The Hunting Party (Chapters 26-Finish) by Lucy Foley – Episode 4

The buddies finish up The Hunting Party and discuss their past predications and feelings on the book. They take on the role of stock advisors, re-write the ending (they’re now authors) and discuss respecting women and fried egg nipples.

Transcript for SEO Purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome back to the Buddy Book Club. Thanks always to pacecar Joe for our intro music. I’m Dylan here with my good buddy Keith, to deep dive into some books from past and present. We’re a podcast for the common people. We’re here to make reading fun again. That’s our goal, I think. Right. Is that fair? Yeah. I wouldn’t use the Trump slogan just because we’re not political here. But like I said, we’re here for the common people. I mean, actually a quick anecdote that I think is applicable here. Keith and I used to work together, and there was a cafeteria of sorts in the office building. And at one point they had a contest for who could make the best sandwich that they were going to adopt at the office. And everyone was coming out with these caramelized onions and Gouda cheese and slices of Apple and stuff like that in their sandwiches. And Keith here, he basically made a Turkey club. He improved it a little bit down the middle. That’s how we do it. Yeah. Put a little bacon on it. And he called that if I remember correctly, he called that sandwich the Common man or the Every man or something like that. Right? That’s right. And you know what? At the end of the day, that sandwich won. It wasn’t all this highfalutin arugula with the goat cheese. No, it was just what people wanted. A nice, simple yet delicious Turkey sandwich. And that’s what we’re trying to bring to the listeners here. Great enough. I’d say that’s fair to say, right? Yeah. That’s definitely fair. I don’t know if we have the same winning abilities of that sandwich, but we’ll try to get there. Yeah, well, that’s fair. We’re working progress like you’re saying, and we love to hear from our listener buddies out there whether it be thoughts on the book. We’re reading ideas for the podcast. I mean, even hate mail. Send it our way. You can reach us on Twitter at Buddybook Club on Instagram at Buddy Book Clubpodcast. And you can shoot us an email if you’d like bookclubpodcast at gmail. Com. Now, with the pleasantries out of the way. Keith, my Maven of murder. What are we discussing today? We are getting into the second half of the hunting party. Last episode. We covered chapters one through 25. There weren’t any spoilers or anything like that. It was just based on our predictions, what we thought was going to happen, our thoughts on the first half. Now we’ve finished the book. We’re going to go over what we think was going to happen here, predictions and then characters stock up and down versus what we thought of them from the previous episode as well. Well, before we get into that, we got to tackle the most important subject, which is, what are we drinking today? Because we like to every episode have a drink associated with the book we’re reading either. Something we’ve created on our own, or like this book, thanks to an author here, Lucy Foley, who seems to enjoy a good imbibing of her own. She includes a bunch of drinks throughout the story, so we appreciate that keeps it easier for us. So this week we’re going to be wetting our whistle with either. She talks about some Puy fume fume. I don’t know which is what Katie drinks when she’s at the bar alone, the bartender gives it to her, which I respect without her even saying anything, which is actually a dry Savignon Blanc produced around the puyzulore area in French, right? Yeah, I don’t know. And that’s probably going to be a pass for me. I’m not a big on the white, so we’ll move on. There’s also. Her and Julian do meet up at the bar as well. They get into it for sure. He offers to buy some Hibiki, which is a Japanese whisky. Supposedly the 17 year old version is best. So I assume that’s what Julian’s drinking because he always wants to be the best. That’s a $500 bottle of whiskey, and I’m not a huge drinker of the Brown stuff, so I’m going to pass on that. You wait till it gets about 18 years. Is that right? I believe. Yeah, right. Too much. I thought that’s when it gets ripe, right? No. At least allegedly. Allegedly, we’re going to go with a classic gym beam and Coke, which is what everyone’s drinking in their College years. I mean, what’s more American than a gym beam and Coke? It’s also affordable. So I’m going to go with that. Cheers to you. Also wet your whistle. Side Note it’s a super old phrase. It was actually written as early as the 1300 in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and the Mouth was often referred to as the whistle at the time, so it’s actually pretty straightforward. You’re just wetting your whistle. We’re here to teach people a lot of things, and that’s a good one. Good little tidbit right there. Yeah. If that’s all you learned from this podcast, then hey, we love it. Happy to help the second half of Hunting party. Let’s get into it. This book was to me pretty much like the Ram Super Bowl of 2019. We all entered with high expectations. And the first half there’s not a ton going on, but they kept it interesting. It was 30 Patriots at the end of the first half, and then the second half again, not a ton going on, but at the end of the day, the good guys won, and we’re mostly glad we watched or read. In this case, I guess when we start part two, the fun of the games are mostly over. Old resentments and long buried secrets begin to surface within the group. The second half is pretty much centered around New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, whereas the first half is kind of a couple of days before sprinkled in with the present. But the group decides to go hunting, which is what you kind of do when you’re in the Scottish Highlands. Blood lust is up. Emotions are high. It kind of sets the tone for the second half. People start snapping at each other, but ultimately, at the end of the Hunt, Emma, I think my favorite character, Emma, she takes down the deer. They have their New Year’s Eve supper, followed by a game of truth or dare, a standard game for 30 somethings to play. Everyone continues to binge drink, especially our girl Miranda. We and Miranda find out Katie’s pregnant with Julian’s baby after a particularly sultry kind of linguine in the sauna, Miranda confides in Emma, only to find out Emma’s, her stalker smash cut to Heather, who’s headed up to the old Lodge on a whim and finds Ian and the owner have been using the Lodge as a front to smuggle Coke. Doug comes to the rescue for the damsel in distress, shoots Ian and saves Heather. Meanwhile, back at the lock, Miranda and Emma discuss how being a stalker is, like, totally not cool. Emma disagrees and does her best big show impression by choke slamming Miranda into the abyss. Emma continues to act rationally and tries to murder Katie, who she understandably blames for the whole situation. Heather arrives just in time, and although she was a paramedic in a past life, she would have made a great Secret Service agent. She takes a bullet for Katie, and Emma gets hauled off to