Book Club: Modelland by Tyra Banks (Ch. 1-3)

We are reading Modelland by Tyra Banks so you don't have to (and please, we're begging you, don't read along). It took us an HOUR to get through the first three chapters, so this is part one of who knows how many. If you enjoy this, let us know, and we'll consider continuing the series! 

Whether you’re hate-reading along, curiosity-listening, or just here for the chaos, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review to help us grow our community of book-loving nerds. 

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Transcript

Cold Open And Instant Chaos

Abigail 0:00

In the doorway stood Mr. Delacreme. He was much younger than his than Tuki's mother. A stained black unitard cut deeply into his flesh. His once powerful muscles sagged. He swept across the room, scooped Miracle up, and spun her around. He closed his left eye, which was made of glass, an unfortunate souvenir of an acrobatic performance gone awry many years ago when he was the incredible Chris Creme Crob. The incredible Chris Creme Crobat. And not just Christopher de la Creme. Gay icon Chris Creme Crobat. Lavender marriage.

Welcome And How To Support

Abigail 0:47

Welcome to the Redirect Podcast. I'm Abigail Freshly. And I'm Emily Rojas. The Redirect Podcast is the show where we shift the conversation back to books. We discuss themes from some of our favorite books and how those themes show up in our real lived experiences. On today's episode, we are discussing the first one, two, count of three chapters of Model Land by Tyra Banks. But before we get to that, we would love for you to support the show in a few simple ways if you're enjoying it. First, you can go on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a five-star review and let us know how much you love the show. You can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at redirectpodcast. You can follow Emily on all platforms at Emily Rojas Reads. And you can follow me, Abigail, on TikTok at Fabigail11 and on Instagram at Fabigal Insta. You can visit us at redirectpodcast.com to search through our media library, shop for merch, or send us a message. And if you really, really love the show, you can share our show with a friend. Because sharing our show with a friend is by far the best way to help us grow our community of book loving nerds. Totally. And this is a great episode to share because it's Oh my god. Maybe one of the I mean, this is like saying a lot because even in the past six months, I've read a lot of awful things for the show. This might take the cake as one of the worst things. This is the worst thing I've ever read. Yeah. Okay.

What ModelLand Is And Why

Abigail 2:18

For the uninitiated, like, what is Model Land by Tyra Banks? And like, great question. How did it enter and how did it like re-enter our consciousness? Model Land is a book written by Tyra Banks that's like from 20, what is it? 2011, 2012. 2011. So take yourself back in time to that era. It was like Hunger Games. When did the Hunger Games come out? It feels like of that time. Dystopian. It's a dystopian young adult. It's actually so around the same time as the Hunger Games. It's published actually as a children's book. Um this? It's like a a division. I was just looking at the title page because I was like, who published this? And um it is text copyright 2011. Um and it's published in the United States by Dela Corte Press, an imprint of Random House Children's Books, a division of Random House Inc. Random House, what are you guys doing? This is I need to know who edited this. I need to know who was her agent. I need to know everything about this. I'm also understanding that um there is a ghostwriter for this book, and I have a lot of questions for that person because that we'll get into it. Anyway, the theme song from Modeland, which if you have not heard this, please stop, pause this episode, and go look up the theme song. It is the most insane. I can't I hesitate to call it a song, and I hesitate to call this a book. Um, but it gained renewed attention online after a 2026 posting on X referred to it as the worst song of all time, which is how the book has also sort of gone viral again on TikTok and on other social media sites. And um, here we are. Now we're reading it. And to be clear, we know that Tyra Banks is kind of a problematic person. Uh, I think many people also recently watched the Netflix documentary about um Americ America's ex-top model. A lot of like, and she and Tyra Banks participated in that documentary too. Um, so I mean, she she she basically went on to deny culpability for anything that happened um on that show. Sure. But yeah, she's a problematic person. I I would say don't buy her book, but you're not gonna be able to buy it anyway, because this book is almost impossible to get your hands on. Correct. There are like scant, there's a scant number of copies available in public libraries, but if you want to if digital copies are not available to purchase for your e-reader, to buy a physical copy of this book from Amazon, be prepared to spend $1,999.99. That is not a joke. It actually costs that much to order it on Amazon. Yeah. So we are reading a pirated copy. Correct. And feeling no qualms, and I'm not feeling bad about that at all. Um, one other note, apparently, in uh the like post-COVID, she opened a model land theme park in LA. What a missed opportunity to have gone to that. And um, it is now since closed, but okay. Wow. The model land lore runs deep, is what I'm trying to say. And I go ahead. Yeah. Did you did you watch America's Next Top Model? Oh, yes, religiously. Yeah, yeah. Your mom loved it. No. Kelly, if you're listening. I thought your mom wasn't watched it. No, mostly me. Yeah. I loved it. Yeah. Um, I too watched it. Um I don't really even know what this book is about that much. I it's hard. We'll we'll get into it. It's hard to know if our main character here, Tuki Delacrome, is um like supposed to be semi-autobiographical. I yes or representing Pierre Banks because you know what? Let's just start. So we have to get into it. Yeah. We were gonna, we were gonna, so for the real story, we were going to book club this entire book, but that proved an impossible feat. Yeah, there's no way. Because it is A, almost unreadable, but B, um, there's so much to talk about that it just wouldn't be the longest episode ever.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

So if you guys like it, we will consider continuing to book club this book maybe for special followers or members of the reader's community.

Abigail 6:58

Yeah. Um this is a test episode, really, because there are 47 chapters of this book, so it's a bit kind of yeah. We're gonna come into it. We definitely want to know if you guys like this and want to hear more. So yeah, so give us feedback. If you like the joke, let us know. Okay, I think we should read the entire prologue because I have so much of it highlighted that I think we need to set the stage. I think, yeah, so the beginnings of each chapter have like an italicized intro that is from like the narrator. Sure, I guess. Unidentified, unidentified narrator. I'm kind of taking it to be Tyra herself. Yeah, this is like in Tyra's voice. Do you want to read it or do you like me to? I can do it for now. Okay, okay.

Prologue Worldbuilding Gets Unhinged

Abigail 7:43

So this is the prologue. You want to be there. You know you do. Don't lie, darling. I want D-A-H-L-I-N-G. Correct. Continue. It's okay. I know what you're thinking when you look up at that splendorous place atop the mountain. I know what fills you, spurs you on, fuels your dreams. You're obsessed with being chosen. Everyone is. The land you thirst for has loomed at the top of the mountain in Miitopia for as long as you can remember. But for most of the year, it's covered in fog, its color changing with each passing day, as if it's a gargantuan mood ring. You begin your morning staring at the fog, longing for the fateful evening when it will turn a golden yellow, and then finally, like a push-up Brazier, lift. What is she talking about? This is my first time I wrote the note. Oh, Jesus Christ. So there, okay, to recap. The land that she thirsts for, there's a splendor space at the top of the mountain. It hides behind fog. Uh, it's color, the fog changes. Like, this is how hard it is for me to interpret what she's even trying to say. I have to re-resent my sentence. Its color changes with each passing day, as if it's a gargantuan wood rink. So the fog is changing color. Correct. You begin your morning staring at the fog, longing for the fate, me or Tuki. I don't know. Longing for the fateful evening when it will turn a golden yellow, and then finally, like a push-up brasier. So all right, so that's what we're waiting for. For the big day the fog will lift in the land of Mietopia, which is where we're taking place. Oh, how you long for that moment with bated, fresh breath, I hope. For it signifies that the luminescent eye will soon blaze in the sky, bathing the whole world in gold, touching every one of its inhabitants, including you. But darling, it is no ordinary golden light. Once it tickles you, you are suddenly dot dot dot transported.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

You hear Okay, keep going.

