So, the election was yesterday. When we recorded this podcast, we didn’t know what the election results were going to be. As I write this post, I don’t know what the election results are going to be. Probably as you are reading this, you don’t know what the election results are! But I hope you are being very very gentle with yourself in this, the scariest Halloween week we’ve ever known, and I hope this podcast provides a very small escape. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below, or download it directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around!
1:18 – What we’re reading
3:14 – What we’re something elsing
9:35 – Spooky books
36:45 – Kwana Jackson’s Real Men Knit
47:42 – Goosebumps or not Goosebumps Game!
1:01:59 – What we’re reading for next time
And here’s a list of everything we talked about!
Ace, Angela Chen
Sorcery and Cecelia, Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer
My Fake Rake, Eva Leigh
Best of Bootie
The Flop House podcast
The Bratz Movie
What Remains of Edith Finch
Night in the Woods
The Talos Principle
The Shining, Stephen King
Rules for Vanishing, Kate Alice Marshall
The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins
The Woman in Black, Susan Hill
Congo, Michael Crichton
Sphere, Michael Crichton
The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling
Underwater
The Descent, Jeff Long
Wicker Man
Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garco
Mind of Winter, Laura Kasischke
Shutter Island
The Elementals, Michael McDowell
It, Stephen King
The Amityville Horror, Jay Asher
The Changeling, Victor Lavalle (link to podcast)
Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin, trans. Megan McDowell
Hornets’ Nest, Patricia Cornwell
Lullaby Road, James Anderson
Heaven My Home, Attica Locke
Bluebird, Bluebird, Attica Locke
The Holdout, Graham Moore
The Exception, Christian Jungersen, trans. Anna Paterson
Real Men Knit, Kwana Jackson
The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett
Find Ashley on Twitter!
You can get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. As a brand new feature, you can also follow me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Storygraph! If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcript
Gin Jenny 00:37
Welcome back to the Reading the End Bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny.
Whiskey Jenny 00:41
I’m Whiskey Jenny.
Gin Jenny 00:43
And we are joined this episode by a very special guest for the podcast, Ashley. Welcome back, Ashley!
Ashley 00:48
Hi. Thanks for having me back!
Gin Jenny 00:50
On today’s podcast, we’re going to talk about what we’re reading and what were something else-ing, and we are going to discuss spooky books as we kind of round the corner on the fall season. And we’re going to review Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson, and we’re going to play a game of Ashley’s devising, that I’m very– I know nothing about. I’m very, very excited. But before we get into all that, Ashley, as our guest, what are you reading?
Ashley 01:15
I just started Ace by Angela Chen. It’s terrific so far. That may even have been a recommendation by you. I’m really enjoying it so far. I do not know very much about asexuality. So I’m excited to learn it seems very well written and thoughtful so far.
Gin Jenny 01:31
Awesome. Whiskey, Jenny, what are you reading?
Whiskey Jenny 01:33
I just finished a reread of Magic and Crumpets, AKA Sorcery and Cecelia. Yeah, which was just a a great call, a great, great decision.
Gin Jenny 01:42
Boy, that is a good decision.
Whiskey Jenny 01:43
It is, confirmed, still delightful. What are you reading, Gin Jenny?
Gin Jenny 01:49
I am reading a romance novel entitled My Fake Rake by Eva Leigh. I’m enjoying the book a lot. The premise of the book is that this girl is supposed to get married, and she wants to get this guy to notice her. You know, they have some similar interests, but he really only thinks of her as a bro, and she’s trying to get him to see that like she could be a good wife to him. So her plan is to make him, not exactly jealous, but kind of jealous by letting him see her with another very desirable man. So she needs like a rakish fellow to court her. So she’s going to coach her shy guy friend into being a rake, so that he can court her and she can win her husband. Uh, Whiskey Jenny is blinking because of the complicatedness of this plan, and I agree! I agree. I wouldn’t call it foolproof. But just go with me on this.
Whiskey Jenny 02:34
Okay. Okay.
Ashley 02:35
It sounds great.
Gin Jenny 02:35
So she and her shy friend, I think, are gonna fall in love. They just kissed.
Ashley 02:39
I hope so.
Gin Jenny 02:40
Yay, outlook is bright. But what’s really exciting is that the first chapter has a little like prologue. Because it’s the first in a series, so it has a little prologue, where the protagonist of this and four other guys are at school together. And they’re like in detention and it’s obviously like a Breakfast Club situation. So I know that each of the Breakfast Club guys is gonna get their own book and I’m really excited about that.
Ashley 03:02
Sounds great.
Gin Jenny 03:03
So for this podcast, we decided to again lean into chaos and each just say something we’re something else-ing, absolutely at our whim. So Ashley, what are you something else-ing, and what is the something else-ing that you are doing?
Ashley 03:17
So I think I’m going to pick the one that I don’t think either one of y’all are going to do, which is listening to, even though those are perpetually, perennially always the same. I’m always listening to, for music, I’m listening to Best of Bootie mixtapes, which you can find on the internet under Best of Bootie, B O O T I E. They’re totally free. You can download them. There’s one every year. They’re amazing. They’re really good work time music for me because it keeps me pepped up. And then the other non-music thing that I’m always listening to is The Flophouse, and I’m going to namedrop my friend Dan, who is on it, because we do trivia together. And that was why I started listening to it. But it’s really funny. They talk about movies, which I love. And they’re– Yeah, they’re very funny. They all bring something very different to the table, which I really enjoy. And they’ve introduced me to a lot of fun and funny movies, like the Bratz movie, which we’re we’re gonna watch together.
Gin Jenny 04:07
I’m very excited for that. I have no idea what to expect. Ashley, you were just like, this movie is life changing, we’re all gonna watch it together, and like five minutes later, it was scheduled, and I just have no clue like what’s in store for me.
Whiskey Jenny 04:17
I just have to quote this. It was just so good. Ashley said “invented its own cinematic vocabulary.” I cannot wait to see that in action.
Ashley 04:27
I really don’t think there’s anything I could say to prepare you for the experience of watching this movie. And I really don’t–like I know that sounds like I’m like giving you like the wind-up to something like The Room. This is not that. It is like actually competently made, but it just doesn’t play by any of the rules of normal filmmaking, or writing, in like an extremely enjoyable way. I really enjoyed it and I’m really excited for you guys to see it. And The Flophouse introduced me to it. They watched it in one of their really early episodes. So that’s what I’m listening to and also anticipating watching.
Gin Jenny 05:04
Whiskey Jenny, what about you? What are you something else-ing?
Ashley 05:06
I have chosen cooking, and I made beet brownies, brownies with beets in them.
Ashley 05:13
What?!
Gin Jenny 05:13
The devil you say!
Ashley 05:14
Sorcery!
Whiskey Jenny 05:17
So it’s not like replacing anything else, it’s not like a gluten free recipe or anything like that. It has all of the normal brownie ingredients such as eggs, dairy, and chocolate. Yeah, all the good stuff, just brown sugar, all that kind of stuff. But also beets, and I didn’t have enough beets, so I added carrots instead. And they were delicious. They’re just like secretly have more nutrients than other brownies. I don’t know that they’re more healthy, but they have more nutrients in them. And the beet flavor was actually really good. It was really close to raspberry flavor. So now I really want to try putting beets and raspberries in brownies, and I think it would be delicious and also beautiful
Gin Jenny 05:54
Boy, you are so brave and like venturesome.
Ashley 05:57
Yeah, I’m very impressed.
Whiskey Jenny 05:59
We did not tell my father that there are beats in them. And he did not guess it. He did not know.
Ashley 06:04
Were they not red or purple?
Whiskey Jenny 06:06
No, they were–
Ashley 06:07
What!
Whiskey Jenny 06:07
They looked like brownies. I know. I know.
Ashley 06:09
That is really wild to me. I thought what we were leading up to was like a red velvet brownie.
Whiskey Jenny 06:15
That would be beautiful. But no.
Ashley 06:17
I’m flabbergasted.
Gin Jenny 06:18
I also am flabbergasted.
Whiskey Jenny 06:20
Beet brownies.
Gin Jenny 06:21
Wow, congratulations, that’s exciting.
Whiskey Jenny 06:22
Thank you!
Gin Jenny 06:23
I didn’t do this. But I feel like I need to mention it because it was so revolutionary to me. My friend told me about cutting a flour tortilla, just plain flour tortillas, into fourths and deep-frying them. And they become really delicious like little not quite chips because they’re softer than chips. But they’re really good. And I’ve never done this before. But now I feel like I can never make guacamole again without also making these flour tortillas. They’re really like shockingly flavorful.
Ashley 06:50
Well, that sounds great.
