Interview with "The Atlas Six" & "Girl Dinner" Author... Olivie Blake!

BYOB is back from hiatus and today we’re chatting with New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake to discuss her latest book, Girl Dinner!

In this episode of BYOB, hosts Kelly and Nikki welcome New York Times bestselling author Olivie Blake to discuss her latest book, Girl Dinner. 

Olivie shares the inspiration behind the book and explores themes of femininity, motherhood, and societal expectations. The conversation delves into her writing process, the emotional challenges of creating this type of narrative, and the role everyone plays (including men) in feminist discourse. 

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Good girls deserve a treat.

After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.

Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to balance returning to work after spending 18 months at home with her newborn daughter and accepting a demotion to support her partner's new position at the University, when she’s invited to be The House’s academic liaison.

As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.

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Transcript

Kelly (00:11)
Hey everyone, welcome to BYOB, the Bring Your Own Book podcast. I'm Kelly.

Nikki (00:16)
and I'm Nikki.

Kelly (00:18)
And today we are back from our hiatus to speak to a very special guest, New York Times bestselling author, Olivie . Blake. Olivie Blake has written her way from self-published social media sensation to a New York Times bestselling author with the mainstay of dark academia, The Atlas Six. As Alexene Farol Follmuth, her YA rom-com Twelfth Night was a Reese's book club pick and has a Netflix film adaptation in the works. Rife with humor, wit and heat, Girl Dinner introduces a whole new side to Blake.

serving up a dark and delectable satire perfect for fans of RF Kuang's yellow face and the hit TV series Yellow Jackets. This new book is a literary feast like no other, a study on hunger, sisterhood, and the joys and horrors of motherhood penned in true Olivie Blake fashion. Thank you so much for joining us today!

Olivie Blake (01:07)
Thank you so much for having me. Sorry. I have to like dissociate through my bio. I'm like they can't possibly be talking about me ⁓

Kelly (01:14)
Right? I can only imagine it's so weird hearing people talk about you like in the same room. We're not there, but you know.

Olivie Blake (01:22)
I'm pretty weird with praise anyway. Like I understand that that's what I have to do. Like I'm here to promote myself, but my editor once called me a praise vampire. Like the compliments are my sunlight. ⁓ So yeah.

Kelly (01:35)
We will definitely be talking about that along the lines of that thought later on. So I'm so glad you said that. But I do want to start with what inspired you, if you can pinpoint any specific thing to write Girl Dinner and why do you think this story came to you at this specific point in your life?

Olivie Blake (01:41)
Hahaha

So Girl Dinner is a story about the house, the most prestigious sorority on this unnamed very elite campus. And the way that it came about was purely as a punchline to a joke that I was telling. I was at San Diego Comic Con in 2023 and Girl Dinner, like the meme, had just sort of...

populated the zeitgeist and I'm not on TikTok so my exposure to it was that all the bars around the convention center had Girl Dinner happy hour menus and I was like, what is this? And so then I was like, wouldn't it be funny if I wrote a book about a cannibal sorority and called it Girl Dinner? And everybody laughed and they were like, you should write that. And I was like, ha ha ha, I so should. And then I made that joke to my editor which was a mistake because she was like, no, write that. And

And the thing is that it had been sort of, you know, I think I'd been having this ongoing thought experiment for probably at least a year prior. I'd been reading a lot of books that involved like the meltdown of a woman. And I've been sort of toying with the idea of like the, what does it mean to be a good woman? And why is that somehow tied into food? The preparation of food makes a good woman.

Kelly (03:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (03:11)
You know, the being able to make something from nothing in the kitchen is a good woman, right? But when a woman starts to lose her mind, she just like devours on the page or on screen or whatever. You know, like the only time it's acceptable to see a woman on a binge, you know it's because she's falling apart. And I was like, there's something here. There's a metaphor here. It started with like the book Vladimir by Julia May Jonas, I think was the first time I really thought about it. ⁓ And then, yeah, there was something sort of

Kelly (03:29)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (03:39)
building in my brain and I had watched the Barbie movie and I was like, there's something here. There's a question mark around the concept of women cannot have it all. It seems like there was, there's a lot of media that's like, is it possible for a woman to have it all? And they always come to the conclusion that no, it's not possible. And for me, there wasn't really a bridge for where to go from there. And so was like, if you all, if we already accept, you know, if ⁓ media has already posited, we cannot have it all, then what do we have? Are we just?

in the little treat economy? Is that what this is now? We get little treats. So then I had to write about it and here we are with Girl Dinner.

Kelly (04:12)
⁓ huh.

Nikki (04:18)
That is amazing.

Kelly (04:18)
I mean, I love a little treat,

but I also like a whole damn meal. So yeah. Sorry, Nikki.

Olivie Blake (04:21)
Yeah!

Nikki (04:22)
right?

Don't we all? And so how do you think that this book compares to your other work and how does it fit in with your entire collection that you have accumulated through the years of writing?

Kelly (04:26)
Bye.

