Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica

(upbeat music) - We know what a smile does. You don't need to say he smiled as if it made him happy. (laughing) - Here's the first mystery thriller for your third grade readers. - Yes, there are. - It was your child, Legend Curious. - Yeah. - You are attempted murdered by two separate people in the same day, maybe you deserve to be murdered. - I think that's crazy for the author to do that. - No, it's not what he imagined in two seconds. You just wrote like a half hour murder scene. It's psycho.

(laughing) - I liked it though. (upbeat music) - Hello everyone and welcome back to Mean Book Club. This week we read just the nicest couple by Mary Cubica. - Wow. - Oh, it's just, is it a romance? - I don't know, we'll find out. - Well we know now. - Well, the answer is, we do know. (laughing) - Oh my God, there is a very sad, wet, Moppy sex scene in this book. - Wait, I don't even remember a sex scene in this book. - It's better, it's better that you don't, because it wasn't good.

- You called it a Moppy sex scene? Not Moppy? - Yeah, it was just, that's a word. - It was like a, I said wet Moppy. - Okay, I got it. - Like a wet Mop. - Like a Moppy was just, - It was just, - It was just, - It was like, just not anything anybody wanted to read. So it's probably best that you, if you guys, - I honestly don't remember it. I wonder if it's the way you're describing it or if it's with me. (laughing) - No, I honestly, I think it was very forgettable because it was so, like, blah.

Anyway, as always, we are your hosts. I'm Sarah Burton. - Hello, I'm Clara Morris. - Hi, Johnna Scravis. - And I'm Sabrina B. Jordan. - And we are Mean Book Club. We read books that you tell us where New York Times best sellers that you maybe had to do in a book club yourself and you're like, everyone liked it, but it sucked. - Let me tell you something. - What's going on? - If your book club liked this book, get a new one, you're better than them. (laughing) Respect your school.

They're making you dumb. - Truly. - They're hurting you. - Truly. - You disagree? - Yeah. - I know. - Oh, good. I'm excited. - What? - I like when we all have different thoughts. - Okay. Sabrina. - Who recommended this? Why are we reading it? - Why do we read it? - Emily C recommended it. And as I look at the outline that I created now, I realized that I thought myself that perhaps I didn't have all of the information that Emily C gave us, but I think this is good enough.

Emily C said, "Just the nicest couple, "my Mary Cubica is about the dumbest people a lot." (laughing) - That is all you need to know. It's so perfectly sums up why this book is bad. - Yeah. - Yeah. Usually we need more, but that was enough for this one. - Yeah. You'd think that might actually be interesting. - A book about the dumbest people alive. But it wasn't like, chronicling their day to day. It was the dumbest people alive. Try to deal with a problem. (laughing) Yeah, yeah.

Try to solve a murder. Maybe a case of a missing person. - Yeah. - Yeah. How did you guys consume this book? Audio book library, Clara. Well, I did my favorite method, which is YouTube audio book, "Double Speed." - I went library real book, and I had to go to the far library 'cause as we all know, the continuing ongoing saga of the asbestos in the ceiling tiles at my local library. (laughing) It's me who have to go to the far one. - Yeah, I'm so sorry.

Have they been able to get any of that asbestos out? - I don't think so, Sarah. It still seems like they haven't figured out how to get it out of there. I haven't seen any activity, just chain-dyeing gates. - Well, you can't just go and grab it because then you'll get sick. - Yeah, I think they have asbestos dogs or something they send in, right? And then the dog sniff where it is and then-- - You shouldn't know this, John.

It didn't you work for a law firm that dealt with asbestos claims for long-dited? - I did. - I know all the diseases you can get. And I know how to write an affidavit saying that you work with every single product that contained asbestos for the years 1970 to 1982. (laughing) - All right, well, I did audiobooks.com, a mix of that and then the book in giant hardback. - Ooh, now see, okay. I would like to insert a little judge-and-book by its cover right here. - Okay, can you see it?

- Because I can see it and it is bigger than the average book. - It is, it is, they do, it is bigger. You're absolutely right. - You're headed for it? - It does fit nicely right here. - Yeah, it does fit nicely. - It does fit nicely right here. - Doesn't mean, it fits perfectly. - No, no, no, they did a big goal. This is quite large. - Yeah, it's like an eight by eleven. It's like your book's written in word and then printed on it by eleven and then bound.

- It's not quite that big, but it is bigger than your average book. - It's also three hundred. - And 12 pages or something like that, but with about 16 pages of content and you know we love that on the cast. - We love. - Yeah, this is supposed to be. - You could go page one, page 50, page 150, 300 on it. - It didn't miss anything. - I also made a mistake, I misremembered. Mine was e-book from the library. - Not audio book. - What caused you to lie earlier? - I wanted to sit in.

(laughing) - All right, all right. So Sabrina, do you have a summary? - Yes, I do. - Oh, that nice. - Yeah. - Okay. - Okay. I would like you all to fight for the parts, but I will be the narrator. - Mommy, Christian. - Nina. - Okay. - Is that everybody? - And there's Lily as well. - There's also Lily, so someone gets to double up. - I'll do it. - Lily. - Okay. - Do you want to say, I'll let you even... - You can do it, Sarah. - Okay. - Yeah, okay, I'll do it. I'll do mommy and Lily.

I think I can make them stink. - Yeah, I think just because Sabrina set us up to fight, I want to be a complimentating it. (laughing) - That's fine, that's fine. - Okay. - She wants to be a candidate too. - Interesting. (laughing) - Interesting, interesting. - No, it's nice, it's nice. - It's nice. - I can't believe I have the male part. It usually goes to Sarah, I feel. - You claim a lot of pressure. (laughing) - Yeah, I can't believe how did I end up here. - Okay, good, go ahead, Sabrina.

- Okay, action. - It doesn't say action. Action. - She added it. - She added it. - Every marriage goes through rocky patches. So when Nina Hays is neurosurgeon husband, disappeared for five days, without so much as even going to work. She thought little of it. As she confided in her mommy, Jigick was probably blowing off some steam or perhaps he had started her new life and left her behind. Either way, Nina knew she shouldn't go right to the police. (laughing) - Mommy, Jig has gone missing.

Should I do anything? - Don't be silly, Nina, you have me. Why would you want to travel yourself by looking for your husband? - I feel like I should do some investigating, right? Otherwise, the police might think I did something to him. - What's that, honey? I can barely see, or here. Maybe you could just hold me for a minute? - Okay, Mommy. Meanwhile, Nina's work BFF Lily has a dirty little secret. She was with Nina's husband the day that he disappeared, deep in the woods.

And according to her, Jig tried to kiss her out of nowhere. So what did Nina do? She picked up a rock and blodged him in the skull, but she swears he didn't die. - Did he? - Lily, it's me, your husband. Tell me everything. Did he hurt you? Did he hurt our unbored baby? - Yeah, yeah, that's it. I thought he was going to hurt our baby. That's why I had to do the Christian. - Don't worry, Lily. I will do anything to protect you. I know that you don't need protecting.

That said, as your husband, I am your protector. I will skin Nina of life if she catches wind of what you've done. No, what we've done, we are in this together now. I won't rest until someone else takes the fault for this murder. Maybe even me, do not go to the police and say this was self-defense. Instead, I think we should commit a series of other crimes to cover this up. It's the only way to protect you and the baby.

And as I've mentioned, I am your protector and I will love you no matter what you've done. - Good. - Remember that you said that. No, no reason. - It just, it could become relevant later. - And seen. - Very nice. - Glad to have you. - Good job. - Yeah, good job. - I do feel, I have to say, I didn't do a good job as Lily, because as anybody who listens to audiobook knows, Lily is in Christian chapters and there's a male narrator for the Christian chapters and he is so bad.

- No. - He does the most exaggerated feminine voice that made me immediately suspicious of this woman because I was like, why is she overdoing this woman's voice so much like over feminine? I don't know, it was crazy. - Well, in the first part of the book, she is kind of just like helpless woman can't. But it was like, she's already helpless. Is she was just like taking it to another level? I was like, you don't need to do this. This is too much. - She's too much right now. - Little thick.

- She's a double speed that didn't play. I didn't notice. - She's so delicate. - Lily. - She can barely focus her eyes in the beginning of the book, basically. - She can barely lift her a little hand, turn a door knob. Thank God she has manly Christian to take care of her. - My God, he's such a protector, such a... - Yeah, we love him. - What's your own male character? - I think that God is finally a strong male, not protagonist.

Sabrina, I do think you were harsh on Nina in that summary, but we'll can get what? - Oh yeah. - Yeah, I do. - And I wanna be clear, - You think I was harsh on you? - I'm useless piece of shit. (laughing) - Why does she, she goes to police. - Not soon enough. - She's a few times. - When she goes to... - She goes as soon as she realizes he's not going to work. - Yeah, that's like 48 hours. She goes pretty quickly and they're just like, it's not enough.

- I wanna ask you, your husband doesn't come home for multiple days. You're not... - You're not... - She has no work sooner. - You're not asking a friend, ask a family member. - Yeah, you don't reach out to anybody. - About that. - If you're a man, you're so nervous. - If you're a man, - Tanina, you could die in your shared household and she wouldn't notice. - Absolutely. - You could lock yourself in a walk-in freezer in your house. Your body wouldn't be discovered for most.

- Well, they have a gigantic house. - Because they sell rents. - Nina did have issues with communications, as we will soon find out. But, Johnna, do you have a pairing for us? - Of course. - Johnna's jugs. - I do. It's a pretty special pairing because it really incorporates all the mean book club girls, except me and you, Sarah. - That's almost Alice. (laughing) - So Alice is included. You might have noticed the wine I got has Claire's name right on the front. - Beautiful.

- I sent you a picture. - Yeah, I did. - I think it might be a clava, C-L-A-V-A, but the V really looks a lot. - It's not clava. - It's like a sloppy R. - It's okay. - Okay. And secondly, it is a Savignon Blanc, which as we know is a Savignon BB Jordan. So it's basically Sabrina, it's Claire, it's all rolled into one. And then, listen to this, we did get a second bottle of wine in case Sabrina and I needed it. I wasn't sure where this night would head.

