The Bright Years

Welcome back Redheads to another episode of the Redheads Book Club September edition back to school fall vibes. This is where the Redheads shine y'all. Becky, Dana, Snitch, how the girls? Where them girls at? Where them girls at? Back to school season is so us. It's like get your reading ready people. I know. And everyone did their summer reading. We did our summer reading. I can't say I timed it as well as I did the last few ones. I finished it today. But in a timely manner, I still had like hours after. It's fresh. Like I finished it and I still had hours. You know, it wasn't like, and I did not have to. Audiobook. I did not have to go into listening to my car or listening while I did my makeup. Like that's when it's really bad. I got to enjoy. That's when it's really bad. Reading. Snitch, were you at that level or did you have time to spare? no i this book like went fast i don't know how many pages it was but i feel like it was really short because i like started at like 30 on the plane yesterday and i finished it by the like in bed last night like i i just powered through wow yeah because earlier this weekend we had a brief convo and you were like haven't started and i was obsessed yeah so brit i don't remember that call and i was informed of said conversation drunk redheads yeah no i had literally by the way that's a lie I did fully start the book I started it like on my flight so I don't know why I'm like drunk and lying that's so funny it's like drunken drama you were like by the way haven't started and I was like that's literally oh so she's a drunken liar like Ryan I'm a drunken liar oh my god I'm cracked and then like we sort of started talking about it like about and then you were like so you have started it I I can't I like didn't really think that you were lying to me so I was like maybe you just like know the premise you know I was like what like why would you like go so far as to do that to a fellow redhead i don't know i don't know i don't know well it sounds like you had a fun weekend snitch how are you let's catch up with you first it's snitches month right you chose this one i chose this one that's what i thought okay that feels right that feels right because it's depressing no because i kept accusing you of choosing the last book and it wasn't i know it was though like in spirit and soul um i'm good i just got back from a couple trips and I'm so happy for it to be fall. Like I just, the weather in New York is gorgeous. It's chilly. It's crisp. It's just the perfect time. And yeah, I'm just happy, happy to be home. We're happy that you're home. Are you staying home for a while? Yes. I have one work trip next week for like a day and a half and then I'm home. Where? Dallas. Oh, cool. Oh, I know about that. yeah yeah yeah I know about that Bex how are you how was Maine I'm great Maine was amazing it was I mean like highly recommend and just really restorative beautiful nature beautiful eats amazing surroundings we went for our anniversary love you hubs and it was just like a really wonderful time all around good way to cap off summer and I also visited um Camp Mattapanai which is where I was a summer camper and that was like the highlight of horror so shout out to any mad my redheads love you guys that is so much fun Dana how are you in the home stretch oh my god pregnancy in the home stretch of my pregnancy but in the home of my new home in New Jersey I know ambulance no ambulance I actually was so nervous about this I made Josh test it out with me last night for 20 minutes to confirm my audio and video like worked properly because it's the first time recording in the new house and you know just getting there slowly progressing the painters are almost done like almost the upstairs furniture has arrived I feel very in limbo but like the progress is slow and steady which I'll take that is so exciting thanks how are you Jax I'm good I just got back from summer so in full back home mode trying to get like my head straight but I'm very I feel like very much like January 2nd energy of like yeah it's back to school like return season I need I have resolutions back to school I'm clearing out my closets like it's just I really am feeling all of those vibes right now which I really enjoy and I'm happy to be home happy to be back at work happy to be with my redheads so happy to be back with the redheads we love all love we do love all that and now we need to get into this month's book because we read the bright years by sarah damoff it was a snitch's choice and i think we should just jump right in to our recap and discussion of this book if that works for the class that works for the class so satie will you give us a brief summary of the book yes i will the bright years by sarah damoff is an emotional family saga set in Texas that follows the bright family across generations. At its center are Ryan and Lillian, a couple deeply in love who begin their life together with their newborn daughter Georgette, called Jet. Beneath their happiness though, both carry secrets that threaten to unravel their family. Ryan is battling alcoholism while Lillian hides the existence of a teenage son she never told Ryan about. With Jet's birth, it ignited Ryan's alcoholism and he eventually left to the family. As Jet matures, she distances herself from her painful past and her mother died shockingly from cardiac arrest at 15 years old and she had to live with ryan's mother elise queen um but her world is shaken yet again when lillian's long lost son seeks her out forcing jet to confront her family history told through the intimate perspectives of ryan lillian and jet the novel examines the way love addiction secrets and loss reverberate across generations ultimately the bright years is both heart heart-wrenching and hopeful a portrait of a family marked by struggle but also by enduring love and just tell me your process for writing this synopsis chat gp okay okay cool cool um yeah that was great it's kind of just like a long ended story of a family from start to finish yeah and different generations of said family multi-generational if you will what did you think sachi i loved this book um i i mean i love that it was a quick read I really love a quick read it didn't feel too dense um I do like there were a couple things where I was just like you know had my issues with but I thought it was like really like beautiful and it made me like I was crying from this book like I was which part made you cry the most when Lillian died I so didn't see that coming I thought that was the most emo part too I didn't see that coming at all um and then I just felt so fucking bad for Jet like yeah she couldn't catch a break um but yeah I really like this book I thought it was enjoyable and yeah great that's it Becky what did you think I'm conflicted because I have a hard time with books