Oh I forgot to mention that I want to read nonfiction, too. I'm reading "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" right now and it's so well-written and thoughtful and helpful so far. I also want to avoid falling into the trap of trying to find novels that are similar to each other. Anything smart and strange and groundbreaking qualifies!
Moddie's passive understanding of her having lost sensation in her breasts during sexual activity, but not actively understanding that meant something had gone terribly wrong to make that happen, was really validating for me. I binge-read the book too quickly so I can't recall if she even faced that head on or if it was a passing comment in her internal narration, but regardless, I related. I felt like an idiot when I realized an instance of someone crossing a sexual boundary of mine 12 years earlier had made my breasts go from a source of pleasure to a literal source of pain when touched. I always thought something else was wrong with me and just vaguely chased every other shadowy thing in my life that could have been the cause.
I like this book club idea very much. Could totally get involved via the comments. I may not read the book, this IS dark for me, but I will keep an eye out for the next one. Delighted to see Polly’s diving in already!
I read the book thinking it was you Heather that had actually written it!
At first I found it highly amusing and so refreshing to read about the characters, then at a certain point I was starting to feel like the awful characters were permeating my energy. I was questioning, are people really this awful?
It also made me self reflect on certain aspects of myself too that aren’t particularly pleasant.
All in all an original and great read. Thank you for the recommendation.
The characters are so terrible at times, but I love that she dares to NOT soften them or make them lovable. You can make anyone lovable - they trip and fall, they're insulted by someone they love, they wait for the ducklings to come back to their backyard pool (Tony Soprano). We see these things all the time.
I guess I saw many of her depictions as vivid imaginative portraits of how people seem from inside one confused person -- and in that way, they felt soothing to me: This is how we misunderstand each other. When you throw in all the ways that each character misreads another character, I think that heightens the effect.
I feel this portrait of extreme alienation feels reassuring somehow because it shows how easily people miss or lose or misunderstand each other. There are times when you want to tell them "Just talk to each other and tell the whole, awful truth!" The details of how you dislike the people around you are always a dramatized creation that comes from some core emotion. I'm thinking of that scene in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where they list what they hate about each other. The details aren't even important or personal. What's important is admitting that we have extreme reactions to each other that are illogical, and when we can hear the lack of logic and laugh at it, we can grow closer.
The risk of telling the truth includes the risk of exposing your own strange, warped view of the world, which is narrow and so emotional that logic has nothing to do with it.
We're all unpleasant in the extreme at some level. That's what makes us human. Truly terrible people don't accept human flaws in themselves or anyone else, so they push their warped non-reality perfectionism onto others without seeing them clearly, or treat others as transactional helpers or obstacles to their goals.
Okay I'm sure this is obvious and I promise not to dive in with LESSONS every goddamn time!!!
I read the whole book, and I loved even the parts of it that I hated. It made me think that if Virginia Woolf--who was also haunted by the distances between people--had been born into a later age (one with medications, effective therapy, and more books like this one) she might not have walked into a river with rocks in her pockets at age 59. She might have endured--even thrived!--for so much longer, and we might have 20+ more books from her. In other words, BANAL NIGHTMARE landed on me as one of those life preserver-type books. A lot of people--seen raw--are not that likeable. But they are lovable--and I loved Moddie.
I found the impulse to move back to one’s hometown (in the Midwest, even) relatable and scary. Moddie’s desire to fall back in with her friends and her disappointment that they have moved on with their lives and didn’t understand or want to understand hers were real. It’s simple to say that we want to be honest with ourselves and others and actually doing so is so tough. Moddie’s behavior at the parties and get-togethers, her attempts to be real, led to isolation and pain, less connection rather than more. The romantic relationships struck me as superficial and dishonest as well, which I think was alarming to the characters because it was so different from what they expected out of life. I wonder how things worked out between Moddie and Peter. Is sustained connection between partners possible? The book seemed rather pessimistic, as people were not connecting, scared to show their true selves, not liking what they saw inside themselves and others. Can we really list the ways that we hate each other to one another? Would that pose too much of a risk to the tenuous connections, which seems so necessary in this brutal world, or is it the way forward? The other side may be more isolating than ever, but this book drove home how I don’t want to be surrounded by superficial conviviality, not within myself or with those close to me.
** Spoiler alert: there are spoilers in this comment**
I truly loved this book. I did feel it was a personal attack on me specifically!!! but I kind of loved that!!
