Welcome to Litsy!

I love this author. Wow. This is my second of his in a couple months, and I will probably look into his older titles, has anyone read anything published before this one?

I really loved this. It‘s long and slow but beautiful, and Marion and his twin brother Shiva will stay with me.

All in all a fun, fast read full of fanfic tropes and smut. I just never thought I would have read a published A/B/O book ever but another one from the TBR read!

It's very weird when a well known fanfiction trope is published and weirder still when I can still read the which fandom this used to be. Funny enough idk but I read a lot of A/B/O fics in this particular fandom so yeah 😁 changing the names did little to hide it.

Exhausted just reading this diary of a young NHS OB-GYN doctor: constant stimulus & decision-making, lack of time, lack of sleep, faint praise, strain on personal relationships. Engaging voice with a dose of snark, heartbreaking medical emergencies & spit-take hilarity. 2017
P 86 “really, the only choice is whether you f*ck over yourself or your patients. The former is annoying, the latter means that people die—so it‘s not really a choice at all.”

How to explain how much I loved this book? The author makes magic with words. His character development is outstanding—I especially loved Marion. His medical background shines through, making the surgical details fascinating. I also learned so much about Ethiopia. If I could give 100 stars, I would.

Life, too, is like that. You live it forward, but understand it backward.

A apt title, I really enjoyed the play on words. Cutting For Stone is part of the hypocritic oath. If you cannot handle health/surgery talk this is not for you. Verghese pulls a lot from himself - he is an Ethiopian -American doctor. His MCs are Ethiopian twins born of doctors who become doctors. The background of the Ethiopian revolution. I was a bit nervous about this but it was very readable, the characters are vivid and the pacing is perfect.

"The hospital 's old septic tank was located here, deep underground, and for years it has overflowed before it was taken out of use. USAID concrete, Rockefeller funds, and a Greek contractor named Achilles had built a new one "

Try as I might this will not be the book that doesn't remind me how far America has fallen. To be reminded that we used to help the poorest of the poor across the globe ?

#25in25 we are halfway through the year and I am doing not as great as I could have hoped on the 25 books I have chosen to focus on in 2025.

I feel like July and August are going to be my time to shine on this! A perfect time to read Anne of Green Gables, Three, A Trace of Sun, all those lovely summer books.

I grabbed the audio of Cutting for Stone from my Library so will dive into that this month.

Current count 11/25

I adored this novel set in 1962 fictional Faha (west Ireland). Gorgeous, real characters and infused with a sense of place & feeling of being in a rainy small town. A gentle pace but drama on every page as the characters engage with each other, make choices & battle with their conscience. Most of all the writing is sublime, the sentences finely turned but unshowy, with an Irish warmth & sensibility. I loved the deadpan humour too. A beautiful book

“Stories on an island travel sideways”….. something to that effect. 💚

Perfect description of this intimately detailed portrait of a doctor, his daughter, and their village during the Christmas season of 1962. Something unexpectedly upends the doctor‘s guarded privacy and equilibrium.

Simply gorgeous prose with quotable gems every page. I enjoyed This is Happiness, but I loved this one.