Welcome to Litsy!

I decided to do some things out of my comfort zone. A celebrity book list AND audiobooks…. Not my typical things. But as I‘m listening, the protagonist keeps saying, “he‘s married”, responding to her forbidden attraction to this man. But I‘m just sitting in the car saying back, “he‘s your cousin!”. Did I only half listen and completely misunderstand Louis relationship? Being married is the last of her problems with that one🤦🏻‍♀️

You want to read this. Tense and moving, we look into the lives and loves of those who survived the Cuban Revolution and then their ancestors after Fidel Castro died.

This is a light pick for me. The story was good and I liked the characters but there was a LOT of dialogue lecturing on the history of Cuba and it got to be a bit much.

I won this copy from Reece Witherspoon‘s book box. Every book she has picked,that I have read so far, has been good and this book was great. The history and culture of Cuba felt like a character and essential to the plot. #foodandlit @Texreader @Catsandbooks @Butterfinger

Dual timelines/ Havana,1958 and Miami, 2017. The story of the prominent Perez Family,sugar company owners.Elisa, one of the debutante daughters,falls in love with a rebel in Castro‘s Army.When the President flees the country, so must the family,to start a new life in Miami. When Elisa dies,her granddaughter returns to Cuba with her ashes. Incite from the Cuban perspective about what happened in the past and currently. #foodandlit #cuba
⭐️ ⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is a narrow Pick but I really loved the nuances about Cuban history and the push-pull for exiled Cubans. The second love story felt forced to me, especially the ending.

Current audiobook. #foodandlit #cuba

Next Year in Havana 4/5 ⭐️

Up next is In the Dream House.

#ThingsinCommon Authors first names start with C

Our next pick for #ItsLit VBC!

1. I Must Betray You
2. Not yet
3. Tagged…I think I just figured out what the title means

@Eggs

Happy Wednesday 💗 Here are your questions ⬆️ and here are my answers ⬇️

1️⃣ I like to peruse the bookish box subscriptions online—there are all kinds ranging from $28 to $hundreds per box. Etsy has bookish box sellers too.
2️⃣ I set a lower goal on GR this year:350 instead of my usual 550
3️⃣ the tagged is HF dual timeline - 4⭐️

#wondrouswednesday

I feel guilty cheating on my school textbooks with a physical novel but for whatever reason an audiobook feels fine.

I‘m not much for romance as a genre but I am really enjoying this book so far. Cleeton does a wonderful job expressing the realities of Cuban politics without glossing over the painful truths of the country‘s history. This is a novel where multigenerational families, romance, socioeconomics and deep loyalty for La Patria collide.

#Beginswithn
#GratefulHeart

💗📚🌸

Good story

A Reese‘s book club book so I have high hopes, looking forward to learning a bit more about the Cuban revolution too! I tend to pick books that are set in World War Two as I‘m so familiar with that period of history, so lots to learn here.
#nextyearinhavana #chanelcleeton

Didn‘t want to put this down. Great couple twists I did not see coming!

#mbcreadathon #mbcbookfrogsreadathon6

Never posted a review for this one. This was recommended to me by BookRiot for #GetTBR

I really enjoyed this book. I‘m embarrassed to say I didn‘t know much about Cuba‘s history. Set in 1959 and 2017.

As always, I enjoyed the past storyline more than the present day one but overall really liked this book.

Honestly, I‘m more excited to read Beatriz‘s story but am glad this book put that one on my radar.

As close as I could think of!

#Spain
#JulyJourneys

Tanya you are so wonderful! I love everything! I already know where I'm going to hang up the sign. 🍉 I love how we got each other the same book 😂 The book sleeve is gorgeous! I love stickers, I have a HUGE collection. Also I've never seen those watermelon candies before so I'm super excited to try them! Thank you for everything!!! 🥰 #sliceofsummerswap

Split between Elisa Perez's experiences during the Cuban Revolution just before Castro took over and her family was forced to flee and her granddaughter's return to the island in modern day to scatter her families ashes. The lives of the two Perez women take surprisingly similar paths even if decades apart and it's another beautiful exploration of the history of Cuba and Cubans in exile living with their love and anger from afar.

