First Lie Wins – Ashley Elston – Episode 121

The Buddies dove into Ashley Elston’s 2024 thriller First Lie Wins, and let’s just say they weren’t thrilled. The Buddies found the book lacking in both thrills and twists, so they tried to provide some in this podcast. They got to talking about group chats, guardian angels, bathroom etiquette at parties, and a clever use of a zip lock bag. So join us (or maybe skip if you’re a fan of this book), as we tell no lies in our review of First Lie Wins! 

Intro/Book Report (0:00-4:07)

Stock Up/Down (4:08-25:10)

Favorite Scene/Character (25:11-32:45)

Love/Hate (32:46-37:18)

Casting the Movie/Lingering Questions (37:19-40:33)

Conclusion (40:34-44:59)

NEXT BOOK: Carl’s Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

Alright. Welcome to book club. I’m Dylan here with mister Mercado. Oh, wait. Now that’s his super secret identity.

His real name is mister McGonagall. And I’m here with Dylan who goes by Dan. That’s right, folks. Dan Marino. Alright.

We’re back. Also that Luca was a boy’s name. But, hey, whatever. We’re here. Yeah.

Luca Donovich? Yeah. There’s lots of Lucas. We’re here at the Buddy Book Club breaking down some bestsellers, and this week, we’re discussing Ashley Elston’s twenty twenty four thriller, First Lie Wins. If you’d like to recommend a book for us to read or reach out to us at past episodes, you can visit our website, buddybookclub.com.

Send us a message on x, Instagram. That handle’s Buddy Book Club podcast. You can listen to us iTunes, Spotify, download, give us a five star review. That’d be sweet, please, and thank you. Keith, four point one on Goodreads.

We’ve been on a stretch of four threes, four twos, and higher. So this is the downgrade. But in my mind, a four on Goodreads is still a good book. Right? Four is kind of the barometer, I would say, of, like, if it’s not at a four, then we you know, you gotta start questioning it.

If it’s at a four, it’s gonna be maybe a coin flip, I would say, for, like, if you’re gonna like it or not. Yeah. I think that’s fair. Granted, I’m sure there are books that we’ve read. I think before I really got into Goodreads, there was books that we’ve read that are in the threes that we both liked.

So it’s kind of a coin flip once you get in the high threes, low fours, whatever the case is. And granted, we’ve done books that are four five, and you said we’re terrible and trash, and you wipe your butt butt the pages. So, this was a recommendation from the wife, and she said to me, listen to First Lie Wince because we were going on a little road trip. So I said, alright. Let’s do it.

Mhmm. Then she fell asleep, understandably, during the big meet of the section. And when she awoke, she said, how’s the book? And I said, this book is terrible. This was a bad recommendation.

And she goes, oh, wait. No. There’s another book that involves lie, the title, that I meant, not this one, which hurt because I don’t like to quit books. So I was like, alright. I got four hours or five hours left in this.

Yeah. These are short. It wasn’t like a twenty five hour one where it’s like, oh, yeah. But I did ask you. I said, hey.

Do you wanna change to something else? And you seem to be okay with it two two hours in. Right? Yeah. I like the beginning.

Alright. Well, before we get into our categories, I’m going to do a little book report for you. So, I’ll stand up in front of the class, and here we go. First Lie Wins, a book that clearly had a title before a plot, is all about identity. Who is Evie Porter?

Who is mister Smith? Who am I? By the end of that book, that’s what I was asking myself and not in the deep philosophical way that you feel after reading The Alchemist, but more in the way you ask yourself when you wake up at noon in Vegas with a terrible hangover realizing you bought a $30 pack of Mar breads from a vending machine after losing $3 at a blackjack table. Why do I keep doing this to myself? The book is basically a shittier version of the TV show Alias, and I’m just guessing here because I’ve never seen that show.

But our protagonist dons various aliases throughout the course of the story at the direction of the clandestine mister Smith, whose real name turns out to be mister Smith, by the way. She’s part Nancy Drew and part Thomas Crown, but always finds a way to stick up for the victim who she’s victimizing. It’s a twisting thriller with no twists or thrills. The first lie may indeed win, but it is us, the reader, who turns out to be the loser. That was really good.

I also like their the alias reference. That’s probably back to my, middle school or high school days when I had a huge crush on Jennifer Gardner. So just with that reference, your boy’s ready to go. I’m gonna give that an a. That was just really well concise.

Lot of references. I appreciate that all around. Alright. Good book review. That’s honestly all the notes I have for this book.

Let’s get into some stock up, stock down. Keith, stock up. What do you got for First Slide Wins? Stock up, meeting friends and significant others by conning them but being a morally good con man slash woman. So I’m a traditional guide, you man.

What does that mean? I’ll I’ll tell you what it means. I thought, you know, to make genuine you try to make genuine connections. You try to make genuine friends, relationships. And you do that by just being a, like, an honest person, maybe a couple good laughs in between, maybe share interests, you know, the the typical way.

But I’ve been, you know, struggling to get make friends out here in San Diego and I think I’ve discovered the reason. You’re not gonna be a good one. Doing is yes. This bug taught me is what you do is you set up this whole con where you play this whole different character. You have this huge role in their life.

You plan to screw them over the whole time, but the last second you decide not to screw them over and then tell them, I could have screwed you over, but now you owe me. Yeah. And that’s how you create that relationship, but that lasts forever. And that you can see that in this book. That was the key.

