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Book Club: Fangirl · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not going to
0:07
Speaker 1: step I never told you prediction of I Heart Radio.
0:18
Speaker 1: It is time for another book club and we this
0:23
Speaker 1: month are doing Rainbow Rolls book fan Girl, and oh goodness.
0:28
Speaker 1: It is so popular. It's translated into multiple languages. It's
0:32
Speaker 1: been made into manga. Has several sequels that are based
0:36
Speaker 1: on the fan fiction written within the book that I'm
0:38
Speaker 1: very excited to read. I own, I own them. You
0:41
Speaker 1: can't see them, but they're behind me. The story follows
0:45
Speaker 1: Cath Avery, who is starting freshman year at University of
0:49
Speaker 1: Nebraska Lincoln, along with her twin sister, Wren Katherine. You know,
0:53
Speaker 1: get it um I didn't until they spelled it out.
0:57
Speaker 1: Kath and Wren have long been close and bond it
1:00
Speaker 1: over their love of the Simon Snow series, which is
1:03
Speaker 1: a wildly popular fantasy series about vampires and magic. Cast
1:07
Speaker 1: fan fiction carry On has thousands of readers based on
1:10
Speaker 1: the Simon Snow series, which is essentially Harry Potter maybe
1:13
Speaker 1: meets Twilight, and Kath is racing to finish this fan
1:16
Speaker 1: fiction before the eighth and final book of the series
1:19
Speaker 1: comes out. Wren, who has always been the more outgoing
1:22
Speaker 1: of the two used to beta her story, which is
1:25
Speaker 1: basically like an editor. They read over it and make
1:27
Speaker 1: any suggestions changes Um, which pairs the two main male characters,
1:32
Speaker 1: Bas and Simon together, but Wren is determined to make
1:36
Speaker 1: new friends at the university, saying that they have to
1:39
Speaker 1: get separate dorms. Wren goes out in parties while Cast
1:42
Speaker 1: stays in, struggling with social anxiety and worry over their father,
1:46
Speaker 1: as well as adapting to her gruff roommate Reagan Uh
1:50
Speaker 1: and her social Reagan social friend slash maybe boyfriend who's
1:54
Speaker 1: always in their room named Levi. Kath spends most of
1:57
Speaker 1: her free time writing fan fiction is definitely used in
2:00
Speaker 1: it as a coping mechanism. Eventually, Kath does befriend Reagan
2:05
Speaker 1: and Levi, along with her a writing partner in her
2:07
Speaker 1: fictional writing class, Nick, whom she has a bit of
2:10
Speaker 1: a crush on. Kath, who got special permission to be
2:13
Speaker 1: in the class as a freshman, excels until she turns
2:17
Speaker 1: in some fan fiction as an assignment and gets an
2:19
Speaker 1: f sending her spiraling she can't get ahold friend Um,
2:24
Speaker 1: who has now grown more distant, so Kath is comforted
2:27
Speaker 1: by Levi and Reagan. Kath and Levi grow close, with
2:31
Speaker 1: Kath even reading some of her fan fiction to him
2:34
Speaker 1: along with a book for class. After he reveals he
2:36
Speaker 1: struggles with with reading so she stays up. Kath stays
2:40
Speaker 1: up and reads this book to him after Reagan forgets
2:43
Speaker 1: about it and the two kiss. Kath realizes she is
2:47
Speaker 1: romantically interested in Levi, but then witnesses him kissing another girl. Hurt,
2:52
Speaker 1: Kath flees before Levi sees her and starts avoiding him.
2:56
Speaker 1: She also gets in a fight with Nick after she
2:58
Speaker 1: helps him on an assignment and he decides to turn
3:01
Speaker 1: it in for the classes final project like this really
3:04
Speaker 1: big part of their grade final project without crediting kath
3:08
Speaker 1: um Then, her father is hospitalized during finals week and
3:11
Speaker 1: Levi gives her a right home and Kath confronts him
3:15
Speaker 1: about what he did. Kath learns that Wren, who stayed
3:18
Speaker 1: to finish her finals, has been in contact with their
3:21
Speaker 1: exchange mother, who left them when they were young. Infuriated,
3:25
Speaker 1: Kath refuses to have any contact with her mom and
3:28
Speaker 1: decides that she's going to drop out of university and
3:31
Speaker 1: go to a local college so she can look after
3:33
Speaker 1: their dad. Who disagrees with her decision. Right, So Kat
3:37
Speaker 1: ultimately decides to stay and makes up her finals except
3:41
Speaker 1: her final creative writing assignment because you know why not.
3:46
Speaker 1: Her professor convinces her to give it a try and
3:48
Speaker 1: gives her the rest of the semester to complete the
3:50
Speaker 1: project because she loved her writing, had so much hope
3:53
Speaker 1: in her was talking about how she was such an like,
3:56
Speaker 1: so excelled in the program, all these things. Even though
3:59
Speaker 1: Kat tells her all she wants is to write fan fiction.
4:02
Speaker 1: This is her world is what she loves, she doesn't.
4:04
Speaker 1: She can't create her own world, as she says. Kath
4:07
Speaker 1: and Levi makeup and decide to give dating a try, which,
4:10
Speaker 1: by the way, the back and forth and the like
4:12
Speaker 1: the miscommunication was adorable and very like, yeah, I've seen that, um.
4:17
Speaker 1: And then she is reunited with her sister, actually she's
4:20
Speaker 1: hospitalized from alcohol poisoning, and she briefly encounters her mother,
4:24
Speaker 1: who you don't like her mother anymore. You would think
4:26
Speaker 1: there would be better reactions, but there's not. Her mother.
4:29
Speaker 1: She's the worst. UM. Kath and Wrenn began repairing their relationship,
4:32
Speaker 1: and ren revelle she's been reading every update of cats
4:35
Speaker 1: Sivating fiction, and it's desperate for her to finish it.
4:38
Speaker 1: So even though Kat thought she had given up because
4:41
Speaker 1: at one point Wren makes fun of her for something
4:43
Speaker 1: so sacred, she realized that she still loves it too.
4:47
Speaker 1: So yeah, Kath also wants to finish it before the
4:51
Speaker 1: eighth and final book comes out, but it consumes her
4:54
Speaker 1: and gets in the way of her studies. As the
4:56
Speaker 1: school year comes to an end, Levi convinces her that
4:59
Speaker 1: it's okay she doesn't finish it before the eighth Simon
5:02
Speaker 1: snowbook comes out and renders her story quote non compliant
5:06
Speaker 1: that she can still write it after. By the way,
5:09
Speaker 1: Levi it's very upset that she's getting these opportunities and
5:12
Speaker 1: wants her to do it because he doesn't get these
5:13
Speaker 1: opportunities and would kill for these opportunities to do better
5:16
Speaker 1: all these things, so it's kind of okay. Um Kath
5:20
Speaker 1: finishes her short story, focusing on her relationship with her sister,
5:24
Speaker 1: and uh it's published in the school paper, which we
5:28
Speaker 1: find out later like that Nick had taken the story
5:32
Speaker 1: that she and he wrote together to try to publish
5:35
Speaker 1: it to make himself kind of you know, known as
5:38
Speaker 1: a writer, and she wouldn't. She didn't care, but she
5:40
Speaker 1: didn't want any credit. And though he he after the
5:46
Speaker 1: teacher found out that she had helped him. So there's
5:48
Speaker 1: some like, yes, vindication in this whole thing because Nick's
5:52
Speaker 1: a jerk and we find that out. But then Nicks
5:54
Speaker 1: has to do this whole mayakopa just to get his
5:57
Speaker 1: name out there, and she doesn't let it happen, but
5:59
Speaker 1: she gets there just with her old story. Yeah, I
6:03
Speaker 1: wanted to include this quote from the author. I wrote
6:05
Speaker 1: fan Girl during November as part of National Novel Writing Month.
6:08
Speaker 1: I liked the idea of a built in limitation. It
6:10
Speaker 1: was easy to write about fan fiction, even though I
6:13
Speaker 1: would have been embarrassed to speak about fan fiction at
6:15
Speaker 1: the time. Was a different world because I was writing
6:18
Speaker 1: for me, and I was writing so quickly, I didn't
6:21
Speaker 1: have much time to worry about being exposed or embarrassed.
6:24
Speaker 1: Kath writes fan fiction because that's the world that makes
6:26
Speaker 1: her happiest as a writer. That's the world she loves.
6:30
Speaker 1: I think you can write original fiction in the same spirit.
