Ep 58 “Unmasking The Monsters” in This Monster of Mine | Deep Dive Book Review & Summary

Liz and Ashley are locked and loaded and ready to talk about everything This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara. Today’s episode is the spoiler-y follow up to our spoiler FREE author interview that dropped last month for Shalini’s big romantasy debut!

Watch our Author Interview with Shalini Abeysekara here | https://youtu.be/dMoOSLW1vTE?si=5iTgTD7AOw5robs5

We discuss the reasons this book is so unique, and unlike any other romantasy we’ve read… because it’s a full-blown murder mystery with an Ancient Rome inspired setting! We also give you a mini summary of the book, our official star and spice ratings, drop some favorite quotes, and discuss our favorite and least favorite plot points and characters.

And, don’t worry! We’ve got a Disney / classic children’s movie fave and fail and a smash or pass ranking of Prince Charmings and other more furry creatures.

Don't be shy, subscribe! New Podcasts every Tuesday!! (And sometimes Friday!…)

Check out This Monster of Mine, available now on Kindle and Amazon! | https://amzn.to/4jHpNZY

Want MORE author interviews? ⬇️
We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

Check the official Author Interview with Lindsay Straube of Split or Swallow! Now a Barnes & Noble & Amazon best seller titled: Kiss of the Basilisk!  https://youtu.be/fknhocSNIKM

Watch our Author Interview with Indie Dark Romance Author Ember Nicole here | https://youtu.be/tHV9rXSTBpY?si=OwxdMVfPmtFkcYu6

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Chapters

• 0:00 Spoiler Free Intro
• 3:45 Favs and Fails of the Week
• 18:16 This Monster of Mine Book Reviews
• 23:06 This Monster of Mine Book Summary
• 29:08 Tropes, Characters, and Parts Favorite and Least Favorites
• 46:48 Notable Quotes
• 53:45 Unhinged Smash or Pass

Transcript

0:00

[Music] welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast guys i'm Liz and I'm Ashley and today we are bringing to you this monster of mine deep dive episode in case you missed it we actually just recently interviewed the author of this book Shelini Abacasara and we went over all kinds of things regarding what this book is about what inspired her to write it so that's our spoilerfree episode so if you're seeing the title you're hearing this book name and you're like "Hang on I don't want spoilers." Well you're in luck if you want a taste of what this book is all about check out that episode we'll have it linked down in the description box wherever you're listening to this but of course as always like the first 15 minutes are going to be spoiler-free so you're safe for now but you want to save this to your playlist read the book go pick up your copy and come back to us after the interview and after you've read the book and everything like that yeah people you know it's like the more that we do these author interviews and I talk to our listeners you know in DMs about when they choose to listen to it everyone's so different like some people like love listening to the interview right out of the gate and then going and reading the book and then listening to our more conversational analysis like today's episode um other people don't want to know anything so they like literally won't listen to anything until they've already read the book and then they go and read everything or and watch everything so it's just kind of fun like yeah people have their different methods um at this point the book is out on Kindle and paperback and it sounds like you can get like a special bundle too um at some indie bookstores with like fan art and stuff Shellini was saying so that's awesome i'm like how do I get my hands on that actually I'm like that's what I want um but yeah as Ashley was saying you know we're going to do our deep dive format today so for anyone maybe who's new here and doesn't know that means the first 15 minutes will be spoiler-free cuz we do a little bit of chitchat faves and fails of the week to get started and then we'll give our spoilerfree basic star and spice rating for this monster of mine we'll give you a warning before we actually start getting into the plot portion and the spoilers um we'll talk about like favorite tropes favorite characters least favorite characters etc uh um but before we get into all that we just wanted to say thank you for being here thank you guys so much for being here whether it's your first time tuning on into us or you've been a devote listener that's probably not a word but we're going to go with it thank you so much for taking your time out of your day and your book to listen on in you can make sure to follow us over on Instagram and Tik Tok at Bessies in the Books podcast as well as everywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcasts including YouTube so that author interview is a live virtual if you will interview where we're all there video chatting and hanging out so definitely check that out make sure you're subscribed and come hang out we love to have you guys yeah it's like you know one of our favorite things to do I think is interview authors and because of you guys like it's just opening so many fun doors right now so thank you so much it's really cool and we have some exciting things coming down the pipeline for you it's so cool i was just talking to Liz about this after finishing up our interview that like we've had now all different types of author processes on our author interviews all different types of ways of go about their publishing method or staying indie what have you and it's just so cool to see how these books can end up in our hands through so many different ways it's just it's just really cool to get that background behind the scenes kind of insight yeah I love it it's really cool yeah um okay so should we just kick this off with our faves and fails of the week we haven't done one in a while let's do it let's go how's your week been Liz what's your favorite thing about this last week so mine mine is ironically like Okay so this is a quote unquote fave and fail of the week but this might be technically I don't remember when I saw it okay i don't remember when I watch movies but we're not going to hold you to a date you're like actually no that was Yeah the cut off was Sunday years ago i know um no monitor recent yeah yeah of of I was going to say of your but not really cuz your is what's happening right now is your the only time period you know yes it is um but no mine are both Disney movies so hey oh yeah here we are um okay so my fave of the week is Mufasa ah interesting i've been meaning to talk to you about that yeah go ahead an unlikely hero um I did not appreciate the liveaction version of The Lion King i did not like that movie cuz it's like why why are we doing this it's like why and you know honestly like I need to rewatch the animated Lion King i've seen it 10,000 times cuz it was one of my sister's favorites um I was always more of a princess girly so for me I was like I don't know the animal movies weren't really my thing um but she loved it so we watched it a ton i haven't seen it recently as an adult so I definitely do need to do that but you know so I wasn't expecting to like Mufasa very well but it popped up on streaming me and my husband were looking for something to watch i actually really enjoyed it i thought it was pretty good yeah so