Welcome to Litsy!

2nd Read on Audible. Beautiful narration. Liked that one of Organizations is known as Garden. And all the gardening refrences.
"We‘re grown, I think you know—seeds planted, roots combing through time, until Garden repots us in different soil.....Garden goes to seed, blows us away, and we burrow into the braidedness of time and mesh with it. There is no scouring hedge to pass through; we are the hedge, entirely, rosebuds with thorns for petals."

2X Reading. This time audiobook.

I'll be honest half the time I had no clue what I was reading. But it was really good! Time Traveling Spies who fall in love by letters sent across the Universe?

Definitely going to need a 2nd read to understand. I'm thinking audiobook next time.

There's no doubt 'This Is How You Lose the Time War' was my favorite read of the month.

Thanks to @chasjjlee for the template. #ReadingBracket2022
#favorite #reading #march #books #myfavorite

Thanks for the tag! @EadieB 😊 @eggs

1. Wordle
That game is addictive! 😂
2. To be surrounded by nature and hug some trees. They fill you up with their energy. They are wise! 😉 💞🌲
3. This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone BEAUTIFUL book.

A lyrical futuristic romance, like Romeo and Juliet if the parents were different societies. The writing and plot movement is complex to the point of confusing, but especially in audio, the language is so smooth and sharp that you want to keep listening. Recommended for anyone looking for a beautiful political romance that will leave you thinking long after you close the book.

Quotes from the book. ❤ ❤ ❤
My highlights!

The photo of the painting they mention in the book. It helped me understand the why & the meaning of the chapter/scene.
The Death of Chatterton by Henry Wallis, painted in 1856 & now part of the collection of London‘s Tate Britain art gallery. It shows a young man lying dead in an attic room, having taken a dose of arsenic to end his life at the age of 17.
Below a link with information about the painting, in case you want to dig into it.

Book 37
The 52 Book Club's Challenge
✅ Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover! - This Is How You Lose the Time War | Amal El-Mohtar ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
New Author

This is my favorite read of the year. It'll be hard to beat.
No words! This is a heart-wrenching beautiful book.
THANK YOU 🙏 @everlocalwest for recommending me this book! LOVED IT! ❤

My Review is posted in the comments. My apologies for it being so long!

Amelia ❤️
A sketch I did for the other character in #WiredToBeTouched 🌙 She's the #human from my new #kindlevella story.
What do you think guys? 😃

💥 If you wanna read the first Free Episode, click on the link below.
https://amzn.to/363FIBy
🙏 If you do, please follow, scroll down & like. 😘
New Adult/Strong Language.

#Amelia #digitalpainting #drawing #sketch #pencildrawing #audible #ThisIsHowYouLosetheTimeWar #audiobook #WiredToBeTouched

This is a strange little book. Sci-fi/Time travel/Queer love story with beautiful prose. I‘m glad it was short because longer would have become pretentious. At this length I was intrigued though I didn‘t love it. 3.5⭐️ ok #audiobook - I think I would have preferred reading physically.
#bookspinbingo another bingo!
#NoShameReadathon22 - Speculative

I loved this. Perfectly crafted and I was in just the right headspace to read it. I was deeply invested in these characters and thought we got just the right amount of their story.

MMD features this on a list of time travel books. I ordered 3 and this is the first. The first part, I thought this is SO NOT my type of book. But I valued that it stretched my Brain to work out the clues of the worlds being built so I kept on. By the second half I was fully committed to the characters and the arc of the plot. Glad to have read it. #dogsoflitsy

“I want to be a context for you, and you for me”.

An epistolary time-traveling spy-vs-spy love story. A fascinating universe and a quick read.

#doublespin

“I want to meet you in every place I have loved”
An enemies to lovers love story that focuses on the relationship between two women fighting on opposite sides of a futuristic war, and very little on building a world or a backstory for either individual woman, which feels like the right choice for this because then you don‘t have to take a side. You get to pine for the love and celebrate the cleverness of each. ❤️💙

Here are my top 11-ish books of 2021!

It was a really interesting premise, but I felt like I was lacking a lot of development in the background details that would have helped me connect more with the characters and their conflict.

Good start to the weekend. Really liked this one - writing was lovely, poetic, and it felt like a really original story. Can't claim to understand all the details of the world they inhabit, but I kind of get the feeling that we aren't meant to understand, but just go along with the ride.

In position for the weekend #gladstonerds @julesG @squirrelbrain @trishb @Leniverse @scripturient @CGainor3 @jenniferw88

4.75🌟 I absolutely loved this book. It is very poetic, and definitely requires a reader to just enjoy the ride and not try to figure everything out, but I found it to be quite lovely and fascinating. So much so, that I'm going to find a copy to add to my own library, since I borrowed this from my local library to read.

I have a lot of work to do today, but first I'm going to enjoy this crisp fall morning by watching the day wake up and enjoying a good breakfast, a steaming cup of coffee, and a good book. Mornings like this are why fall is my favorite time if year.