This summer I had a horrible close friend break up and have been tormented by a group of people/former friends who are all apart of yoouuuuu guessed it-- the art world. I am even a print maker who broke up with another artist after a ten year relationship of trying to compete for each other's attention and support. I think it's the line... "People are not secretly plotting to humiliate and harm me." When you kind of know that some of them in the story actually sort of are?? But that they don't even know truly know that??? I said "Stoppppppppp!" out loud, it hurt me physically. I would think that Butler implanted herself into my life à la Being John Malkovich but I have never lived in a small town. More importantly, one of the themes of the structure I believe is that the entire Nightmare itself is so Banal that it's an experience that lives in all of us all the time.
I mean maybe not entirely, maybe we haven't all been on the outs of a navel gazing self important community like art, maybe we haven't all tried to make people like us who we aren't even sure if we like in order to feel safe, but as a little diorama for the difficulties of, as you have said, being honest, accepting ourselves and finding a place in the world for the parts of us that are, as it turns out less cuddly when exposed to the cold, hard daylight?? It is very successful.
There's so many things I loved about the book it's hard to even talk about it or summarize it into a comment, but you asked for digressions so here goes:
Relating so heavily to a character such as Moddie is uncomfortable but it's also extremely satisfying. Struggling to embrace every facet of your messy annoying little self is a pleasure and a curse. Relating to the less funny, sadder and maybe ickier characters is also very fun. Kimberly, you sucked so much, but I draft emails to all of my friends when they are bothering me in my head all the time-- "She would tell her story, and then she would be undeniably successful, and then everybody would want, most of all, to come to HER party. That's right. MY party." It feels like my entire life has been trying to talk down the Kimberly in me, the Pam in me while supporting the Moddie in me (sometimes!) and I can never get enough of a story that lets me laugh at how sad these competing parts are while helping me kind of root for them too. I spent so long this summer basically telling myself "it's okay if this person doesn't like you, you don't exist to make everyone happy." Like, "it's okay that nobody is coming to your party". How do we become little Kimberlys except by being that parent to that inner child that is like "You have to go to this kid you hate's party because I can't tolerate having a child that is unliked." You know? It made it hard to hate Kimberly, but she was also so insensitive herself, I was like, c'mon Kim.
I loved how Butler is so sincere in not giving anyone too much slack, but I also love how she can't help but drive the knife a little deeper into the men in the story-- I dunno if anyone else noticed that? Am I projecting, lol? Like even when the men are saying what we may be thinking, I was still like, okay buddy check yourself. I can't remember Pam's boyfriend's name now, which is telling, but he was really sacrificed as the humiliation kink for us, the reader, and I didn't feel like there was any shame in that for Butler writing it. Also the character with the highest cruelty to least introspection ratio was David, the visiting artist, I loved spending time in his horrible little mind, he also made me incredibly suspicious about men my age and what the fuck they're thinking, but then, it was like... well that's just David and he sucks. I guess in essence was most comfortable dismissing the men, even when it came to Kimberly who, as previously mentioned, SUCKED.
One piece of Moddie's history that really spoke to me was her experience with adults in school as a kid. I've never really heard anyone else talk about that before. In first grade, my very first experience of school, my teacher fucking hated me for absolutely no reason. It was like baptism by fire of "Adults are fucking crazy and will project all their weird shit onto you" combined with "Why are you teaching children?" she's most definitely dead now, and I fantasize about calling the school to be like "Hey just so you know this woman was unwell and extremely cruel and you are assholes for letting her be around children". This painted a good picture of how Moddie is so sensitive to people telling her who she is, and I was honestly proud of her for putting herself out there anyway in light of everything she's been through.
I think it's interesting that we don't really have a good picture of her parents, that they are a little bit absent, but Butler tries to explain them like they're super attentive? I think this is done maybe so that Moddie is really centered as the person responsible for defending and protecting herself as an adult, and that a big theme of the story is an exploration of all of our defenses and protections, for better or worse.
Moddie needed to be protected from Nick's friends, and from her predatory art school teacher, and then eventually to some degree from her new, weird friends, the same way she needed protection as a kid. The stakes all feel equally as high, which is common for people with trauma, even though they certainly aren't. But being "powerless" (also a theme!) for moments of extreme trauma will make you hyper vigilant to pretty much everyone. Centring Moddie as her own parent figure makes it so the central conflict is Moddie growing up a little bit and filling this role herself, which is rewarding and maybe makes sense of the very, very ending, where she is "rewarded" with a ton of money, which sort of felt a little lack lustre when reading it initially.
