Chapter 15: Slammed

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Raunchy Power Hour, a book club for discussing romance from the erotic

(00:05):
to the erroneous.
As always, this is an explicit podcast and contains strong language, adult themes, and
sexual content.
If you are sensitive to these things, we urge you calmly but sincerely to turn off your
radio now.
This month, we are reading Slammed by Colleen Hoover.
This podcast will contain spoilers for the entire book.

(00:26):
If you want to read along with us, stop listening now.
It's okay, we'll wait for you to come back.
This book contains themes of death, of a parent, grief, and assault.
You have been warned.
I'm your producer Ashlyn.

(00:46):
I'm your unwilling host Sydney.
Hey.
It's three o'clock.
Your school bell just rang.
Your mom forgot to pick you up.
Once again.
Classic, right?
And so you wander back into the halls of your high school and you find me, your instructor,

(01:11):
hanging back, waiting for you to come by.
You shut the door behind you and I look over my shoulder as I'm scribbling on the chalkboard
and I say, did it happen again?
You say, yes, and say.
I say, well, looks like we got another hour to get ready and bang.

(01:32):
And welcome to get ready to get rungy.
I don't fucking know.
Oh, no.
See, I was, I was trying to bring us back to peak 2020 when we had the likes of Professor
Cal and like all those like weird ASMR boyfriend audios where it was just men getting really
close in the mic and being like, you squirt, baby girl.

(01:55):
And I didn't.
Yeah, no, it's it's like, it's just like, what happened?
No, no, it's OK.
You guys doing in 2020?
You know what I was doing.
Yeah.
Lauren is getting TikTok famous and I was just lonely.
Sydney, I have a question to ask you.

(02:19):
Oh, a question.
How how crazy and unassuming that is.
Lord, what's your question?
If you had to stand up in front of a live audience, a live studio audience, if you will,
and recite a poem.

(02:40):
What would the subject matter be of your poem?
With a special added caveat, your five shots deep and didn't rehearse.
Oh, you know what my poem might be about?

(03:00):
I think my poem would be about I don't know why, but this is the only thing that's coming
into my brain.
I think I would do a poem about baloney.
You want to explain that one?
Not at all.
That's where I'm going to leave it, because, Lauren, I want you to answer your own question.

(03:28):
When I'm five shots deep, usually because I have some deep rooted anxieties that go
on address on a regular basis, I'm usually so caught up in looking like I'm sober, even
though everyone in the room clearly knows I'm not.
And so it kills any other line of thought for me.
And so if I were to go up on a stage and recite poetry, it'd be about how sober I totally

(03:51):
am, I promise.
Oh, yes, of course.
And then I'd trip off the stage probably and bust my ass.
That'd be beautiful.
I think to go slightly more in depth with my baloney poem, I think it would be about
how it's processed and everything, but it's so underappreciated for all the work it's
gone through.

(04:11):
You'd have to get up there and you'd be like, silence like the G in baloney.
Like you silenced me on it.
Exactly.
Thank you actually for writing my opening lines.

(04:33):
I truly appreciate it.
Actually, no, I would go up there.
I would go up there and I would begin spelling the name baloney because that is what I've
learned from Colleen Hoover School of Poetry Writing.
Colleen, it's not that hard.
Hey Colleen, hey Colleen, if you just wanted to write a book about bad poetry, you could
have just done that instead of trying to hide a teacher-student romance.

(04:56):
With the Asian brothers somehow in there.
Oh my God, do not get me started.
Anyway, hi guys.
Welcome back to another episode of Raunchy Power Hour.
As Lauren said earlier, this week we are going to be reviewing none other than Colleen Hoover's
debut novel, Slammed, which came out back in 2014.

(05:19):
If you have read any other of her works, this was one of her firsts and yeah, it truly shows
to say the least.
Lauren, before we really truly go into the deep and thick of it, I know we have read
November 9th by Colleen Hoover.

(05:41):
If you haven't listened to those episodes, what are you doing here?
Go back and listen to those.
But I want to hear what your initial thoughts of the book before you truly dived into it.
When you just heard the little tidbits from Ashlyn.
You know, it's really funny.
When we initially decided we were going to read Slammed, this was months prior to recording

(06:05):
this episode that we are doing right now.
Yeah.
So I was told very vaguely what this book was about at that time and then somehow deleted
that from my brain.
And so when I read Slammed, it was an entirely new experience that I didn't know what it

(06:26):
was about.
And so getting in there and learning very unexpectedly that this was about slam poetry
and a teacher-student romance.
That's the best form of amnesia I've ever could have had.
So good.
Yeah.

(06:46):
You truly got the good type of amnesia there before you started reading the book.
So to go into some general info before we really jump into the meat of the book, here's
what we've got.
So this book was published in June of 2012.
So it's been a little over a decade since this book was published.

(07:07):
Our page count is at 370 pages, even though it felt like so much longer.
And it is the debut of the TikTok Book Talk Queen, Colleen Frickenhoover.
And this is actually part one of a series of books.

(07:27):
Yeah.
I think this is, it's one of the few series that Colleen has done.
I don't know what the whole, what is the whole series called, Ashlyn, do you know?
Does it have a name or is it just slammed?
Slammed one.
I don't know.
Okay.
That's it.
Usually this, oh, it's slammed number one.

(07:49):
Yeah.
Okay.
Sounds good.
So here are our average ratings.
And I found this interesting and I'll tell you guys what I found.
So I checked our Goodreads rating and our average Goodreads rating is at a 4.6 out of,
I have here, that is not right, because it's 38,000.
It was like 300,000 reviews on Goodreads.

(08:12):
However, this book has a slightly higher rating than her most famous book, It Ends With Us.
However, It Ends With Us does have 3 million reviews rather than 3,000.
So I think that's why, because It Ends With Us has a 3.5 on Goodreads.
It has a 4.5, sorry.

(08:35):
On Storygraph, we have an average of 3.96 out of 19,000 reviews.
And then on Fable, at the time we only had four when I recorded this.
So now there should be five because I added a review.
And going into our characters, we have Laken Cohen.
She is our female presenting love interest.

(09:00):
And she's the one whose perspective you're in throughout the whole book.
She's what I wrote for characteristics of her.
Underaged, quirky.
Likes to be called Lake by those close to her, which is fucking weird.
Yeah, I mean, I get it, even though that's not how you spell her name.
Her name is spelled L-A-Y-K-E-N.

(09:21):
And I'll get into why she has a weird fucking name.
And then we have Will Cooper, who is our male presenting love interest.
And all I wrote down for him for a character thing was Predator.
And then we have Kel Cohen, who is Laken's nine-year-old brother.
And then Calder Cooper, who is Will's younger brother.

(09:44):
And then we have Mom and Dad Cohen.
I don't think we ever get a name for Laken's mom.
So important thing to note, Dad is dead.
And Mom is living.
Mom's name is Julia, I believe.
Yeah, she's Julia.
Oh, Julia.
Okay, well, I'm just going to call her Mom because I didn't know her name.

(10:08):
And then we have really only two other characters that are of importance, which is Eddie and
Gavin.
And I'm just kind of going to group them together because Eddie and Gavin are a teenage couple.
And Eddie is the obligatory best friend in this romance.
And to note, Eddie, Gavin, and Laken are all around the age of 17.

(10:35):
And this is important information for those to know out there.
Not to hop in too often.
Isn't she 18 at the beginning of the book?
Yeah.
I know she is, but I don't care.
Well, that is explicit information you should have.

(10:55):
No, I know it is, but she's only been 18 for two weeks.
So she's close to 17 enough.
But she is technically legal anyway.
Yeah, technically.
You can't make a technicality out of this because warning everyone, this is a teacher
student romance, but the teacher is a student.

(11:17):
High school teacher at Jaysen High School.
Spoiler alert.
Hey, remember when I went on Maine and I was like, hey, hey, guys, I like teacher student
romance.
Right.
What I meant by that, and this is not a walk back of any kind.
This is not a disclaimer.

(11:37):
This is this is speaking from the heart.
What I meant by that is I'm envisioning college, first of all.
Yeah.
Where the student protagonist is at least 21 years of age and the professor is like
young.
I'm talking like early 30s.
Right.

(11:57):
Still weird, but like not an 18 year old being taught by a high school teacher who's four
years her senior, which holds, I think, a different level of weird.
So just just know that.
It's like the mental maturity is my problem.

(12:19):
Like.
We'll get into it.
Yeah, we'll get into it.
And 18 and 20 all stays in 18 and 21 year old should not be dating because no, they
should not have anything in common.
And with that, we will start getting into the review.
And just a quick disclaimer, we are actually going to be trying a new summary style now,

(12:40):
guys.
So we're going to be doing chapter by chapter, we are just kind of going to go over plot
points as they kind of come up.
And we're not really going to say when a chapter begins, ends.
So you won't hear say like chapter one, chapter two.
So just want to let everyone know.
And I also bring this up because we need to talk about the stupid fucking quotes that

(13:06):
were at the beginning of every goddamn chapter from the Avid Brothers.
I'm not saying the Avid Brothers are stupid.
I'm saying this is the most stupid fucking thing I've ever seen is unrelated music quotes
in a slam poetry book.
I would I would like to I would like to add that I've only read two Colleen Hoover books,

(13:28):
and then I've listened to a very extensive plot summary video essay on a third.
Right.
Of the two that I've read, there appears to be a common theme in which every chapter has
to start with either a quote or an excerpt from something else.
That's not the main text.
And the first time we read the Colleen Hoover book, it was entertaining because it was a

(13:52):
story within a story.
This this felt like my Tumblr blog in 2017.
Anyway, it feels it feels like.
It feels like a prompt you would get in a middle school English class, like creative

(14:16):
writing class.
And you would get that to like invoke certain thoughts.
And you would think this is like really innovative.
It just comes off as crunchy because I realized the quotes at the beginning of that she's
putting in from the Avid brothers basically refers back to what the mental thing is happening

(14:36):
to the character within that chapter.
And I hated it.
I thought it was so fucking stupid.
And also, I don't know if you guys caught this.
The book slammed.
She dedicated her first debut book to the Avid brothers instead of like her family,
her children or her husband.
She dedicated it to the Avid brothers.

(15:02):
They basically come like a theme device through this book.
And I hate it.
It like I despise it so much.
Yeah.
It would make more sense, I think, if and I guess we can go ahead and start talking about
it because it comes up literally chapter one.
It would make more sense if the Avid brothers were a more central plot device or something

(15:27):
that was, I would argue, relevant really at all to the story itself.
The only bit of important that this band holds is that the main character likes them.
And it was like something she bonded over with her dad, who is pathway and is not involved.
Exactly.
And then wills like, oh, I know this band too.
I like the band too.

