The Readirect Podcast
Shifting the conversation back to books. Hosted by Abigail Freshley and Emily Rojas.
The Readirect Podcast
Modelland by Tyra Banks (Ch. 4-7)
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Part two of our Modelland deep dive! This week, we're recapping chapters 4-7.
Cold Open Lip Sync Battle Dream
AbigailI know this isn't gonna happen, but I what I really want to happen is there to be like a couple of finalists or whatever, and it's gonna be like on Drag Race where they have to do a lip sync battle and Tuki has to do a lip sync battle against someone. That is what I really want, but I know we're not gonna get it. But that would be great. Welcome
Welcome And How To Support
Abigailto 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 connect to our real lived experiences. On today's episode, we are discussing chapters four through seven of Tyra Banks' young adult dystopian novel, Modeland. Before we get to that, we would love for you to support the show in a few simple ways. The first thing you can do is go to Apple Pod Apple Podcast and or Spotify and leave us a five-star review and let us know that you love the show. You can also follow us on Instagram and TikTok at redirectpodcast. You can follow Emily on all platforms at Emily Rowhouse Reads. You can follow me, Abigail, at Fabigal Eleven on TikTok or Fabigal Insta on Instagram. You can visit us at redirectpodcast.com to search our media library, potentially read blog posts if we put one up, and also search for merch. But most importantly, if you love the show, you can share the show with a friend personally. Sharing our show with a friend is by far the best way to help us grow our community of book loving nerds. Yes, and send them this one. Tell them, dive in, it's not too late to catch up because don't worry, there are still about 43 chapters left after this one. So yeah, there's a lot of chapters left. Yeah. Yeah. But we're making our way through slowly but surely. Um, we're doing four this time instead of three, so we're making progress at this rate.
Catching Up With Tuki’s Smize
AbigailSo if you guys missed the first Model Land episode, I well, I would encourage you to go back and listen to it. I think that it's a treat. But where did we leave off in the Model Land saga? Um yes. So what was the last thing that happened to our hero Tuki? Tukey Daily Creme, forget a girl. Um, notably, she found the coveted Smise. It came through her kitchen sink, and this smise gives the person who has it a 91% chance of being chosen on the day of discovery, which is happening tomorrow. And so it's a very big T Dodd. T Dod. And um, so yeah, it came through the sink and she grabbed the smise. That is what we were where we left her off. And she's standing in the kitchen family when this happens. Her insane gay dad, her insane and getting insaner mom, and her stupid little sister miracle. And I am so excited because we are going to get so much of Tuki's family in these next chapters. It's so good. It's so rich. Yeah, this is a rich text. Um so I can kick this off.
Fine Print Rules And Family Meltdown
AbigailUm, yeah. Oh, we're not there's we highlight long passages of this because again, there's a lot. And I promise you, go ahead. Oh, yeah, we won't read everything. I was gonna say the diving into this chapter, um, we lost our omniscient narrator briefly. They do come back, but it was very jarring. Yeah, no intro. Our italics at the beginning of most of the chapters. I preface the whole thing about reading passages of the text to say I'm not gonna read everything. I am, though, going to read the first sentence of chapter four. Thank you. It's a three-word sentence that says Tuki's body tingled. I have the sentence highlighted as well. What are you talking about? Okay, she was holding a smise in her hands, uh Forget a girl. And then we get a description of the smise, which is basically what's on the book. But there is some really, really interesting description of the smise that I think is going to be important later in the book. Yes, I would agree. Um, so we had to talk about it. So the smise was made up of ornate eyeshadow-like flourishes and strokes of a taxicab, Dijon, baby chick, banana, and lemonade yellow. Thinner than a sheet of paper. It was surprisingly heavy and seemed to hum ever so slightly as it rested in Tuki's palms. Excellent. There's an episode of Friends where um Joey has to write a letter for Monica and Chandler to for them to be able to adopt a baby. And so he decides to sound smart. Yeah. What does he say? Yes, the having and the sharing and the sharing and the having. He just like control F's and you know does the source on every word, so it's like completely incoherent. Um, that's what this book reminds me of. Because what are these what are these shades of yellow? I have never heard anyone call anything taxi cap. I mean taxi cab yellow, yes, but like they're just so insane and like random, and that's what the whole book feels like. The word choice repeatedly is insane, but I love it. So yeah, anyway, I'm I'm starting to love this book. I'm getting Stockholm Syndrome. We're gonna find out something here shortly about the importance of the physical description of the smise. But first, of course, Mrs. De la Creme, aka Creamy, is like, oh my god, hand it over. So, like Tukey reluctantly gives it over. And Mrs. De la Creme is immediately like, oh my god, this is gonna be Miracle, Tukey's sister. That's gonna be her ticket to success. Miracle is gonna walk on T-Dot. Miracle is gonna be 7-7, you know, whatever. Which by the way, I'm still so confused about like 7-7 and like the girls who get chosen for T Dot and all the stuff in house. That's a lot coming with them that's very bizarre. So there's a scripture later that I'd like to talk about, but yes, me too. Can't wait to we get her so basically there's a part here too where um creamy de la crane, the mom, is freaking out and she's like having a panic attack because she's like, Don't drop the smise, like and uh her husband, her gay husband is like, don't calm down, which is everyone knows, don't say creamy, everything's gonna be okay. And she says, withering, excuse me, I cannot believe your flabby couch potato ass has the audacity to tell my hardworking firm one that everything will be okay.
unknownCrazy.
AbigailThese people hate each other. I've never read a married couple that hates each other more, and you know, that's saying a lot of things. It's like Michael and Jan without the sex. It's like Michael and Jan, but if one of them were gay, it's crazy and one-eyed. Um, oh yeah, right. Because if you forgot, Mr. De la Creme, Chris Chris de la Creme, Chris of De la Creme. We get great lore about that later. It's just an instant. You know what's crazy? Backstory on the loss of one eye. I can't wait to talk about that too. But creamy de la creme, her maiden name is not de la creme. So she was just born with the name Creamy, or do we think she changed it after marriage because she was like like it just goes together too well. Exactly. Like creamy Jones, and now she's creamy de la creme. Creamy was born for this. Oh my god. Creamy Smith. Um okay. So then the SMIS kind of like transforms into like an orb or something, yeah. And it's like, congratulations, de la crmes. So I guess the smise has registered that the whole family has been awarded. Yes, it doesn't say miracle. I feel like that's gonna be great. It doesn't say tookie either, it just says congratulations, De La Cremes. Yeah. Um so now like Mrs. De la Crème like goes into this whole thing and she starts up on her dress and whatever. And then a siren blares, and the fine print with no spaces between words scroll scrolled almost faster than Mrs. DeLacrème could read. So now the smise is like giving instructions for stuff.
unknownYes.
