Welcome to Litsy!

@BarbaraBB Saw this on Goodreads and wanted to share this with you Barbara. Seems like J. R. Lennon is a stand up kinda guy! 👍

I wasn‘t sure what this was all about, a guest house in the ‘town ‘ called Subdivision. Run by Clara and the Judge , our MC checks in and there is a jigsaw on the table to finish, and a crow that‘s watching. So begins a heady journey. I found it often hard to connect with, but I did develop a compassion for the MC, and I never wanted to bail, and at times I felt moved to tears. A haunting book when you really think about it.

I have absolutely no idea WTF this was but I liked it and I think I had it somewhat sorted by the end? Maybe? Possibly?

That's it. That's the review 🤣🤣

I was sure the colours matched a lot more than it looks like it does in this picture but I'm keeping it anyway 🤷‍♀️

#Pantone2023 #Jumpstart2023 #BookspinBingo #AuldLangSpine
@Clwojick @TheAromaofBooks @Lizpixie @monalyisha @shadowspeak17

Catching up on #12booksof2022.

The tagged book is my favorite January book and will probably be an all-time favorite. According to my stats Priestdaddy was my favorite of February but to be honest I hardly remember anything about it.

Take a standard Twilight Zone episode plot, give it an artistic makeover, and you have Subdivision. Things begin in dreamy fashion where a woman whose personal history is never mentioned rents a room from Clara and 'the Judge' (both retired judges named Clara in fact) who are hospitable and advise her on finding work and permanent housing in this unnamed 'Subdivision'. Yet they are also oddly intent on her assembling a mysterious jigsaw puzzle 👇

#BestMidYear22 Day 8: There are certain books that only grow in estimation the more time has passed since reading. Such is the case with Lennon's Subdivision. A book that I greatly enjoyed when I finished, but as I had recently read numerous other fantastic works (Sylvia Plath, Italo Calvino, Patrick McGrath) it didn't initially have a major impact. Yet, it has lingered with me & months later I now actually prefer it over the similar Piranesi.👇

A woman arrives at a guesthouse, as a first step in moving to the town. But why exactly is she moving…? The owners insist she work on a puzzle in the lobby and somebody does, but who….? Is the reappearing crow watching her…? The town is isolated, and something odd happens on the outskirts…. This ethereal novel follows dream-logic with only the barest hints of the reality the narrator might be escaping. I am not sure what I read, but I loved it.

Well, this just wasn‘t for me. I can understand how one would appreciate its inventiveness, but it left me with the same discomfort Murakami causes me. (Sorry, Murakami-lovers.)
I continue to plug along with old ToB books from this year and years past. There are never enough reading hours in the day. 😁
#ToB2022

Audio crocheting today, while trying to rest off work.

My #tob22 books in order:
1. The Trees
2. Several People are Typing
3. Subdivision
4. Klara and the Sun
5. The Sentence
6. All‘s Well
7. Book of Form…
8. The Echo Wife
9. Matrix
10. Nervous System
11. Our Country Friends
12. Intimacies
13. Confession of Copeland Cane
14. Libertie
15. When We Cease…
16. In Concrete
17. Beautiful World…
18. No One is Talking About This

Out of the three Lennon novels that I have read, The Subdivision may very well be my favorite. An episodic narrative with elements of Kafka's The Castle & Alice in Wonderland, with a wry sense of humor, I rec. going in knowing little about it, as I think it pays off. Lennon's latest manages to be both surreal & not surreal at the same time. Initially disorienting, everything comes together satisfyingly at the end without tedious over explanation.

I started this book a few hours ago & am now about halfway through. One of the most original books I've read this year. Greatly enjoying it.

I didn't really “get“ this strange #ToB22 novel but enjoyed the ride all the same. It felt very much like a dungeon-crawler video game -- enter a room, battle a monster, solve a puzzle, leave with some loot, and then tackle the next room.

I finished this book late last night to complete the #20in4 readathon with a total of 15 hours and 30 minutes. Thanks to @Andrew65 for hosting!

I am really happy with the amount I read in February, but most of these I feel pretty meh about. My favorites this month were Subdivision and American Baby, which were both great.

Total: 7
Print: 1
Ebook: 4
Audio: 2

Fiction: 5
Nonfiction: 2

#Booked2022: 2

Through no fault of J. Robert Lennon's, this book wasn't really my thing -- I'm not so much a puzzle narrative person. (I don't even try to work out who the murderer is when I read mysteries!) If you like books that leave clues for you to figure out the ending, this you'll probably really like the mind-bending plot here. If you prefer more straightforward character development and narrative, this might not be your jam.

I really like this novel. With its symbolism, mythology, and dream-like surrealism, it feels a little like a cross between Ulysses and the movie Mulholland Drive. This novel has what I love from fiction: lessons that characters learn obliquely and often accidentally, the way all of us in the real world learn lessons, if we manage to learn them at all. #ToB2022

This is my strategy for Zoom work meetings: “I bathed and dressed and applied enough makeup to indicate a general commitment to the principles of polite society, but not so much that anyone would think I was going out of my way to look better than other people.“

Am behind on my #tob22 reviews! I finished this one last weekend and really liked it. Super weird and clever with an ominous tone, I liked how things unfolded and became (sort of) clearer as the story went on. It reminded me of the WTF feeling of Piranesi but against an initially familiar suburban backdrop, though it becomes less and less normal pretty fast.