that I think are like objectively good and well written versus my enjoyment and my reading experience I thought this was an objectively good book like I understand like the literary qualifications it possesses I personally like had a horrible time reading it it was like I was in the dead of like summer joy it was like on the beach I'm on vacation and I'm like honestly so overwhelmed by what took place in this book it was so upsetting and it was so dark and honestly at a time I was like it's honestly dark for the sake of being dark not to say people don't actually go through this but I was like must Lillian die like what is happening and it was so abrupt like I felt like it wasn't even like like cared for in a in a considerate enough way the way that like that bomb was dropped on readers so those were my low points I did find myself thinking about it after I finished the book I think that's quality a qualifier of a good read so I'm a little bit conflicted I'm I'm eager to have a conversation about it and like see if that sways me one or why or another thank you okay well I'll bite I I really did not like this book um I went into it like thinking it was a good book and I was like and it's a book and we're off to the races and it's well written and there's characters development and then I started to get to a place of like okay this isn't like my favorite subject matter but still it's a good book it's you know and then by the end I'm like this book literally fucking sucks and it was it wouldn't end that she wouldn't end it and I have this issue with like yeah something could be well written but I sometimes feel like it also needs to be like edited more there were so many just extraneous like thoughts and things about the surroundings that were just like so unnecessary it was just like verbose for the sake of it of course it was depressing like no one can have a happy moment but then by the end it just got silly like seriously I I went from like we'll do final rating at the end and maybe someone can bring me back up but I went from like a 3.5 to a 2.5 after that sex scene between Jet and Kendi where they're like whispering sweet nothings about when they were toddlers while they're hooking up and then he also says like I love you when your breasts are wrinkled and then like it hooks up with her like I was cackling I was like this is a joke like it just it started off strong I will say but they completely lost me to the point that like I think I will completely forget this book and if I'm gonna say anything like good about it it will be on this episode I don't think it's gonna like age well for me Dana what do you say oh you guys I loved this book loved loved loved that is so Dana couldn't get enough finished in less than 24 hours I echo those sentiments it needed a better editor and it dragged on for way too long like when only at 40% Lillian died I was like oh my god what's next it for sure could have been cut but the writing was so good and it had so much depth and I loved the characters and most importantly it made me feel so deeply like I was likewise almost sobbing at every turn of the page it was so dark and so emotional and I loved it wow I'm actually shocked I thought maybe I've been watching your face this whole time because I really didn't know what you're gonna say I thought Rebecca was gonna like it more than she did and I thought you perhaps would rip it to show I actually did not like the jet perspective I found her voice juvenile her and Kendi it annoyed me they ended up getting together can a guy and a girl ever be friends I guess not always comes back to that answer that like no and which I agree with but for them it felt forced to all of a sudden she's like am I checking out Kendi's ass like it wasn't organic enough for me to be believable and I totally agree with you Rit that like it sometimes felt dark just for dark sake like we I thought they were trying to make a lot of connections like Jet's mom died the way Lillian's mom died and just this circle of like repeating your history he turned into an alcoholic way ryan's dad turned into an alcoholic and it was sometimes too on the nose i just felt like there wasn't enough joy for the for the ride yes yes i agree it was painful yeah it was painful like we could have kept lillian even though i thought that was a pivotal moment in the book and it made me feel more than anything and even though it was like abrupt and agreed like not cared for i read it a couple times before i'm like wait wait what i know i was like this is probably an error like when they said crooked did anyone else when they said crooked neck did you think like ryan maybe killed yeah i did snitch for a second i know i thought like all those headaches like meant something and now she's going to go to the hospital like i didn't expect it to be that abrupt but i guess that is you know that is how it is when someone dies suddenly so they really captured something about that right but they really captured that like how you're not prepared never even thought about it and your life just like completely changes and then you know having to watch jet navigate through grief was like not fun i would say not my favorite yeah and i agree that the good parts didn't outweigh the bad enough for that level of tragedy in fact they were so corny and over-the-top cartoonish when they were on their honeymoon and everything was perfect and the ice cream and the letters like it didn't feel authentic it felt forced the happiness yeah even when they said in the book like we're so happy as a couple like we feel weird being around other couples because like we're that like no one's not as happy as us I was like oh that's like really that's so crazy you're so happy and like but I guess that like to go from that extreme to like the extreme of like the two most miserable people you'll ever meet literally yeah I'm sure the other couples are like yeah have fun being super happy it was too hyperbolic I also and like perhaps we are just confrontational individuals and encourage confrontation and communication between people we know and love but like their inability to like speak to each other about how they were feeling or share thoughts or like push each other to be better or improve was so nauseating and and I was slamming my head against the wall you're gonna let your husband father of your child just like just like totally succumb and I know addiction is like a whole nother topic and it's like we are like I get that but like we did not see Lillian really try and like if it doesn't work I get it but like she didn't even try to get him out of it I agree I agree what because it was a hard conversation I I understand that like that sucks no and the fact that there was no like finality like there was nothing he could have done to push him away no terrible behavior no thing he could