What Have You Done by Shari Lapena

Major Spoilers 

"We have had to work on teaching our kids the difference between nice and safe." On today's episode Ashley and Emily review What Have You Done by Shari Lapena. Our conversation also includes chatting about teaching kids the difference between nice and safe, the teenage brain, male predators and how we need to listen to girls and women. We have included quotes and snippets from our monthly book chat with our book of the month and patreon members. 

TW: Domestic Violence, SA

Show Notes:
0:00-2:00 Basic Intro to Shari and our thoughts 
2:30 Chatting about the ending/outcome
3:40 member review of the characters 
4:30 what book is Emily not enjoying 
4:50 member review of male characters
7:00 discussion about nice versus safe 
10:00 chat on camerons parents 
13:00 Teenagers and their brains 
16:00 lighthouse parenting 
18:00 why we need to believe girls and women 
20:00 what in the world was with the phone? 
21:00 how many stars did we give it? 

https://www.sharilapena.com/

https://www.breakthecycle.org/ Domestic violence resource (stats) 

http://thehotline.org Domestic Violence Support

Transcript

Shari Lapena Chat

 Hi, I'm Emily, I'm Ashley, and this is books with your besties. we are excited to bring you our chat about Sherry Latinas. What have you done? Our September Book of the month. Please be sure to check all trigger warnings in the show notes before listening. It's good. Like we're better at podcasting now anyway, so we'll try again. Okay. Okay. Sherry Latina. Sherry Latina. What have you done? This was, I thought, a fun book. I did too. We're Sherry Latina fans over here. If she drops a new book, we are always going to read it. So it's our second book of the month by her, right? Yes. And everyone here is lying was wonderful. It was so good. It was so good. But this one started with a bang. Immediately. First what? First page? There's a dead body in a field and vultures are eating the body. It definitely drew me in immediately for our members on the on the call that we had. They were like that. That made me think, okay, yes, this is the kind of book for us I know, but but then, man, so much to unravel. She does such a great job of writing characters that are so complex and also just awful. Cassie said. Sherry really makes you. um, dislike those characters. She wrote that very well She also in a number of her books, including this one does. And you know I am not good at this. She does multiple points of view, like I want to say, at some point this one had up to it felt like 15. But she does it in a way that you get to know the character so quickly and so well. It's not hard to follow it. Some are so hard, but not not the way Sherri writes. I know I really liked An Unwanted Guest by her, which is of course set in a snowy setting, of course. If you're new here, Emily's favorite type of book. Are people stuck in a cabin in the snow with no wifi, no chargers, no car, no way to get out. And I find that kind of style where there's a lot of different perspectives entertaining it or two, and it I think it leads for a lot of red herrings. But also, if you read enough of her, you know, it can't be this person, but it could end up being this person, this case, the boyfriend. no way that's way too obvious. But then maybe it could be. Right I agree. Okay, so I have a question. Did you predict the outcome? No. Absolutely not I did not. Did you a little bit. I mean, I always second guess myself and it's always still entertaining because I'm never 100% sure. Of course I'm not. Like, well, now I know the answer. And that's the book is over for me. But I was really entertained by all of the chapters except for the letters by Evan I found so boring and I couldn't. I was like, there's no way that she would include these letters from this boy if he wasn't the one who did it. Yes, someone on our call said that exact thing that it seemed to like. Why is why is this character here? Why is he here if he's not the killer? That has to be why he's here. Yes. I mean, there's one other thing that could have happened, I guess would have been that he somehow played some integral role in why it was facilitated. But like, I just knew there was some involvement there. There had to be otherwise. Like, why? Why am I reading this? I just it was just inanity, those letters. A few people said that they figured it out. They're like, I figured out who it was. I definitely thought it was Evan, but it didn't ruin any of the book for me. One of our members who didn't figure out the ending had this to say about all of the characters. Right. I thought Brad was a great thing. I thought that whole situation was creepy. Joe was creepy. That was so creepy. At the end when Brad went into her house and I remember thinking like, oh, here we're going to go. But then there was too much of the book left. And so I was kind of like, no, that can't be it. But and I never figured it out. So I'm like, you know, I don't know who it is. Drew it, figured it out. She's like, oh, it was totally out. And I'm like, hmm. But, um, but I thought that some of the characters are really well fleshed out for as many characters. Same. I agree, and I actually just read another book that I didn't enjoy, even though I had no idea who did it and I just couldn't make myself care. So his name? Drop the name. Tell us, tell us the book. I can't, I can't. If you listen religiously to all of our episodes, you might know what I was reading last. I'll tell you about it though, in a chit chat episode. I'll tell you about it. Okay, we're not going to put anybody on blast right now. One of the things in this book is that every character that's a male is terrible. I know one of our members said that. But I just wanted to say one thing that really struck me is how awful every single male in her life was. Her boyfriend was controlling her teacher, the pervert. Her principal didn't protect her. The stalker was nuts. Her boss