The Hot List March 2026

Summary

Book Riot – The Podcast

Episode: The Hot List March 2026 (March 18, 2026)

Hosts: Jeff O’Neal & Rebecca Schinsky

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Episode Overview

The March 2026 “Hot List” episode brings Book Riot fans a once-Patreon-exclusive format, now available to all, rounding up the most talked about, bestselling, and culturally significant books and publishing events of the past month. Hosts Jeff O’Neal and Rebecca Schinsky take listeners through the publishing “state of play,” traversing everything from blockbuster new releases and viral preorders, to adaptation buzz, indie sleeper hits, and industry quirks. The tone is witty, informed, and reader-centric—a lively conversation between two deeply engaged book experts.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What is the Hot List?

• Purpose: Presents a snapshot of what's making waves in the publishing world, driven by sales, buzz, awards, adaptations, and online engagement—not pure speculation like the "It Books" format.
• Scope: Mix of new releases, enduring bestsellers, books getting a revival via adaptations, and even controversy-driven hits.
• Rebecca: “It’s a way of capturing like what’s trending, what’s in the zeitgeist—a companion to the IT books. ...Some of the books on the Hot List are new this month or very recent releases. Some of them aren’t out yet. Some…have had either a new relevance bump or have been sticking around for a while. So there's a little bit of everything.” (02:31)

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2. Blockbuster Pre-Orders: Sarah J. Maas and ACOTAR 6 & 7

• Announcement: "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series, books six and seven, were announced at the end of a 'Call Her Daddy' podcast episode.
  • Book 6 and 7 set for release October 27, 2026, and January 12, 2027, respectively.
• Sales Phenomenon: Preorders are already dominating bestseller lists—unusually, before official release.
  • “Pre-orders are crashing lists to the point of maybe breaking them.” – Jeff (07:20)
  • Rebecca: “ACOTAR 6 and 7 were both on the USA Today bestsellers list last week and that should not happen… Not at all shocking that they have the kind of preorders to put them onto this.” (08:00)
• Critical Reflexion: Discussion about how pre-order sales are counted (or should be) on bestseller lists.
  • Jeff: “Should we do this with preorder sales? If a book’s sold, then credit it. What are we doing? …This is nuts.” (09:36)
  • Rebecca: “Maybe a separate chart would be interesting—as sort of an anticipation metric.” (10:04)

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3. Upcoming Notables: Taipei’s Story by R.F. Kuang

• About: Coming-of-age novel set in Taipei; Kuang’s first realistic, non-speculative fiction with younger protagonists.
• Kuang’s Prolificacy: Continues to impress with genre range, productivity, and literary ambition.
  • Jeff: “We’re totally chill about the productivity of RF Kuang at this stage.” (12:05)
  • Rebecca: “She’s incredible. This one’s only 288 pages, which I know you love to hear.” (12:10)
• Appeal: Cover and vibe echoes cozy, culturally specific fiction—a rising trend in the U.S. market.

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4. Indie Bookstore Phenomena: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

• About: Epistolary novel following a retired woman’s relationships, full of wit, warmth, and slow-building revelations.
  • Jeff: “This feels like a good old-fashioned indie like Bel Canto or The Lovely Bones...One thing we have liked recently is when people don’t tell you what’s going on. …That’s very cool.” (16:04)
• Success: Now #1 on NYT and PW hardcover fiction lists almost a year after publication; a word-of-mouth, book club and indie darling.
  • Rebecca: “Shortlisted for the Indies Choice Award…expect this will be continuing to appear on the list for several months.” (18:11)
  • “The easiest Mother’s Day purchase for someone who likes book that’s ever—I think they cooked it up in a petri dish...” (18:34)

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5. Kin by Tayari Jones

• About: Lyrical, vivid novel of two best friends/nigh-sisters coming of age in the Jim Crow South.
• Highlights: Chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, expected to be on year-end and award lists.
  • Rebecca: “It is so wonderfully written…this just lives in four quadrant territory. Jones is letting herself be funnier…for all of its weight, she lets these characters have fun.” (19:33)
• Sales/Awards: Has the “runway” to remain a major presence in 2026, given few other spring lit heavyweights.

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6. Everyone's Talking About: Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

• Adaptation: Movie starring Ryan Gosling releases this week—major pop culture moment.
• Book’s Appeal: Beloved by readers and book clubs alike; high Goodreads rating (4.5+), excellent audiobook with unique production story.
  • Jeff: “It’s about friendship and hope and also orbital mechanics. So really it’s something for everyone.” (23:14)
  • Rebecca: “You feel smart enough to pass an astrophysics exam, and that is saying something.” (23:49)
  • Audiobook Fact: Ray Porter, narrator, sight-read the book—reacting authentically, live, as he recorded. (26:32)

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7. Other Commercial & Indie “Hot List” Standouts

• Theo of Golden: Cozy, feel-good literary hit about a stranger arriving in a small Southern town; 320,000 units sold this year.
  • Rebecca: “It goes down easy...My doctor is reading this. She’s in a book club of other doctors. They’re all reading it together.” (28:35)
• Just Friends by Haley Pham: Debut contemporary romance by a popular YouTuber; social-media-fueled controversy is feeding the buzz.
  • Rebecca: “We don’t hear this a lot where someone who’s popular on social media or like on YouTube makes a fiction debut that actually goes really well. I haven’t read it...but there are some folks who are super stoked.” (29:51)
• Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt: Long-lasting indie favorite, now getting a Netflix adaptation starring Sally Field and Alfred Molina (as the octopus).
  • Jeff: “The novel is narrated by a giant octopus named Marcellus…This is when we were in our Hot Octo Summer...” (33:37)

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8. Nonfiction and Memoir Buzz

• You With the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate: Major debut memoir, #1 in both NYT and PW nonfiction, garnering strong reviews and press.
  • Rebecca: “She’s up against the big Liza Minnelli memoir…Applegate is being better received and she's had a long life in film and TV as well.” (37:00)

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9. Perennial & Backlist Powerhouses