that was my favorite good for you i didn't like it very much you didn't like it yeah but I loved Lion King so it's like the opposite side of the coin here i watched it i was like your sister i would watch it lion King the original animated over and over and over didn't watch live action cuz I'm like why it was the only thing out during I think Thanksgiving or something cuz we already watched Wicked and so we went and watched Mufas in the movie theater and I was like eh it's too disjointed but I'm glad you I liked it but overall it just made me feel kind of sad because it was like I mean cuz obviously you get to it's like Scar's origin story too you know and I was like dang it just I don't know it didn't make me feel very good about understanding him as a villain very well it just kind of made me sad for him and his plight a little bit but hey what are you going to do um I felt like it took a turn i don't want to spoil things but it was like a harsh turn that like that's why I felt disjointed cuz I'm like wait what so I know i just But I love Scar so I felt like it was a disservice cuz he's like one of my favorite like villains like villains yeah i feel like it was kind of like a switch went off into villain town real quick yeah like the writers were like "Oh no we got to wrap this up we've gone too far." Yeah exactly um but I enjoyed it still i thought it was good it was better than I thought it would be so that's good it's It also helps if your bar is really low that's true my bar was pretty low cuz I really hated The Lion King um my fail This is like It makes no sense okay this is my fail although I will say I talked to a client about it and she felt the exact same way which really valid validated my feelings uh we went and saw Snow White during opening weekend um I really liked it i don't know if I'd say love i really enjoyed it i was entertained by it but I recognize that the movie is terrible i've been wanting to ask you but I keep forgetting cuz I knew you went to see it so hash it out cuz I'm like hearing it's just awful so I'm like do I want to spend at this point with my family like $70 to go and see this trash movie i just wait till it comes out on Disney Plus probably um okay so here's the thing and like I said that's a weird feeling to have right where I'm just like this movie sucks but I like it so whatever um but I was talking to like I said I was talking to one of my clients who had just seen it and she felt the exact same way she was like oh no this is a terrible movie but I liked it i'm like okay almost like you have to look at it as a separate entity is that what it is yes like don't think of it as Snow White i mean okay here's the things these are the things i've narrowed it down there's there's three problems okay okay i've thought about this a lot there's three problems um first of all I want to say that Rachel Ziggler was amazing as Snow White and she does not deserve all the hate that she's getting right now no this is amazing after seeing a ballot of song birds I'm just like "Oh my gosh she was she is an incredible actor." Haven't seen Snow White yet but yeah i She was not the problem okay she like I feel like her voice was great like her acting was great her aesthetic was great like everything was great like she's Snow White live action you know okay so uh the problems were three these are three okay so the first one was that gal get how do you say her last name let me get the gong hang on you're listing things gong you lose a point uh Wonder We'll just call her Wonder Woman cuz I can't remember her last name gdau galado whatever oh you really are getting it out okay um she cannot sing to save her entire life existence and it was cring it was cringe as you can get boom you lose a point galado you lose a point what's the next one number two throw in the trash um but like seriously though I mean like aesthetically she was the evil queen she was on point the person who did her makeup holy moly perfection like oh my god the costumes everything great but the it even my husband was like "This is like watching Pierce Brosman try to sing in Mamma Mia." And I was like "Yes that's exactly right she's just like the female version of how niche that is." I know i loved it too i was like "Oh I'm teaching you so well you're making references to Mama Mia." Yeah okay so that was thing number wrong number one wrong thing with this movie okay number two the dwarves were CGI yeah[Music] boom now balloons are coming up on our FaceTime for some weird reason great no the opposite of balloons back okay but seriously though like it was not a good choice like Disney you're taking it too far be normal just be normal like those should have been real little people cast in the role it didn't make any sense it was weird um okay so that was number two number three and this to me is a thematic problem that I'm seeing pop up a lot in Disney movies and I wish that they would stop it is 100% in my opinion okay for feminism and prince charming to coexist three boom yeah it bo It bothers me it's like you you know Snow White could have done all the things that Snow White did right that were so impactful she survived she saved her kingdom she brought back joy and prosperity she's a good leader she could have been all of those things and also had a prince charming husband who supported her in doing all those things yeah so I'm not going to like spoil anything for the movie uh beyond that but just know that it's like Disney's going off on their own tangents with the whole like happily ever after trope and I feel like for me I like those i like fairy tales because there is a happily ever after because she does get to be with Prince Charming you know I like them for these reasons i don't feel like it's mutually exclusive like I can only be a strong independent woman if I don't get a Prince Charming is what that what that seems like to me and I don't like that because it's like what do we love from our books what we love from our books is that you get the guy and he supports your endeavors they're like "No it's too unrealistic just get rid of the guy just get rid of him can't ask him to be supportive." Right good luck yeah i mean there still there still was a guy but it just wasn't the same in my opinion so so because of these problems three um it was a fail for me but also I enjoyed it and I'll probably watch it again like I'm not going to lie just got to kind of separate it almost yeah my fave has to do with a movie too so my fave is that last week we had Sorry I'm outside the parameters no it was last Friday it was a few days ago we um we I me and the girls watched The Secret Garden oh right it was so good oh my gosh it had been It is Okay so it's also my fail right cuz if you watched my Instagram stories you guys went on a journey with me and trying to find the right thank the crows for Liz for watching my Instagram stories right when they went up thank you so much because uh we were watching the wrong one so my fail is that Okay we put the wrong one on okay cuz it was on Amazon Prime that you could rent them it had a free one they all said 1993 i was like great okay I'm born in 88 so I'm like 93 that sounds probably right and they're all 93 so great they're just I'll pick one this looks old okay great i picked that and it's slow the older the nine-year-old and she has a song we were inspired cuz she's in MTC