The football player Mhmm. Ryan, the senator. Anyone she meets pretty much, she’s like, I could’ve scotched you over, but I’m not. So now we’re best friends, which I haven’t been doing. So that’s on me, and I’m glad this book kind of, let us know about that.

Yeah. She she turns out to be quite the, like, NCAA recruiter when she’s looking. I love that. She does all all the research. I knew.

I was like, oh, Keith’s gonna like this part because it Yeah. Pre NIL. You know? So, really, there’s, like, right before the NIL. I’m sure when she was writing this now, you know, it’s two years later, and it doesn’t really even make any sense.

But, yeah, you know, she has the the interest of the player at heart. I did find it somewhat fascinating and annoying that she would always do something nice for the people that she was victimizing. This is your job, and you’re doing a bad job. And now you’re mad at mister Smith for coming at you when you’re just not doing your job. Right?

I agree. It seemed like even from the first job, it didn’t seem like she was that great at her job either. She was like, oh, and then this the drunk woman, those are the easiest person to steal from or break it into the the vault from would be that person. A person that’s drunk, a belligerent, and getting out of a, a tub. You should be able to hear that, all that those things going on.

When she said I didn’t hear her sneak up on me Yeah. I was so confused because we’re supposed to assume that our protagonist here is good at her job. And she didn’t hear a woman that takes Quaaludes all day and drinks a bottle of wine for breakfast. You didn’t hear her stumble or something. Get a tub either?

Yeah. It’s like a sounds like a tidal wave coming at you. You now % know someone’s getting her the tub. Yeah. She just got lost in looking at this safe.

Yeah. I’m not, I’m not sure she was actually good at her job, which could have been a stock up for me. It was just, like, lying on your resume. And she didn’t even have the accolades ahead of that to to be a good con person. All I could see was that she did makeup pretty well.

You know, she’d put on a wig and and she could assume another identity, but she couldn’t actually do the work, which gets me into my first stock up, which is Guardian Angels. This story came up recently because and, you know, we grew up as good Catholic boys, and now we’re terrible Catholic boys. Do you know that Guardian Angel picture that’s, like, pretty, I don’t know, famous? It’s like the guardian angel standing over the kids as they’re, like, crossing a bridge. I don’t know.

Whatever. But we had that when I was growing up, and it was above my bed, which the wife thought was absolutely diabolical and insane. She was like, who does that besides some, like, crazy Jesus freaks? So it was a thing, and guardian angels are important. And it looks like our girl, Evie Porter, has a guardian angel who is pretty much Devon, right?

That is what Devon is. The guy is a spy Swiss army knife. He can kind of come into any one of her jobs, it doesn’t matter which, and figure out a way to get her out of it or to allow her to succeed in there. I thought he was maybe the biggest literary crutch that I’ve ever read where it needed no explanation. It was just like, Devin will figure it out.

And if she needed a way out of out of something Yeah. Yeah. Like, Devin came up with this plan, and it involved all these different steps and him putting on his own disguises. And I kind of forgot. Do we even know how her and Devin got together?

No. I just remember they met on a bus or something. That was the first time in the meeting, but other no. I have no idea. And so he just does these things for her out of the goodness of his heart?

Because I don’t think she He’s getting paid. So he’s getting paid by her, though. Yeah. So she’s paying him out of her own pocket, and he has all of these skills, yet he’s pretty much just working for EV Porter handling her business that he could just be doing better than she could. Yeah.

Yeah. We’re exactly aligned here. My my next cycle was hacking. Uh-huh. I mean, the the hacker is, like, in every one of these heist movies always is the most important character, and they’re always the side person.

I’m always like Yeah. You shouldn’t teach your kids to be the leading man. You should teach your kids to be good at computers and hacking because they’re so much more valuable than, you know, all these the the leading man. You can find any leading man out there. But, yeah, my biggest thing was he was incredible, Devin, at doing his job.

I mean, you just mentioned it. Luca’s, like, best thing is, like, she’s, like, she’s, like, then I was wearing this different outfit with different makeup, so I looked older. Yeah. And it’s, like, that’s it? That’s all you got?

But Devon was incredible. But the only thing I I didn’t think was that great, they’re, like, oh, the only issue we’ve had is we can’t find out who mister Smith is or George is. I’m, like, George visits her every single day. Mhmm. Follow.

And and at one point in the book, George tells her that your guy is getting sloppy. I saw him come in. And then Devon responded with, like, the only time he sees me is when I let him see me. And I’m like, yeah. But George is mister Smith.

And so you couldn’t figure out who he was even though you see him and know when you see him? You couldn’t follow him around and figure him out? You couldn’t put one of those tracker things, you know, just stick it to him and figure it out? And if you really wanna figure out who mister Smith was, you would track George down to find who mister Smith like, how he communicates to He supposedly reports to mister Smith. So if you tap his cell phone or follow him in a van, whatever the case is, it Right.

Done. We’re we’re done here. And then if if mister Smith really wants to put the pressure on on Luca, instead of killing her body double, which I don’t understand how that does anything, just kills Devon. That’s her only talent. Like, and she he he knows who she her he is.

I thought he was, like, in the the weeds and he’s never seen him, but he says in the book, like, oh, I just saw your boy Devon. I’m down the road. Simple. Really simple. Devon reminded me of the character in, like, those shitty, serials, like, NCIS or something like that, who is the computer person that just solves everything.

