Somehow we ended up with another zombie romance around Valentine’s Day for the second year in a row. Paris chose Rabid Heart for this season after her partner randomly turned to her one day last year and said, “Hey did you realize Jeremy Wagner from Broken Hope is an author?” This piqued her interest since she fondly remembers being at Broken Hope’…

Our Patron Beastwiththeleast sent us Lunar Justice through the mail, presumably straight from his colony on the moon. This may be our favorite way of receiving Patron requests. Join us today for a very 1990s version of the future, including judicial malfeasance, musical patents, jurisdictional insanity, and guillotines - in space! We hope you enjoy…

Paris tackles today's selection, which was suggested by listener Deborah, self-proclaimed Unrepentant Sinner! She wrote in to us last summer saying, "Would you consider an episode on a book popular in another era but one that is actually currently being sold to indoctrinate the home school religious zealots? Elsie Dinsmore was popular after the Civ…

Happy (?) new year, listeners. We discuss Chris's journey through the latest Maradonia book that reboots the series entirely, proving that we are all caught in this loop together within the worst timeline. Although not strictly necessary, we recommend listening to the other Maradonia episodes in the following order: Maradonia and the Seven Bridges …

It's the final episode of Season 9! Luna's Edge was self-published in June of 2024 by author Roxana Macias. Just like our last episode, this author contacted us and asked us to read their book. While we normally don't take authors up on these offers, the book was described as a bilingual sci-fi novel which sounded like a new and potentially fun con…

Hail and well met, book friends! We're feeling pretty silly as we close in on the final episodes of Season 9. We travel back to 10th century Bohemia to learn the story behind the popular Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas". Join us for a very biblically-styled tale that taught us some things but failed to get us invested in the characters. The au…

Chris found The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler out in the wild at a bookstore in NH when he was on a trip earlier this year. Considering apps themselves are often terrible, a book about an app seemed like a good candidate for the show. Musings and derailments include: Chris gets really upset about the recurring stereotype of shitty musician boyfriends…

This week we're discussing our experience reading Verity by Colleen Hoover. We selected this for today’s episode because it has appeared fairly often in reddit posts regarding bad books. Plus, we like to try to touch on current, popular authors when we can amidst the sea of deep weird terrible books we cover throughout the year. Off-topic musings a…

We've released this as an alternate episode if today's regular episode is a bit too much for you on this particular day. Please enjoy the audio from a Patron-only video special from 2021 where Paris and The Mothman (Antiques Freaks Ken) play a guessing game that Chris created. You can find the original video version here if you'd like to see us in …

*The US general election is TODAY! Get out there and vote in person if you haven’t yet voted early or by mail. Head to vote.org for all the information you need to help you cast your ballot.* We've released an alternate episode for you if today's regular episode is a bit too much to listen to on this particular day. Please enjoy the Patron-only vid…

This was recommended eons ago in the age of 2021 by Twitter user KirliaHookah who described this book as, “Hey what if we crossed Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Mean Girls poorly?" which turned out to be perfectly accurate. Musings and derailments in this episode include: Chris's DeathNote powers, George Michael Clooney, the Dance of Tables, the li…

Happy Octoberween, dear listeners! In honor of the season, we bring you some spook-adjacent books for October's episodes. Today, our favorite guest Mary Parker is back with the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera musical - in book form! Although it was also turned into a musical, but remember this book is not the sequel to the original Phantom of th…

Julius the Nice Dragon offered us a true Patron's Choice: Return to The Dunks or choose a new path. We still had plenty of iced coffees to trade, so we made the only choice we could as Bostonians. We rarely recommend prerequisites for episodes, but we think you should check out our review of the first book in this series before listening to today's…

Chris read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros on his own and retold the plot to Paris on this very special Twitch livestream to celebrate 200 episodes of Terrible Book Club. Afterwards, we bestow honors on the last 100 books over 11 categories in the 2nd edition of Terriblo's Choice Awards. Watch the video version of this episode for free on our Patreon!…

We finally got around to checking out this 2023 BookTok phenomenon thanks to our Patron Austin, who described Legends & Lattes as, "a cozy and wholesome story about overcoming your past and settling down to...side with the mob threatening to burn down your establishment.” Despite the nerdy theme, the focus today is more on the cozy than the fantast…

This time, we read stuff NOT for TBC, listened to music, watched TV and movies, and played video games! After a failed guest episode, we had to fill the schedule so we decided to do another recap of the non-TBC books, music, and video games we've enjoyed so far this year like we did at the end of last year. If this is your first time listening to t…

