Tag: manipulation

Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult)

- Stephanie Leave a comment

“In a cult, safety means agreement. The irony, of course, is that while you are not allowed to have your own opinion about my beliefs, I am allowed to have an opinion about yours.”
― Bethany Joy Lenz, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show

What television show influenced you as a teenager? For me, it was One Tree Hill. Running for nine seasons from 2003 to 2012, this teen drama follows the lives of half-brother Lucas and Nathan Scott as they grow up in Tree Hill, North Carolina. They switch between rivals, friends, and family as they compete on the basketball court and amongst their friends. Bethany Joy Lenz, the author of Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult), plays Haley James on the show, best friend to Lucas Scott. Haley was portrayed as the nerdy, mousey friend, the one who would rather read and stay home than hang out with the loud crowd. To say I related to Haley as a teenager would be a massive understatement, so when she announced her book, Dinner for Vampires, I knew I needed to give it a read.

Dinner for Vampires begins with Lenz’s childhood. Growing up as an only child, Lenz searches for a place to belong. She often had to fend for herself, living with parents who were less than happy with each other. Her family frequently moved, following her dad across the country as he switched jobs. As a young adult, Lenz found the family she was looking for when she joins a Bible study filled with other Hollywood types. Relieved to have found people with similar beliefs, she relaxes. The group isn’t as nice as they seem though. Soon they change into something more dangerous, although it takes Lenz years to realize this. Under the pretense of love in The Big House Family, they weave a web of lies, abuse, fear, and manipulation, lulling their members into complacency and lives of docility to never want to leave. Lenz slowly starts giving away pieces of herself: her autonomy, her belongings, and millions of her TV income.

“I found out that when the numbness lasts for long enough it bears a striking resemblance to peace.”
― Bethany Joy Lenz, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show

Lenz is filming One Tree Hill during her time in The Big House Family, eventually splitting her time between filming in North Carolina and the Family’s Pacific Northwest compound. She is eventually compelled to marry one of the minister’s sons and her life only continues to spiral from there. Once Lenz becomes a mother, she realizes that she has to escape to save her daughter from a similar fate. Escaping is only the beginning. She has to start to heal from her trauma and reevaluate her relationship with God, religion, and faith.

Dinner for Vampires is heartbreaking and profound. I listened to the audiobook, where the author narrates as herself, as well as some guest voice appearances from other actors. Her insights into her acting experiences were eye-opening, watching her grow from a child actor to an adult actor. Her secret life while filming One Tree Hill was interesting as it shed some light onto some of the producing decisions during the show. Reading about the financial crimes and abuse that happened to Lenz and others was infuriating, but her intense desire to speak out and fight helped her to start healing from the trauma.

“I think we’re all little cathedrals of contradiction. Terrifying darkness and shocking beauty coexist in everyone, and God doesn’t wait for us to clean out all the bad before celebrating the good. It’s scandalous, really—that kind of love.”
― Bethany Joy Lenz, Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show

You by Caroline Kepnes

- Stephanie Leave a comment

You by Caroline Kepnes is a tale of unrelenting passion, love, and desire told through the eyes of a smitten young man. Joe Goldberg works in an East Village bookstore. His life is changed (such a cliché, I know, but just wait) the day Guinevere Beck, a young aspiring writer, walks into his bookstore. He instantly wants to be with her. Everything about her appeals to him: the way she walks, the section she visits in the store, the fact that she doesn’t check out ‘normal’ books… She’s super sexy, tough, smarter than any other woman he knows, and is drop-dead gorgeous. He has to have her.

Striking up a conversation with Beck gives Joe just enough information to see that he is perfect for her. She just doesn’t realize it yet. Joe has to find a way to convince her and to, most importantly, learn more about her so he can become her perfect boyfriend. In his quest to learn more, Joe realizes that there is more to Beck than he initially thought, that she isn’t quite as perfect as she seems to be.

Joe is obsessed with Beck and the more he gets to know her, the more he needs to be with her. Beck has her own life separate from Joe. He doesn’t want to push Beck too hard to get her to be in his life as much as he wants her to be. Joe must be clever and soon his cleverness pays off. Each becomes obsessed with the other, a situation that has the possibility to abruptly spiral out of control, to even turn deadly.

You has the haunting, thrilling, psychological messages of a good suspenseful romance. The sociopathic voyeurism and manipulation that runs rampant throughout this book had me honestly feeling a little bit paranoid. Seeing the lengths that Joe went through to learn about Beck and how sneaky Beck was made me question my social media use and whether I’m using it too much. I also questioned whether I was simply connected online too much and whether I needed to start unplugging from the internet more often. The differentiation between what we consider to be our private and our public lives, as well as the ease that those lives can be monitored by outside forces and even hacked, were all things that I thought about as I was reading this book.

This psychological thriller creeped me out. In a good way. I have read many, many thrillers from the victim’s perspective. Said books are always about their quest to find out who is stalking them or hurting them or who is leaving weird things for them. These books may also be from the point of view of family and friends who are looking for the missing person. I had never read a book from the other person’s point of view, from the point of view of the person who is completely and thoroughly obsessed. I loved and was simultaneously repulsed by this book.

This book is also available in the following format(and that’s the one I listened to it in):

The sequel to this book was released in 2016. It’s called Hidden Bodies and it continues into the exploration of Joe’s life. I’m hoping the sequel digs more into Joe’s past and gives us more of an idea of why Joe behaves the way that he does.