prison. So that’s pretty much the story. And I’d like to lay out the twists here because there were a few so twist. Number one is that Giles, my boy. He actually had sex with Miranda. Yeah. You loved Giles, right? From the last half, you said he was the best character. Does that change your opinion of him? It does change my opinion. Okay. Yeah. For the better. I will get to know stock up, stock down. But I think I really want to know your yeah. Okay, my boy. Keep it up, brother. Also, Julian has been having an affair with Katie and put a baby in her belly. Emma turned out to be not only the stalker, but also the murderer of Miranda. I guess Miranda being the one who died is a twist, I guess, spoilers, by the way. I don’t know if we mentioned that. Yeah, little too late and unassuming. Ian the guy who pretty much just didn’t mention his name in the first half. No, he didn’t like rightfully so. Yeah, he wasn’t in at all. Okay, but I’m assuming Ian ends up being a drug smuggler along with the owner of the Lodge estate. Does that cover all the twists? Yeah, I think that brings it full circle. I think some of these characters faded into oblivion at the second half of the book. I don’t think we even heard from Giles was a brief snippet. Samir was gone. Bo and Nick weren’t there the random pink couple made an amazing side entry again, and then the Strangler Highland Strangler. The Ripper was a Ripper. Yeah. Okay. Whatever. He just disappeared, too. It wasn’t him. Well, we did do an initial podcast last week about the first half of the book, and we made some of our own predictions. We rubbed the Crystal ball, but I think it’s time to call in KPMG and do a comprehensive audit of our prediction. Big four, right? Yeah. What do we get right? And what do we get wrong? Sure. So I will start off with an auditor myself. First one, the big prediction I made was Miranda’s bipolar, which I think is still inconclusive. The reason I predicted that was essentially because I didn’t think the stalker was real. It seemed too absurd that someone would be doing that, which Emma’s character is pretty absurd, but that ends up being incorrect. But Miranda still could be bipolar, considering how crazy her mood swings are. I’m not a clinical psychologist, so I’m not here to kind of paint people like that because I just don’t know. I don’t even know what Bible. What are you trying to say? Yeah, I don’t know what it means. Either I thought that Bible or multi personality disorder is what I was going for. Okay, those are probably the same thing. Okay. Either way, inconclusive definitely could have been. So maybe he wasn’t in the book. You watch one episode of The Sopranos, and he goes to psychologists and you’re like, yeah, I can start diagnosing people. I’ll go to one of yours now. You can probably cover it. But also, by the way, do we need to put a spoilers in the first part? Because I thought you were just auditing you. You were fucking spot on that. People are going to read the first part, and they’d be like, Did D man read this beforehand? And he didn’t know when you said that earlier, when you’re like, yeah, we didn’t have any spoilers in the first part. I was like, I don’t know, a lot of spoilers if you just listened to what I said. Yeah. So I guess I kind of dug out the fact that Emma was the stalker and she was my number one for being the murderer. So, yeah, those both checked out. I called Katie and Julian having sex in a visa. The only thing that I didn’t know was that Ian actually played a part in this at all and that Katie was pregnant, which I guess there was her not taking a drink on the train, and there’s probably a couple of other things in there. You also said if this is a romcom by the end, Doug and Heather would be hooking up, and that kind of seemed to be what was happening by the end. Right. Like the end. They definitely hooked up at the end. Yes. So you’re kind of spot on everything here. I actually liked Katie or Heather’s line. When she was at the end of the book when she was like, yeah, I’m getting my flat in Edinburgh or whatever. Doug said he’s going to come visit, and I’ll have to get a pull out couch that may or may not be used. And the one thing that doesn’t pull out, dog, come on. That was too easy. The one thing that I did learn is that. And this is because I’m a psychologist now also. But if you have a ton of problems, mental issues, just get shot. Everything gets fixed like I did. Rather she’s like, you know what? Now I’m back to normal. Wait, what? You fall in love? No. Yes. If you fall in love again, then all of your problems go away. None of these problems are going to resurface. So someone sits on your couch is like, I’m ready to commit suicide and you’re, like, Just fall in love. It’s easy. Yeah, exactly. I would be like, just get shot. Any predictions we got wrong or, like, dead wrong? I think the Ian not even mentioning him or the secret shack. We kind of didn’t even consider that that was a little bit hidden in the book. Do you want to talk about that right now? The en thing. Yeah, it’s troubling. You tell me your let me lay down on the couch for you. So I guess my biggest issue was that it didn’t matter. Like, who fucking cares? The whole cocaine backstory line. Ian smuggling cocaine with the owner. It has nothing to do with anything. It wasn’t even a red herring. Yeah, it should have been like, Giles’idea to come to the cabin, and it was him smuggling. And then you could actually think Giles is a killer or is involved all of a sudden. But to make it just some random guy that’s not really talked about at all for the first half and then has a vital role for five minutes, and then it doesn’t matter. I’m with you that someone there should have been involved with the cocaine smuggling somewhat. We’ll get into that at the end because I do have an idea about that. If we were to rewrite the ending, but let’s talk a little bit about characters. We have our main base of characters, which is kind of like a closed room murder mystery in that they’re all locked up pretty much in this Lodge, and one of them is a murderer. So there’s no real ancillary characters. We have a clean set of characters. Let’s discuss them in a stock up, stock down segment. So Miranda, Julian, stock up, stock down. What do you say? I’ll start with Miranda. She ended up being who we thought she was. We thought she was going to be dead. Here’s what I will say about her is that getting choked out by a weaker Emma after a nice nap, a nice boot and recoup, and you’re getting some angry adrenaline pumped into you after finding out your husband is cheating on you. You can’t let that happen. A smaller Emma. You just cannot. So it’s really bad luck. So just stock way down. There. Another thing I want to mention about her is that Miranda is like, the guy at the bar, the big guy at the bar that says, what are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about what are you going to do? Every single character she’s like, Giles. Yeah, I’ll tell your wife that you cheated with me. Emma, you’re pathetic. You’re disgusting. I can’t believe you’re a stalker. To Katie, to Julie, to all these people. She’s basically just like, what are you going to do about it? And then Emma is kind of like, I’ll