UNspoiled! Book Club!

Hello, my good people! It's time for one of my personal childhood faves, The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit! Candace wasn't as enraptured with it as I was, but that's okay. I suppose eventually I may forgive her. When I think about British children's literature, this is what I think of. And informal third-person with occasional breaks in the 4th wall (so to speak) where the author addresses the...

RoShawn and I have a LOT to say about this disturbing, gripping, haunting book. We both really felt spoken to by the focus of the story on mother-daughter relationships, and the slow build of mystery and upsetting details is really really effective. This is a marked departure from the pulpy, humorous sort of story the Flynn wrote with Gone Girl; Sharp Objects is like a nightmare that you can't mak...

Alright folks. We didn't like this book. There, I said it. I just wanted to warn you in case you are very attached to this book and have a lot of loving nostalgia around it, because I figure that even something if I know is problematic but I loved it as a child, I wouldn't particularly want to listen to it get shredded to bits by folks who just discovered it. But that's pretty much what Rachel and...

It's the final episode of the main UNspoiled! Book Club list for 2018, and in this episode RoShawn and I discuss Andrezej Sapkowski's The Last Wish, the first book in The Witcher series. RoShawn and I liked the mythology and stories in this book, but we had a big problem with the structure and the way the whole thing was presented. We both listened to the audiobook, which was probably part of the...

Many thanks to Erin Ayers from Over The Tabletop (which you can find out about here : https://overthetabletoppodcast.libsyn.com/) for joining me on this episode of Childhood Favorites! The Phantom Tollbooth was a book that so many people wanted to join me for, and I can really see why. It's a very unusual book that seems to combine elements of the over-the-top style of Roald Dahl and Dr. Seuss wit...

Listeners, Jaime and I are coming at you with an episode on Andy Weir's The Martian, a book which decided that people really wanted to know every last detail about potato farming on Mars. And you know what? That book was RIGHT. Seriously, long-time fans know that I'm super interested in the boring minutiae that goes into fictional worlds and projects, and The Martian delivers on that pedantic crap...

Hey there, you wonderful people! I'm here with Carey Anne Farrell, the author of the just-released Forward March, and co-host of the podcast You Can Go Your Own YA. Check out her book here! https://amzn.to/2SLfYyD You can find the site for her podcast here goyourownya.com and she even has a music site here! https://careyfarrell.bandcamp.com/ This was a particularly fun one to read because while I...

First of all, if you all are interested in checking out this book (and if you're looking for something fun, sexy, and fluffy, you should), here is the link to buy it! It's super cheap as a Kindle book but if you can do the audiobook I recommend it. https://amzn.to/2CKxMoJ Dead Until Dark is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, and there's a reason why it got made int...

This episode I have a very special guest who has been a fan of UNspoiled! from the early days of the show's inception, and who went on to host her own show! Please welcome Amanda Campbell, host of CasterQuest! You can find out more about her show here! http://casterquest.com/ This episode we talk about one of those old faves that you look back on and can't really believe is a children's book. I ha...

I'm revisiting Mr. Stephen King yet again this month, and covering The Dead Zone with Alan Kingsley, my trusty sidekick from Hannibal, Justified, and True Detective. This is one of those cases in which I really enjoyed the book, but I just feel there was a little too much of it. The middle section where Johnny is in his coma is drawn out quite a lot, and while it succeeds in getting the point acro...

I'm delighted to be recording with Craig and Andrew from Overdue Podcast again! This was a lot of fun to do because Johnny Tremain was a book with a lot of issues in it that were strangely relevant to today's political landscape, and while I think the Overdue boys tend to shy away from getting too political sometimes, I SURE DON'T! Eventually Andrew joins me on my soapbox and it's pretty great. Bu...

Hello, me hearties! Make yourself a nice cup of tea and mind the gap, because Miles and I are here to talk to you about Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. Art Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/algesiras/art/Neverwhere-Characters-373759105 I'm so glad that this book was fun to read, because after not liking a couple books in a row, I was a little worried when I saw that Neil Gaiman was the next author on...

Hey there, lovely listeners! Welcome to the first installment in the Childhood Favorites sub-feed of the Book Club! I'm super excited to be doing my first show with guest Rachel Rosing, who is one of the hilarious co-hosts of Beckett To The Future: A Quantum Leap Podcast. You can find out more about her show here! https://www.beckettfuturepod.com/ This was such a good book, you guys. There is some...

Well this was the most lively Book Club episode in a while! Eleanor & Park was a book that I fully expected to dislike, based on the tone of some reactions I got when I said I would be covering it, and on some random commentary here and there on social media. However (and maybe it's just because I was coming off a couple of books I really didn't like very much) I actually enjoyed this book! Candac...

Alright, Patrons, please tell me what I ever did to you? Because this is 2 books in a row now that I didn't really like at all, and the blame lies squarely with YOU, my "friends"! Okay that's not entirely fair, because I didn't hate The Atrocity Archives the way that I hated most of A Dirty Job, but I'm not a huge fan. It's not something that I would pick up again, or recommend, and Krista (who ge...

Hey everyone. Bad news is, we lost the episode due to some miscommunications on my part. On the plus side, I really didn't like this book and I feel no urge to make time to re-record it. So here's a short blurb on why I feel the way I do, and I will see you all next month with The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, which you can buy here! https://amzn.to/2IpUSmU

I'm here with the next installment of the UNspoiled! Book Club, and this time it's Jaime Smith joining me to talk about The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. This is a book from a unique perspective, to say the least, and it's understandable why it's grown as acclaimed as it has. However, I have to be honest. I didn't love this book. Don't get me wrong, it's a really captivating idea and overall I foun...

My main takeaway after reading this book was a sense of surprise at how much of the book was virtually unchanged for the movie, and how much that worked on-screen, while being impressed at the detail of story aspects that wouldn't have been interesting on-screen at all. Basically, if you asked me whether the book or the movie was better, I wouldn't be able to answer because I feel that they were e...

In which RoShawn and I discuss white fragility and the realities of racism.

My apologies for the lateness on this post! I had some sound issues and then my site got hacked, so I had it posted to Patreon but forget to schedule it for release on iTunes! I hope you can forgive me. And I hope you enjoy the show!

In which Candace and Natasha discuss this delightful bit of fantasy wrapped in a ribbon of interesting ladies and overdramatic men.

A classic haunted house story, this one got a divided opinion from hosts Natasha and Money!

In which the gentlemen from Overdue join me in reading a spooky Steven King novel!

In this book, I think I would rather deal with an actual ghost than Mrs. Danvers. Haven't read the book yet? Get it here! http://amzn.to/2wD8gfl Or get next month's book, 'Bag Of Bones' by Stephen King, here! http://amzn.to/2ezIX5v

The world as we know it is gone, and one little girl must overcome her bloodlust to remake it.