.png)
When Girls Talk Books
Are you ready for story time? When Girls Talks Books is a podcast with two best friends bonding between the pages. They give comprehensive reviews of books where even if you haven't read the book, you can still enjoy the story. Brace yourselves for a tornado of laughter and literary love! When Girls Talk Books is here.
When Girls Talk Books
Ep.3 If You Tell By Gregg Olsen
"When Girls Talk Books" treads into the shadowy realm of "If You Tell" by Greg Olsen, where the truth is more terrifying than fiction. Our discussion unveils the stark realities of a household marred by abuse, where the bond between sisters becomes their lifeline. With a nod to our local Maggie Mae's Bookshop and their Easter surprises, we're reminded of the lighter moments that provide relief amidst the darkness of our main narrative.
This episode is a sobering journey through deceit, manipulation, and the harrowing struggle for survival faced by Shelly's children. We navigate the complexities of unveiling such secrets and the heart-rending choices that lead to a semblance of justice, all while questioning the societal and systemic blind spots that often leave victims unheard.
Most importantly, we stand in solidarity with survivors, sharing essential resources for anyone grappling with domestic abuse. From confidential hotlines to organizations dedicated to providing support, we extend a lifeline to our listeners, emphasizing the message that no one has to weather these storms alone.
NATIONAL DOMESTIC HOTLINE
1-800-787-SAFE 7233
TEXT "START" TO 88788
OREGON DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES
855-503-SAFE 7233
CHILD HELP HOTLINE
800-422-4453
YWCA OF PORTLAND
getservices@ywcapdx.org
Call to Safety: 24/7 Crisis line for Survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Always free and confidential.
(503) 235-5333
Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
Music by @thundercatlouis
Editing done by Connor Luther @clfilms.co
Music by @thundercatlouis
MERCH SHOP HERE
welcome, all right. So welcome to when girls talk books. Episode three. We're doing it this week. The episode's gonna take a sharp turn. Compared to our other ones, this one is definitely heavier. We're gonna be putting up definitely a trigger, warning and just caution to anyone who's had maybe difficult, abusive thing or events happen in their life. Just really, we're going to try to be as gentle and respective as possible, but it's definitely going to be a heavier episode than our usual kind of happy-go-luckies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a major content warning, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:We're not going to go into a lot of details because there's a lot of them, but we just want to put it out there that if you do end up reading this book, kind of take your precautions. You know, if anything is activating an emotion in you, take a moment and maybe revisit it.
Speaker 1:And it's a true story. So I think that's what, yeah, kind of accelerates the heaviness of it. It's a true story and obviously we feel like our viewers and listeners are really respectful. But keep any comments anything like that, like, if it's not nice, don't say it at all. You weren't in this situation. The families could maybe somehow find this episode hear it, listen to it like it. You need to be respectful of them and their lives. Oh great, so now I'm done barking at everybody, but we can be nice now.
Speaker 2:But we can start out on a happy note.
Speaker 1:Yes, so, with Easter approaching, you did a little something here.
Speaker 2:Yes, so it is almost Easter time for us. By the time that this comes out, easter would have passed. But there is a local bookshop called Maggie Mae's Bookshop. So if you are kind of local to the Gresham Portland area area, I would highly recommend checking them out. They're super, super kind people and they do a lot of events and things like that. So they have, you know, book release parties. They're having a Taylor Swift's new album release party and I went in and they had done mystery Easter egg book things, so of course I had to get some. They're interactive with the community Wow, that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they do a lot of cool stuff. So if you're on their Instagram, they post all kinds of stuff there. You can always stop by and check out Anytime that you place an order. They have like little booklets of things that are going on or, you know, staff recommendations, things like that. So it is a really cool bookshop and, of course, it's local, so I wanted to open them today. Yay, so I of course got myself the Grown Up Romance and I got you the Grown Up Cozy Historical Fantasy, ooh so.
Speaker 2:I have no idea what's in these, and they've been sitting on my counter for probably two weeks and it's been killing me. I didn't get into them, I was good Mine's opening Okay, ready.
Speaker 1:You said to be careful with it. One two, three, like everyone's, like, ooh, okay.
Speaker 2:I got the X Appeal by Amber Roberts.
Speaker 1:I got Marvelous by Molly Greeley I'm sorry if I pronounced your name wrong, I'll do better too and Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes. I haven't read either one of these books.
Speaker 2:I haven't either.
Speaker 1:So that's exciting. And then a very cute Sunflowers card. That's sweet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're a Sunflower gal.
Speaker 1:Halfway covered in Sunflowers. So honestly, that's quite fitting. Ooh, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:I got a cute keychain saying Well-Read Woman.
Speaker 1:I got a little rainbow, very cute.
Speaker 2:Ooh, a sticker and a bookmark.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:Stickers. Rom-coms, which I do, cover my laptop in stickers, so this will be great.
Speaker 1:Ooh, Some tea. Ooh, I got tea too. We're going to literally pour the tea.
Speaker 2:This episode I got a pumpkin spice black tea.
Speaker 1:That is so fun.
Speaker 2:I have a black tea intolerance. Fun fact, I still do it, but I have an intolerance and I got an Amethyst geode hand soap.
Speaker 1:Girl, that is cool Okay this was fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so cute and a dum-dum, this is so fun. I actually don't have this, so I was worried, since I got a grown-up romance and I read a lot of romance that it was going to be one that I already had. So I was like well, worst case scenario, I can give it to Susie.
Speaker 1:You had to pry me out of the clutches of the thriller world and be like just give romance a chance.
Speaker 2:Just do something. Yeah, come on, do something this month we're going to be doing, if you tell and this is told by greg olson, um, and, like we said, it is a true story and it takes place local to where we're at especially where I live yeah, the pacific northwest.
Speaker 2:It talks about vancouver battleground. It is does have some sandy oregon, some mount hood and then over in bend as well, so for us it was real like oh oh, I didn't know that this was located here me either when I first started reading it and then, like my fiance, went to the college that's mentioned here and so, as I'm reading parts of it to him, he's like wait what?
Speaker 1:yeah, bro, we went to that park, we camped where they get, like it got weird, it was, it was kind of like oh, eerie yeah, that's an excellent word for it um so my notes are on my phone everybody, so I'm not like too busy texting, not listening to kylie, just this time I have no, she is she is possibly just a quick, might be a DoorDash order, but you know, okay.
Speaker 1:So this book is told I mean, it's written by Greg, but it was told from the perspective of the children that grew up in this horrific home. So the parents, shelley and Dave Notek, are who this story is about and the things that Shelley coerced people into doing, the abuse that she did, and this is basically a survivor's story, talking about how they felt while they were there, how they got out and kind of how they're doing now.
Speaker 2:So our story starts out with Michelle Shelly Lynn Watson, rivardo, long, notek she has the longest name ever. A full sentence like her name is a sentence. So we start out she is kind of our main point for probably a quarter of the book, I would say Talking about her growing up and things like that. So we start with her dad, les, who is considered the hotshot on the town, and he ends up marrying Laura, which he kind of fibbed about his age, like she didn't realize he was much older than her, which I did not enjoy, and I think she was underage when they met.
Speaker 1:I could be wrong, but I think she was.
Speaker 2:They end up getting divorced so but sharon is shelly and chuck and paul's mom and she has substance abuse issues. She doesn't necessarily run in the right crowd, but she calls the house and tells laura that Les is supposed to be taking the kids and she's like, sorry, kids, yeah, as in plural yeah. So she does not know anything about this but is like okay, laura is a phenomenal person.
Speaker 1:I will say that Gets this dropped on her plate and then raises three children that aren't hers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Shelly and Chuck, who are the two oldest, uh, come and stay with laura and wes and immediately shelly has a lot of problems. She's very much a troubled kid, um, and just very mean-spirited like like a human hurricane causes trauma, damage and destruction everywhere. She freaking lies a lot she's a pathological liar, and so at some point they end up finding out that their mom had been murdered. And she doesn't really care, she's like okay and just kind of moves on with her life. And then after that Shelly starts to become really unhinged.
Speaker 2:Unhinged, but also a different level of abuse. She starts putting glass in shoes. She really starts taking control of her siblings, speaking for Chuck, who is non-verbal, and then Paul ends up coming and living with them after Sharon dies, who is the youngest, and he starts taking after Shelly in the way of not being very kind and also speaking for Chuck, and it's not a great scenario. So Shelly's grandmother, anne Anna, is not a nice person, either she's a work herself.
Speaker 2:And she kind of takes Shelly under her wing in a way, because, like you said, they're kind of cut from the same cloth. However, she's not nice to Shelly. She's very mean to Shelly. She cuts her hair like weird ways because it's very curly. Humiliates her, but at the same time, shelly is very clearly her favorite, and Shelly ends up inheriting her house at some point when Anna passes away and like, if that, if you're the favorite and you're treated like that can y'all imagine not being the favorite?
Speaker 2:Well, she was the favorite because she was also she was very similar to Anna. At 15, shelly ends up accusing her dad of assaulting her and she takes it to the school. The school takes it very seriously and then they Opens up a full investigation. A full investigation Sends her to the doctor to get you know looked at and they come back and say there's zero evidence of abuse in any way. Yeah, and so Laura ends up going into Shelly's room.
Speaker 2:Searching around her room seeing if there's anything that she can find to kind of back up shelly's story, which, if your husband is accused of something, I'm going to be investigating, you know. And she ends up finding a magazine and the cover or the title on the magazine is my dad assaulted me at 15. So shelly took that and then made it into her own narrative. We assume that it's fabricated. So then again, this kind of plays into Shelly is a liar at the core of her being and kind of always has been. So.
Speaker 2:Shelly is kicked out of school a lot. She moves around to different schools. They can't keep her in one. She ends up going to a nun school down in Oregon. She gets kicked out of there. She ends up going to the east to live with her aunt. She gets kicked out of school there, causes a whole ton of problems in that marriage and at some point they end up getting divorced the aunt and the uncle that she went to live with. Because she causes havoc wherever she goes From there. She moves back home Randy she went to school with. Because she causes havoc wherever she goes From there. She moves back home. Randy she went to school with when she was back east. She convinces Randy to move to Oregon to work with her dad is what it is.
Speaker 1:Poor, poor, randy Poor.
Speaker 2:Randy. So they end up moving here and the dad convinces Randy to marry Shelly.
Speaker 1:He needs somebody to take this child off of his hands.
Speaker 2:Definitely. And Randy gets here and he's like oh, like this was kind of like feeling very pressured.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he thought he had some time, he thought he was just going to, and then, come on, get married, let's go yeah, and so he does.
Speaker 2:He ends up marrying Shelly, and then they end up having Nikki, who is the oldest daughter in the story, who I think, suffers the most abuse out of the children in this house and is just the strongest person.
Speaker 1:I can't even, can't even say it enough, you know all these girls are strong, but I felt like Nikki, specifically, was very targeted, targeted specifically, hated more, it seemed, in the way of physical manifestation of the abuse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, and mental, and they even talk about that. She got the worst of it of the kids for sure. So Shelly abusesandy, in a way, just wants him for his money, doesn't want anything to do with him. He sleeps in his car sleeps outside, no matter the weather yeah, and she did get that from anna, that kind of mentality yeah, her grandmother used to make her grandfather sleep outside in the woodshed for years 20 years, something like that.
Speaker 1:Just it was a lot.
Speaker 2:So the there's a long line of abusive females, it seems, in this family yeah, she definitely inherited things from Anna, like ideas, I guess you could say, because she's an impressionable young child growing up around that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So Randy eventually is like I can't do this and he ends up leaving. He leaves Nikki, he leaves Shelly, they get divorced, he ends up taking off. And then she meets Danny and Danny was her neighbor and Laura went there to drop something off and Danny was there.
Speaker 1:And she's like who the heck?
Speaker 2:are you? Yeah, what's going on here? Yeah, and he's like oh, I'm danny, and so shelly and danny end up getting married, of course, and they end up having sammy, who's the middle child, and then he stick his around for longer and tries to make it work. He does, but eventually he kind of gets to a breaking point. Same with Randy. I cannot do this.
Speaker 1:And rightfully so. This woman's a monster.
Speaker 2:She's a monster for sure, and so he ends up leaving as well. And then we have Dave, so Dave is kind of our final husband here. Oh, dave, our final last name is Dave, and Dave really takes these girls under his wing.
Speaker 1:They met at a pub as well. That's how they meet. I don't know why I can remember that one and none of the others, but I remember that one. She met Dave at a bar.
Speaker 2:So Dave comes, they get married and he loves these girls.
Speaker 1:Really tries to be a good dad to them.
Speaker 2:And Shelly is very much. Dave is your dad and you need to accept that to them which they're like. Well, I thought Danny was my dad and I thought Randy was my dad, which Danny more specifically because he was around a little bit longer. But they kind of struggled with it at first.
Speaker 1:And Shelly's just over here, like nope, we're rewriting history. That is not anymore. And you're like okay.
Speaker 2:This is your dad now emotional whiplash yeah, thanks, they end up moving to a farmhouse. But before that happens, there is a scene and this is kind of where we first start to see shelly become abusive towards the girls. And so there's a scene where nikki wakes up and there's a pillow over her face and she's freaking out. And then her mom is like oh, what happened? What happened? What happened? And she's like how did you get here so fast?
