in this podcast episode we are starting the year fresh and making brazen attempts to overhaul our lives and identities. our podcast book selection for January 2025 is Atomic Habits by James Clear. this is a book that promises to 'reveal practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones and master the tiny behaviours that lead to remarkable results'. we discuss our 2025 ins and outs, lofty reading aspirations, wellness and diet culture, gingerbread houses, spice tolerance, the TikTok bean soup fiasco and, of course, weigh in with our thoughts on Atomic Habits by James Clear. p.s. we hope you enjoy the rain ASMR (it was bucketing down when we recorded this episode).

synopsis music by Dvir Silver    

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make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

this episode we are bringing the cringe and chaos of a work christmas party to talk lit, get hit podcast for our annual “talk lit, get lit” drinking and podcasting extravaganza. for our last bonus chapter of the year, we are discussing none other than life and death by Stephenie Meyer. the booktok twilight renaissance continues as we pull apart the literary masterpiece that was promised to be midnight sun but instead ended up as a gender bent twilight reimagining.  we drink spiced ginger beers, crunch on pebble ice, clink glasses, demand justice for bella and have lots to say about the stars of the show - beaufort swan and edythe cullen.

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choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

here comes the Bride - fair, fat and vying for a chance at redeeming Ali Hazelwood in the eyes of Bridget and Laura. coming off the back of our somewhat negative reading experience of The Love Hypothesis, we are back for another slice with Bride by Ali Hazelwood. in this episode we contend with vampire and were customs, Ali Hazelwood's writing process and honing of her craft, rat kings, the dark recesses of Reddit, comparisons to Twilight (naturally) and of course... knotting. join us as we untangle all of the ins and outs of the inter-species, marriage-of-convenience, fantasy romance and try to bestow it with the ultimate rating: lit or shit?

synopsis music by Peter Barbaix

special things mentioned in the episode:

• celebrity memoir book club podcast
• the shit no one tells you about writing podcast
• how I combine plotting and pantsing in my writing
• how do knots work?
• the unofficial guide to the omegaverse
• a/b/o alpha's knot and omega's...butt full anatomy
• rat king

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

welcome to rooney-verse... where all your dreams come true... niverse. in this bonus episode we discuss all things sally rooney. from 'normal people' and 'conversations with friends' to 'beautiful world, where are you' and her latest grown-up work, 'intermezzo' - no thin grey cardigan or email chain is left unturned! heralded as "salinger for the snapchat generation", and of the first "great millennial writers", we talk about how reblogging quotes on tumblr primed us perfectly to enjoy the literary stylings of sally rooney. the episode ends on a sentimental note, chatting about the things that bring our lives hoy and meaning in the face of an uncertain future.

synopsis music by peter barbaix

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

hold on tight to your zip lines because we're taking a trip back to the world of divergent for this special throwback/nostalgia episode! in honor of nostalgic november (coined just now, by us), we’re diving into Veronica Roth's iconic dystopian debut, a novel that once had us all choosing between factions and fantasising about fear landscapes. 

in this episode, we’re not just talking about the book — we’re discussing all the literary works that raised us. from tamora pierce and meg cabot to paul jennings and andy griffiths, we lay it all on the table including all of our listener suggestions. 

join us as we revisit the world of dauntless, abnegation, amity, erudite, and candor and explore the highs and lows of YA dystopia, and where divergent stands in the legacy of books like the hunger games and the maze runner.

synopsis music by Amir Firouzfard

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

this episode we dip into the dark, mysterious and deeply online realms of fan fiction to tackle one of the most popular and controversial fan fictions of all time - Manacled by SenLinYu. we discuss the enduring appeal of Dramione, the good girl x bad boy trope, and navigating a post-J.K. Rowling Harry Potter World. special mentions to the internet's most controversial husband Lucky-Blue Smith, Draco Malfoy as a toothpick chewer and one of the Nine Network's finest accomplishments - Sea Patrol. 