I guess the last moment I did want to touch on was her... 5 page monologue about her college art school teacher. This was so brilliant. It was so flawlessly inserted in at maybe the exact perfect time and coming from a cohort of unprotected young, sensitive women, extremely believable. That she summoned this entity (trauma) of protection from this horrible situation, that it was so funny and sad. Again, something that I've seen explored in a couple formats, but building a world as a novel that gives your characters this much space but is written almost so you feel the need to be extremely protective of yourself while reading it, to maybe not trust people too much, even when they're showing you their worst parts, was... divine, honestly.
Thanks so much for the recommendation and thank you Halle Butler for this wonderful novel and I hope everyone gives it a chance!!!
I read Halle Butler's two previous books after two different people recommended them to me, one because the main character hilariously described a temp assignment, and another because the main character was like a female Larry David. So, I was happy to catch up with "Banal Nightmare," and EVERY character could have written to "Ask Polly," and I'll be turning my next comment around obsessively in my head all afternoon so that I act like a distracted airhead at my dental appointment and attempt to pay Trader Joe's with my OMNY card.
Meanwhile, Kimberly is all of us who've thought, "This is gonna put me on the map" and been brought back to earth, with "Her lips went numb. She described her job" as an understated and perfect epitaph.
I have been struggling with my friendships a lot lately. Like, grappling with whether I actually like these people and they like me or if we are just often free at the same times and willing to do activities with one another so we don’t have to go alone; what even IS a friend; am I a terrible friend because I’m fundamentally selfish or is it because I’m deeply cold and overly irritable; am I just repeating the patterns I saw my mother play out in her own friendships, etc. Sometimes I love spending time with these people and I come home feeling like my cup is full, but equally often (probably more, as of late?) I come home thinking “thank God that’s over and I don’t have to do it again for another couple of weeks.”
So listening to this audiobook was…a tricky experience. And reflecting on it, maybe the audiobook was the wrong way to go. Having this novel in my ear as I’m running errands, doing chores, taking walks… it was just like it was a constant history of “there is no such thing as friends, only people who feel they must tolerate you to varying degrees; and everyone is experiencing you as an irritating obligation to the exact same extent that you do them; and it isn’t different for ANYBODY and it will never change.” I made it about halfway, I think, and it got to the point where I was just angrily moping around the house and feeling bleak (even though I did think parts were very funny). I had to stop. But maybe I’ll try to pick it up again, this time as a physical book. I think the problem was that I use audiobooks as company, and this book is terrible company, With a physical book maybe I’ll be better able to engage with it as art. (Also I’m not the world’s best listener and this book has a very large cast of characters to track, so I had a really tough time keeping the various plots and relationships straight. They all just kind of blurred into a single person who hated their partner and couldn’t stand their friends.)
I started with the audiobook and I couldn't hang! I had to actually see the words and read them at my own pace. I also found it easier to keep track of the characters if I saw their names visually, but maybe that's just how my brain works. I think one of the points of the novel is that the characters have a lot in common, like they're all in the same little age/culture bubble. It did make people blur together at times, but perhaps the point is that the illness they suffer from is corporate not individual.
One peak experience I had reading this book was reading Bethany’s diatribe about how Moddie could social engineer the greatest pain for the guy who assaulted her and her former friend now dating him which ended by pivoting to “or you can just think of yourself as a benevolent godmother to their children.” My brain felt so seen and embarrassed with that depraved but shameless diatribe, it was awesome and also kind of scary and controlling but at least Bethany feels honest; the desire to be the cool girl of the small town who can help people isn’t purely superficial and she did have a fascinating mind for it. I think it could have been easy for the author to make that character the worst because she did have some power and esteem but she ended up being one of the least fraught for me.
I loved Moddie, and I also resented how involved and supportive her mom/parents were. I couldn’t help but create a narrative about of course Moddie is so shameless, her mom is still hanging on her every word and her parents have validated her every breath, but it may just be jealousy that she had endlessly gracious rich parents who want to hear her talk every day, or at least welcome it enough to be perhaps overly enmeshed. Idk, her parents seemed “cool” in a way that disgusted me and forces me to reflect on why. And that her dissociated boldness, (which I also love and celebrate and champion and steward pieces of in myself) will only balloon to cartoonish levels with this inheritance. Or maybe money will mostly buy her happiness since she’d be able to pursue her art more thoroughly. Probably both, but she’s definitely going to make at least one gigantic nonsensical purchase and I’d be curious what that would be.
