Welcome to Litsy!

The title comes from a story adults tell to encourage girls to behave. *How the One-Armed Sister Sweeps Her House* is a tough read, with its bleak portrayal of violence against women, sorrow, and poverty. Well-written and gripping, it's also intense and heavy.

The latest in my unintentional run of bleak books. I gulped this down, when it deserved to be properly appreciated, because I didn't want to linger in its brutal world of inter-generational hand-me-down trauma.

TW: child death; rape (of at least five different characters at various points); domestic violence throughout.

What many people see as a paradisiacal vacation spot is in reality home for many, including those whose lives are bleak and violent. This dark look at life in #Barbados shows just that. A good but emotionally challenging read.

#ReadingAmericas2023

Beautiful and heartbreaking: not for those sensitive to abuse. Multiple Barbadians in this lyrical novel have endured physical and sexual abuse as well as colonialism, and are trying to survive and protect their loved ones and their futures. The main character is a strong young woman whose goal is to protect her baby while navigating multiple complex and painful relationships.
#ReadingTheAmericas2023 #Barbados
#Booked2023 #TwoTimePeriods

I was so unprepared for this book. It‘s messy. It‘s real. It‘s maybe a thriller but you know who the bad guy is the whole time and what you discover is the how‘s and whys throughout the story. This follows 4 people in Barbados as they navigate love and violence. I really can‘t do the plot justice but I was very entranced the whole time.

A story dominated by sadness, mostly rooted in the tightly-held secrets that keep healing, understanding, closure out of reach for many of the characters involved.

The author approaches it like a thriller, but works to slowly reveal all the hows and whys rather than a who or the what. In some ways, this makes it easier on the reader — to move between perspectives and points in time, rather than sitting with any single agony for too long.

4⭐/5⭐

Sad as hell. Real.

#bookspin for April done! This was a really bleak read, but very interesting. None of the characters were particularly likeable, which made it pretty heavy going, but well constructed and interesting.

This is a well-written book but it had a lot of violence and sadness. I liked the novel, but I definitely had to read it in short spurts.

I really liked this one. The title definitely caught my attention. I don't even know how to categorize this one. Maybe a thriller? Because you know who the bad dude is. A young pregnant woman is going into labor. She goes to find her husband, interrupting a robbery. That sets the scene.

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

https://youtu.be/ke9-HlElnC4

Liked it

Underside of paradise in Barbados. Interesting read and keeps you engaged to see how things play out.

Next up . . .

This book was relentlessly dark, violent, and hopeless. I am somewhere between a Pick and a So-So. I struggled to feel anything other than horror as I read. And maybe that was the point.

Savouring this read... so moving, so well done. 3/4 done and can‘t wait to get back to it but also never want it to end.

This is my last read for the Women's Prize for Fiction. It is set in Barbados and focuses on several storylines that intertwine, all domestic stories, all with violence and death. There is some humor (the title comes from some of that) but the majority was the kind of violence that makes me dissociate as a reader.

I stayed up way too late last night reading this trauma-filled novel about poverty, relationships, and the death of a child. Excellent writing - the ending felt inevitable and true. All the TWs! #womensprize

I don‘t know what I expected from this book, but it wasn‘t this at all. Paradise may be paradise for its western tourists visiting but for its citizens it‘s far from paradise. This book focuses on the difference between rich and poor, the relationship between husbands and wives.

TW: domestic violence and rape

you understand that you do not learn to love a man, because for the right man there is no need for the learning, the love is the most natural thing in the world. You understand that if you must learn to love a man, he is probably not the man you should be loving.

I wanted to like this book as it has such an intriguing title, is on the Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist 2021, and about a women, but in the end I didn't like it. There is too much going on in the plot and there are no redeeming characters in the entire novel - everyone is depicted at their worst. I even found it difficult to empathize with Lala the main character though her circumstances are mainly due to poverty and patriarchy.

#audiobook

Great narration in the audiobook. A beautifully written book. But, trigger warnings for abuse. Parts were very difficult to read.

Yikes - well written but so trauma filled! You really have to be in the right head space to stay with this novel. I didn‘t really like the end, which seemed rather abrupt, though it was appropriate it wasn‘t wrapped up in a pretty bow.

Pick with a caution! This one is a lot darker then I was prepared for. So many TW.
I love the pacing of, and the web of storylines of the book. The climax is well done, you can feel it coming like a car crash you cannot stop
The characters are not deep but very vivid in the moments. One of the better #WomensPrizeLongList books of 2021.

You understand that if you must learn to love a man, he is probably not the man you should be loving.

At the 50% mark and oh my, the damage, misery, and grief is relentless in this novel. The writing is good and I‘ll finish, but it‘s heavy. Definitely need a simultaneous read to balance emotionally.

Ok I may have gone a bit overboard on the reading themed sweatshirts recently. I may have an addiction 💓

PS this is a quote from A Prayer for Owen Meany (a book that has my love always and forever)

PPS, if you look carefully in the background, you'll see a photo of my mum going to Hogwarts via platform 9 and 3/4.

This is on the shortlist for the Women's Price for Fiction. It is a hard read and has lots of trigger warnings! Set in Barbados in 1984, It centres around Lala, who is trapped in a violent marriage. It depicts two different Barbados, one for the rich tourists and one for the poor residents. I was totally enthralled and was really routing for Lala!

