The Worst Bestsellers

Episode 279 – All The Way To The River

The Worst Bestsellers

Show Notes

Get in losers, we’re going All The Way to the River. We read Elizabeth Gilbert’s latest book with guest Jack Lawler of Work.Retire.Die, The Daily Friday, and The Daily Friday podcast. If you’ve heard anything about this book, you’re probably wondering: did this lady try to kill her wife or what? Well, you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out!

Readers advisory: Here.

Footnotes: Episode 209 – Eat Pray Love

“Elizabeth Gilbert opens up about sex, drugs and codependency in a new memoir” by Tonya Mosely

“My Once-in-a-Million-Years Love Story” by Elizabeth Gilbert

“Elizabeth Gilbert’s Latest Epiphanies” by Jia Tolentino

Gavel of Justice sound

Coming up next: The Company of Vengeful Crows by Lana Pecherczyk.

More from The Worst Bestsellers

Oct 12, 2026

Did you ever wish you could read something that was kinda like Harry Potter, but with way more graphic torture and sexual assault? No? Well, apparently a whole lot of people did want that, because Alchemised by SenLinYu is a huge bestseller. We discussed it with our long-suffering friend Nicole. Before you listen to this episode, please give us $1. I think you’ll all agree that we earned it.

Sep 28, 2026

Somehow, we’ve been podcasting for 12 years? And Stephenie Meyer rudely did not release any new books this year, so we were forced to read Court by Tracy Wolff, book 4 in her deeply derivative (but not legally plagiarized) Crave series. Our OG guest Carrie joined us to navigate this boring escape room. Thank you all so much for listening to us for (up to) twelve years! Please listen to this episode while manifesting new output from Stephenie Meyer.

Sep 14, 2026

Lock up your children and manuscripts: we read Verity by Colleen Hoover. We were joined by Renata’s cherished friend Jake to discuss this BookTok sensation. Listen to this episode while you sand the teeth marks out of your headboard.

Aug 24, 2026

Flashback Summer is over, but we still ended up back in 1855…or did we? By popular request, we read Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke. We were joined by S. Jae-Jones, author of the Guardians of Dawn series (including the latest in the series, Suhwa.) Listen to this episode while you churn your butter. (It’s an extra long ep so you might have time to make a fresh loaf of bread, too!)

Aug 10, 2026

The Venn diagram between Flashback Summer and Sad Girl Summer is overlapping! We read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. For our discussion we were joined by a very cool sad girl, Theresa Okokon (@Ohh.Jeezzz), the author of Who I Always Was and cohost of Stories from the Stage. By the way, if you haven’t gotten around to reading this one before–it is actually good and we are actually spoiling the heck out of it. You’ve been warned. (And if you have read it: then you know you should have a box of tissues handy for this episode.)

See all episodes →