Julia and Victoria read a pandemic book called The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller where the octopus is not the focus of the story, but is at the heart of the book’s major themes of captivity and embodiment. Victoria makes the ill-advised choice to revisit some of her early-pandemic journals.

Julia and Victoria get very hungry talking about the trope-flipping, contemporary vampire novel Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda.

Julia and Victoria wrestle with their frustrations with The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki and try to get to the bottom of important questions like, “What happened?” and “Who is this book for?”

Julia and Victoria apply a postcolonial perspective to Ayana Lloyd Banwo’s When We Were Birds, a novel about death, magical matriarchs, love, and VIBES.

Julia and Victoria try to solve the Who, the How, and the Why of Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu and may or may not reach a verdict. Victoria invents a new grammatical tense.

Julia and Victoria enter a dream state to talk about Beloved by Toni Morrison and its place within both the horror genre and American history.

Julia and Victoria try to figure out why their 2011 Harper Teen copy of Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte looks suspiciously like Twilight and why that’s interesting for the genre of Gothic literature.

This week on the podcast, Julia and Victoria try to define just what exactly Red at the Bone by Jaqueline Woodson is about, and after an hour of conversation, they land on “nothing and absolutely everything,” which does not do this incredible and soul-stirring book justice. But it’s the best they’ve got.

This week with There There by Tommy Orange, Julia and Victoria get another chance to read their favorite type of book - one composed of lots of little stories to create a collage of perspectives - this one representing the urban Native American experience in Oakland, California.