Julia is truly bamboozled, Victoria embraces that she is a vampire girlie, and they both dig into the context of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, edited with commentary by the absolute legend Carmen Maria Machado.

Exploring anarchism, feminism, and the Cold War, Julia and Victoria unpack the context of The Dispossessed by the brilliant and sassy Ursula K. Le Guin. Join for the sci-fi, stay for Barbenheimer, alien Jesus, and a confusion of Ursulas. Also Julia has minor microphone problems. (She sincerely apologizes).

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 make their case as to why Babel by R. F. Kuang should be two (or three?) books. Point #1: It is amazing, and the people want more.

Julia and Victoria have an epiphany, answer their lingering questions, and discuss major series themes of time and the legacy of oppression while discussing The Stone Sky, conclusion of the Broken Earth trilogy, by N. K. Jemisin.

Julia has questions. Victoria does some digging. They both gain context on the voice of author Cho Nam-Joo of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 and the impact the novel had on the life and politics of South Korea in 2016.

Julia and Victoria lose their minds talking about reality and worldviews in Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

Julia and Victoria talk inevitability and unreliable narrators in The Story of the Lost Child and celebrate finishing Elena Ferrante’s iconic Neapolitan series. They try and fail to solve the unsolvable ending.

Julia and Victoria needed to scream about how much they loved crying over the romantic, angsty sci-fi novella This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, so now it is an episode.

Julia and Victoria parse through all the bizarre takes by professional critics and writers on Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.

Julia and Victoria celebrate their 100th episode by talking about cultural definitions of magic and the complexities of power in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Black Sun.