A fateful tweet last summer by the author themselves brought this book into our terrible orbit. At first glance, it looked like a short read by someone with expertise in the field they were writing about, so we figured why not? We've never done a travel book on the show! Little did we know: our passports were about to be stamped for a journey on a …

This week we discuss Home Grown Worries by Alex Donahue. We reviewed Alex’s other book, Leon & Chris, back in Episode 114 in 2022; he’s hoping that this is an improvement on that one as this is its spiritual successor. In turn, this episode is our spiritual successor to Episode 114. Once again, Donahue's book has great art for kids and it seems lik…

You may not think you know Mazes & Monsters by Rona Jaffe, but you certainly know its 1982 movie adaptation starring Tom Hanks in his first leading role (which you can watch along with us on our Patreon). We wondered if anyone would ever request this book and that day has finally come thanks to our patron Lucek. Thanks for all of your support, Luce…

Our patron Arrant has requested another non-fiction gem for their Patron's Choice episode this year. In How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big: Kind of the Story of My Life, Dilbert-creator Scott Adams weaves together the strands of memoir and self-help and fills any extra space in this book basket with glue made of lies (seriously, he …

Our patron Of The Void (The Taco Eating Unicorn of the Hot Springs) requested yet another Yahtzee Croshaw book in the hopes that we would enjoy it more than Jam, their Patron's Choice from last year. In that sense, this episode is a spiritual successor to Episode 177 where we return to Yahtzeeworld, but feel like we landed on a different continent …

It's time for the ultimate 1990s crossover - X-Men and Star Trek, united at last! We discuss our experience reading 1998's Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman, as per the request of our Patron Fred. For once, we actually want more romance between two characters and just want there to be some stakes in a story, but I guess that's hard when you're worki…

Our Patron Robin requested that we read and discuss VenCo for today's episode. Although they did not request the Antiques Freaks to be here, we felt we needed their support (and knowledge of antique spoons). Thanks so much for your longtime patronage, Robin, and we hope you enjoy our unhinged review with surprise guests! Remember that if you, too, …

Our Patron BeastwiththeLeast requested that we read Rena Vale's Taurus Four from 1970. How could such a dusty, seemingly insignificant sci-fi paperback have roused so much ire? Get your spacesuits on for a journey through misogyny, weed fear-mongering, and communist hysteria on planets near and far! Thanks so much for your support, BeastwiththeLeas…

Today's episode features a book that many folks have asked us to read, but it took our brave Patron Miles to finally force us to do it. At last, we've read the famous satirical Obama/Biden crime thriller from 2018 and, honestly, it could've been a lot worse. Thanks so much for your support, Miles, and we hope you like the episode! Remember that if …

Today's episode is Part 2 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Paris remembered reading several books in the Dear America series, so Chris chose Down the Rabbit Hole - The Diary of Pringle Rose for our second nostalgia adventure. We actually found ourselves really enjoying thi…

Today's episode is Part 1 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Chris remembered reading all of The Hardy Boys series, so Paris chose The Witchmaster's Key for our first return trip to childhood. Prepare yourselves for 1970s Satanic Panic absurdity in the UK, complete with evil…

We read Butch for today's episode at the request of listener Os who emailed us last year saying,"A while ago, I read a book that, while incredibly badly written, still somehow left me feeling for the protagonist, because all the other characters are (in every sense of the word) ridiculously homophobic. It's called "Butch" by Jay Rayn. It's a "life …

This time, we read How it Unfolds (Far Reaches Book 1) by James S.A. Corey, published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023. Chris really enjoyed The Expanse by Corey, so he was looking through other works by them and found this short story. Unfortunately, though, it had a description that made him think it was more suitable for TBC than for his perso…

Paris & Chris dive back into children's literature and find that Dr. Block may have written some of the healthiest relationship dynamics in all of the books we've reviewed so far for the show.

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! If you haven't listened to Part One, we recommend going back and listening to last week's episode before listening to this one. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northe…

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! We'll finish up our discussion in Part Two which will be out next Tuesday. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northeast, who made time to float in on a bubble to be our …

We've got another Amazon Double Feature for you! Today, we tackle two more pieces of book-like debris that Chris found in the bowels of an Amazon search, the criteria of which has been lost to time: Rathew Love Story: A Love Story by Argus G. Curiosity: A Book for Curious Minds by Bookinsky* (yes, the asterisk is in the author name) Paris goes on a…

Ring in the new year with the Terrible Antique Book Freaks! The Antiques Freaks join us today to do a live read of The Getting Even of Tommy Dodd by William Hope Hodgson, a cross-dressing revenge fantasy on the high seas. We know it's not a Carnacki, and we know it's not even scary, but it's the best we can do having read all the 'nacks already. As…

