BONUS EPISODE FROM THE VAULT! For this month’s guest episode, Stephanie and Hannah are joined by their good friend and fellow reader, Ann Marie, to discuss a book that Ann Marie loved and Stephanie hated: The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. (Hannah hasn’t read it, but we all know she doesn’t care about spoilers.) Join these three friends as they discuss print vs. audio books, the perils of listening to books at work, and the awkwardness of dragon sex (yes, you read that right) in this New...

BONUS EPISODE FROM THE VAULT This month, Hannah shares with Stephanie summaries and reviews of some of the worst-rated books on Goodreads. There is no “might” about how much these reviewers hate these books! Join the ladies as they discuss everything from authors behaving badly on social media to the perils of self-publishing.  Write to us at [email protected] Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SURPRISE! We've released another BONUS EPISODE FROM THE VAULT! This month, Stephanie and Hannah make good on a previous idea and review the movie adaptation of one of the books featured on the show. Together they watched the 2017 adaptation of Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending, and then reconvened to answer the all-important question: Was the book really better than the movie? Support this show by subscribing and leaving a review!  You can support us on Patreon at...

SURPRISE! An episode from the vault! For this June’s guest episode, Stephanie and Hannah again return to their book club and invite English professor, Dr. Loren Warf, to share two books: one that she loved to read but hated to teach, and another that she loved to teach but hated to read. Join these three friends as they discuss Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Neal Shusterman’s Scythe, and what there is to love and hate about both.  Support this show by subscribing and leaving a review!  You can...

SURPRISE! An episode from the vault! For this month’s bonus topical episode, Hannah and Stephanie share all the other books they’re reading. You know, the books they actually choose for enjoyment. Join them as they discuss everything from celebrity memoirs to parenting books to collections of short stories and more! Support this show by subscribing and leaving a review!  You can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/hatethisbookpod  Follow us on Twitter and Instagram  Write to us...

SURPRISE! An episode from the vault! For May’s bonus guest episode, Stephanie and Hannah invite their friend and fellow book club member, Marla Record, to the show. Marla asked Hannah and Stephanie to read Abbott, the limited run comic series about a Black female detective in Detroit in the 1970s who encounters not only systemic racism, but a supernatural threat to her city. Join the ladies this month as they have a lively discussion about the medium of comics and graphic novels (and why you...

SURPRISE! An episode from the vault! For this April’s bonus topical episode, Stephanie and Hannah sit down with their friend Kacye to discuss common tropes in the genres they love! As they enumerate the tropes they love and, of course, hate from the romance, fantasy, and thriller genres, they find they have more in common than they thought.   Support this show by subscribing and leaving a review!  You can support us on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/hatethisbookpod  Follow us on Twitter...

This week, Hannah takes Stephanie back to their very first episode by assigning another Kazuo Ishiguro novel, The Buried Giant. Will Stephanie hate this one as much as she disliked Never Let Me Go?  In post-Arthurian Britain, where a dragon sleeps guarded by Sir Gawain and a mist of forgetfulness covers the land, an elderly couple named Axl and Beatrice search for their son. As they encounter neighbors who can no longer remember the war that once pitted them against each other, the couple...

36. A History of Wild Places This week, Stephanie assigns Hannah another thriller: A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw. Will Hannah hate this thriller as much as some of the previous Stephanie has made her read?  Maggie, a children’s author, goes missing in the woods. Travis, a private detective with a supernatural gift, follows her in the dead of winter. And Theo, his wife Calla, and her blind sister Bee, live in a mysterious commune called Pastoral, trying to avoid a deadly disease...

This week, Hannah takes Stephanie back to her childhood with the podcast’s first children’s book: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster! But will adult Stephanie have enough whimsy to enjoy the ride into the Lands Beyond?  Milo, home from school with nothing to do, is bored. Then a mysterious package arrives in his room, taking him to the Kingdom of Wisdom bereft of its Princesses, Rhyme and Reason. Milo’s journey to restore the princesses is rife with word-play and whimsical adventures as...

SURPRISE! An episode from the vault! For April's bonus guest episode, Hannah and Stephanie sit down with Hannah’s husband, Brandyn! He has decided to attempt to “unite” them by bringing two books, one they will both love and one they will both hate (though he loves them both). Join them as they discuss Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir and Embassytown by China Mieville (and see if you can guess which one Brandyn thinks both ladies will hate).  Support this show by subscribing and leaving a...

This week, Stephanie tries again to help Hannah see the popular appeal of author Jodi Picoult by assigning her friend to read the novel Wish You Were Here. Will Hannah simply wish she was reading something else?  Diana lives and works in New York City in March of 2020. She and her boyfriend Finn, who is a surgical resident at an NYC hospital, have been planning a vacation to the Galapagos Islands for months, but when the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic begin to affect the city’s...

