Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 50 Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Matthew Logelin vs. Fatherhood (2021)
What happens when a deeply personal memoir about loss transforms into a Hollywood comedy-drama with Kevin Hart? "Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Love and Loss" and "Fatherhood" tell the same heartbreaking story from radically different angles, revealing how adaptation can both honor and re imagine true experiences.
Matthew Logelin's raw memoir chronicles the devastating loss of his wife Liz to a pulmonary embolism just 27 hours after giving birth to their daughter. Left suddenly as a grieving single father, Matt documents his journey through that first impossible year with baby Maddy, building a foundation to help others in similar situations. His unfiltered voice—sometimes criticized as pretentious or problematic—nonetheless captures the unvarnished reality of unexpected loss and parenthood.
When Kevin Hart stepped into the role for the film adaptation, he brought deliberate purpose beyond storytelling. Hart specifically chose this project to showcase positive Black fatherhood on screen while bringing awareness to the disproportionately high maternal mortality rates among Black women—the very condition that claimed Liz Logelin's life nearly took Serena Williams' as well. The film expands beyond the book's timeline, creating fictional elements like school uniform battles and relationship struggles that weren't part of Matt's actual experience.
Whether you connect more with the memoir's unflinching grief or the film's hopeful re imagining, both versions ultimately celebrate the same truth: that love transcends loss, and that parenthood requires courage in the face of the unimaginable. Which raises the podcast's central question—is the book really better than the movie when they're telling fundamentally different stories for different purposes?
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Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be talking about Two Kisses for Maddie, a memoir of love and loss, by Matthew Loughlin, and its 2021 adaptation, fatherhood, starring Kevin Hart, alfre Woodard and Little Rel Howery. Hi everyone, so first of all, I just want to say I'm so sorry. I did not mean for this hiatus to be as long as it did or as long as it ended up being. I started reading the Book Thief and I didn't really have anything else on my docket, so I was like I'll read the Book Thief and watch the film and that'll be my next episode, and I was fully anticipating that to be my next episode. But then life happened and I still haven't finished reading the Book Thief, so I got way behind. So I started reading two other things Well, I guess three other things, but I know one of them is going to be a while before I finish reading it because it's a series. But yeah, in terms of those other things that I'm reading in preparation for this podcast, which totally doesn't really make sense, because it would just make more sense for me to finish the Book Thief, but anyway, the Book Thief is on its way, as well as other episodes. Cannot guarantee when they're going to come out. But yeah, just personal life.
Speaker 1:I've also been a lot more busy than expected. So one of my roommates moved out just last week. Wow, it's been a week it's barely going to be two weeks since she moved out, and so Orlando and I had the smaller room and she had the biggest room, and so now that once she moved out, we're like well, it makes more sense for us to move into the big room. So we're in the big room now. So we had to bring all of our furniture over from the little room into the big room and kind of go through all her stuff. And there's a lot of rearranging going on. We need to at some point take our stuff out of storage. That's been in there since we lived in Jersey and so excited to say that I also just recently got cast in a show. Yes, so we open in two weeks and that's been taking up most of my time and my attention and it's been so fun. Last year I was booked and blessed in terms of I did so many commercials last year and if you are on YouTube, you may or may not have seen me already. I know I've had several family members and several friends say, oh my gosh, I just saw you on a commercial. I still haven't seen this commercial myself, but I'm so glad so many people are seeing it and I will do commercials.