Gin Jenny 06:52
Yeah, so I definitely want to do it again. We did it today for some taco salad, and I definitely want to repeat the experiment.
Ashley 06:58
Amazing.
Gin Jenny 06:58
However, that is not what I’m something else-ing. I’m sorry. I just, I felt like the people needed to know. Such a revelation. Okay, so I am playing video games now. I’m troubled, because my position has always been I would find them very fun, nay, too fun, and then I would never get anything done again.
Whiskey Jenny 07:17
And how are you feeling?
Gin Jenny 07:18
Yeah, it’s tough to know. It’s early days. I mean, one thing that’s like a significant regulator of my worst impulses is that playing a first-person game makes me kind of nauseated after a while. So I have to stop because like, my stomach gets really upset. We were playing What Remains of Edith Finch. Someone described it as like a playable comic book, which is definitely true. It’s like this creepy old house, and you have to wander through it and discover clues about how all of the like ancestors of your family died. And it’s really cool, really creepy. But for a while, the little girl is having a fantasy that she’s like a shark and a rabbit and a sea monster. So you’re like going through a lot of landscapes very fast. And I was so nauseated. I thought I had food poisoning, I was so nauseated.
Ashley 07:58
Oh, no!
Whiskey Jenny 07:59
Gracious!
Ashley 08:00
That’s horrifying.
Gin Jenny 08:01
Yeah, that’ll be an adjustment. But I’m playing Night in the Woods, which is really great. And What Remains of Edith Finch, and I just started playing the Talos Principle, which is like a puzzle exploration game. I’ve like barely started that one. But I succeeded at one minor thing right before this podcast, so that was like, go me! I’m the BEST gamer in the world!
Ashley 08:20
Yay, that’s so satisfying. I love that.
Whiskey Jenny 08:22
Yes, noted gamer Gin Jenny.
Gin Jenny 08:25
That’s me now. So uh, yeah, I have my, I borrowed my brother in law’s Xbox. So that’s what I’m playing on for now. But I might see about like, computer version? I don’t really know how games work.
Ashley 08:35
I have been, basically all of quarantine, I’ve been contemplating getting a Nintendo Switch, and I still am. That might be my Christmas present to myself.
Gin Jenny 08:44
That’s a really good one. They seem really fun. Like they seem really fun and versatile.
Ashley 08:48
I just realized I’ve been contemplating it since my Q2 bonus. And my Q3 bonus is I guess about to happen if it hasn’t already.
Gin Jenny 08:56
Yeah, you should absolutely, definitely do it, 100%.
Whiskey Jenny 08:58
You should do it. You’re still thinking about it.
Ashley 09:00
I’m still thinking about it.
Gin Jenny 09:01
Yeah, I think if you can’t stop thinking about a thing that you thought you might want to buy, then that’s a sign that like, yeah, you should buy it if you can.
Ashley 09:07
Okay. sold.
Gin Jenny 09:10
I feel like this is the friend. I’ve been all through quarantine.
Ashley 09:13
Same. Oh my God. It’s like anytime somebody expresses like a desire to do something or acquire something, I’m like, Do it! Do whatever makes you happy!
Gin Jenny 09:22
In this cold, cruel world?
Ashley 09:24
Exactly.
Gin Jenny 09:25
So Ashley, we brought you on today to talk about spooooooooky books, because you’re a horror movie aficionado.
Ashley 09:33
I am.
Gin Jenny 09:34
So do you want to kick us off? What’s your position on scary books?
Ashley 09:36
My position on scary books is that they’re awesome. I tend not to find them terribly scary, and the most scared–I probably mentioned the story before, but the most scared I ever remember being reading a book was not even a horror book. It was And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, when it was my very first mystery, and I was like maybe 13 at the time, and I was just totally petrified. I started reading at like 11 o’clock at night. I actually stayed up all night reading it because I could not put it down until I knew who the killer was. And I was like very, very stressed out. And I’ve never read a horror book that upset me that much. But I do really love the experience of reading something spooky. I find it very like cozy, especially this time of year. And I like the aspect of, you know, having to scare yourself with your imagination, which is very effective for me as someone who used to do that as a child who consumed no scary media at all, but was still routinely scared of everything and had like the most gory imagination possible.
Gin Jenny 10:39
Whiskey Jenny, what about you? You don’t read super scary books right?
Whiskey Jenny 10:42
No, I get scared easily so I don’t read official scary books or watch official scary movies. The book that– I read The Shining, the book, for a book club, and there was like a successful jump scare in that book on me, which I which I think is more a testament to Stephen King and not to me being a scaredy pants. Because that book is scary! But also there are jump scares in books, and that’s not– That level of scariness is not what I’m looking for. I can handle, so I can handle I feel like what is the book equivalent of a thriller and not a horror movie? So I like mysteries. And I like you know, I can do some like Scandinavian dark, everything’s cold and bloody but also there’s no light, I can do some of those occasionally.
Ashley 11:27
We gave you all the clues, Mr. Policeman!
Whiskey Jenny 11:31
Is that Snow Man? is that Snow Man? Yeah. I thought so.
Ashley 11:36
I was quoting that to my cat yesterday. I was like I gave you all the treats, Miss Kitty.
Whiskey Jenny 11:44
So my input on this will, a, be mostly listening and b, I don’t really have any spooky books that I’ve read recently. But I have acquired a lot of spooky books recently. A because my dad reads mysteries a lot, and I’m counting mysteries, but so I’ve acquired a lot of mysteries from him at the moment. And the good old mailbox kiosk library has had a lot of spooky books. I’ll be the correspondent on the mailbox kiosk for this segment. I hope that’s okay.
Ashley 12:12
Of course
Gin Jenny 12:14
A, that sounds great. B, I think it’s delightful that you referred to the horror genre as “officially scary books.” What’s the most scared you can recall ever having been reading a book?
Whiskey Jenny 12:29
I was pretty scared of The Shining. It was two years ago.
Gin Jenny 12:34
That’s a classic of the official scary book genre.
Whiskey Jenny 12:39
But also, I, you know, I sort of purposely avoid them. When I’m laying in bed at night. I still don’t dangle things off the side of the bed.
Ashley 12:47
Very wise.
Whiskey Jenny 12:48
What about you?
Gin Jenny 12:49
Okay, so the most scared I’ve ever been reading a book…. That’s tough. I asked this question, but now I’ve stumped myself. Like you, I don’t necessarily seek out official scary books. But it’s not because I think they’re gonna scare me too much. It’s more because a lot of times the premise doesn’t appeal to me. I feel like there’s this whole subgenre book that’s like, you know, you’re in a cabin in the woods with a bunch of other people and like, they start dying. I don’t like that. Or like someone there is going to come kill you, I don’t like any of that. So I basically don’t like anything that touches on real fears. So I always say that I like ghost horror, but I do not like serial killer horror, because serial killers are very real. So yeah, I also mostly don’t love it if it’s horror, about like, where the true villain is the evil in the hearts of men.
Ashley 13:34
Ick.
Whiskey Jenny 13:34
Really? That’s surprising.
Gin Jenny 13:35
It depends. I mean, I know right? Yeah, it depends.
Whiskey Jenny 13:38
I would have– Yeah, I would have thought you would like that.
Gin Jenny 13:41
I guess I would have to think of more examples. I thought of none examples and I was like, well, I must not like them then!
Gin Jenny 13:46
Okay, I heard Ashley made an “ick” noise. So I don’t think that’s her bag of cats either.
Ashley 13:51
I’m very much with Gin Jenny on this. I prefer the supernatural horror and not real times horror. No thank you. And I also don’t really care for zombies again, not because I find them scary, I just don’t find them very interesting most of the time. I’ll read anything, but I just don’t find zombies or pandemic horror or outbreak kinds of things very interesting. They’re not really my, yeah, my bag of cats. Is that what you said earlier?
Whiskey Jenny 14:17
I did, then I immediately was like, What the hell is a bag of cats?
Ashley 14:21
I didn’t react at the time, but it like stuck in my brain, and then I was like, Wait a minute!
Whiskey Jenny 14:25
Wait a second. That’s not it!
Gin Jenny 14:34
The problem I had when I was thinking about this is: because I only enjoy scary books. If they’re like supernatural, which I then don’t find that scary because supernatural stuff isn’t real, uh…
Whiskey Jenny 14:45
Oh, strong stance!
Gin Jenny 14:46
Yeah. I mean, yeah.
Ashley 14:48
I’m– Totally me too! I don’t know why you’d ever think I’d be scared of not real things!
Whiskey Jenny 14:55
Super bold stance right there.
Ashley 14:56
Really, totally not real.