Oh I forgot to mention that I want to read nonfiction, too. I'm reading "Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals" right now and it's so well-written and thoughtful and helpful so far. I also want to avoid falling into the trap of trying to find novels that are similar to each other. Anything smart and strange and groundbreaking qualifies!
Moddie's passive understanding of her having lost sensation in her breasts during sexual activity, but not actively understanding that meant something had gone terribly wrong to make that happen, was really validating for me. I binge-read the book too quickly so I can't recall if she even faced that head on or if it was a passing comment in her internal narration, but regardless, I related. I felt like an idiot when I realized an instance of someone crossing a sexual boundary of mine 12 years earlier had made my breasts go from a source of pleasure to a literal source of pain when touched. I always thought something else was wrong with me and just vaguely chased every other shadowy thing in my life that could have been the cause.
I like this book club idea very much. Could totally get involved via the comments. I may not read the book, this IS dark for me, but I will keep an eye out for the next one. Delighted to see Polly’s diving in already!
I read the book thinking it was you Heather that had actually written it!
At first I found it highly amusing and so refreshing to read about the characters, then at a certain point I was starting to feel like the awful characters were permeating my energy. I was questioning, are people really this awful?
It also made me self reflect on certain aspects of myself too that aren’t particularly pleasant.
All in all an original and great read. Thank you for the recommendation.
The characters are so terrible at times, but I love that she dares to NOT soften them or make them lovable. You can make anyone lovable - they trip and fall, they're insulted by someone they love, they wait for the ducklings to come back to their backyard pool (Tony Soprano). We see these things all the time.
I guess I saw many of her depictions as vivid imaginative portraits of how people seem from inside one confused person -- and in that way, they felt soothing to me: This is how we misunderstand each other. When you throw in all the ways that each character misreads another character, I think that heightens the effect.
I feel this portrait of extreme alienation feels reassuring somehow because it shows how easily people miss or lose or misunderstand each other. There are times when you want to tell them "Just talk to each other and tell the whole, awful truth!" The details of how you dislike the people around you are always a dramatized creation that comes from some core emotion. I'm thinking of that scene in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where they list what they hate about each other. The details aren't even important or personal. What's important is admitting that we have extreme reactions to each other that are illogical, and when we can hear the lack of logic and laugh at it, we can grow closer.
The risk of telling the truth includes the risk of exposing your own strange, warped view of the world, which is narrow and so emotional that logic has nothing to do with it.
We're all unpleasant in the extreme at some level. That's what makes us human. Truly terrible people don't accept human flaws in themselves or anyone else, so they push their warped non-reality perfectionism onto others without seeing them clearly, or treat others as transactional helpers or obstacles to their goals.
Okay I'm sure this is obvious and I promise not to dive in with LESSONS every goddamn time!!!
Thanks for reading and for being here!
I like LESSONS :-)
I read the whole book, and I loved even the parts of it that I hated. It made me think that if Virginia Woolf--who was also haunted by the distances between people--had been born into a later age (one with medications, effective therapy, and more books like this one) she might not have walked into a river with rocks in her pockets at age 59. She might have endured--even thrived!--for so much longer, and we might have 20+ more books from her. In other words, BANAL NIGHTMARE landed on me as one of those life preserver-type books. A lot of people--seen raw--are not that likeable. But they are lovable--and I loved Moddie.
I found the impulse to move back to one’s hometown (in the Midwest, even) relatable and scary. Moddie’s desire to fall back in with her friends and her disappointment that they have moved on with their lives and didn’t understand or want to understand hers were real. It’s simple to say that we want to be honest with ourselves and others and actually doing so is so tough. Moddie’s behavior at the parties and get-togethers, her attempts to be real, led to isolation and pain, less connection rather than more. The romantic relationships struck me as superficial and dishonest as well, which I think was alarming to the characters because it was so different from what they expected out of life. I wonder how things worked out between Moddie and Peter. Is sustained connection between partners possible? The book seemed rather pessimistic, as people were not connecting, scared to show their true selves, not liking what they saw inside themselves and others. Can we really list the ways that we hate each other to one another? Would that pose too much of a risk to the tenuous connections, which seems so necessary in this brutal world, or is it the way forward? The other side may be more isolating than ever, but this book drove home how I don’t want to be surrounded by superficial conviviality, not within myself or with those close to me.
** Spoiler alert: there are spoilers in this comment**
I truly loved this book. I did feel it was a personal attack on me specifically!!! but I kind of loved that!!