AbigailAnd it says narrow critical. The wearer of the smise must only wear it in the on the day of Discovery Square, or no, in the day of Discovery Square. It must only be worn by a female. Do not inform others that you profess possess a smise. Although the smise comes from water, do not get it wet. Violation of these rules may cause serious side effects: face aches, nausea, vomiting, blurry vision, visions of fashion police brutality, designer knockoffs knocking you upside the head, stinging beans in your hair bonnet, biting wolves in sheep's in cheap clothing. Wolves in cheap clothing is an incredible turn of phrase. That is a stroke of genius. Once again, that chat GPT could never come up with. I mean it is so brilliant. Never. I love it. So yeah, those are the rules, which also feels like foreshadowing. It feels like something's gonna happen to break those rules. I would like to say I started noticing in this cluster of chapters kind of a common theme, which is that Tyra Banks starts borrowing conventions from other very popular young adult books in this cluster of chapters. So the thing is basically like a howler or like mail from Harry Potter. Yes, like this, it's giving like Ronald Weasley, you know, like in in the yes, whatever, Great Hall at at Hogwarts. This is like the first time I noticed it where she she's really starts like losing the creativity a little bit and pulling like really heavily borrowing ideas. Correct. And then basically, like it explodes after that. Yeah, you know, it's kind of like a howler. And she says the words disappeared, the colored ribbons and the flag retreated, and the smise let out what sounded like a contented sigh, just like a howler would Harry Potter. Embodied. So all immediately they go full hog. Like they there's a schedule, there's facial expressions, pouting, phonics because miracle is stupid. Umtably dumb. Like, where are we gonna get her dresses and all this stuff? There's all sorts of like scheduling and logistics around that. Yes, and Tukey has to go with them. Yeah, yeah, tookie has to go with them because specifically, um, they need her tiny baby fingers, which have come up before, to fasten the buttons and zippers on Miracle's dress, also to be able to get baby gherkins from a jar, because the gherkins calm creamy de la creme down when she's panicking and smiling out. So they need her for the baby gherkins. Um yes. Also, at this point, everyone's kind of spiraling and like chit-chatting and talking over each other. And just to like reinforce how stupid Miracle is, she says something like, Don't laugh at me, Miracle said. I'm on my periodical right now. It makes me forgetful. And then Tuki goes, It's period, not periodical. And then Miracle smirks and says, How do you know you haven't even gotten yours yet? Tuki turned away, her face flooded with heat. Miracle never resisted the urge to remind her that she had gotten her period already, even though she was two years younger. And I made a note here, Chekhov's period. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. I just thought we were just highlighting Miracle being dumb, but that could come up later. It feels like there's a lot of book ahead of us, so anything is possible. Mentioning the lack of a period implies a future period. She will get it one day. Yes. But who knows? This book could just be or so bad. Coming later, there's some weird stuff. There could be a weird reason she doesn't have a period. Like there's something weird about her. Double-sided. I really hope that this is quality enough writing that there is some sort of foreshadowing happening here. Yeah. Although I want to leave room to say that there could be absolutely no foreshadowing, correct? Correct. We might be reading too much into the periodicals. Yeah, right. It could just be stupid. Okay.
unknownOkay.
AbigailUm, what's next? Then she gets uh this is this part. I was just like skip, skip, skip. The rest of the chapter. Yeah, we're gonna chapter five.
Bedroom Duct Tape And Mirror Kiss
AbigailYeah. We get to chapter five, and again, we've lost our omniscient narrator. I know. It's still gone. I miss her. I'm not gonna lie. I missed her. I miss her too. Yeah. Um the darlings. The darling. Okay, this is great. So we get a description of Tuki and Miracle's room in the beginning of chapter five. So a few minutes later, Tuki stood in the doorway of her bedroom that she shared with Miracle. She was trying to enter the room, but a pile of leotards blocked her way, as well as a pair of toe shoes. What is toe shoes? I don't know. I guess like like like shoes, like the shoes that show you all your toes, or is it like open-toed shoes? I don't know. Two pairs of jazz shoes and one stray sandal. Or maybe like toe shoes, like going on point, like for dance, because Miracle's a dancer. Like famously, that's what she wants to do. Oh. Like Valentine's shoes. Well, I don't know. Maybe that's that's she's dumb. Who knows? I don't know. A long piece of duct tape bisected the room, separating Tuki's side from Miracles, but it made no difference. Miracle's mess had invaded every corner in the same way Mildew grew on Tub Tile. Classic. I loved this detail because when I was a kid, I wanted I yearned for privacy in my own space so bad. I had to have my own room, but I was like, I would like to fantasize like I'm gonna create like a tape border in my home, and there's gonna be part that only I get to go to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, that's very relatable. The the duct tape it feels like something I would do if I had to share a room with my brother at this age. Um okay. So Tuki is like thinking to herself, she's bumped out. She's Tuki slumps down on her bed. Miracle is walking on the day of discovery with a smile, as she thought once more. She wasn't sure why it bothered her so much. Everyone in her class was walking. Abigail Zarpeza. This made me laugh so much because she's like, everyone's walking. Abigail, Zarpeza. It's like a list of two people lying to everyone. Charlie.
unknownThat's exactly what I thought.
AbigailIt's just so funny because it I everyone is italicized, so everyone is walking. And then the I read this, I was like, Abigail, why is she just saying? And then realizing this is the list, Abigail Zarpeza. It's not like, oh, okay. And then she starts thinking, oh, right, that big Arpeza. She's the girl who's so where are we getting reminded here? She's the girl that's actually dating Theophilia. Because you forgot, who is her crush, and so then she remembers the T-O-O-K-E button thing, the kids met Destiny. She's looking at it. Yeah. And she starts daydreaming about Theophiliaus. This is really tough. She can I read this? Yes, please. Theophilius. Oh, Theophilus. Tuki swooned. She closed her eyes and licked her lips. Your salted caramel eyes, Theophilious. She imagined Theophilius right in front of her. He she leaned toward him, her eyes closed, her lips caressing the air. This great stuff here. We can call our boy Tucophilus and our girl Foodie. She puckered her lips and connected with the solid cold surface. Theophilious, she thought, oh yes, baby, I'm so happy you're giving me my very first kiss. And then Miracle walks in. What are you doing? And so Tuki opens her eyes and she's face-to-face with herself. Her lips were in contact with Miracle's full-length mirror, so she's making out with her. She's making out with herself. Yeah. In the mirror. Classic. And then Miracle goes, Are you making in with yourself? Once again, she'd be kind of play. But that was kind of if she meant on purpose, it's kind of funny. I know. Exactly. Yeah, but she didn't. She's just dumb. So that's really embarrassing. And it's basically just serves here as a reminder in the book that she's like no one likes her. No one wants to kiss her. It's been a little while since we talked about him. Yes. Okay. Then the most insane scene from this selection happens.
