Book Riot - The Podcast - Podcast Rankings and reviews

I absolutely love this show! I look forward to every new release. It’s not only enjoyable, but as a Children’s Librarian it’s such an easily digestible way to keep up with what’s happening in the adult world of books & publishing without ever feeling like I’m doing more work. Great hosts & awesome info!

As a librarian I love listening to this and being in the know about what is coming up in books. I feel like it’s really upped my game in knowing what is going on in the publishing world and I genuinely enjoy their conversations!

I really like the concept of this podcast and much of the content is interesting and engaging. But, there are three aspects of it that I find distracting and annoying. First, the frequent hyping of the Patreon version. Second, way too much talk about movies and TV shows. Three, Rebecca’s extremely frequent forced laughter. Maybe is a nervous habit but whatever it is, it’s really distracting.

I enjoy the insight and the information shared. Both about books and the publishing industry. I don’t follow any book trends or social media stuff so this is where I learn about book-related things people talk about. The downside of this chatty conversational style is that the hosts tend to interrupt each other before they’ve finished their thoughts. Which is baffling because this is an edited show. My impression that Jeff does it because he’s the main/dominant (?) host and Rebecca does it because she’s afraid she won’t otherwise get air time. Another tiny peeve is when they don’t explain some terms they use in the heat of the discussion, but this I can live with.

When one of the hosts pronounces the main character’s name incorrectly throughout, it detracts from the level of literary sophistication they’re trying to show.

To reiterate what others have said, Jeff mansplains everything, talks over Rebecca, and is overall cringeworthy. Rebecca has some good insight, but I always feel like he’s taking on some teacher role and she’s the student striving for the A. Their interactions with each other are awkward, punctuated by Rebecca’s incessant forced, or perhaps nervous, laughter. I stopped listening after they did an episode about Jewish literature, and out of the 10 books recommended, 3 were by Michael chabon. It led me to believe they’re not really up on books as much as they claim to be.