The Terrible Reading Club

In 2014, 12-year-old Payton "Bella" Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them to do it. The girls were tried as adults for attempted murder (Payton lived) and went to jail.  In her book Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, journalist Kathleen Hale looks at this true crime story through a new lens: that the girls who stabbed Payton were dealing with severe mental illness that the justice system in Wisconsin ignored.  Nora and Kathleen discuss the legal realities of this case, how the media portrayed the story and how we can all think about true crime consumption differently. — Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

‘Tis the season for a holiday read, and Becca Freeman has written the coziest novel that ticks all the boxes: friendship, romance, and just a sprinkle of grief and trauma. Nora and Becca share all about their past holidays, favorite Christmas movies, and more. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happyish Holidays and welcome to our first ever TRC gift guide! Nora and Kara (and our awesome TRC community) have compiled book recs for everyone on your gift list — from the youngest of picture book readers to the father in law who you can only talk to about the weather.  Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide children's and YA book recs here. Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide adult book recs here. Every time you purchase through our Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When author Emma Straub's dad got sick, he told her one night in the hospital, “You should write a book about a daughter visiting her father in the hospital.” So that's what she did, and that book became This Time Tomorrow. Emma and Nora talk about Emma's latest novel and the realities of grief after losing a parent.  Read Emma's GQ essay, My Father's Rolex.  — Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everyone knows who Britney Spears is … or do we? For many people, Britney is frozen in time circa 2002. For others, she faded away after 2008 until her gut-wrenching testimony about her 13-year conservatorship in 2021. Much of Britney's life story has been told to us by others: Us Weekly, Perez Hilton, her father, the speculating crowds of the internet. But for the first time in a very, very long time, Britney is telling her own story in her new memoir, The Woman in Me.  Today on Terrible Reading Club's first-ever EMERGENCY EPISODE, Nora and fellow Britney superfan Kara Nesvig (who also created The Britney Spears Oracle Deck) do a deep dive on The Woman in Me, Britney's legacy and the many, MANY people who owe Britney a public apology.  —  Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Crane didn't want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and everything in between. Elizabeth joins Nora to talk about how her views on marriage have changed, what propelled her to write through the sadness, anger and grief, and where her story stands today. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Nora's new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items:  25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon. — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join Nora for her first monthly book check-in to see what she loved, what she's currently reading, and what's next on her list. Wanna read the books? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!  This episode's featured books are:  The Noonday Demon Lessons in Chemistry Friends Like These Weyward The Guest Creep  George: A Magpie Memoir Glossy The Valedictorian of Being Dead No Bad Parts Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Nora's new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items:  25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon. — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Harrison Scott Key discovered his wife was cheating on him, he wasn't about to break his wedding vows. He was going to save his marriage, and that quest involved taking a good hard look at how he'd failed his wife too. The result? A happily ever after — well, sort of — and the memoir How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. Harrison joins Nora to talk about the extremely wild ride called marriage and why he decided to let his wife write the (second to) last chapter in their not-quite divorce story. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Nora's new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items:  25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon. — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nora sits down with author, podcaster, pop culture critic and friend, Kate Kennedy of Be There in Five, to talk about the politics of being a parent online, why we're so quick to dismiss the work of influencers and why you don't need to buy a baby wipe warmer, no matter what the internet tells you. You can listen to Kate's podcast, Be There in 5, wherever you listen to podcasts.  Wanna read the books you heard in this episode? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! The books featured in today's episode are:  One in a Millenial by Kate Kennedy Momfluenced by Sara Petersen Swipe up for More by Stephanie McNeal Hey Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  — Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here. Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it really mean to be a good person? Have you ever wondered why you consider one public figure to be “good” and another “bad”? Where those frameworks for so-called goodness came from? Turns out they date all the way back to the fourth century, as journalist Elise Loehnen found out while researching her new book “On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good.” Contrary to popular belief, the seven deadly sins — lust, greed, envy, sloth and the rest of the crew — weren't actually a Biblical decree from on high. Regardless of their proximity to God, the expectations set by the infamous sins have been holding women back ever since. So where do we draw the line between “good” and “good enough?” Elise and Nora discuss the origin of sins, why women bear the brunt of these expectations and how to reframe your view of “goodness.” Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The episode transcript can be found here or at the episode website link. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Journalist and writer Rainesford Stauffer has a complicated relationship with ambition, and it started when she was just a kid. She published a book, wrote for top publications and never stopped reaching for the next golden ring — until she was forced to. Stauffer spent months interviewing teachers, parents, psychologists and organizers about how they define and practice ambition, all while trying to reconcile its impact on her own life. Her new book, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and All the Ways We Strive, is about the societal expectations that keep us striving for more and the tenuous balance between achieving your goals and burning out entirely. If you were crushed by a B+ on your report card, spent hours practicing a hobby or sport you weren't particularly passionate about because that's what you were “supposed” to do or stubbornly climbed the corporate ladder only to find yourself thinking “What now?” at the top, this episode is for you. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book recommendation? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here or at the episode website link. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Terrible Reading Club is a podcast about great books for truly terrible times. Host Nora McInerny knows a thing or two about this kind of literature, because's she's written several books herself about tough subjects like grief and loss and mental health (and moving forward in the face of it all). Episodes either center a book that deals with Hard Stuff and feature an interview with the author about their work, or feature Nora discussing the many books on her recently read and TBR list. The best part about this reading club? You don't need to read the book ahead of time! But if you want to, our upcoming reading list can be found here. For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Find all of our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. Got a book you want to recommend? Reach out to us at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Grieving is a lonely experience. Many of us who have been through it wish there was a handbook to lead us through the experience. When comedy writer Jason Roeder lost his mom, he decided to write the guidebook that he wanted to read. This episode of Terrible Reading Club is a chat with Jason about his book Griefstrike!, a humorous guide to grief.  Jason Roeder is comedy writer, and he's a former senior writer and editor of The Onion. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  "The Terrible Reading Club" team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on April 25th, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Self-help books sell mostly because they are selling you a way to solve a problem, and the problem is you. It's never something that's out of your control, or bigger than you, it's just… you. But today's book, even if it's shelved in the self-help section, is different. How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis is the most compassionate, most practical, most understanding book about how to do the kind of tasks that can confound and, like it says, drown you. In this episode, Nora talks with KC about the problems that arise when having a clean home becomes a moral issue. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here or at the episode website link. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on February 21st, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our brains and our minds are fragile, and they're housed in our fragile little human bodies that just break unexpectedly. That's where Drew Magary found himself: the owner of a broken skull and a badly damaged brain. But you'd really never know it — because on the outside, he looked mostly fine! In this episode, Nora talks with Drew about his memoir, The Night The Lights Went Out, and the insidiousness that is recovering from a traumatic brain injury. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on June 16th, 2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adolescence is generally a pretty terrible part of a person's life. Being a teenager is hard! It (often) sucks! But reading about teenagers doesn't suck, and one of Nora's favorite YA authors is Kathleen Glasgow. In this episode, Nora talks with Kathleen about her book You'd Be Home Now, which tackles addiction and mental health and a lot of other tough subjects that impact young people. They also talk about being Twihards, because obviously. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here or at the episode website link. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on May 19th, 2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the past few years, the U.S. has been in the midst of a racial reckoning, and though today's book is a piece of fiction it is, like all fiction, a reflection of the real world that we live in. In We Are Not Like Them, a white woman (Jen) and a Black woman (Riley) are lifelong friends, nearly as close as sisters … until Jen's policeman husband is involved in the shooting of a Black man, and journalist Riley begins covering the story. In this episode, Nora talks with one of the book's authors, Christine Pride, about writing a book about interracial friendship. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here or at the episode website link. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on April 21st, 2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Part of what's terrible sometimes is how easy it is for people to hate each other. And how hard it is for people to TALK to each other in meaningful ways when we disagree. And while it's certainly not a phenomenon that's brand NEW, the Internet has certainly made it easier for us to voice our dislike for people in ways that are… not always helpful or productive? Dylan Marron is the author of the book Conversations With People Who Hate Me, and in today's episode, Nora talks with him about why we are how we are, and how we could change. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on March 24th, 2022 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're sent into an anxiety spiral every time you hear the words “climate change,” you're not alone. Everything we read these days tells us that the clock is ticking down, and there is nothing we as individuals can do about it. But Nora talked to climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe recently about her book Saving Us, and she told us that yeah, things are bad … but it's not hopeless! Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on February 21st, 2023 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There are people in the world who were once kids who grew up without the kind of parents you see on ‘90s sitcoms, kids whose parents abdicated all responsibility, who walked off the job, who just didn't do the one thing they were supposed to have done. Danielle Henderson was one of those kids. She's a grown-up now, and author of The Ugly Cry, a book that traces Danielle's childhood as a Black girl in a very white town in upstate New York with a mother who was struggling with her own life's disappointments. She and Nora talk about using humor to address trauma and the importance of foundational relationships. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on November 18th, 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When sickness has become the center of your life, when the goal posts move from “get better” to “live,” you do not simply wake up better and get on with it. In today's episode, Nora talks with Suleika Jaouad, author of Between Two Kingdoms. Suleika was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia when she was 22. A major spoiler for her book (and for this episode) is that Suleika lives. She survives cancer, the stated goal for every patient, but… then what? Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on October 21st, 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Green is one of Nora's favorite observers of humanity, in part because of how gentle he is with even the most maddening parts of human existence: illness (both mental and physical), human foibles and failures. And maybe most impressively, he's a creator who has existed on the Internet without letting it completely destroy him and his opinions of humanity. In today's episode, Nora talks with John about his book The Anthropocene Reviewed. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on September 23, 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Nora lost her dad, her second pregnancy, and her husband in the fall of 2015, people gifted her a lot of books. Why? Because people want to say and do the right thing when times are hard … want to make everything better as fast as possible. Many of those books ended up in the donation pile immediately, but one of the books Nora actually read was by Anne Lamott. Since then, she's read all of Anne's books — including her latest, Dusk, Night, Dawn. So it only made sense to kick off this new show with Nora's conversation with Anne. Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at terriblereadingclub@feelingsand.co.  Our upcoming reading list can be found here. Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co. The transcript for this episode can be found here. Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on October 12th, 2021 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices