Reginée

Blog series alert! 

To start, I ordered two books that I had been sitting on my Amazon wish list waiting to be bough for the longest: Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. 

I read Cleo McDougal first because I had been eyeing that one for the longest and started reading a chapter or two every night before bed and it was very nice night time reading because it was easy on the mind. About halfway through, Hurricane Ida decided she wanted to come through so I packed my books with me because I just knew we were going to lose electricity and I didn't want to be bored. I was very smart to make that decision because we did lose power, and I would have been insanely bored without those books. 

One of the bright (?) spots about losing power during the storm and days after is that is allowed me to catch up on reading on a few books I've been meaning to read but never got around to doing and revisiting some old faves. My thoughts on Cleo McDougal are actually what inspired this series called Would Reginée Adapt This because of course as a screenwriter, I must also think about could I see myself spending the time and money to option and adapt what I read because I've got ambitious foresight like that. 

Without further ado, would Reginée adapt "Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing"?

This is a book that is very reflective of the moment of liberal feminism and the Me Too movement. If you've spent any amount of time on social media in the last say, five years, then this book reads like a checklist of all the popular buzzwords and ideologies of feminism and girlboss culture of this time. I have some very strong opinions on all of that, but we're not gonna talk about that because we'd be here all night. However, I will say this: much how social media, panels and campaigns LOVE to spew platitudes about regarding liberal feminism, leaning in, girl bossing it and such without actually saying anything and having what is said ring hollow, this book does the same. 

Cleo McDougal collapses under its own weight in trying too hard to be of the times and prove how feminist it is, that a really great story gets basically erased. The framework of the characters and their relationships are quite solid, but they don't get explored. They act as pawns in the story instead of actually helping to drive the story. And to me, that was such a missed opportunity. 

Slight spoiler alerts: Cleo is this super ambitious political wunderkind who became a Senator quite young. It stands to reason, to me at least, that she's a shark and will do what she has to do to get ahead. The book spends a lot of time trying rationalize her past actions and "regrets" to still make her likeable. And I always feel like trying to force a character to be likeable instead of letting them be exactly who they are, always gets a bit dicey. 

About a little over halfway through, I started just flipping through the and quickly skimming the pages so I could get through it. Not gonna lie, it got to be a tedious read for me. And I understood where the author was trying to go with the story but the execution fell flat for me. And I also understood the point she making with the Me Too storyline of the book but it didn't do it for me either. The reveal of her son's paternity to his biological father was some peak white woman shit. Again, I understood that Cleo is this high powered woman with a complicated personal life but again the execution was mid. To be honest, I don't even think the list of regrets was even needed because what was revealed from the list spanned years, the regrets felt very white woman dramatic. 

So, Would Reginée Adapt This?

Drumroll please....

Surprisingly, yes. Like I said, the framework of the characters and their dynamics are solid and enough is there to build out character driven scripts. There a couple of things I would change like that list of regrets being something else more powerful to drive the story (I know what it would be but the game is to be sold, not told on a blog). I would definitely flip this to make her job also an undercurrent of drama and source of story. Emily would actually be an established friend to her, the Veronica Kay story would be fleshed out more. I actually really enjoyed that Cleo and her sister made amends. I'd keep that. And that Me Too story? I'd definitely flip that to where Cleo still keeps in touch with him and that has it's own stickiness to it. 

Overall Rating:

Book: 3.2 out of 5

Reginée Adaptability Potential:  15 out of 10. This would definitely be a great limited series on streaming or HBO. 

I have a few books in mind to buy next for the series but if you have any recommendations, please feel free to drop them below. 

Have you read "Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing?" Let me know your thoughts on it. (I tried not to spoil too much of it in case you haven't.)