Terrible Book Club

Episode 28 is all about ghosts, mediums, and how Long Island seems to be some kind of breeding ground for psychics. If you're a skeptic of supernatural phenomenon or have ever wondered about the John Edwards and Sylvia Browns of the world, this episode is for you. Oh and, uh, Paris & Chris just want you to know that you have a great need for other people to like and admire you and even though you have a tendency to be critical of yourself, you have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.

Our Patron Dari chose this book as her once-per-year reward! Check out our Patreon here to browse our reward structure and consider donating. Dragon Prince is a basic fantasy novel with medieval internet on light beams, dragon mating details, minor dragon ecology, and mostly decent dialogue. The book is divided into two sections and the latter section is where things take a turn for the terrible. This book does have a rape scene and we discuss it briefly, so be aware of that. If you haven't had enough of fantasy/romance books, here we are again!

You Suck! was given to Paris as a Secret Santa gift (thanks, Coty!) The book has some issues, but ultimately it's a crass and somewhat amusing parody of the ever popular vampire romance novel. Listen to this one if you want to hear us talk about the book for 45 minutes and then ramble on about various other things for another 30 (we really went off topic on this one - eh, it was late and we were a bit tired).

Birds. Watches. Tits. These are things that old men from the 1800s love to talk about. Or, at least famous ornithologist John James Audubon liked to talk about, according to author John Gregory Brown? If you're into historical "fiction" inspired by some dude reading a diary entry that must have insinuated a love of boob sucking, then this book is for you, you weirdo.  BIRDS.

Episode 24 tackles the anti-vaccination phenomenon. Melanie's Marvelous Measles was written by an anti-vaxxer author so parents could easily indoctrinate their children and get them severely ill, injured, or killed with warped ideas based on a misinterpretation of data and science! Topics include outrage, trying to wrap our minds around anti-vax logic, and a description of the "illustrations" in this thing. We don't really want to call the work a "book" or the images "illustrations" since neither are truly those things. There are 40 pages with 20 of them only including images and the 20 with words have only 1-4 sentences/page, so ... you get the idea.

For November, we read a self-help book to help us become smart hos! G.L. Lambert has created the ultimate guide to being a sociopathic fraud winner! Read his book and get your rent paid by stalking wealthy men and lying constantly! **NSFW - do not listen to this at work or around people under 18 because there's a lot of swearing and sexual content**

Our first sequel. Sexy nuns. Demon dicks. Naked horseback riding. All this and more can be found in Terry Goodkind's Stone of Tears, the second book in the Sword of Truth series. In Episode 22 of the Terrible Book Club, Paris and Chris return to the Midlands with a special guest! TJ was the one who recommended we read this series in the first place, so we figured we should have him along to explain himself. We recommend that you listen to Episode 3 that deals with the first book in the Sword of Truth series - Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule - before listening to Episode 22.

Episode 21 is brought to you by vampires, pistols, werewolves, sub-machine guns, boobs, automatic rifles, orcs, elves in trailer parks, RPGs, hulking Liefeld drawings come to life, more guns, and names based on guns. Hope you like guns and locally sourced vampire feed! Monster Hunter International takes Men in Black to a ... different level.   Technical note: Paris sounds weirdly muffled in this one. We think it's because this was the first day she set up her home recording stuff since moving and probably did something wrong - sorry about that. 

Chris & Paris learn that a gluten-free themed murder mystery book exists. Naturally, they couldn't resist reading such a bizarrely specific thing. Topics discussed include people who "don't-have-celiac-but-are-intolerant-to-gluten', plots that ultimately make no damn sense, and the objectification of men.

This book has evangelical Christianity, drugged out rock stars, squeaky villains, and FREEDOM. Have you ever wanted to be converted to a religion by a crazy child fan who has written to you obsessively for nearly 20 years? And then marry her? Dark Star is definitely for you.

When a book opens with a Nazi coming through a time portal in a library in the year 2000, it's easy to assume that the book will be pretty bad. Somehow, though, Aeon Legion: Labyrinth jumps through time to convince us that it is less than great, but not quite terrible. Thanks to TBC listener Anya for the recommendation!

David Duchovny is a female, teenage cow with a surprisingly good grasp on technology. In Holy Cow, he leads us on a journey through factory farming, Jewish stereotypes, and the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Dive with us into the cesspool of Boston Harbor where mermaids make out! Explore an aquarium imagined by someone who was there one time! 

Chris wakes from his coma into a world of unprecedented horror. 

Our 14th episode! Our current book is almost 800 pages, so it's taking us a bit longer than usual to read this one. For now, enjoy the last episode we put out before our hiatus. We've risen from the dead just in time for Halloween. In this episode, we begrudgingly go to space and we don't even meet people from the moon. This book short story disappointed in length, content, and execution. It brings shame to the science fiction genre. The English language is warped and twisted by the vacuum of space that is Dale M. Courtney's 'writing'. This is a very expensive short story written in the style of a child running through a park and shouting about each thing it sees. Actually, that would probably be far more entertaining and descriptive than this awful piece of literary sewage. Thanks to fellow terrible book lover Daniel Canady for recommending Moon People!

Although not strictly necessary, we recommend listening to this episode along with the other Maradonia episodes in the following order: Episode 11 - Maradonia and the Seven Bridges Episode 62 - Maradonia and the Escape from the Underworld Episode 63 - Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir Episode 86 - The Secret of Moon Lake Episode 87 - Maradonia and the Law of Blood We've returned to the fantasy realm with the first book in the Maradonia saga. It was written by a child/teenager. I know, I know - Terrible Book Club shouldn't be attacking children! We're not - we assure you. While this was written when the author was younger, she and her family continue to tout her work as amazing years later. This book/saga has become popular on the internet due to its struggles with syntax, grammar, spelling, and general storytelling in addition to the Tesch family's antics in relation to promoting the book. Many thanks to listener Robert Kennedy for saving this episode and sending it to us to re-post after it was lost in 2015!

Our third episode.

  In Episode Two, we begrudgingly drag ourselves through a sea of teen angst, slut shaming, poorly designed facial tattoos, and racial stereotyping in Kristin & P.C. Cast's Marked. Come, join us in our misery.  Content Warnings: The usual barnyard language, bloodplay, sex, and race/racism. If you'd like to return to the House of Night with us for the sequel to this book, head to Episode 42 - Betrayed (House of Night Book #2) by Kristen Cast & P.C. Cast

This one is for all of you who love conspiracies, chicken-and-waffles, and hot office temps. This was the first episode of Terrible Book Club that originally came into the world on Mar 13, 2015. We even did an ad for The Color of Air podcast!