Book 14 of 18 of the shortlist.

Reading this felt like reading a dream, and I loved it. I‘m sure I didn‘t understand everything, but I enjoyed trying to figure it all out.

#catsoflitsy #Ember

Happy 💕 Valentines 💝 Day❣️
“His diseased mind had twisted our words, revised the history of our love. How dare he! My voice quavered with fury as I said, “Did you?”

I really enjoyed this slippery wild tale of grief and inventive experience of dealing with trauma.

#coinkydink with Nicole Krauss‘ The History of Love
#TOB2022 #feverdream

I don‘t completely understand this book, yet I love it. I was all in for the strange world the narrator inhabited, and in trying to follow what it all meant. I need and want to read it again. Another book I would never have gone anywhere near if not for my beloved #tournamentofbooks! #tob22

5 #tob22 books and 1 #bookclub pick make up my #FEBtbr list. I‘m currently listening to Our Country friends and reading Subdivision in print. #ItHadToBeYou @Eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I've been reading lots of books lately that fall into the surreal category, and Lennon has created a fantastically weird novel that felt like reading a dream and I couldn't help myself from getting completely sucked in to this story.

The characters, the slow unraveling of the story with each new chapter and location, and the overall madness of it all made this a wonderful, thought-provoking read. #ToB2022 #ToB22

Whelp, the TOB and I will just have to respectfully disagree about this one. It starts out deeply weird (and stays that way), and when I finally saw where it was going, I debated on bailing, as I knew it wasn‘t going to work for me. I‘m a concrete thinker and have a different belief system, apparently, than what is expressed here. Not for me at all.

Wow, this book totally sucked me in. It reminded me of old school adventure computer games, each chapter learning a bit more about what the story is about. I loved the dreamlike style, the lingering sadness throughout the whole book and the way it came together in the end even though I‘m not sure how it ends.
Books like this are why I love the Tournament of Books.

#Doublespin #Tob22 #Booked2022 #SetInAnInn #52books #AuthorsPhotoOnCover

There were aspects of this strange book that I liked. But I do not enjoy books that are as opaque as this one, that leave me in a confused place. While I was intrigued by the themes around trauma, it didn‘t pay off for me.

#tob #tob2022 #tob22

I have no idea what is going on in this book, and it feels like any ideas I have could be spoilers. But it held my attention despite feeling lost in the surreal subdivision, and I think it will be a good discussion book for the Tournament of Books.

The audiobook narrator was good -I found this in Hoopla - but her somewhat prim tone became confusing in some of the weirder moments (depending on how you interpret these moments, it's probably fine.)

I really enjoyed this offbeat novel. A nameless woman arrives at a guest house in the subdivision, not too far from a nameless city. She doesn‘t know quite why she is there, but for patient readers, the dream logic of the book will start to fall into place. I don‘t have all the answers and the book isn‘t necessarily “deep”, but I liked how it was a puzzle to be pondered. #ToB #Tob2022

This really isn‘t my genre at all but I liked it. It‘s a weird fever dream / magical realism kind of book, where you don‘t know what‘s going on most of the time. I‘m still not quite sure I understood it all at the end, but some of that may have been me being slightly distracted when listening to the audio. (Or maybe it would have been better in print?) Really interested to see the discussions on this one.

#ToBshortlist

#tobshortlist #tob2022 I really liked this surreal dreamlike novel. I‘m not sure I “got” all the metaphors but I really don‘t think I was supposed to. I think you just need to go with the dream logic and see where you end up. If you liked Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin you may like this. I have so many questions about what happened I can‘t wait to see the discussion on the TOB.

How to rate and review this #ToBshortlist novel? The first 75% is a very confusing (to me) magical realism book. I prefer this genre in short stories because I try to make connections between the book and the real world in my mind. Frustrating. However, the last 25% is brilliant!! All the connections I couldn‘t make are laid bare in a truly beautiful way. Not my favorite but a solid pick!

@Cinfhen the #audiobook is great!

What a wild ride! I loved this book that felt much like being inside of a crazy, long dream. The first book I‘ve read by this author, and it definitely made me want to check out his other work. #ToB2022

My first new purchase since the #ToBShortlist came out! It‘s out now in print, but y‘all know how much I like audio, and so many are bad on audio or not available in that format. It‘s only $12 US, so I didn‘t use a credit.

Who all am I supposed to tag this year?

#ToB22

This novel is completely banana pants and I‘m totally here for it. The narrator arrives in the subdivision where the story unravels like a puzzle (glaringly, a jigsaw puzzle serves as a recurring metaphor). The story proceeds down false hallways and reveals both clues and red herrings about what is going on here. Weird and wonderful. #Netgalley #arc #audiobook