The Inheritance Games – Jennifer Lynn Barnes – Episode 26

The Buddies enrich themselves with the writing of Jennifer Lynn Barnes, and her young adult novel: The Inheritance Games. The Buddies are joined by super fan Steph (@stephie_cton) and touched just about every subject: Pedophiles (no pun intended), movies (Star Wars prequels, Blank Check, Shooter, Fast and The Furious), world-class body guards, family therapy/dynamics, and talking to old people. This episode is a bit of a car crash, but just like Oren, that is how we planned it.

  Intro: (0:00-3:41)
  Favorite Scene (3:42-8:02)
  Stock Up/Down (8:03-41:57)
  Favorite Character (41:58-43:43)
  Love/Hate (38:43-55:03)
  Reader Email (55:04-55:51)
  Casting the Movie (55:52-56:47)
  Conclusion (56:48-58:12)

  Next Book: DAISY JONES & THE SIX by TAYLOR JENKINS REID

Transcript for SEO purposes 🙂

All right. Welcome Buddy Book Club. I’m Dylan here with Keith. The puzzle piece to my own heart, the Rube Goldberg of a man. Keith, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me. We’re bringing thousand best sellers in this week. We’ll be discussing a page turning thriller according to the Internet, The Inheritance Games, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. If you’d like to reach out to us to recommend a book or any past episodes, you can visit our website Buddy Book Club.com. Slide into our DMs on Twitter or Instagram Buddy Book Club Podcast. You can listen to some itunes and Spotify, so please download and subscribe Keith, you brother faxing Song of a beach. What’s up? Hey, how are you doing? Did you like Max a lot? Because she’s kind of a little bit of a mix. She’s a wild card. Yeah, I appreciate that about her. And she’s super creative with her swear words. Yes. I was going to say, I mean, maybe that will be in a stock up or stock down. Who knows? Spoilers. But it was impressive the length she went to. Although if I was a parent and I was monitoring my kids stuff, I’d be like, this is like, I know what you’re saying. Is this a loophole? Is that how it works? I don’t know. Also, I think kind of ripped from the Good place. I haven’t seen it. She can’t say swear, so she’ll say, like, what the fork are you talking about? I don’t know. It’s more of, like, silly humor. Well, I appreciate it for network television or children’s young adult books, because otherwise you can’t say this motherfucker just tongue punch my dirt star. You can’t say stuff like that. Pardon? All right, well, let’s get into Inheritance Games. Goodreads calls it a Cinderella story with deadly stakes and a thrilling twist. I’d call it a Cinderella story where the clock is permanently at midnight with mildly dangerous stakes and a dull, almost nonsensical twist. Did you ever do the million dollar assignment in middle school where you get a million dollars? Yes. So good. It’s like my favorite thing I’ve ever done. Avery got assigned the million dollar assignment, but instead did a book report on Agatha Christie. That’s basically what so well said. I also remember doing that. And this was pre Internet, right? No, I think there was Internet because I remember printing out pictures. Yeah, okay, that’s true, because we did print out pictures. So I went to some website to find houses or what not. I don’t even know what I was doing at the time, but I found all these sick houses and it was like 500 grand. I was like, oh, shoot, I still have 500 grand effect. And I’d have the sickest house. And now if I had the same assignment, having just bought a house, I’d be like, okay, I’d buy this house and save up for taxes. Lightly furnish it lightly. That’s my million dollar project. So yeah, I think I’m going to go with your summary. I like that one better. That’s exactly what it’s like. All right. We want to jump into a libation before we get into categories. We got a lot of categories coming up. We actually have super fan Stef, superfan Stef joining us for Stock Down. Before we get into that stuff, we’re going to go over favorite scene, and then we also have some love hate. We got a lot of good stuff coming, but we like to start off with a little adbation inspired by the book. This book, they did drink, which was very odd considering they’re like teenagers, but they’re sitting at dinner, like having champagne toasts. I think our next book may or may feature some champagne. So I’m going to lay away from that. And personally, it’s nice here for the first time in a long time. So I’m just going to enjoy a twisted tee. Keith, let’s jump into our favorite scene. The reading of the will. I think we all kind of knew what was going on. I thought the reading of the will is going to be more of. And this is probably for one of my hates with what I would change about the book, but I thought it was going to be like the money goes to the winner of some contest, right? That’s what I figured it would be. When she was announced inheriting everything. Avery talking about the man. Avery. Avery getting announced, getting hanging everything. I went into fantasy mode of what that would be like. I’m sure everyone did that reading. It’s like, check, man, you’re killing my stock up. And I have that ready to go. Oh, man, I’ll love that. But you’re going to fancy mode. They said that she makes 1 billion in interest every year, so it doesn’t do anything. It makes a billion. If I were in that position, I would be handing out 100K on a whims every single day. I’d be handing out at least 100K to just random people. Someone that gives me a nice smile on the street. Bang 100K. Yeah. It’d be like that scene from Goodfellows when he’s walking into the bar and just greases every single person and his girlfriend is like, what’s going on? The only thing I would stipulate, though, with that is that I would have NDAs ready to go so no one could know I’m giving people that money so people won’t just be showing up. That’s kind of genius. Right? So the money goes completely away if you tell anyone about it. But imagine handing somebody a $1,000 and being like, oh, wait, hold on. You also have to sign this. I’m doing $100,000, 100,000 is life changing. That’s pretty insane. You can make it a million. Think about it. If you gave a million dollars to one person every day, that’s 365, you still have a nice $600 million interest just sitting on just ready to go. Yeah, but didn’t you learn anything from Grayson? It’s not about the individual. What can you do? Yeah, fuck those individuals. Avery is like, I’m going to save this homeless man. He’s like, no, you’re thinking too small. Save 100 homeless people. That a gun shoots him in the head. It’s like, now we’re making a difference. Changing one life doesn’t do anything. Some people might disagree, but it’s funny that you said the will reading, because that’s the only thing I had was the will reading. Maybe because it seemed like that was pretty obvious what was going to happen. And I still think it was like, it’s one of those inside book leaf covers. I personally had the hard copy because I know very intimately the winner of our last book giveaway, and I was able to use her copy. Did you track her down? I did. Weird, man. It should be made into a movie. I tracked her down. We fell in love, the Instagram together. We bought a house together, and she let me read her book. So it was a wonderful trade off. There’s no favoritism. We just had not that many people enter last time. Yeah, no, there is no favoritism. It was