HeyJaredThe Side Quest Book Club Podcast
If you’re a reader looking for something deeper or an indie author working on your book, The Side Quest Book Club is for you. We skip the usual book reviews and ratings.
- Indexed episodes, last 90 days
- 9
- Latest publication
- Sep 29, 2026
- Audience
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 7, 2026
Latest episodes
Sunrise on the Reaping Part 3 - Suzanne Collins - Young Adult - Dystopian Book (opens the original)
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Why did The Hunger Games take off in the West when Battle Royale never did? We close out SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins with a full look at the world of Panem — and whether this one makes a good movie. Evan and Jules are back for the finale. We start with the four-year gap between the book and the first movie, and what we were all doing in 2008 instead of reading it. Jules argues that Kishotenketsu is why Eastern storytelling didn't cross over. Jonathan argues the dystopian boom trace
Sunrise on the Reaping Part 2 - Suzanne Collins - Young Adult - Dystopian - Book (opens the original)
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Effie Trinket gets a better character arc in ten pages than Haymitch gets in the entire book. We break down SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins — themes, character arcs, and full spoilers. Part 2 of 3. Slava, Jonathan, Jules, and Evan roll a die to pick a theme and land on the cost of survival — what Haymitch actually gets for staying alive. It turns into an argument about whether Collins gave him an arc at all, why he reads stronger standing next to Katniss, and how Effie, Maysilee, and L
Sunrise on the Reaping Part 1 - Suzanne Collins - Young Adult - Dystopian - Book (opens the original)
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One of us has a theory that this book was ghostwritten and badly edited. Part 1 of 3 on SUNRISE ON THE REAPING by Suzanne Collins — the plot, top to bottom, full spoilers. Jules walks through the prose inconsistencies that made her suspect a second hand on the manuscript. Slava reread all three Hunger Games books and watched four movies out of spite, and still landed at 3.5 out of 5. We argue about whether Snow is a Disney villain, why Haymitch works as a foil to a character who isn't in this bo
How to Start a Podcast Without Waiting for Perfect Gear (opens the original)
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How to start a podcast without waiting for perfect gear — just pick a narrow niche and find your 10 episode ideas. In this how-to episode, Slava and Jonathan walk through the actual process of launching a podcast in 2026, from defining your topic and audience to building a setup that fits your budget. They cover the 10-episode test that separates viable ideas from broad ones that get buried, why specificity wins over production value, and a breakdown of equipment options from $0 (phone in a clos
Indie Author Interview - Keon Shore - Progression Fantasy - Fantasy Book (opens the original)
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She built a magic system out of Gödel's incompleteness theorem. Physicist-turned-author Keon Shore on THE BAD APOTHECARY, book one of The Ninth Path, and the Jungian shadow underneath it. Keon walked away from physics, then spent years turning integral theory, Jung's shadow, and Daoist inner alchemy into a cultivation fantasy where doing magic wrong tears holes in reality. She explains how a universe with repressed truths became the engine of the series, why she wrote it so none of that has to b
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