6:32
Speaker 1: You can create a world just because it makes you happy.
6:35
Speaker 1: You can write a book just because you want to
6:37
Speaker 1: spend time with it, and I love that. I love that.
6:39
Speaker 1: Um it is funny because I know I've done National
6:44
Speaker 1: Novel Writing Month, actually the Spinty series we're doing we're
6:48
Speaker 1: reading on here right now, which is a trilogy. All
6:50
Speaker 1: three of them I wrote for National Novel Writing Month,
6:53
Speaker 1: and I remember I call see messages from editors posted
6:58
Speaker 1: somewhere that'll be like, I hate, I hate, and December
7:01
Speaker 1: all these books from people who wrote books the National
7:03
Speaker 1: Novel Writing but come in and they're not very good.
7:07
Speaker 1: But this spe was very, very good. And I know
7:10
Speaker 1: we've talked about National Novel Writing Months on here before,
7:14
Speaker 1: but one of the things I love about it is
7:17
Speaker 1: that you have to get out of your head. You
7:19
Speaker 1: can't you you can't just get stuck in editing. You
7:22
Speaker 1: have to write it. I got the first and the ending,
7:25
Speaker 1: and in the middle part was like oh god, but
7:27
Speaker 1: I wrote like a lot and then I quit. You
7:31
Speaker 1: have to write a savant. It is quite a big,
7:34
Speaker 1: like undertaking. They have that graph that they show you
7:37
Speaker 1: how much for you have to go, and it can
7:39
Speaker 1: be very stressful. It was a lot. Apparently another book
7:45
Speaker 1: that was written during that time Water for Elephants, really
7:50
Speaker 1: and you can kind of see the you could kind
7:52
Speaker 1: of see the rush. There's a point that you're like,
7:53
Speaker 1: I see what you've done is a great book. I
7:55
Speaker 1: love Debt, but yeah, it was began because of the
7:59
Speaker 1: Nano Remo, which is what the National Novel Writing Month
8:02
Speaker 1: Nana Remo. I think it's Nano Rimo, like right, but
8:07
Speaker 1: I do the same thing really well, I'm gonna tell
8:09
Speaker 1: you what I say. Well, and as I've said, like
8:12
Speaker 1: the current thing, Rina and spent de Fiction is part
8:14
Speaker 1: of a trilogy. Who knows well if we'll get to
8:16
Speaker 1: all three, but I wrote all of them through Nana Ramo,
8:20
Speaker 1: and there's definitely gonna be a section that we'll all
8:23
Speaker 1: enjoy together where you're gonna be like, oh, she was rushing,
8:27
Speaker 1: she was rushing. I also wanted to include the Ford,
8:33
Speaker 1: which I loved, and Texas Samantha. I was like, oh, yeah,
8:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna love this book. Quote to Jennifer who always
8:38
Speaker 1: had an extra lightsaber right already to go yeah, and
8:44
Speaker 1: to set up the popular quote about the fictional books
8:46
Speaker 1: in the novel quote. Simon Snow is a series of
8:50
Speaker 1: seven fantasy books written by English philologist Jimma t Leslie.
8:54
Speaker 1: The books tell the story of a Simon Snow and
8:56
Speaker 1: eleven year old orphan from Lancashire who is crewed to
9:00
Speaker 1: attend that What School of Magics to become a magician UM.
9:04
Speaker 1: As he grows older, Simon joins a group of magicians,
9:07
Speaker 1: the Mages, who are fighting the insidious hum Drum and
9:11
Speaker 1: evil being tried to rid the world of magic. Since
9:14
Speaker 1: the publication of Simon Snow and the Magic Air in
9:16
Speaker 1: two thousand one, the books have been translated into fifty
9:19
Speaker 1: three languages, and as of August two thousand eleven, have
9:23
Speaker 1: sold more than three hundred and eighty million copies. Yes,
9:26
Speaker 1: by the way, you've already talked about the fact these
9:30
Speaker 1: books exist. These books exist, except there's only four or five. Yes,
9:34
Speaker 1: So the version of fan fiction that Kath writes throughout
9:38
Speaker 1: this book, you get snippets, you can, uh, yeah, there's
9:42
Speaker 1: a There's at least three, maybe four that have been
9:45
Speaker 1: published of Cath's fan fiction of this world, and I
9:50
Speaker 1: own three of them and I'm really excited to read them.
9:56
Speaker 1: It's definitely, like I said, it's it's Harry Potter for sure,
9:59
Speaker 1: with the UM with some Twilight thrown in. UM, I
10:03
Speaker 1: think it's Harry Draco slash. I'm pretty sure that's what's
10:08
Speaker 1: going on. Okay, well that's what it seems. Um, maybe
10:12
Speaker 1: you're right. I guess maybe there's only three books out.
10:16
Speaker 1: I thought there were four that I had seen, but
10:20
Speaker 1: I think it's right. There's only a trilogy. It's a
10:21
Speaker 1: trilogy right now. It might end up with the trilogy actually. Okay,
10:26
Speaker 1: So all of these things on top of the fact
10:29
Speaker 1: that I've actually already read Rainbow Ralph other book, Eleanor
10:33
Speaker 1: and park As how it's introduced to her, um, and
10:36
Speaker 1: I really love that book. It is a y novel, um,
10:39
Speaker 1: but it's set in the late eighties for a teenage
10:42
Speaker 1: girl and a teenage boy who is an Asian teenage boy.
10:45
Speaker 1: And I really that that's interesting. Uh. The girl is
10:48
Speaker 1: also a thicker, bigger girls, as it describes in the book,
10:53
Speaker 1: and it's kind of like, oh that's nice, a little
10:55
Speaker 1: bit tragic. It's very it's not emo, but it's definitely
11:00
Speaker 1: not like you're up in like romance. It definitely has
11:03
Speaker 1: at the moment of oh, it's not the happiest of endings. Um.
11:07
Speaker 1: But I really loved that book. And when I realized
11:10
Speaker 1: this was her, I was like oh, oh my god. Yeah,
11:12
Speaker 1: I know. I like her writing. I know she she's
11:14
Speaker 1: an amazing writer. I'm excited about this. Let's go. But
11:17
Speaker 1: did you know she was a part of the she
11:19
Speaker 1: Hulk writing? No, I didn't of the current what's happening? Yeah,
11:23
Speaker 1: I guess so, so from what I gathered, I could
11:26
Speaker 1: be wrong. Um, she helped book five of eight of
11:32
Speaker 1: She Home. I did see that, right, Okay, But back
11:36
Speaker 1: to UH, Like, I'm just interesting. She is the author
11:40
Speaker 1: on it. So I found that interesting and thought that
11:42
Speaker 1: was the thing that we need to talk about since
11:44
Speaker 1: we're probably gonna end up coming to talk about She Hoped.
11:47
Speaker 1: And also with this book, I decided to do it
11:51
Speaker 1: through audible, which I do a lot of the times
11:53
Speaker 1: because I am that personnel. But it was awesome because
11:57
Speaker 1: one of the readers, Uh is someone that I had
12:01
Speaker 1: a huge crush on from Greece to Maxwell Caulfield, And
12:05
Speaker 1: I was like, what, I would have never known. I
12:08
Speaker 1: would have never known that was him on my own,
12:11
Speaker 1: but when I looked at almost like, wait, I know him.
12:13
Speaker 1: So that was really interesting. However, the main narrator of
12:17
Speaker 1: the book is Rebecca Lowman, who's in a lot of
12:19
Speaker 1: the books. I think she's just several of Rainbow Rawls
12:22
Speaker 1: books as well. Um, but she's the main one and
12:25
Speaker 1: we only hear I only hear the audience. I only
12:28
Speaker 1: here's Maxwell call Field for the snippets of fan fiction
12:32
Speaker 1: and or the novel that she's talking about. So so
12:36
Speaker 1: that does it for the Simon Basil stuff. Uh so
12:39
Speaker 1: I saw that was interesting, but it was a good
12:41
Speaker 1: like snippets to here and there. But at the end
12:43
Speaker 1: he does read her short story that she publishes in
12:46
Speaker 1: the publication that the school does for the creative writers.
12:50
Speaker 1: So it was really interesting. That's how it ends on.
12:52
Speaker 1: I know him in that way, but it ends on
12:54
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that's a nice little note to end on.