The Circus Story Behind His Eye
AbigailOh my god. Yeah. So this is when we start to get Chris Dillecrum's backstory. So we get a little page break, and Tuki is like wakes up. Um once again, I I'm starting to think something weird is going on with her, like with her biology, because she basically wakes up sleepwalking, doesn't remember how she got here, and then she's watching her dad. Um her father clad in a colorful unitard, his waist twisted in the air, his legs were bent at an awkward angle, his muscles strained and shook, an empty empty bottom bottle of tater mash, a colorless distilled beverage imported from Kremlin grad, laid tipped over on the floor. Next to it was a faded photograph of the incredible Chris De la Creme. Wait, Chris Krem Krebat, otherwise known as Christopher De la Krem. In the photo, Tookie's father still possessed both of his green eyes and he didn't have the couch potato potch bummer. So he's so that's the scene she walks in on. He's reliving his glory days. But okay, pause though. Do you think that something is going on with her like randomly waking up places? I don't know. I think because I mean we're gonna get to the scene later where uh we find out more about possibly her backstory and like when she was born. And it feels like there's something off about her, like inherently different about her. She has like magical powers or something. Yeah, or like I don't know, she's from another land, or it's giving alphabet, to be honest. Yeah, it's really giving alphabet. Yeah, I'm wondering, like, if this is another thing where like is it just bad writing or is it significant? Right, right. Unknown. Okay, so this is she wakes up, she sees her dad, like, live reliving his glory days, and um she sees this picture of her dad's eyes and the flashback. Yes. So yes, she here's a passage that I highlighted, it's lengthy. Here we go. I can't wait. She could still remember that day in almost perfect detail. Sparkling gold cover of the programs, the plush red velvet seats, and the set your mouth on fire taste of the bag of gouda and habanero flavored popcorn. It actually sounds like a slaps. Sounds so good, actually. I really want some. Yeah. And the sharp five-foot swords that pointed skyward along the perimeter of the stage, three tumblers juggling fire with their tongues fire with their tongues while jumping on humongous translucent trampolines suspended over the audience had been the first act. Next was a group again, ChatGPT could not have written this. No. Next was a group of ten-year-olds, contortionists who had backflipped into deep hot pink dyed swimming pools full of crocodiles. And then the lights had dimmed and the mysterious music filled the air. A single spotlight shone down on Tuki's ripple-bodied father, the headline star of Circo de Soul. So original. Tukey had swelled with pride as her father looped and danced and climbed dental floss thin wire. Her father, the mighty Chris Creme Crobat, was going to execute a new move that evening. Circo de Sol had billed it as the first time any human had ever attempted such a feat.
unknownMrs.
AbigailDeLme was full of pride that evening too. However, right as Tuki's father had reached the seventh story landing of the stage, misses De La Creme pulled out her mirror to add a bit of wrinkle redux to her tanned and hideously lined face. I want to look my best when the cameras all turn to me after his feat is done, she murmured. But the mirror caught a beam of light that shone right into Chris Krimcrobat's eyes, momentarily blinding him. In a panic, he lost his footing and fell seven stories. Most acrobats would have He's not about to be paralyzed. Oh, he's gonna be paralyzed, right? That's how he Yeah, yeah. No. Most acrobats would have extensive injuries or even died, but not Tuki's nimble father. He tucked his body and landed smoothly on his upper back, propelling himself forward into a smooth tumble. The audience erupted into cheers. Chris Krimcrobat then arched upward to stand from his back bend and face his adoring, applauding, whistling, screaming fans. Ever the devoted showman, he thrust himself forward into a deep bow, impaling his eye on one of the five-foot swords at the perimeter of the stage. It's so good. It is so good. Everything about this is so good because this whole time you're like, oh, he suffered this horrible acrobatic accident. But it's actually he's a victim both of Tuki's mom and of his own stupidity by bowing directly into the sword. It's I mean, it's who could have come up with this, you know? You have like it's actually good and like poetic in some ways. Like he has all this technical expert expertise, yes, but he's just kind of an idiot. Yes, and his pride and his showmanship and his his idiocy is what lost him his eye, and also his wife. Wow. That was like a multi-paragraph long description. Yes. That I hope. Yeah. Uh then they thought he was gonna die. For some reason. And then turns out he was fine. He just got one eye. But then the ma h our creamy says, Don't you see? This is the end for him. He only has one damn eye. He's damaged, defective, done. And she starts really hating him because she's all about looks, you know. Yeah. But she also threatens Tuki and it's like basically, you never tell him that it was my fault that this happened. Um, you didn't see anything. And Tookie's like, okay, sure. Okay, so then she cuts out of her flashback and then uh she reveals herself to her father. And he's mad at her. Well, he's like, he's like, oh, like, fine, why don't you come spot me, pumpkin? Yeah, he's like, I want to have this father-daughter bonding moment, but then Tuki messes it up and he's like, I hate you, you know. Um her father stared at her a moment, carefully examining her. A startled, disgusted expression flashed across his face as if light had flipped on the inside of his head. As if a light had flipped on inside his head. It was a look Tuki had seen before, but one she'd never explained. Just go for all of us, he said, waving her away. Tookie's feeling of being needed was replaced by any emptiness that out burned deep inside of her. So sad. It is sad. And this actually is foreshadowing. We're we're about to get an explanation for that look that he's giving her. Yes. And that's because it's chapter six.
Lodorno’s Elite Gatekeeping Tests
AbigailChapter six not only has an excellent uh title, but our narrator is back. Yes! Okay, what's the title? The title is stunning, statuesque, strobotronic stars with stupefying stratospheric struts. Say that six times fast. Alright. And our addition narrator is back. Go for it. Now it's the time to dish about Lodorno, darlings. The most desirable quadrant in all of Miitopia. Pause. Have we heard about Lodorno before? Was that ex- was that described when she was describing the quadrants before? I want to say it was. Um, but I could be wrong. I want to say it was like briefly mentioned, but not in this much detail. Okay. Alright, go for it. Um, yes, it is meant. I have my highlight. Miwtopia split into four quadrants: Fridge Shavira, Tempestuous Peter Power, lovely Ladorna. Only the elite live there, and it was where teetobs always held, and finally sweatering pepper town as hot as a scotch bonnet. Okay. Yeah. Sunny skies, pleasant 78 degree temperatures at all times, except on the beaches where it's a wonderful 85. Warm, sweet-smelling seawater, low humidity without a cloud for miles, and when you breathe in, you inhale only fresh, crisp, unpolluted air. You want to live in this place, right? You and the rest of the