Abigail 9:58

Oh my god, okay. You hear the softest of sighs or faintest of giggles in your ear, even if you're standing alone. The once stale air around you becomes both sweet and tart, making your nose tingle and sending a charge of excitement through your brain. The finest silk, the softest velveteen, or the supplest suede will brush your skin, but whatever you thought was touching you is nowhere to be seen. Basking in the light is such a naughty tease, like getting a single lick of the most delicious butter pecan gelato you've ever tasted. Okay, my question is what why? Just why? There's so many things. Why is it butter pecan gelato? Yeah, why any of that? Here's the thing. This to me reads like this is why I'm I'm shocked that there's a ghostwriter. Because it reads like a very like no dis well, full disrespect. It reads like uh like middle school discovers creative writing for the first time, where every sentence is like the most specific metaphor, which is like sure, great if you're learning how to do descriptive language for the first time, but it's like actually, what are you talking about? Like when you're trying to read it and for meaning and to follow the story, it's like, okay, is butter pecan gelato? Is that first of all, is that even a thing? Uh, is it even good? I think of ice cream as being better than gelato, but it's like, okay, gelato is the fancier version of ice cream, so we're going gelato. Like, what is this? But but butter pecan is so not gelato. Correct. It's like such an ice cream flavor. It doesn't make sense. Whatever. I have to let the go of the gelato thing. But when I first read that, it like it was like it was so distracting. Yeah, it's ice cream. Everybody was like, what? It's like the push-up brasier. You know what? It's giving, it's giving honestly, it's they are written in a similar way to the letters to my future husband.

unknown 11:47

Yes.

Abigail 11:48

Like, this is giving the quality of letters I wrote in secret as a high school. Exactly. This isn't good. No. Okay, okay. Continue. Sorry. So you have this desire, it's increasing. Okay. You you lust to go to this land to become one of the only famous people in the world. Okay, so we're setting the scene. The only fame there are no famous people except for the people who live in the world. You want to go to the land behind the fog on top of the mountain. The change is number zero. Okay. You ache to be a seven. A seven, seven? How are we? So if you're you're not reading along, this is the number seven followed by the word seven squished together in one word. So it's number seven, seven. I was gonna call it just a seven-seven. I was just saying, okay, I was just saying seven. So we'll go seven-seven. That makes sense. Okay, but very few ever get the chance. Nevertheless, you and every young girl in the world vie for an opportunity on the day of discovery, otherwise known as T Dod. T Dodd, which is grander than every global holiday combined. Making a global holiday combined.

unknown 12:57

Oh my god.

Abigail 12:58

Making the delirium even more intense. The land sends seven talismans called smizes into the world. What an arcane word. Who thought of such a thing? That's where I that lost me. I mean, if it hasn't lost me. It's it's capitalized, smise is capitalized as if it stands for something. Though we know that smise is just smiling with your eyes. Yes. It doesn't seem to appear to stand for something in this world either. Okay. These smizes, which boost your odds of being chosen by 91%, are propelled through the world's waterways. Naturally, the week before the day of discovery, bathing, showering, pool use, and even sewer diving increase, threatening a drought. Chance meetings erupt into fisticuffs on occasion. Every girl wants to find a smise, darling. But not nearly as much as you do. You ignore the slim odds and disregard the warnings you've heard since birth, like how it's easier to grow three inches in a month than it is to score a spot in the newest class. You turn a deaf ear to the cautionary tales whispered in your hometown and throughout Miitopia, in dingy alleys and side streets of Bitter Patter, during shift changes in Shivera, and on assembly lines of Peppertown factories. We're doing a lot of world building. Wait until you guys find out what those towns are named for and the insane world that we live in. By the way, it's gonna be in like 50 pages. We got a lot to get to like the rumor that the school often takes inhumane and irreversible disciplinary action. We're just gonna throw that in there. Or that certain disposable civilian girls are brought into the land to be tortured and then killed, used as human sacrifices for ungodly experiments and animalistic rituals. Dude. Um okay. It's obvious why they torture them. The gossip mongers whisper. Those in the land bathe in civilian blood to maintain their breathtaking beauty. We took a turn here. Goodness gracious! A literal bloodbath, darling. That crismen el I can't read. That crimson elixir must leave a nasty ring around the bath. The tub. Okay. And then there's the reality of the pilgrim plague. A form of sadness meets madness that compels unselected hopefuls to embark dadless on an unauthorized pilgrimage to the land. It's a sickness that comes with a quickness and afflicts the most determined and desperate. And the trek through the land of die through the God, I'm I'm losing it. Okay. And the trek through the dangerous diabolical divide always ends in dismembering death. Ouch. As a day of discovery dawns, however, you and every young girl around the world tune out the horrifying negatives and concentrate on the glitzy, gaudy, dream come true positive. You dredge up every ounce of self-confidence from deep within. This is my year, you say to yourself. And so does every other girl. They'll choose me for sure. Every girl feels the same way, except one. Tuki de la creme. Tuqui de la creme. And that's the prologue. Okay. Hey, can we go back to all the prologue? Let's go back to the ungodly experiments and animalistic rituals.

unknown 16:13

Because what?

Abigail 16:15

Wait, where was that? That's at the end. When like the rumor that the school often takes any main irreversible discipline action or that certain disposable civilian girls are brought to the land to be tortured and then killed uses human sacrifices for ungodly experiments. This is what happens. This is the rumor about what happens behind the fog. It's obvious why they torture them, the gossip monger's whiskered, those in the land bathed in civilian blood to maintain their breathtaking beauty. There's a lot.

