Originally recorded: 07/19/2022
Length: 00:44:04
Reba can’t make it so Kobi steps in to help Ape co-host this edition of Books with Bitches and Bourbon. We are still feeling our way through this new addition and we have a few months of previously read books to catch up on, but it’ll come together.
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark
Author: Julie Clark
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2022
Pages: 320
Selected: Marie
BBB Stars: 4
Description (Goodreads)
From the author of the New York Times bestseller The Last Flight comes a twisted con-woman thriller about two women out for revenge―or is it justice?
Two women. Many aliases.
Meg Williams. Maggie Littleton. Melody Wilde. Different names for the same person, depending on the town, depending on the job. She’s a con artist who erases herself to become whoever you need her to be―a college student. A life coach. A real estate agent. Nothing about her is real. She slides alongside you and tells you exactly what you need to hear, and by the time she’s done, you’ve likely lost everything.
Kat Roberts has been waiting ten years for the woman who upended her life to return. And now that she has, Kat is determined to be the one to expose her. But as the two women grow closer, Kat’s long-held assumptions begin to crumble, leaving Kat to wonder who Meg’s true target is.
The Lies I Tell is a twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches and motivations of two women and their unwavering quest to seek justice for the past and rewrite the future.
Books with Bitches and Bourbon Review
“The difference between justice and revenge comes down to who’s telling the story.”
BBB liked this one. We agreed that it was a little slow in the getting there, but once it got moving, it was a fun ride.
The discussion centered on two main points: Meg or Kat and the ending.
I am going to try and be super careful about spoilers – especially for a book so recently released. So, I’ll just leave you with a few points
- If the teaser seems like your kind of read, go ahead and pick it up. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
- The “twisted domestic thriller that dives deep into the psyches” is a bit overstated.
- We would love to hear if you were #TeamKat or #TeamMeg
- While the ending was satisfying, BBB concluded that, had we been consulted, we would have made some changes.
Links for this episode
The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark
Seven Days in June by Tia Williams
The Stopover by T.L. Swann Clark
BookRiot Book Club Question List
Walk Away Joe by Trisha Yearwood
GoodReads Books with Bitches & Bourbon group
Catching up on past reads
The Butterfly Effect
Author: Rachel Mans McKenny
Genre: Fiction
Published: 2020
Pages: 336
Selected: April
BBB Stars: 2
Description (Goodreads)
A feminist Man Called Ove meets Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project in this rollicking tale of a grumpy introvert, her astonishing lack of social conduct and empirical data-driven approach to people and relationships.
Is there such a thing as an anti-social butterfly? If there were, Greta Oto would know about it—and totally relate. Greta far prefers the company of bugs to humans, and that’s okay, because people don’t seem to like her all that much anyway, with the exception of her twin brother, Danny, though they’ve recently had a falling out. So when she lands a research gig in the rainforest, she leaves it all behind.
But when Greta learns that Danny has suffered an aneurysm and is now hospitalized, she abandons her research and hurries home to the middle of nowhere America to be there for her brother. But there’s only so much she can do, and unfortunately, just like insects, humans don’t stay cooped up in their hives either–they buzz about and… socialize. Coming home means confronting all that she left behind, including her lousy soon-to-be sister-in-law, her estranged mother, and her ex-boyfriend Brandon who has conveniently found a new non-lab-exclusive partner with shiny hair, perfect teeth, and can actually remember the names of the people she meets right away. Being that Brandon runs the only butterfly conservatory in town, and her dissertation is now in jeopardy, taking that job and being back home, it’s all creating chaos in Greta’s perfectly cataloged and compartmentalized world.
The Butterfly Effect is an honest tale of self-discovery about the behavior of bugs (and people), how they can be altered by high-pressure climates, confused by breakdowns in communication, and most importantly, how they can rehabilitate themselves and each other.
Books with Bitches and Bourbon Review
In short, we didn’t like it. The only likable/connectable characters were the friends of Greta, Danny, and Meg. Greta’s character barely evolves out of the angry, bitter, unfriendly pessimist at the end when a hint of a relationship between herself and a man she doesn’t deserve begins to blossom.
In fact, the novel failed to inspire book club attendance. There wasn’t even an actual meeting as Reba and I were the only two who showed up. However, the upside was that we took that opportunity to make real progress on launching the Bitches & Bourbon podcast. So, in all, it was a win.
To be fair, there are a lot of people who aren’t us that liked it. Some of the praise we found centered on personal relatability, which none of us had. Others enjoyed the intersection of science and love story (which we agreed was the most interesting dynamic of the book).
However, we all agree that writing a novel and getting it published is tough work, and we commend McKenny for her success.
Greenlights
Author: Matthew McConaughey
Genre: Memoir
Published: 2020
Pages: 308
Selected: April
BBB Stars: 5
Description (from Goodreads)
From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction
I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.
Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”
So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.
Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.
It’s a love letter. To life.
It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.
Good luck.
Books with Bitches and Bourbon Review
This was an almost unanimous love. While the compliments on this one flowed, we did have one who hated it so much that she didn’t finish it for fear she would cease to be a Matthew McConaughey fan. It should be noted that she read the book while most the rest listened to the audio. This led to a pretty in-depth conversation about the effect audio has on the telling of the story. Because this is a memoir and McConaughey has, in our opinion, a great storytelling voice, we think audio is the way to go.
I myself suggest spending the extra money and getting them both.
Fun fact for us GenXers: McConaughey IS Walkaway Joe. Who knew?
The Stopover
Author: T.L. Swan
Genre: Fiction/Romance
Published: 2019
Pages: 521
Selected: Kobi
BBB Stars: 4
Description (from Goodreads)
A memorable night of passion refuses to stay just a memory in this sizzling and scandalous romance from bestselling author T L Swan.
I was upgraded to first class on a flight from London to New York.
The food, champagne, and service were impeccable.
The blue-eyed man sitting next to me, even better.
He was suave and intelligent.
We talked and laughed, and something clicked.
Fate took over and the plane was grounded, and we had an unexpected stopover for the night.
With no plans, we made our own.
We danced and laughed our way around Boston and had a night of crazy passion that no woman would ever forget.
That was twelve months ago, and I haven’t heard from him—until today.
I started a new job and met the CEO. You can imagine my surprise to see those naughty blue eyes dance with delight when he saw me across the mahogany desk.
But I’m not that carefree girl anymore. My life has changed, I have responsibilities.
I just got an email.
He wants to see me in his office for a private meeting at 8:00 a.m.
Naughty blue eyes have no place in the workplace.
What kind of private meeting does he have in mind?
Listen to the specific part
Ape welcomes guest host, Melissa Kobi! (You may remember her from the Glenmorangie A Tale of Winter episode)
Little Books with Bitches & Bourbon history and The Butterfly Effect by Rachel Mans McKenny
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey, and his involvement with Wild Turkey inspires our first BBB pairing with Longbranch Bourbon
Episode Transcript:
Meet your hosts:
April
Host