random. I wish there was, but there just wasn’t even enough people. Also, how sad would it be if we chose favoritism for a very mediocre book, like a book giveaway? That’s how we’re going to cheat the system is by sending each other, like, really just okay. Books. Not like first edition, signed Charles Dickens books, but the Inheritance games. The Buddy Book Club has given away more cash and prizes than Avery did when she got her inherited. So true. There’s nothing more true than that. But, yeah, so I’ve had the will reading as well, even though it was kind of on the inside book cover, but it was just one of those things, like, oh, shit. Like, people don’t see how it’s going to play out, and they’re kind of waiting for it, and then, you know, that bomb is going to drop. I would also say, like, a close second was her introduction to the house itself. The house was almost its own character. So seeing those first couple clues into secret rooms and stuff like that, I mean, I was a huge fan of, like, Clue, the board game and the movie. And there’s, like, other board games. I can’t remember the other one that was similar to that, where it was like, stuff behind curtains and stuff like that. It’s like, oh, okay, cool. I love stuff like that. So intro to the house, and then maybe the will reading, even though I knew it. But outside of that, I wasn’t really enthralled with any particular scene. We’re going to jump into stock up, stock down. But we have a special guest joining us. Super fan Stef. Welcome. We’d love to have you. Thanks for joining us. Hi. I’m so happy. I think I’m the number one fan of this podcast, so this is a privilege. This is an honor. I’m very excited to be here and that you guys will let me be on this. So thank you. The honor is all ours. Trust me. So we’re going to do a little stock down. Like I said, Keith, I think you should get the ball rolling. Keith, what do you get for stock up? Yeah, I’m going to come in a little bit hot. Stock up. Naturally. Being a pedophile. Whoa. Oh, no. Oh, my God. I mean, I guess the stock is really low. Can we talk about Tobias Hawthorne? Let me just run it down for you real quick. So he meets a six year old girl in a diner, and on a whim, he’s like, oh, she seemed nice. I’m going to track every move she makes. I’m going to start taking pictures of her. I’m going to follow her around. I’m going to secretly watch her grow up. What the fuck? No red flags here. What’s going on? And then if that’s not enough, we have him, the grandfather here. Tobias consistently being like, everyone’s got to keep this little secret. I have to all his grandkids. He gives a secret passageway to Rebecca. He’s like, yeah, there’s a secret key to this underground tunnel only you’re allowed to go to there, like, what the fuck is going on? I know these billionaires are, like, big into this stuff and Epstein Island, all this stuff, but this dude is full on Epstein, right? That’s how he is. I did appreciate how when Avery found the dossier with all the photos, there was no like, this is super creepy. She was like, oh, he followed me my whole life since he met me in the diner. Like, oh, look, there’s me taking a power movement. Look at that. It was a little odd how she wasn’t initially like, this is super creepy because I don’t care what the context is, but if someone leaves me an intricate puzzle and I find it and it leads to a bunch of pictures of myself, I’m not like, this is super cool. Wow. I’m concerned, to say the least. I got to say, normally I would be, like, the first person sketched out by a situation like this, but I was more so getting, like, grandfather vibe, which maybe is a theory for the next book in the series. I mean, if you’re actually her grandfather, wouldn’t the better thing just to introduce yourself and bearing grandfather? That seems like that would be a better no, but. Yeah, she’s growing up poor, has no money, struggling through life. Takes some pictures of her. Yes. Take some pictures while she’s living in her car and eating out of a trash can. Yeah, nice. But do you remember her mom was like, I got a secret. There’s a secret about your birth. So that’s why I think there’s, like, some family connection. What happened with that? Because they just never tied that loose end. So I think there’s like a family tie there. So that’s why I kind of, I think maybe make that assumption that’s what they seem to have left for the future books. I mean, I think even on the last page or whatever, it was her mom saying, I have a secret about your birth. And what do you know? There weren’t any pictures from the grandfather of the birth canal. So maybe that’s what we call a red herring in this business. And as Dylan described, a red herring is a bird. A bird, a flightless bird. Steph, what do you have for a stock up? Kind of on a similar note, similar, but less creepy. Super similar, but also the exact opposite. So my first stock up was chatting with old people at diners. Okay. Yeah. So in general, I kind of have this theory where when you’re given the opportunity to kind of interact with someone older, the first thing that comes to my mind is like, you sit next to someone on an airplane, you should try to strike up a conversation with them. They could be, like, the most interesting person you’ve ever met in your life. But, like, I obviously have a habit of not doing that because of just laziness and social anxiety. This is just a great example of why you should just chat up with old people at diners. Yeah, they might be a billionaire, they could be a billionaire. And then you could have the privilege of them following you afterwards and keeping up with your life and give you all of their money and billions and billions of dollars. And then you’re just kind of set to just chat with old people. Stock up for me. Yeah, I dig it. I’m with you. I’m going to start chatting up. I actually used to when obviously I was in the city, when I was used to be working in the city, I’d sit there and chat people up all the time. No one ever gave me a billion dollars. I’m pretty pissed about it now. I’d never thought about it. But you did have a few people take pictures and follow you, though. Yeah, but I had to pay them for those, so it’s different. Those were stolen. My first stock up is bowling. I mean, we just need more bowling and media these days. I feel like since Kingpin, it’s really just fell under the radar. And I really appreciate JLB here working some bowling into our novels, especially 99 cent bowling. I know there’s inflation going on and whatnot, but bowling has become an absurd cost to go out there and just throw some balls down the Lane. It become an expensive date. So wherever these 99 cent bowlings are, Keith, I know that we enjoyed some bowling in Texas one time where this book is set and it was like $15 for all you could bowl. That sounds delightful. Where is that also I would just like to add Avery hockey. Ten pound ball down the Lane. Really good. It was £10. I can’t even hold a gallon of milk. Imagine bowling with a gallon of milk. I can’t. I’d be like, looking for the £5. I don’t think those exist. No, I think eight is the lowest, but yeah. So I just wanted bowling to be involved in this and I think it’s involved in the future books, so I just appreciate that. Keep. What else do you have for stock up? I had Star Wars prequels as a stock up. Okay. Stay with me here. Stay with me here. Yeah. So these movies get a lot of shit