12:57
Speaker 1: But yes, So it was very fun. Uh, it was
13:00
Speaker 1: very had moments where I had to stop it because
13:03
Speaker 1: it was so embarrassing. I was like, oh my god,
13:05
Speaker 1: I got stop, I gotta stop. Uh and then come
13:07
Speaker 1: back too. But it was very good. Yeah, yeah, I
13:11
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it and it resonated with me in a
13:13
Speaker 1: lot of ways and in a lot of ways we're
13:15
Speaker 1: going to talk about when it comes to fandom and honestly, college,
13:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure, yeah, for sure. For me. I was curious
13:25
Speaker 1: about your Audible experience because, uh, well they're not currently
13:29
Speaker 1: a sponsored They have been to sponsor in the past,
13:30
Speaker 1: but currently they are not. That could change in the future. Um,
13:33
Speaker 1: but I knew you're gonna listen to it on Audible,
13:35
Speaker 1: and I was there when he realized like that guy
13:38
Speaker 1: was and I was so excited for you. People can
13:42
Speaker 1: fight me about Greece too, there's so many things about
13:44
Speaker 1: Greece too. But I loved him and I had a
13:47
Speaker 1: crush on him. Was he He was actually in the
13:50
Speaker 1: movie from the nineties, Empire Records. Okay, he was in
13:55
Speaker 1: that and he was a douchebag in that way. All Right,
13:59
Speaker 1: I want to hear it. The next time we hang out,
14:01
Speaker 1: you should play a segment of this. I will. I'll
14:04
Speaker 1: just want to hear the fan fiction. Yeah, being he
14:09
Speaker 1: does a great job in voicing the characters of these
14:12
Speaker 1: sence fiction characters. He does a really good job. All right, Yeah,
14:15
Speaker 1: I'm into it. I'm into it. Okay. So there are
14:31
Speaker 1: a lot of themes we want to go over. Um.
14:33
Speaker 1: One of the big ones is the sisterhood between Kath
14:36
Speaker 1: and Wren. So there's a lot of competition. So it's
14:42
Speaker 1: told from cast point of view, right, so we're kind
14:44
Speaker 1: of limited about what we're getting to see. So we're
14:48
Speaker 1: getting her view of friend, which is kind of um sanitized.
14:53
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if that's the right word. Um. So
14:57
Speaker 1: on Kath and like, who's the point of view were
15:00
Speaker 1: we're seeing it through. She feels like there's a lot
15:03
Speaker 1: of competition between her and Ran, and maybe we're not
15:07
Speaker 1: getting the full picture. There's a lot of inferiority for
15:11
Speaker 1: Calf because Wren is seeing as sort of the more
15:15
Speaker 1: outgoing one, the one who is able to adapt more
15:21
Speaker 1: to things like college perhaps, and they've always been together.
15:25
Speaker 1: So when Wren is like, um, I want to go
15:29
Speaker 1: live in separate dorms, that was a huge deal for
15:34
Speaker 1: Calf and and for both of them, as we later
15:37
Speaker 1: As we later find out, she describes feeling like she's
15:40
Speaker 1: being dumped by her sister, who Rin's roommate, Courtney and
15:47
Speaker 1: her seemed to be hitting it off just great, always
15:51
Speaker 1: has plans. Um I think it's Levi. He describes them
15:55
Speaker 1: as like she Cath being Clark Kent and Wren being
16:02
Speaker 1: like Superman. Right, and there is a scene where like, um,
16:07
Speaker 1: Cath gets a text message sort of like a nine
16:09
Speaker 1: one one message from right, and Cath panics and she
16:13
Speaker 1: can sleep by and they go to the spar to
16:15
Speaker 1: find her. There's a lot of like twin grossness, like
16:20
Speaker 1: guys being really gross about them being toured, right, m hmm,
16:26
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely a lot between the two trying
16:28
Speaker 1: to distinguish each other. Cath was never really excited about
16:31
Speaker 1: being a separate personality. She talks about how if when
16:34
Speaker 1: got invited to something, she was automatically invited, so that
16:37
Speaker 1: was the easiest way for her to socialize our anxieties overall,
16:40
Speaker 1: like we They talk a lot about the different mental
16:42
Speaker 1: health aspects through this. She talks about how she went
16:46
Speaker 1: more and more inward got depressed, like literally, uh so
16:49
Speaker 1: embarrassed to ask to go to the bathroom that she
16:53
Speaker 1: uh ended up urinating on herself because that was the
16:56
Speaker 1: level of detriment that she did not want to be
16:59
Speaker 1: seen for so long. But then yeah, n kind of
17:03
Speaker 1: just bypassed it and seemed like she was okay most
17:05
Speaker 1: of the time. She was able to stand up to people.
17:07
Speaker 1: She took the clothes apparently between the two of them
17:09
Speaker 1: that were cuter, more sexier, more whatever, and would wear
17:12
Speaker 1: it even if it was cats, if she would take
17:16
Speaker 1: it essentially and wear it often and do it well,
17:19
Speaker 1: essentially feel confident in it. She was also the one
17:21
Speaker 1: the first like this is college. We get to live
17:23
Speaker 1: our life and going out partying every night and finding
17:26
Speaker 1: people to party with every night, and making sure that
17:30
Speaker 1: she was a part of that bar, part of that
17:32
Speaker 1: scene which I've seen. I lost friends because I was
17:36
Speaker 1: that way. I was very awkward, I was very inward.
17:38
Speaker 1: I never went out, I never went to bars. I
17:40
Speaker 1: did not have my first drink until I was twenty one, um,
17:43
Speaker 1: and I had a glass of wine. I was like, hey,
17:46
Speaker 1: literally like I was very flummux by the fact that
17:50
Speaker 1: I had finally had a drink, and I was very
17:52
Speaker 1: cautious of it, making sure I didn't go overboard and
17:55
Speaker 1: all of that. I did not wear pants because I
17:58
Speaker 1: was hated my thigh and I wore long khaki or
18:01
Speaker 1: denim skirts, not even playing. I wore T shirts that
18:04
Speaker 1: were too big because I wanted to hide myself so desperately.
18:08
Speaker 1: So I understood that. And if I and my my
18:11
Speaker 1: best friend at the time, she was outgoing, everybody loved
18:15
Speaker 1: her and I could not understand, and I always stayed
18:17
Speaker 1: in her shadow because she was my best friend, so
18:20
Speaker 1: a little bit different obviously, but that was that level
18:23
Speaker 1: of like I don't want to be seen, I don't
18:26
Speaker 1: want this to be a thing. And then also I
18:29
Speaker 1: was being fetishized as an Asian person, Like it was
18:31
Speaker 1: this this whole level of like weirdness that I was
18:33
Speaker 1: trying to disappear as much as possible because I didn't
18:36
Speaker 1: want to be seen in any way whatsoever, partially because
18:41
Speaker 1: I felt like there's no way I could be need
18:44
Speaker 1: these things, so might as well beat them at the
18:46
Speaker 1: punch and just disappear. Yeah. Yeah, And and like I said,
18:52
Speaker 1: and I would really love to hear from listeners, um that.
18:55
Speaker 1: I feel like this book really captured how I felt
19:00
Speaker 1: during college a lot, which was like hide yourself, stay
19:07
Speaker 1: at your room, cook your illegal grilled cheese on your
19:11
Speaker 1: illegal George Ormant grill. I would literally just sit my
19:18
Speaker 1: door and I would like look out the window and uh,
19:23
Speaker 1: be getting dark. And I feel like I was a prisoner,
19:26
Speaker 1: Like I was trapped in there, but you actually went
19:28
Speaker 1: out right because you did have stories of being drunken out.
19:32
Speaker 1: I did, but not nearly as much as I did
19:35
Speaker 1: when I got out of college. Um, well maybe that's
19:38
Speaker 1: the stories I know. Yeah, I mean in college I
19:41
Speaker 1: was I was pretty like I had to study. Uh.
