Welcome to Litsy!

This is on the Women‘s Prize shortlist, and won the Carol Sheilds Prize for Fiction. The story traces a family through the Sri Lankan Civil War. The setting is immersive and terrifying, the characters are well-drawn and interesting, and the language is clear yet descriptive. I finished this days ago, and I am still thinking about it and searching for more information about Sri Lanka. Unforgettable.

I‘m not sure I have the words to express just how sad this book is. It‘s a virtual ‘no one will save you‘ story about Sri Lanka. Competing militant factions, government, the UN, none of them will stop the deaths of civilians. This really is historical fiction at its finest, with the result being that I now know almost intimately the pain this county has experienced.

I really thought this was well done. There is a lot of this Sri Lanka in the 1980s lit turning up in the lit prizes over the past couple of years. Or maybe they were always there and I'm reading more of the selections.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Over the last few days I kept falling asleep every time I picked this book up. I was getting super annoyed about it. Just found out I have COVID which explains a lot of recent events. It‘s a mild case, so all is well. Just sleeping a lot. 💤💤

I‘ve read some great books this year. I think Brotherless Night will be hard to beat as best of year.

I owe a massive thank you to the Women‘s Prize for putting this book on my radar because I absolutely loved it. Sashi is a beautifully rendered character who wants to become a doctor and help others. When Sri Lanka explodes into civil war she tries to balance that need to help, the love she feels for her family and friends, and the violent changes taking place around her. Not a book I expected to have a hard time putting down but I really did.

#SpringSkies Day 29 #FavBkOfMarch

@Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I read some fantastic books in April. I might get one more in today for a total of 21 books.

Audio: 9 🦋 Print: 5 🦋 Kindle: 6 🦋

Women‘s Prize: 7 🦋 #SeriesLove24: 6 🦋 NetGalley: 1 🦋 Litsy buddy reads & challenges: 8 🦋

5 🌟 Zorrie 🦋 Brotherless Night 🦋 The Kingdom, The Power and The Glory 🦋

Foggy morning after a night‘s rain.Tulips closed up for the night.Low 70s predicted but no sun.Wondering what makes them open?Temperature?Sun?
There is the rapid tapping of a woodpecker at work- she must be in one of the tall ancient Maples that line part of my driveway, because her tapping is LOUD.A chorus of birdsong has begun. A silent runner passes by.I love celebrating early mornings on my porch. #porchlife
#coffeeandbooks Book mail arrived.

This was appropriately grim & brutal. 😒

#independentbookstoreday with @KLyn1
Had to get a couple for #camplitsy24 of course!

This book was 18 years in the making and it‘s obvious that the author put her heart and soul into it. The way war creeps in and disrupts, the way sides are chosen, how violence erupts, the way people try to maintain a normal existence when chaos is all around. I think this book is extraordinary. 5 🌟. Vying for the top spot on my Women‘s Prize short list.

#MotivationalMonday

1) I have a whole week to myself with no set plans. I think this is a first since my kids were born.
2) This is Dahlia. My husband is her person. She will miss him and tolerate me.
3) I would like to fly and not anything small enough to be someone‘s dinner.
4) Finishing the tagged today.

Tagging everyone

@Cupcake12

Who is going to come to save us?

#WeekendReads

Will finish The Nun today and hopefully Brotherless Night tomorrow.

@rachelsbrittain

It was a daily brutality roulette.

Map (detail) from https://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/sri_lanka_map.htm

Sashi, a Tamil girl determined to be a doctor, is 16 when this novel opens in 1981 in northern Sri Lanka. Before long, she and everyone around her are in the midst of a civil war. Her searing voice makes this novel unputdownable and unforgettable.

When I returned from the clinic, I flung myself not into bed or back into my studies, but into those volumes. Their words drained the night of terror. In the Colombo refugee camp, I had longed for a book to remove me from reality. With every chapter I read now, I felt not removed but partially returned to a safety I had thought entirely lost. I tethered my interior life to the pages.

You must understand: there is no single day on which a war begins. The conflict will collect around you gradually, the way carrion birds assemble around the vulnerable, until there are so many predators that the object of their hunger is not even visible. You will not be able to see yourself in the gathering crowd of those who would kill you.

Please don't look for me. I looked for them everywhere. Of course I did. My brothers. And also Κ.

For those of you reading the #womensprize long list, this ebook eis on sale in the US. If my library hold hadn‘t come in last night I would definitely be snagging it at that. price.

This book - I how no words. This was amazing

It‘s the 80s and the Sri Lankan civil war. The Tamil Tigers is fighting for more freedom and independence. The men goes off to fight, but we follow a young girl, Sashi, who remains with her mother and younger brother, trying to live her life. This is war from a woman‘s point of view; how to get food, the insecurities as the military/ Tigers patrol the streets and bombs and the threats of rape.