• Frieda McFadden: Multiple paperbacks on bestseller lists, especially The Housemaid, thanks to adaptation and relentless pace.
  • Discussion: Comparison to Colleen Hoover; speculation on the longevity of McFadden’s domestic thriller dominance.
  • Rebecca: “The Frida McFadden thing will be a longer, slower burnout than Colleen Hoover. …People have had decades-long careers on domestic thrillers.” (39:45)
• Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins): Continues to chart on non-fiction bestseller lists, entering the pop self-help canon, despite public controversy.
  • Rebecca: “It’s…not just this book. It's like the Mel Robbins content empire which the Internet has run the whole cycle on: from great idea to she's a bad person.” (45:44)

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10. Temperature Check / Honorable Mentions

• Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy: At #3 on Amazon (03/2026), may become a durable book club and year-end pick—“real spicy.”
  • Rebecca: “You will have a hell of a book club day when your book club reads Half His Age.” (42:05)
• Alchemized by SenLinYu: Once Harry Potter “Dramione” fanfic, now big-press original, capturing the “spicy” trend in romance/fantasy crossovers.
  • Rebecca: “Everything about Dramione is just everything I know about it, I know against my will. …This feels to me like just a part of the larger story that, like, spicy is the thing right now.” (48:52)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Preorder Accounting:
  “Bestseller lists are smoke and mirrors at best.” – Rebecca (11:14)
• On Indie ‘Feel-Goods’:
  “It goes down easy…My doctor is reading this.” – Rebecca, re: Theo of Golden (28:35)
• On Audiobook Narration:
  “Ray Porter…did not read the book before he sat down to narrate it. So he’s having, like, authentic emotional reactions…” – Rebecca (26:32)
• On Genre Trends:
  “This is the pinnacle of those ley lines…It is messy. Dark. [SenLinYu] calls it not romance, but a dark horror story. …This is seems to be the pinnacle of [fanfic] ley lines coming together to form this Voltron of a phenomenon.” – Jeff (48:13)
• On Book Club Hits:
  “The easiest Mother’s Day purchase for someone who likes book…” – Jeff, re: The Correspondent (18:34)
• On Longtail Pop Success:
  “[‘Let Them Theory’ is] going to take forever to fall off.” – Jeff (45:34)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:06] — Launch of the Hot List format & philosophy
• [06:38] — ACOTAR 6 & 7 announcement and preorder debate
• [11:19] — Taipei’s Story by R.F. Kuang preview
• [14:56] — The Correspondent by Virginia Evans deep dive
• [19:13] — Kin by Tayari Jones praise and predictions
• [22:23] — Project Hail Mary adaptation hype and book impact
• [27:38] — Theo of Golden & contemporary “feel good lit”
• [29:51] — Just Friends by Haley Pham and BookTok/YouTube crossovers
• [32:57] — Remarkably Bright Creatures adaptation (Netflix)
• [36:20] — Christina Applegate’s memoir and nonfiction bestsellers
• [38:33] — Frieda McFadden & the backlist/genre blockbuster discussion
• [41:28] — Temperature check: Half His Age, Let Them Theory, Alchemized

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Final Thoughts / Episode Tone

The episode is a spirited, playful, and deeply knowledgeable round-up of the books and industry stories shaping conversations in March 2026. The hosts blend reader-first enthusiasm, industry skepticism, and sharp wit, offering both a practical guide for what to pick up next and ongoing commentary on trends, weirdnesses, and fun tidbits from the world of books.

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Quick Recap: What’s Hot (March 2026)

• Biggest Buzz: ACOTAR 6 & 7, Project Hail Mary’s film, Kin, The Correspondent, Taipei’s Story
• Indie & Book Club Darlings: Theo of Golden, Remarkably Bright Creatures
• Commercial Surges: Just Friends, Frieda McFadden’s thrillers
• Pop Memoir: Christina Applegate’s You With the Sad Eyes
• Durable Pop Nonfiction: Let Them Theory
• Fanfic & “Spicy” Phenomena: Alchemized

For more details, check Book Riot for show notes or the Zero to Well Read feed for deep dives and upcoming author interviews.

Transcript

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[Jeff O'Neill]

This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

And I'm Rebecca Schinsky and we've got

[Jeff O'Neill]

a new old format today. Rebecca the Hot List maketh its first appearance. Maybe we did it as a bring something out from behind the paywall for Patreon a while ago, but this has been a staple of the Patreon offerings we've had for quite some time, really from the almost the beginning. Did we ever used to do this before that or did we come up with this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No, it was new in the Patreon within like the first year that we had been doing bonus content. But it's a way of capturing like what's trending, what's in the zeitgeist, sort of as we intro'd last week, like kind of a companion to the IT books. And we thought it's so generally appealing and interesting that we wanted to bring it out from behind the paywall. So it will be appearing here in the main feedback near the middle to end of the month every month.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, as we kind of see what the new books that have done over the last four weeks of SO are happening. And it's a combination of many different things. I think we are not quite data driven on this one, but more data driven than the IT books episode. We are looking at awards, pre orders, bestsellers, book club nominations, adaptation sales, you know, the things that go into Goodreads Shelving review. We are not using our own divining rod to figure out what this is except, you know, maybe to what we're talking about here, but we are not doing much of any prognostication about this. This is the state of play as we are right at this moment as

[Rebecca Schinsky]

we understand where it books is predictive, speculative. Most of those books aren't out yet because we're talking about them at the very beginning of the month and we're trying to guess what's going to happen in the firmament of books. This is where actually are we. Some of the books on the Hot list are new this month or very recent releases. Some of them aren't out yet. Some of them have been out for a while and have had either a new relevance bump or have been sticking around for a while. So there's a little bit of everything.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, let's see news and notes. If we could start into it over in the zero to well Read feed right now, you can go listen to us talk about Forever by Judy Blume, a seminal teen. The seminal teen sex book of this the 80s. I'd say for especially for ya people don't laugh.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Really great choice of adjective with this book.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's appropriate. Geez Louise, I've got, I got tweens in my house. I don't need that over here. At the same time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I can't help it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's a lot of fun over there. And then in the Patreon for zero to well Read, we talked to Kelly Jensen, our senior editor, who is a YA expert in talking about the long history of forever. Surprisingly relevant. My hot take I'll preview here is that young men, boys, teenage boys and older, maybe older even than that, to be perfectly honest, could learn a thing or two by reading Forever by Judy Bloom, one of the greats. The new biography of Bloom is out, I think. Did we peg that to the new bloom of being out or we were just looking around? I don't remember if you were reading it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it was a little bit of both. Like, well, the Judy Blume biography will be out also. We wanted to do more ya. That's a signal work of YA and also has such a significant banning history and like a very personally important book for me. And it was fun that you had never read it before. So we got to share that experience.

