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- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Emily.
- [00:03]
B
I'm Ashley.
- [00:04]
A
And this is Books with youh Besties. Hi, besties. Welcome back. Today we are going to be talking about Party of Liars by Kelsey Cox. We just finished this book. Both of us loved it. If you have not read it, you should come back. But first, we have some big news for you. Books with your Besties is going to become a every other week. So bi monthly, bi weekly. How do you say that? Anyway, it's going to become an every other week podcast. And that's because we are launching next week True Crime with your Besties. Our true crime cases we have covered have been a huge hit with our audience and we understand that you are craving more. We have that message loud and clear. So you will still get us every week. However, every other week will be books with your besties and on the other weeks you'll get True Crime with your Besties.
- [00:57]
B
And when it officially launches, we'll drop the link here because it will be a. I've been calling it a sister podcast. I don't know, it will be a completely other podcast. So we're not just dropping true crime episodes on our Books with your Besties podcast. We are starting a brand new one called True Crime with your Besties.
- [01:13]
A
So you're going to want to go and subscribe and find all of your listening there. And today, as we talk about Party of Liars, we are actually going to be talking about a true crime case that may connect in some ways.
- [01:26]
B
Yes. We have found sometimes organically talking about some of our favorite thriller books, we have been able to tie in true crime cases. Like, we'll literally be like, oh, my gosh, this reminded me of this. This reminded me of this. So it'll be fun when that happens organically or even kind of on purpose. Okay, one to five. I know nobody really cares, but what would you give this book?
- [01:46]
A
I give it four stars. I. What about you?
- [01:49]
B
I agree. I read it with my ears. What? Did you read it with my ears? Yes.
- [01:54]
A
I listened. I really enjoyed it. Here's the thing, I'm just to, like, jump in immediately. I might even give it a little bit more like 4.25. I really enjoyed it. I thought the last hour was fantastic. I had a really hard time throughout the book with the. The amount of characters and figuring out who everyone was tracking, all of that. But here's the thing I have to say and why I liked it as much as I did. I loved the ending, I loved the twists. I thought they were fantastic. The way that she tied it all together and all of those characters were necessary. That's what was interesting is I. I think there were a couple of characters who were extra, but they added to understanding the motivation of that person when it all came together in the end. I can. You can rarely say, it seems like in most books where there's, quote, unquote, too many characters, right? Where you're just like, oh, my gosh, there's so many characters, I can't keep track of them all. At the end, you're like, okay, really? We only needed these three right. Characters, and these 12 were like, I guess put in there to try to, you know, distract or something. But this time, okay, Thinking about Michaela, obviously we needed Mikayla, the character, the teenage girl who ended up, you know, being in the romantic relationship with Ethan. We needed the storyline about Sophie, her best friend, the daughter whose birthday party it was, and the boy they both liked to establish, like, the lack of credibility in Michaela, and Michaela being sort of unstable in the way that she thought about relationships with other people so that it would kind of take away or distract us from the reality of the relationship with Ethan. Does that make sense?
- [03:38]
B
It makes complete sense. And I was going to interrupt you, as I usually do, to say there were quote, unquote, extra characters who we did need, like Mason, but they didn't have their own storyline. Like, it was not told from his point of view. Right. So I thought the characters she chose to have it be from their point of view. We absolutely needed every single one.
- [03:58]
A
Right. Like Gemma, too. I was like, what is the purpose of Curtis and Gemma here? But then in the end, it was to establish the way that Ithan had basically screwed over Kim by weaponizing her against her best friend Gemma. And so it was important to know that they had this weird, strained relationship. And I just thought that was really cool that everything tied in.
- [04:20]
B
I agree. And I'll say as my best friend and as besties do. Emily did text me before I started the book and said, like, this book will be easier if you know who the characters are going into it and kind of outlined who the people were and how they related. And I felt like that made my reading, which with my ears, experience so much easier because I really felt like, okay, I can pay less attention to figuring out who they are and more attention to, like, why is this character?
- [04:46]
A
I know I gave you, like, a cheat sheet, which I feel like that would be generally helpful for people. We should. We should put out a post that's like, party of liars FYI here, who the characters are, so you can refer back while you're listening or reading. Because there were times that I was like, wait, Gemma and Kim, who are they again? And then, of course, I got it all, because I got it all on my own. But just to be able to tell you, like, Kim is the ex wife, Orla is the nanny. Mason is the friend that Michaela and Sophie both like, like, whatever.
