Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast

YA horror isn’t just training-wheels terror — it’s where coming-of-age meets fear, identity, and community. In this episode, Megan and Shirin dig into why teen horror stays perpetually popular: it’s plot-forward, nostalgia-charged, and perfectly tuned to the search for self. We trace subgenres (slashers, hauntings, dark academia), talk inclusive casts and queer themes that live on the page without fanfare, and call out the steady s...

Horror fans, assemble. In this episode, we dive into the last decade’s most effective page-to-screen chills and why adaptations are thriving right now. We talk TV’s “Flanaverse” and how The Haunting of Hill House set a new bar for character-first terror; the surprising heart (and heartbreak) in Doctor Sleep as King’s universe expands; how AMC’s Interview with the Vampire modernizes Rice without losing the bite; why The Invisible Ma...

We’re three weeks into Dark Academia month and pivoting from the lack of new adaptations to the ones we want. From Ninth House and The Atlas Six to The Maidens, Bunny (plus its sequel), These Violent Delights, and The Honeys, we map the smartest book-to-screen plays—plus some spicy reader confessions (DNFs, trophy shelves, and the dusty corner).

We dig into:

• Leigh Bardugo’s Alex Stern/Ninth House: Yale, secret societies, class te...

Dark academia reads gorgeously on the page—but stumbles on screen. In this episode, we unpack the big reasons: the aesthetic-over-story trap, elite settings that limit relatability and diversity, and the reality that streamers cancel fast and world-build slow. We use “Wednesday,” “The Order,” and our beloved Poe-soaked, gothic campus imagery to ask: is the genre “unfilmable”… or just misunderstood? We also float a fix—adult animati...

It’s September (aka back-to-school season), so we’re launching a month of dark-academia conversations. In this opener, we map the genre’s core—elite or boarding-school settings, gothic vibes, and a lean toward mystery, fantasy, and even horror—and dig into why secret societies and clandestine clubs keep showing up in these stories.

We compare “real” vs. fictional societies, talk initiations and rituals, and why the forbidden—anythin...

In this episode of Fully Booked: Literary Podcast, Meaghan and Shirin jump into Season 3 of The Summer I Turned Pretty — both the show and the original book trilogy by Jenny Han. They share brutally honest thoughts about how the story has progressed, especially how much they’ve soured on the central romance between Belly and Jeremiah.

The hosts discuss their evolving opinions since Season 1, when the story had a certain charm, to no...

Here’s what we cover in this episode:

• Heat complaints, Halloween dreams, and why romance fits the summer mood
• How a 13-year screenplay turned into a book, then a Netflix adaptation
• American girl, British professor, tragic twist — and a lot of eye-rolling
• Good chemistry, bad writing, weird side characters
• Our 4/10 verdict and why we won’t be rewatching anytime soon

If you like romantic adaptations with a side of chaos, stick arou...

Summer may be flying by, but we’re hitting pause to ask a big question: what even is romance anymore? In this episode, Meaghan and Shirin unpack the emotional rollercoaster that is Colleen Hoover’s catalog.

From domestic abuse to infidelity and infertility, her books are packed with heavy themes that leave us wondering: are we still reading romance, or just trauma fiction with a love story on the side?

We talk about the rise of Hoove...

In this episode of the Fully-Booked: Literary podcast, Meaghan and Shirin close out July’s theme of book adaptations. They’ve spent the month chatting about what makes a successful adaptation, what flops, and where things fall in between. This episode is a genre-focused deep dive where they talk about how different categories of books fare when turned into TV or film.

They kick things off by acknowledging that life has been chaotic ...

This episode of the Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast kicked off, as always, with what’s on our nightstands. Shirin had her hands on Phantasma, a book that had been hyped all over, but halfway through, she was feeling let down. The Southern Gothic mood is solid, but the story lacks that punch. The tasks and trials within it are underwhelming, and she doesn’t really care much about the characters. It’s supposed to have demons, ghouls, ...

We’re dropped right into Adaptations Month, and Meaghan and Shirin are fired up about one of the most talked-about YA adaptations in recent memory: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, now an eight-episode Amazon Prime series.

Right away, we’re treated to some healthy debate. Shirin adores the book; she champions the writing, the twist, and the mood. Meaghan? Not so much. She found the prose pretentious and didn’t enjoy the tone at all. Th...

We started off this Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast episode by greeting everyone with excitement for July and reflecting on how summer used to be a time packed with massive blockbuster releases. We remember those days fondly, when movie theaters were our second homes during the hot months, and every Tuesday felt like a holiday because we could catch the latest release with cheap tickets.

There was a nostalgic vibe as we recalled our ...

We kick off with the hosts’ cheerful greeting and their confession that they recorded the Fully-Booked: Literary Podcast ahead of schedule, joking that it is “the last week of June… but not really.” They remind us that June on Fully-Booked has been all about banned books, and they want to finish with something big.

While scanning international censorship lists, Meaghan notices that The Da Vinci Code has been pulled from shelves in L...

We started the Fully-Booked Podcast episode with some personal updates and our latest reads. Meaghan had just finished The Housemaid by Freida McFadden, a fast-paced thriller that she found both fun and perplexing in terms of what to expect from its sequels. She mentioned how Shirin tends to dive into one author's entire catalogue when she discovers a book she enjoys, and this time it was her turn to follow suit.

Shirin, on the othe...

We kicked off this Fully-Booked Podcast episode by sticking with our June theme: banned books. And this time, we focused on one that left us scratching our heads: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

The 2006 novel was recently banned in Utah’s public schools under House Bill 29, which allows parents to challenge books they consider “sensitive material.” If three school districts or charter schools agree, the book can be pulled statew...

We kicked off this Fully-Booked podcast episode like we often do, talking about the weather. June arrived, and with it came all the seasonal chaos we Canadians know too well. One moment we’re soaking in rays, and the next, we’re back to complaining about rain or trying to survive sudden temperature spikes. It’s the kind of weather where someone might wear a parka with flip-flops and somehow not look out of place.

We laughed about ho...

We started off with a quick update: Meaghan and Arthur are trying out a new recording setup for the Fully-Booked Podcast and, like any of us facing tech upgrades, are crossing their fingers that it behaves itself. From there, they leaned into their end-of-May tradition of a more casual, "free-for-all" episode format. It’s their chance to have fun, try different things, and bring up topics they might not usually squeeze into a theme...

We kicked off this bonus episode with a little chaos and a lot of sass. Right from the start, you can feel the energy between us, part friendship, part roast-fest. But today’s episode wasn’t just for fun. We jumped on early in the week to get something off our chests: Netflix’s new adaptation of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street: Prom Queen. We needed to talk about it, not because it was good, but because we had to process what we watched a...

We sat down this week to do something a little different. It’s just Meaghan and Arthur holding down the fort, and rather than diving into a brand-new book adaptation or a buzzy literary release, we decided to revisit a franchise that’s already earned a place in our hearts: Netflix’s Fear Street trilogy.

With a brand-new entry, Fear Street: Prom Queen, hitting Netflix the same day this episode airs, it felt like the right time to go ...