And I asked the man at the wine shop at the Good Wine, which is a very cute little wine shop. - Easy on that selection. - Yeah, easier to do than that. - Easier to do that now that you're not super pregnant, right? - Yeah, it was a weirder whenever I was super pregnant asking for the wines. But now that I'm not, they sell it to me easily, and they don't seem afraid. And I said, "What would be a good wine to go with a book about murder, infidelity, and macular degeneration?" And he said six rats.

And he was explaining that it has a woodsy profile. And I said, "Stop right there." The... - Yeah. - Somebody gets bloodied in the woods. - So I'm like, "How you censored who that was?" - I didn't wanna say. - Well, we already know. - We know. - Okay, it was Jake. - It was Jake. - He gets bloodied with a rock in Lily's Delicate Little Hand. Somehow she manages to pick up a pebble with her sweet little tiny hand and pop 'em right in the nose.

And he also liked that it was a red, 'cause he said red-like blood. So I really appreciate the man in the good wine. - That is nice. - He wants small selection, but good selection. I think we're enjoying the savvy bee. - I am very much enjoying it. I will say I find at good wine, I am often led above my price range. - Okay, wow. - They looked at me and they stuck under 20. They said, they said 19 to 20 for you. - Right, that's you wearing that shirt. - That's, yeah.

- But I feel like my price range I'm usually trying to go in on is like 12 to 14 and I'm coming out around 18 to 22. - I see. - Okay, well you're unrealistic. - On realistic. - 12 to 14, excuse me, oyster bag. - Yeah, is 13 to 95. - I've got to say, yeah, if you're getting traitor Joe's, you're gonna see. - Yeah, come on, you're nervous. - You're gonna wine for less than 20 bucks in three years, Sabrina. - Seriously? - Yeah, and I didn't work all last year.

- Well you were, I mean, drink that a lot of times. - I'm still working as much wine as I was drinking. - Okay, that's true. - So. - I'm spending more. - But I was still buying the wine as we know, buying the wine. (laughing) - All right. - Good job, I really like this. I'm no critique. - Bada, bada, bada, bada. - And you're like, "I'm a gentleman." - Oh, wow. - Yeah, okay. - All right, guys, let's go to the work. - Well, let's take a quick commercial break and more back.

We'll learn about the author, the book, and we'll really dive in on this one. - Yeah. - Look at that wine. Sorry, I wasn't able to come up with the name. (laughing) (upbeat music) - And we're back. - I got it. Sabrina, take us, take us, give us a background. Let us know what's up. - Okay, I'm gonna tell you about our author, Mary Kubica, which is more difficult than you might think because as far as Sabrina can tell, she did not have an English Wikipedia page.

I found one that I think might have been German, but I couldn't figure out how to translate it. So I had to, I was watching some interviews. I went to her website, turns out people who are interviewing her just read straight from her website so I didn't get additional information. But she is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of many suspense novels, which I'll talk about in a minute. She is a former high school history teacher.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. - I'm using it. - Yeah, when you first read that, you post for her in my Oxford. She studied history in American literature. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two children. I will tell you, if you wanna know what she sounds like, it is the caricature of a Midwestern woman, a lot of, oh yeah, very good. You know, how does she know? - How does she know? - Madison Shave, why is her Wikipedia in German?

- She's not German. - Well, first of all, it's not German. It's been finished. - Okay. - It was easy for me to hit a button that just said translate to English. - Oh, okay. - Oh, any additional info then, Johnna. - Yeah. After more than 100 failed attempts, an agent contacted her with interest about her first novel. So 100 failed attempts, that sounds like just, you know, 100 in a time range, a short of what it should have taken.

- She's the psychological thrillers, also this translated to him, which is fun. So I'm saying she, but the page says he, 'cause of the translation errors. - But why does she have a finished one, but not an English one, if she's from Chicago? - What a great question. - Fans are big, her books must have played really well. That's all I could assume. - I really don't have any murder at all so the idea is like, wow. - Yeah. - Yeah. - There's a gun. - I will say she's prolific.

She, her debut novel was in 2014. It was called Good Girl. And then she's had, but she had a novel in 2015, called Pretty Baby 2016, Don't You Cry 2017, Every Last Lie 2018, When the Lights Go Out 2019. She was sleeping 2020, the other misses, 2020. - So every year. - Local woman. - And she had a second child in that time. - Yeah. - Okay, that might have been the year she was sleeping. - Yeah, she was also late. - She's probably faster, right? - Yeah, she's a marathon runner.

A vegetarian, a cat foster mama. I don't know if I like her, I hate her. - I like all those things. - I think I hate her. - All those things feel a little ragged in me. - I guess a little ragged marathon runner, business. - Yeah. - That's because we have a lot of time. - She doesn't outline her stuff. - Yeah, can you read what you wrote there? - Exactly. - Yeah, I don't even know where I-- - E, E, E. Oh yeah.

Her approach to writing, she is not a plotter, and she tries not to talk too much about her books. And she's writing them because they end up taking unexpected twists and turns. - I would say it shows that-- - She didn't plot? - She doesn't plot per se. - Yeah. - I wouldn't say it said unexpected. - Had the unexpected twists and turns were like, there is, there was like, there is no twist here. That was like what the unexpected twist was. - Yeah. - No twist. - No twist.

- Maybe, if you're finished and English is a second language, and you're missing one out of every three words, then you're kind of like, this was a surprising outcome because I miss so much context. - I will say it was kind of hard to find info on this book, but I found like a lot of other info on her other books. So my read of the situation is that this is certainly not her most popular book, but this was a New York Times bestseller, as far as I could tell it was on for one week.

- Oh, it was-- - I made Stellat. - It was published January 9, 2023, so just about a year old, a little older than a year. - So intense. - New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller, the week of January 29, 2023, don't know what happened that week. - The rollout of some time, I guess. - Yeah, probably. - Yeah. Needed a little heat behind it, and then that was it. Not enough to keep it going.

- I felt like this should have been like a YA book except that the subject matter was so adult, like cancer scare, macular degeneration, murder, but it feels like reading level wise, it's like, here's the first mystery thriller for your third grade readers. - Yeah, they're ready. - Yeah, they're ready. - Figure out who done it. - 'Cause your child, Bludgeon Curious. - Bludgeon Curious? I hope my child is in a safe way, Bludgeon Curious. - I hope that for you too. - I hope that's fine.

- I agree with you, Johnna, third grade first mystery, and this is a surprise you guys, but I liked that for, I liked the beginning. - 'Cause it makes you feel smart. 'Cause it makes you feel smart. It's like such a suspense, but it's so gentle. - Yeah, it was not scary. - Even though I-- - I thought, I don't mind it. I didn't mind, you know, at the beginning, I'm like, oh, it's gentle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was like, but it'll speed up, it's gonna pick up.

But no, it just kind of meandered at the same pace. (laughing) - I don't say, I think it was a good, I think it was a good pace. It was a weird hope. - Although it was paced well. - I guess. - It was written in first person. So the chapters were either from Nina's perspective, the wife of the missing person, or the Christian's perspective, the husband of the woman who supposedly did it. And then they're both in the present tense, which was weird. I go to her. She's staring straight ahead.

- Yeah. - Her face wet. - She also has a very annoying habit, and I don't know if she had to reach a word count, or that she really thinks that her readers are this stupid, but everything was repeated more than once. - Yeah, yeah, oh my God.

- Yes, that was, I had to like, I was questioning whether I had heard the information from another character's point of view, and now I was like hearing the new point of view from a different character, how they perceived it, which also did happen, but it was absolutely true that like, Nina would repeat things that Nina had said in the previous section of Nina. - She would cross-couple you the same thing.

- And I was like, you told us that you've lost a lot of children through miscarriage four times now. You are thinking to yourself about like, the actions you're taking. Like, that one, I honestly feel like that one made a little more sense, 'cause like, oh, it's on his, the front of his mind, or like, his thinking event done. The thing that bothered me a lot was Nina kept being like, explaining what macular degeneration was.

And I was like, you gotta think, you literally two pages ago, hold 'cause you're wrong at it. And it's so boring, it's just like, it became, it was like-- - And we only need the details, she blind, okay. - It's good. - But also like the fact that you're, she said it so many times, I was like, okay, great, this has gotta come back, or else why the fuck is she telling us five times? - Oh yeah, it's not just information, it's like, it's the writing style, I have a little quote here.

- Yes, a smile that played on the edges of Jake's lips when he said how this man had shot his white, as if something about that made him happy. Like, we know what a smile does, you don't need to say he smiled as if he didn't happy. - Yes, it's the style that bothers you more than anything else. She'll say something like, it's not a lie. What I'm saying isn't exactly the truth. You know what I'm saying? - Yeah, I get what a lie is. It's when you say something that's not entirely true.

- Sure. - It's like, I just, I'm a, I just, I'm like, Sagigrade vocab or... - I just opened to a random page and the line starts, "The sound of a car reaches my ears." (laughing) - A lot of it. - No, it's like the sound of a car reaches my ears. My brain hears the noise. (laughing) - Yeah, check, got it. (laughing) - I loved it. It's also the characters though, they do the damage. It's like, that's how the characters think as well. - Yeah. - Ooh, ooh, I got another one. - Yeah, a car go.

- The light falls on her face, bathing her in light. (laughing) - Nice. At one point, the characters, to make sure that they don't get fingered in this murder, is that, is that, oh, the way she says it? - It is, it is a real way to say it, but it was, it was like a real way to say it in the 40s. - But it feels yucky. - Yeah. - So they don't get fingered last day. - It's funny for the murder. - It's funny, so they don't get fingered last week for the murder.

The characters are like, we gotta move this car. So they, oh my God. Like, break into someone's house to move a car. It's just like, dumb and dumb or committing a murder. It is so dumb, the way that they approach this. And I think like the whole, like, her not plotting things, it's the steps that they take, I promise you, they're getting caught 45 times before they actually get caught. But you'll like, drop in little tidbits of like, why they wouldn't get caught.

First of all, he is like, he's basically like, I have all this evidence of guilty conscience because I have googled a hundred times how to hide a body, how to like, how many hits it takes to pledge with somebody. And he's like, but don't worry. I got a little spooked a couple of years ago that we were getting hacked. So our internet is off the grid. And it's like, no, it's not. There's no way your internet's off the grid. Like, you have, you have Verizon. I'm sorry. (laughing) And yeah.