Gin Jenny 14:57
I’m going to be in trouble if we’re ever in a horror movie, because not only am I blonde, I’m also a skeptic, so yeah, I’m doomed. I feel like of us, Whiskey Jenny has real final girl energy.
Ashley 15:08
Oh gosh. 100%.
Whiskey Jenny 15:10
I don’t– Thank you?
Ashley 15:12
I think that’s a compliment!
Whiskey Jenny 15:15
I don’t think I’ve seen enough to fully know what that means, a, and b, I don’t think I would live.
Ashley 15:20
It’s not about bow staff skills or knowledge of the supernatural thing. It’s about being pure at heart.
Whiskey Jenny 15:25
Aw! So, wait, Gin Jenny, I think you were saying something about dodging a question. And that question is: most scared you’ve ever been?
Gin Jenny 15:32
Yeah, I was hoping I’d successfully dodged it. Yeah. Um, yeah, it’s a tough one. I think, so again, I don’t get scared that often. Like I don’t get scared where it like stays with me after I go to sleep or anything. So this question is very difficult because I can’t remember a time that I’ve been scared by a book. I’ve, you know, briefly, I’ve like had a little thrill and been like, ooh, creepy! Like Rules for Vanishing by Kate Alice Marshall, which I will mention later, probably a lot, because I really liked it, was pretty scary, but not– but again, just still in a fun way, not where I like actually felt like frightened. Which is why I don’t watch horror movies, because they made me feel actually frightened and I do not enjoy that.
Whiskey Jenny 16:04
I think it is key though to find the right level for you. Because I think we all enjoy the juxtaposition of like, I’m safe and comfy but like a teensy bit scared, and you just have to find the thing that fits your level.
Gin Jenny 16:15
Totally. Well, the other thing I was gonna mention is when I think about spooky books, which is what we originally like mentioned as the topic, there are some books that I consider spooky where they’re not actually scary, they’re just mainly atmospheric. And I still like them a lot. A lot. Like Shirley Jackson I feel like often falls into this category.
Ashley 16:32
Oh, yeah, totally.
Whiskey Jenny 16:33
Yeah.
Gin Jenny 16:34
The Haunting of Hill House I think is legit scary, but like We Have Always Lived in the Castle or the Sundial, I think are more like atmospheric than scary-scary. Or like Wilkie Collins, I think his books can be very atmospheric as well.
Whiskey Jenny 16:45
Ooh! Love a good Gothic, just in general. Absolutely.
Gin Jenny 16:48
Like, to me, when I think of spooky books, I definitely include stuff like Gothic novels in that umbrella category.
Whiskey Jenny 16:54
Yeah. Great. Good call.
Gin Jenny 16:55
Thank you.
Ashley 16:55
Yeah, my one that I’m thinking of is like, I think actually veers over into scary.
Gin Jenny 17:00
I do want to hear scary, like what are some books that you think are really, like, genuinely scary?
Ashley 17:04
It’s really, it’s hard for me to be like, like, this scared the crap out of me, because none of them did. But the ones that I think are like, objectively scary, and this was the atmospheric one too, is The Woman in Black.
Gin Jenny 17:15
Oh, I’ve never read that. I’ve heard it’s scary.
Ashley 17:18
It’s definitely very atmospheric. The movie is terrifying, just so you know.
Whiskey Jenny 17:23
Is that the Daniel Radcliffe one?
Ashley 17:25
Absolutely. It’s full of jump scares, which I saw in the theater and everyone in the theater was like, ended up sitting quite close together in the middle of the theater. And we were like, all the jump scares got all of us like really good. It was a really fun theater going experience. The book is, I would say more, atmospheric just because it’s it’s hard, not impossible, as Whiskey Jenny pointed out, but hard to do a jump scare in a book. And that one, I think, has a really good sense of place, because it’s a house on what ends up being an island for part of the day when the tide comes in.
Gin Jenny 17:58
That’s very good.
Ashley 17:59
So he keeps getting trapped there over night, basically, like he’ll go there for a little while, and then once he’s there for the night, he can’t leave. So that’s really fun. The house is really creepy. And there’s all kinds of– It’s definitely supernatural. Just straight up haunted house ghost story. There’s a nice little sort of like unfolding mystery that I enjoyed a lot. You’re not just like, oh, there’s ghosts. I wonder why there’s ghosts! It does a really nice job of like, gradually giving you enough to that the exposition scenes are not boring info dumps. You’re, like genuinely curious to find out what’s going on. And it is super creepy. So I enjoyed that one a lot. I read that for a book club a few years ago, and I really liked it.
Gin Jenny 18:38
As you were talking, I was thinking about something kind of interesting. Like, as I’m looking at my list, I think one thing that is pretty common for me is that almost all of my like scary books are ones where you basically find out what’s going on, but a lot of things still stay kind of ambiguous. And I think to me that like definitely helps me enjoy the creepiness more. Because I’ve definitely read books. There’s this author I quite enjoy called Jennifer– Her name is Jennifer McMahon, but she writes a bunch of like, kind of creepy, suspenseful, more thriller-y– I like her books a lot. They’re really fun. What very consistently happens to me when I’m reading her books is that when I reached the point where like you discover what’s going on, all the suspense drains out. Again, maybe that’s just me. That’s not a knock on her. The books are excellent. But I do like a scary book where like maybe you reach the end and you’re still not 100% sure what’s going on? Like I feel like Carmen Maria Machado does that in some of her work, and I think really effectively. So I was also trying to think about like what, within the idea of horror, what I particularly enjoy, and my top three things that I came up with were haunted houses. Love a haunted house. Folk horror, so anything where it’s like–
Whiskey Jenny 19:46
Yes, I do love that.
Gin Jenny 19:48
And then like haunted science, so like if they’re in space, and space is haunted, or if they’re on a new planet, and the planet’s haunted or anything like that? Very good for me.
Ashley 19:57
Hypothetically, what if they’re reanimating dead people?
Gin Jenny 20:01
Um, it depends on zombie-ish the reanimated dead people are.
Ashley 20:04
Okay. Just curious.
Gin Jenny 20:05
Yeah.
Whiskey Jenny 20:06
Ashley, do you have particular genres or like tropes that call to you?
Ashley 20:11
I mean, almost all of the ones that Gin Jenny said. I love all those. I had totally forgotten about the science horror subgenre.
Gin Jenny 20:19
I wish it happened so much more because I LOVE it.
Whiskey Jenny 20:22
Can you tell me more about what science horror, is outside of space horror?
Gin Jenny 20:26
Well, for instance, I think you could have a very creepy, like haunted ocean situation.
Ashley 20:32
Sure could!
Gin Jenny 20:32
If you were on like, a science expedition.
Whiskey Jenny 20:34
Ohhhhhhh.
Gin Jenny 20:34
You know what I mean? Just, I think what I like about it is, being completely isolated, being really dependent on science to like, keep things going, like keep your oxygen flowing or whatever, and then something breaks down you can’t fix by science because it’s like haunted.
Whiskey Jenny 20:49
Because space is haunted. Yeah, okay.
Gin Jenny 20:51
That’s what I find really, really, really creepy. Like, you can’t I think it hits some of the same pleasure centers as a haunted house. Like you’re stuck here. You can’t get out. And everything is doom.
Ashley 21:00
I went through a Michael Creighton phase in junior high, like I think a lot of my contemporaries did, and I read Congo and Sphere. And those are both real creepy, Sphere in particular. No, actually, no, I think Congo scared me more. Congo is really violent. But yeah, there’s apparently a lot of things in the jungle that can kill you real good that I didn’t know about, like hippos. I remember being like very upset.
Gin Jenny 21:24
Sure, they’re mean.
Whiskey Jenny 21:25
Oh, they will charge a motherfucker, yeah.
Ashley 21:27
Yeah, I was very upset by the description of hippos and the ways that they can kill you. Not really. I mean, I was like, 12. But Sphere is really scary, too, because they’re underwater, and so the water pressure is like a constant threat all the time. So that’s really scary. And that’s another one where I think that one actually does have something supernatural going on. Congo, I think it’s just straight up like, there is a species or subspecies of gorilla that’s killing people. I think that’s basically all that’s going on there. But Sphere is actually, I believe, something actual like supernatural is going on, if I remember right. And it was very tense and very scary. Gosh, I would not have even thought of those if you hadn’t said that. Those are really fun. And it’s a lot of like actual science to it, which is really satisfying to me.
Gin Jenny 22:13
Totally. I read this book last year called The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling, which I liked for many reasons, one of which was that there’s only two characters and it’s just them talking on comms the whole time.
Whiskey Jenny 22:23
Oh, that’s cool.
