Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that's very two thousand and
Speaker 1: one in here. There's a lot of we're going to
Speaker 1: get into it, like diet culture and the tanning bed.
Speaker 2: Transferring your airline tickets to someone else.
Speaker 3: Why was this book written and who was it written for?
Speaker 2: Get her at the airport, make dinner, invite fifty people
Speaker 2: to a holiday gathering.
Speaker 1: It was surprising to me. I was like, that's something
Speaker 1: I could Is that something I could do?
Speaker 2: Yes, you could, but you would No human would ever
Speaker 2: do it the way Luther Crank did it.
Speaker 3: Did read a book in the third grade called The
Speaker 3: Big Orange Spot and it felt very similar to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's almost one step below like Peter Rabbit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hello everyone, and welcome back to Mean Book Club.
Speaker 1: This week we read Skipping Christmas by that old man
Speaker 1: who's a lawyer.
Speaker 5: John Grisham.
Speaker 1: It wasn't written at the top of the outline. It
Speaker 1: was enough to throw me. Yeah, that old far John Grisham.
Speaker 1: A classic, a Christmas classic. And this is our big finale.
Speaker 1: Woo hell yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. If you guys
Speaker 1: haven't listened to us, we are Mean book Club, where
Speaker 1: you read New York Times bestsellers that you tell us
Speaker 1: maybe shouldn't be as always. I'm one of your hosts,
Speaker 1: Sarah Burton, I'm Jonas Gravis, I'm Sabrina b Jordan and
Speaker 1: Clara Morris will be joining us shortly, but we have
Speaker 1: another aand a big ant. Sabrina, go ahead do the honors.
Speaker 3: Oh, I would love to introduce our very special guest,
Speaker 3: Jonathan Fernandez. Jonathan is an Afro Latino actor slash filmmaker
Speaker 3: from Brooklyn slash the Poconos.
Speaker 2: You you're not from the Poconos.
Speaker 1: You're from Pennsylvania. I can you know?
Speaker 5: Okay, that's fair.
Speaker 3: You've seen Jonathan on Gossip Girl, Lethal Weapon, Younger Girls,
Speaker 3: Bull other stuff on stage.
Speaker 5: In your wildest dreams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, standing behind you right now?
Speaker 6: Oh, look behind you.
Speaker 4: I'm here everywhere.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Jonathan. We're so excited to have you here.
Speaker 6: So I'm so hyped.
Speaker 4: It's really nice to to do this kind of thing
Speaker 4: in general, but when you're doing with friends, it's even
Speaker 4: it's very special.
Speaker 1: We have known you for a long time. I sure
Speaker 1: get into that. And I also want to say I
Speaker 1: appreciate the Christmas spirit you brought with the whole Santa outfit.
Speaker 7: You're wearing it looks really good.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Well I haven't taken it off in like two months.
Speaker 4: It's gone a little weird and people have been asking
Speaker 4: me a question about it.
Speaker 8: But it's dirty. It's very dirty looking.
Speaker 4: It started off as a Halloween costume. I was just like,
Speaker 4: I don't know, I think I can write this out.
Speaker 7: That would be a fun social experience, wouldn't it be?
Speaker 1: All right? Okay, So, Sabrina, how why.
Speaker 7: Are we reading Skipping Christmas?
Speaker 5: Oh, I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: We're reading Christmas because of STEFFI And she said, Hi, y'all,
Speaker 3: hope you're having a good holiday season. I was just
Speaker 3: discussing the movie Christmas with the Kranks with some friends
Speaker 3: and learned that it is based on a New York
Speaker 3: Times bestseller by John Grisham called Skipping Christmas. This might
Speaker 3: be a good one to cover next holiday season. Happy
Speaker 3: Holidays from Houston, Texas or Houston.
Speaker 1: I knew it, I y'all, I heard. I knew. I
Speaker 1: knew it, had knew.
Speaker 3: And I have to say that it wasn't until I
Speaker 3: was making this outline forty five minutes ago that I
Speaker 3: knew that this became oh no.
Speaker 5: Sorry, Christmas with the Cranks.
Speaker 3: It was three hours ago, and I learned it became
Speaker 3: Christmas with the Crank.
Speaker 5: But no, you put it on.
Speaker 1: Oh and tried to watch. You did not figure it
Speaker 1: out by the name. I said, exactly. Harker's last name
Speaker 1: was Crank, Wasn't it yet?
Speaker 8: I guess struck you as familiar.
Speaker 2: Not even the recommendation from Stephie, which I guess you're
Speaker 2: hearing for the first time now.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I guess I heard it when we
Speaker 3: talked about it months ago.
Speaker 5: To map out this you forgotten.
Speaker 3: But I've got to say, Christmas with the Kranks is
Speaker 3: not one that really stuck with me.
Speaker 1: So I've never seen it.
Speaker 7: I've never seen it.
Speaker 4: I will say it definitely is like an like a
Speaker 4: ben Kenobe versus obi Wan Kanobe situation, where like Luke
Speaker 4: is like I'm not even the biggest Star Wars fan,
Speaker 4: where he's like ban Kenobe.
Speaker 6: I wonder if that if I wonderful obi Wan bank Knobe.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 6: It's all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's gotta be the Crank, Christmas Christmas skipping
Speaker 1: Christmas Crank.
Speaker 4: But I was I was similar to that when I
Speaker 4: was like, Cranks is a very specific surname. I wonder
Speaker 4: if it's Christmas and Cranks, but I didn't look it
Speaker 4: up until the end of the book and I.
Speaker 8: Was like, oh, yeah, it is that exact same.
Speaker 2: And as I was reading, though, I was like or
Speaker 2: I was listening, I was like, this is starting to
Speaker 2: feel like just a movie. I've never seen it, but
Speaker 2: it felt so much much like like a trailer I've seen.
Speaker 8: I was like, it has to be.
Speaker 1: I didn't know who was in it or anything. I did,
Speaker 1: well it Well, no, you'll get to it, so bread it.
Speaker 1: You get to it. But first, how did everyone consume
Speaker 1: this book?
Speaker 7: Did you do audiobook?
Speaker 1: Did you read it?
Speaker 2: Did you how did everyone find the time to do
Speaker 2: the four hour audio book?
Speaker 8: Okay, and he really killed me.
Speaker 1: I did do audiobook, but I was I saw it
Speaker 1: was four hours, and then I think I like dawdled
Speaker 1: a little bit, like I was like four hours easy.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, oh shit, we're got to
Speaker 1: record this. How did I not? It was the first
Speaker 1: half of it was slow for me, so it took
Speaker 1: a while.
Speaker 3: But yeah, audiobook, yeah, I was audiobook as well. Used
Speaker 3: the subscription I now have and it was three time
Speaker 3: speed two times when I was driving, because you have
Speaker 3: to multitask in a different way when you're driving.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it was like not enough time for you.
Speaker 2: I know for a fact you were doing this driving
Speaker 2: to and from Pittsburgh. You couldn't have spared four you
Speaker 2: had four hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I had another book that I had to listen to,
Speaker 3: and I also finished that book on that drive as well,
Speaker 3: and that book was longer.
Speaker 4: What did you listen to that book on same same.
Speaker 1: Same Okay, kept least you're consistent, Jonathan. How did you
Speaker 1: consume this book?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 6: I consumed the via the og way.
Speaker 1: Oh it was.
Speaker 6: It was told to me by a fire.
Speaker 1: Old oral cats as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and so that to interpret a lot from these
Speaker 6: cave drawings.
Speaker 4: But the Yeah, it was interesting because it's like even
Speaker 4: just like two weeks out and I was like, oh man,
Speaker 4: it's already kind of like a little late, like I
Speaker 4: should have started this already, and I had not opened
Speaker 4: the book. And then when I opened it and look
Speaker 4: at it that it was like seventy two fonts and
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, this is fine.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was one of our best recommendations in terms of
Speaker 1: book length, Like we've gotten some that are like killer.
Speaker 7: And this was yeah, thank you, Steffie.
Speaker 4: It's one step below like Peter Rabbit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was a beautiful Christmas present for us, Stepfie.
Speaker 8: It really was like, wow, wow, Yeah.
Speaker 2: This was a This was a fun one to uh
Speaker 2: to read and listen to.
Speaker 1: I'll see the audiobook narrator, I think did not did
Speaker 1: not really make any attempt to do many voices. It
Speaker 1: just felt like everything felt pretty.
Speaker 5: From Luther Crank's mind, which is.
Speaker 1: Like the different usually I feel like I'm like, I'm
Speaker 1: guessing this because it's from like two thousand and one
Speaker 1: or whenever this book is from.
Speaker 7: But uh, yeah.
Speaker 8: We knew how to do voice.
Speaker 1: I feel like the audio books weren't a big thing
Speaker 1: as big of a thing maybe and they were just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: just do the same voice for every character whatever. I
Speaker 1: will say.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not even an actor, but there were certain
Speaker 2: line deliveries where I was like, really, you're just gonna
Speaker 2: miss that whole joke, like that whole.
Speaker 8: Yes, he was not my most favorite narrator.
Speaker 7: Narrator, but we'll go, We'll keep going to do us.
Speaker 4: I used to nu be into audiobooks and then I
Speaker 4: had gotten. I started the one for the uh, the
Speaker 4: the spy who came in from the cold, And that's
Speaker 4: like one of the og spy thrillers written in like
Speaker 4: by a guy who was actually a spy, John Lecare,
Speaker 4: but he's like a pen name because he was a
Speaker 4: real ass spi drant time, so he couldn't write under
Speaker 4: his own name. Wow, and it was like cold War,
Speaker 4: Berlin Wall all that stuff. But like the way he
Speaker 4: read it, and like he actually really highlighted for me,
Speaker 4: like how terse and clipped the language of the main
Speaker 4: character was because he would like when I was reading it,
Speaker 4: I was just like reading, but then like hearing him
Speaker 4: being like, oh he almost always answers in like one
Speaker 4: word or like only said, and it just like and
Speaker 4: he would really lean into that and do the other
Speaker 4: voices and the like accents from all around the world
Speaker 4: and stuff like.
Speaker 6: This is delightful. I was like super supper into it.
Speaker 8: Oh that sounds great.
Speaker 2: And honestly, thanks for the wreck, because I feel like
Speaker 2: we have to listen to so many bad things.
Speaker 8: It hurts us nice to share a good wreck. It's
Speaker 8: people ask for them all the time, so we say
Speaker 8: mush of the author's name.
Speaker 1: They get it, Sabrina doing to sum it up for us?
Speaker 1: Or what have you scripted something something?
Speaker 3: I had a crazy idea that I think you'll lash
Speaker 3: out at me for.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, but but we don't have to do it.
Speaker 3: But I was just thinking, and I think a season
Speaker 3: finale is the perfect time to change up the format
Speaker 3: of how we do things. Okay, go ahead, but okay,
Speaker 3: here's just the pitch is, like, what if we did
Speaker 3: the other stuff the author and then the book summary,
Speaker 3: and then like did the summary?
Speaker 7: Sure?
Speaker 5: That's a great really sure.
Speaker 3: Because I feel like this memory really flows into talking
Speaker 3: about the book.
Speaker 1: Okay, are we stupid?
Speaker 8: How did we never do this before?
Speaker 7: I don't know, do that?
Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah, of course you're.
Speaker 6: Listening to it two times to speed other bandwidth.
Speaker 8: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Okay, gang, here's what we're pairing with this book. It
Speaker 2: is a new Trail brewing co. No idea where that's
Speaker 2: from or how you could possibly get it. A sticky
Speaker 2: Imperial milk porter. The can is designed to look like
Speaker 2: snow is falling along the top, sort of sitting on
Speaker 2: the eat.
Speaker 3: It falls on Christmas, you know, just for all the listeners,
Speaker 3: it seems like beer foam to me, or milk maybe ship.
Speaker 7: Okay, it's a stretch.
Speaker 1: It's a stretch where let's let her. Let's let her
Speaker 1: do the stretch letter.
Speaker 2: Because it's brewed with coffee, maple syrup and bakingnose is
Speaker 2: snow on the ten percent and it's a sixteen fluid
Speaker 2: out so I'm gonna be pretty toast.
Speaker 1: It's all right. I got some like the.
Speaker 6: Term baking spice.
Speaker 8: What is that? It could it be?
Speaker 1: It's a random spice. It is like a bunch of
Speaker 1: spices together. It's like not mags, and it's.
Speaker 4: Like but just like I don't know, just one of them.
Speaker 2: You're letting people take a lot of liberty with your
Speaker 2: recipe if you go like it's cookies, just a yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe just yeah.
Speaker 7: You're just trying to keep it hidden.
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm not telling you what. It's a baking spice, bitch.
Speaker 1: So yeah.
Speaker 2: And the reason we're drinking this is it obviously fits
Speaker 2: out with the Christmas theme. There's all that snow on
Speaker 2: the roof that's not beer foam, and it was in
Speaker 2: my mom's fridge and I'm in my mom's house right now,
Speaker 2: and they have quite the beer fridge. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: anything you.
Speaker 7: Could, thank goodness, thank goodness.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 2: I'm mostly very old from parties that it didn't get
Speaker 2: consumed at years old.
Speaker 8: But it's there. It's anything you want, all right.
Speaker 5: That sounds great?
Speaker 8: Yeah, so pair it up, folks.
Speaker 5: Great, pair it squawks.
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, what.
Speaker 1: For me? Okay, okay, go ahead, Sabrina, do the thing
Speaker 1: you wanted to do now?