[Jeff O'Neill]

All right, so go check that over here. We'll take our first sponsor break and get into the Hot list.

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[Jeff O'Neill]

licenses see homedepot.com licensenumbers this by definition just the whole story of how this announcement came out is like part of it's like this is what the hot list was made to do. I think it called forth the hot list into being in front of the paywall just because that acotar a court of thorns and roses number six and number seven were announced at the end of the Call Her Daddy podcast or the call her I don't know if we do we treat like iPhones or not supposed to say the iPhone, just iPhone. It's just Call her Daddy at the

[Rebecca Schinsky]

end of Call her Daddy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, which itself is a phenomenon that I know exists but don't know a whole lot about. This is a two these are two volumes that are going to be released within three months of each other. So October 27th of this year and January 20th, January 12th of 2027 part of the same story. To be honest Rebecca, I do not know where we are on the A Court of Thorns and Roses timeline are people expect like is there a main arc that will then conclude is it ongoing adventures of but the heat is such with A Court of Thorns and Roses even nigh on 10 plus years into its run that this is the dominant book story of the last few weeks. Pre orders are crashing lists to the point of like maybe breaking them where it's appearing on bestseller list as pre order campaigns which is super unusual. And I haven't actually it's just towering.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. So Kathleen Schmidt surfaced this in her Publishing confidential substack that ACOTAR 6 and 7 were both on the USA Today bestsellers list last week and that should not happen usually pre orders which one of the reasons the primary reason that publishers and authors emphasize pre orders so much is that those count as day one sales. So even if you're paying for the book six months in advance, the day that the book is officially published is when that sale counts toward a bestseller list. Pre like pre orders shouldn't appear at all. I have not seen USA Today comment on this. I do believe that those just sort of quietly came off the list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well I can tell you right now book six is number five on the Amazon Bestseller list. So some someone's counting something.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And this is super unusual.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Usually I mean Amazon is I think just purely sales. But the newspapers, the Times, pw, USA Today, they report on sales sales post pub and it was shocking that those showed up on USA Today because of some glitch with the list or maybe how somebody was doing things on the back end. Not at all shocking that they have the kind of pre orders to put them onto this. I expect we'll see this at the top of lists on October 27th when the books when the first book comes out. And it looks like Sarah J. Maas has said that there's going to be a book 8 that this is really one story broken across two books for logistical reasons of how long it would be if it were a one volume. So there's at least one more story after it, but I haven't seen any definitive and then 8 is the end kind of statement.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. Sidebar should we do this with preorder sales? If a book sold and credit it for. Why are we doing this? Does this help anybody? Like this is what gets measured, gets managed and people are managing for these pre orders so they can. I think this is nuts. I don't like this at all. I think if you preorder it should be account that week sale. You're just. Because you're getting the book and shipping the book. What do we gap accountants here? Like what are we doing? I don't understand this at all.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think, I mean I don't know. I don't know the origins of that practice. I think now though like publishers want them to count as or it's in publishers interest for them to count as Day one sales post pub because then anybody else consulting the list can see it and walk into their bookstore or navigate to you know, their preferred online retailer and just get the book and have it in their hands that day. It helps for like the FOMO factor. I guess maybe a separate chart would be interesting of like what's being pre ordered. What like as sort of an anticipation metric would be really.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Oh that's a. That's a better idea than mine. A pre order chart. Like what are the most. Most ordered books that are not out yet? Well this 6 and 7 would be number one and two right now.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Guarantee that they're way up there. They were. They are number one and two on Barnes and Noble's list of the most viewed books on their site this week.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't think I've seen that. That's an interesting heuristic. I haven't seen that on Barnes and Noble. If this all sounds nuts to you, if you are new to the wild world of book sale accounting shenanigans, know that we are with you. Welcome to the murky waters of book sale accounting.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Bestseller lists are smoke and mirrors at best.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So very tough to see way up on that pre order list though I think maybe less so. Coming off Katabasis is Taipei's story by R.F. guang. This is a coming of age novel that I believe. Is this an adult book? I was trying to figure this out. Coming of age can be any multiple genres. She has not written a coming of sort of a realistic. A realistic non genre, non fantasy, non spec fic book with younger protagonists which it sounds like this is get a backdrop of a summer in Taipei. This is coming out September 8th. RF Kuang, who of course wrote Yellowface and Babel and Katabasis, one of the most interesting writers working today wrote the Poppy War before that she started with a 16. We're not mad about this at all. Rebecca. We're totally chill about the productivity of RF Kuang at this stage.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She's incredible. And Jeff, this one's only 288 pages, which I know you love to hear.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I do love to hear that this is adult fiction. You can't come of age in 280 pages. Wait till you've come of age and write me the book.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

At that point it is adult fiction. It's trending on Amazon as well under Cultural Heritage Fiction and women's Domestic fiction as well as literary fiction.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So I'm guessing that I sometimes lose the thread of like technically what's young adult and technically what isn't because you can have a non young adult technical genre that's about teenagers. Depends on who it's for and what the subject matters. And there's lots of going to it. But I think this might. This is a very. I don't know if it's cagey. I don't think it's smart. I think it's extremely interesting that this is her next move. She's sort of doing a TikTok of specific realistic. And we'll see if she continues onto

[Rebecca Schinsky]

this path, if it's intentional at all. It makes so much sense just for helping a writing life to be manageable that you write a huge epic like babble, and then you boil down to something like yellowface and then you do another big book or maybe she's working on them simultaneously. Be really interesting to talk with her about it. The COVID of Taipei's story is like a beautiful illustration, but it also just visually lives in that zone of it could be YA or it could be adult fiction, but looks like the story is geared towards adults. Gonna be a big deal in the fall. RF Kuang is on a hell of a run. And if you are unfamiliar with her or you just know about the books. She's also in graduate school getting a doctorate in like East Asian languages, I believe. Languages and literature. And she's busy. I don't know how she's pulling all of this. Really incredible.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I hope it's non pharmacological because that's what I would have to do to be productive.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

