing. Your poem is amazing.
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  Those 4 words are so much better than see me after class for the
• 15:51
  first time since this stupid school year began, I feel a
• 15:54
  little jolt of happiness. Really.
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  Oh, yes. He tucks it out of my hand.
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  The imagery is incredible. He's his fists of volcano
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  spouting lava from her lips with each blow.
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  Addy, I was so moved. It's a lyrical masterpiece.
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  Thank you. I drop my eyes trying not to
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  think of my inspiration. All the nights when my dad
• 16:14
  stumbled home drunk and angry. I appreciate that.
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  Like there's encouraging and then there's this.
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  He's he's read this poem. He knows she was an abused
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  child, so he knows she's vulnerable and therefore an easy
• 16:26
  target for him. And now he's just going over the
• 16:28
  top with the love bombing. Typical grooming, and it works
• 16:31
  because as Addie says, Mr Bennett is kind, pretty much the
• 16:35
  only person to be kind to me this year, including the
• 16:37
  teachers. He's not trying to make me feel
• 16:39
  like a loser, which I appreciate, even though I am a
• 16:41
  loser. I'm sure he's never had problems
• 16:43
  like this when he was in high school.
• 16:45
  You see where this is going. It's around this time he starts
• 16:49
  to really widen the divide as well between Addie and his wife.
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  He knows that Addie's in his wife's class, so they they could
• 16:55
  have a good teaching student relationship, they could have a
• 16:59
  trusting relationship, but he doesn't want that because he's
• 17:01
  grooming this child. He can't have her feeling trust
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  in his wife, so he has to 'cause that divide between them to
• 17:07
  widen further. As a result of this, we get a
• 17:10
  hell of a lot of like, internalised misogyny from
• 17:12
  Addie, which is so common amongst every woman character
• 17:15
  I've read in a Freda McFadden book so far.
• 17:18
  And it's just uncomfortable at this point because it kind of
• 17:20
  feels less about like, oh, these are flawed characters with
• 17:23
  flawed views and more like, wait, this is happening to every
• 17:26
  single woman character. Is this just how Freda McFadden
• 17:29
  feels about women? And that's a little concerning
• 17:32
  to read. And he says things like, she
• 17:36
  really is strict and she doesn't have much patience for kids who
• 17:38
  don't get the material right away.
• 17:40
  But the worst thing people say about her is they don't get why
• 17:43
  Mr Bennett married her. He's the hottest and most
• 17:45
  beloved teacher in the school. Missus Bennett is pretty, I
• 17:49
  guess, although not on the same level as her husband.
• 17:52
  And she's definitely not beloved.
• 17:54
  In fact, she's kind of a, well, she's a bitch.
• 17:57
  There, I said it. And like I say, Nate furthers
• 18:01
  this divide. He puts his wife down in front
• 18:03
  of this child that he's grooming.
• 18:05
  My wife is very concrete. He says she's only interested in
• 18:08
  logic and reasoning. She isn't a dreamer like we are.
• 18:11
  For her words only serve a utilitarian purpose.
• 18:14
  And you see there at the end, Nate is creating this US versus
• 18:18
  her situation to isolate Addy further.
• 18:20
  She's not like us. She doesn't get you like I do.
• 18:23
  No one gets you like I do. We've got something special.
• 18:27
  It's also at this point that he tells her that he's going to
• 18:29
  enter her poem into a national poetry competition.
• 18:32
  But what we don't know yet is that he's promised the same
• 18:34
  thing to another girl, another student, and uses his contest as
• 18:38
  a way to kind of drive a wedge between them by lying to them
• 18:41
  both. So they both kind of turn on
• 18:42
  each other again, isolating Addie from other students who
• 18:46
  might be there to help and support her.
• 18:48
  Addie, being an unhinged child with mental health problems,
• 18:51
  also starts stalking Nate and Eve at this point, and she
• 18:54
  spends some evenings in their yard watching them, just as she
• 18:57
  did with Mr Tuttle the year before.
• 19:00
  It's at this point in the book. Remember those keys she stole
• 19:02
  from Kenzie earlier? Well, she uses them to break
• 19:05
  into Kenzie's house and Snoop around the bedroom.
• 19:07
  The only thing of any consequence here is that she
• 19:09
  finds a note in her bedroom that Addie assumes is from Hudson
• 19:14
  that reads I can't stop thinking about you, I can't wait to see
• 19:17
  you tonight. This is another red herring, but
• 19:20
  the note does have kind of some significance, even though it's
• 19:23
  not really made a big deal of. But I'm surprised that this
• 19:27
  worked as a red herring, because if it was really a note from
• 19:30
  Hudson, then surely Addie would recognise the handwriting.
• 19:33
  And if it's really a note from the person that it's actually
• 19:35
  from, surely Addie would recognise the handwriting.
• 19:38
  So this just makes no sense to me.
• 19:40
  No, we've got to keep Addie dumb to further the plot apparently.
• 19:46
  But other than this, absolutely nothing happens.
• 19:47
  It's just a couple of chapters kind of wasted because she
• 19:50
  doesn't get caught. She doesn't really find anything
• 19:52
  interesting. It doesn't change her worldview.
• 19:54
  There's no consequences of this trip at all.
• 19:57
  Everything else that happens in this book could have happened
• 20:00
  without this happening. Does that make sense?
• 20:03
  Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.
• 20:04
  It's just kind of page filler that mostly just shows Addie's
• 20:08
  poor mental state, but we already have so much of that in
• 20:11
  other scenes. It was kind of unnecessary.
• 20:13
  That said. Yeah, her mental health is in
• 20:16
  the gutter. This is a poor kid crying out
• 20:18
  for help, and the only person who doesn't villainize her in
• 20:21
  the entire book is the man trying to groom and sexually
• 20:24
  abuse her. Around halfway through the book,
• 20:26
  Addie gets caught cheating on a maths test and Nate encourages
• 20:29
  his wife to go easy on her, which would be lovely if he
• 20:32
  wasn't using this as an excuse to build trust with her and as
• 20:35
  the catalyst to start their sexual relationship.
• 20:38
  And by relationship, I mean abuse.
• 20:40
  She is so grateful to Nate for helping her out that Adi just
• 20:43
  immediately has to hug him after school when they're alone in a
• 20:46
  classroom together after the poetry club meeting and he
• 20:51
  immediately gets an erection, which she feels.
• 20:53
  This is so damn inappropriate in every respect and I was so damn
• 20:57
  uncomfortable reading it. That said, I do have to applaud
• 20:59
  the book in this way because it should be uncomfortable.
• 21:03
  It should be disgusting. It's, it's written well in that
• 21:07
  respect. And, and I also have to applaud
• 21:10
  it as well, because at least it sounds like an inexperienced,
• 21:13
  naive child experiencing this when Addie writes about it.
• 21:16
  You know, I never felt quite disgrateful to another person
• 21:19
  before. He believed in me.
• 21:21
  He went to bat for me. Mr Bennett hugs me back, not
• 21:23
  pushing me away even as I cling to him.
• 21:25
  The hug lasts far longer than I intended it to, but I don't want
• 21:28
  to let go of him, and he doesn't seem to mind either.
• 21:31
  But then something firm pokes me in the leg like a roll of toilet
• 21:34
  paper. Oh my God, is that?
• 21:37
  I leap away from my teacher, horrified.
• 21:39
  I had hoped maybe I was mistaken, but when my eyes drop,
• 21:42
  I can see the telltale bulge in Mr Bennett's pants.