Olivie Blake (04:38)
yes, I'd love for that to be like a super quick and easy answer. I definitely my perception of my work in from from where I sit, Girl Dinner is very much in line with the things that I write. ⁓ The Atlas series involved a corruption arc. had to do it had like contained within it this little kernel of a story that was like an allegory for conservative feminism. And it was something I was toying with. I was toying specifically with the idea because I was watching ⁓

the sort of like coalition of forces that had joined around Trump the first election. And it was sort of like, why are these people all, you know, it's this weird collection of things. And one of which was the anti-abortion movement. And so it was kind of this idea of like, what are you willing to burn down to get what you want, this one specific thing? So that idea kind of started there. To me, that was like kind of the beginnings of what

the allegory of Girl Dinner is this idea of like, does feminism have a tendency to cannibalize itself? ⁓ And I actually, I don't think of Girl Dinner as dark academia because dark academia seems to have such a specific aesthetic. But once people started calling it that, I was like, I guess it is there. I mean, it's dark academia in the same way that Bunny by Mona Awad is dark academia.

It kind of deals specifically with the structure of feminine power and what feminine power means within an institution and sort of the fallacy of scarcity of resources and stuff, like which woman actually gets to succeed. so for me, it is very much in line with what I have already been working on. Gifted and Talented was my book that came out earlier this year, and that is...

Kelly (05:55)
Mm.

Olivie Blake (06:20)
I mean, it's about three siblings after their father dies and they don't know who's going to inherit the business empire. ⁓ But in a sense, it's also about grieving, not just grieving their father and the relationships they didn't get to have, but grieving the person you thought you would be. ⁓ And so it kind deals with the parent-child relationship. really ⁓ is tackling disillusionment on a personal level.

And then I wanted to write about motherhood and girl dinner from more of a social, like what constraints are put on you as a woman once you become a mother? In what ways are you then forced into the gender roles? So to me, is an evolution of things I've already been thinking about. The ways that it's different, it's a departure. Most of my work has been fantasy or sci-fi crossover. This is more of a, it's horror adjacent, it's horrific.

I like to say because it's, you know, it's not, it's not gory. It's not about the act of eating. It's about the decision of who to eat. So I think it's more a feeling of dread than a fear. So to me, it's a little bit closer to a psychological thriller, but that's also what I think the Atlas series is. And it is shorter. It's about half the size of Gifted and Talented because I did want it, I did want it to be conceivable that you could read it in one sitting because it does, yeah, it has, yeah.

Kelly (07:40)
Bite-sized, yeah.

Olivie Blake (07:43)
Thank

you, thank you. ⁓ It does have the same kind of reading experience in my mind as as yellow face by R.F. Kuang in the sense that you're like, no, this is a train wreck, you know, like something terrible is happening, but I can't look away. So I didn't I don't want you to exist in that feeling for too long.

Kelly (08:03)
Well, I definitely felt some heaviness. I thoroughly enjoyed, but I was like, okay, I gotta put this down before I go to bed. I'll pick it up again in the morning.

Olivie Blake (08:05)
You

Nikki (08:07)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (08:13)
Yes!

I was definitely

Nikki (08:17)
Yeah, there was.

Olivie Blake (08:19)
trying to create a feeling of like nausea a little bit. It's something that I was just listening to the audio book last night and the narration specifically by Stephanie Nemeth- Parker who voices Sloane, the older character, the professor and faculty advisor character. She's so good. And there's one scene where, know, Sloane is totally having a meltdown.

I laughed and got teary and felt sick and I was like, God, this is amazing. But it's easier for me to say that about the audio book than to say it about myself.

Kelly (08:51)
Yeah, for sure.

No, yeah, I found a lot of this very relatable, even though we're maybe not in the same spots of our lives as some of the characters are. Like, I'm definitely, I feel like I'm in between Nina and Sloane where I am in my life. But like, I think so many women are going to read this and be like, okay, this is scary because it's so close. And it's like, you know?

Nikki (09:18)
Yeah.

Kelly (09:21)
It's a lot to take in, but it's great. We want to be thinking.

Nikki (09:21)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (09:22)
Yeah,

that's my apologies. I had to decide, too, ⁓ when I wanted to write Girl Dinner and I wanted to write it from the perspective of a sorority. And if you weren't in a sorority, try thinking of it as a secret society on a university campus. It's fine. ⁓ But I was like, do I do it from the student who's rushing the sorority, someone who's very young and who's

Nikki (09:27)
you

Kelly (09:40)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (09:48)
approximately the age of most of my readership. I would say most of my readership is in that younger Gen Z demo. Or do I write it from the perspective of people who are in my same stage of life? And at the time I was kind of wrestling with what point do I want to make when I realized I actually want to talk to both groups of women. I want to tell them the same story. And it became obvious to me that in order to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish, I needed the contrast.

⁓ to do a very, you know, what's the same and what's different.

Kelly (10:22)
Mm-hmm, for sure. I do wanna, sorry.

Nikki (10:23)
Yeah, I find for Kelly and I, we're both

like in a time in our lives where we're thinking about having children. So starting this book, it almost felt like looking at my past self through Nina and the cautionary tale of what my life could be as Sloane if we're not careful or if we don't pick the right person or like, what if we're not scrutinizing the people that we're with enough and

they turn out to be like Max. And so looking back at my own like college life, my university life, seeing those feelings in Nina of this overwhelming desire to just be wanted and to want and feeling like, when did I feel like that? And the, it's scary to look at that from an outside lens of how

overpowering and all-consuming that feeling can be for some young girls.