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay. So I'm gonna talk about the author.
Speaker 3: It's going to be an abridged author summary because we've
Speaker 3: read this man before. But John grishamish American novelist, lawyer,
Speaker 3: and former politician known for his best selling legal thrillers. He,
Speaker 3: according to many Internet websites, is a top ten most
Speaker 3: wealthy author, which is something I personally admire, loving money.
Speaker 3: And he practiced criminal law for about ten years and
Speaker 3: then he served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty three to nineteen ninety. Now, everyone, I would
Speaker 3: like you all to guess his political party.
Speaker 7: Independent, but you.
Speaker 5: Looked it up. Okay, you don't get to guests.
Speaker 8: I'm going to say Republican.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you're you're both wrong. No, he's a Democrat.
Speaker 4: From Mississippi representative.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: And it's actually in the eighties when it was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I guess that's.
Speaker 1: When it started to fall apart for the Democrats in Mississippi.
Speaker 1: I feel like they were at theirs. It was like
Speaker 1: the last gasp of breath there.
Speaker 3: Well, he became a politician actually because he was appalled
Speaker 3: at Mississippi's national image.
Speaker 5: So I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 6: Is that where that the this the McConaughey Sam Jackson movie.
Speaker 8: Yes, that was in Mississippi.
Speaker 3: I don't remember if it was based in Mississippi, but
Speaker 3: I do know that it was like based on on something.
Speaker 3: It wasn't a case of his, but it was like
Speaker 3: he had heard the girl testify in court when he
Speaker 3: was an attorney.
Speaker 2: What if this movie we're talking about, it's called A
Speaker 2: Time to Kill?
Speaker 7: Oh, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: That was his first But I tried to look up
Speaker 3: some Christmas related facts about John Grisham, and all I
Speaker 3: really found was that he's a member of the University
Speaker 3: Baptist Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, but he opposes a literalist
Speaker 3: understanding of the Bible and endorses separation of church and state.
Speaker 9: Very Christmas yeah, interesting, Like his his opinions are interesting
Speaker 9: to me, Like, it's not surprising that I was sort
Speaker 9: of like, I think he might be a Republican and
Speaker 9: Jonathan was like, I think he's a dependent because I
Speaker 9: feel like he is able to capture like the nuances.
Speaker 5: It was Sarah, that's it.
Speaker 2: It was, Oh my god, your voices are really similar.
Speaker 8: It's gonna be hard for people listening to tell.
Speaker 6: You that's favorite audiobook.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like he has a good understanding of like
Speaker 2: all different types of people. Like obviously he's written political
Speaker 2: thrillers that sort of touch on like the unjustice of
Speaker 2: the world and people that have been wronged through the
Speaker 2: legal system. And then this book was all about like
Speaker 2: a very clearly Republican neighborhood and he knew it inside
Speaker 2: and out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, which is interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean, we'll talk about it more later, but part
Speaker 3: of me wonders if it was commentary on what he'd experienced.
Speaker 7: But perhaps so.
Speaker 5: Anyway, some non Christmas max about him.
Speaker 3: He was and is really into baseball, and he kind
Speaker 3: of wanted to be like a major league player. He
Speaker 3: in community college, however, was he wanted to play, but
Speaker 3: he got benched, and then to him and two of
Speaker 3: his friends whose names are Logan and Parker Pickle no yes,
Speaker 3: and John Grisham. They all transferred to another school so
Speaker 3: that he could like re up his baseball career.
Speaker 5: That also did not work.
Speaker 2: What good friends they packed in their lives grish could
Speaker 2: try to get on the baseball.
Speaker 1: How how did they help them? What did he They
Speaker 1: just like throw him easy pitches and one was a
Speaker 1: pitcher and every time I don't understand what they were doing.
Speaker 3: I think potentially they too wanted to be wanted their
Speaker 3: little baseball take off and it didn't happen.
Speaker 7: Bid things like that. That's too bad, very.
Speaker 5: Very They're great baseball names, all of them. Parker Pickle,
Speaker 5: I mean I draft him.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Pickle is a game and that you play in baseball?
Speaker 5: Is it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? It's like pickle is or you get in a pickle.
Speaker 4: And I wonder actually where that's where the phrase comes from.
Speaker 4: Where it's like if you runner is caught. This is
Speaker 4: actually going to make me seem like I'm the biggest
Speaker 4: baseball slash jock fan or jock person.
Speaker 2: I'm two hundred years old, like I was the first
Speaker 2: baseball game.
Speaker 8: What if this stands yelled at.
Speaker 4: When there's a runners stuck between a base two bases
Speaker 4: and you see you've seen it happen before, and you
Speaker 4: like they throw it at each other like the to
Speaker 4: try to tag him. That's in a pickle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, Parker pickle, I mean practically invented it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, amazing.
Speaker 5: He should get royalties.
Speaker 3: Also, I do think that using the phrase a jock
Speaker 3: person will assuage people's concerns that you are.
Speaker 8: Okay, but you.
Speaker 1: Are a jock person.
Speaker 6: I try to.
Speaker 4: I try to, like any time that I could squeeze
Speaker 4: in a little bit of masculinity that I don't have,
Speaker 4: I just try to, like, you know, shoehorn that in.
Speaker 1: Is this the time we should mention you were a
Speaker 1: big ten cheerleader.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I grew up.
Speaker 4: I mean I was.
Speaker 6: I was a code switched to the max.
Speaker 4: Like I was a jock and a nerd and artist
Speaker 4: and I would just like floated through Yeah, I floated
Speaker 4: through a lot of different circles.
Speaker 7: That's impressive.
Speaker 3: Good one like me too, me too, So the readers
Speaker 3: know I puffed my hair.
Speaker 5: Anyway. John Grisham. He is on the board of Directors
Speaker 5: of the Innocence Project.
Speaker 1: That sounds good.
Speaker 5: That sounds good, Well, I think it.
Speaker 3: I like Jonah thought he was probably a Republican and
Speaker 3: being on the board of directors of the Innocence Project.
Speaker 3: I don't know for certain, but I would bet all
Speaker 3: the money I have that they are not any of
Speaker 3: them Republicans.
Speaker 5: And he thinks, I this is just me.
Speaker 3: On parts of his Wikipedia page that I liked, he
Speaker 3: thinks that the prison population is too high. He cites
Speaker 3: examples including black teenager and minor drug charges, and then
Speaker 3: he goes on to cite those who had viewed child
Speaker 3: porn online.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: He controversially added that he believed that not all viewers
Speaker 3: of child pornography are necessarily pedophiles.
Speaker 5: I will say that there is.
Speaker 3: Additional information that part I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3: But then digging a little bit further, he.
Speaker 7: Says, what did you find out? Yeah, I don't know if.
Speaker 3: He was Basically like, he thinks that there are people
Speaker 3: who think that they're watching adult pornography and they're duped
Speaker 3: and its children.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like something that happened to his friend,
Speaker 1: and his friend tried to be like.
Speaker 5: You didn't have no, I didn't have no.
Speaker 1: All right now, sorry, Park got himself in a que.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but he did say real pedophiles should be prosecuted
Speaker 3: to the full extent.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, Great.
Speaker 4: It's interesting to like reform or restorative justice for this.
Speaker 4: But like it is interesting because like our society often
Speaker 4: wants to have it both ways, which with like things
Speaker 4: that are less than.
Speaker 6: Things that are bad, I'll say that.
Speaker 4: And so like because it's like, hey, look at all
Speaker 4: the money that we spend on advertisement for like you know,
Speaker 4: fake snow on beer mugs or whatever, and like just
Speaker 4: like alcohol and all that stuff. But then also like
Speaker 4: the person who is an AA, it's like, well, that
Speaker 4: guy couldn't handle it, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like but it's like you're pushing and like pushing
Speaker 4: pushing drink as much as possible, but like, oh man,
Speaker 4: this guy has a you have a problem actually now
Speaker 4: or like hey, all these casinos and gambling, but it's
Speaker 4: like if you have a problem it, but nobody cares
Speaker 4: about that part. And so my point is that like
Speaker 4: you know, with porn sites and stuff like that, like
Speaker 4: so much of it is like you know, barely legal and.
Speaker 6: Like eighteen plums y, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: And then so when you do catch it in different
Speaker 4: ways that are like, well, I don't even know where
Speaker 4: this comes from, and like that doesn't mean that this
Speaker 4: is also per and who's like trafficking people slash trading
Speaker 4: like actual child pornography and like it has hard drives
Speaker 4: of it and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're defending Pickle, like what He's like.
Speaker 4: Hey, remember you guys followed me to a whole different
Speaker 4: university so we could play ball. Do you guys want
Speaker 4: to also join the House of Representatives Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Built Yeah yeah, And they're like yeah, sure, dude, Oh
Speaker 1: my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah no, this is such a complex, nuanced thing and
Speaker 2: like I'd love to just you know, turn the podcast off,
Speaker 2: have a big long conversation about it.
Speaker 1: Oh, let's do it now. I'm just kidding, Uh, Sabrina,
Speaker 1: what else? Wait about him?
Speaker 5: Oh? So okay.
Speaker 3: As of twenty twenty, he had written thirty seven consecutive
Speaker 3: number one fiction bestsellers.
Speaker 5: He's written more books than that total.
Speaker 7: That's just hunny.
Speaker 2: Number ones though consecutive? Wow wow, I know it's almost
Speaker 2: like he wasn't right all of them, probably, but probably yes.
Speaker 5: They're probably, I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 5: My friend John Grisham, I think he was.
Speaker 2: I love how you were, like, we've already done, John,
Speaker 2: We're on point G on your list now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a through G were Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: His first novel, A Time to Kill, which was not
Speaker 3: immediately a bestseller, was published the month I was born.
Speaker 1: You want to say that, sure, you want to say that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah, great, I'm glad. It was published in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, yes, nineteen.
Speaker 6: Ninety eight, twenty five or twenty.
Speaker 3: Six, I am twenty seventy legal, fairly legal, and then
Speaker 3: Ten of his novels have been adapted into feature films,
Speaker 3: and six projects have had some form of TV adaptation
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 5: This book was published.
Speaker 3: On November six, two thousand and one, also the month
Speaker 3: I was born, and it's a holiday comedy.
Speaker 5: It was number one.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, so most of his books are like legal thrillers.
Speaker 5: This one is not.
Speaker 1: That is audible for that, Okay, Sure.
Speaker 4: I will say I'm surprised, like especially if he had
Speaker 4: written thirty seven consecutive number one fiction bestsellers, that's not
Speaker 4: the amount of books he's written.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, he's won more so partially, I think it's
Speaker 3: because the citation was from twenty twenty and I wasn't
Speaker 3: going to do the research on the rest of his books.
Speaker 4: But my poem is going to be that Like that,
Speaker 4: like ten movies, six TV adaptations, feels like of what
Speaker 4: I know of him, or I thought I knew of him.
Speaker 6: That feels like a low number to the amount of place.
Speaker 7: That's fair.
Speaker 5: I totally agree. I was shocked because.
Speaker 6: I was looking up. I was like, oh, yeah, movie, movie, movie, movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I thought basically everything he wrote became a movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but fewer than I hadn't imagined.
Speaker 1: Jonathan, maybe can pitch some things, pitch.
Speaker 4: The Pelican brief This time it's about underwear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a good start.
Speaker 4: Pelican briefs.
Speaker 8: This one from me.
Speaker 3: This book in particular, was a number one New York Times,
Speaker 3: which makes sense of thirty seven consecutive number one New
Speaker 3: York Times bestsellers. It's a part of it I did.
Speaker 3: I did that research into the reverse. So I was
Speaker 3: shocked that this one was a number one. But if
Speaker 3: knowing that basically everything he's doing consecutively is it does
Speaker 3: make sense.
Speaker 5: It was interesting. It stayed so it was the like
Speaker 5: December that it came out.
Speaker 3: Basically, it was a number one New York Times bestseller
Speaker 3: and it stayed on the list and later, like in
Speaker 3: February of the next year, there was another John Grisham
Speaker 3: book that was number one on the New York Times
Speaker 3: bestseller list at the same time. And this is the
Speaker 3: same time that The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen was another list.
Speaker 1: Jonathan, that's another book we did this season.
Speaker 3: I've not read it, and well, Jona thinks it's a masterpiece.
Speaker 7: It's good, it's good.
Speaker 3: But it's just funny to me that that book was
Speaker 3: number eight the same week that this book was number ten,
Speaker 3: which like, yes, this book was lower, but the comparison
Speaker 3: is so incredible.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, this book was adapted to be the
Speaker 3: Christmas movie Christmas with the Crank.
Speaker 1: When did that come out?
Speaker 3: And it came out, I want to say in two
Speaker 3: thousand and four with Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Speaker 8: Really picturing Tim Allen the whole time I was reading that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Okay, I was it, but I see it.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know, I don't quite it wasn't.
Speaker 6: It wasn't Santa Claus like he's done so many that
Speaker 6: he does.
Speaker 1: It is easier for Christmas. But I didn't feel this.
Speaker 7: I wasn't picturing him.
Speaker 8: I wasn't how and Dan Ackroyd as Vic Fromyer.
Speaker 1: Oh I heard Dan Fackroyd was in it. Oh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a small role in the film.
Speaker 8: Okay, big role in the book.
Speaker 5: Big role in the book.
Speaker 3: I was picturing Tom Hanks the whole time because I
Speaker 3: felt like the lead character was so similar to the guy.
Speaker 5: And a man called, Oh, yes, that's.