This summer I had a horrible close friend break up and have been tormented by a group of people/former friends who are all apart of yoouuuuu guessed it-- the art world. I am even a print maker who broke up with another artist after a ten year relationship of trying to compete for each other's attention and support. I think it's the line... "People are not secretly plotting to humiliate and harm me." When you kind of know that some of them in the story actually sort of are?? But that they don't even know truly know that??? I said "Stoppppppppp!" out loud, it hurt me physically. I would think that Butler implanted herself into my life à la Being John Malkovich but I have never lived in a small town. More importantly, one of the themes of the structure I believe is that the entire Nightmare itself is so Banal that it's an experience that lives in all of us all the time.
I mean maybe not entirely, maybe we haven't all been on the outs of a navel gazing self important community like art, maybe we haven't all tried to make people like us who we aren't even sure if we like in order to feel safe, but as a little diorama for the difficulties of, as you have said, being honest, accepting ourselves and finding a place in the world for the parts of us that are, as it turns out less cuddly when exposed to the cold, hard daylight?? It is very successful.
There's so many things I loved about the book it's hard to even talk about it or summarize it into a comment, but you asked for digressions so here goes:
Relating so heavily to a character such as Moddie is uncomfortable but it's also extremely satisfying. Struggling to embrace every facet of your messy annoying little self is a pleasure and a curse. Relating to the less funny, sadder and maybe ickier characters is also very fun. Kimberly, you sucked so much, but I draft emails to all of my friends when they are bothering me in my head all the time-- "She would tell her story, and then she would be undeniably successful, and then everybody would want, most of all, to come to HER party. That's right. MY party." It feels like my entire life has been trying to talk down the Kimberly in me, the Pam in me while supporting the Moddie in me (sometimes!) and I can never get enough of a story that lets me laugh at how sad these competing parts are while helping me kind of root for them too. I spent so long this summer basically telling myself "it's okay if this person doesn't like you, you don't exist to make everyone happy." Like, "it's okay that nobody is coming to your party". How do we become little Kimberlys except by being that parent to that inner child that is like "You have to go to this kid you hate's party because I can't tolerate having a child that is unliked." You know? It made it hard to hate Kimberly, but she was also so insensitive herself, I was like, c'mon Kim.
I loved how Butler is so sincere in not giving anyone too much slack, but I also love how she can't help but drive the knife a little deeper into the men in the story-- I dunno if anyone else noticed that? Am I projecting, lol? Like even when the men are saying what we may be thinking, I was still like, okay buddy check yourself. I can't remember Pam's boyfriend's name now, which is telling, but he was really sacrificed as the humiliation kink for us, the reader, and I didn't feel like there was any shame in that for Butler writing it. Also the character with the highest cruelty to least introspection ratio was David, the visiting artist, I loved spending time in his horrible little mind, he also made me incredibly suspicious about men my age and what the fuck they're thinking, but then, it was like... well that's just David and he sucks. I guess in essence was most comfortable dismissing the men, even when it came to Kimberly who, as previously mentioned, SUCKED.
One piece of Moddie's history that really spoke to me was her experience with adults in school as a kid. I've never really heard anyone else talk about that before. In first grade, my very first experience of school, my teacher fucking hated me for absolutely no reason. It was like baptism by fire of "Adults are fucking crazy and will project all their weird shit onto you" combined with "Why are you teaching children?" she's most definitely dead now, and I fantasize about calling the school to be like "Hey just so you know this woman was unwell and extremely cruel and you are assholes for letting her be around children". This painted a good picture of how Moddie is so sensitive to people telling her who she is, and I was honestly proud of her for putting herself out there anyway in light of everything she's been through.
I think it's interesting that we don't really have a good picture of her parents, that they are a little bit absent, but Butler tries to explain them like they're super attentive? I think this is done maybe so that Moddie is really centered as the person responsible for defending and protecting herself as an adult, and that a big theme of the story is an exploration of all of our defenses and protections, for better or worse.
Moddie needed to be protected from Nick's friends, and from her predatory art school teacher, and then eventually to some degree from her new, weird friends, the same way she needed protection as a kid. The stakes all feel equally as high, which is common for people with trauma, even though they certainly aren't. But being "powerless" (also a theme!) for moments of extreme trauma will make you hyper vigilant to pretty much everyone. Centring Moddie as her own parent figure makes it so the central conflict is Moddie growing up a little bit and filling this role herself, which is rewarding and maybe makes sense of the very, very ending, where she is "rewarded" with a ton of money, which sort of felt a little lack lustre when reading it initially.