was a little creepy. Her best friend killed her, and her father abandoned her. Just. Except the guy who they found the body on his property. He just seemed like, oh, I'm a nice guy. And there's a dead, dead body on my property. Such a good man. That one. Ellen's. Ellen or Ellie? Ellen? Ellen? Yeah. Ellen's dad was the poor farmer who found her. Who was absolutely traumatized by that. He was a great man, but he wasn't one of the lead characters in Diana's life. Certainly. And I did not think that was a good point, that every man let her down. That was made by one of our members. Yes. And although he wasn't a criminal like Brad was, who was horrible, and Joe was the way that the principal let her down, and what he could have stopped from happening is, is one of the hardest parts of the book. is a hard part. It shows the complexity of people, though. You of course, you don't think that the person that you hired that you're friends with actually would do anything is horrifying. As Brad did, right? But also for selfish reasons, thinking Brad knew he was having an affair and that if he told on him, he would help his affair. Yeah, but I think, don't you think at the core of that, this is the principle was the best character to me because he was complex in that way, because even though he did the wrong thing. Absolutely. And I don't feel sorry for him because he was having an affair and God didn't want to get caught. And so he was only invested in his own interest. He was willing to take that risk because he was like, there's no way that this guy actually would do any of this stuff. I mean, is there anybody in your life that if someone came to you and told you, oh yeah, this person that you work with or that you're friends with, that you hang out with and you like, went to someone's house and threatened them and stood watching them get dressed like broke into their home, you'd be like, of course they did. I mean, a handful of people, but most people in my life know, most people know. And here's the thing is, she said no to going to the car. So he's like, well, is she telling the truth? And why wouldn't you want to go to the cops if someone broke into your home like that? I mean, on a more serious note, moving away from the book, but what you just said, you can tell me if I'm wrong, but this reminds me of when someone is an abusive spouse and people say, but he wasn't mean to is. The thing is, I think we are fooled into that people's personality when they're with us. Their persona that they put on is the whole picture, because it might be the whole picture for us. Like, I am authentic and who I am. There is no big secret. I don't have some big, seedy, horrible secret that if it came out, you would be horrified by who I am. And so I, I just think, of course everybody else is like that, but they're not right. And so we're fooled into thinking, oh, they're so great. I mean, who walks around like I think about walking to pick up the kids at school. So I'm looking at all these other parents. All of these other parents that I see right here are great parents. None of them could possibly be abusive. No, the statistics say that's not true. Some of those parents are abusive in some way to their spouse, to their children. In some fashion. They're problematic. They're abusive or neglectful, but they seem nice and they say hi and they smile at me. That was one of the things that was talked about with the calling, calling Hoover movie. It ends with us was even if you don't think you know someone who's been in this type of domestic violence relationship, you do. And in fact, if you're sitting in a packed movie theater, statistically it was something like five of the women in that audience have been directly impacted by some foreign form of domestic violence. Yeah, that makes sense. But every time, not every time. But sometimes you think that that person wasn't mean to to me, people just seem to judge other people's personalities behaviors on how they treat you, which is not how they treat everyone. Yeah, I agree. I actually a while back asked some questions about someone in my life who was an authority figure for my kids, and I asked another parent. I sort of was skeptical about that person with the other parent, and the other parent clearly got upset with me for talking about it and felt defensive of that authority figure and like it was just like, I felt like, oh, and I said in the middle, I'm sorry to offend. I don't mean to offend. I just and being skeptical, you know, I'm just this is what I saw. This is what I know. And they walked away from me. And then I spent a few days feeling bad at worried about it. And after about three days, I thought, no, why would I be sorry for asking questions and being thoughtful and mindful and really skeptical about who gets to have influence over my children. I'm not sorry, I'm not sorry. And I feel sorry for the person who was upset with me for doing that, because they are going to blindly put their kids with whoever seems nice. Yeah. You and I talked a little bit about this, that there is a difference between being nice and being a safe person. And because of recent personal experiences, I think for both of us, my eyes have really been open to talking to my kids, not about if someone is nice or kind, but about if they're safe and if they make you feel safe, and how we figure out that someone is safe or not, which is a hard job. Agreed. In the last years, there are too many people that have been in our circles that we have known who are parents or coaches or teachers or pastors or whoever who have been found to be not safe. Absolutely. And so there are a lot that are still hiding. Yeah. Something about this book. Different topic. I thought she did incredibly well. Camryn, the boyfriend who you're led to believe might have murdered her because he was bummed that she was breaking up with him, and he seemed a tad controlling that his parents, who had a small role in the book, both