Olivie Blake (11:24)
Yeah, definitely, one thing that I really want to come through, and I think it does, I hope it does, is that I am not criticizing femininity culture. I'm not judging people who want to participate in the things that I have satirized in Girl Dinner. There's nothing wrong with having an interest in wellness or in beauty or anything like that. But I want to ask the question of like, why are you doing this? What is the goal? Because I think if you think of, if you think of your performance of beauty, for example,

if you conflate beauty and power, but you end up in a situation where Sloane feels that she doesn't have anything, right? She tried for everything and she feels she doesn't have anything. I wanted to show both like, is this myopic of her? What are her blind spots? But also for you, for your own performance in this, like what?

Kelly (12:04)
you

Olivie Blake (12:15)
What is necessary? One of the books that I really enjoyed reading recently was Die Hot with a Vengeance by Sable Yong. She was a beauty editor, and she has really fascinating things to say about beauty. And after, she takes a similar ⁓ mindset that's like, of course, I understand why, if you enjoy these things, you want to participate in these things. But also, if you think of hairlessness, for example, as a tenet of Western beauty, are you enjoying yourself? Why are we doing this?

And that is, my son is at an age where he really likes to watch me get ready. And he asked me a lot of questions, like, what are you doing? What are you putting on right now? And I started to feel these questions for myself as a, like sort of a deeper existential moment of like, what am I doing? What is this doing for me? Am I enjoying it? What does this mean? How does it, how is this, ⁓ you know, one of my biggest takeaways from Die Hot with a Vengeance.

was the idea that if you have such a complicated relationship with aging, if you have such a fear of aging that you're trying so hard not to do it, all that does is make aging scarier. It just makes it so that getting older is this horrifying boogeyman that you're always fighting against, right? And the longer that you try to preserve your youth, the more futile it becomes because you will not stay young. So it was, guess, that decision for myself of like, OK, yeah, I am going to

probably dye my gray hair. I'm not there yet, but it's probably gonna happen. But I'm not gonna get Botox, I'm not gonna do certain things. I think being able to really occupy my inner space and be like, what does this mean for me? How much do I actually value my youth? What does that mean for me? What is my youth doing for me? Is that really power? ⁓ If it means that I, okay, so maybe I'll be beautiful and desirable for longer.

Kelly (13:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Olivie Blake (14:08)
But what does that mean in terms of my resources? What does that mean in terms of my ability to get what I want or to be viewed as competent? know, these are, there's never guarantee, right, of how we're received by the world. We know that the perception of us is always going to be probably taken in bad faith. It's always going to be flawed. We know that's the world we're working with. So then I think it becomes more of this interior question of like, okay, well, what kind of woman do I want to be? What does a good woman mean to me?

And that's what I hope the book is because yeah, it's this, you know, it's a satire. It's sort of like a black comedy of like, look at all these dumb things that women can convince themselves are doing something for them. But that doesn't mean that it's not worth it. It doesn't mean that there isn't a good end in sight. I think part of making it satirical and Sloane's feeling that she's doomed and that Nina is equally doomed, it looks foolish, right? Because it's like,

Kelly (14:35)
Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (15:03)
Where's your doom? You're fine. So yeah, like that. think that was kind of my I liked I liked to lean into dissonance and I think that's where the satire lives is just like I talked a lot about trad wives as well and like ⁓ Just the the the dissonance is in the hypocrisy It's in it's in the it's in the blind spots like the whole concept of a trad wife

Kelly (15:06)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (15:29)
making content that is actually predominantly consumed by men and they're also not traditional wives because they have a job because they're making content. I think that's the approach that Girl Dinner takes. There's nothing wrong with the way that you want to be a woman. But have you ever thought about why you've chosen this route to be a woman and what does it mean for women moving forward?

Kelly (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I will say I won't out Nikki in case, I will say we both just had birthdays. So I'll say I won't out your age Nikki in case you care. I don't think you do. like I, okay. So Nikki just turned 30 and I just turned 32. And yeah. So, I had people messaging me on the big day being like, ⁓ you're almost at your mid thirties. And I'm like, yeah, cool. You know, and I'm like, why am I having to defend like

Nikki (16:01)
No, it's fine.

Olivie Blake (16:06)
⁓ Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Kelly (16:20)
I would just keep saying to them like, you know, it's actually a privilege to get to this age because I've had people in my life pass away before 32, you know? So it's just like, why are you trying to make me feel bad for trying to just stay alive? You know, like enjoy my life. My God, like they're telling me like, oh, you should be worried. I'm like, I am, but not about that because what am I supposed to do? You know, like

Olivie Blake (16:24)
Yes!

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Kelly (16:45)
Whatever, I don't have the means to look like Dolly Parton, okay? And I don't really want to, like, nothing wrong with Dolly Parton, but I'm sure she's tired. Like, I'm already tired, so...