With like the, the moving of the car, he's like, I did all of this research about how to avoid traffic cameras. I'm sorry. What city planning is like here are the traffic cameras? Oh, right. Oh, and he's also like, and I'm looking, I'm doing research on my computer to see how we can get away with this murder. But don't worry because I have a VPN. So nothing can ever be traced back to my computer. (laughing) You were reading this book too much.

Yeah, but she was just doing a Mary Cubica does where she just repeats the same information a few times in case you missed it the first. I was looking for a quote, also really. I was talking. No, it's right. Wait, I found something else I really wanted to share. Just an example of the kind of writing you're gonna enjoy. So, learning about a character that's funny, okay? This is how this character was described. Damien and Jake are incredibly close. They went to college together.

They've been friends for two decades. Okay, great. Yeah, based on your age I knew that. Damien was Jake's best man in our wedding and Jake was the best man at theirs. He gave the most hilarious speech. (laughing) People dabbled over laughing. I still remember it. (laughing) Wow. Don't tell us what it is. Funny. (laughing) I said, I'm laughing too. It's so funny to be like, I still remember it. It was a speech you're running.

Yeah. Like, I'm sure you've thought about it more than you've thought about other speeches you've heard in life. Oh, so, love a good tell don't show. Love a good show. Yeah, absolutely. It feels like one of bunch of people are doing a bit and you're all riffing back and forth and then someone goes, oh, that reminds me at my wedding. (laughing) Our best man, oh my God. He did the funniest thing. (laughing) I was crying. I mean, everyone was crying laughing. It was, yeah. He did this. He did this.

He did this bit. It was like, oh. Oh my God. Like, you thought he was talking about me but he was really talking about himself. (laughing) Have you seen, it's like the movie, so funny to me. Have you seen Sleepers in Seattle? Do you know the scene? Well, I don't want to give this specifics. (laughing) You know this. You getting it? You getting it. You getting it? You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it. You get it, right? You get it. You get it, right? You get it.

You get it, right? You get it. You get it, right? You get it. You get it. You get it, right? You get it. You get it, right? You get it. You get it, right? You get it, right? Lily seems like the frailest little woman in the world. Christians worried about her because she's pregnant as she miscarrying.

No. He finds out, like, 48 hours later that she, would she finally tell him that it was, that she saw Jake at the woods and he came on to her and then he got mad when she wouldn't do stuff with him and then he hit him. She hit him on the head and she ran. She doesn't know what happened, but there's so much blood. And so then it's like they're going to try to find the body. There's is he alive? Is he? Did he survive?

But then we know from Nina's perspective that he has not come home, but they had a fight. So she thinks maybe he just, she, he left her. Also, did I miss it? How big was this fight? Like my understanding of the fight is, Jake doesn't love that Nina is 38 years old and still breastfeeding from her mother. Yeah. That's okay though. People can breastfeed as long as they want. Absolutely. Because then Jake doesn't like that. Yeah, Jake is the problem. Jake's probably masculine.

He thinks that she spends too much time with her mother, which is really ramped up with mom's macular degeneration because now she can't drive herself anywhere and she has lots of doctors and women since she can't like go grocery shopping. It means she can't shop for food. At all. She needs to eat. She needs to eat. She needs to eat. She needs to eat. She needs to eat. She needs to eat. She needs Nina for everything. And others talk about a rich they are and could obviously just get her a nurse.

Yeah. And it seems like maybe neurosurgeon husband might have some connections to nurses. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I also want to just go back to what Sarah said, which is that Lily says that she randomly meets Jake in the woods and they're walking. And the lie she makes up, which is so is that he sees her and says, OK, can you come down this random path? That's not a trail. It's like a deer path.

Because I saw a mother deer and like three fawns standing in a clearing down this path. And then, basically, it's like, oh, did I say deer? I meant cuck. Are you ready to see the fawn? Yeah. Yeah, it's like, it's such a bizarre. Like, only someone as stupid as Lily could make up the lie and then only someone slightly dumber than Lily, aka her husband Christian could believe the lie. Yeah. It was so crazy. It was so crazy. To me fair, we don't know that that's a lie until the end of the book.

But we know. I think we know. We know. And the deer came out Christian. He ripped my panties off. Did your came any crap? So now I had to leave the woods without any underwear on. And the deer probably also stole my earring. Actually, stole my earring. And the deer's been calling my phone Christian. It's a weird number. It's been calling my phone. The deer put a tracker on the car. Yeah. Who put the tracker on? Oh, that's not-- oh, wait. It is Jake. Jake put a tracker on Nina's car.

Yeah, I just think she's about that. I thought maybe there was not the case or there was going to be twist with that, but there wasn't. Oh, yeah. There was just exactly-- Here's what this book did. It gave us a red herring. That-- did it? Where? Ryan, the other teacher was a red herring. So he is just really quickly. He's another English teacher at the school who's obsessed with Nina. But mostly, it's just like a good friend. Yeah. I know. I didn't think he was that bad. I thought like-- OK.

He sent her flat-- I was hoping Ryan was-- I was hoping Ryan was going to come save her a few times. I was like, hopefully Ryan's still stalking her because she would be really helpful for now. Ryan could have been so much more, but instead he was just a little red herring who I think was obviously obsessed with Nina. But he's out at the car and he's like, what's this GPS tracking device on your car? Everything OK with your husband at home. And Nina's like, why would you ask that?

Everything's fine. Everything's totally fine. This is a GPS tracker. And everything wasn't fine. She should have gone for Ryan. Right. This is another example of her telling everybody that everything's perfectly fine. And then he's not going, you know what makes you seem guilty of murder when you know someone's missing and you say, no, they're home. Yeah. And they're home and everything's good. Why would you ask? Report them missing.

And then a couple days later, you're like, actually, my blind mother saw him walking on the street. So I think he's fine. It's normal. And so I want to go ahead and cancel that missing person's report. Also, if someone I loved went missing, I'm sorry if this is an abuse of the system. But if I truly knew it was someone who would not on their own accord be missing.

And if I knew in my heart that foul play, when the police asked, does this person-- do you have any reason to suspect that something bad has happened? I would be like, yes. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. If they said, do they have any special medications that they need to take that they don't have? I would say, yes. It's my husband that I love. I'm going to say any medication to get you out of here. I also can track my husband. Oh, you can't have-- I have five of my friends on his phone. Absolutely.

You can track your wife. Yeah, you can track your husband. Yeah, I have five of my friends on. Wow. I would know where he is. I suppose I could put the effort in. Yeah. It made me hit it like that it drains his phone's battery. That's fake and it doesn't do that. That's lie. That's a lie. [SIGHS] Oh, yeah. Oh, oh. I mean, he must have-- Unless he's got the app. Unless he has the app open all the time. But I do think that he does not close apps. [LAUGHTER]

No, I-- honestly, it's upsetting to me that I don't track all of you. I don't even-- You can track me anytime you want. I would love to track you. I would love you to look. I don't know how much you don't-- You don't have an Apple, though. I don't have any track of Google Maps now. I just have to keep track of-- You know what? I do think we tried to do something that wasn't of an Apple thing. And maybe that did drain the battery. Because it was like an Android special app.

I track-- I keep running. My other friend, also Sarah B., we have an app that is for families. It's called Life360. Yeah, that was the one we used. Oh, yeah. So it doesn't drain the battery, huh? Well, I don't know. I'm just saying. Oh, oh, oh. But I track-- Oh, there's Sarah on it. I track my friend, Mary on it. We're going to get me out. Help you when they're phone bad. I don't want to hear anymore about other Sarah. [LAUGHTER] I don't know when to hear. I want to get me out.

And I want you to know where I am, little clown. I would like to know-- I would like you to know. Yeah, OK. I'd like to know. It's helpful to me because sometimes when I'm like, I want to start being like, where are you? What's taking so long? I can just calmly look at that. And I'd be like, OK, he is 20 minutes away. I will not bother him with calls and questions. Yeah. Or you can be like, I see that you're at the grocery store. Very nice. Very good job. Yeah. Thank you. Get me over.

Sure. Yeah, yeah. Or I can sneak up on him, scare him. I've never done that one. Lot of options. But it also makes me feel good because it's like, if I am like, oh, no, where is she? And then I look and I'm like, oh, that's sad. She's still at work, but not dead. Yeah, yeah, that's I mean, it can help you feel like, OK, that makes sense. I don't need to think this is way too much for our characters to handle an app. Oh, oh, they put it. I mean, people are tracking device on her phone.

I don't even know where on her car. Yeah, sorry on her car. I don't even know where one gets a detachable GT. It wasn't. There wasn't even enough of a reason. Jake's character was published. Why would? OK, given what we know about Jake by the end of the book, does it make any sense that he would have a tracker on her? Like, I don't I don't even understand. It's good to know who's trying to see when she was going to be home because spoiler coming up, yeah, is something with Lily.

Can you even believe? Relationship. This is a twist that happens as we know. This is a quote unquote twist. This is like a page with 300 reveal, or it's like, and you can tell the author was like, she was drawing it out the reveal in a slow bird way where she's like, you're starting to see what's coming, huh? 300 pages in and all of a sudden you realize, these two moments, swimming together. OK, and you're starting to suspect it in no way. No, it's not. So when is that?

In five pages, I'm about to tell you, confirm your worst fear. I bet you have a cold sick feeling in your gut right now. But yes, it's also funny because Jake and Lily only slept together five times, which, OK, I mean, when I say only, I would have to murder someone if they'd-- Yeah, agree. But the point is, are we at the point of installing a tracking device on your wife's car? Yeah, it's not that long of-- I mean, come on. We're also-- You're caught with the mom.

You've been cheating with and how long is cheating? Holy shit. You're right. Probably wasn't the first. Yeah, you're right. That is a good bad cat. Yeah, oh yeah. He's a fucking dog. He's a dog. Well, I bet he is a dog. He's barking outside. All in cute. Yeah, that's pretty wild. And the secret. Yeah. [LAUGHS] Sort of explained. [LAUGHS] So Claire was lying about Jake trying to come on to her and attack her in the woods.

