Regretting You

Kristy (00:00)
Welcome to Books I Make My Husband Read, a self-described hilarious and heartfelt podcast where I, Kristy, the devoted book lover, curate an unexpected reading list for my husband, Jon.

Jon (00:11)
And that's me. In each episode, we dive into lively discussions, humorous debates, and unexpected insights on all the books Kristy just has to make me read.

Kristy (00:21)
We're here to explore everything from your book club favorites to quirky hidden gems, challenging our perspectives and inviting you to join in on the fun.

Jon (00:30)
So settle in, grab your favorite beverage, and get ready for another literary adventure.

Kristy (00:44)
That's gonna make it in.

Kristy (00:45)
Hello listeners and welcome to season four, episode four of Books I Make My Husband Read. I'm your host Kristy...

Jon (00:52)
And I'm Jon. I'm the husband. I'm the sucker who gets pulled into all these books.

Kristy (01:00)
What sucker. What a sucker.

Jon (01:03)
What a sucker. ⁓

Kristy (01:06)
Well, if you haven't been fooled into reading all these books like Jon did or following along this season, you may not be aware that this season actually has a theme. So we're going to discuss book four today, but every book this season has had a film adaptation as well. So we'll be discussing both the book and the film.

And this week we'll be discussing Regretting You by Colleen Hoover, a story about a mother and daughter whose fragile relationship is shaken by tragedy, forcing them to confront long buried secrets about love, marriage, and the lives they thought they understood. And of course, as I mentioned, we'll also be discussing the film, which was released last fall, I think.

Jon (01:47)
Well, if there was ever an understatement around how tragedy can force them to confront long buried secrets, this would be the most, what

Kristy (01:59)
Perfect example.

Jon (02:00)
this book had a this would be a perfect example of a

book that just was like serious tragedy and it just unopened a can of worms as people say so there is plenty to talk about in this one the book and the film

Kristy (02:11)
yeah. ⁓ yeah.

Yes. So why did I pick this book for Jon? Well, Jon and I have both read a few Colleen Hoover books together. Well, let me rephrase that. There have been other Colleen Hoover books that I have made Jon read. And he's enjoyed them. And I knew we were doing film adaptations this season. This was one that has a film.

Jon (02:34)
That is accurate.

Kristy (02:45)
I was interested in it. was a story that I remember really enjoying. I read it four years ago, actually almost to the date of rereading it this time. We looked it up, which I thought was funny and I thought it'd be a great storyline. I know that there is some very mixed feelings about Colleen Hoover. We're not going to discuss them or break them out. I'm happy to debate them in my DMS. That is fine.

I really enjoy her and I think she's had a little bit of an unfair ride on social media. We as consumers only ever get part of the story, so I will leave it at that.

Jon (03:30)
Okay,

The author is what they are. And we enjoy what they put out. It's like, no, I'm not gonna go there. You know what, I'm just gonna leave it. Okay, okay. So before I'm just gonna put it there. So long, long ago before when my views were different than they are today.

Kristy (03:40)
I want to hear what you're gonna say. You can tell me.

Jon (03:53)
I mean, I'm still a huge U2 fan, but I was a huge U2 fan. And Bono has been very persistent in his points of view and political and worldviews throughout his life. I previously had a different point of view of Bono at the time. And I was like,

Well, if I disagreed with every artist political point of view is like, I probably wouldn't like a lot of artists, like I just am gonna like Bono and I love U2. So like, I'm just gonna pretend or ignore like everything else about it. So I guess my point is just like, the artists are who they are, it doesn't mean that their work or that they're that it should necessarily affect how their work or their creativity or whatever impacts us. So

Kristy (04:39)
You made me think President Obama's on his podcast with Bruce Springsteen, I remember them talking about how...

you know, both things can be true at the same time. So for instance, like you can look at someone like Thomas Jefferson and go, man, slavery, not a good thing. And I'm very underplaying that. I realize that I don't mean to, But also he said, but man, that declaration of independence, like both those things can be true about that like in this case with Colleen Hoover, it's just, I just think that

Jon (04:51)
Yeah.

Kristy (05:11)
there's a lot of speculation about a lot of things we don't know the whole story. And there's also like the part that when publishers sell the rights to their film they also have little say over how things are marketed and also what happens in the film.

Jon (05:17)
Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think just like to wrap this little point up, people are more than one thing. And they you might disagree with them on one area, but you might love like the work they put out or something like that. And that's totally okay. And I think we all could be better at like being comfortable with somebody's whole self instead of just like pegging somebody as one thing and then forming an opinion on that one thing. So

Anyway, before we get into our actual like book slash movie convo, we want to let everybody know what are the two books that Kristy is going to make me read next, which are a classic The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. Delia? Did I say that name right? Delia Owens. So

Kristy (06:19)
deal ya.

Jon (06:22)
Those are the next two books. You like my accents? I know. Sure haven't. And I'm really glad this episode isn't about that book because we'd be in trouble then. good. Maybe I'll take that on my flight this weekend.

Kristy (06:22)
Wow.

That wasn't stereotypical or anything. Have you started the Great Gatsby yet? You better get on that.

It's right here!

There we go.

Jon (06:43)
Anyway, We want to let you know where you can find us. We are on Instagram, TikTok, and we're even on YouTube. And you can watch our faces and all of our reactions and things like that, and not just listen to our voices. So

Kristy (06:56)
Yes, and if you're enjoying this show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you happen to be listening right now.

Jon (07:03)
right now. Okay, so for those of you who maybe this is your first episode listening to us. This is the part of the episode where we give a spoiler free summary of the book so you have some idea of what we're talking about.

Kristy (07:16)
Yes.

Morgan Grant is a woman who built her life on doing things the right way after becoming a young mother to her teenage daughter, Clara, a girl who's determined not to follow in her footsteps. Morgan and Clara's relationship is already strained by generational differences, unspoken resentments, and the growing distance that often comes with adolescence.

Jon (07:39)
And

When a sudden tragedy disrupts their lives, both Morgan and Clara are forced to navigate grief in very different ways. As each of them searches for stability and understanding, new relationships begin to form while old ones are re-examined. The event also exposes cracks in the story Morgan has always believed about her marriage, forcing her to question what she thought she knew about love.

loyalty and the choices that shaped her life up to this point.

That's it. That might be the shortest book free spoiler free book somewhere we have given up to this point. So from this point on listeners, this is spoilers. So this is an alert.

Anything beyond this point warning, we are about to step into the aftermath, ladies and gentlemen, where regrets will likely linger longer than this podcast episode.

Kristy (08:22)
Warning!

All right, so if you haven't read the book in a minute or you haven't seen the film and you remember reading this at some point, I'm going to give you a spoiler summary So after Chris, Morgan's husband dies in a car accident with her sister Jenny.

Morgan and Clara are left grieving and Morgan's the wife, Clara's the daughter. Clara's 16, 17 years old. Then the truth about the accident comes out. Chris and Jenny were having an affair and Morgan is forced to rethink her entire marriage. Clara, meanwhile, is dealing with the loss of her father, unaware of the affair or the betrayal with it, while also growing closer to Miller, a boy her mom doesn't fully trust.

As Morgan sorts to the fallout, another painful truth comes into focus. The baby that Jenny recently had that she told Jonah, who was all their high school friend, was his likely isn't. It's actually Chris's child. That realization adds another layer of betrayal and grief. It also reshapes how Morgan sees both her husband and her sister and the life she thought they all had together.

Jon (09:35)
Bum bum bum.

Kristy (09:49)
The story continues as Morgan and Clara move back and forth between the biggest and likely most annoying miscommunication trope.

Jon (10:01)
We know how much you love that trope.

Kristy (10:02)
I know. All right, let's talk about what we thought about the book.

Jon (10:07)
Go ahead.

Kristy (10:08)
So I already said this, I read this book several years ago. I was on a, I read Verity and then I was on a Colleen Hoover, just like roller coaster and I read a ton by her. And I rated this one five stars at the time and I remember really liking it. And then when I revisited it this time, I don't know, I had different feelings. I didn't dislike it by any means. I think the...

story itself is heartbreaking. The grief is real and palpable within the story and that really comes through. And I really like how Colleen Hoover is able to blend a lot of different things going on to make this really robust story. And she does this in a lot of her novels and I really like them and appreciate them. I think it's maybe because it seems like we've been reading a lot of miscommunication tropes lately.

And this one, I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. Here we go again. I think I physically read it the first time and I audiod it this time. And I think it might've been slightly on the narrator, but I don't want to just blame it on that. But I found Morgan's character very annoying, very unlikable. I realized she's going through grief and I'm giving her that grace.

Not just grief, also like the betrayal and everything, the fallout that comes after that. But man, some of like the choices she made that we're going to talk about were just like really hard to read about. And I'll leave it at that because I have a whole can of things to unpack with you here.

Jon (11:50)
Okay.

I think my point of view on this book is that it felt I don't want to go so far as to say it felt autobiographical. That's not really what I mean. But it felt like it was a story that was trying to portray real life than it was trying to portray like a

fantastical version of events like this or something like that. I don't know if that makes sense. through that, what?

Kristy (12:19)
Good

Go ahead,

sorry, this is your thoughts, so don't want to interrupt with a question.

Jon (12:25)
through that lens of just like, I guess I let me put it this way, I read it as a lens of like, this really happened to someone. And so the layers and levels of grief and betrayal and unraveling of a reality that she believed to be true for almost two decades.

