Ep. 448 Last Chance Live! by Helena Haywoode Henry — The Stacks Book Club (Jess Lee)

Written by Traci Thomas

It’s The Stacks Book Club Day, and we’re once again joined by DEI consultant, friend of the pod, and the reader behind Literary Intersections, Jess Lee, to chat about our October pick, Last Chance Live! by Helena Haywoode Henry. This dystopian novel follows Eternity Price, an 18-year-old death-row inmate competing for freedom on America’s most popular reality TV show. Today, Jess and I share everything we liked—and didn’t like—about the book, the timeliness of the subject, and the reality TV of it all.

There are spoilers in this episode.

Listen to the end of the episode to find out what our November book club pick will be!

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Jess Lee 0:00

You think about the amount of people that watch and are so addicted to your Dancing with the Stars, your Bachelor, your right, and are glued to their phones to vote, paired with the complete dehumanization of people who commit crimes regardless of age, paired with the like deep seated violence in our society and in our culture, that is something that like scares me a little bit about like Chain Gang All Stars. And this is that you'll have people within government who'll read this and be like, or in you know for profit organizations read this and be like, oh yeah, we should do this.

Traci Thomas 0:41

Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Traci Thomas, and today is The Stacks Book Club Day. Jess Lee, DEI consultant, friend of the pod, and the reader behind the Literary Intersections book account, is once again here to help us discuss our October book club pick, Last Chance Live by Helena Haywood Henry. This dystopian YA novel follows Eternity Price, an 18-year-old girl on death row competing for freedom and her life on America's most popular reality TV show. Today, we talked about the pieces of this book that felt accurate and connected to the world we live in. We talk about the reality TV show of it all, and we talk about the pieces of the book that just didn't quite work. There are spoilers on this episode, so please be warned, and make sure you listen to the end of this conversation to find out what our November book club pick will be. If you enjoy this podcast and want more bookish content and community, consider joining us over on Patreon and Substack. Y'all, we are gearing up for the end of the year, which means there are a bunch of fun perks coming out for subscribers to the Patreon and the Substack. Now is your time to consider joining us at Patreon.com/TheStacks for our bookish community and subscribing to my newsletter Unstacked at Traci Thomas.substack.com. Both of these spaces give you access to some really fun content, like my reading trackers coming up, so is the mega challenge, and you get bonus episodes, and most importantly, you make it possible for me to make this podcast every single week. Head to Patreon.com/slash the stacks to join the Stacks pack and subscribe to my newsletter Unstacked at Traci thomas.substack.com. All right, now it is time for my spoiler filled conversation with Jess Lee about the novel Last Chance Live. All right, everybody! It is Stacks Book Club Day. I am joined again by friend of the pod, wonderful reader Jess Lee. Jess, welcome back to the Stacks.

Jess Lee 2:38

I'm so excited to be here.

Traci Thomas 2:42

I'm so excited. We are talking today. Yeah, this is the important time. We're talking today about Last Chance Live by Helena Haywood Henry. The book is a YA novel about a girl named Eternity Price who is on death row, and she has an opportunity to participate in a reality show called Last Chance Live. The premise of the show is 10 people between the ages of 18 and 21 who are on death row can go on the show, which is sort of Bachelor esque. You're in a mansion. You're trying. It's like Bachelor meets American Idol. You're trying to win the affections of the American people, they text in to vote for you. If you win and make it through all the weeks of the show, you are released from death row. You your debt to society is paid. You are a free person. If you lose, if you get voted off, you are executed within seven days of your elimination from the show. So that's the premise of the book. People, we are going to spoil this book. So if you don't like spoilers and you haven't finished the book or read the book, just wait, come back because we're going to spoil it for sure, 100,000%. All right, Jess, we always start here generally and a like just broadly. What did you think of this book?

Jess Lee 4:00

Yeah, so I found it both really beautiful, really realistic, and really horrifying, while also being too verbose. Just like a little bit, a little bit too long.

Traci Thomas 4:15

It is. It comes in at about 530 odd pages, including the author's note, which was too long after I read 510 pages,

Jess Lee 4:24

too long. With that being said, I mean I think that the comps to like Chain Gang All Stars totally make sense, right? Like reality TV, you know, it makes the reader kind of grapple with their understanding or their beliefs in or about the criminal justice system, which I think is really interesting. Eternity is a very complex, complicated, like very morally gray lead character, and she's also 18 years old, right? Like, who isn't an asshole at 18?

Traci Thomas 4:56

Sure,

Jess Lee 4:56

prove to me that you weren't an asshole at 18. I don't believe it.

Traci Thomas 5:00

Yeah, let me talk to your exes.

Jess Lee 5:02

Yeah, right. So I did. I really enjoyed it. I think I I kind of flew through it. Yeah. Um, I found some of the pacing interesting. I found some of the um way of writing, like the kind of like poetic interlude aspects of it, really interesting.

Traci Thomas 5:17

Yeah.

Jess Lee 5:17

Um. So yeah, I enjoyed it, but definitely want to kind of pick it apart.

Traci Thomas 5:21

Yeah, for sure. So I think I also liked it. I I did like it. I enjoyed it. I was entertained. I thought the premise was great. I thought the reality TV show of it all was great. I had some issues with some of the like stereotyping, fat phobia. There was some stuff that wasn't working for me, like that. Just like every time it would happen, I would be like, "Oh God, okay." Like it just sort of annoyed me. I also have just like I don't know if you know this about me. Maybe listeners will know. I have read a lot of books about death row. This is like a thing that I read a lot about over the years. I don't know. It just is. I mean, it does. It makes sense. Yeah. But like, it is. And while I was reading this book, I was listening to a book called Redemption by Lawrence Wright, which is about women on death row in Texas. They were staying there, like where they were incarcerated. Where they were staying, they were incarcerated at O Daniel, which is like where she was. So there were so many little things that I felt like she sort of got wrong about people on death row, but like also there were so many things she got right. Like, you could tell she did the research. I generally liked the book. I was generally entertained, but I think some of my like knowledge of it and my understanding of it was like, okay, sure, but also like that's not really how this goes. But it wasn't even wrong. It was just like that's not really how this is.

Jess Lee 7:01

Can you give an example?

Traci Thomas 7:03

Yeah, I can. One of the things that I thought was missing in the book was like we meet 10 young people, 18 to 21, who have all committed some form of murder, and aside from like verbal abuse, none of them experienced physical or sexual abuse, which is super super fucking rare for women who kill and for young people who kill, right? And like one of the reasons young people kill is gang violence, but none of them actually killed were in a gang. Do you know? Like it was related to sort of, but like so, it felt like while the book is very bleak and she like goes there in a lot of ways, I was sort of surprised that nobody in the book was like it was nobody's like crime of passion was because they had been like so thoroughly physically destroyed

Jess Lee 8:00

right

Traci Thomas 8:01

by another person, which is especially for women, what happens

Jess Lee 8:05

is pretty accurate, yeah.

Traci Thomas 8:06

so, like that kind of thing, I just was like, wait, really? Like, like your boss was mean to you, but like, I get it. But then she also didn't really talk about like any of their mental illnesses

Jess Lee 8:18

right

Traci Thomas 8:19

directly because for a person at 18 to snap in that kind of way, without any other like diagnosis or anything, I just that that was the kind of stuff that I was just like, ah, just put it in. Like it should be in here.

Jess Lee 8:35

Every single reveal of what their crime was felt like a little bit off, and by that I would agree with you in the fact that I think it was a lot of like mental health snapping,

Traci Thomas 8:48

yeah,

Jess Lee 8:49

and yet not a lot of conversation about like how they got to that point

Traci Thomas 8:55

Why they were so in a state that they could snap, or that they, yes, or that like they felt like they had to do this horrible thing so young. Like,

Jess Lee 9:05

yeah, like the boss mean to you? I was like, okay?

Traci Thomas 9:10

And like, I'm sure there are people that have done that, right? Like, I'm sure there are cases where it was like sort of out of nowhere or whatever. But like for Brenna, she is the one who killed. She's the white girl who killed her teacher's wife, and it's very unclear if there is a sexual relationship between her and the teacher.

Jess Lee 9:34

And there should have been.

Traci Thomas 9:35

And there should have been

Jess Lee 9:37

100%, 100%.

Traci Thomas 9:38

Because otherwise, you have a fully Delulu person.

