Welcome to Litsy!

I really enjoyed this - went in with low expectations as some reviews weren‘t great. I do see that it is long and she does squeeze a lot of current hot topics in there. For a while I thought, oh this is a literary work about a woman in mid life crisis - not a mystery really. And then the mystery ramps up again and becomes the focus. I loved the setting, and the protagonist remembering her old school days. ⬇️

Really enjoying my March #bookofthemonth pick! I have two others I‘d like to get through before the April picks drop, so we shall see!

I did end up finishing this on audio. It wasn‘t totally terrible, but it was way too long. I‘m with others that this true crime podcast within a book is played out. And I don‘t get the point of the Me Too storyline with Bodie‘s husband. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ Just for the sheer amount of time I wasted, this gets a pan. Needed better editing. 💯💯💯

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I LOVED this. The kind of absorbing read where I couldn‘t wait to get back to it. I adored the way it was written - how she wrote to “you”, the imagined sections of different suspects committing the crime, the motif scrutinizing violence against women. There are many layers, like the reliability of memory, #MeToo, cancel culture, and wrongful incarceration. Makkai has some questions for all of us, and there are no easy answers. #BOTM

A fun read. A podcaster returns to teach a class, at the fancy boarding school of her childhood where she was an outsider and her once roommate was murdered. Reads like a mystery, layered with interesting takes on the #metoo movement and grooming, collective memory, race and privilege, the exploitative nature of true crime, wrongful imprisonment and so much more. Sharp and nuanced, I found the ending unsatisfying but all the more realistic for it.

I just read the last 300-odd pages of this in one sitting and now I have a slight book hangover.

Very excited to start this book which is already feeling less like The Secret History and more like the podcast Serial.

I really enjoyed this literary thriller that takes a critical look at perceptions and memories. I know some may not like it but I also really enjoyed the realistic conclusion. It rooted this story for me and made me enjoy it all the more. #botm

Makkai is a talented writer and there‘s a lot going on here but it took wayyyyy too long for this book to make an impact. Better editing would have elevated this from so-so to SO GOOD. There are traces of her previous writing style but the whole podcast troupe is starting to wear thin for me. A professor returns to her boarding school 23 years after her roommate there was murdered to teach a mini class on podcast production. 👇🏽

“What‘s as perfect as a girl stopped dead, midformation? Girl as blank slate. Girl as reflection of your desires, unmarred by her own. Girl as sacrifice to the idea of girl. Girl as a series of childhood photographs, all marked with the aura of girl who will die young, as if even the third grade portrait photographer should have seen it written on her face, that this was a girl who would only ever be a girl.“

#SundaySentence

A woman revisits the murder of a classmate at her boarding school (HS) when she teaches a class there during the summer.

I liked the beginning and the last third of the book. The middle became a bit tedious. Overall, I liked it. I really wanted to love it. 😕

#TBRTarot @CBee

#MyWeekInBails

Normally I like Makkai; normally I like an addiction memoir, but about halfway into each, I started just dreading going back. The Makkai was slow and dull. I just couldn‘t bring myself to care about any of the characters. Stash was equally about divorce and addiction, and I just wasn‘t enjoying it. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This was a great book. A mystery that kept you turning the pages, but also so much more. About all the things women in this world have to endure.
I also loved her book The Great Belivers. What other book my Rebecca Makkai should I read?

I lloked up from my book and saw this guy. ❤️

“It was the one where she walked around in her skin and her bones for the rest of her life but her body was never recovered. You know the one.”

This was one compelling and satisfying read. A slow- burn mystery that thoughtfully examines so much—true crime, misogyny, systematic racism, privilege, memory, the stories we tell ourselves. Another great Makkai! I‘ve read and enjoyed all of her books, all quite different from each other. #BOTM

Really enjoying this one - Bodie Kane a professor of film returns to her boarding school to teach a course in podcast production. During her time at the school her roommate was found dead under suspicious circumstances. Now Bodie has her students re-examining the mysterious case Julie Whelan‘s narration is spot on. .

Currently winning the prize for biggest disappointment/hype. I‘m so bored after 120 pages. I have very little reading time at the moment and I don‘t want to be bored when I can read.
I trust @squirrelbrain judgement that it picks up at about 50% but I can‘t make it to that.
I loved The Great Believers and wanted to love this. Don‘t be put off by me, you may love it of course.

A murder podcast host gets pulled back into a 20 year old case from her own past — the murder of her roommate at her boarding school when she was a teenager. Looking back now as an adult, and digging into the memories of her fellow classmates, she sees events in a new light. It‘s a slightly long-winded but totally engrossing mystery, with a heaping side of social commentary on cancel culture, violence against women, and classism.