and not rightfully so. I think they’re actually pretty solid. But the one thing that they were smart enough to do is use a body double for Padme. What’s her name? Padme. Yeah, Padme. Yeah, whatever. Patmi on the head. Yeah, Pat me. They know that her license danger and they used a body double in those movies. It’s pretty smart move, right? Because eventually her actual body double gets assassinated. But here we have Avery, who is a multi billionaire, and they have some random attacker and they’re like, no, what we should do, we should just bring her out in the open and force the attack on her. How about we just use a body double or drive around a car that doesn’t have anyone in it? What was going on? Why were they doing that? Well, Keith, the whole purpose of the book was nobody gave two shits about her. Like, literally no one cared about her. So if anything, they’re all trying to set her up. Okay, that makes more sense. What if the guy pulled an RPG out and just shot it and blew up the car? Or like, they hit the car at a higher speed and killed her? What was the point of that? I want to discuss this, but I have so much more. Okay, in a later segment, we’re often in lockstep here on the BBC, and I could not have agreed with you more. I’m just going to say that I could not have agreed with you more. It made zero sense whatsoever based on the situation. Seems like it wasn’t even a smart move in the Star Wars prequels. It was just the move. It’s just what you do. If the President of the United States knew there was a hit out on him, Joey B wouldn’t be walking out into the Rose Garden. They throw some 90 year old guy out there with aviators on and just let him roll out there and get shot. That’s the homeless guy you met on the bench taking pictures of you. And now he’s done. But hey, Joey is still alive, so we’re good. Elisa and Odin would be fired so quick, it would make your head spin. In this book, they did so many things that should have been gotten them fired. But yeah, Avery is going to make some moves here and stops. Right? Everyone hated Avery. I’m pretty sure it’s the only rational explanation. Like, there’s a secret third will. That was like, treat Avery like that was all it said. Steph, did you have any other stock ups? Yeah, I had a stock up on family bonding. Family bonding is pretty high. People are really tight with their families now. There’s been a pandemic. You’re stuck in the same house. I think she means taping family members together. Is that right? Yeah, definitely. Any adhesive of your. No. What you meant was family bondage. Family bondage because Xander and Thea were hooking up and their cousins. So you’re talking about family bondage like aka little BDSM within the family. I got it. Okay, continue steps. You’re right. And that is scary. But going back to my Disney Channel G rated logic here. So Philly bonding, we love it. It’s great. But the whole premise of this book was an elaborate Loy to basically be like, Yo, y’all probably could have had my entire wealth if you guys were just a little bit tighter and a tighter knit family. The whole premise of this book and Tobias theme was an effort to bring the brothers together and bring everybody together in the whole elaborate tunnel. Clues riddles everything. It was just to bring everybody together in the end and had everyone just done a little bit more family bonding from the jump, probably wouldn’t have to deal with this whole book. They would have gotten their fair share, and then that’s that. Yeah. Tobias Hawthorne took Bros before Hoes quite literally. Stock up fast nefurious is what you’re saying. Family. It’s about family. Tobias definitely watch the shitload of fast and affairs right before he wrote the will. And I was like, I know what I got to do here. Yeah. He’s like, I’d like to will this to Dom Toretto, but he’s not a real person, so I’m going to pick this person, Avery Graham. He’s also not a little child that I can fall around. So therefore. But I take pictures of his oiled up body. Oh, my God. My next stock up is three blocks in high school. I don’t know what the deal is when you guys went to high school, and I’m not really sure what a modular schedule is, but that involves having free blocks, which you can just do whatever you want. And that’s wonderful. I know that at my particular high school that I went to, they did employ that for juniors and seniors, and it was great. You didn’t have to go to study hall and sit there. It was just like, all right, you could just go home if you want. You can do that. And private schools, maybe they just have this. I just want more of that in the world. So if people aren’t doing that, that’s a big stock up for me. And I don’t think a lot of people are towns. Municipalities get shit together. Yeah, we had three blocks. I don’t know if they still do that, though. I think they’re, like, cutting back on that. They don’t want kids have freedom anymore. There were stipulations. We had free periods, but you could not go home. But you could walk a mile down the street to the nearest liquor store and get some of those Apple caramel lollipops. Those lollipops are so good. Holy shit, I remember those lollipops. Those are so good. That’s what you do on your free period. The nerds would study or do whatever they do, but everyone else would walk a mile down the street to this liquor store called Leavens and get some terrible Apple lollipops. It’s hilarious that it’s like the nerds would study, but the cool kids would go to a liquor store and get lollipops. That’s literally what the cool kids would do. Right, Keith? You know? Yeah, that was part of that. Keith was busy studying. Well, three blocks of the cat’s pajamas and more schools should do that. We would definitely go home and eat all the Dino bites we could find in people’s houses and then go back to school, naturally. Does anyone else have any stock ups they’d like to go? Before we jump into the stock down segment, I could do a wicked quick stock up. Elaborate gestures to make a point. Basically beat around the Bush, do everything possible. Aside from getting to the point, are you making fun of our podcast here? It sounds like that’s what you’re doing here, but okay, no, I think this ties into family bonding. I had to buy it’s just been like, guys get it together. We’re family. Like family over everything. Hashtag Fast and the Furious franchise. But instead of just, like, doing that, maybe doing some family therapy or some other things, addressing it head on. He just did the most elaborate thing ever to get everyone to that point. It’s funny to the family therapy thing because you couldn’t hit it more on the head. It’s like you’re a billionaire. You fly in the world’s best pianists every year for your grandchildren’s birthday. If they want to learn piano or the greatest photographers or whatever the case is the Rube Goldberg machine, makers of the world. Why don’t you just fly in some therapists and get these kids some therapy? Because that’s really what they need. I mean, they shared a girlfriend and they watched her die. Just give them some actual professional help. It’s not like, oh, what should I do here? Let’s make an elaborate ruse puzzle. Let’s do some riddles. I’m pretty sure it will bring them closer together, even though they’re just competing the whole time. How did this guy make his billions selling, like, nitrous oxide to children? Epstein Islands. We already went over