• 21:46
  It's uncomfortable to read. It's, it's really gross, and it
• 21:49
  should be. So I have to kind of applaud her
• 21:51
  for making this as uncomfortable as it should be.
• 21:54
  You know, credit where it's due. Nate's response to this is so
• 21:58
  damn inappropriate. Oh, it's awful.
• 22:02
  Again, very uncomfortable to read, as it should be.
• 22:04
  It's no excuse. He says in a small voice.
• 22:07
  But you have to know that my wife, we have nothing in common
• 22:09
  anymore. I feel nothing for her.
• 22:11
  And now I meet you and it's like I finally connect with someone
• 22:14
  for the first time in my life. He has a look at me, his face
• 22:18
  bright red even when he's flustered.
• 22:20
  He's so handsome. But that's no excuse, no excuse.
• 22:23
  I'm just so sorry. I wish it would show up and stop
• 22:27
  apologising. I oh, I'm sorry, he's saying I
• 22:29
  just sexually assaulted a 16 year old girl by shoving my
• 22:32
  erect penis, like in a crotch basically.
• 22:35
  But oh it's OK, I can make excuses for it because me and my
• 22:39
  wife don't even have sex anymore because I choose not to shut up.
• 22:44
  He is excellent as a villain, I'll give him that.
• 22:47
  And we all know that this, I've never felt this stuff before, is
• 22:50
  a bunch of nonsense, right? Always is.
• 22:52
  It is pure manipulation. And I do have to say, I do think
• 22:55
  this is one of the strengths of the book.
• 22:57
  The way the grooming and manipulation is written is
• 23:00
  pretty solid. It's slow, it's insidious, it's
• 23:03
  gross as hell. But I have to applaud that.
• 23:05
  I'm so grateful that at least for this character in this
• 23:08
  situation, the grooming is not romanticised or condoned in any
• 23:12
  way. It is portrayed as just as gross
• 23:14
  as it is. The mix of Adi's naive child's
• 23:19
  voice describing Nate's love bombing and manipulation is
• 23:22
  absolutely disgusting, as it should be, and it's done very
• 23:25
  well. And I've recommended other books
• 23:28
  which cover this topic before, like My Dark Vanessa by Kate
• 23:31
  Elizabeth Russell, which is a novel loosely based on the real
• 23:34
  life experience of the author, and the memoir Being Lita by
• 23:37
  Allison Wood. Those two books also portray the
• 23:40
  creeping manipulation of vulnerable children really,
• 23:43
  really well. I would argue that those two
• 23:45
  books do it a lot lot, lot better than this Freedom Academy
• 23:48
  book because unlike Freda, they never sensationalise this.
• 23:53
  Or well, we'll see my issue with this book when we get there,
• 23:57
  trust me. The other books like My Dark
• 23:59
  Vanessa and Being Lonely to do not do that.
• 24:02
  I also have to admit, for all I can give credit for Freda's
• 24:04
  writing, you'd be like this is good, this is good, this is
• 24:06
  good. I am a little dubious because
• 24:08
  while I want to applaud what she's doing here, specifically
• 24:11
  in regards to presenting the grooming, I'm also aware there
• 24:14
  have been a lot of accusations of plagiarism against her in
• 24:18
  regards to a lot of her books. In fact, nearly every single one
• 24:21
  of her book there are claims of plagiarism.
• 24:23
  Some very credible accusations have been made which have seen
• 24:27
  her lift whole characters and plot lines from other books and
• 24:30
  basically just repackaged them in quick readable thriller
• 24:34
  novels. I've not yet read these Freedom
• 24:37
  McAdam books so take what I'm about to say with a pinch of
• 24:40
  salt, but looking at the summaries, Do Not Disturb just
• 24:45
  seems to be a RIP off of Psycho. The crash looks to be Misery but
• 24:49
  with added baby stealing. Do you remember Just seems to be
• 24:52
  SJ Watson's Before I Go to Sleep.
• 24:53
  The Wife Upstairs is just Collins Whoeverity, which is
• 24:56
  already a RIP off of Rebecca and I might be off on this one, but
• 25:00
  One by One sounds just like Agatha Christie's And Then There
• 25:03
  Were None. I, I say this not having read
• 25:05
  the Freedom of Cat McFadden books, but I've read the, the,
• 25:08
  the source material books, if that makes sense.
• 25:10
  And reading the plot summaries for these books by Freda
• 25:14
  Mcadden. I was like, oh, that's just
• 25:16
  these books that I have read, you know.
• 25:18
  Anyway, you also have to admit that there are some major
• 25:21
  similarities between the teacher and especially My Dark Vanessa.
• 25:25
  So of course, when I make that claim, this also gets more
• 25:28
  complicated because even My Dark Vanessa has had plagiarism
• 25:32
  accusations against it with Wendy Ortiz, author of
• 25:36
  Excavation, A memoir, claiming that Kate copied her book.
• 25:40
  However, that again gets more complicated because this
• 25:44
  plagiarism accusation LED Kate having to come out and say that
• 25:46
  her novel wasn't copied of Excavation, it was written based
• 25:49
  on her real life experiences. Which kind of leaves a bad taste
• 25:53
  in my mouth because no one should be forced to publicly
• 25:56
  open up about their trauma like that against their will, not in
• 25:59
  their own time. Like, Kate wasn't ready to talk
• 26:02
  about this publicly and what happened to her publicly.
• 26:04
  So she wrote it as a novel. She wanted to get the experience
• 26:07
  out there and allow other people to relate to it.
• 26:10
  And, you know, talk about the kind of closure she was getting.
• 26:13
  But she didn't want to say, this happened to me.
• 26:14
  She didn't want to write it as a memoir because she didn't want
• 26:16
  to open up. And then someone was like, you
• 26:18
  copied me. So she was like, whoa, OK, well,
• 26:20
  now I have to open up. And it kind of felt like outing
• 26:24
  someone against their will, but trauma.
• 26:26
  And that left a bad taste in my mouth.
• 26:28
  But I do understand that plagiarism is a very serious
• 26:31
  accusation. And there are people who do
• 26:33
  plagiarise. And I can understand if you see
• 26:36
  a book similar to yours, you might be like, whoa, whoa, OK,
• 26:39
  this isn't this isn't all right. So it didn't need to be
• 26:41
  addressed. It's a complicated situation.
• 26:44
  I also think it's very difficult because unlike, you know,
• 26:48
  something that is very specific, like the plot of Misery, for
• 26:50
  example, like that's not based on anyone's real life
• 26:52
  experience. That is a completely made-up
• 26:54
  thing. So when you have another author
• 26:56
  come along and basically lift that entire plot from the
• 26:58
  snowstorm and the car crash and the being taken out, all of
• 27:02
  that, right, that's very clearly a copied storyline.
• 27:05
  However, when we're talking about something like this that
• 27:07
  does happen scarily regularly in real life, I think there's
• 27:13
  forced to be some similarities in the books written about it
• 27:16
  because so many of the predators in these situations do use the
• 27:19
  same grooming tactics and manipulation.
• 27:22
  They do target the same kinds of people.
• 27:24
  So of course there's going to be similarities and overlap, and
• 27:27
  that doesn't necessarily mean plagiarism.
• 27:29
  It just means people have the same experience, you know?
• 27:32
  That said, I'm not going to comment too much on the My Dark
• 27:35
  My Dark Vanessa Excavation situation because I still
• 27:38
  haven't read Excavation even though I really want to.
• 27:40
  It's on my list. I just didn't quite have time to
• 27:42
  do it for this video because I was on a deadline with this.