have said like I'm just the type of person that I I guess they call that boundaries like there were no boundaries he had infinite chances and it's like she didn't even ever go on a date with another guy like who could hold on to this person for that long who's and it's such a cop-out for him to say like I left before I could hurt you like shut up shut up and I know I'm like I'm harsh I'm hard I'm a harsh person totally shut up it felt lazy it felt lazy yeah lazy like plot wise and like lazy at for ryan as a character and it wasn't even just like lillian like i felt like elise also just like gave up super easily like okay like let's like not try and like push this person to like heal or grow etc i was like oh we're just all gonna collectively like not talk about this understood like i i just don't understand no and this person can do whatever they want literally will always be there for them and will always have like the perks of being uh part of the family that they have completely turned their back on and they can always maintain their job and right and they can always come back like why yeah and maybe some people would say that but it it doesn like it just felt it just felt so off especially for her to not have ever had another romantic interest I don care that they always let him back like I think family is like there's only one and like I I kind of understand the infinite chances I had less of a problem with that more of a problem with like let's like not talk about this or try or have conversations to better the situation or like get this person back on track like it was sort of just like oh like they chose alcohol like I'll let them forever they had one bad night and they never spoke again yeah yeah and then they like reconciled in that like hotel room and like then never spoke again about it yeah yeah well yeah also that she didn't open the letter for her from her mother for 11 years was incredibly infuriating not just about the brother but the mom was stashing away money for her the entire time and did she know about that oh yeah that's a good point I thought that's what she was gonna find out because every time Ryan sent a check he put it away for um Jet and then Jet like obviously she can't fix her car and like she can't go pay for her school that she wants to go to and I'm like girl you have all this money oh my god I completely forgot about that same that was not on my radar but I was infuriated that she didn't open the letter and was so mad at her mom for not telling her about her firstborn and yet here is her mom telling her about the firstborn and she won't acknowledge it right yeah yeah okay well let's get into the dbqs to get into the meat of this episode today's episode of the redheads is brought to you by quince fall is in full swing and it's the perfect time to refresh your wardrobe with pieces that feel as good as they look luckily quince makes it easy to look polished stay warm and save big without compromising on quality. 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First question, why do you think Lillian withheld the reality that she had placed a baby for adoption from those closest to her do you think she was wrong to do so no I think it's completely her choice if she wants to share it or not but also like I feel like yeah no I think it's up to her like she also didn't anything she didn't really withhold it she like waited for a moment that felt right to tell Ryan she didn't have parents for that long and like it's extremely personal I do not think at all that she had an obligation to repeat it if she didn't want to I agree I think she went about it in like a totally understandable way I just think she either should have told Ryan earlier or not told him at all I also think she should have owned it went the way that she told him like this happened to me it was really traumatic and tragic and I would prefer you to like come from a place of understanding and just like hear me out then for you to turn your back on me which like I know is like a very like potential choice that you might take but like I'm telling you not to and like I just felt like she could have communicated it way better than she did and defended herself more I agree when his initial reaction was like what the hell you're telling me now also I liked her line when he was getting drunk and said like as if you don't have secrets too and she's like is this what is this a tit for tat like I had a secret so now you feel like you need to have one this is ridiculous they were immature in their conversational skills yeah and not to blame her because she's a queen and he's a sorry person but like i do feel like she chose the absolute worst time to tell him like he was like on the brink of becoming an alcoholic and she was like let me tell you this heaviest thing that i haven't told you whereas if she had told him that at the greek restaurant on their first date when like she could do no wrong in his eyes he would have been like i'm so sorry you're like i love you even more and then it just would have been something that he always knew and it just might have played out better i agree timing was tough yeah I do think she maybe should have told the baby daddy on that bench even though he was breaking up with her it felt like a more opportune time than years later yeah but he didn't give a fuck at any he was gonna act the same even if she told him on the bench so they would have ended in the same place yeah I felt I felt strongly about that line of decision making I was curious to see if he would have any success as an artist he did the indication the only one was when she was jet flipping through the stations at the end and it was like skip menendez skip or whatever no i didn't i so didn't put that together what's so crazy is when she was doing that i was like they should throw the dad in there or something they did wait i'm cracking up but i also thought that then davis the brother would have been like my dad is this rock star and i had the same thought why didn't he tell her he said my dad's focused on his family now but like If he's a big star, I feel like they could have just beefed that up a little bit. It would have just been good. It was totally an Easter egg. But yeah, obviously, if he's like on popular radio stations, I was like, he's doing OK. I totally miss that. And then also, was Davis going to tell Jet like that his dad is the famous rock star? Like there was just a lot of missed opportunity. Agreed. It was unnecessary. No one speaks. No one communicates with each other. Yeah. Agreed. Next question. when Lillian miscarries there's a passage on page 41 where time is moving backward why do you think the author chose to do this here were there other instances in the book when the treatment of time stood out to you yeah there were a couple moments where it's like it goes back