The English Club Podcast

what even IS Dungeon Crawler Carl? 10.06.2026 2h 30min

Everyone and their mother (in my social circle, literally) is reading Dungeon Crawler Carl. But like, why? It seems like yesterday when litrpg as a genre was an obscure chimera isolated to certain Internet subcultures. A trancelike world untouched by the Freytag Pyramid bepopulate with a self-insert main character and a list of monsters from DnD. How did Dungeon Crawler Carl—which to an outsider’s eye is part and parcel with the works that preceded it—achieve this outplaced virality? Entrance into the closely-guarded annals of modern literary canon? Does Dungeon Crawler Carl, like a certain species of lobe-finned fish which hundreds of millions of years ago stepped warily onto land, represent the adolescent stage of a slow but determined evolution of its kind? Or have the gatekeepers of literary canon, those silent unknowable communicants whose whims determine the intellectual vector of our species, grown soft? Weary? Desperate to welcome in a novitiate born not of greed, but creative frenzy?Idrk. But we had fun talking about it hope u enjoy!!!Help us afford lootboxes for our talking cats: https://www.youtube.com/@sbu_englishclub/membershipObtain the “supported Internet weirdos” achievement: https://ko-fi.com/stbalasar

reading a mafia romance book bc I’m desperate for more sopranos 02.06.2026 1h 37min

I wanted more Sopranos. I compromised. I googled “mafia romance books like the sopranos” and picked up Ruthless People by J.J. McAvoy. I wanted to talk about the Sopranos. All I have is a booktube channel. I compromised. I talked about this book instead. You see where I’m goin’?The sacred and the propane meet in a mafia romance deep dive! Join Andrew and his friend Evin (an exchange student from Boca) as they waste an hour trying to talk about a book that promised much and gave us… something. Will we manuj to get the drop on this book, or will we remain loyle to our capo? Is it fair to compare a market romance book to what’s considered to be one of the greatest TV shows of all time? NOPE! I wish the lord would take me now. Anyway, $4 a pound.Please consider supporting to help us replace our roof with soft tar!Watch the executive game through a crack in the door: https://ko-fi.com/stbalasarBecome the albacore around our necks: https://www.youtube.com/@sbu_englishclub/membership

This Author has gone TOO FAR | Rich Shapero's Island Fruit Remedy 17.04.2026 4h 14min

It's SBU’s first movie! And last Rich Shapero review. I think for real. Like, abstractly these books are interesting to talk about, but they're all just... so much. So this time we have our normal book review and deep dive stuff, but we also have a (semi) found-footage horror movie to frame it to keep things interesting. Why? What does this add? Will this do anything but create a bad review and a poorly-paced movie? *SFX: RIDICULOUSLY LOUD PIG SQUEAL* I hope you guys enjoy!

The Hero's Journey and Its Consequences | Twisted by Miranda Leek 12.03.2026 3h 15min

ROLLER COASTER ROLLER COASTER ROLLER COASTER

Crowntide Deep Dive | Lightlark Keeps Getting Weirder 26.01.2026 3h 20min

Lightlark is back, baybeee! We've met Alex Aster, we've shaken her hand in diplomatic friendship, and now she either betrays or rewards us with what is quite literally Lightlark: In Space!! Stop me if you've heard this before: a big scary extraterrestrial wants to conquer the universe and gain possession of GEMs which are INFINITE.Aster-al adventures await on this historic episode of the English Club Podcast--now with video!ABOUT US:English Club Podcast is a joint venture between two critique partners at "Saint Balasar University". The goal of each episode is to give notoriously "bad" fiction a chance for fair critique, as if the authors were members of a writing group themselves.

Tyra Banks's Book is a Mixed Bag | Modelland Deep Dive & Analysis 19.12.2025 3h 37min

Modelland by Tyra Banks is a fantasmagorical nightmare dreamworld where anything can happen! Join the SBU English Club as they recount the misadventures of Tookie de la Creme, who doesn't really do much. But her mom, Creamy de la Creme, is pretty interesting I guess. I don't know. I'm just writing something so I can make this video more searchable. Literary analysis, literary deep dives, critique group, Tyra Banks, Tyra Banks Rabies, book podcast, booktube. Stuff like that. I don't really know how this stuff works. But we're really glad you're here!