musical theater and she has a song from the musical Secret Garden so I was like "Oh let's give you some context." So let's watch the movie i haven't watched it since I was like five but I would watch it on repeat with my sister you know she loved that movie same so but but then it hasn't happened since so I don't really have much memory of this place okay i know the gist i know there's a whailing kid and there's a secret garden that's about as much context as I remember um so we're watching the old one and the nine-year-old's hanging on but the four-year-old is like "Yeah right like give me a break this is so grainy you know it's so slow." And I'm like it's it's fine i would keep watching it but then Liz I saw I had a DM that said "Oh this is the one that we watched." And it was a different one that was Hallmark movie which is interesting i didn't realize and it's just a girl with brunette hair and then they had all different covers so cuz you know they has like a million covers for each movie so I was like "Okay great it looks like then it's this one." And then I Googled it on IMDb and the one that we were watching was actually the ' 70s okay so then I put on the one that actually said 1993 according to IMDb i was like "Okay I think it's this one." Cuz they're just girls with bangs okay brunette little girls with bangs great so we do that one and then we and it was great i have to say it was I'll put the I'll put the cover of the one that we actually ended up watching on the screen for you to see because it was so beautifully done like 10 out of 10 i tell you to make sure to watch it watched it with your sisters cuz it is different than the one Liz actually was trying to have me watch cuz it was very like fantastical feeling beautiful artistic setting and you have that castle and and the actors were great everything about it was beautiful so we loved it i will watch again i'm going to try to buy a physical copy but the fail is that I still didn't watch the right one so I remember the one that we liked as kids was kind of dark yeah i mean they all kind of are even the one that I watched is you know uh-huh but um it has that gothic element to it like a gothic castle it is dark and you know the parents are dying you know at the beginning so I think the one that you watched and suggested to me is probably the one that I watched too so I'm going to watch it on another girls night and see you if it's that cuz I still while I'm watching it I'm like okay like all the cuz even the old '7s one it's like the same kind of steps are happening it's just a different style so I think that one was 87 or something like that so I'll have to check that out but I would recommend at least the one I watched liz will probably recommend the ones that she watched and I want to go like on a journey now with my girls of watching those old movies that we loved so we watched Wizard of Oz when you were here and they loved it and I've had to put the album on my car multiple times now for my little one she loves it and uh I think so I had a unlocked memory of the little princess recently oh my god I was obsessed with that movie i'm obs I was obsessed but I don't remember it whatsoever so that's going to be our next movie night cuz one of her friends had a song from that movie as her you know audition song so I was like "Oh my gosh." Instantly put it in my phone like we got to watch this i have like an anciently old I'm like I don't even know where it is i'll have to look it might be in the garage in a special like container cuz I have some of my kids books in there i have like a super old copy it's not even called The Little Princess it's called Sarah Crew which was her name I think before they like rebranded it i don't remember exactly how it worked um but it was my mom's copy I think from when she was a kid that's crazy or something like that i don't know it was like really old maybe it's not that old but like she literally gave it to me and it's like yeah I'll have to like dig it up and see but I've never actually read as an adult that book so I don't know mhm or The Secret Garden either have you read The Secret Garden no yeah crazy but it was nice cuz my 9-year-old had read like the first few chapters and you had to fill in the blanks of the 1970 movie cuz there's not a lot of talking and I'm like "What's happening here?" And she's like "Oh so this and this." So that was helpful but just don't watch that one it's older you know mhm oh good times a stroll down memory lane that's why we're also a millennial podcast giving you guys the nostalgia vibes we hope so okay so the reason why we're here today yes is to talk about this monster of mine yes so let's do that let's give our basic star and spice rating spoiler-free okay you want me to start go ahead go ahead okay so this monster of mine I gave it four stars um this is in my opinion a really great examination of the pitfalls of the justice system as told through a like uh magical more fantastical murder mystery mhm and because of the fact that I thought the themes were so complex and interesting and the world was so immersive um I thought it was really well done so four stars yeah beautiful beautiful um and then I was kind of discussing this with Ashley a little bit ago um I would probably rate it a one spice it's a very slow burn like throughout the entire thing you get a little bit of spice but it's not super intense so I mean it would be like a max two but that would be pushing it I think so I think one is probably a bit more accurate one to two depending on your taste your levels yeah but there's definitely nothing when it comes to like the spice that would be in my opinion like considered to be like triggering or particularly intense or anything like that so very low yeah yeah and the frequency is obviously low it's got that slow burn so yeah definitely I agree with that my spice girl so I was waffling back and forth on my star rating here so between four and five and I'm going to land on a five star because I'm still thinking about this book and processing and digesting and loving it the only reason I would attempt to give it a four for me personally is just because like you know maybe I'm not that smart because because she uses really big words a lot of times and that's not her fault that I'm a dummy no but like you know um I'm reading this on we got arcs of this and that's really just part of it is that I didn't have my easy access thesaurus on Kindle just to look up some of these words so for me I can get stuck on okay what's this word mean what's this word mean but you know what it exposes me to new words and I figure it out and once I get into it I'm into it and so once I got past the initial you know flow of writing and the world world building then I was hooked and those last 100 pages for me is what really brought it up to a fivestar because it's kind of like when you're in the trenches are these side quests going to go somewhere we talk about that a lot here on our podcast now that we've been traumatized and when they do you know I feel like I'm still remaining spoilery spoil spoil um then it's Yeah perfect it's great so I wouldn't change a thing about it and it's still in my head and five stars boom yeah i feel like the best way to describe it is like I like to be completely immersed in a world that like is very different than our own mhm and this one in my opinion