Elsie You're listening to the Beautiful Mess podcast.

Your cozy comfort listen this week, we're sharing our goals for the new year and our process for creating tactile vision boards.

We're getting a little woo woo, as we share our experiences with manifesting and debating a literary hot take.

So should we go back and forth on 2026, goals, or do you want to go like all Emma, all Elsie, what do you think?

Emma Yeah, let's go back and forth.

These are just, like, personal goals, and we're just doing five, yeah.

I'm just putting that out there in case anyone's like, Oh, should I make goals around my family?

Should I make goals around my whatever?

Like, yes, go for it.

We're just sharing one little part of our goals here, basically, yeah, to inspire you and like, have something to talk about next year, when we inevitably succeed or fail, right?

Elsie Like, there we have goals that aren't on this list.

Like I was like, I want to finish my laser hair removal, but I didn't put it on here because it's not exciting to talk about or hear.

But I have goals like that too, where I was like, this is on the list, but they don't want to hear about this.

Yeah.

So, yeah, exactly.

Cool.

Emma Cool, cool.

Okay, well, my first one is I'm going to query the wedding photographer.

So this one's like coming up, because I'll be doing this in January, hopefully, hopefully mid January.

So I've, I've polished her.

She's done.

I've written my letter.

I had that proofed.

I'm ready to go.

I've made my list of agents.

I'm pretty much ready to hit the ground running on this goal.

I have no idea how it's gonna go, but I am optimistic and hopeful, and I am telling the universe that what I want for my birthday, which is January 21 is an agent, yeah?

So we'll see how it goes.

Yeah.

No, I am so excited for you, and I'm manifesting that you're going to have an agent and be selling your book in 2026 Yeah, I actually don't care if I get it, like, by my birthday.

I'm just saying, like, that's the, you know, yeah, what I want, kind of thing to the universe.

Anyway you get it, because agents do take a while to read, by the way, and that's very normal and fine.

So anyway, unless they don't like it, unless they don't like and go in the real class.

Yeah, this sucks.

Must have luck to you.

Okay, my first goal is the same, exactly.

I am going to query my novel the surrealist and I am hoping to get a fiction agent, and I'm hoping to sell the book to a publisher in 2026 that would be best case scenario.

And, hell yeah, that's all I have to say.

Two thumbs up.

Yeah.

It'd be cool if it happens like around the same time.

It's kind of like being pregnant at the same time.

Wouldn't it be cool?

Elsie Yeah, yeah.

And we never had that experience.

So I would love it in my perfect world, I would love it if it happened for you first, because I feel like you started writing first, and you've been on this journey for longer, and I think that would be better.

But also, if it happens for both of us this year, we can really sell.

We should just really celebrate, yeah, really, really, really celebrate.

Emma It's gonna happen for both of us this year, but I'm gonna get a bigger book deal.

Just kidding.

That's fine.

That's fine.

I keep trying to piss you off, and you're just like, Yeah, okay, I accept that thing you said.

I'm like, it's not fun.

Elsie Sometimes my sense of humor is turned down real low.

Okay, all right, that's fine.

Okay, what's your goal, number two?

Emma Second goal is, I'm going to write my first draft, and it'll probably get polished too.

Of my next contemporary romance, which I'm currently calling Sundays are for lovers ice cream sundae.

Ice cream Sunday.

It's Sunday like ice cream sundae, and it's about, it's kind of a rivals to lovers contemporary romance.

It's set in Springfield, Missouri, so we have Andy's frozen custard in our hometown.

This is a real, yeah, oh, it's real.

This is a real friend who follows Chapel Road knows about Andy's.

It's Andy's custard, which I'm a huge fan of.

And we also have in our hometown pineapple whip, which is kind of like a pop up seasonal type thing.

It's really cute.

And I sort of know the owner.

This is a very, very fictionalized version of those two companies with characters that are not based on anyone that I know at all.

And so it's kind of like the son of the custard Empire and the daughter of the other ice cream.

