Welcome to Litsy!

The Al-Menshawys are Egyptian immigrants in a small NJ town. They‘ve lived there for 20 years when tragedy strikes. Their eldest son kills his ex-girlfriend and himself. The community‘s prejudice is relentless. Though it‘s ever present Hassib‘s story mainly shows how grief and guilt isolate each family member.
The pov switches between all of them. Set in the year following the tragic event, this is an emotional and nuanced debut.

#doublespin

#WeeklyForecast 12/21

I started two books for #ReadingAsia2021: North Korea and Mongolia. The tagged one is my #Doublespin and The Hearing Trumpet is this month‘s #NYRBBookClub selection. I am looking forward to reading all of them.

#2019Book77
Books about grieving families have a special place in my heart, and I was fascinated by the unusual point-of-view in this novel. Not only was the main character grieving the loss of his brother, but he was also dealing with the fact that his brother died after committing a horrific crime. The chapters that focused on the main character and his mother were beautifully written and I loved learning about those two.

We lie to protect our families, Ehsan had told her.
We lie to protect ourselves, Nagla revised her mother‘s statement.
We lie because the truth is too much trouble.

This is one that makes me wish there was something between "pick" and "so-so" because it was good, the writing is beautiful, the story is heavy - but it didn't go deep enough for me and I wasn't wowed by it or anything. But I'll round up to a pick because she's an important voice and I want to be supportive of marginalized stories brought to the forefront. 3/5 ⭐️

The trees seemed vexingly neutral to all that had gone on around them. In her mind, those trees should have all been burned down by now, should have burst in a willful act of spontaneous combustion, leaving an arid, gray expanse, a testimony to the horror that their branches had sheltered.

After DNFing that last book, I'm hoping for better luck with this! Too many books to read to force myself through something crappy. On to the next! #nowreading

The usual mess at a cafe

Reading this book in such a zen setting

Off to Japan

Aaahh finally weekend is here, and I have time to read 🕺🏻

A heartbreaking story about family, pride, and making another country your home. 💜
#tearjerker #awesomeautumnbooks

This book is making me feel all the feels 😩 it's killing me #sogood #imdead

Interesting read. I love learning about other cultures through books!

So many interesting issues packed in such a short book: immigration, tragedy, family, grief, acceptance, faith, responsibility, forgiveness... If you liked Everything I Never Told You and/or Jhumpa Lahiri's writing, give this one a try. It's a bit more gentle but still very powerful.

My next reads 👆🏻 I heard about the novel on the All the Books podcast and it sounds reminiscent of Everything I Never Told You, which I loved. And the nonfiction I had to track down after seeing @rabbitprincess post about it!

Hi, my name is Marie and I'm addicted to my library 🙈
One of my reading resolutions was to read more of the books on my shelves. I had even managed to get my holds list at the library down to 2 or 3 books. And then last week happened. And now here we are.

As a non immigrant (I struggle calling myself a native American), I can't imagine the distance in a family of immigrants and their first born generation of children. But this book articulates the distance so well.

A wonderful insight into the obstacles, known and unknown, of immigration. And I'm only thirty pages in.

I won 2 goodreads giveaways in one month's time! It's always exciting to win, especially if the reward is free books!

This is a beautiful book that looks at religion and how a family copes after a tragedy. It gives a close look at each member of the family. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and the cover is super pretty too,

So much to think about after reading this! Hard to say 'enjoyed' because the subject matter is so serious, but I appreciate the experience.

Book riches! Inbox for today, what should I read next?😊

finally getting to this one....because @rebeccaschinsky said so. #allthebooks

Although I really enjoyed this book, it isn't a five star book for me. I enjoyed most of the characters especially Khalid and his grandmother. I wish we experienced the story from Ehsan's (the grandmother) perspective. Overall, a wonderfully written story.