was had a lot of kind of almost like like philosophical like similarities um but the world itself was very different but the way that she painted it was extremely vivid and so like to me it reminded me a lot of some of my favorite books which are uh like the hurricane wars or um when the moon hatched like books where like the world building is really um intense and thorough and I feel like sometimes that can feel a little intimidating in the beginning um but it you know I always tell people just keep on going because the payoff is always worth it yeah that's exactly right and that's exactly what I was feeling reading it so Liz Hurricane Wars is like a top for her book of all time that particular book I had a difficult time because of the big words you know you know it's been a while i'm a little rusty for my AP classes you know so it's it's still a book that I love so for me what the difference is is I just resonated with this character and the story more compared to Hurricane Wars not that I'm trying to like make all these comparisons but just to give you guys some context so for me that's what brought Monster of Mine to a five-star is because the main characters and the plight versus what Hurricane War is how I felt that's all just vibes mhm okay so should we just get into the spoiler section yeah kaka Kaka i don't know what else to do now other than they make crow sounds so you guys that's your warning the I mean the crows have become really popular over here yeah i love them i'm glad you do too guys going to force it on you if you don't uh just so you know that means spoilers are up ahead so at this point if you are wanting to read this book and want to save this to your playlist to listen to later now is your time to skaddattle go on get and come back later so you can hear what we have to say about our faves favorites least favorite parts tropes like all that stuff so let's do it five sentence summary should I get the triangle out it's been a while i mean get whatever you decide you want out because we've already had the gong today so yeah let's mix it up let's do the triangle it's been a minute okay so full disclaimer and also apologizing apologizing apologies apologies to Shelini ahead of time i'm sorry but it's really hard a lot of this stuff like is just hard to pronounce so um just to put it into context a lot of this was she said inspired by ancient Rome take that with what you will that means I cannot say half of the uh names without messing them up so here we go it's fantasy we don't know how to say things we know how to read them and still you know they they implant in your brain in such a way that it's no turning back there's no turning back we try and it makes it worse you know so here we are okay the five sentence summary of this monster of mine sarai is the Cidin Tower Girl an infamous unsolved mystery in a region called Erdin of a case in which a 14-year-old girl had traveled from a tiny town called Ersamia to the city of Adessa to become a tetrarch pitor is that how you say that yeah yeah sure a trutht teller who uses magic to help solve crimes and enforce the law for one of the four people in charge but was instead pushed from the top of a tower to her quote unquote death but survived with the help of a mystery man who ordered the healers to fix her give her a new face and send her home oh that was terrible i'm a little rusty when Sarai has almost no memory of what happened to her four years ago she uses magic to keep her scars hidden most of the time and works as a barmaid for an unsavory man who pays her very little in order to save the money to go back to Adessa to join her best friend Cicur to try again to go to the university to become a pettor but also to gain enough knowledge to enact revenge on the mystery person who tried to kill her a man named Telmar comes to Sarai's small town and discloses the information that tuition is no longer a requirement to become a pettor because so many of them have been mysteriously dying lately so the city is in dire need sarai runs away immediately to try to become one three see that was a good one yeah sarai becomes a pettor for Tetrarch Kadra who is supposedly the quote unquote evil leader who everyone else hates and wants to get rid of whose father was also evil but over time they slowly fall in love and she realizes that he is a pariah because he is actually interested in justice and the rest of the tetrarchs including her best friend Cis Alias i can't say his name how do you say his name okay alis um yeah alis are secretly involved in a scheme to protect the city's people with scuda or lightning shields because of their erratic weather but really they're in the pocket of the metal guild who cheaply produces these scooters that actually do nothing but sometimes explode three and four four okay sarai begins deeply investigating this conspiracy and is afraid that in doing so she might uncover that Kodra was in on the scheme to kill her four years ago because she learned this information and subsequently to kill all the other pettorurs who've realized what's happening but in the end she discovers that Alias and Tulis were the ones conspiring with the metals guild and killing everyone and Cassand and Kajra were not in on it so Kodra kills Tulis and Sarai quote unquote serves justice at the trial by burning alias and proving the scooters were faulty and then she and Kajra live happily ever after once she learns he did not push her off the building five five and I put happily ever after in quotes cuz we don't really know because a sequel is coming out so we are not really sure yeah but it ends in a good way and then Yeah and we also mentioned that those guys were the guys that pushed her right that threw her Yeah yeah yeah yeah basically it was all part of a conspiracy that she overheard as a 14-year-old and then because these guys suck they literally just pushed her off a tower that was crazy it was crazy it was crazy wow so much happened in just 400 pages guys a lot happens i know it's not even a long one it's just like literally Yeah it's like packed with stuff and I feel like you know there's just a It's a lot of political subtrifuge it's basically like you know you have this girl and then woman who wants to go and like make a difference by helping you know bring people justice and basically finds out that the people making the laws are corrupt shocking shocking shocking shocking except for the one guy who everyone says is evil but it's because he's actually trying to do his job yeah what a surprise yep oh he's painted propaganda huh propose yeah circle back to Hunger Games so okay so why don't we just talk about the tropes for a little bit so what were three of the tropes that you loved from this book enemies to lovers baby loved that uh and listen it comes up later you don't know this is going to happen this is a sneaker trope that is a nice little treat and it's toucher and die vibes uhhuh loved that like you know you see it you're hoping and then it's like fully confirmed okay enacted yeah mhm and then I did love the justice being served trope mhm yeah what about you yeah um I put enemies to lovers obviously yeah but then I put because this was very unique and different than other things that we've read i put murder mystery yeah mhm and government conspiracy mhm loved that mhm so yeah if you love a little bit of uh you know