She's young, Jeff. She's young.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That's true. I was talking with a friend of mine yesterday. It's like, you know, how did we do it when we were 16? I was like, we were just built, like literally built different.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You were 16 is how you did.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And the covers of this reminds me. I had thought about maybe we're doing a buy sell hold as part of. I think that's a Patreon situation where we're going to look at some trends but. But cozy Japanese fiction and trans, especially Japanese transfection. But I think there's some Korean and other nations out there that you see that are selling very well. And I know of some imprints that are launching in this regard. They're actively buying in this and this very much feels in that vein. The COVID I'm just going off the COVID I've not read one word about this, but we've got sort of a steaming cup of tea and a bento box and it looks inviting. This doesn't look like a trauma escapade, but it could be. You never know what you're going to get here. Kwong remains one of the most interesting writers working across genre.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What a fascinating career. And she's so early in it still.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It's been a while since we had a good old fashioned indie bookstore commercial lit fic phenomenon. And the Correspondent by Virginia Evans, which came out last year, came on April of 2025. As you note here, it really got its engines burning in the later part of the year, which is something that happens with the indie bookstore. Darling. I do not think this is tick tock fueled. This is people like me, book club people, independent bookstore owners and booksellers championing this and then it getting passed on word of mouth in an old fashioned way like something like Water for Elephants. Like it's hard to even remember now because it's been. We're living in such a different world now. But this feels like a good old fashioned indie like Bel Canto or the Lovely Bones are kind of one of these kinds of books. Rebecca I have read this. It's an epistolary novel where the the main character is older, she's retired. She had been a. I don't know if she was a lawyer herself, a paralegal or just worked in the lot. Not just, but she had been working very closely with a very esteemed lawyer and they, they'd made it something of a note for him themselves. And so there's some interest in what that relationship was looking like. She has drama in her own family relationship. She's got suitors of various levels of proximity, income and formality. She takes somebody in, she has fights, she writes mean letters to people that have wronged her. She reconciles. And there's two, at least two things I like about this book. And there's a and those are this may or may not include all the reasons other people like it. One is it's short, it's very readable. You know, some of these letters are multiple pages long, but some of them are like a page. So. And this is something that I think is underrated for a book like this. The pages turn, Rebecca. Like you kind of. You're kind of going through them. Like you get momentum and you keep those pages turning. And even though I think the plot, such as it is, if you sort of strip away the form is pretty conventional and maybe I don't want to say corny, but it's like everything pretty much turns out okay for a book like this. About as Pollyanna. Is it going to end up. I don't want to spoil anything, but one thing we have liked recently is when people don't tell you what's going on. And this, you've got to figure there's a little bit of a mystery, like, what's the beef between these people? Because you're only getting the letters back and forth. And I think they're realistic in this way, which they don't ever. Boy, that reminds me of the time when you were a kid and you really did this bad. So you kind of are piecing it together and that is really satisfying. Like, it's sort of a dopamine hit. We're like, oh, he hates. She hates him because of this thing. And oh. So that's very cool. But those two things, I think I like it. And it's about the value of connection. It's about the value of writing and being an older person and trying to change your relationships with other people for the better. Right? I mean, and who doesn't want that? But this suggests that with, you know, the right stationary and consistency, you can get to a place where you're honest with other people to the point where. And that honesty then will result in a reconciliation, healing or connection of some kind. And I, you may say, I'm 47 year olds and I'm buying. So that's the Correspondent, right? Virginia Evans. It's gonna be around for a long time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It is. It's currently number one on the hardcover fiction list on both the New York Times and Publishers Weekly, almost a year after it was first published. And it's been shortlisted for the Indies Choice Award for Best adult fiction of 2025. And those winners come out in April. So we'll know what the Correspondent before the next installation of the Hot List. But I expect this will be continuing to appear on the list for several months.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This. This is the easiest mother's Day purchase for someone who likes book that's ever I think they cooked it up in a petri dish or they had like they had Rocky from Project Hail Mary Assemble that they said about like Rocky or an LLM or something like. It's, it's much more accomplished.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I don't bring the robots into this.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't want to bring the but it is so perfect for a Mother's Day gift. I think Father's Day too. I mean it's especially centers women and women's relationships. There's some men in it, but the main character certainly is dealing with all kinds of interesting issues. But anyway, that's something if you're looking at there it's only six weeks away ish till Mother's Day. So get your orders.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

That takes us into the next one which I think is also depending on your mom. A wonderful Mother's Day gift. Just a wonderful book all the way around. It's Kin by Tayari Jones came out last month at February. It was one of the most anticipated novels of the year, including by book riot in general and us specifically.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And you have read this?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I have read it. We predicted it as the it book of February. It's about two women who grow up as best friends, but really more as sisters. They call each other their cradle friends in the Jim Crow South. Both of them are motherless. One is raised by an aunt, one is raised by her grandmother and their pads for all of those similarities really diverge as they come of age and leave town. One is going off to college. She's going to attend an HBCU and sort of the world is opening up to her. The other knows that her mom is still alive and is somewhere in Memphis and she's going to go off with some friends and try to like start a life in Memphis and maybe try to find her mother. And she is a much more difficult path of it. But both of them are struggling with things. One of them is queer and it's trying to make sense of that. Just it's so, it's so complex. It is so wonderfully written. Tayari Jones is such a good writer and this just lives in four quadrant territory. Like it was selected for Oprah's Book Club. It's going to be on all of the best of lists at the end of the year. It will probably be in conversation about some of the book awards as well. And we're both big fans of Tayari Jones. I was really specifically happy in this one to see her letting herself be funnier too like, this is serious stuff and these girls are dealing with heavy things in their lives. But there's also a lot of real warmth and humor. And you can always feel Jones's affection for her characters. But some of the stories are more serious than others. And for all of its weight, she lets these characters have fun with each other. And you can feel that she had fun writing it. There's like a sort of a lightness to it as well. Talk about the pages turning. I really loved this. I think we'll be talking about Kin