choke you out and kill you. And so, yeah, that’s pretty tough talk. Way up for me. Way up, really? To the mood, to the moon. When did she say that? She’s currently out of business filing chapter seven? Yes, her company is no longer traded, but it was a shot to the moon. Then the SEC came in and shut it down. A Jordan Bell for it. She’s just torching bridges left and right in the second half of this book. And who doesn’t love watching someone fall from Grace? I mean, let’s go through Mark during the Truth or Dare game. She assaults Mark, throws a champagne bottle down his throat and makes him chug the entire thing, which anytime anyone’s ever tried to chug champagne, it just sprays all over you. They go into vivid detail about his eyes bulging out of his head and stuff like that. I mean, even James Dean would blush at an assault like this. All right, next up, Bo, who seems to be just a good guy. She’s wasted. He goes and gets her some water because he’s like, hey, you’re drunk. You should have some water. Super nice thing to do. What a great friend. And after she has her water, she calls him a junkie. Like to his face. She’s like, You’re pretty cool for a junkie. It’s like, fuck. This is stock all up. I’m still stock up. Yeah, she’s burning Bridges. Okay, I got it. It stocked up in terms of, like, watching real TV with a mad Rashad. It’s just watching. I don’t know that reference, but totally, you never watch real TV. Great show. It was like, the original forechan or something like that. Just like, cars crashing and Katie gets it the worst. I think she refers to Katie’s breast as fried eggs. I mean, that’s an absolute Savage disk. There’s no recovery from that. Yeah, divorce. Miranda was like, I’m not even upset that you cheated on me. It’s that you cheated on me with her. Oh, gross. She has fried egg nipples. That’s fucked up to say to somebody. So talk about Bernie, but this is your best friend. Jesus, her best friend is cheating on her. But shit happens. Miranda, this is the dissenting opinion is that Miranda said she hadn’t cried since College, which was like ten years ago. And it was because she didn’t get top honors. And Katie did anyone that hasn’t cried in the last ten years. Something wrong with that? I cried two days ago. Were you doing a psychology terrorist attack down right now? What was it over movie? Yeah. In and of itself on Hulu. Jesus Christ, if you don’t. I mean, that’s what I would do to see if someone was psychotic, as I asked them to watch that. And if they had no emotional response, I’d be like, all right, you’re going to the gulag, but, yeah, it’s just like crazy. I mean, she’s been having trouble having a kid. She has trouble with her relationships. She has trouble with her job, like none of that elicited any sort of emotional response that led you enough that you could weep even for a moment. Also, Miranda, the dissenting opinion is Miranda’s memory. Do we want to talk about this? Yes. We’ve kind of gone in on Miranda. It doesn’t make any sense. So for me, Emma’s, her stalker, as we had discussed. And as everyone knows now, that has read the book. But her and Emma, I was going to think like Emma saw her at a party or something like that, which is true. But Additionally, her and Emma got drinks. Just the two of them went out dancing, just the two of them. And she doesn’t remember this person. I mean, this is a whole another level of self indulgence that you don’t even see other people. Is that the case you spent a day with this person? Is that possible? I don’t understand. I was offended most by the fact that she said, I’m good with faces. First off, I’m good with faces. If you got to say, keep with faces. What is your best attribute? I say I’m good with faces. That’s it that’s number one. And that’s it. I don’t have anything other positive traits. Really? So the fact that she’s using this, it’s like the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. The fact that also she uses that as a. Oh, I remember this photo that I took with this person ten years prior, but she doesn’t remember hanging out with her for the ten years when she was literally right in front of her face this whole time and stalking her. That doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it’s because she’s vain and she looks at her photos. That’s the only thing I can think of. But early in the book, she also says, I look at photos, and I don’t remember any of these people’s faces. So which one is it? Yeah. Pick your site. I mean, I totally get it. If Miranda and I think this is a total human thing to do. If you look at photos, the first person you look at is yourself and you say, all right, I look decent there that’s not crazy, but to immediately upon realizing that Emma is her stalker to be like, wait, there was that photo from College. That one photo from ten years ago that I remember. There’s 20 people in this photo, but I remember this little person in the back like that’s. You. It wasn’t like, wait, did we get drinks together? Didn’t we go dancing together? None of that. Actually, this is where the gym. Cheers to Jim Beam and Coke. That’s what her and Emma drink when they’re out dancing together. So, yeah, that’s my Miranda stock still up, though. Stock is still up for me. I’m not really sure how the stock market works for you, but. Okay, it was a fall from Grace, but I’m giving her positives because it was really the most entertaining part of the book for me. What about Julian? Yes. I’ll talk to Julian just quickly. I would say it takes a lot of balls to have section of sauna right next to everyone, but those balls are going to be low, and they’re going to be hanging. They’re going to be sweaty, and he’s going to be a lot of water in there. So it takes a lot of effort. I don’t think they had sex in the sauna. It was a cunningus part. They’re about to. Oh, it was a foreplay, if you will. Yeah, but then he was like a huge bitch after I just didn’t like his attitude after I’m going to agree with you. Stuck down way down for me, plummeting. He does the slimy move and tries to play both women. Yeah, we’re not about that here. If you’re going to play women, play one, you can’t play two. It’s too hard for you. You just don’t have enough in yet. He tries to play Katie, and then he tries to play Miranda. To Miranda. He said, oh, Katie came on to me. She was so relentless. And then he goes back to Katie, and he’s like, Miranda is crazy. I just want to be with you. Also, more importantly, maybe he invents a weird nickname for Katie. It’s like Katy did. I understand what was going on with that? I think it was just his nickname. So Miranda’s nickname is Amanda, which makes sense because their nickname is Miranda. Katie did. It doesn’t even roll off the tongue. Like at least KT or like, K. T. Anything. Katie did trash Julian Stockway down for sure. Let’s go to our favorite couple here. Samira and Giles. Giles. Giles? Yes, Giles. Okay. It’s definitely Giles. I don’t even want to touch on Samara because he didn’t even come up at all. She was already bankrupted way back. And then Giles, he basically wasn’t part of the story other than that one little quick thing to make you rethink it. But what do you have on them? I knew Simon Peg, aka Giles would never. He