Speaker 1:Doing commercials is fun. It's fun to be on set. They pay very well but they're not creatively fulfilling. For me, and I don't think they are for most people. They're fun, they're a fun gig to do. Don't get me wrong. I don't think anyone's going to be like hate it doing that commercial, but it's just not creatively fulfilling. Like you, you're selling a product and so you're. You know you don't really need to like there is a technique to do commercial work, but it is not as challenging as it is to like sink your teeth into a role and make decisions around your character and their lived experience. And so, yeah, it's been about a year and a half since I got cast in something that required me to, you know, really get into the character, and I've had fun, like doing auditions I've had so many auditions and getting to work on my monologues or working on sides that I've been sent. So you know, still getting that like actor creative juice flowing, but there, that is just so like such a small part of what we do, and it's fun to do all that, but to actually work on a role and be in the rehearsal room with other actors, like there's just nothing like it. So I'm really excited. So I've been busy and I'm very happy about it. I'm so excited for the show. If you happen to be in New York City, we run the week of August 4th pretty much run from the starting August 4th, which is a Monday, until that Saturday, which is, I think, august 8th, august 9th, something like that At the New Perspectives Theater Festival. This is the theater festival that they have going on and there's Program A and Program B. I'm part of Program B, but you should definitely still check out Program A if that's something you're interested in. But yeah, just really wanted to give that update because that's why I've been a little bit slower when it comes to my reading life and just yeah, just a lot of things going on personally. So, yeah, but I'm very excited to be back with a new episode. So this, well, you know what? Let's just get started.
Speaker 1:Two Kisses for Maddie, a memoir of Love and Loss by Matthew Logelin was first published in 2011. Now, matt Logelin this is his memoir telling the story about the first year of his daughter's Maddie's first year of his daughter Maddie's life following her birth and the death of his wife. So Matt and Liz his wife were high school sweethearts. They spent many years long distance dating. They finally, after he graduated with his master's degree, he finally joined her in Los Angeles and they were finally able to get married, get a house and welcome a baby. Liz's pregnancy was, unfortunately, not a smooth one, but she did give birth to Madeline, a few weeks premature but otherwise very healthy, happy baby. However, 27 hours after giving birth to Maddie, liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died, and she never got to hold her daughter. Matt was suddenly a single father and a widower, and he had to adjust to this new life very quickly because he had a baby that depended on him. So in his memoir, matt tells us about his years dating Liz, their marriage, how he cared for his newborn daughter, the people he came to rely on, this community of strangers that found him, that found ways to support him, and a way that he found to honor Liz's life and yeah, so I probably should have said this ahead of time. I do apologize for not saying it before, but I do understand if this topic is a little sensitive. It is a very sensitive topic that I am going to discuss a little bit briefly about pregnancy issues, mother mortality and yeah, so this might not be an episode that you can tolerate, so I completely understand if you are not able to keep listening.
Speaker 1:The 2021 adaptation Fatherhood is the film that shows us a father who has to bring up his baby girl as a single dad after the unexpected death of his wife, who dies a day after she gives birth to her daughter. I apologize if you can hear the air conditioner in the background. I apologize if you can hear the air conditioner in the background. We are going through. I thought about turning it off so that it would be completely silent, and usually that's what I do, but we are going through a very intense heat wave and I don't want to overheat, so you may hear the air conditioner and it goes on and off, so it might shut off, it might be on, but hopefully just hear my voice. I was looking for my microphone and I could not find it Again. We just moved into a new room so I don't know where I left my microphone that I usually record. So I'm recording straight into my computer. So it's not as easy for me to block out extra noise, but hopefully I'm like right up against my computer microphone, so hopefully that's enough, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So, despite the description of the film, these two are about as different that you can get from each other. Like this is a very different adaptation from the book, and so my talking about the. So this is going to be a very short episode. In that regard. There isn't really much to talk about when it comes to the two because they are pretty different. But we I will. So I'm going to talk very, very briefly about the two differences that kind of stood out to me the most. I guess three, but one of them I'm going to get into a lot more detail.