[Jeff O'Neill]

all year long and of the books we have talked about so far and I'm just now going through the rest of our list. It hasn't been a super awards heavy. You know, I don't have a long list of like books that have come out that I'm like, this is going to be around by the end of the year when we get to long list for Pulitzer or National Book Awards or best books of the years. I think this is. We talked about Python's Kiss last week. I think I have Kin. I've been waiting. Not I've been waiting, it's there ready for me to read when I pick it up. I think those are the only two I'm ready. And I'm not even talking about ones I'm looking at. I was looking at some best books of the month on the Amazon and the New York Times. Like there just wasn't a lot of gelling around multiple things at this point, Rebecca. So I think at this point especially this could have a long way to run and stick around for a while. On the award candidates list for 20 years.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. Most of the highly anticipated literary novels are coming out in the fall this year. And this gives Kin a long Runway to build up a big sales history, which it is by the time those other titles all come out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

We've got a section for you today. It's called the Everyone's Talking about section presented by Random House. And boy, are people talking about Project Hail Mary. We are T minus three days or maybe two days, depending on when you're getting a viewing in. Because I think there's some Thursday night viewings going on here of Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. And if the Correspondent by Virginia Evans was cooked up in a lab for Mother's Day. Andy Weir, I think he actually has a test father that he tests his books out. Like, you know, there's sort of a. There's, there's a robot father. It's like, what do you think of this one? I'm kidding. But like, the Martian was a phenomenon coming out of the gate and then was very quickly turned into a movie project. Hail Mary is a lot of the things we like about the Martian on a grander scale. There's more interactions. I'm going to be very careful here. They're spoiling stuff in all the marketing, but I'm not going to do that here. I've never participated in the marketing for the movie. Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace. Yes, that's his name. I don't know why we're just going to overlook that for a second. But it's a adventure story that's optimistic about what people can do and what you can do with science knowledge and effort. Very moving, extremely funny. It's about friendship and hope and also orbital mechanics. So really it's something for everyone. Rebecca, when we're talking about you feel

[Rebecca Schinsky]

smart enough to pass an astrophysics exam, and that is saying something.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I mean, you wouldn't pass people. You would feel like you could, but you're not. You're right. You would feel like you could.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I feel like I could. And that's. That really counts for something. That weird does have a really magical way of presenting hard science, but. But all wrapped in a package that civilians like us can appreciate. It comes out, of course, on the 20th. One of our co workers saw it last night and asked me this morning, do you want to hear anything about it? And I was like, absolutely not. I want to stay fresh for the film, but if it's anywhere close to the experience that I had with the Martian starring Matt Damon, this. This will be great. So if you have not yet picked up project Hail Mary, it's currently number two on the New York Times combined print and ebook bestseller. It popped back onto the bestseller list when the very first trailer for the movie came out.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That was like last year, right? Was it March of last year?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes, and it has been there. So there's a lot of interest in this. People really are all talking about it. And it's number three on the New York Times trade paperback fiction. So pick it up now so you can be in on the conversation when this movie sweeps the nation. It's already sweeping the nation. I cannot go anywhere online without seeing Ryan Gosling, and that's fine with me.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Jeff, I mean, he's really out there. He's making Timmy really look like he didn't try very hard for Marty Supreme. What Gosling is doing out there, you know, number one on the Amazon fiction, sort of all formats combined selling right now. It Sold very well. And here's. Here's the other thing we have found. We talked about this on the subject of a recent episode of Zero to Weld. Go check that over on the Zero to well red feed. We did the whole breakdown of the whole of the book, but one thing we mentioned over there is that this is going to sound reductive, Rebecca, but it's actually rarer than you think, is that people check this out and then they really, really like the book. It's more than a four and a half stars on Goodreads with a bunch. A bunch of ranking. That's very unusual to have so many. Like, I'm trying to think what an equivalent. Be like Breaking Bad, right? Where it's like, oh, you got to try Baking Bad. And then people like it and it's like 9.2 or something on. This is the equivalent of that. This is as high of a Q rating for a big time. Really Non France. It's like not Dune or Court of Thorns and Roses. Like, it's a standalone property in the Andy Weir verse. But people, when they pick this up, they like it. Now it's getting universally true. There's all kinds of people that don't like things. But the other thing, too, the audiobook is a sensation. The narrator of the audiobook has been part of some of the marketing and publicity for the movie, which is wild. I've never seen that before in my life.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Okay, now I'm gonna violate our shared rule against talking about things you saw on the Internet for this for a second, because I did.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is that our rule now? Okay, yeah.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

We've established a policy. I did see Ray Porter, who narrated the audiobook, was in an interview around promotion for the movie, and he said, which is wild, if it's true, that he did not read the book before he sat down to narrate it. So he's having.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So he was sight reading.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes. And having, like, having, like, authentic emotional reactions to what's happening.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Can they let you do that? Was that agreed upon? You're like, cool, I'm just gonna show up hungover and let's do this, guys. Like, kind of.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Everybody has a style, I guess.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Wow.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is, I mean, the black hole of. I mean, to use galactic metaphors here of what we don't know about audiobook narration. Pay is 1. But I actually have no. Do people rehearse? I've never really thought about this before, but I can tell you one thing that is not what I expected to hear about that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah, I was like if this is true, it's really unbelievable because this is an Alzheimer of an audiobook experience. What we're saying is however you want to take it in, you should check out project Hail Mary. Thanks again to Random House for presenting this everyone's talking about segment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, if it weren't for the Correspondent, I think Theo of Golden might be the word of mouth indie bookstore story of 2025 though I think it's number you have you here number one currently in New York Times paperback trade fiction. The reason it's been out for a little bit. This is one of those got discovered a little bit later. I was talking to someone at the publisher about what a wonderful story this has been for them. 320,000 units sold this year alone. A stranger arrives in a small southern city of golden, knowing where he's come from or why and then he starts doing things. It's a feel good story. That's kind of all I know about it. Rebecca, I will read this because people like you say a lot of civilians are talking about this. Yeah, I heard this at meetings. People like. I think there's an appetite for this kind of. What's the equivalent? Like it's cozy, commercial, literary, like a feel good. The course of the maybe.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like. Like readers remember readers of Broken Wheel recommend or the. The storyline of A.J.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

fickry and the Guernsey Literary Potato Peel. Yeah, that zone of. I think it's a combination of like feel good but. But still some substance. Like it doesn't feel totally fluffy to people, but it goes down easy. Yeah. My doctor is reading this. She's in a book club of other doctors. They're all reading it together.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I meant to tell you, our sales director sent me a picture the other day of what his wife was reading. Got in their book club and it was the Correspondent and we had just been talking about that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So we're seeing the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yes, there you go. That's right.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. CEO of Golden.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Golden here. My mental model, this I could be completely wrong. Is that there may be. There's some man called Otto Vibes. Like, you know, this old gentleman brings a community together and through by hook.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