Speaker 1: More what I was feeling too, the kind of yeah.
Speaker 1: But I guess he really wanted to kill himself. I
Speaker 1: feel like this guy made jokes about killing himself but
Speaker 1: didn't actually wasn't actually ever that close to killing himself.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: When you all read a book, do you often picture
Speaker 4: movie stars, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: This was because Tom Hanks is in that movie. And
Speaker 3: so when I read the book that time, I didn't
Speaker 3: know he was in the movie. Then I watched the
Speaker 3: movie afterwards, so that has him in my mind for
Speaker 3: that character. And then this character reminded me of that character.
Speaker 1: So I don't always but it's it's a fun thing
Speaker 1: to do to think about when you're talking to people.
Speaker 1: Also helps get people to understand a.
Speaker 7: Character, I guess. But all the characters are the characters.
Speaker 8: All the characters are like me.
Speaker 2: When I'm reading it, It's like I'm the main girl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then I'm like the main boy.
Speaker 8: Basically just me as a boy, I'm the bad guy.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't really, I didn't have. I feel
Speaker 1: like some people might really like Luther Crank the main
Speaker 1: character because I feel like I saw people comedy like
Speaker 1: it was like my dad or whatever, and I was.
Speaker 7: Like, I don't know this person, but I don't know
Speaker 7: he was he was. Okay.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff that's very two thousand and
Speaker 1: one in here. There's a lot of we're gonna get
Speaker 1: into it, like diet culture and the tanning transferring your
Speaker 1: airline tickets to someone else.
Speaker 6: Yeah, there's there are few.
Speaker 4: Most of it was just like, man, this is dated
Speaker 4: in a way that I'm like, we either have not
Speaker 4: gone past this in a way that we should have,
Speaker 4: or like we or just like feels like forever ago.
Speaker 4: But that was one where I'm like, yeah, so many
Speaker 4: movies like prior to September eleventh, it is like, yeah,
Speaker 4: their premises just would not work.
Speaker 1: No, right, right right the whole. It's also just hard
Speaker 1: to imagine someone being so rude as to not give
Speaker 1: their parents heads up they decided to fly home.
Speaker 6: A lot to say about that, Okay, all right, Hilaria.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sent me on a little like spiral of
Speaker 3: trying to I immediately left the spiral, So I don't
Speaker 3: have an answer for this, But I was like, how
Speaker 3: do people know how to buy airline tickets before the internet?
Speaker 3: Which I like the Internet call numbers probably kind of exists,
Speaker 3: but I was like, did you did a little one?
Speaker 1: Did you have to call airport? You look at the schedule,
Speaker 1: you to call the airline.
Speaker 4: That's why the travel agency was such a great uh
Speaker 4: uh service, because it's like you had a person who like,
Speaker 4: I've used one. I mean now it's a billion years ago,
Speaker 4: but like it was really nice being like, hey, where
Speaker 4: should I go?
Speaker 6: They're like, well, what are you looking for?
Speaker 4: They're like these places, this is the most affordable, and
Speaker 4: when you're there. I stayed at this resort and it's lovely.
Speaker 4: You would like blah bla blah blah, And I went
Speaker 4: there last year and they just like have done all
Speaker 4: the things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's really nice to get that.
Speaker 4: It's way better reading like a a shitty review and
Speaker 4: like trip advisor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have no idea who wrote it and
Speaker 1: what their contacts are. But okay, but wait, before we
Speaker 1: keep going, I want to just we got to do
Speaker 1: the summary.
Speaker 5: Yeah, pushed it back.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to you. Ready to go to it, Serena? Yeah?
Speaker 5: Hell yeah?
Speaker 2: Okay, Wait, and I got to listeners. Let us know
Speaker 2: did this work for you? Did it make you mad?
Speaker 1: I know how I feel, but I don't want to.
Speaker 5: Okay, I So here, here are the roles. I thought Clara.
Speaker 3: I would give Clara a little more time, but you're
Speaker 3: still not here.
Speaker 5: So the roles are up for grabs.
Speaker 3: Luther just a standalone role, Norah a standalone roll, Blair
Speaker 3: and boy scout, and then random persons A neighbors and
Speaker 3: firemen are paired together.
Speaker 7: So I'll do Norah.
Speaker 5: Oh that's the best role. I think.
Speaker 1: It was gonna be my role.
Speaker 2: But I'll let you have it, all right, Jonathan, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna let you pick next.
Speaker 4: I mean, have a lot, all.
Speaker 7: Right, good, yeah, good, great?
Speaker 8: Okay.
Speaker 2: I can be Blair and boy scouts.
Speaker 5: And I'll be random person, bully, neighbor and Fireman.
Speaker 1: Great, let's gone, we got it and Blake some Christmas music,
Speaker 1: some jingles, you got it, put it behind us, Let's
Speaker 1: do it. Ho ho ho. I can't wait for Christmas
Speaker 1: this year, but it will be so lonely with our
Speaker 1: only daughter off to Peru for the Peace Corps.
Speaker 4: I think that we spent too much money on Christmas
Speaker 4: in general.
Speaker 1: I love this.
Speaker 8: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, there's very grunny.
Speaker 8: But I was very just improvise the whole time.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Jonathan, we do imbrov. It makes sense that you
Speaker 1: assumed we were talking like we were going to do imbrov, but.
Speaker 8: We didn't tell you where it was.
Speaker 1: But I actually am wondering, Sabrina, would you be mad
Speaker 1: if we just did this with us? Like you know,
Speaker 1: what is that called gravid water? Where we did like
Speaker 1: we read the script but the other day, oh yeah
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well not grabbed water, but there's one that that
Speaker 4: Brian Morbido does.
Speaker 1: A cat Oh okay, okay, okay, or Sabrina, do you
Speaker 1: want to tell them where the script is? You're called
Speaker 1: you wrote it script?
Speaker 5: I mean we can do we can do it either way.
Speaker 1: We'll do any product down later we should do one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't have seen, but you know it shows
Speaker 2: that you just did gravit water because you were basically
Speaker 2: word perfect already often when all of us started laughing,
Speaker 2: you truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, alright, right, all right, start that Christmas music up again, Blake.
Speaker 1: Let's go ho ho o. I can't wait for Christmas
Speaker 1: this year, but it will be so lonely with our
Speaker 1: only daughter off to Peru for the Peace Corps.
Speaker 6: More like, ho ho humbug. I have a great idea.
Speaker 4: Let's give Christmas aalt again there and go on a
Speaker 4: cruise that takes off on December twenty fifth.
Speaker 10: Oh you mean like we would still do our favorite
Speaker 10: things like trim the tree, invite our friends over for
Speaker 10: the annual party, get each other kiss, and then cap
Speaker 10: it off with a delightful Caribean cruise.
Speaker 4: No, I mean we don't do a single fucking merry
Speaker 4: little thing. We take these couple of weeks of diet
Speaker 4: and tan.
Speaker 6: Instead, we'll save boo coo box.
Speaker 1: Okay, this sounds good, No questions asked.
Speaker 8: H Hi, I'm mister crank. You excited to buy Christmas
Speaker 8: tree from us?
Speaker 2: Cute little boy scouts only seventy five dollars.
Speaker 4: Buzz off, I'm skipping Christmas. I'll give you three hundred
Speaker 4: bones in the summer instead.
Speaker 3: Hey there, mister crank, can I put you down for
Speaker 3: ten fruitcakes from the fireman this year?
Speaker 6: Haven't you heard? I'm skipping Christmas? You can put me
Speaker 6: down for zero?
Speaker 4: How does that sound bad?
Speaker 1: It sounds it's bad.
Speaker 5: Thank you for choosing our services today. We hope you
Speaker 5: have a merry Christmas, sir, I.
Speaker 4: Won't because I'm skippy Christmas.
Speaker 11: Hey, Nora, are you gonna put up Frosty this year?
Speaker 11: You're the only house on the whole block that doesn't
Speaker 11: have the decorations and it makes us look like shit.
Speaker 1: We are a skipping Christmas, and I've been told that
Speaker 1: means we are not doing a Frosty this year. Y'all
Speaker 1: rue the day.
Speaker 8: Hello, Hi, Mom, it's me. I have great news.
Speaker 2: We're coming home tonight for the annual Christmas party.
Speaker 7: We Who is we?
Speaker 1: Oh? Me an Enrique? Who is Enrique?
Speaker 8: My fiance?
Speaker 4: A South American fiance.
Speaker 8: Okay, honey, we will see you tonight.
Speaker 1: We are so excited.
Speaker 4: What do you mean we'll see her tonight?
Speaker 6: You're Christmas?
Speaker 1: Listen here, you little curmudgely. Fuck our only daughter is
Speaker 1: coming home and bringing our further son in law with
Speaker 1: her future son in law. You bitch, you cook your
Speaker 1: ass all around this town because we're gonna need a tree,
Speaker 1: a turkey, a ton of gifts, and fifty guests in
Speaker 1: the next four hours. We're not skipping Christmas. I repeat,
Speaker 1: we are not skipping Christmas. Now.
Speaker 8: USh really great, Jonathan.
Speaker 2: The way you played Luther was so frightening and serial killer.
Speaker 1: I love Halloween. It was Halloween and Jimmie Lee Curtis
Speaker 1: would be in a movie.
Speaker 2: It was very really coldness that just really penetrated.
Speaker 1: And there was but honestly, there was so much of
Speaker 1: this book where I was fully like I was like
Speaker 1: Luther's crazy, but like Luther's right because like the people
Speaker 1: around him are crazier, Like shut the fuck up, stop asking.
Speaker 4: Truly truly like that. It's it's it's funny, like this
Speaker 4: is probably a longer conversation for some other time, but
Speaker 4: it's like it's been really interesting to really work on. Like, uh,
Speaker 4: it's gonna make this I don't know what's gonna make
Speaker 4: you sound like I'm not going to qualify it further.
Speaker 4: It uh just like when I'm just been so in
Speaker 4: tuned with like trying to be like as communicative as
Speaker 4: possible and really like not be uh and just really
Speaker 4: like sharing emotions and being like vulnerable like all the
Speaker 4: time with whoever, not being cagey and being like, hey,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take it a face value what you said,
Speaker 4: and I'm gonna receive what you said a face value,
Speaker 4: which not a similar from the Sepeptember eleventh thing. It's
Speaker 4: like almost no story would work if people just like
Speaker 4: said like, hey, maybe we shouldn't, like it's a little
Speaker 4: weird that we're doing this, and be like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: think it is weird to end up movie like aftermun.
Speaker 7: It's all people not knowing how to communicate correctly.
Speaker 4: And there's and there's times where you're just like no,
Speaker 4: they're like the writers choosing not to communicate what the
Speaker 4: person would say in real life in this situation just
Speaker 4: so they could get more time out of this like
Speaker 4: gag or like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, that's definitely happening in this book.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, this one.
Speaker 7: The way it was like.
Speaker 1: So the same thing over and over. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: I was just waiting because I mean we all knew
Speaker 1: Blair was coming back right, like, we're just waiting for
Speaker 1: that shoe to drop, and I was like, for it
Speaker 1: took so long for that shoe to drop that.
Speaker 3: I was like, I didn't I didn't know Blair was
Speaker 3: coming back. I didn't think about it.
Speaker 1: I watch over me.
Speaker 2: I mean, the whole movie was or the whole book
Speaker 2: was over for her in forty seven minutes.
Speaker 8: There was no time to think about whether Blair was
Speaker 8: coming or going.
Speaker 5: That's the trip to make the trip.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you're pacing is all over. No, but I tried.
Speaker 4: I try to do that too, Like I'm you know,
Speaker 4: based on like you know, being like a writer and
Speaker 4: an actor. Like I tried to walk into things with
Speaker 4: no preconceived notions. I don't watch trailers and I don't
Speaker 4: read blurbs and stuff like that. Oh so it's really
Speaker 4: interesting to be like I didn't look anything up about
Speaker 4: the book, but like I had read half of it
Speaker 4: in one sitting, and I was, you know, like like
Speaker 4: what Sabrina just said, like I try not to think
Speaker 4: about what may happen in the future, just as if
Speaker 4: I can be surprised. And then but then it started
Speaker 4: telegraphing so much then and funny enough, it didn't happen
Speaker 4: at the halfway point. It was like maybe like seventy
Speaker 4: percent in Yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Like the fire. I couldn't believe how late it happened.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, really, if this happens, it will
Speaker 1: happen earlier, because what is interesting about him doing what
Speaker 1: he's doing.
Speaker 3: I think it added to the chaos of the end
Speaker 3: of the book, which made it feel like there really
Speaker 3: were only four hours until the daughter was coming, because
Speaker 3: I was like, there's not much book left.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so a lot's gonna happen here.
Speaker 4: I will say that at one point, when I did
Speaker 4: allow myself to think alone, I was like, I was like,
Speaker 4: wait a second, Like this book camp, the second half
Speaker 4: of this book cannot be them on this cruise like.
Speaker 10: That yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: And they're just like having a greade that they'd learned
Speaker 4: all their lessons or like better people now, like you're
Speaker 4: just enjoying themselves.
Speaker 2: Well, every six years, I think we'll do something like
Speaker 2: this those other years, people, we're jealous.
Speaker 1: I did also feel attacked by this book because as oh,
Speaker 1: you know, two of you know, my family goes on
Speaker 1: pretty much like flies Christmas and goes to Hawaii and
Speaker 1: like doesn't do the cruise but does like the Essential
Speaker 1: does that, but we also do Christmas like I do
Speaker 1: all the I don't like, we don't like not do
Speaker 1: the tree.