Chapter One Introduces Tuki

Abigail 16:52

Correct. And it's And that's how we enter chapter one. It's definitely like uh amateur-ish and the worst possible way to do world building by doing like a fake omniscient narrator explaining the world to the person reading, which is basically how the rest of the text reads, even when you're out of this narration portion and you get into Tuki's POV. Um, it could she continues to like explain the world to herself, like, oh yeah, that's why that is that way. And it's like, okay, sure, whatever. Yeah, dude. I okay, so I we don't I don't want to just read the entire book to everybody, but I also highlighted that I had to read the intro to you do T-O-O-K in chapter one. T space O space okay. And and I thought this was a t this concerned me because I was like, is this a typo? Because I pirated this, but it actually is intentional, and we'll explain why when we get to that scene. So yes, I think you should read the intro. Just okay, we we won't read the whole freaking book to you, but we I have to read this. These narrator parts are so good. Yes. It's this really sets up who our main our hero, Tuki de la Creme, is okay. Have you ever seen her? The girl whose face, not even the meanest person you know, would describe as yuck, but who you'd never in a million, no, a trillion years describe as alluring either. The girl whose eyes are three centimeters too far apart and whose mouth is four centimeters too wide. Not that you'd break out a ruler, but when you look at her, it's enough to make you say that something is definitely off. Come on, you've seen her. She's a girl whose hair has multiple personality disorder and can't decide if it's supposed to be quasi-curly, silky straight, frantic frizzy, or wet and wavy, or maybe a power to the people fro. So what do you imagine her hair looks like? Well, my actual imagination, and this does happen in a scene later, which is where she walks outside and it like instantly poofs up, and then she like has some spray on it, and then she like calms it down. I imagine she's just fighting against her natural curly hair. That's what I'm understanding. And it's a lady to be so silky straight. Yeah, that's confusing. Um, it has multiple personality disorder. When I read this, I thought it was like weird Barbie. Yeah, okay, yeah, sure. That's kind of what I was meant to do. All of them. Okay. Yes. The girl whose body is a contradiction of itself. Here we go. Everyone, buckle in. A slightly hunched back from years of poor posture, one must presume, feet the size of snowshoes, and stick figure arms and legs so fragile you think you hear them screaming, feed me an entire grilled cow now. The girl with the humongous, punch bowl-sized head with a forehead that goes on and on and on, making her look like the weight of her cranium will top roll her over and break her into a thousand pieces. And not only is her clothing painfully mismatched, so are her eyes, darling. You heard me right. She has one green eye and one brown one. That's not even that crazy. Have you ever seen Tuki de la Creme? I bet you have. Maybe you've even met her. You just don't remember her. No one ever does. I'll get to that in a second. For as unusual looking as she was, Tuki was a forget a girl, one of the most forgettable girls in the entire world. But maybe not for long. If I saw a human being that looked like that, I I guarantee you I would not forget her. I would a human with a punch bowl-sized head. Yeah. Correct. I'm not forgetting snowshoe-sized feet. Yes. But stick-thin arms and legs. Giant head. Giant head, stick-thin arms, gummy arms and legs, multiple personality disorder hair, weird Barbie hair, and snowshoe feet. And then also she has heterochromia. Yeah. I would remember her. My understanding is this is clearly the most self-deprecating version of Tyra Binks describing herself. Which is an insult to crazy people. To actual ugly people everywhere. That too. That as well. Yes. I take exception. I really do. You know what I'm saying? I have never one day in my life fit the beauty standard. Correct. And I will not shed a tear over a conventionally attractive woman who is like, I'm so ugly. My forehead is so. I'm a supermodel. I have a big forehead. Like, okay. You're literally a supermodel. Shut up. Yeah. Shut up. So that's Tuki, um, which also is a crazy insane name. So that's our intro to Tuki. Tuki Delacrame. Would you like to continue taking us through chapter one? Yeah. So where do we find Tuki? We find Tuki in the she's laying on the floor. She's splayed on her back on the hallway floor for school. And the school is called the Bangle Bobble and Bead Institute or B3. Correct. Everything in this book has an abbreviation pretty much. So dispute. It's hard to remember, but yes. B3. The school is called the Bangle Bobble and Bead Institute because it was converted from a factory. So in this world, I don't even know what their world is called. Meetopia. But Miitopia. In Miitopia, there is like randomly a factory for like every item that you crack. Correct. And they don't consolidate the items that are like they have a toe ring factory that comes up later. It's only for toe rings. No other jewelry, just toe rings. So there's like a it's a big industry town. I don't know if they're exporting these goods to like Utopia. I don't know who's buying all this shit. But, anyways, this is a Bangle Bobble and Bede used to be a factory. They converted into a school, but like they didn't do a good job outfitting it as a school. Yeah. So it's like kind of like on hygienic circumstances. There's like lots of weird smells. There's like a PA system that isn't good. It's like cold and dark and drafty. Like, think like a triangle waist shirt factory. Yeah. Kind of yeah. There's like a the factory bell still rings when they used to have like their lunch breaks and shift changes and everything. Yeah. Right. So that's like the vibe. Yeah. And Tuki is she's has this kind of form of protest that she's doing. And it's called um what's it called? Uh tea splot or spot. Sure. Hold on. Okay, well I'll I'll scroll down to the name of it in a second. But basically, she's laying on the ground enjoying a snack. And it's important to know that her gangly legs shot out at odd angles and as though she'd fallen from a six-story building, her enormous feet pointed straight up, and internal clock counted down the time in perfect cadence. So she's counting down in her head, waiting for the bell to ring. Yeah. And um, as she's waiting, she's holding a can of whipped cream. And although she's squirting it straight into her mouth, somehow, inexplicably, maybe because she has a punch bowl-sized head, she keeps missing her mouth. So there's just whipped cream squirting all over her body and her face, it's dripping down her chin. Yeah. And it's just really kind of grotesque. It's so it's very viscerally described. It's gross. And like, yeah. So she, you're like, Oh, how are you out here, Tookie? Uh basically, she's like invisible to everyone else. Like nobody notices her or sees her, so she can like skip class. No one notices when she's not around. Her teacher doesn't notice that like Gumby with a punch bowl on her head is like leaving class. So, whatever. The bell rings, everyone goes, and they're all just kind of like walking over her. Literally, no one is like they don't see her, especially wearing like an invisibility cloak. Yeah. Um, she describes the way that the the building is like the sound of the fans, the way that like air sounds and smells coming out of the vents. And um, this is where we meet well, we meet a couple of characters. First is her sister, who is named Miracle, M-Y-R-A-C-L-E. Do you want to tell us a little bit about Miracle? Yes, because I highlighted our a description of her. Okay. Her sister, first of all, is a moron. Um, this is how she's described. Beyond she's very pretty, but very stupid. Beyond her looks and fancy flights of footwork, what was most disturbing to Tuki about the miracle, as Tuki's mother called her, was not that she was Tuki's younger sister. The most disturbing fact was that the miracle was distinctly, indisputably, flat out, dot dot dot, dense. As dumb as a lobotomized turkey, and turkeys were said to raise their heads to the sky during rainstorms and drown themselves. Oh, Tuki tried to give her sister the benefit of the doubt. Miracle had memorized every intricate dance step of the 22 verses of the Shavera shuffle, after all, and at least she understood the concept of DNA, even if she got the pronunciation wrong. But in all honesty, Miracle wasn't the brightest tube of lipstick in the caddy. Right. So we are introduced to Miracle. She's like, You're not my sister, you're not my DNA. Yeah. She's like, not saying it right, whatever. And Miracle is like mixed up in this horde of young women who are all like clucking and tucking about T Dodd, the day of discovery coming up, and how they're all looking for these smises. So we don't really know what a smise is, it has not been described to us, but presumably it's an object or some sort of token that you find in water that has to come through a faucet or in the sewer system or in a lake or something like that. And it boosts your chance of being chosen at T-Dod by 91%. So everyone's like freaking out about it. And that's all the hub of everyone's talking about what looks are gonna be in at T-Dod, yeah, if tattoos are gonna be in, and it's like people, it's kind of like um like the capital and the Hunger Games, like people are dressed really weird. They all have there's one girl who has like really long hair, but she also grows long hair in her armpits. Yes. I mean, you know, right, but like really yes, yes, yes. So she just continues lying on the ground. Um, everyone's gonna be able to do it. We get a few other names here for no reason. I don't actually think these characters are important, but I think it's it's relevant to know that we're briefly introduced to Ariella Bertona, Tatiana Sherone, Jason Milano, and also the fact that they refer to the school as before is sort of a joke that stands for Bile, barf, belches, and butt bonds because it makes so many noises and has so much like gross vestiges of its former chat GPT could never write this. Correct, and that's what we need to celebrate them the marvel of human ingenuity because Chat GPT could not come up with this. Okay, continue. So then Tuki is like sad and she's like, Okay, I know

T Mail Jail And SPLD Protest

Abigail 28:34

what I need to do. I need to like get out my journal. So Tuki sighed and reached for a small thick yellow book wedged under her lower back. It was wasn't just any regular yellow, but the color of a taxicab that had been freshly painted and spit polished. And it wasn't just any regular book, but a collection of letters Tuki had written to people she'd encountered throughout her life. Not that she would ever dare send them. Here we go. She called this book T-Mail Jail. Now, I'm sure that ring rang some bells because on famously on America's Next Top Model, it's Tyramale. Yeah. Uh Tuki found it ironic that the book's initials, TMJ, also stood for an ailment that impaired a person's ability to open her mouth. So stupid. What the f the front cover displayed Tuki's first name, handwritten in beautiful calligraphy. The spine of T Mail Jail read, Don't keep out. What? The back cover urged, invade my privacy, please. If one were inclined to follow these instructions, the inside cover challenged, I dare you to turn the page. But no one dared or cared. And so she gets out her thing and she's gonna write a letter to her like one friend in the world, Lizzie. Yeah. Whoa. Um, by the way, who hasn't been at school, I guess. It's just casually dropped in somewhere around this point that Tuki knows 28 languages.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Oh, yeah.

Abigail 30:00

She speaks nearly every language in the world. Yeah. By the way, like it's just so funny. Yeah. So yeah, she's deciding as she's writing in her journal which language she's going to write in. Um she's like, oh, I guess I'll write this in English. There's like all these like ridiculous languages. Yes. So this is something I can't glaze over because this is a really important acronym. Uh-huh. In her note to Lizzie, she says, Dear Lizzie, it's day 39 of my great SPLD campaign, and everyone is still ignoring me. SPLD stood for silent protest by lying down. Tuki pronounced it spilled. As an oblivious classmate almost whacked Tookie's head with a rusty fencing epay. Tuki licked the tip of her pen, gripped it in her right hand, and continued to write. So she wrote, uh, skipping ahead, she wrote to Lizzie, It hurts, and it hurts that you can't be here, and I can't tell you this for real. It hurts too that you disappeared for weeks and I have no idea where you've gone. Girl, you're my only friend. Can you at least tell me where you've been? Anyway, anywhere, everyone is caught up in the day of discovery happening this weekend. But even if they weren't caught up in all this hoopla for the coming event, they still wouldn't see me. Perhaps I don't want them to notice me. I mean, this is spooled number 39. Why not go for the world record? Anyways, she keeps writing, she signs it, tookie, and you see it in her handwriting, but over the eye, she dots the eye with a tiny little FG. And what does the FG stand for? Forget it, girl. Forget it, girl. Oh, and here's here's the languages. Okay. Every color she writes in every page of her notebook. She writes in a different color pen. Every color represented a different language. Flamingo pink for Gaudian, Cabernet Grape for Trejolie, Mandarin Orange for Bey Jangle. And Skyscap for Dre for Kalorion, the language spoken in the distant land of Sans Color.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

It's crazy. Okay.

