Ruby Granger #36 Pumpkin Bread Activity

[Larancia]

If I was Ruby, after reading this review I would add this to goodreads as my 452nd book read in 2023

 

[LostGhosts]

Chapter 2 of Erimentha Parker. This is all I can cope with for now:

Plot -
I am going to start just calling our main character Ruby as its easier to write and quite frankly is the truth. Ruby wakes up in her single bed and Ruby thinks back to when she was offered a double bed by her parents and refused because she is obviously a child and god forbid she has a big bed. She instead asked if her brother Nathan could have one and recalled having to apologise to a shopkeeper because he jumped on the bed and she clearly hates Martha, I mean Nathan. And her parents suspired her (a 11 year old I think???) to a filing cabinet ... Spends a while waffling on about the view from her window, but fails to mention the family of dead flies on her windowsill. Mother granger decides to drive her to school on her first day and she has her backpack filled with post it notes, a poetry anthology, a Malory towers book, a Florence Nightingale biography and her book of reminders (which has 15 reminders for today!). Mother Granger asks Ruby if she wants to come in with her but Ruby says no. Not because she wants to appear cool, but because she memorised the map of the school over the summer. Another girl comes in the reception and her mother says she needs to give some medication to the Nurse. Ruby notes that the child looks healthy enough and remembers a time she badly sprained an ankle playing tennis and had to take ibuprofen for days (I really honestly have no idea what the point of any of this was, well so far the whole book has been pointless).

Ruby gets taken to her form class where we meet Mr Aldridge a history Teacher, who will soon be exposed to Ruby and never mentally recover from their interactions. Ruby noes how there is a timeline across the walls but how he did a shit job as the photographs are "computer generated and pixelated" so she makes a note to remake it because obviously something made by her is far better than what was probably a class project that lots of people were proud of. Ruby then drools over him a bit because he went to Cambodia and he is "clearly very cultural" and she writes down Cambodia on her to do list so she can pester him about it later. Honestly things begin to sound a little bit dodgy as she tells everyone a fact, and Mr Aldridge said he did know that so she found herself "getting a little hot". They get given a PowerPoint on friendship and problems they may experience but Ruby finds it pointless as she is already an expert in friendship from having read friendship self help books. Ruby also has her first interaction with our evil vilin of the story Kimberleigh. The two girls clash because Ruby thinks two girls skirts are "frightfully short and Kiberleigh says having them that long is "social suicide"

Quotes -
- "When I turned ten, my parent said that I could exchange my wrought iron single bed for a double one ... I had refused the offer, knowing it would be a complete waste of money. I don't seem to take up much room when I sleep; either I curl up in a ball or lay with my hands by my sides, as straight as a 2B pencil"
- "I get changed more slowly than usual, making sure my shirt is tucked in, my skirt is exactly one inch below my kneecap and my knee-high green socks are even"
- "I close my eyes to the morning and say a mental hello to the large oak tree just outside my window"
- "I always make sure it is filled with clean water so that I can pretend every morning that I was born in the nineteenth century"
- " [Florence Nightingale] is one of my greatest inspirations, after J. K. Rowling, Barak Obama and Queen Elizabeth I"
- "Her shoes are just as sensible as they were last May: brown penny loafers not too different from the ones I am wearing myself"
- " I can feel [her eyes] boring into the back of my neck like UV sun rays on unprotected skin"

 

[gossip_guy]

But remember when the longest she made it away from her parents at uni was 3 weeks and she didn't have half as much real work to do rip mummy and daddy bones, hope you like sleeping in your van in front of the college every weekend

Her family house is an hour away from Oxford, so I doubt she'll be staying on campus. This time she'll just be expecting mummy and daddy to make 4 trips a day back and forth from uni all week to drop her off and collect her.

"This was just the most efficient way," she'll say of the chauffeur arrangement. Meanwhile Daddy Bones will get his lawyer started on the divorce papers to get the hell away from this nightmare.

 

[Larancia]

Ruby uploads yt shorts:

Me screaming internally:
PLS SAY SHEETS pleaseee
Ruby:

Me:
*sighes and opens tattle*

 

[Griftwood]

lol "feeling like a vegan marshmallow" - note: a vegan. not just a plain old marshmallow. vegan!
(not sure if wearing something white in the snow is a good choice?!)
(View attachment 2011158

I so badly want someone to ask her what happened to her job that she said she was going to have until June

 

[CatCafe234]

She also irons her bed covers

Aaaaaaand this is how we know it really is a work of fiction.

 

[figgypud]

Yeah, I agree. She gives me the vibe that she has a mean temper. Not that this is an excuse to walk on eggshells around her but regardless of how much you love a family member, you can still be sick of their shit and frankly, I don't know how anyone can live with Ruby and not feel like punching a wall at least four times a day.
---

She's dropped all pretence now At least she's honest for once haha.

A FEW DAYS???

The reason children play waitress is because they can't actually do those things. Children playing pretend is how they can explore the world safely, interact with other kids, use their imagination, develop social skills etc. As an adult you don't need to play waitress, you can just make a hot drink and a snack and sit with your friends or family.

 

[Ilaariaa]

my eyes steady and controlled, hers dull and brown

The way she said it really makes it sound like "brown" is a negative qualifier like "dull" in opposition to "steady" and "controlled" lmao. How terrible of her to have brown eyes.
---

I've got to admit, Ella does look a bit like a mouse. She has the same long front teeth and pointed nose. Her eyes, however, make all o the difference for they are so large that they could never be compared to the small, beady optics of a rodent

Ruby Granger, kindness ambassador

 

[LostGhosts]

Chapter 3 of Erimentha Parkers to do list:

Plot -
- The girls go to Geography and Ruby sits at the same table and Kimberleigh and then they all get told off because Kimberleigh was talking. Ruby nearly dies from shame
- They had to say words to do with geography to go on a mind map. Ruby basically thinks everyone else is an idiot for saying simple things like mountain and river. Ruby originally was going to comment on “the sustainable city of Curitiba” but instead decided to say Globalisation, and spends a full page of the book spouting facts no one cares about
- After class she holds her teacher hostage to give her a 16 page booklet on hurricanes she made over the summer for shits and giggles. Teacher then suggests (while probably fearing for her life) that Ruby does a presentation on this to the class
- At lunch Ruby invites an American girl round her house at the weekend so they can build a science experiment volcano together
- Ruby goes to fill up a water jug and Izzy spills water on her, causing Ruby to have to change into the spare set of clothes she brought to school
- Back in class Izzy and Kimberleigh are saying that Ruby pushed her and that's why she got water spilt on her

Quotes:

• “I haven’t got told of since I was about five and am distraught that I have made a bad first impression”
• “But instead of saying cheese as I had been asked to, I had been thinking very hard about how such a tremendous depression ever came to be”
• “She takes a fountain pen from her shirt’s pocket protector which is just like the ones businessmen wear in the movies!
• “The only one which is unsalvageable is ‘Erimentha Parker’s list of the best pencil brands”
• “I’m not a psychopath” I say nearly in tears, “Even if I had deliberately spilt the water, which I didn’t, I don’t have the other symptoms that the DSM say are essential for a diagnosis"

 

[figgypud]

She thinks that saying "I've never understood why people don't like Sundays" makes her sound poetic and whimsical and in touch with the world but she just sounds so childish. I don't mind Sundays, but I do work an 8 hour shift on them, so I'm not about to romanticise them either.

She could just say she personally likes Sundays without implying that people who don't are philistines. It's her habit of making sweeping statements that boil down to "WHY don't OTHER PEOPLE think like ME" that bothers people so much and she and her defensive TikTok followers are either stupid or obtuse if they're not seeing that.

 

[gossip_guy]

Those kinds of "acts of kindnesses" never seem genuine to me, the writer of the post it doesnt intend to say those words to the receiver/s. For me it feels like ads that goes "Are you tired of xxx? Do you feel like yyy? My product is what you need!!!" Its the fake sincereity, as if the person who writes the made up affirmations actually cares about me. I dont they dont and I know Ruby doesnt give a damn about whoever will interact with her post its. For her, its about the show and its about feeling better about herself thinking she actually did something. So she can tell friends and relatives about how thoughtful she is, so she can preach the internet how the best kindest light hearted angel she is and noone can surpass her saint-esque manners.