this. All right, Keith, what did you have for stockdown? Yeah, stock down. We already referenced it a little bit before stuff jumped on here. But Blank Check movie stockdown. Basically, what happens is it’s a similar story. It’s a kid that’s poorish or poor. I remember I haven’t seen it for a middle class. Middle class, poor, whatever gets hit by a guy’s car while biking and gives him a check that’s blank. And he writes in a million dollars, which back in the day was a lot of money, apparently. And then he just goes and creates this alter ego and just fucking lives the life. Just buys a house that has water slides in it. He has all his boys over. He’s spending the money on everything. It’s like the best life of all time. And everyone dreamed about that. My girl Avery had just watched this movie. Maybe she would have actually enjoyed her life. Like, right, when you get those billion dollars, I’m starting to spend it on everything and anything. I’m just going wild. I don’t give a fuck about the will. Why is she looking for the will? It doesn’t make any sense, isn’t it? If anything, she doesn’t want people to find the will. I would not be helping this mystery. I’d just be like, good luck. I don’t care. I’m spending this money just ball out. Yeah, watch blank check one time for me and then figure it out. I mean, I know she likes puzzle, and she’s into this stuff, and I get it. But you were gifted $35 billion. There’s no going up from that. Solving this puzzle isn’t going to be like, oh, now I got 35 billion more. It’s nonsensical that you would continue with this ploy be like, wow, now you guys have a year to figure this out or else all this shit is mine, and I’m going to go apeshit on everybody. Like, that’s it. I’m going to go Ham and also Blank check movie. The most underrated thing in that movie. No, it’s not the sumo wrestling suits. No, it’s not that crazy TV screen that he had. It’s the giant tubs of ice cream. There was, like, trash can. He have his limo driver take them this place, and they’d get trash cans of ice cream. That was my dream as well. I remember thinking, the water slides in the house. That was cool. Don’t get me wrong. That was definitely cool. Imagine you wake up and you’re like, I don’t really feel like showering today. And you just turned the hot water on the water slide, and you just fucking put some soap in there and just go down it. Get a towel at the end. You’re done. You don’t need a shower right after that. Check out. It’s so weird. That is a really smart mindset. I don’t know what you’re talking about. That’s the ultimate sign of wealth. The ultimate sign of wealth is grabbing your maid or Butler and just being like, here’s a cloth with soap on it. You’re washing me today? No. If I don’t have a Waterside in my house by a certain point in my life I’ve failed that’s fact. All right, well, I’m going to shoot you a water slide Steph. Would you ever stock down? All right, I might be opening a can of worms with this one, but stock down on. I think we already knew it, but even more so, love triangles. Interesting. We keep gravitating back towards them. It’s hard to resist. So we had Rayson, Jameson, and Emily love triangle. One of them died. It could result in death. Maybe you want to stay away from that. I don’t know. Yeah. I mean, the amount of love triangles in this book is actually hard to kind of wrap your head around. It’s like one of those puzzles that you see where it’s like a triangle with all sorts of other triangles in it. It’s like, how many triangles are in here? Because it’s not only that, it’s also Emily, Theia and Rebecca. Obviously, Emily wasn’t in the intimate part of that love triangle, but the emotional love was in there. That was a weird one, right? Why was that so weird? I don’t understand. It was like, hey, we’re really good friends. Like, oh, well, we’re in a relationship. We’re sisters. Who cares? Just fucking do it. Maybe this might be blasphemous, but I really think they were just trying to push some sort of LGBTQ in there, which is totally fine. But it seemed forced. It didn’t seem like it was like a natural thing. It was, like, just thrown in there for young children to understand that, hey, women can love women. Men can love men. Who the hell cares? And then Avery, Jameson, and Grayson. What? There’s just too many love triangles at the end of the book that became the whole thing. Like, that’s all everyone was talking about. Or that was the whole storyline. I was like, Get back to the National Treasure bot. Where are the puzzles? What’s this? It’s like. No, it just explains I was there when Emily died. No, I was there when Emily died. No one cares. I wish Emily died twice. If I had to sum up the book in one sentence, it was Avery the whole time just being like, oh, my God, are one of these brothers about to make out with me right now? That was the whole book for me. And then one of the qualms that I had. I had so many qualms. One of them was the night of the CliffJump, if you will. Jamison followed Emily and Grayson, but then he just kind of was there and then left. He saw it happen. Take a picture. That was so weird. That was so strange. Yeah, it was very strange. He’s like, she called to me and I watched her die. And then I said, I’m going back to the helicopter. I’m flying back out of here. No one’s going to know I was here. How did they also get in and out of that place? I didn’t understand anything. How would you not know your brother’s there? Like, it’s not your close. You’d have to fly in or drive in. You just walk away. Isn’t there a crime scene? What’s happening? Yeah, it was one of those things where you just walked away and you’re like, I feel like there’s got to be more logistics to this. So that was just one of the many things where I’m like, that just in itself does not make that much sense. Yeah, I’m with you there. My first stock down, having the top tier, most well trained and elite pottyguard. The stock was way through the roof. After Denzel’s performance and man on Fire, shout out to Tony Scott, one of my favorite directors, and Keith Lee’s favorite trainer. Unstoppable is a great man, but is Orin even like a mediocre bodyguard. How can someone come onto the property and shoot at Avery and disappear? I understand there’s tunnels. There’s all this stuff, but the tunnels lead to the outside world. This is a billionaire’s estate. There’s cameras on the outside. You would eventually see something. And then also after the shooting, Orange is like, all right, cool. Go back to your room. Also, just so you know, it’s been a week since you’ve been here, but there’s safe rooms throughout the house, and I haven’t shown you any of them, because even though we have fear for your life, I’m not going to show you where any of the state firms are, because that would be absurd. Why would I do that? I’m the most elite bodyguard ever. And to Keith’s point earlier, which I did not want to discuss, then he uses her as bait to capture Drake. Keith said it. Who knows how that could have played out? Anything could have happened. The guy could have had an RPG. The guy could have had a whole crew of people. They were in a dress store. You go into the dress store, you have her do all of her makeup. What do you know? You also have a second person there doing all their makeup, and you use a fucking body double. It’s so simple. You knew this was going to happen. Why even put her in that situation? And as she’s