May Book Wrapup:
5 ⭐
How The One Armed Sister Sweeps Her House: Cheri Jones 🎧
4 ⭐
Conversations with Friends: Sally Rooney 📖
3 ⭐
Love Letter of the Angels of Death: Jennifer Quist 📖
Across the Green Grass Fields: Seanan McGuire 🎧
2.5 ⭐
Come Tumbling Down: Seanan McGuire 🎧
Detransition, Baby: Torrey Peters 🎧
How To Do Nothing: Jenny Odell 🎧

I finished two audiobooks and both were PHENOMENAL 🙌🏻 I think One Armed Sister was slightly better (for me) but Hot Stew was really excellent, too! I‘ve seen lots of trigger warnings for Sister, but I think it‘s important to note, the violence (physical and sexual) is not gratuitous, not graphic and the sexual abuse is only mentioned not detailed. Thanks to @Megabooks who put Stew on my radar and thanks to @squirrelbrain for Sister!! 👇🏼

Today's library #bookhaul.

The rhythm of Jones' prose is propulsive, driving you through the story, even when you want to turn away from the pain and trauma. A study of intergenerational trauma experienced by women living in relative poverty surrounding the shiny tourist villas on the beaches of Barbados. Options are few, and corrupt, violent men offer "support" and take dignity and power. This is a brutal tale, and hard to get through, but Jones' talent shines.

TW?

Anyone else get pulled out of a story by historical anachronisms? This section takes place on July 9 1979. I read that list and thought it seemed very mid-late 80s so I had to do some research. LA Gear wasn't founded until 1983. The Walkman was released on July 1 1979 in Japan only, released later that month in a other markets but under different names.

This book is so well written, these little mistakes are just unfortunate. Come on editors!

Second book up in reading the Women's Prize shortlist. The book begins with a pregnant 18 year old about to give birth which instantly pulled me in. It has been a long time since I have been a pregnant 18 year old and I so, so rarely pick up books that feature teenage mothers. I am not far in enough to see if she will be featured I suppose, but I am looking forward to seeing how this one unfolds.

I enjoyed thought this was an interesting story about a woman who lost her child and tried to get away from an abusive husband. The story was a little slow at times.

When I started this book I was afraid it would be a struggle to finish it. There is so much abuse in every form and so little light. Set in Barbados, this is a book about people trying to find enough of anything to survive on-enough money, enough love, enough healing. The story never becomes less painful but I got to a point that I couldn‘t put it down. It is a hard book to recommend because of all the trauma but it is still so worth reading.

5 🌟. Violent and difficult content. All the trigger warnings. Could not put it down. Beautiful poetic writing around very difficult subject matters.

Finished this on my morning walk today, just in time for the #womensprize shortlist. It so deserves to be there and I can‘t decide if it‘s my favourite or a close second.

Set on Barbados in the 1980s we see the ‘real‘ side of island life as it clashes with the tourism industry. It‘s not an easy read, containing a lot of abuse and violence but it‘s one of my top books of the year so far.

And the narrator on audio has the *most* gorgeous voice!

It is one of those mornings when the water remains hung-over after a night of reckless abandon and has vomited on the sand before seeking to sleep it off. The tourists find that a walk along the shore is less about a stroll on the stretch of pink powder reproduced in the magazines and more the halting stop-and-start necessary to avoid the hidden jellyfish in the seaweed and the spines of sea urchins washed ashore and submerged in the sand ...

On each of the five nights since the murder, Mira Whalen has also lost her teeth.

Painless though it is, it fills her each time with an unexplainable terror as she dreams it, a terror that remains unabated on waking. It is often an ordinary dream, as dreams go (walking the dog, washing the dishes) save that, before she knows it, her two front teeth tumble from her mouth and into her hands. Every night.

Set on the beach in Barbados, but no “fun in the sun” is had by Lala or anyone else in the book. Lala‘s grandmother warns her in the beginning of the book to obey, and the tone for her life is set. Generations of agony, hardships perpetuating in paradise and the ripple effects of choices and behaviors of irredeemable character(s) emerge as layers of the past are peeled back throughout the book. Gorgeous #audiobook narration but SO TRAGIC.

4 ⭐️

The writing is excellent, but the story is so very sad as it seems that this was the life and path Lala was destined to. The life-altering events that take place in the book bring strangers together, reveal secrets and expose injustice. You're likely to feel frustrated, hopeless, angry, disturbed and a lot more while reading this book. Returning to my real life was the only solace, as the ending left me without relief.

Another week, another #libraryhaul 📚

This book is infuriating. Shitty men and powerless women and situations and places that just seem hopeless. With that said, this book is a fantastic read. It‘s so incredibly well-written and demands, literally and viscerally pulls, emotions from the reader. I‘ve never wanted to kill a character as much as I want to kill Adan.

I moved a few months ago and finally have a new library card. I was so excited to get the notice that my holds were ready. No more digital-only checkouts! 📚 🎧

An impulse purchase after seeing the Women‘s prize long list. I hadn‘t heard of this at all but it‘s a fantastic book so far. It covers lots of difficult themes and in a month when I‘ve been focussed on how stressful my life is, it makes me realize that my worries are all trivial compared to the lives some women lead. This is why I read.

Last night, I got to page 35-ish and thought this book was too sad for this current moment and I wanted to put it down. Alas, I was in the tub and had nothing else to read so I kept reading. Now I‘m sucked into this story and all I want to do is read. this. book. 💯