• 27:45
  I want to try and get this out by the end of the month, but I
• 27:47
  am going to read it. I've been meaning to for ages,
• 27:50
  but let's look specifically at the Freedom McFadden thing
• 27:54
  because this I can comment on because I have read both these
• 27:56
  books now several times. So the teacher, My Dark Vanessa,
• 27:59
  and also being Lolita, we're going to talk about that.
• 28:01
  I've read that several times as well.
• 28:02
  All three of these books open up with teenage girls feeling
• 28:06
  isolated from their peers and being excluded for various
• 28:09
  reasons. The reason from their isolation
• 28:11
  differs ever so slightly from book to book, but it all leads
• 28:14
  to basically the same situation. Both The Teacher and My Dark
• 28:17
  Vanessa have the young girl getting closer to their English
• 28:19
  teacher by joining a literature themed club that they run after
• 28:23
  school. Being Lolita kind of has it
• 28:25
  where she gets close to him by like joining him for like
• 28:28
  creative writing after school. But it's not a club, it's a
• 28:31
  one-on-one thing. So again, similarity there.
• 28:33
  And the teacher, my doctor, Nessa and Being Lolita all have
• 28:36
  the young girls say that they hate maths but love creative
• 28:39
  writing, especially poetry and and so on and so on.
• 28:42
  I could, I could go through the whole books, but you get the
• 28:44
  idea. As I said, in all of them, The
• 28:46
  Grooming Fall is a very similar pattern.
• 28:48
  Identifying A vulnerable young girl.
• 28:50
  The girl opens up about feeling alone and not having many
• 28:52
  friends. The English teacher starts
• 28:54
  subtly complimenting her, gaining her trust and slowly
• 28:57
  manipulating her. Over time, it slowly builds to a
• 28:59
  sexual relationship. And so on and so on.
• 29:03
  So there are all similarities. I felt that was important to
• 29:05
  point out because plagiarism is a major problem.
• 29:07
  And I'm not saying that Freda McFadden did plagiarise either
• 29:11
  of these books. I'm just saying there is a
• 29:13
  pattern of her lifting stories and plot lines and characters
• 29:17
  from other famous best selling novels and profiting off that
• 29:20
  without changing much. And I can see that that might
• 29:23
  also be the case here. So let's get back to going
• 29:26
  through the teacher. Because after being
• 29:28
  inappropriate with Addie and shove his in and shoving his
• 29:31
  erection between her legs basically, he then again starts
• 29:34
  to manipulate her to push her into believing that the affair
• 29:37
  they're about to start is entirely her idea and not just
• 29:41
  him raping her. He says things like I'm trying
• 29:44
  to resist you. He murmurs.
• 29:45
  You have no idea how badly I'm trying.
• 29:48
  You don't have to. I thought that I would be the
• 29:50
  one to have to make the first move.
• 29:51
  So I'm surprised when it's Mr Bennett who lowers his lips on
• 29:54
  to mine. It's the first time I've kissed
• 29:56
  a boy, well, a man. Over the next few chapters, we
• 29:59
  see them secretly meet again and again and again most nights
• 30:02
  after school in an old dark room, like photography dark
• 30:06
  room. And it is just super
• 30:07
  uncomfortable to read with him consistently pushing her
• 30:10
  physical boundaries. Like she'll say she doesn't want
• 30:12
  to do something, she's not ready to have sex.
• 30:14
  And then the next minute he's having sex with her and she's
• 30:18
  just kind of like is blank and goes along with it because you
• 30:21
  know, well, he wants this. He knows what he's doing.
• 30:24
  Who am I to say no, we're in love, we're soul mates.
• 30:26
  And she just lets him. It's just several chapters of
• 30:29
  and let's call it what it is, child rape.
• 30:31
  And he makes her feel like this is all her fault and repeatedly
• 30:35
  lies to her with passages like sorry, this is it's new
• 30:38
  territory for me. Honestly, I feel like a bad
• 30:40
  person. I'm your teacher.
• 30:43
  I was the one who made the first move.
• 30:44
  I point out you told me to go away.
• 30:47
  He lets that alongside, taking his eyes briefly off the road to
• 30:50
  look over to me. I married Eve because it was
• 30:52
  expected of me to settle down. I never met anyone genuinely
• 30:55
  special before. And now I'm 38 and I'm meeting
• 30:57
  my soul mate for the first time and she's only 16.
• 31:00
  He grimaces. How cruel is this universe?
• 31:03
  He just called me a soul mate. It's wild because I feel the
• 31:06
  exact same way, but I would have thought I was imagining it if he
• 31:08
  hadn't said it. It is absolutely infuriating to
• 31:11
  read, as it should be. And again, I have to applaud
• 31:14
  Frieda for showing how real teenagers often react in this
• 31:17
  situation and how the predators try and romanticise their abuse
• 31:20
  and act like this is new. This has never happened before.
• 31:22
  It's just because you're so special.
• 31:24
  He even gives her a poem which he supposedly wrote for her.
• 31:27
  It's oh it's so bad, it's really bad.
• 31:30
  Life nearly passed me by then. She young and alive with smooth
• 31:35
  hands and pink cheeks, showed me myself, took away my breath with
• 31:39
  cherry red lips, gave me life once again.
• 31:43
  Major creepy Humber Humber fetishizing children vibes.
• 31:47
  Right? Like we, the reader can see all
• 31:49
  the red flags in this. Yeah, but it's not surprising
• 31:52
  that a manipulated child can't. I also like that this was
• 31:55
  absolutely foreshadowed earlier in the book when Eve told us
• 31:59
  Nate has always fancied himself a poet.
• 32:01
  He published a book of poetry several years ago, which his
• 32:04
  parents bought, as well as about 5 friends, and I'm fairly sure
• 32:07
  that's it. Maybe it was different in
• 32:08
  Shakespeare's time, but there's no money these days in being a
• 32:11
  poet. Still, it was romantic when we
• 32:13
  were first together. He used to write poems for me
• 32:16
  about me, and then he would recite them for me in some
• 32:18
  utterly romantic location, like while drifting along the lake in
• 32:21
  a rowboat. It made me feel like as a
• 32:23
  goddess, the sort of woman unworthy of poetry being
• 32:25
  composed about her. I saved a few of them.
• 32:28
  I keep them in a shoe box in the back of my closet.
• 32:30
  I used to reread them all the time, but I haven't in years.
• 32:33
  It makes me depressed to look at them now.
• 32:35
  Nate hasn't written a poem about me in a long time.
• 32:37
  I'm beginning to think he never will again.
• 32:40
  So we already know that. Like, he's done this before for
• 32:43
  other women and girls and like, it's not genuine.
• 32:45
  It's whatever. A little later in the book,
• 32:48
  Kenzie actually sees this poem and the bullying gets more
• 32:51
  intense from her. Remember this, Addie continues
• 32:55
  to stalk Eve and Nate, and one night Eve actually catches her
• 32:58
  outside watching them. And this is where everything
• 33:00
  starts to blow up, right? Eve obviously reports this and
• 33:04
  Nate goes into full damage control mode, manipulating Addie
• 33:07
  into not saying anything about his abuse.
• 33:09
  Sorry, sorry. Their relationship by sending
• 33:12
  her messages like deny everything.
• 33:14
  My entire life is in your hands. And she does.
• 33:17
  She lies for him repeatedly because that's what grooming
• 33:19
  victims do. You can't blame her in this.
• 33:22
  And in return for, you know, saving him from gaol, she finds
• 33:27
  out that Nate lied to her about the poetry competition.
