#flannery culp

[flanneryculp]

any female born after 1979 cant cook. all they know is dinner party, write their diary, murder, be lesbian, eat baked brie and lie

[sauxyan]

"Flan, are you waiting for some guy to call?" "Hi Natasha. How did you know?" "You just got back from your European jaunt. You've left 'Hi-I'm-Home' messages on everybody's machines, so you haven't gone out. You are therefore sitting on your bed reading or writing something. You can reach the phone without moving, but you waited until the third ring. Now, Watson, we need school supplies, ja? Let's meet for coffee and go buy cute notebooks."

[r4diof4wn]

We need to make The Basic Eight part of coquette literature alongside things like The Virgin Suicides and My Year Of Rest And Relaxation. It’s got everything: a morally grey, mentally unstable and likably unlikeable female protagonist, great outfit descriptions, murder, and surprisingly deep and complex musings on feminism and the nature of girlhood. It’s perfect .

[beatricebidelaire]

[fafalcon]

[volunteerfelinedetectives]

A chaotic Flannery/Natasha moodboard for @flanneryculp

[sydmarch]

so obsessed w Kim he's literally like "have you no self control?" *immediately remembers to whom he is speaking*

[unreliablenarratorpoll]

and here's the long awaited match-ups! for the sake of readability, here it is in text form:

Left Side:

1: The Narrator (Fight Club) VS Richard Papen (The Secret History)

2: Belgarath the Sorcerer (The Belgariad) VS Lain Iwakura (Serial Experiments Lain)

3: Kim Dokja (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint) VS Greg Heffley (Diary of a Wimpy Kid)

4: Patrick Bateman (American Psycho) VS Drosselmeyer (Princess Tutu)

5: Kuruto Ryuki (AI: The Somnium Files – Nirvana Initiative) VS Ishmael (Moby Dick)

6: Amy Elliot-Dunne (Gone Girl) VS Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein)

7: Mary Katherine Blackwood (We Have Always Lived in the Castle) VS Odysseus (The Odysseus)

8: Pi Patel (Life of Pi) VS Alice Liddel (Alice: Madness Returns)

9: Jamie Taylor (The Haunting of Bly Manor) VS Jonny d'Ville (The Mechanisms)

10: Harrowhark Nonagesimus (The Locked Tomb) VS Elena Gilbert (The Vampire Diaries)

11: Wei Wuxian (Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) VS The Batter (OFF)

12: Charlotte Wiltshire (Hello Charlotte) VS Yuki Takeya (School-Live!)

13: Eleanor Vance (The Haunting of Hill House) VS Cloud Strife (Final Fantasy VII)

14: Louis de Point du Lac (Interview With The Vampire) VS Harrier Du Bois (Disco Elysium)

15: Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games) VS Will Navidson (House of Leaves)

16: Maebara Keiichi (Higurashi: When They Cry) VS Emperor Kuzco (The Emperor's New Groove)

Right Side:

17: Holden Caulfield (Catcher in the Rye) VS Ethan Frome (Ethan Frome)

18: Kayleigh (We Had To Remove This Post) VS Attolis Eugenides (Queen's Thief)

19: Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) VS Mapleshade (Warriors)

20: The Narrator (Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo) VS Offred (The Handmaid's Tale)

21: Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) VS Zampanò (House of Leaves)

22: Steven Crain (The Haunting of Hill House) vs David Wong (John Dies At The End)

23: Renata Ghali (Planetfall) VS Johnny Truant (House of Leaves)

24: Mfer From Telltale Heart (The Tell-Tale Heart) VS Meursault (The Stranger)

25: Ted (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream) VS The Narrator (The Stanley Parable)

26: Genly Ai (The Left Hand of Darkness) VS Hiroshi Odokawa (Odd Taxi)

27: Frankenstein's Monster (Frankenstein) VS Varric Tethras (Dragon Age 2)

28: Cadi My Friend Cadi (Real Life) VS John The Apostle (The Bible)

