Is there anything better than receiving package in the mail? Well, it helps if you actually enjoy the stuff inside of it. Cyrus and Sarah discuss three months worth of Illumicrate subscription boxes with the ultimate conclusion that maybe this one isn't for us. Cyrus remains a freak for body sharing. Sarah cannot resist trinkets. We also talk about the house too much, but specifically how it is trying to kill one of us, which is something we already suspected but now is a process in actual motion.

Also, hiatus! We'll be back around August with hopefully regained literacy.

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Oh my GOD we finally read this book. And it was good! But we are not without thoughts. Turns out 400+ pages of characters hating themselves is occasionally a bummer. Cyrus flip flops on the topic of duologies. Sarah is weirdly positive about the constant misogyny. They both don't talk enough about the horny pain play.

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This week we read Ex Marginalia, a collection of essays edited by Chinelo Onwualu that focuses on the experiences of marginalized creators writing speculative fiction. In addition to talking about our favorite essays, we discuss everything from Sofia Tolstoy to Sarah's complicated relationship with her own identity, the joys and pitfalls of masculinity in the media and our own experiences with publishing. Sadly, our multiple digressions talking about how cute our cat was being had to be cut for time. We apologize for what is no doubt a devastating emotional blow.

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The episode title actually doesn't refer to the whole concrete and flooring situation Cyrus has got going on in the basement. This week, we're talking about Things Have Gotten Worse Since Last We Spoke and Other Misfortunes, a collection of horror stories by Eric LaRocca. We. Didn't LOVE it.

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Who's hungry? This week we're sampling the delights of Dungeon Meshi, aka Delicious in Dungeon, a manga by Ryoko Kui. 50 percent of our podcasting duo is scared of eating zucchini, while the other 50 percent would probably give boiled boot leather a try, so reading a food-related manga really brings out our spirit of debate. But mostly about how to tally up visual novels in our relative book tallies. Also featuring discussions of adaptations, favorite recipes, and the inescapable horrors of immortality.

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I mean, look at the title. What do you want us to say. This is not a traditional episode so much as it is a 50 minute apology-brag about the most exciting thing in our lives right now. We bought a house, and Cyrus is single-handedly tearing it apart, and they are so so happy. I'm happy too, but doing less property damage in general.

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This week on Cracked Spines, we discuss SO MANY BOOKS by British children's fantasy writer Frances Hardinge. Sarah gushes over the strange little girls and bizarre worlds of the books. Cyrus finds a character who is Tobias from Animorphs but somehow sadder and latches onto her instantly. We talk about what defines writing for children and come up with no real answers, but we do get relentlessly bullied by our cats this episode so our lack of conclusion is probably their fault.

Books mentioned (all, obviously, by Frances Hardinge):
The Lie Tree
Unraveller
Deeplight
Cuckoo Song
A Skinful of Shadows
A Face Like Glass

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This week we're discussing books 6-10 of Animorphs. This includes The Capture which is a great piece of sci-fi horror that hit Cyrus' preteen brain like a comet. It also includes the first Megamorphs, which isn't a masterfully crafted work of delicious psychological torture but does contain some absolutely perfect set pieces of animal vs knife hurricane chaos so I think they're about equal. We talk about how so many of our predictions for the books came true so quickly and try to what the hell is going to happen next. Sarah gets weird about brain slugs. Cyrus gets weird about Ax eating trash. We are an Animorphs household now.

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