• 33:29
  He says they have to cool it between them and instead of
• 33:32
  blaming him, she blames Eve for everything.
• 33:34
  Because in Freedom McFadden books, when a man behaves badly,
• 33:37
  women blame each other, Women fight each other.
• 33:40
  Because of the man's actions, he initiates a break between them,
• 33:43
  saying it's only temporary, don't worry, they can be
• 33:45
  together again soon and they share a goodbye kiss.
• 33:48
  However, what they don't realise is that Eve has witnessed this
• 33:52
  kiss and now she's like, that bastard is cheating on me with
• 33:56
  her. Really.
• 33:58
  That's your response? Not Oh my God, she's a child.
• 34:01
  My husband's a predator. Eve decides to do nothing
• 34:07
  immediately about this and in the next chapter she starts to
• 34:10
  rationalise not doing anything to herself.
• 34:12
  She says I recognise that if I bust Nate now I will ruin 3
• 34:16
  lives, his, mine and Addie's. He deserves to have his life
• 34:19
  ruined but I don't. If I make a scene and expose him
• 34:21
  this way I will never be able to continue working in the school,
• 34:24
  it will be too humiliating and the shame will taint me as well.
• 34:28
  As for Addie, the truth is she doesn't deserve it either.
• 34:31
  Whatever else I can say about her, she is only 16 years old.
• 34:34
  She's a child. It's not her fault she fell in
• 34:37
  love with her hands on English teacher.
• 34:38
  It was Nate's responsibility to keep this from happening.
• 34:41
  That's why I don't expose the two of them in front of
• 34:44
  everyone. But I do one thing, I take a
• 34:46
  photo. The age of consent in the state
• 34:49
  is 16, so Nate won't go to gaol for this.
• 34:52
  It's not statutory rape, but his teaching career will be over.
• 34:56
  Quick question, don't know what state this is meant to be set
• 34:58
  and whenever told, but what the hell is wrong with America that
• 35:02
  it is not illegal for an adult in a position of power and care
• 35:07
  like a teacher to sleep with their 16 year old student?
• 35:10
  How is that not it should be illegal?
• 35:12
  I am flabbergasted by that and I'm so shocked that I used the
• 35:16
  word flabbergasted. Seriously America, you need to
• 35:19
  do a better job of protecting your kids.
• 35:21
  That is not OK. And the oh, the irony, the irony
• 35:25
  of Eve Eve being like, she's only 16 is not lost on me,
• 35:30
  right? But we'll, we'll find out why
• 35:31
  that's ironic, uh, towards the end of this video.
• 35:33
  Don't worry. I was also grossed out by her
• 35:37
  line of like, but the age of consent is 16, so it's not
• 35:40
  technically illegal. That's very in line with her
• 35:42
  character as we find out, and it's gross as hell.
• 35:45
  And this is where I start having the real, real major issues with
• 35:48
  this book. If you are a 30 year old woman,
• 35:50
  especially one in a position of power and care over literal
• 35:54
  children, and you see a 16 year old being sexually assaulted by
• 35:58
  a nearly 40 year old man, I don't care if that's your
• 36:01
  husband or not. You step in and you stop it.
• 36:04
  There is no excuse. You either stop it there and
• 36:06
  then yourself, or you go and get security or another teacher or
• 36:10
  just report it to the police. You just, you do something, you
• 36:13
  protect that child. You don't sit there and
• 36:15
  rationalise about Oh well, you know I don't know.
• 36:18
  No, allowing them to be sexually abused has ruined their life.
• 36:21
  This was the first hint to me that Freda wasn't writing this
• 36:24
  book about grooming and child abuse with the sensitivity and
• 36:28
  seriousness that it needs. And it only gets worse from
• 36:31
  here. The closest we ever get to Eve
• 36:33
  trying to protect this little child is her saying.
• 36:36
  I have to remind myself again that this isn't her fault.
• 36:39
  Nate took advantage of her vulnerability.
• 36:42
  I've been a teacher long enough to know that some girls are more
• 36:44
  suggestible than others. Some are more likely to succumb
• 36:47
  to a crush on their favourite teacher.
• 36:49
  It's not her fault, it's not. Which I maybe wouldn't have a
• 36:51
  problem with her saying if Eve wasn't being such a massive
• 36:54
  hypocrite as we'll see later. To add to her hypocrisy, Eve's
• 36:58
  response to this is Nate took advantage of a vulnerable 16
• 37:02
  year old. So now I'm going to text Jay and
• 37:04
  meet him and tell him about this and you'll see why this makes me
• 37:07
  so angry. At the end, you can probably
• 37:10
  guess where this is going. She meets Jay, she tells him
• 37:13
  about Nate and Addy, and then she goes and gets drunk.
• 37:15
  When Nate comes home, she confronts him and he immediately
• 37:18
  starts gaslighting her. That's, that's crazy.
• 37:21
  He laughs. Come on Eve, you really think
• 37:23
  I'd do something like that with Addy?
• 37:25
  He shakes his head. Where would you get such a silly
• 37:27
  idea? I think you've had a bit too
• 37:29
  much to drink. Do you want me to make you a cup
• 37:31
  of coffee? I hate this.
• 37:33
  As we should. It's accurate, but I have to
• 37:35
  commend how it's written. This is textbook gas lighting.
• 37:39
  This didn't happen. You're crazy.
• 37:40
  You're drunk. Yeah, we've.
• 37:42
  Well, I'll say we've all been there.
• 37:43
  I've been there. It's horrible.
• 37:45
  I always say in my videos I'm against romanticised abuse and
• 37:48
  novels, but I'm not against abuse in general being portrayed
• 37:51
  in novels. I think it's an important thing
• 37:53
  to show people and write about and tell people about, as long
• 37:56
  as the abuser is portrayed as the villain for the abuse that
• 38:00
  they're inflicting. That's why I have to commend
• 38:02
  Frida for writing Nate as a villain.
• 38:05
  You know, he is not portrayed in a good light.
• 38:07
  His grooming is not romanticised or downplayed or condoned and I
• 38:11
  have to commend that. However, wait for the end of
• 38:16
  this video. Like, sure, in the book, Addie
• 38:19
  is taken in by his manipulation and the grooming, but the
• 38:21
  audience is always led to believe that he is the villain,
• 38:24
  that his actions are wrong. And I have to commend that.
• 38:27
  Eve tells him that she wants a divorce and she needs him to
• 38:29
  quit his job completely. Reasonable requests.
• 38:32
  Probably less than he deserves, but you know.
• 38:35
  And she even tells him you can still teach.
• 38:37
  You can teach adult education, but no children.
• 38:40
  Never again. Eve, come on, he chokes out.
• 38:43
  I can't possibly agree to that. All the other stuff, fine, but
• 38:46
  I'm not going to give up teaching high school.
• 38:48
  We hate him, right? We Oh, of course.
• 38:52
  A creepy groomer is not going to stop having free access to his
• 38:56
  victims. It.
• 38:58
  I hate it. I hate it.
• 39:00
  During this whole confrontation, Eve repeatedly refers to Addie
• 39:03
  as a little girl. So let's be clear.
• 39:05
  At this point, she is completely aware that a 16 year old child
• 39:09
  is a little girl. She is aware that these children
• 39:11
  are children. She is aware that teachers
• 39:13
  should not be sleeping with 16 year olds, and if they do, they
• 39:15
  should never be allowed to teach around children again and be
• 39:18
  around children again. She is aware of this.
