Bookstupid with Claire and Molly

This is our call to Shane Gillis’ sisters: get meaner. After contributing to The Discourse for 13 minutes, we dig into our time picking apples. Then we head East of Eden to talk about Zoe Kazan’s take on Cathy. Molly provides an upsetting update on what the young adults are watching: Coven Academy. Finally, we workshop new writing: a one-page script from Molly and new jokes from Claire. Go Brewers!

We rolled right from our perfect Friday night, wherein we shared a large bucket of popcorn equitably and respectfully, straight to Joop Studio on Sunday— stopping only for a Saturday screening of seminal Halloween film Spooky Buddies. The fruits of our weekend labor? An episode where we discuss the above, the film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s Verity, Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss, The Haunting of Hill House, Katherine Center’s The Shippers (kinda), and Rebecca Yarros’ Threshing Day. Enjoy, piggies!

Did you know about the word cunny? That’s just one of the amazing details in Ryan Murphy’s latest Monster series about Lizzie Borden. We dig into that this week, as well as Brett Goldstein’s All of You and Primetime. Finally, we discuss the new adaptation of The Love Hypothesis and we’re sorry to report that we liked it. You see how this looks, right?

You’ve caught us at a rare moment when Claire is neither waiting for her hot plate to heat nor giving in to the temptation to poke the water damage on her ceiling. Also at a special time in her life? Lizzy McAlpine (26). We discuss this and steak suppers, DTF St. Louis, Elspeth, and R.F. Kuang’s Katabasis. Finally, for our writing exercise, we went to a talk between multi-hyphenates David Duchovny and Gina Gershon and got a lesson in horniness from the crowd.

Claire fights through her fresh third-degree sunburn to explain the entire plot of Hulu’s Furious to Molly, who’s been busy in The Good Wife universe. Molly also details her experience watching the dystopian Anniversary, starring the Friday Night Lights guy. We also discuss the latest short story from 831 Stories, Vacation Self by Alexandra Romanoff. Spoiler alert: it’s a three-hander.

Salt air… the rust on your door… the pools are closing, and we’re indulging in end of summer melancholy. This attitude pervades the episode, from Claire’s account of her terrible horrible no good very bad weekend that actually sounds perfectly pleasant, to Molly’s dissection of Hal Ebbott’s bruising debut novel Among Friends, to our own writing exercise of the week: summer short stories. We also cover Tia William’s Seven Days in June, The Lost Boys, Don’t Say Good Luck, and a balloon technology you wouldn’t believe.

What would you do with a week off from work to consume media? Claire answers that question with a thesis that spans The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett, Square Waves by Alexandra Romanoff, and the new Anthony Bourdain biopic, Tony. Also this week, Molly threw an event and watched Camp Rock 3. We also workshop some writing, but it’s more like ideas (are you surprised?) Multiple people catch strays in this episode, including Santa Claus and old people writ large.

To write sex (Claire) or plots/characters driven by psychosexual desire (Molly’s still figuring out her pivot), we’re going back to the beginning and mining content that triggers sexual awakenings. Get ready for wig talk, animated odysseys, and the butt as an erogenous zone. We also cover Jenny Jacksons’ The Shampoo Effect, a Never Been Kissed rewatch, and Sterling Point, which is inducing TSITP level mania in our households.

This week, Claire puts aside her abject hatred for the Marvel universe and joins Molly behind enemy lines. We review three new-ish “boy movies”: The Odyssey, Spider-Man Brand New Day, and Project Hail Mary. Molly raises awareness about her new teen show, Sterling Point, and Claire tries to explain the very solid magic structure of One Night Only.

This week, Molly emerges from the warm embrace of Stars Hollow to give us the scoop on her first watch of Gilmore Girls. Trigger warning: Dean. Claire, meanwhile, has been living in a log cabin courtesy of the Little House on the Prairie reboot. Also this week, Claire recaps another thriller with a ChatGPT title, and makes the case for not DNFing a book (with a metaphor that is a JOKE by the way.) Finally, we give a long-awaited update on our books.