Olivie Blake (16:53)
Dolly Parton

is wearing a costume too. I think the whole thing with Dolly Parton is she specifically dresses like that so that she can be under the radar when she's her normal self. But no, no, I agree with you completely. And I say this as someone who cried like sobbing the day before my 30th birthday, because I was like, I used to be a prodigy and now I'm almost dead. Like that was absolutely the vibe. ⁓

Kelly (16:57)
Yeah!

Yeah, you know?

Nikki (17:06)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (17:21)
And you know, and I think that has to do with, I think that has to do with the expectation, you know, not just for a woman, but this expectation that by 30, you're supposed to have what your previous generations had. You're supposed to be married and you're supposed to be settled and you're supposed to own a house and get a promotion or, know, whatever you think your finish line is. You're supposed to, for some reason.

Kelly (17:22)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (17:43)
be there by 30, which is crazy. You're gonna live so much longer than that, know, like fingers crossed, you're gonna live so much longer than that, at least twice as long. And then what are you gonna do? What are you aiming for if your entire finish line has been achieved by 30? And I'm also, you know, I am of the opinion, first of all, happy birthday to both of you. First of all, she says seven points in.

Kelly (17:50)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Thanks.

Nikki (18:08)
Thank you.

Olivie Blake (18:10)
But yes, happy birthday. And I think, you know, I don't think I ever felt older than I did in my late 20s. I never felt more afraid of getting older and that like everything was over for me and it was already too late to achieve things. And then I turned 30 and I was like, my God, I'm so young actually. And I'm 36 now and I still feel, I feel younger at 36 than I did at 28, you know, like I don't know what.

I don't know what that is, but I think it's because it's like in your 30s. Actually, my hairstylist, I've gotten my best advice in life from hairstylists and taxi drivers. But my hairstylist once told me that when you turn 30, you start to see all these doors opening for you.

because you're 30, you understand which doors are yours. It's like you've been spending all your life working toward being able to see these doors of opportunity so that when they arise, you're ready to walk through them. I think that is what your 30s feel like. You start to understand. I think your 20s are about understanding who you aren't. And sometimes that can be disillusioning. And then, know, 30s, you understand who you are and you can kind of reframe that. And I'm told, I'm told that the 40s are even better, which I choose to believe.

Kelly (19:16)
Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (19:24)
⁓ And I, yeah, sometimes I look back at myself and I, in this way of like, wonder if I'll feel like I was more beautiful before or like, you know, that I've lost something in aging and I really don't feel that way. I really don't. ⁓ So hopefully, you know, anyone listening to this who's on that 30 cusp, you know, it really looks different from this side. It looks like a lot better, honestly. ⁓

Kelly (19:50)
Yeah, I woke up.

Nikki (19:51)
I had so many

people message me saying, my God, your 30 happy birthday. These are the best years of your life starting. So many people said that to me. And I was like, I'm gonna choose to believe you on that. But honestly, looking back at my 20s, I'm like, I made a lot of mistakes back then and I've grown a lot. really, I mean, I started my 30s with COVID. So the only way is up now.

Olivie Blake (20:00)
Yeah! ⁓

Kelly (20:00)
Well, that's nice.

Nikki (20:20)
So like, it's only getting better from here.

Olivie Blake (20:20)
Yeah, yes, yeah.

Absolutely, absolutely. I think it, yeah, and it's not helpful, I think. It's not helpful to take that sort of doomed attitude. mean, and this is the thing. This is, think, what a lot of women enforce this. That's just like, oh no, now you're going to have, like, you know, now you have to start, oh my gosh, like, you know, oh, are you using retinol? oh.

Kelly (20:46)
Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (20:46)
all

the things that people start asking or they just want to know about the state of your uterus. I don't even know. ⁓ yeah.

Kelly (20:53)
Oh, God. I

don't know. Like, do you? Like, God. Does anyone? Like, calm down. Yeah.

Olivie Blake (21:01)
No.

Yeah, um, I think it is really interesting the way that we sort of scare each other. And it's funny what we tell each other and what we don't. After I gave birth, all these women were like, oh yes, this small detail of pregnancy that nobody mentions. yeah, it's like there's these secrets that you don't get to discuss openly until you've experienced them.

Kelly (21:24)
god.

Olivie Blake (21:28)
⁓ and it's strange. It's strange now. I, I also really think about a lot. There was this, ⁓ this comments on an article I read, I'm going totally out, whatever. ⁓ that was an article about eating disorders, I think. ⁓ or, ⁓ it was about skinny tok. and there was a comment about a woman who's like mother or grandmother had dementia and was so far gone that they, didn't remember their life. They couldn't remember any memories. They

Kelly (21:46)
Hmm.

Olivie Blake (21:56)
like, you know, any of their family members, the one thing they did remember was to leave a little on her plate for Miss Manners. So like the only thing that she could remember was that she had to starve herself to some extent, you know, like she remembered that she had to be on a diet. And it's so depressing that can't that cannot be the fundamental aspect of womanhood, you know, like it just cannot. And so that's, you know, that was something that I kind of wanted to put in Girl Dinner. I wanted to have like

Kelly (22:19)
Hmm.