(15:51):
And I just what I really hate about it is that it kind of feels like Hoover.
Like I understand that this is I'm not an author, so I don't know how this goes.
But it feels like such just a reflection of Hoover facing us that it just makes me kind
of like mad.
Like I hate it.
I hate it when like you dedicate like when authors dedicate a book to someone that's

(16:16):
not a significant other or is not like a like someone they know.
And it's like a band or something like that.
And then they just overtly like just keep including them in there.
And it's like, we get it.
Stop.
We don't want to hear any more about you fangirling over these people.
Like Jesus fucking Christ.

(16:36):
I also hated it because I was listening to the band and I'm like, no, no 18 year old
is listening to this in 2012.
No 18 year old listening to this in 2012.
But she was from Texas.
So I'm Texan.
The folk.
I it's not even country.
Somebody woke up on the one side of the bed today.
Yeah, I did.

(16:57):
Because I drank the haterade.
I get it.
Y'all.
Y'all.
I drank that haterade so much.
Anyway, so just had to get that out of the way because it literally comes up so much
and they mention it so much that it's just.

(17:19):
It's you're just boom fed it anyway.
Because I literally have like half a page written about how much I hate this trope just
in the first chapter alone.
So I'll get over it and we will get on to our summary.
So our book begins with Lagan Cohen.

(17:40):
She is an eight year old girl from Texas and she is moving with her mother and her brother
up to Ypsilanti, Michigan.
I think that's Ypsilanti.
Ypsilani.
Ypsilani.
There we go.
Ypsilani.
Ashley do not give me that look.
Yeah.
So she moves to someplace called Ypsilani, Michigan.

(18:03):
And we get a lot of info that basically they've moved up there due to the sudden death of
Lagan's father.
And she is really not happy about it.
Like she's just being an angsty, angsty teen.
And that is really all you can say about it.
Especially when you get the lines of my GPS tells me I've reached my destination.

(18:25):
My GPS doesn't know squat.
And you just know you're in for a ride when that's one of the opening quotes.
Can I also add that this line was given as this 18 year old is driving a U-Haul.

(18:47):
Oh yeah.
She's driving the U-Haul.
And I was like, that's not legal.
Like into snow and she's from Texas who's never like really seen snow before.
I love that they're like, oh, there's snow in September in Michigan.

(19:08):
I've visited Michigan a number of times.
I've never had snow happen in September.
That darned global warming.
Yeah, I know right now.
So they arrive at their new home in Michigan.
And this is where Lagan gets out of the U-Haul.

(19:31):
And as soon as Lagan gets out of the U-Haul, her brother, Kel, he meets another little
boy named Calder from across the street.
They immediately become like best friends.
Like literally just attached at the hip and they're like playing and stuff.
And she's not really like, she's watching them, but she's not like actively engaging

(19:53):
when suddenly a tall, handsome man from across the street comes over and introduces himself
as Will.
And Will is basically their neighbor who lives across the street and is basically caring
for his younger brother, Calder.
So Lagan and Will basically like, it's an instant love thing.

(20:15):
Like it's instantly like they're attracted to each other.
And there, Will decides to take Lagan to...
He basically asked her on a date.
And can I say something?

(20:38):
I have to pause here because I keep laughing.
Another thing, not to get on my soapbox so early in, this will be a small box.
So we have talked many times over the history of the Roger Power Hour podcast about the
importance of chemistry and then providing, I guess, for lack of a better term, reasons

(21:02):
for the love interests to have this like enduring love or feelings for each other.
Right.
I think actually reading Slammed helped me really pinpoint why it is that, at least for
me personally speaking, why I need that from books like this specifically.
And I think it's because when you have a situation that like the one we will get into, I will

(21:26):
not...
We'll get there when we get there.
When you have a situation where it's sort of like, we'll call it a Romeo Juliet type
situation where, you know, it's like instant love and then they can't be together for basically
the entire plot, but they're still yearning.
It's like for me, there needs to be a more concrete reason why these two individuals

(21:51):
like each other, because if they're apart for far more time than they were together
in the first place, it does not make any real world sense to me why that yearning still
continues other than just like the fictitious, like, you know, romantic concept of like true
love, which like maybe I'm a cynical sad single bitch, but that shit don't work that way.

(22:15):
I agree.
I agree that you can find people attractive at first glance.
That's not what this is about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe that works in real life, but in a book where I need motivation, I need plot,
I need a reason to give a shit about our characters, this does not have it.
Literally, it's never explained why they like each other.

(22:35):
And I think that's like been the main issue with this book and November 9 for us.
Because again, it was like an instant attraction thing.
And we, the men are so deplorable that to us, there's no reason as to why we should
even like these men or these relationships in the beginning.
And the character and the female leads are just like, oh, but I love him.

(22:59):
It's like, but why?
Why?
Y'all hung out for four hours and you didn't even talk during the day.
Okay.
Remember, because guys hear something about Will, he doesn't do small talk.
And I was like, how are you supposed to do a first date?
But then this man, this man, instead, I have not played this game since I was in middle

(23:21):
school.
Would you rather?
He decided to like, would you rather?
And a kicker, the kicker, y'all, our main character, our female protagonist is so quirky
and so different.
She had never heard of would you rather?
Yeah.
And I was like, how do you play this?

(23:42):
Girl, you're 18.
You've been to a party.
In 2012, that was like how everyone like did like things over Snapchat.
They were like, oh, do you want to play would you rather?
Like shut the fuck up.
Like being like, would you rather suck on the titty or the little bitty leg nozzle from
the pre formula milk?
Oh my God, it is so bad.

(24:07):
It is so fucking bad.
Anyway, so Laken decides to go on a date with Will.
She greased the date.
By the way, at this time, mom does know that Will is in college.
And because she literally mentions it.
And here, come to find out listeners, you'll find this out pretty soon anyway.

(24:30):
So I'll just tell you now.
Laken's in high school.
She is still in high school and the mom is just like, I don't see a problem with that.
I'm like, mom, god damn it.
Anyway, so yeah, Will one doesn't tell her where they're going on the date.

(24:53):
Two packs her like basically like a lunch thing.
And it'd be like red flag number one.
You're not telling me where we're going on a first date.
He also made a grilled cheese.
What if the girl is lactose intolerant and she has cheese farts the entire day?
Okay, that's something I would worry about.
I know we're worried from personal experience, but.
Like that's a bold choice.

(25:15):
It is a bold choice.
But yeah, my main red flag was that he wouldn't tell her where they were going and they show
up to a club and Laken's like, hey man, I don't do this scene.
And he's like, oh, just you wait because guys, it's poetry night.
That's right.
On Thursday nights, this club decides that it's just going to shut down all of the alcohol,

(25:40):
all of the dancing, and they're just going to put on slam poetry.
Yeah, it's not even just a poetry night.
It's a slam poetry night specifically.
It's a slam poetry night, which I don't know what the difference is.
So this is that is just me.
I don't know what the difference between a slam poetry night and just poetry is like
performative poetry.

(26:02):
From my knowledge of watching a whole lot of button poetry channel on YouTube when I
was 16 and really angsty, it just is basically poem without explicit form in rhyme schema
and a lot of yelling.
It's a lot of like vocal performance, more than more than written performance, if that

(26:23):
makes sense.
But you know what?
Yeah, poets in the comments, write me a poem about how terrible that explanation was.
And also, we will be performing one of the poems later on.
So just to let you guys know so you can understand the torture we went through.

(26:44):
So yeah, his first date for like in a slam poetry.
And so he explains like the whole system to her, and they sit back at a booth and he asks
her what her drink order is, because I know this man was like, oh, because she's 21, you
know?

(27:04):
What is this bitch order?
She orders fucking chocolate milk.
With ice.
With ice.
I hate her.
She's quirky.
She's the quirky.
She gets chocolate milk on the rocks, guys.
So like obviously cringe, right?
My annoyance was like, why would a club have chocolate milk?

(27:27):
Exactly!
Well, because it's kiss night, Lauren.
I was trying to I was literally trying to put way too much logic into this.
I was like, okay, espresso martini, but that's not quite chocolate milk.
Oh my gosh.
Um, anyway, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, girl.
Girl, she's a chocolate milk.
That's like your worst nightmare.
Imagine what that booth would smell like.

(27:48):
Oh my god.
It would be a chamber.
Just go into witching reads while you're at it.
Sorry.
Oh my god.

(28:09):
I wrote in this little section, I just literally wrote, I feel like Koho wrote this so she
could show off her terrible poetry, because it's just so bad.
Anyway, so we get two examples of slam poetry, both of which include the word fetus.
Don't understand why.
And it was just very odd.
But one of them is Will because Lakin tells him to go up and perform.

(28:32):
So she's very moved by his poem.
And she's like, oh my god, it was so good.
She was just very horny for the poetry.
It was giving, you know, when you're like out with a guy that's a musician and knowing
that he's a musician is hot, right?
You can all we can all collectively agree playing instruments is hot.
What we don't want is for you to bring your guitar and then start playing Oasis Wonderwall

(28:58):
on the date.
That is where it loses the cool factor.
And to me, this is what that was.
It was like, it was giving like, oh, no, I could never perform.
I could.
Okay.
Goes up on stage as a prepared piece.
Exactly.
It's a hundred percent what happens.
And so you find out that Will's parents die, question mark, because it's not confirmed

(29:20):
yet.
But it basically it sounds like his parents died and now he's taking care of his brother,
which is exactly what is the situation.
Anyway, they leave there and then they kiss a couple of times.
And he and she will not see him over the weekend.

(29:42):
And yeah, then they separate.
I think he's gone for like a weekend, a week, like a short trip of time.
And literally like the chapter basically ends being like, this would be the longest damn
week of my life.
Yeah.
Oh, it'll be the longest three days of my life because that's how long it is.
Yeah.
And it's like, and it was Will saying that for the

(30:06):
record, the older one.
Yeah, it was the older one saying that.
Anyway, so while that's happening, Lakin is unpacking, doing all that.
She goes, oh no, it's my first day of school.
It's been so crazy.
Now it's time for school.
So Lakin goes out and it is it's her first day of school.

(30:30):
So she's like really nervous and they're like walking around and she meets Eddie for the
first time.
And Eddie's like basically like, you're my friend now.
And you're like, okay, yeah, this is the obligatory best friend.
And she tells her to sign up for an English poetry class.