Ashley 22:24
That is cool.
Gin Jenny 22:25
Yeah, it was a fun setup. One of them is like exploring the like caves and underwater tunnels
Whiskey Jenny 22:31
Nope! Nope! Leave ’em, they’re fine!
Gin Jenny 22:37
And the other one is like her guide, so she’s on comms like, talking her through it. Like, I’m gonna send you more nutrition or something. Like she just controls all the pipes and tubes. I don’t really get it. I don’t remember. But yeah, so then it gets real, real creepy. So that was really good. I also, I listened to an episode of The Magnus Archives where a guy goes to space. Like, it’s not the International Space Station. It’s a private company. But he goes to space for an isolation study. And his spaceship never moves. But one day he wakes up, and when he looks out the window where he used to be able to see the Earth, the Earth is gone.
Ashley 23:09
[shriek]Whiskey Jenny 23:09
Euuuuuurggghhhh.
Gin Jenny 23:09
Yeah, so that kind of thing I just think is so much fun! Like I find that that like just sent a jolt down my spine when said that.
Whiskey Jenny 23:16
It’s not a book, but I really enjoyed the film Underwater.
Ashley 23:19
Oh. So good!
Whiskey Jenny 23:21
It was like underwater Alien, which is not a knock! Like I absolutely want that movie. And Kristen Stewart was so great in it.
Ashley 23:30
Yeah, I really liked that movie.
Gin Jenny 23:32
See, this is a perfect illustration. Because if that were a book, I would totally be into reading it. But as a movie, I’m like, nope, nope. No, thank you. Not at all. Not even once. No.
Ashley 23:42
Fascinating! I have one more sciency one that I had totally forgotten about until you tguys started talking. I guess I read more scary books than I thought I did. Like I was honestly like, do I read anything scary? But I’ve come up with a bunch of them while we’ve been talking. The ones the sciency one that I want to throw up because I haven’t really heard anyone talk about it lately is a book called The Descent, by a guy named Jeff Long, that’s about like spooky, haunted, creepy caves. And people just keep going farther and farther down into the caves. And it is like, I believe the supernatural thing is like Satan itself, or some variation on Satan, which, that doesn’t scare me at all. But the caves themselves and the way the caves were described as they keep going farther and farther down was intensely claustrophobic and scary to me. I’ve seen like, just like images of like actual coal mining and coal miners–I know!–like one photo of it, I was like, it’s so much scarier than anything I’ve ever seen in a movie that was like, look at what coal mining looks like. And it’s, no, it’s like terrifying. And that was what this book felt like. But I liked the science aspect of it a lot. And it’s one that I believe has a really good opening chapter where they introduce the horror thing and give you just enough information that you’re like, Oh, God, this is real creepy.
Gin Jenny 25:03
So what do you think makes it possible for like, like talking about the thing I was saying with Jennifer McMahon, do you all find that the same thing occurs, like when you find out what’s going on, the suspense drops?
Ashley 25:14
Absolutely.
Gin Jenny 25:15
And like, have you found anything that like, fixes that?
Ashley 25:17
What you were saying, where like you kind of like give just enough information for the end to be satisfying, but you don’t explain everything. I really do think that’s the key, is to not, especially to not have a scene where it’s just like an info dump. This kinda goes back to horror movies. But I remember seeing somebody, and this was maybe like, taken from like an essay on horror movies that was about the horror image. So they sort of explain that what this meant in the context of horror movies is an image that’s only scary in the context of the film. So some of the examples they were using were the wicker man from The Wicker Man. That doesn’t look scary if you don’t know what it means. You don’t know about the context. And I feel like that if there’s a way that you can do that, like, explain the horror visually, like have a moment where like, you’ve explained what’s going on by describing an image rather than having people sit around and talk about what everything means. I find that really effective. You kind of crest the scariness hump after that, and then it’s falling action afterwards, just sort of by default.
Gin Jenny 26:21
I like that concept. So I’m going to start looking out for it. I also think it helps if after the like, climactic moment, they’re fleeing very much. Like, you know, if they’re fleeing and something’s in pursuit, I think that helps keep the suspense up. The other thing that has worked for me, and this happened recently, so I have it like freshly in my mind is when there like, comes some unexpected element of body horror, because then I typically am like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no no. I was, well, I don’t want to spoil it. So I won’t get too much into it. But Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s latest book, Mexican Gothic, is like a very classic Gothic novel all the way through, but then like, towards the end, there’s such a– It’s exactly what you described. It’s like such a creepy image. And the like, horribleness of it still, like makes me shudder.
Whiskey Jenny 27:03
Yeah, I really like this idea of imbuing regular everyday stuff with the horror and having that stick with your reader. I think that is really effective. And I will also say, I think for me it’s a timing issue. I want the release of like, I don’t want to be suspended at the end.
Gin Jenny 27:21
Well, I don’t want to be suspended, but I want– In the Haunting of Hill House, like, they don’t resolve anything. Some of them just get away, you know? And that’s what I like, is like, Oh, my God, we escaped. Let’s never think or talk about it again. Like that’s the kind of thing I enjoy.
Whiskey Jenny 27:33
I want a release, but it can’t come– This, I can’t, now it sounds too sexual. I want a denouement, and I want that relief– Nope! I wanted a denouement. But I feel like it’s often when it happens in the book that makes or breaks the whole experience for me because of it. If it’s too soon, then the rest of it is just sort of like a downhill slide. And you’re like, All right, well, here we go. But if it doesn’t come at all, then I’m annoyed, and I gotta know what’s going on. I just need to know.
Gin Jenny 28:09
Yeah, this tracks with what I know of you.
Whiskey Jenny 28:11
Yeah.
Ashley 28:11
Yeah.
Gin Jenny 28:11
Actually, that brings up an interesting question. So how do y’all feel about horror novels where the central like, or maybe not even central, but: How do you feel about scary books where one of the very scary elements is that the point of view character doesn’t trust their own mind?
Ashley 28:23
Well, it’s funny you brought that up, because one of the books I wrote down is a book where that happens. It’s the– Actually, is it a spoiler, if I say what the book is?
Gin Jenny 28:32
Okay, spoilers for a book! You might not want to know! I’m so curious. So I have to know, you have to tell me now.
Ashley 28:43
Laura Kasischke. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that the narrator’s unreliable. You find out at the end that she is extremely unreliable, and that a central character of the book is not who or what we thought they were. I’m trying to remember how I felt about it, other than– I mean, I didn’t like LOVE it. I wasn’t like, everyone has to read this book now and see how insane it is. I think the book does a good job of creating an atmosphere. As I was saying before, it’s not a huge spoiler that she’s an unreliable narrator, so I think you were prepared mentally for a kind of whackadoodle ending, which you definitely get.
Gin Jenny 29:28
Yeah.
Ashley 29:29
I think that is the key to that kind of a situation for mem for the unreliableness of the narrator to mean something, for it to have a point other than just being an exercise. And the reason I say that is when I was in grad school for writing, unreliable narrators were just really in vogue, and everybody was writing stories with twist endings that didn’t just didn’t mean anything and stories with unreliable narrators that were just unreliable for no reason, and I really didn’t like it at the time.
Gin Jenny 30:01
Well, the one I was thinking about was The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones, which is a book where a girl wakes up, she is a ghost. She knows that she has become a ghost because of a bargain she and her sisters made many years ago with like, creepy fairies in the moor’s queen, but she doesn’t know which of the sisters she is.
Ashley 30:21
Oh, that’s cool.
Whiskey Jenny 30:23
Wow! That is very cool.
Gin Jenny 30:25
Yeah, so a lot of the book is spent her trying to like figure it out. So she’ll be like, Oh, this one’s drawing. Do I like to draw? I’m not sure.
Ashley 30:32
I feel like I’ve read something else like that, too. That’s really cool.
Gin Jenny 30:36
So just the kind of thing where you as the reader are just kind of completely set adrift in a reality where you’re like, you just can’t find your footing. And I think that can make for a very effectively creepy book, if it’s sufficiently grounded that you can like–
Ashley 30:47
If you know what the questions are!
Gin Jenny 30:49
Yeah, yeah yeah.
Ashley 30:50
What I don’t like is when you’re set down in a reality that seems interesting or creepy or exciting. And then the big twist is that because the narrator’s unreliable, none of that was real, and real, real reality is something much more mundane.
Gin Jenny 31:07
I don’t like that either.
Ashley 31:08
I’ve seen lots of movies and read lots of books that have that, and I really, really dislike that.
Whiskey Jenny 31:13
What’s that stupid Leonardo DiCaprio movie where that happens?