Elsie Let me say one sentence, pitch Romeo and Juliet but with ice cream.

Emma It's for fans of forbidden love and ice cream, I love it.

I instantly loved it the first time I heard it, and I love it just as much today.

And, yeah, recently, she went through the whole plot with me, and it's, it's great.

I do think it's like, you have found the perfect genre for yourself, where you can just keep doing lots of books that are completely different but also very much aligned.

Yeah, this one's got, this one's, I think, got, like, a little bit more heart in it, because it's a lot about the families, yeah, because it's a lot about how the families don't like each other, and there's a lot about legacy in the book and, like, how that's both a burden and something that we want to carry and that brings meaning to our lives.

So anyway, and obviously, it's also a.

Out falling in love, and it will have sex scenes and all of those things too.

Yes.

So and ice cream.

Definitely.

There'll be ice cream in the book.

So anyway, yeah, that's it.

What's your second one?

Elsie My second one is to complete my second novel project, lighthouse.

So I'm just going to finish that manuscript.

And I'm really excited.

I had a little bit of a slower process of bonding with it, but I think it's because I was, like, always still working on my other book.

You had another boyfriend, so yeah.

So I am excited as soon as I sort of, like, the end on my first book, which should be soon, then I am going to really, like, put myself into the second one and do all the rituals.

Like, I really like the rituals of making a new playlist.

I already made a mood board, you know, just like the tactile like that.

Make a journal, just for this novel, for like, research and stuff.

Like, I just, I really like that, the ritual stuff, and that helps me.

So, yeah, I'm hoping that I can really bond with it, and then I'm really excited to see where it goes.

Because it's, like, in my mind, it's, I would say kind of half formed right now.

Emma Nice.

That'd be fun.

Yes, I like the title too.

They think it that'll be the title or, no, like, it's a placeholder.

Elsie Yeah, that's a placeholder.

I just didn't want to say the title, because it's, like, really specific, and I just didn't want to explain it, yeah, yeah, no, it's cool.

It's got a lighthouse in it, though.

Emma Cool.

I love it.

Okay, my third goal is I'm going to write another first draft, so last year.

Whoa, yeah, last year.

Whoa, I was like, my goal was to write half of my novel, and I blew that out of the water.

So I was like, I'm gonna write two this year.

I'm gonna write two novels this year.

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do.

I probably won't get this one polished by the end of the year, in part because that takes, like, other people, you have to involve other people's timelines, as far as when they continue your edits and things so anyway, but yeah, this one, the one I'm wanting to write, I keep having ideas for it.

I was telling you in the car the other day, so I keep coming up with ideas for this one.

And it was kind of just like on my list of a contemporary romance that I would probably write someday.

But to be honest, I wasn't really necessarily, for sure gonna write it.

It was just an idea I had.

But lately I keep coming up with ideas for it and scenes for it, or little pieces of dialog for it.

And then, like, what the other day I was at my body pump class, which is a group fitness class at my gym, and I had a really good in my mind, a really good idea for basically, the dialog before the first sex scene.

And so in between the songs, when people are changing their weights on the bar, I was like, frantically typing into my phone this, like, very weird dialog before a sex scene, and then, and then putting my weights on and starting my because I was I just had it.

So anyway, I don't know what the title of this book is.

I like, I'm kind of calling it icon, in my mind, that will most certainly not be the title.

There are other books called icon, but it's basically about a woman who the book will probably open at her 70th birthday.

And it's kind of a mixture of Martha Stewart, Oprah Winfrey, like big, iconic women who have done a lot with their careers, and they're also like kind of personalities, but not necessarily an actress, more like lifestyle or talk show, or I'll probably give her a backstory, where she started out on some kind of show, like the Bachelor or Bachelorette, and that's how she launched her career initially.

So it's at her 70th birthday party.

In my mind, when I write it, I'm picturing Meryl Streep, just so, you know, it's not Meryl Streep, but I just like to picture someone when I'm coming up with ideas.

Elsie I think it helps to pick, like, sort of like, cast the novel as a movie, just for, like, your own visualization.