Speaker 6: You're the trog duns.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get, yeah, I get you're right exactly.
Speaker 1: But I was just like when he was talking about like, no,
Speaker 1: we're going to do this and we're not going to
Speaker 1: do this stuff, I just kept I was like, that's
Speaker 1: a choice, Like it was surprising to me. I was like,
Speaker 1: that's something I is that something I could do?
Speaker 2: Yes, you could, but you would no human would ever
Speaker 2: do it the way Luther Crank did it, which was
Speaker 2: The book began with Luther writing a letter to everyone
Speaker 2: in his office explainating that he was skipping Christmas and no,
Speaker 2: he would not be attending the office party, and no
Speaker 2: he would not be attending the office dinner. And just
Speaker 2: like this like kind of nasty letter.
Speaker 1: It's like once you go to that, that's also isn't
Speaker 1: that free? Kind of you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like you couldn't go, But also just like I doubt
Speaker 2: it seems like he's a bad man that has zero
Speaker 2: friends anyway.
Speaker 8: I doubt anyone's gonna miss him if he just doesn't
Speaker 8: try fairly.
Speaker 4: It was surprising when they said, like, oh, the closest
Speaker 4: friends that we have that are in town that we
Speaker 4: would invite normally to the Christmas seve that they had
Speaker 4: not mentioned the book. And it's like, it doesn't seem
Speaker 4: like you had friends, right, And I will say too
Speaker 4: that like the if it did feel like a Larry
Speaker 4: David thing were like almost always with with Larry, you're like, hey, man,
Speaker 4: I guess this thing, why do we do that as
Speaker 4: a society that makes no sense by all means? Be
Speaker 4: upset about this thing and like you know, and you know,
Speaker 4: go down with this ship. But then he always has
Speaker 4: a knack for like becoming the asshole of it where
Speaker 4: he takes it too far and just like, well, now
Speaker 4: I can't defend you because now you're actually letting the
Speaker 4: elevator shut in this person's space, like right, you know,
Speaker 4: And that's what it felt with Luther.
Speaker 6: WHI was just like, Okay, you don't have to do
Speaker 6: all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: But like there's like to say, you're skipping all the
Speaker 4: societal things that people that are.
Speaker 6: Also fun for you potentially, Like yeah, just go.
Speaker 1: Or even like tipping people. It's like, yeah, yeah, give people.
Speaker 1: It's end of year, like end of year tip. Doesn't
Speaker 1: you can say it's not skipping Christmas and still give
Speaker 1: people an end of year tip for I don't know.
Speaker 1: It was just crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not just like, oh, I'm not tipping you
Speaker 4: for what you're not doing for me in December only,
Speaker 4: and so I'm not gonna give you tip at all. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: It was a classic example of like there were elements
Speaker 2: they both wanted to keep.
Speaker 8: They were both kind of like they both were.
Speaker 2: Like, let's just buy a tree from the boys else,
Speaker 2: and they wouldn't do it because they had put on
Speaker 2: this rigid expectation on themselves. And honestly, reading it, I
Speaker 2: was like, it's good to remember that you can just
Speaker 2: do the.
Speaker 8: Things you want to do as an adult. Like you
Speaker 8: can be like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 2: Vegetarian this year, and then your husband Okay, maybe this
Speaker 2: is a personal story. Your husband makes a really great
Speaker 2: look at steak on the grill and you're like, you
Speaker 2: know what, I'm gonna have.
Speaker 8: This one steak. I can go back to the oditarian.
Speaker 6: Yeah. It's also because it's like I don't.
Speaker 4: I mean, hey, holler and the comments and stuff, but
Speaker 4: it's like these cats have a fireplace, and like I
Speaker 4: feel like the person who hates the most Christmas ever
Speaker 4: would still enjoy a Christmas tree by the fire.
Speaker 1: Right that it's like and you, I guess they're buying
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree, but they could at least, like there's
Speaker 1: stuff if it was all about money, there are things
Speaker 1: that he could have done. You gonna play Christmas music
Speaker 1: at the very fucking least, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like they're free things you can do. If it was.
Speaker 5: Really say Merry Christmas to people.
Speaker 12: The thing of all it was, it was like, yeah,
Speaker 12: it was just like you don't you can say we're
Speaker 12: gonna save money this year, we're not getting each other presents,
Speaker 12: but you can still like do some other I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm also so glad you mentioned the fireplace, Jonathan, because
Speaker 2: at the end of the book, they have four hours
Speaker 2: to get ready for Claire's homecoming, and so, as Sabrina said,
Speaker 2: it's like four hours to like get her at the airport,
Speaker 2: make dinner, invite fifty people to a holiday gathering, clean
Speaker 2: the house, put up decorations, and in the midst of
Speaker 2: all this in the book, they had them like light
Speaker 2: a fire and they were sitting by the fire as
Speaker 2: they like prepared for Blair to come home.
Speaker 8: And I was just like that alone.
Speaker 2: I am someone who grew up in a house with
Speaker 2: like a wood burning fire.
Speaker 8: The lighting of the fire alone thirty minutes.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you have to take care of it. You have
Speaker 6: to provide for this.
Speaker 8: Thing, to get the wood, you have to get the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Like it's like such a task. It was just so funny.
Speaker 2: That was this flipped thing that was thrown.
Speaker 8: Into the very end. It was like they sat down
Speaker 8: inside next to the lit fireplace, ating fires indoors.
Speaker 1: There's snow here, so yeah, I guess it's colder. I
Speaker 1: don't know where this took place. Where the same place.
Speaker 2: I don't think they ever said it was like generic
Speaker 2: town that gets not as much as Connecticut does.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't think that it was quite like Chicago
Speaker 4: or Minnesota or New York, Illinois.
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, it felt maybe New York like a suburb though,
Speaker 2: because street had the Christmas decorations.
Speaker 8: Their street was frosty.
Speaker 1: So obsessed. I've never heard of that. Is that a thing? Sorry?
Speaker 1: It's like each I mean, I mean, I'm assuming it
Speaker 1: must be, but I've just never seen that where it's
Speaker 1: like we as the street are doing the same exact decoration.
Speaker 7: I've never heard of that.
Speaker 5: So I haven't heard of that.
Speaker 3: But I did read a book in the third grade
Speaker 3: called The Big Orange Spot, and it felt very similar
Speaker 3: to that, and the whole idea was that every house
Speaker 3: in the street always looked exactly the same. But then
Speaker 3: there was this one guy who painted a big orange
Speaker 3: spot on his house, and everyone in the neighborhood one
Speaker 3: by one went to convince him to eliminate the big
Speaker 3: orange spot, and one by one they all realized, Wow,
Speaker 3: we could make our house cool and whatever we want.
Speaker 3: And at the end, the house has really cool the
Speaker 3: street has really cool houses. So that's my exposure to
Speaker 3: everyone having.
Speaker 4: I do know that, like I do know that, like
Speaker 4: you know, when I've gone to like my parents' house
Speaker 4: or the holidays and like the Poconos, Pennsylvania, like there
Speaker 4: you do see like people there are like competitions and stuff,
Speaker 4: and like, you know, you could be an Internet sensation
Speaker 4: if you have like your your lights that are like
Speaker 4: you know, in the rhythm or like you know, in
Speaker 4: sync with.
Speaker 1: Like music that plays from speak speakers or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they do them sometimes through like radios, So yeah,
Speaker 4: yeah you can.
Speaker 1: Put so they do. I know, actually you l I
Speaker 1: should say that there's like candy cane Lane, there's like,
Speaker 1: I know a few places that you like drive through
Speaker 1: and there's they. I guess there are areas that do lights.
Speaker 1: I guess I just didn't know about this like competition
Speaker 1: part of it. But I guess there would be a competition.
Speaker 1: I guess that makes sense that there'd be a competition
Speaker 1: I just as a kid. I didn't ever experience as
Speaker 1: a kid. I guess it seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure that I wouldn't be able to live up to.
Speaker 1: I hope nobody ever asked me to decorate my house or.
Speaker 3: I do feel like having like, essentially the same decorations
Speaker 3: is less attractive than a cohesive theme among all of them.
Speaker 3: Everyone having a prosty on top of your roof, you'd plus, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: it is a little bit.
Speaker 2: It's not classy, No, I don't think, but the candy
Speaker 2: kne Lane sounded classy.
Speaker 1: I vote, that's what I say.
Speaker 5: Kendy lay Wonder, But It's.
Speaker 4: One of those things too, where it's like I kept on,
Speaker 4: I'm sure we'll get into it, but like they racially
Speaker 4: and like ethnically and culturally. This book was really interesting
Speaker 4: because it's like, yeah, it's like they did mention the
Speaker 4: one house that like doesn't participate because they're like Pakistani
Speaker 4: or something. And then it's like, yeah, it's like one
Speaker 4: of those things where it's like, also, you know when
Speaker 4: your kids are are like move out or like it
Speaker 4: changes the whole Christmas vibe and like I saw it
Speaker 4: with my parents, it's just like it degraded, degraded. It
Speaker 4: sounds like a negative word, but just like more and
Speaker 4: more over the years, just like less and less like life.
Speaker 7: They were doing it for the kids. Yeah that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Yeah, once they're gone and it's like, are you gonna
Speaker 4: like and yeah, he's an older dude and like having
Speaker 4: to do all this stuff by himself or whatever. It
Speaker 4: is just like it's a lot of it's like not
Speaker 4: easy nor super safe to like put all these things
Speaker 4: up totally.
Speaker 7: And this also died many times.
Speaker 2: One of my biggest issues with the book, which is like,
Speaker 2: so there's another family on the street. There's forty two
Speaker 2: houses on the street, and there's another family on the street,
Speaker 2: the Sheen family, I think, and basically the sel the
Speaker 2: shield and the woman in the family is like dying
Speaker 2: of cancer, we find out, which is always a tough thing.
Speaker 8: To incorporate into a book out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Hey, but you got it. You got it at some point.
Speaker 2: But they did put their decorations up this year, right,
Speaker 2: I'm right right, they didn't have.
Speaker 4: That, they had it. They hadn't the when she went
Speaker 4: through the first battle cancer.
Speaker 12: Okay, but they hadn't been Maybe they had somebody else help.
Speaker 1: I can't remember this time.
Speaker 4: Go ahead, sorry, So they hadn't that time. Then this
Speaker 4: time around they did. And I think they were like
Speaker 4: because of his beef with Luther, it made him, the husband,
Speaker 4: go even extra with what they don't usually do.
Speaker 8: Got ya got yeah? Okay, alrighty.
Speaker 2: I think like one of my issues with the book
Speaker 2: was like at the end of the book, basically the
Speaker 2: whole neighborhood comes together to help them throw this party,
Speaker 2: and the whole time, I'm just like, what about this
Speaker 2: other family. It's like going through this horrible crisis and
Speaker 2: they Blair.
Speaker 8: They're no Blair, They're no Blair.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of a funny, like not not funny,
Speaker 2: but it was just this open ended thing for me
Speaker 2: of just like what about the Shields?
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 2: Up with them in the end, but I was worried
Speaker 2: about them the whole book.
Speaker 8: I just want to say. I was like, is there
Speaker 8: any community spirit for the Shields plead?
Speaker 1: But Jonathan bringing up the Pakistani family, it was like
Speaker 1: something that because they kept asking like, how are you
Speaker 1: not celebrating Christmas? It's like, well, anybody, like a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't even celebrate Christmas. I was like, I
Speaker 1: guess they don't even heard of like Jewish people, they
Speaker 1: haven't heard of it. Like I don't know. It's just
Speaker 1: like there's really no one except for this one. And
Speaker 1: then it's like how do you treat them? Like they
Speaker 1: must be so other like if this is how you're acting,
Speaker 1: I don't know, they must be so othering.
Speaker 4: I know what I'm like too, where it's just like
Speaker 4: I didn't I go there's some seasons where like I
Speaker 4: don't have children, Like there's sometimes where like you don't
Speaker 4: feel it as much, you know, and like you don't
Speaker 4: go all out with this one thing or you don't
Speaker 4: whatever the season is whether it's like Halloween or whatever.
Speaker 4: And so to be like I have to answer for
Speaker 4: a why I don't feel like participating this way with
Speaker 4: this is like absurd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in wild it made me think, like the whole
Speaker 2: neighborhood is evil.
Speaker 8: Like all these poms, they all felt able people well
Speaker 8: like I feel like you at the first place.
Speaker 3: None of them have any depth I mean as characters
Speaker 3: at all. So if it's like funny, it's like a
Speaker 3: it's like a neighborhood of villains that don't have.
Speaker 5: A good motivation.
Speaker 3: I mean, even like the cranks, like lying to their
Speaker 3: daughter and like treating her like she's not even a
Speaker 3: human being.
Speaker 1: It's okay. I understood that a little bit more that
Speaker 1: they were like, let's not we don't want to make
Speaker 1: her feel bad like I just they said that, and
Speaker 1: I was like, I know that type of person like that,
Speaker 1: they would just take everything super personally, like I ruined,
Speaker 1: you're not going on that vacation for me?
Speaker 7: I could you?
Speaker 1: And it's like I get keeping that from her.
Speaker 2: I have to compliment John grisham To on the detail
Speaker 2: of she's coming home suddenly unexpectedly to celebrate Christmas and
Speaker 2: not alone she's coming with her fiance and Rique, because
Speaker 2: at first I was just like, so have cleric come
Speaker 2: on the cruise or like yeah, and then this moment
Speaker 2: where it's like and she's bringing her Peruvian fiance.