and like it just it feels like a rewind like something startling is happening and so she tells the story like in a little bit of a backwards way and I got confused when Ryan's perspective came and his went back in time to scenes we had already witnessed through other eyes and I'm like this is unnecessarily duplicative I get we're trying to see his perspective but it's not that different from the reality we've received from everyone else so like let's speed it up here yeah that wasn't my favorite mechanism and I didn't have the sympathy they probably wanted to elicit of like oh I understand where Ryan's coming from he was under stress when she asked to buy a new house it's like no he's an asshole who can't cope no I completely agree it was like very surface and so the leap from him being like the greatest guy ever to the worst it just wasn't justifiable enough for me especially because like the thing that I guess catapulted him to start drinking was becoming a father just the magnitude of it the anxiety the pressure um the memory of his father but it's like do the work a little bit yeah right yeah it wasn't a strong enough correlation but yeah next why do you think ryan started drinking after his resolve to stay teetotal was there one cause or multiple perfect segue i actually liked his explanation for why when he explained it all which you know he was having memories of his dad it was a lot of pressure he thought he could be different etc that like kind of satisfied me for the why because usually it's just implied and alcoholism is like real but they did a okay job in my opinion explaining it yeah I agree I I just you know it's so easy for us as readers and as people who don't suffer from alcoholism to be like okay but like when you like took that first sip and realized that you like wanted to start drinking in the mornings while you were taking care of your daughter like you should just stop I agree that maybe our sensitivity isn't at 100 however we have read other books that have made us more sensitive to the person who's struggling with addiction and I don't think that this book like nailed that I agree like I we're capable is all I'm saying I do I agree I think we're capable and it was poor execution and he saw so much of the bad with his own father that that also I felt like would have encouraged him to take more precautions and he didn't you know what I thought was gonna happen what I thought he was gonna eventually find the table that he used to draw under and find the picture that he drew and that would snap him back to reality and like being the person that we wanted him to be that's what should have happened right yeah it's like yeah I thought maybe when he looked under the table it was gonna be that in that scene and I was happy it wasn't because I was like this would get really ridiculous right now yeah but I thought it was like gonna be the thing that brought him back changed him unfortunately there was there was no thing there was no thing next Lillian thinks quote abuse is much easier to identify when it's not in your own kitchen what does this mean and why do you think it's so often the case so of course she says this when he first throws a bottle at her and did anybody else have flashbacks too it ends with us oh I did not but now that you say it I of course see the correlation because it's that like same feeling of like did this is domestic yeah but also we didn't get like enough of it do you know what i mean because it was like the one instance and then he was gone yeah no but like someone throwing a bottle at your head like even though you know she'll say that he did it to push them away because it was too hard and he didn't want to hurt them like bottle at the head is a bottle at the head and that's mom and baby at the door yeah we we've been blaming lack of communication which I still think is extremely valid but I feel like it does not follow the usual course of patterns for addiction where you are in constant denial and making excuses and giving another chance like him doing one thing and leaving forever because it was going to be a repeat issue is rare I think through our readings to happen in that sort of addiction yeah but he also seemed like a an extreme sort of person in the sense of like he was teetotal and then once he did start drinking like he he was either all in or all out even throughout the years like he was either being like good ryan or bad ryan yeah and so i think once he made the turn and started drinking like he didn't wait to see how bad it got he's like okay i'm all in and now i'm not going to be a family man anymore yeah but i totally see how it's so easy to identify from the outside looking in like we can be like of course that's abused leave never speak to him again draw firm boundaries it's also your husband the father of your child you feel like there's like a threshold that you can take before you hit the breaking point that maybe others from the outside looking in would be able to identify sooner for sure and like you see the best qualities and in that person like you know them and so to then piece together like the person that you think that you know is also capable of this like it kind of takes a minute to be like wait that the same person and I sure it so easy to rationalize like oh that was a blip like that was a one screw up like we gonna get back on track and i think you can say that to yourself enough times that you start to even believe it yeah next do you think it was noble cowardly both or neither for ryan to leave his family cowardly yes agreed agreed okay both if he was gonna continue along the path of throwing bottles at least he like stopped but mostly cowardly because it seemed like he put in zero work to try to fix it you know what i don't appreciate it's like he's such a victim i'm sorry and i i really want to be as sensitive as possible but i felt like he did this horrible thing by throwing a bottle at his wife and mother of his child and then he's like I'm leaving you never have to deal with me again and she's then like wait please don't leave having to like coddle him yeah and be there for him and and reassure him and this and that no you're amazing you can do this and it's like she's the one who just went through something horrible and she's now reassuring you like that's what I really didn't appreciate I felt the same way it was very much like martyrdom victimhood like I can't be here and she said it well at one point she was like you're ryan you're not your dad and that's a hard pill to swallow because if you're ryan you are responsible for your actions and if you're your dad then you have an excuse so like face the music yeah so true next on page 66 lillian thinks quote i hate him but hate is anemic when love hangs around like turpentine in the upholstery and on page 97 ryan begs lillian to hate him