We Need to Talk about Yesteryear and Tradwives w/ @NicoleRudolph and @bydonmartin

[00:00:00]Hey guys. So, welcome to the video. This one's going to be a little bit different than what I normally do because we're actually discussing the book Yester Year. And it's going to be a conversation between myself, Don Martin, who is a New York Times bestselling author and a lovely person and a friend of mine, as well as obviously Nicole Bestie. Um, and we're discussing the book from multiple angles. one as people who work within that the industry of content creation and have a better handle of the nuances of this very strange career um as authors ourselves and how we consumed the book interpreted the book experienced the book but also as historians not necessarily Donna as a historian but Nicole and I as historians and so I want to preface all that by saying there is spoilers about the book yester year so if you have not read the book, you need to go read it first.

[00:00:55][laughter] You you got to go read it first because we will spoil everything about this book. We we don't skip anything. Um and also that while this is a uh edited down version of the conversation, there is a longer, more in-depth version [snorts] that is going to be up for my Patreon members, my YouTube members, as well as on Nebula exclusively. um that covers a lot more sensitive topics that YouTube will not allow me to discuss without demonetizing my video. And since they've already demonetized my Evelyn Nesbbit and child abuse video, um I'm not really interested in getting penalized for talking about serious subjects financially again. So, it's going to be on a safe safer location where it can exist. Uh also, please ignore my husband in the background.

[00:01:46]>> Sorry, Subies.

[00:01:48]in your ball.

[00:01:49]>> Subie, that is that is a pickle ball.

[00:01:50]That is not a Subie ball. Well, it's a Subie ball now. All right, guys. Enjoy.

[00:01:55]>> My god, Nicole, that's a that's just your house. [laughter] >> It's my filming space in my house.

[00:02:04]>> Set up.

[00:02:05]>> I'm gonna I'm just going to leave. I'm I'm just going to go.

[00:02:10]>> Hi everyone. Okay, so we're here. I have uh recruited two lovely friends of mine who I one manhandled into reading the book. I basically was like, "Stop what you're doing. Read this book now. I swear to God, I will haunt you." And then my other friend, [laughter] I was like, "Have you read this book?" And he was like, "Yes." I was like, "I really need to work on it about it with you."

[00:02:30]And he was like, "Yes, please." So, with that, everyone knows on this channel should know Nicole. So, hello twin. This is Don Martin. If you haven't come across Don, I don't understand how or why, but Don is a New York Times best-selling author.

[00:02:44]>> Hi. That's that's me. I am >> just just like Carol Claire Burke.

[00:02:51]>> You are the same. We are the exact same.

[00:02:54]We are both New York Times bestselling authors.

[00:02:58]>> So, I would love to know your initial like immediate thoughts on this book.

[00:03:03]>> Oh my god. I thought it was really fascinating. I mean, I had to stop what I was doing like seven pages in and go stare at a wall for a little while because I went into this book only knowing that everybody was reading it. I knew the log line. I knew >> tradife influencer wakes up in the past and sold, done, sold. You're like, sure.

[00:03:24]>> I did not know anything about this author. I didn't know like her research background. I didn't know her the rest of her body of work. Like, I didn't know anything else about her. But I got seven pages into this and I was like, "Oh, this woman knows things about suddenly becoming a public person." Wow. Like people don't know until you like do it.

[00:03:44]It's a weird wakeup call. And I So I loved it. I really loved the book. Uh I tore through it very fast. And I I like you, I told everybody. I I was like, I you have to read this book immediately.

[00:03:56]>> And Nicole, you have anything to add to that book?

[00:03:58]>> No, that was that was very much the same exact experience I had was you being like, you have to read this. we're going to do a thing on it next week. And I was like, "Okay." You're like, "Get it done today." And she was like, "Okay." Yeah.

[00:04:06]It was like, "Oh, she actually did enough research or understands not just like influencer just suddenly going viral, suddenly whatever, but just like how that also just completely messes with your head and >> all of the things that go with that. But from that viewpoint, which is obviously not something any of us have encountered from the like treadway viewpoint, but have seen that happen to lots of people.

[00:04:30]not necessarily Tradife, but um my friend Meg Eison, who's also another author, her her new book just came out this week, founding fathers, quick uh plug for her. Meg was telling me, she's like, "Oh, I think what a lot of people that are like, you know, oh, they're so unlikable and blah blah blah," are not really understanding is that this is like almost like a like a treatise on the idea of women's proximity to power >> and how for so many women, you know, you can get close to that glass ceiling, but you're just never going to get through it ever. It's really really interesting and I think it's a perfect book for right now in this moment.

[00:05:09]>> Oh yeah, absolutely. It was very very current in in so many aspects of oh that exact choice, that discussion, that concern.

