Welcome to Litsy!

I remember well when Ryan White was barred from attending classes due to fear of exposure. My stepmom, who was an editor for the L.A. Weekly, brought me home a print of Robbie Conal's “Artificial Art Official“ poster of Jesse Helms.

I was not prepared for how all of these memories would come flooding back in reading this book... please read my full RAVE review: https://readingrantsandraves.blogspot.com/2025/12/2025-51-great-believers-makkai...

I love how eclectic this list from @dariazeoli is! I‘ve only read Untamed and the first two books in The Dark Tower series. I think I‘m going to start with the tagged book, as I read another of Makkai‘s books a couple of years ago and I really like her style. I‘m also thinking about spreading the entire Dark Tower series throughout the year, especially since I own them all. 🖤 #auldlangspine #auldlangspine2026

This was one of the first books that I added to my TBR list on Litsy after all the Litsy love and it didn‘t disappoint! What a devastatingly sad and cruel part of history. A generation of young men gone. What a tragedy, my heart breaks. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow, what a gut punch 😥. This is a 5 ⭐️ read for me, but it's not an easy read by any means. The author uses dual timelines to show the lives of a group of gay men in Chicago at the height of the AIDS epidemic and the lasting trauma for those who lived through it. Yale will stay with me a long time.

This is my favorite read of the month, and I‘m still missing Yale and his chosen family after finishing the book earlier this month. It breaks my heart that we treated a community of people like we did when the AIDS crisis was in its early days, and I wish we would learn lessons instead of repeating mistakes.

Wonderfully written. So glad to have finally gotten to it!

#auldlangspine

Current mood. Context: Roscoe.

#AuldLangSpine

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

8/20
Join if you would like!

#20Covers

I read some fantastic books last June. Greta and Valdin, Clear, a reread of Seven Days in June... but this was really the right book at the right time, about living the best life you can while the uncaring wheels of history are driving over you. I may have to reread it soon.

#12BooksOf2024

The plot flashed between 1985 & 2015; it comes together in the end, but the timeline jumps are jarring. In 1985, Yale is a gay man watching so many of his friends get AIDS. In 2015, Fiona remembers losing her brother in 1985. I wanted to like this more than I did. I loved how she captured the way grief & fear affected every choice they made. But I had a hard time feeling connected with the main characters despite the vulnerable plot of the book.

I am so excited by the possibilities on @willaful ‘s #AuldLangSpine list! The tagged book is the only one I own, so that‘s what I‘ll be starting with. I have some other books but Rebecca Searle and Kate Clayborn on my TBR and I‘ve been thinking about starting the Murderbot series, too. Lots of choices! Fortunately, most books are available on Libby or Hoopla. 🤗

My Audible library is overflowing, so sometimes I just pick the book that has been waiting patiently the longest to read next. This book had been sitting in my library for so long, I couldn‘t remember what had piqued my interest. Based on the description, I suspected this was going to be one of those really long books that dove deeply into the characters‘ lives, and I was going to love it.

Full review at abookandadog.com/blog/the-great-believers

Finally read this, and I‘m overwhelmed. Sadness and anger for what they went through, for the death, for the politicians who did nothing, for the hate. So many good quotes but I‘ll share just one here:
“It‘s always a matter, isn‘t it, of waiting for the world to come unraveled? When things hold together, it‘s always only temporary.” #TBRtarot #readyourkindle

#orange #coverlove @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @Eggs

And I have another 23 on my tbr. Business as usual over here. 😜

Some I loved, some I liked, a few were meh, and I hated The Corrections.

I have some of the rest on my shelves.

“How could she explain that this city was a graveyard? That they were walking ever day though streets where there had been a holocaust, a mass murder of neglect and antipathy, that when they stepped through a pocket of cold air, didn't they understand it was a ghost, it was a boy the world had spat out?“

A compulsively readable, heartbreaker of a story that had me reflecting on my own personal and generational traumas. It's a very caring view of the endless human cycle of living through -- or not -- terrible times, and how we somehow keep going.

This book is one of the best that I have read recently. It was written so beautifully. It was a story involving gay men in 1980‘s Chicago in the midst of the AIDS crisis and alternated with the art world in Paris in 2015. It was so touching about a very scary time when nobody really knew what AIDS was about. Then it brought the reader full circle to show how it affected those involved with it. I highly recommend reading it.

So I‘ve had this on my TBR for YEARS and finally got around to reading it. Boy am I glad I did! It‘s a tour de force! Joins The Latecomer and The Goldfinch in a Trinity of masterful books about art. I love the interweaving plot threads and the verisimilitude. And the rootedness in place (Chicago and Paris). All the feels for this excellent story, excellently told ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Photo of Chicago‘s Marina City from Wikipedia)

Powerful and heartbreaking.

#12Booksof2023

I did not get much reading done in September, but this probably would have been the best book of the month regardless. All the feels.

@Andrew65

Easily one of the best books I've ever read. Meticulous character development. Heartbreaking. Thoroughly researched. And yet it reads like a thriller. I wept through the last few chapters, and somehow I was grateful for it. A masterpiece.