it's like that the Game of Thrones kind of subtuge stuff like if that you're into that this is great for that for sure mhm and then let's see here so what was one of the tropes that you hated from this book that was hard for me i have it blank still i was trying to think and I couldn't give me Give me yours what's yours um I said it was too slow of a burn for me oh yeah you don't love that slowburn i like a good slow burn i mean I like I like a good slowburn but I feel like it was a little bit too much of a slow burn for me if I had to choose something yeah like I prefer my books more in like the three spice range usually my romanty you know what I mean so that's fine we'll see it's like you know because there's going to be a sequel coming out she didn't she wasn't able to say when exactly but it is in the works um you know we might get a little bit more of that romance stuff going yeah it's a first book you can't have it all you can't give the all the milk away to the cow i don't know can't give it all away up front yeah make them work for it yeah I guess it's it was completely necessary so I wouldn't take it out but Oh it drove me nuts but it was meant to so that's okay but I did hate the friends to enemies but that's not because I would take it out or anything like it literally has to be in there and it made me scream out loud but that was okay well yeah just cuz like her supposedly best friend sucks yeah but it still sucks to see you know yeah totally yeah so I guess I'll go with that yeah so what about a micro trope that stood out to you good or bad a special keepsake momento i.e the ribbon loved that oh the ribbon that was so cute too cuz like what did he have like didn't he have something like written by it or something i can't remember yeah now I don't remember i literally read it last night great but but yeah when I read it I was like "Oh that's sweet cute." Yeah yeah i didn't And I didn't put that together and then when she figured it out with her when she got her full flashback back I was like "Ah the ribbon the ribbon he kept it." A I could just see him pining over it you know day and night like how awful he like thinks he's helping this person cuz he wants to do that it's his life mission right to actually be serving justice and help people and he sends her to her death gosh that sucks mine w was runes with magic oh yeah i like that i like runes with magic it gives Throne of Glass you know i appreciate that kind of thing love a good rune um I love a good rune um who doesn't i also put um I love a good disguise cuz it's like technically she's not in disguise but she is and so I did like that that it was very like secret undercover kind of level stuff and I appreciated that hiding in plain sight you know got to love it yeah so what was your favorite part of this book ooh Sarai plunging into Helvis's mind and finding out the truth about the pediat's death and then kind of like playing dumb after i love that cuz I was like "What what's happening right now cuz it happens so fast that whole scene was crazy so I loved that whole scene what about you that was really good um Sarai killing Alias in the same way that Kadra had her bring Justice in her first case that was so good such a good full circle moment yeah like I love how she's like "Throw another log on." Yeah throw another log on while he's burning to death like that's pretty crazy but like it was a awesome revenge moment for real very satisfying but I did like that she talks about how she's supposed to feel this joy and satisfying moment from that revenge but she's just blank and empty getting it done does that make sense like as readers though we're like we'll get we'll feel it for you but as like in truth it's like sometimes that revenge is very empty and like this is still horrible i shouldn't have had to do this cuz it's probably that you know I shouldn't have to be killing this person they shouldn't have thrown me off the thing to begin with this sucks huff the tower they shouldn't have tried to kill me yeah yeah gosh they should They shouldn't be working with this company to manufacture faulty protection for our citizens and then pretend like it's fine i loved that theme that she interwo into there though that like the villagers are then blaming the people on not having enough faith in the gods and that's why their house is struck down that was genius like Yeah I agree i agree that was great well because it's like all the it's like it's very like I said it's very like mirroring of real life without being like overtly calling things out you know what I mean it's like this idea that you know they have these crazy lightning storms and the way to protect their houses from the lightning storms is to have these scooters which are basically just lightning rods that someone had designed specially to like absorb the impacts but their houses didn't all burn up in lightning fires or whatever and what did they go and do well the company who makes them figured out how to manufacture them cheaper so that uh you know they could pocket more of the money and so and strategically place them on properties that they want to own yes it's like this whole crazy conspiracy but is it crazy because this kind of stuff happens all the time right and so of course then the government officials are in on it yeah so they're like "Oh yeah okay." Yeah yeah and so you know the whole thing is that your scooter will work to protect you from the lightning if you have enough faith in the gods yeah so don't blame me don't blame me for not having enough faith yeah exactly so it's a very easy scapegoat for them to be like "It's not our manufacturing problem it's not any government conspiracy." Like it's literally you don't have enough faith that's why your house burned down and that's why your people died yeah and people are so And she's trying to get that evidence but people are so believing in it so much that they don't want to get give it up because they're scared well what if this person's wrong what if it is protecting my house oh it's just Well and as we found out anyone who starts sniffing the trail Yeah dead gets killed anyway smooshed smooshed so yeah smooshed under the bookcase whatever yeah thrown off the freaking tower then smushed under double death yikes um but I definitely feel like I agree with you that plot was very well thought out very thorough it all makes sense all the loose ends tied up perfectly yeah very satisfying you're getting satisfying because the loose ends are tying up and because it's just satisfying to be able to read about some justice being served and like okay these people who did this bad thing actually got what they had coming to them interesting yeah what a rarity indeed what a rarity indeed um so what about your least favorite part uh again necessary so I wouldn't change it but golly it was so hard reading her friend Cisaree leading her to her doom i was so stressed i cuz I knew it right from the "Oh help our friend to neck." Like he's going to be or sorry oh help my friend and neck they're going to be like you know something's going to happen to them uh come to this tower follow me blindly even though I'm not your friend clearly anymore so that was brutal cuz it's like oh it's the tower oh she's getting flashbacks i mean it was so necessary everything that ensued thereafter but oh man it's like how do you do that bit but and like she explained in the interview Shellini explained like that you're sometimes a person is that deeply invested in whatever belief system whatever thing they're wrapped up in that they can't see things for what it is meanwhile the friend thinks that friend you know Cis thinks Sarai is the one that's deluded and brainwashed it's like well because it's like you know the cognitive dissonance that's created by realizing that your entire worldview is wrong is really hard to accept you know and that's what you're watching that character go through so I agree it's like completely necessary because I think Cisor really represented a lot of how real people would act in that situation yeah um you want you know it's like in an ideal situ like world you want to believe that you know your government leaders especially when you're working with them as closely as they are are do have the best interest of the people at you know the forefront of their priorities and to find out that none of that is real it has to be very uh disorienting and it's not something that can just snap it's takes people that leave cults specifically takes a lot of deconstructing and often times therapy to unlearn so much of that so totally what about all I put for my my least favorite part was finding out that it's of course in capitals a shitty government conspiracy yeah cuz it's just like you know but I mean you know obviously it was necessary to the plot it was excellently written in a way that was very believable um and that flowed well but at the same time it's like it makes me so mad yeah it just sucks that it's so easy to believe I guess cuz of the world that we come from yeah exactly i think that's what it is it's so believable yep so favorite character h oh Dreamy Cadra yeah he seems like your type he does seem like your type though to me he's He's you know he's getting up there that's good i love that for you it's like um so Shellini kind of mentions a little bit of inspiration from like giving the Darkling some justice and that now that she says that I'm like "Oh I'm on it i'm going to eat this up so much harder because yeah like I was so mad we all know how I felt about Shadow and Bone at this point like that was not the way I thought the story was going to go he was in the right like he needed to restructure this is like my I'm making it my own like fanfic now of Justice for the Darkling i'm sure it's out there like officially cuz like dude they just went back whatever i'm not going to spoil Shadow don't Don't read it i'm going to spoil it don't read Shadow Bone it doesn't end up how you think it's going to but yeah so yeah he's definitely he's he's making his way up there he's making his way downtown you know making his way downtown loved him loved his broody quiet angsty justice hero like a little bit of a Batman vibes but without the like you know rich family past it's just like the brooding type of Batman what about you who's your favorite character sarai yeah she was great yeah uh I really really appreciated her character i just I loved how like she she was just a believable character which I really appreciated like she has these you know abilities to do truthtelling to go into people's minds and sift out the truth like all this kind of stuff but she's also you know coming from her own place of wanting you know justice and revenge and so I felt like she was just a very well-rounded character like you know I'm going to go undercover and do all this stuff because I do want to serve justice to the people but I also want to be able to serve justice to the person who harmed me yeah also I was like yeah it was a little bit of like a personal vendetta story but like I also feel like yeah she was just a believable character living out her plight and she was she didn't crumple like a leaf but she also wasn't in my opinion unrealistically uh like perfect or strong or all knowing either I feel like it was just a good balance yeah definitely and we got to see her also we did get to see her deconstruct you know her beliefs on the justice system that they had there and get to see her fully step into her power by the end yeah 100% it was great yeah with Kadra who supported her but then was strong in his own right as well which I did appreciate it was a good balance I feel yeah definitely what about your least favorite cisaree that best friend ooh finding out she saw her fall off the tower mhm and then she held on to that for 4 years like it did make sense why she felt so strongly that Kodra was behind it essentially cuz that's all she saw right she just saw her on the ground with Kodra next to her but you match um did not like her she just seemed like that uh friend that was jealous too you know and she you know reading her story of like oh you're here early like h you know oh maybe you can't come and then you know sent her to her her death she didn't know she was sending her to her death but she sure didn't do anything about it but I can see how you know we talked about in the interview how there's a little piece of us in each character and you know if you're in that situation what would you do if you see your friend what you see just got killed smashed on the ground you know and you're a new scholar there you know and then your friend survives somehow how do you live with that like how do you tell them "Sorry I saw it i did nothing." You know it was all it was it was messy and life is messy they were young they were 14 yeah they're really young they're literally 14 when they Yeah and what are you going to like Yeah what are you going to do you just sent her to these scholars you know or not sorry headmasters or whatever do you run to them like she also didn't really know she should have had a little bit more speculation but you know hey she was already kneedeep into it yeah and Young and Young what about you least favorite character that's what That's exactly what I put yeah same thing i feel like Yeah just the betrayal the betrayal and like this incessant need to like double down on you know supporting a system and people who theoretically should be doing the right thing when all of the evidence points to the fact that they're not doing the right thing but you just won't see the truth it's like you're so hellbent on just being like "No this is how it is these are the good guys everything's fine." that you're not saying like "No but they're literally evil and they're doing all this bad stuff but you just want it to work so bad." It's like "Stop trying to make fetch happen." You know what I mean it's like "It's not going to happen." Um it's the same thing and for that reason she just I mean the betrayal was terrible obviously but it was more so like the doubling down on just not being willing to see um the problems with what was going on largely due excuse me to her own privilege also I think that was another piece she came from like a pretty well-off family it sounded like like she was very shielded she got to go to the university easily like it was not a struggle for her um so it was easier for her to just trust the powers that be than challenge them because she knew that she'd be a shoe in to live out her life perpetuating the same problems without having to realize that there's any problems yeah yeah it's true so she is definitely my least favorite yeah do you have any notable quotes to share with the class today look at me i'm getting