The Great Obsession

Welcome to our belated June book club! Today we're reviewing Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, a longtime favorite author of ours. We're talking the space race, complicated families, favorite side characters, and how this story compares to TJR's other books.

(00:00 - 15:32) Intro & life updates kiki

(15:33 - 27:24) Spoiler-free discussion & initial ratings

(27:24 - end) Spoiler discussion & full review

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Surprise! After our impromptu two week break we are back! We have a lot of life updates to share on this one including RiLee's recap of her time at the Electric Forest and a full Love Island debrief.

36:30 Books

• Every Summer After by Carly Fortune
• For She is Wrath by Emily Varga
• 
  

44:32 Movies

• The last repair shop 
• The materialists
• Howls moving castle
• How to train your dragon

57:40 TV

• Doctor Who
• Americas s...

To prepare for the TV series coming out, we read the 2014 Tumblr classic We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. For one of us this was a reread, while the other got to experience that insane twist ending for the first time. Suffice it to say we went on a JOURNEY.

TIME STAMPS: (0:00) Housekeeping & life updates (10:58) 1-minute reviews and non-spoiler discussion (20:37) Full spoiler discussion begins.

RATING: 6.25 / 10

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This is a chaos episode that we pregamed with a bottle of wine, so buckle up and get ready.

Topics include:

Books:

• Carrie Soto is Back
• Invisible Women
• Lessons in Chemistry
• Bloodmarked

Movies

• Sinners
• Lilo and Stitch
• Howard (diseny+)

TV

• Secret Lives of Mormon Wives
• Below Deck Down Under
• 911/The Rookie
• 
  

TBR

• The Bear
• The Materialists
• Ballerina - John Wick
• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Unhoneymooners by Christina Lau...

Welcome to our May book club! Korean folklore, melodramatic teenagers, and the chance to change your fate are among the discussion topics for our review of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh. One of us enjoyed this book a lot less than the other, which gave us a lot to sink our teeth into as we tried to figure out why.

Rating: 5.75 / 10

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SUMMER IS HERE!!! To celebrate we've pulled together what might be our longest TBR list yet (we were VERY optimistic about our reading goals). In this episode we discuss books from every genre, nonfiction to thriller to romance and even some books we pulled out from childhood.

08:17 Anticipated reads: 

• Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab
• A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sa...

Emily Henry's new book is here and it's got major mixed reviews, inspiring major mixed feelings in our review. Is it insta-love, or the greatest romance ever written? We talk through the arcs of our 3 main characters to figure it out, then fancast them in the end for funsies.

This episode contains full spoilers for Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry, but no spoilers for any of her other books. No spoilers for Evelyn...

April was filled with research and reddit spirals for us and it shows. This might be our most varied episode yet, from horror movies to non-fiction about women's medicine we cover it all.

This is a spoiler free episode.

3:01 May Book Club

• Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry
• The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh

4:41 May Release Radar

• Lilo and Stitch

7:24 Books

• Wild Love by Elsie Silver
• Remarkably Bright...

Maybe the real smut was the coming of age we experienced along the way. Welcome to our April book club! We're discussing Deep End by Ali Hazelwood, which we thought would be pure smut, but was actually more about the canon event of getting humbled at age 21. (There was still plenty of smut though, don't worry.)

Spoiler discussion starts at (10:21).

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E...

Finally, we get to do what we do best....hate. Get ready to sit down and fill your glass full of haterade becuase we are sharing our hottest takes, from literary throuples and baby on board stickers to self-help book icks and romantasy death threats. If you disagree with any of our takes, fight us in the comments.

This episode is spoiler free.

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Greek tragedies, Gothic novels, fanfiction, and Edgar Allen Poe are all in the room with us today. Sunrise on the Reaping contains multitudes. We're covering themes that stood out to us like propaganda, grief and fate, and discussing the characters that make this story feel like it could be real life. Thanks to our friend and fellow Hunger Games fan Abby Tree for joining us!

Spoiler discussion starts at (23:14).

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In today's music and pop culture kiki: recession pop is back, Justin Bieber is threatening new music, Call Her Daddy is going downhill, and Sam and RiLee have two different takes on something for once. We also share our spring release radar. No spoilers this week, but here are your timestamps:

(08:30) Tate McRae - So Close to What

(11:33) Lady Gaga - Mayhem

(22:20) Selena Gomez - I Said I Love You First

(32:47) Chappell Roan &...

The vibes in March were POPPING. We had plenty to discuss this month and if you're wondering what movies or tv are worth catching up on, we've got everything you need to know here. In this episode recap of all the books, movies, and TV we consumed in March. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for our recap episode of all the music, podcasts, and pop culture we consumed.

10:00 Book Review

• Butcher and Blackbird by Brynn Weaver
• Song...

Is capitalism the great antagonist of society?? Maybe. In this episode we review Liz Moore's God of the Woods. Marketed as a thriller this book is definitely more of a social commentary than suspenseful read, nonetheless we DEVOURED this book and could've discussed it for hours.

Spoiler free review: 4:5

Full Review: 23:36

Rating: 7.5/10

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Goodreads: The Great Obsession Pod

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Are you emerging from your winter bed rot, wondering if your brain is still capable of doing more than just doom scrolling? Are you worried you've lost the love of reading forever? Well in this episode we give spoiler free recs for the books that pulled us out of our worst reading slumps and reignited our confidence in reading. These may not be the best books you've ever read (in fact we can almost guarantee you they aren&#...

Adrienne Young has done it again with her immersive and atmospheric stories, this time in the oppressive summer heat of 1950s North Carolina. There's a lot going on in this story... magical realism, madness, romance, and even a murder mystery! We're reviewing it all today, so come for the thoughtful discussion and stay for Sam's Eamon fancast.

Spoiler discussion starts at (13:01).

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February was a short month but somehow contained multitudes. RiLee is blindly watching Love is Blind and also blindly reading books she should have vetted beforehand. Sam is getting into My Hero Academia, but realizes it's unfinished and has to cope with more trashy dating shows. We're very ready for winter to be SO OVER.

SPOILER WARNINGS: Temptation Island US Season 5, Love Is Blind US Season 8 Episodes 1-6

(07:27) R...

Dont mind us and our ugly crying, we are just discussing Tracy Deonn's Legendborn. This book is one of the best we've discussed on the pod and will be a contender for the best book of 2025. In this episode we take our time to dive into how original the magic system is and how brilliantly Tracy Deonn weaves in the book's theme.

Rating: 9/10

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Today's wild card episode is about how Heather Gay's Bad Mormon exists in a context, and it's a context we know A LOT about. Our thoughts on this book lead us into conversation about Mormonism in media, particularly shows like RHOSLC and Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, and how these play into the public's fascination with this particular religion.

This episode contains light spoilers for Bad Mormon by Heather Gay a...