bleeding in the backseat out of her skull, cerebral hemorrhages all over the place, she’s like, no, this was the right plan. Like, we got him. And she’s like, oh, I’m now a vegetable. Like, no, that doesn’t make any sense. So, Orrin, yes. Congratulations. You could fly a helicopter. I’m super proud of you. Which also doesn’t make any sense. There was a guy whose job it is to fly helicopters, and you take him out of the helicopter and say, I’m going to fly the helicopter. This guy flies helicopters every single day. Your job is. We don’t even know what your job is. You’re probably fucking sitting there eating Twinkies Hostess cupcakes, Zebra cakes, oatmeal cakes. All the good stuff. All the good Hostess products. You’re sitting there eating all those instead of flying helicopters, and you decide to pull the helicopter pilot out and say, I’m going to fly. No, this guy is trash. He would have been, like he said, fired. Head spinning all over the place. I did not respect it one bit. Oren, you’re out. You’re the weakest link. Goodbye. Yeah, I would have hired 20 Navy Seals, giving them a million dollars each. You guys are coming in here, you get free rim and board. A million dollar salary a year. Easy day. Yeah. Get 20 Navy Seals walking around now. You’re good. I’ve seen the movie Shooter. I know what Mark Wahlberg can do. Maybe he can’t fly a helicopter, but he can surely protect someone. It’s ridiculous. This guy Orrin pulled off the streets. Oh, I’ve been Tobias Hawthorne’s bodyguard for 20 years. Like, what do you know about the house? Literally nothing. Literally? There’s nothing here. Yeah, fucking Rebecca knew about the tunnels. Where have you been, bro? What was Tobias Hawthorn like? No idea. I have no idea what he was like. What the fuck is this guy doing on his free time? I think he has a heroin problem, but that’s right. That’s logical. Keglos, you have a stock down. Yeah, this one’s going to be a little longer one, but relationships and parents, both of them stock down. Not worth having either. Them. Got Drake and Libby stock down. Drake. Tough time for the singer, Drake, but Drake’s abuser an attempted murderer. Terrible, terrible relationship. We got Emily and Stephanie already alluded to this, but we got Emily and the Hawthorne boys. Emily just ends up dying relationship. Then we got the worst one. Maxine and her boyfriend Jared. I don’t know. I don’t know what his name is. Avery didn’t give a shit about them anyway, so it didn’t matter. Apparently they end up breaking up. And then her boyfriend sends pictures to her parents that Maxine had sent to her. Oh, her nudes. Yeah, complete scumbag move. And this leads me right into parents being terrible. So what do her parents do? Not go to the police or get that kid in trouble. They ground her for that. What? The person that’s bad in that situation is the guy like, what are we doing here? And then we got the Hawthorn boys. Mom sky. Yeah, she’s just complete Looney tune. She’s out there letting fucking Drake into the place to kill Avery. She’s openly talking about banging four different dudes in front of them. She’s inviting her sons into the tub when she’s naked there. What’s got with this family? Completely gross. Just fucking weird as shit. That was the most Jeffrey Epstein part for me. Her being in the tub. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And then just Avery’s dad and Bee’s dad and mom. They’re all deadbeat. They’re all the worst. Everyone’s just terrible. Nurse. No, don’t have relationships. Don’t have parents. Stop down the Loughlin. Seemed like nice people, were they? I think so. I don’t really know. Just trying to play Devil’s advocate. Yeah. The relationships were restrained. There are some strained relationships. Once again, family therapy. It’s not too far away. I’m sure there’s lots of family therapists in Texas. Just go in, get some done. Call it a day. Steph, do you have a stock down? This might be controversial. Stock down. Secret passages. That’s definitely controversial. Seems pretty sweet to me. Seems really sweet to me as well. You know, in theory, they’re the coolest thing arguably ever. But in this book, they were underutilized. They did not help with anything. How sky and Drake? Who that combo. How did they get together? Unbeknownst to me, did not help them murder Avery, and that’s what they used to sneak Drake in. So clearly not effective for murder, which is. You think a secret passage would be extremely effective for murder. If I’ve learned anything from the old movies, I watch it’s. Secret passages are very effective for murder. James Bond. I see you. What’s up? Everyone knows that. And the most utilized secret passage was just for, like, Jameson to get into Avery’s room, which is just creepy. So from this book underutilized the most utilized Sieber passages. Creepy? I was disappointed in Sieber passages. Yeah, I think that’s very well said. But Jameson was good looking, so it wasn’t creepy. That’s the only reason that’s scary. No matter how good looking you are, that’s scary for some random dude to be like, hey, like, knocking on the fireplace in your room. Let me in. Oren would have been all over that. He definitely searched her room for secret passages. Oh, wait. No, he didn’t. She had to wait until, like, the 300 page Mark to be like, hey, Orin by the way, there’s, like, this very obvious secret passage behind a fireplace. If this house is full of secret passages, there’s a fireplace. I’m pretty sure there’s going to be a secret passage. Orange like, I don’t know, man. There’s some snowballs out here. Have you ever had a snowball? They’re delicious. Hostess product. Actually, I’m going to go eat that. Oren is, like, a guy won’t want to attack you. She’ll fight you in the courtroom. She definitely won’t let Drake into the secret passage to kill you. I’ve checked her out. Optical pack down. He already did on there. No, he definitely didn’t optical pack down. So did Jameson when he was in a hot tub with her. My stock down is having a best friend. Seems like, why would you ever stock down this, like, having a best friend super important. You can confide with them. You share moments with them. It’s a very important person in your life. But Max calls Avery out for it being a one way relationship between the two of them, which it totally is. I couldn’t imagine a friendly just call, and they’re, like, talk about themselves the whole time. She doesn’t even know her boyfriend’s name. Whatever. Average a shit friend, simple as that. I know she’s got a lot on her plate, but she’s a shit friend. So she tries to redeem it by saying, you know what? Max has been talking a lot about buying Australia. Like, I know I can’t give her Australia. That’s absurd. So let me talk to my lawyer about getting her first class plane tickets to sit with some other fucking plebeians on an airplane to go to Australia. What is this, like a Wheel of fortune prize? Oh, you got the trip award. You get to go on a plane to Australia, you’re a billionaire. You fly that bitch private. You get her her own plane, whatever the hell she wants, and it’s just plane tickets. Like, she asked her lawyer for first class tickets. Then what? What do they do when they get there? I would be like, okay, I’m going to fly you private. When you get there, Crocodile Dundee is picking you up from the airport. Oh, you know what we also got? We dug Steve Irwin’s grave out of the ground. We re animated that