Abigail 31:58

Okay, so she continues her spilled. She's on the floor. She's she's on the floor writing a letter to Lizzie while everyone's glasses. And who walks up to her, Emily? The one. The only Theophilious Lovelaces. The most beautiful boy in all the school. Um Theophilius. Isn't he he's he's class president, or he's running for re-election as class president, and he's uh Tuki's like one true love because he's the only person, also, not only is he beautiful and like popular, but he's the only person in the entire school who's ever like briefly noticed her. Yeah, yes, yes, and he has uh he has these pins for his campaign that say like vote for love. Yes, they say vote for love. It's very heavy-handed um metaphor. Love laces. Also, to just point out, it's like God's love is basically what his name is. Yes, like Theophilious Lovelaces, it's like the love of God. Correct. Okay. So this there's a little, we're starting to tow into like a light amount of religious allegory. Sure. Why not? Theophilia is also in a relationship with the most popular girl in school whose name is Zarpeza, who is like a mean, like you can imagine. And my notes here were Golden Boy with Psycho Girlfriend Trope is so tired. Uh, I mean, what should I expect from a book that has started in this way? But it's just, it gets me every time where I'm like, okay, well, he can't be that good of a guy if he's dating this like evil, evil, like horrible person. But apparently he is. He's like the Ovelius, so we love the Ovelius. So we get like the skinny about what's her name? Zar Zarpeza or Zarpezza. They call her Zara for short. She's basically like, Oh my god, I made you this golden crusted campaign sign. Blah blah blah blah. She's like, she's supposed to be rich, popular, doesn't like Tuki, whatever. Um yeah, this is when you get introduced to Abigail Good, the um who's who wore super super thick, long, wavy black hair with pride even from her armpits. Just amazingly. Oh, this anyway, this is the Theophilious um description. Sorry. Um she like fell down and she's like concussed, but she no she doesn't stop her from noticing his imperfectly perfect features, sun-kissed, tightly curled hair, a left cheekbone that was sharper and more defined than the right, and sympathetic golden brown eyes, the exact color of two salted caramels, Tookie's favorite candy. He wore a camel-colored suit of the finest fabric, an indication of his family's prestige. They were the wealthiest of all of Miitopia. And yet he didn't carry himself with an air of privilege or self-righteousness. In fact, he chose to attend B3 over a private school in his own neighborhood because he wanted to be among the regular people. Oh my god. I hate this guy, by the way. Oh, I lost my headphones. So yeah, so his like button falls off and he goes on this journey. She's like chasing it down the hallway, and somehow the letters on the button, some of them fall off, some of them get rearranged. Somehow a V turns into a K, inexplicably. And on what's left when she picks it up is T space O space O K-E. And she's like, It's me. Yeah. And she says this to him. He stares at her, and he's like, You find what you're looking for? By the way, she's now covered in trash because in order to find this button that she was chasing down the hallway, she had to dig through the trash can. And so she's covered in trash, and he says, Did you find what you're looking for? And then Zarpeza Zara Zaranio. Zarianu? How are we saying this? Zariano? Z-A-R-I-O-N-N-E-A-U-X. Zarpeza Zariano strolled. She has long, single-textured, bone-straight, auburn hair, flawless skin that didn't need an ounce of concealer, eyelashes that required not a stroke of mascara, and a tall, lean body kiss with subtle curves. She made every head in the B3 hall whip in her direction. So she comes back and finds Theophilia. And she's like, Theophilia, aren't you coming? Like that kind of beat. Yes, yes. And then she's just like, Tookie just sits there and she's like, One day I'll be remembered and she'll be forgotten. And yeah, and she's doing the girl crush song. One day I'm I want to kiss him. She has her lips on him, but it will be me one day. Exactly. I'm gonna be remembered. But then that's how we transition into chapter two. Yeah.

Theophilious And Zara Show Up

Abigail 36:46

Uh great call on only doing the first two chapters because we are 40 minutes. How are you feeling so far? I'm feeling amazing to be able to talk about this because just imagine reading this in a bubble and not being able to unpack it. I wouldn't. If it was not for this podcast, I will not be reading it all. So I think the next two chapters will hopefully go a little faster since we will be meeting less new characters, but we will still be meeting some new characters. Correct. Some some incredible new characters. Really incredible. Yes. Um, Emily, would you like to read the more the shorter this time? Much shorter. Uh yes. Narrator's uh italicized intro. Chapter two, Exodus. Oh, the smell, the dreadful smell. Poor Tuki covered in the wretched decay of other people's refuse. How I wish I could hand her a pair of loopamates or offer her a scalding bath with the essential oils of eucalyptus, bergamot, and lang lang with three boxes of baking soda, a gallon of laundry detergent, 12 cap fulls of all-purpose bleach, two squirts of antibacterial hand soap, and a dash of ammonia. Hey, this narrator's trying to kill you two. Don't bathe. Uh oh, darling, I can feel the burn now, but you know what they say. Dot dot dot. No pain, no removal of funk stain. Okay. Wow. So yes. Um she's leaving her last. Yeah. Yeah. She's letting out. Her last pass of the day is autology, which teaches students to look inside themselves to determine what kind of factory work best suits them. So that's the world we're women. Giving hunger games. Like, yes. Yes. What shoot for the stars. Yeah. Would you like to work in the button factory or the towing factory? What factory would you work in if you had to work in this hyper-specific accessory factory? I think I would want to work in a factory that makes those little clips that like, you know, like click click, you know, the little like berettes that are. Oh, barrettes. Yeah. I would want to work in a barret factory, I guess. What about that's nice? I would be clicking those things all day. Um yeah, that sounds like fun. Something like I don't I don't want to work in really any factory. Yeah, I'm good. One factory work. I saw like a TikTok recently of a guy who does like leather crafting and he was like making a bag. I think something like this the cutting of the leather and the like embroidery satisfying. Yeah. So okay. Okay, back to this.