Just like they just show him, like, putting in code, random code on their computer, and then explain the whole exposition person who explains, oh, how they figured it all out. And it’s like, well, that’s dumb. You know? Or the coroner or whatever that’s using these big words that you don’t understand as a listener, but you just assume, oh, they know what they’re talking about. Oh, they figured it out.

It’s like, well, alright. That was that was a waste of my forty five minutes of my life. Devin was and and I have a tough time because I guess I’ll burn it, but Devin was definitely, like, the best character, but he was such a crutch and almost, like, a trope that it I I got nothing out of it. Did you have other any other stock ups? Stock up, my last one.

Waterboy stock up. Okay. I thought you were gonna say waterboarding, but, yeah, waterboy, you better Every time she said, like, and then mama says, I just thought of mama says, you know, for a water boy. Yeah. Every time I chuckled.

So that was a quick one, but that’s There you go. I loved it. Yeah. That Vicky Valancourt is the devil. Yeah.

Kathy Bates. Wow. What range? What range that woman has? From misery to water boy.

Yeah. I was gonna have a stock up of, of yucking yums, which, I’m not sure you’re familiar with that phrase of, don’t yuck my yum or or something along this. They said it, like, a hundred times. Okay. Yeah.

I think you’re now familiar. So for those who may be new to the show, the idea of someone not yucking your yum is if you enjoy something and it brings happiness into your heart, go for it. Don’t let other people influence your decisions based on that. We all live in a simulation anyways. Life is short.

Go out and enjoy it as long as you’re not hurting anybody else. That’s really the key. The stock up was for yucking yums though and not the don’t part because when I looked into this book this morning, whether that be on Reddit or Goodreads, there were so many glowing reviews, and I thought all those people were the dumbest motherfuckers I’ve ever seen in my whole life. They Oh, god. There’s, like, the twist just kept coming, and I needed to turn the page after again after again.

What what are you talking about? And this is, maybe a hate of mine that I’ll burn, but there were zero twists in this book. There was no thrill in the thriller. What are the twists that we’re talking about? Her having a plan that actually she had some information on mister Smith and she turned it, like, so she was able to get him in trouble was the the twist.

And the twist that mister Smith was George and that Ryan wasn’t working with mister Smith or mister Smith. He was just another customer of mister who fucking cares? None of these are twists. They’re just things that happen. And even if they are unexpected, there’s like four so I’m gonna burn my stock down, which is keeping the cast small, but there’s like four characters in this book.

So whenever they have a, oh, who is this person? Usually there’s more characters where you’re wondering, Oh, could it be him? Could it be her? Could it be him? Could it be her?

Right, right, right. It was basically came down to, Is Mr. Smith Devon? Definitely not because he’s the crutch guy. Is it Ryan?

Potentially, but that would be weird. Or is it this George character who comes in every now and then and seems to know all about the business? Yes. It’s George. So, that’s not a twist.

That’s like, oh, okay. It turned out to be George. Yeah. I get it. Oh, what’s George’s name?

What’s mister Smith’s name? His name is mister Smith. That doesn’t matter. None of this matters. What?

How do people think this is entertaining? And if you’re just into if you like, this book should be on the shelf at, like, a Airbnb ski house that doesn’t have cable, and if you pulled it off the wall there and you read it, and you said, Hey, that wasn’t so bad, I get it. But if you went out of your way to decide to choose this book book and say this is better than many other thrillers that I’ve read, you, my friend, are an idiot. Alright. You said exactly what I had as my first hate verbatim, where I said there is no twist.

There’s literally three characters. You know exactly what I just I had written down. Yeah. So perfect. Yeah.

The other thing too is that usually the main character has some sort of moral change or something like that. But literally from the first instant, oh, yeah. She’s just a good person. She has this, like, code. No.

She’s morally gray. She, like, does bad stuff. But, well, she, like, steals people’s credit card information, but then she also helps needy football players become stars for the Atlanta Falcons. And then Amy lit on fire, and I was like, Amy’s not dead. Zero point zero zero zero chance that she is dead right now.

I was like, maybe if they introduced her as that first scene of, like, being like, then I killed Amy. And then you go on the rest of the book, and then she reveals at the end, she actually didn’t kill Amy. Yeah. She’d be like, oh, okay. But by the end when they, like, introduced Amy’s character and, like and then she lit her on fire with the cigarette, I was like, that didn’t happen.

No. Like, I know Nope. You already you’ve already, shown that you’re not a trustworthy narrator, that you’re changing stories later after the fact. So I know this is a lie already, and you already showed that you’re a good person. So there’s no twister.

It’s obvious. So you that’s I think that’s a great call. Use that at the beginning and have her say she murdered Amy before we really know that she’s an untrustworthy narrator. And then we start to get some, oh, okay. Woah.

Woah. Then it comes back at the end that she didn’t. Because, yeah, if that’s another twist, like, Amy’s alive, well, I guess at that point, I was already, like, drooling out of my mouth from being comatose after listening to this book that I didn’t care at all. But even otherwise, I would it it’s it’s writing on the wall. She all she’s done, and and that’s a lot of the review type stuff for this, was about how the character of Evie Porter was was a good character because she had this moral gray.

That’s not interesting. It it was actually stupid. Like the idea that someone would do all this terrible stuff but then also have a good heart. It’s so played out and the way that it was played out here was not in an interesting or even believable way. Trying to make friends, d man.