world, darling. See, bliss comes with a price in Lodorno. Only the richest and most successful Mietopians get to live there. But how do you qualify to reside in Lodorno? Well, the Quadrant's Council puts you through a series of privacy-invading tests to prove your worth. Oh, they'll scour your bank accounts, examining every purchase, they'll interview your friends, your family, your employer, even the gentleman at the newspaper stand from where you from whom you buy your moneyed Miitopian magazine every week. They'll visit your house and check the labels on all your belongings. If they discover a knockoff handbag, stamp a big red denied on your Lodorno residency application. If they notice that your prize Pekinese doesn't Pekanese? Pekinese doesn't have the perfect pedigree, stamp denied. One thing to know though is that there is a sect of people that does not have to be subjected to Lodorno sadistic entrance challenges in order to be allowed to live within the quadrant's guarded gates. And who might they be? I'm sure you've guessed it by now, but let me clue you in. The names of those sacred souls begin with an I and end with Ella. And guess what? We're just about to sneak a peek at a few of them. This is seven seven of them, to be exact. So that's our chapter six. I didn't. Has it been described before that the seven sevens have names that end in Ella? I didn't I think it has briefly mentioned that because they're called the Hold on. What are they called? In Credibellas or in Credi Yeah. I also didn't understand that though at first. In Toxabellas, but I do think it was mentioned before. I just forgot it. Yeah. So, okay, so after the narration, the chapter transitions to Tuki slumps in the back of the family station wagon. They're
Dress Shopping At The Jerk
Abigailgoing, they're driving into Lodorno into like the very nice upscale mall at the center of a nice neighborhood. And they're going here because they are going to be searching for Miracles dress. Yes. Um, this immediate immediately made me think of the rules about like you need to be dressed in a yellow dress. Although, as I'm reading this, I don't think she wears a yellow dress. I don't think they put it. It's said to to complement the yellow, it has to go with the yellow. It doesn't have to be yellow. Okay. Okay. It doesn't have to be. That was the rules. Okay, yes, but it has to like coordinate. You can't be clashing with the yellow of the smise. Right. Um, this is another place where I kind of look in the description of the small. I felt that she was borrowing again from other popular media. So she's just she's describing the store that they go or to the mall and the store that they go into. And um the the name of the store is The Jerk. J-U-R-K, uh, which carrying couture frocks designed by Jeremy Jerk, the most lauded clothing artiste in the world. Um but she says the store was packed to the gills, everyone spoke at once, their high-pitched voices mixing in the air and sounding like a squawking block of wild yeast. Dresses lay helter skeletons over the racks, on the counters, on every inch of floor space, feather dresses, sequin dresses, tiered, bustled and ruffled dresses, dresses with a sweetheart neckline, dresses with one shoulder, off the shoulder, strapless, and open back dresses, blah, blah, blah. She goes on and on. And I was like, this what does this remind me of? And I was imagining the beginning of Jim Gary's The Breakfast Till Christmas, like Hooville, the Christmas over and craze. I just feel like the absurdity of it all, the goofiness of it. It also reminded me of like that mixed with um like a Kleinfeld sample cell when all like the pores come in and the samples are all out, and they like are just like going crazy through the racks. That's a really fun feel. Yeah. Under $5,000 budgeters. Yeah, exactly. Um, so they're freaking out in there, and um, they're all looking for dresses, and all of a sudden, Tuki spots a dress that she like. Wait, hold on. Before we get to that, we get reminded of another plot line that's going on. Yes, which is less you forget. Yes, where is Ciel? So she is one of the seven sevens, right? Or she's just she was she was an intoxibella. And she was a model. So we get reminded of this because she says she's one cart was dedicated to t-shirts, hats, and a variety of trinkets bearing the where the hell is C L logo Tuki had seen on the sidewalks over home. So don't forget, she's missing, and it's a big mystery. Yeah, there she is. Yes, where had she gone? Then do you want to explain this? Because I still don't really understand. She has an encounter with this guy who she calls a wingtip. Yes. Um, so she sees someone she has seen before. Um, she saw she has seen him before on her walks home from school, but he's like she calls him wingtip because he has a pair of wingtip shoes over his shoulder and or just yeah, the laces, I guess. And so she calls him wingtip, and he's like slouched over and he's like always talking to himself, and so she knows this man, she has seen him before, but they've never talked. And so then he looks up with her and meets her eye, and his like crazed eyes become clear briefly, and she's like, Wait, no one ever sees me, and he sees me. That's weird. Also, he's like an insane person, and um creamy is like, don't look at him, he's creepy and dangerous, like, don't make eye contact. I'll never believe it. And so then her mom drags her away, and she's like, What was that? Nobody ever notices me, and that guy did the crazy guy. So yeah, he'll come back around in a second. There's that happening, there's the CL thing happening. There's a lot, there's a lot happening. Um, they pick up a they find a dress, it's vintage, and Tuki can't believe that her mom wants would buy a vintage dress from Here. Yes. And as they're walking out of the mall and to the parking deck or wherever they're going, um, all of a sudden, a huge major event happens. So,
Modeland Appears Seven Seven Revealed
Abigailas you'll recall, in the last episode, we described what happens on T-Dod. There's like a mountain with clouds around it, and as the colors change, you know that T-Dod gets closer. It's all very weird and hard to describe. Um, and this something starts to happen. Yes. Yes. So the clouds um turn gold, and then all of a sudden, they start to like clear, and gold light comes down. And Tuki like hears a giggle in her ear, and she feels satin against her arm, and she smells blood oranges, and everybody's freaking out. They're like, Oh my god, it's happening, it's happening. The fog completely clears, and the top of the mountain is revealed, and it glows. And above the mountain, there's an illuminated eye with the smise, the basically giant smise, and it's made up of a millions of birds from a bunch of different species. Um, and Tukie's like, Oh, I've seen this before, but never this close. And then a giant hand reaches around the mountaintop and spells a word with smoke, and it spells out model land. Everybody's watching, and then a voice starts to speak, and it is introducing itself as the Belladonna. Do you think that this is the our omniscient man narrator's voice? Oh, I didn't even consider that, but yeah, that would make sense. It could because so this person names themselves, calls themselves the Belladonna. I wonder if I mean the text of this person of Belladonna speaking is not in italics, like right, but but it still could be the same person. Yeah, no, that would be interesting. I wonder if we'll ever find out the the four narrator.
unknownI don't know.