Speaker 1:So the film takes place in Boston, while the book primarily takes place in LA. So Matt and Liz were originally from Minnesota. They dated long distance. They went to different colleges. Eventually, when Liz graduated, she ended up in LA and then Matt had, like, finished his undergrad, went on to Matt to get his master's degree, they continued to be long distance. And then he had the choice to pursue his doctorate or, at that point, settle in with Elizabeth in LA. And he chose at that point to he was like I'm ready, I'm tired of the long distance, I just want to be with the woman that I love. So that's when he relocated to LA and things progressed pretty quickly which sounds kind of weird to say because they had been together for so long. At that point they did start dating in high school. I think they were together, including marriage and everything a total of 12 years. So I think it was like she died before they celebrated their three-year wedding anniversary. So they were married for about two years. So they were like dating for about 10 years. And after those 10 years he was like I'm ready, like they were, like they were high school sweethearts, they dated long distance for that long of a time, and so he was like I'm ready. And so, yeah, it feels kind of weird to say things move pretty quickly after that, considering they've been together for 10 years. But yeah, like as soon as he moved in with her, like they got engaged, they got married, they bought a house and they had a baby. So yeah, but that's what happened and the film, for whatever reason, takes place in Boston. I'm not really sure why they made that creative change because it didn't really add anything. Maybe it was just cheaper to film in Boston than it was to film in LA. I don't know. I haven't found any reason for why they made that change, but they did make the change to set the film in Boston as opposed to setting it in LA.
Speaker 1:The book chronicles a little like Matt and Liz's love story. So Matt talks about him and Liz dating how they got married. Matt talks about him and Liz dating how they got married and her pregnancy and the struggles with her pregnancy and then her death and After she Dies. Book just really focuses on Maddie's first year of life, the film. That's probably like the first third of the film, and then the last two thirds of the film are made up for the film. Now there are some elements of truth in there.
Speaker 1:A version of the book, of the memoir that I read, I want to say was I'm not exactly sure when there's been like a few updates. So the film, the book, is now called Fatherhood as well to match, to be more of a tie-in with the film. But before that I want to say it was updated again in, I guess, 2015, because there's a letter that's added at the. There are some things that are added that happened, like, in 2018, matt did end up falling in love with someone else and eventually getting married to her and he had another baby, and so all of that happened in 2018. I think they got married in 2018 and then their baby was born in 2019. So that has been added to the book and I think after that there was the updated version, the movie tie-in version, but otherwise like not including like the updated thing that you can find in the movie tie-in there was a lot of creative liberties I'm sure with the permission of Matt that were taken and there might be some truth for them, some heightened truth, some exaggerated truths, you could say, to make the film more dramatic, one of them being Alfre Woodard's character.
Speaker 1:She plays Liz's mom in the film, so Kevin Hart's mother-in-law and Matt had a great relationship with his in-laws. I mean, they've been together, for Matt and Liz had been together for so long, even after she passed away, like he was still going on family vacations with them and him and Maddie were, and so he had. Like there was no. Like. The mother-in-law in the film was a little bit more stereotypical mother-in-law in that she wasn't really a fan of her son-in-law and she was very against him raising her child, her grandchild, on his own, and that, just that was not the case in the book. Matt had the support, like he was urged by his family to move back to Minnesota but he decided to stick around in LA and his in-laws and his family all respected that decision and in the film, like she was very like if you're not moving with me to Minnesota, I'm going to stay here, and Kevin Hart essentially has to kick her out and be like no, I'm taking care of my daughter and I got this and you need to leave. So, yeah, so that was a little bit heightened.
Speaker 1:There is also the character of Lizzie. So Matt Loughlin in real life did end up marrying Lizzie and he did not even realize that it was one of those things that Liz was always Liz to him. Obviously her name was Elizabeth, but he just she was Liz, and so when he met Lizzie, that's who she was, she was just Lizzie. And it wasn't until he saw a piece of mail with her name Elizabeth that he was like oh, my girlfriend and my wife have the same name, what are the odds? But so that is true, he did end up marrying someone with his wife's name.
Speaker 1:But in the film, like um, there's more of there's more drama, as I said, that Kevin Hart, after spending an afternoon with Lizzie and missing a phone call from Maddie's school where she gets injured, he breaks up with Lizzie and then they end up reuniting at the end of the film. So, yeah, so, like creative liberties like that were taken, but there is some semblance of truth with Matt's real life. But, yeah, so it's vastly different. Like the last, just the first third of the film is like Maddie's first year of life in the film and then when, when, that is like two thirds of the novel and in the film it's just it's two thirds of Kevin Hart trying to make, trying to be a good father and making decisions that make him feel like a failure as Maddie gets older. I think we spent. I think Maddie in the film is about seven or eight years old. So, yeah, so that's really the only thing to talk about in terms of difference.