[00:05:18]>> I think we should also probably clarify I don't think any of us actually liked Natalie as a person. We're not defending Natalie as a person. She is a bad person.

[00:05:25]>> I think we'd be remiss if we ignored the criticism that's been levied online.

[00:05:30]Though to be fair given like its current rating on like good readads and story graph and stuff it is a fairly minor reaction but the number of people who are like this person is unlikable everyone's unlikable. I think the author herself did a very good job of reminding us that this only ever happens when it's a woman author and a woman protagonist because my god didn't Wolf of Wall Street win so many awards.

[00:05:56]>> Yeah.

[00:05:57]>> Everybody's a bad people. Yeah, [laughter] >> you see why they did what they did and the decisions that they made, but you don't agree with those decisions. That's okay. That's not the point. But it's just little things. As soon as we started getting into that, I was like, she doesn't have a support system. She doesn't have friends that also do this job. She doesn't really even have friends, period. Reading Natalie's character from pretty early on, I view Natalie as very autistic coded, but evil autistic. I think there's a lot of discussion about gender and her gender and Natalie's like internal misogyny and her grappling with gender and gender roles and how she fits within that paradigm. The aspect of this is how you are supposed to act. If this situation happens, these are the responses. Full transparency. I'm most likely autistic and come from a line of male autistics.

[00:06:48]This is what it's supposed to be.

[00:06:50]Somebody says this, you respond this way. And when they get dumped into a situation that there's not a prescribed set of rhythm and rules for, it's like, I don't like this. I cannot learn anything from this. It's just instantly bad from the get-go where she was like, I'm smarter than all these people. They don't understand anything. They don't understand what they're doing. They're not as intelligent. They don't know as much as me. This is how it works. This is the A plus B C. And I think that is one of the reasons why she suffered so much, especially just if we take out all of her like evangelical uh questionable, curious, random Christianity is that like she just couldn't make friends with women because she hated women because she hated herself. The way that her undisussed, undiagnosed like neurode diverency like impacted that in a negative way because she didn't have the tools, she didn't have the community, she didn't have the support system. She's never going to know how to be friends with women because that's not what was taught. That was supposed to just happen naturally.

[00:07:44]>> And we can see that actually in the bit where she runs into Vanessa and then we learn about Vanessa later in the book from her mother and how like Vanessa was like actively trying to like look out for her and she interpreted it as being attacked. What was interesting about like Natalie's behavior with like Vanessa and everything else was her paranoia. And after everything that happened with going viral for me in 2020 and then me, Nicole, and like others within our kind of broader dress like costume, it was called costume tube like community were just being really like heavily watched, just waiting for us to do something that could get us canled.

[00:08:24]>> 2020, 2021, people were so chronically online cuz everybody was home. I just remember Yeah. every comment section of every kind of content like everyone everywhere everything they all got online and we all started intermingling and every comment section was just hair trigger livewire defense mechanism cannot wait to get you cancelled everyone everyone in every sector >> my mental health really suffered in 2021 to like 2022 and when we moved away from Nevada and here to Indiana one of the first things I did was get a therapist and I remember one of My first conversations with Dr. Julie was about how I'm having a hard time, you know, interacting with people because I never know who to kind of trust. And she and she was like, "Are you paranoid?" So, she was like actually like really concerned from that early moment of like, "Am I isolated? Am I dealing with like severe paranoia, not being able to trust people because of like everything that had happened leading up to that point?" And I was at least able to say, "No, I don't." I think it's when I meet new people and I know that they've watched me on the internet. I was like, I am comfortable when people clearly don't know who I am and I can just be me. It's the moment that I suspect they know who I am or they tell me they know who I am and I don't know them that all of a sudden I freeze up and I have a hard time allowing myself just to be a normal person because I don't know if they're going to run to a gossip form and then be like, "I saw Abby. She smelled like onions."

[00:09:52]>> Do you often smell like onions?

[00:09:54]>> No, I never smell like onions. I don't think Nicole, do I smell like onions?

[00:09:58]>> Not that I've experienced, >> but it's like so Natalie's paranoia was like something that actually really kind of like I >> Yeah, very realistic.

[00:10:05]>> Hi, I'm coming live to you from underneath my bed where Hi. All my dogs like to uh hide because when it is hot as bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep outside, you want to be somewhere cool and comfortable. And our bedroom is one of those places where you want to be cool and comfortable. Which brings me to the sponsor of this video, which is Birch Mattress right behind me. Birch makes fantastic fiberglass-free, natural, lovely mattresses. I have been sleeping on this Birch since 2022, 4 years. And one of the things I actually really love about my Birch mattress is the fact that it is actually cool and comfortable to sleep on. And not because it uses weird like tech, you know, gimmicks with gel. No, no, no, no. It's because Birch actually uses wool. Stop.