AbigailOkay, so the Belladonna goes, I see I have your attention. This is the Belladonna speaking. Um, the day of discovery is less than one sunset away. And so the time has come to present to you this year's newly minted Seven Seven. This is a glimpse glimpse at what your future might be if you are so lucky, if you are so divine, if you are one of the most special girls in the world. Each and every girl on the planet has a chance to be one of the enlightened. Could it be you? And Miracle goes, Yes! Which is so my understanding, and maybe I'm wrong, I guess they they take up more girls than the seven, and then seven become the seven-seven. The actual talks about is not everybody makes it. That's what I'm I feel like I'm understanding. So on T-Dod, you the newcomer like you make it to Hollywood on American Idol, and then in Hollywood week, like you have like the you know, the the T Dod is like crossing the parapet, yeah. Yeah, you go to Hollywood and then you're in the group stage, and then you go to like the you know, Fox Studios or whatever. Right, right, right. And these are the ones who really make it to the live shows. Yes, yeah, okay. So this the and they're called intoxabellas. We also learn at this point that they have powers, yeah, right? Like that's new information. That's new. So they all I don't know if they have been endowed with powers after becoming intoxabellas. I don't know if they had powers to begin with, and that catapulted them to the level. But it seems like the powers are always like the same. That's my understanding. Because it says at one point that nobody so they introduce all the girls and their powers. Um, and then the voice says that unfortunately, once again, we have not developed a 7-7 girl who has all seven powers. So that makes me think that the powers are consistent from year to year. I wonder what's going to happen later in the book. Someone's going to develop all seven powers. You think it might be tooky? So they the powers are like um they can like change their looks, like they can morph their looks. And so there's okay, so the one of the seven sevens is her name is Evangelinda. Yes. And her thing is that she it's just kind of this is another thing that she this is Tonks from Harry Potter. Okay, so she can just change her appearance at will. But it's called chamellion. Yeah, okay. Again, she didn't, she was she told she stole a lot of things from Harry Potter. It's gonna be so um, I mean, yeah. And she says, so a guy, a guy standing near Tukey when they're talking about this girl and she's you know showing off and changing her features. He's like, if I had her, I'd have a different girl every night. A man next to Tukey cried, I could stop. Yeah, I wouldn't cheat on my wife if she was looking different every single night. That's crazy, by the way. And then one of the other toxabellas, her name is Bev Joe. Her power is 30 never. So when Bev Joe ages to 29, she will begin her next year looking again like she is 17 until she reaches 29 again, and that cycle will continue until she perishes. Yeah, crazy. So that's dark. That's cool. Um, there's a girl who can basically control your mind and make you want to like buy brands, and then there's oh there's a girl named Sin DC, which by the way, like we're so on the nose. Her power is seduction, which is I can't even spell that for you. But basically, like some one guy shouts out, I'm ready to sin with Sin DC right here, right? No. Then we have Kokucha, a cocoa-skinned, large-eyed beauty with close cropped hair spun in the air. Wait, you know what? It just occurred to me. What maybe Tuki is an embodiment of all of the different because she has like her hair is like so many different things at one time. That's true. Maybe that's why like she's gonna be the only powers. Um her power is six sense, remarkable, supernatural sixth sense. Katucha can see into the future of fashion, only fashion though, which means this unusual outfit will be on your body next year. Oh, and did I mention that Katucha is enhanced sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell? Wow, cool. She's like, this is amazing. By the way, these girls are like the most talked about, obsessed over. Like, this is the thing that all of these people's lives are oriented around. But we're under the impression that this is the first time Tuki is finding out about the powers, which is very bizarre to me because like this is all they talk about, this is all they have going on. It's a bleak world, society, yeah. And yet she is this is the first time she's experiencing this, so that's very confusing to me. The seventh girl, like can grow, like she can she can teleport, but it's called teleportaling, so she like creates basically sinkholes in the ground and like pops out of them, yeah, which is really odd. Crazy. Um, that has to mean something. There has it has to come up later. Yeah, it has to come up again. But her name is Exodus, and that's really critical because Exodus is the name of the escape plan that Tookie and her best friend Lizzie have kind of been concocting and pointing. And so Tukey hears her name and she's like, Is this my sign? Is it time to do Exodus and get out of here? Ums. And when all of this happens, like they're like celebrating, it's like in The Little Mermaid when they have like the first song Little Mermaid, where they're introducing all the sisters and they're all like on their shells. This is like what I'm imagining. Yes. And Tuki suddenly caught a glimpse of blue behind a bench.
Lizzie’s Injuries And Exodus Trigger
AbigailIt was two feet clad, it was two feet clad in Doctor's booties. She drew in a breath. Lizzie? Tuki scampered over worriedly, not even bothering to tell her mother or miracle where she was going. And um Lizzie stared head into nothingness, not at all like wingtip. Not at all unlike wingtip. Yes. Spoke at a drone Tuki had never heard from her, as if she was the media a medium at a seance. They took her last night by her feet. The burning continued throughout the night. They cut open her blisters and poured liquid metal into her veins. Dude. So she's saying this like in a trance? Yeah, she's in a trance, and her Tuki doesn't recognize her voice. And then Lizzie then raised the cuffs of her pants, which were dragging on the ground, revealing feet that looked like they had been dipped in battery acid with open sores that oozed pus. The area near her arches had a hundred little cuts ranged in strange lines as if they were sold soldiers ready for battle. And Tookie freaks out, she's like, We gotta get you to the hospital. And then Lizzie goes, Exodus. Yeah. Tookie goes, when? And then she's like, tomorrow, please. And this is when I made a critical note that I I would like to make a prediction. Yeah, okay. Lizzie is CL. I'm thinking that. I've been thinking that. I've been wondering. Like if she looks different now that she's on Earth, or or she's somehow like psychically connected. I don't know. You know what I mean? I think that she is just like she's she's hiding out because she's CL and she's like recognizable. But also like she and Wingtip may like they have like the special ability, they're the only ones who can see Tuki or something. Yeah, there's something between those two. I definitely think she's connected somehow to CL. Whether she is C L or she knows about it, or like she was a different girl who went through the thing, and now she's kind of on the run. I don't know. But I agree with you that she's something. So she's kind of like sitting everyone's soul in like the hubbub of like the 7-7 show, like laser show guy. And she's like talking to herself, she's like, Oh my god, I'm gonna have to run away. We're gonna do Plan Exodus tomorrow. Where remember, Plan Exodus is the thing where they go to the beach and they open their own factory. Yeah, that's her that's her big dreaming plan. Their big wild dream. Anything can be like who they want to be in life, they're gonna open their own factory, but they're gonna treat their workers with dignity. Yeah, yeah. It's gonna be like a socialist factory. Everybody's part owner. And so, whatever. So she's sitting there kind of talking to herself, and then Wingtip shows back up. Yes. And she has this weird conversation with Wingtip where he's like, I don't think you're crazy, and he's like, My mom thinks I'm crazy. And he's just like, Hey, I see you. I know everything hurts. Like, there's gonna be a light. Yeah, something. It's all very like wise sage kind of thing. Yeah. Alright, now you're in chapter seven. He's like, everyone's entitled to dream, even you. And then she kind of just turns away. She's like, Yeah, you'd be surprised. Yeah, I don't think I am. Chapter seven. Brutal, man. This is when I started really losing my stamina. And I was like, oh, one more chapter. Let's lock in. There's just a really important reveal in this chapter, and actually a great little cliffhanger.