I love that.

Yeah.

Emma So we're at her 70th birthday, and that's sort of how we start.

We learn a lot about her and see big swaths of her past and how she's gotten to where she is, hell yeah.

But the love story is, she's going to fall for an older man, but he's about 10 years younger than her, so he's only like 60, and he is a former NFL athlete who became a commentator, and then he's kind of had his own career of being on talk shows and different things like that since.

And in my mind, it's a little bit like Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg, but not It's not them at all.

It's it's a mashup of all sorts.

And Snoop Dogg isn't a former athlete.

I'm a little bit but it's just like people who you would not necessarily expect to have great chemistry, but then they do.

And so it's kind of like that.

And I think the book will also part of my I always give myself little writing goals with every book I write, and this one part of the goal was, I was like, I would love to write a love story of older people, people who are older.

So again, this woman's 70, and I want to do love making scenes, and I want them to be hot.

And that's like part of the goal for me, because I feel like a lot of times, just to be really honest, we don't do that in our culture.

We make a lot of you know, sexy people are young.

They're in their 20s, and.

30s, maybe their early 40s, if they really try, and it's like, you know what?

You're really sexy at every age.

And I would like to explore that, and I would like to, like, bring that to the page.

So that's part of my goal with it.

Is I want, when I finish this book and people read it, I want them to read the sex scenes and be like, Whoa.

That was hot.

Elsie Yeah, I love it.

I love it so much.

I'm so glad you're gonna do that's it, yep.

Well, you know who your alpha reader will be.

Emma Yeah.

Like, what did you think of this?

Elsie My next goal is I am going to launch, actually, this episode is for December 29 so that means that this week this is happening, because I'm launching this for the first week of January my weekly newsletter.

So I decided I am doing a weekly newsletter.

It's very inspired by our friend Elise Cripe, who made this amazing newsletter this past year.

She she gave me a visual of what a newsletter can be.

Yeah, because I like, I don't want to, like, yuck, anyone's Yum, but I had been like, trying to figure out for a couple years what I could do, as far as, like, a sub stack or something like that.

And I was just seeing a lot of stuff that didn't make me feel compelled to do it myself.

And when I saw her newsletter, I was like, Okay, this is, like, highly visual.

It's goal oriented.

It is, like, it has a lot of lifestyle content, like, it feels like, a little bit like an old fashioned blog where we, you know, where really, like, a lot of my skills are still from that era, and I don't get to use them as much like on social media at this current moment, it is mostly videos, which is a completely different skill set, and I enjoy it, but like, I miss taking photos and writing long form content.

So, yeah, my newsletter is launching.

You can go to Elsielarson.com to sign up.

It is called the Lost Arts.

Emma Ooh, good name.

Thank you.

Yeah, because Elise's Scattering Seeds, yes.

And then she also has Postcards from the Art House.

Elsie So Scattering Seeds is the name of the newsletter.

And then Postcards from the Art House is like a segment she does.

Okay, so if you want to see, in my opinion, the world's greatest newsletter that Elise has been doing, go to elisejoy.com sign up for her newsletter.

She has a free and a paid version.

In my opinion, the paid version is so, so, so worth it, but the free version is also wonderful, great.

The free version is still better than any other newsletter I'm subscribed to, yeah, so I just love it, and I'm so excited to take this journey.

She talked us into it when we were in Italy, Florence, yeah, she like, really got mathy with me, and she was like, do it.

And I appreciate that, because I just, I had no plan, and then by the time I was like, landed back in Missouri, I had in my journal, like a full plan, and I've been working on it ever since.

And I think it is going to be a game changer for me creatively.

So it's going to be a newsletter that is very focused on creative ideas and not just writing, not just painting, but I will share my stories from those experiences, because it's like my whole life right now.

I love it.

Thank you.

What's your next one?

Emma My next one is, I have a goal to do a quarterly visual art project.

So this isn't something I necessarily plan to put anywhere.

It's not a secret, some examples.

So I'm definitely going to do some collage.