[00:10:56]Stop. I know some of you might be thinking, "But Abby, wool is hot. We wear wool for winter." Huh? Wool is naturally temperature regulating. Wool will be cool when you need it to be cool. Wool will be warm when you need it to be warm. It is a fantastic natural material from sheep. And so having our mattress made out of wool means that it actually is fantastic at temperature regulation. I don't wake up hot. I don't wake up with a sweat. And as someone who's permenopausal, I'm starting to get a little bit more roasty toasty than I care for. I sleep fine on this birch mattress. My husband is also runs really hot. He sleeps great on this mattress.

[00:11:29]It is fantastic. And part of that is because they use wool in their mattress.

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[00:13:02]back to disgusting yester year. That book was so good, guys. And thank you, Birch, for sponsoring.

[00:13:09]>> There's this uh poetry collection by the poet Morgan Parker that's called Other People's Comfort Keeps Me Up at Night.

[00:13:15]And I was like, that is how I feel when people are talking about the intersection of comfort and not just this book, but like reading in general lately. Like, oh, I read for comfort.

[00:13:26]I'm like, okay, well, you specifically reading for your comfort is not the problem. But if everybody does that, we never read anything that remotely makes us uncomfortable. Like we we never read anything that challenges us. We never read anything that asks us to interrogate our own beliefs, our own sense of self, our own relationship with our neighbors, our own relationship with how we have impacted others. And it also keeps a lot of marginalized authors, a lot of marginalized voices off of bookshelves because you're not going to go read their books because if you do, there's a much higher chance that you are going to be uncomfortable. It's why we prefer mm romances written by cishat presenting white women that are just like the majority of those readers because they're going to write with a perspective that doesn't make you uncomfortable. You read queer romances written by queer people or visibly queer people. You read a book by a person of color. You read a a book by an immigrant. like you just experiencing somebody else's worldview. Even if it's like high fantasy, you're just going to experience what that looks like through someone else's world view. And it is going to be inherently different from yours and that can be uncomfortable for people. And instead of taking that as an exciting new way to look at the world, an exciting new way to get to experience somebody else's point of view, people run from it like immediately like, "Oh no, I don't like this. closed that book.

[00:14:50]Let me go back to my comfort zone.

[00:14:52]>> Spoilers. They run off to the fake 19th century.

[00:14:56]>> Yeah.

[00:14:57]>> I'm uncomfortable now. I'm going to go into my own nostalgia.

[00:15:00]>> When you're saying that, all I can see in my head is this book going to like book talk. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. You ain't going to like it. I'm going to get you. That's what I think I loved about this book is like everyone should be uncomfortable reading it.

[00:15:11]>> If you read this book and you're like, I loved everyone in it, my friend. You're you are the problem. You're Natalie.

[00:15:17]>> Yeah. It's like you're not supposed to be comfortable reading this. You're supposed to be confused. You're supposed to be whiplashed. You're >> especially because of the twist. I was so I find myself so often going back and wondering how much did we actually know the whole time >> you knew everything and >> No, but like how how reliable was the narr? Because I I have I have thoughts when we talk about the big twist. I have thoughts about what the implications are for the beginning of the book. One of the biggest critiques I've seen, well, there's two annoying critiques. One is I don't like Natalie, so I don't like the book. The other one is it's not historically accurate, which as a historian sends me off into outer.

[00:15:57]>> But like one of the other critiques is like how it does a bad job with demonstrating like evangelical Christian woman women. And I think leaving it vague allows you depending on your life experience to put in to fill in that blank. And people's critiquing of it as saying she didn't do research. I'm like, "No, I actually like that she left it vague because I can fill it in in a way that helps me understand." A man in my family married into married a lovely woman. They're still married. They're great. And married a woman like basically right out of high school. And her grandfather had started a church in Indiana that was extremely small, extremely conservative, and very controlling. And they didn't have a church in the traditional sense. It was, you know, in a garage >> there. There was a church. Whoever was in charge at the time said something some people didn't agree with. So, they broke off and started their own version in someone's garage. And then usually that grows to be large enough that at some point someone says something that somebody else doesn't like and then they break off into a second garage. And it's [laughter] serious.

[00:17:06]>> That's how the United States was founded.

[00:17:08]>> Yeah. Yeah. And then everyone like, "Hey, we want to go do our weird shitty religion somewhere."

