Welcome to Litsy!

January - How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu

@TheEllieMo #12booksof2025

This is a collection of stories about climate change and a virus that infects the earth. But these stories are all linked. The main theme is death, connection and hope. I really enjoyed all the different scenarios but my favourite was the fun park that was created for the sick kids to spend their last day with their families having fun. The perfect last day. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

It's 2031, Siberia. The snow is melting and bodies are being recovered, bodies defrosting along with their viruses.

This was an interesting concept and one I hadn't thought of before (and I've listened to many podcasts on the amount of bodies currently resting on various mountains globally).

The format of this novel is also interesting. It's almost like short stories. Each chapter features a different perspective of the virus spreading.

*whew* I don't typically listen to fiction, but this full-cast recording had been recommended. I enjoyed the pandemic story throughout, and then POW! the ending just hits with a twist. Each chapter is from a different person's POV, hence the multiple narrators. Excellent all around.

⭐⭐⭐⭐✨/⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
#readyourbookshelf #JumpStart2025

Sometimes, a 2 star read, sometimes a 5, I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about this fever dream of a book. The plot seems to struggle with a massive identity crisis; however, there was a lot to love. This was my February #Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

I liked the way the author circled back the ending to the beginning. This was a very different look at humanity, scary and intense.

A collection of interconnected short stories that start with a global plague in the not-so distant future. Having survives a global pandemic and watching climate change slowly destroy us, this was often bleak. But it's a poignant reminder that, in all of history, most people have only ever wanted love, safety, and a sense of community.

#AAPI Heritage month
This was so well done. Interconnected stories of people after 2030 when a plague is released from permafrost. Grief, lost, and survival running themes through the stories, you think you are finished with someone 's story and then you are years later and hearing the story from their mother's point of view and it all makes perfect sense. I have been in a reading slump but this held my attention and I flew through it today.

I have been in a reading slump lately. Which is such a bummer because it is AAPI Heritage month and I was hoping to get to these fabulous books. We are almost half through the month, and I am in the middle of 4 different books, but the tag has to go back to the library so hopefully I can get to that one at least.
I really struggled finding adult novels by actual Pacific Islanders so if anyone has any recs? I found one but would love more.

An interesting concept, a whole bunch of boring chapters/stories, some mildly interesting ones, some absolutely cringe-inducing audiobook narrators that ruined this average book even more. I was close to bailing a few times but just kept it running until the end, hoping for it to improve. It never really did.

This was a book that I needed to be in the right mindset to read. I started then stopped and restarted months later when I was ready. It‘s made up of several interwoven stories across the universe and through generations. The characters and stories were written so well that I was emotionally affected by all of them. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This reads like connected short stories. The book covers centuries and explores what the future of the world may be. Some chapters were very powerful and other less successful. Mixed for me but I am glad that I read it! 3.5 🌟 #52bookclub23 # dystopian @Clwojick @BookBelle84 @jennifer80 @Librarybelle @triplem80 @AshleyHoss820 @LauraReads @KarenUK @britt_brooke @CarolynM @Smarkies @LeeRHarry @Read4life @Bluebird @squirrelbrain @BarbaraBB @ravenlee

The premise is bleak — in the not-too-distant future, as a result of climate change, an ancient plague emerges from beneath the melting ice of Siberia and the consequences for humankind are catastrophic and far-reaching — but the book, for all of its death and grief and bizarre sci-fi elements, is beautifully bittersweet, filled with both love and hope.

My bookhaul from Reading in Public! The gorgeous painted edition of Jane Eyre is for my oldest child, who is finally reading this favorite of mine. I'm also in love with this beautiful hardcover of Kindred, another favorite of mine. Just part of my birthday haul! Hit up Half Price Books as well. I'll post that stack later.

This is a book of interconnected stories that begin in the 2030s with an Arctic archaeological dig by scientists attempting to solve climate change problems; this leads to the discovery of an ancient child‘s corpse and the unwitting release of a virus from her body, which becomes a global pandemic. The book traces the path and consequences of the virus through various characters over time, but it is not really about the virus. (cont. in comments)

Happy Birthday @wanderinglynn ! What a fun giveaway. I‘d love to win How High We Go In the Dark. 😍 #300KBirthdayGiveaway

Happy New Year!

#12Booksof2022 On the seventh day of Christmas my reading gave to me... interconnected stories of sci-fi, death, and society.

Beautiful, thoughtful, thought provoking stories of a pandemic and its aftermath. How do we grieve? How do we survive? What do we owe to each other? What weight lands on the individual, and what can be carried by the collective society?

@Andrew65

This book is equal parts bonkers and tragic. So far, I love it — telepathic pig and all.

Some sci-fi is about the human condition but set in fantastical, futuristic or dystopian worlds. This book starts good, climate change thaws a large prehistoric grave in Siberia & a virus escapes. We then get separate,but linked, stories narrated by those surviving a pandemic, trying to find a cure or migrating to a new Earth. Death & grief are the themes but the stories are so boring I was skimming by the 3rd one and I never got pulled back in.

#audiocrafting today! So glad I got this completed in time for the holiday. Though, whether or not it will actually make it to my brother on the west coast in time is another story. 🤞🏻

Well I don‘t know what to say about this book. This is a difficult read, need a right frame of mind. About loss& hope. A time travel to vivid memory of pandemic as well as to the future( which is scary 😧 ) . Discrete chapters, compelling characters (esp like the first few ones). Although the ending is perfect I felt few chapters ended abruptly. Overall an unique read . 4⭐️#bookspinbingo

Will definitely be on my favorites of 2022 list. Speculative fiction that brought tears throughout but an ultimately hopeful ending.

Annual pre-Josh Billings reading

#CampLitsy

We have a winner. Thank you all so much for joining in this wonderful summer. It‘s been so fun, we‘ve read some great books and we‘ve loved all discussions.