Olivie Blake (22:24)
Moments where food was involved and it felt good and it felt free and it felt like okay We actually can rest at this moment that it's just like these it's just us girls having a meal together ⁓ which is another element of satire given the given the types of girls, but But still it was something that I wanted to address that was just like what is fundamental to womanhood because it cannot be deprivation I it cannot be deprivation. So yeah

Kelly (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I said to Nikki after I finished the book, I was like, I'm a vegetarian, but I wasn't always, but I was like, I am hungry, but I don't know for what. And don't be alarmed when I tell you that I am hungry after finishing. I was like, because some of the food descriptions, was like, my God, that sounds so good. And then you get to some of the other types of meal descriptions and you're like, okay, you know.

Olivie Blake (22:58)
?

Nikki (23:13)
Yeah.

Kelly (23:19)
But I was like, don't be alarmed. We're still cool. We're still vegetarian.

Olivie Blake (23:20)
Yeah!

Yes, vegetables are delicious. Actually, after I wrote this book, my husband is from very rural Iowa. His family has been farmers generations back. my father-in-law and I have very little to talk about, ⁓ except that he does a lot of the butchering every year. And I had to ask him a couple quick cues about things. And I was like, certain types of meat, how would you describe them? Certain cuts.

Kelly (23:25)
I was like, I'm hungry. I'm just like, wow.

Yeah.

God, yeah.

Olivie Blake (23:55)
And he was very game. They answered these questions and this was like over, I don't know, over Christmas in 2023. And then I sat down to dinner and I was like, can I have a salad? I don't know. feel like, no, I don't even think, no, I didn't tell him why. It was great. Yeah. He's got, I assume he's going to discover shortly. Steve will never talk to me again.

Kelly (24:09)
Did you tell him why you were asking?

Okay.

Nikki (24:22)
haha

Olivie Blake (24:23)
But no, I didn't tell him why. And I also did not clock for a long time. I actually, I enjoy meat. think my perfect meal is like a steak and some veggies. Like a good, I don't know, I like a a mix of some red meat and veggies. Sorry, sorry, vegetarian. I know you can't vibe with this. I think it's honestly.

Kelly (24:46)
That's okay, I remember.

Olivie Blake (24:48)
Okay, it's honestly, it wasn't always like this because I, my whole life I was like a potato person. Like give me a potato product, potato soup, baked potato, whatever. And through pregnancy too, I had baked potatoes that I made in the microwave multiple times through pregnancy. But I also, think got, was a little bit anemic postpartum and I started to crave red meat all the time. And now it's like, if I don't have red meat once a week, it's like my whole body is like, we're missing something.

Kelly (24:59)
Mm.

Olivie Blake (25:18)
so so part of this is the the postpartum body is like a swamp monster ⁓ where was i going with this i don't even know anymore but yeah and then but but over christmas i was like i gotta eat i gotta eat like some raw carrots guys

Kelly (25:25)
god.

Nikki (25:38)
So talking about food and what you like to eat, ⁓ because of the title of the book, Girl Dinner, and we're all familiar now, whether we're on TikTok or not, what girl dinner means, it's usually kind of like a snack or just like random things put on a plate. What is your ideal girl dinner?

Olivie Blake (26:01)
I have never been able to let go. the first time, because like I told you, the first time I came into contact with the concept of girl dinner was via like bar cocktail menus. one of the places girl dinners was Caesar salad and french fries. And I've never been able to let that go. I'm like, that is a perfect meal actually. Like Caesar salad and french fries, done. But I think in terms of responding to the actual meme,

Nikki (26:16)
Yeah. Yep.

Kelly (26:20)
my god.

Olivie Blake (26:29)
When I was in law school, which I dropped out of, it's fine. This is partly why turning 30 was such a nightmare. was like, now what? But when I was in law school, I was eating a lot of just like cereal right out of the box. think that's probably the, in terms of the the spirit of Girl Dinner I think that was probably it. Just like cereal straight from the box.

Kelly (26:41)
Classic.

Nikki (26:51)
Yeah, definitely.

Kelly (26:51)
think even

some of the girl dinners I see, I'm like, is that what you're eating? Because that's not my girl dinner. It's like, like they have like, it's like a veggie platter almost, but just like a few pieces on their plate. And I'm like, I'm not getting veggies. I know I'm a vegetarian, but it's like hummus with tortilla chips or like, I'll have a little bit of leftover whatever was in the fridge. Like, it's not like, yes, I got my greens. I got this. I'm like, Caesar salad and fries. Like, whoa. It's like.

Olivie Blake (27:05)
You

Yeah.

Kelly (27:19)
way more involved than my girl dinner. Yeah, that's at a restaurant. So like, okay, but-

Nikki (27:20)
Yeah. My girl dinner is

Olivie Blake (27:22)
Yeah, yeah,

Nikki (27:23)
standing

Olivie Blake (27:24)
this is

Nikki (27:24)
in the pantry and picking things like, I'll eat a bag, like some from this bag and only some from this bag. And it's like, while I'm trying to make real dinner. And then I realized actually I'm not hungry. So my girl dinners happened by accident.

Kelly (27:36)
Ha!