[00:17:14]>> And then all the ones that are like somewhat closely related, like once or twice a year, rent out some large warehouse or like the fairgrounds building or something and they do some holiday event. It's a group and I don't honestly know what any of them qualify themselves as. You just knew them by the denim skirts and the long hair. And >> so I think that's like one of the things where people critique the evangelical like commentary. I actually disagree. I like that it's vague because like Natalie's hypocrisy and how she weaponizes the way >> people are mad that she doesn't name the church.

[00:17:48]>> Yeah. And that it's not a good representation of like what evangelical Christianity looks like and that and that it's that she isn't.

[00:17:55]>> We've all known actively. It's like no, she's not in politics. She's part of the general evangelical group that does not do politics because that is dirty.

[00:18:04]>> I feel like if you're an extremist or if you're somebody who is clinging to that to give yourself any kind of meaning, that doesn't have a specific church name. That's just a thing in and of itself. That's a weird That's something weird. I didn't I didn't know people were mad that that she doesn't name the church. I think it would be I think it'd be worse if she did.

[00:18:23]>> Yeah. Um >> because then it makes it about that and it's not about that.

[00:18:27]>> No. Exactly. general experience.

[00:18:30]>> No, her lack of community, I think, is such a a vital building block to who Natalie becomes because she doesn't really have a lot of friends when she gets into college and she's not super interested in making them. She finds meaning in hitting the next station in life. Like, she thinks if she just keeps progressing by becoming the thing that you're supposed to be, that that is going to fill that need that fulfill that hole inside of [clears throat] her.

[00:18:57]But what's so interesting about that is neither does her eventual husband. But what I also think is so interesting is that all of them had access to community and they all declined the opportunity to access community in favor of proximity to power in favor of getting the thing that they think that they want. You know, Natalie, as we come to learn at the end of the book, might be a queer person trapped in a in a not queer person body. like her husband wanted to become a kindergarten teacher and Natalie knew she's like this actually would be a good job for him. He would love it. He'd be very good at it and then I'd be married to a kindergarten teacher for the rest of my life.

[00:19:36]>> The relationship of how Natalie views gender and this kind of goes into like the queer discussion, right? And like how she interacts with gender and gender norms and gender expression was so fascinating because of like how she has her deeply internalized misogyny. But I think one of the interesting things with Caleb, her husband, is there are so many unknowns with how he operates in the world and like his decision-making, right? But you can see these moments where he is starving for community and he's trying to find community and because Natalie basically said, "No, you can't have community over there." And his parents and brothers are like, "You're annoying. Go away and stupid.

[00:20:15]You can't come over here." Where does he go? He goes to the internet. Do y'all remember when Megan McCain was cool? 20 years ago?

[00:20:22]>> Yeah.

[00:20:23]>> When Megan McCain was like John McCain's progressive daughter and then her dad ran for president and became the nominee and that whole family got washed in the car wash of of becoming the main Republican candidate and suddenly she took this hard right turn and never came back. I think a lot because Caleb's father is a very right-wing politician who you get the impression that sometimes even he doesn't really entirely believe all of his talking like he he's saying the thing that he needs to say to get elected to do whatever to hold on to power. Everybody in this book wants power. But I I I think about Caleb the way that I think about Megan McCain of like if you had just let him be a kindergarten teacher. It's so interesting seeing somebody have the option to kind of give up power and be true to themselves and make themselves happy.

[00:21:17]>> And and I know it hasn't happened yet, but I would have also been fascinated to see like rise and like fall in terms of lack of popularity. Like I know the point of the story for this was her getting all the way up there and then absolutely fall from grace. like how would she have handled views absolutely slumping and money disappearing and yeah suddenly falling into oblivion and not being important. She would have also had a panic attack over that. Well, and it's like we the only little bits we get of that at the end are when we're in the very end with like the the interviewing coming back and forth and the producers and everything and she's kind of and her memories like completely shot and you know they talk about how yeah once the scandal came out like her content took a really scary like intense shift and then like she just disappeared and I was >> she's like see I can do this.

[00:22:08]>> Yeah.

[00:22:09]>> See this wasn't fake. all that I didn't need any of that help. Yeah, >> it's I wasn't a liar. I'm not a liar.

[00:22:15]I'm not a liar. So, really quickly, uh, Don, because we kind of touched on I I want to hear your opinion on this because when I was reading it, I was thinking of you. Caleb's descent into like the manosphere and Oh, yeah.

[00:22:27]>> and conspiracy theories cuz obviously in in your book, Where did everybody go?

[00:22:31]You dispel the myth the lonely man like >> the male loneliness epidemic epidemic and how it's not actually scientifically a thing. Like what is your thought about Caleb as this kind of representative of like the overly privileged lonely rich?

[00:22:48]>> I I mean overly privileged, yes, but he was like the runt of a litter in his own family. You know, when I was reading Caleb's storyline, I thought it was kind of interesting to see because I I I do continue drawing it back to community.