This book’s author QUIT booktube! Meg LaTorre's The Cyborg Tinkerer 11.10.2025 3h 11min

It may be the one thing The SBU English Club categorically is not—writing advice. Top 10 Easy Ways to Plot a Scene! Top 3 Things to NEVER put in Dialogue! As much as we joke, there’s no such thing as writing points. The answer to any writing question is always “it depends”.So when you’re an authortuber, say iWriterly, and you build a brand of laws about writing and a fanbase who knows your maxims by heart, it can be hard to write a book of your own. Sometimes, you break writing rules on purpose, and at other times you do it by accident. The end result is the same.The Cyborg Tinkerer is not a good book, in our opinion. But COULD it have been? Was the outplaced hate for this book the result of a mismatch between Meg LaTorre’s YouTube audience and the kind of people that would like a book of this… caliber???Andrew (he/him) and Jay (they/them) travel to a magical place untouched by booktok, and unravel the steamy steampunk snarky whatever the heck else secrets within!

we read Age of Scorpius and have some thoughts 02.09.2025 3h 33min

It's not a secret, and we're not about to be contrarians: reviews for The Age of Scorpius are not very good. There's no question that this is not the ideal version of this story. Only one single question is left: what does Audra Winter do now?She says she's rewriting this book, hiring editors and all kinds of artists to realize the world of Gardian. Which is all well and good, especially if you're hiring human artists. The world is, despite what the LLC might tell you, not very well-developed, the characters are awkward, and the plot seems very convenient and by the numbers. But does any of that matter when your prose is littered with misused words?Here at SBU, we're real life critique partners at a fictional university. Our hosts J (they/them) and Andrew (he/him) focus on elevating panned and/or controversial books by offering actionable advice, and leaving out booktok drama as much as possible. But when your entire existence is predicated on booktok fame, is there any avoiding it? Are unpleasant Internet figures truly our enemy, when so many forces are set against the continued existence of books as we know them? All this and more is... not really answered, but definitely discussed, in another action-packed episode of the SBU English Club Podcast!Music by Benjamin Davis

The Weirdest Book We've Ever Read! Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters 08.08.2025 2h 19min

Long before booktok was an even worse place known as SomethingAwful. A squalid, terrible place, it nonetheless gave birth to many characters that have become Internet darlings--such as Nick "ulillillia" Smith.Ulillillia is one of the coolest people ever; despite a hard childhood of video game-induced phobias, he mastered the art of self-improvement by conceiving of his perceived faults as EXP bars in an RPG. Unfortunately, however, his debut novel The Legend of the 10 Elemental Masters is a bit of a mess. Join Andrew and J in another book deep dive and analysis through the sands of time, and see just what the adventures of Knuckles and Speed can offer writers--particularly those interested in LitRPG and adjacent genres.

here’s the entire plot of the powerless trilogy by lauren roberts and what we think about it 23.06.2025 3h 48min

Team Kitt stays losing.Powerless, Reckless, and Fearless make up a young adult trilogy full of love triangles, enemies to lovers, and absolutely unintelligible plot twists. J and Andrew lose their minds as we try to tackle the last two parts of this trilogy, giving you a deep dive into both books and then an analysis of the books' and the series's strengths and weaknesses, in the hopes of saving aspiring writers with actionable, grounded advice.

History has Absolved Divergent 07.05.2025 2h 52min

Unfortunately, Divergent is good now. There was a time when it was the worst YA dystopia ever, but now all we can do is quietly smile at how silly it was. Well, sorta. In a world untouched by booktok—a world in which you can have two characters get steamy without being worried that Violet Sorrengail will Make the Lightning Happen—darker things than tropelists lurk in the shadows. Veronica Roth’s deepest desires and her weird, weird beliefs take Andrew and J to new literary depths, unpacking centuries-old religious debates and reworking the literary world into which Divergent was born. The days of debating whether you’re Team Oro or Team Grim are long gone. Now, the only question facing the SBU English Club is this: what is the true meaning of fear?Please consider supporting us! Members get early access to our videos, vote on our next podcast episode, and get exclusive content, like Not an Audiobook: A Crown of Starlight Companion Podcast! https://www.youtube.com/@sbu_englishclub/membershipFollow Andrew on Instagram! https://www.instagram.com/sbu_englishclub/Follow J on Twitter! https://x.com/sbu_englishclub

Blood of Hercules is Romantasy's Rock Bottom 12.03.2025 3h 13min

Love it or hate it, everyone’s talking about Blood of Hercules. Jasmine Mas’s catapulting from shifter romance to new adult romantasy shocked booktok and normal people alike. And intrepid bottom-feeding trend chasers Jay and Andrew are no exception. Having faced books that left more to be desired and others that are ontologically evil, they were ready for anything—anything BUT what was about to be thrown at them. Brooding boys, sassy snakes, enemies to lovers back to enemies, unambiguously unwanted advances, and a really “memorable” protagonist. Step into the SBU club room and join Jay and Andrew in a much-too-long discussion covering everything from trailer park thermodynamics to the use of parentheses in prose to the dynamics of fantasy vs reality to unqualified and over-simplified explorations of feminism to who is and who is not welcome in my shed.Not gonna lie, this one’s a little intense.