19:47
Speaker 1: I learned very quickly at the school I was going
19:49
Speaker 1: to that you could not not study. Mhm. So most
19:54
Speaker 1: of my stories, um, I I do have some college
19:57
Speaker 1: DARKNDU stories, but most of them took place in my apartment, uh,
20:01
Speaker 1: where we just didn't know what to do. We were
20:05
Speaker 1: like yeah, right, no, no, no, don't drink too much
20:09
Speaker 1: Baileys had rose. Yeah, oh, I mean college drinks. I
20:16
Speaker 1: mean really, it's a whole of the service we're doing
20:18
Speaker 1: to young people. We're telling them, you know, this is
20:22
Speaker 1: the college experience, and especially women, right, and like throughout
20:27
Speaker 1: the book, I was kind of struck, Um, even though
20:30
Speaker 1: it's been my experience too, how often there are so
20:33
Speaker 1: many references to, oh, well, you could be raped, right,
20:38
Speaker 1: you're gonna be a tag, you shouldn't be alone. You
20:40
Speaker 1: didn't even you need to do these things. Yeah, yeah, no,
20:45
Speaker 1: I definitely think that that's again, like they do a
20:48
Speaker 1: really good job. But then the loss of her sister,
20:51
Speaker 1: like just be not uh, just being away from her
20:55
Speaker 1: security blanket, who was her sister. At this point in time,
20:58
Speaker 1: it was a whole thing, and both of them diverting
21:01
Speaker 1: in their interests or or their ideals. It happens. It
21:06
Speaker 1: happens so often. I've lost so many friends, high school
21:08
Speaker 1: friends because of college. I was like, you are on
21:10
Speaker 1: a whole different path than I am. I think we
21:12
Speaker 1: can't be hanging out anymore. Yeah, I mean, I feel
21:16
Speaker 1: like when you go to college there is this expectation
21:19
Speaker 1: that suddenly you're going to be a different person. And
21:22
Speaker 1: then you go out or some people will really go
21:25
Speaker 1: out and really get drunk a lot, and then some
21:29
Speaker 1: people don't go out so much. It is it is
21:34
Speaker 1: a really tumultuous time because you feel like, well, I've
21:37
Speaker 1: got to adapt to this. This is what college is.
21:42
Speaker 1: And so with Kath we kind of have this like
21:43
Speaker 1: codependence with cass Or. Kath is like, oh what do
21:47
Speaker 1: I do without wren Rn. It's like, oh no, I
21:52
Speaker 1: gotta have this this independence. And even though we're talking
21:55
Speaker 1: about twin sisters, I related to this because I um
22:02
Speaker 1: had a roommate when I was in college and she
22:06
Speaker 1: was the best friend of mine, and we had been
22:09
Speaker 1: best friends since we were quite young, like five or six.
22:12
Speaker 1: And um, we both ended up going to the same university,
22:17
Speaker 1: and she wanted to have separate rooms. She wanted us
22:22
Speaker 1: to to be different people. She did, though, kind of
22:29
Speaker 1: go down the path that red Win and like, I
22:31
Speaker 1: totally think it's been it's legitimate to want to, you know,
22:34
Speaker 1: strike out, I want to do my own thing. Um,
22:38
Speaker 1: but she definitely leaned hard into this perceived college lifestyle. Meanwhile,
22:47
Speaker 1: I definitely went down the path that Kathy went again.
22:53
Speaker 1: I really think she captured college, like American college, especially
22:59
Speaker 1: the dorm life, all of that. She did a good
23:01
Speaker 1: job and the anxieties of it all too. Yes, Oh
23:04
Speaker 1: my gosh. Um, so this friend I went to school with,
23:08
Speaker 1: so basically throughout the book there is kath has this
23:10
Speaker 1: fear that she's going to get replaced, and so yeah,
23:14
Speaker 1: with my friend in college, I had the same beer
23:18
Speaker 1: like the single white female thing. You know, someone's going
23:21
Speaker 1: to come in and take your place. Where my friend
23:24
Speaker 1: was so much more popular than me, and she would
23:26
Speaker 1: come over and hang out with me at my apartment
23:30
Speaker 1: and everybody, like my roommates and everybody on the floor
23:33
Speaker 1: just liked her more. And it did become a source
23:36
Speaker 1: of danton right as in fact, i'd been I had
23:42
Speaker 1: gone away for a year, and I had always thought
23:46
Speaker 1: she was so much prettier than me. She's all these
23:48
Speaker 1: things of me, and she might be. I mean, there's
23:49
Speaker 1: no reason that there's nothing wrong with any of this,
23:53
Speaker 1: but of course, just my insecurity and there was someone
23:55
Speaker 1: was looking at the pictures of my college and it
23:57
Speaker 1: showed me into my best friends lash roommates that she's like,
24:00
Speaker 1: who is that? She's so pretty? I mean, god, her
24:02
Speaker 1: eyes are no, no, and then we are gottend she
24:08
Speaker 1: is and she is. But I was like, they never
24:11
Speaker 1: said that about cool, Like it's okay, it's okay, it's okay,
24:18
Speaker 1: I'm okay. Now I'm okay. Now, well we'll have to
24:21
Speaker 1: go back and talk about that, okay. So I did
24:24
Speaker 1: want to touch on this. There are toxic family relationships
24:28
Speaker 1: throughout this um, perhaps the most prominently their relationship with
24:33
Speaker 1: their mother, Cass relationship with her mother. So Cath is
24:37
Speaker 1: just like not having the idea of meeting with this person,
24:44
Speaker 1: of dealing with this person. Make it clear, I'm not
24:48
Speaker 1: judging her. She totally had legit reasons for that, and
24:53
Speaker 1: Wrin really wanted to meet her. So that was that
24:56
Speaker 1: was a contention point between them because they I couldn't
25:00
Speaker 1: reach an understanding. Part of that was they were secretive
25:03
Speaker 1: with each other. Yes, so Wryn was hiding that fact.
25:08
Speaker 1: Uh and when they figured out who was doing what,
25:11
Speaker 1: like it just it was a kind of a shock
25:13
Speaker 1: on a betrayal because they shared everything. And then when
25:16
Speaker 1: I was doing all these things, because she knew kath
25:19
Speaker 1: would not be happy, so she was hiding it. A
25:21
Speaker 1: lot of this is like not telling each other's stuff
25:23
Speaker 1: and trying to be deceitful with each other, and that's fine,
25:26
Speaker 1: like and then getting back at each other like I'm
25:28
Speaker 1: not gonna tell her, so she doesn't tell me this,
25:30
Speaker 1: like the petty isn't a petty, which I have done
25:32
Speaker 1: and I still do. It's fine, I'm fine. Um, but yeah,
25:36
Speaker 1: we talked about the relationship and I found this was
25:38
Speaker 1: an interesting point because we've talked about father issues and
25:40
Speaker 1: fan fiction and I'm like, I wonder if this blas
25:43
Speaker 1: into her fan fiction even though she's not a real
25:45
Speaker 1: person that mother issues. Oh, I'm sure. And I wanted
26:02
Speaker 1: to include this quote, um so her um. Katherine Wren's
26:07
Speaker 1: mother left on September eleven, like the September eleven. Uh,
26:12
Speaker 1: and here's a quote about it. The fight went on
26:15
Speaker 1: and on, and when the President flew over their heads
26:18
Speaker 1: that afternoon on the way to the Air Force base,
26:20
Speaker 1: the only plane in the sky, Kath thought maybe the
26:23
Speaker 1: whole world was going to end. Her mom left for
26:26
Speaker 1: good a week later, hugging both of the girls on
26:29
Speaker 1: the front porch, kissing their cheeks again and again, and
26:32
Speaker 1: promising that she'd see them both soon, that she just
26:35
Speaker 1: needed some time to feel better, to remember who she
26:38
Speaker 1: really was, which didn't make any sense to Kathy Wren.
26:41
Speaker 1: You're our mom. Kath couldn't remember everything that happened next,
26:46
Speaker 1: so obviously very traumatic. Um And going back to what
26:51
Speaker 1: you said. And I know we've talked about this before, uh,
26:54
Speaker 1: sometimes on Mike and sometimes off Mike, but I feel
26:57
Speaker 1: like there is a whole ware of like when you're
27:00
Speaker 1: trying not to hurt people so you don't you feel
27:03
Speaker 1: like you can't be your complete self with somebody, and
27:06
Speaker 1: then by trying to not hurt them, you hurt them
27:09
Speaker 1: even more. Never get the mom's whole story, We get
27:13
Speaker 1: like pieces of it. So it's it's hard to say,
27:17
Speaker 1: but certainly throughout their family you get this idea that
27:20
Speaker 1: they feel like, for one reason or another, they cannot
27:23
Speaker 1: be totally honest with each other. I did want to
27:26
Speaker 1: include this bit because I thought it was kind of
27:28
Speaker 1: funny about breakup. So Kath is dating this guy. When
27:32
Speaker 1: the book starts out aid Able and Um, everyone else
27:36
Speaker 1: keeps telling your like, oh, you're not dating not really um.