(30:51):
And Lakin's like, sure.
And to get like the same lunch as Eddie.
And as Lakin is heading to said poetry class, he spots Will and she goes, oh my god, he's
here.
Like that's absolutely crazy.
She goes up and gives him a hug and he's very confused and very shocked.
And she jumps over a lot of hurdles there because she's like, oh, he doesn't want to

(31:11):
see me this way because he has a girlfriend.
I will give her a half of a point.
Me.
Yeah.
I'm just going to lose it and be like, I'm dead.
It's like so many jumps.
But then you find out the real reason of why he is shocked.
And it's because as we've said before, it turns out Will is none other than her English

(31:39):
teacher.
Now listeners, I was listening to this in audiobook format.
And like I said, I had my brain wiped by the aliens, the blue big alien men.
Oh, yeah.
And that's why I know it was a great time.
But I didn't remember that this is a teacher student romance.
And so when I heard this line, like, you know, he's my teacher or whatever, I texted in their

(32:05):
group chat and I was like, all caps, he's our teacher.
And then I had to fight for my life on the teacher student liking allegations.
And then I was like, oh, my God, it was so funny when you found that out.
So I was like, we told you this.
I live every day is a brand new day.

(32:25):
It's like the was it 60 first dates?
That's me.
Yes.
Yeah, that really is.
So yeah.
So going into chapter four, I got really confused because I couldn't tell if it was her first
day or if it was the first day of school since summer.

(32:46):
And I discovered I believe it was just her first day of school.
Because that got me really confused.
Anyway, she goes home and she and Will were meant to hang out at four, which obviously
now lines up because he was getting out of school then.
And so was she.

(33:08):
And Will comes in and like spots her in her driveway.
He sits in the car with her and and they're like, oh, my God, I can't believe you're my
teacher.
And he's like, oh, my God, I can't believe you're my student.
And I just I literally wrote down small talk on a first date would have fixed this.

(33:30):
And to her credit, the girl tried literally.
She tried to ask him questions and he immediately shut that shit down and was like, you're over
small talk.
And I'm like, babes, if you would let her ask two more questions, we would have avoided
this whole thing.
Oh, oh, oh.
But then on top of it, he knew she was 18 years old.
He just assumed she was a freshman in college.

(33:52):
And I'm like, sir, that makes it no better.
You shouldn't be getting a senior in college, not getting a freshman in college.
No.
But there was a there's someone in my family who was a freshman dating a dating a senior
in college.
Right.
That shit was weird for all of us.

(34:12):
I know it's legal.
That shit was weird.
She didn't have her driver's license either because she was scared of driving.
So that added a whole element of like.
I don't say immaturity is like she was immature.
You know what I mean?
It was like, I'm not ready for these life things.
Yeah.
They've broken up now and he is jobless.
Drop out and does crack cocaine on the streets from hell.

(34:32):
Yeah, let's go, man.
It's just like the reason the reason this has like such a like I'm so horrified by this
is that like.
I understand that by legal and like number wise, it is not that bad, but it's the maturity
age wise is that an 18 year old and a 21 year old, especially or say a freshman in college

(35:00):
versus a senior in college are on two very different parts of their lives.
Like a freshman in college is literally just coming out and learning to live on their own,
live without their parents, like stopping a child and start becoming an adult.
While a senior in college has done most of that growing and is now starting to hopefully
begin their career.

(35:20):
I have met very childish 21 year olds and I've met very mature 18 year olds.
But that doesn't excuse it, you know, like it's weird, it's not great, and it just gives
me the egg like it just gives me such an egg.
And here's the thing, gamers.

(35:43):
We this is a this is a parasocial relationship.
Yeah.
We know you, you know us, we all have our social security numbers exchange is fine.
We know that you know this.
We trust that you know this.
This goes without explanation.
This shit is weird.
And I think I think that's where we all handled this.
You know, yeah.

(36:03):
And we get weirder as we progress.
But you know, that's just sort of where we're coming from.
And that's you know, that's our two cents.
Yeah.
I also want to say on top of this, she does refer to Will's voice as being deep and like
her father's multiple times before this point.
And I was just like, I literally wrote down Freud would have loved this shit.

(36:23):
That's probably around where I was listening to this on 2.4 speed.
Yeah, I don't handle it anymore.
I'm totally.
No, I get it.
So yeah, they're all thrown for a loop.
They're neither of them are happy about this, but they like still have this obvious yearning
for each other, which is like.

(36:44):
But they decide to end what they're doing and stay in a professional quote unquote boundaries
and so on and so forth.
And hey, guys, guess what?
That's a that's a quote unquote conflict for the rest of the damn book in which nothing
else really happens.
It's a lot of just them yearning and pining for each other.

(37:06):
And it's just so gross.
Now we are moving into this next little section afterwards.
And so Lakin's like very, very sad, very heartbroken about this new thing that's like kind of going

(37:28):
on with Will and the fact that she can't like date him.
And on top of it, this is another Freud joke because Eddie and Gavin are described as looking
like siblings and I was like, no.
I love I love that Reddit thread where it's like siblings are dating.

(37:49):
Yes, we should play that game with slammed.
We should.
Siblings are good because like here's the worst part is that I'm sitting I'm like these
are fictional people.
These aren't even real people.
She could have literally described any other feature.
She could have just made them not look alike.
But she just decided that that was OK.

(38:09):
Her publishers decided that was OK.
Hey, man, I know what the kids will look like.
Yeah, I know.
Right.
So we get more bad poetry.

(38:31):
And I don't remember exactly what happened here, but I know there was like more like
just some more poetry here.
And then we get.
Sorry, brain fog.

(38:52):
And Lakin's mother decides finds out that Will is none other than Lakin's teacher before
Lakin can stop her and tell her what's happening.
Like it's mom.
One of the only good parenting moves this woman makes throughout this whole book to
go over to Will's house and be like, what have you done with my daughter?

(39:17):
Basically, it's like a huge confrontation scene.
And I literally like I just wrote down, I'm like, oh, now she's protective of her 18 year
old daughter of a 21 year old.
But it truly kind of sounds like she's accused, like the whole conversation just kind of sounds

(39:38):
like she's she's almost like accusing them of stuff like it sounds like.
Will has like knocked up Lakin and she's like, you have to do the right thing.
You have to marry her like kind of thing.
Like that was the vibe is giving, you know.
Yeah.
And at one point, Lincoln says, like, no, we went out, but I didn't know he was my teacher.

(40:01):
And like, I just hadn't told you yet.
And she's like, oh, that sounds bad coming out of my mouth.
And I just wrote down.
Because it is.
I also want to add, this is like so irrelevant to anything we're talking about, but this
is the first time I believe that will refers to Lakin's mother as Julia.

(40:26):
Yes.
And for the rest of the book, will, despite the fact he's still just 21 years old in the
grand scheme of things, refers to this woman only as Julia.
And I'm like, I don't know why I was so uncomfortable with that.
And then the way he speaks to her throughout this book, maybe it was just how it was narrated
in the audio book.
It gives so like condescending where he's like, but she needs me.

(40:49):
We'll get there.
We'll get there.
But, you know, anyway, it was just an odd flavor to the interaction that I didn't love.
It was so odd.
It was so weird.
Kind of going from there.
Will in class the next day assigns a poem for homework.
So they all have to write some form of poem to present in class because he basically gives,

(41:16):
he says, if you guys go and perform a poem at the poetry club slam thing, he would like
basically you wouldn't have to do the final exam in his class.
So everyone's like, yeah, that's awesome.
But like, why do we need to do it?
And he goes, okay, well, first we're going to do it here so you guys can have like a
little practice.

(41:37):
So Lakin being the sad depressed teenager that she is has a creative block.
And she's like, I don't know what to write.
This is so hard.
When suddenly Will comes up to the door and he's like, hey, I need Calder.
And she's like, I thought they were with you.
And he's like, they're not with me.
So the boys are missing.
They go looking.
They find them.
They're like for some reason asleep in Will's car, which I don't even know how they got

(41:58):
in there.
Anyway, Will and Lakin go into his house for like a second just to like breathe.
And then there's like, it's not an intimacy scene because they don't have sex.
But it was really weird.
The man's shirt does come off.

(42:19):
The man's shirt does come off and he does knack on her neck.
He does do a little bit of something on her neck and her shoulder.
There's some grinding involved.
Yeah, it was so gross.
And oh, I wrote down, make out sex with your English teacher.

(42:39):
Yeah, so oh, and then a very early, this is the earliest I think we've had it, an early
love confession because Lakin says, I love you to Will.
This is the earliest we've had one.
And Will obviously freaks out because he's like, you're my student.
And it's like, hey, man, you shouldn't have been knackered on her neck before you said

(43:01):
that.
That's what I'm saying.
All throughout this book, it was so unbelievably frustrating because I'm going to play devil's
advocate here for a second.
OK, bear with me.
Let's say this is a normal age discrepancy and like all the weirdness out of the way,
right?
If you were trying to write a good like Will, they won't be forbidden romance, you need

(43:26):
to withhold, I think these kinds of moments, at least like the middle of the book.
The fact that we are only just a few chapters in and Will has already adamantly stated to
both Lakin and her mother that he doesn't want to go anywhere near her.
He's at risk of losing his job.
He's like establishing these boundaries.
He won't even look at the girl in class.

(43:47):
Right.
And then just to turn around for no real reason.
Like you could argue it's like adrenaline rush of having found our missing brothers.
But like, I don't fucking buy that.
They were.
I know it was not a good enough reason for him to cave all of a sudden, make out with
her on the couch and then pull back immediately and be like, get out of my house.
Lakin, I'm I'm an adult in this situation.
I was like.

(44:07):
And he does this repeatedly throughout the story.
And I'm just like, make the man stand on business and like make the pining build because they
aren't able to have these moments of weakness.
Don't just have this weird dichotomy where one where the younger party is pining after
you because you keep leaving these nuggets of like, like I'm caving, I'm vulnerable.

(44:30):
It just that's where the predatory nature of this comes in.
And that's why this feels so icky in particular, because Will is not standing on business for
lack of a better term.
Never.
And you know what?
This actually brings me to a great point because I was thinking about why I hated this book
so much.
I do like a will they won't they plot when it's done well.
This book is not done well at all for the will they won't they?

(44:53):
Because you know throughout the entire book that they are really fucking horny for each
other.
Like there's no if and or buts.
They are going to end up together.
I like I want a reason for pining.
And it just feels like the only reason for pining for Lakin is because she's just like,

(45:14):
oh, like I still want him and like he's really confusing me and da da da da da.
And I'm like, you know, I 100 percent agree.
I am going to offer to Colleen Hoover if she would ever consider rewriting this book or
if anyone runs to write a fan fiction of this book.
Here's how you make it better.
Lakin moves at the beginning of summer to Michigan.

