Witchcraft For Wayward Girls Like Little Miss Fortune

The podcast returns yet again with a witchy new book and games that examine the consequences of the choices we make. 

Transcript

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Hey book lovers. My name is M and I want to talk about books. And cats. And life. Welcome back, book lovers. Sorry again for the delay, but life just keeps on lifing. And at the moment I'm just kind of holding on for the ride. I'm moving. It's been a consideration for a little while, but I was pretty convinced that I couldn't actually support myself and my boys on my own. And I have to say, like, some days I really wonder what my life would have been like had I not just let everyone else tell me who I was and what I could and could not do. Because my goodness, it's been a process. Uh I'm just so tired of being limited by other people's fears. And I'm so ready to just build my new life intentionally, uh, focused on myself and what I actually want out of life. It's exciting. So yeah, I signed the lease to my very first apartment on the same day that my youngest son officially became an adult. So I also got both of them through to adulthood successfully. I'm proud of myself. And that's definitely not the norm for me. Until very recently, I had a hard time feeling proud of anything that I did. Uh, but you really can't deny that one. They're awesome men. I'm very, very proud of them. And I even negotiated a little with the landlord to make the initial move-in a little bit easier for me financially. And this is something that I wouldn't have even considered trying even a year ago. If I had even gotten as far as meeting with the landlord, there is no way. I would have just either not been able to do it or suffered to make it work. Now, just because I actually asked for a little help, I am able to make it happen and maybe not completely suffer until my next paycheck. So that's pretty good. Anyway, life is very busy right now. And I used to always be like this, just have several projects going on, working, taking care of myself. And I kind of thrive in chaos, like I know that about myself. And now I'm just trying to find a balance because I definitely overcorrected in the other direction and just started doing absolutely nothing and not taking care of myself and not trying at anything and just kind of existing. And it's an interesting experience, but I don't recommend staying in that for very long. It's definitely not easy to find balance. On top of the somewhat sudden decision to move, I've also been working full-time, finishing my short story collection, which is coming out very soon, and I am so excited. I've been recording more audiobooks and just learning how to live a single life. Which I am loving, by the way. I've watched so much stressful stuff just kind of fall away as I realize that it's like never been mine to carry. And the lightness is incredible. It's somewhat unnerving after a lifetime of like heaviness and carrying all the weight, but like I like it. I think I am finally beginning to see where the next phase of my life is going. Things are kind of starting to take shape. And peace is definitely a focus, as well as creation. I saw this great post a while ago that said something along the lines of set a mantra for the month that you're going to create more than you consume. And that hit me like just right. The original post I think said for a week, but at the time I really wanted to focus on a full month of focusing on creation, working on my books, and also just trying to like save money and spend less. And it honestly ended up being perfect timing. It started out kind of rocky, but things kind of began to snowball. And after a month of intentional creation and somewhat more careful consuming, let's be real, things are starting to come together, and I'm just so excited for this new phase of life. In addition to putting out my new short story collection, What She Left Behind, there's a couple of books that are in the works at the moment. They're both at different points in the creation process, but I really love where both of them are going. And I'm feeling just really inspired right now. It's been a long time, and I think just letting go of the responsibility of the house and the past and everything has been just so freeing. It's been a really long time since I felt this inspired and hopeful. I love it. Anyway, let's get into this week's book. And freedom is definitely a theme throughout this one. A big one. Today I want to talk about Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendricks. And let me tell you, this book was a journey. An uncomfortable one at times, definitely. And it was meant to be so. The story is set in the early 1970s in the South, at a place called Wellwood House, which is a place where the humiliated parents of unwed pregnant teen girls can hide them until the baby is born and put up for adoption. Isn't it crazy that this was such a big deal really not that long ago? And now we have things like teen mom shows, like on television. It's crazy. Anyway, our main character is a 15-year-old named Neva, but she will be referred to as Fern while she is at Wellwood House. The girls are all given false names, uh, mostly after flowers, and they are not permitted to tell anyone their real identity. It's a really messed up situation, and the girls are demeaned and humiliated and forced to work hard at the house. There's a crappy doctor that just insults them and controls everything they do and eat. And the girls just have absolutely no autonomy. They are barely allowed to interact with each other, though Fern does manage to connect with a couple of the girls, one of whom is almost completely silent and younger than the rest of them. And I'd just like to remind you that Fern is only 15. There is one brief moment of joy for the girls during their mundane week, and that is when the bookmobile comes to Wellwood House. Fern immediately clicks with the odd woman who runs the little library, and she ends up giving Fern a book that is definitely not one that would be permitted at Wellwood House. It's called How to Be a Groovy Witch. And while it seems kind of silly at first, the girls try some of the spells and are amazed at the results. As the girls grow closer through their shared trauma and their magical practice, they share some of their history, including the stories of how they ended up at Wellwood House. And unsurprisingly, some of the stories are absolutely appalling. This leads the girls to try some of the harder and somewhat darker magic in the book. And while the spells do work, they soon learn that there is always a price to pay for magic. This book really angered me at times because of how terribly these girls were treated. And like I said, it was meant to do so. Grady Hendrix actually had two relatives who were sent to these homes, and they didn't talk about what happened until they were in their 70s. And this was after one of their secret children came and found them. Hendricks was so enraged by their stories and the overall treatment of these young girls, and he saw potential for weaving some horror folk magic