I am posting one book per day from my to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new - don‘t judge me I have a lot of books.
Join the fun if you want. This is day 285.
#bookstoread
#tbrpile
#bookstagram

Unpopular opinion but I really disliked this. I felt nothing for the characters, the prose was purple as hell, there wasn‘t a great sense of world-building or even plot TBH, and I didn‘t understand why these characters fell in love in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

A wonderful story wrapped in poetry and I loved every minute of it. I will be getting a physical copy of this.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I CHANGE MY MIND from a 4 star to a 5 star I can‘t stop thinking about it !!! I want this book in my hands I will have a copy soon.

"You asked me to tell truths. I have. What do I want? Understanding. Exchange. Victory. A game—hiding and discovery. You‘re a swift opponent, Blue. You play long odds. You run the table. If we‘re to be at war, we might as well entertain one another."

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

I might now understand the whole message but I can understand it was a love story & I love the letters. I love that it was 2 female characters. I also love the writing. I will buy this book so I can reread it just like I watch that movie shutter island 3-4 times until I understood it. But this book getting 4 stars because it was beautiful to me

When the whole book club don‘t understand the book 🙄. I can‘t tell you how many times I started over because I can‘t  comprehend what‘s going on🤦‍♀️.

The book might actually win & I might just give up. 🙄

Nah imma read it & try to understand it. 🤦‍♀️

August reads 📚
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter and A Cowboy to Remember were good but not faves 🌃
Sing for the Coming of the Longest Night came out of nowhere and was just what I needed 🧙🏽‍♂️
Cemetery Boys was everything I hoped yet totally different than I expected 👨‍❤️‍👨
Finishing This is How You Lose the Time War was worth the $8 library overdue fine ⏳
Quite a solid reading month, even as the whole world continues to be on fire 🔥

This feels aesthetic today, and I can listen to the whole thing while running errands. #HurricaneHenri

Time travel, lyrical writing, weirdness, & a heavy emotional undercurrent. I loved this. The time travel is a bit confusing, so don't overthink it & just enjoy the ride. The epistolary setup with a vague dual POV was a near perfect approach. It was something different & so well done. I loved the twisty, shadowy narrative. I loved the creativeness of the world & the composition. I just finished & already miss it. Beautiful. Argh. My heart.

To soothe my disappointed heart, I decided on a shorter book. This book is definitely one of those books you need to read again because you just can‘t catch everything the first time. I read it purely to feel it the first time and I plan to read it again for the structure of it. It‘s written quite brilliantly and I quite enjoyed it. (42)

This is science fiction of the heart.

"This letter is a knife at my neck, if cutting's what you want."

4.5⭐️

A world of two warring futuristic companies send their agents through history and over multiple timelines to try and come out on top. The encounter of each company‘s leading agent causes the beginning of a rivalry and interesting line of unique letters.

This is something I read earlier this year and absolutely loved. It‘s stuck with me for such a long time and I find myself constantly coming back to it.

Beautifully written sci-fi adventure about two rival agents in a war that fall in love with eachother. Excellent imagery and storyline.

my may wrap up :) hated crown of gilded bones but ADORED the other ones, especially That Way Madness Lies which was the first anthology i‘ve read and was so pleasantly surprised by

I really wanted to love this book because it‘s got time travel, is epistolary, has lots of nature references, and is a romance. But it just didn‘t do it for me. It‘s beautiful and I think people should read it if they like any of the above things, but it wasn‘t the book I wanted it to be.

Enemies flirting across a time war. Beautiful.

This book was a surprise. I didn't plan to read it. I didn't know what it was about. It was on my TBR, it fitted a challenge, I read it. And found it great. Loved the Dr Who vibes, loved the letters - what a combination! And a love story absolutely to my taste, since it's so different. Yes, it's a short book, but to me it is perfect that way. Otherwise it might would've been to much and would've gotten boring.

#TBRPile 📚 Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading. Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more...

"We make so much of lettercraft literal, don't we? Whacked seals aside. Letters as time travel, time-traveling letters. Hidden meanings. I wonder what you see me saying here."

Thanks @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick for the tag!
🐣It is way too hard to pick just one favorite even only 3 months into the year but the tagged book was very good and very different than most things I've read
🐣I like to read outdoors in spring. We have 2 cozy rocking chairs on the front porch that are perfect for reading
🐣This month I am doing #bookspinbingo for sure. I might do a readathon or two. I usually decide at the last minute
@MoonWitch94

Two agents on opposite sides in the time war start corresponding and eventually fall in love. Now all they have to do is to find a way they can be together.

It took me a while to get my bearings but once I had, I skipped and skimmed my way through the rest of it. It doesn't deserve a Pan but it's not really my cup of tea. And not a Dalek or Time Lord in sight.

#coffeeandabook

I enjoyed this immensely. Would've read it in one sitting if it wasn't for the pesky need to sleep last night. I will probably seek out TRAVEL LIGHT, the book mentioned in this one, and will definitely seek out more of El-Mohtar's work.

DNF‘d at 47%