I want to do oil pastels.

I want to do acrylic painting.

I'll probably do a couple collages, honestly, and it's quarterly, so that's only four in the whole year.

For me, it's just like, part of it is just having the time and space I have to, like, plan to, like, get all my supplies out, yep, because I'm in the era where my older son can kind of get into my things, and it's okay, but if my younger son gets into them, it's a big problem.

He eats it.

It's everywhere.

It's it's not good.

So I really can't leave anything out.

And I do have a little office room, and I do shut the door, but our youngest has learned how to open doors, and so it's just sort of like a thing where I'm like, okay, part of the goal is just to give myself the space to be creative for a couple nights, and find a way to not get my paints gotten into or whatever, not let my kid eat my oil pastels.

So it's that.

And then I also was thinking that I would probably I'm kind of thinking I'm gonna just like copy, but in my own kind of style or whatever, some masterpieces that I like fun, like some seasons or things like that, because I don't necessarily like I don't plan to do anything with it.

I just want to make some things.

And I love visual art, but it's not really a big part of my life right now, and so I just wanted to have a little goal around it, because I really enjoy using this stuff.

And.

I don't really want to hoard it in my house without using it.

That makes me sad, because I actually really like it anyway.

So here you go.

Love it.

That's a great goal.

Okay, my next goal for the year is to become active on social media, but I want to have a professional relationship with it.

So starting in about 2020 and I think this was good at the time, I started a habit of taking really long breaks off of my social media.

And I think I was off of Tiktok for actually, like, two years.

And then with Instagram, I will most years, I will be on it for a few months, and then I will be off it for a few months and on and off and on and off, which I think that was serving me in that era, because I, like, you know, it's good to take breaks from it, and we hadn't had that chance before that, when we were being influencers professionally, we had to be on there every day.

And, you know, we were on Instagram since it was invented, so it was great to have a little break, but the past year I've been kind of planning that I want to kind of redirect my social media to have more of a purpose.

And so since I'm starting the newsletter, I'm also going to make my social media more about creative stuff.

So I did spend the last few months sort of, like, wrapping up my home renovation stuff.

So I'm not going to be, like, mainly talking about my home anymore.

I'm going to try to make it more about, you know, the creative stuff.

And I'm excited about that and then, so, yeah, I have a goal for the year, but it's pretty much just to, like, have a consistent routine.

Yep, I like it.

Okay, my last one is, I'm going, so what I'm what I wrote down is I'm gonna cook my way through a cookbook.

Ooh, but I don't actually mean that.

So the cookbook that I'm planning to use is called recipe 10 eats dinner.

She's a big food blogger.

She's really cool.

You've probably seen her around, and I love this cookbook of hers, and I bought it a couple years ago, I want to say, I think, or at least over a year ago, and I have all these post its in it, and I've only cooked like, one or two things from it for really no reason.

I kind of just get into dinner ruts where I'm like, frantically trying to buy my groceries and plan for the week, and then I'm like, Oh, we're eating the same things that we always eat, because I just know how to make those, and we like them, and, you know, and that's great, and I'll still do that some.

Part of the goal with this is I just want to have some, get some new dinners in the routine.

And I also don't cook as much for my job anymore, and I just like cooking.

And I like learning new things.

I like seeing how other people make things hair.

Recipes aren't necessarily like way out there.

I think they're actually very accessible.

But still, I'll probably come across some ingredients that I don't normally buy, and I like that, that that for me, is fun.

Some people really don't want that, and I do want a little bit of that in my life.

So I'll probably cook more.

My goal is more like 50 recipes.

This cookbook actually has 150 recipes in it.

So I won't be cooking all my way through this cookbook in one year.

I just don't have that much in my life.

But I'm just going to pick 50 of the dinners that look like something that my husband and I would want to eat, and because we tend to also eat kind of low fat.

So I won't be making a lot of stuff with pork.

I'll probably replace it with like turkey or whatever.

So anyway, so that's sort of the goal.

And I just love cooking, and I want to make a little goal around it.