Olivie Blake (27:37)
Yeah.

Kelly (27:38)
Yeah, foraging, yeah.

Olivie Blake (27:39)
That's great. No, I yes foraging. Exactly. Exactly. As our ancestors intended. I yeah, I always have like a cooking snack. Like as I'm making dinner, I'm also eating like, oh, my new thing right now is Trader Joe's has a dark chocolate covered cashews. Do you guys have Trader Joe's? I hope so. Oh, sorry. It's Trader Joe's is the only thing we have left.

Kelly (27:56)
Ooh, no, but I have been, it's fancy.

Nikki (27:57)
No.

Yeah, I'm familiar. ⁓

Kelly (28:05)
We do get the Trader Joe's nuts in our Walmart grocery stores. So, yes.

Olivie Blake (28:06)
⁓

Okay, all right. Well, Trader Joe's now has, they

have two things that are really good that I think I would be pro snacking. One is the, it's like strawberry yogurt coated, freeze dried strawberries. It's weird. They are sweet. They're very, very sweet. ⁓ I bought them for my son's lunch and I eat them as a cooking snack. And then also the dark chocolate covered cashews, which also have a thin layer of caramel. So they taste like I'm eating like a little Twix. Just like a little.

Kelly (28:25)
⁓

Olivie Blake (28:39)
Just like a little twix that is a protein loaded nut. when I was in my sorority, definitely had frozen yogurt for dinner many times. That was like the height of frozen yogurt as a trend though. And we were like, this is healthy. It's a probiotic. Like this is dinner.

Kelly (28:46)
Gotta get that protein.

I'm going to go back into the dark side a little bit because I do have some, I have some questions about, because I know myself reading the book, I felt very like weighed down at times. Cause I was just like, Oh God, like I already know these things because I, I'm where I am right now in my life. Right. But like, I'm just curious, what was it like to go through the process of writing this book? Like, did you find

Olivie Blake (29:03)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kelly (29:26)
It was hard to be excited at times to continue writing or like, dare I say, did you have any like self-care wellness practices that helped you kind of stay grounded and like continue on? Because I can only imagine like going to work every day being like, well, shit's hard. Okay. And like, let me write about it. You know, like that must've been difficult at times I would imagine.

Olivie Blake (29:51)
think on some level, you know, because I knew the intention behind the book. I knew what these girls are all really up to, right? So I think on some level it was cathartic, actually, to sit down and write down, well, here are all the problems. Here's everything that sucks. And I really do, I have a little bit of an obsession with the intersection between femininity culture and violence. ⁓ I wrote a novella a few years ago that was about like,

Kelly (30:16)
Mmm.

Olivie Blake (30:20)
basically like a coven of vampires. The casket girls from New Orleans were all like vampires who hunted men at night to keep the streets safe. ⁓ And I didn't think about it then, but I do think about like, at what point do we get so angry that we literally require blood? And so I guess I think it was important to me to kind of weigh that, not that I'm actually out there with a hatchet at night.

But ⁓ sort of the question of like, how angry do we have to get before we do something about it? And what is the answer to doing something about it? if we were to become violent, would we be able to choose a common enemy? That is kind of also the question of Girl Dinner. It's just like, okay, if we can pick one bad guy, if we're gonna decide like the one person that we've put on the table for.

for sacrifice, who is it, what are their qualities? That was a question as well. That's just like, who is gonna serve us the most, the best, who is gonna make us the most satisfied? And even in writing the dissent there was kind of asking even more questions of like, okay, we know everything that's wrong, but who's at fault? And if we were to try to solve this problem, what would it take? So I think a lot of it was honestly me working through these questions for myself, just, ⁓ you know, and on a... ⁓

social and political level, does it mean? What would a win look like? What are the actionable items of the feminist agenda? ⁓ Because ultimately, it can't be the treats we forge in the pantry. That's sad. We have to aim higher. So yeah, I think for me, was a little bit cathartic. was also just like, sometimes,

I know that there are going to be women who do know exactly what I'm talking about. But there are also going to be women who don't. And there's going to be women who have not put words to these feelings yet. And ⁓ I think the best thing about a book is I call it like the communion between me and the audience. It's not just the story as I intended it or just the story as the audience interprets it. It's ⁓ both.

Kelly (32:17)
you

Olivie Blake (32:37)
And so when I am writing a book, I'm having a conversation with someone I just don't know yet. And I think I have them like in my head in the chair next to me. And I'm like, what is the conversation that we're having right now as I tell you this story? So I think for me, was not. It was rewarding to work on. I will say there that, OK, so I finished this book. I finished this book at the end of twenty twenty three, which is before the twenty twenty four election.

And so there was a moment when I was like, if Kamala wins, do we not need this book? Like if Kamala wins, if we elect a biracial black and Asian woman to the highest office in this country, does that mean that feminism is solved? And I was like, well, of course it doesn't. Of course we still have some deliverables. ⁓

Kelly (33:04)
Mm.

Yup.

Olivie Blake (33:27)
And so I think having that answer before I saw what actually did happen was kind of a way of like, what is the point of this book? What am I doing here? And I also think that, you know, I think that having both perspectives is important. It's difficult to imagine that I would ever write a book from just one perspective because I operate on the assumption that everyone is lying first and foremost to themselves.