27:40
Speaker 1: And then Able, you know, they go to different colleges,
27:44
Speaker 1: and Able breaks up with Cath via phone call and
27:50
Speaker 1: and they have been together for three years and he's like, oh, well,
27:54
Speaker 1: you've never really been together though, And Kath was like
28:00
Speaker 1: what And I was like, yes, this is what those
28:03
Speaker 1: early relationships are like, Um, that was my experience anyway, right.
28:07
Speaker 1: But also he was already seeing somebody, and then he
28:09
Speaker 1: kind of compares her to her and then also says
28:12
Speaker 1: the whole like, but she loves her your writings, Yes,
28:19
Speaker 1: what he brings up like her s A T S
28:23
Speaker 1: A C T scores. Yes. Yes, I mean this is
28:27
Speaker 1: also another This is an instance of like when you
28:30
Speaker 1: go to college, A lot of times you're like, oh, no,
28:31
Speaker 1: we'll stay friends forever, best friends forever, well date uh,
28:36
Speaker 1: and then you know a lot of times it doesn't
28:38
Speaker 1: work out. Sometimes it does, but a lot of times
28:40
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Well, I was also thinking a lot of
28:42
Speaker 1: college relationships don't last either, true true story, And there
28:47
Speaker 1: were a lot of complicated relationships. Um So, like we
28:51
Speaker 1: had Levi and Reagan who had been in a relationship
28:57
Speaker 1: in high school and they were still good buddy to
29:00
Speaker 1: the point that Kath assumed that they were still dating.
29:04
Speaker 1: Then this relationship was able. And you kind of see
29:06
Speaker 1: this complicated relationship with Wren. And there's a lot throughout
29:12
Speaker 1: of Kath feeling this attraction to boys and realizing she's
29:15
Speaker 1: feeling this attraction to boys. And I definitely think there
29:19
Speaker 1: was a parallel of Levi being Simon and Nick being Boz.
29:26
Speaker 1: Really he's like Nick is the bad boy. I didn't
29:31
Speaker 1: say that, but that's interesting. Levi is like the nice guy,
29:35
Speaker 1: but actually the nice guy. I did see like Nick
29:39
Speaker 1: being but that that the pretentious dude. So how often
29:43
Speaker 1: like for me, I always went after the pretentious, nerdy
29:46
Speaker 1: writer dude in college and after I was attracted to
29:49
Speaker 1: and then but then the nice like he was a
29:52
Speaker 1: down home leave as a down home boy, you know,
29:54
Speaker 1: who wants to go back on the branch and work
29:57
Speaker 1: and that having some issues and not a big reader
29:59
Speaker 1: keep saying that, and that's like, oh, hell no, if
30:01
Speaker 1: he's not a big reader, we can't be together, you know,
30:04
Speaker 1: one of those big things. And you find out, oh,
30:05
Speaker 1: he has a learning disability of because she never says
30:09
Speaker 1: that out loud. They never talked about diagnosis, but like
30:11
Speaker 1: he's having to work around to make sure that he
30:14
Speaker 1: is able to learn. But it's interesting, like, yeah, that
30:16
Speaker 1: those are the two dynamics of like, yeah, absolutely, I
30:19
Speaker 1: see that that nerd, but Levi turned out to be
30:21
Speaker 1: the bigger nerd, while we see that Nick is a
30:24
Speaker 1: pretentious ass. Yes, donke about us. I know what you're
30:29
Speaker 1: gonna say, don't do it. Yeah. And and change is
30:36
Speaker 1: a really big theme throughout that, that that whole moving
30:39
Speaker 1: into a college dorm feeling that gets at prison, being
30:43
Speaker 1: too afraid to leave, having no one around. Really it's
30:49
Speaker 1: just such a precipitous moment in your life because you
30:52
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, life's going to change, um, and maybe
30:56
Speaker 1: that's putting way too much pressure on it. And I'm
30:59
Speaker 1: mostly remember being like so excited but mostly scared. And
31:05
Speaker 1: I was afraid to leave for a long time, leave
31:08
Speaker 1: my dorm. It didn't feel like a prison to me.
31:10
Speaker 1: Are smelled eventually we have to open the window. We
31:16
Speaker 1: have to open the window. But the boys were worse.
31:21
Speaker 1: That's what I discovered. And I loved the setup of
31:26
Speaker 1: Levi's house because I know those boys. I know those
31:31
Speaker 1: boys as in fact, I dated someone in my mid
31:34
Speaker 1: thirties who still lived like that. Uh he was on
31:38
Speaker 1: some hard times, but he lived with six other boys.
31:41
Speaker 1: And when I went to his house, it was literally
31:42
Speaker 1: at the very top of the stairs. We opened up
31:45
Speaker 1: the window because like it was like it was such
31:47
Speaker 1: an old house and I was like, where am I
31:50
Speaker 1: right now? Is just a college door. This is a
31:53
Speaker 1: college household where we all come together to live at
31:55
Speaker 1: a house and no longer the dorm, but it's called
31:58
Speaker 1: and it was it had a specific name for that
32:00
Speaker 1: house because it was a group of boys that lived
32:02
Speaker 1: at this house. Oh yeah, I mean, I think one
32:05
Speaker 1: thing I picked up on was like there was a
32:08
Speaker 1: love building in this and my college had a live building,
32:12
Speaker 1: Like did we all love building? And I also, um,
32:17
Speaker 1: I went to school that is seventy pentiment or it
32:21
Speaker 1: was at the time, and so my floor was like
32:25
Speaker 1: mostly men and then me, So it was just strange.
32:29
Speaker 1: It was strange. My dad was not happy about it. Yeah,
32:34
Speaker 1: we had buildings where it was one was specifically all girls,
32:38
Speaker 1: um and it was called I think the Virgin Yeah.
32:43
Speaker 1: Oh no, there was a specific floor called the Virgin
32:46
Speaker 1: Hall or something like that. We I lived in a
32:52
Speaker 1: mixed dorm, but each floor was gender specific, and it
32:58
Speaker 1: was a freshman dorm. Meal. It was a freshman dorm,
33:00
Speaker 1: and I did not like go into the dining hall
33:02
Speaker 1: by myself either me either me either. Well, okay, at
33:08
Speaker 1: this point when I went, I was moving into my dorm.
33:12
Speaker 1: My my dorm was covered in Harry Potter posters. But
33:15
Speaker 1: but this, at that point, I had moved to a
33:19
Speaker 1: separate room kind of apartment situation UM or was living
33:23
Speaker 1: with a friend I felt comfortable with. I wouldn't have
33:26
Speaker 1: done it without that. I was too shy. I was
33:29
Speaker 1: too embarrassed. I think most other places I lived, I
33:31
Speaker 1: didn't have the courage to put those up. And I
33:34
Speaker 1: also wore a Harry Potter shirt the first day to
33:37
Speaker 1: like my fictional writing class, and the professor called it
33:40
Speaker 1: out and I literally like he was like, oh, every
33:43
Speaker 1: character just ends up with their high school sweetheart. When
33:46
Speaker 1: the and I literally zipped up my jacket slowly. And
33:49
Speaker 1: what I hoped was a very nonchalant man. So in
33:54
Speaker 1: the book, when I was reading that, when she puts
33:56
Speaker 1: up like the the art that's kind of like art
34:00
Speaker 1: that is based on her fan fiction. Um, perhaps kind
34:04
Speaker 1: of erotic sound of gay art. I would never have
34:07
Speaker 1: done that were you into fan fiction in college? Oh,
34:10
Speaker 1: nowhere near what I am now. Nowhere near what I
34:12
Speaker 1: am now. I did not know existed until the last
34:15
Speaker 1: three years you told me. Oh, I started reading when
34:17
Speaker 1: I was like eleven, eleven or twelve, and then I did. Um.
34:21
Speaker 1: On my freshman year, I did have a roommate that
34:24
Speaker 1: was was never there, which was kind of great and
34:26
Speaker 1: kind of scary because I never knew when she would
34:30
Speaker 1: show up. Um. Then I had another his boyfriend practically
34:33
Speaker 1: lived with us in our tiny shared space that was
34:36
Speaker 1: further shared with others when it came to the bathroom.
34:39
Speaker 1: And you know, you kind of do want to make
34:41
Speaker 1: these these college memories all I did where you want
34:45
Speaker 1: to meet your roommate become best friends. But she was like,
34:48
Speaker 1: oh no, I'm good. Right. So here's another quote. In
34:53
Speaker 1: New Situations, all the Trie case rules are the ones
34:56
Speaker 1: nobody bothers to explain to you, and the ones you
34:58
Speaker 1: can't google, Like where just the line start? What food
35:01
Speaker 1: can you take? Where are you supposed to stand? Then?