she replies that she does but she also loves him how does this complexity of heart follow them throughout the story yeah well i think that that's the whole thing like that's why they never she never asked for a divorce and why they technically always stayed together and why she always let him come back was because underneath it all she just loved him and she like was holding on to the good parts before he was an alcoholic and that gets at our previous point of like he was desperate for an excuse to leave by having no recourse to be anything but that and she wouldn't give it to him and it would have been easier for him to just be like this is me can't change yeah separately like what why wouldn't anyone in this book just like take their husband's last name that was so crazy like not that i've even like taken my husband's last name but like why everyone is like oh that's not a like they combine to bright then jet goes with whatever hyphen but her darnell and yeah but also darnell doesn't have a negative connotation to it like it actually has a really positive one because it's his dad like that should have been like a welcome thing to take especially because the bright name which is a name that only two people have and it's not like a family name it kind of came out of nowhere it was like a a dysfunctional family it's because they were desperate to connect back to the title no no i think the title but the title was that because of the storyline and also it could have still been the bright years and then she goes to be darnell and those were her bright years agreed she should have dropped bright by the time she got married that's a hilarious observation it was like no one is doing like of course no of course we're not taking the husband's thing but not even like a hyphen name everyone had to come up with a new last name even though i actually think in general like if i was like president for the dawn of civilization we were voting like how we're gonna do married names i would vote to combine names i think it's a great idea i kind of like it too combine like hyphen or combine make it into one mesh like make it into one name because the idea of like a woman taking a man's name it's just like it's it's i know i'm like a bra-burning feminist but it's just like it doesn't it's not like my favorite it doesn't make complete sense to me yeah you know like carrying the children yeah like maternity you can prove so easy like especially throughout history when like before dna tests like it's so true it just would have been more certain if it was the mother that's such a good observation i like didn't think twice about it but you're right it was a sticking point and they had a comment about how lillian's mother in law like was thinking of changing back to her maiden name like it was definitely a thing yeah and maybe it's like a thing for the author but it just jumped out to me um next which character did you relate to the most shauna shauna shauna love shauna living her best life shauna elise was fabulous too oh yeah she was such a queen thank god for her thank god for her oh i felt so sad for her i felt so sad for her too but i think she had like a beautiful time with her granddaughter and honestly her daughter-in-law she just suffered by the men in her life i wish we got more of her perspective it was just that first page yeah i don't know if like usually in books like this when it's the last person's perspective it's like kind of a mic drop um and in this one like it was ryan's and i thought that was a really a flop um i don't know whose it could have been that would have been like oh my god the pieces to the puzzle yeah maybe like not not social worker who took the baby like i don't know just like something or davis even though like i don't know there's not much to say that he didn't or like the birth parents of davis just something like could have like just drove it home like not ryan not or if elise like had lived elise just something fresh i wouldn't have minded shauna a little bit yeah or michael you know this outsider just writing checks i had a hard time with the years i had no way to i had to keep going back it was or what you're supposed to be or like what decade we were in like they could have been like 1956 and like the next chapter could have been like 1999 and I like would have had no idea really so but it was like crazy how it did start from like what 1974 and then we ended in like 2016. Yeah and it's always fun to like go throughout history like multiple decades and you hear you see how like even they talked about like Waco and of course 9-11 and like Y2K. I do like that in a book like this that spans a long time. I think that's one of the downfalls of Kindle because it is hard to flip back and forth like if I weren't on a Kindle I would have like gone through and been like what are the names of the chapters and it would have made sense to me on a Kindle it's like so complicated I'm like I guess I'm just gonna go in blind baby I actually started to try to pay attention to the years halfway through by like associating it with what I was doing during those years once we hit the 2000s I'm like okay I'm during your bright years yeah I'm like okay now I'm a sophomore in college like they're talking about this that kind of actually tracks yeah or like when they were talking about wedding hashtags like that was a good point when she was saying like she has naturally thin eyebrows like how lucky for her i think that was like 2009 that was just like funny because that was the trend then aol yeah you know what it reminded me of a little bit that did that that that gamer book oh yeah what was that called that was so good that everyone loved tomorrow tomorrow yeah oh I didn't read it oh I was about to say I don't know what you're talking about because I didn't read it either yeah uh next question what did Davis benefit from meeting Jet if anything what did Jet benefit if anything I think like just some sort of familial connection like I think they both Jet especially like really had nobody besides Elise at the time and so like and I think she always like craved a little bit more and I think Davis I think it makes complete sense like he was wondering about his birth parents birth family and so like meeting someone who could tell him about his birth mother like I think that's lovely talk about like turning it around on the communication style I thought Davis's initial letter was wonderful he was so well written and like so appropriate I'm shocked she opened it in a timely fashion didn't let it sit there well it was an email so she didn't know she didn't know what was inside of it no she like knew at first she glanced it and then she went back and read it which is so unlike her but I found their meeting to be really satisfying me too getting to the meat of the conversation quickly and