Speaker 1:yeah, and how was? Yeah? She was trying to figure it out as a kid realizing wait a second, did no, that wasn't you and my mom wouldn't do that. Yeah, I remember reading that we're already that far into the book and I'm going oh boy, like okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Once they move, the abuse is pretty instant. So Shelly is very creative with these punishments that she comes up with and it can be for literally nothing Like. Sometimes the girls are very open of like I have no idea what I even did.
Speaker 1:Or Shelly would stage the thing too. Yes, she would decide you know, I want to punish this child for hiding food in their bed. So she would stage it and then tell them that she found it and try to gaslight them into believing that they did it. Like what? And these are kids. These are children Four, six, seven-year-olds.
Speaker 2:And they would be like I'm so sorry, mom, I'm so sorry, da-da-da-da, or she would have punishments of. You're not allowed to use the restroom, you can't take a shower, you have to go to school for a week in a row in this outfit.
Speaker 2:Take away all their possessions. Yeah, when it wasn't something like that, it was physical abuse. You know, hitting them, doing whatever she could do to make them feel like they did something wrong and they didn't. You know, they're kids, so that begins pretty pretty instant, instantly. They would make, she would make them sleep outside, even if it was winter time, or she would wake them up in the middle of the night and tell them to go outside and sleep outside so they would wear extra clothes, just in case that was to happen. She would punch, she would hit, hit More specifically, nikki Cords. Almost every single page in this book there is some sort of abuse. Yep, so she has a lot, there's a ton in this book. If you're feeling activated, if you're feeling like you can't read it at the moment because it does make your stomach turn, it really does Take a moment.
Speaker 2:Maybe revisit it if you think you can, If you can't just kind of be aware that it does happen all the time in this book it's very consistent throughout the whole thing and it's pretty graphic.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Which I felt like it was really hard because to me I hated it and it made my stomach turn. But I felt like it was also very important to the story and how extensive it was and what these girls went through and how they survived, and they were just how vividly they remember yeah, so it's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 1:They wear leggings at school she would make them, uh, put makeup on too to hide bruises. So Shelly was very aware that what she knew she was doing was wrong, and she was going out of her way to hide it.
Speaker 2:She was very you know all about appearance. So birthday parties and things like that. She would go above and beyond because you know she wanted it to look good and she would take pictures and do all these things, but behind closed doors. These girls are being abused every single day.
Speaker 1:I feel like Shelly would have lived for being a mom. Influencer.
Speaker 2:Now.
Speaker 1:I'm not trying to say that they're like her, but I'm saying that someone like her would have thrived off of that like fake make up, a fake world, a fake life, and it just made me sad that she would throw parties and then take the presents away. Yep, and that's just so. Can you imagine being a kid trying to get excited about your birthday, but knowing that it's not real?
Speaker 2:or what's going to happen tonight after everybody's gone. Yeah, she made it a big show. Birthday is Christmas, all these things. Would buy all these gifts and yada, yada yada, and then would throw them away, would get rid of them, and then, if you weren't grateful enough for what she had gotten you, if she didn't feel like you were grateful enough, she would abuse you and punish you. Yeah, so, like I said, almost every single page of this book has some sort of abuse. We can't say it all Because one I don't. We can't say it all because one I don't really want to want to say it all, but also we would be here forever moving forward.
Speaker 1:Shane comes and stays with them or lives with them, and shane is shelly's nephew who's paul's son.
Speaker 2:so paul ends up going to jail and so shelly is like we have to take in Shane. You know he's family we're gonna help him.
Speaker 1:We're gonna help him, and rough kid living on the streets, kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Shelly is very much. She portrays a caretaker to everybody. She tries to portray I'm doing it to help them. They're gonna get better. They're gonna get better. 're gonna get better. They're sick.
Speaker 2:Yada, yada, yada like nah, you're sick very much and she continues to abuse them and so they're getting worse and worse and worse. But she's like, no, no, they're gonna get better. I'm taking care of them, I'm doing this, I'm doing that like very much plays a caretaker role while neglecting. So shane does come and live with him and him and nikki really start to have a bond together because they suffer the most abuse. So at this point, those poor kids, sammy has decided the more she fights, the worse it is. The more.
Speaker 1:She fights the worse it is.
Speaker 2:So she plays the game with her mom. She really does. She doesn't fight it. When her mom punishes her, she yes, mom, da-da-da-da. Where Nikki and Shane are a little bit more, they will run from their mom, they will hide, they will do this, they will do that, they'll hit back. So they definitely suffer the most abuse. And with them being so close, shelly does stuff to them together for embarrassment, so they feel embarrassed about it. So shelly has a weird thing with nudity and so obsession with it it.
Speaker 2:It's insane. So she will have them undress and work outside or stand in the living room or dance together and she very much enjoys the humiliation of it because they are so close. Shane's there, they him and Nikki have really formed a bond and it's great. And then Kathy moves in. So Kathy is her hairdresser, technically.
Speaker 1:Yes, started out as Shelly's hairdresser. That poor woman.
Speaker 2:And she is friends with Shelly.
Speaker 1:And Kathy had a pretty normal-ish life Kathy had. The point of it being where she comes to be with Shelly is that Kathy had kind of come into a little bit of a hard time financially. She had been doing well, but she didn't manage her money the best as an adult and she had. She didn't have the clientele in that small town that she was hoping for and Shelly basically saw an opportunity, twisted the knife a little bit and caused more conflict between Kathy and her family and then, through the life raft of well, you can't really live on your own anymore. Why don't you just come, stay with us Until you can get back on your feet and build up your clientele again?
Speaker 1:Again the rescuer, yep, the caretaker, coming in to save you. You'll be all better with me. You can become a better version of yourself. So Dave thinks, okay, you can move in and help with us, because also, we forgot the most important part shelly's telling everyone she has cancer. Oh, for like 20 years, yeah, she's always living with cancer or has ms or has some other disease.
Speaker 1:So kathy thinks she's moving in to help her friend who has cancer and had this miraculous child while going through chemo yeah so kathy thinks she's doing two things, kind of getting a space to start over and helping shelly, and kathy is not aware of who shelly is yeah.
Speaker 2:So kathy comes, stays shelly, ends up having the baby who is then our, our final kid, and this is tori. Um, and kathy takes very good care of Tori. She takes care of the house, she takes care of the cleaning, she takes care of cooking, she does everything for this family.
Speaker 1:Shelly doesn't do anything but sit and watch TV and cook the books for the family as it's said, and take her husband's paychecks. That's literally all she does. She doesn't sleep at night, she's nocturnal, yeah, so she only sleeps during the day, when everybody's gone. Which is a big thing Such a predator, because?