Speaker 8: Who's never.
Speaker 2: Christmas Christmas, he's never seen Snow You're just like, okay,
Speaker 2: all right, that's so good writing. As far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 2: I see why frantic, like we got to fix this?
Speaker 4: Is it fine if we're jumping around like Timeline ones?
Speaker 8: Totally?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't think this book is complicated enough
Speaker 1: that we need to.
Speaker 4: Know about Okay, because now that like the now that
Speaker 4: and do you guys come up like for real? It
Speaker 4: was wild because like all right, so they they're like
Speaker 4: everybody's like rushing to make this party happen for Blair.
Speaker 4: So the parents can't go pick her up at the airport,
Speaker 4: so they have the police go and pick them up there.
Speaker 4: And and then when something that really bothered me was
Speaker 4: that like when it got into the head like it
Speaker 4: or the the perspective of the writer got into the
Speaker 4: head of Enrique when he got off the plane and
Speaker 4: saw that the cops were taking them home, and and
Speaker 4: the and it said like quote like as a South American.
Speaker 4: Is what it said, like in the in the book,
Speaker 4: that he didn't feel super comfortable going you know, going
Speaker 4: into like cop car like or in this in the
Speaker 4: United States or like in a new foreign country or whatever.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, okay, cool, However, this guy's a fucking
Speaker 4: medical doctor.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, and like he doesn't.
Speaker 4: And so that means like whether wherever he got his education,
Speaker 4: whether I mean later on they said it was in London,
Speaker 4: but if it wasn't, yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Know, I feel like they were trying to be like
Speaker 1: he's like an anglifier. Though he's an anglifier, oh for sure.
Speaker 4: And even before they really dug into that where it's
Speaker 4: like all you knew what he was, that he was
Speaker 4: a doctor, and so like he's automatically going to like
Speaker 4: look at the world very differently and for them to
Speaker 4: still make him try to seem like a third class
Speaker 4: citizen or someone from the third world or whatever, it's like,
Speaker 4: but he's a doctor, so he's not going to be
Speaker 4: like and he's married or he's going to marry this person.
Speaker 6: So it'd be like, hey, is this normal.
Speaker 4: She's like no, It's like okay, so we're just gonna
Speaker 4: get into this car because that's what's happened. But he's
Speaker 4: not gonna be afraid of doing this because why would
Speaker 4: he like his he's not a peasant or something that's like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's like I'm gonna get i'm doing this,
Speaker 1: I'm illegal in this country or you know, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Also, highly educated man that's like studied abroad in London.
Speaker 2: It's like he's if he has a question about something,
Speaker 2: he's probably just gonna ask it and be like.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like he's not.
Speaker 1: Just gonna be like and then the police won't say anything,
Speaker 1: right Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also his name was like the police had a sign
Speaker 4: that said their name, so it's not like they're just
Speaker 4: waltzing into some the back of a cop car. Like
Speaker 4: it that makes makes sense.
Speaker 2: I do think it would have been a more fun
Speaker 2: touch if it had been a fire truck.
Speaker 8: That's just me.
Speaker 2: I think that would have been cute and fun. Since
Speaker 2: we're also talking about the reception of Enrique. Also we
Speaker 2: already know that Luther is raised. The whole town is
Speaker 2: racist because they like can't accept that like someone would
Speaker 2: celebrate Christmas. But there's also that awful moment where they
Speaker 2: see Enrique, and I think the line is Luthor goes uh.
Speaker 8: He looked at his looked at his skin color.
Speaker 2: He wasn't nearly as dark as he. It was like
Speaker 2: he wasn't dark at all. That's what it was.
Speaker 8: He wasn't.
Speaker 6: Lighter than Luthor.
Speaker 2: I had been channing for months at a time and
Speaker 2: his Mediterranean skin really, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was fucked up. I'm saying. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's in regue. But like we're gonna also go to
Speaker 1: lengths to tell you like he's yeah, he's he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's not white, but like you know, skin's so light, yeah, lighter.
Speaker 1: Feel comfor you guys, can all feel comfortab That's one of.
Speaker 3: My questions was like is the racism authorial or is
Speaker 3: it a commentary on Luther as a person, because I do.
Speaker 1: Think sounds like a John Grisham apologist.
Speaker 3: No, but I think to a big degree, like the
Speaker 3: whole book is a critique on all of these people,
Speaker 3: Like he's not trying to make any of these people
Speaker 3: look like good people. He's not necessarily trying to make
Speaker 3: them look like bad people, although they are. They're like
Speaker 3: it's about Christmas and they're just trying to like sell
Speaker 3: their fruitcakes and stuff. But everyone is like so selfish
Speaker 3: and so out of touch, and I do think that
Speaker 3: that is on purpose.
Speaker 4: That's why the thing with Enrika did it makes sense
Speaker 4: to me when it's like from his perspective, why would
Speaker 4: he be otherizing himself when he's like a highly educated.
Speaker 1: Person of it's that's almost like too, like he was
Speaker 1: being too liberal or like he was like trying to
Speaker 1: be like, well, have you ever thought about how a
Speaker 1: police make someone from South America feel like?
Speaker 6: I don't, Like he was like, sir, I'm a doctor,
Speaker 6: you exactly. And then also but it was funny too
Speaker 6: with like the skin tone thing. I was like, I
Speaker 6: couldn't the way he had written.
Speaker 4: I couldn't understand if he was saying, like like when
Speaker 4: Luther was like, oh, he's not him and the wife
Speaker 4: were like, he's not dark at all, and then in
Speaker 4: his head he was like, in fact, he's like two
Speaker 4: shades lighter. I was like, I couldn't tell if they
Speaker 4: meant that it was good or bad, Like I didn't
Speaker 4: understand what they I felt like.
Speaker 1: At first, I didn't know if I thought he was
Speaker 1: like thought that they were worried that they would they
Speaker 1: were like darkening their skin and be like offensive, like
Speaker 1: they were doing like blackface or something that was confused.
Speaker 5: I just had the joke, but I don't think that
Speaker 5: was it.
Speaker 1: I think it was like just yeah, I felt like
Speaker 1: it was like I took it from the dark and
Speaker 1: he wasn't as dark as we were because we've been
Speaker 1: the tanning BDS.
Speaker 3: I felt I took it as they like were racist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you have a South American fiance and.
Speaker 3: They're like have this vision of a darker person in
Speaker 3: their head. It felt like the like I don't know
Speaker 3: if this was real, but when the news was reporting that,
Speaker 3: like the Queen or somebody had asked how dark people
Speaker 3: thought the baby with Megan Markle and her husband Harry
Speaker 3: would be?
Speaker 5: Is it Harry? I don't know Markle is the important
Speaker 5: and beautiful.
Speaker 8: I thought it was Prince Charles, by the way, not
Speaker 8: the Queen.
Speaker 5: I think it's the queen or somebody.
Speaker 3: I don't know, but that's how I took it, is
Speaker 3: that they were like, how dark do we think this
Speaker 3: baby's going to be? They were like, how dark do
Speaker 3: we think in Riguez.
Speaker 8: That's how I took it as well.
Speaker 2: But now that you're saying, was it the authorial voice
Speaker 2: or was it the character Serena. That's interesting, and I
Speaker 2: think one thing that makes it hard for me is
Speaker 2: that was written in two thousand and one, So some
Speaker 2: of this stuff I was like, I guess that's just
Speaker 2: how the author and people and the character thought. And
Speaker 2: another example for me that stood out was he agreed
Speaker 2: to do something. Oh, he was like, and then I'll
Speaker 2: I'll clean. Oh, he agreed to take care of the
Speaker 2: cat for a family across the street at the end
Speaker 2: of the book. And he's like, oh, I'll take care
Speaker 2: of the cat, said Luther, knowing perfectly well.
Speaker 8: His wife would take on the chore. And I was
Speaker 8: just like, oh, what a dick?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did so?
Speaker 2: But again I'm like, but is it is he supposed
Speaker 2: to be a dick or is this just like, of
Speaker 2: course in two thousand and one the wife would take
Speaker 2: on the chorea.
Speaker 6: Right, well, they were well they also were just like So.
Speaker 4: This is something I think about a lot with like
Speaker 4: any kind of like family dynamic, especially like sitcoms, even
Speaker 4: to the state which Tim Allen is in many of
Speaker 4: these of just like it's just like they're so nasty
Speaker 4: to each other, yes, you know, and like uh, and
Speaker 4: even when things were like end of fine, it just
Speaker 4: like they didn't. It was like almost surprising when they
Speaker 4: were like dancing around.
Speaker 7: The like the one sweet moment to try to make it.
Speaker 6: Almost felt like it was out of characters.
Speaker 4: I was like, at some point it was just like,
Speaker 4: you haven't done shown anything else that they like kind
Speaker 4: of like each other and so so it was just
Speaker 4: weird to be like, Okay, here's a sweet moment, but
Speaker 4: I'm like, you haven't had any other sweet moments like
Speaker 4: that even a little bit.
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, I guess I relate to that.
Speaker 2: No, it was over the top sad depiction of like
Speaker 2: what a marriage could become, like what a failed marriage
Speaker 2: could become.
Speaker 4: To lay the trap of like convincing her to do
Speaker 4: the cruise and stuff, I couldn't just be like, hey,
Speaker 4: this is where we're at, like like we do it
Speaker 4: for the kid. The kid has gone what do you
Speaker 4: think it was funny?
Speaker 1: He's going to play the music and everything. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Also I looked I did the right I did the
Speaker 4: inflation rate and in today's dollars, the sixty the six
Speaker 4: dollars that they spent on Christmas in what would have
Speaker 4: been two thousands, I guess yeah, in today's money would
Speaker 4: be eleven and twenty seven dollars.
Speaker 1: I'm great to look at what we would spend we
Speaker 1: spent on Christmas. But I also felt from this book
Speaker 1: that I was like, oh, I don't do nearly enough
Speaker 1: charity or whatever, Like I don't buy from the boy Scouts,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Or I don't buy well,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I want to buy, like the
Speaker 1: police calendar, but you know what I mean. Like, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I supposed to like I know, the like you know,
Speaker 1: giving people the gardener, the trash, like giving people tips
Speaker 1: and bonuses. But I was like, am I supposed to
Speaker 1: be doing all this stuff? Fuck me, I haven't been
Speaker 1: doing all this? Yeah, good question.
Speaker 6: The thing too with the sorry were gonna say some
Speaker 6: na it.
Speaker 5: Was gonna be so dumb.
Speaker 3: I was just gonna say, inspired by this, Like I
Speaker 3: rent in my apartment and they every time there's maintenance,
Speaker 3: we had maintenance today, every time there's maintenance, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't pay these people, so like the people who
Speaker 3: pay them should tip them.
Speaker 5: And then I started to think, like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: is that totally wrong?
Speaker 3: And then I was thinking about this one guy who
Speaker 3: comes all the time and he's just so great and
Speaker 3: he like fixes everything.
Speaker 5: And again I'm like.
Speaker 3: It's a battle because maybe things he's not responsible for
Speaker 3: things needing to be fixed.
Speaker 5: That's my building's problem.
Speaker 3: But then, inspired by the spirit of Christmas, we we
Speaker 3: gave him a tip today as though it were like
Speaker 3: an end of your tip, because we never do.
Speaker 1: You don't know if it would be the end of
Speaker 1: the year. You don't know if he's coming back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have the same thing for the right I'm like,
Speaker 1: are they tippy? I give a tip, But I'm like,
Speaker 1: is this a double tip?
Speaker 7: Whatever?
Speaker 1: I guess that's fine. I guess I shouldn't double. I
Speaker 1: shouldn't think about that. Yeah, but I don't know.
Speaker 7: I don't know the protocol all the time.
Speaker 1: But he should, you know, Luther Crank should you know?
Speaker 4: But like, I've always been sensitive about like cop stuff
Speaker 4: in general as a as a black man's a yeah, well,
Speaker 4: I guess you said that in the beginning after Latino,
Speaker 4: But like, uh, it's really.
Speaker 6: Interesting to see how like the like when they like the.
Speaker 4: Fun and games that they have, when like Luther gets
Speaker 4: arrested by the cops, and it's like a misunderstanding because
Speaker 4: it was like he's the he's burglarizing the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but he had the keys.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, yeah, but he had the keys, which he
Speaker 6: just forgets to say.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I wonder how much of this
Speaker 4: is just like a privileged thing to be like I
Speaker 4: don't even need to talk about the evidence I have
Speaker 4: because I shouldn't even be in the situation like yeah
Speaker 4: yeah yeah, whereas immediately be like, I have the keys.
Speaker 6: The guy called the guy call the.
Speaker 8: Guy yeah yeah yeah yeah. Such a different, such a
Speaker 8: different interaction.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this was if this couple, the couple was like
Speaker 4: if they were the Pakistani couple and or they were.
Speaker 1: Like uh oh yeah, they would they would be because
Speaker 1: you knew the cop also didn't really think he was burglarizing,
Speaker 1: like he was just fucking with him, Whereas yeah, it
Speaker 1: would be a completely different like no, I really yeah.
Speaker 6: Also the whole the whole book would be like the
Speaker 6: they would be otherwise so quickly We're just like, this
Speaker 6: is yet another thing that they're trying to like not
Speaker 6: be like us with.
Speaker 1: Ye yeah, and they were, they would not make the
Speaker 1: skipping Christmas decision like like that like it would be no,
Speaker 1: they would.