I guess the last moment I did want to touch on was her... 5 page monologue about her college art school teacher. This was so brilliant. It was so flawlessly inserted in at maybe the exact perfect time and coming from a cohort of unprotected young, sensitive women, extremely believable. That she summoned this entity (trauma) of protection from this horrible situation, that it was so funny and sad. Again, something that I've seen explored in a couple formats, but building a world as a novel that gives your characters this much space but is written almost so you feel the need to be extremely protective of yourself while reading it, to maybe not trust people too much, even when they're showing you their worst parts, was... divine, honestly.
Thanks so much for the recommendation and thank you Halle Butler for this wonderful novel and I hope everyone gives it a chance!!!
I read Halle Butler's two previous books after two different people recommended them to me, one because the main character hilariously described a temp assignment, and another because the main character was like a female Larry David. So, I was happy to catch up with "Banal Nightmare," and EVERY character could have written to "Ask Polly," and I'll be turning my next comment around obsessively in my head all afternoon so that I act like a distracted airhead at my dental appointment and attempt to pay Trader Joe's with my OMNY card.
Meanwhile, Kimberly is all of us who've thought, "This is gonna put me on the map" and been brought back to earth, with "Her lips went numb. She described her job" as an understated and perfect epitaph.
I have been struggling with my friendships a lot lately. Like, grappling with whether I actually like these people and they like me or if we are just often free at the same times and willing to do activities with one another so we don’t have to go alone; what even IS a friend; am I a terrible friend because I’m fundamentally selfish or is it because I’m deeply cold and overly irritable; am I just repeating the patterns I saw my mother play out in her own friendships, etc. Sometimes I love spending time with these people and I come home feeling like my cup is full, but equally often (probably more, as of late?) I come home thinking “thank God that’s over and I don’t have to do it again for another couple of weeks.”
So listening to this audiobook was…a tricky experience. And reflecting on it, maybe the audiobook was the wrong way to go. Having this novel in my ear as I’m running errands, doing chores, taking walks… it was just like it was a constant history of “there is no such thing as friends, only people who feel they must tolerate you to varying degrees; and everyone is experiencing you as an irritating obligation to the exact same extent that you do them; and it isn’t different for ANYBODY and it will never change.” I made it about halfway, I think, and it got to the point where I was just angrily moping around the house and feeling bleak (even though I did think parts were very funny). I had to stop. But maybe I’ll try to pick it up again, this time as a physical book. I think the problem was that I use audiobooks as company, and this book is terrible company, With a physical book maybe I’ll be better able to engage with it as art. (Also I’m not the world’s best listener and this book has a very large cast of characters to track, so I had a really tough time keeping the various plots and relationships straight. They all just kind of blurred into a single person who hated their partner and couldn’t stand their friends.)
I started with the audiobook and I couldn't hang! I had to actually see the words and read them at my own pace. I also found it easier to keep track of the characters if I saw their names visually, but maybe that's just how my brain works. I think one of the points of the novel is that the characters have a lot in common, like they're all in the same little age/culture bubble. It did make people blur together at times, but perhaps the point is that the illness they suffer from is corporate not individual.
One peak experience I had reading this book was reading Bethany’s diatribe about how Moddie could social engineer the greatest pain for the guy who assaulted her and her former friend now dating him which ended by pivoting to “or you can just think of yourself as a benevolent godmother to their children.” My brain felt so seen and embarrassed with that depraved but shameless diatribe, it was awesome and also kind of scary and controlling but at least Bethany feels honest; the desire to be the cool girl of the small town who can help people isn’t purely superficial and she did have a fascinating mind for it. I think it could have been easy for the author to make that character the worst because she did have some power and esteem but she ended up being one of the least fraught for me.
I loved Moddie, and I also resented how involved and supportive her mom/parents were. I couldn’t help but create a narrative about of course Moddie is so shameless, her mom is still hanging on her every word and her parents have validated her every breath, but it may just be jealousy that she had endlessly gracious rich parents who want to hear her talk every day, or at least welcome it enough to be perhaps overly enmeshed. Idk, her parents seemed “cool” in a way that disgusted me and forces me to reflect on why. And that her dissociated boldness, (which I also love and celebrate and champion and steward pieces of in myself) will only balloon to cartoonish levels with this inheritance. Or maybe money will mostly buy her happiness since she’d be able to pursue her art more thoroughly. Probably both, but she’s definitely going to make at least one gigantic nonsensical purchase and I’d be curious what that would be.