Yes. At the end, alright, so she takes over mister Smith’s business. Right? She’s cool with Ryan doing his smuggling stuff, breaking guys’ fingers, whatever the case is, whatever he’s doing. Fine.

So how is she then what is she donating to UNICEF with all the money she makes? Like, what what’s her her how is she doing this her own way? I I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. And then mister Smith as well, he obviously thinks he’s the smartest guy in the room, which I can understand.

He’s the diabolical bad guy here. But you think that he would be smart enough not to just steal from, like, the biggest mafia crime family, since he has a pretty lucrative business, which ends up being his downfall. Saying the same thing. I’m pretty happy to make sex, actually. That’s my other hate I had was it’s just basically right out of the Italian job slash enemy of the state playbook.

Mhmm. But the problem is we don’t get introduced to the mob side of things until the last chapter. When they no. It’s like, oh, we found out you’re stealing from the mob. I’m like, what?

Who’s the mob in those? What are you there’s no there’s nothing before this or that says, like, she ran into with the like, she did a job for the mob or anything like that. Alright. I guess. Mister Smith throws all of his people at a party to steal a painting, and he thinks that’s a good idea too?

I I also don’t know how he was all seeing and all knowing and everything, but he’s also killing off all the people that he worked for him. And and then he has a person that’s identical to one person that he’s working for. I was like, what? I don’t really go what’s what’s happening here? Maybe he’s Dan Marino.

Yeah. Yeah. So my stuck down was, was the keeping the cast small, which usually I’m I’m a I’m a fan of. And I think this can work in a thriller where you don’t know who it is, but it has to be more nuanced. Who’s that famous author we read?

What’s her name? Agatha Christie. Like, the Agatha Christie book. Yeah. There’s only eight people there, and some of one of them’s a murderer, or maybe two of them’s a murderer.

I think there was, like, 12. Yeah. Yeah. It was. But, you know, I’m just trying to I’m trying to back up my point here.

But you can do it with a few characters and make it interesting and a bit of a who done it. So even have a twist here where, like, she was mister Smith the whole time, and she has some sort of brain injury. I don’t know. Just anything besides whatever happened. Did you have any other stock downs?

Sneaking away at a party stock down? Yeah. The the Irish goodbye. When Luca’s double comes to our house, she’s like, oh, I’m gonna tempt her and see if she goes and, like, start searching around in my in my room. Then she’s like, she’s been gone too long.

Let me go see what she’s doing. She sees her and she’s like, oh, sorry. You surprised me. I was just, like, checking out your photos. I got, like, this memorized or something like that.

Now, the real move here, d man, if you were to be this person is you apologize and you just say, yeah. I’ve been having some stomach issues. You know? Like, that’s that’s the real reason. Like, you went to the bathroom.

You found, like, a distant bathroom so you could take a huge RG. Right? Yep. That’s what I would say, at least. So that’s what I was I don’t know why she didn’t say that immediately.

Yeah. But this is a stock down is because now when I’m that person doing that exact same thing for real, I’m in a place and I’m like, alright. Where’s the bathroom that’s furthest from everyone? They’re gonna think I’m sneaking around. Yeah.

So when really I’m sneaking off to take an RG on on the side. This is They’re gonna think I’m This is a very George Costanza type. This is my I can see this in a in, like, a Seinfeld episode where George finds the furthest away bathroom because he has to poop, and, they then something goes missing, and they blame George for for stealing it. That’s actually a good point. And then it turns out at the end that he actually did steal it, obviously, because it’s George, and he wanted to have it, and he didn’t want them to have it.

But, yeah, what she should’ve done is if these people are actually professionals, right, let me teach them something, and I’m gonna use your idea. After your coffee in the morning and you have a moderately solid stool, you grab a Ziploc bag and you pick it up and you put that in your pocket. Later, when you go to this party You’re just carrying it around your pocket all the time to party. These are spies. These are professionals.

Yeah. Stick with me. You go to that faraway toilet and you smear that on the inside of the toilet bowl so that when they eventually come up and catch you, you say, oh my god. I had terrible stomach ache. They go in the bathroom.

They see shit. They smell it. That’s where the only issue was, the smell part. And I knew you were gonna bring that up, and I just set you up for that. And I love that we’re on we’re in so in sync right now.

I was like, no. What D man’s gonna say after I say this is he’s gonna be like, it doesn’t smell enough. Yeah. Well You had a you had a perfect solution. I was thinking something less and less less thing than shit in a bag.

Yeah. No. You have to have it in a bag. The key is to smear it above the water line so that the smell really permeates, and it also shows them that you had some hot hot hot diarrhea. Yeah.

And then no one’s gonna question you at that point. They’re gonna think, what does this person carry a bag of shit in their pocket all day? Or you they you know, no way. But yes. Yes way.

Love that. Do you have any other stockdowns now? Last one. Being a 22 year old prodigy, stock down. Oh.

She’s 22. She is leading a campaign for a governor. She’s like, I always wanted to have my white picket fence and make mama proud. Alright. Just keep that job.

You already have what you need right there. Just quit. And then the whole thing is, like, well, what’s gonna happen is mister Smith will blackmail her if she does that. But then we see that she all she has to do is tell the guy, oh, yeah. You know, I have a fake identity.

And the guy is, like, thank you so much. You’re the best. We’re we’re best friends now. So she she could’ve done it. She could’ve stayed with him and work for him.

