Episode 231 – The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Worst Bestsellers
Worst Bestsellers
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2023
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We held our annual Patreon Choice poll and our Beloved Patrons chose to send us back in time to 2003 with The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Since the book is prominently set in Chicago, we were #blessed to be joined by prominent Chicagoan Ashley to unpack the Jeremy Bearimy of it all. Please do not listen to this episode while having sex with your future wife for the first time.
Content warning: Sketchy time travel age/consent issues, death of a partner, miscarriages.
Readers advisory: Here.
Footnotes: “Popular Titles are Vanishing from HBO Max After Merger” by Eric Deggans.
The Time Traveler’s Wife: Reception
Audrey Niffenegger Tweet about The Other Husband
Legends of Tomorrow – Swan Thong
Coming up next: The Woman in Me by Britney Spears.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to worst bestsellers, where we read about reverse imprinting so you don't have to. |
| 0:17.8 | I'm Renata. |
| 0:19.1 | And for this episode, we read The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenager. |
| 0:25.2 | Joining us to discuss this Patreon choice book is Ashley, a Chicagoan and librarian who has seen every time travel episode of Star Trek and also has been to the Newberry Library. |
| 0:38.9 | Welcome back, Ashley. |
| 0:45.2 | Hi, guys. It's good to be back. Thank you so much. It's good to have you. I'll say right up at the top of this episode that I am very clearly very sick and I'm sorry that you have |
| 0:51.1 | to listen to me like this, but there's just literally no time to |
| 0:54.7 | reschedule this episode. |
| 0:58.1 | We'll try it our best to do the heavy verbal lifting for Kate, so you can just like |
| 1:03.9 | chime in with your peak insights about how the book should have been gayer and scarier. |
| 1:09.3 | Absolutely, yes. |
| 1:10.8 | More ghosts. This book Yes. More ghosts. |
| 1:12.4 | This book would love some ghosts. |
| 1:14.1 | It would really benefit for some ghosts. |
| 1:15.8 | I love that idea. |
| 1:18.0 | So, this book, every year, our beloved patron patrons get to vote on a book for us to read, |
| 1:26.4 | and this is what they chose. |
| 1:28.4 | And I was surprised, |
| 1:31.2 | because from the beginning, |
| 1:32.3 | this was, |
| 1:32.6 | like, |
| 1:32.7 | running away with the poll. |
... |
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