• 39:20
  She says this, remember that Nate storms out the house and
• 39:23
  texts Addie that Eve knows, and Addie reacts like a typical
• 39:26
  child. Again, this is well written for
• 39:28
  a child. This is how a child would react.
• 39:31
  Again, that's commendable. I throw my phone down on the bed
• 39:33
  in frustration, tears brimming in my eyes, and I should hold it
• 39:36
  together just until my mother's car drives away and then I let
• 39:39
  loose with loud, ugly sobs that must make the whole foundation
• 39:42
  of the house shake. I love Nathaniel.
• 39:44
  I love him so freaking much it's almost painful.
• 39:48
  There are lots of people out there in the world who are
• 39:49
  dating or married, but I'm fairly sure he and I love each
• 39:52
  of them more than any of those people.
• 39:54
  They don't have the connection that we do.
• 39:56
  Yes, he's a lot older than me, but that doesn't matter.
• 39:58
  What we have surpasses age. He's never had that connection
• 40:02
  to his wife. He married her just because he
• 40:04
  felt that's what you're supposed to do in life.
• 40:06
  And now she's the one controlling him, controlling us.
• 40:10
  It's so unfair. I want to scream again.
• 40:12
  I like how accurate this is. This is how a child would
• 40:14
  respond. This is how a child would react.
• 40:16
  It's believable. Yeah.
• 40:18
  Great. What I can recommend is every
• 40:20
  single thing that happens after this point in the book, it turns
• 40:23
  into a typical ridiculous, unrealistic thriller.
• 40:27
  And then we get, oh, the last twist.
• 40:29
  We'll get there. We'll get there.
• 40:31
  And again, I love a camp thriller.
• 40:32
  I love. I love silly over the top of
• 40:34
  drama. I think it can be really fun in
• 40:36
  a, in a quick thriller book like this.
• 40:40
  I just feel like in the context of what the rest of this book is
• 40:42
  about, it feels a little out of place and inappropriate.
• 40:47
  But so Addie, being a mentally unwell child, goes around to
• 40:51
  confront Eve and we get scenes like this, but in love.
• 40:54
  Mrs Bennett. I'm sorry Addie, this girl is so
• 40:58
  far gone. Maybe I should go to Higgins
• 41:00
  after all. Maybe it's the only way to get
• 41:01
  this to stop. But I do want to try to spare
• 41:04
  her that. You have to understand that Nate
• 41:06
  is a lot older than you, A lot older, and he's your teacher.
• 41:10
  It's so inappropriate to be in a relationship with him and
• 41:12
  honestly, he's taking advantage of you.
• 41:16
  She doesn't like hearing this, which is not surprise.
• 41:18
  He's not taking advantage of me, I promise you.
• 41:20
  Just you don't understand. Maybe you've never experienced
• 41:23
  anything like what we have, but if you had, you would
• 41:25
  understand. Oh Lord, she is so brainwashed.
• 41:29
  I do understand. I tell her gently.
• 41:32
  I know how you must feel, but it's not healthy.
• 41:34
  You should have a boyfriend of your own age.
• 41:36
  Again, realistic for a groom child to be saying this and
• 41:40
  acting like this. And it's nice to see an adult in
• 41:42
  the book acknowledging how wrong this is.
• 41:44
  But just you wait, remember this?
• 41:48
  And then they're having this conversation, they're having an
• 41:50
  argument, Addie's having a cry, blah blah blah.
• 41:52
  And then she hits her with a frying pan.
• 41:54
  Addie hits Eve with a frying pan, basically kills her dead on
• 42:00
  the floor. Or so she thinks.
• 42:02
  That happens. Addie's in a panic.
• 42:04
  She calls Nate. She's like, Nate killed her,
• 42:06
  What am I going to do? And he's like, oh, God's sake.
• 42:08
  And he comes running back and he's like, oh, you have to cover
• 42:11
  this up. And he sends Addie off to go
• 42:13
  find some blankets to wrap the body in.
• 42:16
  So then go and bury it. But it turns out, oh, Eve isn't
• 42:18
  actually dead. So Nate's like, oh, no, better
• 42:21
  kill her. And then he hits her with a
• 42:22
  frying pan. I shouldn't laugh, but it's so
• 42:24
  ridiculous. So we get the fake death, the
• 42:26
  frying pan. She had two hits around the head
• 42:28
  with the frying pan. At this point, they definitely
• 42:30
  think she's dead. And I oh God, it's it's giving
• 42:34
  Chrissy Watts making Zoe think that she's the one who killed
• 42:37
  Dirty Den in EastEnders. But maybe that's just my age
• 42:40
  showing. So anyway, Nate comes up with
• 42:42
  this plan to get rid of the body.
• 42:44
  They bundle up Eve's body. They take it out to a pumpkin
• 42:47
  patch, which is like an hour away from everything.
• 42:49
  And then Nate is like, come on, Addy, kid, dig a hole, dig a
• 42:52
  grave. I'm the grown adult here.
• 42:55
  But you dig the grave. And then he's like, oops, by the
• 42:58
  way, be right back. And then just disappears off.
• 43:00
  And he drives off and he leaves Addy in a pumpkin patch an hour
• 43:04
  away from home with no car, no way of getting back and a dead
• 43:07
  body to bury. And she's like, I'll be back.
• 43:12
  Yeah, he'll be back. Don't think he's coming back.
• 43:17
  And then she panics. So she's all like new, new.
• 43:21
  How could he do this? I thought he loved me, you know,
• 43:24
  as you would be, I guess. And she's like last resort.
• 43:28
  I'm going to call up Hudson 3:00 AM at this point.
• 43:31
  And he's like, oh, OK, you're like an hour away.
• 43:33
  I'll be there in an hour. And then I have to drive an hour
• 43:35
  to drop her off home. It's the whole thing.
• 43:38
  And I mean, he's already helped her cover up 1 murder, right?
• 43:40
  What's the second one between friends?
• 43:42
  So the next day we get some chapters from Nate's
• 43:44
  perspective, not many, but a couple.
• 43:46
  And he puts his plan into full swing.
• 43:49
  He's basically like, right, I'm going to report Eve missing.
• 43:51
  I'm going to pretend to be like the upset husband.
• 43:53
  And the idea is he's trying to frame Addie for her murder so he
• 43:57
  can just get away with everything and everyone will be
• 43:58
  like, oh, she's a crazy girl, it's OK, she killed her because
• 44:02
  she was crazy, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's the whole thing.
• 44:04
  It's the whole thing. Nate thinks he's like super
• 44:07
  smart and charming so he can get away with everything.
• 44:09
  But thankfully the police officer is like bit fishy mate
• 44:13
  and she starts like digging around a bit more.
• 44:15
  Nate though is so arrogant and creepy that he's even sexist and
• 44:21
  creepy towards the police officer.
• 44:23
  We Oh God he says this at one point.
• 44:25
  The detective is petite, barely reaching my chin and she has to
• 44:28
  tilt her head to look at me. If she pulled her hair out of
• 44:31
  that painfully type bun and put on a little makeup, she might be
• 44:34
  very attractive, but not at all my type.
• 44:36
  Why? Because she's an adult.
• 44:38
  Gross. So like I say, Nate is trying to
• 44:40
  pin everything on Addy and be like, oh, she's crazy.
• 44:42
  She probably. And like he's obviously been
• 44:45
  setting up the whole time. And I I get it.
• 44:48
  I do. And it's a thriller and you want
• 44:50
  to be over the top. And it's like, but I also feel
• 44:52
  like we can villainize a child predator for being a child
• 44:55
  predator without having to have without having to add the whole
• 44:59
  murdering his wife and pinning it on the child thing.
