This was recommended eons ago in the age of 2021 by Twitter user KirliaHookah who described this book as, “Hey what if we crossed Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Mean Girls poorly?" which turned out to be perfectly accurate. Musings and derailments in this episode include: Chris's DeathNote powers, George Michael Clooney, the Dance of Tables, the li…

Happy Octoberween, dear listeners! In honor of the season, we bring you some spook-adjacent books for October's episodes. Today, our favorite guest Mary Parker is back with the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera musical - in book form! Although it was also turned into a musical, but remember this book is not the sequel to the original Phantom of th…

Julius the Nice Dragon offered us a true Patron's Choice: Return to The Dunks or choose a new path. We still had plenty of iced coffees to trade, so we made the only choice we could as Bostonians. We rarely recommend prerequisites for episodes, but we think you should check out our review of the first book in this series before listening to today's…

Chris read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros on his own and retold the plot to Paris on this very special Twitch livestream to celebrate 200 episodes of Terrible Book Club. Afterwards, we bestow honors on the last 100 books over 11 categories in the 2nd edition of Terriblo's Choice Awards. Watch the video version of this episode for free on our Patreon!…

We finally got around to checking out this 2023 BookTok phenomenon thanks to our Patron Austin, who described Legends & Lattes as, "a cozy and wholesome story about overcoming your past and settling down to...side with the mob threatening to burn down your establishment.” Despite the nerdy theme, the focus today is more on the cozy than the fantast…

This time, we read stuff NOT for TBC, listened to music, watched TV and movies, and played video games! After a failed guest episode, we had to fill the schedule so we decided to do another recap of the non-TBC books, music, and video games we've enjoyed so far this year like we did at the end of last year. If this is your first time listening to t…

A fateful tweet last summer by the author themselves brought this book into our terrible orbit. At first glance, it looked like a short read by someone with expertise in the field they were writing about, so we figured why not? We've never done a travel book on the show! Little did we know: our passports were about to be stamped for a journey on a …

This week we discuss Home Grown Worries by Alex Donahue. We reviewed Alex’s other book, Leon & Chris, back in Episode 114 in 2022; he’s hoping that this is an improvement on that one as this is its spiritual successor. In turn, this episode is our spiritual successor to Episode 114. Once again, Donahue's book has great art for kids and it seems lik…

You may not think you know Mazes & Monsters by Rona Jaffe, but you certainly know its 1982 movie adaptation starring Tom Hanks in his first leading role (which you can watch along with us on our Patreon). We wondered if anyone would ever request this book and that day has finally come thanks to our patron Lucek. Thanks for all of your support, Luce…

Our patron Arrant has requested another non-fiction gem for their Patron's Choice episode this year. In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, Dilbert-creator Scott Adams weaves together the strands of memoir and self-help and fills any extra space in this book basket with glue made of lies (seriously, he …

Our patron Of The Void (The Taco Eating Unicorn of the Hot Springs) requested yet another Yahtzee Croshaw book in the hopes that we would enjoy it more than Jam, their Patron's Choice from last year. In that sense, this episode is a spiritual successor to Episode 177 where we return to Yahtzeeworld, but feel like we landed on a different continent …

It's time for the ultimate 1990s crossover - X-Men and Star Trek, united at last! We discuss our experience reading 1998's Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman, as per the request of our Patron Fred. For once, we actually want more romance between two characters and just want there to be some stakes in a story, but I guess that's hard when you're worki…

Our Patron Robin requested that we read and discuss VenCo for today's episode. Although they did not request the Antiques Freaks to be here, we felt we needed their support (and knowledge of antique spoons). Thanks so much for your longtime patronage, Robin, and we hope you enjoy our unhinged review with surprise guests! Remember that if you, too, …

Our Patron BeastwiththeLeast requested that we read Rena Vale's Taurus Four from 1970. How could such a dusty, seemingly insignificant sci-fi paperback have roused so much ire? Get your spacesuits on for a journey through misogyny, weed fear-mongering, and communist hysteria on planets near and far! Thanks so much for your support, BeastwiththeLeas…

Today's episode features a book that many folks have asked us to read, but it took our brave Patron Miles to finally force us to do it. At last, we've read the famous satirical Obama/Biden crime thriller from 2018 and, honestly, it could've been a lot worse. Thanks so much for your support, Miles, and we hope you like the episode! Remember that if …

Today's episode is Part 2 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Paris remembered reading several books in the Dear America series, so Chris chose Down the Rabbit Hole - The Diary of Pringle Rose for our second nostalgia adventure. We actually found ourselves really enjoying thi…

Today's episode is Part 1 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Chris remembered reading all of The Hardy Boys series, so Paris chose The Witchmaster's Key for our first return trip to childhood. Prepare yourselves for 1970s Satanic Panic absurdity in the UK, complete with evil…

We read Butch for today's episode at the request of listener Os who emailed us last year saying,"A while ago, I read a book that, while incredibly badly written, still somehow left me feeling for the protagonist, because all the other characters are (in every sense of the word) ridiculously homophobic. It's called "Butch" by Jay Rayn. It's a "life …

This time, we read How it Unfolds (Far Reaches Book 1) by James S.A. Corey, published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023. Chris really enjoyed The Expanse by Corey, so he was looking through other works by them and found this short story. Unfortunately, though, it had a description that made him think it was more suitable for TBC than for his perso…

Paris & Chris dive back into children's literature and find that Dr. Block may have written some of the healthiest relationship dynamics in all of the books we've reviewed so far for the show.

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! If you haven't listened to Part One, we recommend going back and listening to last week's episode before listening to this one. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northe…

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! We'll finish up our discussion in Part Two which will be out next Tuesday. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northeast, who made time to float in on a bubble to be our …

We've got another Amazon Double Feature for you! Today, we tackle two more pieces of book-like debris that Chris found in the bowels of an Amazon search, the criteria of which has been lost to time: Rathew Love Story: A Love Story by Argus G. Curiosity: A Book for Curious Minds by Bookinsky* (yes, the asterisk is in the author name) Paris goes on a…

Ring in the new year with the Terrible Antique Book Freaks! The Antiques Freaks join us today to do a live read of The Getting Even of Tommy Dodd by William Hope Hodgson, a cross-dressing revenge fantasy on the high seas. We know it's not a Carnacki, and we know it's not even scary, but it's the best we can do having read all the 'nacks already. As…

It's winter holiday time again, so you all get a little gift from TBC! Please enjoy this special edition of Less Terrible Book Club. People often wonder what else we’re reading in a given year so we figured it was worth a brief discussion and rating of our Non-TBC reads from 2023. We wish you a lovely winter and/or holiday time if that's what you g…