The Shrieking Shack

The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy chapters 4-6

With the 25th anniversary of the first movie and a new show bearing down on us, it's Brands Week on the pod. We take a look at the first volley of press releases for cross-promotional products aimed at 30something Potter fans before getting into our reading. TETOLYE has certainly gone all-in on the adventure story aspects we picked out as the saving grace of the first novel--can it keep up the momentum? And perhaps more importantly: can it make a magical adventure story about bad guys who secretly conspired to invent a disease not as collar-tug-worthy as it sounds? Finally, we attempt to dig into a few more products in the third segment but get very, very off track.

The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy, chapters 1-3

It's new book day! It's a short but sweet one this week: we convened at late-o-clock to make sure to get this one recorded, because the prospect of covering a book while it's (relatively) new is too exciting. Given our dim view of the first novel, what sort of first impression does the sequel make? It turns out... hey, not bad! We're as shocked as you are.

We discuss the refreshingly brisk opening of the novel, the stylistic changes apparent in the opening chapters, and the odd situation the book finds itself in as a piece of fiction that seems to be trying to escape the Potter orbit while still being marketed directly to Dramione fans.

big ass thunderclap is at 6:05

No reading this week! Just goofing off.

Our next book just released the night before we recorded, so we had a bit of a gap episode this week. There was still plenty to talk about though, including an exhaustive breakdown of how to throw the best party ever, a very 30something rant about pop media, and a second round of last week's fanfiction guessing game.

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ideal of Being In Love

After finishing TIUTFFYE, we dove straight into another extremely long acronym. How does the fic that got publisher attention hold up compared to its descendant? Would you believe... hey not bad! We discuss the differences between fanfiction and fiction, the ways characters are warped by popular perception, and ponder what it is that matters to readers who seek out fanfiction. We'll have more to discuss next week once we've read more, but until then we've also got a poorly-conceived game that puts Liz's ship recognition powers to the test.

The Irresistible Urge to Fall for Your Enemy finale

We finished the book! Or rather, the book just sort of finished. We discuss the strange, sudden ending of TIUTFFYE and gather our thoughts on the novel as a whole. Speaking of hole, there's one last explicit scene for the road in these chapters, and it sends us on a quest to understand what "spice levels" are. What makes a book spicy? Who defines the different levels? Have you shared a low-tongue-description kiss with a partner lately?

It's so good to be back! Thanks for listening.

Notes: we don't talk about it in detail but peppered throughout our book discussion are references to domestic abuse in the story; we mostly just talk about how tasteless we found it without going into detail but it's there. This is also, just generally, a pretty explicit episode!Lots of bodily function talk in this one.