Bookwild - Laurie Elizabeth Flynn: The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

On this episode, I talk to Laurie Elizabeth Flynn about her thriller The Girls Are All So Nice Here.You can also watch the episode on YouTubeAuthor LinksInstagramGoodreadsWebsiteCheck out the book hereThe Girls Are All So Nice Here SummaryA lot has changed in years since Ambrosia Wellington graduated from college, and she’s worked hard to create a new life for herself. But then an invitation to her ten-year reunion arrives in the mail, along with an anonymous note that reads, “We need to talk about what we did that night.”It seems that the secrets of Ambrosia’s past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she believed. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did or who she did it with: larger-than-life Sloane “Sully” Sullivan, Amb’s former best friend, who could make anyone do anything.At the reunion, Amb and Sully receive increasingly menacing messages, and it becomes clear that they’re being pursued by someone who wants more than just the truth of what happened that first semester. This person wants revenge for what they did and the damage they caused—the extent of which Amb is only now fully understanding. And it was all because of the game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else and the girl who paid the price.Alternating between the reunion and Amb’s freshman year, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a “chilling and twisty thriller” (Book Riot) about the brutal lengths girls can go to get what they think they’re owed, and what happens when the games we play in college become matters of life and death. Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

Hi, my name is Kate and I love to read. Like, I was carrying books around with me before Kindles were a thing. So I decided to start a podcast where I interview the authors of some of my favorite books, ask them all of my questions so that I can read between the lines of the books. Welcome back to another episode of Between the Lines. I'm here with Lori Elizabeth Flynn, who wrote The Girls Are Also Nice Here. which was probably one of the most thought-provoking books I've read in a little while, kind of just about female relationships and kind of how they can go wrong.

So welcome to the podcast, Lori. Thank you so much for having me here, and I'm so glad you enjoyed the book. Yeah, it was fantastic. Before we end to the book, though, I did want to learn a little bit about you. So when did you know that you wanted to be an author, or when did you know you wanted to write a book? I feel like it goes back a really long way. I remember being in grade four, and when it was time to do creative writing in class, I would always fill up multiple pages of paper, and it was my favorite thing to do, and I was sort of

always off in my own little dream world thinking of stories, and right in my memory book that my parents have, I said that year that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and I was I guess it came true, but I think it took a long time for me to acknowledge that it was like a plausible career path. So I kind of focused on other things and I went into school for journalism and I considered, you know, going through academia to become a English professor at one point in time and kind of finally admitted that that wasn't for me. And what was really stopping me from writing a book, it was always when I was my happiest is when I was using my imagination and being created. and making my own stories. So once I kind of abandoned my fear of failure, not that you ever fully abandoned that, but once I sort of decided it was more important to get the story on the page, I feel like that was when things really shifted for me, and I realized that I could do this,

and I could, you know, make a living doing this and kind of be, have my passion be my work, which is really amazing. Yeah, and I feel like anyone who's, trying to make their passion and their work. Like, it is so scary at first, like, actually trying it. So it's awesome that you did. What's your writing process? Like, do you know how your books are going to turn out? Do you kind of have one idea and you just start writing? How do you do it? I wish I knew how they were going to turn out because it would be a lot less chaotic. Yeah. My process is pretty messy, I'd say, right now. I, you know, know, I kind of just like to get dive in. I usually think of like a central question or a hook

and I have a couple of characters and I just kind of see where they take me, which in theory is very fun, but not when they kind of write you into a corner and you have no idea what to do with it. So I am working on streamlining my process to try to outline a little bit more so that I'm more organized, but like the girls are also nice here. It was written in a total chaotic state. It has the two timelines. So I wrote the past tense timeline first and then the present tense timeline and kind of fuse them together. So I feel like my best work kind of happens when I, in some sense, don't know what's going to happen with the plot because I feel like I discover it around the same time the reader does. So I think that, like my hope is always that if I can surprise a reader, then I can, like if I can surprise myself where something's headed, I can hopefully surprise a reader.

I don't know. For writing thrillers, I think there's something to be said about that where hopefully doesn't feel predictable because I couldn't have even predicted it and I'm the author. So that's kind of my, it's something I like to think about when I write, but I definitely do waste a lot of words writing the way I do and a lot of things end up on the cutting room floor. The first draft of the girls are also nice here was roughly 40,000 to 50,000 words longer than the final book.

So all those words are abandoned, never to be seen. So I don't know, I envy writers who can make an outline and just follow it because it sounds so nice, but I'm not there yet. Yeah, it is. I've always wondered about that with ones that take place in two timelines, because sometimes, like, the way the chapters line up, going from past to present, it seems like it was planned out in that, like, alternating order. but I feel like it would be so much easier to write like the past and then the future, since like the future would be so informed by the past, most likely. So I have heard a couple people say that before, but I could definitely tell when you said that you kind of like think of a question

or a theme you want to write about. That was definitely apparent in this one because that was what was so unique about it to me was I love thrillers, but this one was so thought-provoking on a, on like a relational level too, but it was still thrilling. So it wasn't all character work, wasn't all plot. But speaking of the characters, do you do any planning for the characters then? Do you like map out characters or do you just kind of start writing with them as well? I usually just start writing and kind of let them tell me who they are. And generally in revisions, they get fleshed out a lot more.

Okay. Is what I find because sometimes if you do that, like if I just put them on a page, and like I haven't done any sort of work into them yet and let them inform me who they are and what kind of decisions they make. It does take some fleshing out in revision for them to feel like fully realized people. So I would say that I think in revision I layer in a lot more details about their personalities. Makes sense. How would you describe the girls are also nice here in like a couple sentences? Well, I think it's kind of like a darker, more disturbing mean girls in a sense.

It's sort of what happens when your insecurities and your envy and your obsession kind of get the best of you and overtake the qualities about yourself that you used to like until you can't even see them anywhere. Yeah. And what prompted you to write it? Like what made you want to explore that? I've always been really obsessed with books that kind of tow the line between like a really thrilling suspense with a lot of twists and a very like in-depth social commentary on on women's experiences especially like when I read gone girl that was a real game changer for me just because I was so flabbergasted with the depth of character and how how morally completely morally gray character completely unlikable woman could be so

likable and memorable and I wanted to do that because I feel like there's too many characters where it seems like they can't get away with being unlikable because

oh we don't actually root for them but I love the anti-hero almost and how to make them relatable because I think if we make a character relatable and you can see a little bit of yourself in them then then it becomes a really interesting story because you put yourself in that character shoes and think, well,

what would I have done in that situation? So those are sort of questions that I'm asking myself. And that was something I wanted to explore. And I knew that I wanted this book to be as much as, yes, it would be a thriller. I really also wanted it to have a lot of commentary because I love reading it and I also love writing it. Yeah, there was so many things I highlighted that when I was going to make the questions, I was like, I can't just like read the whole book back to it. but there were so many things that I was highlighting where I was like, man, that just like describes the experience, like, especially of being in like high school or college as a girl. I was just like some of these sentences were just so dead on.

Have you thought about who you would cast for any of your, or for the main characters if it was a TV show or a movie? Oh my gosh, not really. Like, I'm, but I'd be so curious to. sort of to see what would happen with that. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes. It's like what a dream.

Right. Yeah. Sometimes I like when I'm reading the book, sometimes it's like someone that I'm really thinking of. And sometimes especially with, and I feel like yours was too, especially when it's like so much in the person's mind anyway, it's like I'm not even thinking of their physical appearance as much. So I don't always, someone reverse that question on me.

I think it was Eliza Jane Brazier actually. And she was like, well, who did you cast? And I was like, wait a second, I don't know either. So we are going to go into talking about the book now. So there will be spoilers. So if you haven't read the book, just pause and go read the book and come back. But if you've already read it, you can just keep on listening. The book, it really does focus, as we've kind of covered, so much on the dynamics of female relationships.

And I'm not going to read all of my highlights. but one of my favorite ones is when she's talking about like the mean girls in high school. She says we studied them, then peeled them like overripe fruit and marathon gossip sessions to lessen the sting of not being invited to their parties. And so it's kind of making, it was, it made me think about how gossip or comparison is sometimes like an armor against feeling rejected by those girls. So did you experience any of that? it felt like such a personal revelation the way that you wrote it.

I think there's such an instinct to make it that, like to lessen somebody's power over you in any way you can if you're feeling hurt. So I think not to that extent, I didn't experience that, but definitely, you know, if you didn't get invited to a party, I remember finding myself thinking like, oh, well, I don't want to hang out with them anyway. they're really not that cool or something like that just to sort of make diminish in my brain the

importance of actually wanting to be invited so that it didn't hurt so much and I think that is a defense mechanism that that girls have and especially in those you know formative years of high school and university college so and even hearing people talk like I remember hearing different girls talk in high school and even when they were part of the same friend group it seemed like they would be talking behind each other's backs and I was always an observer kind of person of those dynamics and found them fascinating and you know the way that if somebody's was jealous of someone else they're instead of you know going with a compliment they would kind of put the other person down and that would kind of be their instinct just to sort of take that person's power

away from them. And I think that is really something that I don't know how it gets ingrained into us, but it just kind of does. And our default setting can sometimes be instead of being happy for someone else or acknowledging that someone else has something we don't, the default setting is to kind of try to diminish that or act like it's not important to us. And it's kind of something you have to retrain your brain to get over almost and to kind of acknowledge. knowledge, okay, so it's not a competition. There's room for everyone to be successful and to be happy in their own ways. So it's something that I think it takes a long time to reprogram your brain into doing. It really does because that was, it was kind of even the way my parents kind of taught

it to me was to even go to that where it was like, oh, they were angry, but that's okay because you're better than them or like you don't need them in your life. And I understand how some ways, like you do want to be able to get there. But then later, like, especially just as you grow up, it's not the end of the world if someone rejects you. And so in some ways, you can be cutting yourself off from so many relationships if you've, like, really gotten stuck in that mindset of, like, I'm better than those people anyway. And then you could be, like, losing out on a great relationship. Exactly. So in terms of, like, being nicer. or being softer when Amb kind of like his first meeting Flora, one of her thoughts is that her

niceness and kind of naivete is kind of a dangerous quality is how she interprets it. And given how the book turns out, it does in this scenario almost seem like that's true for Flora. But what are your thoughts kind of like outside of the book on the inherent goodness of niceness? I think it's definitely about trusting, like especially in this book, trusting the right people, trusting the wrong people, and how that can really burn you if you've trusted someone and they let you down. Like in Am's case, she had a high school boyfriend who she completely trusted and loved. And, you know, she ate up every word he said about them because she had no reason not to believe him when he said things to her. Like, oh, we'll be together forever and I love you so much.

And then she finds out he cheated on her and she finds him in the act of cheating. And it's like horrifying and traumatizing for her and humiliating. And she, because of that experience, she, you know, doesn't trust men anymore. And she also doesn't trust girls because she doesn't, you know, another girl did that behind her back who knew she was with this guy. So I think part of that is what the attitude that she takes with her. And that's maybe why she hates that Flora is so nice and so open. and she almost wants to see something happen to Flora because why should Flora be exempt from

the consequences of being so trusting? She kind of sees herself in Flora herself from a year ago when she was like that and wants to almost see her suffer for being trusting just as she had. And Flora, she keeps trying to find like a weakness in Flora, like a hint that she's actually not that nice and she's actually kind of bitchy. but she, you know, finds it hard to find this about her because she is, that is her personality and she is so open. So obviously Am and Sully really, you know, capitalize on that as a weakness and, um, and go after it. Yeah, it's almost like she needed to confirm her like worldview

that you shouldn't be that way. So she kind of needed anyone who was like that to suffer something similar to how she did. There's also a, uh, an exploration kind of going on of knowing who we really are. So also after Amp meets Flora, she's noticing that Flora knew how to be herself. And then Amp feels like she only knows how to imitate people. And that was, I was actually just having a conversation with one of my friends about that, about how like sometimes when I was in high school, especially, if I didn't feel confident in a situation, I mean, even still now, because I'm just super, I'm a lot more introverted. So it's not as easy for me to like put myself out there but sometimes I will I in high school I started

being like oh I could imitate this person who I think of as confident and in some ways it works and it can be helpful because so much of growing up is like comparing and contrasting yourself to your peers that's it's it's a good part of growing up and like seeing if it's if it fits for you but if you lean into it a little bit too much then you maybe have no sense of and then you actually have no actual confidence as well. So when you were writing it, were you kind of including the stuff like that in the book as a way to kind of show how being unstable in your sense of self can really end up harming people around you?

