Welcome to Litsy!

My October wrap up. My favorites were The Summer We Got Free and The Golden Enclaves and The Enchanted. 📚💕

Here‘s a check-in with my goals for #outstandingoctober Readathon:

✅ Finish Walking in Athens
✅ Finish a novel (tagged)
🟢 Finish/review Chambers of the Heart (in progress)

Wow! This novel goes places that I wasn‘t expecting. It defies genres and categorization. The ways in which queerness is expressed are beautiful. McKenzie writes characters who find freedom in various, complex, and emotional ways. My expectations of what this novel was were constantly changing, but with each twist I was more intrigued at how things would end up. This is a novel of pain, healing, self-discovery, and being yourself at all costs.

“Ava did not remember the taste of butter.”

This has been an interesting read so far, slowly morphing from a family drama into a ghost story. I‘m not sure how I‘m feeling about that. @ShyBookOwl #firstlinefridays

Why isn‘t this book more popular? Yes it is from a small publishing house, but wow, what a deep, thoughtful, emotional story.

It‘s about a family in Philadelphia who are changed forever by a tragic incident. Ava is 11, wild and artsy and her free spirit is admired by most of her community. Then we meet her again in her 30‘s and you‘d never know she‘d ever been happy or had any dreams.

Such beautiful writing, gave me all the feelings.

I managed to squeeze in a quick trip to Black Pearl Books for Independent Bookstore Day 😊. It‘s the first time I‘d been there in person, though I‘ve placed online orders from them a few times over the last year. The had a whole outdoor event with a maker‘s market and DJ to celebrate!

#Riotgrams catch-up! Day 8 #BlackHistoryMonth. Here are my favourite Black women authors, most of them queer: Dionne Brand, Octavia Butler, N.K. Jemisin, Nalo Hopkinson, Suzette Mayr, Mia McKenzie & Dane Figueroa Edidi. I also did a blog post on queer Black Canadian women writers earlier this month: https://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.wordpress.com/2017/02/03/four-queer-black-can...

"Don't tell me what I am," she said. "I get to say what I am."
This book made me feel so many feelings. Amazing and emotional, I loved it.

Revisiting this lovely book! Powerful, complicated female characters, some intergenerational trauma, a bit of magic and love. Really recommend this one!