Jess Lee 9:41

Otherwise, she's just unhinged. Like she is extremely mentally unwell.

Traci Thomas 9:46

But she's like the sixth one in this collection of people who has that same unhingedness. 100%. And like, I guess my thing is like, I understand that this is a YA book, so I understand. Like, maybe you don't want to talk about.

Jess Lee 10:01

Like childhood sexual abuse or anything.

Traci Thomas 10:02

Exactly. Right. However, this is a YA book about children on death row who are all being killed. So I sort of feel like it's like okay, if you don't want to talk about like rape or sexual assault of children, I get that, but don't write a book about children who kill because often those two things are connected.

Jess Lee 10:20

Are connected, yeah.

Traci Thomas 10:21

That was sort of my issue, but again, I really I did like the book. I had a lot of like I not fun, but like I enjoyed it. I thought it was harrowing. I thought it was really well done. But that one piece of it really stuck out to me as just like this is not the reason I the reason I harp on it so much is like earlier this year I read that book Unreasonable Women, which is about women who kill, and how all of like how the research that Justine Van der Leun did, so many of the women who were convicted of manslaughter or murder attributed it to some form of physical abuse. And I think when we don't tell kids that, you believe that the world is a place where people just snap constantly, and that it's not related to other people's actions. Like that, there's no way to help each other. There's no way to protect against these kind of things happening, and I just feel like we've got to be honest with kids about what is going on in the world and like why certain people do commit heinous crimes, and in in redemption, I believe Lawrence Wright. It's like eight women on death row that he is talking to, and all of them but one had a history of physical abuse.

Jess Lee 11:32

Right.

Traci Thomas 11:32

So it's just like the the statistics are, especially with women and and and young girls. I mean, I don't know. I just yeah found found troubling.

Jess Lee 11:43

No, I completely agree, and I I do wonder if Helena felt as if it would be too much, right? Because this is a very very traumatizing book, right? Like there is so much death, there's so much murder, and then when you continue to recognize that these are children, right? 1819, 20-year-old kids. I think it makes it that much worse. But without having that, I think it's at the expense of a little bit of reality, and also makes it seem as if so many of these crimes were very emotional, versus being rooted in some of the significant abuse that you know young people face that gets them to these like very emotional crimes, right, or these very emotional murders.

Traci Thomas 12:27

And I think also like even going further, Jess is like, if the reason people are killing oftentimes is because they are not being helped, because and they are in like violent and unsafe situations. I think when we don't talk about that, we don't acknowledge that there are systems in place that are failing people. That like nobody is committing these not nobody, but most people aren't committing these crimes without trying to get help. Right? Like none of these kids ran away and then got kicked out of the group home. Like there's all these stories about like kids who are in the system for years and years and years before you know? And it's like, right? None of them seem to be in foster care. Like, obviously, Eternity loses her parents, but she goes and she's with her grandmother, who's like not particularly kind or loving to her. But Malia, like her mother, kills herself, but she's got her loving father. Like, it just didn't seem realistic to me to the stories and the statistics that we hear, which is also why some of the stereotyping I think irritated me because I was like, okay, but you're stereotyping this, but you're not stereotyping like the profile of kids who who this happens to, and like, and I also think like you know, and we should talk a lot about this about like redemption and forgiveness, and can we rehabilitate people? But I think that if the people who are committing these crimes are doing it because there is something morally wrong with them, which is sort of what the book presents, there really isn't an argument for redemption for these people, right? It's like she's sort of presenting kids who are broken. I believe all people can be, you know, rehabilitated in some way. I don't believe prison is the way to do it, and I certainly don't believe the death penalty in the death penalty. But I think the way she presents some of these kids, it felt like, well, what are we supposed to do with them?

Jess Lee 14:15

Right. Like I was thinking that with yeah, I was thinking about that with Isaac in particular. I was like, oh, he he is mentally ill, right? Like he is mentally unwell, and even you know the way he was talking, and then to hear the crime that he committed, right? Like kidnapping his classmate, raping her, slitting her wrists, like absolutely horrifying. And if you do that because you want to, right? Like that is an evil person, and so redemption for that is really hard. Or to root for that person is really hard. Now, I do think that Helena put that in on the reader to consider. Right, like across the board, I don't think I was rooting for every single one of these children, which sounds horrible. But at the same time, like what Isaac did was. Pretty nasty, and you could tell that he did it for real. And so, I think there was some that, as a reader, you kind of have to grapple with. Yeah. But in my opinion, when you're putting forth these people where they don't really have anything that's redeeming, that they just feel like morally bad or morally evilly evil people doing really horrible things, I think it undercuts the message of redemption, right? Right. Because you can easily dismiss some of these people as like no, like that that person did something really horrible. Now again, you know, do I think that Isaac deserves the death penalty? No, and I don't believe it. And I think it's a tough thing to consider, think about redemption when what something somebody is doing, they're fully doing because they're a deeply evil person,

Traci Thomas 15:41

right? I mean, also like they're 18 to 21. Their brains aren't even fully formed. I know that's the other thing. It's like the this is not on the author. This is just like the fact that this country kills people who commit crimes at 18.

Jess Lee 15:58

It's scary. It's insane. It's horrifying. Isn't like hey, and that's the wild part too. Is that like eternity was 17 when she committed the crime. It wasn't her birthday yet. She wasn't 18.

Traci Thomas 16:08

Oh, I thought it was her birthday. I thought she had had her birthday party, and he.

Jess Lee 16:11

Oh, you're right. It was like the day she just turned. You're right. You're right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I that what like there were so many pieces of this that were deeply horrifying. This is like such a random aside, but I didn't know that. And if this is accurate, like my assumption is it is, but I'd have to look into it. That it's really difficult to get the drugs from manufacturers, and that like sometimes they'll use expired and hope for the best. Like I was like, that's actually really fucking horrible.

Traci Thomas 16:45

Yeah, the drug thing is really bad because European companies who manufacture them don't want to sell to us, and doctors no have taken broadly right do no harm stance on it. Yeah, and so it's like not only do they not have good drugs? They also don't necessarily know exactly what's in the drugs or how the drugs interact all the time, and then they don't have actual medical, you know, MDs or even nurses there because they have said they won't do it. Which is how you get a case like Krista Pike, who survived two doses of lethal injection, and fittingly, she committed her crime at 18 years old and has been on death row. She's 50 now, so like she is the living embodiment of like what would have happened to these kids if they had not chosen to go on the show, right? And I mean, that's the other thing: reading this book this month with all the stuff that's going on around death row between Krista Pike and then also the threat of doing a live streams

Jess Lee 17:49

execution

Traci Thomas 17:50

execution by Firing Squad horrific it's it's just horrific and so that was also one of the things that I like really liked about the book is I was like yeah no I could see this, like for sure, like I could see this, like I can't believe this doesn't exist. To be honest,

Jess Lee 18:05

100%. And you think about the amount of people that watch and are so addicted to your Dancing with the Stars, your Bachelor, your right, and are glued to their phones to vote, paired with the complete dehumanization of people who commit crimes, regardless of age, paired with the like deep-seated violence in our society and in our culture, 100%. That is something that like scares me a little bit about like Chain Gang All Stars. And this is that you'll have people within government who'll read this and be like, or in you know for-profit organizations read this and be like, "Oh yeah, we should do this."

Traci Thomas 18:44

This book feels even scarier than Chain Gang All Stars to me because this feels so much more doable.

Jess Lee 18:51

Oh, very much so

Traci Thomas 18:52

Chain Gang All Stars had like the like weapon. It was just like that was like a whole. That's like a whole thing. You know, like I could see people totally being into Chain King All Stars, but like this, it could happen

Jess Lee 19:04

tomorrow.

Traci Thomas 19:05

Tomorrow, like so easy, and I think like so. There were so many things about the show itself that were so cynical. Like first of all, the fact that it's only 18 to 21 year olds that's deeply fucked. I also thought like when Eternity's like tweeting or whatever, and then like the brands are memeing it,

Jess Lee 19:26

yes,

Traci Thomas 19:26

and like getting in on it. I was like, that is so sick, and exactly what would happen?

Jess Lee 19:33

Yes, like Dominoes,

Traci Thomas 19:34

Dominoes get these kids their panties. Like I'm like, oh my god, I could see Roundtable being like, well, we would get you if you like. I could see other brands like jumping in, like that whole part of it. Obviously, like

Jess Lee 19:47

Buzzfeed articles. There'd be a buzz article that was like based on your color, your favorite color. Which which kid are you exactly? Which crime did you commit? Nasty.