She was actually trying to break up with Jake, and he got so mad at her in the woods. But-- Did you believe this? I didn't believe this part of the story. Since the weather's not very good, the weather's not very good. The weather's not very good. Well, also, the way that the story plays out-- so when he first goes missing, she goes to work. And Nina, husband of Jake, points out that her earring is missing. And she really freaks out about it, cut to-- the earring was lost in Jake's car.

Because they were fucking in his car that morning, right? And then-- That's happening. Oh my god, you're right. If she lost the earring that morning, the rest of it fucking in the car that morning. And then she breaks up with him, right? Right. Exactly. That's why she's lying. Why are they going in the car? And then they go deep into the woods? Wait, what is-- And this is why we're going to plot our books, Mary. What was she-- Because days matter, details matter, Mary.

Like, oh, we had one last goodbye fuck. And that was supposed to be it. But he wanted to do two goodbye fucks. And I said, no! My foot can't. Fishery. Only if the second one can be deep hidden in the woods, where we might be a fawn. [LAUGHTER] It just didn't make sense. It just didn't make sense. It just didn't make sense. Yeah, it doesn't make sense at all. [MUSIC PLAYING] And the police, at some point, come to the house of Christian Lily and Lily becomes a super villain all of a sudden.

And she's like, I heard Nina and him were fighting. Yes! I don't want to tell you. And it was like, oh, my God. I don't know. It was like, as in happening, Christian is screaming his face. Yes. So Christian is a wife guy, like, to the highest order. So he is. So he was like, actually, I heard Nina and Jake have been fighting a bit. He's like, oh, my God. The mind wife is lying to protect me. A potential accomplice to murder her. She's so smart. She's so hot. It's so hot.

My precious little flower, Lily. She never told a liar I don't want to live alone. Yeah. He honestly, of her is just like little angel that has never been touched by dirt or grind in any way. Except she did have a lobotomy. [LAUGHTER] It's just like part of why it's so amazing she could come up with a lie. Her brain-- It is really nuts. I was actually impressed with her knowing that she was like where she was in her pregnancy. I was like, oh, that's hard.

You could be really tired and just want to sleep all the time and throw it up a lot. But I don't remember her-- She's not in her way. I don't remember that happening ever with her. Now I think about it. She's-- No. Well-- She's under a lot of stress. She's under a lot of stress. She's going to get a lot of sleep. She's going to get a lot of sleep. She's going to get a lot of sleep. Right, but I also think that that on top of the hormones would be-- I don't know.

We had a paternity test at the end. Oh, did it? Very angry. Yeah, he did. I did a paternity test. I can't. I'm not in his-- I can't. I'm not in his-- I'm not in his-- Four-head is mine. Yeah, it's like, OK, great. Disgusting. I don't care. I'm so bored. Yeah, I don't care. I don't care. It also was like-- Why are you guys talking? I don't know. I'm like, she's crazy, obviously. But you just-- We just skipped to the end. OK, anyway.

She sort of shames new parents when he's like, she's two months old and she's laughing. And she sits up and she said her first word. It was dada. It's like, naturally. Did I miss the end of this book? Yeah, it was. It was an app all over. This little is anything else, really. But to go back-- I remember that book. I remember that book. Did she go to prison? No. No. Wow, you really don't know what happens if you don't if you miss this book.

There's a second where he goes-- I wake our daughter up from a nap, which like fuck off. She's two months old. Yeah. Weakened her up from a nap to go do something. No. But you apparently wake her up from a nap to go visit Mommy. It's always so hard when we do the Mommy visit. So you're like, oh, I guess she is in prison. But then no, it's just like visit Mommy on a park band. No, we call it visit Mommy when it's her week for custody. Yeah, that's it.

Which I'm like-- I'm still like-- also, I'm like, it's a new board. She should have more custody than that. It doesn't make any sense that he would have the baby for a week at a time at eight weeks old. Well, I will say that things do get a little hairy and custody when one has murdered. But-- She did it. She was. She's not gonna miss it. Oh, right. OK, when one-- What do you have in the mail? But luck will be in God, Marina. There's no question.

It's Lily's never tried or convicted for the crime, because it turns out actually that the crime perpetrator was all along Mommy of Nina. Yes, that I did. That got in the generation Mommy. And-- but the thing is that really smooths things over. She's dying of cancer anyway, so nobody gives a shit that she has to go to jail, because she's about to-- She doesn't mean have to. They let her out, because they're like, let her die in her own home. So it works out for everyone. She gets to die.

Nobody goes to jail. Nobody goes to jail. Yeah, it was the most-- Also, she's not blind. In case anybody was wondering. Yes, so she does have macular degeneration, but she was just exaggerating it to the doctors and in front of Nina and all that, like doing the eye test being like, is it say-- does it say CDGF when she knows very well? Does it say black? Well. [LAUGHTER] But in-- I love home.

The whole background with the mom is that a bit-- she-- Nina's dad, her husband left them when they were young, was a cheater. So I guess she's suspicious of men, was always suspicious of Jake. When the mom finds out that Jake is cheating and then follows him-- and followed him to watch, I guess, watch-- Really? Watch them, come on. --watch them in the head, watch them fucks, get smashing it, and then she said, keep going deeper with a cat his gun and then shot him.

So I'm going to shot him execution style in the woods. And it was deeper in the woods, and that's why Lily and Christian couldn't find him when they tried to go dispose of his body, like the stupidest fucking criminals alive. They're like-- They're so bad at it. --they're so bad at it. --they're so bad at it. --they're so bad at it. --can you usually going back to the scene of the crime? At least three times they go back.

So many things happen that like, you're like, this has to come into play later because they're being such a dumb-- even Nina at one point picks up the gun, like she finds her Jake's gun and she picks it up with her hands and I'm like, oh, she's fucking up. Now the evidence, her fingerprints are on it, now they're going to say she did it. No issues. --And it's when she knows it's the murder weapon also. --Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like she finds it good in her mom's-- --What the fuck are you doing? --is it fair to say though, if you are attempted murdered by two separate people in the same day maybe you deserve to be murdered? --I think that there's an argument. --Yeah, for sure. --I don't know. --I don't know. --It's interesting that the law that he shot him instead of being like, here's an opportunity to frame someone like-- he's like bleeding out from that, he's like bleeding out from that.

--He's about to die anyway. --I'm not even going to say anything about it. Yeah, I don't know. --Yeah, yeah. --She's stupid too. --She's the problem. --I guess she's stupid too. --I think that in real life, Nina would have been much more of a person of interest based on her behavior when her husband went missing of pretending he hadn't gone missing, not going to the police. --So the ex-sub-a-godly police-- --I don't know what she was going to do to the police.

--But he called her, she went pretty quick. --He's not coming to work is he okay? And she's like, he's fine. --He's fine. --That's crazy. --And then she went to the police right away. --But then she went to the police right away, like right after that. She didn't want the people to work to know, but she went to the police, she was concerned about him. --I think she went into a fine amount of time. --I do not think she did. --I don't think she did. --I'm fine with it.

--Well, I'm happy I'm not Mike. --Yeah, I don't think she did. And also, she, like, her story kept changing. It was so weird. And the murder weapon was in her house. Like, I don't know if I'm the police. I'm pretty suspicious of you. I'm probably getting a warrant on you. --The murder weapon wasn't going to look. --And I'm warranting you as well. --In her garage. --In her mom's car. --Our mom's car. --It was in her mom's car? --I thought it was in her own garage. --It was in her own garage.

--No, she was staying in her mom's house. --She was at her mom's house, so it was in the mom's car. --Which again, mom, why don't you just get rid of the murder weapon? --Jesus, come on. --Get, don't drive the murder weapon everywhere you go. --Oh, that is the other thing. All the characters in the book are like, let's take the evidence we have and just carry it around with us all day. --That's it, like, okay, there's a whole thing about Jake. --Yeah.

--And Jake, or Christian, who had Lily's bloody clothes from when she bludgeoned Jake. And he's holding on, and there's a car for weeks and he keeps being like, oh no, are they, somebody going to look at her car and hang it on a door in their house. --And kept forgetting. Just put them in the wash. --Yeah. --I mean, like, Jake was kinked by this. He was absolutely, not Jake, sorry, Christian. He was absolutely way too into it. He instantly went into, I'm a murderer now, too much.

--Yeah, yeah, he loved it. --Like, everything he did, he was so obsessed with furthering the crime. Like, all of a sudden he was like, we've got him in the car. I will be breaking into their home. I will find the spare key. I will move the car myself. --I'll murder Nina if I have to. --And he's in the house. He's like, oh no, I'm not alone because they make this little plot where Lily and Nina are going to go out to breakfast. And he's going to break into the house and steal the keys.

He breaks in. He's like, I'm not alone. Oh no. And then he's like, oh maybe it's just the cat. And then he's like, no, definitely a person, like, flushing the toilet or something. And then he's like, but I'm so close. I've got to get them keys. Get out that you've got to get out of the house at that point. Because he has no idea that mom is allegedly blind. And then mom sees him square up. And then he runs away. And then he just goes on his merry way to move the fucking car like a psychopath.

Like, I'm sorry. You think that your fingerprints aren't going to be all over this car. Like a hair isn't going to fall into the car. --But he has the VPN. --He wore glasses. --He wore glasses. --He thinks they're going to be no traffic cameras that catch you. No people seeing you do this? That's so stupid. --I actually have a quote about how he kept his hair. Well, it's not about that, but I how do you keep his hair from getting in the car?

Well, here's how Nina describes what he wore when she eventually sees a doorbell camera video. He wears jeans, a jacket, and some kind of hat. --So beautiful. --And we have to get to baseball. It's called baseball hat. --I said she wasn't like it. --It's like a sombrero, but three quarters of the sobriote was cut off. And only one part has the bill that you would expect. --Oh my god. --The author was trying to make it like you can't like the doorbell camera footage is hard to read.

--Just looks like she doesn't know what a hat is. --I love that. --I love the like next door aspect of all that, but we should take a quick commercial break. --We'll be right back. We got more to talk about. And we're back. Yeah, so the whole Nina is the whole thing where she finds that she's like her mom says her husband came back. So she's like, oh, I got to see him.