Paternity Threat And Tuki’s Panic
AbigailUm, but it starts off stupid. They come home and the chapter is X02 with dash in between. And there's we've lost the omniscient narrator again. Yeah, she's gone again. Potentially Bella Donna. Yes. Um, the omniscient narrator's gone, and XO2 is the symbol that Lizzie and Tuki have agreed to write on their doors if they're gonna do Exodus. So foreshadowing. So they come home, and Chris DeLa Creme is like drunk again, as always, and he's mad. He's like, Where were you? And she's like, I told you we were going to the mall, and you knew that. And he's like, You always go and you always have your reasons, and so then she looks in and Tuki sees them arguing in um Mrs. DeLecrème's office, and Tuki notices that her mother has a collection of dolls, which was started the year before Tuki or years before Tuki was born. Swaddled babies, dolls with eyes that opened and closed, dolls that wet themselves and digested food and spoke, each was positioned just so an arm curled here, a leg crossed there, their heads pointed straight at Tuki's mother, as though she were conducting a meeting with all of them. Tukey wished she could close every Pair of glassy eyes. Didn't that's what Bellissima is, right? She has like carrying her doll around. Yes. For like reborn doll. Yes. It's freaking weird. So she has a whole collection of them. It's okay. And they're all staring at her. So Mr. Daily Cram is angry and he's like, I know you were watching the Seven Sevens, but also I watched it from our porch, so you could have seen it from here. You went to watch it with your man friend. I know people and I trust what they tell me. And she's like, Your desperate flabby ass is spying on me. Christopher, you've reached an all-time low, and they're arguing, and they're arguing. And she calls him a one-eyed, unemployed monster. Nice. And he's like throwing stuff around. He grabs the doll from her, Bellissima. And Tukey is more angry about this than she's ever been about anything he's ever said to Tookie. And um, so he says, Sometimes I I think you wish that sort of had killed me so that you could continue your life with her father. And Mrs. Daily Cram says, What? And her eyes are still focused on Belisima. So you're like, Bellissima, what? Who's father? And then Mr. Daily Cram says, Your daughter's father, Creamy, don't play dumb. And she says, Miracle's father. And he says, I wish I was talking about Miracle. You wish I was talking about Miracle. But no, Creamy, she belongs to both of us. You can't push me out that easily. You know who I mean. The other one. Every time I look into that child's mismatched eyes, I see, or shall I say, I don't see it. So implications. And then she then we get even more. As soon as you got pregnant with her, you had to go up to some special medical facility to with all the complications. You had scary things that could have made you lose the baby. I was on the road and couldn't go with you. Which is like this is like a crazy way to like renarrate everything. Yeah. Like I'm gonna info dump our lives to you in the middle of an argument. Yeah. That's normal human speech in an expository way. I had working to make sure we could put food on the table for our growing family. Then nine months later, you had her thousands of miles away from here. You refused to let me be with you to see her first breath. My first child, Creamy, you denied me that right. How come you never let me talk to the doctors who delivered her? So wingtips her dad, right? That's what I'm thinking. That's my theory. I think wingtips a dad. Yeah. It's it's very weird. Yeah, this is what I'm talking about. She had complications. She had to go thousands, thousands of miles away. Thousands is crazy. It's not like the next town over for the big, you know, hospital. Right. Thousands of miles away. And he was not there when she was delivered. And there was something weird going on that, like, they thought she could lose a baby. They said she could never have kids again. Your insides were ruined. It's weird. Like a nuke went off in there. Yeah. And so then Mr. DeLacreme is like, I'm going to a paternity lab and I'm going to do it. Like all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he's like, after it's like 17 years, he's like, Yeah, I'm gonna challenge the paternity, which is just right, crazy timed, correct. And so then Toogie hears this, and she's like, Oh no, I'm gonna become a factory dependent, which is like Which is also crazy. She's gonna like become a ward of the state or whatever. Basically, working in a factory with other children. So she's like, I really do have to do a project Exodus. Like, I gotta get out of here. Yeah. So she packs up all of her stuff in like a duffel bag, puts her team. You're not as smart, you're not as smart as you want to believe you are. Because she's up all night packing and plotting and scheming, and it's like, why do you not leave? Leave now. Because she waits until like the literal last second, it's morning, and then she's trying to leave her house. Um but yeah, she packs her her. Well, because her thing with um her thing with Lizzie was that they're gonna meet at 7 a.m., remember? Sure, but she could have gone there early to get out of her house. That's true, yeah. So whatever, she's like creeping out, um, and then she gets caught, obviously. Yeah, by her mom. Obviously, as we could all see coming. And um, let's see. Her mom's standing on the stairs holding holding Bellissima, her doll. Right. And is like, where do you think you're going? That's so odd, by the way. I like I hope that that means something. The doll thing is so weird, yeah. Um, let's see. And so anyway, she's like, Oh my god, it's so nice of you to get up early and get everything ready so that we could go to T Dot. It's a miracle, and uh she's like I'm not going. She's like, Yes, you are, Captain. And Miracle sees Lizzie out in the yard, and she's like, She looks at roadkeel. And um, anyways, she's like, I'm so sorry, Lizzie, I can't do Exodus. I'll be back for you tonight, I promise. And they get back up in the car and they're on their way to T-Dod. And Lizzie, by the way, is standing in the yard like screaming hysterically as they're pulling away. Yeah. So that's normal. Yeah, it's very horrible. So that's that's where we're at. We're ready for T-Dod. So next week, or next time we do an episode, we are going to have an explanation about T-Dod. Like we are going to see it happen. It is T Dot.
Predictions For T-Dod Selection Chaos
AbigailSo, what do you what do you think is gonna happen at T-Dod? I don't know. I can't figure out. Do we think I can't figure out if I think Tukey will somehow it feels like she has to get the smise somehow, like she's accidentally holding it when the discovery happens. Because I don't feel like the smise, I don't feel like, or do we think Miracle gets chosen and Tuki gets chosen? I think going on the theme of borrowing conventions from the Harry Potter series, I think it's gonna be like a goblet of fire situation, and it's gonna be like, hmm, you put your name in the goblet of fire. Yeah, you know, or something like that. So maybe Miracle does get chosen, and then also Tukey gets chosen. Maybe it's like uh the master smise or whatever is going to like choose Tuki in some way, like it's gonna be like this predestined thing. There's gonna be like some sort of magic or selection tool that we haven't been privy to yet that is going to identify Tuki as like the rightful heir to this. But in order to be chosen, I do think they have to do a runway walk. So, how does Tuki get to the runway? Like, she's like, Oh, I because there's a moment where she gets really excited because her mom's like, You have to come to Tuki, and she's like, Oh, you're gonna let me walk? I didn't even think I would get the chance. And then her mom's like, No, I need your baby Gherkin fingers. And so, yeah, something has happened for her to walk. Obviously, she's gonna get chosen. That feels like a non-starter. She's going to be able to do it. But maybe maybe the goblet of fire is going to spit out her name and she hasn't walked.
unknownYeah.