This Bible Fanfiction SUCKS! But it's also great YA fantasy??? 01.02.2025 2h 23min

Apparently, the people who made the giant replica of Noah’s ark also wrote a pseudo-fantasy trilogy about Noah’s early life. This one has a T-REX GLADIATOR FIGHT ON THE COVER OHH MY GODDDDD! Join us for a really really weird experience as Tim Chaffey and K. Marie Adams return. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about this book because it's UNBELIEVABLE.

Skyshade is the Worst Book I've Ever Read 23.12.2024 3h 58min

Lightlark was terrible. Nightshade was less terrible but more disappointing. Now I don’t know how I feel. Alex Aster has tested the SBU English Club ever since she first started going viral on TikTok. Barely a romantasy and hardly a love triangle, the tropes we were promised were always bad but now are now completely diluted. But we’re determined to turn this into an actual story, despite BookTok’s best efforts.

Zenith's Sequel is a Hidden Gem! 22.11.2024 3h 18min

They all said Zenith was a disaster. And they were right, but for the wrong reasons. And then they never said anything about Nexus. So here's 3 and a half hours of us talking about how Nexus is good actually. It is genuinely mind boggling how subjectively better Nexus is than Zenith, how objectively good it is, and how much it's slept on by the online YA/BookTube/SciFantasy community. It's even crazier that Nexus is a gonzo, trippy, borderline experimental sci-fi story in which bombing a black hole full of ghosts to take over the universe is one of the more straightforward plot points. For having started with a book so poorly received that one might argue it was reviewbombed, Nexus is the redemption arc that the SBU English Club Podcast desperately needed. Especially because the new Lightlark book just dropped...

Powerless isn’t that bad, you guys are just mean 18.10.2024 3h 39min

Lauren Roberts has a viral BookTok sensation on her hands. "Red Queen meets Hunger Games," she calls it. “Worse than Lightlark,” responds the Internet. Still, questions abound. How can some people love this book, while others consider it one of the worst books ever? Which BookTok book has the best dumb twist ending? Is TikTok book marketing a surefire path to success in publishing your book? Join critique partners and Lightlark superfans Jay and Andrew as they explore this "spicy" romantasy that works in all the wrong ways.

Let’s Read Crown of Starlight! Cait Corrain Controversy | Booktok Book Deep Dive and Analysis 23.08.2024 4h 35min

YOU WON’T GET THIS ANYWHERE ELSE. Controversial book deep dives & analysis, booktok fights, review bombing, and the wildest book drama to come out of Twitter—all right here at the SBU English Club. Our club members face their greatest challenge yet: Cait Corrain’s Crown of Starlight! Cait had everything—a two-book traditional publishing deal, rave reviews from literary critics, and a successful ARC distribution. And then she made it go up in flames. But what about the book itself? What was it about? Would this have been the next Fourth Wing, had she not reviewbombed everyone who would’ve supported her? What are the ethics of reading a discontinued book with such a bad reputation, and what responsibilities do we have to each other as readers, writers, and Internet users? Also in this episode: Cait Corrain drama explained! You’ve heard the story before, you’ve seen the fake Discord chat, but do we—can we—know the full story, and trust the people telling it to us? Join us as we put laser focus on facts that others have glossed over—facts that can NEVER exonerate Cait Corrain, but CAN illustrate the risk that there may be some of them in all of us. Please support Cait Corrain’s victims: https://www.asakkalon.com/2024-debut-books-to-support-thanks-cait-corrain/

Zenith is Lightlark in Space! YA Book Review and Deep Dive 21.07.2024 3h 1min

It's YA Sci-Fi gone wild! Join the SBU English Club as they review what has to be one of the longest YA books ever--Zenith by Sasha Alsberg and Lindsay Cummings! Don't believe the author drama--this book is nowhere NEAR as bad as they say it is. But they also don't talk about what makes this book REALLY bad. Weird how that happens. Whether you're a fan of the genre or just curious about the controversy, join us for a deep dive into what we will come to call the proto-Lightlark.

Trigger Warning’s Author is Back! Not My Home RANT REVIEW 16.06.2024 2h 4min

Somehow, J.A. Johnstone has returned. And she’s brought a new book that’s somehow more insane than the last. Join the SBU English Club as they tackle another ripped-from-the-headlines Johnstone thriller, and try in vain to figure out just what headlines this is supposed to be ripped from. Just as a warning, this one gets kinda real, so listen at your discretion.

This Furry Fantasy Book is EVIL! Rich Shapero’s Wild Animus 20.04.2024 2h 19min

The worst author ever is back with a furry mountain-climbing fever dream! This one’s so much to deal with that our heroes need to call in the help of a friend. Throw yourself to the wolves and join the fun as the English Club tackles a book that may literally be ontologically evil. Is it safe to climb a mountain in a fursuit? How much are you (not) supposed to spend on marketing your book? Is this guy serious? Find out on our newest episode!