better i do i do i do trying to make it a point anytime I'm like"Ooh." So I have a few but they're brief i don't need pity she muttered i have none his voice held no softness but I won't hold you to the standards you hold yourself i ask many things of you Pet golly petittor Sarai but I will not ask for perfection beautiful also I have the law is a game the powerless play and lose mhm okay i This I just laughed out loud he's killed Tetrax Tulis killing Codra snarled he isn't dead yet yeah yeah i laughed at that too i laughed at that like in the middle of it stop interrupting me that's how I read it very sassy and then the last one I wrote down is she pulled the ribbon from her hair here I'll come back for that and then you'll know it's me that was when he was sending her off to the tower the first time when she was a 14 little pup okay what about you i highlighted a lot none of them are very long though so I think I should be able to share them we'll allow it okay we'll allow it um it is difficult to have to convince others of your humanity she stared at her shaking fingers on the railing inches from his not just being human but being worthy of all the accutrants of humanity a roof over your head fair compensation for your labor and justice when a wrong is committed so like just to survive like isn't enough like I really really appreciated that yeah here she says quote "The law allowed everything but just but justice." Yeah I was like well that's it in a nutshell um something Kodra said to Sarai that I really loved i'm saying that there is nothing wrong with your rage and I will stand behind you when you choose to exercise it mhm so see it's like see Snow White Princetorming could have said that to you and we would have appreciated it hello okay okay okay so this was one of my favorites too if you're just trying to get an idea of the tone of the book um she'd known that the law served the needs of the powerful truth and fairness were only raised for crimes by regular folk when the wealthy butchered their way through life the only words used were quote necessary and quote profit justice was a game of who could tell the better story in court yep uh so that was a good one and there's uh oh this was interesting there's a quote that just says the public will believe anything about a mad woman specifically um justice was a mirage so you guys can kind of see like a lot of the the themes that are being told throughout um and I did want to give a shout out to the dedication at the book too to the quiet but dangerous girls who see that injustice may they never see us coming i loved that i thought that was great um it's just a good reminder too that like books like this like art is such a great way to be able to you know tell a story that's impactful while also making sure to address some of these themes that are really important for real life too yeah for sure mhm so we talked about the spice a little bit the slow burn if you will um so what did you think about the spice more like less i liked it i felt like it was good yeah i especially liked that it took a while because everybody was instantly throwing those rumors onto her you know oh he must just have her up there because you know it's it's what a lot of women in power specifically positions of power maybe that are going up the ranks and that's what is the number one rumor what is the number one rumor of our last president um elect was oh she slept her way to the top you know so that is essentially the rumor that's building for her and so I appreciated that you know we saw that that wasn't happening and it happened when they on their terms when they were ready to so yeah yep um I thought the spice was good but I would have personally preferred a little bit more but that's just my own issues Yeah I think if I were to like really critique it more is like throw us a little what is that Pride and Prejudice moment where you see like you know hand brushing the hand twitch like the the I mean there was a lot of staring I feel well yeah and she did like you know she she we had her but we only have her monologue so we hear we see her moments that she has that oh shoot he's so hot basically you know oh darn he's evil but he's hot We could I think we could have had a couple closer moments before that were more tensionheavy tension heavy sexually i agree i agree um so you know we found out in the interview that we will be getting a sequel soon she said that they're working on it right now it's already written so will you read the sequel yeah I will i did feel like it ended in a very satisfying way so I was like "Oh great cool you know thinking the story is done but if she has more stories to tell absolutely you know and the prequel that she mentioned is you know in a works as well that definitely intrigues me she said there's a little teaser within the book about what that alludes to so I loved that a little Easter egg i love a good prequel you know mhm uh yeah no I'll definitely read them too like I agree with you i feel like this wrapped up great like it could very easily have been a one-off um but yeah I'll definitely read a sequel i want to know more about their story and the prequel really intrigues me as well because I feel like the world is just it's getting built and it's really immersive and so the more information we have the better the more books the better keep them coming the more books the better yep yeah for sure so do you have any other things you would like to add to this discussion of this monster of mine that's it for me i'm so happy to be given this opportunity to read this arc and dive into this world and interview Shelini about this book that she wrote is beautiful yeah enjoy agree yeah what a nice treat and it was very different i feel like it was very different from other things that we've read here and so I really appreciated how unique it was as well mhm definitely for sure so should we just wrap this up with a smasher pass real quick let's do it well mine is a You have to choose one great as we've determined are always my favorite i do i'm going to make mine now okay good i'm going to make you pick one they're super unhinged go ahead okay mine is smash smash or pass a gross prince okay so you get to choose these are the animated versions only okay animated only between Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty oh okay okay prince Florian because apparently that's his name from Snow White okay we have balloons on the screen again guys okay uh Prince Charming from Cinderella i guess technically his name is Henry i didn't know okay let's do um F you know F Mary kill then cuz E okay well okay keep going i already have my answer though but go ahead this Okay and then and then the prince after he transforms from the beast yeah um easily pre Prince Prince Phillip i've always loved him so yeah me too he's a little bit Mecoo still like if you watch it as an adult he's definitely pretty Mecoo but like he you know he's a ginger like strawberry blonde that I love that but he dresses sharp he's like "F you dad." Like yeah he dresses sharp little angsty yeah the way he wears that hat is just great ouch this easy for me those riding boots ooh ooh ooh the way he rides that horse yeah Prince Phillip for me all the way for sure okay so let's rank them then because that was too easy okay so what was the third one that you said okay so Prince