- [05:15]
B
And it's not. It was spoiler free. It's just like here, all these characters tied together. Do you remember was. I think it was no country. I forget what it's called. But when we had a book of the month, this is a total sidebar. And we opened it and the first page was a map. And we were like, oh, we have made a grievous mistake.
- [05:31]
A
But the map was so helpful.
- [05:33]
B
It was, but we were like, oh, no, we need a map to understand, like, where all these characters live and who they are. I thought this one, this was a bad joy.
- [05:41]
A
I love visuals like that. It would almost. I know. Maybe in these books we should recommend to Kelsey and other authors that they should put like a. A list of characters in the beginning that you can look up. But this is the thing is, that's all to say, like, if I'm nitpicking the book, that's what I'm picking out is that there were a lot of characters. And that can always be true challenging if you're not paying close attention. So what's the. The reality of it? Just freaking pay attention and you. You won't have a problem.
- [06:07]
B
I don't think if I was reading with my eyes, I would have needed it. But I think when we read with our ears, we're often doing it. Walking the dog, doing laundry. So you're just giving it a little less attention.
- [06:17]
A
Exactly. Or, like, zone out for a second. And then I'm like, I come back, I'm like, oh, who is that? I missed something. So then I have to, like, back up. Which is fine. And that's a me problem, really, not the book problem. But I absolutely loved the way it all came together.
- [06:31]
B
I was gonna say this is when Emily reads a book before I do, you then have to read it a second time. Not really, but because of my reactions, I'm like, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here. And I was texting Emily, you guys, last night. I'm like, I have an hour left. I have 15 minutes left. And there were so many twists and turns that I even messaged you remember? And I said, there are eight minutes left. Maybe not. And then, like, the biggest twist of all happened with eight minutes left.
- [06:54]
A
I know. So here's the things that I loved about the book. And obviously this is just spoilers. You read the book, right? We assume you read the book. So we're not going to recap anything for you. I really thought that Michaela was just stalkery. And so the twist to when she was like, I was on the balcony and she was on Ethan's lap, I was like, but a scumbag pedophile dog. Right? Did that shock you?
- [07:16]
B
I literally texted you. I think if I look back, all. I think I texted you, omg, Ethan pedophile. And then I'm like, I probably shouldn't have texted the word pedophile. I'm sure I'm already on some list, but I think that's what I sent to you. And, yeah, I mean, those. I don't know. I mean, you and I have talked about this. Those storylines of these old, gross pedophile men just give me the complete heebie jeebies.
- [07:39]
A
Totally. And then so that was horrifying and just so sick and disgusting. And then the part where they fought on the balcony, I thought she was falling. And obviously that was intentional on the author's part, but it was him and Orla, like, being involved in protecting her. I did not like Orla. I think you liked Orla, the character. I did not. She. I thought something was weird about her and off about her, and I was wrong.
- [08:09]
B
I. I didn't think she was involved in a nefarious way, nor did I think she was going to be the hero of the story.
- [08:15]
A
No, I just. I think. I think that Kelsey did a really good job of making her seem like this shady character that could be trying to kidnap the baby or like something wrong with her, like targeting them. And I don't know.
- [08:29]
B
I wrote down two questions I wanted to ask you because, again, just like we go into the books and we haven't read them, when we have these conversations, we haven't talked about the books. Like, this is always our first chat about them. So I had two things that came up that I wanted to talk to you about because they just were hard for me personally because this is about me and I don't know why I get hung up on this, but did you. You take any issue or feel like, please don't let it be this, that maybe there was something with her postpartum that meant she had hurt someone or. That storyline is always really Hard for me because I don't want someone who is experiencing postpartum depression psychosis to. To be, like, blamed as a victim. Does that make sense?
- [09:09]
A
To be blamed as a victim?
- [09:11]
B
Like, if they. How do I want to say this? If you, if they hurt someone, obviously you are a criminal, so you're not a victim. But there are some decisions that can be made when you're in postpartum depression that I think you have to sometimes give people some grace. And I didn't want any blame to be put on someone because of their depression.
