Episode 21 – City of Bones
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2015
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Kait, Renata, and Kait’s secret cousin Nicole read City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, because we read all the rest of the Harry Potter fanfiction the internet had to offer. This is a book with something for everyone: vampires, werewolves, magical cats, telepathic monks, Shadowhunters, and surprise incest. Listen now for all of that, plus an in-depth discussion of Cassandra Clare’s sordid fandom history!
Readers advisory: Here.
Footnotes: Nicole’s vlog review of The Knife of Never Letting Go
Special note: We’re still raising money for a few charitable causes! Please support us here!
Thanks to Dee for her support! Make sure to check out her blog, Your Number 54 Fan.
Candy pairing: Kait says generic M&Ms, Nicole says Cherryheads, Renata says Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.
Coming up next: The Target by David Baldacci.
* Worst Bestsellers is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
(But no pressure, we’re also happy if you get these items from your local library or independent bookstore.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the worst bestsellers, where we read incestuous Harry Potter fan fiction so you don't have to. |
| 0:18.1 | I'm Renata. |
| 0:19.2 | And I'm Kate. |
| 0:20.3 | And for this episode, we read City of Bones by |
| 0:22.8 | Cassandra Claire. Joining us to discuss this overwrought Y-A fantasy novel is Nicole, writer, and |
| 0:29.4 | secretly Kate's cousin. But don't tell Kate. Hi, everyone. Hi, Nicole. Yeah, it's much too early in the podcast for us to reveal secrets like that. |
| 0:41.0 | You have to do a shocking reveal halfway through after Kate's already in love with you. |
| 0:46.9 | First, we have to heavily hint at it in like every other scene. |
| 0:52.5 | So, yeah, City of Bones, this book is something. |
| 0:58.8 | It is that, indeed. |
| 1:02.0 | It's a definite long something. |
| 1:04.9 | And we'll, before we jump in to talk about the book, we're going to talk a little bit |
| 1:08.6 | about the author, Cassandra Claire. |
| 1:12.3 | And I'm going to turn that over to Kate because I actually can never, I've tried to read |
| 1:16.9 | the whole backstory behind Cassandra Claire's like rise and fall from fandom power. And every time |
| 1:23.1 | I try to read about it, my brain just like shuts down. I'm like, what? What? So you try. |
| 1:30.6 | So we've like obviously, we've read a couple books and we've talked a lot about other books |
| 1:35.2 | on the podcast that started their life as fan fiction and various authors who used to be fandom authors and things like that. |
| 1:46.7 | And there's a lot more than you would think. |
| 1:48.4 | And I think the reason that Cassie Claire stands out is that she wasn't just a fan fiction author. |
| 1:53.9 | She was a notorious fan fiction author. |
| 1:58.5 | There, even people who weren't in Harry Potter fandom knew her name because all of the |
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