What's that old saw about? Like there's really only two stories. A stranger comes to town or a man goes on a journey. So here you get the stranger comes to town.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, and there's also Draco and Hermione Fanfic. That's the third one. We talked about that in a minute. This is the third story. Aristotle said that Dramine is what the. Yes. Thank you very much. Yes. Why don't you tell us about Just Friends? I hadn't picked this one out, but I think this is really interesting. Once you. Once you had this, I looked it up and I think you're wise.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I saw Just Friends by Haley Pham. She's a really popular YouTube creator. This is her literary debut. It's a second chance romance about childhood friends who reconnect as adults. And it came to my attention because it's number two on the publisher's weekly trade paper front list. It's also number two on the New York Times trade paper bestsellers list. And there are a lot of comps to the summer I turned pretty and to that vibe. Book Talk also is feuding about this. Like, I had not heard anything. Yeah, I hadn't heard anything about Just Friends, so I went googling and some people really like it. But there are a lot of people being, like, claiming that it's a summer I turned pretty ripoff. Like, this is Book Talk. People are trying to come up with content, so they're, I think, ginning up controversy. Is it good? Is it not good? Like, welcome to the Internet. But that Book Talk angst around it and people sort of arguing back and forth in their content was like, well, she said this about it, but like, I actually think it's really great. Is certainly driving it up in the trendingness. There's a lot of folks wanting to find out for themselves if it's good or not. And so Hayley Pham, a really strong debut in terms of sales. We don't hear this a lot where someone who's popular on social media or like on YouTube makes a fiction debut that goes. That actually, like, goes really well. I haven't read it, so I can't speak to is it good or not. But there are some folks who are super stoked to see it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Popular YouTube creator may be underselling it a bit. 3.9 million subscribers. Well known over on YouTube there.

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Rebecca Schinsky]

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[Jeff O'Neill]

I. You know, I was. I was struggling a minute ago for indie bookstore phenomenon. Recent examples. And all I need do was scroll down the document here because we have one here. Remarkably by remarkably Be Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt, which I do not believe either of us have read. Is that correct, Rebecca? You have not read.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I have not read this. This is my sister's favorite thing of the last several years. So I.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You haven't read it well.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I know.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Well, very interesting. Should we see.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know how I am at taking people's book recommendations.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Even your sister. Jeez.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

My sister, who has an octopus tattoo like this, comes with good pedigree. This recommendation.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So she's inked, you might say so. The novel is narrated by a giant octopus named Marcellus. And the trailer. So this has sold extremely well. There was a New York Times trend piece about this like a year after the book came out because it just continued to sell very well. This is when we were in our. When we were in Hot Octo Summer a little while ago. Remember my octopus teacher and Simon Gummery? This feels a little late in the lifespan of octopus octlet. I guess I'll. To coin a phrase right here, I'm a sucker for Octolit. Sorry. I'm just gonna do Jeff.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

All right. I'm gonna intervene here.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. And so the trailer dropped last week with Sally Field as the main character and Alfred Molina voicing the octopus. And I'm guessing they're mad about Rocky in Project Hail Mary because Don't you think this was gonna be the cute non human sidekick of the year? Before we get first of all, what

[Rebecca Schinsky]

a time to be alive. That Oscar award winner, beloved by all, actress Sally Field and Alfred Molina, who is also a legend, are starring in a Netflix adaptation of a popular book club novel. Like Amazing It's Wild. Sally Field plays an older woman. She's a widow who works at the aquarium where Marcellus is kept where he lives and they form a bond. And the gimmick is that Marcellus narrates the story, but the gimmick seems to work because people do love this book. The Adaptation is out May 8th. It's currently number 14 on the PW Trade Paperback list.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I've been there for years. Years.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's hanging around. Staying there is really impressive. It was a read with Jenna Pick at the time. I think, like every book club in America has had a remarkably bright creatures moment.

[Jeff O'Neill]

At this point, I find myself interested in this. Do you think Alfred Molina, who was Doc Ock in Spider man, is afraid of getting typecast?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Did he have to sign an N?

[Jeff O'Neill]

I don't know.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Or like a non compete? That's what I mean.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're like, who. Who has experience playing octopi is like. Alfred Molina played Doc Ock. Let's get him in here.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Is he only allowed to play octopi? Can he not play other like cephalopods?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah. No. Mollusks. Wow. So, yeah, that. And there's a special edition they did. They got the whole sprayed edge thing, which at this point is kind of like getting a gold record. I feel like you sell well enough for a long time. They're going to get you a spray bread at this point. I had this down below. I'm sorry, I'm repeating here the last one on our kind of like official rundown list. And we're going to do honorable mentions or I have something I'm calling a temperature check because I'm not sure whether or not to include this. But the last one, I had this one as a temperature check honoree. You did not. Where would you like to put it? You want to officially include it here? It's only been out a little while, so it's a little bit hard to know. But that's okay. Sometimes something is hot for a week and that's it.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yeah. I mean, it's hot right now, which the hot list captures. So we can just sort of use it as the transition to the temperature check. But it's you with the sad eyes. It's Christina Applegate's new memoir number number one on both New York Times and Publishers Weekly hardcover nonfiction lists. There are major reviews of this, major profiles of Christina Applegate. And what really has struck me about the coverage so far is she's up against the big Liza Minnelli memoir, which was marketed as like, it's going to be so juicy. Liza Minnelli's telling all her secrets. And I have clicked several headlines in the course of doing my job that promise to tell me the juiciest secrets from the Liza Minnelli. They do not seem that juicy.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I've got no juice. I've seen nothing. And I've been kind of keeping an eye out. So I'm interested in this.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So I think maybe Christina Applegate, I mean, I don't think she is. She is interesting in her own right. I think she's also benefiting from a little bit of a vacuum that the Liza Minnelli book people maybe publishing thought was going to occupy that space. But Christina Applegate is being better received and she's had a long life in film and TV as well. It is early. The book just came out. So will it still be on the hot list in April? Who knows? But right now she's up there. Like, I don't think you can be number one on one of these lists and must not take a minute for it.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You know, David Foster Wallace gave that famous this is water speech right now the water is free to McFadden and heated rivalry. Like, we don't have to talk about it, but we should at least notice as we're making our movements like this that Freedom McFadden continues to sell multiple slots. I don't even know the name of these. All right, now, you know, the Housemaid did very well at the movie theater. So that one is selling. There's going to be multiple sequels to that. She's got a bunch of irons in the fire, just blanket sort of statement.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right now she has three books in the publisher's weekly top 25 paperback list, which are Want to Know a Secret, Dear Debbie and the Tenant. And the Housemaid then is still trending on the New York Times list. So Freda McFadden, four different titles, all doing stuff and her backlist continues to. I mean, most of these are backlist at this point, but the older times titles continue to sell. Heated rivalry also just hanging on. Rachel Reed is out there. People are buying these books.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Love to see question about Freedom McFadden. I wish I had some even. Maybe I could look at this at Google trends like the Colleen Hoover hump like that long. Where do you think are we closer to the middle, the end, the beginning of the Freedom McFadden thing? It's very difficult. I'm not going to hold you to this, except if it's hilarious, then I will when it comes to fruition. Where do you think we are on the the lifespan of the Freedom McFadden phenomena? Because no one does this forever. Yeah, Rebecca, it's not in the books, frankly.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

