Deep Thoughts about The Monster at the End of This Book

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t

Hello, everybodeee! There’s no monster at the end of this bonus episode–just a lot of overthinking about a beloved children’s book.

Listen as Emily and Tracie take a deep dive into the charming and oddly subversive 1973 classic The Monster at the End of this Book, starring lovable, furry old Grover. Emily explains how Grover taught her that every reader is an active participant in the story, and why this leads her to abandon books that are too cruel to their characters. Tracie shares how she learned to love dramatic irony and fourth wall breaking while listening to their Dad use a spot-on Grover voice. Both sisters bring up a LOT of other stories, movies, television, and books that relate back to this early favorite.

Join us as we think through the ethical implications of being a consumer of fiction, how reading is powerful rather than passive, and why the phrase “Do you know that you are very strong?” will always delight both Guy girls.

The first 15 minutes of this episode is available wherever you get your pods, but the full bonus episode is only available to patrons. Become a patron for as little as $2 a month.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Mentioned in this episode:

How a Book About Grover Revealed to Me the Wide World of Literature
Incarnations of Burned Children by David Foster Wallace
Stranger than Fiction
Nora Roberts
The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith
Fleabag
Carrie by Stephen King
Jessica Jones
Breaking Bad
Roger Ebert on Nicholas Sparks: “To be sure, I resent the sacrilege Nicholas Sparks commits by mentioning himself in the same sentence as Cormac McCarthy. I would not even allow him to say "Hello, bookstore? This is Nicholas Sparks. Could you send over the new Cormac McCarthy novel?" He should show respect by ordering anonymously.”
The Hunger Games
Neil Gaiman and Good Omens
Pirates of the Caribbean
Press Here and Mix it Up by Hervé Tullet
The Neverending Story