39. The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas

We're back, baby!Join us as we discuss BookTok's most exciting and controversial new fave, Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Is it as good as the 4.70 Goodreads Rating suggests? Is it as bad as the numerous TikToks calling it overrated would have you believe? Is it just The Fast and the Furious But With Dragons? What are the differences between Romantic Fantasy and Fantasy Romance, and which genre is called Romantasy????Also since we (as per usual) forgot to give the spoiler warning up top, SPOILER WARNING for all of Fourth Wing.

This week, a semi-reverse Prose Tinted Classic, where Bailey has read the book and Katie has not! First we deliver an Extremely Good Summary, As Always, then we go on to discuss Aldous Huxley's remarkable prescience in regards to contemporary consumer culture and the ways his dystopia compares and contrasts the Orwellian 1984 dystopia. We also manage to compare Brave New World to both Pride and Prejudice and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, somehow! And it wouldn't be a Prose Tinted Glasses Episode if we didn't get wildly distracted! This week's distractions include Hocus Pocus 2, anti-intellectualism, anti-anti-intellectualism, and the dumb tier naming conventions of streaming platforms.P.S. Sorry about Katie's audio in this one, she lost her Good Microphone (but she has since found it!)

This week, we discuss Don't Worry Darling, including our weird theater experiences, the extensive drama surrounding the cast and production, and how we just wanted a tiny bit more everything. The movie was Certainly Something TM. Katie breaks down said real-life drama before Bailey reveals how seeing this movie with no background information went. Katie tries to make Bailey guess the twist to another movie at the end, which doesn't go well (for the movie or Bailey.)

This week we are talking about the new book “The Sunbearer Trials” by Prose Tinted Fave, Aiden Thomas! We give one of our patented Very Good Summaries, talk Hunger Games/Percy Jackson parallels, and praise Aiden Thomas’s comprehensive and effortless inclusivity. Please forgive our attempts to Pronounce Spanish Words, and stick around to the end, where we take a Buzzfeed Quiz to determine who our Sunbearer Trials Godly Parent would be!

We'll be honest, we didn't really have a plan for this one. Topics we cover in this episode include but are not limited to:our most anticipated reads for the rest of the year(ish)fandom cringeStranger Things shipping warsthe etiquette of coffee at weddingsCurrent High Fantasy Premiere Television And The Diversity Thereinwhether or not Harry Styles spit on Chris Pineand more!So come hang out with us while we take this one easy and enjoy each other's company!

An episode in which we finally tackle a genre we’ve referenced but never discussed in depth! This week we talk about thrillers as a genre and in particular three of our fave (or not) recent thriller reads from three juggernauts of the genre. Katie tries to convince Bailey to watch some of the Fast and the Furious movies by telling her that the most recent one literally had a car in space (actually!!!) but for some reason Bailey doesn't find that interesting. We touch on the intersection of thrillers and the true crime fandom as well as the growing and necessary discourse about Ethics In True Crime, and wrap it up with some quick YA thriller recs.

This week is somehow also mildly John Green-related as we read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, a novel John Green blurbed as "one of the best books [he's] ever read". We take some small detours to Bailey's Accursed Target and Hulu's new movie Not Okay giving content warnings for an Unlikeable Female Protagonist, but mainly we dive deeper and deeper into this beautiful novel about creativity, friendship, and life.

We're back to finish out our discussion on John Green! We talk about the rest of his books, some overarching themes we think are present in his works, and whether or not we agree with some of the criticisms often leveled against him. We also discuss being Cringe as teens and The Cult of Buc-ee's (Hail to the Beaver).

This week we talked about John Green for so long that you're getting a surprise (to all of us) 2-part episode! In this episode we give you A Brief History of John (and Hank) Green as well as talk about John's first 3 novels, our experiences with them, the ways in which we did (or mostly didn't) misbehave as Youths, and the correct way to spell Katherine. And it wouldn't be a John Green episode if we didn't talk about the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and whether or not we think John Green's novels contribute to or deconstruct the trope!

Casey McQuiston has done it again! Join us as we discuss their debut YA novel, I Kissed Shara Wheeler. We discuss things such as pop culture references in media works, Katie brings up Taylor Swift, Bailey discusses her high school dress code in comparison with Willowgrove, and there is a lot of talking about Paper Towns. Somehow, we manage not to get that sidetracked in this episode. There is no fun game this week, we just gush over the announced cast for the Red, White, and Royal Blue adaptation!