@squirrelbrain @Megabooks and I hope to welcome you again in camp next year! ☀️

A story with epic scope told through connected stories of the release, expansion, and aftermath of a plague. In 30-60 pages each chapter captures a particular moment or a particular aspect of the pandemic. Many stories focus on society‘s screw-ups, showing flawed characters as they endure loss, but also find connection. The first chapters are more realistic and set in the near future, then become fantastical with further leaps forward in time.

Had I realized that Nagamatsu is currently a professor at my small Minnesota alma mater, I probably would have liked this even more!! (Thanks, alumni magazine!) I loved it a lot even before knowing. ❤️ #CampLitsy

"It's impossible to meet people now."
"People like to forget about the sadness of the city," Yoshiko responds. "They walk and walk. No one stops. It's like we're all still infected. We choose to be blind to each other's suffering. It might make things easier to bear, but our hearts are cold."

"We try to stop get it from getting out or we prepare people," he said. We get the world to wake up and pay attention to the fact that all this ice melting and the millions of years of shit it contains has to go somewhere." Dave reached for his belt buckle, twisted the metal go square, pulled out a tiny flask and took a sip. "But the odds of us finding some completely foreign runaway pathogen that we don't already know about are incredibly small."

I likely never would have picked this one up if it weren't for #CampLitsy, so I'm thankful to everyone for choosing it.

A serious of interconnected stories, that together provide a meditation on how we cope with loss, how we grieve, and how we take our next steps. It is beautiful and heartbreaking (thank you @vivastory for the advance warning, these stories are emotional). There are elements of sci-fi, but it is very much a human story 👇

1.) Neil Gaiman
2.) How High We Go in the Dark
3.) Litsy, especially #LitsyLove

There is so much to process and adore about this book of stories that all connect. It goes from the lowest lows to the highest highs. It made me stop multiple times to just ponder everything we know about earth, the universe and love. Wow, this is truly a stunning piece of literature🥰

Absolutely beautiful. Deeply depressing. Contains one of the darkest chapters I have ever read in my life. But ends with incredible beauty. I loved it.

1) Recently it was undoubtedly the tagged book. 🐖🎢
2) I'm an eclectic reader, so I will name one quality I treasure of 3 genres I enjoy:
Lit. Fiction: Rich character development.
Graphic Memoirs: Informative!
Fantasy: Immersive world building.
3) A favorite book in 3 other genres:
Thriller-Minato's Confessions
NF- Preston's Monster of Florence
Classic-Toole's Confederacy of Dunces
#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

This book is ❤️🌟❤️🌟❤️🌟❤️ I love interconnected stories like The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman and The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra and this one is just as good. I need more!

"We are all waiting for nothing or everything."

That one line hits so hard after 2+ years of living with the COVID pandemic.

Starting on these two today! Olympus, Texas is for #LMPBC with @melissajayne @zenwldflwr and @TheBookWitchON and HHWGITD is for #CampLitsy catch up! (I'm all out of order with that one 🤣🤣🤣)

Beautiful collection of intricately connected stories set in a future where a plague has devastated it Earth. Given the reality of Covid, some of this felt like a gut punch, but Nagamatsu‘s prose is absolutely gorgeous. Though bleak at times, there are hopeful moments when the focus is how we process death and loss through art and reconnection. I enjoyed some of the sci-fi aspects, others fell short for me and did not add to the overall impact.4⭐️

Interlinked stories that imagine a different future, in which there is a deadly plague but it mostly affects children. Sometimes it felt a little “too soon” but the best stories leaned more on the sci-fi aspects, and I liked those the best.

If you don‘t mind reading a book about a plague that kills the children first, then comes for the adults, this is a very interesting book. I found it interesting how the world adapted to the plague, with slices of life told by very different people, with common threads running through the generations. This one‘s a head scratcher as to if I really liked it or not, but I think you can make your own decision.

My emoji review of HHWGITD:
❄️🦠☠️🎢😭🌌🐖😭😷⚰️🎶😭🚀😭

And we have a winner…!

As many of you may have guessed from the voting pattern and everyone‘s comments, the winner of #camplitsy for June was How High We Go In The Dark.

It received twice as many votes with a total of 18 votes vs 9 for True Biz and will now go on to the final vote at the end of August, up against the books that we choose for July and August.

We follow many people, a new person for each chapter, both during and after a pandemic set in the future.

I‘m not sure I understood the final chapter, but other than that I enjoyed this.

#CampLitsy

Dude

This was mind-bending, ambitious, and intricate. It was a lot - but beautiful. If you're into Cloud Atlas or Station Eleven, this may be for you.

#BigJuneReadathon #JoysOfJuneReadathon

This one bumped my June #TBR with a skip-the-line-loan for a week & I‘m glad it did. While not perfect, this novel comprised of related stories & set in the future with the world facing a new environmental pandemic was fascinating & at times hard to read. (Too soon COVID😷) Some stories drew me in more & hit harder as happens in a collection, but I liked putting the pieces together of how it all connected.

Full review (in Italian) on my blog: https://worldofinterestsblogger.wordpress.com/2022/06/19/libri-how-high-we-go-in...

There are many things I liked about this novel, which deals with topics such as death, suicide, a deadly virus... Although How High We Go in the Dark deals mostly sith the relationship between people, be it relatives, neighbors, strangers.
I enjoyed the strucutof the chapters, following a person each⬇️

I didn‘t get as far as reviewing this last week, but I LOVED it! Inventive, thought-provoking and heart-breaking. I wasn‘t 100% sold on the ending, but a resounding pick all the same.

Thank you #CampLitsy for introducing me to this - it‘s not one I‘d have picked up on my own.