both being open to each other and I think they both felt you know kind of like alone in this world and I was very happy and satisfied for them when they got each other because they each felt like they needed more family in their lives and at least you know like biological family and Jet certainly did because everyone she loves is like ripped from her especially and same for there was just so much tragedy like Lillian's both of her parents died in the course of two years of course like Ryan's parents are in an abusive relationship Jet loses her mother like so much tragedy so much tragedy and I kind of like that they waited for Davis to re-enter the scene because it was so omnipresent in the beginning pages of like all right when's Lillian gonna connect with him we know he's gonna make an appearance eventually and by the time he did I had almost forgotten about him yeah yeah i wasn't necessarily expecting it but i think the description of it being satisfying is spot on and it really was like the basically main time during the course of this book that i felt communication was effective like they sat down and and uh jet was like so what do you want to know i was like thank you for being straightforward yeah in time she should have read the letter though she would have had more information to share especially not even the letter stopped like halfway after three sentences no i think that was just like leave it to your imagination what she wrote but she finished it but like uh ryan oh that was my takeaway yeah ryan opened it he saw that he shut it got it got it got it yeah especially when she was in receipt of the letter before she met davis that would have been a good time to read it yeah to like get some info yeah and like her mother raised her was an amazing mother like it's straightforward like okay so you find out something about her that's not what you thought you knew about her like that doesn't undo everything that she did for you in her life and it's not like she's acting like she's a person I don't even know I'm not gonna read her letter like really you're mad at her for one thing that she did before she ever had you when she devoted her entire life to you grow up and she died tragically it's not like she kept it from her for 50 years grow up and like when someone dies tragically and you just and she said I wish for like one more day one more hour one more conversation you have a fucking letter yeah open it makes me so effing mad no like that's so crazy you want to have a conversation with your mom that you hadn't had before open the letter from her you want to hear from her open the letter it's right there yeah she's like i want to sign i want her to like i want her to knock something over in the read the letter in your mailbox. Read the letter. So true. Next. Oh my gosh. You guys were crushing it in terms of segues. Why do you think it took Jet so long to open the envelope from her mother? Because I think she's stubborn. Yeah, she was really immature. I had to add just one more element of distress because there wasn't enough in this book. yeah but the thing is it didn't even add distress except for the reader because it's like we know everything that's in the letter and you kind of know too because you now know davis but now you get to like absolve your mother just by reading her words instead of holding this against her so it didn't move the plot in any way it was just like maybe you could let go of some of this anger jet that's holding you back from living your life yeah i wonder if the author thought that it would be relatable for the reader to understand her anger because it absolutely was not yeah no it was not yeah it was not and like she can I can understand her being angry at Ryan like be angry at him all day Kendi that was like a little unfair but like sometimes that's just like the 15 year old in her but to be mad at her mom I thought was not and I felt like she came to terms with her immaturity regarding Kendi like I think she had like a few bouts of self-realization about how she treated and managed that situation after her mom's passing so like I do attribute that to immaturity but like I'm sorry like leave Lillian alone oh I thought it was so powerfully done when Kendi and her finally reconnected in the park over ice cream on New Year's and he was like one I'm sorry I was there and you weren't two I'm sorry I didn't sense anything was wrong and like three I don't even remember three but it was so well done and I loved his apology which did not need to be an apology yeah but like that is how she felt even if it was irrational yeah next how did the ending of the story impact you in the classic sense would you call this book a tragedy or a comedy did the ending make you see anyone or anything differently in your own life no part oh yeah this was totally a comedy this was like the funniest book i've ever read the sex scene no it was definitely not funny um yeah so upsetting you guys like i'm gonna murder you snitch like did the ending make you see anyone or anything differently i think books like this you know what did kind of piss me off and this might not be the right thing to say is like i was kind of annoyed that like ryan got like his redemption and his like not in my eyes but no but i'm saying like he got kind of he's like happily ever after and it's just like i feel like he didn't even really like truly try i guess until the granddaughter was born but like that's not fair to jet and then lillian doesn't even get to see it because she dies young like that's so annoying well actually she did get to see it because in the year that they got back together he was good and he proposed and she did she got that yeah i do not think he got a happy ever after he like then was slowly dying of liver alcohol poisoning like quickly after getting sober he barely got to enjoy it i think that happy ending would have been if lillian lived and they were actually able to embark on like a healthy marriage for longer than six months yeah yeah i don't really i don't really see it as a happy ending I see it as like he received forgiveness of some variety from Jet and her family and I'm glad for that like again like it's not that I wanted him to be iced out for his bad decisions I just wished that he addressed his bad decisions sooner and did something productive about them yeah I felt like the story had a happy ending in the sense that it's a story of like these to broken and in pain people And by the end like through the fabric of their lives like we are left with davis marigold the other son jet she gonna have two kids like they have a legacy that they like sort of cobbled together but it didn't feel like not like i need more you know like it just it didn't feel like enough i mean for jet she now has like her husband and best friend and two kids so like she squared away but