Speaker 4: Be like they're like, yo, for the path of least resistance.
Speaker 4: It's like we still have to put.
Speaker 2: The frost Yeah, exactly, the frosty, like we do these things.
Speaker 8: Yeah, well, the.
Speaker 5: Cruise leaves on Christmas. I mean I get that the
Speaker 5: whole point.
Speaker 3: Look, it is the commercialization of Christmas, blah blah blah.
Speaker 5: But like it's not like you're missing the whole season,
Speaker 5: right exactly, Like.
Speaker 3: The day you're leaving is when all the stuff is done,
Speaker 3: right exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, true, it.
Speaker 1: Just made it was just so they could give it
Speaker 1: to someone else at the end. But I I agree
Speaker 1: because I was like, there's absolutely no reason why I
Speaker 1: can't do both. But then I'm like, Okay, the money
Speaker 1: save part I get. But then it was like it
Speaker 1: didn't even make sense because just like you pointed out
Speaker 1: in the summers, Abrena, like often he'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: police officer, I'll buy all of your I'll date it,
Speaker 1: donate money to buy your like baseball uniforms for the
Speaker 1: orphans or I don't even remember.
Speaker 7: But it was like, so you're not.
Speaker 1: You're all like you're an accountant, you're trying to save money.
Speaker 1: But like, that's not saving money. Why don't you just
Speaker 1: buy the fucking thing and don't say you're gonna buy them?
Speaker 1: Yeah you.
Speaker 5: I thought.
Speaker 3: He was promising a lot of later spending and I
Speaker 3: really thought that that was going to be wrapped up
Speaker 3: and like, uh, that was gonna be a point that
Speaker 3: was made. It was like, Oh, I ended up spending
Speaker 3: just as much money on Christmas this year because we
Speaker 3: bought the cruise. I promised to spend three hundred dollars
Speaker 3: in the Boy Scouts in the summer.
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: And I mean maybe I missed it in the three
Speaker 3: and two time speed that I was listening, but I
Speaker 3: feel like they never did circle back to that. But
Speaker 3: maybe maybe John Gersham was just like, my readers are
Speaker 3: smart and they'll get it.
Speaker 1: I also felt like he could have gone they could
Speaker 1: have gotten something other than smoked her out. I didn't
Speaker 1: believe it.
Speaker 4: Well, that's the thing, that's what this was. Was really
Speaker 4: funny about this or interesting about this book. And it's
Speaker 4: actually I'm gonna give John Grisham his flowers right now.
Speaker 4: Even when I was just like, oh, I hate this,
Speaker 4: I hate this book, I hate this prime, I hate
Speaker 4: like how annoying these people are They're so nasty each other,
Speaker 4: like everything about it, Like it just feels like, you know,
Speaker 4: the neighbors are so nasty and all this stuff. But
Speaker 4: then like Grisham is a good writer, Like he's gonna
Speaker 4: make solid observations and he's gonna have solid like turns
Speaker 4: of phrases which I forgot until they would happen, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, yeah, there's actually this is a really
Speaker 4: funny line or like you know, thinking about how it's
Speaker 4: like I actually laughed out loud when like he goes
Speaker 4: when Luther goes through the house to with Spike, the
Speaker 4: one the neighborhood kid, to take the tree, and he's like,
Speaker 4: don't break anything, and immediately he breaks the first thing.
Speaker 6: To be like don't break anything. I was like, that's
Speaker 6: that's funny. So it's like interesting to have like those things.
Speaker 4: Where it's like it's a worse this is the simplest
Speaker 4: statement of the year, but like a worst writer would
Speaker 4: have made a worst book.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: I had the true.
Speaker 2: Exact same experience as you, Jonathan. I was like, I
Speaker 2: hate this, hate the characters. I hope my life is
Speaker 2: never like this. God Damn, that's a good choice for
Speaker 2: the book.
Speaker 8: Like everything was like textbook the right move to make
Speaker 8: as an author.
Speaker 2: You're just like, yeah, all right, plot wise, yeah I
Speaker 2: could see why.
Speaker 8: Well that would make a fun movie, huh.
Speaker 1: Like you agree, but I do. I did think the opening,
Speaker 1: like the until like the third act where everything happened.
Speaker 1: I did find it like slow and like I feel
Speaker 1: like I could have I thought he was really trying
Speaker 1: to like spread that out. Please talk about the dieting
Speaker 1: and the tanning. I mean, I'm not going to criticize
Speaker 1: youngers from too much for that because I honestly think
Speaker 1: it is a reflection of the time. Like two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, did you guys know, like you know tanning,
Speaker 1: but did you guys do tanning? Bets?
Speaker 5: I did, and it's oh yeah, he's insane. Like the
Speaker 5: seventh grade before.
Speaker 1: We went on the vacation, we did it.
Speaker 4: Tanned for prom and spring break.
Speaker 2: I just as before vacation so you didn't get burned,
Speaker 2: which was.
Speaker 4: It was like its like you're going to prom, like
Speaker 4: you're going you've been in winter all day or all
Speaker 4: season long, the in Pennsylvania, Like why are you getting
Speaker 4: tanned for your dress?
Speaker 7: Yes, it's like you kidding.
Speaker 1: We never did spray tans. It was always the tanning bed.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know boy.
Speaker 2: But the funny thing is, I actually that was one
Speaker 2: thing I took issue with the veritas of the book.
Speaker 2: I was like, tanning beds are fucking awesome, and the
Speaker 2: only reason I don't do them is for skin cancer.
Speaker 2: But like the way they described them was like they're sweaty,
Speaker 2: you have to clean them with a windows. You just
Speaker 2: have to get it done. It's like that twenty minutes
Speaker 2: that bed was heaven on. Yeah, it was chemicals in
Speaker 2: your in your brain.
Speaker 5: It's smelled coconuts so good.
Speaker 1: You know, I thought your.
Speaker 2: Skin, your skin get turned up if you're like maybe
Speaker 2: if you're like fourteen, you have some macnie.
Speaker 4: That's hilarious.
Speaker 1: But also it's funny that she talked. He talked to
Speaker 1: the I was surprised this curmudgeally old man was doing
Speaker 1: it because it was like he even asked about skin
Speaker 1: cancer and the woman was like, no, and it's in
Speaker 1: my head. I'm like, no, it definitely is. You're definitely cancing,
Speaker 1: Like it's definitely like not. But he was like it was.
Speaker 1: It was hard to imagine an old man doing that,
Speaker 1: Like my my dad would never choose to go to
Speaker 1: a tandy bed, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: So I wonder imagining that character doing it.
Speaker 4: I wonder how much of it was because of like
Speaker 4: like accountants are so logical that it's like I feel
Speaker 4: like he can maybe done because it's like, no, this
Speaker 4: is the thing that I should do practical or practicality wise.
Speaker 4: But I agree with you. I was, but then he
Speaker 4: would be he's more man than he has accountant.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But like also when he was describing their dinners, they'd
Speaker 3: be like boiled chicken and cottage cheese.
Speaker 7: Oh.
Speaker 3: I was just I was laughing so hard because like
Speaker 3: you love cottage fats, I do. I love cottage cheese
Speaker 3: because my algorithm fed it to me as being like,
Speaker 3: this is the health answer to all of your problems,
Speaker 3: cottage cheese, and so then I was like, yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: have cottage cheese all the time. And then seeing it
Speaker 3: in this book, I was like, oh my god, I
Speaker 3: forgot that that was a fad in the nineties too,
Speaker 3: and now it's back at it.
Speaker 8: I need to tell used to read it. Your memory
Speaker 8: was wrong.
Speaker 2: Also, it wasn't chicken and cottage cheese, which would have
Speaker 2: made sense. It was plain pasta noodles and cottage cheese.
Speaker 8: And I was just like, the pasta is the problem?
Speaker 1: Really? Did we not know that?
Speaker 8: Two thousand and.
Speaker 7: Yeah, there's protein pasta. Maybe maybe that's now that's.
Speaker 4: Something else, something else I had That was a friction
Speaker 4: point for me was at the was that the travel
Speaker 4: agent's female travel agent's name was Biff.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 1: I didn't notice.
Speaker 5: Ridiculous.
Speaker 6: I was like, how could that possibly be? There's two
Speaker 6: very famous Biffs.
Speaker 4: One is Biff Tanner from Back to the Future and
Speaker 4: then also Biff and uh that's the that's of a salesman.
Speaker 4: And it's like hilarious that there's just like this woman
Speaker 4: travel agent named Biff.
Speaker 6: Is like, I can't believe this. I will not believe this.
Speaker 6: I won't believe this character.
Speaker 8: Yes, that's a very that's a good one.
Speaker 5: She was just I love that, And is John Grisham hilarious?
Speaker 1: Is that?
Speaker 4: One of the sweet moments in the book too, was
Speaker 4: when like a bunch of bullshit was happening in uh
Speaker 4: Wild and Back or whatever the accountant firm was called,
Speaker 4: and then he was just like having a glass.
Speaker 6: Of wine with Biff down on the first floor.
Speaker 1: Of the.
Speaker 8: Wait wasn't no dialogue.
Speaker 2: There was another secretary called docs Dogs Yeah dogs yeahary names.
Speaker 1: Also, so a lot of mall work because you know,
Speaker 1: like the Tanning slum was in the mall, no reason
Speaker 1: to keep going to the mall.
Speaker 7: And seeing everyone at the mall.
Speaker 8: Damn, I loved malls.
Speaker 4: Well me too.
Speaker 6: It's the same.
Speaker 4: And it's one of those things too where it's like
Speaker 4: in when we mentioned the smoke trout, it's funny to
Speaker 4: me because it's like they were going to great lengths
Speaker 4: to try to make it the best like facsimile of
Speaker 4: like a regular Christmas Eve dinner, but the smoke trout
Speaker 4: is not regular Christmas Eve dinner. But I guess it's
Speaker 4: more regular than it would be had to gone to
Speaker 4: like a Chinese food place, right, because that would have
Speaker 4: been like way more ringing alarm bells than like the trowel,
Speaker 4: which is hilarious.
Speaker 2: And actually, to be honest, when I heard smoke trout,
Speaker 2: I was like, yes, oh my god, what a wonderful
Speaker 2: addition to the Christmas.
Speaker 7: I couldn't imagine it. I don't think it's anything ever.
Speaker 8: I think gets home.
Speaker 4: Hey, try the smoke. Try this the canned smoke trout
Speaker 4: from Trader Joe's. It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, I'll try it.
Speaker 7: I'll get in there, I'll try it.
Speaker 3: I believe that unbelievable accurately describes how I'd feel, but
Speaker 3: I can't say in what direction I would not be.
Speaker 7: I never tried it, so I guess it's very good.
Speaker 4: But that's what's funny too, where it's just like it's
Speaker 4: interesting to like get to that point of like how
Speaker 4: much are we trying to make it seem like we're
Speaker 4: still having this party all for Blair? But it's like
Speaker 4: you don't have to, Like I feel like it's one
Speaker 4: of those things outside before. It's like I feel like
Speaker 4: if they they could have just been like, hey, uh,
Speaker 4: because you weren't going to be here, we decided to
Speaker 4: like kind of downsize and just be us and if
Speaker 4: you want to, we could just have a cozy Christmas
Speaker 4: like and she wouldn't be like what the fuck like
Speaker 4: going whatever.
Speaker 1: That's very true, but like I guess in her call,
Speaker 1: she's like I told him about this, this and this,
Speaker 1: so excited, but like to me, when she did that
Speaker 1: I was like, why would she assume it's like her
Speaker 1: parents tumb alone that they would do everything the same,
Speaker 1: Like it's crazy that she didn't call ahead to be
Speaker 1: like I was. I know, I wasn't going to come
Speaker 1: back for Christmas, but looks like we're gonna try it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to come just head like it's
Speaker 1: just crazy to me. There was no heads up.
Speaker 2: I would say, I think Blair when she goes back
Speaker 2: to Peru is going to die.
Speaker 8: She just seems like really naive how to navigate the world.
Speaker 2: So like, I think this is probably the last like
Speaker 2: happy Christmas for this family.
Speaker 6: Why do you think she married a doctor? She's straight?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but it is funny to think about, like
Speaker 4: how like the I did like the choice of Grisham
Speaker 4: saying or Luther rather being like, why is everybody losing
Speaker 4: their mind? She's only been gone for a month.
Speaker 8: Yes, that was fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was another fun observation that someone was like,
Speaker 2: oh man, I can't make the party, but god, I
Speaker 2: want to see Blair, like I missed her. And it's
Speaker 2: like he makes the observation of like the man hadn't
Speaker 2: seen Blair years, but sure, yeah, we'll get dinner.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite parts is when Noura invited the
Speaker 1: uh the man grocery store.
Speaker 4: What was the deal with that?
Speaker 6: I feel like such a big.
Speaker 1: That wasn't a buch of a ba. I just found
Speaker 1: it relatable to be like I should know you. You're
Speaker 1: talking to me like we know each other and you
Speaker 1: know Blair and I'm gonna he was like on a
Speaker 1: hemlock and I'm gonna hope that it comes to me,
Speaker 1: but it never came.
Speaker 7: Like I relate to that so.
Speaker 4: Much, but at the being like, oh, he's just like
Speaker 4: they never knew and he I thought.
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever figured it out because then
Speaker 1: he was just like hanging out with Enrique. It's just
Speaker 1: like they related to each other because he had some background.
