So it’s the last week of Monkalong, and also the week in which I knew Antonia was going to get raped, because it’s not like we’re getting out of this book without that happening. I admit I dragged my feet on reading this section. I had to really force myself to do it, using the inducement of your wonderful comments and the other marvelous Monkalong posts. (Oh, I forgot to tell you, I’m only using Crimson Peak gifs this week, because it’s the greatest movie of our time, yet could not have existed without this garbage fire of a book.)…
14 CommentsAuthor: Jenny Hamilton
I have a lot to say about Carry On. WHERE TO BEGIN. Carry On is an extension of the book-within-a-book from Rowell’s last-but-one book, Fangirl, set in the world of Simon Snow where Fangirl‘s Cath chose to spend so much of her time. And yes, when you start out, you’ll think Gosh this is awfully Harry Potterish, but then of course you’ll find that Rainbow Rowell knows this and is playing with it, and you’ll be all right after that. Simon Snow is destined to be the world’s greatest Mage; but as his maybe-a-vampire nemesis roommate Baz is constantly reminding him, he’s…
43 CommentsThis book is so stupid. It’s good we’re reading it in chunks, because I’m pretty sure if you read it all in one go, its overwhelmingly stupidity would cause you to go blind. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve said “Oh fuck off” out loud to this book. But let’s get in on this. So in the first chapter of the third volume, it seems that Agnes is not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead. Alphonso (the world’s most boring storyteller) takes to his bed in his grief, while Lorenzo believes everything a nun tells him,…
19 CommentsThe Jennys are here to hash out the new genderswapped Twilight! Then we talk about some fall books we’re excited to read, and we review Aline Ohanesian’s debut novel Orhan’s Inheritance. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 49 Here’s the gay Twilight link of which I spoke. Here’s the full, entire live-tweet of genderswapped Twilight. Be warned that after Whiskey Jenny and I recorded this podcast, the live tweet of genderswapped Twilight took a Turn. There was a Great Divergence from original…
2 CommentsI have never been so excited to get back to a monastery. The next section of the Monkalong (hosted by the fabulous Alice of Reading Rambo!) returns us to the titular character, THE MONK, who experiences brief but intense postcoital regret, which Matilda quickly talks him out of. Using wiles. Quote: “Ambrosio rioted in delights till then unknown to him.” Ahahahahahahahahahaha. I would read three more chapters about Ambrosio discovering sex. Ambrosio discovers hand jobs! Ambrosio discovers oral! Ambrosio buys a butt plug! Okay, but then, because THE MONK is a garbage human being and he always was, he starts…
11 CommentsSo okay. If you have read Janet Malcolm’s book The Journalist and the Murderer, which I have, or if you are interested in true crime, which I am not, you may have heard of this guy Jeffrey MacDonald, whose wife and two daughters were murdered and he said hippies did it. A Wilderness of Error is about this case and the many flaws and unreasonablenesses about the case the government (and popular culture) built against Jeffrey MacDonald. Morris has done an extraordinary amount of research into this case, conducting interviews with everyone who was involved in the case and survived to the…
23 CommentsY’all, I was mad at this section of the readalong, but can I confess something real quick? The person I was really mad at . . . was me. When I wrote my post for Monkalong Part 1, I didn’t say anything about Lorenzo’s sister Agnes, who got pregnant WHILE A NUN. In my defense, so many goddamn things happened in the first two chapters that it was really hard to figure out where to focus my attention, and THE MONK was just more interesting than poor old Agnes, as well as being, you know, the eponymous character. Obviously Matthew…
12 CommentsAfter some technical difficulties and life events intervening in our recording schedule, the Jennys are back at last! We celebrate some bookish news, discuss fictional morality and how it differs from regular life morality, and review Patrick DeWitt’s book The Sisters Brothers. You can listen to the podcast in the embedded player below or download the file directly to take with you on the go. Episode 48 Books discussed in this podcast are listed, in order, below. Washington Post on the news of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s run on Black Panther Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan You can no longer listen…
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