Ashley 31:15
Shutter Island.
Whiskey Jenny 31:16
Fucking–Shutter Island! Fuck that movie! Fuck that movie!
Ashley 31:20
I read the book. That was exactly what I said too. I had no idea that there was going to be that kind of twist. I really thought I was signing up for a creepy asylum story. And I was so excited about that. And then I read it and I was like, Are you kidding me?
Whiskey Jenny 31:34
I don’t usually get stuff, but I said out loud, five minutes into that movie, was like, if this is a “it’s all a dream situation,” I’m gonna be so pissed. And then when the movie ends, I was like, Son of a bitch. I swear to God.
Ashley 31:48
One that I liked a lot, and then I feel like it’s kind of having a little bit of a renaissance, is The Elementals, Michael McDowell.
Gin Jenny 31:54
Never heard of him.
Ashley 31:55
That’s one about haunted sand.
Whiskey Jenny 31:58
About what?
Ashley 31:58
A haunted beach, I should say. Yeah, you might like that one. Yeah, so it’s like a creepy decaying beach house with haunted sand. That’s like graduated…
Whiskey Jenny 32:10
Sand does get everywhere. It would not take much for me to believe that sand was haunted.
Ashley 32:16
I just thought the setting was so cool on that one. I feel like horror always takes place where it’s cold and where there’s like fall leaves and stuff. So it was so cool to set it on the beach in the middle of summer. So that was really cool. I listened to the audiobook of it. If you’re in the mood for Stephen King, the audiobook is a great value. It is 44 hours.
Gin Jenny 32:37
Wow.
Whiskey Jenny 32:38
Wow.
Ashley 32:39
It is entirely narrated by Steven Weber. He does an amazing job. He does the different voices for all the characters, and I don’t know if he had to research this for the role or not, but he does the stutter in the way that actual people who stutter talk, not the way that people stutter sometimes in movies that doesn’t sound anything like that. And I just thought that was really nice that he like took the time to make this stutter sound right. A really fun one that is actually surprisingly scary is The Amityville Horror by Jay Asher, I believe. It’s not very well written. He really likes exclamation points a lot.
Whiskey Jenny 33:16
I don’t know. That feels like a subtweet of my emails, and I won’t stand for it.
Ashley 33:21
It’s still somehow really scary. That’s a fun one if you’re down for something silly and also scary.
Gin Jenny 33:28
Nice. Okay, so two I want to mention before we leave this are The Changeling by Victor Lavalle, which we read for this very podcast.
Whiskey Jenny 33:34
Terrifying.
Gin Jenny 33:35
I enjoyed it a lot. Really, really fun. And then Samantha Schweblin’s Fever Dream. She’s a maybe Chilean writer. I’m not going to make a Chilean/chilling joke, you’ll just have to imagine it for yourself. But her books are very good.
Whiskey Jenny 33:48
So the report from the mailbox is–
Gin Jenny 33:49
Yes. Tell me.
Whiskey Jenny 33:52
I really did go through the books that I have read in the past like two years, and there were just not a lot of spooky stuff. So.
Gin Jenny 33:58
Fair. Perfectly fair.
Whiskey Jenny 33:59
I got a version in French of a Patricia Cornwell book and I was like, well, that would be an interesting one to try to read in French. It’s set in Charlotte. I’ve never read a Patricia Cornwell. But it’s one of the Kay Scarpetta ones. In French it’s called The City of Hornets. But I think the English title is Hornets’ Nest. And then I have three from my dad. There’s one called Lullaby Road, by James Anderson, set in the middle of nowhere in Utah, and he’s a truck driver, and there is a small child that needs taking care of, so that sounds great. I have the next sequel to Bluebird, Bluebird, Heaven My Home, by Attica Locke. I’m very excited to read. That was the Texas Ranger book that we read for podcast, and then I have one called The Holdout by Graham Moore, which is about a jury from a case like 10 years ago, and then things happen in the present that are related to the past case.
Gin Jenny 34:56
Ooh, love it. Oh, I just remembered this scaredest I’ve ever been while reading a book. It came to me.
Ashley 35:02
Ooh, ooh, ooh!
Whiskey Jenny 35:03
What is it?
Whiskey Jenny 35:04
Okay, by far, like, legitimately, I was like, I don’t think I can stay at my house. I was so scared. And it’s not even a horror book. I don’t think it’s like a maybe psychological horror. I’ve talked about this before, I know. It’s The Exception, by Christian Jungersen, which is a book about these three women who work in an office that like does research on genocide. And it’s very workplacey book. So they’re all like, like, one of the big, big conflicts in the book is like, two of the women work in the main office. And a third woman works in a side office. There’s a door between them, and the two women in the main office like to keep the door closed, because if the door’s open, it’s really drafty. But the other lady constantly opens the door, because she’s like, but I want to talk to you. And they’re like, well, we don’t need to talk right now because we’re working anyway. And it’s a huge source of conflict. And so very creepy stuff starts happening, and they’re all like, is this because we study too much genocide, and someone’s mad at us about that? Or is Barbara just upset that we’re closing the door all the time? And I don’t know how to describe what was so scary about it. But like, I was so tense and frightened. I should have stopped reading it. But I didn’t. I was like, No, I’m gonna finish this book tonight, in the dark of the night, and it was so so so so scary to me.
Whiskey Jenny 36:11
Was it Barbara?
Gin Jenny 36:12
I don’t even remember. I just, I just remember like being in my house frozen with terror. And the dog was at the back door barking at what I assume was a possum. But she was just standing at the back door barking and barking and barking and barking. I was all alone in the house. It was awful. The Exception by Christian Jungersen. Thanks a lot, bro. Well, now for something completely different, we read the least spooky book in the entire world for podcast. We read Real Men Knit, by Kwana Jackson, which is a romance novel about a little knits shop in Harlem, and the woman who owns it dies, and her four foster sons kind of have to decide what to do about it. And the like kind of deadbeat one who’s never settled down to a career is like, dammit, I’m gonna save this store. And a woman called Kerry, who works there part time, is like, I will help you save the store. And so it’s about them saving the store together and falling in love. What did people think?
Ashley 37:08
I thought it was a great idea, and I did not care for the execution.
Whiskey Jenny 37:12
Same actually.
Gin Jenny 37:14
I think it maybe liked it a little more than y’all. But I think what I liked was the stuff about there being a knitting shop. And I was like, why is there a romance I have to worry about? What if it were all about this knitting shop instead?
Ashley 37:23
That definitely was the best part of it for me.
Whiskey Jenny 37:25
Yeah, I would have loved more knitting shop content, more knitting also. And yeah, to echo Ashley, love the concept. I was really excited about it. And there were things that I liked about it. But yeah, I just had a lot of quibbles with it that I didn’t want to have!
Ashley 37:39
Yeah, yeah, same.
Gin Jenny 37:41
Yeah, like I said, what I really liked was, yeah, the community aspect of the knitting store, and how it brought people together. Like that was all really lovely. But the relationships for me didn’t really work.
Whiskey Jenny 37:51
Completely agree. I think the book was really great at– So Mama Joy is the owner of the knitting shop, has just died when the book begins. So we never get to meet her. But I thought the book was really successful at her overarching presence throughout the book and her influence on all the people that missed her and were grieving for her. Like 10 pages in, I was already like sad and missing Mama Joy. I thought that that was really well handled, and it’s tough to make you care for a character that you’ve never met. I could not get a handle on the other people, though, like I could not figure the brothers out and what they thought of each other. I couldn’t figure out like Kerry and Jesse’s deal, I felt like I never had a firm emotional footing. And also, I was really frustrated that everyone was like, well, Mama Joy is dead, and these brothers are not biological, so obviously, this family is immediately going to fall apart. That really upset me. I understand that the brothers might be worried that they wouldn’t see each other as often and that they didn’t have that weekly dinner. But when it was coming from other people, like Kerry, being like, Oh, well, are they really brothers? Like, yes! They are! They’re brothers!
Ashley 38:56
That was the thing that I actually thought about you, Whiskey Jenny, specifically, while I was reading the book, and I was like Whiskey Jenny’s not gonna like this.
Whiskey Jenny 39:02
No, I didn’t!
Ashley 39:04
That, and the fact that when they are all in the same room together, they seem to spend a lot of time not just like bickering, but actually for real fighting. I was like, Whiskey Jenny’s not going to like this at all.
