STACK with Jake and Ella
Books We Thought We’d Hate: ACOTAR, Historical Fiction and Prize-Winners
27 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to Stack, a book podcast that's here to help you fall in love and stay in love with reading. My name is Jake, I'm a writer and a podcast producer.
My name's Ella, I work in book publishing. In every episode we'll be cutting through the noise, building a themed stack of six books that we love and we know you will too.
This week's theme is books that we thought we'd hate, subtitle, but we actually loved.
Yeah, actually some quite bad takes in this episode. Warning, may contain bad takes. Before we get into that, how was your week? What have you been up to?
My book is good. I have finally started and finished watching Heated Rivalry.
I've heard so much about it. I think it's very up my street. I haven't watched a single second of it. What do we think?
Really loved. Was. I felt like maybe it would just be... What's the word? Hot and heavy. Is actually also.
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Chapter 2: What is the theme of the episode about books we thought we'd hate?
Do you think it would be filthy?
I thought it was going to be. Is it filthy?
It is filthy. Great.
And I thought that might be just the case.
Yeah.
But by like episode three, I'm a hook, line, sinker. Everything in.
And it's a good story.
Good story. Great acting.
If people haven't heard, will you give us a brief summary?
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Chapter 3: Why did Ella love 'Wolf Hall' despite her initial hesitations?
They're not the only ones that have happened or are important or impactful.
But they do dominate like what we learn about. And so it just felt like you'd been spoon fed and also one particular telling of those wars as well. So I think I just feel like I've heard enough.
Yeah, and I also feel like we're bombarded with ideas about that war that are like heroic men and fighting for the country.
I find patriotism quite uncomfortable.
Yeah.
Again, coming back to reading for escape and just thinking I don't really want to spend my time there, even though there have been other kind of novels set in those eras that I have really enjoyed, but there is something I just really resist from reading them. Also on the cover, there's two men in black and white.
And you hate that.
I just thought that's really emphasising the war.
Okay. Yeah, it's quite, yeah, I know what you mean.
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