(45:39):
Dates will or goes on dates will say like not in a couple, but the seas will repeatedly
in romantic settings for months.
Have him be the weirdo that's like, oh, no small talk like let's blah, blah, blah, right.
Have him go on vacation or some shit if you need to prolong.
Let them have at least like a month of actually building a relationship like like have to

(45:59):
make out and do whatever you want to do and break the news that at school.
And then there's reason and then there's justification of her pining.
And age her up and make this college.
Give me the grad student T.A. love story that I so desperately crave for.

(46:20):
Give me give me the advisor meets grad student during a thesis panel.
Anyway, I need to go home.
I need a big of an acid.
Yeah.
So now we get some terrible forms of poetry in this next chapter.
Oh, because after this experience, she decides that she needs to write down her feelings

(46:48):
and will make out session with her, gives her inspiration to write the poem.
And I will just say before we get into this next part, there was one poem before the one
that we are talking about that the character Gavin wrote and it was for Eddie called pre
proposal.
And I literally like it was the most cringiest thing.

(47:09):
It was basically he basically said, like, this is a pre proposal poem.
I've noted for this amount of minutes.
And if you wait this many more, this exact amount of time is when I'll propose to you.
And I was just like, this is disgusting.
Oh, brother, this guy.

(47:31):
Yeah, that was rough.
I was walking through my neighborhood wearing headphones, listening to this entire book
and that poem hit me like a ton of bricks and I fully had to like clinch my arms to
my side, raise my shoulders to my face.
And I was like, I cringed so hard my buttholes clenched like it was just like, no, no.

(47:58):
So was Gavin's.
He probably has the ring stuffed up there.
Yeah, he probably I don't know.
Anyway, so now it's Lakin's turn.
And Lakin has written a poem about Will and only Will will know about that.
It's about him and guys performing for performing it for you today will be none other than Lauren,

(48:26):
the co host of Ronshi Power Hour.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm so excited to present this poem.
I've worked really hard on it and by really hard, I mean, I looked at Webster Dictionary
for five seconds.
Okay.
I'm really nervous.
You got this.

(48:47):
My poem is called mean.
According to the thesaurus and according to me, there are over 30 different meanings in
substitutions for the word mean.
Black ass jerk, cruel, dickhead, unkind, harsh, wicked, hateful, heartless, vicious, tyrannical,

(49:07):
malevolent, atrocious, bastard, barbarous, bitter, brutal, callous, degenerate, brutish,
depraved, evil, fierce, hard, inflatable, rancorous, pernicious, he made, monstrous,
merciless, inexorable.
And my personal favorite.
Look over to the side.
Asshole.

(49:29):
And see.
Snaps.
Snaps all around.
So if you're wondering what kind of poetry we were reading in this book, that's prime
example right there.
And I went on a text rant.
Oh my god.
It was so bad.

(49:51):
If you could even call it that, it truly wasn't anything.
Like it truly was just synonyms.
I'm like, listen, I get slam poetry has no rules.
I feel like you can't just write synonyms that you took straight from the fucking internet.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't.

(50:11):
I hated it.
Anyway, after class, Eddie tells Lakin that a guy in their friend group is like interested
in her and like it's like, yeah, I'll go on a date with him.
And Will overhears that and he gets very mad.
And so for some reason at lunch, Will then calls her to his office when he's like, when

(50:41):
they have set the boundaries for this and he's the one breaking the boundaries that
he said, he's like, I don't want anyone to have like any suspicions.
I feel like having a having a female high school student in your classroom alone with
you during lunch unexpectedly raises some suspicions.
And you're sitting right behind her in a desk and leaned forward where you're basically

(51:04):
breathing down her collar.
Yeah, dear God.
Anyway, Will apologizes for his weird ass behavior.
And wow, this is happening.
Like they're looking lovingly into each other's eyes.
Eddie comes in the room and drops off a backpack and she's like, oh, my bad.
So Will's like freaking out because he thinks Eddie knows.

(51:28):
And surprise, she basically does because Eddie just knows everything, question of work for
some reason.
And yeah.
Oh, God.
And the next day, Lake decides to skip poetry class and Eddie does too.
Eddie opens up about how she's had not the greatest childhood and how she's moved around

(51:51):
in foster homes and all of that stuff.
And Lakin basically tells her that long story short about her and Will.
And yeah, that's truly the end of the chapter.
Sorry, I'm just reading the next thing.

(52:12):
It's so bad.
It's just so bad.
I hate it here.
This book is everything Tumblr writers wanted it to be anymore.
I know.
It's just so bad.
Anyway, Mom is acting kind of weird and Lakin overhears her mom talking to someone on the

(52:36):
phone and she assumes that her mom is in love with someone else.
And maybe like their whole reason for moving up to Michigan wasn't because they had to
sell their house.
And Lakin gets really upset and she goes.
So she decides to go on the friend date and Eddie's already told the other guy that was

(53:00):
in the friend group like, hey, like, it's actually not interested in going on a date.
So it's all just friends.
They're all just having fun.
But before we get there, I need to point out a quote that I have been quoting constantly
because it might be my favorite line in this entire book.
And it appears in this chapter and it says,
Bill slams poems.

(53:22):
But I slam doors.
It's kind of iconic.
I took one note this entire book.
One.
And it was about this line to which I said, she really thought she ate, huh?
Oh, she did.
She thought she ate that line.

(53:44):
Oh, my God.
And you can tell you can tell.
Hoover, my head against the table.
Shut up.
Exactly.
No, no, no.
He's sending me into crazy mode over here.
Oh, my God.
It's just such 2012 A03 writing like fanfic writing.

(54:10):
And I think at this point, I had called a friend of mine and I was talking to her about
this book.
I literally said to her, I was like, this is the edited version.
Someone had to edit this.
There's an unedited version out there and I'm scared.

(54:31):
Like what was going through everybody's head?
I just I could not tell.
Anyway, she goes on the friend date and on this friend date, they're actually going to
the slam.
So that happens.
And then she also finds some background information on Will's ex-girlfriend because she was apparently
a bad person, but she never comes up again.
And now they are going to the slam and we get a lot.

(54:53):
We get actually one of the better forms of poetry in the book, which was Eddie's Pink
Balloon poem in which Eddie was talking about her experience with her mom and her mom had
left her.
And she had given her like a pink balloon and then her mom, because she was a drug addict,

(55:14):
kind of abused her.
Anyway, moving on from that, mom is still lying about kind of what is happening and
like isn't telling her what's going on yet.
And Laken gets like really, really upset and she decides that she needs to go crash Eddie

(55:34):
and Gavin's movie date.
So she goes and does that.
And then she comes home and she's like, okay, I guess I'll finally talk to mom about what's
going on and tell like, I guess I'll like confront her about her dating someone.

(55:55):
Plot twist guys.
Mom has cancer.
And if I had a nickel for every time I read a Colleen Hoover book in which the mom was
dying of cancer, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it is weird that it happened
twice guys.

(56:18):
I was saving that joke.
Thank you.
No, that was good.
That was good.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
But yeah, so mom is not having an affair.
She's actually dying of lung cancer.
So she found out that she had cancer before dad died, but then when dad had a sudden heart
attack, she like didn't go to treatment and now it's bread and it stayed for cancer.

(56:43):
So yeah, she's dying of cancer and Laken is obviously very upset because obviously her
mom's dying and her dad just died.
But I will say after this reveal, I like at this point, I was enjoying the book in a sense
of watching a dumpster fire burn and wondering how much hotter it could get.

(57:05):
But after that revelation, I literally was like, that's enough for today.
That's enough Colleen Hoover for the day.
I don't need to read more.
And so after this revelation, where does she run to?
But the one person who can comfort her, Will, who's it's the middle of the night and he's
shirtless and he opens his door for her.

(57:27):
She goes inside.
She's sobbing.
She doesn't tell him exactly what's going on.
Anyway, her mom comes to the door and she tells Will that she needs her home, but he's
able to send her away.
And then for some reason for Will, it's okay that Laken then is able to spend the night
and sleep in his bed.

(57:49):
And that's the end of part one, guys.
Well, that's the end of part one in the book.
Yeah, because we're going through the whole thing.

(58:12):
This is where I really started hating this shit because, oh me too.
I was like, just stand on business.
It's not hard.
You took her out one time, bro.
You can put us anywhere, please.

(58:34):
I know, but like at the same time, it's not a Colleen Hoover book unless some traumatic
event happens to the main character, you know?
Yeah, because trauma bonding is the only explainable form of love to bond these two characteristics
together because chemistry is not an option.
So death.
No, of course not.
The death of both their parents and the fact that they are probably going to have to take

(58:57):
care of their younger siblings.
That's definitely what bonds them together.
Does he love when your teacher holds you in bed at night to comfort you to sleep, but
your homies?
She will kick her y'all.
Like mentally, Laken at this point is like trying to reconcile this whole thing by being
like, well, he's just being friendly.

(59:19):
We're friends.
We're friends.
He's like, cuddling her to sleep and she's like, what a good friend.
Listen, I can't see signs that well, but you know, that's a fucking billboard, babes.
Yeah, that's a big flash in one, don't you think?

(59:42):
I will say also my whole summary for this section too, Lauren, I think you'll find this
funny.
I just wrote mom's not having an affair.
She's having cancer.
And that was my summary of the chapter.
My quick tea on that.
Maybe this is because I hang around my parents way too much, but like at a certain point,

(01:00:04):
don't you recognize your parents handwriting?
Because when she finds that note, which is not super important.
I know we didn't mention it, but she finds it leads her to think that that's why her
mom's having an affair.
It's literally just written by her dad is a love note that she kept.
Right.
Don't you recognize your dad's handwriting?
I said, girl, did you listen to what we had to read a chapter seven introspection?

(01:00:31):
Oh my God.
And she's like shitting on her dead dad's poetry.
Like, shut up.
Oh, and then also I think she found the bank statement.
She also found a big statement and they hadn't like sold the house in Texas.
Guys, the whole reason her mom moved them up to Michigan is because she needs treatment
and that's where the best doctor was.

(01:00:52):
But hey, yeah, she just didn't want to tell me that she was dying of cancer after their
dad just died.
So whop whop.
And going into this part.
So Lincoln wakes up, yeah, I don't know why this is broken up into two parts.
Literally you could have just kept going on the chapter six system, but.

(01:01:16):
Which we already had a chapter system like I understood it for November 9th where we
had parts.
And like no real chapters.
We didn't have numbers in that one, but this one makes no fucking sense of why we're broken
up into parts.
So whatever.
Anyway, Lincoln wakes up in Will's bed.
Edie leaves for work with Calder and then she just kind of goes on a.