doesn’t have a murdering bone in his body. He’s just a good dad for me. His stock is up. It’s flying. I don’t understand your stock here, but. Okay, well, his stock is up because he hooked up with Miranda at her peak in College. He got her at her physical peak and is technically in the clear because it was before him and Samira got together. So even if it all did come out, obviously, his wife would be kind of pissed because a he kept it from her and B, it’s like a hotter chick that he was hooking up with, which is like, obviously going to bother someone. But at the end of the day, she can’t do anything about it. It was before they were together. Oh, it was okay. That makes sense. It was like their freshman year or when they were freshers. And so he has the ability to be a single guy and do single things. Aka hook up with tens, which is what he did. Yeah, you’re right. I’m coming back around the stock’s back on up now for me. Yeah. And Additionally, we’re going to assume that because it was right before him and Samira got together that this is the last woman he hooked up with before his wife. Now you’re not hooking up with any other women. So the last woman you hooked up with before your wife was a ten. Good for you, bro. Yeah, that’s how you go out. That’s how good on you. Yeah. So he went out on top. Good for him. And I agree with this. Samir call her stock is just whatever. I don’t even think it’s traded, but she gets to have her kit, and she’s happy. She doesn’t have to pay attention to these horrible friends anymore, and she can just enjoy her child. So that’s probably a good thing for her. What about Emma and Mark? Probably our most Dower couple here. Yeah, this is Google and Apple right here. These are both way up. We got Emma, who comes out hot right in the beginning of after chapter 25, after we started reading Kills a Deer, gets the blood smeared on her face, which is fucking awesome. Then chokes out her best friend who was pissing everyone off Miranda. So she’s not a little bitch then she’s like, you know what? And I’m going to go kill this Katie chick, because that’s just being loyal and then only get four years to prison, right? It was only four years at a woman’s prison. That’s nothing. That’s a great weekend. If anything, that’s a good story. You tell people after stock up. I did have the note that she gets four years in jail not only for murdering someone, but also for shooting someone else. It’s not discussed in the trial. I think they just decided we’re going after this one and we’re going to throw out this whole shooting of the other person situation. You did murder in the UK. I’m pretty sure I think that’s if you don’t kill someone, that’s just a tough weekend. That’s all it is. Yeah. And to be fair for Emma here, I don’t even think she was that crazy or I didn’t think she was that crazy throughout the whole time. I was like, all right, I get it. You see this other girl, you’re kind of a loser and mouse, and you want to be this other girl. So you emulate them. You wear the same clothes as them. You put on the same lipstick, the same makeup, you kind of do the same things as them. It’s high school stuff, but it’s stuff that we’re all kind of familiar with. If there’s a get popular guy at school, hey, let me try. If I can act with his swagger or something like that. So I get that part until she told the story of how she took up cooking, which was basically that Miranda didn’t Cook and couldn’t Cook, but like to eat good food. So Emma decided to learn how to Cook and make delicious food on their floor in College in the hopes that Miranda would walk by and smell the food and ask her what was cooking? That’s psycho stuff. That’s crazy train. So up until that point, I was like, all right, she’s not too bad. And then there I was kind of like, yeah, maybe she is a little nuts. What about Mark? I just said he didn’t beat anyone up, and he upgraded to a hotter, less psychotic girlfriend. Stock up. That’s just a great weekend. Also, you realize you didn’t end up with Emma, who’s kind of insane person, and you just upgrade right away. What’s the issue here? Right? So at the end of the book, they say that he gets a new girlfriend who looks like Miranda, but probably isn’t a murderer. Yeah, so win win for everyone. I think that’s fair. I think it’s a fair assessment. I valued the stock a little bit differently. I have a stock down for him. I don’t really like the price to earning ratio. He’s paying out dividends here on this one, he’s exposed as the guy who passes out at parties and snores. We all know that guy who drinks a bunch goes to a party, and then you end up pass that on the couch. If these guys decided to bring Sharpies with them to Scotland, he would have had the mustache. It wouldn’t have been good for him. It’s not a good look. Being the guy who passes out on the couch after drinking it’s, either that or he’s assaulting people. So I don’t know which one we want there. Either way is a bad hang stocked out. Yeah, but that was already evaluated in my prior stock assessment. So that’s the baseline. What about our girl Katie? Yeah, Katie stock way down again. Another almost like teetering on bankrupt Enron type situation here. So she gets pregnant, finds out about that, then just kind of carries on, like, nothing’s happening. Whatever. Then she gets bullied. She’s like, Miranda is so mean. Miranda is so mean, just complaining, treating her like a bitch all time. Even though she’s doing the worst thing ever, cheating with her husband. Then they play the truth of their game. And Miranda is like, go jump in the water, which, if you didn’t want to do it, don’t do it. No one’s going to be like, wow, you didn’t do a truth or dare it. Who gives a shit? And her justification for doing it was, well, I’m going to show Miranda what? How does that the opposite of showing her that’s literally getting bullied. And then you’re doing what the bullied said to do. You really showed her. It’s crazy talk. And then also, she has a baby, right? And she’s jumping into, I don’t know how babies work, but doesn’t that potentially kill the baby? It’s dark. But baby Lucy Foley’s onto this. She’s like, hey, kids. So here we go. I don’t know about the baby thing. I think plunging into cold water is probably fine, but I do agree with you on going along with the truth or dare thing. It’d be like, Will Ferrell and Step brothers being like, oh, yeah. You guys want to make fun of me? Like, all right, I’m going to eat this white dog shit. Yeah, watch. I’m going to eat it now. You’re just a fucking weirdo. She said Miranda quote, unquote makes her jump in the lock. She didn’t. She’s a high powered lawyer and then gets pouty because no one made you do anything. We’re on the same page. We’re on the same frequency here. We’re adults just don’t do it. Lastly, and most importantly, there’s no recovery from someone saying that you have fried eggs for breasts. All right, stock way down. Bo and Nick. What do we think about them? I just wrote who question Mark. I don’t even want to touch them. I don’t care. They didn’t add anything to anything. Yes, well, I think Bo good guy. He comes across as a good guy. He helps Miranda out in the drinking situation, and he can drink while also being