Welcome to Litsy!

At times it gave me Bridget Jones vibes. It‘s not my usual genre and honestly, I only read it because it was set in my home city, Cork Ireland. Tara Flynn‘s narration was perfect. It truly felt like I was home again. Had the right balance of humor and drama. Five🌟

⭐⭐⭐⭐ for the beautiful writing, the nature descriptions, the shrewd and true observations on people. The hermit character and his beliefs were just a tad too obscure for me, and at one point the father's reminiscences were a bit much. Nevertheless enjoyable, thought-provoking and well done.

"I suppose I've thrown in my lot with love, and don't know any other way to go on breathing. I embrace this world... and suffer it consciously for its compensations, and fully expect to awake one day to the consequences of the bargain I've struck, since life, eventually, closes in."

In Afrikaans, Holy Saturday is called Quiet Saturday. My children are with their dad and aside from going to the farmer's market this morning, which was crazy busy, I don't have anything planned and I got into bed with my book. David Guterson is really my jam - his books don't have to be perfect in every way for the beautiful writing to move me.

3.5⭐️/5⭐️

This was a slower Patterson coauthored novel. The main character Emily, you wanted to like but made continuous bad decisions. Unfortunately I DNF after about 200 pgs in. I couldn't wait for the other 200 🙈.

Started this on audio today. Not sure how I feel about it yet. I‘m about 30% in, and I don‘t really like any of the characters. 🤷‍♀️ I am going to keep going because I don‘t hate it, but I already know this one won‘t be a 4⭐️ or 5⭐️ read. ❤️📚

This fell somewhere in the middle for me. A bit of an adult coming-of-age story, I didn‘t particularly like or dislike any character. I felt largely that nothing happened and it dragged in some areas, but I also wanted to know what would happened between the affair and the friendships. #litsyTOB24

I enjoyed this warm, witty, big-hearted novel about Rachel & her best friend James, & how rooted it is in time & place (Cork truly comes alive). The characters are so well-drawn, & the relationships & fuck-ups that happen during the early-20s are realistic while being entertaining enough to power a whole novel that I didn't want to stop turning the pages. Many of the lines made me laugh out loud, especially in the first half. The writing is fab.

I loved everything about this book. It is so much more than the book jacket blurb. It's about friendship, coming of age, stories we tell ourselves in our head, being gay and not being able to come out, reproductive rights, humor, complicated families, socioeconomic issues.