Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 38333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 192(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 128(@300wpm)
David: That's why IA flagged us.
Castillo: IA didn't flag us, David. IA was told to WATCH us. Different thing.
Kowalski: You — FIVE WEEKS. Five weeks you sat here letting us think you were just a psycho reader who happened to GPS fictional crime scenes and you were ACTUALLY WORKING A CASE??
Castillo: I was doing both. But the reason I'm not talking today is because I couldn't discuss the reassignment until it went official. It went official four minutes ago. And I need you all to listen to me very carefully. SEASON TWO OF BADLANDS MC IS… I can’t even talk about it. Literally. Classified. But even if it wasn’t, I just… can’t.
Kowalski: Legion.
Castillo: When Legion buried those bodies, he didn't close a case file. He opened one.
David: Our next assignment—
Castillo: Classified.
David: I'm the moderator of this—
Castillo: David. You fell in love with a dead Fed. You are in no position to demand clearance.
Kowalski: CASTILLO JUST KILLED DAVID WITH WORDS. Five weeks of silence was WORTH IT for that one sentence. I am adding Castillo to my book boyfriend list. I don't care that she's a woman. She has the most devastating one-liner energy of any character in this entire operation.
David: I did NOT fall in—
Kowalski: You DID. And she's RIGHT. And I need everyone on this call to understand that I am permanently altered. I walked into this book club a functioning federal agent with a 401k and I'm walking out a woman who’s only goal is to be an old lady in a MC. And if I have to drive to a decommissioned gas station in Terry, Montana and sit in it with Kai until season two drops to prove my attachment to a fictional man — I will.
Kai: ...I'll leave the coffee on.
[9:07 AM — AGENT: KOWALSKI has ended the meeting]
[9:07 AM — AGENT: DAVID (text to group chat):] For the record, I did not fall in love with Brandy. I recognized narrative complexity. These are different things.
[9:08 AM — AGENT: KOWALSKI (text to group chat):] David, baby, that IS love.
[9:08 AM — AGENT: CASTILLO (text to group chat):] Pack a bag, Kowalski. Terry gets cold in March.
[9:09 AM — AGENT: MARSH (text to group chat):] Requesting transfer to Prairie Division. For professional reasons. Not the book. [attached: Transfer_Req_Prairie_Div.pdf]
[9:09 AM — AGENT: KAI (text to group chat):] Gas station has room for five.
[END TRANSCRIPT — RECLASSIFIED: ACTIVE OPERATION FILE]
Welcome to the End of Book shit. This is the part of the book where I get to say anything I want about the book you just read. Thoughts about what was on my mind, my plans, how it turned out, why I wrote it—stuff like that.
If you just read that FBI Book Club and you're wondering what the fuck that was — welcome. That little bit of insanity was born right here in this series. Nowhere else. It started as a joke in my newsletter about having my own FBI agent assigned to me because of my "professional research" and it grew legs and a security clearance and apparently a decommissioned gas station in Terry, Montana. I don't know where it's going. I don't think Kowalski does either. But Castillo has a plan and I've learned not to ask questions when Castillo has a plan.
Now. Let's talk about what just happened to you.
You finished. You're sitting there. Maybe it's 2 AM. Maybe it's noon on a Tuesday and you're supposed to be somewhere. You're staring at nothing. Your chest feels like someone parked a truck on it. You might be on the floor. You might have texted someone WHO HASN'T EVEN READ THE SERIES and just said "I need you to know I'm not OK" and they said "what happened" and you said "a fictional man walked into an elevator" and they said "what" and you said "I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT JUST HOLD ME."
That, my friends, is a book hangover.
And unlike the cliffhanger — which I covered in a very scholarly and historically accurate blog post — the book hangover doesn't come from the story stopping.
It comes from the story ending and YOU not being able to.
The story is done with you. You are not done with it. It has moved into your chest like an uninvited guest and it is not paying rent and it knows where you sleep.
This is not new. This is ancient. Allow me to present the evidence…
Murasaki Shikibu, circa 1021 AD. When The Tale of Genji — widely considered the first novel ever written — reached the court ladies of Heian Japan, there are accounts of women refusing to attend court duties for days after finishing it. One lady-in-waiting supposedly told the Empress she couldn't dress her because "Genji is dead and nothing matters." The Empress reportedly said "He isn't real." The lady-in-waiting reportedly said "Then why are YOU crying?" No formal discipline was recorded. The Empress never denied the tears.