AbigailYou know what I mean? I I also am like, I know this isn't gonna happen, but I what I really want to happen is there to be like a couple of finalists or whatever, and it's gonna be like on Drag Race where they have to a lip sync battle, and Tuki has to do a lip sync battle against someone. That is what I really want, but I know we're not gonna get it. But that would be great. No, it does feel though she's gonna get pissed. No, so yeah, I predict she gets chosen. I predict wingtip shows up again. I predict Miracle, or like maybe because Miracle doesn't really want, she wants to dance, she doesn't really want to be a model. So maybe she like gives her the smise sneakily and is like, I don't want this, please take it. Well, maybe she's like, I'm running away with Brian, I'm pregnant. She's like, And that's what the period was for. Oh maybe, but she's like 14. I don't know, so I can't wait to find out. I do think something weird's gonna happen for sure, and we'll have a good time. Well, I would say I can't wait to find out, but I kinda can. I kinda can. I am having fun. This is crazy. It's crazy because this book, like, we have done book club episodes where we talk about an entire book in the course of one episode, and we were now I was even like, okay, these chapters were kind of shorter than the first three, not as much happens, but we're we're about an hour. Like, we're this is crazy. I hate it. There's just so much here, there's so much to talk about, and I fear that I'm gonna start to like this book by the end. That's what I'm afraid of. So stay tuned, everyone. All right. Um,
Adaptation News And Producer Anxiety
Abigailbefore we get to books we've read recently, there is some book news I'd like to go over with you. I would love to talk about it, whatever. Yeah. First of all, I'm sure everyone has seen that Heat of I Rally season two is officially sort of filming. Yeah. And um, while I haven't seen any like onset photos yet, I um I am I'm very excited. Both of the boys look great. They definitely look great. Yeah, they're not having to play 17-year-olds anymore, they're just firmly like mid-20s. So just exciting. Yeah. And I just can't believe it's all happening so soon. Like, I just I know. I'm so excited. I feel like it's like God is real. Like, and like eventually, we're gonna get a still, you know what I mean? We're gonna get yes, like soon, probably. Or like a photo from set. Oh, sorry, I think I had my way. I just saw a TikTok today that was like, um, like keep like you have to keep going because you still haven't seen the lesbian season of Bridgerton. And I was like, you know what? You're so right. That's how I feel about that. The Peter Rover's dude. Never kill yourself, never kill yourself. Keep going, everyone. Keep going. There's so much to live for. There's so much to live for. There is so much, there is so much to live for. Um, so yeah, I'm already back together. I'm so excited. The other thing I want to talk to you about in in terms of book adaptations is um I saw some news today that Deep End by Ali Hazelwood is being um made into a Netflix TV show. Or I don't know if it's a TV show, it's gonna be a series or it's gonna be a movie. Um we also heard recently that Love Theoretically is getting a movie adaptation. But then both of those announcements have been followed up with kind of concerning news about who is producing them. So, really concerningly, Love Theoretically is being produced by Colleen Hoover. I'm really troubled. Deep End is being co-produced by Alex Cooper of Call Your Daddy or Call Your Daddy, whatever. Um here's the thing. I was really concerned by that. I did ask Zach. I was like, what does it mean? Like, is it a bad sign? Like, if a person you don't like, is like how much how much influence does a producer have? And he was basically like, it could mean anything. It could be that the producer doesn't see, doesn't know anything about the project until they until the trailer drops. It could be that they're giving input on the script. It could be that they're on set making creative decisions or giving feedback. So I don't know. I guess I'll turn it to you, but I think I am concerned more about Colleen Hoover because I feel like she would have more of a creative lens on the show or in the adaptation of love theoretically. I could see Alex Cooper just doing this more as an investment. I fully agree with that analysis. I'm less con I don't love that. Like, I don't love it, but to me that does feel a little bit more like I want to be like Reese Witherspoon and I have my own like media. Not like she wants to be in it, like Reese Witherspoon does, but you know, like Reese Witherspoon is like really big in the book adaptation world, you know what I mean? And producing stuff and bringing them to like I couldn't. She doesn't necessarily have creative control, she just like see them made. Right. That's kind of how I feel about her. Colleen Hoover concerns me because I don't trust her judgment as a person. Like I think I think she's insane as a person. Like, I don't think she's business-minded, I think she does things for be for creative endeavors. Like most of her books for the longest time were not profitable. She was just self-publishing them in mass. And so to me, that that's reeks of someone who does want to be creatively involved. And I'm also even more concerned because Love Theoretically is definitely my favorite of her STEM books, um, and one of my favorite Ollie Hazelwood books. And Deep End is lower down for me personally, but I still love it and I'm still concerned. I mean, for me, Deep End is right up there at the top. I know. And I am I'm more so like I think I feel the way that a lot of early days heated rivalry fans found felt when they found out there was gonna be an adaptation because they were like, How are they gonna cast this? Yeah, who the casting has to be right, and I'm no, that's true. Who is gonna be cast as Lucas Blomqvist? That is true. That must be critical. That is critical. Like that excites me to my core and terrifies me to my core because that role is like so specific, and there has to be this like balance between like caring romantic lover boy and like daddy dom. Yeah, and he has to be four, he has to have an accent, and and look and like young and practical as an Olympic athlete, yeah, and as a swimmer, like swimmer it's so much to for one person to it's very Ilya Rosanoff coded. It's like very much card. Like, how are you gonna how are you gonna get the five cent version? You're gonna have to find a new person, and I just don't know. Like, I think what makes he did rivalry work is Jacob Tierney, like casting the right people, writing it the right way, all this stuff. Yes. I don't know. We'll see. I'm also starting to question Ali Hazelwood's judgment. Um, yeah, because why are you doing all of these like Amazon and Spotify exclusives? Why are you corporate? Why are you like I why are you I feel like you're diluting your adaptations? Like, I don't know. You started out, it just it stresses me out. Like the mass production of these corporate audiobook kind of empty cash grab things, it doesn't feel great to me. I love that she's getting a check for it, but not at the expense of quality, right? Yeah, I would agree with that, and I've been thinking about this so much because I'm like, okay, this is I'm not like I'm gonna one day be a successful author with a bunch of people trying, you know what I mean? But I've been thinking about this from Emily Henry's like perspective and now Ali Hazelwood's like, what do you like is it actually worth it to sell the rights to your book? Like, I don't know. Like, I don't know how much money is it worth to lose your integrity, your like your creative control, or to like give something that you care about so much up to someone who might misunderstand it or just use it for IP and profit. I mean, I thought about this about Emily Henry recently because um bee treed rapped filming, yeah, like it's done, it's done, it gets baked, it's done, and I yet to see anything like I never once in the filming process. Like, I'm on the side of the internet where I would be seeing good news about that, and I saw it's not there, felt encouraging about that. No, and to watch your baby go to die, you know. Yeah, like yeah, that's why I'm like, is it worth it? Like, I wonder, I would love for them to be candid one day. And I would love for Emily Henry to be able to be candid one day, maybe it's like 20 years from now, and just say, like, what do you would you have done that differently? Or episode idea. We bring on Emily Henry and Rachel Reed, and then we ask them from their perspective, Rachel Reed, how did you find such a great person to adapt your book? And how did you get it? But that's the thing because to me, onto it, and then like ask Emily Henry, why did you get tricked? What happened? Yes, because was it that, or was it is it just like luck? That's the thing. It's hard because like authors don't make a lot of money, like most authors don't make that much money, and they can get a lot of money for these moody movie adaptations, and so I can't really fault them for like wanting to make a living. And Rachel Reed, it's not like she was holding out for the like Jacob Tierney. Jacob Tierney was the first person who approached her about it. It's just so happened that he approached her with love and purity of heart. Like, that's she lucked into that. So I just feel for them. I feel for Emily Henry, and I know that that's gotta be a tough decision, and I just wonder if she would have done something differently. That's all. Yeah. So yeah, who knows? If it ever happens to me, I'll let you guys know how much it's worth to sell your stuff. I mean, yeah, like on this, I guess transitioning to recent reads, like I DNF'd the new um the new Allie Hazelwood Spotify exclusive audiobook. Yeah, I saw you after listening and enjoying the first in the series of that like Spotify audiobook novellas, and I'm just like, yeah, at what point are we losing quality? You know, it's tough. I don't know. Um so, anyways, just wanted to discuss those things with you.