35:03
Speaker 1: Where are you supposed to sit? Where do you go
35:06
Speaker 1: when you're done? Why is everyone watching you? Bah? And
35:10
Speaker 1: I love that because I feel that's so hard. I
35:12
Speaker 1: feel that's so hard. Blank. How did everyone seem to
35:17
Speaker 1: know what to do and I don't know what to do? Yeah,
35:21
Speaker 1: she talks about I can't google. I google all the
35:24
Speaker 1: restaurants to see ahead of time. How this is going
35:26
Speaker 1: to set up the parking as a nightmare. I need
35:28
Speaker 1: to know all of those things. Can't stand it. I
35:31
Speaker 1: can't stand it. But I would not go to the
35:35
Speaker 1: dining halls without friends because I felt it felt too much,
35:38
Speaker 1: unless it was early in the morning when I knew
35:41
Speaker 1: it was very sparse and no one was going to
35:43
Speaker 1: be there. Right, Yeah, me too. I would go at
35:47
Speaker 1: off times for sure, like oh it's okay if I
35:50
Speaker 1: sit alone, oh yeah, Or if I don't know where
35:53
Speaker 1: to go, I just go right to the front of
35:55
Speaker 1: the line because there's this Did you remind me of
35:59
Speaker 1: the first week? Um I moved to China? Uh yeah.
36:03
Speaker 1: And the first week there, I ate whatever I could
36:05
Speaker 1: point at or purchased without interacting with anyone. And one
36:10
Speaker 1: of the first nights there, I remember crying into some
36:14
Speaker 1: ramen noodles that I made in my hotel room like
36:17
Speaker 1: a tea kettle, and I ate it using a comb
36:20
Speaker 1: handle and a toothbrush as chopsticks because I was scared
36:24
Speaker 1: to ask for chopsticks. I did that. When I went
36:28
Speaker 1: to Italy, I traveled by myself and I was in
36:30
Speaker 1: a small town and I didn't know anything, and no
36:32
Speaker 1: one spoke English, which was and I did not speak Italian,
36:36
Speaker 1: so I was like, oh, and I'm all by myself.
36:38
Speaker 1: I had to point to try to find where I was.
36:40
Speaker 1: I was dragging a roller suitcase. It was bad, and
36:44
Speaker 1: so I finally went to a store found cookies and
36:47
Speaker 1: sparkling water. I went back and the cookies and sparkling
36:50
Speaker 1: water the first night. Yes, it's good. And speaking of
36:58
Speaker 1: there was a lot of healthy dieting and eating that
37:03
Speaker 1: was exhibited in this book. And I know we've done
37:07
Speaker 1: an episode before on junk orexia, which is basically like
37:12
Speaker 1: foregoing food to use all of your allotted calories in
37:17
Speaker 1: your mind on alcohol, and this is pretty common on
37:23
Speaker 1: college campuses and also really unhealthy, I hope is clear.
37:29
Speaker 1: And a lot of that, unfortunately, did bring back memories
37:32
Speaker 1: for me of friends who are like on paleo diets
37:36
Speaker 1: or actually did the skinny bitch oh that they mentioned
37:40
Speaker 1: in the book. I did that. I will say I
37:42
Speaker 1: did that because I was more horrified about the stories
37:45
Speaker 1: of the animal cruelty that was in the book. But
37:48
Speaker 1: I definitely followed whatever and I was like, what, Yeah,
37:52
Speaker 1: And there's so much like pressure around the freshman fifteen
37:56
Speaker 1: fifteen pounds you're expected to gain. There's just so much
38:00
Speaker 1: ormongering around weight. And also with Wren and her roommate Courtney,
38:05
Speaker 1: there was a lot of alcoholism and excessive drinking, poor
38:10
Speaker 1: coping skills in general, I would say, but I definitely
38:13
Speaker 1: saw that when I was there, where people uh maybe
38:17
Speaker 1: had never had anything to drink before and then they
38:20
Speaker 1: got to this atmosphere that might have been a big,
38:23
Speaker 1: you know, party drinking, social drinking atmosphere and then didn't
38:27
Speaker 1: really know how to um regulate. So I thought that
38:32
Speaker 1: was interesting because the way Brin is presented, she's sort
38:35
Speaker 1: of like having that college experience. In quotes that were
38:39
Speaker 1: supposed to have. But clearly she wasn't coping well either.
38:45
Speaker 1: She was just she was just doing it in a
38:47
Speaker 1: more socially sanctioned way unfortunately. And there was some ablest
38:53
Speaker 1: language throughout and a lot of fear around mental health,
38:57
Speaker 1: especially for cath because like, yeah, in their dad, like
39:01
Speaker 1: there was a lot of like non conversation. The only
39:04
Speaker 1: time we talked about counseling is when everything went really extreme. Um,
39:09
Speaker 1: I don't know like her stance on that, I have
39:12
Speaker 1: no understanding of the conversation and maybe just very like
39:15
Speaker 1: in this family that was not a thing. I don't
39:18
Speaker 1: know how the cultural ideas are, but yeah, absolutely with
39:22
Speaker 1: like all the conversations again about him not being able
39:25
Speaker 1: to read as typically as everyone else not being able
39:27
Speaker 1: to completely understand, I'm guessing it was like a type
39:29
Speaker 1: of dyslexia or something. Uh, they didn't really do too much,
39:33
Speaker 1: but like the way she bypassed all of that seemed
39:35
Speaker 1: kind of like, Okay, this could happen, moving on, and
39:37
Speaker 1: that again, this is not necessarily the point in the book,
39:40
Speaker 1: and that's not something that she wanted to focus on,
39:41
Speaker 1: which is fine because it's her book. But yeah, there
39:43
Speaker 1: was a lot of like the way they were talking
39:45
Speaker 1: about bipolar and his extreme need to be like I
39:48
Speaker 1: can just maintain with running. Of course, they were all
39:51
Speaker 1: very worried and concerned about that him needing care. Of course,
39:54
Speaker 1: I me be me. I'm like, this feels like maybe
39:57
Speaker 1: part of the problem in the marriage a they got
40:00
Speaker 1: mad because she got pregnant. Be he had a lot
40:02
Speaker 1: of mental health he wasn't willing to treat um and
40:05
Speaker 1: really felt like he was off, and then everybody around
40:07
Speaker 1: him encouraged him in his manic episodes instead of having
40:12
Speaker 1: the conversation of like, this is not this You're not
40:15
Speaker 1: maintaining as well as you think. So there was a
40:17
Speaker 1: lot of the breakdown in that conversation. I was like, Okay, addiction,
40:21
Speaker 1: bipolar she's talking about instead of calling it what it is,
40:24
Speaker 1: talking about being crazy. And because she wasn't, her anxiety
40:27
Speaker 1: was out um for her, almost unmanageable for hers at
40:31
Speaker 1: times which she was able to maintain. But yeah, there
40:34
Speaker 1: was definitely a lot of those like this could have
40:36
Speaker 1: been better had we been able to kind of showed
40:39
Speaker 1: one great example. Yeah, I don't want to excuse it,
40:44
Speaker 1: but um, there is a certain level in college where
40:47
Speaker 1: you're you're kind of modeling about that language. Uh, and
40:52
Speaker 1: you're exposed to it because we don't learn about it
40:55
Speaker 1: right unfortunately. But yeah, that was something that I noticed.
40:59
Speaker 1: In the thing that I noticed is um something else
41:02
Speaker 1: we've talked about, which is prunification. Yeah, where Kath really
41:07
Speaker 1: felt like she had to be there for her dad
41:09
Speaker 1: and take care of her dad or else things would
41:11
Speaker 1: go right. Well, and things did go wrong, so she
41:15
Speaker 1: wasn't you know, she wasn't completely incorrect, and the fact
41:18
Speaker 1: that she was the only one concerned very like I was.
41:22
Speaker 1: I was frustrated for her. Uh, definitely in a lot
41:25
Speaker 1: of those situations. But the dad did come back to
41:28
Speaker 1: parent Ran. We got to see that art Art got
41:33
Speaker 1: to parent rent Ran in the end. But yeah, definitely
41:36
Speaker 1: a lot of that as well for her because she
41:38
Speaker 1: is the overly responsible one, which how was Yeah, I
41:41
Speaker 1: get it me too. I mean I lived at home
41:44
Speaker 1: with my father for several years so I could help
41:47
Speaker 1: take care of him, So I totally get it. Well,
42:03
Speaker 1: now we have to talk about Phantom because we have to.