Charming so from Cinderella but the animated one so we have Phillip Prince Charming and then the prince from Snow White and then Prince from Beauty and the Beast okay Prince but but not in beast form yeah not beast form yeah instant bottom of the list um let's see so a ranking of most smashable to most passable okay yeah okay yes prince Phillip obviously um like why am I forgetting the instant like you give me the list i keep forgetting that one cinderella Snow White Beauty and the Beast okay Cinderella cuz they're forgettable they're not memorable okay that Cinderella guy is such an idiot for not just asking what her name was for 3 hours I'm assuming of dancing so idiot boys making idiot decisions oh but I really don't like the Snow White one yeah cuz like the I mean if this is going purely off they look a lot alike you know well the one from Cinderella is a brunette i think they both He's this guy yeah I hate his suit okay he gets the bottom he gets the bottom i like the Snow White one see those three are the hardest okay um give me Show me the Snow White one again i really No no he's bad i feel I'm going to go with the Beauty and the Beast prince after he turns out of his beast form cuz at least he's buff I guess like look at the guys look at the face yeah absolutely not it's also like the 1950s you know who it's giving superman it's giving Snow White he literally looks like Snow White here he does but also he looks like the guy all the guys that play Superman minus Henry Caval but it's still I was going to say I'm sorry if he looks like the other version of Henry Caval we be all set right now that just doesn't do it for me okay so he's the bottom of this he literally looks like Snow White's brother like he could be her brother okay i mean you know it might it probably was that's probably why the evil queen was like "You got to kill her they're incest get him out of here out of here give me kill him." So final answer is going to be Prince Phillip Beast after he's in his normal prince human form whatever and then um he has big hands and then we have to go with we have to go with so you know what I mean we have to go with uh Cinderella i guess he's gonna be a dummy though but at least he doesn't look like Snow White so Snow White Snow White's brother's on the bottom snow White's brother yeah um I would say the same but I will reverse the two middle ones so Cinderella Prince would be number two for me and then PB and the Bee Prince would be number three you like that suit do you i don't like the suit but he is in my opinion a little better looking okay all right yeah and I didn't compare their hands but we might have to do a deep dive on that later we have to do an investigation wait I have to give like a real a small shout out right now this will be like a nugget of information um for anyone who uh is really into the series so we just started reading the next series that we're doing for many episodes this is on the DL right now we have not announced it yet yeah we have we have in this episode yes okay so I could just talk about it yeah just talk about it okay great so uh literally Okay so we're reading Fifty Shades of Gray right now i'm probably about 3/4 of the way through the the first book she cannot stop talking about how long his fingers are and I literally cannot it's like every 5 seconds because I just read only 10 pages so far at the time of filming this and she had already mentioned how long his fingers were oh it keeps going forever yeah but it's like not even like in a sexual way it's like literally just like in a descriptive way like he grabbed the soda with his long fingers people that have read it are like "Yep yeah it's a problem." Why is it all the time like we get it he's got long fingers okay long fingers are not the same as big hands either they're not i said it they're not the same cuz I definitely think of like like ET fingers like no get them out of here get out of here so anyways yeah these things matter okay so what do you have for your Smasher Pass okay so I'm going to make you pick now great i'm excited so Monsters Inc you have to pick between Sully and Mike Wazowski um Sullley is like the big furry one right yeah what does the other guy look like i don't remember the giant eyeball okay i think the big furry monster guy yeah he's cute yeah he's cute he's cozy i haven't seen those in a really long time like a really really long time i should probably rewatch one at some point you know I think John Candy voices him or somebody like that so definitely takes it out it's definitely not great but Billy Crystal is also Mike Wasowski no I love them i'm talking about Smasher Pass wise but yeah yeah yeah they're great uh voices they do a great job but you know doesn't do it for me yeah i mean me neither but if I had to choose one yeah if you had to choose yeah yeah yeah yeah spray his little hairs everywhere oh my god we'll have to have you guys rate the Disney princes that'll be funny and then oh you know what I'm going to do i'm going to put this out there that way it holds me accountable to actually doing it i am going to find pictures of all of their hands and then we will compare them all oh yeah so that'll be a nice little graph that we can also vote on in stories who's got the best hands christian Gray listen I've seen the beast's foot he gets a moment it's him he has the best it has to be he has a good foot that's how we comparing feet now or hands no but I but I think they show his hands too and if his hands look anything like his feet I can't even finish that sentence what is this podcast i don't know but there's nothing worse than a manfoot like I'm sorry there's nothing worse than a man foot it's the way the light comes out of it it's just great yeah no it's I mean you can picture it he's twirly circle so he has weird alien fingers he has I think he has he's and he's definitely muscular so his hands What if they're just little tiny little doll hands like a duties gross oh well that was about discovery this podcast took a turn well it's like the Snow White like Snow White's brother actually has the best hands out of all four of them dang it what do we do now then you'll have to Okay so I'll raise you a hand and tell you you do animated in one slide and now live action in the next well yeah except for we didn't get a Prince Charming in Snow White now we've gone full circle ww want yep okay there's somebody out there that's played a live action we'll just have to pick one probably i'm sure it's James Marsden probably he plays everyone yeah cuz Huntsman it's the Huntsman there is no Prince Charming in that one either huh yeah they just want to eliminate him from the cannon for some reason yeah listen he was a dull dud i get it he was yeah we all understand yeah okay all right on that thank you guys so much for tuning in to us today and listening to us get weird quite frankly we appreciate you go pick up Go pick up your copy of This Monster yes do it anywhere you get your ebooks or get your physical copies shop some of those indie bookstores check out their online websites too let's support some indie bookstores too as well please and you can follow us over on Instagram Tik Tok at Besties in the Books Podcast and make sure to follow and subscribe anywhere you like to listen to your favorite podcast including YouTube and you guys we'll see you next next Tuesday bye bye[Music]