Speaker 1:The other difference that I want to talk about is Kevin Hart. We know he's a black man. Matthew Logelin is a white man, so I'm not really sure how it ended up. I don't know the exact details of how it ended up being Kevin Hart that played the role of Matthew, but originally this memoir was going to be turned into a film, a lifetime film. So it was going to be one of those lifetime films and then, after that didn't pan out, channing Tatum was attached to play the role of Matthew, and then that didn't pan out. Channing Tatum was attached to play the role of Matthew and then that didn't pan out. And then eventually it went to Kevin Hart and, like I said, I don't know the logistics, like I don't know if, after it fell through with Channing Tatum, like Kevin Hart heard about this and was like I'll do the role, or if it didn't pan out with Channing Tatum, like the creative team reached out to Kevin Hart and see if he would be interested. So I don't know, like those logistical details. But there is an interview at the back of the book, the movie tie-in, in which Matthew interviews Kevin Hart, and one of the things they talk about is Kevin Hart being interested in taking this role. Like he was very interested in bringing the role of Matthew to life because he wanted to bring a more positive depiction of Black fatherhood to film. There aren't a lot of films that depict Black fatherhood in a positive light, and he also wanted to take this opportunity to so.
Speaker 1:Mortality, mother mortality rates are high, and those numbers are even higher for Black women. Black women die at much higher rates during pregnancy and childbirth than white women or other women of color, and so that's something that Kevin Hart also wanted to bring attention to. In fact, liz the real life Liz, and the dramatized version of her in the film died of a pulmonary embolism, which is what Serena Williams also almost died of after she gave birth to her daughter, alexis. So this could have ended very like Serena Williams' life could have ended very similar to Liz Lohgolin's. So that was something that Kevin Hart also wanted to bring attention to is the high rate of motherhood mortality rates of Black women. That being said, I do since that was one of the intentions of this film I do wish that they had rushed upon it a little bit more, because Liz's death is in the film is just is it happens so fast. I want to say that it happens in like the first five to ten minutes of the film and then we get like five more minutes of, like, the funeral, and then it transitions completely into Kevin Hart's character, or Kevin as Matt, adjusting to his life as a single father and a widower. So there isn't really much talk or focus on the Black motherhood mortality rate. So it's like, if that's one of the things you wanted to bring awareness to, I feel like we could have done it more. Yeah, I just feel like there would be a way to incorporate a little bit more without even I don't know, I don't, I don't know, but I feel like the main focus of this story is Black fatherhood, which there's nothing wrong with that, and I'm not saying they necessarily needed to incorporate the other aspect, but if that was one of the goals, I feel like more needed to be done to bring awareness to that. But, yeah, oh, another, another difference, before moving on into just my thoughts on the film and the book, I almost forgot this.
Speaker 1:So in in real life, liz Loughlin. She was having trouble with her pregnancy, she wasn't gaining the right amount of weight, and so she had to go on bedrest to see if she could gain that weight by, you know, just just sitting there just being on bedrest and so she was on bedrest and then she, she was on bedrest and then she ended up going into labor. Um, and Maddie was born prematurely. And it was one of those things like sorry, voldemort was just like, pay attention to me. So yeah, so Liz was on bedrest, she gave birth to Maddie prematurely, and then she had to, since she gave birth to Maddie prematurely and she had had issues with her pregnancy. She met her daughter. Thankfully, she did get to meet Maddie. She met her shortly after giving birth. She had to have a C-section in order to deliver Maddie safely, and so after Maddie was pulled out of her, she got to see her daughter before they had to send Maddie to the NICU and she never got to hold her daughter. She did meet her daughter and Matt would go to the NICU and feed her and change her diaper and give his wife updates as his wife. So after the C-section, she had to stay on bed rest for another 24 hours before she could officially go to the NICU and hold Maddie. So, as she stood up to you know, the 24 hour period passed. They're like great, you can come with us to go meet Maddie. As she gets up, she starts walking.
Speaker 1:She felt really, really dizzy, collapsed and passed away shortly after and it was of a pulmonary embolism. We don't really see that too much in the film. It was like her death was so, so sudden in the film that I even asked Orlando. Orlando used to work as an EMT, so he's not like an expert, but he does know more about medical stuff than I do. So I was like, can she really die that suddenly? And Orlando was like, yeah, she just had a C-section as a surgery. It's a major surgery so that can complicate things and that can cause complications that can lead you to die. But and so that's.
Speaker 1:I guess what happened in the film was maybe complications after the C-section because she, she has so the like. Like I said this, like we meet Matt and Liz at the beginning of the film there are doctor's appointments. They're talking about um, the upcoming birth, but Liz is fine. Like she is not on bed rest. It's safe to assume that she delivered Maddie after the between the 36 to 40 week mark or maybe slightly after, but Maddie this Maddie, the film Maddie was not born prematurely. Like it's safe to assume that her pregnancy was completely healthy in the film because there's no indication otherwise, like she is not on bed rest, she goes into labor without any complications.
Speaker 1:It wasn't and I think it might've been an emergency C-section in the film, but even then it wasn't as much of it didn't seem as much of a cause of concern as it came off in the book. So for all intents and purposes, liz in the film had a very healthy pregnancy. She had a good birth, maybe not completely as anticipated, since she did have to have a C-section, but there was nothing to indicate that we should be worried that things were going to go bad during the C-section. She did not have to stay on bed rest for 24 hours after giving birth the way that Liz did in reality. Like I think Maddie was just like in the nursery and she might have just been sleeping off the anesthesia or whatever they do when you, when you have a C-section and then she gets up, same thing she gets up, says she can't breathe, collapses and then passes away.
Speaker 1:So it was a lot more abrupt in the film than what happened in reality. And again, I did talk to Orlando and it was like okay, that makes sense about the possible complications after a C-section, since it is considered a major surgery. So I guess that's kind of what happened to Maddie, I mean to Liz, in the film, but it's not really clear. And yeah, just wanted to bring that up because her, her, her death was very, very unexpected. And maybe that's kind of what they were going for, like I said, since, since they did want to bring awareness to the motherhood mortality rates of black women, but, and how abrupt it can be, I don't know. That's the only thing I can think of. But yeah, I will say like I was like I was watching this and I was like well, like can someone just die that, like that, suddenly, and our line it was like yeah, yeah, like it's, it's, it's a major surgery, like things can go wrong, and so it's like okay, um, yeah, and it's not really something that is talked about in the film as well. But liz, liz, what they and I think they end up finding out is that Liz's pulmonary embolism got started as a blood clot on her legs that traveled up to the lungs. I don't know exactly how that works, but I have heard of something like that. But yeah, so that's yeah, so that's the other thing. Just, liz's death in the film is just a lot more abrupt than it is in the book. I mean, that sounds that's a weird way to phrase it, but I hope you understand what I'm trying to say like not that we expected, not that anyone expected Liz to die, but it's like, well, I can see how. I mean, she was already having issues with her pregnancy and this led to this. This led to this. This led to this as opposed to just like how abrupt Liz's death in the film was. But anyway, moving on, yeah, so Two Kisses for Maddie actually won the 2011 Goodreads Choice Award.
Speaker 1:It won for Reader's Favorite Memoir and Autobiography and overall, it has pretty positive reviews. It has a total of 4.01 rating based off of 8,863 ratings. So it's it has pretty good numbers and it did win the favorite memoir and autobiography category. But I will say, the people that are giving it terrible reviews and there are a few with that that that have given it terrible reviews, but the consensus, from what I've seen, that has prompted people to give this such a low rating, is Matthew Logelin himself. Now, I understand where they're coming from, like a lot of these people. Let me find one, okay. So here I'm just going to read some snippets from a reviewer named Doreen, who rated the book two stars, and this I'm reading Doreen's because it's the first review that's available, but also because this Doreen's view on the book seems to be the general consensus of people that have been giving it low stars, low ratings.