Yeah, I think that's a really good point. And I think in Am's case, she's definitely trying on other people's personalities almost, especially when she gets to college, which is a totally, transformative time for so many of us. Like you, you have the possibility here of a fresh start where people don't know who you are and they don't know what happened to you in high school and they don't know what kind of person you were. So if you were really unhappy with who you were in high school and you felt like you were really uncool and you want to change, college is just the place to do it, I guess, and there's so much pressure on people to change in those ways and to sort of reinvent

themselves as who they want to be. And I think Am really goes way too far with it because she's got Flora for her roommate and she's trying to at first you know be like Flora and then she meets Sully and she's kind of drawn the other extreme and she kind of tries on both personalities and Sully's personality is so cruel but charismatic and what she gives Amb is attention and validation because she knows here's somebody I can manipulate but of course Am doesn't see it that way she sees oh it's almost like she's being anointed with this cool girl thinking she's her best friend and this is the validation she never got in high school and that validation is just like feeds her and keeps her going

and drives her to do things that I think she never would have ever done had she not met Sally. I think having that complete personality like a different personality of somebody who is willing to go to those dark places and feel no remorse and am just kind of last on to that and kind of hid behind Sally almost as as her excuse for doing some of these things that were out of character. And by kind of trying to imitate Sally's personality, she didn't realize until it was far too late how dangerous that was and that she couldn't handle it because she has feelings that Sally doesn't have. So, but it took obviously going way too far to a place where she can never come back from to go there. There's a lot of, because it even feels like

Sully's personality has to at least be a little bit of a performance because she is so just like extremely sure of herself but leaning into the negative version of it. But it definitely feels like both characters are, well, all the characters except Flora really, are kind of grappling with keeping up an outward performance. So looking a certain way to everyone that they show up around. So the, like, competitiveness and, like, envy the Amb kind of feels towards Sully is what really starts feeling so many of her, like, hurtful decisions towards lots of people, not even just Flora. And I guess you could really argue hurtful decisions towards herself as well. But that, like, extreme insecurity in trying to look a certain way in performing is really what kind of caused everything to unravel. So you kind of talked about it, but was that what you were also kind of like setting out to when you started writing it, that like being obsessed with our appearance is such a destructive path?

Oh, definitely. I think Anne was so obsessed with how she was coming across and she had gone, kept going farther and farther and farther with it. And it was too late to turn back at that point because she had an image to keep up with Sally. She had to be the person Sally thought she was and the person she had fooled Sally into thinking she was, someone who was capable of doing all these things. And being the one person who could keep up with Sally, it was almost became a sick game to her. And it was definitely a game to Sally. Sally was bored. And I also think Sally would be nothing without her loyal subjects.

So she has somebody to bat around who she knows will, you know, want to do anything to impress her. and she absolutely capitalizes on that and manipulates. And she does the same thing with all the guys she hooks up with. She just uses them and she uses friends the same way. So I think caring so much about the appearance and the image that you've decided you want to project and being married to that and, you know, so bent on keeping that up can absolutely be destructive because you lose yourself in trying to show the world the person that you think they think you are. So it becomes this whole tangled up concept with huge consequences because it's not actually

you in there and you don't even recognize yourself. And I think that's what happens to Am is by the end of the book. She just has no idea who she is. And when she and Sally were best friends, she was at least able to convince herself that she knew who she was because Sally validated it. but without Sully to validate it, you know, once Sully moved on from her, which is, you know, something that these toxic friends do, they move on to the next one. And once Sully had done that, I think Amp was left completely, you know, moored in the middle of nowhere

and in the middle of this horrible mess that she'd made and forced to try to figure out who she was from there. It was, that was when you were discussing the way that Sully kind of like bats around the people. in her life. Do you remember there was something I had highlighted that was kind of talking about how like she outwardly talked about or said out loud how she kind of used boys as toys was the way she saw it. But then there was like something after it that was like, but it was really the girls that she did that too. And it is like it she definitely or sully definitely manipulated some of the guys she was with, but it was probably more just like using them a little bit physically. where then like with the females she was just like wreaking havoc on their like actual well not well-being

