9 Chickweed Lane

Ok, I want to point out two good things here:

1) Juliet's hair is cute. It's also not a hairstyle we normally see her with, nor is it the default 9CL Lady Cut that McEldowney defaults to.

2) Edda looks like a kid, like a child.I think it helps that we can't see her legs.

But there's bad things too. Wow are there bad things.

Try not to look at Juliet's neck. Don't look at it. Don't think about it. Just don't.

There's two glaringly wrong things here, though.

First of all, it's tremendously easy to have a child accidentally. Juliet herself is the result of one such accident, although she doesn't know it at this time. If she'd ever done the math RE: the dates of her birth and of her parents' wedding, though, she might have figured it out. Later Edda will convince herself that she had just such an accident, but it turns out she simply wasn't aware that over the counter pregnancy tests exist.

The other horrifically awful thing is Edda's decision to bring a thesaurus and not a dictionary to talk to Amos. She isn't looking to define words for him. She's looking to provide alternate words. Why? Why on earth would she need a thesaurus to discuss body parts? It doesn't make SENSE unless you consider how Amos uses tons of big ornate not always correct words to profess his love for Edda and describe how hot her bangin' bod is. Is this small child already aware of what it will take to seduce Amos, or to have him seduce her? It's creepy to think that, I hate it, but what other options are there? What else makes sense? Why a thesaurus? Did McEldowney forget that dictionaries exist? Is he just so laser focused on thesauruses that it's the only thing he can think of?

"The first thing you'd have to do before you discuss this subject"

I know they're Catholic and there's intense pressure from a young age, especially for girls, to get involved in heterosexual relationships and, once married, have kids. But Edda is really young here and really obsessed with having kids and it's really gross.

Prior to Edda getting pregnant McEldowney did one or two story lines involving Edda discussing reproduction at school. They were short and very sitcom-esque, centering on her mom being a biology professor who believes in the power of education. The school/other parents got angry, kids got grossed out. "They did what with what? Ewwwwww!" Very normal stuff.

But Edda got pregnant and interspersed with obliquely hinting that the pregnancy was so terrifically dangerous someone had counseled Edda to have an abortion (something nobody ever stated or even suggested or even hinted at) was Amos writing letters to their baby (later revealed to be babies) about how fucking sexy Edda is and how much he loves fucking her.

The twins first comment on Amos and Edda fucking while they are still infants, in that comic strip telepathic way so popular among the infant set. Amos refers to a diaper change as "bonding time" or something similar, "quality time" maybe, and one infant ponders what Amos and Edda do to bond or what have you. "Something with less syllables."

It was jarring.

And it only got worse from there.