Recent Reads Memoirs We Recommend
AbigailUm yeah, great discussion. What about you? What have you read recently? I have a really good book, which I haven't finished yet, but I'm really excited about it. It's um called The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lor Laura Love Harden. Have you heard of this? No. It's also on Kindle Unlimited, which I'm really excited about. Reading as much as I can on there. Um, it's a memoir, which I did not even realize until about three chapters in because the first few chapters are so gripping and well-written and insane that I was like, I can't I think this is fiction. And then I realized it is a memoir. This is a true story. It follows um Laura Love Harden, and she is basically like I don't want to get too much into it because it's really insane, but she is like a soccer mom, has she has some kids from her previous marriage, and then she has a new marriage and one kid with uh her new partner. She's like lives in a nice neighborhood. Um, she's also addicted to heroin, and through her addiction, is like to the point where she's like stealing, breaking into her neighbor's cars to steal their credit cards, running out of money, unable to really care for herself or her son, and like at risk of being evicted, and her life is spiraling out of control. She ends up getting arrested and going to jail. It becomes a really big news story because people don't expect their neighbor in these types of neighborhoods to be addicts and to be criminals and to be in prison. So that's kind of her life setup. Uh her journey takes twists and turns, and she's an incredible writer. It's maybe the only memoir I've ever read where it's written in present tense, so that's also part of it. Like you're really in the moment, and it can be very stressful when you're like, what is going to happen next? Um, but I think it's also really eye-opening. I feel like I am a person who already does not have favorable views of the like prison industrial complex in our country. This reinforced that for me. But I think if you are curious about that, um, it can be very interesting to find out the ways that uh re-offense is incentivized by prisons, and they don't really actually want people to be rehabilitated or to like ever make it out of the system. Um, and how difficult it is to like once you like have an addiction, once to stop being an addict on your own, to stop being an addict when you're in jail, to get custody of your child back once you lose it, um, to like become a better person once you've made choices. And I think also I think people in this book and in life are angry with her because they don't see themselves in her. And I think reading this memoir, you will see yourself in her and realize that you are a lot closer to becoming a person who commits a crime than you might think you are, and there's like really like the circumstances of your life can really define that. And um, yeah, a lot of people like end up in jail because of maybe not necessarily active choices they made, or like because they're bad people, but because of their life circumstances or the people they're around, or yeah, battling addiction or whatever. So I think she has a very no go ahead. I was like, you are far closer to becoming a heroin act hat addict that's incarcerated than you are to becoming a billionaire or exactly. Yeah, you are closer to this person then yeah. So anyway, I think she also has had a career as a writer and um like is a very struggle writer, so it's a very gripping memoir, and I'm really enjoying reading it, and I can't put it down, and like I'm really interested to see how it continues to unfold. I'm almost done, but um And what's it called again? I really recommend it. It's called uh The Many Lives of Mama Love. Okay. It's really good. And I'm not a I don't always love memoirs, but this one is like Just very good. Very interesting. So that does sound really good. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
AbigailI really recommend it. Okay, what have you read recently? I also have a memoir to share. Um, it's called My Mother. Well, it's it's I would say it's half memoir, half nonfiction book. It's called My Mother's Daughter. Okay. By someone I don't remember. My Mother's Daughter by Tracy Clark Flory. So uh Tracy Clark Flory got her start as like a sex writer, um, like a sex in like women's magazine online writer. And um she uh lost her mom to lung cancer uh when she was like in her 30s. Before her mom passed, um, her mom confided in her that she um had another child um as a teenager in the era where women were sent off to maternity homes to give birth to their kids and then have them sent away. And um that she was kind of forced to go there and um so she she she talked to her daughter about this. Um post her mother's death, uh there's like the invention of 23andMe, Tracy Clarker, a 23andme test, and immediately gets connected with her sister. And um, her sister is black. Um, her sister has a black father, and uh who never knew about her. And um, so that was also part of the reason that her mother was like forced to go off and put the child up for adoption, a different era. And so this is part memoir about Tracy and her mom and her sister, how the stories that were told and the people in our family, and like their beliefs about sex and relationship and motherhood impacts your life, and also about uh like culture and the like adoption industry essentially, and like how race plays into that, how like these like white Christian values play into that, how whiteness as like an ideal plays into that, and uh she reunites with her sister and um like gets to know her, and it's just extremely interesting. And so she ends up writing this this book about that whole experience. Um, highly recommend. That sounds really good. Within that book, um, like in the writing of the book, Tracy Clark Flory did a lot of research about these homes for unwed mothers post-World War II. And one of the books that she cites a lot in her research is this book called The Girls Who Went Away by uh Ann Fessler. Anne Fessler, um, she dedicated a whole bunch of time. This book came out in like the mid-2000s and like 2006, so it's a little dated, I would say. And the it's a book like based on interviews with dozens of women who were sent to homes for unwed mothers and coerced as a course into giving their children uh in like the 50s and 60s. She discusses the history of the women who surrendered their children and um like what were the cultural implications, like the cultural influences for why they had to give them away, their the way they were treated in the homes, the way that they uh some were reunited with their children and some were not, um the coercive nature of and like the different the cultural shift and understanding around adoption. I'm not quite done with it. I'm like 85% of the way done. It is, I will like, I would say it is heavy and like approach, it's very it's a lot of women's like she has long blocks of like transcriptions of interviews with these women and their experiences, and some of them are very traumatic. Sure. But it is really important because all of this happened before Roe v. Wade, yeah, and could very easily happen again after Roe v. Wade. And so it just like when she wrote this book, Roe was firmly in place, and there was not a threat of it going away. But um now it's gone, right? And it's important to know what like when people are like, yeah, but that there's many arguments now about like, oh yeah, well, there's adoption. Like we like in in um in the Dobbs decision, uh Justice Alito, like, and part of his like response to why he decided to strike down Roe is that um there's no like any any birth mother today could like assume that their child would end up, could like could reasonably assume their child would be placed in like a loving family. And that's not always true, and there's like also a great cost to all the parties involved, and the cost of forcing someone to have a baby, of forcing someone to have a child when they don't want to have a child, even just to carry it and give birth to it, is a lot. And this is the direct like these are the first hand accounts of the women who lived through that time. Um it's really good. That sounds really good, really heavy, heavy. Um, yeah, and also just a warning that this is a book that was published in 2006 of interviews that were done with women who had children in like the 50s and 60s. Sure. Sometimes they say some off-color things that or you use dated terms that we wouldn't necessarily use anymore, but yeah, that's what I've been reading recently. Cool. Great, less scary.
Final Thoughts And Next Time
AbigailI know, but you know what, you guys, we had model land to talk about, so I know. I I can do multitudes, yeah. Right, you guys are hanging out. We'll see you next time for more modeland. Bye. Bye.