From its gong of a first line all the way through to the end, this book grabbed me by the lapels and didn‘t let go. The MC looks back at her experiences across years during the Sri Lankan civil war as first the government and then the local militia terrorized civilians. This book will be on my best of the year list. A must read.

This is a quote from a Tamil character during the Sri Lankan civil war. But it sadly applies so broadly to people in many places.

Wow, that‘s a heckuva first line!

#BookReport 15/24

I read two #womenprize books this week. The Maiden was enjoyable, the tagged book really good yet both can‘t compete to In Defence of the Act to me - my favorite so far. I then binge-read the Marrs chunkster, an engaging thriller, not his best though.

I went in to this novel with zero knowledge of the Sri Lankan civil war and I came away having an idea of the human impact. It was a difficult one to spend time with, as there‘s much suffering. A particularly horrid scene involving a pregnant woman will stay with me. A difficult read.

I recently sent a letter to a terrorist I used to know.

(What a first line)
#FirsrLineFridays

What a beatiful book. I loved the narrator‘s journey between the different points of view on the war between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government and the people caught in between. She shows there is so much grey between black and white and I learned a lot. Besides that VV Ganeshananthan creates wonderful human characters, who she no doubt met and knew in real life. A great read. #Womenprize

Last book completed during the month of March. I couldn‘t finish another book. Second book read from the Women‘s Prize Fiction long list.
A family saga during Sri Lanka war. So hard and sad. I searched for some information about this time and it was terrible, so many people died, so long this war lasted😢 💔
Beautifully written but hard to read. 4.5/5⭐️

This is one heartbreaking read, but so well done. I found the intimate voice of the novel very moving and came away with a greater understanding of Sri Lanka‘s civil war. #WomensPrize

March Reads
#readingroundup

I read 5 of the #WomensPrize fiction long lists and 2 of the Nonfiction longlist

My #BookedInTime book Princes of Ireland was 775 pages so that slowed me down a bit.

I read 2 books for the #TransRightReadathon

My favorite read of the month is tagged.

#ItTakesAllKinds Day 29 #BkMentionedInBk

In this book various books are mentioned one of them is The Castle by Kafka

@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

I recently sent a letter to a terrorist I used to know.

#FirstLine

The first unequivocal pick for me from the #WomensPrize2024 #longlist
Read it and weep.
About the Sri Lankan civil war, but with a focus on family and moral dilemmas. The opening draws you in immediately, but then there is a long, slow build-up. It's worth it. The second half I could barely put the book down.
My favourite so far (but plenty to go).
#WomensPrize

4.5 Stars

This had me captivated from the get go, and I was squeezing in reading at every moment I could find.

A very powerful family story. I was alive during the Sri Lankan civil war but am completely ignorant of it until now.

#wpfl24
#womensprizefiction.

My favourite so far from the #womensprize long list. Set in Sri Lanka during the civil war, from the 1980s onwards, it follows 16 year old Sashi as she tries to train to be a doctor against a background of fear and violence.

Powerful and raw, this feels like non-fiction at times. So much so that I looked up whether the author had direct experience of the war and she hadn‘t.

The audio narration was also fantastic.

SLowly making my way through!
I read 3 of 16 last week.

Brotherless Night is by far my favorite of what I have read so far.

I am excited to see what this week holds, staring off with Hangman and then I think Nightbloom, because I am not so excited about that one and would like to get it done (I really enjoyed her first novel, but I think the topic of this one is not going to be for me)

What better time to try the vegan Sri Lankan restaurant in town, then to try it while reading this #womensprize book set in Sri Lanka?
Having a blackened pork stuffed Roti and a Sri Lankan iced coffee.

"I want you to understand: it does not matter if you cannot imagine the future. Still, relentless, it comes."

#womensprize
#WPFL24

#NetGalleyGroup #NGGSummerSmashUp

V. V. Ganeshananthan writes a complex family saga during the Sri Lankan civil war in the 1980s. We bear witness through the eyes of Sashi, aged 16, as her family and her country are torn apart by war. This makes for a torturous coming-of-age for her, as she deals with her plans, education and growing up amid turmoil and violence in her community.
⬇

#NetgalleyGroup #NGGSummerSmashup

😅 How are you getting on with your #Netgalley reads? 😅

I've had a relapse and requested 4 new arcs and have a backlog of reviews to post. Hopefully, I will get to those this weekend.

I'm currently reading the tagged book, which is so good.

This incredible story is told through a young girl, who is 16 years old and she lives with her four brothers and her parents in Jaffna, Sr Lanka. She yearns to be a doctor but this is not easy as the war erupts and there are multiple displacements. The family suffers grief, loss and extreme adversity. I recommend this book to anyone that is interested in the politics of Sri Lanka, the plight of the Tamils and wants an authentic voice.

This novel is an absolutely unmissable read. Gut-wrenching, humane, and beautifully written, it‘s a stunning story about war, and family, and the cost of loyalty.