Speaker 2:she inflicts a lot of punishments at night Because that's when she's awake and so she's like, ooh, perfect time. So they'll wake up in the middle of the night to Shelly doing something. I mean like, get up right now, duh duh, duh duh, because she doesn't sleep at night. Ugh. So Shelly claims that Tori was premature. I'm pretty sure she was born at 37 weeks or something. So three weeks early, not really premature, not a big deal, and it might be three weeks.
Speaker 2:It was something where I was like, really, Ma'am, yeah, it wasn't, she's technically not premature, but shelly kept saying that she was and that they really had to monitor, monitor her breathing. So she took her and she got like a breathing alarm, essentially, for her. One night the alarm is going off and nikki comes downstairs and Shelly is also holding a pillow over Tori's face to make the alarm go off, and then she's like, oh, she's fine, she's fine, I got her, I got her the doting mom. But Nikki clearly saw it and then so she kind of pieces together. Wait, my mom did do that to me. My mom did do that.
Speaker 2:Shelly is a horrible mom but tries to portray that she is. My mom did do that. Shelly is a horrible mom but tries to portray that she is the best mom. After that, kathy really, really, really starts to get abused and I'm not going to go into a whole lot of details because it is very graphic. It is very horrible what ends up happening to her and it happens piece by piece, so it's not full force. She moves in and it's abuse and shelly has the thing that she does where she will abuse and then be like very comforting and loving and oh, I'm gonna take care of you, it's okay, I'm sorry that you made me do that.
Speaker 1:You made me have to do this and this. This is what is going to, you know, and it's going to be okay, and it was. This book is a perfect example of the snowball effect. People like, choosing to look away because they don't want to believe it. This book really shows how the police did literally nothing about it.
Speaker 2:The police failed these girls Horrifically and these other people involved in the story. So kathy is being abused. She no longer has clothes, she no longer has anything that she, you know, came there with shelly told her family that she didn't want that.
Speaker 1:Kathy didn't want anything to do with them so that they would stop coming around that's another mo of kath or of shelly, is she destroys these family relationships. Drives that witch.
Speaker 2:And then she ends up telling them that Kathy, she ends up telling the family Kathy moved away.
Speaker 1:With her boyfriend.
Speaker 2:With Rocky. He's a truck driver and they they're so in love and she left and so the family is like okay, so they kind of no longer come to Shelly's looking for Kathy. So Shelly makes Kathy sleep outside in a barn. She no longer has any clothes. She is working day and night.
Speaker 1:Blocks her in their pump house and outhouse for days, weeks at a time.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of abuse, not only coming from Shelly, but Shelly also makes Shane do it as well. And these kids and I cannot stress this enough these kids are just trying to survive and they are doing anything that their mom tells them to do.
Speaker 1:For the most part, and even Kathy would try to what's the word like? Reassure the kids that she wasn't upset with them. Kathy would go out of her way to be like no, it's okay, honey. Or like you know, no, don't tell her that because that's gonna make her mad.
Speaker 2:So my heart really extra breaks for Kathy that nobody saved her from this yeah, and once the abuse started with Kathy it stopped happening to the kids for the most part.
Speaker 1:So she could only have one focus at a time.
Speaker 2:And so these kids were like well, it's not happening to me anymore. And so, in a way, there's this conflicting moment of I know this is wrong. I know what's happening to Kathy is wrong, but I'm completely powerless Again.
Speaker 1:these kids are powerless, helpless.
Speaker 2:And it's no longer happening to them.
Speaker 1:So probably relieved, and Kathy knows that Kathy is very much like do not talk to me, kids are powerless helpless and it's no longer happening to them.
Speaker 2:So probably, really, kathy knows that. Kathy is very much like do not talk to me, it's going to make your mom mad. No, don't help me, don't don't do that, it's going to make your mom mad. So kathy knows that she's taking the brunt of it for these kids.
Speaker 2:Makes me so sad it was really, really sad. And even if the kids tried to let her go because they know like at one point shane tells kathy, lets her go and says you need to go, you need to go, and she's like no, no, no, no, no, don't do this, don't do this.
Speaker 1:I was so angrily reading the book, and not because I was mad at kathy, but just because I'm not in it. I was just so this is your chance, yeah, go. And even shane is so exasperated with her. And at at the same time I'm like why don't you both go?
Speaker 2:Well, kathy is afraid of Shane, also because Shelly has.
Speaker 1:I forgot about a lot of that has made.
Speaker 2:Shane abuse Kathy in a way Not all of it, but there has been instances where she does make him do things to her. From there Kathy then moves to the furnace room at some point, so she's like in there and the girls like put up posters and stuff in her room.
Speaker 1:Try to put decorations. They tried to hide her blankets and pillows and the chicken coop and stuff.
Speaker 2:They just they tried to, like, make it happier for her, and Kathy is like you have to take this down, like you can't. No, please don't, please, don't, just don't, don't even try yeah you're going to.
Speaker 1:This isn't going to end well for me and sammy. Who was what? What was the description in the book that sammy was slightly favored by the mother or something like that. More so she, because she didn't was more blind to it, a little bit like oh no, it's okay, like mom would want this for you. And everybody's like. You ain't getting it.
Speaker 2:Kathy does try and run away at some point after they move to the farmhouse and Shelly ends up finding her at the mall or something and she's like, oh, she's coming back to stay with us. And then she's like nice to Kathy for a moment. But then the abuse really kicks it up after that to a severe level where Kathy can't even pull herself out of bed.
Speaker 1:She doesn't get to bathe she, or when she does, it's with bleach called names verbally degraded while being physically abused, and uh, shane actually documents it a couple of times shane, because he's not shelly's daughter or kid.
Speaker 2:He keeps telling these girls, specifically nikki, your mom is crazy and they're and it's repeated many times in the book they know that's their mom. So these girls want a mom so badly that they're kind of that's just how mom is. Put the blinders on. Yeah, they want that love from their mom and the mom only gives it at certain times. So they kind of soak it in, they absorb it when she is that way to kind of be like she really can be, like it's okay.
Speaker 1:She really does love us and Shelly does the same thing with Shane.
Speaker 2:And so Shane calls Shelly and Dave mom and dad, things like that. But Shane, definitely for most of the book is we need to do something. We need to tell somebody about this.
Speaker 1:We need to run away. Yeah, and he ran away a lot. Shelly was described as a bloodhound, so when these people would run away, she would hunt them down for hours she would send her days yeah, she would send her daughter into neighbors houses at night or like their yards at night to hunt people down.
Speaker 1:They found shane in a woodshed one time. The neighbors woodshed and I'm just. It made me so upset upset that she knew what she was doing was so wrong that she was going to go to the ends of the earth to track you down and stop you.