I felt came through really strong in in the book. And that gave me a lot, I think a lot more empathy to the characters than if I were to go into this book reading it as want to say fictionalize it, I'm not sure what the right word is, but

that's how I read it. And I enjoyed the book quite a bit. And I think I enjoyed it through that lens. It was a real journey through those emotions. I don't know if it hit quite as strong as like one of the Jessica Guerrieri book that we read last year. It felt similar to that though, like just real pain by real people going through something that I don't think a lot of us could

really truly empathize with and understand. So I enjoyed it. thought the character, yes, Morgan definitely had some questionable decisions. And, you know, I'm sure we'll get into some of the other like relationship dynamics in there. in general, I really enjoyed the book and it kept me

Kristy (13:35)
Yeah.

Jon (13:57)
turning the proverbial page. Actually, I did read the hardcover for most of it and then I switched to audio like two thirds or so of the way through to make sure that I could finish it before we got done. anyway, moving on to questions. That's my 411.

Kristy (14:14)
It's interesting you said the thing about it felt like someone telling a real story because to me when I read, that's how I feel about all the stories I read, the good ones I want them to be real. I want to understand. And so when I find fault in a book, a lot of times it's like this would not fucking happen. There's no way.

Jon (14:24)
fair.

Kristy (14:35)
I'm so over it, so.

Jon (14:35)
Yeah, that's fair. That's a good point. You know, like good stories, pull you in and make you feel like you're there, whether even if they're fantasy or science fiction or something like totally out of this world, you still feel like you can be realistically there. So I get I get that. It makes sense.

Kristy (14:52)
Yeah, I think that's what makes a story great is when we can feel that.

All right, so a lot of the initial drama starts with Morgan's decision not to tell her daughter about the affair between Chris and Jenny. Did you agree with this decision?

Jon (15:07)
Okay, so the I think the reason why I wanted to share my general thoughts about this book the way that I did is because I think it will shed light on how I'm going to answer a lot of these questions.

Kristy (15:20)
I'm

like, I feel like you're about to say something I'm not gonna like and you already know that. Your face is turning red.

Jon (15:24)
I think so too. Yes. Yeah.

It's also these lights are very warm this I felt like I could empathize with a lot of Morgan's decision-making through this time for life. And now,

Kristy (15:38)
Mmm.

Jon (15:41)
I don't know that I'm not going to go on a limb and say I agreed with all of her decisions, but I certainly understood them as much as I could. Like this is a woman who got pregnant super young, didn't really have a chance to grow up and find herself or anything like her whole identity was, was poured into this relationship with Chris and raising Clara and

kind of forcing the matter to a certain degree. And think that colored her perception that like,

I don't want my daughter's point of view of her father to be...

be tainted by this one thing when he was so good in so many other ways, which I think, as a teenager, I think a lot of teenagers could probably do like suddenly latched on one thing. So to answer your question, I would I don't agree with the fact that she didn't want to tell Clara the truth, but I certainly understood where she was coming from and why she didn't want to.

Kristy (16:55)
I hear don't agree with you with I don't wanna say like you understood because that's how you felt. And I get that you felt that way. I really do. My problem is and why I disagree with her not telling Clara is because people, and this is what her daughter did, are going to make up their own narrative when you don't fill in the blanks.

Jon (17:19)
Sure. Yeah.

Kristy (17:20)
And so like, this

is such a delicate situation and I really get that and I really, and I realize it's really hard to crush someone's belief in feelings about someone else. And they don't have the ability to make future ones with that person because now that person's dead. However, as a parent, you owe it to your children, I feel like to teach them

the ways of the world. And in this way, like two things can be true. Like you could have good memories of your father and appreciated everything he did for you and raising you to this point. But you can also know that he made some really bad decisions too. Because I think the problem ends up being is,

Morgan ends up being the villain in this story and in Clara's story, should say. And Morgan was prepared to take that, but to your point also, still very young. She's like in her early thirties. She had this, got pregnant when she was 17.

Jon (18:16)
Yeah.

Kristy (18:32)
And I don't think she's thought through how this is going to like long-term affect her relationship with her daughter, because it will never just be that. Like her daughter would...

Jon (18:44)
Yeah.

Kristy (18:47)
end up resenting her because her daughter has created this narrative in her mind of what she thinks what happened during that period of time. And the other thing is the truth has a way of coming out eventually. And so at least she would have heard it from her mother versus someone else or another way or whatever. Like you just don't know. So I think that I hear you and that like,

Jon (19:01)
totally.

Kristy (19:17)
Yeah, this is a decision she made, but I don't think that was the right decision.

Jon (19:24)
Yeah, I would like a redirect, please on this witness. I also don't know.

Kristy (19:26)
Yes.

