Save It for the Pod

Alex and Lindsey
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A book podcast (and sometimes movie) about literary and character analysis. With over a decade of "you have to read this," Alex and Lindsey finally pull up a chair for you. One book per episode, taken apart in full spoiler detail: themes, character motivation, structure, cry count, and rating. New episodes every other week.

  1. 3 days ago

    The Seven-Year Slip by Ashley Poston — Me With More

    Clementine is twenty-nine, a book publicist in New York, six months into grieving the aunt who left her an apartment. The apartment occasionally deposits her seven years in the past, where a man is subletting for the summer. Full spoilers throughout. Content note: suicide. Alex and Lindsey get into what the book argues about change: that loving someone means falling for them again as they become new people, and that refusing to let someone change is its own denial of the future. They work through the aunt as the cautionary version of the same story, a woman who kept moving so nothing could ever sour, and try to untangle whose timeline is ahead of whose, which turns out to be genuinely hard to hold in your head. Plus a defense of romance as a genre that does more with personal growth than it gets credit for. Then it gets personal. Coming up on eight years married, they ask whether they'd date each other's seven-years-ago selves. Neither answer is yes. Also: a pronunciation crisis over the male lead's name, two pigeons with an unprintable one, and the discovery that the book's cover matches this podcast's colors. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  2. 17 Aug

    Morning Star by Pierce Brown — Winning is Easy (Red Rising #3)

    Darrow has spent nine months in a box. Morning Star picks up there and closes out the Red Rising trilogy. Full spoilers throughout, including the ending, plus Hunger Games spoilers in the final segment. Alex and Lindsey argue that this is actually Sevro's book rather than Darrow's, and trace him from imitating his father and Darrow to the moment he stops performing and does something real. They get into a death that lands far earlier than either of them was ready for, whether the Jackal was ever redeemable or simply committed to his own victimhood, and Darrow's late reckoning with who Eo actually was: brave, reckless, and gone before she had to live with what she started. Plus the compromises Darrow makes here that are harder to defend than anything he's done before. Then the question the trilogy leaves open. Taking the throne turns out to be the easy part, and there are four more books about what comes next. Also: a listener question comparing this to The Hunger Games, one meme that yanked someone clean out of the book, and the cover art making sense. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  3. 3 Aug

    The Odyssey directed by Christopher Nolan — At What Cost?

    Christopher Nolan's Odyssey, seen on 70mm in a sold-out theater. Full spoilers throughout. Neither of them has read the poem all the way through, so this is about Nolan's retelling rather than Homer. Alex and Lindsey get into the Trojan Horse as a violation of the one rule nobody broke, that a stranger at your door might be a god in disguise, and what happens to a society after that pact is gone. They make the case that this is a pointed follow-up to Oppenheimer, another story about a weapon that can't be un-invented, and argue about whether the modern equivalent is the phone in your pocket. Also: Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson doing the thing Odysseus gets songs written about, and a theater that applauded at the end. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  4. 20 July

    Theo of Golden by Allen Levi — Invited to Consider

    An 86-year-old stranger arrives in the small Georgia town of Golden, buys all 92 pencil portraits hanging in a local coffee shop, and begins returning them to the people they depict. Full spoilers throughout. Alex and Lindsey get into Theo's governing idea that to love someone is to be curious about them, what happens to a novel when its protagonist arrives already fully formed, and whether the book's explicitly Christian register is a barrier or beside the point. They also pick favorite bestowals (Tony the bookstore owner, and Kendrick) and talk about an ending they both braced for without guessing its shape. A new cry count record, a dispute over whether choking up counts, and ratings at the end.

