Cracked Spines

Dark romance should be DARKER!!! But where is the line? This week we approach that age-old question through the lens of Captive Prince, a 2016 novel by C.S. Pacat, especially in comparison to the dark/taboo romance more popular today. We talk about censorship, purity politics, and the way that Amazon's restrictions on self-publishing content shapes the trends and tropes in romance today. Featuring a special guest star who finally SOLVES the issue of censorship vs freedom of expression forever! Yippee, we did it! 
(This episode contains spoilers for the three books in the Captive Prince trilogy)
Content warnings: Discussions involving sexual assault, bestiality, and pedophilia. 
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It's a book! An actual book! Can you believe it? This week, Sarah and Cyrus read 'There Is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm, a novel that was originally a web serial about the SCP foundation, but has since found a home with its serial numbers filed off in tradpublishing. Sarah knows a little bit about SCP, Cyrus knows nothing, and they spend a good chunk of the episode trying and failing to come up with a tagline for this podcast. 
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This week Cyrus and Sarah each bring their book stacks to the table to discuss what they are planning to read this year. They get immediately sidetracked into an argument about how many books you should have in your "to read" pile, how many books you should have in general, when you should decide to give a book away, and--most importantly--the most recent ways Cyrus nearly died due to hubris. Sarah is literally stunned speechless. Cyrus has learned nothing. They both have some ambitious reading goals for 2026. 
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At long last, the moment we've all been waiting for: Cyrus has finally obtained their white whale du jour, two specimens of the world's tallest chicken. Also it's the end of the year! Here is the big breakdown of all the books we read, enjoyed, were let down by, and thought about a lot. Cyrus has detailed stats from their spreadsheets and Sarah will die before giving up her beloved Book of Books. It's not a numbers game, but Sarah won. 
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Hello, gang, time for the annual oopsie episode where we acknowledge the sins of our past (not uploading podcast episodes) and lay out our plans to change in the future (start three more podcast?). We catch up on life then eventually discuss THE question we return to again and again: what do you do when your TBR list gets too daunting. Cyrus discusses the frustration of false starts. Sarah gives up on the young adult genre. No shovels were harmed in the making of this episode, which makes these 50 or so minutes completely unique compared to the rest of Cyrus's enterprises. 
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