Traci Thomas 19:56

The only thing I didn't believe is that people wouldn't know. Wouldn't Google them. Oh, everybody's googling when you when the cast list is announced. People are okay. Let's start working our way through the story.

Jess Lee 20:16

Yeah,

Traci Thomas 20:17

and we'll talk about things as they come up. So we mentioned Eternity Price. She's on death row. One of the things I appreciated is like I liked how there was the reveals of the murders were later into the book. I think that's why she was like, "Don't like." There's like a part where they're like, "Don't talk about your crimes." I think that worked really well for the book. And so Eternity is on death row. What we know about her, sort of in the beginning, is that she lives with her grandmother, her nana, and her brother. I always want to call him Serenity, but it's not sincere, sincere, sincere. I have like eternity and serenity. Yeah, no, that works. Sincere, and he's younger. He's like 12. She's 18, and she sort of early in the book, she waives her right to all of her appeals against the wishes of her attorney Zach to go on the show Last Chance Live. It's the second season, and I was dying to know what happened on the first season because they teased it a few times, and I thought we were gonna find out, and they never told us. I know after 530 pages, you could have probably squeezed that in.

Jess Lee 21:19

I needed that pay off. Because obviously, this season two didn't work out either.

Traci Thomas 21:25

No, season two went off the rails. Yes, I was so curious, like what happened. She goes to the house. There's 10 kids: Brenna, Ramon, Eternity, Isaac, Jimena, Darnell, Terrence, Malia, Dasha, and Jake. We won't talk about all of them, but just you know, say their names. There's an evil executive producer named Evan. There's a host named Dan Harrison. No, Dan Morrison.

Jess Lee 21:48

Dan Morrison. Yeah, I was like Harrison. No, Dan Morrison.

Traci Thomas 21:52

But not to be confused with Chris Harrison.

Jess Lee 21:53

Exactly.

Traci Thomas 21:54

Like literally on the nose. Yeah. And then there's these like two producers, Amy and Casey. And for the most part, the kids stay in the house. They, I mean, they're locked in the house. There's like COs, correctional officers. There's bars, and then there's like all these producers running around. The producers also sort of like live on site in this other house. And the structure of the show is every Monday night, there is like this is what happened this week on the show. The kids go to therapy. They hang out by the pool, whatever. Oh, and there's a challenge, a lost chance challenge where the kids vote. Whoever gets the most votes, they don't get to compete in the challenge. If you win the challenge, you win immunity for that week. These should all sound very familiar tropes to everyone because this is all really tropes. We all know what all this means. I love that I don't have to explain anything; it just makes sense. And then on Tuesdays we find out who the so then America votes, and we find out who the bottom two people are in a live show, and that's when we find out about the people's crimes. The bottom two contestants, we find out their crimes. They get a chance to sort of like say sorry or anything, and then on Wednesday is the live finale where we find out which of those two people is going home. What did you make of just like that structure that's set up for the show?

Jess Lee 23:15

Yeah, I think the structure made sense. I do think that it added to like the reality TV vibes, where it followed like this specific cadence. I will say that between like like Thursday to Monday, I was always like, "What are they doing?" And it seemed like sometimes they would talk about it, sometimes it would kind of gloss over, sometimes they'd be locked in their rooms, so I have to admit I liked kind of the pace of it. That it was like it was not like, and now Thursday we're doing this, and now Friday we're doing this. Like sometimes it was like, and we spent the whole weekend, you know, weekend in our rooms, and then we were back on for Monday, right? Like I liked the way that worked. I think that it provided like a nice structure, just like you said, that people feel familiar with, right? They know, okay, this is what's going to happen because I watch The Bachelor, and this makes sense to me. Yeah, so I mean, I think it all worked. I think some of the challenges were very interesting because they seemed like a mixture of different reality TV shows, right? Like eating the mushed up foods

Traci Thomas 24:22

Yeah, I was like, okay, yeah, Real World Road Rules challenge

Jess Lee 24:27

Or Fear factor, even pieces of Survivor. Like it was giving that. Um, so I liked that if you are someone who watches reality TV, it felt very familiar. Um, and felt like a cadence that made sense.

Traci Thomas 24:39

Yeah, I like that too. I liked also that there wasn't like the violence in the show because I like this idea that they were sort of like being treated like beauty queens in a way, or like it did have like a very bachelor feeling. They live in the mansion, and I thought that was really interesting because like if you think about what what the show is. As a viewer, right? If you're at home as a viewer, you know that all of these young people have like killed someone, but then you're seeing them like all dolled up and like I don't know. I I liked the sort of like dissonance of how they were being treated in the house as sort of like stars versus how the producers actually were treating them, and like they're like famous people to the world now. But in the house, they're still being treated like absolute shit,

Jess Lee 25:28

right?

Traci Thomas 25:28

And I sort of liked that setup, and I liked the sort of like fake civility of all of it. I don't know that really worked for me. Like for example, like when somebody was kicked off the show, I think Dan Morrison said, I mean, I don't think I wrote it down. He said, 'Sorry to see you go. Wish you the best in this transition.' Yes, and I was like, 'This is insane.' Like, I loved those little things. I was like, 'That's so spot on.' And one of the things they do during the week between Thursday and Monday is they have therapy with that bitch.

Jess Lee 26:00

Yeah, honestly, Hated her,

Traci Thomas 26:01

hated her, hated her

Jess Lee 26:02

Like there were a couple of the adults. I mean, obviously Evan was like easy to hate, right? Wait, what was the therapist name? Why can't I remember it?

Traci Thomas 26:10

Doctor Jane.

Jess Lee 26:12

Doctor Jane. That's it. Yeah, Jane and Traci.

Traci Thomas 26:17

Oh, Traci's with the LCL with with the Last chance live people.

Jess Lee 26:21

Yes, I and I was trying. I guess I was trying to understand Dr. Jane's angle because in the beginning I was like, maybe she is there to help, and then I was like, oh no, she's not there to help. She's actually an asshole. And then I was like, oh wow, she's actually an evil asshole, right? Like, and I think that that was, I I in some instances wished that we got a little bit more background of like why people did this, right? Like why was Traci doing this? Why was Dr. Jane doing this? You understand why Evan is. He's a capitalist at heart, and although he thinks that he's trying to quote unquote save lives, he's really actually an evil human being. But why was Dr. Jane there? Like, what did they have something on her? Is she just a horrible person? I wished we got a little bit of that from the adults.

Traci Thomas 27:06

Yeah, I so agree. Yeah, my read on her was that she believed she was helping. I think she believed, but I also think she wanted to be on TV, like Doctor Phil, Doctor Oz, like these people who become reality TV doctors, I think, like there is some, there's some like obviously yeah wanting to be famous element, but I do think that she was like high on her own supply, like that she was like gonna help. One of the things though that was so fucked up that she did was like these kids are like we're gonna die, and she's like no you need to have hope, and I'm like why are you doing

Jess Lee 27:40

horrible, horrible

Traci Thomas 27:41

Why are you doing this? Why aren't you preparing them to die? Like, why are like? And I, I mean, and the answer is because it's not good TV,

Jess Lee 27:49

right? Exactly.

Traci Thomas 27:51

Right. Like, there were so many times where I was like, why would you do this? And I'm like, because it's not good TV.

Jess Lee 27:54

When she was pushing them about or pushing eternity about the darkness, like I was like, oh, she's actually like trying to punish her, right? She wants to make her hurt. She wants to. She wants to turn the knife. And I think I wish that there were was even like a little bit of somebody nice, right? Like, like not a single person. I mean, I guess you could argue her lawyer Zach was nice, but I think he was nice, although like extremely ineffective and very unsupportive. Like I wanted there to be one person who like really cared, and I guess maybe that's also part of the point that when you've got these young people that literally nobody around them cares or supports them, this is a route that they can take. But it was just so like it just leaves you with such a sad, like bitter taste in your mouth when every single person is horrible. Like that producer Amy, fuck Amy too.

Traci Thomas 28:50

fuck Casey. Fuck all of them

Jess Lee 28:51

I hated all of them. They were horrible. Dan, I feel like she kind of got through a little bit eternity, but even him, like the paycheck and being on TV mattered more than anything, and that I think is obviously quite realistic, and also makes for just like a really sad book.