Obviously, there’s no repercussions for her conning him initially. Where did she get the skill set at 22 to become a star campaign manager for a gubernatorial campaign? I can understand how they could’ve faked her background story. Like, they did. I get that.

That’s cool. I’m into that. But the idea that she would actually have the skills for that. So they’ll be like, oh, she went to Princeton for poli sci. It’s like, oh, great.

But now you have to actually be someone that could have potentially gone to Princeton for poli sci. I can see if you’re, like, a social media like, insane social media wiz, that would make more sense. But being, like, a personable, like, you know, oh, I saw this back in the Reagan administration, so we gotta do something like you know? Like, that’s why people are good at that job is because they have all that experience in politics. Also, can we talk about how terrible the she’s like, we can’t set this guy up, and I’m gonna do give you one better.

So she invites all these politicians to a party, and they’re just, like, doing blow and banging, like, hookers in the room. And I’m like, you don’t need to blackmail these people. These people are already bought and paid for. Like, if they’re this easy to do something like this, they’re not worried. Like, they they probably, like, want those videos to be out there.

Like, you know what I mean? Like, didn’t didn’t make any sense. Like, the reason you’re in to blackmail this guy is because he’s squeaky clean, so you need to get something out of him. And she’s like, no. I did you one better.

I got the people that are easy to blackmail. And then also, what is the blackmail on him? She he does thank you to her, but he she she doesn’t have anything over him. So why is he thanking her? Because she could have drugged him and then had all these hookers and blow, like, pose with him, and then she would have yeah.

She would have those photos. Like, weekend at Bernie’s situation. Oh, okay. Fair enough. I guess that that’s a good that’s a good play.

I mean, it’s fine, except for the fact that he would be like, I was assaulted. I don’t know. Yeah. I’ve shot someone. There’s a Yeah.

Let arrest this line. I guess it’s, like, it’s a campaign, so quickly, you know, the the tables can turn on you because, you know, you only have a few months before the voting or whatever the case is. But, but, yeah, still, I totally agree with you. It’s like there’s the other people weren’t hard to blackmail. They were they were obviously terrible people.

If you want to catch him with a prostitute, you probably could have done so 10 different times. It’s not mister Smith is not working. Staying in that hotel, and they were doing all their acts in the in the room. You know what I mean? It was like, wouldn’t you just go to your hotel room if you really wanted?

You know? Yeah. Like, it didn’t so they were like, nah. We don’t give a shit. They’re like, we’ll do whatever in the open.

Alright. Did you have a favorite character in this? I like the d one athlete. Yeah. Actually, that’s that’s a that’s a good one.

Yeah. I kinda really wanted just to hear it from his perspective where he’s like, everyone’s telling him what to do. Everyone’s, you know the recruiting process if you’re a five star athlete is, like, insane. It’s like so much pressure. There’s, like, all these people in your ear.

He got game. Some random 22 year old knocks on his door and he says, hey, by the way, like, when you talk, just assume everyone’s listening, especially when you’re talking to your brother and those intimate conversations you’ve been talking to him about. Like, I’ve been listening to that essentially. And he’s like, holy shit. I didn’t think of it like that.

And then they become best friends? What? Yeah. What They stayed in touch. They stayed in touch.

I’m just wondering how that that they formed a relationship after that. The worst part was when he was he was like and then he started asking me about, like, financial advice about how I’m like, Jesus fucking Christ. Are you serious? Like, come on. What can she not do?

What can she not do? But, like, you’re not 18 year olds and some random person knocks on your door. They literally get advice from everyone at this age anyways. Some random person you don’t know knocks on your door says, I’m listening to your conversations, By the way, invest in, like, the Roth, like, IRAs. Voot.

Check out Voot. Yeah. You know, the index fund is out index funds have out outperformed, you know, by various marketing. He’s like, who the fuck are you? What?

What are you talking about? He’s like, you know, I have, a money manager. Like, that’s I’m I’m wealthy. I don’t need Yeah. You who who put a credit card reader at a, you know, golf club convention raffle to be telling to be telling me what to do.

Thank you very much. Yeah. So, yeah, it seems like his dumbest decision was to listen to her. And she convinces him to to purge himself or whatever it is. He lies to police so he could go to jail just for that.

Yeah. That’s true. It’s a good good point. Yeah. I didn’t think about him.

Literally, it was none for me. I wish there was at least a pet I could have rooted for because I I would have rooted for for a pet, but there there was none. You really hated this book. Yeah. Yeah.

And I felt bad because, you know, as we’re sitting here the past couple days, Carol has been like, are you just gonna make fun of me the whole time for recommending this book? And and we have we have book that she wanted? I don’t know. Some other lie book. But All the books have these names now.

It’s like woman in the window lying or, like, lying at the front door with a window open, woman on the train. You know, they’re all the same book titles, you know, these days. Yeah. It’s just it’s almost turned into a new form of, like, a romance novel or whatever the case is. And and it that’s fine, but this had no romance.

So it was like, okay. Well, it’s just for the thrills. And this but it had no thrills. And there are so many of these that you can just get at the airport. And they’re beach books.

You don’t you’ll never remember this book ever again. I will remember this book. Oh, wow. You yeah. I I didn’t hate it this much.

Okay. Alright. Yeah. So coming off of Dungeon Crawler Carl, which was super enjoyable, and I understand that that is a very niche book as well and a completely different niche than this one is. And it’s probably more for us.