This week, Hannah assigns Stephanie her first nonfiction read for the podcast: Lynne Truss’s 2003 “runaway bestseller” Eats, Shoots and Leaves. But will Stephanie simply want to run away from this very British book about punctuation? What’s the difference between a panda who eats shoots and leaves and a panda who eats, shoots, and leaves? The first is holding bamboo while the second is holding a gun, of course! In her book that takes its name from this joke, Lynne Truss discusses the history,...

To wrap up June, Stephanie assigned Hannah a book that she thinks her friend will love, but that she herself hated. Will Hannah like Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney as much as Stephanie hated it, or will this assignment simply be a mutual rant between friends?  Frances and Bobbi, female college students in Dublin, are best friends with a romantic history and a creative connection. As they perform spoken-word poetry throughout the city, they catch the attention of author and...

When Hannah read Naomi Alderman’s The Power, she was not a fan. However, she thought Stephanie might be. Will she be correct?  One day, women around the world wake up and realize they have a new physical power: the ability to conduct electricity through their hands. This evolutionary leap leads to an upheaval of cultural and social structures world-wide as women take back the power that has been withheld from them in places like government, business, media, and religion. But the things that...

Stephanie thinks Hannah will love–or at least, not hate–Laura Sebastian’s take on the Arthurian legend, Half Sick of Shadows. Will Stephanie’s prediction, unlike many of the Lady of Shalott’s visions in the novel, come true?  Elaine, only daughter of the kingdom of Shalott, has a secret: she sees visions of the future. After leaving her oppressive mother in the court of Camelot, Elaine grows up on the fay-inhabited island of Avalon alongside Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, and Morgana. When the...

We're releasing this guest episode from the vault! For the March 2023 bonus guest episode, Hannah and Stephanie sat down with Hannah’s sister! Rachel is a public school librarian, and Hannah asked her to bring a book that she loves and a book she hates from her YA shelves to share with the podcast. Join these three ladies as they discuss the joys and frustrations that sometimes accompany reading!  Support this show by subscribing and leaving a review!  You can support us on Patreon at...

This June we’re breaking the formula! Hannah and Stephanie each assign the other a book that they think their friend will like. Hannah’s pick for Stephanie is a book she has wanted her to read since they were in college together: Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. As she begins her freshman year of high school, Melinda is coping with a trauma that is not immediately apparent to the reader, but is revealed to be a sexual assault by an older classmate at a party during the summer. In shock after...

This week Stephanie makes yet another attempt at romance, assigning Hannah to read Lyssa Kay Adams’ The Bromance Book Club. Will she finally find a romance that Hannah doesn’t hate? Gavin and Thea Scott’s marriage is in jeopardy. The final straw is Gavin’s revelation that his wife has been faking it in the bedroom during their three-year marriage. Then Gavin’s friends and fellow MLB teammates bring him help from the most unlikely of places: an induction into their club of men who read romance...

To get back at Stephanie for assigning her a sad book, Hannah assigns Stephanie Yu Miri’s Tokyo Ueno Station. Will Stephanie find its bleak story as upsetting as Hannah found The Four Winds?  Kazu has lived his whole life in poverty, resulting in his last place of residence being a makeshift tent outside Ueno Station in Tokyo. As a ghost, he continues to reside in this busy park and must now contemplate the life–or lack thereof–he left behind. Join Hannah and Stephanie this week as they...

This week Stephanie assigns Hannah to read Blake Crouch’s sci-fi thriller Upgrade. But will Hannah be thrilled with it at all? In a near-future world, genetic modifications have been outlawed after an environmental experiment gone wrong wipes out a large portion of the Earth’s population. Then Logan Ramsey, son of the geneticist behind the Great Famine and agent for the Gene Protection Agency, receives an illegal genetic upgrade and the resources to expose all of humanity to it. Now he has to...

This week Hannah takes Stephanie to the British countryside with Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle. Will Stephanie be enchanted by its quaintness, repulsed by its decaying aristocracy, or just plain bored?  Cassandra Mortmain lives with her impoverished family in a crumbling castle, but attempts to keep her spirits up by “capturing” it all in a series of diaries. When an American family moves in nearby, and their sons begin to take an interest in Cassandra and her sister Rose, the Mortmain...

This week Stephanie assigns Hannah The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah, not knowing that Hannah has a particular aversion for historical fiction set during the Dust Bowl. Will Hannah be so depressed by this Depression-era novel that she hates it? Elsa Martinelli has struggled her entire life to be loved. She endures not only a hasty marriage and a headstrong daughter, but the trials of the Dust Bowl and subsequent hardships of becoming a migrant worker. Join Stephanie and Hannah this week as...

This week Hannah assigns Stephanie the first book in a series…again. Will Stephanie be as reluctant to recommend Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake as she was to begin reading it? Snowman believes he is the last human, living in trees and keeping watch over a humanoid species he calls “Crakers.” As his present day narrative unfolds, which is part survival story, part weird documentary of the Crakers and their budding culture, Snowman reflects on the events that brought him to this state. Join...