Jon (19:31)
she had the capacity to have that conversation when she really needed to like I think she really needed to have that conversation as she was uncovering it. But I think the grief and everything else and the confusion of in the shock of the truth. I don't know that she would know how to tell Clara

but you're right. Like that led to resentment. But I think part of what

If I'm remembering correctly, how I was thinking about this, while I was reading it was like, telling Clara could lead to resentment anyways, Clara might not believe her mother might not believe these things. Like, there's no way that dad would have done this. There's no way that Jenny would have done this. Like, I don't believe you and that could have led to another sort of like path of resentment. But ⁓ anyway, my, my redirect was just that point of like, I don't think she was in an emotional state.

to be able to have the conversation even if you wanted to.

Kristy (20:29)
You're not wrong, but she did have plenty of like proof. I mean, they found the letters, the car at the hotel, the clothes, the fact that the dad was driving sister's car, that Jenny wasn't supposed to be at work. Like there's a lot of proof. So.

Jon (20:35)
Well, letters came a lot later. The car, the clothes, the fact that she was, yeah. Which I have a point on that later, I think,

Kristy (20:54)
I hear you. I don't think you're wrong in that. Like you're right. She was dealing emotionally with her. Like she had two funerals to plan and you know, she has a betrayal of not only her husband, but her sister and everything that comes with it. Like I could not even imagine. But I think the best time would have been to tell Clara as soon as she found out and brought her on the journey. But the second best time is now. so she could have told her at any point.

So staying on the topic of Morian, did you find her to be a sympathetic character or did her choices make it hard to root for her at times? Which I think you alluded to this like quite a bit.

Jon (21:36)
I did. I think I was sympathetic to her character and I really viewed her as another, as like a child through the story. Cause I think emotionally she really was very young and immature yet herself. And so the decisions that she makes along the way, I think

Kristy (21:48)
Hmm.

Jon (22:01)
fell into that bucket of just like she wasn't emotionally mature enough to like doing those things herself because she never experienced it. You know, she getting pregnant so young. So I found her more sympathetic than frustrating in the book.

Kristy (22:17)
I think that's fair. I think there were points in the book where I'm like, you're the parent. Act like it. So I think to your point, yeah.

Jon (22:21)
Yeah. And it's, yeah. And at some point that's true. like

you do it, like you are the parent and at some point you have to step up and do that. But yeah, there is definitely a asterisk, I think to the word parent with, with her.

Kristy (22:38)
There's also just so many points where...

forgets that like her daughter is 17 years old and going to like do some dumb things, which kids do. Like when her daughter gets drunk and she's like, I wish she would have waited till she was 21. I'm like, what? How old were you when you drank for the first time? Like, she's not going to wait till she, who waits till they're 21? Like, let's be fucking real. What you hope is that when that happens to that

Jon (23:01)
Yeah.

Kristy (23:07)
they are somewhere safe, that they're not driving, that they're with people they can trust, or that they call you when they need help. Like, that's what you want from your teenager. Not that they wait till they're 21, but they just make smart choices when they decide to do something like that, because guess what? They're going to.

Jon (23:14)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. similar topic came up in shrinking with with Alice and Jimmy, you know, when she went to that party or whatever, and he's just and he was he needed to start feeling out like feeling out how to let go and give her space and she should she she called him when she needed something and

Kristy (23:33)
Mm. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's so funny that you mentioned shrinking because when I said the truth has a way of coming out, that's what Harrison Ford's character says to Liz in one episode. And I didn't want to, I had that in my head because I was like, yeah, that's a good but I didn't want to bring it up because I didn't want to like go off on a tangent about shrinking, which is amazing, an amazing show and everyone should watch it.

Jon (24:06)
dang it, yeah.

Yes, they should.

Kristy (24:12)
Who did you feel more aligned with while reading, Morgan or Clara, and did that shift over the course of the book?

Jon (24:18)
Interesting question. I

Kristy (24:22)
Or maybe did you find yourself enjoying one of the narrators better than the other? Not necessarily like that you identified with, but you're like, let me get back to this person's chapters.

Jon (24:32)
I probably know I don't know that I would say one was more than the other. I they were both unique in their own ways.

I don't know that I found either one more or less engaging. were both going through some serious shit in different ways. And I found both of them equally appealing to go into the next chapter chapter of how are they processing this? What's happening next? What decision are they going to make? So for me, it was pretty it was pretty even.

And to some degree, they were very similar, because I think, kind of the point earlier of like, I don't know how mature Morgan was really to begin with. So I think they were actually going through things kind of similar, but just different scenarios, like with Jonah or with Miller with, you know, that sort of thing. So

Kristy (25:26)
think that Morgan is immature as a 16 or 17 year old teenager. Like don't think that at all. Remember that the advice that her aunt Jenny was giving to Clara, she was getting from Morgan. And which leads me to believe that aunt Jenny wasn't very, she was the one that wasn't very mature. So I don't think that's completely fair of Morgan's character. I was frustrated with Morgan's because

Jon (25:40)
was Morgan's Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

That's fair. Good point.

Kristy (25:56)
she at times wasn't acting like the adult in the room and she is the adult in the room. Whereas Clara, even though she was making some stupid choices as well and doing some things, I'm like, well, she's a teenager. She's emotionally unstable. She doesn't have a fully developed brain yet. She's learning things for the first time. She's experimenting with different things. She's experiencing an amount of grief that

Jon (26:10)
Yeah.

Kristy (26:25)
I mean, I haven't lost a parent like that you shouldn't have to go through when you're 16 or 17 years old, So I was less bothered by her choices and the things she said, because that to me is like a teenager, you know, like you're unstable. You are unhinged.

Jon (26:42)
Yeah, that's fair.

Your brain is not fully developed.

Kristy (26:48)
It's not. How

many times have I said that on this one? guess.

Jon (26:53)
We should, if I had a nickel for every time.

Kristy (26:58)
So we've talked about this a little bit already, but Jonah actually thinks that they should tell Clara about the affair and be honest with her, but Morgan's the one, as we've mentioned, that doesn't want to destroy Clara's memories of Chris because she said Chris was always a really great father. What did you think about this?

Jon (27:14)
Jonah. I know we haven't talked about him much even in our summaries, but he was a pretty pivotal character, I think, through this whole story and I kind of related to him.

Kristy (27:23)
Absolutely.

The voice of reason.

What?

Jon (27:34)
Uhhh...

Kristy (27:35)
You are

unhinged.

Jon (27:38)
I do have a fully developed brain though. ⁓ Yeah, I, I liked Jonah's character. He was very grounded. He was very practical, but I think also he says this at one point to the book. He's like, they didn't cut him as deeply as they cut Morgan because that was her husband and her sister.

Kristy (27:40)
Yeah, well, what's your excuse?

Yep.

Jon (28:04)
like he had left for however many years and like, yeah, I was his best friend. And, you know, Jenny was someone he had dated early on and then wound up supposedly getting pregnant So I understand like that, it was probably easier for him to be grounded in, in some of that. But I, I liked his approach to this question that like, what you were saying earlier, like the truth is going to come out and she's

a 17 year old girl and she's going to form her opinions and like, she needs to have the truth to be able to figure out what to do with that truth herself and not for you to assume what she would do with that with that truth. And he's like, I'm going to tell Elijah if he ever asked her when that time comes or he's like, I'm going to give him the truth, like he deserves that he can do with it what he what he wants, but I owe him that that truth. And so I'd liked Jonah's character.

quite a bit.

Kristy (28:59)
the thing for me is says, well, he was always a really great father. I'm like, not to Elijah, this kid that he fathered and then.

lets his best, allegedly best friend.

Jon (29:12)
Yeah.

Kristy (29:13)
believe that he's a father of this child. Like, are you freaking kidding me? Not only to your best friend, but then eventually to that child. Like what if the child ends up having health problems or something like that and thinks his bio dad is Jonah and they're trying to figure out and turns out the bio dad's actually you. And I just think of like all those things spiraling that people, when they do something really selfish like this, like don't think of. And I'm like, you're not a great dad.

If you're going to let another man raise your child and believe it's that child

Jon (29:45)
Both things can be true at the same time though. He could have been a great dad to Clara. Yeah. I get it. I get it. Sounds like an episode of Maury Povich coming up. This sounds like an episode of Maury. Yes.

Kristy (29:46)
No, not in this case. I'm just kidding.

I just had a really hard to declare. I just had a really hard time with that one.

But to your point though.

What? You are not the father!

To your point though, Jonah is a really pivotal character in the book and the voice of reason a lot of time and like a really stable character. feel like for Morgan and kind of sorting through like this grief and what happens and you know, their eventual relationship is part of that, but.

Yeah, I think that obviously had a huge role to play.

Jon (30:34)
Speaking of their relationship.

Kristy (30:35)
Yes. So what did you think of the relationship? Did it feel earned or a little too convenient?

Jon (30:42)
pretty convenient. I think one of my challenges with the book was just a bit of the timeline in general and how much time had gone by from the point of the accident to through all this whole journey, because it did feel

sudden isn't the right word because it's not like, Oh, all of a sudden I have feelings for you. Like they obviously had a connection long many, many years ago when they were teenagers yet, but it didn't feel, it felt like he was trying to

make his move, for lack of a better word before all the grief was like fully over. I don't know. There was just like a little part of me that just felt like their relationship was a little forced. But I but I'm gonna put an asterisk on that too, because I also think and I think Clara says this towards the end of the book that

Kristy (31:30)
Mmm.