I just want to see him, which is like I think a weird reason to go on next door essentially and be like, hey, I got a package stone. Does anybody have footage? And then a bunch of people send her footage and she sees it's not him. It's a mystery man in a some side of hat. --No, writing. --Was it Hadoo cord and like an athlete would wear it. --It's a Honda, definitely. --And the police can do nothing about it. There's no I guess.

--I would say Sarah and I know from when our identities were stolen. The police are useless. --Back to do the thing. --They do pay a little more attention to murder. I will say. --All right, both there's somebody. --There's somebody yet. Just just missing. --Yeah. --I will say something good that I think is not going to be a good one.

--I think good that I think Mary the author did was make his car a black Honda Accord because that is like legitimate, I'm sorry, but there are 40 million black Honda Accords in this town alone. --Okay, I did also appreciate when Christian was like, lily, you need to get the spare car keys so we can move the car crazy. But then he goes, he like tells her what a key fob is and then he reminds her what a BMW looks like and I was like, you know, I would -- --That's the look.

--Yeah, I would might kill you like, my two-year-old knows what the BMW looks like, I think. --I have no clue. I couldn't describe it right now, gun to my head. --It says BMW. --It does. --It says BMW. --Really? --Yeah, I was like, blue and white checkers. --It's not even a symbol. It just literally tells you what it is. --Well, I couldn't have told you that I'd be, if you had a gun, I'd be dead right now. --I got to get you to spend time with my son. --I want that too, sir.

--But I got, I think somebody drove a Tesla at some point in which I was like, this doesn't take place in LA. Because if it was LA, the Honda Accord car would be a white Tesla. Then they'd be like, oh, white Tesla. Everyone's got that fucking car. --Yeah, yeah. --What it would be. --When I was in the-- --Why your life is different than ours? --They thought that DC sniper was using a white van because whenever there was a shooting, there was also a white van there. --They forgot about that.

--Oh, that's really funny. --There was no white van involved in that. --You know, we try, we try. I want to talk about my favorite scene, which was a nonsensical one where Jake suddenly was like, oh, let me throw out this bloody clothes. --And then, like, I keep saying Jake. --Christian was like, let me throw out Lilly's bloody clothes. And so he walks down the street to throw it in his neighbor's trash can at the same time underage drinking.

--At the same time, Nina's watching him and then like, Nina goes and gets them and sees that this bloody clothes. And then there's this whole scene of Jake murder, er, sorry, I keep saying Jake. --Christian murdering her, which I was like, wow. --This is where I stopped really. --I don't even like them. --I just want to listen to this. --It was a graphic murder. It seemed like it was just happening.

--Yeah, and then all of a sudden he was like, and that's what I imagined in those two seconds where I reached for the car door to stop her. And I was like, wow, that's fucking insane that you just did that to us. Like, that's, I think that's crazy for the author to do that. Like, no, it's not what he imagined in two seconds. You just wrote like a half hour murder scene. --It's fucking psycho. Anyway, um, and then to be like, but this is, that's not what something the character would do.

It's like, it's like she put a twist in there to be like, something he took it too far. But then like, was like, nah, just kidding, undue twist. --It was, when I thought it happened, love. --Yes, yes. --It was the only time I felt excited in the book. I was like, you know what? I didn't see this coming, but he actually what's gonna happen to me now. --And I loved it. --So, and he's getting so into it that this is happening.

He's going too far and now he's gonna find out his wife did it and then he's gonna be so deep because he's gonna have murdered someone. Like, I was like, that's interesting, but no, that wasn't it. And just the thought in his head. And then it's dead. --Okay, go ahead. --It wasn't even like impactful like, wow, it doesn't even inform the character later. Like, the fact that he has this murderous fantasy isn't like something he examines about himself later. Like, he's right on the dark person.

--Exactly! --It's meaningless. It might as well not be in the fucking book. --Exactly, exactly. --And then what happens is he's like, give me this back and need this like, rightfully like, --The bag of bloody clothes. And then, Christians like, she had a miscarriage. Like, that's why it's bloody clothes. And you know, it doesn't really believe him, but he takes it back.

But like, to me, I was like, I was like, oh, is this setting up something where like, they're gonna be in a situation where it's all based on whether or not she really is pregnant and then they have to like, they have to have the decision about like, the only way she gets away with it is if she actually gets an abortion or something because if they can tell that she's pregnant, like, they know that this is a lot of things. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. That's an interesting setup.

High stakes. They've been like gone through a lot of miscarriage. --The baby's in poor. --Yeah. --But no, nothing happened. No, no, nothing happened. --It didn't matter at all. --It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It was wild to me. --I also want to say like, less do you think that Jake -- oh, sorry, that Christian is just someone with murderous fantasies. He's also really funny. And I'm -- [laughter] --I have this great scene. It just like makes me laugh and laugh.

At some point, Christian says, I'll say it was me that murdered him, Lily. It doesn't mean that I wasn't there. It isn't something you did alone. We're in this together, Lily. Remember, like Bonnie and Clyde trying and failing to get a smile out of her. --Yeah, it's so funny. --It's really funny. And, you know, it's just like such a funny thing to say in that situation, like Bonnie and Clyde. And you just know that in the heat of the moment, your wife who just murdered someone is going to crack.

[laughter]

--And this app is just after he finds out about the gunshot, because like that was the twist. I was another twist where it's like, oh, he thinks that she bludgeoned. He was bludgeoned to death, but it was all in self-defense. And then like, it's the body's found, it's reported that he died of a gunshot wound, and he's all like, he's been lying to me. And it starts to fall asleep though. --He's finally getting suspicious of her. Finally getting suspicious. And she's like, no, I didn't shoot him.

--It was weird 180 on his part after believing everything, hearing one thing, you know, believing all those bullshit. You went to see a phone, et cetera. Then they say it's a gunshot wound, and suddenly he's like, I don't trust a thing about her. She said, she hit him with a rock, but it was really a gun. He starts searching her stuff for a hidden gun. Like it seemed like a huge, huge, huge thing. --Yeah, and she walks across the room. He's like, what's in her hands? Guess what, reader?

It's nothing. just hand, hand, hoag ham, hands to hoag. (laughing) - I hate this book so much. - I liked it, though. (laughter) I liked the beginning part, man. Basically, up until the fake murder was revealed as a fake murder. I liked the gentle ride. I liked the part when he was sneaking into our house to get the keys. Oh, you know someone there? There's such low stakes suspense. - Yeah. I liked house, stupid everybody was. - I'm pretty wrong. - That was frustrating. It was nice. I don't know.

It's just like, - It's just smart. - It made me feel smart. - And then, I think he was doing such dumb shit, just not talking, not communicating things. Like, being suspicious, or all the shit she did was, if you had just talked to someone else or been more open about what was going on, a lot of this would have been resolved. - He would have been almost murdered. He wouldn't have all the stuff.

It was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, - I will say, and the other characters don't, we don't have the benefit of being in their heads, but I would say if I encountered either, Nina or Christian, who was point of views that we got, I would hate them. I would hate them so much. Nina doesn't deserve a nice life. - No. - She's a bad wife and she's stupid. - She doesn't deserve to die. (laughing) - And she has a teacher.

- It's a shame that the affair wasn't resulting in her death to be honest. - I agree. - Carlin. - I don't know, she's just, well, - I think it's hard to believe. - I did not do that much. - I didn't like being a bit of Christian as much. - My god, what, oh, you know, okay, I have a complaint about the book, but simultaneously, I did wanna see it, and I didn't wanna see it.

- Okay. - I would call it an all-most sex scene, is basically right after we find Christian finds out that his wife may be bludgeoned a man to death. - Yes, yes. - And he gets hard over it, which like, I, and I really like, - I haven't talked about that last book where that guy was like, - Yeah, of course it is still a lovey fight. I think I was hard when he walked in. And maybe I just like, when they're having like a big bite, maybe I just like really forget what men are.

(laughing) - Your wife is like, "Yeah, I bludgeoned a man in the woods," and he's like, "Poke, poke, poke." - Poke, poke? - And the name was, it was so weird. It was weird. - It was weird. - That's what I'm saying. - Is this the Mopi sex scene, sir? - But we don't get, - Yes, it was. - It was. - Like we get like, her being pulled in, - Yeah, he lays her down and then, like, that's what I mean. It was like, - Lower,

- Not good. - It was like really slow, but like also, - Why is this happening now? Everyone should be sad. - I think we should be sad. We shouldn't be fucking, it's just like, - Her being a victim. - Yeah, it's like, he's getting off on the fact that he feels like he can protect her by becoming an accomplice in her life. - He really should have murdered Nina. I mean, honestly, everything about set of the setup for his character makes more sense for him to be a big murderer.

- Not like the hero almost at the end, because like at the very end, I guess, doesn't get in trouble. His wife doesn't get in trouble who he's been trying to like protect anyway, but he also is like, "Well, you cheated on me, and like they separate." - So he said he loved her no matter what. - No matter what she did. - He did that. - He just doesn't seem concerned about the murder, like, or like the bludgeoning or like all the lies or like the manipulation.

Doesn't just just like, "When you cheated on me, boo." - Right, right, the fact that she like led him to commit more crimes. - Yeah, all these problems. - What I would have loved didn't happen, spoiler alert, but what I would have loved is if we did find out that the baby was the murdered Jake's baby. - I agree. - That would have been so interesting.

- It would have been really good because it was kind of like a whole subplot that Nina and Jake didn't have kids, and they were like, "Will they want they have kids?" - It would make sense. - And then it would be like, "So cool if that baby was Jake's baby, "so then all of a sudden does Nina have a partner?" It's like, I don't know. - This art is a joke. - But all it's all like in it. - Right? - It's an example of another non-twist. - Yeah, it's like, and the baby was, who we always said it was.

- Yeah. - Yeah, with no twist. - Who the father was. - Although I feel bad for that baby, it doesn't have great parents situation. - Or great kids. - Oh, the dad drives a hodocorde. - Yeah, it's a very interesting. - Also, I would say a weird theme throughout this book that didn't pay off in any way was class divides. Like they told a lot about how Jake was a neurosurgeon and Christian was not a neurosurgeon. - He was a research analyst. - Yeah, really.

- I know, I was so, I did not get, I was like, - Lower upper class. - He's the group with a Ford really fancy house. - House is, but he was bigger. - And they get a car, but I couldn't afford a nice car after my fancy house that I bought. It was so annoying. As someone who does not own a house, I was like, fuck this guy.

