Meg Rosoff

And there was one of them was absolutely fantastic.

It was about a girl who falls in love with a perfect pony.

And all through the book, she's desperately in love with this pony.

She finally gets the pony and it's destined to kind of work out happily as all pony books do.

And she slowly realizes over the course of the book that the pony is not for her.

the pony is way too difficult for her to ride, and they're not connecting properly.

And although it's been true love, you know, girl loves pony, it's not to be.

And I loved that book so much, aside from the fact that K.M.

Payton is a wonderful writer, that idea of twisting the convention of

girl falls in love with pony and or boy and you know pursues and you know in the end wins out and everybody lives happily ever after so yes so i'd like to have the swallowtails on the other side of it and with the difficult trickster character at the center of your book kit godden there's almost a patricia highsmith edge to him

Well, I've never been a fan of mysteries and detective novels and all that kind of stuff.

You're thinking of the talented Mr. Ripley.

Yes, yes.

But listen, I mean, you know, I got an email from a writer friend of mine the other day who said, oh, I just read The Great Garden.

I absolutely loved it.

Of course, I feel deeply for you because you obviously experienced that kind of toxic male nature.

relationship, you know, at some point in your life and I hope you're okay.

And I wrote back and said, look, you know, every relationship that isn't right is sort of toxic.

I mean, you know, if you think back to all the relationships you had as a teenager, I don't know, there are, I'm sure there are women out there and men out there who have nothing but beautiful, fulfilling relationships and then move on smoothly to another beautiful, fulfilling relationship.

But Lord knows I was not one of them.