This book destroyed me. It was so good, but so devastating at the same time.

Didn‘t know about this readathon but I read nine books this month and bailed on one, so I‘m counting it a win! Tagged book is my favorite of the lot.

#SummerEndReadathon @TheSpineView

My first read of this author but not the last. So good, a poignant intricate puzzle of a plot. I cried several times, partly because of empathy but also because I grew to love the characters.

30 Book Recommendations in 30 Days — Day 4

My May wrap up.
Books I loved this month: The Great Believers, The Bone Shard War, The Language of Butterflies, Body of Work, Ducks.
The only one I didn‘t really like was Void Star.
🖤📚🖤📚🖤

Okay, everyone should read this. It‘s a beautiful story of friendship and love and complicated life and art in the 80‘s in Chicago, in a gay community at the height of the AIDS crisis. It‘s so touching and frustrating and heartbreaking and I really loved it. Great very real characters with messy real lives, and I just wanted to hug them and hang out with them and cry with them. Thanks for bringing this book into my life @AmyG 💕

My book haul from today! 💕📚

This was such an emotional journey for me. Any book that dives into the AIDS crisis of the 1980s always gets me feeling so many things. I really loved the way this book was crafted, gently rocking back and forth in time. Highest recommendation

This is one of those books I‘m always going to be thinking about. It‘s incredibly well-researched, and the characters are so vivid. It does so much with a lot of themes I love: time, names, intergenerational trauma. One storyline is set during the AIDS crisis in mid 1980s Chicago, and the other is set in Paris in 2015. It‘s a gorgeous book, and I can‘t wait to reread it.

Set in Chicago in early 80s this story was about a community of friends who sadly were effected by the aids crisis, and how a sister of one of the group‘s friends Fiona immersed her self in helping each of them but how the trauma of that effected her life
It‘s a important part of the past and brought back memories of a coworker who died from this terrible virus
My final book of #joyousjanuary was happy I met all my goals

#Movie2BookRecs @Klou
Prompt: Rent

This one knocked everything else out of the park this month. And that‘s really saying something as I also read The House in the Cerulean Sea. Just a fantastic amount of skill in the way Makkai built the story, it will definitely stay with me.

So in the end my first book come up against my last! But The Night Circus had to take it for the pure amount of pleasure it gave me reading it and for opening up a new genre to me. Thanks to @chasjjlee

I've got two reading buddies this morning as I work on my first book of 2023.

Wow what a beautiful and devastating book. I picked it up for #Booked2022 #abouttheaidsepedemic and I‘m so glad (again) that this challenge made me read outside my comfort zone. Extremely well written and truly heartbreaking it is a dual timeline portrait of generational trauma, love, regret, grief. I highly recommend it but save it for a time when you have the emotional strength.

My reading buddies this morning

It‘s that time of year when all becomes sparkly chaos in my house. But in moments between the cookie decorating and ice skating I am listening to this book for #booked2022 #abouttheaidsepedemic . Not that festive, but so far very good. And as usual I am squeezing my last couple of prompts in before the end of the year!

#tbt I am starting Makkai's newest book and I am so excited. Her Great Believers is one of my all time favorite reads. It is a rich, complex and heartbreaking story with vivid characters and concerning a found family in 1980's Chicago and how the AIDS epidemic ravaged their community. While the core of the story is painful and sad, it is also filled with hope and love, and excellent writing.

This book broke my heart in all the best ways. It‘s a dual timeline book set in Chicago during the AIDS crisis and 2015 Paris. So glad I ran across this one.

#manicmonday #letterg @CBee @Librariana
📚 Great Believers (Makkai)
✍️ Lauren Groff, Yaa Gyasi
🍿 Gattaca
🎤 Guns & Roses
🎶 Gangsta Paradise (Coolio)

#pridebookrec fiction week

This is one of my all time top 10 favorite books.
Raw and emotional, this is a look at a group of gay men in 1985 Chicago, dealing with the AIDS epidemic and art and friendship, it's gorgeously written and the characters will live with you for long after you put the book down.

A reread of a favorite book. It switches between two timelines. In 1980s Chicago we follow Yale and his group of gay friends as they navigate the burgeoning AIDS crisis. One man‘s sister, Fiona, becomes caretaker for many of the dying. The other thread finds Fiona in Paris in 2015, seeking out her estranged daughter and reconnecting with one of the old friends from Chicago. It is a story of the human cost of this generation of lost men. Stunning.

It‘s 4:17am. Work at 8:00am. Good thing I love this book.

An epic, realistic read into the lives of the men in Chicago in the 80s affected by AIDS. I appreciated the back and forth perspective in chapters.

i read this for my death class and wow i learned so much about grief and the process of coming to terms with the loss of so many loved ones i would def recommend to anyone if you are gay or if you aren‘t
a good perspective about aids and it‘s effect on the gay community in chicago also cool cause i live in the street where a lot of stuff took place in this book

“He was soft, as if his skin had never seen the weather, and when a bone—an elbow, a kneecap, a rib—showed through, it was like a foreign object poking at a piece of silk.”