The Worst Bestsellers

Every once in awhile it’s nice to read something that’s so bad it truly reminds us why we do what we do. We were joined by Rachel Andelman (of Union Comedy , Improv Boston , 2MB Studios , and Smiling Women Comix ) to discuss The Maze Runner by James Dashner . Listen to this episode on your next long, pointless run! Content warning:  It turns out that James Dashner was dropped by his ag...

What’s new, pussycat? We were joined by Meredith Goldstein , the Boston Globe’s Love Letters columnist and podcaster (and author of Things That Grow ), to discuss Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J. Maas . It’s a book about DC’s horniest character written by one of the horniest YA authors of our time, so why was this book so focused on serious medical conditions? Listen to th...

Announcement : On Thursday, April 14th at 8PM Eastern, we’ll be doing a virtual live show presented by Porter Square Books ! Our very special guest  Margaret H. Willison will join us to discuss Get Out Of Your Own Way by Dave Hollis (aka the man whose divorce was washed by Rachel Hollis ). The event is free and will be recorded and archived if you can’t make it on the 14th. Register here!

The Worst Best Friends have reconvened at the high school carnival! Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, the kissing booth is closed, but returning guests Anna and Alene (aka the Bellwether Friends ) still joined us to discuss The Kissing Booth by Beth Reekles . We discussed Wattpad, why the movie is better than the book, and what our own summer dance prom masquerades were like. If you ask nicely,...

  Kait and Renata were left unattended and their love tanks were running pretty low, so they turned to The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman . This one has been kicking around since 1992, and you know what? Some parts of it were not that bad. Unfortunately, there are also…other parts of it. Listen to this one on your way to your next softball game or fun...

Nora Roberts Month continues with a gracious Southern-style housecall from Heidi and Emily, the cohosts of the Nora Roberts podcast Romancing the Shelf . For this podcast crossover event, we discussed Nora’s 1991 thriller Carnal Innocence.   It’s the story of a serial killer in a small Southern town and aspects of it have not aged well. Listen now to find out how to sign up for a true...

We’re once again starting the year with a visit from our Nora Roberts expert, Christine. This time we read Brazen Virtue , a murder mystery-romance novel from 1988 that has been mystifyingly adapted into a 2022 Netflix original movie. This episode costs $1.99 per minute to listen to via long-distance phone call. Content warning:  This book and our discussion of it includes rape and murder. R...

Another year has come and gone, and Kait and Renata are here to make lemonade out of the lemons of 2021. We each picked our top 6 books of the year and discussed some other highlights of the year. Footnotes:  The Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2021, featuring Renata’s picks for best middle grade and young adult novels Taylor Swift Legends of Tomorrow Ted Lasso The West Wing Fast & Fu...

Our beloved patrons voted on a book for us to read, and they chose The President is Missing by James Patterson and Bill Clinton . We still love them, and we also love returning guest Carrie for reading this book even though she didn’t have to. Listen now before some terrorists delete the entire internet! Readers advisory :  Here . Footnotes:  Unclear and Present Danger podcast Coming up next...

All we want for Christmas is…another celebrity memoir, and Mariah Claus delivered. We read The Meaning of Mariah Carey by Mariah Carey with Michaela Angela Davis and enjoyed our visit to Mariah’s realm. Listen to this episode on your way to visit your lambily! Content warning : This book and our discussion of it contains non-graphic discussions of child neglect, domestic abuse, and rac...

Hold on, Mariah, it’s still spooky season around here for a few more days. We read Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson and had a scary-good time getting to know the Mistress of the Dark (and her girlfriend)! Listen to this podcast while updating your list of enemies. Content warning : This book and our discussion of it contains non-graphic discussions of child abuse, sexual assault,...

After reading Go Ask Alice last year, we were still left with some lingering questions about issues facing teens. Like, drugs are bad, but what about doing occult rituals? Are they okay if you’re only using them to win high school debate tournaments? To find out, we read another book from Beatrice Sparks’ Anonymous Diaries series, Jay’s Journal . Join us for another spine-tinglin...

We were joined by our Caftan Club sisters, Grace and Ashley, to discuss a bestseller that was so bad it had to be removed from publication : Michelle Remembers by Michelle Smith and Lawrence Pazder . The book represents irresponsible therapeutic practices as well as irresponsible journalism, but at least it’s also uncomfortably horny! Listen while assembling your 13-piece evil bench from evi...