Like, that book is is more for us. But there’s been lots of thrillers that we’ve enjoyed that definitely weren’t for us. I’m thinking, like, Rock, Paper, Scissor, I think we we liked. Silent Patient’s the gold standard. Silent Patient is your yeah.

Your gold standard. The point is that we like some of these books. It’s not like we just come in here and hate them. This one and, like, First Lie He Told Me or whatever that one is. It’s just or whatever.

That’s just so bad. It’s it’s unfortunate that there are so many of these out there. It’s not compared to that one. That one was a hundred that’s not even comes close to how bad this that one was. Oh.

That’s insulting. But I saw a Reddit post about this book that was like, I’m a man in my mid thirties, and I haven’t read in a really long time. And I picked up this book, and I think it I’ve peaked. Like, I think this is I don’t know how it’s gonna get better than this. That’s awesome for him.

That is really good. So he’s you know how good things are gonna get from here? That’s pretty sick. Yeah. I feel like it’s the first time a kid tries vanilla ice cream and is like, this is the pinnacle of taste.

And then someone says, you know they make Moose Tracks, which is like vanilla ice cream with caramel pieces and, like, chocolate pretzels, and then you just you’re off. You’re off. So I’m hoping that that was his journey. There’s no follow-up to that. But, yeah, if this is your barometer for amazing, then go to your local library and actually be amazed because, good god, there are better books out there.

I mean, I I can see that if you haven’t read this genre at all and you read this, you’re like, oh, shit. I didn’t know. Like, you could do twists and turns like this. This is great. But we’ve read so many that this becomes almost formulaic at that point.

You know what I mean? Yeah. When when this this turns into a hallway, it wasn’t a twist and turns. I’ll I just it’s it’s straightened out like that level. Straightened out like that level in Ocarina of Time when the thing looks turning, but then if you shoot your arrow at it, the arrow eye closes and the hallway turns straight.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a deep cut. What was your favorite part of the book, Keith?

You said the the beginning? I didn’t mind because I do like the idea of, and this wasn’t really a scene, but, like, her meeting with, like, the friends and things like that and being, like, well, this is what they’re trying to get out of me. This is why I’m presenting myself in this way. I kinda like that. I also liked the concept of First Lie Wins, which I just interpreted to be people judge you in the first five minutes, which is real life, you know.

So you just gotta present a certain lie that wins them over or, like, makes them think of you in a certain way. And, like, it feels just all marketing, presentation, you know, things like that. So I like that whole concept. Yeah. I didn’t really get it.

So I mean, you’re just not as elevated like I am. Alright? You just don’t know about first lie with I just think when you say the title in the book, I need a better explanation of, hey. The first lie has to be good enough that then they believe all the other lies, or the first lie kinda sets the tone for all of your other lies, I guess, the case is. Yeah.

Maybe I subscribed it well, I thought. No? Because I had to look up what it I was like, what is the fuck? Oh, so, yeah, you didn’t need any mental. I think within the first five minutes of meeting each other, we didn’t like each other.

And now I love you. So that’s I your point was false. Well, that’s because you conned me for six months into me thinking I wouldn’t like you. And then Yeah. You said I’ve been conning this whole time.

You’re welcome. I was like, oh, I owe you one, bud. I’ve had a camera in the company bathroom for the last six months. I have all these poops of yours, and you putting them you putting them in ziplock bags. He’s bad.

He’s like, well, I will just say this whole time you’ve been going to my stuff, but in reality, you’ve been taking huge chances of other money for doing that. And then ziplock bagging it all. That’s all you gotta do. Yeah. I guess the my favorite part of the book was the first sentence when I still had hope it would be enjoyable.

Jesus Christ. Yo, man. You’re this is this is a bottom 10 book for you. I’ve We’ve read a 20 30 at this point. Yeah.

I mean, that’s bottom 10 percentile. Yeah. For sure. Oh, I was saying bottom 10 overall. Well, bottom 10 is pretty much bottom 10 percentile because that’d be bottom 12.

So Oh, a little bit of fucking math guy over here. Alright? It’s good. You can’t handle me with my marketing talk I just had. You wouldn’t understand that, but you’re trying to fucking whip out percentages on me.

Alright. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t I mean, I have to go go through our list of all of our books. But, yeah, it was it it was nothing.

It was air. It’s like someone it was like when in Hook when Peter Pan goes to dinner and he looks down at his plate and there’s nothing on it. Like, all the other kids are having a fun time eating this air, and he’s like, I’m not I’m not sitting here eating air. What about loves? I like the concept.

I already just mentioned it. I like conning people. Mhmm. You know? Cons are always good.

The football portion was good. I actually kinda like I I had I was like, here we go. Someone’s gonna fucking talk about recruiting. I never recruited. I get married.

I was like, they weren’t back. This is pretty cool. I thought it was actually something that realistically could happen. It wasn’t farfetched that for someone to be like, oh, a donor is coming in and buying off prospect. Mhmm.

Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And then, obviously, they referenced the Clemson Tigers. So we love that.

That obviously gave it a point five boost in the rating right there and then. So we’re fine. Yeah. What about you? I have this section’s blank for me.

But, I do like con. I do like con stuff. Have you seen the sting? The movie the sting? Robert Redford.

Oh, okay. No. I’m thinking of every movie. No. I’ve heard of that one.