No one does this forever. But people do these like domestic thrillers. People have had decades long careers on domestic thrillers.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like Daniel Steele was the number two best selling book last week, but she does two a year even.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Right? And so Frida McFadden, well, she and Colleen Hoover have the similarity that they got famous and then they both had a bunch of backlash list to go. So it really depends on the pace. And Freedom McFadden has had more new books come out faster than Colleen Hoover has. My feeling about it is that the Frida McFadden thing will be a longer, slower burnout than Colleen Hoover.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Is that a genre? Is that a genre call?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think so. And that we've only had one of the Frida McFadden movies, but the Housemaid did really well and it got not great reviews. But I saw it discussed as like the girls like trash too. And it can be pretty like well made fun trash where the colleague Statham,

[Jeff O'Neill]

but for the ladies, basically. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I mean like Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney. Okay, But Amanda Seyfried is an excellent actress and like the Colleen Hoover verse,

[Jeff O'Neill]

just by omission there, that was something you just did.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

You know, Sydney Sweeney. I'm sorry, The Colleen Hoover verse is powering a lot of people to get to the box office. Hollywood is very glad to have Colleen Hoover quite well.

[Jeff O'Neill]

You see that over the weekend the

[Rebecca Schinsky]

box office is big for them. But also no one is really coming out of any of those saying it was actually pretty good. I think there's just more longevity for free to McFadden. If we were doing buy, sell, hold here, I would be more likely to be. I'm more invested in my Freedom McFadden stock than Colleen Hoover.

[Jeff O'Neill]

And Hoover herself has talked about the burnout. Right. And I don't. We know nothing about Freedom McFadden. Even though she continues to play this weird shell game, you know, she's got to doctor it up somewhere.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Do you think I won't tell you my name, but I'll put my face

[Jeff O'Neill]

all over the Internet between Freedom McFadden and RF Kwong to write enough to save humanity. Who are you? Pick. We'll leave that to the listener to decide.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Is he. Hold on. Is the. Is humanity saved just by the volume of writing or does the quality have

[Jeff O'Neill]

something we don't know? We don't know what aliens like to read. I appreciate you thinking I could conjecture

[Rebecca Schinsky]

more range on RF Kuang, so I'm

[Jeff O'Neill]

betting on her more volume on McFadden at the same time. All right, let's do a temperature check. These are in the ether, but I'm not quite sure, not quite sure what to do. And I think usually if you're not quite sure, it means no. But I think these. I've got three here, that some of this point of order, like, how are we understanding these? The first one I'll go to is Half His, Half his age by Jeanette McCurdy, which you liked. It's number three on Amazon overall bestsellers right now, which is pretty high. I have not seen much talk about this in the reviewing space. You said it was good. And that is the thing I'm wondering, do you think this is good enough to have some legs outside of the Jeanette McCurdiness of it all?

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I think it is. I think we'll see it on some best of lists at the end of the year. I think it'll do really well in paperback like this is. You will have a hell of a book club day when your book club reads Half his age. It's in all the airport bookstores. And that's limited selection, but I've seen it every time I've been in an airport in the last couple of weeks, last month or two. And it's also resulted in a pop of I'm glad My mom died. Like that's back on bestseller lists right now.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Whoever hadn't read it, they're like, oh, I bet I could read that one from a while ago. A real genuine phenomenon at the same time.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

So I think there's here heat here. I'm not sure it's on the hot list right now just because the conversation about it has been pretty.

[Jeff O'Neill]

So what are you going to need? You're going to need a. You're going to need an adaptation story. Are you going to need a. You're going to need a piece in the New York Times about how well it's doing or the critics, like, what do you need for it to. Because number third, more shelved book on Goodreads behind McFitt, that is Tall Cotton Rebecca.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Well, most shelved. You can Shelve a book for all kinds of reasons including maybe I'll get to this someday. But it doesn't tell us anything about about sales. And half his age is not currently on bestseller list. We're just talking about shelved. So I think I need to see it come back to a bestseller list or once we get into the end of the year start showing up on best of the year or maybe best

[Jeff O'Neill]

of the year so far we do get this is much more prominent now than it was five or 10 years ago. But we will do our own list. A lot of the major publications will do their own list. And if we start seeing it pop up there, maybe we will get the meat thermometer again out and give it a stick.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

I do think. I mean I thought it was good. I also wonder if she worked against her own interests by taking on such a controversial sounding style.

