Unabridged Podcast

Welcome to Unabridged! Ashley and Jen (shown left to right in the photo) talk books, share recommendations, and celebrate all things bookish. On our blog (see our posts below!) we share bookish faves, pub day shout-outs, show notes, and book reviews.

Want to get more involved? Check out our 2023 reading challenge, join our buddy reads or book club on Instagram, or sign up on Patreon!

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6 days ago
3 min

Ashley Schumacher's THE RENAISSANCE OF GWEN HATHAWAY - Bards, Princesses, and More!

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Ashley Schumacher’s The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway (Bookshop.org). The book came out this week! Ashley Schumacher’s The Renaissance of Gwen Hathaway, her third novel, centers on the story of Madeline Hathaway. Maddy’s life is just a bit unusual: since she was born, she’s traveled with her parents on the Renaissance Faire circuit. She’s never attended in-person school. In

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Feb 17
3 min

Priyanka Taslim’s THE LOVE MATCH - Jane Austen with a Twist

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) After my epic, #readausten22 buddy read in 2022, I’m primed for some amazing retellings of Jane Austen’s books, and Priyanka Taslim’s The Love Match (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) exceeded my expectations. Zahra Kahn is a Bangladeshi American teenager who has just graduated from high school. She lives with her mother and two younger siblings in a small apartment in Paterson, New Jersey, where they try to make ends meet after her father’s death seve

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Jan 20
3 min

Jen Sookfong Lee's SUPERFAN: HOW POP CULTURE BROKE MY HEART: A MEMOIR

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) I listened to Jen Sookfong Lee's Superfan: How Pop Culture Broke My Heart: A Memoir (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) thanks to Libro.fm's ALC program. I'm so happy that I experienced this one via audio since the author reads it herself, communicating the tenderness, humor, and outrage she feels with great resonance. The book is a series of essays, meditations that weave together a particular pop-culture focus with the author's thoughts on different p

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Dec 23, 2022
3 min

Dani Shapiro's SIGNAL FIRES - A Novel of Possibility

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) If I'd read Dani Shapiro's Signal Fires (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) any earlier this year, it would likely be on my list of top books of 2022. Signal Fires is a book about possibility—both the ever-presence of possibility in the course of people's lives but also the ways that decisions can narrow those possibilities. It's about the ways that we understand the people who are around us and how they shape our own lives, the ways that we're all inte

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Nov 18, 2022
3 min

Emma Straub's THIS TIME TOMORROW - A Time Travel Novel Whose Premise Holds Up

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) ". . . fiction was a myth. Fictional stories, that is. Maybe there were bad ones out there, but the good ones, the good ones—those were always true. Not the facts, not the rights and the lefts, not the plots, which could take place in outer space or in hell or anywhere in between, but the feelings. The feelings were the truth." Emma Straub's This Time Tomorrow (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) exceeded all of my expectations. Time travel premises can,

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Sep 9, 2022
2 min

Jennifer Lynn Barnes's THE INHERITANCE GAMES — The Trilogy Is Finished!

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Since book three of Jennifer Lynn Barnes's The Inheritance Games trilogy (Bookshop.org) came out last week, I thought it would be a good time to revisit my review of books one and two! Here's what I said . . . I've been on a YA mystery kick for a while now, which kicked off with Maureen Johnson's Truly Devious series (Bookshop.org; Libro.fm - book 1), continued with Holly Jackson's A Good Girl's Guide to Murder (Bookshop.org; Libro.fm) (I'm wa

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Aug 26, 2022
2 min

Ashley Schumacher's FULL FLIGHT - A Strong Second Novel

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Ashley Schumacher's Full Flight (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) I absolutely loved Ashley Schumacher’s debut, Amelia Unabridged (Libro.fm), sobbing my way through that gorgeous YA romance, so I was eager to read her second book, Full Flight. This one did not disappoint! This tale of young love and marching band set in small-town Texas made my heart happy. Weston Ryan is an outcast in Enfield, set apart by his divorced parents, his leather jacket, an

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Aug 19, 2022
2 min

Dolen Perkins-Valdez's TAKE MY HAND - Illuminating Historical Fiction

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Take My Hand (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Dolen Perkins-Valdez's Take My Hand is a powerful work of historical fiction that explores the complexity of one nurse's attempts to help her patients. In 1973, Civil Townsend is a Black nurse who has just graduated from nursing school. Her first job is with the local family planning clinic, where one of her duties is to administer new Depo-Provera shots to women and girls in her co

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Aug 12, 2022
2 min

Mona Awad's ALL'S WELL - A Reality-Bending Retelling

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Mona Awad's All's Well (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Today, I wanted to revisit Mona Awad's All's Well, a book I read for the Tournament of Books and which I absolutely loved. Miranda Fitch is a theater professor who, after falling from the stage and being extremely injured, had to abandon her life as an actress to deal with her chronic pain. Miranda deals with skepticism from almost everyone—therapists, her friends, and even her ex-husband believ

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Jun 3, 2022
3 min

Rachel Lynn Solomon's SEE YOU YESTERDAY - A Fabulous YA Time Loop Story

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Rachel Lynn Solomon's See You Yesterday (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for the digital ARC of Rachel Lynn Solomon’s See You Yesterday in exchange for an honest review. I love a time loop story. Groundhog Day. Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall. Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Russian Doll. And now? Rachel Lynn Solomon’s See You Yesterday takes its place among my favorites. I’m regrettably late to Solo