1. Leggings, a big sweater or sweatshirt and my slippers
2. 4 …. TBR Tarot, audiobook, Friends you Meet on Vacation and the Sunday Buddy Read book

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

⭐️⭐️⭐️ This focuses on the unraveling of Thalia Keith‘s death, and cleverly, the mystery also acts as a vehicle for addressing various crimes against women. To me, that was the most interesting part. I‘m just over the podcast trope, so overall, this was fine. I didn‘t really like Bodie, so that hindered my enjoyment. Second person narration is so hard to pull off. Makkai does it well structurally, but I‘m not sure it was effective in this story.

Ha!

March TBR! I've got a few ARCs and 2 BoTM picks on here, and a mix of short and long titles.

#bookmail #botm was fast this month!

Walking my boy before the severe weather hits Nashville. My sons are even out of school today due to the weather threat. It‘s already super windy. If you‘re in the path of this, stay safe, y‘all!

#audiowalk #dogsoflitsy

Filled my box this month. Very excited for all of these! I‘ve been eagerly anticipating Makkai‘s newest so hoping to get started on that this weekend. #BOTM

I decided to check my ipad and compare with actual shelves….and BEHOLD….the book I actually want to read. 🤣 (we have a winner. Left to right it is)

#TBRTarot @CBee

1. To escape after a long day at work, to learn and to travel when I can't!
2. Tagged and I preorderd the new Peter Swanson book.
3. Fiona Davis
Thanks @TheSpineView @Eggs #wondrouswednesday @peaknit @Kshakal @RaeLovesToRead

When a book has a pile of characters within its pages, I‘m happiest inside all their hearts and minds. By my definition this should be a miss for me since I‘m only given the opportunity to really know Bodie. But I kind of loved this book when at 40 and 44 she‘s forced to look back at her boarding high school girl self to consider not only who she was and who she became but also her long unconsidered peers and teachers.

#bookmail
These arrived yesterday- I have so many coming this week and I need to read them all now!

This book just captures the zeitgeist - an intelligent, well written and thought provoking book that tackles #metoo issues. It‘s brimming with moral entanglements, messiness, gray areas and biases. It‘s also a plot twisting page turner, with flashbacks, red herrings and a caste of interesting characters confined in a ‘locked room‘ type location. Loved it!

When you've been loving on a book so hard you inadvertently match your outfit to it! 😂📚💕

I know I've talked about this feeling before, but it makes me super happy, so I'm going to bliss out about it again. 💕📚 I love, love, LOVE that feeling you get when you start a new book and you just KNOW immediately in your heart that it's going to be special. As soon as I read this first page I just fell so completely head over heels in love with this book! It doesn't happen with every book, but when it does, it's just the best damn feeling!

Eeeeeeek!! Still sick but able to read so happily diving into thi!

This is soooo the right bookmark for this book - I just can‘t stop reading!

Happy pub day to Rebecca Makkai's newest book! 🎉🎉🎉 I just seem to love everything she writes, so I'm super excited for this! 💕📚

Bodie is a successful podcaster who returns to her former boarding school to teach a class. As one of the students asks to make a podcast about Bodie‘s former room-mate, who was murdered during Bodie‘s time there, Bodie has to ask herself if that is what she hoped for all along.

I really liked this but I‘m giving it 4 stars rather than 5. Parts of it seemed really slow; in fact I had to check how long the physical book was as it felt ⬇️

Returned from my bike ride to find Rebecca Makkai‘s new novel from @VikingBooks I‘m a big fan. It‘s on sale this Tuesday. Visit rebeccamakkai.com to learn more.

#300KBirthdayGiveaway #litfluence @wanderinglynn
Congratulations on this incredible achievement! I always enjoy your posts and I love your reviews! The one book I would love to receive is tagged above. I know it won't be released until 2/21 but I would happily wait. If I had to choose a book that's already been published it would be White Oleander, it's an all time favorite of mine that I have just never purchased. 🎉 CONGRATS AGAIN! 👏

Time for an Oh Reader tea break! Was so excited to have the new issue arrive yesterday. Tagged is one of the new and upcoming titles in the “Oh Reader‘s TBR” feature. I love Makkai so can‘t wait (out Feb 21).

Cover reveal for Rebecca Makkai's newest, due in February. I adored Great Believers so I am really excited to read this one!

Out 2/21/2023

And a hunt for an ARC begins.

I am so excited!!