Traci Thomas 29:10

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad there was nobody nice because that wouldn't have been realistic. Not surprised. I would have been. I would have been so annoyed. I would have been like, "Who's this nice person?"

Jess Lee 29:18

I just wanted one. Just wanted one, even just like an inkling of nice, but no.

Traci Thomas 29:24

I mean, I thought the CEOs, I thought the CEOs were like relatively nice. They were just like doing their job, you know. Like they weren't like particularly brutal, you know.

Jess Lee 29:31

Except for the end.

Traci Thomas 29:33

Sure,

Jess Lee 29:34

they really beat them apart.

Traci Thomas 29:36

Yeah, I mean, they did try to set fire to the house,

Jess Lee 29:38

and rightfully so. We have to talk about the Monticello stuff of it as well.

Traci Thomas 29:43

Oh, don't worry, because I've got you. You know what? Let's take a break, and we're gonna come back to mulattoes to talk about Monticello crew. All right, we are back. Let's talk about we so so let's keep going in the story. So Eternity is like, how am I going to survive on this show? I need to have an alliance. She goes to her roommate Malia, and she's like, who are you going to vote for? Malia's like you. She's like, ha ha ha, no. She's like, I don't know, probably like somebody else. Like there's only four black people and whatever. And eternity is like, great, that should be the plan. She goes to Terence, who's black. She goes to Darnell. She's like, let's be a crew. And Terence is like, great, we're gonna be the Monticello crew. And I said to myself, that is very interesting. I wonder why. So that's so weird. And his logic. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I did struggle to make sense. The logic was that he like learned about Thomas Jefferson and how he like got to found the country and then just go like chill in Monticello, and that black people never get to just like go chill.

Jess Lee 30:54

Yes, that was 100% the logic. and I was like, wait a minute.

Traci Thomas 30:59

Okay, it's fucking crazy to me. That was crazy to me in the moment. I wrote down, so we're just not going to talk about Sally Hemings. Like we're just not going to talk about what Black people were actually doing on Monticello. But but then what made it even crazier to me was when we finally get Terence's backstory and how he was like killing on some like like revenge black people Black history shit that he wouldn't know about. Like, I'm like, of all the kids, he clearly was the one that was like most aware of the social historical context of his life and what was going on. And I was like, wait, and he's the one who came up with Monticello.

Jess Lee 31:38

It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense because I think I mean even the Sally Hemings of it all, right? Like Thomas Jefferson was a horrible person. Yes, founder of the you know United States, 100% great, amazing, horrible person, right? And so especially a horrible person to Black people. And so you would think that someone who was trying to live that revolutionary life and was also very cynical, very very cynical for a 19-20 year old kid would have been like, let's call it Monticello because TJ got to really live. You know, he got to live out his life in in calm style. What?

Traci Thomas 32:12

that was that was definitely like what the fuck for me. I was

Jess Lee 32:16

and then they kept using it. I was hoping it would disappear into the ether, but then like at the end with the fire, and they were like Monticello crew. We did that, and I was like, please stop.

Traci Thomas 32:24

I'm like, but we didn't. We didn't. We don't. Please stop. I hated that.

Jess Lee 32:32

Yeah, I did not love that as well. And I, I mean, I guess it just. I don't think that the reasoning made sense, and I don't think that the reasoning made it clear enough as to why they would then like kind of rally around that. Like, what what are we supposed to gather from that? I don't know. I don't know. So it just felt like this weird, not needed connection

Traci Thomas 33:07

Right? And like again, of all the people who could have like a black reference to me would have been Terence. Like he could have been like, especially Harlem, like Renaissance crew. Like I don't know.

Jess Lee 33:15

Especially since the like he gave each of them names of who they would be, right? He said that Eternity was going to be MLK or was going to be Malcolm X and right like all those and they weren't like names that everybody knew right there were a couple that I was like oh interesting so for him to not then make the connection around Monticello and Thomas Jefferson just felt very strange

Traci Thomas 33:38

especially because the connection could have been like let's be the Monticello crew because we're gonna fuck up this white man's paradise, right? Like, there's like a version of it that you're like, oh, okay, that works. Yeah. Like, if that's the reason you want to be Monticello crew, then let's go. And then it actually does come together. Yeah. If it's like, let's let's be like, let's destroy this this whole fantasy. What did you make of Terrence's crime? He was the one who had this sort of Song of Solomon esque revenge, black crime fantasy with an older man who was sort of telling him what to do.

Jess Lee 34:15

So I actually thought that if there was any childhood sexual abuse. It was going to come there, right? When he was talking about meeting pops, I was like, "Oh, you know, interesting." And then it went in a completely different direction than I'd anticipated. Yeah, that was one where, although I do think that it was, it was good for the tension and the pacing to have crimes be revealed throughout. I think, and oftentimes we weren't able to sit with it and like have somebody then ask questions, right, or understand a little bit more. And I wish that we'd understand, were able to understand a little bit more Terence's experience and his why. Like, why did he actually do this? What you know? What was the reasoning? How did this pops man convince him? Right. There was no like. Here was the education that I got from Pops that made me want to be a revolutionary. Here was the frustrating things that I felt that ultimately, you know, got me to go out with this old man and start killing white people. Like it was just like we found a target and we shot, and it was like interesting. So I wished that there was more, and I wish that there was more for him. I wish that there was more for Malia. I wish that there was more for Brenna. Right, those like final four. I think they could have dove into their backstories a little bit more, because even though they were very three dimensional, I think they still had some two dimensionality that we just didn't get enough of.

Traci Thomas 35:35

I feel like Brenna. I feel like I got Brenna's the best of those three. I feel like hers made the most sense. I do feel like with Terrence, if okay, if I was going to go in and sort of like fix that problem because I also sort of had that issue, what I would have done is I would have allowed all of the kids to tell Eternity their story, and then allowed Dan Morrison to tell America their story, because then you at least get a picture of what they said happened, and then how it's being spun, right?

Jess Lee 36:05

That would be genius

Traci Thomas 36:08

yeah, I feel like that makes it slightly at least you get some contrast there. And again, because this book is so long, I'm not worried about like like cut something else to make space to do that because, like, if this book was 220, I'd be like, "Well, we can't fit it all in. Like, it's got to be tight. It's got to move fast." But it's 530, so like, if you're gonna make me sit through 530, like, let me tell you how I'd like to sit through it. My thing about Terence's crime is that I don't know if you've read Marlon James the Disappearers, but there's also a tie in. There's also a tie into the same piece of Song of Solomon, the like seven seventh day, I think is what they're called. And I find this a really interesting thing, this like black revenge plot, because I love it as a black person. I'm like, yeah, but I also sort of hate it because I sort of feel like it plays into this like white supremacist talking point that this is how black people like this is what black people are doing, and like that like we're just like going out and like shooting random white people in the street, which is like is not true. And like so, I like it as like an entertain. Like I like the fantasy of it, but I also am like, why does every book have like black guys like doing this? I don't know. I don't know if it's just like so gratifying to write about, but like it it was something that I was thinking like this does play into this weird white supremacist fear fantasy. When the truth is that like black people are more likely to kill black people and white people are most likely to kill white people. Like that's like murder is usually along racial lines, and also just for people who really want to dive into it, getting the death penalty is most common when the victim is a white woman, and usually even more common when it is a person of a different race who kills a white woman. Like you are most likely to get the death penalty for crimes against white women, and also crimes that are cross cross racial.

Jess Lee 38:08

Cross racial. I mean that makes sense.

Traci Thomas 38:11

Like again, in this book, like his is like the fact that Eternity got the death penalty is is stunning to me. Yeah. Because like it's very shocking, and it does happen. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but that was a particularly stunning one. Brenna's made sense to me. Anyway, yeah,

Jess Lee 38:29

Jimena's made sense as well. I can't even remember her there. Oh, maybe yeah, she killed the woman and then tried to steal the baby, but then killed the baby too.

Traci Thomas 38:38

That that's actually one of the stories from Redemption, the book.

Jess Lee 38:42

Really, now I feel like I should read that.

Traci Thomas 38:44

Yeah, it's pretty good. I did it for audio. It's very short.