Chapter Two Peppertown And Smize Hysteria

Abigail 39:21

So she's leaving her last class. Um, over the intercom, the principal is like, hey, we cut up all water due to hide and misuse because of you guys all being obsessed with smises. Okay, so this is a reminder. Yeah, there's this token that if you find it, it can really up your chances on T-Dod. So um she's heading to the city. And Tuki's covered in trash, so she can't even clean off. Yes. She's just heading home. So she is she like wipes herself down, she's some wipes in her locker, blah, blah, blah. Her locker, by the way, used to be a dumbwaiter from the old factory, and nobody gave her a locker, so she just had to make this her locker, basically. But good thing she's but no one cares about her or is trying to get into her dumb waiter, which is a great thing because in it she has selected a can, she saved some snacks for herself, including her after school snack, which she selected from her dumb waiter, which is a canister of strawberry flavored whipped cream. She's really obsessed with like with whipped cream. It says Tuki was always hungry, so she liked to have an arsenal of food on hand. This is in her locker. There were buttermilk biscuits, plastic containers of sausage gravy, vanilla sandwich cookies, every condiment from spicy ketchup to Dijon mustard to mesquite honey and chipotle barbecue sauces, her favorites. So she likes every food except chocolate because one time she ate so much chocolate that she threw up. Oh, and her mom made her throw up in the car. So yeah, we're also getting a little taste of eating Mr. and Mrs. De La Creme and who are bad people. Okay. So sh now we're getting kind of uh a descriptor of Peppertown, which is the quadrant of the city that Tuki lives in and that B3 is located in. Yeah. So we get a little description of Miitopia. So Miitopia was split into four quadrants, each its own weather system. There was frigid Shivera, Tempestuous Pitter Patter, Lovely Lodorno. Only the elite lived here. And it was where T Dod was always held. And finally, Sweltering Peppertown, as hot as as hot as you guessed it, a scotch bonnet. That's where Tuki lived and where B3 stood. I know you guys were thinking it. Hot as a scotch bonnet. I'm always saying that. Yeah. Uh it's like Zootopia. And how big are these quadrants and how do they have such crazy micro ecosystems? I don't know. Who knows? But they seem to be kind of close to each other because it's like they strived up against each other. Yeah, like she mentions like walking from one to the other at some point. So yes. So it's basically like the old west. Like all the plants are shriveled up. Yeah. There's like tumbleweeds. The sun is scorching. Um, it's like inhospitable to human life, basically. Like literally, they can't be outside for more than a few minutes. Yes. Um, but see, the sun's wrath determined Peppertown's landscape as well. The leaves and the trees were crisp and brown, no birds nestled in nooks or branches, no butterflies fluttered by, and not even the tiniest insect scuttled past on the sidewalk. And you didn't dare touch the sidewalk in Peppertown. It would burn your fingertips off. Um, and then she says, a man in a bowler hat weakly and uselessly fanned his face with a copy of Peppertown Press, wet ink staining his sweaty palms. And she says, an eggplant-shaped woman stepped out of a toe ring factory uh before she could clap a sun hat on her head. Her skin had turned an angry red. Yeah. So immediate sunburn. Hell. Yeah. Um, tough luck for you if you work with a toe ring. On the cover, too, of the the newspaper that's stained with staining this guy's hands. There's a headline that says Baroness still on the run, which has which comes up again later, but it's unclear to me to this point through chapter three. It's obvious that this will have something to come into play, but it's unclear why. So just know there's a baroness on the run. That's important. Remember that. Probably. Oh, she had been running a Yonzi scheme, which I assume is kind of like a Ponzi scheme. And so she ran away. Yeah. So um she is walking down the road. Uh, she overhears a conversation that Zara is having about the her amazing house and T Dodd. And um, there's also um missing sign. There's signs everywhere about where is C L? Is that how you would pronounce that? I guess. It's C I. And then what do you call that wavy dash? Yeah, like a dash. Like a wave, it's like a wavy one. Yeah. And a capital L. Yes. Yes. And she's one of the seven. Oh, it's pronounced C L. Okay. Okay. Um, yeah, she's one of the seven who has now gone. Like, she was like the most famous one who was in all the like ad campaigns. And now all of a sudden she's like been they've been told like she can't appear in anymore, and nobody has seen her, and who knows what happened to her. So that seems important as well. Right. So we got the Duchess or the is it Baroness? Baroness. Baroness is on the run. And Ciel is missing. Ciel is missing. Okay. Yes. And so um, oh, also at some point, Tukey sees her reflection in the mirror, just to remind you how fucking ugly she is. Um, she approached the sunglasses factory whose facade was made of long sheets of glass, her image swam into the reflection, and she winced. She still had that four, no, five, no, six head, the slightly too small weak chin, the multiple personality disorder hair, and the woolly caterpillar eyebrows. Her eyes still spread wide like an antelope's one the color of dirt, the other of snot. Yep, same old Tuki, different day. I need like a police sketch artist to draw what Tuki would look like based on the descriptions in this book, please. If you're out there, please, please get to work on that. You know what? I'm gonna Google really quick. Tukey de la creme fan art. It's taking Google a long time to think. Oh. Okay. Some of the fan art I think is a like more forgiving than what I've been imagining. Right. Still not great. Yeah. Okay. So uh she turns a corner, and who does she see?

Lizzie Returns And Dark Turns

Abigail 46:00

But Lizzie! Lizzie's home. Lizzie, the person who she was writing the letters to. Who I had been missing for weeks. Inexplicably. Yes. Um, this is Lizzie's house, by the way. It's a tree, by the way. Um, and it says Nestled in the top branches was a tree cottage of sorts with piles and piles of clothes inside. Nurses' uniforms and firemen's boots and mechanics' jumpsuits, bags of scones and jugs of water sat in the corner. A twin mattress, who knew how Lizzie had dragged it up there, sat in the middle, shaded by heavy branches. This is where Lizzie lived alone. So, yes, and Lizzie is finally there. And we find out some lore about Lizzie, yes, which is that she's wearing like a uniform, basically, like a hospital gown type thing and like scrubs. Yes. From like a mental hospital. Correct. Yes. So she has occasionally takes these stays in like mental hospitals, yeah, and then breaks out. And this is just kind of like a pattern of hers, and we she doesn't want to talk about it. Correct. Also, just like also going on cat, like in a chill way, she does engage in regular self-harm that is pretty graphically described. So just you know, no that yeah, just like out of nowhere in the middle of a conversation, correct? Yeah, but she's like really tortured, she's seen something, um, she's very paranoid. She's like, someone's following me. And Tuki's like, girl, whatever. And like, we're probably gonna find out more about this later. Yeah. But while she's there, um, while they're hanging out, like Tuki is recapping her day, and she's talking about how mean Zara is, and she's like, wait, I have to show you something. And so they go, and like a couple blocks away, they look over this fence, and then we see Zarpeza and her whole family wearing masks and dumpsterdizing for food. So we're led to believe this whole like family money, riches thing, it's all kind of a farce. Fake news, yeah. Um, so there's more of that. They're kind of just talking, they're talking about what they want to do. Like their big dream in life is that they're gonna open a factory on the beach. So, in their wildest dream, they're still gonna be doing fashion manufactured. But at least it'll be on a beach and not in Peppertown where they're gonna die from being outside. Yeah, this part was kind of hard to get through. I thought it was kind of boring. Yeah, then Lizzie starts freaking out out of nowhere, and she's like, Tell them to stop. They always say it won't hurt, but it does. I can take it when they hurt me, but when they hurt Robin, I feel it more. And Tuki's like, girl, who's Robin? And then that's when she starts uh hurting herself. Also, Tuki sees like fresh scars on her, and she's like, Don't stop. And she says, It hurts so much, it feels better when I do this. And Tuki's like, What's going on? And Lizzie says better if you don't know. And then um, blah blah blah. Yeah, that's kind of it. She's screaming, and she said, like, try not to think about where I disappear to, Tuki. Think about Exodus instead, sleeping on the beach every night. Exodus is like their great plan. Um, yeah. So and then it's like casual, like you know, like workers' rights, because she's like, in our factories, the workers would be part owners, so we would treat them with respect. And then Tuki's like, yeah, and Theophilia's is gonna be our mayor. Uh yeah. And then it's like casually, like, they they go their separate ways. Tuki runs off, Lizzie runs off, and it's just casually mentioned that like Lizzie is running with another sharp rock, like she's going to continue self-harming. Yeah, that's it. And Tuki's like, okay, well, that's just in a children's book, by the way. A children's book. Okay, we've made it to chapter