I'd had a different type of goal this past year with cooking, and I do think it kind of helped me so good this year.

I'm like, All right, I'm gonna this cookbook looks so good and I haven't used it much, I'm just gonna make it a goal to cook 50 recipes out of here, because there's so many good ones in there.

Elsie There you go.

So fun.

So a lot of my the rest of my goals are, like, really small.

Like, I want to work on my routines this year.

So I want to kind of have a photography era for Christmas.

I got a couple of new cameras, like, kind of, like, the small, little, cute, novelty type of cameras, and that is something I'm excited to do more with.

I want to get my nails done.

That's one of my, like, I think, my personal goal for the years that I want to, like, keep my nails done.

And that would be like a lot for me.

I'm usually, like, very on and off with it.

And then, yeah, just, like, going on walks, things like that.

And then as far as, like, my reading goal, do you do a reading goal, or do you just always reading, yeah, I mean, you don't need a reading goal, like, I just do it because I have the Goodreads account.

You don't have to do it.

But I've done 52 every year.

And the first several years, I only started reading in like 2021, fiction.

So it wasn't that long ago.

The first several years, I exceeded my goal, and then this past year, I did not make my goal, and I was, like, kind of upset by it a little bit, but I also just had a very different lifestyle this past year, so I think that makes a big difference.

So anyway, I'm gonna just do the 52 again, and this year, my focus for reading is I did make a.

List of like books I want to get to.

So it's about like half the books for the year are books I want to intentionally read.

So I think I'm going to go between the list, which is like a combination of it's, I would say it's mostly books that I feel like could benefit my creative brain, like they're not like, necessarily, like Guilty Pleasures or any but there are a couple of Guilty Pleasures on there.

And then I think I can kind of transition between like, you know, if a, if a new celebrity memoir comes out, or if everyone's talking about, you know, an Emily Henry book or something.

I can go back and forth between like and add some stuff in that is just like feels like.

It just adds like happiness, yeah, to the routine.

Because this year, I did do better last year, but I had, at first it was really bad that I wouldn't DNF anything, and like ever.

And last year I did.

And I'm glad I'm, like, able to do that now, but I still have a hard time with it.

Like, if I'm more than halfway through, even if I'm not enjoying it, I feel like I just have to finish it.

And I know that has something to do with the the good reads like it.

Because why would I be like that?

You know what I mean?

Emma Yeah, I never finished books.

I don't like.

I just stop whenever.

I'll stop in the beginning, I'll stop in the middle.

I'll stop 10 pages before the end.

If I'm, like, done, I am on Goodreads, but I forget about it.

I'm just not good at I've never been good at social media generally, yeah, I just am not a I'm just so insular.

Yeah, on my own, I love delete my Goodreads.

Maybe, maybe I don't need it.

I don't know.

I've always read reviews on there.

Yeah, I think it's a great community.

I'm just bad at keeping up with things, yeah, but I do love reading all the way.

So, okay, do you ever feel like you power through, though, and it was worth it?

Has that ever happened or no, no.

Elsie Only for classic books, like, Little Women got a little bit, like, there was a lot of, like, religious scenes more than I thought there was going to be.

I expected it to be, like the movie, there was a lot more, like, you know, like, scenes that were not as, like, entertaining to me, but I'm so I am so glad that I powered through it.

And, like the it's a little more of a high low, you know what I mean.

So maybe, like, once in a while, books like that.

Yeah, classics are kind of worth it, yeah, which brings us to our hot take of the week.

It does.

This is a great one, Emma and I actually naturally fall a little bit differently on this opinion, so it's a good one for us.

So this one is from rose, and it says, Elsie, you inspired me to read The Secret History this fall, and when I finished it a few weeks ago, I thought, What did I just read?

I won't say I hated it, but my hill to die on is that it does not deserve a cult like following.

Emma Okay, wow.

All right.

Also gonna put it out there.

If you haven't read the secret history, this is gonna have spoilers.

There's really no way to talk about it with the hot takes, yeah, without.