[00:23:03]Like Natalie found her false they both found false community and they both found it on the internet. She just kind of became the face of a false community and he was a participant in a false community. Cara Clareberg did a really good job of of figuring out who that is and how fast you can get into it. Like how fast that it can get away from you.

[00:23:23]Like her biggest miscalculation was later on >> she did calculation was like in actual people that she was around like [laughter] they were smarter than everybody else.

[00:23:37]Well, I think well, I think one of her biggest miscalculations was thinking that she could hold on to all of this power forever and ever and ever and never have to share with any of the people that really did kind of help open the door for her, namely her father-in-law, that that man is always going to take that power back whenever he needs to because he can. Because he's the one with actual power.

[00:23:57]>> She thought she was just as smart and just like just as capable of outwitting him in the Game of Thrones.

[00:24:04]>> Yeah.

[00:24:05]>> Yes. and she lost.

[00:24:07]>> Very much a Cersei who who really thought like, oh no. Oh my god, Natalie.

[00:24:12]Cersei.

[00:24:13]>> Yeah. Who really thought like, oh, I have now done all of the things and and she did them all flawlessly. Like, I've done everything I needed to do to accumulate all of this power. Look at all this power that now I wield. Yes.

[00:24:27]But is it ever actually yours or is it just borrowed power? And I think some of the smarter people in that Game of Thrones realize that sometimes you have to share that with others. Sometimes you have to build a network of people who can kind of flow the power back and forth. So when maybe I'm not doing so great, you can lift me back up. And she was just she only ever wanted to be an island and that was her big flaw.

[00:24:52]>> I think the other thing with this book that I've been really surprised people not picking up on is that she is a tragic figure. She's >> I'm like, "Guys, she's Hamlet. She's McBTH. Like, she's Lady McBth. She's This is This is a trap."

[00:25:05]>> Hamlet's another one. I don't know that anyone's good. Like, you're not supposed to like any of those people. Hamlet himself was a >> Yeah, he was a piece of [ __ ] Get me to another You, dude.

[00:25:14]>> Right. Where these are unlikable people.

[00:25:17]It's a play about unlikable people.

[00:25:20]>> It's a moral tale. And to have a moral tale, you no one can like the people have to be have moral failings to tell a moral tale. And ultimately this is a very realistic.

[00:25:30]>> Yeah.

[00:25:30]>> Yeah. And it's realistic in the sense of yeah this hap has happened to people.

[00:25:36]Maybe not all of the the end stuff but the rise the fall the drama [music] >> all of that stuff. It's like that's what makes it realistic because if she managed to fix everything and all came out hunky dory and perfect that wouldn't be real cuz that that's not how that works. One of the reasons why I wanted to do this video and like talk to you guys and like kind of have this conversation is one of the things I've been asked to do a video about for a long time is a video about triedwives and whether people want me to like dispel tried wives or talk about the history of triedwives and I've always been extremely resistant to it simply because I think the con and I think that's why this book is so brilliant to me the concept of a tradife it's not it's not real like >> the most famous trades are all very very very very very very very rich people. A real trad wife wouldn't get to have content, wouldn't get to have a bank. It wouldn't get you would you too busy to set up. You're supposed to be spending time with the kids and your family, not setting up a camera.

[00:26:43]That's the thing I think that most people don't even realize. If you're filming your life, >> it's so much work. That's one of the reasons why Abby and I stopped filming like our sewing because it takes three times as long to do anything when you're setting up camera angles and remembering to film every step.

[00:26:58]>> Those people that do like get ready with me stuff. And it's like, okay, I've got to wake up.

[00:27:02]>> Oh yeah.

[00:27:02]>> I've got to go get a tripod. I've got to go put my phone on it. I've got to come back. I've got to make the angle. And then while I'm doing I've got to make sure that in the mirror I look I I don't look actually haggarded, you know. And then and then I've got to go back to sleep. And then I've got to pretend to wake up. And then that's three seconds.

[00:27:19]And then I gotta move the camera across the room. And then I've got to make sure the lighting is right.

[00:27:23]>> Move the lights.

[00:27:24]>> And then I turn the lights on. And then I walk across. And then I have to And then there's another two seconds. And then I have to move the camera and then open my closet.

[00:27:31]>> Spit on the coffee. Yeah. Like do the >> You have to make three cups of coffee to get the all the Yeah. It's like HelloFresh sponsorship. I got to film myself cooking.

[00:27:42]like just setting up aesthetic angles for you to chop a pepper is absurd. And as like even in the book, Nelly knows, she's like, "Oh, wow. It went so much better and was so much easier when it was somebody else's job to do that."