Also the book weirdly, like Nina takes, who has the fancy house takes a weird opportunity, like shit on her house growing up, where she's like, it's a ranch, three bedrooms, barely over a thousand square feet. It's like, that house sounds fine. - Yeah, that sounds, that's a regular house. - A house could still even be upper middle class. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So depending on the area. - That might be a million plus dollar house in dumb bitch. (laughing) - Oh my god.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - These characters suck. - Yeah. - And the mom and the, oh, you know what I wanna say? I wanna say the one good thing about the mom being the ultimate killer. It made me feel really good because I feel like the more common trope is like, the mom of, is like psychotically obsessed with her son. - Oh sure. - And so I like, - Really turned that trope on its head.

- I like that this was a mom psychotically obsessed with her daughter and like wanted to be in a relationship with her daughter, almost like, you know, like that was fun. I thought like, let's just kinda like this. Let's do this. - If you guys write it. - And you know what? It's nice to see that a woman at 62 can still murder. - Yeah. - She's not. - Absolutely. - Society isn't done with her yet. - I mean social science would tell you that people age out of crime, but not her. - But not her.

- Beginning again at 62. - I feel like. - I thought they like to steal a lot when they were a little older. - Thought they're good. - Well, they're like, - Yeah, they're good. - But is it a crime if you've lost your mind? (laughing) - But I like a lot about the mother being psychotically obsessed with the daughter was that throughout the book, it was painted as if Jake was the asshole for being like, when you have time, it should be with me, not your mom.

I'm home alone while you're with your mom. And that was like what they always fought about. - It's not like that. - But considering she lied about being my mind and killed the husband. Maybe Jake had a point. - Yeah, I know. I thought that too. I was like, Jake probably wasn't as bad as he was made up of him. - But the book, yeah, made it seem like he was psychotic and like controlling him.

- Yeah. - Well, and they did reveal that he was like a little weird in that when he first met Christian, he was fixated on Christian's wife and was like, you're so lucky to have her. - Oh yeah, that's a thing. Every man in the book that interacts with Lily is like, oh, God. (laughing) - Yeah, she's not mean as like a seven, but we lose about 10, baby. - Even when she's crying and in her first trimester, whatever.

- Oh yeah, Christian makes a point to be like, she's crying, but within a few seconds her puffy eyes will disappear and no one's gonna be able to tell. (laughing) - It's like, she's such a beautiful cryer. It's just, she never gets rad. It's just like a single tear falls down her face. (laughing) - He's made of porcelain care. - I love it.

- I like, how about the fact that they're, so we learned today from Sabrina that the author was a former high school teacher and both our main character women are high school teachers. - Yeah. - It just seemed like, and I guess now I understand why it's because that's what the author was, but it was an interesting setting, unnecessary setting that they were co-workers there. They both seem like really bad teachers. - They did not seem like good teachers, I'll tell you that.

- Yeah, they did. - They were a lot. - Pretty late for work a lot. They, what do they do? They like to put on videos for the kids, (laughing) which is the substitute move as I have come to know it. - Yeah, so. - Anina was always like, the kids are out of control and I don't have the effort to do anything. She kept also mentioning her student teacher.

I thought that was gonna be something, like she'd get fired or something because the student teacher would tell on what a bad job she was doing to that. I guess we've read herring or just, - I don't know. Or given the fact that she did an outline, probably just something forgot. - Yeah, so she forgot. - Just the unnecessary details. - Also mentioned, I think Jake's parents at some point being suspicious and then nothing happened with that again. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Something like that. - Yeah, she, like, she basically, it took way too long to tell Jake's parents that Jake was missing. She was like, well, they were probably just lying for him anyway. - Oh yeah, yeah. - They wouldn't tell me. It's like your in-laws wouldn't tell you if your husband was staying with them. If you were going to the police 'cause you thought he was missing. - Yeah. - Then, they're psychotic. - What kind of relationship?

- I think they did that bad, a bad relationship, I guess, but I don't know. - Imagine if your high school teacher had a Tesla. I mean, that thing is not surviving in a high school parking lot. (laughing) - We, where we used to live, we were parked next to an elementary school. I cannot tell you the number of times our car got keyed. - Oh my God. - Meers got broken off the car. - From our teachers. - From the teachers, I'm sorry, but. - Teachers are crazy. - Yeah. - There are jealous.

- Yeah. - There were jealous of, yes. - They wouldn't have done that to a Tesla. They were trying to get you to get a Tesla. - They were trying to, that's what they wrote with a key. - They would have stayed in a whatever. - A key, a key, a key, a key. - We parked Tesla on the side. - We didn't, I wanted people to think. - So funny. - Sabrina, I thought I saw that you had the answer is the author. - I do. - Should we? - Absolutely.

- Yeah, maybe we, let's do it now and then we'll take commercial break. - Okay. - You're so lucky. - This is, you don't know, you get it now. Sarah's benevolent. (laughing) - Well, if you guys keep talking, she's gonna be like, - No, never mind. - She's right, you're right. - She does seem mad. - Mary is there ever a justification for acting illegally or immorally? One character in your book refused to justify wrongdoing even when she had a good excuse for it.

Can you talk about that a little bit? - Okay, to read, to understand the law, okay? And then I'll tell you a secret. Then the characters in my book can read. (laughing) - Okay, don't you know? So that's why it's so special that they were English teachers, okay? (laughing) - If the accent is paper, I'm done. (laughing) - Look, I don't even know whether I'm gonna try it now. - I'm done. - You gotta try it. - All right. - Mary, same question. - Oh, okay.

Yeah. Yeah, I had a character who was, you know, had a good excuse, yeah. She was, she could've said, you know, self-defense, but what you don't know is that she knows. That, you know, men don't believe women. They think they're all sluts. So that's why, you know, she didn't want to. You say that, say what you would say is the truth. I guess. (laughing) - Okay. - All right. - You gotta do the accent. - Mary, same question. - Bubbler. - Trying to give it. - (laughing) - Pop. (laughing)

- Very good. That's right. - Can you explain to me the, what was the very good reason she had not to go, she had an excuse? Are you asking me the interview? - I'm sorry. - You said, what am I gonna do? - Yeah. - Oh, yeah. - Yeah. - Well, I guess it's okay to spoil it for the listeners at this point, but yeah. One of your characters had a really good excuse, which was, you know, self-defense maybe, why she bludgeoned this, he tried to kiss her and-- - She wouldn't get into-- - He attacked her.

- So she wouldn't, Bubbler, so she wouldn't get-- (laughing) - I don't know. I don't-- Huh? That's cool. - Interesting. - I didn't even know. - I don't know if that's right. - She could even with a rock. - All right. - Now I'm excited to see Sabrina do it. - Pop. - Okay. - Pop. - Okay. So question. Was is there ever justification? Fracting illegally or morally, one character had a pretty good excuse, but wouldn't justify it. Can you comment on that?

And Mary said, "Oh gosh, you know, you hear those excuses all the time, you know, and is it ever okay to justify bad behavior, you know? I think there are times of self-defense. Is it okay to defend yourself? I know, you know? I think that it is, you know? - Okay. So she didn't answer the question either. - So I was closest. - Yeah. - She didn't answer there. She did not answer the question. - Is it okay to defend yourself? I was closest. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You were closest because of that. - She thinks maybe it could be, you know? - The question is about why did she, the character, refuse to justify the self-defense? Is that not the question? - Yeah, it's like why didn't she use self-say, I go to the police and say in self-defense, I hit someone with a rock. - And she didn't answer. - She didn't answer. - Yeah, Claire was right. You're right. Claire, if I were the author and I were asked the question, the response I would give.

- Okay. Wow, this has never happened before, ladies and gentlemen, that someone has been so upset by our fake responses. Go ahead, Sabrina. - I'm upset by the real response, too. - Okay. - I think I would say it's actually a really real phenomenon that when you're in that moment it feels real, it feels justified, you have to do it. But then immediately afterward, it's such a horrific act that you are definitely afraid that they're not going to believe that it was self-defense.

And then you're going to be charged with murder, so you're going to hide it. And I guess then then I would counter with, well, what about our husband who wasn't there and didn't suffer any trauma? And he also immediately would be like, "I know, I'm not going to the police and say that." - He should have sent out of the police. - Well, what I would say there is that it was a really real phenomenon for Christian that it made him hard that he comes up with. - And then they're mad. - Absolutely.

- Absolutely, man. - And you don't go as their...over things that make you hard. - You don't go as to the police when you're in that. - Is there anything more real to a man? - Yeah, that's true. - Yeah, you can't do that. - But nobody knows that. - They put you in jail. All right, let's take a quick commercial break and we'll be back with any... - You still got us, you guys. - Final thoughts and good reads, five service, et cetera, BRB. [Music] - And we're back.

Sabrina, I think you had a point you wanted to make before you moved on. - Yeah, more of a question. Maybe I missed something. - So when Christian breaks into the house and then he's greeted by not being alone and blind, "Blind mom sees him." And then, but he gets away. It's like, "Oh, thank God she's blind." But the thing is she's not blind. And so my question is, what... She doesn't know who this man is. She does not think he's Jake because she's not blind.

There is a man who's broken into the house that she's in. Why is she not scared and why is her response to me like, "It was Jake." I mean, it was Jake is probably to cover up the fact that she murdered him. - But like, I think it's so sorry. - It'd be okay, non-plust. But extra weird that she even felt the need to tell Nina someone broke in if she was gonna lie about it. - Yeah. Well, didn't she not? - At first, I thought Nina was like, "Why is the door open?" And then the mom said something.

- Okay. - Okay, don't you know? - Oh, you're not there. - Not me there. - But I still... I feel like she maybe does. I don't know. There's a world where she knows, somehow knows, Christian. - It doesn't. - It's this. - It makes sense that she would want to say it's Jake to cover her murder, but it would... She should also be concerned about someone coming into the house. - There's no way that she mistakenly thinks it's Jake because she definitely knows it's not Jake.

- Yeah, she definitely knows it's not Jake. But it works really well for her to say it's Jake and... - Sure, of course. - And I know during the commercial break, I sort of mixed the idea of the in-pro-backed out, but I thought of it more. - You thought about it when you really want to do it? Okay. All right, we're gonna do a new in-pro-backed out. And this is... - Okay, so we're... - A scene we don't get to actually see in the book. So this is why this is an exciting act out.