Whiskey Jenny 39:15
At one point, Jesse says that he is not worthy of love. And his brothers just like, let it go and leave. And I think that we are, as readers, supposed to think that they are working through stuff and they’re grieving, but they are still really close. And they love each other, obviously. And I just feel like in a lot of their actions, that didn’t come through very well for me. Yeah,
Gin Jenny 39:36
It felt like the relationship between Damien and Jesse was kind of conceptualized a little bit as like they don’t get along. They kind of like have always bugged each other. But then I really– Jesse’s a point of view character, but I really didn’t have any sense of like, what kind of relationship he had with the other two brothers or even what they were like as people.
Whiskey Jenny 39:51
I think it’s also tough to start– I think that the romance character of like someone who was sort of flim flam. What’s, what am I looking for? It was sort of like–
Gin Jenny 40:00
A flim flam man?
Whiskey Jenny 40:01
Who was a flim flam man. Yeah, who was like kind of–
Gin Jenny 40:03
Yeah, that’s a thing we all know.
Whiskey Jenny 40:06
Is it not? Wait, is that the word I’m looking for? He was just like, who was a different person in their past, kind of a player, he gets described as, and like, I think that that’s a common character. But I think I’m used to seeing it in romance where they have, like, become a different person but are still trying to convince everyone of that fact. And Jesse’s, like, in the process of changing and trying to convince himself of that fact as well. And that was a lot more difficult and a lot more– Well, a, it was just like a lot more like realism that I expect in romance, but also like, yeah, it was sort of tough to relate to him because he had so very recently been not there for Mama Joy. It’s like a hard task to set yourself up for to have your character be in the process of that change.
Gin Jenny 40:51
Yeah, that makes sense. I also wasn’t sure like what Kerry wanted. She too, was in flux, and she seemed really ambivalent about the knitting center or doing her job at the–um–
Ashley 41:02
Like, afterschool kids’– like afterschool program kind of thing.
Gin Jenny 41:06
Yeah, it was like a social services organization. I never felt like that got nailed down either. Like, I never felt sure what she really wanted as a person.
Whiskey Jenny 41:13
I still don’t know.
Gin Jenny 41:14
I also don’t know.
Whiskey Jenny 41:16
Is she gonna take the job? Where is she gonna work? I don’t these questions are not answered for me.
Gin Jenny 41:20
Yeah, it was really confusing. The whole book, I didn’t know what I was supposed to hope for, for her, career-wise.
Ashley 41:24
I actually, one of the things I actually did like about the book was that Jesse was not perfect in the beginning, and that he was still sleeping around having casual sex with with various women, and was still still being kind of a player. I actually thought that was kind of a ballsy move. And I thought it was a cool idea. But one of the things that I really thought of it would have, like a really easy change that would have made me like the romance element of the book way better is, what if Jessie had always been in love with Kerry?, but didn’t think that he loved that she was interested in him.
Whiskey Jenny 41:57
There was one moment where he said, like, if he was honest with himself, he’d been fantasizing about her for 10 years. And I was like, so wait, have you been into her for 10 years or not? I just like, I don’t know what people were feeling. I don’t know.
Ashley 42:09
It’s very unclear. That was such a missed opportunity to make us like him more and also make their relationship more suspenseful? Because obviously, we know they’re going to get together.
Whiskey Jenny 42:18
So you mentioned the casual sex that he is having at the beginning of the book. And a of all, I would like to be very careful and make sure that it is clear that having casual sex does not make one bad? And I’m, I’m not sure that was clarified successfully in this book. I guess the bad thing that he did was not be clear about his intentions with regards to the casual sex. But I would also like to talk about Erica and her portrayal. And just in general, I feel like there was a bit of a sort of a Madonna/whore complex going on in this book.
Gin Jenny 42:49
Yeah, where some girls are substantial, and therefore worth having relationships with, but he was seeing these flimsy slutty girls.
Whiskey Jenny 42:56
Yeah. And Erica, I just don’t think was treated very kindly at all. Her crime, I think was liking Jesse?
Ashley 43:04
Yeah, and thinking that they had something going on after they’d been sleeping together for a few weeks, which I don’t think is unreasonable.
Whiskey Jenny 43:10
Yeah, and like, maybe didn’t pick up on the signals quick enough. But–
Gin Jenny 43:14
Also just even thinking that they were going to sleep together again. It seemed like the book was mad at her about that as well.
Whiskey Jenny 43:19
Yeah, very mad at her. And there’s another line later on, where Jesse says to Kerry, when they’re finally making out which happened really late in the book, I was like, Alright, yeah. He says something like, nice girls don’t finish themselves off. It was just so strange. And I was so struck by it, and Kerry doesn’t come back with like, screw you. She comes back with, maybe I’m not so nice, or something like that. So the dichotomy is not broken down that there are nice girls, and there are not nice girls. It was just a lot of real world stuff creeping in, that I didn’t want to think about in my nice knitting shop romance. But again, as I said, I feel guilty being like, Here are my nits to pick with this knitting shop romance, but I have some.
Gin Jenny 44:06
Well, and I just wanted it to be more, just much more knitting shop, because I just thought it was so effective. This was what I was gonna say earlier, is that I think that the romance would have been more successful if it had been more grounded in the place of the knitting shop.
Ashley 44:20
Yeah, you’re totally right.
Gin Jenny 44:22
Because the knitting shop, you see how the knitting shop is a sanctuary and a refuge in all these different ways for all these different characters, and that I thought worked really well. And so I think that if more of the book had been spent on these characters, and what the knitting shop meant to them, I truly think that change would have made all the relationships feel more important.
Ashley 44:40
That’s a really good point.
Ashley 44:42
Absolutely. I think for me, one of the most I– My heart went out at Mama Joy, and my heart went out at little boy Errol. And I think that that is a very representative of what that knitting shop means to the community and I think you’re exactly right. I think those are the strongest bits top, that resonated the most emotionally. It was like what this knitting shop meant to that little boy who shows up at the beginning with his yarn and a little paper bag, and he just wants help and he’s embarrassed to ask, but I just wanted more of that. Are we squidged out that she was an employee, because she was an employee?
Gin Jenny 45:14
He’s only like, barely her boss. It didn’t really feel like a boss situation, especially because she doesn’t need the job. She’s staying out to help them, not because it’s her place of work.
Ashley 45:24
You know, the thing about her working there that bothered me more than that was that they didn’t ask for her help more often, because she’s the one that’s actually worked there. It really seems like all the genius plans for the reopening and the renovation and the bringing in new business all come from Jesse, who has not ever worked there and doesn’t know how anything there works. I think she does come up with a couple of ideas later on, but the vast majority of the ideas are Jesse just brainstorming and Kerry being like, Oh my God, I love that thinking! Great idea!
Whiskey Jenny 45:56
I couldn’t get a handle on Kerry’s relationship with the other three brothers, because they did sort of keep flirting with her. But also they kept being like, Jesse, don’t mess this up. Like you mess up everything! Which is mean. But like, don’t mess this up because she’s the only one who knows how to work the yarn shop. Not because we like her. I was like so mercenary.
Ashley 46:15
Transactional, yeah.
Whiskey Jenny 46:17
And I don’t want to think that about them, because I do hope that there are sequels, and I hope that it’s the four brothers. As soon as brothers kept on being introduced I was like, HelLO, fireman Lucas, and HELLO, backup dancer Noah! I was like very into it. Like, Hello, order muppet Damian, older brother. I’ve got my eye on you, you cranky little marshmallow. I’m really excited for the sequels, because I love the romance universe way of starting a series. How great though, how great, was the old lady knitting group?
Gin Jenny 46:53
Amazing!
Ashley 46:53
They’re pretty. They’re pretty great.
Gin Jenny 46:55
Let’s have them be the stars of the next book. I love them.
Whiskey Jenny 46:58
Oh my god. Well, they brought some they brought some dates to the grand opening. Did you see that mentioned?
Gin Jenny 47:03
Yes, I did!
Whiskey Jenny 47:05
Loved her best friend Val.
Gin Jenny 47:06
Val was great.
Ashley 47:07
Val’s the best.
Whiskey Jenny 47:08
I hope Val gets to get with one of the brothers in a later book.
Gin Jenny 47:11
Got to be Damien. Right?
Whiskey Jenny 47:13
I hope so. Because they have a little verbal sparring match.
Gin Jenny 47:18
No, I think definitely. I would definitely read that book for sure.
Whiskey Jenny 47:21
I would absolutely read that book.
Ashley 47:23
I might be coming around on that on the sequel if that’s what happens.
Gin Jenny 47:28
All right, well, we’ll have to hope for good things from Val and Damien’s book, which I feel so confident is is gonna be the next one. So Ashley, I heard a rumor that you made a game.
Ashley 47:37
I made you a game!
Whiskey Jenny 47:39
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaame game game game game game! It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for.