Speaker 4: And worked in Peru and like no Spanish and no
Speaker 4: Peruvian folk songs and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was like, Okay, well, I guess good thing
Speaker 1: invited him. But no, I don't think there was like,
Speaker 1: oh we knew that or we knew him.
Speaker 4: I wish I thought that was going to be one
Speaker 4: more big story move because of the way was like,
Speaker 4: so there was so much patting to that was just
Speaker 4: like yeah, yeah, I thought for sure, he's gonna be
Speaker 4: somebody who should not have been there because he either
Speaker 4: was like a guy who had previously like ruined Luther's
Speaker 4: career or something like that, or like or that.
Speaker 7: Would have been John, that would have been that would
Speaker 7: been so good.
Speaker 4: Or was like the or was the guy who like
Speaker 4: this this would not be in this book but like
Speaker 4: took Blair's virginity and she couldn't remember that, you know,
Speaker 4: or like her first boyfriend or something.
Speaker 7: That yeah, yeah I could see that, yeah.
Speaker 4: Jesus her pickle, but something like that that was just like, oh,
Speaker 4: this guy should not be here, Like how could I
Speaker 4: not have remembered him?
Speaker 1: I wish that it had that had come up? I do.
Speaker 1: I wish that would have been better. You know, you
Speaker 1: will have to John.
Speaker 4: Grisham sudden yeah, like yeah, John at John Grisham dot com,
Speaker 4: be like, hey, just read your folk.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 8: I think if anyone said the email you can.
Speaker 4: Let me start this by saying the subject line is
Speaker 4: like I didn't hate it, I would love.
Speaker 8: I would love to get that email.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I think we got to do final thoughts if there's
Speaker 2: any big thing anything, but like I think we got
Speaker 2: to wrap up we're getting getting towards.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, all right, do you have anything,
Speaker 1: uh Sabrina? Did you have, like a ask the aucers
Speaker 1: or what did you feel like something we should Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do have an ask. This is an improvised segment.
Speaker 1: There you go, Jonathan, This segment where uh Sabrina is
Speaker 1: going to be an interviewer and we will each play
Speaker 1: the author and answer the question, and then she will
Speaker 1: reveal what the actual author said.
Speaker 5: Okay, and I will also elect a winner among three.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, John?
Speaker 5: Do you ever want to skip Christmas?
Speaker 1: Me? No, I I've never wanted to skip Christmas, you know,
Speaker 1: the holiday spirit and such. But I've definitely wanted to
Speaker 1: get the commercialism and the you know, capitalism out of it,
Speaker 1: you know, the money, because you spend a lot of
Speaker 1: money on Christmas. But I think the spirit is something
Speaker 1: I always want to keep with me. Also, sometimes pedophiles
Speaker 1: aren't actually pedophiles.
Speaker 5: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: John.
Speaker 5: Do you ever want to skip Christmas?
Speaker 7: No?
Speaker 8: I absolutely love Christmas. I just think it's a joyful holiday.
Speaker 2: The cheer, the shopping, the gift giving, and actually reminds
Speaker 2: me there was a brutal crime committed against Santa Claus
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six. And actually the person that committed the
Speaker 2: crime is still at large, but an innocent man went
Speaker 2: to jail or that crime. I'd love to spend a
Speaker 2: little more time getting into the details of that.
Speaker 8: If you have about three hours.
Speaker 5: Think think we don't have three hours. But thank you.
Speaker 1: I like that. I like that because it assumes that
Speaker 1: that's what you're supposed to be talking about, asking asking
Speaker 1: questions off base.
Speaker 6: Remember, I'm here to promote a different book entirely.
Speaker 8: I'm here for the nice project.
Speaker 3: John, John, do you ever want to skip Christmas h
Speaker 3: M all the time?
Speaker 4: Because because I am actually Jewish, and it was and
Speaker 4: it used it used to be Grishansky and then we
Speaker 4: have to change it for a lot of a lot
Speaker 4: of familial reasons. And I shouldn't even be telling you
Speaker 4: this because we're also in witsac in the witness of protection.
Speaker 8: I would say, stop stop talking, stop talking.
Speaker 4: You know well, you know sometimes you know true. There's
Speaker 4: a lot of good stories in truth. And I'm actually
Speaker 4: writing a new book about it.
Speaker 2: Feels like you're about to live in so I just
Speaker 2: want to I want to stop you there.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you, thank you, so much.
Speaker 3: I think the closest was Sarah until she diverted into
Speaker 3: the pedophelia.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I guess what's the answer.
Speaker 3: So the real answer is every year. Yeah, I'd love
Speaker 3: to skip Christmas. Well not every year, but at some
Speaker 3: point during the whole Christmas season, you get sick of
Speaker 3: all the excess and the commercialism and all the stuff
Speaker 3: we pour into Christmas and we lose sight of the
Speaker 3: big picture. And every year I'd say there should be
Speaker 3: a better way to do this, and I think about it.
Speaker 3: Sure it'd be nice to skip it, but you can't
Speaker 3: skip Christmas, right. I transcribed that from a YouTube video.
Speaker 7: She was doing researched very good.
Speaker 5: I was doing research very good.
Speaker 8: How about some hate reads?
Speaker 1: All right, wads we do in?
Speaker 5: I put it an improv act out, but it is good.
Speaker 1: Right, let's do some good. Just let's hear what the
Speaker 1: people think.
Speaker 3: Okay, K says I almost missed out on one of
Speaker 3: the funniest holiday books.
Speaker 5: I can't believe.
Speaker 3: I borrowed this last year and returned it after listening
Speaker 3: to just one chapter. For some strange reason, I just
Speaker 3: didn't get it.
Speaker 1: Then.
Speaker 3: As crazy as it may sound, this quote d NF,
Speaker 3: which I assume means do not fuck.
Speaker 8: Not finished last year.
Speaker 6: We all know, we all know different version of the
Speaker 6: same thing.
Speaker 5: I did not fuck.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 3: Last year is now proudly on my favorite shelf. I
Speaker 3: laughed so hard that I was in tears. I didn't
Speaker 3: know John Grisham can be so funny. This is what
Speaker 3: the holiday is all about. Love love this book, heart
Speaker 3: Emoji Christmas, Kate.
Speaker 2: You said, ka, I think K tried LSD for the
Speaker 2: first time in the last year and has into it
Speaker 2: changed everything for her.
Speaker 8: Good for her, good for K good it really?
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know what my favorite comedy is Skipping Christmas.
Speaker 2: The book.
Speaker 3: Special shelf space just for it, and she almost skipped it.
Speaker 5: Wow, Wow, she almost skipped Skipping Christmas.
Speaker 4: Also, whenever you ever revisit, like, I haven't books that
Speaker 4: I only start a little bit of because they're dense
Speaker 4: or whatever, it's like watching the I watched the pilot
Speaker 4: of the Wire four times and then it's like, but.
Speaker 6: Usually if you hate it, why would you ever go
Speaker 6: back to that book?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know you wouldn't.
Speaker 5: What inspired her to go back I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe enough people loved it and they kept talking about
Speaker 1: and she wanted to be.
Speaker 3: Everyone was talking about enough.
Speaker 1: This wanted to.
Speaker 3: Sherry says, who hasn't at some point thought about skipping Christmas.
Speaker 3: There's so much time and effort that goes into a
Speaker 3: festive and merry holiday season. The planning, cooking, baking, buying, hiding, wrapping, decorating, well,
Speaker 3: the lists. He is seemingly endless each December. This fun
Speaker 3: read makes one think about who we celebrate Christmas, for
Speaker 3: ourselves or others. The various festivities really illustrate both sides
Speaker 3: of the coin, but in the end, it seems that
Speaker 3: it's all about making a nice days lash season for everyone.
Speaker 3: Christmas tree emoji, present emoji, Santa emoji, snowflake emoji, church emoji.
Speaker 1: People really like the Christmas one. Yeah, I guess there's a.
Speaker 5: Lot of emojis.
Speaker 3: I did another one, but it was just about how
Speaker 3: this woman had watched Christmas. Christine also okay, the two
Speaker 3: themes that I saw in the reviews a lot of women,
Speaker 3: a lot of emojis. Christine had seen Christmas with the
Speaker 3: Cranks numerous times and finally dove into the book and said,
Speaker 3: it's the book is very similar. I am reading it now.
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 3: The book is very similar to the movie, but of
Speaker 3: course the book is so much better. Why because you
Speaker 3: can see inside of Luther's mind.
Speaker 5: Luther is wonderful.
Speaker 1: That was crazy, big Luther fan. Well, maybe Luther's better
Speaker 1: in the book than he is in the movie.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the movie.
Speaker 5: He is so okay.
Speaker 3: When I copy and pasted this, I was like, that's
Speaker 3: a crazy thing to say.
Speaker 5: Luther sucks. And then I was like, but the book
Speaker 5: is a lot better than the movie. And it is
Speaker 5: because you could just see him. But there's mind that's hilarious.
Speaker 6: Well, it's like, I'm not the biggest word.
Speaker 4: I'm not a fan of Tamelan at all, but like
Speaker 4: I do know, I mean, people have like there's a
Speaker 4: thing about him that people like and so and I
Speaker 4: know that like Tim the Toolman, Taylor was like also
Speaker 4: really annoying and frustrating and so like, but people still
Speaker 4: liked him because he was funny. So I can imagine
Speaker 4: that in the movie he would have made Luther way
Speaker 4: more charming.
Speaker 6: Also, is probably way younger than the fifty five that Luther.
Speaker 3: Was, you know, having just watched the movie, he could
Speaker 3: have been fifty.
Speaker 6: There's no way he was five in two thousand and four.
Speaker 5: I will say visually he might have for fifty five.
Speaker 3: Listen, this is coming from someone who as a shame.
Speaker 3: I think, well, I don't want to say a shame.
Speaker 3: I don't want to put the man down. I had
Speaker 3: a celebrity crowd.
Speaker 7: Oh wait, wait, how old?
Speaker 1: What year? What year?
Speaker 7: Think he was born? Actually, Jonathan? Jonathan?
Speaker 4: What you actually? I think I would say he's born
Speaker 4: in nineteen I would say he was launched. He had
Speaker 4: a successful stan of career by the time. He's probably
Speaker 4: a catching, a characterizing star, or a rising star when
Speaker 4: he was like twenty five, which would be like eighty five.
Speaker 4: So I didn'd say he was born in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: Ish nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 2: Oh, my father, I'm just going to get to June thirteenth. Sorry,
Speaker 2: he was fifty exactly.
Speaker 7: Wow almost when the movie came out.
Speaker 1: Holy shit, wow shock never mind good good for him world.
Speaker 5: He was he was pasted. What I crushed on.
Speaker 8: To crush? Did you have a crush on John Goodman?
Speaker 8: Am I making that up? No?
Speaker 5: He was my okay, fair, what why that's that?
Speaker 6: You know that?
Speaker 4: That person?
Speaker 5: Well, it was it was me.
Speaker 1: No, I've heard other people say it, wait what wait, no, no, no, Sabrina,
Speaker 1: You've been saying it, and then you made other people
Speaker 1: say it.
Speaker 7: What's happening.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll I'll find the like side by side image
Speaker 3: that I did.
Speaker 5: It was like when everyone was doing their.
Speaker 3: Uh that was mine. I'll find the picture and I
Speaker 3: will send it and you'll you'll all say like, no, no,
Speaker 3: but you'll think to yourself.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna be completely honest.
Speaker 2: We Jonathan was just talking about being honest and candidate
Speaker 2: at the end of this podcast.
Speaker 8: I think we should all be honest when we see it.
Speaker 8: How does it make us feel?
Speaker 1: We'll be honest?
Speaker 4: Wait, did you were Was he your crush during Home Improven? Yes,
Speaker 4: which is hilarious because one of the most famous teenage
Speaker 4: Charthurrobs of all time Taylor.
Speaker 3: Well, interestingly, one of my first crushes was Simba Child Simba.
Speaker 1: Play by Jonathan Taylor Thomas.
Speaker 3: So it's like I had a crush on Jonathan Taylor Thomas,
Speaker 3: but it was specifically the cartoon.
Speaker 1: Line did you always go after the dads? You know?
Speaker 7: In high school?
Speaker 3: You were always like In fact, it is strange that
Speaker 3: I had a crush on Tim Allen, and not just
Speaker 3: because he is a Republican and was busted for dealing cocaine,
Speaker 3: but because when I was a child. I'm sure I've
Speaker 3: told this story before. I I had such intense crushes
Speaker 3: on like boys my age, and I remember thinking that
Speaker 3: adult men were so heinously unattractive, and I started to
Speaker 3: fear I was going to be a Pickle file. I
Speaker 3: was afraid that I was going to be a pedophile
Speaker 3: because I thought that adult men were so repulsive in
Speaker 3: terms out I just had age appropriate crushing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, yeah, I will say that's normal, but
Speaker 1: an interesting fear to have interesting fear to What did
Speaker 1: you read that this podcast today? If we're we're back
Speaker 1: with Pickle all right, let's do our let's do our
Speaker 1: hate rates. So, Jonathan, we do these out of five.
Speaker 1: We rate them in terms of the world of mean
Speaker 1: book club books. So we're not comparing it to shake spear.
Speaker 1: Whatever you think is like your best literature you've ever read.
Speaker 1: It's kind of just like of these New York Times
Speaker 1: bestseller type of books. What are we giving it out
Speaker 1: of five? So anybody want to go first?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll go.
Speaker 4: It's just so hard for me to like not rate
Speaker 4: somebody compared to Shakespeare.
Speaker 8: I mean, also, it's just my mind. It's on top
Speaker 8: of my mind. I'm like running through quotes.