• 45:01
  On top of that, I feel like you're kind of undermining the
• 45:04
  seriousness of his other crimes with this, you know, meanwhile
• 45:09
  someone is stalking him by leaving expensive shoes around
• 45:12
  his house like a ghost to the foot fetish.
• 45:15
  I think this is meant to add like a creepy element and I
• 45:18
  think she was going for like a oh, is it supernatural?
• 45:20
  Is it not Is it Eve's ghost? It's not, it's not Eve's ghost.
• 45:25
  Addie meanwhile, is just following Nate's advice to deny
• 45:28
  everything and is lying to the police.
• 45:30
  But then she gets a surprise visit from Kenzie of all people.
• 45:34
  You know, the girl who's been bullying her relentlessly for
• 45:36
  the whole book. Kenzie has a shocking
• 45:38
  revelation. The reason she has been bullying
• 45:41
  Addie this whole time is because she was jealous because she had
• 45:44
  been sleeping with Nate the year before.
• 45:46
  And it got called off because of the whole Addie and our Tuttle
• 45:50
  situation. And then Addie started sleeping
• 45:53
  with him and he gave her the poem, the same poem that he gave
• 45:55
  Kenzie. And then Kenzie realised and she
• 45:57
  got even angrier and Addie. And that was the reason for the
• 45:59
  bullying. Once again, we had a case of two
• 46:04
  young girls fighting with each other and hurting we and hurting
• 46:09
  each other because of a man fighting over a man.
• 46:15
  Now, I liked the whole reveal that this isn't the first time
• 46:19
  he's done something like this because with predators like
• 46:22
  this, it rarely is. We all knew he was a creep
• 46:24
  whatever. And the clues were there.
• 46:27
  You know that that no in Kenzie's bedroom that was
• 46:30
  written by Nate, not Hudson. But again, like I say at the
• 46:34
  time, like Nate was Addie's teacher that she was obsessed
• 46:37
  with. He was writing notes on all her
• 46:39
  class assignments and poems. Like how did how did she not
• 46:43
  realise? How does she not recognise the
• 46:45
  handwriting? Feels like a plot hole, not the
• 46:47
  point. We also learned though, that
• 46:50
  Innate targeted Kenzie because she was also vulnerable at the
• 46:54
  time because her little brother had cancer.
• 46:57
  So again, he's showing a patent, patent of behaviour.
• 46:59
  I think it's good to include this in the book.
• 47:01
  I really do. I just hate that she had to
• 47:04
  write it as not just like this man abused several girls but
• 47:08
  it's like oh look here's these girls abusing each other over a
• 47:12
  man. Like I felt it wouldn't be so
• 47:15
  bad if it was a one off situation but because all Freda
• 47:18
  Mcfadden's books seem to end up like this with women hurting
• 47:21
  each other over a man like it just it just leaves a bad taste
• 47:24
  in my mouth. What's also super gross that we
• 47:27
  learn is that while Nate targeted Addie when she was 16
• 47:32
  but looked like a child, he targeted Kenzie when she was
• 47:35
  just 14. That's when it started with her
• 47:39
  14 years old. Disgusting.
• 47:42
  Even younger and also definitely under the age of consent.
• 47:44
  So that that is statutory rape. It absolutely is.
• 47:47
  Addie doesn't believe her at first, but then within a couple
• 47:49
  of pages she's like no, okay, I believe you now.
• 47:52
  And then they go to the police. Yay, she finally realises.
• 47:57
  I always thought Kenzie seemed so mature, but right now she
• 48:00
  looks so young, like a little girl.
• 48:02
  She was only 14 when Nathaniel sat with her. 14.
• 48:04
  And Nathaniel, he's almost 40, He's an adult, Our teacher.
• 48:09
  I was hurt when I realised that Nathaniel lied to me.
• 48:11
  But this is the first time that it all hits home.
• 48:14
  What he did to us was truly horrible, unthinkable.
• 48:17
  And I have mixed feelings about this section of the book because
• 48:20
  on the one hand it's nice to see her come to this realisation at
• 48:23
  all, but on the other it feels really rushed and I can't help
• 48:27
  but feel like like it undermines the seriousness of the issue
• 48:30
  because of how it usually all plays out in the real world and
• 48:34
  how rushed it is in this novel in comparison.
• 48:36
  I much preferred how it was handled in my doc Vanessa for
• 48:39
  example and Being Lolita, where it showed that sometimes it can
• 48:43
  take years to unpack what happened to you and realise how
• 48:45
  serious it was and the damage that was done.
• 48:48
  I feel like that was far more realistic than just 01 person
• 48:51
  told me a thing and then I denied it and denied it and then
• 48:54
  half an hour later, Oh no, I suddenly realised how wrong
• 48:57
  everything was and my worldview has changed and let's go to the
• 49:00
  police and everything is good now.
• 49:01
  It felt rushed and unrealistic. In the Freedom McFadden book,
• 49:05
  it's also undermined by another plot twist that happened
• 49:09
  straight after. So we can't even concentrate on
• 49:12
  this happening because all of a sudden we're told that, oh wait,
• 49:15
  Eve wasn't actually dead. She had two fake deaths and she
• 49:20
  wasn't really buried in a well. She was buried in a pumpkin
• 49:23
  patch. She was buried alive in a
• 49:24
  pumpkin patch by Addie and she clawed her way out and now she's
• 49:28
  been stalking Nate for days by leaving shoes around his house
• 49:32
  to freak him out or something, something ridiculous something.
• 49:36
  They also conveniently buried her with her bag and mobile
• 49:39
  phone. So once she got out of the
• 49:41
  grave, she was able to call Jay to come pick her up around 5:00
• 49:45
  AM. He arrived around 6:00 AM.
• 49:49
  He saved her, got her cleaned up, that's the thing.
• 49:52
  And she concocts a plan with Jay to kill Nate.
• 49:55
  Again, so melodramatic. So it's hard to take this book
• 49:59
  seriously when all this is happening buried alive in
• 50:03
  pumpkin patches and hit with frying pans.
• 50:05
  And anyway, so they concoct a plan.
• 50:09
  They get Nate to drive out to the pumpkin patch to check if
• 50:12
  she's really still buried there. And while they're there, they
• 50:14
  ambush him. And then Jay hits Nate with a
• 50:16
  rock and kills him and they bury him in the pumpkin patch.
• 50:20
  And then we get another shocking reveal that the poem that Nate
• 50:23
  wrote for Addie that he actually wrote for Kenzie, he actually
• 50:26
  originally wrote for Eve and he's been recycling it for years
• 50:29
  and years and years and years and years, like 15 years.
• 50:32
  Eve says many years ago, back when I was 15 years old and he
• 50:36
  was my English teacher fresh out of college, he swore to me that
• 50:40
  I was his soulmate. Again, I have such mixed
• 50:42
  feelings about this because on the one hand, yes, let's show a
• 50:46
  pattern of behaviour and that he's disgusting and evil.
• 50:49
  But on the other hand, I feel so icky having a, oh, he groomed
• 50:54
  this girl and this girl and this girl and surprise, he groomed
• 50:56
  this girl. Be your like, thriller.
• 51:00
  You're like cheap thriller plot twist.
• 51:02
  Do you know what I mean? I feel like it's intended to
• 51:07
  shock the audience in a soapy, cheesy way, not in a way that
• 51:10
  actually takes the crime seriously.
• 51:12
  And I just have very conflicting feelings about it.