motherfucker, and he’s going to walk you around the entire he’s going into the Outback with you, and he’s going to get some guideds, and you’re going to have a great fucking time. We’re going to put shrimp on the Barbie. It’s going to be phenomenal. No, she says, I’ll get you a couple of first class tickets. It’s like what Tony Soprano would give one of his gumars. It makes no sense to me that a best friend who is a billionaire offers someone a couple of fucking plane tickets. I was blown away by that shameful writing. This makes me want Dylan to maybe plan my next trip. Sounds like you got some good ideas. I definitely know how to re animate lost National Geographic TV stars. So if you need anything on that front, you let me know. I don’t know any other ones that have died. Dan called me and was like, I just inherited 35 billion, and my life is so tough, I’d go there and just murder Dylan. I just would because that’s what Maxine should have done. Constantly calling or complaining like, you have no issues anymore. You literally have no problems in the world anymore. But I’d be like, I don’t know who my dad is. It’s like, get over yourself. Who cares? You get 35 billion answers to that problem. Yeah, I’d be pissed if her name was Maxine. Yes, I’d be pissed off by her. That was your name? Yeah, I’d be pissed if my name is Maxine. But seriously, my best friend is the most wealthiest person on Earth. Like, literally give me a mansion, give me a pool. Buy me a country. Like, what do we need to talk about here? Yeah, it’s not even just about me. Let’s do it together. Let’s do whatever. But you throwing me some plane tickets. It just makes me feel dirty. Oh, you’re just doing this to rekindle our friendship. Whatever. Honestly, kind of rude. 35 billion. Yeah, totally rude. Hence Stock down. Don’t have any friends. Have no friends. And then you can’t get into this. Pickle. Keith. What else do you have for Stock Down? That was it. That was it. Steph, you being named after an alcohol brand. Shout out. Jameson Shadow. Jameson took his name a little too literally. I don’t know what he was drunk on, but he was just getting after it. Not in the best look, probably drove himself down the most unproductive path. Yeah, if your name is Jameson, you don’t need to do back loose on balconies and also become an alcoholic. You don’t need to do any of those. My last one was riddles. I normally love riddles. I’m a huge fan of them. If I see them in a book, I’m the kind of person who stops and tries to solve it before it goes on any further. But they didn’t have any riddles in this book until kind of the end when it was the stained glass window. I’m up high at the end of the morning, at the beginning of the day, I’m like, okay, it’s noon. We get it. What’s the point? And so that’s pretty much what it leads to is these stained glass windows. And it’s like, oh, we have to wait until it’s noon. Which one? The sun is at different heights at noon throughout the year, so who knows when they would have solved that? It could have been noon in the winter and noon in the summer. Totally different. But either way, they’re like, okay, we have to wait until noon. And they’re both like, yeah, let’s just feel around. It’s going to be noon at some point, so it’s probably in this vicinity and they solve it that way. It was useless. It was a dumb Riddle. It made no sense. Get that shit written out of the book. That’s a smart person observation. Stop. No, keep going. I was picturing more of like, Indiana Jones. When it’s like the light shines through, it’s like, boom. Okay, here’s the spot. It was like, It’s 1115. It’s going to be noon, 45 minutes. Let’s kind of like, figure out it’s probably around here and they just end up feeling floorboards. A lot of the solving in this was like, let’s just go around and feel every single tree. Let’s be some dendropheliacs and see if any of these trees have been marking on it. There was no deductive reasoning. It was super trivial. It was super granular. And is there anything worse than a Riddle that you never would have been able to have solved? And it just has the most obscure answer? Is there anything worse than that? There’s nothing worse than that. I hate riddles that are like a word play. It’s not a deductive thing. It’s like, oh, no, because I said in instead of on now you don’t see it’s, like, no, that’s stupid. Yeah. Avery doing, like, the Dewey Decimal system. Checking every single book back while she’s a multi billionaire. Hire someone to do this. What are we doing? Where is Consuelo? Get her in here in the library. For that long? In the woods for that long. Like, if it doesn’t take you under ten minutes, it’s not the right answer. Let’s get into a little pick your character, but we’re going to pick your Hawthorn. And I want Steph’s opinion. First Steph, who’s your favorite Hawthorn? Of the boys, we’re talking Nash, Jameson, Grayson. Xander. Was Xander the one chopping on scones? Yeah. Janitor is the Scone guy. Show me Xander. That’s my name. Behind door number three, we have Xander. I’m just going to piggyback, because that’s mine, too. Yeah. Okay. Xander is everyone’s favorite. Oh, my God. Can there only be one winner? Well, one. He gave me an appreciation for scones, which are really not that great. I got a hot take on scones. I need to get out because this is the reason I like this. I think Xander was a legit psychopath. I thought he was the killer the whole time. Scones are like. They’re like salteen. Both sweet versions of them, right? They’re hard. Good point. They’re dry as shit. You don’t eat a Scone unless you’re drinking a coffee or tea or maybe some milk. You’re not doing that. The fact that he was just munching on four to five scones. Yeah. Multiple scones, no drink in hand. He’s a legit psychopath. Yeah, which I love. That’s why he’s my mouth was always watering because he needed it. He trained his mouth to be constantly watering because he knew he needed it for his Scone consumption. Yes, and they’re super filling, too. It’s not like you can eat four device. There’s, like, a stick of butter in each Scone. The only liquid in a Scone is butter. But I appreciate his aloofness. He didn’t really care so much about this. It was his job to kind of facilitate everyone doing their part. He just seemed like the most well adjusted of the Hawthorne boys. And he was, like, heavy into crypto early on and was like, I don’t care. I got $100 million in the bank. Give a fuck about this shit. Made a Rube Goldberg machine. He made killer robots, which I thought was sick. And he was definitely trying to go through some with Thea and Rebecca. Right. Good move by him. I appreciated it. Yes, the backs. He was trying to make his own love triangle. What you love about the inheritance games? Catching a little bit earlier, but I thought it was a pretty easy read. It’s basically a beach read. You kind of pick it up into it. There was no point where I was like, oh, this is just taking forever to dragging in the moment. Also, I wasn’t super rolling my eyes ever. Even, like, the body double thing. I was like, oh, that’s kind of weird. And then when you think about it later, it’s like, wait, what the hell? But there’s no in the moment where you’re just completely taken in the book and they couldn’t get over anything. It just seemed all natural. Yeah, well, I think all natural just like in the food industry, where it means literally nothing. It’s not held by any