It's winter holiday time again, so you all get a little gift from TBC! Please enjoy this special edition of Less Terrible Book Club. People often wonder what else we’re reading in a given year so we figured it was worth a brief discussion and rating of our Non-TBC reads from 2023. We wish you a lovely winter and/or holiday time if that's what you g…

Ken of Antiques Freaks suggested that we read this and the time is nigh. Come along with us to Atlantis and Lemuria while we try to figure out why all of sentient life in the cosmos is organized like your local Target. The return of LMJ. Additionally, we are baffled as to why authors never seem to be able to cite a quote from a famous person that's…

For today's episode, we read The Energy Conspiracy by David C Seman, vanity published in 1981. This was requested by our patron beastwiththeleast, who had this to say: "Here's to another year of Terriblo's blessings and curses. I hereby submit my patron book request for you guys to read at some point next year...I haven't read the book in full, but…

We read Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw this week at the request of our Patron Of the Void (The Taco-Eating Unicorn). We bring you a gray goo apocalypse dyed red atop a bland satire about how lame both terminally online and terminally corporate people are. The Taco-Eating Unicorn from the Void would like to dedicate today's episode to his sister, Jade B., f…

Beginnings: A Christian Fantasy Short Story Collection by M.H. Elrich was self-published earlier this year. Chris found it while on an Amazon Short Reads dive and we figured a Christian fantasy collection was worth a review since we haven't read anything from this genre for the show before. Each of the 5 stories features a human-animal friendship w…

This time we read The Golden Basement by David Norman Lewis, self-published in March of 2023. This was recommended by long-time listener, first-time caller Max who sent us a wonderful email recommending that we read this saying, "A few months ago you might have noticed a poem titled "$Reward$If$Found$" stapled up all over Cambridge, there were a co…

Get your flannels, ciders, and s'mores ready for this week's discussion of Campfire Stories of Western Canada by Barbara Smith! Paris’s friend Kristina recommended this for the show 6 years ago and we finally found a nice spot for it on the schedule. Thanks for sending us on this silly autumnal adventure, Kristina! Today’s show includes our usual b…

One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe was written and self-published by William M. Carpenter in 1885. However, Chris found this on a homeschooler’s Twitter page where it was recommended for teaching children in 2023, so we figured it was worth a review. Folding Ideas: In Search of a Flat Earth Science of Our Spherical Earth: Neil deGrass…

The 9th Colony by Colin Curtis was vanity published through AuthorHouse UK in February of 2023. We received an email from a podcast PR rep asking us to have the author on the show as a guest. We don't have authors on the show, but we get a lot of these emails because some PR companies just send blanket form emails without actually having any idea w…

If you're interested in our take on a WWII popcorn spy thriller, it's here! It's hard for us to say no to reviewing a book when you mail it to us. We got a copy of His Majesty's Hope through the magnificence of the US postal system from our Patron EasternSwiss. They asked us to read it for their Patron’s Choice episode this year, telling us that th…

We've got another reddit find for you this week! Paris found this when perusing the latest "What's the worst book you've ever read?" post that surfaces a few times each year in various literary subreddits. In one response, redditor u/lydiardbell explained that Interview with the Devil (Part 1 - Victor's Account) was indeed the worst book they've ev…

This week, we discuss our experience reading Golden (The Golden Wolf Series Book 1) by Shannon Mayer at the request of our Patron Robin. Robin said, “It looks truly abysmal. I can't wait to hear your summary.” Golden is a shifter romance where a wolf is cursed to be a golden retriever and gets wrapped up in the events of Ragnarök (the end of the No…

The Man Without Qualities by Morris Berman was recommended by listener (and author!) O.F. Cieri back in December of 2020. It was recommended to them by a friend who said this book "would change America" and that "we were all going to look at each other differently "- "a new culture would emerge from this book!" Although this book is supposedly inte…

Waldo Beyond the Walls: Adventures in the Galaxy by Bill Shook was recommended by an anonymous fan who has been a devoted listener to the podcast for 5 years. Thanks, anonymous friend! We very much appreciate your devotion. Our wonderful anonymous listener here recommended this book because, “It read not like…someone's first pass at writing somethi…

Chris found this being discussed on various subreddits related to men writing female characters. The book was pulled from Amazon and other platforms shortly after the internet criticism began, but someone managed to save it on an archive.org page. Thanks to them, our minds are now poisoned - and yours can be, too! In addition to our usual barnyard …

Our Patron Julius the Nice Dragon requested today's book saying, “I want to nominate...“First Impressions” by SJ Saunders…It’s the first of three installments in a rather short trilogy I found floating on audible, but it never found an audience. Several years later it has about five total reviews online! So I think the question [for] this book is -…