[00:27:55]It's like, yeah, you have to have somebody else doing that. You you have to like you need to make it look like it's just you, but you cannot do a day in the like that is just not feasible without a camera person >> because you need that that creative muscle, that creative eye. you splitting it is I don't think people realize how difficult it is as a creative person right like when we're making videos like you said like we're thinking of angles we're thinking of light we're thinking of our gear we're thinking of all these things is the battery charged is this charged is this ready to go and then all of a sudden you have to go into okay now I have to read a recipe now I have to like make sure I'm weighing everything correctly and I don't miss an ingredient oh I need to move the camera around because I need to do this now I have to actually prep it's just like a cooking show on Food Network I have to prep three different variations to get one multi-angle shot that looks aesthetic >> and then your battery dies >> or the shots blown out on the other one and then you're exhausted and you're like and then you forget the recipe or you [ __ ] it up or you know you forget to film like one of the most important parts because you're just like I I have got to get this done. It's late. I'm starving. And you and then you get stupid comments like, "I never see you iron anything." And you're like, "Yeah, cuz that would be a whole another camera setup between every single step. Thank you."

[00:29:13]>> Every creative muscle in your brain, no matter how hard you train them, falls apart. Like because it's all they're just tapped out. They're just tapped out. So that's like why I've always had issues when people talk about tried wives. I'm like cuz they're not actually tried wives. So that's a marketing term that's I don't even know who came up with it. But I don't look at these women and I see tread wives. What I see is two things. I see people projecting their thoughts and opinions and feelings onto some of these uh women. And then I see excellent marketing done of just the evolution of the Mormon mommy blogger of the 2010s. Everyone who's talking about like Hannah Neilman and other creators or those who are like trying to become tribe wives like the young women who are like I'm married and I don't have a job and d and I'm like oh okay so this is just how you're trying to become an influencer. Cool. What's so fascinating is this happens in the book world too where people are like oh I'm gonna become a book influencer as though there's like money in that as though it's like some glamorous life that you get to lead or something like >> that was one of the things Abby and I pointed out we're like where is she getting all of this money that she's supposedly getting from because it was like 80,000 a month from just Instagram where did you how did you I don't think you know how this works >> but that goes back to like someone critiquing that Natalie's character's I don't get involved in politics. Like a reader saying like that's not good enough. And Nicole and I were like but that is absolutely how she would handle it.

[00:30:39]>> Yeah.

[00:30:40]>> Like because that is what they do.

[00:30:43]That's because if you if you talk politics, you will lose sponsors.

[00:30:47]>> Especially since she's creating like a fantasy. People complain all the time even in mildly political areas of discussion like why are you bringing politics into this? It's like >> it's going to show up on the channel on the feed. It's going to happen because I talk about history.

[00:31:03]>> Okay. I feel like we can talk about the twist now because we've been talking a long time.

[00:31:07]>> Okay.

[00:31:08]>> So, Natalie wakes up one day and finds that she's in a vaguely 1800s time period.

[00:31:16]>> So, vaguely nostalgia. Clearly not real from the beginning.

[00:31:20]>> Okay. Can I say the twist? Can I say the twist?

[00:31:22]>> Yeah. This is >> yada yada yada. It's not the 1800s. It's forward in time. and she has had a bit of a mental break and she has like deliluded herself into like her her memory is so screwed up. She doesn't really remember where she is or what she's doing or anything like that.

[00:31:41]>> I don't understand how people can read this book and finish it and be confused by the twist or think that it ended suddenly or that it didn't have like I'm like what do you mean? We're literally building up the whole time. It's a dual timeline. It's a dual timeline, guys.

[00:32:00]>> It's a triple timeline, basically. Yeah.

[00:32:04]>> People think it ended suddenly.

[00:32:06]>> Yeah. I'm like, did you not read from when she woke up in the 1800s to when Clementine shows up that that is one linear space of time?

[00:32:15]>> That is the ending. Yeah. That's the whole ending.

[00:32:18]>> You are in the present. That's the That's the joke. That's what Carol is.

[00:32:23]She has She foreshadowed everything. It is all in the beginning.

[00:32:28]>> The only thing that gives a date is is the markings of height. It's the only thing that gives dates. And it's like >> crazy woman.

[00:32:38]>> Yeah. And it's the only thing.

[00:32:39]Everything else is vaguely gestrier.

[00:32:42]It's vaguely the past and not even assuming that people would know the details of history that Abby and I immediately read like the first few lines and were like, "Well, that's not real. Moving on. Okay, we'll figure out what this is."