industry standard. There’s nobody overlaying that saying, okay, all natural means something. All natural means nothing. For this book, it was saccharine sweet, but I do agree that at least it wasn’t like, I’m bored. I’m going to close this book. I was like, I’ll finish it. I loved it. Now, my love for this was I did appreciate Tobias Hawthorne invest, cultivate, create. It just seemed like a good motto. And I love the idea if you have unlimited money to let kids go all in on something every year, it’s like, hey, if you want to be super into Legos, then I’m going to get you every connector set. I’m going to get the biggest civil engineer in here to teach you how things are built. And then it’s like, okay, next year you want to do something different. Cool. Good for you. So I just found that to be an interesting part of the book, because the kids are, like, super well rounded at some stuff while they’re a little whack and do. But, yeah, I like that. What else you have, Keith? I actually didn’t hate the love triangles. I know. That’s a big ya you got Jamie saying, Grayson, they’re both dreamy good looking billionaires. What’s the issue here? I didn’t get the issue there. I liked it. Why did they just settle for the Devil’s Threesome? That’s the question. Why do they shut out their own relationship? Why couldn’t they have combined their forces? I know the Devil’s Threesome is, but Steph probably doesn’t. What is that again? I don’t know what it is. I mean, I definitely know what it is, but for anyone with maybe explain. Yeah, it’s the classic two men, one woman, threesome with two brothers. That makes it even more satanic. But yes, makes it even more devilish, but, yeah, I don’t know. Why couldn’t they just share? I don’t understand. Obviously. Truthfully, Emily was a little tapped. She was, like, forcing them to be against each other. I don’t know why they couldn’t let bygones be bygones. Or they really both should have been like, hey, this young lady has taken us for a spin here. Let’s move on and go find anyone else. Considering we’re billionaires, I mean, these days are never going to have normal relationships because sky is fucking up to sea, right? Yeah, that’s a good point. She has definitely fucked them over. Well, I don’t know if they went that far, but, yeah, potentially. The only other thing I love about this book was just like, we talked about this earlier a little bit but a good will reading. I just need one of those recently had to sign some paperwork to be the executor of my mom’s will or whatever the case is. And I had all of these ideas of just like, wow, this is going to be crazy. Yeah, exactly. There’s going to be a room, and people are going to say things come from low middle class stock. There’s going to be nothing important that’s going to be said. And also, I’m not interested. It’s not like, oh, I want to fight for things. So you guys have seen knives out, right? Yeah. That’s kind of what I expected and also kind of what I expected from this book, which was why it was a little frustrating, because I was like, oh, this is going to be super fun. But it ended up being like, I love Emily. No, I love Emily. I killed Emily. No, I killed Emily. Who killed Emily? No one cares. Do you love anything about this one? So I would say this is like a young person’s DaVinci code. Not necessarily as good per se. I was in a bit of a reading slump, and the only thing to get me out of a reading slump is a page Turner. Yes. My favorite thing about the book was it was a page Turner. I think there could have been maybe better elements and just the entire plot could have been better minor details. But the book was such an easy read, super like on the edge of your seat, like, oh, my God, it’s going to happen. So, I mean, my favorite part was it was just a very easy read. Like you said you could read on the beach. Knock it out. It’s a beach book. Yeah, knock it out super quick. Yeah. I think I’m being too rude. We’re all friends here, and so I’m talking to friends, but if there were other people that was like, hey, I haven’t read in a book in a while, and I just kind of want to get into something that’s, like, an easy read, this would be it. But it just kind of pissed me off how I was into it for the first third of it. Then the second 3rd was a lot of, like, Emily talk. And then the final third was like, none of this I care about. Like, I don’t care about the secrets or whatever, because they now have become dulled. But I killed them later. I didn’t. I feel like she wrote it. The last third, they’re like, oh, this is going to be good. You should make a couple more of these. And she’s like, you know what? I’m going to leave this a little bit more open ended at the end, right? A lot of those things are like, well, I guess we’re not going to answer this until later. It’s like, oh, a third way through. Her publisher was like, hey, we’re going to greenlight you for two more books, and she was like, oh, shit. I don’t like when they do that because with the DA Vinci Code and not to be a plug for that series, it’s standalone book. You can read that book, feel good about it, finish it, and then if you’re so inclined to read the other books in the series, same thing. But this is the kind of annoying. This especially is annoying because that and I couldn’t agree with you more because DaVinci Code is like, hey, if you’re a good writer in this thriller puzzle style book, just write one book and then write another book. That’s completely different. But the only things unanswered was who Avery’s dad is and which guy does Avery fuck? Those are the only two things that weren’t answered. And at the end of the book, I didn’t care about either of them. Like, I really was like, I don’t care who her dad is. Her dad could be fucking Santa Claus at this point and who she had sex with. I’m not inclined to really care. That’s her business. So, I mean, we’re diving into hate portion. So let’s just go for keeping it for hate. Yes, I already went with some of these. I really hated her Maxine’s relationship. I’m glad Maxine called it out and never understood why Avery carried about the will. Doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s an audio book. I think both you guys actually read it. But the audio book was tough, too, because the narrator didn’t separate the voices very well. So you introduced the three brothers, and they sound exactly the same. They all Texas accents. And I was like, wait, which one is which? And what’s the difference? They had Texas accents, too. That’s so great. Hi, Avery. You want to come down to the water? I’ll show you. Where Emily dad? They had high class Texas accents, but I had no idea the difference between Jameson and Grayson. They’re both high class names. I had no idea the difference between the two of them for 80% of the book. And then my biggest hate, really, though, was the Drake situation. I already brought this up, too, but what was Drake’s motivation? I still don’t understand that. Why was he trying to kill her? What was his end goal? He kills her. And then what? Libby technically would get her money or something. Like it was something along those lines, but he was just going to drive a car into her killer and then be like, all right, get out of the smolder wreckage. I won. I won the game. Look at me. Really? My biggest hate was just something that you kind of talked about, Keith, but that Avery doesn’t flex her money muscle at