In 2014, 12-year-old Payton "Bella" Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them to do it. The girls were tried as adults for attempted murder (Payton lived) and went to jail. 

In her book Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, journalist Kathleen Hale looks at this true crime story through a new lens: that the girls who stabbed Payton were dealing with severe mental illness that the justice system in Wisconsin ignored. 

Nora and Kathleen discuss the legal realities of this case, how the media portrayed the story and how we can all think about true crime consumption differently.

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Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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‘Tis the season for a holiday read, and Becca Freeman has written the coziest novel that ticks all the boxes: friendship, romance, and just a sprinkle of grief and trauma. Nora and Becca share all about their past holidays, favorite Christmas movies, and more.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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Happyish Holidays and welcome to our first ever TRC gift guide! Nora and Kara (and our awesome TRC community) have compiled book recs for everyone on your gift list — from the youngest of picture book readers to the father in law who you can only talk to about the weather. 

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide children’s and YA book recs here.

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide adult book recs here.

Every time you purchase through our Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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When author Emma Straub’s dad got sick, he told her one night in the hospital, “You should write a book about a daughter visiting her father in the hospital.” So that’s what she did, and that book became This Time Tomorrow. Emma and Nora talk about Emma’s latest novel and the realities of grief after losing a parent. 

Read Emma’s GQ essay, My Father’s Rolex. 

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Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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Everyone knows who Britney Spears is … or do we? For many people, Britney is frozen in time circa 2002. For others, she faded away after 2008 until her gut-wrenching testimony about her 13-year conservatorship in 2021. Much of Britney’s life story has been told to us by others: Us Weekly, Perez Hilton, her father, the speculating crowds of the internet. But for the first time in a very, very long time, Britney is telling her own story in her new memoir, The Woman in Me. 

Today on Terrible Reading Club’s first-ever EMERGENCY EPISODE, Nora and fellow Britney superfan Kara Nesvig (who also created The Britney Spears Oracle Deck) do a deep dive on The Woman in Me, Britney’s legacy and the many, MANY people who owe Britney a public apology. 

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Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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Elizabeth Crane didn’t want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and everything in between.

Elizabeth joins Nora to talk about how her views on marriage have changed, what propelled her to write through the sadness, anger and grief, and where her story stands today.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Nora’s new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items: 

25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon.

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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Join Nora for her first monthly book check-in to see what she loved, what she’s currently reading, and what’s next on her list.

Wanna read the books? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! 

This episode’s featured books are: 

The Noonday Demon

Lessons in Chemistry

Friends Like These

Weyward

The Guest

Creep 

George: A Magpie Memoir

Glossy

The Valedictorian of Being Dead

No Bad Parts

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

—

Nora’s new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items: 

25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon.

—

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

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When Harrison Scott Key discovered his wife was cheating on him, he wasn’t about to break his wedding vows. He was going to save his marriage, and that quest involved taking a good hard look at how he’d failed his wife too. The result? A happily ever after — well, sort of — and the memoir How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told.

Harrison joins Nora to talk about the extremely wild ride called marriage and why he decided to let his wife write the (second to) last chapter in their not-quite divorce story.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

—

Nora’s new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items: 

25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon.

—

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

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Nora sits down with author, podcaster, pop culture critic and friend, Kate Kennedy of Be There in Five, to talk about the politics of being a parent online, why we’re so quick to dismiss the work of influencers and why you don’t need to buy a baby wipe warmer, no matter what the internet tells you.

You can listen to Kate’s podcast, Be There in 5, wherever you listen to podcasts. 

Wanna read the books you heard in this episode? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

The books featured in today’s episode are: 

One in a Millenial by Kate Kennedy

Momfluenced by Sara Petersen

Swipe up for More by Stephanie McNeal

Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected]. 

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Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

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What does it really mean to be a good person? Have you ever wondered why you consider one public figure to be “good” and another “bad”? Where those frameworks for so-called goodness came from?

Turns out they date all the way back to the fourth century, as journalist Elise Loehnen found out while researching her new book “On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good.”

Contrary to popular belief, the seven deadly sins — lust, greed, envy, sloth and the rest of the crew — weren’t actually a Biblical decree from on high. Regardless of their proximity to God, the expectations set by the infamous sins have been holding women back ever since. So where do we draw the line between “good” and “good enough?” Elise and Nora discuss the origin of sins, why women bear the brunt of these expectations and how to reframe your view of “goodness.”

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here or at the episode website link.

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