because i mean you still have to give some like consent for that to happen but she was just so much crueller with the girls probably because you're just closer to girls in a different way especially at that time in your life yeah um so you were talking a little bit about anti-heroes before and i had it actually, it was Ashley Winstead is who recommended the book to me after I interviewed her. And we talked about, she similarly wrote a book with an anti-hero as a female. And so she and I were having that conversation about how females kind of aren't allowed to be anti-heroes and like how it's nice to see that sometimes in books. So I started reading your book.

I loved it and I was obsessed with it like I was burning through it. I was like, I've got to get to the end. But obviously, the longer it goes, the more you're starting to be like, okay, Am really isn't that great either. Like, you're really starting to feel like she really kind of went in on how Sully's acting as well. And so I was getting to a point where I was like, I know I just said that I love female anti-heroes, but I don't know how I could technically want her to have a decent ending. So I was kind of getting nervous when I had like 10% left because I was.

I love the story. I love reading her perspective, but she doesn't deserve to like get away with all of this still. So then when I got to the ending, I was like, this was, it couldn't have been more perfect. And I was actually like really relieved because I was just like, I just had this conversation where I was saying I'm okay with characters like that. And then I'm kind of like, oh, I don't really want them to win. I was so obsessed with it. I felt like it was just the perfect ending. and really just couldn't have been any better. So I think you already said that you don't know the ending when you start,

but did you know the ending at all when you started, or did you come up with that one just as the characters' shenanigans kind of unfolded? I came up with it on the fly, I would say, and it completely poured out. I knew it was the right ending. And I wasn't anticipating even, writing that chapter from a different point of view, but it felt so right. And I was like, this is the only way this book can end. As soon as I was writing it, and as soon as I was getting to

the end of writing the book, I kind of knew a general sense of where it was headed. And then that final chapter just kind of wrote itself. And I really kind of, that was the ending that I saw for all those characters. And it did not change much from the first draft to what was in the book. Like obviously it was revised extensively, but the general bones of it are the same. And I know that, you know, the ending is kind of polarizing.

Some people hate it. Some people love it. So, like, I know some people want to see things wrapped up in a bit of a more hopeful light or a more positive way. But I think for this character in this book, this was the only way it could have ended in a way that felt justified.

And that was something I felt very strongly about as an author, just that this is how I want to leave things. So it's a bit of a bleak ending, but I think it is hopefully satisfying. It sounds like it was satisfying when you read it, and everything kind of thematically comes together. I think that was some of it, because it was so clear that, like,

you weren't on the side of these girls. Like, you weren't saying this is how we should treat each other. So if you were going to explore that theme, it still made sense that, like, eventually it caught up to them. But the other thing I was thinking, I hadn't seen any of the, like, polarizing reviews about the end. But it was making me think of, or earlier when we were just talking about characters, actually, when you were talking about anti-heroes again, you were mentioning how useful it is to still be able to, like, read from the perspective of someone who's not perfect almost or, like, who isn't a little. little bit of a gray area. So I guess if there were people that were still pulling for her by the end, you did do a pretty decent job of like getting in her perspective enough because I do think when I'm reading books that also alternate between like character perspectives throughout it.

And sometimes they are pitted against each other. Sometimes you like get to the end of one chapter and you're really pulling for that character. And then you read the other perspective and you're really pulling for that character. So I feel like if people were still able, to pull for her at the end, they must have, like, really enjoyed reading from her perspective. And she was a pretty immersive character. So that is pretty cool. But I loved it. I thought it was perfect. Thank you. You're welcome. Where can people find you? Where can they follow you? Just kind of plug wherever, whatever you want. Mostly on Instagram lately. I'm just Lori Elizabeth Flynn. and that's usually where I hang out.

I have Twitter as well, but I'm not on there nearly as much anymore. I've got four kids now, so I'm really busy. Instagram is like my rabbit hole of just, yeah, I'm guilty of the scroll. Awesome. Well, I will add that to the show notes so people can go follow you there if they want to. And thank you for coming and chatting by your book. Thank you.