Welcome to Litsy!

Unintentionally co-ordinated with my book today 💙👗👕🩴📘 And the sky is a glorious blue too!

I'm going into this one with low expectations, because a lot of the reviews have been lukewarm / disappointed.

I have read a couple of Gary Schteyngart's books before. Absurdistan was OK and I remember being impressed by Super Sad True Love Story (although I was quite young when I read it and I don't trust my younger self's taste 🤭😋)

Off we go...

This shortish novel started with such promise: a group of friends and acquaintances decamp to a country estate to wait out COVID. People were hooking up, old jealousies resurfaced, I enjoyed it - even if the characters were Unlikeable. By the end I didn‘t care at all - it was a slog to get through.

I just realized I‘m reading a book set during the pandemic, using a mask as a bookmark.

I didn't dislike this one as much as a lot of people seemed to, but it's not one of my favorites, either. With his created family and idyllic country getaway in the midst of the pandemic and nationwide unrest, Shteyngart seems to be trying to do something similar to what Lockwood does in No One Is Talking About This, juxtaposing the banal with the realest parts of real life. I'm not sure his effort is as effective as it could be, though. #ToB2022

I‘m with others on this one - it was meh. I was initially excited about a pandemic book, with New Yorkers! Escaping from the city for a cosseted stay in the country! As a New Yorker who basically did just that in 2020, I thought this would be at least a little relatable, but wow no. There was a laugh out loud sex scene that I thoroughly enjoyed, though.

Book 12 of #tob22, as an audiobook. I doubt this one will move past the play in round.

I enjoyed this a little more than I expected to, but the last third kind of went off the rails for me. I liked the idea of exploring dynamics among house guests during lockdown. But ultimately I did not connect with any of the characters and got a bit bored.

Like Vinod in this novel, I‘m just glad it is over. 7 adults and a child shelter in place at compound somewhere in the Tri-State area. Hijinks ensue amid the 2020 pandemic with love triangles, parenting woes, nostalgia for the ‘90s and lost youth, the US immigrant experience in the late 20th century, betrayal and affirmation of friendships and commitment, fears about right wing movements... I found it effing exhausting to read. #Tob #Tob2022

As shocked as I was at how much I enjoyed Klara (see previous review), I‘m equally surprised at how much I disliked this one! Just goes to show that expectations really do influence me as a reader. I thought this would be such a great read but I found it to be such a slog. Pretentious. I didn‘t care about any of the characters. I was intrigued about the pandemic setting. I tortured myself to the very end to finish it. #tob22

Are there references to Russian literature that I'm just not getting because I haven't read enough? I keep feeling like I'm missing something. #morningreads

he had to think like a character in a Chekhov play, forever taunted by desires but trapped in a life much too small to accommodate the entirety of a human being. That was why Chekhov was eternally beloved. There were no dashing personages in his works galloping toward an end point like the Actor‘s renown or Karen‘s algorithm, only vanishing horizons, only overgrown meadows from which one could look above and try to discern misted landscapes.

I‘m not sure what to make of this book. It has all the ingredients I‘m looking for at the moment. Friends spending time together, romance, dealing with a new pandemic reality. And yet I never felt drawn in. The characters felt too flat, their storylines too thin and the final scenes made we just want to get it over with. Definitely not my favorite for the #ToB22 play-in round.

#Booked2022 #IncludesARecipe #pop22 #QuoteFromFavoriteAuthorOnCover

My daughter is a huge fan of Terrace House, the Japanese reality show that this novel mirrors. I loved this line describing Ed's obsession with it:

“How could this man without entanglements be so taken by a show where an entire thirty minutes could be spent discussing a slight rebuff over a bowl of soba noodles.“

That kind of summed up how I felt about the book too. #ToB22

#BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Well, I liked the first half. The first four sections, actually. The fifth went off the rails for me, I just wasn‘t into the shift in perspective.

#WeeklyForecast 04/22

I‘m in a bookclub! Finally! Each month a Dutch author chooses their favorite books and will discuss it with the participants of the bookclub on Zoom. Out of Mind is this month‘s choice, an old favorite of mine. I‘ll reread it and am also starting another one for the #Tob22. Maybe some Africa later in the week.

Erm I don't quite rightly know what to say about this one.
Except that for such a relatively short novel it seemed to feel like I was wading through a book about the size of "War and peace!"
The most half hearted and mundane piece of writing I have come across in quite a while
It's the start of the pandemic and Senderovsky has rounded up a group of friends to share his country manor and hole up at his country manor.
Gossip sniping and sex abound.

#sundaysoapbox @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I've just found out they are releasing The Diaries of Alan Rickman in October 💕

I've already bought or ordered To Paradise, The Sentence, A Lesson in Vengeance and The Twyford Code (all released in Jan/Feb in the UK).

Also quite interested in reading Gary Schteyngart's new novel: Our Country Friends which is released later this month.

I‘m already loving this one, only 20 pages in, and hoping to make a real dent in it during today‘s snow and playoff games.
#pandemic #thebubble #bobos #shteyngart #newyorkers

I‘m only a few pages in and I‘ve laughed out loud like 50 times already.

https://discover.hubpages.com/literature/Our-Country-Friends

This is what happened when a group of friends spent lockdown together.