Speaker 1:Some people have issues with the actual writing of it, like the writing style, the prose and everything, but from what I've seen, most people take issues with Matthew himself. So here is what Doreen had to say. The main complaint from other reviewers who've given this book low ratings is that he swears too much. I too have a potty mouth, so mere swearing. So here is what Doreen had to say His wife's death sucks, shortly after also using it to describe how awful the generic music played at the funeral parlor is. But that wasn't why I think this book is terrible, even if the writing is uniformly disjointed and subpar.
Speaker 1:My main problem with this book is that the author is a pretentious hipster snob. After his wife's death he grieved and I felt sincerely bad for him, but his insistence on not being lame when out and about with his kid made me want to shake him. Being a parent isn't about being cool asshole. I respected a lot of what he had to say about the different processes of grieving. Unfortunately, this book dwells too much on how badly he perceived some people to be behaving towards him and made me want to tell him to get over himself. So I also want to share one more review from aaroniloglu, who also gave it two stars.
Speaker 1:Just to add on to that, I perhaps gave this book more leniency than I should have. Matthew Loglin did, after all, lose his wife one day after his daughter was born. But if death doesn't make martyrs of the dead, surviving doesn't make a douchebag lose his douchebagginess. It's very hard to like this man who almost brags about Peter Pan syndrome Bitchy opinion. More than once I thought if his wife had. So yeah, a lot of people don't like Matthew Loveland. They don't think he's a very, they just don't see him as a very likable person and I gotta say I kind of agree. Now I will say I give Matthew credit for not like making himself look better than he was, like he portrayed himself pretty accurately, it seems like.
Speaker 1:If so many people dislike him, but yeah, I will say the chapter in which his wife, in which Liz, gives birth and she dies, I could definitely I feel like. I mean he wrote this book, I think 18 months after, or he started writing this book 18 months after Liz died, so I'm sure her death was still very, very raw and so he might have still had like an emotional shield, an emotional block. He does mention that while attempting to write this book, like he missed so many deadlines because he just emotionally he was, he felt, blocked and what helped him get rid of that block was just writing this poem that he wrote and that's what allowed him to just release that emotional block and he was able to finally write the book. So I think that emotional block might have still been there when he wrote that chapter and I can completely understand why. Like, this is the chapter in which the love of his life died and he's suddenly a widower something he never expected to be at the age of 30. So, yeah, I completely understand why he would still have that emotional block, but I had so many issues with this chapter and I might have felt this way about him overall.
Speaker 1:He did start warming up to me after this chapter again and his struggles, as he mentioned his struggles as being a single dad. But, yeah, like reading this chapter, I was like I do not like this man. I want to give him grace because he's writing about his wife and she just died and I'm sure this is like difficult to remember and write about. But I did not like him and then, as I was doing more research on him, especially and I hadn't even finished the book yet, I was like I need to see what is going on. As the book went on well, I hadn't even finished the book yet, I was like I need to see what is going on. As the book went on well, I don't know honestly if, like, as the book went on, I softened up to him or if it was like finding out this research, feeling better about who he is and then going back and that helped soften it up as I continued reading. So I don't know.
Speaker 1:But yeah, he does have very pretentious thoughts on music, like, like he's one of those people and I really don't like these people in general, but they exist, so he's one of those of like my taste in music is better than yours and I like the most indie of the indie stuff and anything that you like that is not indie, that is so mainstream. Like you have the worst taste in music ever and I hate it. And yeah, that's annoying, I do completely understand that, but, like there was at one point, at this point Liz is still alive, she has given birth and Matthew has gone to see Maddie in the NICU and this is the first time visiting Maddie in the NICU and so he goes and he's talking about how the doctor is, explaining what all the different tubes in Maddie are, and he's talking about the one that is attached to her stomach Because she was born prematurely. She does not have the ability to suck and swallow just yet.