[Jeff O'Neill]

It is not the Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Let's put it that way. It's not a feel good affirming goes down easy work. The COVID of it is real spicy. So like are you gonna sit in public holding a book that looks that spicy? Some people. People will, some people won't. But also just like the pitch of it. Teenage girl has affair with teacher will put a lot of people off. And even though I thought McCurdy handled it really well, I think the subject matter there is probably a ceiling for her.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Okay, the let them theory. We are now in year three or year two, depending on how you're counting. Of course. This came out at the end of 2024, much to my chagrin. And the best books of the year chagrin grin. And maybe initially the publisher's grin, but they are now the chagrin as you get turned upside down into a grin is just a grin. An upside down. Anyway, they're very happy with what's happened to Let Them Theory because it's been on the New York Times bestseller list for a billion years, 67 weeks on the Amazon nonfiction list. It's number two this week. It's behind the Apple Gate, which is just brand new. I assume it will eventually fall behind and maybe something else will jump up and get it. We've talked a lot about this book with a not having read it. Also, I feel like I got the gist of the book and the description. Like, okay, people talk about you. Just let them cool. A hugely popular podcast phenomenon Life story. What is the antecedent of this? If you're like, what? What? You know, you see that like the Darwin bumper sticker that goes from like the fish to the whatever.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Atomic habit.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Atomic habits.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Really clear. Yeah. This self help, another big self help that I mean goes huge and sits on bestseller list for six years.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I was thinking Men are from Mars, Women are for Venus. But that was my thought. It's been a while on that one.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But I think those are all the

[Jeff O'Neill]

life changing magic of tidying up.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Maybe they're all in that. I mean Mel Robbins, the success here is huge. And it's not just this book. It's like like the Mel Robbins content empire which the Internet has run the whole cycle on. Like we've come up, we've come from. Mel Robbins is a genius and I, and I say we like collectively. I've not read this book and I don't really care for Mel Robbins. But from like this is a great life changing idea to like she's a bad person and she stole this idea from another creator. I don't know what all of the true details are there. I don't. I mean it's different in content from atomic Habits. But I think we're going to see this hanging around on bestseller list for another coup. It's going to, it's number two right now. Like it's going to take forever to

[Jeff O'Neill]

fall off the all time pop self help slash development is an episode we should do at some point. Like what goes on the 20 faced Mount Rushmore starting and I'm not kidding with Dale Carnegie's 1936 how to Win in Friends.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

How to Win Friends and Infinite People

[Jeff O'Neill]

which which still is. Sells very well and holds up. But I think it's about as complicated to let them theory. But I think for a book like this and the kind of reader that's a feature, not a bug.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Yes.

[Jeff O'Neill]

They're not looking for super complicated academic or even academic academic translated into general readership stuff like Adam Grant Tversky or something. Adam Grant. Anyway, so that one's out there and the last one I have here is it continues to sell very well 23 weeks and counting on the New York Times best selling list for hardcover fiction. It's number 10 right now. 23. And this came up in a bunch of my meetings with publishers in New York. Everyone wants a version of Alchemized by Sending Liu, which is for those of you who don't know Balderized. Her own Balderized dracohermione Harry Potter fan fiction. So the original thing was called Manacled. It was published on one, I think multiple sites and it was serialized over time. It's like Fifty Shades fanfic. But for her Harry Potter that then now has all the IP stripped away. That's just what it is. And it sold scads of books, huge following. And it is messy. I've read the plot summary of this trigger warnings all over the place. It is messy. Dark. Sydney Lou herself or themselves call it not romance, but a dark horror story. But there was a lot of this dramatic fan fiction has a lot of that stuff. A lot of the 50 shades gray sort of s m. Dark gray.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

It's dark and it's horrible. Horny. Yeah.

[Jeff O'Neill]

This is the. This is seems to be the pinnacle of those ley lines le y not coming together here informing this sort of voltron of a phenomenon.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Rebecca, if we have a literary bar, are we renaming the Dark and Stormy to the Dark and Horny?

[Jeff O'Neill]

Dark and Horny. I think. I think we have to. I'll never go to that bar, but I hope you make puns on the menu.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Thank you. My number one. My number one pun consultant. I have really tried not to know things about.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Like, everything is a contraindicator that it should be. If you're going out of your way to avoid it, it is on the hot list. I think we now I know rule

[Rebecca Schinsky]

for this, and this is not about alchemized specifically, but just like everything about Dramione is just everything I know about it, I know against my will.

[Jeff O'Neill]

I'm not interested in it personally, I will say that.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

But I'm so glad that the people who wanted yeah, I'm so glad that the people who wanted the Harry Potter characters to grow up and bang it out have found a way to tell those stories. And I'm fascinated by how that has broken out into mainstream publishing and to be as successful. This feels to me like just a part of the larger story that, like, spicy is the thing right now. Like, and building the universe of spicy fiction that's available to women who grew up on Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, all of those, like, rich fantasy stories and want that same vibe. Kind of the same conversation that we had about fourth wing, but with a lot of sex. Okay.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yep.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Have everybody have fun out there.

[Jeff O'Neill]

That was fun. I enjoyed this. This is the hot list. Thank you so much for joining us today and listening. You'd find [e-mail] Listen, you can shoot us an email podcastookright.com Go check out Zero do well Read. As we said, we have project Hail Mary. We did a couple weeks over there Forever by Judy Blume and the hits just keep on coming literally over in the feed over there on Thursday we'll do some news and then I guess it's coming out Monday the 30th is. Or, excuse me, the 23rd is when it comes out in the main feed. The back half of that episode will be our conversation with Louise Erdrick about Python's kits, which we wonderful. Really great to have her for a little while, so hope you guys will stick around for that. We both really like Python's Kiss. I think it's my favorite fiction of the year so far. It's been a weaker fiction year for me.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Agree. I've DNF'd a lot this year.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Yeah, I haven't gotten to the kin. I've been sort of hoping keeping the the Messiah of my Spring Reading in reserve for when I'm on vacation next week. Thanks so much for Random House for sponsoring the Everyone's Talking about section. Go check out Project Hail Mary Book form Movie form. I'll be checking it out over the weekend. I have listened to it and read the book twice at this point.

[Rebecca Schinsky]

Point you're ready.

[Jeff O'Neill]

Family is on board, Rebecca, so we'll talk to you all in April with a new slate. Some things will stick around, probably alchemized, probably free to McFadden. Probably let them theory, but there'll be some new entrants onto the hot list. This a lot of fun. Thanks, Rebecca.

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