Speaker 2:Because she knows, and then she was really big on. Well, they're going to tell, they're going to tell, they're going to tell Paranoia.
Speaker 1:These bruises.
Speaker 2:They were just accidents and stuff like that, which Kathy is covered in bruises and cuts and all kinds of things because she's getting abused Her teeth were falling out from malnutrition.
Speaker 1:Her hair was falling out.
Speaker 2:She could barely stand Horrific.
Speaker 1:So at some point Kathy ends up passing away from the neglect and abuse and Shelly is not home conveniently when that happens.
Speaker 2:But they bring her in, they put her on a mattress.
Speaker 1:In the laundry room.
Speaker 2:In the laundry room and she ends up passing away. So Dave and Shane help dispose of the body.
Speaker 1:Essentially, Under Shelly's strict instructions, basically Her strict screaming at them to do it.
Speaker 2:So sammy kind of has this delusion of maybe kathy really did run away with rocky, maybe that is what happened, and so she kind of chooses to believe that convinces herself to, and shelly would drill them, no matter, oh yeah, for hours sometimes, or wouldn't talk about it for weeks and be like what's her boyfriend's name?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, rocky. Where did they go so and so? No, I told you they went to California. Shelly would forge signatures and make up postcards that Kathy was sending them yeah, to kind of keep this story alive.
Speaker 2:so the whole time dave and shane are living with this secret. Well, nikki knows, nikki knows, sammy does know, but she chooses to not believe it essentially and she kind of mentions towards the end of the book I knew it wasn't true but I kind of I had to you know I had to do that for my own sanity, essentially, and Sammy, like she says, copes with humor and I think I think a lot of us do Relatable yeah, coping with humor.
Speaker 2:I think Sammy very much had to believe what she had to believe to survive when Nikki. She knew what was happening but she just wanted to get out of there. That was like her end goal. She wanted to get away from her mom and move on with her life.
Speaker 1:I want to live, I want to start a new life and I want to forget this ever happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, immediately after Kathy passes away, shelly tells Shane if you tell, I'm going to say it was you who abused Kathy and Dave also believes that it was Shane who was abusing Kathy, because Dave is the most delusional person in this whole book. He is consistently. Shelly would never do that. Oh, I'm sure Shelly didn't know about it.
Speaker 1:You didn't know that Shelly was abusing the kids he tried to tell the police that Shelly would never and I'm like she would never Dude, and he lived far away so Dave would drive hours to would be island for his job and sleep in a tent, yeah, or in his truck, if he had it work sun up to, sun down, he was taking uppers to continue to stay awake and snorting ammonia pills like yeah, there has to be some sort of because he was under the influence with things.
Speaker 2:I hope that's the reason why he was so delusional At some point in this book. I got really tired of Dave's excuses. I did too, because Dave is also abusing Kathy. He is, he is abusing Kathy. He has done things to the girls Like you don't get to act like you're not doing anything and that you don't know what's going on because you've taken an active role in it. So don't even try and play that game and it's a lot.
Speaker 1:Obviously he is a grown ass man. He is an adult man. What, yeah?
Speaker 2:I do?
Speaker 1:I want to try harder to have more sympathy, like that's my. How can I be a better human? That's what I want to do, but like bro.
Speaker 2:And he kept saying you know, I can't leave the girls. I can't leave the girls, but it's like you're not around. What do you mean? You can't leave the girls, you're not even home, like you're not home. And when you are, there's fights, there's abuse, like you're participating in it. Specifically with Kathy, there were things that you did.
Speaker 1:So what part of your denial are you using to try to let? It was weird, yeah, so dark, twisted, weird all the way around. The kids had no support or outlet and you'd think they would look forward to the weekends because, oh, he's going to be here to help us. No, sometimes it would just be him carrying on the torture.
Speaker 2:Yeah, us no. Sometimes it would just be him carrying on the torture. Yeah, because like this is the torture, and it's not even like with shane. Shane's a kid, you know, shane is really depending on shelly. They took him in yada yada, he's a child dependent on them for survival I do think he was a victim of shelly's abuse in a way but at the same time you are an adult, he's an equal accomplice into very much so, especially the actual murders and the disposals of the bodies.
Speaker 1:Like that was all him. He did it. He didn't have to, you could have called the police he could have taken the bodies to the police bruh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I was really, really tired of dave by the end of this book. I do not care, I don't want to hear any more of well, I didn't know watching the interviews.
Speaker 1:I I did that last night. I watched some interviews of him boohooing and protecting Shelly and I just couldn't couldn't muster up any empathy yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I was pretty sick of him by the end of it. I didn't want to hear it anymore. I don't care. I quite simply do not care that you were a victim as well. So shane runs away. That's what they say. So they tell shane. If you tell anybody, we're gonna say it was you and shane ends up running away. That's the story that we are told. So in my little brain I got I was really hoping that shane really did run away.
Speaker 1:Me too, and I was holding on to that. I really was in that delulu.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was like, yes, shane got away, perfect. And later on in the book Shelly gets an anonymous letter saying Kathy is going to come back from the grave or something like that and get you some sort of concept of that. And there's a gunshot and I thought that was Shane and I thought he was going to come back and he was going to play these mind games with Shelly, just like Shelly did, like play chess, yes. But unfortunately we do find out that Shane was murdered by Dave. Dave shot him, kind of execution style, essentially.
Speaker 1:And tries to make up a whole hollabaloo that a teenage boy fought him for a gun. Yeah, please.
Speaker 2:I don't believe it, for even a second.
Speaker 1:Don't buy it for a second.
Speaker 2:And Dave, you straight up murdered Shane. You straight up did that and I mean he went to prison, he did his time. Not enough? I don't, it's not forgivable, I don't care. At some point, after Shane runs away, Nikki becomes the target again of her mom.
Speaker 1:She's back in the hot seat.
Speaker 2:She's back in the hot seat. So Shelly has a thing where, if her scapegoat is gone all of a sudden whether they died or got murdered, I guess there's a new one Next, and it tends to be whoever is the oldest of the kids. So Nikki is again, again, the target of her mom just horrible abuse again. Not going to go into too much details, um, because it is really rough, but nikki and sammy both attempt to take their lives, which is.
Speaker 1:I think that I watch a lot of dark stuff but this wow it was a lot if you stuff, but this, wow, it was a lot. If you're wondering why I'm so quiet this episode, I'm just like I'm too stunned to speak and it's just heavy.
Speaker 2:So not successful, obviously. And they, specifically Nikki, kind of has humor about it, Like, oh, of course I couldn't you know, but she does end up trying to do that, and then she starts to stand up to Shelly and I yes, yes, girl the one about the when they got in a fight in the yard.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was just like clapping her down. Get her, yeah, get her.