Jon (31:41)
who else would they have to talk to like there's no one else who could understand what each other is going through and that connection tragedy breeds connections like this which I learned from the movie Speed way back in the day like I also I get it but it also just felt like fast maybe that's what I'm looking for it's fast

what did you think? mean, did you think it was earned or convenient?

Kristy (32:09)
I mean,

yes and no, both things can be true. I think that it's convenient because he's there in the story and he was the best friend and he's the one who's left and like, of course they're going to fall in love and you know, they were all friends in high school and he had a thing for her and like she had an unrealized thing for him, blah, blah, blah, fine.

But there is something about, like you said, grief bringing people together and them having this shared experience. And that sometimes always doesn't work out. It does bring people together, but it doesn't last. So who knows, but.

Jon (32:53)
Yeah. I think because they

had the connections from earlier, it's probably implied that it will last. But yeah, I agree. Like in moments of high emotional connection or stress like that, like, yeah, it does tend to bring people close together. So anyway.

Kristy (32:58)
Yeah.

So did the ending feel satisfying or did you want more fallout or resolution?

Jon (33:21)
I think my biggest point with the ending, and when I say ending in this point, I'm talking about the reveal for when Clara finds out the truth, like that's kind of to me like the beginning of the ending. So just like take that into this question. I thought Clara

Like it clicked too quickly or she was too accepting or like it was it was just like, I get it all now. Like I expected more from like she's built up all this resentment to her mom over however much time there is. And then this shoe drops. She doesn't stop to think.

Kristy (33:48)
Hmm.

Jon (34:01)
or like there's not a moment of reaction. It's like, you're just making this up. So I hate you less or you're just like doing this to redirect your who I'm angry at or whatever. So I thought there would be some of that in the story from her.

Kristy (34:14)
But remember in

that conversation though, Morgan doesn't really say anything. She lets Clara sit and have the realizations herself.

Jon (34:22)
figure it out.

She does. You're right. And that probably plays a big part of why she didn't do that. But I still felt like I don't know, I clicked a little bit too. She's like, why was he driving the car? And then all of sudden, that led to everything else. I don't know. It just that felt a little unrealistic to me.

Kristy (34:44)
Yeah.

Jon (34:45)
your question though like was it satisfying

Yes. I'm just gonna say yes, it was it was satisfying. I'm glad the truth came out. She she being Clara had reached like a mature enough state to like process the information and understand that again, both things could be true about both Jenny and Chris that

she can love them for different ways, even though they made shitty ass decisions. And then actually like, there's nothing that brings people together more than a common enemy. Right. And so now her and her mom can like bond over like these comm... this common enemy sort of thing. And Did I expect more fallout? I just, it was, it was.

Carry on.

Kristy (35:37)
Carry on

So

I think it was fine with the ending. There were some things that I thought I wanted to know, I will say. So it's like, there's things we don't learn in the book. is Elijah really Chris's child? We don't know. What did the letter say? We don't know. when did the affair start? Like how often were they meeting? Like all these things that we don't know. But I think I like that.

Colleen Hoover left those things unanswered because they're not gonna get answers either. That's the heartbreaking part of this is that like Chris and Jenny are dead and there are so many things left unanswered that Morgan and Jonah and Clara are never going to know. And so I was like, man, but then on reflection of that, it's like, okay, well that's how it really would be. So I kind of appreciated that.

Jon (36:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Plus, even if they would have come out in the book, I don't know that it would have moved the story along. Like, I don't know what it would have done for. That checks.

Kristy (36:44)
I just wanna know.

knowing is half the battle.

Jon (36:51)
G. I. Joe.

Kristy (36:53)
Ha

All right, so now we're gonna transition to the film and talk about that. So if you haven't seen the film and you want to before you listen to this, go ahead and exit now, because there are gonna be some clear spoilers here. And I know we both have a lot of thoughts on this.

Jon (37:15)
Well, we at least have similar thoughts on this. I don't know that I have a lot of thoughts on this.

Kristy (37:19)
That's true.

have one main thought. All right. Let's talk about the cast. Give me your thoughts.

Jon (37:28)
Sure, they were fine.

Kristy (37:33)
You're fine in this film.

Jon (37:35)
You're

fine, like, I...

Kristy (37:37)
You get a C. Minus.

Jon (37:40)
I didn't.

Not that I didn't like this actresses acting in the film, but I don't I don't know that I like the casting choice for Clara. I don't know why it just didn't strike.

Kristy (37:51)
because she will always be

the president's daughter and Designated Survivor. And there's no way she's 17 years old. She's actually like 20.