(01:01:39):
Oh wait, no, that's the next that's the next little bit.
So she he wake she wakes up and.
Will tries to tell her to go talk to her mom and.
For some reason, Eddie shows up at Will's house then.
Because she's like that's where she figures he is and Wilson like asleep on the floor

(01:02:05):
and Eddie's like, oh yeah, there's something more going on here and Lincoln's like, yeah,
there is.
And she spills the fucking beans.
I'm like, girl, oh, right there.
He should have made a sign of NDA.
I know.
And then Eddie like skadoodles before Will can like fully wake up and then he kicks her
out of his house.
Like this grieving teenager, he just kicks her out like after Eddie comes over and after

(01:02:29):
oh, oh, this is also the chapter in which he forces he forced her into the shower.
That was so weird.
It was like it made me feel so gross.
I hated it so much.
They might will sound way older than he is, which I think, again, is a lot of the problem

(01:02:51):
here.
Like, I mean, I know we we've emphasized the age discrepancy here, but like you're still
young at 21 and the way they make him sound is like a disgruntled father.
And it's just so.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I guess maturity wise, he may appear older because, you know, he has to
short raise the child.
But yeah, it is like it is so odd.

(01:03:13):
But basically, Lincoln was like cleaning his house and then to like calm her down or something.
He like grabs her restrains her and then forces her into a shower.
Yeah, I don't know.
It was like really weird.
It was really like uncomfortable.
I hated reading it.

(01:03:33):
So, Mom, so she goes back over to her house, finally talks to Mom and Mom is like, so she's
like, so what are you going to do with Cal?
And her mom's like, well, I'm going to get my friend to raise him.

(01:03:53):
But for some reason, again, this is like a weird theme.
I've noticed these from November 9th and from this book, Colleen has a weird thing with
siblings being parents or like taking care of younger siblings and appearing in the parental
role.
Like.
Have we like, isn't that's really weird?

(01:04:15):
I think it's not to say this is where Colleen gets it from, but that's also a common phenomenon
in like fan fiction and YA in general, where like the parents are often like not in the
picture.
And I wonder, I don't know if this is like done intentionally, but I think there's probably
a through line of like angsty teen audience, like wanting to like give your characters

(01:04:38):
autonomy.
Obviously that requires like parents being out of the picture.
It's a weird theme, but like, yeah, no, I totally get the connection with November 9th.
Laken literally says to her mom, like, why don't you want me to like be Cal's.
Like his guardian.
Do you not think I'd be a good mom?
And I'm sitting here and be like, you wouldn't be his mother.

(01:04:59):
You'd be his guardian and older sister.
You're not his mother.
That's your mom's job.
But then like it was the same thing with Ben's oldest brother, because when their mom died,
Ben's oldest brother then became his guardian.
He's like, yeah, I view him like a dad.
And it's like, I just I don't understand.

(01:05:21):
It's a very strange dynamic and theme that just keeps popping up in these books.
And it makes me extremely uncomfortable because like.
We got to give you and Lincoln kids, we got to make them family.
We got to put.

(01:05:42):
Yeah, I don't know.
And I just.
I just wrote you're 18.
That's why she doesn't want you to raise your brother, you fucking dumbass.
Like that was my quote.
That's what I wrote in this little section.
Like Lincoln is just I think this is where I started hitting the book because Lincoln

(01:06:05):
becomes such a selfish prick.
Like she is such a selfish asshole and it's so insufferable.
I do somewhat understand that this is a teenager grieving the death of both her parents and
she's in a weird she's in a place where she didn't grow up and like all this stuff.
So I do try to be sympathetic towards that.

(01:06:27):
But literally this bitch gives her dying mother the cold shoulder.
And she's like, I don't want to talk to her.
I'm like, your mom is dying.
I think it was I had a weird relationship with Lincoln in the second half of the book
where there were moments where I had I had that same exact reaction.

(01:06:50):
And then there would be others were like it would bring me staggering back to reality
that she is in fact a child innocence.
And then there was a moment where I'm like, she is really well written in that sense.
But at the same time, it pisses me off to read.
And maybe that's because I'm an adult.
Yeah, exactly.
Like you can like this is not written for the fully lobed frontal lobe development that

(01:07:16):
we have lobed individuals here.
We're fully lobed guys.
Lobed up on a Tuesday afternoon.
I need to make something with like I need a coffee mug or something that has on it.

(01:07:37):
Yeah, yeah, basically.
And yeah, she just like go spend some time with her brother.
Anyway, the next chapter, Will randomly gives Eddie and Lincoln detention.
And it's just so we can like talk to them in private and be like, hey, I really you
guys really can't like let this stuff out about me and Lincoln because like I can lose

(01:07:59):
my job.
And like, that's the only source of income I have for Calder and me.
They're weirdly like joking in the in the whole like thing up until he like brings up
Calder and it's like so random.
It's so weird.
Oh, boy, I oughta.

(01:08:20):
I oughta.
There's a lot of parts of this book that I think you could argue feel like it's aged
with the times.
One of the things that probably is aged the worst and reminds you with horrifying sobriety
that this book was written in 2012 is the repeated beating over the head with Chuck

(01:08:44):
Norris jokes.
Oh, my God, which is are the jokes that they're making.
It's literally like, do you know what kind of sandwich Chuck Norris eats?
He actually beats up the sandwich like I don't I don't I was not around for the Chuck Norris
era.
I feel like the people I ran with when I was, you know, an infant were not making Chuck

(01:09:06):
Norris jokes.
I just saw Ashlyn go ran with.
I just I don't understand the Chuck Norris jokes because it gives so random humor.
It was that era of like XD, Nyan Cat, like so random.

(01:09:28):
Ash on the finger like thing.
So please explain to me if you understand the Chuck Norris jokes because I don't and
it was painful every time I had to listen to it.
And this conversation was the worst.
I mean, they weren't even funny at the time.

(01:09:49):
Like to be completely honest, like that I remember they weren't funny in the first place.
I think it was just like, you know, Chuck Norris is a big tough guy and he'll win at
everything.
I don't know.
It was stupid.
But yeah, they were making like Chuck Norris or jokes throughout this whole like little
segment in detention.

(01:10:09):
And then he like hits them with emotional heaviness and they start crying because they're
like talking like talking about Calder and and he's like, how do you not fall in love
with him?
And oh my god, you know exactly what I'm about to say.
And then the break in goes, I don't fall in love.
It's I don't fall in love with him every single day.
And it's like.

(01:10:31):
Why do you not fall in love with him because he's not?
I was like, I'm sorry.
If my 18 year old classmate that I am best friends with for the record, guys, the plot
events that are taking place, it's been less than a month from start to finish.

(01:10:56):
It's been a lot.
I need you to know this.
If if I had a friend, it's really been less than a month.
It's been less than a month.
And I had a friend in high school who was like, I'm seeing this teacher on the low.
I would never be like.
Yeah, I could sleep.
See, honey.

(01:11:17):
Yes, like I don't I don't know.
That's weird.
That's weird as hell.
Anyway, Eddie's a bad friend and I stand by that.
Continue.
Eddie is a bad friend.
Everyone's a bad friend.
Like in this whole situation, mom's a bad influence.
Eddie's a bad influence.

(01:11:39):
I don't know.
We hit that point in the recording session.
I just don't know what the point of this whole thing was.
It's just so bad.
They're just like, I just can't do this anymore.

(01:12:00):
Oh, my God.
Anyway, next chapter, they just do pumpkin carving and.
They're just and Lincoln's being an insufferable teen.
What that mean is, is that Lincoln basically says to like she's not ready to talk to her
mom yet about cancer or telling Calder.
So like it's like I just want to carve pumpkins and like just do that.

(01:12:25):
And her mom's like, OK, welcome is over.
They all carve pumpkins because they're a happy little family.
Yay.
And going into this next section, I need to I need you guys to listen to my little rant
that I wrote down here because for context in this next section, Will's back in class

(01:12:46):
and he does a little presentation about poetry.
We were like, oh, well, why do you want to talk about poetry?
Tell me why this fucking piece of shit decides to do a presentation and pull quotes from
the fucking brothers.
Oh, my God.

(01:13:06):
Hey, hey, guys, if you have if you don't know yet that the Avid brothers are calling Hoover's
favorite fucking band, you better understand it now.
Like, dear fucking God, it feels like a rusty hammer being put into my head.
Oh, my God.
I would I would argue.

(01:13:27):
I would argue that at least the draft of the Avid brothers is better than what was it in
November nine.
It was either like the chain smokers or like talking to what was the neon trees, whatever
that band is.
Yeah, they referenced that a couple of times, but I don't.

(01:13:48):
It was something in the realm of the chain smokers and it was like a horrible joke.
What just what makes me so mad is like.
If you just took and taken one step further, maybe include quotes.
From slam poetry pieces.

(01:14:09):
Because this book is about slant poetry and romance.
Instead, you do a random fucking ass folk band.
You just do it because it's your favorite and then you make it your main characters
and her love interest favorite fucking band.
It's just so bad and I hate it so much.
Again, hey, guys, by the way, no hate to the Avid brothers.

(01:14:30):
This is not their fault.
You kind of got a point there, actually.
I didn't even consider that like you're fully in a poetry class and you're not given any
examples of like famous poetry or like, you know, like I actually took a poetry class
in college.
Fun fact, and we would like our assignments were to like use the stylistic approach of

(01:14:56):
those poets that our professor would like show us their their works of and then we would
have to emulate that in our own way.
That is how you do a poetry class.
Not exactly.
The Avid brothers.
But you do boo boo.
Will.
It's so fucking bad.
Go put your dick in a blender, honey.
Yeah, honestly, like and that's just what makes me so upset is like.

(01:15:19):
I just hate the constant reinforcement.
It's like, oh, by the way, they have it, brothers.
Shut the fuck up, Colleen.
I know I'm reading your book, but shut the fuck up.
Like oh, my God.
So on top of that, he like uses the quotes to basically say things that only Lakin would
know and convince her to go talk to her mom.

(01:15:42):
And I fucking hate this fucking trip.
It was like the poem basically began with him emphasizing death or loss or something.
And then the poem ends with him saying the same thing, but emphasizing the word life.
And she was like, I get it now.
I have to live my life.
Oh, my God.
And then shut the fuck up.
Oh, my God.
Well, that was his poem.

(01:16:03):
And then she explains the emphasis.
I'm like, bitch, we're not fucking dead.
Oh, my God.
So she goes talks to her mom.
Yeah, I guess.
Yeah, so I just wrote for this section, a lesson in poetry in life, I guess.