all. I don’t know why she’s being such a wimp. She said she never got breakfast served to her, and then everyone else had got breakfast served to them. This is your staff. This is all your staff. Just fire them. Just say, no. You can’t make any of the people in the house leave, like the Hawthorns. But you could fire all the staff, be like, no, I’m going to fire every single person here. I’m going to bring in Thomas Keller, I’m going to bring in David Balloon. I’m going to bring in some of the best chefs in the country and be like, no, you’re my personal chef now. I’ll pay you a billion dollars a year. I don’t care. It’s not even my money. No breakfast served to you. You can’t get a bowl of fucking Cheerios and you’re a billionaire. Get out of here. It made no sense. I know you can’t make the Hawthorns leap, but I would play this in my own head, like, okay, so I’m going to make their life absolutely miserable. I’m going to do whatever I can to make sure that you guys do not want to live here because I have to live here. I’m going to turn the music up. I’m going to sprout mung beans in their drawers. I’m going to take duties on the floor. Who cares? You can do whatever the fuck you want in this house. I’m going to literally ask different servants to poop in front of their bedroom doors every single day and not clean them up. And then I’m going to fire those servants so that they just have mounds of shit sitting in front of their doors and say, if you want to live here, you can live here, but this is the way it’s going to be. Sky isn’t just expecting masseuses and cooks and all this stuff. No sky. You get nobody. You’re not getting any. But no one’s going to come here and clip your toenails. That’s on you. You got to do that. And eventually these rich foxlers, I’m out. I can’t live like this. Where Avery? She’s lived in a car. She’s been literally eating ketchup packets for McDonald’s, licking greasy bags like she doesn’t give a fuck. So I just didn’t understand why she didn’t make their life miserable. I’m Kevin McAllister. You guys are the wet Bandits. I’m going to fucking shit up. It’s really that simple. When you’re right, you’re right. Did you hate staff? The he meant hate. That I felt in my chest was, Avery finds out that she’s super duper wealthy, rich, and then immediately, the next day goes to school, I was like, you’re just going to be like, oh, I have to go to school. Yeah, no problem. I’d be like, Wait, hold on a second. No, I’m going to have my servants poop on everyone’s doors and make the most of my time. Yeah, I’m reanimating Socrates. I’m pulling him out of his grave. Reanimating that motherfucker. He can come in here and teach me. I’m not getting caught by Betsy Davos or whatever that stupid woman’s name is. Nah, I’m out of here. How insane was that? That made me so upset. Did you guys think about that? Yeah, it really bothered me, too. And then the whole Thea thing were like, Thea’s forced into your life. Like, no, I’m just going to have Orange strangle her to death. You probably couldn’t do that. Yeah. When Alisa alluded to that, she could take care of people. I was like, all right, now we’re finally getting into the meat of this thing. She was like, oh, I can contact people that could take care of Drake. I was like, yeah. I’d be like, yeah, do that. Don’t tell me about it. But he should be dead. She’s her only client. She makes her lawyer Pinky promise that she’ll take care of her friend. Max, what are you doing? You’re making your lawyer promise you’re the only client you can do whatever the fuck you want in this world. You tell this bitch, if she doesn’t do it, then you’re going to murder her. It’s as simple as that. I don’t understand. She’s like, I don’t know. We take care of Max. You promise? If I do this for you, if I go to the gala, will you take care of my friend? No. Flex your fucking muscles. I would have got the most successful people who are a really phenomenal bodyguard. Denzel Washington. Denzel Washington? Like, literally, you’re hired. That would have been the first move ever. That just like, oh, Ron and Alyssa sounds good. You’re my team. That makes no sense. Yeah, I’d be like, Orn prove it to me. Kill Alyssa right now. Murder her. All right, let’s get into some listener mail. Keith, do we have any list or mail this week? I think we did. You got mail. It’s anonymous. It says, what football team does Avery own? That’s the thing. I was trying to think of what I would use my billions on, and she answered it in the book. I would buy a football team 100%. Why not? I would be the guy drafting players. Billy Belichicker coming. I’m like, no, bro, I got you. Don’t worry about me. Yeah, the Raiders organization. Yeah, pretty much. Or the Cowboys. So it could have been the Cowboys. Maybe she’s. I think it was the Houston Texans because it seemed like no one in the family gave a shit about this football team. Hence why the Houston Texans are the Houston Texans. That seems like that would be the number one thing that you own. Not this manner that you live in. Who gives a shit? Buy that. I’d buy a boat and buy all the quayloads. Would you ever capture the movie? All right, stay with me here. But what I would have done for the four brothers is since they’re all kind of different, I would have cast the band One Direction. Harry Styles was in Dunkirk, right? Yeah, he’s a good actor. Liam, Jane, Harry and Nile. Yeah, those four would be in it. Louise, he might be Drake. The only person I cast this movie was Skyler gissidono. I don’t know how you say his name, but did you see licorice pizza? No, but he’s been in a couple of movies. I think he’s phenomenal actor. He like kind of plays a type cast person but he’s really good at that and I just wanted him to be like Jameson. The only thing I have is Avery Millie Bobby Brown. That’s actually a great call that could rule some viewers in. Yeah, for sure. And we already know she does a good American accent. All right. Keith, would you recommend this book? If you ask me right when I got done, I’d say yeah, probably. But like I mentioned, the more I kind of thought about it, the more I thought about the overall plot. I was like, if you’re on the Beach, I would definitely say yes. Worth giving it a Gander, but I wouldn’t go on my way to recommend it necessary to anyone. I think there’s a lot better ya books out there, but I didn’t hate it. Staff, what do you think? Yes, I agree. The reasons that you’d be looking for in this book. I think there’s like one or two other better options that I would recommend. Yeah, I think like Keith and Steph also said it’s a good beach read. But I would say if you’re on a beach and decided to dig a hole and happen to find this book at the bottom of the hole, then yeah, I’d read it. Just leave it there. Otherwise no, I’d read it. I’d read it, but otherwise I’d say no. Also, Steph alluded there’s just other good kind of like thriller puzzle books. Like any Dan Brown book is better than this one. Even digital fortress. I just think that at the end it just didn’t pay off. Either way, I think we’ve got a clear picture. Steph, really good having you on. Thanks for being a fan. We really do appreciate it. And Keith, as always, it’s been a grand old time. But for everyone else we got another book coming your way. What do we got? Daisy and the six. Something like that. Yep, Daisy Jones and the six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Until then. Bye now.