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

this episode has us feeling spooked to the core as we dip our toes into the bone-chilling waters of the mystery/thriller genre. for the month of October we are reading A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson and asking ourselves the age old question: how spooky is too spooky?

we explore a variety of accents, apologise for past and present (and future) judgements on American listeners, talk dead dogs, precocious teens, the audiobook listening experience and the pitfalls of Young Adult fiction.

books mentioned in this episode:
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder - Holly Jackson
Eileen - Otessa Moshfegh
Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
None of This is True - Lisa Jewel
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Steig Larsson
Rosemary's Baby - Ira Levin
Stone Cold Fox - Rachel Coller Croft
Darling Girls - Sally Hepworth
Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Sharp Object - Gillian Flynn
Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng

synopsis music by Francesco Biondi

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

one slump to rule them all, one slump to find them. one slump to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. if you, like us, have found yourself caught in the shackles of a mid-year reading slump then find comfort in this episode. we discuss our respective months-long slumps, the perfect formula to finding a book that will lift us out of the murky depths of literary ambivalence and try to define what exactly it is that makes a book a real stinker and the circumstances that lead to a slump in the first place. 

books mentioned:

big little lies - lianne moriarty
the bad beginning - lemony snicket 
the perks of being a wallflower - stephen chbosky
green dot - madeleine grey
love and virtue - diana reid
the rachel incident - caroline o'donoghue
olive kitteridge - elizabeth strout  
no hard feelings - genevieve novak
the paper palace - miranda cowly-heller
twilight - stephenie meyer
the goldfinch - donna tartt
the list - yomi adagoke
the imaginary friend - steven chbosky
the burning chambers - kate mosse
the white album - joan didion
the luminaries - elena catton
a court of silver flames - sarah j. maas
all the light we cannot see - anthony doerr
midnight sun - stephenie meyer    

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

this episode we dive into the immaculately shiny and mirrored world of Sally Thorne's debut novel, The Hating Game. this book won the vote for our Australian fiction month and we are left to answer the question: will the charms of an Australian author be enough to save this book from our better judgement? we talk smurfs, the tiny girl x big man trope, in appropriate office behaviour, weigh in on the Goodreads reviews and Bridget makes an elaborate analogy involving a horse blanket. have we finally found an enemies-to-lovies romance novel to crack open our cold, cynical hearts? or will the hating game end up as just another book we love to hate?

articles mentioned: Meet Sally Thorne
synopsis music by Oleksii Kaplunskyj  

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.

welcome to our inaugural talk lit with us episode! this episode we asked you for your controversial opinions, hot takes or just something you needed to get off your chest and boy, did you deliver. in this episode we weigh in on colleen hoover and it ends with us, beyonce, suzanne collins’ new novel, red, white and royal blue, heartstopper, a little life and midnight sun.

spoilers and your hot take time stamps:

1:26 - people changed their tune about it ends with us movie when the trailer dropped
12:03 - colleen hoover is for women who don't read
17:15 - beyonce is overrated?
22:12 - red, white and royal blue is the worst book
25:35 - heartstopper is the second-worst book
29:42 - sunrise on the reaping (the ballad of songbirds and snakes and hunger games spoilers)
33:25 - gone girl is one of the most boring books ever
34:38 - a little life deserves no hype and serves no purpose but trauma
40:18 - midnight sun = best twilight book

articles mentioned:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jan/09/hanya-yanagihara-to-paradise-interview-a-little-life

https://www.vulture.com/article/hanya-yanagihara-review.html



please note: this episode was recorded prior to the release of the it ends with us movie and the ensuing justin baldoni and blake lively movie promotion discourse. 

if you, or anyone you know are experiencing domestic violence, you can contact 1800 RESPECT

send us questions, things you want us to speak about or just say hi!

choose our next podcast read by going here and voting in the first week of each month!

make sure you subscribe to hear our groundbreaking thoughts as soon as they are unleashed. if you want to be on the same page as us, follow us at talklit.gethit on Instagram and TikTok.

theme music born from the creative genius of Big Boi B.

talk lit, get hit are reading and recording on Giabal, Jagera, Jarowair & Turrbal lands. we acknowledge the cultural diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and pay respect to Elders past, present and future. always was, always will be.