Speaker 1:And Matt makes a note or a joke in which he's like I was like so worried about my daughter that I couldn't even appreciate the double entendre of what the doctor just said and I was like dude, you're talking about your daughter, who's your newborn daughter who's in the NICU. Like that's gross man. Like why would you even say that? I don't know. I also don't really like look, kids say funny stuff and sometimes they say things that can be double entendres without them even realizing it, because they're kids. There's a difference between kids doing something like that naturally and like parent, like not just parents, but like adults. Making comments like that, like that does make me uncomfortable, because it's like they're kids. There's no need. And this is your newborn daughter who's in the NICU. Like that's weird. So, yeah, I didn't really like that.
Speaker 1:There's also a part in which I was like rolling my eyes so hard because he's talking about how they bought like they had two separate diaper bags a diaper bag for Liz and they found a really manly diaper bag for him. And I was just like, oh my gosh, dude, like is your masculinity so fragile that you have to have a quote unquote manly diaper bag? Because you cannot, you just can't have like a regular diaper bag. It has to be a manly one. Get out of here with that. Like that just irritates me to no end. So I was like, oh my gosh, so like there was comments like that that bugged me and did not make me like him.
Speaker 1:His sense of humor is incredibly, incredibly dry and there is that aspect and but I do feel like it was full force in this chapter. Like you can see hints of it in the other chapters, but this one I was like all right again, I'm trying to give him grace because I do understand he's talking about probably the worst day of his life and he's like using humor to cope. But it was still just like such an eye roll when I read that, especially because once he is a single dad, he talks about the amount, the way he's treated, the amount of women especially that are like, where's your wife, why are you by yourself with your kid? Like he was treated differently for being a single dad than being single mom, and like he was denied access to a parenting group that was a women's parenting group. Because they're like, well, we talk about sensitive things on here and we don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable because you're a dad, like because you're a man, and he was like well, but I like you guys because they were essentially talking about like changes their body has gone through in graphic detail, essentially about breastfeeding, things like that. And he was like, well, I mean, I can't relate to like the body changes or like breastfeeding, but like any other insights that you're providing, like that's would be beneficial for me as a parent. And he was denied access to that group and so, like some of the other people in that group, didn't agree with the fact that he wasn't allowed in that group and so they started a new parenting group in which everyone, as long as they were parents, were welcome.
Speaker 1:So he, like he's talking about the way he's being treated as a single father and it's like so like stereotypical gender roles are harmful and like you're experiencing that yourself. So why do you got to talk about how like your manliness is getting hurt by the fact that you don't have like a manly bag? And then he also talked about like how he would get so irritated to see like cause he's like a huge baseball fan and he would go to baseball games and he would like roll his eyes whenever he went to baseball games and there were like little girls in their baseball gear, but like girly baseball gear, like wearing little skirts and having like little pom poms, like jumping up and down and cheering for the baseball teams. And I was like like look at the boys, the boys are just like into the game, while the girls are just like being annoying. Well, and like that was also like I really I don't have like any patience for that. It's just like you don't. You don't know your how your kids are gonna turn out like. You're so focused on making sure that they that every that's like. So what if they're like little, like they're still enjoying the game. They're enjoying the game in a different way than the boys are, but they're still enjoying the game. So why does it matter? And that, yeah, like that, just just that kind of like gender ideology just really bothers me, where it's like like, oh, why can't they just like sit down and watch the game like the boys? And it's like, well, maybe your daughter will be like the boys, you don't know.