Ashley 47:41
So I want to tell you the the first dumb game idea I had, because it’ll lead into the actual game. I thought it would be funny for a scary game if I made fake online dating profiles for horror movie villains. But then you guys don’t really watch horror movies, and I didn’t want to just stump you guys. I didn’t think that would be fun, to just stump you guys. So then I was like, well, what’s like halloweeny and spooky, but not too scary and won’t penalize you guys for not knowing super scary things? So I shamelessly stole Whiskey Jenny’s amazing real or fake Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys story game. And I made one that is real or fake Goosebumps stories.
Whiskey Jenny 48:22
I can’t wait!
Gin Jenny 48:22
Oh, man, I am never gonna get these. I don’t think I’m gonna get any of these. I’m so excited.
Whiskey Jenny 48:27
I can’t wait, what a great idea.
Ashley 48:29
I did a thing that Whiskey Jenny did in some of hers, so some of the fake ones are going to be real horror properties that exists elsewhere in the universe. So just to give you a hint that if a storyline sounds familiar, it may have come from somewhere–
Whiskey Jenny 48:45
Look out!
Ashley 48:46
–other than Goosebumps. And I’m going to score this one the same way I did the Lurlene McDaniel one, where obviously if you get it right, you get a point. If I stump you on one that I made up, I get a point. And if you think that one of the real ones is fake, RL Stein gets a point.
Whiskey Jenny 49:05
Great.
Gin Jenny 49:05
That’s terrific. I love it.
Whiskey Jenny 49:06
Appreciate it. Yeah.
Ashley 49:08
All right. Whiskey Jenny. Here is your real or fake Goosebumps story. Ben is a bit of a loner. Sometimes he likes books better than people. When he gets stuck in bed with chicken pox, Ben thinks is a perfect time to catch up on his favorite books. But when Toad from the Wind in the Willows appears in his bedroom to teach them how to play tiddlywinks, Ben wonders if his mind is playing tricks on him. But why can’t he unlock the bedroom door?
Whiskey Jenny 49:31
Tiddlywinks, huh? I’m going to go with fake.
Ashley 49:35
You are correct. And that is made up by me.
Whiskey Jenny 49:38
Ooooh, it was very creepy. I was like, that’s too creepy to be Goosebumps. That’s too creepy.
Ashley 49:44
Oh good. I’m glad you thought it was creepy. Okay, Gin Jenny, here’s yours.
Gin Jenny 49:48
Yes, okay.
Ashley 49:50
Amy’s ventriloquist dummy, Dennis, keeps losing his head for real. So Amy begs her family for a new dummy. That’s when her dad finds Slappy in a local pawn Shop. Slappy’s kind of ugly, but Amy’s having fun practicing her new routine. Then terrible things start happening. Horrible, nasty things, just like what happened the first time, because there’s something odd about Slappy. Something not quite right. Something evil.
Gin Jenny 50:16
Oh my gosh, okay. Um, real?
Ashley 50:20
That is real. Good job. That is Night of the Living Dummy 2.
Whiskey Jenny 50:28
Two!
Ashley 50:29
There were a shocking number of twos and threes. They just made them like porn movies. They were like, we did good with the first one.
Gin Jenny 50:38
Why would her parents let her have another ventriloquist dummy after that?
Ashley 50:42
I think the first one might not be about Amy.
Gin Jenny 50:46
Okay. Got it.
Whiskey Jenny 50:48
[helpless giggling]Ashley 50:48
I think the first one is Slappy’s previous owner.
Gin Jenny 50:52
Okay, that makes more sense.
Whiskey Jenny 50:53
I’m crying laughing at the idea of Amy’s parents being like, Sure! Why not?
Ashley 51:01
No, that isn’t that is a totally valid question though. Okay, all right. Whiskey, Jenny. Okay, well, you guys are both doing great so far. Tara the Terrible: That’s what Michael Webster calls his bratty little sister. She loves getting Michael in trouble, making his life miserable. Things couldn’t get any worse. Then Mr. Webster brings home the antique cuckoo clock. It’s old. It’s expensive. And Mr. Webster won’t let anyone touch it. Poor Michael. He should have listened to his dad ,because someone put a spell on the clock. A strange spell. A dangerous spell. And now Michael’s life will never be the same again.
Whiskey Jenny 51:36
Hmmm. True.
Ashley 51:37
You’re right! That is a real one!
Whiskey Jenny 51:39
Wooooo!
Ashley 51:39
It is The Cuckoo Clock of Doom.
Whiskey Jenny 51:43
Boy, these titles are great.
Ashley 51:45
Okay. Gin, Jenny. Sarah doesn’t want to move to a new town where it rains every day and her parents are always busy at work. But soon she finds a cool hidden door in their new house, a door that leads to a different house with parents that are just like hers, only better. Everything seems perfect in her new house until she notices her other mother and father acting kind of weird. And why do they have buttons for eyes?
Ashley 52:11
Okay, so I actually know this one! I read a scary book! Yay me!
Whiskey Jenny 52:13
Yay! Woo!
Gin Jenny 52:15
That’s the premise of Coraline.
Ashley 52:16
You are absolutely right! All right, Whiskey Jenny, how ugly is Carly Beth’s Halloween mask? It’s so ugly that it almost scared her little brother to death, so terrifying that even her friends are totally freaked out by it. It’s the best Halloween mask ever. It’s everything Carly Beth hoped it would be and more. Maybe too much more. Because Halloween is almost over, and Carly Beth is still wearing that special mask.
Whiskey Jenny 52:42
Not real.
Ashley 52:43
It is real. Point to RL Stein. It’s called The Haunted Mask.
Whiskey Jenny 52:53
Well, yep. Does what it says on the tin.
Ashley 52:57
Okay, Gin Jenny. It’s not fair that Cassie is grounded. Her older brother was the one who set off the firecrackers in the henhouse, not her. So when she sees a meteorite crash to Earth from her bedroom window, she sneaks out to go investigate. No one believes her when she tells them she saw small furry aliens eating the neighbor’s cow, until the townspeople start going missing, including her own parents. It’s up to Cassie to save the town. But can she stop the weird giggly space creatures?
Gin Jenny 53:24
Um, I think that’s real.
Ashley 53:27
That is fake. That is the plot to the movie Critters, slightly modified to have a female protagonist. Point to me. All right, Whiskey Jenny. Susie can’t wait to go to dancing school. Ballet is her life. But there’s something weird going on in her new school. First, she sees another student running away from the school in terror. Then maggots start falling from the ceiling. When her roommate disappears, Suzy really starts to worry. Can she follow the clues to untangle the mystery? And will there be anything left of her school when she does?
Whiskey Jenny 54:01
I’m gonna go not real, and I’m going to guess that this is Suspiria, just because I know that that’s a ballet movie horror story.
Ashley 54:08
You’re correct on both counts.
Whiskey Jenny 54:09
Woo!
Gin Jenny 54:10
Nice, great work.
Ashley 54:11
Good job. That might be my favorite one.
Ashley 54:14
That’s a good one. Whoo!
Ashley 54:15
Okay, Gin Jenny. Dr. Brewer is doing a little plant testing in his basement. Nothing to worry about, harmless really. But Margaret and Casey Brewer are worried about their father, especially when they meet some of the plants he’s growing down. That’s not meet spelled with an A, that’s just– There’s just ellipses before and after the word meet. When they meet some of the plants he’s growing down there. Then they notice their father is developing plant-like tendencies. In fact, he’s becoming distinctly weedy and seedy. Is it just part of their father’s harmless experiment, and there are quotes around the word harmless, or has the basement turned into another Little Shop of Horrors?
Gin Jenny 54:57
Oh. Well I was gonna guess that that was Little Shop of Horrors which I’ve never seen.
Whiskey Jenny 55:05
TWIST!
Gin Jenny 55:06
But now I don’t know! Uh, real?
Ashley 55:09
That is real. It is the book Stay Out of the Basement. Yeah, they did that. Okay, Whiskey Jenny. Greg thinks there’s something wrong with the old camera he and his friends found. The photographs keep turning out wrong, very wrong. Like the snapshot Greg took–
Whiskey Jenny 55:26
Ooh, that is creepy.
Ashley 55:27
–of his father’s new car that shows it totaled. And then Greg’s father is in a nasty wreck, but Greg’s friends don’t believe him. Sherry even makes Greg bring the camera to her birthday party and take her picture.
Whiskey Jenny 55:39
No.
Gin Jenny 55:41
Why, Sherry?
Ashley 55:41
Sherry’s not in the photograph when it develops. is Sherry about to be taken out of the picture permanently? Who is going to take the next fall for the evil camera?
Whiskey Jenny 55:52
No!