(01:16:32):
I guess.
I don't know.
So yeah, Lakin finally decides to go talk to her mom and her mom's like, okay, like,
we'll talk to Cal.
But she convinces her mom that Lakin should be Calder's guardian, which is like so fucking

(01:16:57):
dumb.
Like, I understand there'd be inheritance and stuff, but like, that's not enough to
raise a kid on.
Especially if Lakin's going to be, I don't know, in college.
I don't know.
It's just so dumb.
And so they make some dinner and reveal it to Calder and Calder's like, he's doing it.
He handles it fine.

(01:17:21):
Which is surprising.
He handles it much better than Lakin.
And within the next chapter, the next day, it is now, not the next chapter, like within
the next section, it's now Eddie's birthday and they like hold a party for her and there's
like significance because they release a bunch of pink balloons in which were like all bad

(01:17:44):
to Eddie and her foster dad like basically is like, well, I hope you hold onto this one
and it has the word dad on it.
Cause he's like, I want to be a part of your life for the rest of your life.
Blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, oh yeah, that's cute.
I did just write down, yay, Joel balloon pollution.
Yo, yo, you were drinking the hater aid.

(01:18:06):
Oh my God.
Oh, and then I wrote death announcements and birthdays.
This is when I'm like, yeah, this is truly when I started drinking the hater aid.
Oh my God.
The next, the next thing I just saw it and I hate it.
I know.
We're going.
Yeah.
You know exactly where I'm going.
Cause this is the night.

(01:18:29):
This is the night where she ruins Eddie's birthday essentially to like have her own subplot and
make it about her.
So like she decides to meet up with Eddie and their friends at the club and do some
lakes and slam poetry.
Eddie's going to show up late.
She's like, okay, well, I'm just going to hang out.

(01:18:49):
So she shows up and unbeknownst to her will is performing a piece and it's a poetry.
We're going to talk about this, right?
We're going to talk about this piece.
Yes.
Yeah, we will.
Cause there's a line in there that I need to talk about and I know, and you know exactly

(01:19:10):
which one I'm going to point out.
I hope.
Cause he's like talking about how he like loved the sea and everything, but it was like
so rocky and now he loves the lake, AKA Lakin because that is her nickname throughout this
entire fucking book and it's so fucking annoying.
But the reason I want to bring this up is because there is a line which stands out of

(01:19:34):
how bad it is.
Lauren, do you know what I'm talking about?
Is it the reference to the fucking in and out?
I had to get ready.
I had to get ready.
What the fuck was it like came out of LeField?
I was like, do we have a product?
See, I like, I'm going to look it up while you talk about it.

(01:20:09):
So I'm not going to talk about this line explicitly.
I was going to talk about the poem as a whole, but this line was some white shit.
So from my understanding, because there's a mention of this earlier on in the story,
we didn't talk about it because it's really not important at all.
Could not like literally this book could have gone on without it and it would have made

(01:20:31):
no difference.
Basically, Eddie and Gavin tell Lakin about an ex-girlfriend of Will's who he dated like,
you know, through high school after graduation, right?
Cause they were all freshmen when he was a senior.
We don't know much about this girl and the fact that essentially after his parents passed
away, she broke out with him like a few weeks later, you know, was like bummed out that

(01:20:56):
he was dropping out of or not going to college and like taking on the responsibility of Calder
or whatever.
It was a whole thing, right?
But so far it doesn't really have an impact on Will's character, at least to my knowledge,
nor does it like bear any relevance on the story.
None.
So there's this one-off mention of that.
My interpretation of this poem was that this whole mention of the ocean and like the rocky

(01:21:20):
waters and like it's good for a bit and then it turns bad.
And then the reason why he mentions in and out randomly is it's all like talking about
her.
And then he ends the poem with a one-liner being like, but now I'm in love with Lake,
which obviously she's over here kicking her feet.
And she's out here like giggling and kicking her little feet being like, he loves me.
My bitch ass, if I was in her place and I was listening to this man give a whole ass

(01:21:48):
poem about his ex-girlfriend and then a throwaway line about me at the end, I'd be livid.
I'd be like, I know.
It's C. I'd be on Instagram in the bathroom being like, what's her name?
Where is she?
Like, I don't know.
That was on the flex that she thought it was.

(01:22:09):
Is the flex a 18 year old who thinks that a 21 year old is flirting with her?
Thanks.
Yeah.
It's like when you go on a first date and the other guy is like just ranting about his
psycho ex, psycho ex, quote unquote, and just use it to tell you how different you are.
And everyone's like, oh my God, I'm so special.
No, bitch.

(01:22:29):
He's obsessed with his ex.
Exactly.
Okay.
So for listeners out there, here's a line about in and out.
If you've ever tried swimming ashore when your leg gets a cramp and you just had a huge
meal of in and out burgers, that's weighing you down.
And her roaring waves are knocking the wind out of you, filling your lungs with water

(01:22:50):
as you flail your arms trying to get someone's attention, but your friends just wave back
at you.
I will kiss the ground that the audio book narrator walks on because she truly saved
this experience for me because I didn't have to endure reading that and figuring out how
it's supposed to sound because she ate it up.

(01:23:11):
Yeah.
No crumbs.
The reading experience was so weird.
And I do want to talk about this at the end, how our reading experiences were different
because of the audio book and book because trying to read it was like so confusing because
it was just written a bold, like where I assume the emphasis on the words are.
But like as someone who doesn't consume content about slam poetry, I had no fucking clue.

(01:23:40):
So it was just.
This is why anyway.
I don't know.
Anyway so she's like, she gets like she has like basically an anxiety attack being like,
oh my God, he says he loves me like that's so crazy because like, oh my God, he still
has feelings for me.

(01:24:01):
So she like basically runs out of the club and Javi, who will only mention here, he's
been here the whole time, but we won't mention him until now because he's only important
now.
He's like a little little skis bag and he think and basically Lincoln locks herself out
of his car and he like, it's like, oh, well use my phone.

(01:24:23):
And so while that happens, he like tries to kiss her.
No, he does kiss her and she's like, well, that's not what I want.
And he's like, no, this is definitely what you wanted.
And then out of nowhere, out of fucking nowhere, while Javi is kissing Lincoln, Will comes
out of nowhere and beats the shit out of this kid.

(01:24:47):
I must say something here.
OK, you go ahead.
I'm fully willing to be wrong on this again, because I listened to an audiobook on two
times speed and may have missed the description of this man.
But his name is Javier.
That's like his full name.
I think I am wrong in making the assumption that this may not be a white man, right?

(01:25:15):
Nowhere else in the story is there a notable like person of color, right?
To then use your one, I would argue likely person of color in your story and turn them
into a sleazebag that basically physically assaults a woman and then gets beat up is

(01:25:36):
a theme that I see way too often from white authors.
And it bothers the ever living shit out of me.
And it's like a consistent problem.
And I feel like this may potentially be a case of that, where it's like this unconscious
villainizing and like casting your one character of color as your quote unquote villain.

(01:26:01):
You know, I did not even clock that.
That is such a good point to bring up.
It irks me.
I only clock that because I this is a tangent.
I used to beta read for people a lot of times, and I've read many a manuscript that did the
same thing.
It is stuck out like a sore thumb every time.
I'm not going to say anything more, but you know, he gets the shit beaten up.

(01:26:27):
Yeah, I his by his teacher as well, by the way, hobby is also will's student.
So the fight is broken up.
Will drives her home.
By the way, Lincoln was like kicked in the back or like punched in the back by hobby.
And she's like, oh, my God, it hurts so bad.
And she goes home.
And the next day, she is freaking out.

(01:26:50):
I need to talk about this moment as well.
Will's the one who drives her home.
They drive home in silence.
Oh, my God.
He randomly pulls over in the middle of the drive to get out, punch the steering wheel,
curse a lot, gets back in, finishes the drive, drops her off.
Not another word.
That is very important.
And I'm so glad you brought that up because next day, you go, you go.

(01:27:12):
Because next day they come in and it's like, oh, we'll be there, you know, because like
he beat up a student.
And so it turns out Will's not in the classroom.
There's a substitute and like he gets called down to the principal's office and it's Will,
a police officer, Javi's father, and then the principal.

(01:27:36):
And she like relays what happened and that Will was protecting her and that Javi like
basically assaulted her.
And the principal is like, OK, you can go now.
And she doesn't know what's happening to Will.
So she goes home and she sees Will's cars in his driveway.
So she runs over and is like, Will, what happened?

(01:27:56):
And he's like, oh, so I left that position and I'm just going to have to get another
student teaching position.
And she's like, what?
It's not because of, you know, us making out a couple of times.
And he's like, no, it's because I punched my student.
And we think it'd be best if I don't teach the boy I punched.

(01:28:19):
I didn't lose my job, but I think best not that I don't teach her there.
I'm going to go talk to my college professor now.
Bye.
And he leaves.
Every day we stray closer to God with every college book that we read.

(01:28:40):
I know.
And then, oh, but then this was the weird fucking chapter where her brother then comes
home and he's like, I know what I want to be for Halloween.
And mom's like, what do you want to be?
And he goes, I want to be your lung cancer.
Not only not only does he want to be lung cancer on like a casual basis, he wants to

(01:29:02):
enroll it in the school.
Well, he also wants to be lung cancer for a school competition.
To get prize money.
And then for some reason, Calder is like, me too.
I also want to be lung cancer.
And then Lincoln and her mom are like, that sounds like a great idea.

(01:29:22):
Let's go get all of this stuff to go make a lung cancer costume.
Listen, I'm a big champion of reclamation.
You get your back.
To send your children into a school where odds are someone has a relative also enduring
cancer.
That may be a little triggering.
I'm just saying that may be cool for you.

(01:29:42):
Maybe keep it the night of trick or treating.
It's also an elementary school.
Oh, I guess so.
Okay, I'll get into this point in a little bit when we start talking about the contest.
Anyway, Lincoln and her mom are helping make the costume and

(01:30:03):
Will and her have to go across the street for some reason to get like a ribbon tape
measure and because he doesn't have one.
But of course, Lincoln knows where it is because you know, she reorganized his whole house
and they go into the laundry room.
She's grabbing it.
And he like basically is like, by the way, I didn't know if you were like kissing him
because you wanted to talking about hobby and about the night before, which is why he

(01:30:25):
got out of the car and was so pissed and was cussing and everything guys.
It's also why he punched Harvey.
Oh, the record.
It's not because he thought it was a non consensual kiss and his girlfriend whatever was being
attacked.
He punched the guy's lights out his students lights out because he didn't like him kissing

(01:30:53):
this girl.
He's not even dating.
I would call the cops respectfully.
I was.
I just wrote she was being assaulted you freak.
And she's like, Oh, honey, he loves me.
I'm like, Um, that would scare me off.

