Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, guys. It's time for us to discuss the best of what we read, our disappointments, and what we're planning on next year. Cyrus discovers they're making good progress on their reading list for next year, but only because they forgot that they've already read one of the books. Sarah tries very hard to connect two works together for reasons beyond "...China," with frankly dubious success. The first ten minutes is actually an intervention about cookie making, and it doesn't work even a little. Goodbye, 2023. You treated us alright, but we're ready for the next one.

Media Discussed:
She Who Became the Sun and He Who Devoured the World by Shelley Parker-Chan
The works of Francis Hardinge
The Hand of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard
The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
Shoot an Iraqi: Art, Life and Resistance Under the Gun by Wafaa Bilal and Kari Lydersen
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
A Taste of Gold and Iron by Alexandra Rowland
Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix

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Thanks to our generous benefactors on Patreon, we're embarking on our journey to read and discuss the entire 54-book Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate, plus at least a few of the extras! And listen, I know we already had an episode titled "Warcrimes 4 Kids"  but these books make Avatar: The Last Airbender look like a splash fight in an inflatable pool. We talk about the psychological horror elements, the body horror elements, the pervasive sense of tragedy, and the fact that it probably shaped Cyrus as a human being after they got obsessed with the series as a kid. Like, really, they almost named themselves after an Animorphs character. 

This is our first episode, discussing the set-up for the series and our predictions for what's to come. We'll be spreading out our future episodes over the next few months, so keep an eye on our feed for the next part of the series!

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This week Sarah and Katie (wait whomst? guest host filling in as Cyrus is sequestered in Spain!) discuss two books that are basically the same idea, prepared two different ways: Comfort Me With Apples by Catherynne M. Valente and The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. We talk about the horror of marriage, the horror of cyclical violence, the horror of being treated like a thing, and the Westmoonster Dog Show, which is the setting of a movie we're pitching about the class system and also a werewolf who competes in dog shows. Thanks again to Katie for filling in! 

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First things first, this is Sarah and I say an incorrect fact at the end of the episode, the Catholic Church actually updated their guidelines for exorcisms in 1999. Second off, hello, hi, this week, we're discussing My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix,  a book I put off reading for so long that it became a running joke in our household. Turns out? It's good. Also, I talk a lot about exorcisms. Like. A lot. Cyrus this episode is doing the equivalent of meditating underneath a waterfall (the waterfall is made of facts about exorcisms). Other discussion points include: girl best friends, the inherent horror of no one believing you, and how goddamn hard it is to read a book at the hospital. 

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Whoops! Your hosts are still totally under the sway of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. This episode, we recap the series as a whole from our favorite characters to which of the cast would bomb the worst at improv comedy. We probably spend a bit too long on that last part.

Also featuring Cyrus's undying love for Jiang Cheng, Sarah's touchingly high-brow fanfiction ambitions, and a love letter to alternating timelines.

Media Mentions:

• Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
• Hamlet by Shakespeare

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Sarah got Covid! She's fine now. But if you're looking for the stuffiest, most pathetic audio experience you'll ever have in your life, we recorded this episode just for you.  We're taking a hiatus from our intended topic because Sarah's brain isn't working. Instead, we're talking about our experience at Wasteland Weekend: a spectacular all-themed post-apocalyptic extravaganza with amazing people that we spent a good amount of time ignoring to try and read more. Sarah discusses the books on Chinese history and myth she read; Cyrus discusses their acquisition of 100 scalpel blades.

Our next episode concluding the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation series will go up one week from now to make up for lost time, and our episode on My Best Friend's Exorcism (that's right folks, Sarah is finally reading it) will go up on October 30th. Thanks for bearing with us through our agonies.

Content notes: We briefly touch on abortion rights in the context of feminism as a whole.

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Y'all, y'all, we're real excited for this one. It's a sloppy lil episode where we discuss the first two books of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Dao Zu Shi. The first book took us months to read. The second? A couple days. Shit picks up and gets pretty evil. Delicious. Sarah talks about the walking source of embarrassment that is Wei Wuxian. Cyrus loses their mind over one man psychologically torturing another. We both do our very best with pronunciations, and we plug the bonus episode on The Untamed maybe a little too much. We cannot WAIT to read more. 

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No spaceships, no magic systems this week, it's time for some straight up Literature. This week, we're reading Less and Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer. The first book is one of our favorites from 2020; the second is a sequel that dared us to ask the question, "wait what the hell could the sequel possibly be about?" We talk about the inherent romance of loving someone's flaws, the charming writing style of literary farce, and what we'll do to get out of social events. And also. America. A lot of America. If you love navel gazing about what America means, this episode might be up your alley. We only sing "Proud to be an American" a little bit and we promise it's 95% ironic. 

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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an elfin asshole with a knife! It's Peter Pan! Or specifically, in this case, Peter Darling by Austin Chant, a delightful romance novel where Peter leaves his identity as Wendy Darling behind to go to Neverland and have a rivalmance with Captain Hook. Exquisite. We discuss the difficulty in adapting challenging (read: rancid) source material, how the original canon traps Wendy in hell, and our ideal casting for James Hook. Despite Cyrus's efforts to the contrary, about a quarter of this episode is dedicated to discussing the 2014 NBC live musical Peter Pan, somehow. Spoiler warning, it's not a good musical.

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This week, we're talking about the first two books of the Aubrey–Maturin series, Master and Commander and Post Captain, but really more specifically we're talking about:  1) how much boat talk is too much boat talk; 2)  is Jack a himbo or THE himbo; and 3) do we want to read 18 more of these. We're both pretty positive about the books while affirming that no, we're not gonna read 18 more. It's a lifestyle commitment we're just not ready to make. 

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