Jon (37:57)
Yeah, let's go with that. There's Yeah,

20 something. I just casting. also didn't like that the same actors were cast for 17 year old version of them and 30 year old version of them. I just fucking hate that

Hollywood has enough pool of people that you could find someone similarly that looks similar enough to the older version of the actor that you can put in for those scenes of 17 year old. Yeah. Yeah. So like that really bought well there was a lot of things that bothered me but that as far as the casting as far as the casting goes I will stay in my lane.

Kristy (38:24)
Yeah. And we don't have to have the exact version. Like, we know. We get it.

You do have a lot of thoughts.

Jon (38:41)
That one stuck to me and it was like right in the beginning too and they pulled up to the gas station and like and they're talking about going in to buy beer. I'm like you all look like you're fucking 30 like just go buy beer like, what's the big deal. Find some kids. No. Yeah. That was that was painful.

Kristy (38:51)
Right. The few freckles they added on Morgan's character. like, she doesn't look 17 y'all. Come on.

I didn't mind Clara. I thought the actress, I don't know her name, did a fine job with that.

I don't know who the actress is who plays Morgan but ⁓ man, she looks the part. Don't get me wrong, she looks the part. I think everyone in this story looked how I expected them to look.

Jon (39:15)
Yeah.

Agreed. Yep.

Yeah, you mean like I really like Miller's cast on this too. I thought he was like spot on for what I would imagine him in my head.

Kristy (39:29)
Agreed.

Yeah.

Clara and Miller on screen, I thought were solid. Like not great, you know what I mean? Like great for like the kind of film it is, but like believable, decent acting, whatever. Yeah, totally.

Jon (39:40)
Yeah, they were the saving grace in this. Yeah.

Yeah, made you smile, made you laugh.

Kristy (39:53)
What did the film change from the book that had the biggest impact on how the story felt?

Jon (39:58)
⁓ The book was good and the movie wasn't. That's what it changed.

Kristy (40:01)
Yeah

Jon and I watched this film and it was so cringy. mean, I've seen plenty, again, this isn't a romantic comedy, but I feel like it's a romance, contemporary romance drama. And I've seen plenty of those. I've seen plenty of romantic comedies which aren't award-winning films. So I don't expect to go into a film like this.

Jon (40:12)
It was cringe.

Kristy (40:33)
and be awed and think that someone's gonna walk away with an Oscar. I mean, these films serve a purpose and what they're trying to do or the message you're trying to get across. This one was freaking awful. It was, I'm not kidding. I was like.

Jon (40:36)
Yeah.

Kristy (40:49)
a ball of anxiety watching it because it was so awful. It was so hard to watch.

Jon (40:54)
so in the last handful of episodes, we've talked about how it's hard when you watch a film after you've read a book because you've come in with preconceived notions, you come in with like expectations or whatever, right? So I, I really went into this film, trying to have a clean slate mentally, I'm just like, I'm going to pretend like I haven't read the book, I just want to watch this movie for what it is. I

just I didn't even get far enough for that. it was and I'm pretty patient when it comes to film but this was just

Kristy (41:22)
See.

You know, for me, I don't feel that way going from book to film because I have aphantasia and to me watching a film is bringing this film to life because I am limited in how I actually perceive it like with my eyes, because I can't form those pictures in my head. So

the film can still be good. The film can still bring these characters to life for me and to experience it in a new way. This was just really bad. The acting was bad. The directing was bad.

to me they wrote a script and it was like here say this line and hit it and they filmed it one time and they were fine with it but the biggest yeah yeah

Jon (42:10)
And they filled it on like iPhones and like everything looked like

it was like, even the cinematography and filming just felt cheap. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy (42:18)
It literally felt like it was filmed on a phone. It was very cheap.

But I really am, I feel bad for saying this because I just like realized people put a lot of hard work into what they're doing, but how Morgan came across, she's supposed to be this like grieving widow in literally every scene she's smiling or she has a smirk on her face.

And that was, it didn't fit the mood of the film. I can't believe like the director wasn't giving her better direction and coaching or whatever. I mean, it was so bad.

Jon (42:45)
Yeah. ⁓

it was. mean, I don't know that I have anything else to add to that. It was just the dialogue was forced. The flow of the whole film was very robotic and like there's so much emotion in this book and none of it really came through into film and

Kristy (43:19)
None of it translated.

Jon (43:23)
Even the car crash felt.

trivial. Their reactions to the car crash felt trivial. yeah, everything about it was just really unfortunate.

Kristy (43:38)
Yeah.

Did the movie deepen or flatten the emotional complexity between Morgan and Clara?

Jon (43:44)
there was emotional connection between them in the movie. I'm sorry. Flat.