Kelly (33:50)
Hmm.

Olivie Blake (33:52)
So every narrator I write is unreliable to some extent. So it's nice to have both of them and to kind of be like, OK, one of these people has an experience closer to your own, ⁓ but what is the other one then showing you?

Kelly (34:07)
Hmm, I love that.

Nikki (34:09)
So

touching on this idea of the enemy, ⁓ I don't want to spend a lot of time talking about him because it feels contrary to the reason we're here and the sole point of this book, but I feel like he's a character that will make a lot of people mad. I know he made us mad. We were fuming. Max!

Olivie Blake (34:33)
Yes, Max.

Nikki (34:33)
The book isn't

really about him, but peripherally he causes a lot of the strife in Sloane's life. So I do feel like we need to chat about him a bit.

Olivie Blake (34:36)
No.

Yes. Max is very much like an... Yeah,

he's like the object. I have objectified him as a little treat for myself.

Nikki (34:48)
Yeah

Right, so you talk about the

boxes that society places women in, like Madonna and whore, so if you had to choose two boxes or archetypes to place men in for Max and Arya specifically, what do you think that those boxes would be?

Olivie Blake (34:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

⁓ okay. Well, I do I like to say like this is not you know, I know a lot of people some people ask me like Could the dinner have been? Someone else and I was like, yeah a more optimistic take would have us with a different dinner, right if this were a different book

Kelly (35:29)
Mm.

Olivie Blake (35:30)
it would be a different dinner. But that's not the kind of book this is, right? Like this is a book that's about how can that woman stand next to that man and say nothing, right? How can she stand there and not intervene? And you know, why does she feel that protecting her status quo is more powerful than the alternative? It's crazy, right? So, so ⁓ it's, you know, it's treason is what it is. And so,

Kelly (35:39)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (35:56)
That's what kind of book this is, but it is not a book that hates men, right? I have to always say this because feminism, or you know, under the patriarchy we all suffer, right? Men suffer too. And maybe they don't see it that way, but they definitely do. And I'm someone who is married to a man. I love a man. I have a son. It's important to me that we understand when we're talking about what is a good woman, we are also implying the question, what is a good man? And you know, Max and Arya, they're the only two.

Kelly (36:08)
Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (36:25)
They're the only two, what I like to call speaking roles. ⁓ You know, there's some men that are extras, they're walk-ons. And Max and Arya are interesting because similar to Nina and Sloane, they could be the same man if you're just looking at them from different angles, right? Like you, because Arya is more of a blank slate, you get the feeling that he is more of an ally, so to speak, but who knows? Who knows?

Kelly (36:33)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Olivie Blake (36:52)
And I think that's definitely part of the question that's like, I mean, Max is a very quintessential, I mean, he's the kind of professor you're gonna find in almost every campus novel about infidelity, right? ⁓ But I think there's also, I think there's a conversation we don't have with men, which I observed from my husband, which is, I like to call it provider syndrome.

There's just like once my biological clock turned on and I was like, my God, I want a baby. We'll figure it out. Women have had babies in drawers for centuries. And he was like, no, like I have to be on this track. I have to be doing all this stuff. I could see that he was being faced with his own version of this crisis that was not about the body at all. That was like 100 % about what is my role now? What is society going to tell me I need to do? And am I failing?

Kelly (37:18)
Mmm.

Yeah.

Olivie Blake (37:47)
And so I think that's, you know, it's an interesting question. I think on some level it is crossing Max's mind. Another thing that I've seen my husband do is a similar version of what I talked about earlier, the feeling of like, I used to be a prodigy and now I'm so old and all my options are gone. I think for men it's kind of similar, but we don't talk about it. It's not common for us to talk about that ⁓ intersection. But my husband, for example, was an athlete when he,

was growing up, he was a very, very good athlete. for pretty much his whole life, like, he likes training more than he likes winning. Like once he's gotten so good at something that he wins all the time, he doesn't want to do it anymore. He really likes the uphill climb. But he's getting older and his body doesn't work the way that it used to. And he's starting to realize like, I'm not going to be a great Olympian anymore. I'm 38 years old. know, like it's just, that has been.

Kelly (38:32)
you

Olivie Blake (38:43)
that been pulled off the table for me and now who am I? Who am I if I'm not the breadwinner? Who am I if I'm not, you know, if I am not the best provider I can possibly be, then what's left for me to accomplish? And so I think that's something, you know, being very, very sympathetic to Max, I think that's probably something that Max is thinking about. I think he is probably a person in crisis, but he's also very similar to a lot of shitty men, you know, and by shitty, I specifically mean,

Men are not typically taught to be aware of the mental load, as they call it, you know, the domestic tasks that women take on. There are definitely times in my own marriage where it feels like I am the manager of the house and he's like, just ask me to do things. And it's like, okay, but that requires me to do work because then I have to delegate a task to you. You're still not sharing the mindset of what needs to be done.

or even just the experience of if he dresses our son, all of a sudden clothes I've never seen before are on our son. I'm like, did you even check if that fit? But he doesn't know the arrangement of the closet. Every time right before I leave, before a tour or something, and I know I'm gonna be gone and that the chance of my death is statistically higher, I walk around the house just making notes of what things are. This is a pile of clothes to be donated, and this is my bank password, and this is this. It's just like.