(01:31:17):
Actually, I would be so off.
Anyway, another make out session.
Yes.
And they make out in the laundry room.
And then she's like, well, can we be together now?
And he like pushes her away again.
And he's like, No, this is my weakness.
It was just a moment of weakness.
I can't do this.
Lincoln honestly, rightfully is just like, dude, what the fuck?

(01:31:41):
She eats him up.
And I'm so glad that was the one time I went to Lincoln had a brain cell.
And I guess you can count this as the third act breakup, I guess.
It felt like the other two.
So like, I couldn't tell.
And so, yeah, they do a little breakup thing.

(01:32:04):
I was like, well, stop bothering me.
I don't want to see you.
And she stomps off.
Yep.
I'm jumping.
I think.
No, we don't.
It's Halloween the next day.
My bad.
I forgot about the lung cancer costume.
You forgot about the lung cancer costume.

(01:32:24):
Anyway, Lincoln's at school the next day.
It's Halloween or something.
And the boys, you know, they're like, I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry.
And the boys do show off their lung cancer costume to mom and to Will.
And they're like, I approve of this message.
And while Lincoln is in school, she's getting a call from Will.

(01:32:45):
And she's like, he never calls me.
This is weird.
This is about the boys.
And Will's calling her and he's like, something happened at school.
You need to get like, they're fine, but you need to go talk to the principal.
She's like, OK.
So she goes to elementary school and the principal pulls him in and the boys are like sitting
outside.
And the principal, by the way, Eddie tags along for some random reason.

(01:33:06):
Believe they're from a meeting.
Yeah.
And the principal is just like, hey, so the grotesque lung costume that's full of tumors
is inappropriate for a school costume.
And Lincoln, the dumb bitch that she is, is like, my mother is dying of lung cancer and

(01:33:37):
her son asked to be lung cancer for Halloween.
So if you want to call my dying mom, in which this is probably her last Halloween, and tell
her that her son can't wear the costume that she put together, then be my fucking guess.
She also has this brilliant mic drop moment where she really thought she ate that and

(01:34:00):
she ends it by like turning around before she leaves and goes.
And by the way, I hope the contest is judged fairly.
Fairly.
It's it's like such a Karen moment.
Like it's just white Karen moment, you know, because like, OK, so I wrote this out and
I actually I remember texting Ashlyn about this because I was so pissed off in this moment

(01:34:24):
because I guys.
Hey, guess what?
In 2012, actually, it was probably the year before I was in elementary school.
And I remember like costume things like you remember, like being in like a little costume
parade or like doing that kind of stuff in middle school.

(01:34:46):
You remember the dress code that wasn't allowed.
I don't know about y'all, but for my school, we were not allowed to have like masks, not
allowed to have hats, not allowed to have like prop weapons and also not allowed to
have something that's like too gory.
Like some kids were I don't know if you guys remember this.
This is going to date me so hard.
So hard.

(01:35:07):
Do you remember the ghost face mask that you still like, quote unquote, bleed and it was
just like, yeah, yeah, like that was allowed, but it was only allowed during the parade.
You could only wear it then.
So I'm imagining this costume and I'm like, well, of course it's inappropriate.
It's been appropriate since the fucking beginning.

(01:35:28):
Of course, like they would be called down to the principal's office.
Like.
No one has like the only responsible response to this whole fucking Halloween costume was
the fucking principal.
Yeah, that's just gross.

(01:35:48):
I just pulled up a gift of lungs.
Oh, oh, oh, but then, oh, but then listeners, the cherry on top.
They won the fucking contest and they both won $50 and it just felt like that moment
in like Tumblr things.
I just went and then everybody clapped.
No one fucking clapped.
Not everybody clapped.

(01:36:12):
It just, I wrote like a whole little rant on this whole thing about like all that stuff.
Oh, I wrote this book is so fucking stupid and people read this for fun and like it and
want to read more.
I just the dumbfounded nature of it all.

(01:36:36):
Oh, I was so very quintessentially YA of like you got to give the kid that one like suck
it to the system moment that doesn't eat like you think it does.
And it was so cringe.
It surely does not.
It was so fucking cringey.

(01:36:57):
Now we get a time jump and it's Christmas time.
So it's a couple months later.
I need to clarify this for everybody.
Everything in up to this point was within the span of a singular month.
They have now spent more time apart than they have together at this point in the story.
Ever.
And that's being generous.

(01:37:18):
That's like not including the weeks where Will was not speaking to her or looking at
her ankle.
She's right.
So now it's time for you know that part of the book because we only have one chapter
left.
It's time for that.
It's a quintessential romance reunion where they confess their love to one another even

(01:37:43):
though they both basically confess their love to one another.
And so she's helping her mom wrap Christmas presents and stuff like that.
And while they're doing that, her mom's like, well, have you spoken to Will?
Like are you going to go see him?
And she's like, no, I'm not going to because like we left things as they were, mom.

(01:38:05):
And basically, quintessential coho mom is pushing her daughter to go run after the toxic
boy.
And she's like, actually, he's loved you this whole time.
He's just given you distance because he wanted you to like spend more time with me.
You know, your dying mother.
And like he definitely still loves you.

(01:38:28):
And he told me like that night you ran over to his house after I told you I had cancer
that he like that you really needed him.
And I realized that you were a woman in that moment and that I wasn't the center of your
world anymore.
And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah.
This is the moment where we learn that he says to Laken's mother and I quote, Julia,

(01:38:56):
she needs me right now.
And I wanted to skewer my eyes out with a fork.
Like a hot.
I didn't even read this book.
I heard it.
It was so bad.
It was so bad.
Anyway, Laken decides, yeah, it's time for her to go get ready to go to the club to do

(01:39:17):
a love confession.
I will say I wrote in all caps, I hand wrote this and it's in all caps about how he's also
graduating college now.
Guys.
They only had to wait two months for him to graduate college and then they could have
technically been together.

(01:39:38):
So what was like, what was the point of everything?
You know, like they literally just could have kept it in their pants.
This book would not even have to be a book because she could have switched to that Russian
literature class.
Waited two months and then just date will and then he wouldn't have even been her teacher.

(01:40:03):
Like I mean, still would have been a red flag that he's dating someone in high school.
He was a he was a middle.
He was about to be a middle school teacher.
Sure.
But this is the logical solution.
I still think mom is really fucking weird to be pushing her daughter towards a relationship
with someone who is just who would have graduated college by the time her daughter would have

(01:40:26):
been a freshman in college.
Like that is not like I literally wrote and this is this is a true burn towards Colleen
Hoover and you know what?
I'm not sorry for this, but like who told her that this was romance?
Like this is not romantic.

(01:40:47):
In any way, shape or form.
You know, she would go then go on to write November 9.
So true, true.
I think about that often.
I do think about that often.
Anyway, guys, moving into our little last part, we've got some love confessions at the

(01:41:13):
Slam Poetry Club.
And of course, it's through slam poetry.
And this is Lakin's first time up there and it's a long stupid fucking poem.
And she says like it's a poetry emergency, which is how she gets up there.
She gets off stage and then she's like looking for Will and he can't find she can't find
him and she's like, Oh, no, he's not here.
As she's about to run out the door, Will's like, I have a poetry emergency as he's standing

(01:41:37):
up there because surprise, he was one of the judges.
And then he just like spits out slam poetry to Lakin.
As she's like standing in the middle of the crowd with like the beam on her.
And then as it happened, then after he's done, he hops off the stage and he's like, I love
you, Lakin.
And she's like, I love you.
And then they kiss.
Everybody!
He's still.

(01:41:57):
He's a high school teacher and a high schooler.
And then everybody clap.
No, they'd all be snapping because it's slam poetry night.
They don't clap during slam poetry night.
I'm so glad you repeated that because I ate so hard and I didn't hear any of it.

(01:42:19):
The first...
Can you imagine how mortifying it would be for a bunch of teenagers just snapping at
you while you made out with your English teacher?
Because you would do it.
Do you ever catch yourself mid-sentence about to say something that's going to gross out
the entire call?
Yeah.
Can I say it?
Go ahead.
Because you know with like the sounds of snapping, that's not really loud.

(01:42:45):
And so it's not going to cover up the sound of like lips and saliva.
No, no, no, no.
Oh, oh, but then, then we get my favorite fucking part.
We get an epilogue guys and it's over a year later in which we get shown none of the growth
that these two have had while being in a fucking relationship.

(01:43:09):
And he calls her babe too.
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
I don't know why that was my takeaway, but I don't know.
I don't know, but it's Christmas time.
Yay.
Mom's dead though.
Aww.
But it's a year later.
So mom died and now Laken is the guardian of Cal and all of that.

(01:43:31):
And we get a last letter from mom being like, here are the things I don't want you to forget.
It sounds very much, I don't know if you guys have ever seen Magic Lessons or what is it
called?
Where is it?
Yeah.
Magic Lessons.
Have you guys ever seen that movie?
It's like throw a pinch of salt over your shoulder.

(01:43:52):
Always plant rosemary in your garden and always love.
It just felt like that kind of like list of things.
I think what was the last line?
It was like, oh, and don't forget to punch life in the face sometimes.
My biggest gripe is that almost none of it was related to the plot to the book.

(01:44:15):
IMO.
None.
It was just random advice.
And I was like, why don't you say some bullshit like love fiercely or something?
I don't know.
Like talk about love.
I don't know.
Anyway, that's it for Slammed by Colleen Hoover.

(01:44:36):
And I wish I would get slammed by a door.
I do too.
I do too.
Nothing gives me brain rot like a Colleen Hoover book.
And I think that's why on a sick masochistic level, I appreciate it.
Truly.
It's a cleanse for my little brain.
My little mind.
It's a cleanse for my little brain.

(01:45:00):
Because my life can't possibly be worse than the 18 year old who's being ransacked by a
predatory old teacher.
Oh my god.
Yeah I don't know.
I don't know.
Ashley, what questions do you have for us?
Can you read them out like slam poetry?
Oh yes please.

(01:45:21):
I need them like, I need random emphasis.
Sydney, is your surprise after my questions?
It'll be after your questions, yes.
Okay cool cool cool.
What questions do I have for you guys?
Okay so we talked a bit about what happens after Laken and Will discover that they are

(01:45:46):
in fact a student teacher.
Relationship dynamic.
Do you think in any realm either of them handled the situation at all with a degree of wellness?
Like do you think they did anything right to deal with the situation?

(01:46:09):
I will say I'm not holding Laken responsible for any of it personally.
Yes you are of age.
You're still in high school and therefore in my eyes deeply impressionable.
And while a lot of it was cringe and a lot of it I would like to have seen handled better,

(01:46:29):
I will not hold her at fault for her actions as dumb as they were.
Will is definitely the responsible party in this relationship and power dynamic and therefore
I will roast him until the end of his days.
He did nothing right.
Nothing at all.
He's just a wet blanket who can't even like stick to his own boundaries and then therefore

(01:46:51):
was like stringing her along and giving her mixed signals and then beating up his student
because she was theoretically gonna move on.
At least that was his thought process.
Crazy.
So that's just where I stand.
I 100% agree.
Like Will did not handle anything well about this whole situation.
Yes, you could say that he tried to set boundaries but like he was so horny on Maine that he

(01:47:14):
kept breaking his own boundaries.
And yes, again, people will make the argument, well Laken was of age so like it's like it's
not illegal.
I don't care if it's like it's still illegal.
Like it's illegal morally.
Like guys, she is 18 years old.
She's still in high school and he is her teacher.

(01:47:36):
Like that is not okay.
That is not okay for any way shape or form.
And I'm sorry if you think this is a romantic book.
It's not.
It is straight up grooming and being predatory.
And you can be groomed at any age but especially him being her fucking teacher.

(01:47:57):
No ifs and ifs or buts.
Instead of like remember she nearly left his class and he's like no we'll handle this professionally.
That was where he fucking messed up.
And every other step he took was just a stumble.

(01:48:18):
So we have now read November 9 and Slammed.
I have read so many more but this month the movie for It Ends With Us came out.
How do you think that the popularization of books like this will impact readers?
Oh, oh, oh.

(01:48:40):
I have a soapbox I want to get on real quick.
Lauren you got on yours, here's mine.
So I recently watched a video by a YouTube creator.
Her name is Lexi.
She is a booktuber.
I highly go recommend go watching her videos.
She is a fantastic person.

(01:49:00):
I love her takes on books.
But she did a whole thing recently on hot takes with books and someone commented how
their hot take is that people hate on Colleen Hoover because it's a book for women and like
that was like that's why people hate on it.
And Lexi like just straight up said no I don't hate on Colleen Hoover because it's written
for women.

(01:49:21):
I hate on it because it's bad.
And she brought up a fan fucking classic point at which I like I literally cannot put it
in any other way.
But she goes the things that are so malicious about these types of romance books is that
these are the type of guys which are meant to seen as more like realistic book boyfriends.

(01:49:43):
Like for example she did like a whole like Lexi did a whole series of like reading like
mafia romance books which is very funny.
I love it.
But she talks about how in these mafia romances is that there's an air of fiction in it you
know.
Like the actions and things in which are taking place like being kidnapped and like falling

(01:50:04):
in love with the kidnapper and like being in these dark places.
There's an air of fiction to it.
And a lot of people who are reading these books know that there's an air of fiction.
But what's so dangerous about these books that are written by Colleen Hoover is that
these men are supposed to be the more realistic ones and that is kind of what they're advertised

(01:50:25):
as.
And that is really fucking scary.
Like these relationships are not healthy or good in any way shape or form.
Like Benton and Will in these two instances are nightmares of what they would do to someone
in real life.
And that's really scary.
Oh look I will commend her for getting more people to read and that is great.

(01:50:48):
I love that people are learning more to read.
But it's scary knowing that there's impressionable women out there who are thinking this behavior
is okay whatever age you're at.
And that is like the scary part.
I find it terrifying for like these being the quote unquote more realistic examples.

(01:51:12):
I will not say much but I will add that I think it is important to add the disclaimer
that Colleen Hoover is not the only example of this.
I think Colleen is just the biggest name that gets thrown around because of like the already
existing discussions and sort of like the well also just the numerous titles that she

(01:51:33):
has.
So this is not to say that Colleen Hoover is like the sole example of this.
I mean there are so many books.
Haunting Adeline.
I mean I'm trying to yeah like I mean there are there are so many examples and I think
at the end of the day it sort of opens a discussion that I'm not going to get into because we'd
be here for eons and I don't think any of us are experts to comment on it.

(01:51:54):
But I think it would open it opens a larger discussion of sort of to what extent is it
the responsibility of the artist to portray certain like themes and like account for that
impression ability or is it the responsibility of like the reader slash the parental guardians

(01:52:15):
of said reader to ensure that that reader who is impressionable is not getting their
hands on the raw material.
And that is just food for thought and probably something that is different from person to
person household to household author to author.
You know I will say this shit is a little rancid.
It's so bad.
That is the bottom line.

(01:52:35):
I'll also add this to add on to your add on.
This is also our opinion.
So we do not speak for everybody and if you do not like our opinion that is fine.
And I would I'm interested to hear what your arguments would be in the comments.
I would like to hear like what other people think about this topic and hear other people's

(01:53:01):
reviews.
The comment section we do not have.
Yeah I know right.
Sitting simmer with the suckers.
If you don't like our opinion sticker out we probably have other ones.
No true true true.
Okay my final question before I ask for your final rating is what do you think happens

(01:53:24):
in the second book.
This is the first of a trilogy that I subjected myself to and one long haul flight.
What do you think happens?
I have vaguely thought of this already but not because I've been here like oh my god
what's going to happen.
It's more of a question of what could happen.

(01:53:45):
My is there a trilogy for for reference the name of the second book is Point of Retreat.
Is there still slam poetry?
That's my that's that's what I'm going to say.
I think Lakin becomes a famous slam poet.
Oh kill me now.

(01:54:09):
I actually am going to say because Will goes on to get his masters in this epilogue.
Like his masters of education right.
He I bet he gets a like a some teaching job right either like a professor offer or like
like I would think that he gets a job that's like this unforgettable opportunity that's

(01:54:33):
like has him commuting a lot and so they're like long distance effectively and in that
time she like really grapples with it or some shit because she's now effectively taking
care of Calder and Kel and then is now because there has to be like like a fake love interest
that like draws her eye right.

(01:54:53):
Yeah or something.
So she like goes off to college and like finds this other poetry boy or some shit and then
Will gets jealous they have a third act to break up there's a car accident where one
of them gets hurt and then that's how they come back together and then at some point
Gavin and Eddie get married.
Yeah that's my thinking.

(01:55:14):
Yeah I just saw fogginess in the future of this trilogy so I'll just go with what Lauren
said because I just don't know why there's more like there isn't.
Lauren that was weirdly accurate.

(01:55:37):
That was unsettling.
Are you sure you didn't?
Yes.
You were pretty close the love interest is not for her it is the ex-girlfriend that is
mentioned in this book.
I knew they broke up for a reason.
There's a first act breakup followed by a third act car accident of the will they won't

(01:55:58):
they again even after like he apologizes there's a car accident.
Oh my god.
She admits that he ever apologized but remembers that she's mad at him so they break up again
and he has to apologize again.
Not the amnesia.

(01:56:18):
He was not cheating on her.
I don't remember the exact context for what happens.
It's something along the lines of she kind of wanted back into his life and he was like
hey you know I loved you then we're done and what Lakin perceives is you said you loved

(01:56:43):
her and that was like their fight.
That's a very 19 year old response.
Yeah it really is.
My final question for you.
Your rating out of five.
Okay so my overall rating goes along with my overall thoughts.

(01:57:10):
Like I already stated I hated the will they won't they because we all knew that they they
would.
There was no will they or won't they.
It was all will pun intended and so I hated that.
It was like flimsy at best and just like the whole forbidden romance thing just like did
not work because there wasn't really I don't know anyway I won't go into it too much.

(01:57:38):
As usual in a Colleen Hoover book nothing happens and also bat shit crazy things happen.
The quotes at the beginning of the chapters just like pissed me off.
Please don't get me started on that and they were just bland characters in which only bond
due to like trauma.
That's truly it.
And because of all those reasons and because of my experience with November 9th I rated

(01:58:04):
it a two because it was only mildly better than November 9th in which I rated a 1.5.
You know what's funny about this moment.
I know I know I know what's funny.
I also rated this book a two however that means I'm changing my November 9 rating to

(01:58:30):
a 2.75 because the enjoyment I got from the insanity of November 9 has yet to be matched
by any book that we or I personally have ever read and I craved the chaos and was wanting
it in this book and I got some of it but truly nothing compares to setting your future girlfriend's

(01:58:54):
house and body on fire and then dating her because you feel guilty and then also dating
your widowed sister-in-law.
Nothing compares and I crave more.
Again a sibling of or a family member taking care of another sibling or family member but

(01:59:15):
as a parental figure.
May I make a request?
What's your request?
Can we read a collegiate teacher a student romance at some point that's good.
I already have pulled up and planned the time frame for it.

(01:59:39):
I need it now.
Beautiful.
Listeners if you're also like Lauren and just way too horny for a student teacher romance
in college stick around.
What'll come out eventually?
Okay and with that before I send us off today I wanted to I did something for the bit and

(02:00:01):
I thought Ashlyn, Lauren and you listeners would enjoy this.
Throughout the book we had multiple quotes that were listed by none other than the avid
brothers.
So I took it upon myself to create a playlist on Spotify that has all of the avid brothers

(02:00:21):
songs in order of the chapters in which they are referenced and the playlist is called
slammed my head against a wall and you can go find that on Spotify.
It is live it is public so if you would like a soundtrack to listen to while you read this

(02:00:43):
horrendous Colleen Hoover book you are welcome.
It is there for you.
Lauren what do you think?
Lauren did not know for context Lauren and Ashlyn did not know I was doing this throughout
this whole book.
I'm just gagged at the profile picture.

(02:01:04):
That is that is a photo that is Colleen Hoover by the way.
That is a photo she posted onto God's green internet and I was like I have to it's iconic.
So yeah listeners please go listen to that if you would like to go hear what Colleen's

(02:01:24):
soundtrack to slammed is and if you and while you're on Spotify if you're listening to
that playlist you should go listen to some of our other episodes which we have live like
we kept referencing we have read November 9th by Colleen Hoover so go listen to that
if you have not had your coho fix and go listen to some of our other episodes.
We are on Instagram we're on TikTok we're on YouTube we are on Twitch as well have we

(02:01:52):
posted anything no but we are there so like go follow us maybe we will be on there someday.
Ponchi power does have a Spotify account so you can find the link to that playlist on
our Spotify it's now there.
You're welcome.
So yeah go take a listen to that go enjoy some more episodes go check us out come interact

(02:02:18):
with us go follow us on fable we have a book club in which it is announced like what we're
going to be reading that month and you can read along and see our reactions as we go.
But next episode is actually going to be Lauren's birthday episode because it's September which
means it's not birthday month because it's Lauren and her birthday.

(02:02:40):
So stay tuned for whatever fuckery we get into next and with that my friends I will
tell you have a gorgeous glorious night you slam poetry themes.

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Chapter 15: Slammed

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