So if you were wanting to read it and you don't want spoilers, don't listen to this.

Read it.

Don't listen.

You want to read it, you should read it.

You definitely should.

Elsie Yeah, I'm on Team.

It does deserve a cult like following.

I can't be on any other team.

It's one of my favorite books.

I think it 1,000% deserves a cult like following.

Do you think you can do the opposing position?

Yeah, I can roast it, but I did like it, but I can roast it, sure.

Okay, Emma read it this year too.

Emma I did because Elsie told me to, and I was like, all right, and I feel like I understand you more after reading it.

Yeah, good, yeah, I do, because it's extremely atmospheric, which is a thing that you always kind of like a book's very atmospheric.

I think that's like your vibes.

And I like that.

I notice it, but it does not do it for me.

We've got to have some really good plot.

And I think this book, for me, it is like a plus atmosphere, a plus characters, nuanced dialog, a plus plot, what's happening.

Elsie It goes up and down though, it goes up and down though I am not dependent that it does have certain sections of high intensity.

Emma Oh yeah, there are parts of the book that are very commercial, and then there's so many parts where you're like, you just gave me like, 20 pages about basically a college boy getting hypothermia.

Nothing happened, and it's like, and it was good, great.

Writing saved him, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, okay, okay, so say some of your points.

Elsie Okay, my main point is that cult classics are never for everyone.

That's why they're a cult classic.

Think about David Lynch like, he's the cult classic, in my opinion, the king of cult of all cult classic culture.

And if you talk about Twin Peaks in any room that you are in for the rest of your life, you will have people who disagree that it's a good show.

And you will have people who like, love it, who like my husband, I watch it like, I don't know, like once every.

Five years like, and that's how his whole library is, like everything he ever did, except for his dune movie, he is like so proud of, and it is like this perfectly coherent, cohesive body of work, which I haven't read the other two Donna Tartt books, so I can't talk about her body of work, from what I've heard, it seems pretty consistent as well.

So I think that the secret history is it's one of the books that makes me want to be a writer.

It's one of the books that gives me something to strive for and admire.

And I do think that it's like an indie movie and not a blockbuster movie, you know, but like, who gives it?

Like, that's there's a certain group of people who are just going to love that.

So I don't know, I found it amazing, but I do think that, like, my taste in books is kind of like, I do get a lot of messages where people say they hated books that I loved.

So I accept that.

And I think that's just always going to be the thing with cult classics.

So I think if you want to read it, and you don't end up 100% on the team, you still got to experience something that's like, I mean, it's a modern classic.

I think that Donna Tartt is, in my opinion, one of the coolest humans on the planet right now?

Yeah, Donna Tartt can write.

If the hot take was Donna tart can't write, we'd both be like, Nah, that's just not true.

But I think the secret history, I mean, you can correct me if I'm wrong.

I don't, I don't.

I think her other book might be her most famous book, technically, but I think the secret history is her most iconic book.

Emma I think the Pulitzer, I want to say, but I'm not really sure.

One of the big awards, yeah, it won.

So it's, I think, more famous.

It also has a movie.

So this one doesn't have a movie yet.

Maybe it will.

Elsie Who knows?

Yeah, I have.

I've read about this, and it has been optioned three times.

People think it's cursed, that it like it should have been a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow in the Philip Seymour Hoffman era, yeah.

And now the time has passed, and it will have to, I mean, obviously it will have to be a new cast of characters now, but like, it might have been like, like, what The Talented Mr.

Ripley movie was is maybe what this movie should have been at that same time.

Yeah, which I love that movie as well.

Anyway, I can't say anything about I will defend this to the death.

It is a hill to die on.

For me, I think I would win.

I guess for me, it's like, find a book that you want to like live in more than this.

Like this is like the kind of that makes people love Harry Potter is, like, I want to go into that world.

Yes, it is, yes, in my opinion, okay.

Like, I want to go into that world.

I want to like, dress like them.

I want to eat what they I want to like, you know, go to their stupid parties.