Speaker 1:So one speaking of one of the things I ended up finding out that kind of in doing my research that kind of started I was like, all right, he's not like I think this is he's just making some jokes too, because he's like his wife's death is still very, very fresh and this is how he's coping and it's they're just not landing. And because there hasn't been much updates on Matt and Madeline. He used to have a blog, which is how a lot of people found him. He started the blog mainly to provide updates to his friends and family who did not live in LA with him and this was like a quick way to update them on what was going on his Liz and Maddie's life. And then, once Liz died, it was a way for him to express his grief and the things he was experiencing as a parent, and that's like his readership grew and that's when a lot of strangers ended up wanting to pitch in and help him, and a lot of them did, and eventually, like once he started feeling better, he's like it feels weird for me to keep all this money. And so he started the Liz Loughlin Foundation, and that foundation is to help any parent that finds himself in his situation that they they're unexpected widowers and unexpected single parents, and so that foundation provides financial assistance to those families. So that's great, and there hasn't been much updates on.
Speaker 1:Eventually, the blog ended up closing down. He stopped writing it and there wasn't really much updates beyond that. The last update I found was from when Maddie was 13. Maddie is in 2025, 17. So it's been about four years since we've received an update and we are by no means entitled to updates, regardless of how many updates he provided in the past. This is definitely not a complaint against like you need to update us on your daughter's life or no, like he's entitled to like. If now he wants to live his life in privacy with his wife and his two daughters, he's more than welcome. I'm just simply saying that I don't know what updates have been made in their personal life since then, but the most recent update was when Maddie was 13. And it's a picture of Matt, maddie, kevin Hart and Melody Hurd, who plays Maddie in the film, and it's a picture of them on set.
Speaker 1:But it very much seems like Maddie did grow up to be a tomboy. At one point, when she before the age of 13, she was, I want to say, around seven or eight she went up to her dad one day and this is she went up to her dad and she was like I want to cut my hair short, like you. And he was like, if that's really what you want to do, of course we'll do it, but just so you know, people might think that you're a boy and she was. I don't care, I'm fine with that. And he was just talking about, like this, how in all he was of like his daughter's confidence and her sense of self and that is something they incorporated into the film was her tomboyishness.
Speaker 1:So maddie, in the film she doesn't cut her hair short, but she does go to a school, a catholic school, and the uniform girls have to wear skirts and Maddie doesn't want to wear skirts, she wants to wear pants, like the boys. And this is a change that's made at the end of the film, that after a bit of a fight, the rules change and girls are now allowed to wear pants as part of their school uniform. So there's that incorporated. Maddie in the film also wants to wear boys underwear. She doesn't want to wear girls underwear. So that is something else that isn't in the original book or even in the update of the book, but it is something that at some point Matt mentioned that you know, his daughter is seems to be like she's a tomboy and she was even his best man in quotes at his wedding to Lizzie and yeah, so that's reading those things it was. It did soften me up a lot toward Matt and I was like, okay, as long as he's not like forcing these like gender stereotypes down his daughter's throat, then that's fine, and so that's kind of was. I read those updates and I saw it's like you're doing a great job, matt. You're doing a great job Maddie seems to be. There was an interview with Kevin Hart and Matt Loglin on the Kelly Clarkson show where they were there to promote the film and Kevin Hart himself was like at this point, this is when Maddie was 13. And Kevin Hart was like she's such a great kid, like Maddie's such a great kid. So you know, matt was so worried about being a single dad, and I'm sure there's a lot of parents out there who are worried about being single parents. But, yeah, so that is it for this episode.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to think if there's anything else I want to say, but I think that's pretty much it. If you like this episode, leave it a rate. Or if you're liking this podcast, leave it a rating and review. Share it with one of your friends. Let's get our listenership up. And yeah, see, let's get our listenership up. And yeah, see you next time. I don't know what the next book is gonna be. I'm hoping it'll be the book thief, but at this point I don't know. All right, bye, editing uva here to say wow, I can't believe. I forgot to rate it and tell you who the winner is. So I rated the film three and a half stars and I rated the book four stars. So that means winner is the book. Yes, the book is the winner. Thank you so much for tuning in and I can officially confirm that, yes, next episode will be all about the book thief. See you next time. Bye.