42:07
Speaker 1: We have to. We have to because that is throughout
42:11
Speaker 1: throughout You've got the snippets of this fan fiction that's
42:15
Speaker 1: the title of the book, so you know, and I
42:21
Speaker 1: love that Kath has this fan fiction that she thinks
42:25
Speaker 1: about like oh, sixty people reading this fan fiction and
42:28
Speaker 1: like what else could equate to that? Um, Which, yeah,
42:33
Speaker 1: I mean that's a huge deal. And it is funny
42:37
Speaker 1: in reading this, Um, how many fan fiction posts I've seen,
42:42
Speaker 1: which I've read a lot of fan fiction quite in depth,
42:45
Speaker 1: where uh, the college update comes in, like, oh, I'm
42:49
Speaker 1: going to university, so I won't be able to update
42:52
Speaker 1: as often. Um, you really do get invested in these
42:56
Speaker 1: people's lives and their schedules. You're like, oh, god, she's
43:02
Speaker 1: scoring to be diversity. Oh I'll never know what. Like
43:07
Speaker 1: this is kind of the problem with fan fiction because
43:09
Speaker 1: typically we were originally looking at taking one of your
43:13
Speaker 1: fan fictions that you like, one of the writers, one
43:16
Speaker 1: of them in the world, and reading that and you're
43:19
Speaker 1: like mmmmm, they're all either not finished and they's like
43:24
Speaker 1: how many chapters? So many chapters, or you know, like, uh,
43:28
Speaker 1: it was just like typically they weren't finished. I was like, really,
43:30
Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, I can't people kind of that world. Yeah,
43:35
Speaker 1: oh yeah. I had a friend I introduced to fan
43:37
Speaker 1: fiction and she she told me like, oh, well, I
43:41
Speaker 1: won't read an uncompleted fan fiction because I'll be heartbroken.
43:44
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, you're gonna be heartbroken. Um.
43:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to include this quote. Kath had an audience
43:53
Speaker 1: now a following, all these people she didn't know who
43:56
Speaker 1: expected things from her and questioned her decisions. Sometimes they
43:59
Speaker 1: even turned against her date trash her on other fan sites,
44:03
Speaker 1: saying that Kath used to be good, but she's lost
44:06
Speaker 1: the magic, that her baths was to cannon or not
44:09
Speaker 1: canon enough, that her Simon was apprud that she overwrote Penelope. Yes, one, Yes,
44:18
Speaker 1: this is what happens like people you get big enough
44:21
Speaker 1: and now write their own fan fiction of your fan fiction.
44:28
Speaker 1: And that's one thing I struggle with, which I would
44:30
Speaker 1: never actually do, but I do think about it. Is like,
44:34
Speaker 1: you know, if some author has a big wife update,
44:37
Speaker 1: they go to college or whatever, and they're not updating
44:39
Speaker 1: as as per usual on their schedule, where people will
44:43
Speaker 1: send them messages like, hey, where's the update? I need
44:47
Speaker 1: the update. That's not a good luckly meal, just totally fair.
44:54
Speaker 1: I find it funny because in the book, which we
44:57
Speaker 1: didn't talk about much, he actually in owners a fan
45:01
Speaker 1: that didn't that she didn't know what like she was
45:04
Speaker 1: talking to her in the library, didn't talk about how
45:06
Speaker 1: she much she likes her more than the original author
45:09
Speaker 1: and she just can't wait and it's been so long
45:11
Speaker 1: and she doesn't know what's happening. You're like, that is
45:13
Speaker 1: really cute. I wonder if that's ever happened. I mean,
45:16
Speaker 1: oh my god, like I said a million times, there
45:18
Speaker 1: are fan fictions that I have read that are better,
45:22
Speaker 1: in my opinion, than the actual thing and what happened, right,
45:26
Speaker 1: And you can, like if you go to edsy, which
45:28
Speaker 1: is not currently a sponsor at one time was but
45:30
Speaker 1: it's not currently, you can go and find items based
45:35
Speaker 1: on people's fan fiction, like that person with the shirt earlier.
45:38
Speaker 1: That is like an actual thing that you can you
45:41
Speaker 1: can look up and buy merchandise around people's fan fiction. Really, yes,
45:48
Speaker 1: I got you a fan fiction shirt, but it was
45:50
Speaker 1: more of like, these are the styles that you like,
45:52
Speaker 1: and I love it. I do love it. Thank you.
45:56
Speaker 1: I just want to enclude this quote because it has
45:58
Speaker 1: just so many things I've talked about before. Or she
46:01
Speaker 1: didn't tell Nick that writing love storys was her thing,
46:04
Speaker 1: her one true thing, and that his anti love story
46:07
Speaker 1: read like somebody's very first fan thic. Mary sue to
46:11
Speaker 1: the tenth power that the main character was obviously Nick
46:15
Speaker 1: and that the girl was obviously went on a writer
46:17
Speaker 1: plus Snaty Portman plus Selena Gomez. I've said it a
46:22
Speaker 1: million times. I think that when men write what I
46:26
Speaker 1: would say is fan fiction with a Mary Zoo, it
46:30
Speaker 1: is seen as oh, the psycademic, they get a lot
46:34
Speaker 1: more leeway than women, um, Whereas when women do it,
46:38
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you think you could be the main character. Oh,
46:41
Speaker 1: that's cute, right. And then there's this whole plot line
46:46
Speaker 1: with um fan fiction being stealing with her teacher um
46:51
Speaker 1: or professor, and also with Nick being stealing her stuff,
46:56
Speaker 1: and that kind of line of who is the creator,
46:59
Speaker 1: who was the muse and him using her as a muse.
47:04
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts about this, which we
47:07
Speaker 1: don't have time to get into because this is already
47:09
Speaker 1: going Kyle along. But I do think there are some
47:12
Speaker 1: things that are foundational, like archetypes. And I remember when
47:16
Speaker 1: I was in fifth grade, UM, me and this other student,
47:21
Speaker 1: uh Andrea, we wrote essentially the same story separately, and
47:26
Speaker 1: she put up such a such a fuss about it
47:29
Speaker 1: that I had stolen it from her, and I absolutely hadn't.
47:32
Speaker 1: It was just an idea that I think is in
47:35
Speaker 1: the ether and is one of those kind of building
47:39
Speaker 1: blocks with a lot of stories we have. But she
47:41
Speaker 1: threw up this big stink and got me in trouble.
47:44
Speaker 1: And I still think about it to this day. I
47:48
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of debate to be had around this.
47:51
Speaker 1: I personally would have never turned in a fan fiction
47:55
Speaker 1: as a college project. I might have turned in something
47:57
Speaker 1: that was actually a fan fiction, but I would change
47:59
Speaker 1: the names and change things around. I was gonna say,
48:04
Speaker 1: especially in college that's creative writing college. Like, she wouldn't
48:09
Speaker 1: share it with Nick, but she would share it with
48:10
Speaker 1: a professor that scenes bold but good on her. She
48:14
Speaker 1: knows what she's good at, and clearly she was good
48:17
Speaker 1: at it. Slash the fictional character, I do think like
48:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the professor might have been too tough,
48:26
Speaker 1: like I think she needed Kathy died that lesson. But
48:30
Speaker 1: I didn't have to go like that because if the
48:33
Speaker 1: story is good, like I don't know. Again, those characters
48:36
Speaker 1: are kind of archetypes a lot of time. That's a
48:40
Speaker 1: different topic for a different podcast perhaps, But I did
48:44
Speaker 1: want to include a final note about fan fictionist coping
48:47
Speaker 1: because I have talked about it a lot and it
48:49
Speaker 1: was clearly present in this book. There is one thing that, Um,
48:56
Speaker 1: I know you and I Samantha have talked about off Mike.
48:59
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if we've ever actually talked about it
49:01
Speaker 1: on here, But when Wren has seemingly moved on from
49:06
Speaker 1: this fandom that they her and Cath are both so
49:10
Speaker 1: in love with and bonded over, that resonated with me
49:15
Speaker 1: so hard that it hit me so hard, like one
49:20
Speaker 1: day everyone's gonna move on. I'm going to move on maybe, um.