  5. 6 July

    Golden Son by Pierce Brown — Live for More (Red Rising #2)

    Golden Son (the second book in the Red Rising trilogy) opens with a time skip, a defeat, and Darrow's patron cutting him loose. Everything he built at the Institute is gone, and the Sons of Ares want him to become a terrorist. Full spoilers for Red Rising and Golden Son. Alex and Lindsey get into Ragnar, and the scene where freedom is offered to him and he experiences it as an insult rather than a gift. They argue that changing sides costs him far more than it costs any Gold. They also work through Darrow's own prejudice against the Golds he holds at arm's length, whether Roque's betrayal was always coming or something Darrow caused, and Fitchner's claim about which color has to lead a rebellion for it to free everybody. Plus the irony that the Golds turn out to be the most aimless and pleasure-seeking of all the colors, in a system Augustus defends on the grounds that it prevents exactly that. Then Darrow goes home, and his mother says something about Eo that neither of them expected to hear out loud. It's where both cry counts came from. Also: a scoreboard on last book's predictions, including one theory that turns out to be spectacularly wrong, and two people with real complaints about the pacing who still want the next book. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  6. 22 June

    Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden — Comfortable Cages

    In spring 2020, Belle Burden's husband of twenty years announced without warning that he was leaving. This is her account of the years that followed: the divorce, the prenup she signed without pushing back, and the reconstruction of a marriage she thought was happy. Full spoilers throughout, and the show's first nonfiction pick. Alex and Lindsey get into how reliable a narrator Belle is early on versus late, and whether she knew herself well enough at the time to judge whether her marriage was working. They dig into the prenup as the book's engine, the muscles she let atrophy at James's request, and the difference between a partner who promises to protect you and one who empowers you. Plus what drew these two together in the first place, and the question underneath the whole book: what separates loving someone from consuming them. Also: the double standard in the responses to Belle's essay, what the divorce cost the children, and the strange experience of reading a divorce memoir that doubles as a window into how the one percent live. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  7. 8 June

    The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab — Devil in the Details

    In 1714, Addie trades her soul for freedom and gets it on terms she didn't read closely enough: she cannot age, cannot be remembered by anyone she meets, and cannot leave a mark on the world. Three hundred years later, a man in a bookstore says he remembers her. Full spoilers throughout. Alex and Lindsey get into whether being remembered by someone else is part of what makes you human, and whether Addie actually grows across three centuries or whether the curse makes growth impossible. They work through Henry's inverted curse, seen by everyone as whatever they need him to be and known by none of them, and make the case that his arc is the more satisfying one. Plus Luc as antagonist and suitor, the question of whether he loves her, and a distinction between two kinds of freedom that Addie only ever gets one of. This one produced their first split verdict, and their first thumbs down. One of them ends up rating the two protagonists separately. Also: the theories they had about where this was going, which they liked better than where it went, and an ancient orange cat in the horror section. Cry count and ratings at the end.

  8. 25 May

    Red Rising by Pierce Brown — Power in Suffering

    Darrow is a sixteen-year-old Helldiver mining helium-3 beneath the surface of Mars for a civilization he doesn't know exists above him. Then, his wife, Eo, forces his hand. Full spoilers throughout. Alex and Lindsey get into the color caste system as both world building and argument, and whether the Golds are genetically superior or whether the whole hierarchy is a myth propped up by engineering. They work through what Darrow's real flaw is, given that everyone calls him naive and he keeps being proven right, and land on the idea that his arc is about recognizing the system rather than his competitors as the enemy. Plus the Institute as a compressed run through human history, and Sevro as the argument that loyalty beats power. One of them disagrees with the book's premise more than the other. Both are uneasy about a story that asks a sixteen-year-old to give his life to a cause, and about the adults arranging it. Also: Mustang puncturing Darrow's messiah moment, a theory about Eo that gets increasingly unhinged, the Judeo-Christian naming that gives away a Trojan horse, comparisons to Dr. Tom Holland's Dominion, and how this reads against Sunrise on the Reaping. Cry count and ratings at the end.

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About

A book podcast (and sometimes movie) about literary and character analysis. With over a decade of "you have to read this," Alex and Lindsey finally pull up a chair for you. One book per episode, taken apart in full spoiler detail: themes, character motivation, structure, cry count, and rating. New episodes every other week.

Information

  • Creator
    Alex and Lindsey
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Alex and Lindsey
  • Show Website
    Save It for the Pod

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