I feel like sometimes when like we you go through this in a book where like two people like like there's a massive like like umpteenth grandchildren I feel like for at least like she had so little joy in her life did she ever she never even got to see Jet and Kendi end up together like not enough joy agreed I like that Jet ended up being a nurse that was like in line with her doctor passion that she had growing up and felt topical the doctor passion growing up in the book was um also not my favorite why like it was just like so stupid just so michael could pay for her medical school later describing everything that was in her backpack like based on her hot like i don't give a maybe it was to illustrate like a fall from grace like she was like on this path and then like became a barista yeah like how her life got very derailed no for sure but there was just like a lot of talking about her wanting to be a doctor when she's little i'm all set i'm all set now it is time for the redhead questions we got one question and it's actually a very big one for this redhead a central theme was the tension between wanting to forgive and needing to set boundaries there's a quote that she highlighted that says quote holding on eventually becomes more painful than letting go do you think forgiveness is motivated by self-preservation love guilt hope or something else i felt like lillian forgave ryan because she hoped he'd revert back to the man she fell in love with whereas jet finally let go of her grief and forgave her dad in the end so she could finally move on with her life and accept kendy's love would love your thoughts i think that's a great quote holding on eventually becomes more painful to let it go and i agree and i'm actually i'm very big on forgiveness i don't know if you guys know that about me like i'm really i don't think i knew that about you i find myself to be like a very forgiving person because like i can't but i feel like you're a forgiving person because like you're just like I can't deal with this so yeah like I forgive you I just can't hold on to stuff it it weighs me down right exactly I have to let it go or else I'm just like carrying it around with me so I find forgiveness to be like really productive and enriching in my life however the person has to apologize right and show forgiveness like so that they would like forgiveness right right yeah and there was not that there was not that i do feel like i have a low threshold like if someone apologizes i'm like oh my god it's fine it's fine it's fine like i really like not for myself to move on i'm just like i'm so uncomfortable that this person feels bad i am genuinely exonerating them because like i don't care anymore now that they said you just like can't deal with the awkwardness but like i just like can't deal that someone feels like uncomfortable like i no longer care with whatever you did like please when i sense a genuine apology and maybe because like I've been on the other side of it where I've been like so I've done something wrong and I feel sorry and like I just want forgiveness like I can understand that and move on and forgive yeah but Ryan never apologized correct he like had Lillian over for that weird dinner and kind of tried to be like I'm different now but like did he apologize like did the words i'm so sorry she also forgave him multiple times before that like when he wasn't worthy of it yeah the one she forgave him at barton's funeral that was like a pity one because he was like sad so i can understand that too just like feeling bad for someone but throughout every time you know even jet when he would miss photograph sunday like i'm i'm mad at you yeah the one time i'll Try again next week. The one time he like tried to pretend that he was remorseful when he was walking Jet down the aisle and was like, what right do I have to give her away? Even that felt like we were saying self-pitying. Like, I did not feel like genuine remorse. I felt like he was always like, woe is me. This is my cross to bear because it's genetic and like I there's nothing I can do about it. And it's like now like Jet is like reassuring you like, no, I want you to walk me down the aisle. It's like this is her wedding day. Like, leave her alone. like let her like live and don't be a thorn but i think that all of the like the tension or like this experience like i like the fact that it's motivated by like self-preservation love guilt hope something else like i think it's all the above like i can see a reason for each one of those descriptors of like what is fueling this like decision decision tree yeah agreed yeah well now it is time for the moral of the story i'd love to know what you guys have i have healing is continuous not a destination that's beautiful did you right is that a becky's original thank you so much it's like a combination of a few things that i like read through in my theme deduction that's so funny right because i was i was in my head i'm like time heals all i I mean, it doesn't really heal, just like makes it a little better. But like, it's not a cure. Time is time. So I like that much better. I think you'll like mine, though, because mine is about like the passage of time. This book was about like the passage of time. And I think it says like the passage of time is significant. OK, so then I went back to the prequel where they have the quote. And I thought this was a really nice one at the beginning of the story where it said sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow. And I loved that. that's good yeah i like that too mine was healing is not linear but that line that you just said jackie about um the passage of forgiveness no forgiveness is like sometimes like holding on is harder than letting go i think that one i that one from the book okay i agree that that's a true statement that we should is a good moral but i don't think that's the moral of this story because I think in this sense like actually forgiveness was not always the best route it's not like they reached like greenest pastures because someone was able to forgive right but I just got like more of the same until everyone died if they just let go of him from the jump it would have been fine I think it's interesting that there were so many aspects to this book and we all came back to passage of time and healing that like it did stand out to me as the main takeaway it was like 50 years how could you not we ended in 2016 yeah it was really got to be about time i'm glad it ended before the pandemic oh yeah because that would have been like so annoying to read about yeah always as if it wasn't depressing enough this book right um now it's time for the hollywood treatment gonna go out on a limb and say they should not make this into a book a movie or a show um i don't want to see it but if they did who would you cast i had such a hard