Like, I want to know all their little like, you know, well, be in their class.

Like, go in Jullian's office.

I don't know.

Emma I think the thing, though, and no one's comparing this to Harry Potter, because there was no reason to, though, it doesn't even make sense you did, but I just mean, like you're not really trying to defend that to the team, but Harry Potter is about heroes.

It is about, you know, young heroes who are growing up and they're going to defeat evil.

You know, at its core, I mean, it's like vibey world.

Yes, it's a vibey world, but this is about anti heroes.

This is about bad people doing bad things.

So if you don't like to read that, and I don't even think it's that, so I would put myself in this camp, and it's not because I had the same problem with succession, the TV show, where that show is amazing.

Everyone knows it.

There's really no Yeah, hot take on it.

Did I enjoy watching it?

I really had to power through at times because I didn't like anyone.

Okay, maybe it's just a matter of, hey, some of them have arcs where they kind of redeem themselves at times or do some kindness to someone at a time.

But it's really not about heroes.

It's about just very morally gray, slash bad.

Like, why do you need heroes all the time?

Like, I could live in succession, like I could watch I could rewatch it, because I like hope and I like optimism.

Yeah, I don't really like pessimism that much.

I don't live in it very often.

I do think it's interesting.

I do think it exists.

I'm not naive.

I'm 40.

But like, you know, do I like watching bad people win?

Not really.

I feel like I can watch the news and get that, you know.

So I'm kind of like, not for it, in a way.

It's not my entertainment, you know.

So I feel like that's like, got a piece of it.

We have to know that going in secret history doesn't have a hero, yeah, but it does have very interesting characters who have arcs and have human qualities, where you will understand them as a person.

And I like that.

And it definitely has atmosphere, and that's fun.

It has the best opening line, like Todd is the opening line.

So the opening line is the snow in the mountains was melted.

And Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

But that's just the PROLOG opening line.

I want to get like the real opening line, okay, chapter one does such thing as, quote, The fatal flaw, that showy, dark crack running down the middle of a life exist outside of literature like it's so cool, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, I went to college and talked about literature.

I get it.

It's a fun time, like, I like it.

But, and here's the spoilers, the plot is basically nothing happens.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happens.

There's a murder, they're trying to cover it up.

There's another murder, there's a suicide.

That's the book.

And you know, I think you could hand that overarching plot to a bunch of different authors and get so many different takes.

And this is Donna tarts, who's a very literary, rich writer.

And the book is very literary and rich.

The plot, for me is kind of a zero, like it's just very true crime.

So when I finished it, I was like, what you think about the suicide?

Because that's how it ends, and Elsie goes, what I was, are you about that?

Because it doesn't really matter.

Because, like, it's not about what happens in this book.

It's about that's true.

You know, the atmosphere and the characters and those parts are very good, but the book doesn't go anywhere, and it also goes everywhere, like and it just sort of to me, kind of disjointed in that way.

Elsie Okay, well, I will just say I've read so many books in my life that I felt kind of disappointed by that didn't have the greatest lines of all time.

So I still think she deserves her flowers.

I will die on that hill.

But I also do understand that cult classics are not for everyone, and I think that that's fair.

And I think that's also like, why it's like, what's cool about being in a cult it's like, you feel like you get something that other people don't get.

And it's like this little, you know, like, whatever, like, that's what makes the David Lynch culture so special.

I think, you know, and like you connect with other people who like it, and then most people don't, you know, because that makes sense too.

So yeah, I can go both sides with it, but I will.

Emma Yeah, and all of us outside of the cult are like, what are you doing?

You know, no, but I do.

I do actually really like Secret History.

Elsie All right, so thank you for the hot take, Rose, and I'm not mad at you, and I'm glad that you read one of my favorite books.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I think that that's, like, part of the beauty of reading.

I can't think of one where I felt this way, where it's like, so famous, and I didn't really enjoy it.

But I know that that happens sometimes, and, like, I think that happens to all readers sometimes, right?

Emma Oh yeah.

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