• 51:14
  And that's where the book ends. Except the epilogue.
• 51:19
  The epilogue with one final shocking twist that makes me
• 51:22
  hate this entire book so much. So far.
• 51:26
  There have been flaws, but I think they're forgivable because
• 51:29
  at least the bad guy was the bad guy, right?
• 51:31
  He was painted as the bad guy, he got his comeuppance, he died.
• 51:35
  The abuse was never glamorised or romanticised, right?
• 51:38
  Right. So the epilogue, It is 6 months
• 51:44
  later and Addie is now dating Hudson and she says that
• 51:47
  everyone believed Nate just vanished.
• 51:50
  No one knows that Eve and her lover Jay killed him.
• 51:53
  Eve pops back up to the police, and it's like, oh, don't worry,
• 51:56
  nothing happened. I just went away for a weekend.
• 51:58
  And Addie never actually faces any punishment for attacking her
• 52:01
  and burying her alive. She just gets away with that.
• 52:04
  So there you go. That's fun, she says.
• 52:07
  As for Mr Bennett, it turns out that Kenzie and I weren't the
• 52:10
  only soul mates he had among his students.
• 52:13
  It makes me sick when I think about it.
• 52:14
  Sometimes I feel so stupid. Yeah, we all saw that coming.
• 52:18
  That is fine. Addie finally gets some therapy.
• 52:21
  Finally took like 300 pages but here we are.
• 52:26
  Actually I don't think the books suck long.
• 52:27
  I'm exaggerating. But anyway, Eve resigned, she
• 52:31
  left town. We don't quite know what she's
• 52:33
  doing now. But then the final reveal.
• 52:36
  Addie and Hudson are heading out with some friends and one of
• 52:39
  them doesn't call him Hudson. He calls him by his nickname,
• 52:43
  which is short for his surname. His surname is Jankowski.
• 52:48
  So all his friends just call him Jay.
• 52:56
  Yeah, J as in that J. And this is it, the final twist
• 53:03
  of the book. Hudson and J are the same
• 53:07
  person. Eve's shoe shop working
• 53:10
  boyfriends boy being the operative word here was Hudson J
• 53:15
  Jankowski, 16 year old boy child student at her school.
• 53:22
  And they're still in touch. Yeah, they're not sleeping
• 53:25
  together anymore. They're not dating anymore.
• 53:27
  But she keeps texting him and apparently she's so happy now.
• 53:32
  And he like gets these cutesy texts from her and he smiles and
• 53:35
  he blushes. It's like, and even even Addie
• 53:39
  is like, oh, that must be his ex-girlfriend.
• 53:41
  And to me, this undermines every single good thing that this book
• 53:44
  ever tried to do and makes it an absolute flaming, massive
• 53:48
  garbage piece of trash. Oh, I'm genuinely so angry about
• 53:52
  this. We're meant to feel like Nate is
• 53:55
  the villain because he slept with 16 year old girls.
• 53:57
  But when Eve does it with a 16 year old boy, that's played off
• 54:00
  as romantic and cute. He's the hero with this story.
• 54:04
  She's the hero. They're they're the hero.
• 54:07
  That ending to the book, she called up a 16 year old boy to
• 54:11
  help her kill her husband. And that's meant to be the happy
• 54:13
  ending. That's the comeuppance.
• 54:15
  That's the bad guy gets everything he's meant to and the
• 54:19
  good guys get away ending. She just gets to run off into
• 54:22
  the sunset and be happy and never face any consequences for
• 54:25
  repeatedly raping a child. Eve is portrayed as the victim
• 54:28
  old in all this who finally gets revenge on her predator husband.
• 54:32
  Meanwhile she was doing the same thing to another child.
• 54:34
  And listen back to some of the earlier points from this book
• 54:37
  with this knowledge. Now this is points I told you to
• 54:40
  remember. Listen back to them.
• 54:42
  So when this story is happening, Hudson had just turned 1610
• 54:46
  months ago, even met him and has been sleeping with him for four
• 54:50
  months. That means he was only 16 1/2
• 54:53
  and she was 29, almost 30 when they met.
• 54:58
  There is not any situation in which that is OK.
• 55:01
  Look back at the things you've said.
• 55:03
  I don't even feel a little bit guilty.
• 55:05
  Well, a tiny bit guilty, but I wouldn't do it if my own husband
• 55:08
  didn't act like he was scared of touching me.
• 55:10
  So you don't feel guilty about raping a child because your
• 55:13
  husband isn't into you? That's not an excuse.
• 55:17
  She also says at one point when they first met, he looked quite
• 55:19
  familiar. Yeah, because he's a student at
• 55:22
  the school that you teach at. And remember when she found out
• 55:26
  about Nate and Addie and her first response was that bastard
• 55:30
  is cheating on me with her? And also at the age of consent
• 55:33
  in the state is 16. So Nate won't go to gaol for
• 55:35
  this. It's not statutory rape.
• 55:38
  Yeah, of course the crime to her is cheating and not abusing a
• 55:40
  child because she's doing the exact same thing and doesn't
• 55:43
  want to admit that she's also abusing a child.
• 55:45
  And of course she's rationalising it as it's not an
• 55:48
  actual crime. It's not technically a crime
• 55:50
  here is in other parts of the world, but it isn't here.
• 55:54
  Of course she's rationalising that because again, she's doing
• 55:56
  the exact same thing. But just because something isn't
• 55:59
  technically a crime in one area, that doesn't make it morally
• 56:02
  right. It can still be immoral, it can
• 56:05
  still be harmful. It can still be rape.
• 56:09
  Even if it's not technically statutory rape in that state, I
• 56:13
  think it's still rape because there is no way in hell that a
• 56:17
  kid, a 16 year old kid, can consent to having sex with an
• 56:22
  adult in a position of power over them.
• 56:24
  Especially when that person is a teacher.
• 56:27
  That is just not possible to consent to.
• 56:29
  And remember when she went on to say about Addie, whatever else I
• 56:33
  can say about her, she's only 16.
• 56:35
  She's a child. I have to remind myself again
• 56:37
  that this isn't her fault. Nate took advantage of her
• 56:39
  vulnerability. And the 16 year old that you're
• 56:42
  sleeping with, is he not just a child?
• 56:45
  What about the fact that when you met him, he was vulnerable
• 56:47
  because he just helped his friend cover up a murder?
• 56:54
  Hudson, Jay, whatever you want to call him, his character is
• 56:57
  just fine with all this. At the end of the book, Addie
• 57:00
  and Kenzie and the other girls, they need therapy after
• 57:02
  everything. But Hudson, who was also raped
• 57:05
  by a teacher and helped cover up two murders in a year, committed
• 57:08
  one of them. He's absolutely fine.
• 57:10
  He's happy and healthy. He doesn't need therapy.
• 57:12
  He's still texting Eve and blushing and acting like
• 57:16
  everything's fine and cutesy and they're still good friends.
• 57:18
  Like it's like the author doesn't understand that this
• 57:21
  kind of abuse can happen to boys too and that he was still raped.
• 57:25
  He is still a child victim in this.
• 57:27
  The author does not understand that or take it seriously.
• 57:30
  That's what bothers me. And there's there's other
• 57:32
  examples of this too. Remember the big deal she made
• 57:35
  about Addie just being a little girl with unshaven legs and a
• 57:38
  flat chest doesn't do the same thing for Hudson.