So I guess we're gonna need a Jake. We're gonna need a mommy and we're probably gonna need a Lily too. So I'd like to be Jake. - Lily. - Unless you want to be Jake. - Okay. - Okay. - We need a Jake. We need a Lily. What? - A mommy. - A mommy. - I could be a mommy. - Okay. - And I just want you, Sarah. - Yeah. - I don't have a strong feel. Yeah, you know what? I'll be mommy because I want to see John take on other goals that we would go know about yet. - What's left for me? Other roles?

I'm really... (laughing) - No small parts. Let's go. (laughing) - Jake, we are done. I know that we just fucked in the car and I let you do a little hand stuff down by this non-existent deer baby. - Hold on, hold on. Where's the deer? - Okay. I think we both know that there's no deer, Jake. - Okay. - Wouldn't be cool if there was them. - Where are my underpants? - Jake, I'm gonna have to go back to the car to get the underpants. Now this is it. Unless perhaps you're the father of my baby.

We'll cross that bridge when we get there. - Oh my god. I'm gonna attack you now. I'm sick of this. - No. - Okay. - Attack. - Attack. - Oh my god. - Oh my god. - Oh my god. - Oh my god. - You are basically an apparition. How are you this strong? - Oh my god. - Oh my god. - Oh my god. I'm leaving now. I see that you're bleeding. - Oh. - Bye. - Oh. - Goodbye. - Goodbye. - She broke up with me and she hit me in the head with a bra. - Doesn't feel good. Does it sunny? - What? Huh? - Neen is mine.

- Okay. - Yeah. - Yeah, bitch. - Oh. - Oh, you're not. - You see this cold steel pointing at your face? - I can't really see. There's a lot of blood streaming from my head. - You can't see. I can't see. It's a gun. You dumb asshole. - What? - She did on the love of my life, my precious Neenah. Sleeping with my precious Neenah. - Okay. - Touching her supple breath. - I need a supple breath. How dare you? - This hallucination. - This hallucination. - I can't. - I can't. Oh, God. I'm so dizzy.

- Walk deeper into the woods. - I'm thinking I'm losing consciousness. - Walk deeper. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. Walk. I'm poking you. Walk. - Okay. I'm walking. I think maybe I'm good at time. Anyways, go ahead and shoot me. - You really hurt me. - Wait. You want me to shoot you? - Yeah, you put me out of my misery. - Why do you say in base because you're a neurosurgeon, you understand that the rock has hit you in such a way and you're losing blood at such a rate? - Him and him.

- Oh, God. - Him and the brain stem look rock. - Oh, you're definitely going to die then. Huh? - Yeah. Yeah, just do it. Just shoot me. - Oh, what's that, a deer? - Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Where? Bang! - Where? - There's a person bang. - Yes, bang. Bang. - Oh, I'm dead. - Why did I give him such a beautiful, last image? - I don't know. - Oh, well. Well, I guess I'll just take this gun, put it in my pocket. And... - Flip. - Lock away!

- Flip. - Deer, come on, come dear. Let's go. Jump on my back. Okay. - Whoop! - Oh! - Oh! - Oh! - Oh, the clearing so beautiful, painted red. - Yes! Take me to my steel carriage. - Oh! - I think my hair is... - I think my favorite part was... - John has full starts as the deer. - Honestly, I was like, in my head, I was like, "Oh, John is gonna be a great deer. We'll get John in as the deer." - But I think it was also... - I'd be waiting in the wings the whole time as a deer, sir.

- I thought you'd be more aggressive as the deer. I thought you were gonna be... - It turns the mic and then like, shook her head. - It's also because of how our mic setup is. I think we couldn't hear you as well because the mic we hear is from... - Nope, nope. It was... - You heard her when... - I couldn't hear. - I couldn't hear! - I couldn't hear! - It was so stile. - It was so stile. - Okay, okay, I couldn't hear it at all. - But like, quieter than that.

- Okay. - I was like... - I was waiting with faded hooves just to go off of the clear mop and went down. (laughing) - Also that scene reminded me of another red hairing, which was like some other teacher's husband was like... - Oh, hey Nina. - Sayu... - No, right. - Hey Lily. - Sayu in this very specific part of the woods last week. Don't you remember? And Lily was like... - Oh yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe. - I was there. - Fuck somebody saw me at the scene. But like, didn't matter.

- Didn't matter. - Didn't matter. - Yeah. - And stuff at the scene. - If they were not... She didn't go to the woods alone ever. So the only time she was alone in the woods was after she bludgeoned it. So the... - He probably saw her running with blood. - Yeah, the witness either saw her coated in blood and running. Or meet the man that wasn't her husband and he wouldn't be gabbin' about it. So openly. - That's why I thought maybe there was a threat lane in front of the... - No, the man's here.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So... - That's why I thought. - So that doesn't fucking work. I guess this is why I thought this is why I would plop. - This is why I'm Lisa was right. - Alive. - It's about dumbest people alive. - You guys want to do... - I think like, if my book had just ended with... - Breaking into the house to get the keys. - That was it? That was enough for you? - 100 pages in. - The heart racing, but also I'm gonna get to sleep tonight, no problem. - Whose heart was racing?

- My heart was racing. - Wow. - There's someone in the house. - Wow. - Wow. - Sure. - I guess. - I feel like I'm having nightmares about people breaking into my house. I think that's a pregnancy symptom. - Very vivid dreams when you're pregnant. - Yeah. - Horrible. - That's really cool. - You guys want to do good reads, five star reviews? - Yes. - That's good. - All right. Sabrina looks like you have a few. - Good. - Yeah, I know. - I pulled them. - Go ahead.

Yeah. I have some, but I also, let's just do yours. - Okay. I don't know that they're good. I had to dig for five star reviews on this book. - It didn't have the best... - I think it, what was it? Like a 3.7 or something? Like, it didn't have the highest ratings on good reads that you would expect from her. - Yeah. - That's silly. - One that was not a five star review was titled "Dodd Alert." - Oh, that's cute. - That's... - That's cute. - That's cute. - Um, NASA. - But, okay.

We have... - Not like us. - Not like us. We had Dallas Straun say, starting at Mary Kubica book is like opening a bag of M&Ms. You can't eat just one M&M. That is the Pringle slogan, by the way. You need to eat them as well. - You can't read just one or two chapters of a Kubica book. I just started her latest just the nicest couple of yesterday. - We know. - 145. - Okay. - "Doddoddodd." Then all of a sudden, I looked up at the window. It was dark outside and I was 70% through the book.

- "Doddoddodd." - "Quat twist." - "She lives in Alaska." - I was gonna... - Uh... She always writes a crazy page, share, and her to say the least. They're often very simple stories, but they leave your mind just absolutely dazed at the who done it. - No. - And just the nicest couple, we primarily follow Christian, his wife Lily, who is friends and co-workers with our second POV character, Nina, who is married to Jake.

Jake, (sounds of cake) who doesn't come home one night after an argument with his wife before he leaves for work. (sounds of cake) And Lily may possibly be the last person to have seen him. (sounds of cake) - These could just be sentences. (laughs) Mary Kubika always keeps her readers on the edge of their seat pulsing to discover this cool (sounds of cake) - Ew - Eww! - Don't you think that's like vaginal 'cause he says edge of seat pulsing, I'm thinking like, "Oh, absolutely." - I know you.

- She never disappoints. I always say anything I can read in under 24 hours must be good. - Oh no! - Oh no! - Just because of the couple. - And I mean anything. (laughs) - I'm a seat from the grocery store. (laughs) - A newspaper, a dog ate and then, then shit up. (laughs) - That would take a little longer, I would. - I would rather read that than this part. - Whoa, this book was so good. - Just a nice couple is coming from Park Row in January of 2023, but you can pre-order now, dog, dog.

That was that review. - I just, she worked for them or something. Why does it say when it's coming in? - I imagine Dallas strong as a man. - My copy seems general neutral name, - Arthur Tal. - Yeah, sure. And then Ali said, really loved this thriller by the author of local woman missing at Mary Cooper cut. There was a lot of suspense, a lot of guessing whether or not Jake was still around stalking everyone. - We love it. - Who was telling the truth? Who was manipulating? Who?

I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. I would have liked to see a resolution of Nina and Ryan, but it was fantastic without. - What was the resolution? - I was regret herring. - Yeah, what would be the resolution? - Oh, just like tracking her. It was his, - I would have liked to think out together at the end. - I wanted them together. Absolutely. - Yep, absolutely. - Yeah. - Why they couldn't be, Nina was like, he likes me. That means he's bad.

- No. - Like you're not a good judge of character, Nina. Your mother, your husband. - Come on. - I think that woman. - Well, she didn't pick her mother. - Yeah, but she couldn't, - But she didn't like her. - Dallas, she was a murderer? - She didn't murder her. - I would know my partner's a murderer.

- Before we find out, before Nina finds out that the mom killed the husband where the mom says like, you have to, they're spending a lot more time together 'cause Nina and the mom, because the husband's dead and Nina scared. And the mom's like, you have to admit, other than the circumstances, it is nice. (laughing) And Nina is like, she's right. Other than the circumstances of why, it is nice. - I miss my mommy. - Wait, it is nice. Yeah. - I'm ready with a haverane. - Let's do it. - Let's do it.

- You're out of five. - And good, Clara. - I know that that doesn't line up 'cause I said I liked the beginning part, and I did. I liked the beginning part, liked reading it. I liked the light tension. That's as much tension as I want. (laughing) - I'm just a little like, or you don't care about the characters. So like, if they get caught, it's kind of like good. It is worth to be, but it's fun that they're trying not to get caught.

I did like that part, but liking the book, and like wanting to, after I, when I would have to put it down, wanting to read it more, that made me be like, oh, am I stupid? - Oh no. 'Cause the book is like, fucking stupid. - Correct. - So it made me, I mean, I did eventually come around and be like, fuck this, this is trash, you know, the part where she lies about the graphic murder scene. It was when I came around, I was like, okay, fuck this. But to make me one of the smartest people ever born.