Jess Lee 38:46

Okay. Oh, see, I like that. Yeah, I I understand what you're saying. I think that I can understand it and also still lean more towards the yeah, like like let's get them. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. But I think in in a book full of stereotypes that are like really very in in many instances very on the nose and in many instances a little too much. I understand why that would then be like it kind of ratchets up the frustration or the annoyance.

Traci Thomas 39:17

Yeah,

Jess Lee 39:17

and I so I agree with that for sure. I think if it was just that, and maybe there weren't other stereotypes added to it. I would, I would have not been as annoyed by it. Yeah. But I think that Terrence, he was such an interesting and, like, quite frankly, extremely annoying character. Like, I was actually so annoyed with him from start.

Traci Thomas 39:35

He wasn't my favorite.

Jess Lee 39:36

No, I was so annoyed with him. I think that he, I liked how manipulative he was. I have to admit, when he's like, "Yeah, let's do it, Monticello crew," and then votes her out immediately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like so, and had just like no loyalty loyalty to her at all. I think throughout the book he got better, but I don't necessarily feel like I wanted to spend that much more time with him, except for understanding his crime a little bit more. Like I think it would have been interesting to get more of a background of why. Now I I think that that my frustration, my annoyance with that, I think is pretty clear for every single character. Like I wish we'd gotten more of their backstory. I mean, at 520 pages, like

Traci Thomas 40:19

maybe there's a little room for some of them. Maybe not all 10, but like some of them. Some of them. Because we did get it with Brenna. We sort of got it with Malia. What did you feel about the friendship between Malia and Eternity? Did you buy it? Did you feel like the betrayal? I guess let me continue telling the story, and then we'll go to them. So, okay. After a while, we learn. We start to learn more about eternity. We learn about this boss she has, this woman named Anne Allen that she hated, who was like very mean to her. We learn more about her cousins Marquise and Siobhan. Marquise is like around her age, slightly younger. He's like 16.

Jess Lee 40:54

I think he's 14. I thought that he was that age too, but then at the end when he gets killed, he says he's 14.

Traci Thomas 41:01

Okay, so I was 14.

Jess Lee 41:02

I was shocked, I was like, she's out here getting bodied by a 14-year-old.

Traci Thomas 41:05

Like, also, like he, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so he's 14. She's 18. He's 14. Where's Siobhan?

Jess Lee 41:13

Siobhan is younger. I think she's like 13, and then sincere is 12, and then something like 12.

Traci Thomas 41:19

Yeah, and we learned that like Marquise is like pretty mean to her and makes fun of her because she's fat, and we start to like just sort of learn a little bit more about her life as the book goes on. She meets this boy at a barbecue at her cousin's house called Demarion, and they dance, and she's like turned on by like his gun, but also just like being desired by him, and that he hates Marquise because she hates Marquise because Marquise is very mean to her. Eternity gets access to the control room. It seems like the first time is maybe an accident, but it's hard to know for sure. And then after, and she goes online and she starts like kind of googling and learning about some of the other people to see like what the internet's saying about her. She makes like a social media post that doesn't really do much, and then producer Amy like comes to her a few times and is like, "Hey, we got an email from your brother like at a different email account. Do you want to like respond to him?" And so she does, and then she goes and she's in the control room again on the internet, and she's like making a new account, Taylor's version, which I was like, okay

Jess Lee 42:30

yeah like, I don't know. I mean, Taylor's version?

Traci Thomas 42:32

like, I don't. It's giving no thanks. I, I just can't. I can't.

Jess Lee 42:39

It felt unrealistic unless it was like her being like, "What will catch white people's eye?" Oh, if I do Taylor's version in quotations, like maybe. But you can't tell me that this 18-year-old black child who lives in Texas is like a huge Taylor Swift fan.

Traci Thomas 42:54

I mean, I don't know. I don't know a lot about 18-year-olds. I have. I don't know. I just like. I was like, okay, whatever. And so she starts like sort of digging around and trying to make viral posts. And eventually, her account gets verified, which I was like, I can't get The Stacks verified. Yeah. So I don't know. Like that should have been your first red flag, girl. And she also starts to have this like friendship with her roommate Malia, who's another black girl who's sort of like, I think more conventionally attractive, and she sort of in the first vote, Malia votes against her, but then they become friends, and then Eternity goes ahead and talks shit about Malia on her Taylor's version account in the hopes, like get her voted off.

Jess Lee 43:48

Tough.

Traci Thomas 43:49

What do we think about this?

Jess Lee 43:51

I think I don't think that they were actually friends. I think it was purely like trauma, like maybe trauma bonded friends, right? Yeah. And I think they just both desperately needed someone to care for them, and they felt like that other person, especially in some of the like deeper conversations that they were having, they felt like that other person was giving them that. But I don't like at times eternity was like Malia has to make it, like Malia has to make it out, and I'll sacrifice myself for her. Like, bro, why? Like, I just didn't feel as if their connection was a connection. I think it was just they were roommates. They were you know the only two black girls there, and they were trauma bonded. So I mean I think it was I think it was fine. I don't necessarily I the I will say the one part when Malia was kind of diving into her backstory, I think that was the part that was like a turning point for eternity in a way that she was like, okay, like a maybe Malia is not that bad, and also b like everybody here made bad decisions, and I think it kind of like put what she did into perspective, having that conversation with Malia. While at the same time, you know, being frustrated that Malia had a parent who loved her and Eternity didn't have that

Traci Thomas 45:08

I don't know if we said this, both of Eternity's parents died died in car accidents. Very sad. So she's got this grief that she's reckoning with, and also like this feeling of being left that everyone she loves leaves her.

Jess Lee 45:20

And so I think that connection with Malia, or that you know, yeah, that feeling of connection with Malia, I think makes sense, right? Because she's never had anybody who wanted to tell her things. She's never had anybody who opened up to her. She's never had anybody who, you know, maybe started to care for her. With that being said, I don't think any of them really cared for eternity. I think that she was still super on her own. Nobody tried to really sacrifice themselves for her, and so I think it was very surface level, but with a hope for you know, as the reader, to feel as if eternity is making some kind of connections or you know, being able to talk to somebody, so she feels like she's not forgotten.

Traci Thomas 46:04

Yeah, I don't know. I felt like it was a betrayal, but it didn't feel that bad to me.

Jess Lee 46:09

I agree.

Traci Thomas 46:10

I'm like they were all sort of every person for themselves, which I think is probably correct in this situation. Like and like this idea that yeah

Jess Lee 46:18

no, go ahead.

Traci Thomas 46:19

No, just like this idea that they were like gonna form an alliance and that they were all gonna win, just that was never the case.

Jess Lee 46:25

And eternity, I mean, time after time, these kids showed her that they didn't care about her. Terence voted for her every five seconds. Didn't even want her on basketball. Malia didn't want to pick her, right? Like nonstop. So why is her posting that shit about Malia, this huge big old problem. No, right. And I kind of wish that Eternity had said that.

Traci Thomas 46:46

I was sort of confused about like how the posting was swaying the vote

Jess Lee 46:48

Yeah, right. Like because they didn't know

Traci Thomas 46:52

it's not even like they don't know who's posting it at the time. Like I don't know. So it sort of like was like, yes, I understand it's a betrayal, but it didn't feel that like I thought her turning on Ramon was a bigger betrayal. He was so kind and loving. I loved him so much.

Jess Lee 47:08

That made me very upset.

Traci Thomas 47:09

What was his crime? He stole his grandpa's money?

Jess Lee 47:14

And also that that was a part that I didn't love. I think that, in my opinion, knowing like being so surrounded by the queer community, right? I can't imagine that if what now depends on how it was cut, right? Obviously, in the actual live showing, but based on what Ramon said, the fact that the majority of comments would be queer people being like, "Get out of this community and like super unsupportive.

Traci Thomas 47:42

Yeah,

Jess Lee 47:43

that just doesn't. Of course, would there be some? But you're trying to tell me that not even a couple people would have been like, "Let's welcome this young queer man into our group." Right?

Traci Thomas 47:52

Yes I think. I think. I definitely think that some of the comments were just like. It was like, okay, well, yeah, right.

Jess Lee 48:00

It was a little much, yeah.

Traci Thomas 48:01

Okay, so we're sort of aligned on on the friendship of it all. Okay, this was one thing that really bothered me, and maybe it's because like I'm too like Hunger Games pilled, but like, why was there never an attempt to break the game actually? like all they had to do was like during one of the live tapings,

Jess Lee 48:25

say stuff

Traci Thomas 48:26

say something.