That’s, like, a really famous one. Right? Probably, like, I’d say, like, maybe the most famous con movie. It’s it’s worth watching. It’s a it’s a good movie.

Like, it’s just a movie about about con men. Mhmm. Yeah. So I I I do enjoy con stuff too. Even, like, you know, in Lost, Sawyer was, like, a con guy.

I liked that. I think that’s what he did. Someone was involved in cons in that in that show, which was which was enjoyable. So, yeah, anything con related, I’m usually in for. Unfortunately, when you’re, like, an altruistic con woman, it’s with, like, mixed emotional and moral takes.

It’s whatever. Did you love anything else? Did I mention the Clemson part? Yeah. Yeah.

You did. No. No. No. That’s it.

What about hates? I think we’ve kind of already let out most of our hates. Mhmm. Well, then there’s one extra that that you may have missed because the one that I still haven’t burned is who in God’s name adds a random person to their group text after meeting them once? Or maybe twice.

I don’t remember exactly. Are you referencing our government right now? Yeah. That should’ve been a stock cut down or something like that. But, yeah, it’s pretty much that, you know, because Evie meets all of Ryan’s friends, like, his his gal friends, and she goes back to his hometown, she meets all of his gal friends, they go out to lunch and everyone’s judging each other which I also thought was just such a terrible take on women and such a terrible trope of just like, oh, I go in there and all these women are judging me.

It’s like or they just went out to lunch. The questions they were asking her, she was acting as if these were absurd questions to be asking her. They’re like, where are you from? And she’s like, oh, of course. So they can now go back and look me up and see what my hometown’s like.

It’s like, no. They were just asking you normal questions that to be social, that’s what you ask people. But then after they’ve met her that one time or maybe the second time, they add her into their group chat. And at least for me, group chats are, kind of like a a holy place that people don’t just get, like, added to and removed from. We’re in a couple ourselves, and these are these are places that no one, until the day we die, we will be in that group chat.

No one’s gonna remove someone from that, and you’re not gonna just add someone. Like, if you have a group chat with all of your best buds from home, and your other friend is dating someone, you’re not gonna just add them to that group chat. You might do a a subgroup chat, which includes them. Right. Right.

But you’re not gonna just plus them in to yours. So I thought that was completely unbelievable. Like, me and my college buddies, we have a group chat. And then from that parent group chat, there’s, like, eight other group chats. There’s probably ones that I don’t know about that might just be, like, Dylan sucks.

And they just go in there and talk about how much I suck. I don’t know, and I don’t care. That’s their right. As long as we’re still in the group chat together, it’s fine. Like, if I send something to the group chat, like, sometimes there will be people that will send photos of something they cooked to the group, just something their wife cooked to the group chat.

Be like, look. I have this amazing dish I cooked. And there’s a chat without them on it that everyone and everyone thumbs up, said, go out. Good job. And then on the subgroup chat, it’s like, that looks like dog shit.

Who would possibly eat that? I can’t believe that person was confident enough to take a picture of that. It’s embarrassing. So that is the fun part of the thesis on this. I like that this is, like, like, one sentence that led to, like, like, let me tell you one other thing.

But, no, your audience is spot on. Yeah. So, it just didn’t make any sense to me that they would add here. Lingering questions. Why did anyone buy this book or why are they gonna make it into a TV show?

Because I think they are. I guess they don’t make anything into a TV show these days. Why did it get, like, the Goodreads Critics Award or anything? Any any recommendation accommodation. Why?

Those are my lingering questions. I think it is gonna be a TV show. I didn’t look it up because I just could not possibly possibly stomach one episode of this. But if it was to be, did you have any people you’d like to cast for? I can write them off if you don’t have any because I know you don’t have any.

I just had Seth Rogen for mister Smith, who I thought would be a perfect George. You know, just the delivery guy George. That’s the kind of guy you’d be like, this is not the head of this organization, but it turns out he is. You know? Does a little, Kaiser So Say and Mhmm.

Drops his limp and all of a sudden, you realize. Okay. I did Natalie Portman and Keira Knightley for the the two, like, the doppelgangers. You know? Okay.

But that was the most important thing. You know? Awesome. It looks exactly like that. Keira Knightley mouth.

She needs denture dental implants or something. She’s very Well, they’re not gonna have the camera on them, like, being, like, zoom in on her teeth being, like, wait a second. Well, but that’s the one thing you can’t change. And Keira Knightley has a very distinct, like I think it’s cute. You don’t like that?

No. I’m not saying I’m I’m not judging. I’m just saying it is distinct. So I think if she didn’t have that, she would probably not be as recognizable. She’d just be like, oh, it’s another very attractive person.

Who cares, though? But Mhmm. That gives her, like, some identity. It’s like the mole on that supermodel. You know what I mean?

Like, you gotta have something that’s a little different because there’s too many good people. No. No. Absolutely. I get it.

And then I did I did Liv Shriver, aka our boy from Hard Knocks for, for George and Scott e Scott Eastwood for Ryan and Devin, I did. This is what we need this guy back in. Michael Winslow? We need him back, the guy that does, the voices from the the cop movie. You know what I’m talking about?

Are you saying who does what? Michael Winslow. He’s the Oh, yeah. Yeah. From Police Academy.

Yeah. Police Academy guy. He needs me to come back. He’d be a perfect hacker, you know, and he’d be doing, like, the voice. He didn’t do comic relief in this book or movie.