Speaker 2:And she's like you don't get to do that to me and I was like finally, like finally somebody is putting shelly in her place, uh, but then shelly turns it around and essentially says that nikki's dangerous and she can't be here as she always does, like oh wait, I can't have a threat like this. One's too competitive, get her out yeah, and so she gets sent to aunt trisha's house thank the heavens above and she said it was the best thing. It was the best summer she had.
Speaker 1:I think she was there for the summer, um, and she didn't want to go back she kept telling, telling him or asking him please don't send me back, please don't let me go back to my mom. It's terrible, terrible things happen there and I'm like good job, nikki.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then around the same time, sammy starts standing up to her mom as well, or starts speaking out in a way and also kind of standing up to her, and so she goes to school, starts essentially telling the truth like where's your homework? Oh, my mom threw it in the fireplace. Or you're late? Oh well, my mom made me sleep outside last night and wouldn't let me in. Like she starts being very honest and she had a boyfriend. She had a boyfriend who kind of knew the mom's game. He knew that the mom had this public opinion of her that she wanted, and so when he would drop her off, he would like honk the horn and stuff to make sure that Shelly would let the daughter inside, because he knew that door was locked and that she wasn't going to be let inside, which is so messed up yeah, unless he made it a point to say, hey, shelly, I'm here, you know like I'm watching, and he would wait to make sure that she was let in, which I don't think that he knew.
Speaker 2:But Shelly would then immediately kick Sammy out of the house. So sad yeah she ends up leaving essentially, and Shelly is like writing her, calling her please come back, yada, yada. I miss you I love you and Sammy is like great, then you're gonna pay for my school. If I come back, you're paying for my school. So she goes back, but she's not really there a lot. She is at college. She comes like on the weekends, I think mostly to check on her little sister, that's.
Speaker 1:That's the point of it, like she's really just worried about tori, yeah and nikki ends up kind of moving here, there and everywhere.
Speaker 2:She goes to aunt trisha's and then she comes back and then shelly's like oh well, you clearly haven't learned your lesson, you're're going to go stay with your dad, which then she goes and stays with Dave and she realizes that he's sleeping in a tent and showering at the public pool or something like that Yep National Parks.
Speaker 1:He's going to campgrounds, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and food banks for food, because he doesn't have any money.
Speaker 1:This man is living homeless and he works a full-time job.
Speaker 2:Over full-time, because all the money is going to shelly and she's immediately spending it. So yeah, then nikki ends up going to stay with laura, and that is best case scenario and sammy goes to.
Speaker 1:I think they all end up living together for a while and laura is the only one that kind of never gave up believing anyone never gave up pushing the police about this wicked witch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she would like just stop by, stop by their house to see like what was going on, because she was suspicious of Shelly. And at this point Laura and Les are divorced, so I was really confused. Where did Les go? You know like what happened to him?
Speaker 1:Anywhere they ain't is where he went.
Speaker 2:Because Laura was still around and she took care of the grandkids and things like that, and less was nowhere to be found, which I thought was really interesting because shelly was such his, you know, prized possession I guess you could say at the beginning of it, and he would do anything for her and give her money and buy her a car.
Speaker 1:And why did she just let him off the hook? Because she seemed like a hungry shark. She wasn't letting her victim go, but she seemed so interesting. Yeah, interesting how she would just kind of drop that one and move on and never circle back.
Speaker 2:There could have been something that we missed, but I was kind of confused on where Les went.
Speaker 1:Same but.
Speaker 2:Laura always stayed. She was an active part in this book throughout the whole thing. The only one that's left now is Tori, and Tori is pretty young I think she's seven or eight at this point and she starts getting abused, of course, because that's the only one that's left.
Speaker 1:And poor confusing craziness for her growing up having the least amount and then, when everyone's gone, just being straight fire and having no one to even bond in the trenches or have a trauma bond with and she lies to her sisters and says, no, everything's fine at home, so they genuinely think that she's fine. They think like oh, thank, thank God, at least it was just us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they think that, oh, she's gotten better, then Obviously she's crazy, but she's not abusing her to the extent that we were abused, so she's okay and they genuinely believe that.
Speaker 1:For years.
Speaker 2:Sammy at some point goes into her mom's room and she finds under the bed there's a bag of ash and bones that page, heart into stomach, I went uh-uh, uh-uh, no, no, no, no, no no.
Speaker 2:I was so disappointed yeah, which at the end it. I couldn't find it again, but I remember reading that the police never found that. They never found the ash and bones, so she clearly had gotten rid of it after that, which they talk about, shelly knowing things have been moved or touched, even if they're in the same spot. She knows, she knows that something happened. So I would imagine after sammy found them she got rid of them but, those were obviously from shane oh, that would make sense.
Speaker 2:I thought they were from kathy no, I, I thought they were okay, well, I thought shane was still alive at this point, that's true, when I got to this page, that's when my brain went oh yeah, she got him so then after that she ends up meeting ron, who is a caretaker, but he's having a hard time moved upved up here with his husband. They ended up not you know, lasting. They ended up getting divorced. He didn't take the breakup well, he did not take it very well at all.
Speaker 1:Shelly saw an opportunity.
Speaker 2:And Shelly preys on these people, and so the only person that Ron has really is his mom. So when Ron gets evicted from his trailer, shelly is like come stay with me. Yada, yada, yada. And so he does, and he asks his mom to take his cats because he can't take them to Shelly's house. And she says sure, and then she ends up letting them out Can you just Like nobody is safe in this book.
Speaker 2:Ron was so bitter about this. He was like I cannot forgive you. He writes his mom these nasty letters which, in hindsight, I don't know if ron actually wrote those letters.
Speaker 1:Thank you I was wondering if you would agree with me. I feel like he never actually wrote any of them. I think that shelly wrote down anything he said in anger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also we forgot an important detail shelly would drug all of her victims an assortment of different kinds and they would just take it correct because they were afraid of whatever punishment would come if they didn't take it so ron ends up getting like a restraining order put against him by his mom because of these letters are so graphic and so threatening. Threatening. So nikki ends up telling laura about kathy. Kathy is like we have to tell the police. They contact the sandy police, actually, and sandy essentially says you have to tell where they're, at which at this point they're in bend, I believe. And so they end up writing a letter explaining everything that had happened. Send it over. Nothing is ever said about it. Crickets, crickets, yeah, nothing is ever said. They, the sheriff, ended up saying well, we tried to contact Sammy to, you know, confirm the story, but she never called us back.
Speaker 1:And it's like so what one person you needed. You needed two stories to believe. It Like you.