[00:32:53]>> I was like, "Oh, this is fake." like even even the writing was done where the back and forth was basically her like hearing about yestery year and like the past from her grandmother and then immediately going and seeing that in that version. So it just constantly was pingponging the thing that she just learned, experienced, figured out into the fantasy version. It's building up to the present and also running at the present. We have we have the she's doing the you know every chapter every other chapter we're flashbacking building up to that moment that we pick up here and then it basically does this where it then ends with Clementine showing up and so it's like well clearly she built whatever this is whether it's in her mind or real she built this through all of these things that were being explained the whole way through the book. So it's like there the coincidence would be crazy if it was really the past even believably from the moment she's like these scratchy cars.

[00:33:52]>> I don't think I understand my daughter said hello.

[00:33:55]>> I need somebody to sit me down and tell me how they think that this just ended abruptly because like I got very natural, very satisfying endings for like literally every like everyone made sense. Everyone made sense. her daughter in that last little bit of she's she's sick and I got to run and what happens at that like last little bit where everything's coming apart even then >> and I'm just like how do you all know how do you how how how >> I this is the first I've heard that the book ends abruptly and I I'm that's shocking to me. It's very confusing.

[00:34:31]>> I've heard I've seen critiques where they say they don't think Natalie got what she deserved or was punished enough. I'm like what part of Shackles did you all miss? She's in prison. Like everything she ever lost taken away from her.

[00:34:41]>> Do you need to see Mother Gothol be thrown off the tow? Like what is what do you mean?

[00:34:46]>> Do you want like Clementine to like choke her out like she did Shannon? Like what what it it literally explains everything. And then the epilogue is Mary. We're being told that like it's 5 years later. Mary's and we're being told that Mary's okay.

[00:34:59]>> So here's the thing with the the the reveal that she was the one that the assistant Shannon, right? That's the name. I think all of this could have been averted if our girl Natalie could have just come out in college.

[00:35:13]>> Well, see that was >> I'm a Natalie a queer apologist and I think I think that the fight that they got into I think the fight that they got into back in the dorm I think that was a lover's quarrel. I think they had a moment. I think they had a lot of moments. I think that it got too intense because there's a lot about the rest of the events that we then get told later on are not what Natalie told us to be true. And I think that starts with her recollection of her college years. And I >> especially when it comes to her college experience and the fact that she doesn't have friends or anything. She she never was taught how women are supposed to be friends with other women. She only ever knew women in the format of how they they go like they deal with men. And so I don't think she ever knew how to have a friendship with women. she knew how to be a rival or how to be a lover >> as as a man's like she knew how to be the man because that's something she's taught she doesn't want to be necessarily want to be the man but she knows how to do that or this person as a rival for a man that's it that's all she ever knew so of course she was never going to be in that situation and like when the breakdown happens and she attacks her like that is clearly she's like what would a man do it is heavily alluded to that Reena's gay at the end I roll my eyes I've spent far too much of my life chasing the light then I say to Reena Ina who has just received a stack of note cards. Did you though get married, have kids? She hesitates then says, "I have a family now." Yes.

[00:36:35]>> Oh, yeah. But probably looks different.

[00:36:38]>> I think those two were girlfriends back in college. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:36:41]Yes.

[00:36:41]>> Yeah. And she's like, "But it probably looks different." But she's always talking about Arena's boyfriends and then there's that scene where Arena brings the boy home and and like she's listening to them and she makes it sound like like she's getting assaulted.

[00:36:53]>> I fully Yes. I'm on team Natalie and Reena >> were a thing were were a thing in college and that messed Natalie up because she couldn't be. She wasn't supposed to be and that was bad and yada yada. And I absolutely can believe that Natalie's the one that slugged her, got her to slug, you know, whatever to get out of the room. But no, I absolutely think that Natalie and Reena hooked up, had some kind of relationship, whatever it was. Maybe it it didn't go all the way, but yeah, 100%. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

[00:37:24]Yes. Yes. So that's I think that's the correct reading. The Natalie is an unreliable narrator started back in college.

[00:37:31]>> I think the thing is too it's like because Nicole and I have talked about this because I was like do you think Natalie is is queer and dealing with like internalized homophobia and internalized misogyny? because that's how I read it is as her very skewed upbringing which is built on misogyny and and basically her like you said her proximity to power and her view of power is always within masculinity and what would a Christian man do and >> but there's another piece of this her mother eventually goes to a church and gets to a more progressive pastor who was like oh something's okay with the gays the gays are okay and Natalie doesn't know how to process that and I feel like if Maybe Natalie's mom had gotten that past her a little sooner in life. Maybe things would have been different for Natalie.

[00:38:14]>> So, for me, a lot of it, I think, comes down to again, she never learned how to be a a healthy version of woman or man or whatever variation thereof.