- [09:29]
A
Oh, yes.
- [09:30]
B
Okay.
- [09:31]
A
So I more was like, I did think. Okay, I did think her having those visions of, like, I could throw my baby off. I felt like that was like, kind of normal almost. I know that's a really weird thing to say, but I think in postpartum that those thoughts are not reality. And like she said, I never would have. So this wasn't like an urge she wanted to. It was like imagining that that could happen. Those bad things could happen. Listen, I have friends who went through postpartum, quote, unquote depression. I. I don't know. Postpartum anxiety, postpartum psychosis maybe where they did stuff like walk around their house with a baseball bat at night because they thought someone was going to come try to get their child. Like, literally. I mean, I think your brain goes so haywire. So I didn't like how much everyone was responding to her as well. Honey, that's not real. Oh, honey, it's not real about stuff. But obviously ithan did a good job of. Of painting it that way, but I. I just didn't like that part.
- [10:26]
B
I think you're nailing exactly what I had such a hard time saying with my words, because I'm bad with words. And that was just like, I don't want her to be blamed for something. And, and it's because of this postpartum that other people were quote, unquote, saying like, oh, whatever, when that actually had nothing to do with it. Like she was being gaslit into thinking she was potentially having something she did not have.
- [10:48]
A
Right. Yes.
- [10:49]
B
Yeah. And I just don't ever want a storyline that's like someone hurting. I don't know. I. That part I just was like, don't let it go this way. And it didn't go that way.
- [10:57]
A
I know. I'm so glad that it didn't also.
- [11:00]
B
And then the second question I had, this is interview with Emily, because when Kim. When Kim realized what Ethan. How manipulative he was and how he had Lied about her, you know, wandering around the neighborhood when she was drunk and kind of decided to save herself, even if that had some aspects of like, self sabotage. I felt like I missed. And maybe it just wasn't important because you think as a mother, she was always putting Sophie first. But I kind of missed her talking more about protecting Sophie in this scenario. But maybe I just didn't get that part.
- [11:34]
A
That's true. But maybe it just. I didn't really care. I don't know.
- [11:38]
B
Right.
- [11:39]
A
Kim was a selfish, self centered person in her alcoholism, but also her alcoholism was probably driven a lot by a really toxic marriage in some ways. Right. And some pressures there. But yeah, I, I don't. I mean, she talked about how she wanted to not drink for Sophie, not to have drinks, don't drink anything for Sophie. But. And ultimately Kim, I don't know. Kim was a complex character because she ended up being a victim of Ithan in the end and doing the right thing and calling her sponsor and getting sober for her daughter. But she also was like attention seeking, self centered, self sabotaging deep in her addiction and making really, really bad decisions. So she was just complex in that way.
- [12:24]
B
And I didn't think it when I was reading the book. This is me with, you know, 24 hours of thinking about it after I read it, thinking, oh, yeah, during that part of the book where she talked about getting the apartment, leaving the relationship. I'm like, she had Sophie and there was nothing about Sophie. But that probably points to exactly what you're saying. Just Kim is a complex character and also had to make some selfish decisions to get out of being with a guy like Ethan. Who's a bad guy.
- [12:47]
A
Yeah, is just a bad guy. It's the psychologists, all of them.
- [12:51]
B
What are you. What are you saying, Professor Reed?
- [12:53]
A
We become psychologists to hide our sinister underpinnings. I've been poisoning you for years.
- [12:59]
B
I know you're my Curtis or whoever the guy that was the other guy's name.
- [13:02]
A
I'm your Curtis.
- [13:04]
B
The big reveal with Orla that like, absolutely blew my mind, which you guys know because of spoilers. But I. Well, that would be a spoiler for a different book. There's a different book where a woman saves another woman. And I texted Emily and I was like, oh, this reminds me of this book book Orla, like, empowered women empower women. And I really in my core thought she was just protecting her. But then the big reveal comes that. No, this was like revenge.
- [13:26]
A
Yeah, she was. She was coming to find out. Who is this dude? And what happened to her daughter. And then she saw it. She said she saw it right away. She saw that this little girl, this other little girl needed her. Needed her and her baby. Right. But, like, she was protecting Danny, which is so crazy because I kept thinking she was just only into Charlotte, the baby. But at the end, you know, Danny was like a surrogate daughter for her because she lost her daughter. And here she finds a woman who's with the same man, and she could. I just love that she knew she would need to be there.