29: Pelafina Heather Lièvre (House of Leaves) VS Johnny Silverhand (Cyberpunk 2077)

30: Rodion Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment) VS Marco (Animorphs)

31: Flannery Culp (The Basic Eight) VS Daniil Dankovsky (Pathologic)

32: Cecil Palmer (Welcome To Night Vale) VS Mr. Stevens (The Remains of the Day)

[literarilylost]

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler

QUICK SUMMARY

Flannery Culp is in prison. This is the diary she wrote (barely edited, really) that details the events that led her there. (Be sure to check trigger warnings before reading.)

REVIEW

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ | 4 STARS

I've read all the books by Lemony Snicket, but this is the first time I read a book published under Daniel Handler's real name - his debut back in 1998. I really enjoyed this book, and finished the entire thing in two days - it's been a while since I've lost sleep to reading. I loved the likeably unlikable unreliable narrator; my head spun trying to keep track of what was real and what wasn't, the narrator changing things as she saw fit almost as if she was laughing at the reader. The plot kept me so intrigued I snuck some reading into the work day, unable to wait more than I had to.

It was really interesting to see the early stage of what would become Snicketisms (referring to characters by only their initial, dictionary definitions etc). It was less fun to see the odd descriptions of Black characters, visit Handler's Wikipedia page, and come to the uncomfortable conclusion these descriptions were likely coloured by Handler's own views rather than that of the narrator's.

Other than that, though, I really did enjoy this book! I guessed the plot twist about halfway through but it only added to the suspense and horror. I was a bit disappointed to get to the end and still have questions I needed answering, though that's definitely not a new experience for me after reading a Snicket/Handler book.

FAVOURITE QUOTES

"Hey," I said, and if I were rewriting this journal rather than merely occasionally editing it I would say: "in a drunken snarl."

"Hey," I said, in a drunken snarl.

She spun the car through a right turn that would have killed us all had we been minor characters.

GOODREADS | MY OTHER REVIEWS

[blue-vein-tavern]

whos your favorite tb8 character? 👀👀

//spoilers//

gotta love natasha ofc. but as of right now in the book (october 29th) shes trying to convince flan to Do Something about adam... love it when ur best friend tries to convince you to murder the guy ur in love with (WAIT but that kinda makes sense from a "nat and flan are in love" pov. just really extreme jealousy). i do know that natasha just straight up isnt real (both from a post i saw a while ago and from my habit of reading the last pages of every book to make sure my faves dont die). super not sure how thats gonna work out but ive noticed a few sentences that are a little 👀👀 foreshadow-y in regards to this.

oh and also douglas <33 im only halfway through but i hope we see a lot more of him before its over

as i (probably) mentioned ive been highlighting a lot of quotes and making notes so ill post all of those once im finished :)

[flanneryculp]

this halloween was different. this halloween we knew better.

[sauxyan]

Early Basic Eight Dogs (Flannery & Natasha) I don't know why I started doing these but I'm not sorry.

[gellavonhamster]

Ok, so there’s this character in Daniel Handler’s novel who:

is an unreliable af first-person narrator

is writing about the true events that happened some time ago

uses a typewriter

is Jewish

is definitely not neurotypical

belongs to a closed, vaguely elitist group that may or may not be a cult

oh, and one of their friends from that group is a heiress of some aristocratic family who is referred to in their novel(-s) only by the first letter of her name

is obsessive to some degree when it comes to being in love

has had something to do with theatre at some point

has killed someone 

Am I talking about Flannery Culp or Lemony Snicket?

[beatricebidelaire]

it is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous you don't want it // the secret is to keep everyone on their toes. everybody's got to keep guessing or you have nothing left

[volunteerfelinedetectives]

📁 do you have any about tb8? :)

Flan’s favourite film is Heathers, and she watched it at least three times in the cinema when it came out.

[sydmarch]

flannery culp