Speaker 6: You know, how much would you hate? How much would
Speaker 6: you hate the person who is like, oh, who's your
Speaker 6: favorite author?
Speaker 5: Likespeare William Shakespeare?
Speaker 1: I mean to be insane, but probably something I said
Speaker 1: in like eighth grade when I read my mind, maybe.
Speaker 8: Like is that just as bad?
Speaker 3: I was Johnte Aligary for a long time. Whoa and
Speaker 3: people would be like, oh, you like the Inferno. I'd
Speaker 3: be like peasant, I like the Divine Comedy and the Inferno.
Speaker 1: Is only a third.
Speaker 5: I was.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, I made a few friends. Okay, So
Speaker 3: my journey with this book. As I was listening to it,
Speaker 3: I was like, why was this book written?
Speaker 5: And who was it written for?
Speaker 3: I like, I can't imagine that it has a target audience.
Speaker 5: I don't know why I wrote it. And then as
Speaker 5: the book.
Speaker 3: Went on, I gotta tell you I I was. I
Speaker 3: was so moved by John Grisham's words, so I guess well,
Speaker 3: and also not to mention, this book was real short.
Speaker 3: So it's given a three point five from me. It was,
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, which emojis?
Speaker 5: Would I use? Three point five hard eyes spaghetti plate
Speaker 5: from Getty Plain?
Speaker 1: Interesting?
Speaker 5: Yeah, three point five?
Speaker 1: Okay, you're making this is.
Speaker 2: This is probably right right down the middle for me. Look,
Speaker 2: it's an it's I bunted like this is. It was
Speaker 2: a good pitch, an easy hit.
Speaker 8: The book was short. Uh, it wasn't too.
Speaker 2: Awful like we've read just some god awful, really horrible, offensive,
Speaker 2: mind numbing books.
Speaker 1: This one.
Speaker 8: Look, end of the day, I said, with pelican.
Speaker 2: Brief, I'll say again, John Grisham's a good writer, you know,
Speaker 2: he's just just a readable writer.
Speaker 8: So let's let's call it a three.
Speaker 2: But I know that I did dislike it immensely from
Speaker 2: start to finish.
Speaker 8: If that makes sense.
Speaker 4: Okay, that'd be a devastating thing to hear as the author.
Speaker 6: Yes, like she did say like I was a good writer,
Speaker 6: like I'm a readable rite.
Speaker 4: That's cool, I am doing it in English mostly, and
Speaker 4: like then okay, but it's like I did hate all
Speaker 4: of it.
Speaker 8: But end of the day, this made my life worse,
Speaker 8: and I'm sorry I read.
Speaker 1: It three Yeah, it was fine. I know I'm having
Speaker 1: a lot of trouble landing where I want to land.
Speaker 1: I think I can tell you, like if you love
Speaker 1: Christmas and you're nostalgic for a time, or like everyone
Speaker 1: on your block being you know, a Christian white person
Speaker 1: that decorates their house and super into Christmas and you
Speaker 1: live in the Northeast or something. I don't know, Uh,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be five out of five for you
Speaker 1: because in the end that's who wins. And it's like
Speaker 1: poking fun, but like just lightly. And then you know,
Speaker 1: in the end all those bad people were actually good
Speaker 1: because they helped get ready for the party. So I
Speaker 1: could say that being a five out of five or
Speaker 1: someone like that.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna give it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give it a three out of five because
Speaker 1: it was short, and again Grisham wrote, well, there are
Speaker 1: some parts I like, the plot worked, but it was like,
Speaker 1: really for four hour audiobook, the first two hours were
Speaker 1: excruciatingly slow for me. And of course there was some
Speaker 1: you know, there was the you know, fucked up diet
Speaker 1: culture and racism and stuff, but it felt very two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, So I don't even I'm not even
Speaker 1: knocking it so much on that. Yeah, they're gonna five
Speaker 1: for me.
Speaker 7: It was fine.
Speaker 4: I think that this book is I don't know if
Speaker 4: I've said this about a book before, but I think
Speaker 4: it does benefit from reading it versus audiobook because like
Speaker 4: when you see how it like it moves, especially because
Speaker 4: like it's like because the fonts so big that there's
Speaker 4: like four words of page, you just.
Speaker 6: Like are flipping.
Speaker 4: It really is flipping quickly, so it feels like you're
Speaker 4: making good Well yeah, it makes you feel like you're making
Speaker 4: a lot of progress very quickly. So like even if
Speaker 4: it does feel like plot slow or like writing slow
Speaker 4: or whatever, it is just like, oh, I'm already a
Speaker 4: third through this book.
Speaker 6: Somehow I feel like nothing is like I just started it.
Speaker 4: But I do think that, like as compared two books
Speaker 4: that I as compared to Billy Shakes, I think that
Speaker 4: like for what it is, like you were like, basically
Speaker 4: it's this is a Malcolm of like what Sarah said
Speaker 4: and what Jona said, where it's like, yeah, I also
Speaker 4: did dislike it.
Speaker 6: For I went from like.
Speaker 4: Not liking it to not liking it a little less
Speaker 4: to then really not liking it, but then being like,
Speaker 4: you know what, but I did enjoy it. It's still
Speaker 4: was somehow entertaining journey. Yeah, and it's like it still
Speaker 4: has some stuff that I actually did laugh at. And
Speaker 4: I'm a hyper critical person, especially when it comes down
Speaker 4: to like cultural stuff and like racial stuff and ethnic
Speaker 4: and America like americanas especially, also doing things that you
Speaker 4: think you have to do socially that you really don't
Speaker 4: want to do, and the only reason you do those
Speaker 4: things is to say face or because someone is gonna
Speaker 4: talk shit on you. Like that's like, yeah, the hardest
Speaker 4: thing for me to stomach in real life. And yet yeah,
Speaker 4: there's some people for this book. This book would be
Speaker 4: like for all the Harmark ladies that are watching Hallmark
Speaker 4: Christmas movies in July love it, like, you know, so
Speaker 4: it's really funny to see how relative it is. And
Speaker 4: he is not a bad writer, so it's just like
Speaker 4: it'd be really interesting to see maybe like the first
Speaker 4: draft of this book was you know, like before edited
Speaker 4: or something, so we could be even more critical about it.
Speaker 1: I want Christiam to come out with like a crime
Speaker 1: novel like legal, you know, thriller, but for Christmas. I
Speaker 1: would love him to marry different yea, yeah, I would
Speaker 1: love to see that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd love that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh, man, we'll never know what Clari said.
Speaker 7: She never joined some just not that.
Speaker 1: Lara, Well we missed you. We'll we'll see you next season.
Speaker 1: This is our big ender, this is our big season.
Speaker 5: Yeah, still have to do you have to.
Speaker 1: Do sorry little, we do a little.
Speaker 2: And uh we'll skip Prettiest Princess, but I want to know, Jonathan,
Speaker 2: we won't to skip that, Jonathan. Where can people catch you? Like,
Speaker 2: do you have stuff you want to plug? Do you
Speaker 2: want to talk about anything?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 7: That's good?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, I man, And stuff's real weird right now.
Speaker 4: So I'm kind of like waiting on so many things
Speaker 4: that like actually happen or green full Green Lights Full budget.
Speaker 1: Come out November, so if that helps.
Speaker 6: That's true.
Speaker 4: Even then, I don't know, things are real weird. Uh
Speaker 4: could be in Yeah, I have a couple of things
Speaker 4: I'm really excited about doing that are just like they're
Speaker 4: just in a holding pattern like some movie stuff. Like
Speaker 4: otherwise it's like doing stuff at UCV again, which has
Speaker 4: been really fun. I have a show. Uh yeah, I
Speaker 4: mean that that's kind of like an ongoing thing so
Speaker 4: that you catch me doing sketch comedy at UCUD in
Speaker 4: New York I also have. There's a few short stories
Speaker 4: I write. I started writing pros and uh, there's a
Speaker 4: few short stories I hope to get published this year.
Speaker 4: And I just started writing a romanticy novel because guess what,
Speaker 4: so everybody else.
Speaker 8: Yeah, thank you?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Hey, well you get that? Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll definitely, we'll set it out, we'll talk about it,
Speaker 1: we can do a bonus.
Speaker 4: That'll be amazing. And then you as long as I
Speaker 4: get a review that says d N about my romantic,
Speaker 4: you've made it romantic.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Wait what is can you tell? Can
Speaker 1: you give us a little like tease about what?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't yeah, And I don't know the best
Speaker 4: way to tease it yet because I don't know how
Speaker 4: much of it is.
Speaker 6: Just like I'm trying to keep this type of the chest.
Speaker 6: So it's still like a.
Speaker 1: Surprising romanticy, is there fucking.
Speaker 4: I mean, yes, there hasn't iound that part. I haven't
Speaker 4: that part yet, but I will say that there's no fairies.
Speaker 4: It's not medieval.
Speaker 1: A little bit. Okay, well, now you're not selling me
Speaker 1: what's going on?
Speaker 6: Yeah, So it's like, but it is, it's a lot
Speaker 6: of mythology.
Speaker 8: Oh okay, really excited for this.
Speaker 3: There's going to be like if you need any test
Speaker 3: readers for the fucking yeah, we're really.
Speaker 1: Going to read.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, it's gonna be I'm actually exploring a lot
Speaker 4: of like ethnicity stuff and like lineage stuff through this,
Speaker 4: and it's gonna be a lot of like Norse mythology
Speaker 4: as well as Mayan mythology, which is never really tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah that.
Speaker 2: I am so excited about this, Like I'm not over
Speaker 2: selling this.
Speaker 8: I can't wait to read it. I think it's going
Speaker 8: to be really good.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 4: Like it's one of those things where I've loosely told
Speaker 4: people like, oh this is these are the four or
Speaker 4: five main beats, and everybody it just immediately feels fun
Speaker 4: and I'm like, great.
Speaker 7: Great, I got that's good.
Speaker 2: We've read a lot of romanticies over the years for
Speaker 2: the podcast, and then sometimes you know, work becomes pleasure
Speaker 2: and you read a few more and.
Speaker 5: Then if it comes to.
Speaker 8: Your life something amazing.
Speaker 1: We get it. Well, Yeah it's a good. Yeah, jump in,
Speaker 1: jump in the water's warm exactly. All right, all right,
Speaker 1: let's do our little of the cast.
Speaker 3: We're just gonna name the second last someone, all right,
Speaker 3: a little of the cast.
Speaker 1: Great, so real quick, I'll just start. It's Sabrina because
Speaker 1: she moved summary later, but I told you last, So okay,
Speaker 1: I'll go next.
Speaker 2: It's Sabrina. She's insisting we're gonna do another segment after this.
Speaker 2: It's we've gone on such a long time. The podcast
Speaker 2: is over.
Speaker 8: It's you. You're the little fucker.
Speaker 5: We're gonna do it, Sabrina. I'll I'll vote.
Speaker 3: It's such a hard decision between Johnna and Sarah.
Speaker 5: Just too no, he did nothing wrong. I think I'm
Speaker 5: gonna have to go with Sarah because I.
Speaker 3: Think move in the summary was brilliant, genius and you
Speaker 3: should recognize that respect my brilliance.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go with Sabrina because I think she's doing
Speaker 4: herself a massive disk service with the John Goodman stuff.
Speaker 8: Wow, it's the nicest little Frida.
Speaker 3: You're gonna see the photo photo and you'll untext to
Speaker 3: us tonight.
Speaker 1: She wasn't so bad.
Speaker 7: It's so weird.
Speaker 5: We'll put it up all right, all right, and then
Speaker 5: pretty little fun.
Speaker 3: Jesus, we're doing okay, and we have one final segment
Speaker 3: and it's you have to vote for who the prettiest
Speaker 3: princess of the cast?
Speaker 1: No, nobody, you, only you can right.
Speaker 3: Well, And unfortunately, because of how the very complicated rules
Speaker 3: around it, only someone who was an original pretty princess
Speaker 3: can be voted. Johnna was in the original episode where
Speaker 3: it happened, but she got herself kicked out of the
Speaker 3: running somehow. So I'm I'm gonna be the prettiest princess.
Speaker 1: Okay, great princess, sure whatever, All right, guys, please mean
Speaker 1: book club on all the socials. Please join our patreoon.
Speaker 1: Become a patron of the mean arts we are. This
Speaker 1: is the last big finale of the season. We will
Speaker 1: have some bonus EPs coming out, maybe some Christmas theme,
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe Christmas is the Craig hint. But yeah, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: But please start sending us your book reres so we
Speaker 1: can start planning for next season.
Speaker 7: And yes, we'll see then anybody.
Speaker 2: I mean, last word, thank you, Jonathan, You're so funny.
Speaker 8: I've missed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was such a great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is great, and you're all very very smart
Speaker 4: and funny and it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. Yeah, but not enough people say that.
Speaker 1: I think I would love to see a lot more
Speaker 1: like you know, five star reviews of our podcast.
Speaker 7: Let's say this is important.
Speaker 4: This is important work, yeah, especially as everything else on fire.
Speaker 4: This one, this is very much not.
Speaker 7: This is important.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well hell yeah.
Speaker 7: We do recommend some books to be burnt, but.
Speaker 8: That's not that we can live for now.
Speaker 1: Not this one.
Speaker 7: This one didn't.
Speaker 1: This one's fine, all right.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening everybody, Thanks Steffy for the rack, and
Speaker 2: we'll see you guys next season.
Speaker 5: Bye bye bye