#friends
#lockdown
#fiction

BTS, Covid, George Floyd …it‘s all here, but I wasn‘t here for it. Between a so-so and pan. A group of friends leave the city to wait out the pandemic at a summer estate in upstate New York, but the idyllic setting isn‘t enough to keep trouble away. I‘m just not clever enough to appreciate this book 🤷🏼‍♀️#ToB22PlayIn

#ToB22PlayIn - I‘m getting Larry David Curb Your Enthusiasm vibes from this book….it‘s kind of funny, in a NY sort of way. I‘d be surprised if this book makes it in, though. Another pandemic book - is this the new trope?!?! Do authors need to include a reference to Covid in order for the book to be realistic?!? I‘m not sure how I feel about the inclusion of Covid in my fiction. Thoughts?!??

First fiction novel I‘ve read that was set in the current pandemic. Pretty interesting, although some things were resolved a little too perfectly.

Much cleverness to 💜 in this one—c‘mon, a story about friends from the city escaping to the country during the plague & the ingenue is “Dee Cameron”? All the references, writerly asides, cultural references. Mantra “You have a lovely family and a lovely home.” Security taken for granted. Thick with snark, then a sudden tenderness or turn of phrase. Class, property. 139 “In accordance with the rules of Russian novels, each thought about another.”

Narrative falls off a cliff…builds to 3/4, then lost. Borrow more plot points from Chekhov—Black Monk maybe?—to maintain momentum? Shteyngart‘s signature snarky snobby tone, but I remained curious how the petty intrigues & gossip resolved. 2nd-gen Americans, fame, entitlement, jealousy, family, friendship. Chekhov: privileged squabbles while the country burns. Best=omniscient narr smoothly turns to close 3rd per for all—tricky & beautiful. 2021

This was an interesting take on addressing the last two years of pandemic and COVID life. I didn‘t love it, but thought it was done fairly well.. but I don‘t want to read any more pandemic books for a while.

🎧trying to finish before the discussion today Barnes and Noble Book club pick:

In the rolling hills of upstate New York, a group of friends and friends-of-friends gathers in a country house to wait out the pandemic. Over the next six months, new friendships and romances will take hold, while old betrayals will emerge, forcing each character to reevaluate whom they love and what matters most.

Book=flatter than pre-Columbus earth.

Week 1: 707 points.

#MentalHealth #LiteraryEscapes #CSReadAThon #MonthlyKeyword #QueerBookFun #AlphabetSoup #BuzzWordReadAThon #AYearAThon #SeasonsOfReading #PrettyMess #CalendarOfCrime #ColorCoded #ScienceFiction #HistoricalFiction #EuropeanReading #PickYourPoison #WinterGames #MistletoeManiacs #ReadAThon #DailyCheckin

@DieAReader @SusanOrnelas65 @Andrew65 @Lesanne @Clwojick
@StayCurious @TheSpineView

#readathon #mistletoemaniacs #csreadathon #potteraday #dailycheckin

Here is that TBR, not all of the 9 books can be seen. My theme is magic, and DieAReader and I will host some fun for that🙏🏾

Thank you to our Team Captains, you have brought new meaning to the end of the years🥳

I have mixed feelings about this story of a group of affluent friends who come together at lockdown to wait out the pandemic. I love that it was pandemic-set, which made it feel so real, and the relationships between characters and humor was great. The downside is that the characters were rather flat and undeveloped and the final section belongs in an entirely different book.

Pic from March 2020 #currentlyreading Weird to be reading about the Pandemic while it‘s still not over #getvaxxed

This is the third B&N book club book with the same dang trope. Friends gather, relationships that seem ok are dodgy, drama, awkward sex scenes. The difference here it‘s set during a pandemic. Ugh I‘m still living in a pandemic, I don‘t need to read about one. Why can‘t we just have books that are fun and an escape? Or if you‘re picking book club books find a new trope!

I had my issues with act 4, and the critiques of it I have seen are valid, but this was overall still a beautiful book about the transcendent power of friendship. I very much enjoyed it.

I‘m on to act 3, a thing I‘m really enjoying about this book is the cultural contrasts and critiques, it‘s really a beautifully diverse set of characters, I both love and hate all of them.

I have twice already laughed until I cried listening to this book, it is really so delicious and I‘m only on act 1. The structure of the novel is delightful, a play that I cannot help but imagine the stage, the lights and what actors would play what characters (confession: nothing will convince my brain that anyone except Yakov Smirnoff should play Sasha). Love this novel so far 💜

My weekend audio book! I spent an audible credit since there was a 10 week library wait and this book is on all the lists and y‘all…. So far it‘s living up to the hype!

Ever since 56 Days (tagged ⬇️), I I‘ve been excited for more pandemic-set fiction. This novel, broken into four acts, centers around a group that settles into a commune during the first few months of the pandemic. It features various amusing romantic entanglements in the first three acts, and if it stopped there, it would‘ve been a 4⭐️ book, very good for me. However the (spoiler reason) fever dreams in act four knocked this down to a low pick.

Sasha, Masha, and Natasha?! He‘s taking this Russian novel thing to the extreme, no? 😂😂😳