Jess Lee 48:26

Yes, no, that was very frustrating to me as well.

Traci Thomas 48:31

And like it wasn't like they were ever going to break the game. And I think that like if it had happened that way, what I would have liked was for them to like say something truthful, be like, "This is what happened," and then for them to just have Dan Morrison be like, "We're so sorry that broke our code of conduct." So this week, like that's all it needed to be. Like it didn't need to be that like it actually broke the game because I don't think that they could have. But I was like, "You are on live television," and it wasn't until the very end, after they had fucked up the game, that they put the show on a delay so that, but like before that,

Jess Lee 49:04

it was completely live.

Traci Thomas 49:05

When they were like, "We're gonna do a recount," they should be like, "No, we're not." Like, this is a setup. This is race. Like, somebody could have said anything, and I thought one of them would because they were like, "We're gonna save you." I'm like, "Well, then save her."

Jess Lee 49:18

Yes, I was. I was shocked by that as well, and I also agree. Being kind of Hunger Game, Hunger Games pill coded. Like I, every time it was a live show and nobody said anything, and especially because Eternity in her head is being like, I could say this, I should say this, but there was no understanding as to why why she wouldn't. Right? Like, what are the stakes?

Traci Thomas 49:39

The stacks are you're gonna die. You're gonna die either way, you guys.

Jess Lee 49:42

So say something out loud, and like the CEOs aren't, in my opinion, I don't think they're gonna shoot you in the middle of the room, right? So like, not on TV, not on TV. So say something. I agree. I was waiting for them to kind of take control, even when she like, you know, leaked about Evan. And his wife's divorce or whatever, I was like, say that shit on live. Like, say that shit on live. Like, this is what Eric does to us. Dr. Jane is a raggedy bitch, right? Like, start giving examples.

Traci Thomas 50:13

Yes, like that's all you have to do. I don't know that part to me. I was like, you guys know you're on live TV to 65 million people, like you know that information. Okay, so then we start. Oh, we have to talk about this God OJ thing.

Jess Lee 50:29

Oh yeah.

Traci Thomas 50:30

Okay, so Terence is like talking about how he doesn't believe in God, and he basically compares it to the OJ test, which is like for oh I. I I actually hate this. It was I I actually forgot how much I hated this part of the book. Oh my god! I literally like I'm just like overcome with like how much

Jess Lee 50:53

Another thing that just kept coming up over and over and over again, and I was like, we need to put this to bed. Like we need to put this to bed.

Traci Thomas 50:58

What like I'm gonna tell you this: a true story. My babysitter for my kids is 23, and she didn't know anything about the OJ case. That's all I'm saying. Like these kids don't fucking know. Like maybe pops told Terrence, but like, anyways, his logic is that OJ had to be convicted of a crime beyond all reasonable doubt in the criminal trial, which is like he says 99%. They couldn't do that. He was convicted in the civil trial, which is just 51%. And God, we can't even prove 51% or more. So God probably doesn't exist. Literally does not make sense. Like okay, it comes up a million times after that. I don't know. I just feel like we had to just at least acknowledge this like thing. But I don't even have anything to say about it. I just

Jess Lee 51:42

I feel like it came right. Like this is in my opinion, like it's Terrence parroting what he's heard from Pops, right? So Pops is saying this, and so Terrence is pushing it, and it's like continued parroting. And I think it then loses so much of its like potency, if there ever was potency, as it continues to be parroted down, you know, across each of these young people, I wish that she had used some other vehicle to have these folks grapple with their belief in God, because I think that it made it, it like ridiculed it a little bit, right? Like it made it a little bit of a mockery, and maybe it's different because I'm 39 reading this. Like maybe a teenager would feel this differently. I don't know, but it felt to me as if a conversation about do you believe in God and what is God and is God good? Like some of those pieces around is God and there's no way that God can be good because He's doing this. Like all of that is so interesting. And then you add the weird OJ on top of it, and I was like, well, it just reduces it down to something that is very difficult to understand doesn't have clear connections, and doesn't give the young people an opportunity to kind of like grapple with what it means to believe or not believe in God.

Traci Thomas 52:51

And also, these kids are on death row. Some of them are on death row for crimes maybe they did not commit. Yeah. So the idea that that 1% is nothing,

Jess Lee 53:03

right?

Traci Thomas 53:03

Like I'm like that's all these kids have is this hope of this 1%. So I just also thought that the analogy was so fucking weird. The whole thing was weird. Also, like OJ did it. So there's so many parts of it. My favorite way to talk about God when you're grappling with it is like God is supposed to be all knowing, all good, and all powerful. How can He be all three of those things? There, you're done. Yeah, He's all knowing and He's all powerful. Then He can't be all good because look at all these bad things that happened. If He's all good and He's all knowing, He can't be all all powerful because He's letting bad things happen. Like there is a Venn diagram argument that is already there. Let's just fucking use it because the OJ thing was weird.

Jess Lee 53:48

Yeah, like why did why did she use OJ? Like I don't I don't understand. I don't know. I think you're 100% right in the fact that the majority of those young people would not know who OJ was, would not know about the crime, that would not feel something that they could connect to, and so it being even incorporated in there doesn't make sense, and it being something that they then use as a vehicle to grapple with if they believe in God does not make sense. Does not make sense

Traci Thomas 54:12

because they wouldn't have understood any of the nuance of the whole thing. Like I'm like they don't know who Mark Furman is. Like they they're not familiar with the context of the riots in 1992, they don't know.

Jess Lee 54:23

It was like all the way to the like the last chapter. She's still talking about OJ.

Traci Thomas 54:30

Right, and also yes. Okay, let's get to the end because I wanted to. We got to talk about the ending. Okay, then Evan changes the whole show, lets people vote each other out. Like he just there's a there's a last chance live with Brenna and Malia. Malia wins, and then they're like, "No, we need a recount." Then they're like, "We're gonna burn this shit down," and then they literally try to burn the house down

Jess Lee 54:51

with no plan, no with no plan.

Traci Thomas 54:53

Then we're just gonna run out. They do start burning the house down. They do run out, and then they. They shoot Terence.

Jess Lee 55:02

Yeah, they all get caught.

Traci Thomas 55:03

They all get caught. They get the shit. Terence gets the shit beat out of him. They all get put in separate vans, and they leave just Eternity and Brenna. They say that Malia got the lowest vote, so she's out. They say that Terrence broke rules, so he's out. They never show the fire on TV or any of that, obviously, which I also thought was brilliant. And then we finally find out what Eternity has done. This is a brutal crime. She reaches out to her, the boy that she danced with, who's sort of loosely gang affiliated. Both he and Marquise are loosely gang affiliated. It feels like, like Marquise like wants to be in a gang. He wants to be a blood. He's got handkerchiefs. He's got guns. But like it sounds like he's not really rolling deep in a set. She goes to him and is like, Marquise has been talking shit about you. He's been call like making fun of you, whatever. And Demarion is like, "Great, let's go get him." And she's like, "Great, let's beat him up." And he's like, "Great, let's kill him." She's like, "Great,"

Jess Lee 56:10

They're like so unaligned.

Traci Thomas 56:12

Yeah, she's like, "Great, let's go to where they live." And they go, and she thinks it's gonna be Marquise, but it's Marquise, Siobhan, and her brother Sincere. And they get in the house. They break into the house, and this part was just so chillingly sad. The kids in the room are trying to jump out the window. They hear that someone's broken in. They're trying to get out. They don't have enough time. The house is too small for them to get out, Demarian comes in. He shoots Marquise like four or five times, maybe 6 times. He's given Eternity a gun. She shoots Siobhan because Siobhan is screaming.

Jess Lee 56:54

No, she suffocated her.

Traci Thomas 56:57

No, but first she shoots.

Jess Lee 56:58

Oh, you're right. She shoots her first. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Traci Thomas 57:00

She shoots her first because she's screaming. Then Demarion's like, "What should we do with your brother?" And she's like, "He won't snitch." And Sincere's like, "Yes, I will. I'll tell every single fucking person what you did. This is fucking nuts, eternity. This is fucking crazy. You're crazy." And so she decides it's better to shoot her own brother than to let Demarion do it because he would kill him, and maybe he'd have a chance if she shot him. So she shoots him in the chest.