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May 13, 2022
2 min

Julia Glass's VIGIL HARBOR - Speculative Fiction that Hits Close to Home

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Julia Glass's Vigil Harbor (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Thanks to partners NetGalley, Knopf Doubleday, and Pantheon Books for the digital ARC of Julia Glass’s Vigil Harbor in exchange for an honest review. The book is available for purchase. I’d read only one of Julia Glass’s prior novels—her debut Three Junes, winner of the National Book Award—when I requested an advance copy of Vigil Harbor. I was drawn in by the synopsis, focused on an isolate

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May 6, 2022
3 min

Kathryn Miles's TRAILED - A Compelling Blend of Memoir and True Crime

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Kathryn Miles's Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Thanks to partners NetGalley, Libro.fm, and Algonquin Books for the ARC of Kathryn Miles’s Trailed in exchange for an honest review. The book is available for purchase! My interest in Kathryn Miles’s Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders was piqued for two reasons. First, I lived very close to the setting since 1994—in 1996

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Apr 15, 2022
3 min

Daniel José Older's BALLAD & DAGGER - A New YA Pathway for Rick Riordan Presents

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Daniel José Older’s Ballad & Dagger (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Disney Publishing Worldwide for the digital ARC of Daniel José Older’s Ballad & Dagger in exchange for an honest review. The book is out on May 3! I’ve talked often about my love for the Rick Riordan Presents imprint on the Unabridged Podcast. Of course, I’m a fan of Riordan’s work, which I enjoyed and my boys have read and re-read, but I also so app

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Apr 8, 2022
3 min

Samantha Markum's THIS MAY END BADLY - A Prank War with Heart

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Samantha Markum's This May End Badly (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Samantha Markum’s This May End Badly in exchange for an honest review. The book is out on April 12! I picked up Samantha Markum’s This May End Badly when I was in somewhat of a reading slump . . . which Markum promptly ended. I could not put down this book! The novel begins with Doe and her best friends (Gemma,

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Mar 18, 2022
3 min

Book Review of Mariana Zapata's Super-Slow Burn Romances

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) So, I know that typically, we choose a single book to review on Fridays, but instead, I want to share FOUR books by one of my favorite new-to-me authors. Mariana Zapata writes super-slow burn romances. These are long books—the shortest here is just under 500 pages—which makes for plenty of space to develop characters and relationships. While I'm working on Zapata's backlist, here are the four I've read so far: The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (Book

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Feb 4, 2022
3 min

Samantha Cohoe's BRIGHT RUINED THINGS - THE TEMPEST Doesn't Matter

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Samantha Cohoe’s Bright Ruined Things (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) in exchange for an honest review. The book is out on February 15! Samantha Cohoe’s Bright Ruined Things is a YA retelling of The Tempest (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) set in the 1920s, but you definitely don’t need to have read the play to enjoy this fabulous novel. (I read the play last in college, a looong time

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Jan 14, 2022
3 min

Emma Lord's WHEN YOU GET THE CHANCE - A New Book from an Auto-Read Author

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Thanks to partners NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Emma Lord's When You Get the Chance (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) in exchange for an honest review. When You Get the Chance is my second book by Emma Lord. (I loved You Have a Match [Bookshop.org | Libro.fm] and have Tweet Cute [Bookshop.org | Libro.fm] on my shelf to read ASAP.) Yes, she’s now an auto-read author for me. This one focuses on Millie Cooper, a super-extroverted,

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Dec 10, 2021
3 min

E. G. Reger's GRAVE MISTAKES - A Tender Tale of Vampires . . . and Other Beings

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) E. G. Reger's Grave Mistakes: The Story of a Podcast by the Undead, for the Living (Amazon) is one of those books that completely captivates. It starts innocuously enough: Martin, a vampire, and Quietus, a supernatural being whose exact species is uncertain, have a podcast called (of course!) Grave Mistakes. The podcast is modestly successful, but they hope for more, so when they're invited to present at PodCon, they're thrilled. What begins t

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Nov 12, 2021
2 min

Alix E. Harrow's A SPINDLE SPLINTERED - A Twist on the Sleeping Beauty Story

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) I picked up Alix E. Harrow's A Spindle Splintered (Amazon | Bookshop.org) for two reasons: (1) I loved her novel The Ten Thousand Doors of January (Amazon | Bookshop.org) and (2) I love a good fairytale retelling. (Check out our most recent episode, all about fairytale retellings, for more recs along these lines.) This slim book—it's only 128 pages—is a retelling or remix of the Sleeping Beauty story (one of my favorites). Here, the protagonis

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Oct 22, 2021
3 min

Lauren Blackwood's WITHIN THESE WICKED WALLS - A Creative Re-Imagining of JANE EYRE

by Jen Moyers (@jen.loves.books) Thanks to partners NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Wednesday Books for the digital ARC of Lauren Blackwood’s Within These Wicked Walls (Amazon | Bookshop.org) in exchange for an honest review. The book just released on October 19! Those of you who follow me know that I love a new version of a classic, and I’m particularly a sucker for a Jane Eyre (Amazon | Bookshop.org) retelling, so when I saw that there was a Jane Eyre retelling set in Et

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