  This is our seventh anniversary episode! We’ve been podcasting for  much longer than the titular character of  The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner has been a vampire. We’d been putting off reading this Twilight novella because we suspected there wouldn’t be too much to talk about, and well, we were kinda right. Still, we had a great time talking to our all-time most frequ...

We’ve read a lot of popular books over the years, but this episode might be the one most likely to make men on the internet yell at us. Oh well! We’ve already read The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, and Lynn Varley and there’s no turning back now. Phillip Mottaz , author of The Murderous Haircut of the Mayor of Bel Air , joined us at the local dump to discuss...

Flashback Summer is over, and yet we’re still talking about a TV show that ended almost 20 years ago. We were joined by  Buffy enthusiast Talia to discuss Slayer by Kiersten White , a YA book set in the world of a TV show that ended before today’s teens were born. It’s a publishing choice that confuses us, but hey–the book itself is pretty good! Listen to this episode to ge...

  Flashback Summer has moved past our time with the Baby-Sitters Club to revisit another enterprising teen girl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We read a vintage Buffy tie-in novel, Halloween Rain by Christopher Golden and Nancy Holder , with our guest THE Meredith Goldstein , the Boston Globe’s Love Letters columnist and author of books like Things That Grow and Can’t Help Myself .  T...

  The Baby-Sitters Club’s worst nightmare was a dream come true for us, as Courtney Summers , best-bestselling author of books like The Project and Sadie , joined us to discuss The Baby-Sitters Club Super Mystery #2: Baby-Sitters Beware by Ann M. Martin . Courtney identified this title as a formative book for her, and you simply can’t argue with the results that have come from thi...

This Flashback Summer episode found Kait & Renata home alone, no cool teen baby-sitter nor responsible adult around to monitor their bedtime. Things got a little loopy. You’ve been warned. We read several books from the Baby-Sitters Little Sister series: Karen’s Plane Trip , Karen’s Witch , Karen’s Ghost , and Karen’s Kittykat Club , all “by” Ann M. Ma...

We read Baby-Sitters Club #7, Claudia and Mean Janine and Baby-Sitters Club #40, Claudia and the Middle School Mystery , both by Ann M. Martin. We were thrilled to spend more time with the coolest kid in Stoneybrook, and especially thrilled to discuss her with Susan Tan , author of the Cilla Lee-Jenkins books . Listen to this episode while hiding junk food and Nancy Drew novels around your bedroom...

We’re putting the “summer” in Flashback Summer by going to camp with our friends, the Baby-Sitters Club (and also our friend literary agent Amy Stern ). We read Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #2: Baby-sitters’ Summer Vacation and Baby-Sitters Club Friends Forever Super Special #1: Everything Changes , both by Ann M. Martin. We loved revisiting these books, but we’re...

We’re kicking off Flashback Summer by going to a galaxy far, far away and a long time ago. We read the non-canonical Star Wars Legends novel The Courtship of Princess Leia  by Dave Wolverton with Star Wars Enthusiast Zayne. If you’re a Star Wars fan of a certain vintage, you might be grimacing with recognition here. If you haven’t heard of this book, you might be thinking it woul...

  We wanted to bring some girl power to Celebrity Memoir May, so returning guest Sophi joined us to read No Walls And The Recurring Dream by Ani DiFranco . If you”re thinking that that title is a little wordy and incoherent, you have a good idea of what the book is like. Listen to hear three long-time Ani DiFranco fans learn that you should never meet your heroes, or read their memoirs....

Alright, alright, alright! Even though time is a flat circle, we’re celebrating Celebrity Memoir May and we’re starting the party with Matthew McConaughey’s book Greenlights . The most surprising part about this book was how much we sincerely enjoyed it. The second most surprising part about this book was all the wet dreams. Seriously, this book was wild and we hope that you will...

We learned so much from discussing Rachel Hollis’s book Girl, Wash Your Face with Margaret H. Willison (of Two Bossy Dames , Appointment Television , and NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour ) that we simply had to reunite to discuss her latest book, Didn’t See That Coming . Brace yourself for the most shocking revelation: this book made us cry. Our friends at Porter Square Books hosted...