(laughing) But I'm stupid, like making me have to question that. - Wow. Zero out of five. Unbelievable. - I totally agree with you Clara, and for the exact same reason, it's zero out of five for me, because I'm, you know, I'm, I just said, baby, I'm just back to work from a turn a leave, and then I'm reading, and I'm already under pressure of like, am I still, find me, am I still smart? Can I still have a conversation with someone?

And then I have to read this book, and it's undoing all of the hard work I've done to get back out into society. It's making me stupid. It's making me question my own sanity. - And I mean, ultimately, I feel like, this book is like a canary in the coal mine for American literacy. If people are responding to this book, and reading this book, and liking this book, I think we have an absolute disaster on our hands. I'm concerned, and I'm afraid. And I'm afraid for our children.

This book makes me afraid. This book's success makes me afraid. - Exactly. Yeah, it's something that goes red, and I'm sure anybody can write a book. I wrote a book for God's sake. (laughing) It's called, being say that now. - No, my God. - It's called, the ultimate fantasy football, punishment playbook, I think. - You sure about that? - Remember, yeah, that's it. Sounds like it was something like that. It's really good. You should buy it. You should rate it highly on good reads.

The point is, anybody can write a book, but liking the book, and giving it a good review is what concerns me in this case. - It is reassuring that it was only on the best so at least for one week. 'Cause people just trusted her from her other books. - Sure. - Then word got out, this one sucked. - Yeah, I agree. - Okay, well, it's called the best fantasy of a football punishment playbook. Okay, check it out, I was on.

- Okay. - Well, it's a little difficult to give my review after that, but I will. And for me, I think this is a solid four out of five. - Surprises me. You seemed critical throughout the cast. - Oh, but let me be clear. I was critical of how stupid the characters were. I loved that they were stupid. - Okay. - Okay. - I thought that it made a compelling book, because like every turn, I could be like, "Don't do that, you fucking idiot." - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - And that was so nice.

It felt so good. Also, the book was short. I followed everything. Okay, do I think it's the best writing display when you repeat information over and over again? No, do I think it makes sure that I don't miss stuff? Yes. So for those reasons, I like it. And yeah, there was a little murder in the woods. There was a little affair. There was, I don't know, all the, and I didn't know the epilogue existed, which sounded like it sucked.

I think my YouTube version did not have it, 'cause I listened to the whole thing. I was done a week ago. - It's funny that you ended it without knowing who was accused of murder, like who got what to jail. - No, I know. I knew it was. - Yeah, no, I mean, right, but you didn't know who went to jail for the murder. - Yeah, I guess maybe that, - Right. - Like I didn't know the baby was born and that we had visitation with mommy. - Yeah. - That I missed. But I did know that it was the mom.

I did know that she would have cancer. Maybe I did. Maybe I just blocked out the kid, because I wanted it to be Jake's kid so badly, which is why it's a four and not a five. (laughs) - Yeah, all right. I definitely, for this book, it definitely loses a lot of points for the ending and like I kept saying the non-twist, like I kept thinking, oh, this could be interesting.

She kept setting up shit that could've been interesting and then never following through or never choosing making the interesting choice. And that really pissed me off. She gets points off for that. Mary gets points off. It was short. - She gets a point for being short. - Yep. - She's a short. - Can she have any more points? For anything else? (laughs) It was short and she or should she? - It wasn't super offensive. There was nothing about it. - Sure. - It was easy to read.

It was short and it was quick to read because it was easy to follow along and it didn't make me want to like kill myself reading it. Some of these books that we have to read are just so bad. So I'm gonna give this a two out of five. - It's a two out of five for me. - Not something I'd really recommend anybody to read but it wasn't one of our worst, I don't think. - Certainly not. - No, it wasn't one of our worst. But it's still easy to get a zero. - So get zero.

- Okay, yeah, it's getting a zero for other reasons. You can be readable and still have other reasons. - Okay, sure, sure you did. - What did that readability do to me and my ex? (laughs) - All right, okay. Oh, I guess it's time for a little fucker of the past. - I have a blank. I am not upset with any of you right now. - I know. - We'll see, you know, I'll let other people go first, but. - Yeah. Does anyone have, maybe something you've been sitting on for years?

- So they have it outside the cast. - Yeah, maybe something outside the cast. Could be kind of fun. Hmm. (sighs) I mean, see. - I guess I have someone. - Good. - Is it me because that door knob is not completely straight. - So we need to build a door. Like, I'm not kidding, she built a door. She went to a lumber yard and she got eight by the word or whatever. - Yeah. Three and a quarter by five and a half. - She got three and a quarter by five and a half.

And she built a door and it's really good. That's not, it is you Sabrina, but that's not why. I won't believe any other reason. It's because the door knob is slightly a jar. It's a perfect door, but the issue is, why Sabrina, it's because, and I guess such a good wife. And you come here and you're just like, is this Sabrina's life all the time just to be like, cared for by this angelic human being? - Saying that they're just the nicest couple.

(laughs) - A little bit and it is like, you know, makes you think, very nice to see. But, you know, there's jealousy attached as well. - Sure. - There is some degree of jealousy to not be married to Meg. - You have Meg. But, you know, what can you do? You know, you make your choices and you live with them. John is at Sabrina's house this evening. - Johnny, I've been at the same place. - Johnny, at home. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. I love my husband. He's so great.

In fact, he's been especially great recently. I'm just saying, Meg seems like a pretty great caretaker. And for that reason, I'm gonna have to say Sabrina, keeping Meg to herself, not sort of sharing her with the wider world is assholes to cast for me. - Wow. - And the door knob. - And the door knob. - Mm-hmm. - I guess I'll disagree to too. - Excuse me, what is poppin' into you? - Okay. - Okay, I am popular. - Yeah. - She's like, you know.

- I thought it was pretty aggressive in the opening when she was like, I want you to fight for, there's enough roles for everyone. I'd like you to fight for them. (laughing) - Yeah, you guys took the bait. - Yeah, you pulled back a little bit. - A little, a little game man. - A little bit nasty. What's the guy from the song "The Police" that seemed like a little... (laughing) - And I got president Snow from "The Hunger Games." - No, I didn't, I didn't.

So, I mean, I know it's not a strong reason to vote for you, Sabrina, but it's all I got, nobody else. - Yeah. - That I can think of up the top. So, my vote's Sabrina. - I would really love to target someone other than Sabrina. - Okay, but I'm having trouble right now. And to be honest, I think the funniest thing that happened this episode is that, like Sabrina was like a little cocky about finishing the book a week early, but she didn't actually finish the book.

(laughing) So, I guess that for that reason, I could vote for Sabrina, even though I, you know, I'd rather set up a match, but Sabrina, who are you voting for? - Well, I gotta say, thank you all for this honor. - I didn't say anything. - It's not an honor. - It's called, it's called, "Little Fucker of the Cast." - I love to be picked. - "The Little Fucker of the Cast." - I love to be picked. - No euphemisms. - And, so I'm, I accept this with pride. And who do I vote for myself?

Because the critics are unanimous, but I win. (laughing) - Okay, all right. - I'm glad we voted our little fuckers, because of that display. - Yeah, she said that first. I would've felt a lot more confident. - But also, okay, wait, I have like other reasons why it would be me. - Oh, God. - One, "The Door knob is not perfectly straight." Even though, even though my level said that it was. - So, yeah, the level says that it's probably a little straight to the day. - The door knob a lot.

Kinda wanna vote for her again. - And, you're talking about a lot of him. - Right, voter really vote often. And also because I don't think I figured out my microphone and, so. - Well that just makes me shit. - All of you listeners. (laughing) - All you listeners. - Audio might be a little rough. - Could be pretty rough. And that's because of me. - That's true. - Well, actually, it's happened in that regard. But, you know, a failure to prepare. - Yeah. - Isn't it an accident?

- I couldn't prepare before John got here. - You can test it out. - You could have a second mic to be able to figure it out. - Well, by, you know what, if this is gonna be regular with you too, we'll get you another piece of equipment. - They can have present and they can spend time together. - Full shit. - I still should just tell us what they're for minutes. (laughing) But if she would like to procure it for us. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Take a photo of your set up right now.

- I need to declare a for coffee. - You wanna see a photo? - Okay. So what do we have coming up next, Sarah Dogg? - I don't think we know. - We haven't chosen. - Oh, I started reading a book. - Okay. - Which one? - Who's it on our list? - I hope so, Sarah. - Yeah, it's, it's not here in competence from-- - It looked short. - It was available in the beginning. - Is it a man called O? - It's not that one. - What are the other options? - There's a book about leadership? - No, wasn't that one.

- Okay. - Eleanor, elephant? - The bodyguard? - It wasn't that one. - No, wasn't that one. - Has to be the paper palace. - The paper palace. - The paper palace, that's what I started reading. - All right, I guess that's what we're reading, guys. - Nice. - The paper palace by Miranda Callie, Heller. We'll be our next episode. We are mean book club, please follow us on all the socials. I mean book club, please, if you haven't, or if you have, just do it again. Go give us a five-star rating.

If you wanna say mean things, sure, we don't care. You know, you should, honestly, that's the point of the cast, but give us the five-star rating 'cause it helps people find us. - Yeah, don't be cheeky and give us a low rating because it's quote mean. - Yeah. Give us five, give us five. - Criticisms, that's fine, you can put those in too. - Call us dumb, say that we're uneducated. - Yeah, who are the wives of your most concentrated high school? Look, it worked.

I'm thinking about it three years later. - I don't think we should. I don't know. - It's probably why the door knob isn't straight. - Oh no, oh no, we're spiraling. - We have to go, we have to go. - All right, we'll see you guys, we'll see you guys next step. Bye bye. - Okay, here's a list of things Meg has done for us tonight. I thought we could fade out to this. They have a little fireplace that's not working, but she said, do you want me to light the fireplace?

And then she lit a bunch of candles in the fireplace. - Yeah. - She brought us food, dumplings, homemade soup dumplings. - Wow. - So cold, that's a warm, cold cold cold. - So cold cold cold cold cold cold cold cold. - Okay, wow. - And Adam, I'm having a roll. Then she took the white wine and hid breath, and she said, I'm going to put this in the fridge, you just text me. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [clicking] (audio cuts out, the mic is broken)