- [14:01]
B
Yeah. And she, like, just took or avenged her daughter's death.
- [14:06]
A
Avenged her daughter's death. And saved. Then saved another person from being a.
- [14:10]
B
Victim of him as being a bad reader like I am. Did we really not know the body fell out of the window until the final hour?
- [14:17]
A
What do you mean? But when the.
- [14:19]
B
When he fell out of the window and was dead in the very beginning of the book, did we know that that event had happened or. We didn't know the event happened until it happened. Like, with 30 minutes left in the.
- [14:30]
A
Book, we knew that, like, somebody died.
- [14:32]
B
Right. But we.
- [14:33]
A
And there was a fall, a fall down the cliff, but we didn't know in what way. And it's not actually a window he fell through. It was the glass balcony.
- [14:42]
B
Oh, yeah, you're right.
- [14:43]
A
It's the glass balcony edge. So the balcony was made of glass over the cliffs, and it had a hairline crack in it. And Orla pushed him hard enough through the glass balcony edge. And then they said he. He leaned against it. And all night, Orla had been warning people to stay off that balcony or away from that balcony because there was a crack in the glass.
- [15:04]
B
When you read the. When you read, like, the synopsis of. Of Party of Liars, it's full on. Says, like, someone falls from someone something and dies. But I thought Kelsey did such a good job of leaving that reveal until literally almost the ve. I was like, what is going to happen? There's been no crime. This is a thriller, and there's been zero crimes committed so far.
- [15:22]
A
Yeah. But at the very beginning, it was like the body and the fall from the cliff. So we. I knew that was coming eventually, but I had no idea who it was going to be.
- [15:31]
B
What did you think about that moment between Kim and Danny when he surprised them with the Europe trip? And Kim and Kim realize, like, oh, you're. You're in it.
- [15:41]
A
Well, it's not cute to surprise somebody with a trip to Europe unless you're, like, footloose and fancy. Free and no kids and you just want. You say I want to travel, I want to travel, I want to travel. And you have summers off. I don't know. Or you don't work. Like it's. It's a weird thing to do to be like a month in Europe surprise and to reveal it that way. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some people would love to be surprised that way, but just not with a newborn. I'm sure not with a newborn. So I just thought it was really strange that he wasn't sensitive to that. And I thought in hindsight it's hard to remember what I was thinking in that moment with that conversation. But I remember Danny being like, wait a minute, Kim's the one that's being problematic here, not my husband. Even though she was like agreeing with her. And I thought those are those moments where there's a bid for like connection where you're like, I could save you from something if you could recognize this and how driven we are to be like, no, I'm good, everything's fine.
- [16:39]
B
Yeah.
- [16:41]
A
It made me think of my own personal life experiences. There was a time I don't have what I would call regrets because I just don't believe in them really very much. There's a few, of course, but they're small. They're small. Like they're moments where I behaved in a way that I wish I hadn't or that they're not like, oh, I wish I'd never met or dated this person cuz it wouldn't have led me to where I am. Right. Or I wish I had never taken this job. Like it led me to where I am. But one of my moments of regret that I think about is I was in a not good relationship with a toxic person. It was the only one I ever had of with someone who was really toxic. And I went to a wedding with him and his ex girlfriend from a lot of years on and off of course, because he was so toxic was there. And that was the only time I was ever in the same place as her. And I heard during the night that she was like in a puddle on the floor are crying over him. And my. I knew at that time that things were not okay and this man was not okay. But I was like so desperate to salvage it and make it okay. And so my one regret is not having sort of woken up enough yet that I couldn't have been Kim with her to say, what are you crying about? You dodged a bullet. Like you should be glad that this person is not in your life anymore and they're not going to be in mine either. I mean, because that night I wanted to leave but had no way to leave because he was so bad to me. So anyway, I just thought it was cool also that Kim tried that with her. That Kim was willing to, like, reach out to her, talk to her, and try to be like, hey, Ithan did this to me too. Even though it didn't maybe look like it in the book, like, it's a girls, girls move.