independently knew he had a gap in when he claimed to be home. And for me, it felt so relatable as they grappled with do I tell my spouse? And then once they told each other, do we tell the police? One of our members had this to say about Cameron's parents. That. I especially like that moment where, um, they were both like, okay, we think he did it. And wouldn't you do anything to save him? Right? Like, I think it's a mom that finally brings it up and it's like, well, we will have to do whatever it takes to save him, whether it's, you know, lie, cheat, steal, you know what I mean? And so I was like, I was actually glad that they came in together with that because I'm like, I would like Drew's my niece and I'd fucking do anything, but you know what I mean? It's sort of amazing because I feel like in those situations we we might be someone who talks a lot to our spouse or feels like we're very open, but we haven't been in that kind of position before. And the shame may be that you would feel as a parent, what if and the shame you would feel around like, I don't want to even speak these words out And also the potential reaction from your spouse. If you are planning on sharing this information and you think you know how to handle it, like Ben and I both have very different relationships with our with our children, and there are ways that I might handle something with Hunter and he might handle it a different way. So just thinking, if I share this information with him, I know what he's going to think. And am I ready to kind of partner with him in parenting to figure out what was happening with Cameron? Yeah, that's a great point. I like to think that I wouldn't help my child cover up a murder he committed. Same like I had to step too far. are you an accomplice? I, I wouldn't do well in jail, so I would turn my own kid in because I don't want to go to jail myself. Well, and there are child, right. So you'd hope even they could be tried as an adult. I suppose these were probably 17 or 18 year olds who never mind strike that. The other piece that Sherri wrote really well was the teenage they got in the car and followed Follow Joe. I'm like. that's that is teenagers and their half formed brains. I really thought that the friend. Sorry. What was the friend's name? Riley. Riley. I really thought that Riley who fought and Evan. But especially Riley, because it was just more of the focus of her story. It was going to screw something up in the investigation, like was going to plant some evidence somehow that would make it seem like Joe did it, or or two. I thought she was going to come out that Brad had also come after her when he actually hadn't, and that that was going to be so damaging. I mean, turns out that she could have done that, but may have other girls actually legitimately came forward. But it was those. The teenage brain is what you're talking about. I feel like she did such a good job of telling us that Riley was using her teenage brain, and I was like, this isn't going to be great. It turned out fine. It turned out fine, thank goodness. Well, and Cameron's teenage brain, he almost seemed more embarrassed having to tell his parents that he had had sex in a truck than he did about being potentially a murderer. It seemed more comfortable for him to talk about that. And I'm like, that's a teenager right there. Yeah. Oh, the teenager. I know those years are so challenging because the kids brains aren't fully developed, but they feel like they're full grown people. They think they are, and the amount of risk they're willing to take without thinking about the consequences is it's just a whole different level of trying to keep your kids safe. One of our members who has teenagers said this. With like what is the capital R right thing to do in a, you know, sticky situation? Um, I don't know, I don't know. I know. I feel like we should talk about what we think we will be like as parents, as things come forward. Because I know you really can't know, right? We can't know what we'll do. But as things happen, how will you react and what will you do? Let's turn. It more of a fear based parent than I thought. I was no, you're not riding in a car with an 18 year old because that would be imminent death. Have you seen how teenagers drive? Oh, I am a fear based parent too, but I'm also. And so I keep my kids very safe, I think. But I'm also too lenient. My husband would say I kind of let them get away with too much or I caught all them. He would say, I call it nurturing, but that's just an argument we can have separately on that. But it's it's very interesting to think about the different possible approaches, like when it comes to drinking. Well, let's let's put a pin in this. Don't you think we should talk about this next week. Let's talk about this. Come back next week you guys, when we have our just chit chat with us and we'll get into this because I have big feelings about this. But in the book this does come up. We talked on the group chat about Paula, the mom who's also the teacher, and about how she seemed like she wanted to be her daughter's friend. So much more than an authority figure. And a bunch of moms on our chat piped off about having teenage daughters and that fine line of how you parent them and keep them safe while having some authority and not pushing them all the way away. Yeah, that's there's a new type of parenting. What's it called? The the bad one. That's not. No. The other. Oh the good. Maggie was telling me about it. I'll have to ask her and I'll come prepare next time to talk about it, because it wasn't something. The terms I've heard, like helicopter parenting. I'll find out what it is, but it's another good kind of light. Lighthouse. Lighthouse parenting. Have you heard of this? No, I just was going to say I'm not a gentle parent, so I need something a little bit rougher than that. So maybe lighthouse is what's for me. Lighthouse parenting is you let your kids go explore, but