• 57:40
  She only ever refers to Hudson this this 16 year old boy as a
• 57:44
  man, a big strong Muslim man. Like, it makes me so
• 57:48
  uncomfortable. So like, and the, you know, the
• 57:51
  woman who kept phoning him and that was his mum and younger
• 57:55
  sibling. Like, I feel like if she wanted
• 58:00
  to go down this route, she could have done it in a way that was
• 58:02
  sensitive and it could have been really good.
• 58:04
  It could have been good opportunity to show things like
• 58:06
  how the cycle of abuse can continue.
• 58:08
  You know, Eve was Nate's victim, one of his first victims, right?
• 58:12
  She was 15 when they got together.
• 58:13
  So maybe the cycle of abuse continues and then she gets
• 58:15
  older and does it to another another child, right.
• 58:18
  She was abused in this way and now she's doing it to someone
• 58:20
  else. The film Scarborough, if you've
• 58:22
  seen that, is a really, really good example of this playing out
• 58:25
  on screen. But in order to do that and
• 58:27
  portray it sensitively and carefully and, and not just
• 58:31
  legitimise the abuse freedom, we've had to write this so that
• 58:36
  we see Hudson was actually affected by the abuse and the
• 58:39
  assault, as he, as you likely would have been in the real
• 58:42
  world. We would have had to see Eve
• 58:44
  realise that what she did was wrong and face some consequences
• 58:47
  of it. We would have at least had to
• 58:49
  see a character call it out for the abuse that it is and not
• 58:52
  just glamorise it and make excuses.
• 58:55
  It should not have just been played off as some silly
• 58:58
  romantic fling where Addie is like teehee hee had a girlfriend
• 59:01
  before me and Eve is like oh Jay is my big strong hero who saved
• 59:05
  the day is like no he's not a big strong hero he's a 16 year
• 59:08
  old boy you were raping. Eve should not have got a
• 59:11
  happily ever after, Simple as that.
• 59:14
  Thanks to the epilogue, the message of this book overall is
• 59:17
  grooming as bad when a man does it, but it's cute when a woman
• 59:20
  does it, and I hate that. In some ways, I think this book
• 59:25
  may be worse than other books which just flat out romanticised
• 59:28
  grooming. You don't like the Zodiac
• 59:30
  Academy books, for example, because at least in those
• 59:32
  situations you can argue that the author is ignorant.
• 59:35
  You know they're romanticising all grooming, so the author's
• 59:38
  just ignorant and producing something harmful.
• 59:40
  In this case, we know Freda McFadden knows grooming is
• 59:44
  wrong, she knows child abuse is wrong, she knows child sexual
• 59:48
  assault is wrong. And yet she's still trying to
• 59:50
  say. But in some cases I can justify
• 59:54
  it and will romanticise it. Teacher sleeping with a student
• 59:58
  is very very bad. Unless that teacher is female.
• 1:00:02
  The student is male, they initially met outside school.
• 1:00:06
  He looks mature for his age and then we can excuse it and blah
• 1:00:09
  blah blah that no stop it. Without this last reveal in the
• 1:00:13
  epilogue, this would still not have been a good book, but I and
• 1:00:17
  you know, I would have still had a few problems with it here and
• 1:00:19
  there, but nothing too major. But for me, this reveal changes
• 1:00:23
  everything and unminds everything good that this book
• 1:00:26
  tried to do at any point. And because of that it is a
• 1:00:29
  massive piece of crap which is so completely dangerous and
• 1:00:33
  shouldn't be read by anyone. And that is the reason I will
• 1:00:36
  never, ever, ever, ever, ever recommend this book.
• 1:00:39
  That said, if you do want to read some simple, entertaining
• 1:00:42
  thrillers or crime dramas or anything like that, and there's
• 1:00:45
  a couple of authors and books I'd recommend.
• 1:00:48
  Janice Hallett is not without her flaws and she has a tendency
• 1:00:51
  to ever explain, but her books are quite fun.
• 1:00:53
  They're kind of modern epistory novels with like, cosy crime
• 1:00:57
  drama. They're fun.
• 1:00:59
  Love Peter James, he has crime dramas set in Brighton.
• 1:01:03
  Richard Osmond is very cosy and nice crime dramas.
• 1:01:07
  I like Gillian Flynn, Daniel Handlers.
• 1:01:10
  The basic 8 has stuck with me for like the last decade.
• 1:01:12
  That that's a great book. Elizabeth Thomas, Even Stephen
• 1:01:16
  King to be honest. Like there's so many others I
• 1:01:18
  can't even think of right now, but there are a lot of better
• 1:01:20
  options out there of thriller authors to read that I'm not
• 1:01:23
  Frida McFadden. And if you want to read a book
• 1:01:25
  which covers the topic of grooming sensitively instead of
• 1:01:28
  whatever the hell this was then I would recommend the memoirs
• 1:01:32
  Being Lolita by Allison Wood and Groomed by Sonia Orchard and the
• 1:01:36
  semi autobiographical novel My Dark Vanessa by Kate Kate
• 1:01:39
  Elizabeth Russell. I haven't yet read Excavation by
• 1:01:43
  Wendy Ortiz but I think it's probably worth mentioning too
• 1:01:45
  because I've seen a lot of very good reviews about it and I have
• 1:01:49
  faith in those reviews. So that was my ranting for an
• 1:01:54
  hour and a half. I'm hoping you get this video
• 1:01:56
  down to an hour. We'll see.
• 1:01:58
  But yeah, I just, I had a lot to say.
• 1:02:00
  I had a lot of thoughts. I was very frustrated by this
• 1:02:03
  book and also I was quite upset about it.
• 1:02:05
  So Kyra was a little bit stressed while I was filming.
• 1:02:07
  So if you could hear her grumbling in the background, I'm
• 1:02:08
  very, very sorry. I'm going to go take her out for
• 1:02:11
  a walk now and hopefully that'll keep her nice and calm and
• 1:02:13
  happy. But yeah, for now, thank you so
• 1:02:16
  much for watching. If you'd like to follow me over
• 1:02:18
  on Instagram, you can do. I'm at Rachel Oates and I post
• 1:02:20
  lots of fun, like just stuff from my everyday life over
• 1:02:24
  there, some nice photos. I do a lot of gig photography,
• 1:02:26
  which is fun. So if you like live music and
• 1:02:28
  bands, you can see a lot of that over on my Instagram.
• 1:02:31
  I also post over there on my stories every time I post a new
• 1:02:33
  video to YouTube, whether it's here on my second channel.
• 1:02:35
  So if you want to follow me over there, you'll usually always be
• 1:02:38
  kept up to date on my videos and my content.
• 1:02:41
  And if you want to see shorter clips from my videos, then you
• 1:02:44
  can check out my second channel. And I also post some little
• 1:02:48
  other bits of original content over there, like makeup videos,
• 1:02:51
  all little floggy things or me just casually talking about
• 1:02:53
  books that I like, a little bit of everything.
• 1:02:55
  So there you go. I know a lot of people don't
• 1:02:57
  have the time to watch long form content.
• 1:02:58
  So with a lot of the longer videos, I cut them down into
• 1:03:00
  interesting little clips and post them over there that are
• 1:03:03
  like, you know, 5 to 10 minutes long.
• 1:03:05
  But yeah, that is that is me done for now.
• 1:03:07
  Thank you so much for watching today.
• 1:03:08
  Thank you to everyone who is supporting me over on Patreon,
• 1:03:10
  who has supported me by buying my merch or my books or anything
• 1:03:14
  like that. You're all wonderful and I
• 1:03:15
  appreciate you so much and I will see you again very, very
• 1:03:19
  soon. Bye.