Jess Lee 57:32

Yeah, why didn't she shoot him like somewhere else? I don't know.

Traci Thomas 57:35

You know

Jess Lee 57:37

The chest is wild. When she's talking about the whole gaping hole in his chest, I was like, "Oh, girl,"

Traci Thomas 57:41

it's a lot

Jess Lee 57:42

tough.

Traci Thomas 57:43

Then Siobhan is still alive, and Demarion's like, "We can't have witnesses," and so she puts a pillow over her head and sits on her, which is for which is tie back to earlier foreshadowing when she says he's somebody is making fun of her and saying she's going to sit on you and make you a pancake and eat you.

Jess Lee 58:03

Yeah, yeah, Siobhan.

Traci Thomas 58:04

Yeah. So the two cousins die. The brother survives. She gets called in by the police with her grandma. The grandma immediately realizes that she has done these things and is like, I mean, this grandmother now has lost all four of her grandchildren.

Jess Lee 58:24

Terrible. although my grandma sucked. She was brutal, but still.

Traci Thomas 58:28

I mean, but also like, I mean, inheriting your two grandchildren after your child dies is also pretty dark. Anyways

Jess Lee 58:38

that's true.

Traci Thomas 58:39

I have sympathy for everyone. I have. I do. I have sympathy for everyone. Everyone behaved poorly, and also, you know, everyone has reasons. They all deserve to not have this horrible life. Okay, nobody deserves this. I'm Nana. I love you. I'm sorry. You could have been better, but like, you also could like it was tough hand. She was horrible and also tough hand. She immediately realizes what the fuck is going on here, and she's like, "You dumb bitch! Right? Like you literally killed your family." And and then, but not actually sincere because he survives. I keep wanting to call him Serenity. It's driving me crazy. I'm so sorry if I say the wrong name. I know it's sincere, and then Demarion testifies against her and says she killed everybody, and he like takes a deal, I guess. Um, and so she ends up on death row.

Jess Lee 59:32

Yeah, I mean, I it was pretty horrible, like pretty horrible to read. There's like a part when she says something about like, you know, you thought that you could hurt me so much and I wouldn't hurt you back, or something like that. Like she was so deeply hurt, and I think delusional for her to not think or consider that like something like this would happen. Right by reaching out to Demarion like, of course, he only wants. To kill this 14-year-old child, right?

Traci Thomas 1:00:03

And he's 22,

Jess Lee 1:00:04

and he's 22.

Traci Thomas 1:00:06

It's crazy for a 22-year-old to want to kill a 14-year-old. You know how it's like crazy for a 22-year-old to want to date a 14-year-old. You know how like we talk how about how fucking twisted and disgusting that is. It's also fucking crazy to want to kill a child?

Jess Lee 1:00:21

Well, and to be so threatened by said child like that, and because that was like the basis of this, right? Right, Damarian is threatened by Marquis, like talking shit about him. Like you can't come up with anything else besides shooting this child 16 times. Like that's insane.

Traci Thomas 1:00:36

Just like beat him up once or something. Scare him. Just scare him

Jess Lee 1:00:39

right in front of a whole bunch of his friends, like very easy. I also think that eternity, like right, like so after Demarion shoots Marquise, like Eternity has done nothing, right? Like she would still probably get in trouble. She'd go to jail. Like there's be something from like an accessory to murder perspective, but like not the situation that she had, and then she makes the conscious decision to not only shoot Siobhan, but to shoot Sincere, and then to suffocate Siobhan. And I was like, "You have not made a single choice that was good. You've not made a single choice that was good."

Traci Thomas 1:01:15

No,

Jess Lee 1:01:15

and it was so frustrating to see that happen.

Traci Thomas 1:01:19

Yeah,

Jess Lee 1:01:20

and to have it mostly be because, like, her family was mean to her, right? Because they were calling her fat because of all of the fat phobia. Because nobody really loved her. Like, I wish that there was some, like, something of her being like, "I am so deeply sad. Like, the grief that I'm feeling about my parents is overwhelming. Nobody loves me. Nobody touches me. I'm trying to go to therapy, I'm trying to make these connections. Nothing works, and everyone's mean to me, and I'm snapping. Right, like it there, it didn't give us that, which is wild because she's the main character, and I still feel like we didn't get enough.

Traci Thomas 1:01:52

Right, because we're in her head. If we can get anyone's why, it should be hers. Yes, I think also like one of the things I appreciated about her is that she is like such a deeply unreliable narrator,

Jess Lee 1:02:02

deeply,

Traci Thomas 1:02:03

and like remember the scene where sincere like gets jumped and she just like hides out and watches it.

Jess Lee 1:02:10

Yeah, like she doesn't do anything to support her brother.

Traci Thomas 1:02:12

I know. Well, that and that's when he flips to be on Marquise's side fully. Like because before he was sort of like on both sides, and like the fact that she didn't understand that or like, couldn't see that, and like, how limited her perspective was. I actually think some of that was like really smart to do it that way, because I feel like it gives you know some understanding of like how she got to the place where she really believed these people were like out to get her. But I think that like some of the teasing and stuff. I mean, I don't know about your black family, but like, that's like I mean, that's how black families are.

Jess Lee 1:02:47

My grandma called me Thunder Thighs every day, every time I saw her, and she would say, every time I came in, she would say, "Oh, you're looking bigger than ever." You might be like, "Oh, and like, thanks, grandma."

Traci Thomas 1:02:54

It's not that that's like right or anything, but like, I think that some of it is like she's such an unreliable narrator, and she's so hurt, and she's so buried in her grief, and like the loss of this life that she thought that she would have. That all of these smaller slights have become huge in her mind. Right, this red room where she's like committing these like horribly violent acts in her mind. I so I do think that some of that like made sense to me. I think some of the fat phobia that I hated in the book was how she talked about food, like constantly, like, and it was just like I have to have this pizza. Like all she cared about was like having pizza and like eating big ziti. And I just was like, I don't, I don't like that. Like I didn't think that was. I didn't like that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if the author. I know that the author appears to not be fat in her pictures. I don't know if she used to be. I don't know like where that came from. But I found that to be like icky. So not so much that like other people were being fat phobic towards her because I know and believe that that is true and happens. But the way that she was so preoccupied with food over like literal life and death, yeah, I found to be

Jess Lee 1:04:09

and also like super preoccupied with what and how other people were eating as well, right? Like she was so on top of it all of the time, and like commenting about how Terence was always in the fridge and she'd always be in the fridge, and she was always right. Like I do think that it went a little bit too far,

Traci Thomas 1:04:26

yeah.

Jess Lee 1:04:26

And I think wasn't purposeful to the story in a way that shed light on who she was as a person. And I think that it was quite stereotypical. I completely agree with you. I think from a fat phobia perspective, it just felt it was just a lot, right? Like it was so much, both coming from her to herself, from her to other people, and then other people to her. It was like nonstop, and I think that's just tough. It's just tough to read when it happens continually. Not to say that it's not realistic, but I think it is tough to read. I also think that I enjoyed the part of eternity recognizing that right, like Demarian goes in, knows immediately to just say lawyer, and then gets plea deals because he blames it on her, and she didn't know how to do that, right? This like no ability or understanding of how to navigate this system that is inherently set up for you to fail, I thought was it was quick and it was like such an easy explanation that I was like, "Yep, that makes total sense." And so I really enjoyed the way that Helena incorporated that in there. That like it wasn't because of any failing of hers; it was because she she literally did not know what to do. Like there was nothing that was set up for her to feel like she knew what she do and to do, and people in those spaces, you know, the cops are just trying to get her to break, and she was like, "Okay, fine, this is my only option, I guess." And it's just, it's sad because it's so realistic, and also I think was such an excellent way for the reader to be like, "Oh yeah, that makes sense." Now, you know, now we understand how she's in this situation.

Traci Thomas 1:06:00

Yeah. So after we find out everything that happens to Eternity, we find out that Brenna wins the show. No shot. Pretty White Girl wins the show. Of course. What I was very impressed by and surprised me is that Helena goes ahead and kills Eternity.

Jess Lee 1:06:18

Yeah,

Traci Thomas 1:06:20

she follows through. There is no happy ending here, I guess, except for Brenna,

Jess Lee 1:06:25

right?