Speaker 2:And then, along those same lines, nikki tells her boyfriend at the time about what had happened and she just kind of blurts it out and he's like we have to go to where you were at and tell the police there, you need to talk to them in person. And so they do, and kind of the same story. They, they kind of get brushed off. It just continuously happens and Nikki keeps trying to tell people and Sammy is not going to talk to the police unless they actually bring her in for questioning kind of thing. Correct, which I was very frustrated. But Sammy very easily has the best relationship with her mom and she's very much. This is my mom, I'm not going to just turn her in, which is a really tough position for a child to be in. Well, at this point she's an adult, but she's grown up in this household with a very not a normal household.
Speaker 2:She doesn't have normal thinking skills, was what I had to keep telling myself at this time I'm not saying there's anything wrong with her now, but, like back then, she wasn't thinking in a clear state of mind yeah, and throughout the whole thing she keeps trying to give her mom chances and hoping that she's a better person than she is essentially I wish that I could be that hopeful and give people the benefit of the doubt kind of thing at some point mac is introduced and he's an older man who needs assistance in caretaking, and that is what what Ron used to do with caretaking, and so Shelly essentially has volunteers him for.
Speaker 2:Ron take care of Mac. Mac ends up putting Shelly on everything to inherit and then Mac has an accident and ends up passing away.
Speaker 1:And the fact that the police didn't look into anything at all, that like, huh, the life insurance policy just changed or the will just changed, and then snap like that, he's dead blunt force trauma and they tried to just say he fell out of his chair. And shelly tells ron, I'm gonna tell them that you did it. And she tells him all the time that he's the one that is so even he believes he's the one that did it. Yeah, gets away with it and just inherits everything.
Speaker 2:She inherits theits the house and I think it was like $5,000.
Speaker 1:She did all of that for five grand. To me, that's just what I'm like. That's a lot of work for not a lot of money.
Speaker 2:So I firmly believe that Shelly did it and I'm pretty sure she got away with it Like I don't think she was ever charged with it, which is frustrating. But so at this time is when the letter comes in the mail and it's an anonymous letter essentially saying I know what you did to Kathy, she's going to rise from the grave, yada, yada, yada. So now that I know it wasn't Shane, I wonder if either Shelly wrote it to herself because she's so paranoid about people finding out, or it was somebody from Kathy's family. Oh my God, who was like I know, know, I know what you did that makes sense but so she gets that and then her paranoia is just skyrocketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she is like constantly calling sammy, like has anybody asked anything about kathy? And she's no mom no. So she tells tori, who, who at one point had a really good bond with Ron, that Ron is left and she knows Ron is not left. Ron more than likely was killed.
Speaker 1:She had had to witness a lot of the abuse towards the end of what was happening to.
Speaker 2:Ron and she loved Ron, she called him.
Speaker 1:Uncle Ron Trusted him.
Speaker 2:Had a good relationship with him, but at some point knew that she couldn't talk to ron or else it was going to make things worse. So ron became the new scapegoat, the new kathy again a lot of abuse to him.
Speaker 2:So at some point, or, shelly, lets tori go and stay with sammy let her go have a sister's weekend yep with her sister sammy, and for years shelly has kind of made nicky the worst person that she can imagine, and so tori doesn't want to see nicky, but she doesn't know that sammy still talks to nicky so they had kept a secret alliance kept quiet about their contact so sammy is kind of playing both sides. She's, you know, the middle child, she's the peacekeeper. So she's still talking to Nikki, she's still talking to Tori, but they're not talking to each other.
Speaker 1:Relatable.
Speaker 2:So when she picks up Tori, she says we're going to have lunch with Nikki.
Speaker 1:And she's like no, no, no, no, no, Panicking she starts freaking out.
Speaker 2:It's okay, you don't have to tell mom, you know, it's just gonna be us. And immediately when tori sees nikki she realizes everything her mom has ever said is a lie about nikki, because she's just sweet and kind and intelligent yeah, at this point nikki's married, she's like got the life that she wanted, so they create a bond. And then that night tori essentially confesses to sammy that things are not okay at home.
Speaker 2:She is getting abused, she is having to do humiliation things um, and sammy and nikki talk about it and they decide she only has four more years.
Speaker 1:This part was really, can she tough it out?
Speaker 2:and they asked her like are you for me, can she?
Speaker 1:tough it out, mm-hmm. And they asked her like are you sure you can't just tough it out? That made me angry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I hated it and I was like I don't understand it. But I'm not in this situation. I don't know. I'm not Shelly's daughter. I don't know what they were thinking From an outsider perspective. I really, really hated it. She also tells tori if you go home and mom says that ron is gone, he is more than likely died, just letting you know, sammy takes her back home and she's sobbing and she's I don't want to go back. I don't want to go back. She gets into shelly's car and immediately shelly knows something is wrong.
Speaker 2:They get home and she starts questioning her ron has went to went to Tacoma or something like that and Tori is immediately like Ron is dead Ding.
Speaker 1:Alarm bells.
Speaker 2:And she calls Sammy and is like you have to get me out of here. And she's like are you sure you can't tough it out essentially? And she's like I can't Get me out of here.
Speaker 1:You need to get me out of here.
Speaker 2:Because the police system is to get me out of here, because the police system is what it is. There is so ridiculous. Sammy and nicky drive together to the police station.
Speaker 1:They both tell them what they know and they all of a sudden start taking them seriously yeah, because apparently it has to be two siblings saying that it happened before they're going to be like. I guess we could make some time for it. It's the other thing that aggravates me about the police is the police had been to Shelly's house trying to so many times yeah and actually saw these victims running for their lives and just like well, we'll take Shelly's word for it. You're disgusting. Yeah, and Shelly doesn't already.
Speaker 2:That's bad training.
Speaker 1:whatever you want to blame it on what?
Speaker 2:And Shelly doesn't have the best reputation.
Speaker 1:No, you want to blame it on what and shelly?
Speaker 2:doesn't have the best reputation, no, so why would you just believe her? Take her word for it? Just gross, it takes a little bit, and tori is calling sammy every day. What is taking? So long get me out of here. Get me out of here and eventually cps does come and take tori from them and shelly is just shooketh, shocked, what, what I? Beg your finest pardon like me abuse I love my children.
Speaker 1:I have cancer.
Speaker 2:For god's sakes, I have cancer for 20 years.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, and not does she throw out ms every now and then she would have ms too and dave believes she has cancer.
Speaker 2:This whole time, like you're delusional, david, you are delusional, um. So cps does take them. They shut shelly and dave out. Essentially they will not speak to them. The police, they will not speak to them, correct? Shelly is constantly calling sammy, do you know anything? Do you know anything?
Speaker 1:and she said no, I don't know anything can you imagine poor sammy because she'd always played both sides for so long and that weird feeling?