Chapter Three De La Creme Family

Abigail 49:49

three. Oh, here we go. Okay. So chapter three is titled Data. Would you like to read the narrator's uh voiceover? 3434 Pepper Lane. The home of Tuki de la Creme. Ah, the De la Creme residence, a splendiferous, luxurious palazzo of dwelling. Of a dwelling with a marble facade, grand archways and columns, wrought iron balconies at its second floor bedrooms, and a fountain in the center of the yard, complete with a nude male statue with rippling musculature. Truly glorious, the creme of the Della Krems! We all wish we could abide in such a grand abode. But be careful what you wish for, darling. All that glitters is sometimes gold plated. What's that? There, in the corner, in the foundation near the koi pond, and the birdbath made of bronze, that zigzagging line shaped like a witch's profile. Is that a crack? And next to that, and there, next to that crack, that silvery mass crisscrossed on the stucco. That can't possibly be duct tape. Watch your head! Did a chunk of slate just fall off the roof? Surely your smoky eyes have deceived you. Surely those patents or fissures in the foundation are just decorative elements. The de la cremes have nothing to hide. Or do they believe me? You know what I just came to me like a revelation? Yeah. Because I'm thinking, okay, this book was published in 2011. Yeah. This is like poor man's gossip girl. Isn't this giving like you know you love me, XOXO Gossip Girl? I think that she this is like the narrator's overview is like a direct ripoff of Gossip Girl. And it's also like Tyromale. And Tyra Mail. It's like setting this, it's like EMJ. Yeah. So we're at the Daylight Cram residence. The De Lai Cram's up with them, by the way. I'm obsessed with Mr. and Mrs. De La Cram. Me too. Insane. It's this is a lot going on. So, first of all, there is a staircase of there's seven stairs that lead up to the front door. Um, and there's a crooked third step. Yeah, every yeah, it's all seven seven seven. Again, religious iconography. I feel like the seducing is really coming through. Okay. Um she goes inside and um uh she sees a package, and this is how we're introduced to creamy Dilacren. It's her mother. And she makes her kids call her creamy. Correct. She's just gonna go by just a lot. Yeah, it's just she also keeps it said she keeps the thermosat at almost sub-zero temperatures. I really need to know how much of an exaggeration that is. Um, but yes, because it's so cold um or so hot in Peppertown, she keeps the house very cold and she says people are fresher when they're cold. Also, when she walks inside, her mom is running every single faucet. Her mom is looking for smise mises for a miracle, yes. Um she's we find creamy de la creme having a panic attack because some of the bananas have spots on them. So there's like we're getting this picture that like they are performing wealth, but maybe in actuality they don't actually have like they aren't actually that wealthy because the house is kind of falling apart a little bit, but everything inside is very pristine. So all the things they have are very nice, but the home is not really of that creative quality. Her mom is also holding Bellissima, a lifelike baby doll dressed in a multi-layered butter yellow dress with lace trim, complete with a pacifier in her mouth. Bellissima was Mrs. De La Creme's favorite doll from her extensive collection. Don't really get more information on that. It's just dropped in. There's no follow-up. There's no follow-up. Creamy de la crème would be one of those um what are those hyper-realistic baby dolls on TV? Oh, yeah. The reborn dolls. Yeah, she would be like a reborn. Yes. She'd be like one of those people taking her reborn doll through TSA. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yes. So here's a description of Creamy De la Creme. Today, Mrs. De la Creme, or Creamy, as she insisted everyone call her, including her children, wore a perfectly tailored white one-piece pantsuit with dramatically pointed shoulder pads and a cinched belt to accentuate her small waist. A badge hanging around her neck said regional manager, followed by the logo for a Perfecta Fecta, the beauty department store for which she worked. It was a very good job for a Mietopian a million steps above working at a factory. So she kind of sees herself as above the other Miwtopians. Yes. Yes. But when you take a closer look, thick makeup clumped heavily in the permanent lines on and around her mouth. Deep crow's feet fanned out from the corners of her eyes, all the way to her ears, even her nose was covered in wrinkles. Tookie hoped that whatever her mother's affliction was wasn't hereditary.

unknown 55:01

Damn. Crazy.

Abigail 55:04

Um okay, so there's water going everywhere. Um, she went, she goes to turn off the sink faucet. She's like, Don't you dare! We need to find smises. It's almost T dot. Yeah. And then we see there's a news report that says four survises have been found. A gang of hooligan females spotted the device floating in the condemned swimming pool in pitter patter today. They rushed the barbed wire fence and dove into the murky, stagnant, unfit for human contact water. An underwater riot broke out, severely injuring three girls. One is in critical condition at Shabira Hospital. But then one of the girls got a spice. So it all worked out. Yeah. So four found in seven. So there's three more left, basically. We know that. And then following that story on the news is an update about Seely, who we saw the posters for in chapter two. There's still no word on what happened to the world's most famous intoxibella, Sealy. The anchor said the official word is that she's gone on hiatus, but rumors have surfaced that something darker has happened to her: abduction, an airborne terminal illness, a mental breakdown. Keep in mind, this is a woman who's been very forthcoming about how her childhood was spent in a place without a single mirror. Just throw that in there. What the hell? We can only assume how that might psychologically impact a person as they reach adulthood. But let's pray that a formidable triple seven is soon on the mend. So again, a lot more stuff that we just have no idea how to interpret. Yes. And then her mom just breaks into applause, and Miracle enters the house with her best friend Brian. Who has the most only formal name so far? Miracle and Brian. We have Zarpeza, The Ophelia, Stuki, and then Brian. Um creamy. And Miracle also is regularly described as like dancing or pirouetting. Like she doesn't walk, she like leaps into the room. So yes, she's graceful. Yes. And then Miracle twirls in and does some hip rolls and knee dips. And then Miracle and Brian slid to the floor with their arms spread out as Miracle exclaimed, Da Ta! And then it's like that's how stupid she is. Creamy's like, baby, it's not da-da, it's ta-da. And then they get into a fight because her mom's like, You need to practice your model walk. And Miracle's like, but I like to dance, mom. Like it's a very Troy Bolton thing going on. Right. Like dancing will help me with my tea da chances. Yeah. Um and so then we get introduced to maybe my favorite character so far, who is Mr. DeLme. So mid-argument about the dancing and like the merits of dancing. We hear from another room a booming voice says, So my baby girl wants to be prof be a professional dancer like her daddy. And I thought your routine was fantastic. In the doorway stood Mr. De la Creme. He was much younger than his than Tuki's mother. A stained black unitard cut deeply into his flesh. His once powerful muscles sagged. He swept across the room, scooped Miracle up, and spun her around. He closed his left eye, which was made of glass, an unfortunate souvenir of an acrobatic performance gone awry many years ago, when he was the incredible Chris Creme Croat. The incredible Chris Creme Crobat. And not just Christopher de la Creme. Gay icon Chris Creme Crobat. Lavender marriage. The much younger Mr. De la Creme. I love him. He's an icon. Black Unitard cutting into his saggy muscles. I love this movie. My God. Yeah. Then they then Mr. and Mrs. Daily Cram get into a fight because uh Mrs. Daily Creamy is criticizing Miracle's hair as she says she needs a haircut. Mr. Daily Cram shot his wife an icy glare. Woman, how stupid do you think I am? You just want to get her to that damn salon so you can do whatever you do with Perry while Miracle is under the dryer. I see how you look at him. Mrs. Daily Cram thrust her nose in the air. How dare you insult me and accuse me of such filth. And who are you, Mr. One-eyed ex-circus star who spends his nights boozing? Mr. Daily Cram roared back. At least I don't cheat on your old And then she they get cut off by Miracle saying, Stop fighting. And so they're all like taken up with each other, having this ridiculous fight. No one per used is paying attention to Tuki, who is propped up against the counter in the corner of the room eating baby gherkins. Correct. Cool. So Fabar, the only nutrition she's gotten is regular cream, strawberry whipped cream, and baby gherkins. That's a balanced diet. Well balanced diet. Okay. Um in the ground, there's like another she's her mom's talking about the baroness. Or relevant, you know. Right. So we're reminded of that. Uh she so Tuki's mom is like, Tookie, make me some tea. Yeah. Um, and she's like, We don't even like tea. But her mom is like, make me some tea on principle, or I don't know. So she goes to make tea, she goes to fill the tea kettle, and in the process of making the tea, she sees a yellowish bubble come out of the faucet.