into a story about one of these terrible places. And the combination works. The witchcraft part is handled fairly well. Like most fictional witchcraft, it somewhat aligns but also has a lot of added pizzazz. No complaints here. I loved it. It was wild, and I enjoyed every second. The girls are just surrounded on enemies at all sides, and there's almost no one that they can trust. Ultimately, there is a battle for who will have possession of the babies, and it's just excellent. This book was a lot of fun, well-being disturbing, and the setting is painted so well. I really enjoyed it, and I definitely recommend Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendricks. He writes fun, engaging, and surprising stories, all of them with a dark twist. I have covered another of his novels, The Final Girls Book Club, which I absolutely loved, and honestly, I talk about that one a lot. That has been one of my favorite reads in a while. I definitely recommend that one too, especially if you love a good horror movie. Moving on to something else horror-related and also somewhat tangentially book related. I want to talk about story-based video games. Just a little. I love this type of game. I am bad at modern video games. I am a child of the 90s. I grew up on old school Nintendo. I had the first Game Boy. Like that's where I'm at, you know? I really struggle with some of these like first-person shooter things. I'm looking at the sky, I don't know what's going on. But story-based video games are so much more simple and fun. They're definitely not too complex for someone with my limited video game ability. And they kind of remind me of Choose Your Own Adventure books, which was something that I loved as a kid. There was one that I vividly remember having that had a tower with like a skull on the top of it on the cover. I can't remember the name of it. I did every combination possible in that one. I loved that book. And I was fascinated by the way it was put together, too. But anyway, back to the games. Recently I have been playing a couple in particular, Little Miss Fortune and Until Dawn. Both games deal with severe consequences for the choices that you make, but they are very different games. Until Dawn is big on the whole idea of the butterfly effect. I also like that you can just play it over and over because there are like 250 different route combinations or something, and there's like three different main endings. You can end up with all of the characters surviving, none of them left at all, or really any combination in between. And honestly, it's kind of fun to set goals and try to save certain characters. My son and I have played this game probably like way too many times, but it is always such a blast. Little Misfortune is a totally different style, and it gives you a lot of info right away, though you may not catch it all if you're not fully paying attention, which when you're first starting the game and you're trying to take it all in, you might miss some stuff. And you know me, I love a good reveal, and this game has a really good reveal. I love the character of Little Miss Fortune, and I love a creepy narrator. You add in a black cat and you know I'm sold. This was a short game, but it was so worth it, and definitely one of my favorites for sure. Let's see, in Catland, I wanted to give some time to my boy Apollo in the last episode, but there has been another addition to the herd as well, which you've probably seen if you follow the Books and Cats Instagram. A customer at the dispensary came in a while back, and she said she had kittens who needed homes. They had been dropped off by a farmer who told her that he was going to kill them if she didn't take them. Yeah. There are guys like that around here. It's sick. So yeah, I couldn't say no, really. She brought in this little black kitten, a little girl with a teeny tiny white patch on her tummy. And she just snuggled in immediately. She is the sweetest little thing, and I just knew she was joining the crew. So we added Rosie. She is a spunky little black kitten who has been accepted so smoothly into the group and just become instant best friends with the two younger cats, Dozer and Apollo. They play so hard sometimes that it sounds like there is a grown man jumping around upstairs. My life right now is just becoming so beautiful and full of love, and I don't really know how to express how grateful my heart is. I'm getting to build this comfy, dreamy life and fill it with cats and writing and reading books, of course. As I said earlier, I am diligently editing my books right now. It's tedious and it is hard to find time and motivation. And it is hard to find the time and motivation to do it when I'm working so much and, you know, moving. But I just can't let them go. They need to be shared. At the same time, I already have a new story that's beginning to percolate in the back of my brain. I just got this new idea today, and I think it's something that I can definitely expand upon, which is so exciting. You gotta keep the flow going, you know? It's nice to know that you have something coming next. I have been so busy with work and my crazy life this year that I kind of thought writing might be done for real. Again, I know. I am definitely overdramatic and tend to immediately jump to extremes. I can't take a break or have an uninspired period of time. Obviously, it's the end of my lifelong goal. Right. Calm down, um, come back to reality. Or at least come a little closer. Now let's do the quote of the week. This week's quote is one that I found on Instagram at Raven underscore Corvus underscore. They have some great quotes. This one is I am just as passionate about my poisons as I am about my pleasures. May both be the death of me. And this made me pause when I saw it. I have always gone into things 1000%. Like I just said, I go to extremes. And that goes for good and not so good. And honestly, I have focused strongly on my poisons for most of my life. I've really pushed it in that area. Pleasures have never really seemed like they were available to me. Good things only seem to be meant for other people. But as my life turns more toward ease and peace, I'm excited to try the idea of diving more into taking care of myself and nurturing little M. I'm not entirely sure where I am going right now, but I am in a nice, comfy place where I can at least rest a little bit and heal and decide what I want my future to look like. And it's really exciting. This has been a very transformative time for me and my entire family. Life just keeps moving forward and there really is no stopping it or even slowing it down, no matter what you try. But time just goes by, regardless. That's all for this one, book lovers. Thank you so much for joining me, for putting up with the delays, and just being with me on this journey through my insane life. If you have any book suggestions, please send them to the Instagram at books.cats.pod and hop on over to the Substack to check out my blog. There is going to be a lot more coming soon. Just gotta get done moving. I appreciate you all so much, and I hope you have a beautiful week. Until next time, keep reading.