“It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie.”
#Treats
#HauntsAndHexes
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
Sparklemn 💝 2w
Eggs @Sparklemn 🤗❤️ 2w
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“It was the best first kiss in the history of first kisses. It was as sweet as sugar. And it was warm, as warm as pie.”
#Treats
#HauntsAndHexes
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
pickA soft pick. The premise is good - a jaded author who, worried she will become haunted by the book ideas she hasn‘t felt able to complete, decides to build a cemetery and bury the stories - but I‘m not sure it was fully explored, it feels more like a tool to deliver multiple story arcs. But it was an enjoyable, thoughtful read nevertheless.
Book 87 #Read2025 @DieAReader
pickFree-spirited Birdie is struggling as a single mother and waitress at a backwoods lodge in Alaska when she meets Arthur, a mysterious and reclusive man with unfathomable secrets. When Birdie and her 6-year-old daughter Emaleen move to Arthur's remote cabin, their idyllic wilderness existence comes face to face with the most dangerous thing in the woods. An atmospheric fantasy vividly and realistically told.
pickI wasn‘t a Swamplandia fan and thus initially passed this one up, so I‘m glad the #NBAlonglist for fiction got me to read it. I found this unique Dust Bowl historical fiction with some fantastical components to be fully engrossing. The characters are great and I like that we hear rotating perspectives from them, which helps keep the book moving. I really liked it!
pickThe Antidote is so different: it‘s historical fiction but felt fresh. The point of view is constantly changing so the action is slow and even feels a bit repetitive but I think that is actually a good thing for this novel. There‘s also Wizard of Oz vibes, weirdly. I hadn‘t encountered that in other reviews I‘ve read, but the town is Uz, and there‘s a scarecrow. Stolen lands, a collective misremembering & willful ignorance, it‘s America!
pickI gave Black Woods Blue Sky 4 stars. The vivid descriptions of Alaska made me want to visit even more. I struggled with Birdie—her selfishness and poor mothering made her hard to like, though I see how those traits served the story. Arthur and the bear, on the other hand, were magnificent. The novel left me wondering if the mysteries and magic it portrays could truly exist in real life.
pick“It was bewildering, how closely grief ran alongside joy.”
My first Ivey novel. Atmospheric! The setting of Alaskan wilderness is the MC, I would say. But then any book I‘ve read with an Alaskan setting utilizes the starkly primitive and foreboding quality of that region to create mood and foreshadowing. I hope to read more by Ivey.
#Read2025
#LitsyAtoZ
pickEowyn Ivey always makes the real world magical and the magical seem real. I wasn't sure I liked the last section of this one, up until the ending when I realized that everything happened just as it had to.