A Smize Appears In The Sink

Abigail 1:00:24

And so she kind of just ignores it because she's like, Oh, we have broken water filters, like it's probably nothing. She gets like turns back around, and the small yellow bubble began to expand, filling half of the kitchen sink. Then it changed color from spicy red to soothing blue to emerald green, and finally to a plethora of yellows. It was strangely beautiful. Tukey carefully picked up the bubble with her hands, and then before her eyes, the bubble flattened itself and transformed into cellophane thin, golden cat's eye sunglasses without the frames. Oh, Miracle screamed, staring at Tukey. Look! Mrs. DeLacre noticed it too and dropped the teacup from her hand. It crashed on the floor. Is it could it be? Our ship has come in, Mr. Delacreme exclaimed. Tukey looked from her sister Miracle to the true miracle that had taken shape in her hands. A smise in chapter three. Okay. It's like we knew the smise was coming, obviously, because we understand that that's where this is going, but she got the smise and what will happen next. And now her chances are increased by 91%. Um if they let her keep it. I don't know if they're gonna make her give it to Miracle. I know. So that could be interesting. It could be interesting. Like, how does that work? How does finding how does one prove like, because what's stopping you from finding a smise and then someone killing you to take the smise from you? Because it seems like that would happen. So, like, what are the rules on claiming a smise? Also, I was not expecting a smise to be what is actually the cover of this book. Um which is like an eye. It's like a eye, yeah, like a cat eye with this like gold over it, like in turn where a smokey eye would be. It's just gold. But that's what a smise is, so very interesting. Um that's literally the first three of what? What did you say? 48 chapters? 47. So God only knows what else is gonna happen. I do kind of want to finish. Like, I wanna I'm gonna Google what's gonna happen, you know, if if you guys don't want us to keep reading it. No, I'm saying if you guys don't want us to keep reading it. But if you do want us to read it, let us know. Because I'm so curious what is gonna happen. But we had to satisfy our curiosity a little bit and know. Let me recenter myself. Um wow, that's it. I have nothing else to say, but except for Mr. Daily Cram icon. Um, I like Miracle too, actually. Low-key. She's dumb, but her heart's in the right place. Like, she's not trying to be evil. Creamy, I don't not a fan. Um Theophilia is not a fan. Lizzie, I have a lot of questions about. Um, kind of would not recommend being friends with her. I would be like, yeah, Tuki, I don't know. I know you don't really have any friends, but maybe not Lizzie. Maybe not the one. She seems insane. So wow. That was really cathartic. Okay. Any closing thoughts before we go on to Reese Reese? No. Um, yeah, maybe like a week post release of this episode, we can release a poll or something and be like, do you guys want to do that? Should we continue? Yeah. Doing this. Okay.

Should We Keep Reading ModelLand

Abigail 1:03:56

Um so keep an eye on it. Let us know. Go on redirect podcast on Instagram and DM us, comment on our post. You could leave a review about this episode. Yeah. But really, genuinely let us know. Or redirectpodcast.com where you can contact us directly. Exactly. And shop our merch and look at our back catalog. Okay. Um, okay.

Recent Reads Roundup And Recs

Abigail 1:04:18

What have you read recently? A lot, and I'm really excited about all of it. Okay. It's inspiring to me. Okay, good. Okay. Okay. They're all good, so I have no order to go in. These are all great reads. Okay. First, I read uh one of Kat Sebastian's books, Two Rogues Make a Right. Okay. Was it good? So good. What did I come to expect? This book, uh, so it is it is the third book in a series, but my book doesn't have the first, or my library doesn't have the first two. So I did feel like maybe I was missing some context, possibly for this, but it's like a interconnected standalone. So, like you can definitely read this on its own, but okay, yeah. Anyways, this follows Will and Will and Martin, and um, they are like childhood best friends. Martin, like, was really wealthy, his dad had like an estate, and and um Will's family worked for Martin's family, and so yeah, they were childhood friends, and then through a series of events, Will had to go out to see, he went through some trauma, some torture, some light torture at sea. He comes home, and when he comes home, he like Martin hasn't been writing to him, and he's like, What happened to my friend? And so he goes to find him and he finds Martin like on death's door because Martin is super sickly and like poorly and uh delicate, and he so he goes to take Martin to the doctor. He's like on death's door. The doctor's like, you need to take him to the countryside and like nurse him back to health. Basically, he can't be in London anymore. The air is like killing him. So he takes him to the countryside, nurses him back to health, and they're like living in this random cottage on land that's owned by Martin's family. But Martin's dad is dead now, but it's kind of Complicated because he his dad didn't leave anything to him because I don't know, he's so sickly and whatever. So, anyway, they like just it's just nice and sweet, and it's like very grumpy sunshine, which I feel like Kat Sebastian's great at. And Martin's like, I don't want to be dependent on you. And Will's like, I want to take care of you, like, let me take care of you, and that like tension between them. And um, it's just really nice because they start off as friends, and Will starts off being like, I love you, and like I'm dedicated to you, but then them falling into romantic love is just really nice to read because um that love already exists there. So I had a really great time reading it, it was really good, and I highly recommend it. Okay, then I read, I'm gonna jump out of order. Heartstopper volume six. No notes. Perfect. I was trying not to cry. Wait, was literally trying not to weep in the air, so I I was flying home. I saw it in, I was like, if I see Heartstopper in the airport, I will buy it. And I did see it, so I bought it. And then my flight got delayed like six times, so I was reading it and I finished it waiting for my new flight, and it was great. I was trying not to cry in the airport. It was so sweet and such a great ending for them, and I loved everything about it, and I can't wait for you to read it. I cannot wait to borrow your copy. Yes, correct. I also read I'll Have What He's Having by Adeb Karam, and I had read the second book in this series, which was um It Had to Be Him, which I liked, and I really I like this one more, and uh so I really recommend reading this series. It's um it follows uh uh please hold David and Farzan. And um, David is like training to be a master smaller, he is a wine guy, and Farzan is kind of like a little aimless in life, doesn't really know what he wants to do, but he gets broken up with, so he goes to dinner at the wine bar David's working at, and David thinks that he is like the food critic, and so he's like whining and dining him and was is like, here, take this on the house, and they have this like instant connection, they end up hooking up, and then Farzan finds out after they hook up that David thought he was this food critic, and he's like, No, I just gave this fake name because like um Farzan is sometimes hard for people to pronounce, so I gave I just give this fake name when I make reservations, and so then they that's it's like a meat cute, but um it's just nice because because like David Farzan's like aimless in life, like I said, he doesn't really know what he wants to do, and he feels like David's so driven, and David is like I can't do anything serious because I want to be a master smaller, and then I'm gonna have to move away to like Chicago or LA or New York, like this one of these places where I can get this like big shot job. So it's just nice, like yeah, what what what's important in life, and uh, you know, it's cute. Cute. And I listened to the audiobook of that, and it was really nice because it it's one of it's dual POV and it has two narrators, which I just always really oh I love that. I like that. Then I read a book you've talked about, which is Conversion Therap Conversion Therapy Dropout. Yes, by Timothy Schrader Rodriguez. It was so good. I I I actually did cry on the plane reading this. Um, I almost read the whole thing on my flight home and was crying at the scene where he goes to the gay Christian network conference and there's a worship band made up of people who had been kicked out of their church's worship bands, and then he's taking communion and he's praying. He's like, Thank you, God, for making me gay. I was like, Oh, I was crying my eyes out. So beautiful. Don't necessarily recommend reading on a plane. On the flip side, I would say, like, whenever he was at when he was still going to the conversion therapy conferences, yeah. Even like the times though in the evening, like when they would all get together, yes, and they were like singing Brittany Spears and stuff like that. They're like, even in those settings, they're like, we have to live as ourselves. Like there has been outlive to be gay. Yeah. And it was nice because I thought there's something a little bit relatable in a different way. About he talks about like some of the happiest memories of his life were at these like really horrible, like terrible places where people were trying to make him into someone he wasn't. Um, and I think that's just like yeah, a thing to reconcile, but was I liked how he portrayed it. Like you said, like he had these moments that were so fun and like made these very genuine, lifelong in some cases, connections, even in the midst of places where people were trying to cause harm to him. So I thought it was really good. I agree with you if you're like someone who wants to be an ally or a person who is in church still maybe trying to like make it welcoming or open to those conversations. I think it would be a good read. Okay. Or even if you're on your own journey to being like, I have always been told my whole life that being gay is like sinful. Yeah. But I don't think that I I'm wondering if that's really true. Yeah. Um, yeah, I think this book would be really cool for you to read. I totally agree. Because I think he, yeah, just reading someone. He's not gonna give it doesn't give like a theological defense for being queer, but um it is about the experience, the impact of a human being who wants to be a Christian and is a Christian, wants to follow Jesus. Yes, and the ways that's almost made impossible by the overarching evangelical church. Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. And also, I think this is like a very compelling if you're because I think there's a lot of people who are what he encountered in this book, which is like, okay, well, it's it's cool, like it's okay that you're gay. We don't really care, but it's not like just maybe don't be open about it, or like we're not gonna be an affirming church, but like you can work here and we love you, and we're so happy you're here, but like we can't really say we're affirming and how that's also harmful. I thought, yeah, this was I've never really read a version of like we all know. I think I think a lot of people right know that being like openly homophobic is bad, and saying like gay people are going to hell is bad. But how there's something almost equally harmful, maybe sometimes even worse, about like he talks at the end about being unclear and being re unwilling to defend people or like take a stand. That's how that can be sometimes worse. So I liked that. Okay. Last book I read is Into the Blue by Emma Brody, which I also want to give you when you come here because I really selfishly want you to read it and I want to know what you think. Okay, okay. The jury's out for me. Um, but this book also hard to explain without spoiling it, but it follows AJ, and AJ, so the very first scene um is like present day-ish. So you want, you know, you're in the the future, and um AJ and Noah are staging a play together, unclear what they're staging or what what's this, what's going on, and there's an understanding between them that like when this show ends, we're done. We have a relationship, but when the show is over, it's over too. And let's like say goodbye. And you don't really know why or what or what's anything else. Then it flashes back to the year 2000. AJ is 17, she's about to be a senior in high school, she works at a like a blockbuster, and she's very like she's very into this um sci-fi show to the point that she's like writing on fanfiction.net like her own fanfiction about this sci-fi show that was made. It's like a campy cult classic sci-fi show where every episode was improvised. And one of the stars of that show lives in her town, and she has a grandson, and that is Noah. And one day Noah comes into the video store and wants to get a job, and there's like rumors about him. He's giving like Toby from Pretty Little Liars, where there's like rumors that he did something evil and awful, but like you don't know if it's really true. And she like doesn't like him at first, then they become friends, then there's something more between them. That's in 2020. We're in the present day. Then you like jump, jump, jump to how we get to the present day moment where they're in this show together. It's about, I don't know, what is it about? There's like a lot of yearning. So I did like that. The writing is really interesting. It's heavy on like improvisation and the ways that like improvisation bleeds into real life because like your scene partner is like your lifeline, and you have to like exist within the game that they set up and how people do that in relationships too. Like they set up the conditions of the relationship and you have to operate within them. There's also other stuff that I want to talk about, but I don't want to spoil, so I really would like you to read it. But I think I liked the book. I really do think I like the book. The writing was really good. Again, the yearning was insane. I love time jumps, so I love it. Like, I love how it set it up, and I'm like, okay, how are we gonna get there to where they're in a relationship and then they're gonna call it off at the end of this play? I don't understand why that's happening. And yeah, it's it's there's a lot that goes on in this book. I think I really liked it. It has really good reviews. I have some comments that I'll reserve for once you've read it, but okay. The experience was a journey that it took me on. It reminded me a lot of like one day or one day in December. Um, like yeah, those kind of books where you're seeing two people kind of orbit each other through different phases of life and like coming together and moving apart and then coming back to the book. I'll read it. So I will give that to you when I see you soon. So those are the five books I've read recently. Congrats, that's great. I aspire to be like you.