49:24
Speaker 1: And that's scary. It's like that scene and inside out
49:27
Speaker 1: where all of her kind of inner foundations have been
49:31
Speaker 1: part of her identity get obliterated, um and replaced with
49:36
Speaker 1: something else. Because fandom has made up a lot of
49:38
Speaker 1: my identity, for better or worse. And when people move on,
49:43
Speaker 1: when people make fun of it, that's like they're making
49:45
Speaker 1: fun of you. And especially like when people move on
49:49
Speaker 1: because they're like, oh that's silly or I'm mature, so
49:53
Speaker 1: I don't do that anymore. And it feels very judgmental,
49:57
Speaker 1: where maybe had been something that made you friends previously.
50:04
Speaker 1: This is actually something that still bothers me to this day,
50:06
Speaker 1: Like I still I get my head about, like, oh
50:08
Speaker 1: my gosh, what if one day I move on from
50:10
Speaker 1: Star Wars? What if Star Wars is no longer so
50:12
Speaker 1: important to me? When I do, it's so much to
50:16
Speaker 1: me right now, and I'm like pretty sad about it.
50:19
Speaker 1: I do find it interesting because I've never loved anything
50:22
Speaker 1: this much. I've never loved a character of anything that
50:26
Speaker 1: to me, they were life, they were living, they were
50:29
Speaker 1: like they were sacred to that point of course, Like
50:31
Speaker 1: I like things, but I don't love things to this level,
50:34
Speaker 1: which makes me think I'm a horrible human being in general.
50:37
Speaker 1: But like overall, like I've wondered, and I did ask you,
50:40
Speaker 1: I was like, what did you think of this interpretation?
50:42
Speaker 1: Is this? Is this what you feel? Is this what
50:44
Speaker 1: you see? This like passion? Is this is this how
50:46
Speaker 1: you feel about your fain fiction? And I did ask
50:49
Speaker 1: him what, I don't know if you fully answered that question,
50:52
Speaker 1: but yes, yes, absolutely, And it's kind of funny how
50:58
Speaker 1: attached to get or at least for me to to
51:03
Speaker 1: fan fiction and fan fiction writers. And I recently had
51:07
Speaker 1: to tell um my friend that I introduced a fan fiction, like,
51:12
Speaker 1: here's the sad truth of it. Um, they're probably going
51:16
Speaker 1: to move on. Um right now, they're super into it.
51:21
Speaker 1: You're super into it. But they they might to get
51:25
Speaker 1: into another fandom, or they might, I don't know, get
51:30
Speaker 1: older and get busy with other things and they this
51:33
Speaker 1: won't be their thing anymore, and they might never finish
51:36
Speaker 1: their story that you love so much. Um, And that
51:40
Speaker 1: can be kind of sad to accept and that it
51:44
Speaker 1: really hurts. And I've even written the end to some
51:47
Speaker 1: fan fictions that I'm never going to post but for
51:50
Speaker 1: me because I wanted how they end. I love them
51:53
Speaker 1: so much and for them to just stop so painful.
51:59
Speaker 1: And another thing that really resonated with me was the
52:03
Speaker 1: officially noncompliant, which we talked about the top. But this
52:06
Speaker 1: is basically like Cannon comes in, Cannon being like, this
52:10
Speaker 1: is the officially confirmed, sanctioned storyline and comes in and
52:18
Speaker 1: tells you, tells you what it is, and a lot
52:21
Speaker 1: of times, in my experience, is not necessarily what you want.
52:24
Speaker 1: So like for instance, which this book is definitely playing on.
52:30
Speaker 1: Before the Seventh Theory Potter book came out, all of
52:32
Speaker 1: us were rushing to write and or read fan fiction.
52:36
Speaker 1: That was the seventh book because we knew when it
52:39
Speaker 1: came out it was over. Like there was no hope
52:44
Speaker 1: left in wondering what could happen because we knew what happened.
52:49
Speaker 1: But before it came out, there was this kind of
52:51
Speaker 1: beautiful universe what we could pretend this would happened, or
52:56
Speaker 1: this would happened, or this would happen whatever. And so
52:59
Speaker 1: for me, like right now, I this is one of
53:04
Speaker 1: the reasons why I'm like scared of new Star Wars
53:06
Speaker 1: things coming out, because I love Star Wars, but I'd
53:08
Speaker 1: like the Mandalorian season three is going to really mess
53:12
Speaker 1: up my my stories because it's going to close this door.
53:16
Speaker 1: And I have really strong headcannon being. You know, I
53:21
Speaker 1: I pretend this doesn't happen, or this didn't happen or whatever. Um,
53:25
Speaker 1: but you still can't entirely forget that it did. And
53:29
Speaker 1: it impacts people who write fan fiction, like all of
53:31
Speaker 1: a sudden, it changes the what people are writing and
53:38
Speaker 1: how they're writing, and how they're writing certain characters that
53:40
Speaker 1: you love. Um, it's kind of a kind of a
53:44
Speaker 1: scary thing. So hard I connected to that, but yeah, um,
53:48
Speaker 1: I really love this book that I'm really glad that
53:50
Speaker 1: you've liked it. I think for me, on my end,
53:53
Speaker 1: I loved the take on this coming of age story.
53:57
Speaker 1: Our relationship with Levi was un different. It is very heteronormative,
54:02
Speaker 1: like think the mentions of any like queer relationships are
54:06
Speaker 1: essentially in the fan fiction a kind of moment odd
54:10
Speaker 1: reaction about like I'm reading you a story about two
54:12
Speaker 1: gay dudes and there's a gay dude in the house.
54:14
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about it, And I was like, wait,
54:15
Speaker 1: but what's the oddly place. I don't know how I
54:18
Speaker 1: feel about this, but yeah, like so, and apparently from
54:21
Speaker 1: what I'm gathering, I'm not seeing too many I guess.
54:24
Speaker 1: I guess the fans that carry On and Wayward Son
54:27
Speaker 1: may have the very very queer relationships. I don't know,
54:31
Speaker 1: but I have not seen that thus far with Rainbows
54:34
Speaker 1: other books. But yeah, I really loved the relationships. I
54:38
Speaker 1: even love the Reagan character. I was like, that's a
54:40
Speaker 1: little me, but not as main I think I'm going
54:44
Speaker 1: to be the one that's like, now we're doing this,
54:45
Speaker 1: come on, But at the same time, like I'm not
54:48
Speaker 1: gonna be and insensitive like saying take your pills, God,
54:52
Speaker 1: take your pills, which is like kind of the rhetoric,
54:54
Speaker 1: and she's like, I take mine, and so I was like, Okay,
54:56
Speaker 1: she really okay, she's talking about she has mental health
54:59
Speaker 1: and she gets as normal, let's go on. But I
55:02
Speaker 1: think that's what I enjoyed. I definitely enjoyed the pieces
55:05
Speaker 1: of the fan fiction and the pieces of her loving
55:07
Speaker 1: this but just loving something so much and feeling childish
55:11
Speaker 1: and trying to grow up, going the the the transfer
55:15
Speaker 1: of being high school student to a college student to
55:17
Speaker 1: seeing adults. So it was really nice to see in
55:19
Speaker 1: her growing up in those moments. And that's why I
55:22
Speaker 1: really love that book. I was like, it feels real.
55:25
Speaker 1: I see this, I understand this. Even twenty years later,
55:28
Speaker 1: I still I remember that feeling. So it was nice
55:32
Speaker 1: to see that as well. But it was a really
55:34
Speaker 1: well written book. I really caught you. Great job. Recommend
55:39
Speaker 1: even if you don't like fan fiction. Recommend. Oh absolutely.
55:41
Speaker 1: I mean I think I mentioned this in the past podcast,
55:44
Speaker 1: but one of my favorite reviews of this book was
55:46
Speaker 1: I think a man writing like, how did a straight
55:49
Speaker 1: woman learn how to write queer romance so well? Between
55:52
Speaker 1: two men? I was like, welcome to fan fiction, sir,
55:58
Speaker 1: so I'm very excited to read that saying that it
56:00
Speaker 1: was great. I enjoyed it so much. I can't wait
56:03
Speaker 1: to read the other the fan fiction books. And in
56:05
Speaker 1: the meantime, as always, if you have any suggestions for
56:08
Speaker 1: as listeners for what we should read next, please let
56:11
Speaker 1: us know. Our email is Stephanie mom Stuff at I
56:13
Speaker 1: hurt media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
56:15
Speaker 1: at moms to podcast or on Instagram at Stuff We've
56:17
Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super producer,
56:20
Speaker 1: Chris do you know? Thank you, and thanks to you
56:23
Speaker 1: for listening Stuff under toil this protection of I Heart
56:25
Speaker 1: Radio former podcast from my Heart Radio. You can visit
56:27
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
56:30
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.