an addict, which seems counterintuitive because it is. But, hey, if he can do it good for him. And he luckily doesn’t find the stockpile of hidden cocaine, which undoubtedly would have caused a relapse for him. That’s an open face cocaine buffet, and he doesn’t find it. So he then can live the rest of his life. So that’s a win for him. And Nick. He hates Miranda, and she’s dead, and he’s probably all right with that. So they moved to the States overall. Stock up steady, right? This is long term blue chip stock. It’s a long hold. Yeah, that’s one of those I didn’t see coming, but. Okay, that’s fair. Yeah. Let’s get into the non friends in Heather and Doug, starting with Heather. What do you think about Heather again? I think I touched on this, but this is a case of from now on, if you’re having a tough life, things are going down. Just get shot, fixes everything. That’s a big stock up everything’s back to normal for her life somehow after taking a bullet. Also, why is she taking a bullet? What? Because I told you she’s a paramedic and she wants to help people. Let her get shot, then help them. Wouldn’t that make more sense? That’s like the medic in World War II getting killed. And you want the medic safe so you can save all the other people because everyone else doesn’t know medical shit. Katy is about to get shot. Probably in, like the heart because they say donate for the head. So she’s about to get shot in the heart. And instead, Heather jumps in and gets a gut shot. Obviously pretty dangerous. Tony Soprano had a gut shot and he luckily survives. But Heather did the same. She said this woman is going to die. There’s a certain kind of person that likes to jump in the way of fire. And I also think that’s what Doug loves about her. They share that in common. Also, that scene moved really slowly in that Emma’s about to shoot Katie. Heather is up the Hill a little bit. It’s been snowing for days, so there’s, like, 3ft of snow on the ground and somehow sprints to take this bullet. She’s been out there for a while. She’s swimming in frozen ponds. She’s ready to go. I don’t question. She’s become a world champion snow sprinter and finds love at the end. So stock up for me? Yeah, for sure. And Doug? Yeah. So Doug, we learned, obviously we knew he had a dark past. We found out that he Blacks out and then just starts violently screaming at times and does random shit. He doesn’t know what’s happening. He’ll just be outside, like screaming like a Fox that’s being murdered. Yet Heather is still way into it. I think Tom Hardy comparison I put last episode might not even be fitting it. It’s got to be someone better looking somehow, because this dude must be just fucking just the most desirable person of all time. If you can do those things and she still will be into you, right? You know what? You are right? And he is better looking and he is more desirable. Let me set this scene for you. Doug went to war, came back, got into a bar brawl and did hard time aka community service for his actions. Did we miss cast him? Is he not? Cameron Poe from Con Air said, put the bonnet back in the box. He’s Nick Cage. We miss cast him. It’s Nick Cage, a way better looking guy than Michael. So much more discount when you’re right, you’re right. Sometimes you have to put your hand up and say that was my mistake and own up to it. It’s literally the Cameron Post story. I swear, Lizzie Foley was sitting there and trying to figure out how she’s going to round up Doug’s backstory and convert was on TNT, and she was like, oh, my God. This stringy haired, half Balding man is Doug love it. Give him a wife beater my man. Doug Stock. Way up, way up. I’d like to discuss the last two in Ian and the Strangler, so I think these guys are kind of tied together in that they were briefly discussed throughout the book and then had some little effect at the end. So I’ll just go for Ian flat stock here. The IPO just got released, and there’s no action. He also survived getting shot. So good for him. It’s a huge positive for that, right? Because his life is going to turn around now everything’s gone. Yeah. And he for sure gets a plea deal for his testimony against the boss. So he’s probably out of jail in a couple of years, loses the money he made. But at the end of the day, he’s all right. So it is what it is for you before we get into any sort of listener email, what are your thoughts on how this book ended? I think we’ve kind of alluded to it, but a little bit unsatisfactory. I do have a way to fix this without really changing that much, but I think making it much more satisfying. Can I indulge, please? Okay. Everything stays the same. Pretty much up until Heather going to the secret Lodge. There signs, Ian. There difference here being is that Ian is big time drugged up. So he’s up on that Yale all day, every day. And so he gets shot. But the shot in this case is actually end up being lethal. And he’s all fucked up. They’re like, who is it? Who is the killer? And he’s like, it’s this fucking big, shadowy dude. And we kind of see in the mind of the end, and he’s thinking, it’s just like terror in the night, right? This big fucking thing. So they immediately think, okay, he’s dead. But now he at least told us that it’s one of the two guys, Mark or Julian, right? So they go question Julian. He’s accounted for. He was trying to get back into the Katie situation, right? So he’s accounted for. But now they go to Mark’s room and Mark’s there, and Mark obviously has this fucking short temper, right? So he gets all hot and bothered, and he just found out that the love of his life, Miranda, just died. So he’s fucking off the rails, right? Getting all pissy. That may be bringing this up. They stumble upon the stalker cabinet of all this shit that he said, and they’re like, oh, so what’s all this shit? Even though we know this is Emma’s right now, it’s almost set in stone that it is Mark. So he sees the writing on the wall, and he starts fighting right away because that’s his nature. Doug who? Doug then freaks out and starts fighting back. Heather loves Doug, so obviously shoots and saves Doug. Mark dies. Beautiful. Perfect ending, right? That’s not bad. However, it is still

 

Participant #1:

Emma. However, the last chapter is literally through Emma’s mind and being like, yeah, I choked that bitch. She’s dead. And now she’s dating Julian, and she’s making her caller M like, Emma for Miranda, and she’s basically become Miranda. That is how you end it. Katie, you wouldn’t know that as the reader until that last chapter when she’s like, yeah, it was me. I love it. I love it. I’m a fan. I think it ends way better not to change it very much. Right? That’s pretty much the same story. But with everything laid out, I had, like, a Quentin Tarantino esque ending. So I was going for more of that. Bo might have, even though he was off the sauce, he was still involved. He was a connect in the drug market. And that’s how he was making his money. So this Icelandic trip he had previously, he just put the bug in Amazon. That like, hey, check out this place in Scotland, but Bo was actually setting it up for a huge New Year’s drug deal. So the drugs are coming in from Iceland, and the Icelandic couple is the ones that are ferrying them in from Iceland. So they bring the drugs to Scotland. Bo is kind of going to be. He’s bringing the money up, and he’s the intermediary him with Ian, right. And Doug figures out what the heck is going on in that the drugs are coming up there doesn’t necessarily know Bows the bad guy, but knows that there’s more going on here because the Icelandic couple, they’re in on it. Ian’s in on it, tells all the people down there, like, we got to go help Heather, who is probably a prisoner at this point. Unlocks the locker, hands everyone a rifle and is like, we got to get this shit going down. Doesn’t know that Bo is actually in on it. So big shootout. Icelandic couple, Ian, Doug leading the charge. These other people have learned from him after their hunting situation. He sets them up all the strategic places to do the fireworks, just shit going off all over the place. Grenades? Yeah. M 16. A lot of people are dead all over the place. Yes, of course. Doug needs Bo’s help. Right at the end, Bo turns on him. Boom kills him. What did he say beforehand? It was you. It was always you. Yeah, something like that. I love it. Or like, he’s like, Bo, I need your help doing this. And Beau, just like, I’d rather not shoot, but he has a British accent the whole time. Not American all of a sudden. Oh, very Dennis thieves and the only ones left. Julian has been clipped, but he’s alive, Emma, because she’s the sharpshooter. She’s still good. Bo takes Doug out, Emma takes Bo out. Just her and Julian. The cops come just like they were before. But now Emma’s Scot free because there’s no witnesses, no

 

Participant #1:

ties into yours. Where now? We like Emma, Emma’s savior of the whole thing. She gets away and her and Julian get away, and they do that whole. Now they’re together. Her nicknames M or whatever. Boom. They’re the only two that survive. I love it. I think we just made the book way better. Both of us basically authors now. So that’s cool. Asking for a friend. What do you get there? Yeah. So this isn’t for me. This is definitely not for me. When Katie hooks up with Julian, they do it outside. And Katie, as a girl, says I came embarrassingly quick. Yeah, that a thing for girls. What? You’re not me asking. I know, but

 

Participant #1:

you’re saying when they hook up in the stairwell of the apartment. Yeah. Why would you be embarrassed as a girl about that? Yeah, it would not be the best thing ever for a guy. No, I mean, I’ve never pleased someone to that degree. I was asking what Cumming means. I think that’d be a Pat on the back. But maybe she did her best guy impression and just kind of, like, sloughed off afterwards. She was like, all right, I’m done. See you. And she went to her apartment and just, like, left Julian standing there pitching a tent. I don’t think that’s what happened, buddy. Okay. No. Yeah, I don’t know about the embarrassingly quick. I wouldn’t be embarrassed. So, hey, Katie, if you’re out, there nothing to be embarrassed about. You really liked it. It was a passionate exchange. Good for you. If we could all have that, that’d be wonderful. Okay. And then cooking for others? Yes. You had mentioned that killers don’t Cook for other people. Are you ready to admit that you are a killer now? Wow. Really hard hitting questions here asking for a friend. No, I am not a killer. I’m a killer of hatred. That’s about it. No, I mean, hey, let’s be serious. We set the whole thing. Emma thing up with cooking people that Cook for others aren’t killers. But we also set the scene that the reason why Emma cooks for others is because she’s a psychopath who decided to start cooking so that hopefully the smells would walk down the hall and Miranda would float over to her dorm room like peppy lapieu. It just didn’t make any sense. I also think that Emma has a right to murder everyone. Personally, the dinner scene was absurd. Emma subbed in Venison for her brief Wellington, because, hey, it’s hyperlocal food. The hyper local food movement would be all for this. It’s a great idea. She spends days thinking about selecting the menu, and then on top of that, actually cooking it just to see Miranda pick off the pastry from the Wellington. And Katie says as I prod it with my fork, a little blood stream seeps out. And so that makes her not eat it, Katie. It’s not blood. It’s myoglobin. It’s a completely normal and safe protein that is in meat. And then to just push the food aside, no one thinks Emma for the meal. No one thinks Emma for her effort. She’s going around pouring drinks for everyone instead of enjoying the meal that she spent all day creating. And no one even acknowledged her hardship to show that you’re not a killer, I would literally murder all those people. Yeah. So I think because of that, all of them deserve to die. They’re lucky that Miranda was the only one, and I rest my case. Okay, then you’ve got mail. This is from Fred from Norfolk. Freddie? Oh, yeah. Fellow buddies. I like that demon and Keith loving the pod. I also think you guys sound really attractive. That’s a common thread. It’s weird. What are your thoughts on this? I would love to see a side bookmovietv show made about the drug smuggling, outdoor sex, having heart eating Icelandic couple. Do you think that is plausible? Thanks, Fred. I appreciate the question there. Yeah. So first off, the Icelandic couple is the strange strangers, right? We’re on board with that. Or the Reapers. As you said, what did you call them? The Ripper Ripper? Same difference. Yeah, it’s based off of Jack the Ripper and the Westminster Ripper. Whatever. The guy was in England. But I do think it’s interesting that they would be the Ripper. I think that’s because they packed light, they were kind of in and out. They had their whole thing going. I think that’s an interesting idea that they could be the Highland Ripper, considering that they were ready to kind of camp and move on. And we know that these murders had occurred across Scotland. I don’t think it was discussed whether or not they were involved in the cocaine smuggling. Yes, they weren’t. They weren’t they the ones that brought it in from Iceland. That wasn’t clear, but I think it’s safe to assume that the only Icelandic things we talk about are this random Icelandic couple and this cocaine coming in. I think it’s fair that we can assume that they were involved in it somewhat, but maybe a miniseries. A miniseries about smuggling and murder from this sex craving Icelandic couple. Yeah, I wouldn’t hate that. No, Fred, I think you’re on to something here. I know this book did get signed to a TV series by Seesaw Films. Yes. If they decide to go with maybe a longer format, I think they can dive into some of these side stories, and I think that I assigned a couple would be probably the most compelling one. So brings up an interesting point. I’ll be thinking about this. It’s probably actually the only thing I’ll be thinking about this book. After actually reading this book. I fell in love with them when Emma kills the deer and then goes over to get it. I don’t even remember what it was like. Butchered or blood out or cut or whatever. And I signed a couple of just there and they’re like, Let us have the heart. And she’s like, what? Yeah, give us the heart. I stopped that and