Kelly (40:04)
you

Olivie Blake (40:05)
It feels like I cannot die because everything will fall apart because everything is stored in my brain. And so I think that's the difference between the masculine and feminine roles when it comes to heteronormative marriage. it's like you can be the most progressive person in the world. You can see yourself in the most favorable, radical light. But the moment you're in a marriage with a man,

Kelly (40:11)
Yeah.

Olivie Blake (40:31)
These things are put on you. This is what the world expects you to do. This is what he probably expects you to do because it's probably what his mother did. And ⁓ yeah, and I definitely had that moment of like, my God, I'm my mother. I'm your mother. I thought we were gonna be different. know, like I thought this was like a marriage for the ages, but what makes it different, right? It's not the roles. What makes it different is how I respond to it. It's whether I choose to be a victim to those feelings or not.

Kelly (40:39)
Yeah.

You

Olivie Blake (41:01)
So that was kind of, know, Girl Dinner... It's really just asking a lot of questions, including, are you letting your husband do this to you?

Kelly (41:11)
I have been married to my husband for just over 10 years now. I got married really young, um, which was like, you know, a different experience for a lot of people my age, I guess, but it's been very interesting going through our twenties and now our thirties together and seeing all the shifts and changes and me being like, you know, like I love him to bits, of course, but there are moments where I read this book and I was like, you know,

gosh, you know, cause Sloane was like the same kind of thing. Like I love him to bits. Like we're going to be different. We're to be the marriage of the ages. Like you said, like, so there are those fears and, you know, we can only just hope and just keep going and keep working and try to communicate. But like, do you have hope that men will read this book or like your husband would read it if you're open to that, right? To try to understand some of these things, right? It's like, what do we do? It's so hard.

Olivie Blake (42:01)
No.

Yeah.

Yeah, so my husband read this book and for a while he was having a really hard time getting through it because he was like, am I Max? And on the one hand, it's like, this is the question, isn't it? Like, no, you're not, which you discover as the narrative goes on. Not every man is Max, but there are definitely elements of every husband in Max. Like there are moments when Max is not thinking about Sloane at all. And that's very typical. It's a lot of marriages that my friends have.

Kelly (42:13)
wow.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Olivie Blake (42:37)
But where Max and Sloane are doomed to some degree, that's not true of every marriage. I do think that's, of course, of course. I put the very worst moments of even a good marriage on the page, ⁓ which is why I think that first chapter really resonates with a lot of women that are like, I have absolutely looked at my husband and been like, my god, you idiot. like, how are you not aware?

Kelly (42:47)
Yeah.

Yeah.

respectfully.

Olivie Blake (43:02)
Yeah, respectfully, love of my life, what the fuck? ⁓ yeah, so I think, do I expect men to read it? Absolutely not. But do I expect maybe women to understand, how do I change course? If this is what my marriage resembles most often, then what do I do that Sloane isn't doing? You know, or like, if anyone's reading this and being like, cannibalism would solve this, maybe not, maybe don't.

Kelly (43:04)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nikki (43:30)
you

Olivie Blake (43:33)
I actually think this is what's great about the book Night Bitch though. What is so wonderful about Night Bitch is that she has a husband who's equally, you know, who's also in this situation, who's kind of a Max. But ⁓ what it takes is her being herself, right? And her expressing these things and, ⁓ you know, kind of grasping at agency. And it kind of turns the ship around. The marriage is stronger. The marriage is better because that man loves you, right? That man doesn't love the mother that you're trying to be. He loves you.

Kelly (43:33)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Olivie Blake (44:01)
So I think that's something that hopefully people recognize that there is like a cautionary tale here, but in a way that's like your life is not doomed, but your choices. What are your choices dooming you to?

Kelly (44:09)
Mmm.

Well, I know that you're running short on time, so it was a short but sweet treat. Thank you so much for speaking with us today and for Tor for the advanced reader copies. Girl Dinner comes out October 21st wherever you buy books and her newly announced graphic novel with illustrations by Little Chmura, Clara and the Devil? Clara? Clara? Clara and the Devil.

Olivie Blake (44:21)
Yeah.

Nikki (44:24)
Mm-hmm.

Olivie Blake (44:29)
Yes.

Clara and the Devil, yes. You know, whatever. If you watch Doctor Who, you can call it Clara and the Devil, it's fine. But yes, Clara and the Devil.

Kelly (44:47)
Volume 1 comes out May 2026. If you want to stay up to date on all of Olivie's upcoming projects, you can follow her on Instagram, Tumblr, or I will say Twitter at Olivie Blake or her YouTube channel, Olivie Blake is Not Writing. And if you want to join us for our next bookist discussion, you can follow us on Instagram at BYO Book Podcast or on TikTok at Bring Your Own Book Podcast. Thank you so much for listening to or watching this episode of BYOB and remember, "good girls deserve a treat". See ya!