[00:38:26]Definitely, there was no in between. It was one or the other. And so, in order to have a relationship with other women, the best she could manage was, well, how would a man have a relationship with a woman? and that was the best that she could perform. Whether she wanted to do it or not, I think is going to be way more complicated of a question. But I don't think she generally knew how to not have a because women are meant to be consumed. Women are meant to be observed. Women are meant to be watched.

[00:38:54]Women are meant to be looked at. And so she always saw that. She thought that the same thing about herself and the same thing about other women. So she only knew how to watch, observe, consume other women. She didn't know how to actually do anything else. It's a very complicated thing in the fact that I'm not sure she ever necessarily had those urges so much as she literally just did not know any other operator's manual of how to have that relationship at all.

[00:39:20]Therefore, worked with, oh yeah, standard relationship. This is what it's supposed to be. This is how you treat women. If you are somebody who is smarter, more powerful, knows better, knows what they need, this is how you treat them, which is from her sect of the good Christian man. So whether she had actual desire not formatted in that I I don't maybe but I think she just literally didn't know anything else like those were her two weapons.

[00:39:46]>> I'm with you D. I think Natalie is dealing with a lot of suppressed like frustration. I mean like also just her >> oh obviously that yeah >> within like even how she interacts with uh Caleb when she's not you know out of her out of her mind. I think I think basically she needed to be the one she needed to be the dominant one in a relationship and it made her uncomfortable with the fact that the other one had to be a man who was supposed to be the dominant one in the relationship. And so I think she would have I think she needed either a by wife energy husband [laughter] or like a very sweet wife like I think she needed to be the one in charge. It's kind of going back to like this whole thing and like her anger at women and how she releases her internalized anger at herself and like her internalized misogyny when she watches other women do the thing that she wants to do but she knows she can't do. So, it's like when she yells at Abigail for leaving her corn dogfaced uh husband and you know getting a divorce or smoking or cursing and she yells at her about the money and it's like when you read it you it's not her actually being mad at her. It's her being mad that she's doing the brave thing that Natalie is too cowardly to do and that she's mad that her sister is braver than her. You know, she gets mad at Raina for doing all these things that she actually would like to do, but she she can't do it because it's not the right thing to do. You know, she gets mad at Clementine for talking back and and and you know, the angry women. It's like she it's kind of going back to the whole like, you know, this symbiotic relationship. It's like she loves the angry women because she herself is also an angry woman. anyone who's uh watching this who hasn't like read any of these books, uh this is this is the co-read because this is another >> and and this right here, all of these.

[00:41:38]>> Yeah. And then if you want a palette cleanser, you can read uh Dawn's uh amazing poetic young adult book entitled What?

[00:41:47]>> Varity Vox and the Curse of Foxfire.

[00:41:48]Varity Vox and the Veil of Death, the sequel, the highly anticipated sequel to my New York Times bestselling young adult fantasy novel is available for pre-order wherever you get your books.

[00:41:58]Also, where did everybody go? My audio book about the loneliness epidemic is available everywhere audio books are bought or borrowed.

[00:42:05]>> Going back to like Natalie queer coding, I want to talk about what happened between Natalie and Shannon that is very ambiguous. And if you want to hear our discussion on this, it's going to be either on Patreon, uh, my YouTube membership, or you can actually watch this whole thing on Nebula, cuz we don't have to edit this out on Nebula, but because of YouTube's, uh, AdSense and monetization rules, and anything that's coming after this is going to get me demonetized, and I already had to do that with the Evelyn Nesbbit video, and I'm still mad about that. So, I'm not going to get here. It's almost like someone should start an entire podcast called Demonetized History.

[00:42:43]>> Wow. Crazy.

[00:42:45]>> Wow. What an idea.

[00:42:47]>> Well, thank you. This has been fun.

[00:42:48]>> Don, thank you for joining us.

[00:42:50]>> Thank you for having me. This has been delightful. I don't usually get to do YouTube things, so this has been fun.

[00:42:56]>> Yes. And you can find Don all over the internet. By Don Martin and >> by Don Martin. My name is not Biden. By Don Martin. B Y D O N M A R T I N.

[00:43:04]That's my Donart website. That's my all my social media. I need that I need that uh the card thing where it's like you know www.bonmmartart.com.

[00:43:13]This is my name. This is the website.

[00:43:15]This is the social media tools.

[00:43:17]>> I will end it with the little like we know we have those little graphics. Put them right here for Don.

[00:43:23]>> Thank you.

[00:43:25]>> Also, please pre-order Varity Vox and the Veil of Death wherever you get your books. Support an indie bookstore if you can.

[00:43:31]>> Spoiler everybody.

[00:43:32]>> Goodbye.

[00:43:34]Well,