like whatever Bree but #WheresFred

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-181-the-short-second-life-of-bree-tanner/

I've been a fan of John Hodgman since his Daily Show days, and I thought, "Oh yeah, this should be a nice, fun audiobook for an upcoming car trip!" Smash cut to me SOBBING down the highway, to the point where I considered pulling over so I didn't get into a tear-induced accident. (Luckily traffic was light.)

(On that note: CW for animal death ;_;)

I'm glad I waited until after the 2020 election to listen to this because whew it really brought me back to that extremely depressing post-2016 mindset in a heartbreaking way. (And yes I know things are still bad etc etc but also, whew.)

Anyway, if you're a Hodgman fan you will likely enjoy this. If you're not already a fan of his I could see his whole "concerned about my straight white male privilege" deal being tiring tbh? But I think he is sincere and thoughtful and I like him.

Hmm...we read the first book in the series for Worst Bestsellers and I ended up really liking it, so now I'm not sure if the first one got boosted by my low expectations or if this one is actually less enjoyable? But whatever the reason...I didn't like it as much and it was kind of a slog to get through. It did tie up a lot of loose ends from the first book

Spoiler

most importantly, they got Doug Coldplay tickets

. Shrug! It still had some fun moments and nice cameos from the show, I just liked it less than I expected to based on the first book.

ok first of all the cover on GoodReads is way more rad than the cover from the PDF I read

second of all, :(

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-182-michelle-remembers/

I really enjoyed this! For me it was a good balance between sweet and funny--any time I thought it was going to veer into saccharine it picked up a bit of bite, and I thought the tragic backstory unlock felt well-earned and moving. And I really appreciated that it valued grief over death of a friend on par with death of a spouse, in addition to showing the real harm caused before same-sex marriage legalization.

I was afraid this would be TOO SPOOPY but it's not really a horror story, more of a dark fantasy kind of thing (which is more my jam). I loved the forced-found family of the adopted magic siblings, and appreciated the intersectional diversity therein. (It's nice that it has a lot of LGBTQAI+ characters including multiple asexual characters, with no romantic plots just background identities. Not that it's not also great to have YA queer romances but, you know, variety is the spice of life.)

Some aspects of the plot were a little predictable to a genre-savvy adult reader but a lot of teen fantasy readers will be thrilled to see themselves represented in a story like this.

This is a really fun concept that was perhaps a tiny bit clunky in execution but honestly if the premise sounds cool to you I would recommend checking out the book (when it's out).

I feel awful for the family of Alden Barrett, the actual teen whose diary was mangled by Beatrice Sparks into this nonsensical mash of cultural appropriation and cautionary tale about the dangers of drugs :(

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-183-jays-journal/

HMMM I like the concept of "gender-swapped Outsiders" and I liked Evie as a narrator a lot but the pacing felt a little off and it felt a bit like...knowing? I guess it's the difference between historical fiction about the 60s and a work of contemporary fiction set in the 60s and written in the 60s, but something about it just didn't quite click with me.

Also similarly to the og Outsiders it kept feeling like one of the big secrets in play should be somebody's repressed queer desire but that never really came up. Still, it was engaging and I think fans of the Outsiders and/or the 60s in general will enjoy it.

I got a little rattled when I read the GR description of this and realized the Series of Unfortunate Events is 20 years old?? Which like...of course it is but also, what???

Anyway there's been a lot of tizzy on library listservs about whether this should be shelved in children's, teen, or adult and honestly I still am not sure. There isn't really any ~adult content~ in terms of sex/violence/drugs but it's adult in terms of philosophic contemplation of mortality? but that was like....always present in the Series of Unfortunate Events. I think strictly speaking it's in adult because it's about the adult character of Lemony Snicket without any children (Baudelaire or otherwise) around.

This is the kind of thing I think I would have loved as a pretentious teen (no disrespect intended to pretentious teens) but as an adult left me a little cold.