Traci Thomas 1:06:25

Who we never hear from again. She goes back to Texas. She goes to be to the place like where she's going to be executed. They take her through everything in Texas. There is no last meal, which is so fucking crazy. They got rid of that, and we take her all the way through the whole thing. Traci, that bitch, comes in and is like, "What do you want?" And she's like, "I want to go to Disneyland." And they're like, "Maybe a bench, a bench, a tree." And she's like, "No." And then the head of the like direction, the director of like corrections or whatever comes as like, you know, is there anything you need? And she's like, no. And then she has this great line where she's like, more people today have asked me if there's anything I need than ever asked me my whole life. And I think that's probably like one of the best little moments in the book.

Jess Lee 1:07:19

Yep.

Traci Thomas 1:07:20

And then we have this like really sad scene where she's on the table and you know they're putting the saline in and all. She's like, "Is that it? Is that it?" And they open the thing, and then Nyesha is there, who is Siobhan and Marquis's mom, and that made me really sad. And then as she's sort of dying, she sees her mom, and she has this sort of fantasy that she's like wrapped up with her mom and her dad and her brother, and then she's gone.

Jess Lee 1:07:46

I feel like the ending was phenomenal,

Traci Thomas 1:07:48

phenomenal. Yeah, it was really good. I think the last whole last chunk, like when we learn about Eternity's crime all the way to the end, agree, was like pretty riveting and really, really, really well done. Yep. Um, And then we get an author's note.

Jess Lee 1:08:04

Yeah, what did you think about the author's note?

Traci Thomas 1:08:06

I hated it. I I genuinely hated it.

Jess Lee 1:08:11

I was reading it like Traci hates this. I just know it.

Traci Thomas 1:08:13

I hated it so much. And I'll tell you why. Most of that stuff should have been in the book.

Jess Lee 1:08:19

Yes,

Traci Thomas 1:08:21

and it was like the part where she's like, and people don't get a last meal on death row in Texas. I was like, yeah, but you said that in the book. When she asked for a last meal, they said we don't do that. Like, you don't need to put it in. Like a lot of it, like we didn't need in the author's note. She talks about different like the bullet points of like, and that to me was the most interesting part. Like when she was talking about the facts, when she started talking about mercy and this like idea of like forgiveness is that you have to pay a debt or whatever you have to pay pay the bill. I fucking hate the notion that forgiveness is some sort of capitalistic construct.

Jess Lee 1:08:59

Yeah,

Traci Thomas 1:09:00

no, I reject that so deeply in my core. Can we have anything forgiveness? We can't even have forgiveness be free of of capitalistic contract. No, I just hate. And then it started to get into this weird God place. Yeah, and then like I started being like, wait, so what was all that OJ shit? Like, I just, I, I just hated it. The there was only one thing I found interesting from the author's note, which is that this idea came out of the Department of Homeland Security's idea of doing a reality show for people, immigrants who wanted to get citizenship. I did not know that, and I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, everything else I basically rejected either on premise, like on principle, or because it was already in the book and we didn't need to read more. How did you feel about the author's note?

Jess Lee 1:09:48

I felt like the author's note made the made it seem to me like Helena and Dr. Jane had some similar mindsets. Right, like some of the things, like I was just looking through it again when she's talking about the fact that the young people bore the brunt of the darkness inside them and in the world, and I was like that. Like it felt like Dr. Jane kind of became her mouthpiece in some instances, which was not great because I didn't like Dr. Jane, right? And then the idea when I think it's both Dr. Jane and Traci are talking about like ultimately like you have to pay your debt like you caused a crime and you need to pay for forgiveness and that came up in the book and then it came up in the acknowledgements and I was like I don't like that right like I don't I don't like that we are making this a monetary thing that people then have to like pay back, and you have to pay back with your life. And now I do think that eternity then challenged that in the book, right? She pushed back on Traci and was like, "Why is my life the like the ultimate cost that like why is that what I have to pay?" So then to have it show up in the acknowledgments again, I was like, "No, girl, it seems like that's what you believe."

Traci Thomas 1:10:57

Like we don't need it." And like also, I mean, we don't have time to do this whole thing, but like that is just not how I believe in forgiveness. I just don't believe that like amends and making amends and like forgiveness are are transactional in that way, and that either you have to pay for forgiveness or I have to forgive your bill and grant you mercy.

Jess Lee 1:11:19

No, that doesn't make sense

Traci Thomas 1:11:20

It doesn't make sense to me, and I don't I don't like that logic. I just I I really rejected it, and it also made parts of the book made me like parts of the book less. I was like, yeah, wait a second.

Jess Lee 1:11:34

No, I agree. And I think after like such a gut punch of an ending to then go right into the author's note, I was like, nah, I'm upset. I wish I hadn't read that.

Traci Thomas 1:11:41

I wish I hadn't read that. Yeah, and then being like, this is for all children. I'm like, but it's not. Like, I didn't. It just, I was like, it's not Miss Rachel. Okay, it's not Miss Rachel.

Jess Lee 1:11:50

It felt hashtag all like all people matter, and I did not.

Traci Thomas 1:11:53

Okay, so do you know what's so funny, Jess? When I started the book and I read the like dedication, it says to MDH who believed in me, and to all children, your lives matter. The first note I took is, "Is this all lives matter?" And I literally, and then when I read the book, I was like, "Okay, I'm not like we're not going to talk about that. Whatever, it's fine, whatever." But you're right. It was giving all lives matter, and I don't like it

Jess Lee 1:12:17

It was giving all lives matter. And I did not, I did not enjoy that at all. And I and I don't think I felt that. Like I remember clocking in the dedication and was like, hmm. And then read the book and I was like, oh okay. And then the acknowledgements I was like hmm. Like it was like the bookends just

Traci Thomas 1:12:32

I felt like she undermined the argument of the book in a way that was not useful. Okay, last thing, and then we're out of here. Cover and title. What did you think?

Jess Lee 1:12:41

I think the cover is actually really great. I think it's very stark. I think it you get like 100% what the book is about based on the cover. I love that eternity is actually like bigger bodied and looks plus sized, right? Like that is great. I love the life or death row. Like love it the American flag at the bottom vibes like love it I think the cover and I think the title are wonderful I think it gets the point across 100% last chance live love it

Traci Thomas 1:13:12

I agree I agree I like all of it I love that the live looks like that American flag I think it all works yeah I mean, when they first mentioned that Eternity was fat, I went and looked at the cover. I was like, "Is she fat on the cover?" Because I didn't notice it when I just like looked at the book, and she is. Yeah, I think I think the package is like quite quite good actually, which I really feel. And I also love the exclamation point.

Jess Lee 1:13:34

Love the. I also love, and this is like, I mean, probably nothing that she had control over, but I love that the actual book is white, right? Like when you take the dust jacket off and the book is white, I was like, "Ooh, this is just like vibing with me." Yeah, yeah, I thought it was great.

Traci Thomas 1:13:50

Okay, Jess, you're amazing. This went long, but the book was long, so sorry, everybody. But you wanted us to talk about all those things, so we did. Listen to the end of today's episode to find out what our November book club pick will be. Jess, you are an amazing guest. Thank you for doing this super duper long book with me. Yes, you're the perfect person for this.

Jess Lee 1:14:07

Oh my god, I'm so glad. Thank you for having me.

Traci Thomas 1:14:09

Of course, and everyone else, we will see you in the stacks. All right, y'all, that does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Jess Lee for being our guest. All right, drum roll, please. It is time for our November book club pick. We are going to read a very buzzy book from 2026. We are going to be reading Famesick, a memoir by Lena Dunham. We will be talking about the book right here on the podcast on Wednesday, november 25, and if you'd like to be part of our virtual book club conversation around this book with the rest of the Stacks pack, you need to go to patreon.com/the Stacks to join, and then add december 1 to your calendar. Make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple Pod. Or Spotify, please leave us a rating and a review. If you love the stacks and you want more bookish content, head to Patreon.com/theStacks to join the Stacks pack, and check out my newsletter at Traci Thomas.substack.com. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at the Stacks Pod on Instagram, Threads, and YouTube, and you can check out our website at thestackspodcast.com. Today's episode of the Stacks was edited by Christian Duenez with production assistance from Sahara Clement. Additional support was provided by Grace Barry and Cherie Marquez. Our theme music is from Tagiragis. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Traci Thomas
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Ep. 447 The Church Never Apologizes with Deesha Philyaw