4 stars / ⭐⭐⭐⭐

1. Next Year in Havana and The Other Black Girl

2. The Taking of Jake Livingston

3. A Psalm for the Wild-Built, One Last Stop, The Ones We're Meant to Find, Malibu Rising, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and Amari and the Night Brothers

#WeekendReads

Put together a physical #BookSpin list! It just turned out I had 85% of the books I‘m going to try and read.

I‘m looking forward to all these books. I‘m just waiting for July to show up!

#Pink
#CuriousCovers
#TBR

💗🌷

I really enjoyed this and would love to visit Cuba some day. Finished after a very warm day hiking in Arches! #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Latest book haul!! Plans are: Next Year in Havana ( current read), When We Left Cuba, Anne of Green Gables, and finally The Downstairs Girl. I am loving the mix of Historical and Contemporary Fiction. I love Marisol and Elisa as characters already.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
I finally got around to reading this lovely story. I listened to the audiobook and the narrators did a fabulous job. I hope the other books in the series are just as enjoyable.

1. Absolutely!
2. No way! I would never be able to focus.

#Two4Tuesday

@TheSpineView

pretty good audiobook! not sure i would‘ve been able to get through it if i actually ‘read‘ it since historical fiction isn‘t really my jam buuuuut i perhaps am a little hooked💃❤️🇨🇺 i‘m game for a series! #nextyearinhavana #reesebookclub #audible

This has been on my TBR for too long. Today is your Day!

So I haven‘t been to Cuba. If I had (or was planning on it) I would recommend reading this. But since my reality is what it is, this book just falls short for me. I do understand that Cuba is a country that has seen too many struggles and misses at freedom, but when the characters continue to have the same conversations throughout the book on these struggles, over and over again - they lose me. I skimmed over pages of text and didn‘t miss a thing.

Y‘all know I love my Reese picks! Also, having grown up in Miami, being married to a Cuban and having visited Cuba, I love the familiarity I feel as I read

1. Next Year In Havana by Chanel Cleeton

2. Haven‘t read anything else in December. Too busy prepping house for sale.

3. When We Left Cuba by Chanel Cleeton

@rachelsbrittain #weekendreads

Ready to tackle my next read. I‘m so curious about Eliza‘s experience growing up in Cuba. I‘ve never read a book set in that country. Time to read...

While I‘ve loved historical fiction for a long time now, I‘ve somewhat stepped away from it over the last few years. So much of it is saturated with a few key points in history - which isn‘t necessarily a bad thing - but it does get somewhat tiresome after awhile. This novel hits on a new place and time in history I haven‘t read before and I definitely enjoyed learning something new through these characters. And the narrator was perfect! 🌟🌟🌟🌟

This book was an OK read. I loved the setting and the storyline was good. Just the writing didn‘t grab me. I could tell the author was passionate about Cuba but some details were lacking that detracted from the flow of the novel.

#forevernovember @OriginalCyn620 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

• #ReeseWitherspoon Book Club July 2018 pick

NEXT YEAR IN HAVAVA -or- How Not To Hold A Revolution — This is such a heart-breaking story about what happens when families are torn apart by corrupt governments. Cuba, Havana, Paradise; all destroyed by the Batista/Castro regimes. Most leave, but 50-60 years later, many are still hoping to get their beloved country back.

LOL

This book is about the courage and inevitable loss of love – what it means to love a man, one‘s family, and one‘s country in spite of all their imperfections, or perhaps, because of them.
I enjoyed reading this book! 💖
#historicalromance #love #booklover #bookcover #croatiancover

#3Books that I had a cover crush on!

Since I read Ms. Cleeton‘s new book, The Last Train to Key West, I thought I would go back to the beginning of the Perez legacy and see how Ms. Cleeton has grown in her writing style. I thought that Next Year in Havana was a great book, however, I felt like The Last Train to Key West was much better descriptive wise.

Have you ever taken that route of reading — go back to the beginning of a series to see maturity in writing style?

A good book, some sweet tea, and Sirius XM‘s Queen Channel playing on my JBL Charge 3 in the background. This how my late morning has been.

How about you? What have you done this morning? Has it relaxed you or stressed you out?

I find music relaxes me and the news stresses me out so music is on all day!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Finally got to read this and found it to be an engaging read (not to mention the cover!)