you're just this beacon of light for them to be able to find their way and come back to. And you give them the guidance that they need as a lighthouse. I love that I like it too. Let's talk more about that. It ends up being Evan. But the crazy thing is he murders her, so that's awful. But there are also two other men who are full on criminals, and it's just their crimes are seen as lesser. But anyway, just. Do you talk to me about the horrible men in this book? Joe is a serial killer. Yeah, this and a creep. Like a total creep. And Brad is well on his way to serial offending. Because the thing is, with a lot of people, especially who are seeking sexual gratification, it's it's an escalation. It doesn't start with, I have, you know, sexually assaulted and unaligned to person. And it starts with breaking into someone's house to watch them change, right? Or watching accidentally walking into the girls locker room. Or maybe that's nuts against the cross-country runner or all of those things. Yes, but he escalated to a very extreme place in this book alone. So if he had not been caught for that, then that could go a lot more damaging places. And the number of times these teenage girls tried to say what was happening a whole nother why do we not believe girls and women? One of our members, Heidi said. think she did a really good job showing the problems that come when we don't believe people and when they try and share what's happening, like with teachers or whatever. And we don't listen and we don't believe what they're saying and all the problems that come with that and just how hard it is. I mean, we want how hard it is for a teenage girl to be able to to stand up for herself. And this is why because this is what happened, and too often is that it's just dismissed or they're trying to get attention. It just is maddening that that, um, has happened so much in the past and continues to happen. So I appreciated her showing that so clearly. Like, this is I mean, obviously this was a extreme thing that happened, but also that happens all the time. And these and people aren't listened to. So something needs to change where where like you said, Missy, women are listened to. Evan kills her. I want you to tell me from your brain about these things because you're smart. Evan kills her basically in a fit of rage because she. He tells her he loves her and he's always loved her. And she laughs at him. And it seems like he takes that laughter as just embarrassment and goes to the point of killing her by hitting her with a Moby-Dick book. Yeah, she's. But that's the thing, right? Like the way that men feel embarrassment and shame could potentially not make you a killer, but lead you to make this horrible, rash, quick, passionate decision for sure. I think that is realistic in that way, but I didn't love that Evan seemed all 100% nice until suddenly Diana saw it. And then Riley saw it. Like, I think there would have been clues before. Yes, that was one of the biggest. I wouldn't say complaints, but people who read the book saying the two things were just the ending felt like, I don't know if he could have gone there that quickly with no other red flags and then the phone. The phone. Do they not track cell phones? Or they would have known where that phone was and under his bed there's. You couldn't put it anywhere else. Yeah, I would just if I killed somebody, I would keep their phone for funsies because I'm sure they wouldn't be able to track that, send texts from it and whatnot and connect to my WiFi, you know, those kinds of things. And then I would store it somewhere very well hidden, like under the kitchen table. You can see if we track each other's location for safety purposes, friends, not for stalking purposes. And you can see when I'm literally in my kitchen. Oh, yeah. So I don't understand how in this story the cops didn't find them day one when he still had the phone. Sometimes I forget to check locations when it's a good time. Like I'm like, I'm going to cold call Ashley and see what she's doing. And I could check your location and see that you're at the doctor's office and then not cold call, but I don't. But what I like to do is I'll go on to check one person's location, like, oh, well, is mom back yet? And I'll go try to look for my mom. And then I have all these friends on there and family members and I'll be like, what's everyone doing? It's Friday night. Like, where is it? Where is this? First of all, weren't you impressed that I turned my location off when I surprised you for your birthday? I was like, you're just gonna try to call me and wonder why I'm not answering? And look. Yes, that was smart. Thank you. I'm smarter than the murderer in the book. You turned it back on, too, which is also really good, because I'll turn right off, and then I'll forget to ever turn it back on again, I remind you. I give it four stars because I was entertained. I gave it four stars. Although I think for anybody who's new to this genre, it would be the perfect kind of starter book. It's a great starter book other than the first chapter being very shocking. Our member, Natalie agreed with us that this would be a great one to start with, but the next one she mentions would not. Um. What? Ashley and Emily, what you guys said on your on the Patreon when you were talking about the other book you guys just read, which was, um. Oh, appetite for innocence. Yes, yes. Where you were like, this is this is not a book for your first time into the genre because that's a that's a rough But everything else is quite tame. It is. It is quite tame. But if you're hearing it and you haven't read it yet, sorry, we spoil the entire book for you. Correct? All right, Sherry Lupino, we love her. And we'll read anything she writes. Yeah. Thank you so much. Nope. We can cut that out. We don't need that part. I always forget we have an outro. Thanks for listening. For more content, find us on Patreon at the Creepy Book Club. Happy reading!