started laughing. I thought that was hilarious. So they eat the heart just it, which is awesome. I’m a big fan of the Alaskan shows, the shows about people living on the range in Alaska, and anytime they kill a bear, you do have to hang the meat. The meat has to age a little bit, and you also have to bleed it. But they always eat the heart first, fresh off the kill. That’s kind of a big thing in this bear killing. And I think it’s also with other stuff, too. And deer would make sense. You’d want that heart fresh and supposedly hearts delicious. I haven’t had it myself, but it makes sense. It’s just one giant pumping muscle. And it also has this idea of, like, you’re taking a piece back from that animal after killing it. And it also has the idea of respecting the animal and that you’re going to eat all of it and you’re going to start with the heart. So I like that scene as well. I didn’t laugh as much. I almost was jealous that they were getting to enjoy that. Additionally, them having sex in the snow outdoors. I don’t know how much of an exhibitionist you are, but that sounds interesting. I was mostly mad that they weren’t involved in the second half of the book at all. Yeah, that was hard eating, which was awesome other than the hard eating. Yeah. It was like, Why are they hanging out in the place? You hang down. Exactly. That’s why I need to follow these people around. I don’t know what’s going on with them, but they’re awesome. And there’s, like, gunshots going on, and they’re just not addressed anymore. I guess that they were involved in the cocaine smuggling. They just got out of Dodge, but it just seemed a little weird to me and to wrap up what we were talking about earlier and kind of the traditions with hunting. And I thought it was interesting with the blood thing on Emma’s face. That actually is a ritual. It’s called blooding, where you smear. It’s a social ritual that initiates newcomers to hunting ranks. It’s believed to be started in the 16th century by English Fox hunters, considered a rite of passage. And there’s a number of other ones, such as Horn blowing, which is basically to alert other people that you’ve killed someone. The last bite, they killed someone or something. No, I think it’s for dogs and stuff. So like, if you’re hunting certain things, you boil the Horn and then they alert and like, oh, I can go pick something up. That’s not what they didn’t Fox in the house. I’ll tell you that the last flight is placing a twig in a Deer’s mouth as like an artistic or last, like, right of passage for the deer last meal. Yeah, pretty much. And then there’s also a tradition where you eat a small slice of the raw liver from the first kill, which is something. And then the Native American tradition was sprinkling tobacco on the animal as they thought tobacco was sacred. And it was like a way to bring it back to Earth or something. Yeah, wacky. But all of this I love. I love hunting traditions. I mean, I’ve never killed anything that was worth eating myself, but, hey, I think there’s something to that. I think people should probably kill more of the things they eat. And all these traditions sound pretty awesome. And I love Native America if we want to do a book, I don’t know if you’ve read Empire of the Summer Moon. That sounds made up. Okay. Yeah, it’s a great book about Native Americans and whatnot true story. But yeah, I love that stuff. So, hey, I dig it off. What did you love and hate about this book? That was the love. I just covered that. And then I hated the good with faces things. Those are my two big things. I talked about both of them. So did you have anything on your list you haven’t covered for Love. I had the setting itself. I thought it was awesome. Just like the isolation, the cold, the wet, the harsh climate, and these yuppies deciding to put themselves in it without even the right boots and stuff like that. The right coats. I think it also brings the beast out in you. It’s a bit like the shining in that aspect, and it definitely played a part in this book as like these friends who thought everything was cool between them, these old issues start coming out, and the darkness within them comes to the forefront. So I like that a lot. That’s pretty much all I had for love. Other Hates Truth or Dare at 30, we talked about this a little bit, but, like, at 30, it’s not that interesting. Truth or Dare is good up until you’re, like, 14. Because the whole point of Truth or Dare is to learn something about the girls. If you’re a guy who do you like, and then you parlay that into a dare for you to kiss that person, right? That’s the whole point. That’s how you get your first kiss. I got my first kiss in a game of truth of Dare, and that’s how you do it. It’s the age 1314. Call it at that. Yeah, I agree. Especially if you know these people, what could they possibly not know? Truth wise is true. Other Hates we’ve talked about Icelandic people disappearing the Highland River, not having anything to do with it. The entire cocaine plot. I mean, it being manufactured in Iceland just doesn’t make any sense. No, but Coca leaves are pretty much come from. I mean, I think it’s like 90% or something. Crazy, like, comes from three countries in South America. So are we assuming that they shipped raw Coca leaves to Iceland? We know it’s Coke, by the way. I thought it could have been. Isn’t Molly, like, ground up something that’s made in a lab? Or I could just be way off. I’m very nervous. Nice way to pretend smart. We already know you’re a killer, so you can get face and drug charges here, too. So it’s fine. I mean, MDMA or Molly is probably made in a lab. Okay. That’s why I thought it was Coke, though. I thought. But maybe if it was a party drug, that’s why these Icelandic people are fucking ready to go all the time. Yeah. I guess it’s possible. If that was the case, then yes, it could be manufactured in a lab in Iceland. It’s just the whole thing of it, like being run through this estate in Scotland. It didn’t make any sense. Yeah, I agree with that. And then probably my biggest gripe was the WiFi. The WiFi at the Lodge made no sense. So if we’re assuming this place has just like, I mean, I’ve stayed at hostels in Vermont when you’re going skiing, and they have really crappy WiFi because it’s like five doors away in the office. This WiFi was being run from the Lodge. Miranda was trying to access it from her bunk, which is her bunk house, which is not close to the Lodge, and she’s scrolling through Facebook to find pictures from ten years ago. I mean, they kind of put in there. They’re like, oh, not all of the pictures were Loading, Hon. None of those pictures are Loading. What are you talking about? You’re just looking at blank screens, but I’m just picturing her with Emma sitting in this room, and it’s like ten minutes as she’s scrolling through Facebook. Hold on 1 second. I’ll be right there. Hold on. I’m almost there something that’s as vain as her, too, has, like, 4000 pictures. Yeah, exactly. And it was over ten years ago. So also, by the time you get there, it’s going to be a super grainy photo because it’s fully going to load. It didn’t make much sense that they couldn’t get any service or whatever, but, oh, my God. Thank God. Julian told them