Gin Jenny 55:53
That is legitimately really, really creepy.
Whiskey Jenny 55:56
It’s too scary! It’s not Goosebumps, it’s too scary!
Ashley 56:00
So your answer is not real?
Whiskey Jenny 56:03
Not real.
Ashley 56:03
It’s real. It’s Say Cheese and Die.
Whiskey Jenny 56:06
God DAMN, RL Stein!
Ashley 56:07
Point to RL Stein.
Whiskey Jenny 56:10
Point to him indeed! Jesus, that one is terrifying.
Gin Jenny 56:14
That is a really scary premise.
Ashley 56:16
It is really scary. I know. I thought that was really creepy too.
Gin Jenny 56:19
Like not for kids. That is legitimately scary to me.
Ashley 56:22
Yeah, totally. All right, Gin, Jenny. Everyone thinks Miss Davidson is the coolest fifth grade teacher ever. But Allison knows she saw a tentacle come out of Miss Davidson’s sleeve when no one else was looking. And she’s pretty sure teachers are not supposed to have teeth that are quite so pointy. But when Miss Davidson promises to take them to Wet and Wild on a field trip, everyone else is too excited for the Turbo Terror Drop to care about Allison’s theories. Can she make them believe her before Miss Davidson goes back to her natural habitat?
Gin Jenny 56:52
Uh, real? That feels real.
Ashley 56:54
That’s fake. I made that up just straight out of my brain.
Gin Jenny 56:57
That was a really good one. That was great.
Ashley 56:59
Thank you.
Whiskey Jenny 57:00
That was amazing. And I also like thinking that their teacher’s natural habitat is the–
Ashley 57:04
Wet and Wild.
Whiskey Jenny 57:05
It’s the amusement park, yeah. That’s where she lives.
Ashley 57:10
She just wants to go back there. I mean, I think the solution is just let her go back there.
Whiskey Jenny 57:17
Why aren’t we letting her? Yeah.
Ashley 57:18
Nature’s healing, man! Wait, Whose turn is it?
Whiskey Jenny 57:23
My turn.
Ashley 57:23
Whiskey Jenny. Okay. When Tim and his friends find a tire swing by the river, they think it’s their lucky day. School’s out, and now they can go swimming and taking leaps off the swing every afternoon. But when Tim’s friend Barry falls into the river one day, he doesn’t come out again. Now Tim wonders if the old lady who sits on her porch watching them swim is as kindly as she seems. And why does she have a new doll sitting next to her that looks exactly like Barry?
Gin Jenny 57:52
That’s very good.
Whiskey Jenny 57:55
Real.
Ashley 57:56
That’s fake. That was made up out of my brain.
Whiskey Jenny 57:59
Ashley, you got me!
Gin Jenny 58:00
That was so strong.
Whiskey Jenny 58:01
That’s really, really good. That’s really good.
Gin Jenny 58:03
That’s like a good premise.
Ashley 58:04
Thank you very much.
Whiskey Jenny 58:05
Very scary, yeah.
Ashley 58:06
Okay. Gin Jenny.
Gin Jenny 58:08
Me! Me me me.
Ashley 58:09
There’s something horrible happening in Fever Swamp, something really horrible. It started with the strange howling at night. Then there was the rabbit torn to shreds. Everyone thinks Grady’s new dog is responsible. After all, he looks just like a wolf, and he seems a little on the wild side. But Grady knows his dog is just a regular old dog. And most dogs don’t howl at the moon or disappear at midnight, or change into terrifying creatures when the moon is full. Or do they?
Gin Jenny 58:38
I think that one’s fake.
Ashley 58:39
That is real. That is The Werewolf of Fever Swamp. Point to RL Stein.
Whiskey Jenny 58:45
Fever Swamp.
Ashley 58:47
Yeah, we’re all knotted up, all four of us, by the way.
Gin Jenny 58:51
Oh, man!
Ashley 58:52
Whiskey Jenny. Carrie’s next door neighbor Isaac is a little strange. When he starts a kids-only club that meets in a cornfield. Carrie and her brother Josh are all in. All the grown ups in town start disappearing, and at first Carrie and Josh love staying up all night and eating tacos for breakfast. But Isaac gets a little creepy when he starts talking about He Who Walks Behind the Crows, and Carrie wonders if he had something to do with their parents going missing. But with all the adults gone, who’s gonna stop him?
Whiskey Jenny 58:54
Whoa!
Whiskey Jenny 58:55
Fake.
Ashley 58:56
It is fake. That is the plot to Children of the Corn.
Gin Jenny 59:25
Oh, I didn’t even remember that was a thing that existed.
Ashley 59:28
With some modifications. Gin Jenny. While staying with his weird great-aunt Catherine. Evan visits a funky old toy store and buys a dusty can of monster blood. It’s fun to play with at first, and Evan’s dog Trigger likes it so much, he eats some! But then Evan notices something weird about the green slimy stuff. It seems to be growing and growing and growing. And all that growing has given the monster blood a monstrous appetite.
Gin Jenny 59:57
Real. Seems super real to me.
Ashley 59:58
It is real. The book is called Monster Blood.
Gin Jenny 1:00:01
I mean, just as a cheat code, anything you told me that had slime, I’d be like, Oh yeah, that has to be real, because the Goosebumps logo is slimy.
Ashley 1:00:07
Honestly, I’ve never read a single one of these books and–
Gin Jenny 1:00:11
Me neither, not even one.
Ashley 1:00:12
Yeah, so I didn’t even know that. Great. Okay, so, Whiskey Jenny. On Max’s birthday, he finds a sort of magic mirror in the attic. It can make him become invisible. So Max and his friends start playing Now You See Me, Now You Don’t, until Max realizes that he’s losing control. Staying invisible a little too long. Having a harder time coming back. Getting invisible is turning into a very dangerous game. The next time Max gets invisible, will it be forever?
Whiskey Jenny 1:00:43
I’m gonna go fake.
Ashley 1:00:45
That’s real. It’s Let’s Get Invisible.
Whiskey Jenny 1:00:49
These titles are so great.
Ashley 1:00:52
All right, last one.
Gin Jenny 1:00:53
Oh my gosh. Okay.
Ashley 1:00:54
Johnny and Heather know the ice cream man is up to no good, but their parents don’t believe them. Their neighbor’s dog is killed the same night their friend Roger goes missing, and they know it’s no coincidence. Why does the ice cream man keep talking about the wishing well sanatorium and the ice cream king? And why does Heather’s ice cream have a dead cricket in it? Can they keep their friends Tuna and Small Paul safe from this weirdo and find Roger before it’s too late?
Whiskey Jenny 1:01:20
Wait, Tuna and Small Paul? Amazing.
Gin Jenny 1:01:26
I’m gonna say, because ice cream is a very real thing that children enjoy, and RL Stein, I think would enjoy making ice cream terrifying, I’m gonna say it’s real.
Ashley 1:01:36
That’s fake. That’s the plot to The Ice Cream Man. We have a fourway a tie between the three of us and RL Stein
Whiskey Jenny 1:01:43
Aw yayyy! Everybody wins!
Gin Jenny 1:01:43
Oh my gosh, that’s the best outcome there could be. Oh my God. It’s a perfect game. It’s a literally perfect game. Wow.
Whiskey Jenny 1:01:57
Great job, Ashley. Thank you so much.
Gin Jenny 1:01:58
Thank you for blessing us with this.
Ashley 1:02:00
I’m glad you like it. I had so much fun making it.
Gin Jenny 1:02:03
That was great. That was terrific. All right, Whiskey Jenny, what are we reading next time?
Whiskey Jenny 1:02:07
We are reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett.
Ashley 1:02:11
Yay!
Whiskey Jenny 1:02:12
Yeah. Which is a repeat author for podcast, which we don’t do a lot, but I really wanted to read it, and Gin Jenny really wants to read it as well. So we’re reading it together.
Gin Jenny 1:02:23
Awesome. Um, Ashley, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Ashley 1:02:26
Oh, gosh. My pleasure!
Gin Jenny 1:02:27
So lovely having you, as always.
Ashley 1:02:28
It’s always very, very fun to be here.
Whiskey Jenny 1:02:31
Thank you, Ashley.
Gin Jenny 1:02:32
Where can people find you online?
Ashley 1:02:35
Twitter’s probably the easiest place. I’m at ashleybwells, all one word.
Gin Jenny 1:02:39
Awesome.
Whiskey Jenny 1:02:40
Okay, thank you so much to Ashley, and thank you, Gin Jenny, as always, and thank you, listeners. And until next time, a modified toast from Real Men Knit by Kwana Jackson. Drink up, stitch well, and love hard.