Plane Thriller Ask And One Pick

Abigail 1:15:53

Thank you. Actually, one I have a book I read recently that I wanted to share, but I also want to ask you, I was thinking, because I'm so I'm coming to the East Coast, um, as you know, but as our listeners do not know, uh later or like in less than a week. And I'm thinking I need um like a bingeable thriller to read on the plane. Oh, yeah, okay. What's like something that's like a page turner? It doesn't have to be like the highest quality ever, but it's like I'm gonna want to read it and could read it in like a sitting, maybe like 325 pages or less. So if you have any thoughts or ideas about that, I'm like, I need a really good plane read, something I can just push through in like four or five hours. Okay, I'm gonna consider this. Yeah, think on it. And also people can feel free to DM you. Yeah, exactly. If anyone read any ideas, yeah. Exactly.

Trans Athletes Book And Sports Myths

Abigail 1:16:47

Okay, so the book that I read recently is Let Us Play Winning the Battle for Gender Diverse Athletes by Harrison Brown and Rachel Brown. Um, is the name Harrison Brown familiar to you? Yes. Harrison Brown was on Heated Rivalry. A la heated rivalry. Yes. So Harrison Brown is a trans, um, a trans man athlete who played in the professional women's hockey league um before he transitioned. And Rachel Brown is his sister, who is an investigative journalist. Oh, nice. So I listened to the um I listened to the audiobook of this. Harrison is the one who narrates it. I think Rachel did a lot of help in like here's how you write a book. They're like structure and like there's a lot of investigative stories. It is not a memoir. Um, I want to be clear about that. The the beginning of the book, like the foreword, is Harrison's story. Um, and it's told from like his point of view in like a memoir style. But the rest of the book is told in third person like expository writing. And it's about uh basically making the case for gender diverse athletes. And I think this book is great for people who are like, yes, I don't think we should demon uh demonize like trans athletes, but you don't really know why, other than you're like, I think people being fulfilled in life is really, really important. And like I think it's really important to include all kids in sports because you know those things, whatever. But like you don't know how to have a conversation about hormone replacement therapy, right, or the science behind uh testosterone-driven puberty, or real statistics about um like success of trans athletes in different sports. This book educates on all of that, but using the stories of real life trans athletes. So it was really, really interesting. There's a lot of things I learned about uh testosterone and uh hormone replacement therapy, and what are like the real like quote unquote benefits or advantages of having gone in sport than having gone through a testosterone during puberty? And the answer is it really varies widely. And um, I was kind of surprised to find out um actually not a little about science, but like most people uh who are uh taking estrogen uh as a part of their like gender-affirming care within like one year or even sometimes less, there are like noticeable differences in their ability to uh like lift or train. And so there's kind of this myth that like if you went through testosterone driven puberty, that you were automatically will be advantaged against second gender uh people or people who went through an estrogen-driven puberty. Um, it was really, really interesting. And they kind of painted this alternative that I hadn't really considered that like, what if we just didn't have gendered sports, but we had sports that were like grouped in divisions based on skill level and competency. And um especially in like youth sports, what if we didn't just automatically segregate it by gender and instead separate it by uh skill level? So anyway, very interesting. I would highly recommend it's not super long. Um and I got to hear a little bit of Harrison's story, which is cool too. Yeah, that sounds really interesting. Thank you. Circling back to your request, I'm gonna recommend Unmissing by Minka Kent. Have you read this? I don't think you have. No. Um, I really liked it. It's like a woman, um a woman disappears and then returns like many years later. Uh and like her husband had been accused of killing her or whatever, and then so then she comes back and the fallout and what happened to her are explored. So I would recommend that as a consideration. Okay, unmissing Minka Kent. Why is that not coming up in my library? Minka Kent. Let's see. I don't have it. Oh no. It's okay. I'll find it somewhere. Okay, that's that's my recommendation. But feel free to send you more. Wow, what a long episode for 32. I have a I have a couple of bangers that I'm reading right now, but I want to wait till I fully finish them to share. So I'm excited for our next episode. I have a in particular a memoir that I am so excited to tell you about for you to read. Okay, I can't wait. And our next episode is our 100th episode.

Episode Wrap And 100th Tease

Abigail 1:21:50

Shut up. So if you guys have any questions. Are we gonna spend our 100th episode talking about Model Land? No, we can't do that. Unfortunately, we'll circle back. We'll circle back, but we will circle back if we circle back. We're gonna begin doing our 100th episode on Model Land. So Okay, we have to think of something good. If you have any good thoughts for us. Yeah. All right, y'all. Thanks for sticking through. Happy summer, peace, love, TC, Brian. Bye.