The Gnome is Doing His Best

Reading As Fast As We Can: The Low Stakes Podcast · Jul 13, 2026 · 1h

Irish curls, the “pokey phase” of parenting, eight hours of sleep somehow making everything worse, and a very serious debate over whether fall hair should be foofier—this episode begins exactly as chaotically as you would expect.Then Anni and Jackie dive into Annihilation, including the changes that made the film feel completely different from the novel, why unnamed characters matter, and why sometimes you need to sit with a story before deciding how many stars it deserves.We also talk about the unusual time-travel rules in Before the Coffee Gets Cold, sci-fi disguised as horror…