He’s just doing, like, like, he’s tapping away with the keyboard, but there’s but there’s no computer. I remember when I watched Police Academy, I was like, this is the greatest actor of our generation. I don’t know. Where has he been? A %.

Yeah. I just didn’t see a the reason I made a meeting is I just saw a video of him. You should look this up if you haven’t seen it. Of him doing whole lot of love with his just his mouth. It’s an incredible you know, the Led Zeppelin song?

Yeah. Of course. He’s doing the electric guitar part, and it’s like, wait. What? How is this possible?

And singing the hard singing part. Yeah. I remember watching Police Academy, and I I didn’t even believe it. It was like this discussion. You’re like, oh, they’re piping that in.

That’s crazy. He’s a real talent. And, also, imagine realizing you have this skill set and then working it to that point that you can that you can do all these things. Presumably, as you’re a child, people are slapping you in the back of the head saying, you’re an idiot. This is the dumbest thing you could possibly do for with your time.

And then he ends up being a a movie star. Alright, Keith. Who is this book for? What do you rate it? I think you said it well.

It’s for people that’s never read any sort of twist or turn book ever. This might be their first book they’ve ever read. I when I first got done, my rating was much higher. It was like a 2.5. I was like, it’s it’s whatever.

I don’t not gonna think about it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. It was fine. It was whatever.

But then when we started discussing it, the more and more it kept on going down by point two five, I ended up at a two. It’s not terrible but I think you’re gonna go watch it later than I am but it’s not it’s a two. It’s it’s it’s fine. It’s a fine book. You pick it up on the beach, read, you read it, you don’t care about it, move on.

Yeah. So it’s it’s vanilla ice cream to you. Is that what you’re saying? Correct. Yeah.

No sprinkles. Not like the vanilla bean ice cream either. It’s like the pure vanilla, like, you don’t there’s really no flavor to it. Yeah. It’s fine.

I I’d eat it over broccoli, but, you know Mhmm. Yeah. It’s like I I can see that. It’s I agree that it’s like vanilla ice cream, except it’s more like vanilla ice cream in a Ziploc bag with that piece of shit that you have from earlier in the day. So it’s technically like a chocolate or maybe a half and half.

The book is for someone who’s stuck in a ski house or stuck somewhere where this is the only way they have entertainment. Like, it’s 1980, and that’s what you got. Unfortunately, it’s not 1980 and everyone has a phone at their hip that they could entertain themselves with in a variety of ways that would be more enjoyable than reading this book. So, yeah, that’s who it’s for and I would rate it, I’ll give it a one. I’ll give it a one, which I think is honestly, I think that’s fair.

It’s it’s not the worst book I’ve ever read, but it’s pretty damn close. I think it it I think to be a one, it needs to be, like, hang I guess you were angry. Yeah. That’s fair. Alright.

I would. Yeah. I was That’s what I think. I think one is anger. Two is apathy.

Three is, hey, not bad. Not bad. Four is, like, that was a good book. Like, you know, no one’s gonna be upset about it. Five is it’s fucking a shit in a bag.

It’s incredible. Five is five is someone hit me over the head with the two by four, so I can’t believe this and have the same feelings all over again. I did I went down to the hardware store yesterday, and the young woman who works there was had a book on the desk. So, obviously, I’m taking a peek. She was reading Mistborn, and she was like, yeah.

I just started it. I’ve never That’s a great conversation. Never read any Brandon Sanderson, and I just started this Mistborn series. And I was like, go grab a two by four out of the back of the hardware store and hit me over the head so I can reread it because, that that’s that’s a good story. Although I did see I was out at a coffee shop and I saw someone reading the book we, what’s the one that we the one before that we read of, her recommendation?

The first thing he told me. Oh, no. I had to hold on the table not to go up and be like, close the book and light it on fire now. Everything about me was like, I need to go talk and tell this person. Yeah.

And they would have pointed and screamed like it was a rat on the table or something. Yeah. It is funny when you see people in the wild. Like, when I used to commute for work, obviously, people on the train, they’re always reading books or stuff. Or at least, you know, when I when I was doing that, they were.

And this is before Dune was even a thing in, you know, movies or whatnot. And I saw someone reading Dune, and I just read it. And I was like, nice. You give someone the look and they know and you’re just like, Nice. And it’s a great bonding moment.

It is a great feeling. So now, when I go to the harbor store, she’s like, Yeah, I love fantasy books. And, No, I knew you were gonna ask. I knew you were gonna gonna ask. No.

Caroline asked too because I’m always telling her, hey. Promote yourself. Promote yourself. She’s like, did you tell them, about the buddy book club? I was like, hell no.

I’m way too embarrassed for that. Yeah. Yeah. The hardware store is legitimately a quarter mile from my house. I can’t I can’t never go there again.

Agreed. Yeah. You can’t ever take that back. Yeah. That’s the problem.

So I I completely understand. Alright, Keith. Well, that was this was very enjoyable, this conversation, I will say. Cathartic and enjoyable. Sometimes you need it.

Yeah. For sure. So that was First Live Wins. We need a palate cleanser. So what do we got coming up next?

Next, we have book two of the dungeon crawler series called Carl’s doomsday scenario. I haven’t started that yet, so I gotta get on that. And that that book’s by Matt Deneman. So, we’ll catch you catch you for that one. Yeah.

Absolutely. Well, Keith, that was fun. I’ll talk to you for DCC two. Indeed. Alright.

Alright. Bye now. Bye now.