If you’ve ever accidentally taken a five-month podcast hiatus and then casually wandered back in like nothing happened… hi. Welcome. You are among friends.
Yes, My Sister’s TBR is officially back. Again.
We left sometime around spring and resurfaced in sweater weather with wildly different reading stats, several months of opinions stored up, and one increasingly concerning question:
Why can’t we find a book that actually scares us?
This episode is part reading catch-up, part September wrap-up, and part investigation into whether we’ve somehow become immune to fictional fear.
Spoiler: probably not.
But we’re going to keep testing the theory.
A Quick Vibe Check: We Have Returned
First things first: we haven’t recorded since April.
At this point, that wasn’t a hiatus. It was a full seasonal migration.
And surprisingly, neither of us spent those five months reading hundreds of books.
Stace finished 18.
Rebecca finished two and a half.
The half is important because Rebecca made it approximately 70% through The Last Letter before committing the ultimate reader crime:
She forgot she was reading it.
Not intentionally paused. Not DNF’d.
Forgot.
But honestly? We’re embracing it.
Reading is supposed to be something we enjoy, and sometimes life simply does not leave room for twelve books a month. Reading slumps happen. Other hobbies happen. Life happens.
The books will still be there when we come back.
Unfortunately, so will our TBRs.
The Hits: Books Worth Coming Out of Hibernation For
Despite the reading slowdown, there were some very good books hiding in the last few months.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Five stars and currently making a very serious case for Stace’s favorite book of the year.
It takes a little while to settle into—especially if Greek mythology isn’t already your thing—but once this book gets its claws into you, good luck.
Beautiful, tragic, and one of those stories that sticks around long after you’ve finished it.
Stace has apparently entered her Greek mythology era, and honestly, we’re just letting it happen.
The Someday Garden by Ashley Poston
Another Ashley Poston. Another five stars. At this point, nobody is surprised.
Ashley Poston continues to have an alarming understanding of exactly what Stace wants from a book, and The Someday Garden did nothing to break the streak.
If she writes it, Stace will apparently five-star it.
Those are simply the rules.
The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
So close to five stars.
Fake dating, women in STEM, excellent chemistry and characters that were incredibly easy to love.
This one also sent Stace directly into the movie adaptation—which may have been a mistake.
The book? Highly recommend.
The movie immediately after finishing the book?
Maybe give yourself a minute.
Sometimes the book hangover needs to wear off before Hollywood gets involved.
The Middle Ground: Good… But We Have Notes
Not everything was a hit, but several books landed firmly in the “I liked it, HOWEVER—” category.
Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks
Rebecca finally returned to reading with an author who should have been a safe bet.
And then Nicholas Sparks started switching perspectives.
The book begins in first person with Colby before introducing Beverly’s storyline in third person—which was especially confusing for someone who refuses to read descriptions before starting books.
Rebecca’s actual reading experience was therefore less:
Ah, an interconnected secondary storyline.
And more:
Who the hell is Beverly?
It still had the emotional Nicholas Sparks DNA and delivered the expected tearjerker moments, but the perspective change made it harder for Rebecca to settle into the story.
Three stars.
A Fig for All the Devils by C.S. Fritz
Another attempt to find a book that will actually scare Stace.
Another failure.
But this one was at least an interesting failure.
A grieving boy meets the Grim Reaper—who happens to love junk food, cigarettes and poetry—and finds himself being trained as Death’s potential successor.
Dark? Yes.
Horror elements? Definitely.
Weirdly wholesome? Also yes.
It wasn’t the terrifying experience Stace went looking for, but there was enough humor, heart and creepiness to make it an enjoyable three-star read.
Just don’t expect to sleep with the lights on.
The Misses: Please Just Communicate
Sometimes a book has one specific thing that absolutely destroys your enjoyment of it.
For Stace, that thing continues to be:
The miscommunication trope.
Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood
Women in STEM, Enemies-to-lovers-ish tension, Ali Hazelwood doing Ali Hazelwood things? Absolutely.
Unfortunately, Love on the Brain also contains the kind of miscommunication that makes you want to physically climb into the book, sit everyone down and say:
USE. YOUR. WORDS.
An enormous portion of the conflict could have disappeared if these grown adults simply communicated with one another.
Three stars on a generous day.
Closer to 2.5 when the miscommunication rage resurfaces.
And once again we are asking fictional adults to please consider having one normal conversation.
Our Horror Problem Is Getting Personal
We have a new mission.
We want a book that actually scares us.
Not “that was creepy.”
Not “interesting atmosphere.”
Not “I felt mildly uneasy for eleven pages.”
We want I don’t want to cross the hallway because something might be standing at the other end scary.
And somehow we cannot find it.
Even Incidents Around the House—a book repeatedly recommended as genuinely terrifying—only managed a few really unsettling moments for Stace before ultimately landing at two stars.
Then a librarian suggested something horrifying:
Nonfiction.
Specifically, true crime.
Her theory was actually annoyingly convincing: maybe part of the problem is that our brains know these horror stories aren’t real.
But something that actually happened? Something that could happen? That might be different.
So we may have to venture into unfamiliar territory and read nonfiction.
Please keep us in your thoughts during this difficult time.
Featured Read:
The Unknown by Riley Sager
September’s Featured Read took us to New Avalon, a remote Vermont island with a tiny historical problem:
Five women disappeared there in 1926.
The island once housed a commune of spiritual mediums, and after the women vanished, the only trace left behind was five dresses hanging from an old oak tree.
A century later, struggling actress Marin Keane lands a role in a movie based on the mystery and travels with the cast and crew to New Avalon for research.
Because apparently no one involved has ever watched a horror movie and learned the very basic rule:
Do not go to the creepy island.
Soon there are strange noises, mysterious symbols, disappearances and plenty of reasons to question whether the truth behind New Avalon is human, supernatural—or something else entirely.
The Spoiler-Free Verdict
This one was complicated.
Stace landed around four stars, while Rebecca hovered somewhere between 3.5 and four.
Was it the terrifying haunted-island story we were hoping for? No.
Did Riley Sager nearly lose us completely at one point? Absolutely.
But then came a twist neither of us saw coming, and suddenly we understood exactly why we’d been taken down that road.
The atmosphere was strong, the writing kept things moving, and even though it didn’t give us the story we expected, the eventual reveal was clever enough to completely change how we looked at everything that came before it.
We haven’t stopped thinking about it.
If you’ve already read The Unknown, listen to the episode for our full spoiler discussion, because there is absolutely no way to talk about what made this book work without ruining the thing that made it work.
And trust us… You want to experience that reveal yourself.
Wrapping Up September (And Our Accidental Hiatus)
So, after disappearing for several months, we’ve returned with:
⭐ A possible favourite book of the year
⭐ Another Ashley Poston five-star
⭐ Rebecca forgetting an entire book existed
⭐ Stace once again declaring war on the miscommunication trope
⭐ A continued inability to be frightened by horror novels
⭐ And a Riley Sager twist that nearly broke our brains
Honestly?
Not a bad way to come back.
Now we’re heading into October with one very specific request:
Scare us.
We’re taking recommendations for books that genuinely made you afraid to turn off the lights, because clearly we need to escalate this experiment.
Keep an eye on our Instagram for our October Featured Read, and listen to Episode 4.07 for all the opinions, tangents, spoilers, and sisterly chaos we couldn’t fit here.
Until next time:
Read what you want.
Forget you’re reading it if you must.
And maybe don’t book a research trip to the creepy island where five women mysteriously disappeared. 💚📖