time with this yeah this is hard never for one second envisioned any of these characters it was well i feel like they didn't give descriptors yeah but lillian had to have been pretty beautiful is what i was getting like she definitely she acted like mousy in the library but she the rock star was pulled to her ryan like you know saw her at the bank and was like shook so i think she was just like an undercover beauty do you want all three of them or are we doing a rotation do all three for lillian i had maggie gyllenhaal who's like sort of pretty maternal yeah for ryan i had jared leto leto because he kind of gives like addiction energy okay and then uh for jet i had chloe grace moretz yeah okay i'll go i mean you did you did the whole your homework i didn't so i'm not for ryan i had eddie redmayne okay for lillian i had michelle Williams. I like that. And then you know my girl. Christine. Honestly I agree. I agree with that too. Dana? I had Nicole Kidman for Lillian. I had Ben Affleck for Ryan. I thought also we gave kind of addict vibes. And then I had Millie Bobby Brown for Jack because I didn't know any other child actors. It's actually pretty good. Yeah. Thank you. yeah that's like one of your more confident replies you yeah no that's good okay well now it's time to rate this book i've actually been looking forward to this part because i really am so curious where it's going to rank amongst the ladies and amongst our overall ranking so sachi let's start with you what do you rank the break i'm gonna give her a three nine whoa becky my enjoyment was a two my like where i think it was like written in this and that was like a four ish so i gave it a three okay dana 4.1 and i am going 2.5 oh my god this conversation did not move the needle for me i'm very sorry our overall redheads rating for the bright years is a 3.375 that's right feels right that does feel right because it feels but what is it tied with oh it's tied with big swiss oh my god too low too low big swiss was iconic yeah that was an amazing book oh I did not like that book oh I loved big swiss that's way too high then for this one that is so funny no that ties it at number 34 this book should not be going in the upper echelon of redheads books at this point like our top 20 books because we've read so many books and a lot of them are tied like top 20 are like really good books so like it wasn't a really good book like maybe it was but not for me it wasn't what is the community what's the community saying great question what does it by the way i'm pretty sure the community like thinks it's an amazing book oh i'm sorry it is an amazing book yeah what it's dreadful it's no it's not dreadful it's just not every not every book is going to be an upper the thing is i don't need like broken country was tragic and it was amazing like there's a difference between like dread and sadness like this was just like sad for the sake of being sad joyless it was joyless and just because bad things happen like doesn't mean there need not be joy it was so upsetting it was so it was really so dark it was so dark Yeah, but the thing is like broken country technically. But also Dana's favorite book is My Little Life. So like. My Little Life. What's it called? A Little Life? Sorry. My Little Tiny Life. I do agree it was too long though. Like not like. Really? It felt so short. Same, same. It was 288 pages. No, no, no. Sorry. It was how many? 288. I flimmed through it. I did not feel like it labored on. I felt like it was extraneous in some details. yeah and like she was like getting there were she had some like nice one-liners like she would say how she was feeling and then like sum it up with like a yeah highlightable sentence but that also started to get to be a lot too much of that agreed okay well that is a wrap on the breakers thank you so much satchi did anybody else read anything this month i did yes i'm happy to provide in this segment it's a few and far between I read the five-star weekend by Ellen Hildebrand oh how was it because unlike this book I decided I wanted to enjoy some of my and some of my beach reads and it was pretty good not my favorite Ellen Hildebrand book I would rate it a three nice I read yeah yeah Jax let's go I read a very short book that I started a couple months ago and um I just wanted to finish it because it was like super short and I just wanted to like feel accomplished it was called three days in June by Ann Taylor um it was kind of like a pointless read except I was reading um not offensive at points I thought Dana might like it but by the end like I couldn't really recommend this to someone like in good conscience it's kind of a waste of time but I gave it three stars um it was just it was reading you know I was reading no thanks for pulling up the rear you guys we need some uh no yeah well now it's time for my choice and we're actually doing a programming update because dana is set to give birth soon and then i am set to give birth so we're going to be skipping one month's episode there won't be an episode coming out in october and so for the november episode we will be reading next to heaven by James Frey. Wow. Oh, right. Jax, you were sort of excited about this. I was. No, it looks glamorous. You have to look at the cover. There's like a woman's mouth and a castle. New Bethlehem, Connecticut is a town of picture perfect lawns, manicured hedges and multi million dollar homes. But beneath the designer yoga gear and country club membership lies a darker reality. Love those. Desperate housewives energy. This is good. If James Frey sounds familiar to you. I don't know if you guys remember this from when we were younger, but he wrote that book like a million little pieces. Oh, controversial. Yeah. He like was canceled because it was like the biggest book in the world. And then that iconic cover. He embellished a bunch of stuff. It was like meant to be like Oprah was involved. He was like the first person to get canceled. Yeah. He was an Oprah's book club pick. He was on her show. Like she made the book so big. And then it turned out that some of it wasn't true. I don't even know what that book was about or what wasn't true. So he's kind of like controversial and obviously a good writer. if he was like ever up there um so I'm excited me too I think this is a good detox for us because we've had a few heavy hitters the past three times even though I think we're on a roll with like the books I've loved so yeah yeah so we'll see you in November we'll record like probably in October or something that way to space it out but um yeah everything's coming up redheads per per usual. Per usual. Well, I'll miss you ladies over the next few weeks. Same. I hope everyone has a great start to back to school and enjoys the next few months. We love you so much and we will see you on the next one. Bye. Love ya. Bye. Bye.