Spoiler

Did i do an overkill? I guess I have a personal grudge over that issuee

I've said this before since she does the same exact thing every time she suggests ACTSOFF KOINDNASS, but these are just hollow Hallmark card platitudes littering the place and will mean nothing to anyone but Ruby.

"Don't be pushed around by the fears in your mind. Be led by the dreams in your heart." - Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart.

Rather than coming up with something meaningful herself that someone might relate to, she literally just Googled "motivational quotes about fear". It's more of her usual "quote random person in order to seem VARRY smart" bullshit. I don't know who is going to suddenly overcome their anxiety about having dental surgery upon reading a quote saying "forget your fears, chase your dreams!" She might as well have scribbled "Live, laugh, love.".

She keeps saying to do this with library books and the last thing I want when reading a book is to have to stop to throw away trash from some grubby-fingered troll or wade through the inane, indecipherable annotations of some unfathomable fuckwit. Leave the book as you found it. Librarians are likely to check the book and toss your empty motivational bullshit before anyone sees it anyway.

It's intended purely to show how VARRY KOIND AND SWYEET she is, but it's just the most stupid and performative crap.

And she's only pivoted from "Put shit in library books!" to "Put shit in dentist waiting room magazines and review their staff!" as an excuse to reveal that she had to go to the dentist to have a tooth taken out.

Maybe she broke it, but it seems awfully coincidental that she's often lisping her way through mouth ulcers, her gums appear to recede more by the day and now she's having teeth come out. She's going bald and loosing teeth, yet she's still encouraging her dangerous food habits every chance she gets. VARRY KOIND.

She was writing this purposefully to show on screen, so if she wanted to, she could've put something mundane like "I had to go for a check-up and routine clean and the staff were JANUINELY ASTRONIMICAL!" Instead she says she's having a tooth out. So this "salflass act" that she put on show was just to raise concern and sympathy for herself.

Donating to charity is the only genuinely worthwhile thing on there and it was undoubtedly included only to try to make Ruby look kind and selfless and get herself lots of praise in the comments. But look a bit closer. Ruby is swimming in cash, has a steady stream of income from ad revenue, she gets rewarded for lazy content with regular paid sponsorships of thousands of pounds from companies whose products and services she never uses, she gets an endless supply of free shit that she often resells and she gets money from whatever worthless, overpriced trash PONKER'S PUDDINGTREE sells.

She has no bills, no responsibilities, no real expenses that she won't be claiming back as tax write-offs. She's sitting on a Smaug-ian mountain of cash. And yet she still picked the middle-of-the-road '£50' option when there was a '£100' option on-screen (along with the option to write in something higher). A few hundred quid would be a drop in the bucket for her. She'll be claiming deductions against her LLC tax for this anyway, so she's quite literally refusing to hand them free money that would cost her nothing. SYO, SYOO KOIND.

She's also still shown no proof that she ever either returned the cash she took from charities or passed on the ad money she's pledged to charities in the past, so all signs point to her still having that. Paying charities with the money you took from other charities and then claiming it as a tax write-off is not charitable, Rubert.

She has the wealth, the abundant free time and the platform to actually do meaningful things or donate her time to volunteering, but she'd rather just hoard her wealth, spend all time decomposing in her room trying to become TWALVE again and use her content as an outlet for ego-boosting lies and greedy, dishonest ad shenanigans.

 

[gossip_guy]

Well let us not forget the time Ruby and Jade went on a weekend away for Jade's birthday and left their AirBnB trashed and the gas hob open (I know I've brought this up before but it's such an underrated story)...

"Hallo it's Ryoobee and tyooday weee areee johst leaving theee AhhBnB--"

 

[berkeleymoon87]

Exactly. She's still all about toxic productivity.
I've noticed she's dabbling in Ballet Core lately:

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just jealous, and honestly I am. Having the privilege to pursue as many hobbies, read as much as you like, get a job basically handed to you, get sponsored to sell tea, have people treat you like a child who can do no wrong, etc. is just hard to watch as someone who is having a hard time finding a job. Here in the US, a lot of us can barely afford to buy eggs. Having influencers live privileged lives and then tell their subscribers that they just need to be more productive and buy planners and tea and be bored and romanticize your life is so irritating. "I read 17 books this month" is so...not an attainable goal for anyone trying to survive out here.

If you're on TikTok, you've probably seen an influencer named OkCallie who got all her followers from showing her law school journey just to give it all up to become a full-time influencer and move to LA. All they're doing is continue to contribute to fast fashion. Their pursuits are purely capitalist at that point.

 

[VeryFerociousDrama]

Well let us not forget the time Ruby and Jade went on a weekend away for Jade's birthday and left their AirBnB trashed and the gas hob open (I know I've brought this up before but it's such an underrated story)...

 

[CatCafe234]

If she was, we’d know about it, because all of her self-insert characters would have varying degrees of colourblindness

‘Hettie Parsnip is a fantastic friend’ - a moving YA debut novel about 12 year old child genius Hettie, who triumphs over the bullies at her all-girls private school by using her red/pink colourblindness to become a night-time chess champion and expert in Victorian postage stamps. Only available at WHHHARTERSTONES.

 

[Hannahebee]

I've had a thought. If Ruby is working in a school how is it that she has time to go skiing. Surely it would be typical to have a team time contract? I smell controversy?

The fact that she is going skiing during school term tells me that she might not be working at the school anymore because if she was working at the school she would have arranged this ski trip during half term. Plus I have noticed that she has been more active on Instagram lately and when she was working at the school she was less active on social media in general, so I think she has finished her teaching job as she hasn't made any references to it lately and in her videos she hasn't mentioned anything about doing some prep work for the students.

 

[anakinskywalkers]

If she’s got in then good on her for breaking out of the Three Rejecteers. Can’t wait for Jack and Jade’s self-pity and passive aggressive posts “My casual magic of the day is hearing that my friend got into Oxford, I’m so happy about it, can’t you tell I’m so happy and not bitter in the slightest ”

 

[Deeznutslol]

I mean, I kind of want her to be accepted at Oxford. The content now is getting kind of too sad to watch. In Oxford, she would at least get back on Studytube and also face actual real-life challenges she has never experienced before – in studies and otherwise. Also, that gives so much hope to others that it is possible to get into Oxbridge even as somebody clearly not that into full-on academic life without many publications, conference speeches, huge achievements etc.

I get what you mean, but I disagree about it being something that’d give hope to others about getting into Oxford tbh. At the end of the day she has been privately educated since the age of 5, has had access to such amazing opportunities that the vast majority of young people living in the UK (and all around the world) just simply do not have. Frankly, I do think she could have achieved more by this point given how easy her life has been.
There are enough mediocre rich kids who were born with a silver spoon in every orifice doing well already, it’d give me more hope to see someone who has come from dirt, or has had loads of challenges to overcome in life getting into Oxford rather than Ruby.

 

[gossip_guy]

It's funny that they're all food-themed spicy novels lol.

I like that after like 4 pages of nothing but Wattpad-level smut, there's just Polar: The Titanic Bear and The Famous Five: Five on a Treasure Island in there randomly.

And even more hilariously, the covers all line up. The Famous Five kids apparently just discovered something about themselves gazing upon these majestic buff men, while The Titanic Bear's eyeing up shirtless dude with a "Well, hello there..." look of curious interest.

 

[pinkmug]

What happens if they don't indulge Ruby. My mind goes to Ruby throwing a massive tantrum or having a meltdown of some kind.

Yeah, I agree. She gives me the vibe that she has a mean temper. Not that this is an excuse to walk on eggshells around her but regardless of how much you love a family member, you can still be sick of their shit and frankly, I don't know how anyone can live with Ruby and not feel like punching a wall at least four times a day.
---

some of us have real jobs ruby we don't have time to pretend

She's dropped all pretence now At least she's honest for once haha.