to turn the WiFi on so that I can access this Facebook Photo. I like, how you’re so petty. I started this. It just didn’t make any sense on that. Would you recommend this book to a friend? I would for a beach book? Yes. So at the end of the day, I was still entertained. I know we had a lot of issues with it. I just like this type of book. I think I would recommend the audiobook. It’s like a play. You understand who the people are. It’s very easy and very vividly. You can see these people, you know, when you’re kind of listening or reading to a book and you just have a movie in your head just going that’s what it was for me. There was no point where I was thinking like, oh, I’m reading here. I’m listening here, which happens a lot with me for certain books. And so I just like this format, and I would definitely recommend the guest list. I think that’s a much better book than this one is also at least. So if I had to say, if someone was like, hey, I’m going to the beach, which I pick up, I would 100% recommend the guest list. If someone said, Should I read this book, I would say if you like the guest looks, but just know it’s not going to be as good. I think that’s totally fair. And I think the guest list, which is her New York Times bestseller. I haven’t read it. You have, but I think that probably ties in more to what you’re looking for in terms of a beat read. I did find myself at points doing the thing when you’re actually reading a book that you look back at the clock and you’re like, oh, it’s been an hour and a half. Oh, that’s good. Yeah. I thought I was reading for 30 minutes. I read for an hour and a half, so it was compelling in that sense. But I’m not a huge fan of this book. It’s not a bad book, like I said, but I found it to be pretty predictable. And with a book like this, you’re looking for those big twists and turns, and the twists just weren’t very interesting. Katie and Julie have been having an affair, and she’s pregnant. Like, all right, Emma is the stalker. Duh Ian was smuggling dope with the owner. Holes had better plot twists than this. I think if you’re a good reader, you’ll pick those things up. But when I’m just like, out here just not able to comprehend these things and not see through, then I think that’s the big difference. Well, I also think there’s not enough credit given to how hard it is to manage twists in book form. You’re obviously listening to it, which I think is a little bit different, but in this format, the author needs to give hints ahead of time so that you could have potentially figured it out. You can’t beat a twist at the end that you’re like, Wait, where did that come from? You have to be like, oh, shit. Yeah, right. This makes a lot of sense for what they said earlier, but with the ability to read closely and reread passages if you needed to or if you like, felt like even the paragraph before, like, Wait, something was said. You can kind of reread that it’s hard to slip these kind of things past the reader. So I totally understand the audiobooks are a little bit different. Yeah. Or just in a movie. I think that if it came out in a movie, there’s a lot more going on visually, and there’s not opportunities to go back unless you’re a psychopath who pauses and rewinds things which you should never do if you’re watching something for the first time. Rewatch is fine. So I understand the format makes it hard, but, I mean, there’s a precedent of lots of books that were able to do these twists and turns and do it successfully that I just didn’t really love this one. In particular. I thought the setting, I thought the writing was good, and I thought the drinks, especially, were very well curated. Cool. Well, what else questions for you personally? What else have you been consuming? You finished this book a little bit early. So what else have you been either reading or watching? What other kind of media you’ve been taking in? I just watched that Denzel and Remy Malek movie last night. Yeah, not great movie. Denzel usually can carry any movie, and then they have two good actors, Remy Malik. I think nobody told him he’s not supposed to be playing Freddie Mercury. He has the weirdest fucking look on his face the whole time. Yeah, that’s just kind of Remy Malick in general, if you want, Mr. Robot. Well, he only plays the misfit. Well, and he was playing like a lead Detective. So it’s like, pass for you. Big pass. Yeah, it’s pretty boring, too. I’ve been watching some Tony Scott movies, which I didn’t even realize was Ridley Scott’s brother. So most recently, Spy Games Brad. Oh, I just watched that Robert Redford. That’s a good one. That’s a really good relatable movie. Really good movie. I enjoyed it thoroughly. So I saw that. And then, as I talked about earlier, the last time I cried a couple of days ago in and of itself on Hulu, I would suggest everyone check that out. It was actually recommended to me by one of our Instagram followers. Amazing. It was just really something special. Different, but special. Oh, by the way, Tony Scott, I just saw the Will Smith movie there. He did rewatch that Enemy of the State. Yeah. Enemy State. Another great rewatch movie. Great movie. He’s got those movies where I think I’m not huge on directors or something like that, obviously. But if you started watching something, you’d be like, oh, this is Tony Scott movie. It’s very obvious that’s Tony Scott unstoppable was one of my least favorite movies that’s on my list. I don’t want to spoil for you, but the antagonist of that movie, the sole antagonist, is a train. That’s the antagonist. So just like, we got to stop this train. It sounds unstoppable to me. I was watching. I was like, wait, is there any part of the story and it’s just Denzel being like, this train needs to stop, man. All right, well, I’m still going to watch it. A lot of people liked it, so I don’t know what people liked about it. I can’t watch that movie again, so let’s jump into what we’re reading next. I believe it’s your pick this time. So you want to take it away? Yeah, well, you hadn’t read any Stephen King, correct? No, I have not. Okay. And the only Stephen King I have read was The Stand, which is incredible. Most of the Gunslinger series. I guess The Gunslinger is the first one. It’s the Dark Tower series is the actual name of the series. Both great. Both different. I think he’s mostly known for, like, horror type books, and we’re going to try to stay away from that. And actually the band that does our intro for us, one of their players there. The basis suggested we check out Different Seasons, which is actually a book I was supposed to read in high school but didn’t and includes several of his novellas. And that being Shawshank Redemption, which I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with. Apt pupil. The body, which was made into stand by me and actually one I haven’t heard of. So I’m excited for that. But yeah, we’re going to jump into that and get into some Stephen King. See what happens with that. I’m actually really excited for it. Yeah, me too. Hit us up again at Buddy Book Club on Twitter. Buddy Book Club Podcast on IG Buddy Book Club podcast at gmail. Com for emails. Alright. Well, good chat, buddy. We’ll catch you next time. Take care. Bye now.