- [18:24]
B
It absolutely is a girls move. Girls move. But I also think when you're in it, like you were or like Danny is, you do. Maybe not consciously, but you. You do realize you have to kind of be brave and vulnerable in a way that you might just be immediately shut down. That most likely that person isn't gonna receive your message.
- [18:43]
A
Totally.
- [18:43]
B
And down the road, when they figure it out, they'll be like, oh, yeah, she. She said this. So it. It is hard, especially when you're in, like, your 20s or whatever, and you're just like, am I willing to be seen as kind of like the bad guy temporarily? Like, how could this go? Which I don't think is a selfish decision at that phase in our lives.
- [19:03]
A
Yeah, no, I don't. I don't think that the girl would have listened to me. I don't think she would have, but I just wanted her to have in her head and know somebody else sees how bad he is.
- [19:14]
B
Yeah. I wish you could see her today and be like, hey, you saw it now. Like, here we are.
- [19:20]
A
Aren't you glad?
- [19:22]
B
Yeah. Oh, gosh. I know regret is a weird thing. I don't have regrets with my personal life. Any quote unquote regret I have is based on a way that I made someone else feel. There's nothing about the way I've treated myself that I regret. Sometimes I'm like, well, I deserved that. But it's moments where I'm like, I shouldn't have done that to this person. Which made them feel X, Y, or Z.
- [19:42]
A
Right.
- [19:43]
B
But I would say in that scene too, with Ethan, don't you think he is such a manipulative, horrible man that his whole goal was for Danny to be like, well, why would you do this? So he could be like, who complains about a free trip to Europe?
- [19:57]
A
I know.
- [19:57]
B
Such a gaslighty piece of shit guy.
- [20:00]
A
Pardon the language, horrible guy. And just to have everybody around be like, she's so lucky. How exciting.
- [20:06]
B
Also, the whole. I mean, every character in this book had a Whole smoke and mirror story about what their life actually looked like versus what their life was really like. I, I did like, Was it Mary Beth? I was like, I like the, like curious lady who is all down in the basement looking for things. I'm like, she, I like her.
- [20:23]
A
Isn't that, isn't that interesting how much we don't know what's going on behind closed doors for people?
- [20:30]
B
Yeah.
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A
How much pretending there is.
- [20:32]
B
It's like that. Have you seen that meme? I'm sure you have. Or it's like a quote or whatever. Those are very different things. But basically it says, like, people don't pretend to be depressed. Like, they pretend to be okay.
- [20:44]
A
Yeah.
- [20:45]
B
And then. Yeah. I mean, you and I know a lot of people going through things behind closed doors and then you see this forward facing social media picture or even in real life picture, and you're just like, but I really know what's going on and it's really hard in your life. Right.
- [20:59]
A
It is crazy how much we think we can see what's happening in people's lives and we have no idea because it's such a snippet, such a, such a snippet of, of time.
- [21:10]
B
Is there anything we haven't talked about in this book that we think we just can't leave this conversation without talking about? Should we say the name of the case we're going to?
- [21:18]
A
Yes.
- [21:18]
B
Okay. So will this be our first true crime case?
- [21:22]
A
Yes. All right.
- [21:23]
B
So our first true crime case will drop in next next week and it's going to be about Morgan Metzer.
- [21:32]
A
Morgan Metzer.
- [21:32]
B
Thank you much. You can choose to look it up or you can choose to come in with no information. Either way, it's a shocking and terrifying case.
- [21:41]
A
I vote for that one. You come in with no information and look, we'll eventually probably move our Kyron Horman episode over to true crime with your besties. And we are still offering to our patreon VIPs a extra true crime case. We are just dropping one now on Corey Richards. And so we're dropping that case now. Yeah. So you can still get true crime through Patreon. Listen to us here at Books with your besties and make sure you head over next week to true crime with your besties, which will also be shared on our Patreon at the creepy book club.
- [22:16]
B
And if you're on Patreon, you'll get the true crime episodes that are going to be public early. So you want to be there just for that.
- [22:22]
A
Thanks for listening.
- [22:23]
B
Thanks, you guys. Thanks for listening.
- [22:27]
A
For more content, find us on Patreon at the Creepy Book Club.
- [22:31]
B
Happy reading.