Speaker 2:and she's just like, nope, I don't know anything. And dave is like I'm gonna go down there and figure out what's going on. So he goes down there and he essentially just collapses and confesses everything. He did take care of kathy's body, he murdered shane and he also disposed of ron's body. They're both arrested. Shelly and dave are both arrested and sammy gets guardianship of Tori because she's 14. Yes, so Dave ended up getting 17 years and was released in 2016 and still lives in Washington along the coast. Apparently that's correct. And Shelly got 25 years and was released in 2022. So who knows where she went, but she was also released, she's just out living free.
Speaker 1:That's what makes me the most mad of all, like if dave got out, dave got out, but I'm so upset that neither of them served their full sentence that's what I. I don't get that. I what you're rewarding her psychopathic behavior.
Speaker 2:You've officially taught her that nothing can stop her yeah, well, the family doesn't talk to her, so I don't think any of the girls talk to her. Uh, sammy and tori both have a relationship with dave, but nikki does not at all. Nikki is raising her kids. She is has her own family that she's worrying about. She still talks with her sisters and they're all really close good for them but she doesn't want anything to do with d whatsoever.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't either.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so very, very strong, strong girls for sure.
Speaker 1:And the fact that they all still have a relationship with each other to this day is really cool to see that. You know siblings can sometimes fight through difficult things.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And do the right thing, because they needed each other.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't think any one of them could have done it without the support of the other ones. The story is about the girls more than it is about Shelly, this story is about resilience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as much as we think that narcissistic Shelly would love the, there's a book written about me and my incredible accomplishments. It's like no, this book is showing what a piece of trash you are.
Speaker 2:And how your children survived you and how incredible this whole time they're in survival mode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that they could have. Any of them could have chosen to be as evil as her, and none of them are.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, so I gave this book five stars. That was my rating. Same. I was conflicted kind of giving it five stars because I hated the content of it but it I was conflicted kind of giving it five stars because I hated the content of it, but it did what it was supposed to do. And there's a reason why I hated it is because it was done so well, so correct.
Speaker 1:I did rate it five stars and I can't honestly thank these kids enough for being strong enough and willing to want to talk about this story. Because this eye opening, because this eye opening, so I am going to go throughout the rest of my life a little bit more aware and wanting to be empathetic towards other people that might be in situations out of their control. It really kind of unlocked a little bit for me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I never want to read this book again.
Speaker 1:I will never and not because it was a bad story, Just I never used to understand people that would say that book was too you. You know that story was too heavy for me or that was too much to read. I didn't understand getting like actually triggered over and over and over until I had to get through this book, holy crap yeah, it was really heavy.
Speaker 2:I struggled with it and I read a lot of heavy things.
Speaker 1:I talked to my therapist three times about this book, like I wasted sessions on it, but anyway it, just it's not your own problems.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about somebody else. Yeah, like oh this.
Speaker 1:This was yeah, let's talk about this. So yeah, when you're going to read it, make sure you have a support system. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I mean truthfully yeah, it was a lot and I, due to my own fault, waited. I finished this book this morning, so I read 150 pages this morning, so it's kind of a little heavy on me still.
Speaker 1:We're going to go watch something funny and stupid, like some slapstick comedy.
Speaker 2:I'm going to make Susie read a rom-com next.
Speaker 1:We got to lighten the mood.
Speaker 2:I'm like I need something lighter, for sure. Next Most definitely. This episode was definitely a lot different.
Speaker 1:We appreciate you guys hanging in there. If you chose to read the book and got through it and then watched the episode, we appreciate that you did because these people's story deserves to be told.
Speaker 2:It's important and it's very graphic. But it's graphic to really explain the severity of it to you. This is not.
Speaker 1:There's no embellishment Regular abuse.
Speaker 2:It's not which. No abuse is okay, obviously, but this isy is extreme.
Speaker 1:This is very extreme, the kind of stuff you usually only see in horror movies. But it's somebody's life yeah so anywho, yeah, not every episode is gonna be like this, but I think that it's. It was important for us to bring some attention to it. It was enlightening for me. I live up and around Vancouver, washington, so it was really weird to find out that I kind of go in the same places that they were and I was like ooh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I live in Oregon and I'm around Sandy Mount.
Speaker 1:Hood every single day, Okay. It's going to stick with us. That was something.
Speaker 2:I've never read was like something that was so local.
Speaker 1:I had watched a number of years ago. My mom watches a lot of true crime, so she had watched this case. So when I was about this far into the book I went, Mom, and she goes, oh I know what case you're talking about. She was a little worried about me too. She checked on me while I was reading this book. So yeah, just.
Speaker 2:Yeah, justin's mom read this book as well with us at the same time, essentially, and she told Justin, like, ok, like towards the, towards the last half, make sure she has a snack and, you know, something to drink.
Speaker 2:Such a sweet woman and a cozy blanket because you know it's a little rough, because the Shane thing was really really what got me, because he's a kid and it's not right. At the time he was an adult so he could have left at any time, but he didn't want to leave the girls and I I really thought he had made it until the end and then I was very, very emotional about it.
Speaker 1:Sucker punch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so anyway on that, really sad. Depressing note yeah, thanks, anyway, on that really sad depressing note yeah. Thanks for watching.
Speaker 1:Thanks for tuning in. We promise we'll come back with something a little less sad next time.
Speaker 2:But we really want to be spreading out our genres, so I think it was important. It was a true story, it was local.
Speaker 1:One of the most powerful true stories I've ever heard. It'll stick with me forever. Let us know what you thought too.
Speaker 2:If you read it. I cannot stress enough to take your time. If you find it to be too heavy, take a moment and take a break.
Speaker 1:And it's okay to not be able to finish the book. Yeah, also, yeah.
Speaker 2:Agreed. I probably wouldn't have finished it if we weren't doing this.
Speaker 1:Correct Us finished it if we weren't doing this. Correct Us too. We finally found our limit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1:All right, tune in next time. Bye, guys Like subscribe, follow. We appreciate you. I just smacked my mic.
Speaker 2:I won't try and act like it didn't happen, so moving on, yeah.
Speaker 1:If you are someone who is being abused or you know someone that is the victim of abuse, there is help available. There's the 24-7 National Domestic Violence Hotline phone number, 800-799-7233. You can also text it,8788 smart. Or Oregon Department of Human Services that phone number is 855-503-SAFE and the last numbers are 7233. You can call to report abuse or neglect of a child or adult in Oregon. And there's also the childhelphotlineorg. That phone number is 800-422-4453. There are survivor resources as well. You can contact YWCA. They have an email address at getservice, at YWCAPDXorg, and again, this is YWCA survivor resources as well.