Kristy (43:46)
Not in the movie. I think

that was probably the hard part. The book portrays that I feel like their relationship is already strained to a certain extent because there are things that Clara doesn't want her mom to know, that she's going through her Aunt Jenny for.

during that time, like it's not uncommon for, you have weird relationships with your parents. Like you're going through stuff like all that, total teenage behavior. So I feel like there was that disconnect between them before the accident even happened. It was portrayed that way. And then that didn't come through at all on film. It was like they were portrayed out to be like these best buds when they're doing the

board... what is it the board thing they were doing?

Where they write down their goals on a board. Yeah. ⁓ Even like the very first scene of them doing that, like Clara wasn't into it. And then like in this scene, it was like all like lovey-dovey, like we're, know, mother, daughter, best friends, yada, yada, yada. I'm like,

Jon (44:43)
⁓ yeah, their goal board. Yeah,

Kristy (44:59)
I didn't feel that part of their relationship as they were going through what they were going through and some of the decisions that Clara makes that Morgan doesn't like as she's grieving. I don't know, they just all seem so trivial. Like it didn't even seem like not a big deal.

Jon (45:18)
Yeah.

I agree. And I think between her and Chris too, like as with so many film adaptations of books, you don't get as much backstory in a film. And so you don't get a lot of the youth and you don't get a lot of like how they were together before, you know, before and when she got pregnant. so you don't have that sort of understanding of where the relationship is and how it got to wherever it is at this point. So

But yeah, I mean, on film it was just everything. Everything was forced. Everything was just hard to watch.

Kristy (45:58)
We've said this before, like when you have either internal dialogue or whatever the case may be, first person narrative in a story, and you're translating that to a script, like you have to find other ways to tell the story. And all the director, the writers did in this case was write the story as it is in the book.

Jon (46:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's almost like they just pulled pages out of the book and then stuck them together and really here's our here's our script. Yeah.

Kristy (46:23)
Here, let's do this. Yeah.

Here's our wireframe of the script. Let's just do this.

All right, any final thoughts on this book? Any final thoughts on the film? Would you recommend either or both to our listeners?

Jon (46:40)
I, my final thoughts for this would be book is worth it. Don't waste your energy or time of life on the movie. And yeah, unless you have, what was it? Paramount plus, let's just subscribe to her own plus. ⁓ yeah, the movie just wasn't worth it. It's really unfortunate, but the book is good. And it, like, it handles some really rough topics. And I think it does in a really elegant and

Kristy (46:50)
Plus you have to pay $6 to rent it.

Paramount Plus.

Jon (47:10)
and thought provoking kind of way. yeah, I mean, I really enjoyed the book. it's just like, it's really unfortunate the movie was as bad as it was.

Kristy (47:21)
Yeah. I agree. I really enjoyed the book. I definitely think it's worth reading. I love that it explores a lot of topics that.

I don't know, I don't wanna say people don't talk about, it's just like, it was hard. It was hard read. It was hard to think about these characters going through these things and like, would you do? Asking yourself like, what would you do in this situation? And like, can you imagine this like actually happening to you? This is awful, but unfortunately these things do happen. Like people find out some wild shit when people die. But.

Jon (47:38)
Yeah.

What would you do? Totally.

Kristy (47:58)
I think it's worth it and I completely agree with you. Like I don't think the film is worth your time at all. I think you will be wildly disappointed if you watch it.

Jon (48:06)
Yeah. Yup.

Kristy (48:09)
Yeah, that's all I got to say about that.

all right, well we wanted to remind listeners that the next two books in our lineup are The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. And as always, don't forget that a free way to support our show is by leaving us a review and rating us on Apple Podcasts. And if you don't wanna rate us, please do. But if you don't wanna rate us and you have a question,

You can email us at booksimakemyhusbandread at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you.

Jon (48:40)
We would be sure to tell some other book lovers about the show too. Maybe there's a book that they've read and want to hear our thoughts on it and then they can react and be like, they're totally right or they totally got that wrong. And then email us and tell us about it. Engage like in Top Gun, like wow, what was it? yeah, when Maverick and the end of Top Gun, Maverick Val Kilmer and Ice, they're in the.

Kristy (48:56)
Yes.

Jon (49:07)
fight and they're in the sky and they're just like, come on Maverick engage, god damn it. Just like that.

Kristy (49:15)
I'm not even following what you're talking about. What a wonderful story.

Jon (49:17)
You

Thank you, thank you very much.

I'll be here all week.

Kristy (49:24)
Alright, well guess that's it.

Jon (49:26)
That is as another one of the books and I'm returning this movie to the store. Not worth keeping.

Kristy (49:32)
Yes, please rewind. Well, who knows? Maybe this will be the one your husband reads.

Jon (49:38)
Maybe.

Kristy (49:40)
but don't make them watch it.

Jon (49:43)
through that, you'll get divorced.

Kristy (49:48)
All right. Take care. Bye.

Jon (49:49)
Okay, bye bye!

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