Welcome to Litsy!

As someone who used to be a teenage girl who was angry and sad and cynical about both the injustices of the world and her own lot in life and believed she was smarter than the adults around her (and often truly was), I loved this.

“The same guy was talking again to Stephan. I leaned in to hear. He said, you have a month to set a fire, and if you don‘t you‘re out.

He saw me looking at him. Same goes for you.”

(Almost) all of my library holds came in at once! And when I got home, the dress, that I bought as a #treatyoself present to celebrate submitting my grad school application, had arrived as well 📚 👗❤️

Lucia Stanton is a disillusioned, fiercely intelligent teenage girl who wants to set fires. Like the title says, the book reveals the how and the why. It's a short, open-ended story. Just a glimpse into this girl's life, and yet Lucia felt like one of the more fully realized characters I've ever encountered. Funny and sad. Highly recommend.

A - American Gods
L - Letters from Skye
Y - Yes Please
I - I Capture the Castle
S - Stranger Things Happen
H - How to Set a Fire and Why
A - Anne of Green Gables

Thanks for the challenge, @ScorpioBookDreams !

What does your Sunday night view look like? #sundayfunday

Hands down, this is the best novel about a 'bad girl' I've ever read! What I said in my review last year still holds true: "I felt bad for her, worried about her, loved her, rooted for her. She cracked me up a hundred times. I finished reading the novel a couple of weeks ago: Lucia continues to stomp around, brilliant and brash, inside me. Like she owns the place."

#badgirls #augustgrrrl

Day 29 of #junebookbugs - my most recent book purchases! Some from Book Outlet, some from an indie bookstore, and some from B&N. @RealLifeReading

This book is so... strange. It took me forever to read. The protagonist's voice is different. She's very smart, very matter-of-fact. Her thoughts jump around and the narrative is very "stream-of-consciousness." She's unsentimental about things like sex; she isn't overly innocent or naive. She's funny. Her life is painful. You hurt for her, even as she acts way outside of conventional morality. It wasn't my typical fare but I liked it a whole lot.

"I guess he's one of those people who don't like licorice. I think 75% of people hate it, but the other 25% adore it. What else is like that? Trampolines? Tanning salons? Parrots?"

"Some people hate cats."

#greatfirstline

Note: I tried to convince myself that I hated cats for awhile. I'm allergic, and was trying to make *not* petting kittens a choice that I made instead of a choice that was made for me. But they're adorable. Whatever. I admit it. Bring on the hives.

(I do still prefer rabbits & dogs, though. There aren't enough rabbit memes in the world. Cat people have all the luck. ?)

#2017Book78
Lucia's father is dead, her mother is in a mental hospital, and she lives in a garage with her aunt. After getting kicked out of school again, she begins to search for some sort of meaning from her life. Instead, she finds a group of teenagers who share her interest in wanting to start fires. The writing in this novel is somewhat disjointed, which perfectly fits the main character stumbling through life trying to figure things out.

Enjoyable but not mind-blowing. Eventually, I aligned with most Littens in thinking the main character, Lucia, was sassy and enjoyable.

However, I skimmed over anything involving arson directions/anarchist agenda. The first rule of Fight Club is, don't talk about Fight Club.

⭐⭐⭐

I could be this character for Halloween and look exactly the same as I do every day.

Pretty sure people at airports, coffee shops, etc. do this. I'm always giving side-eye trying to determine if people are true Littens 😏

Littens who have read this one: Did you find the narrator annoying or sassy/fun? I'm still trying to decide 🤔

Just started this audiobook today!

I loved the characters in this one. It was both funny and heartbreaking. However, there were just too many tangents and I found myself losing focus at times.

I listened to this in one day. Lucia is witty, funny, smart, and lonely. I loved this audiobook. The ending, though abrupt, was perfect. 😁👍👍 #myfavoritearsonist

Can I just say that I LOVE Lucia!!! The way she derides her counselor is brilliant! 🔥🔥🔥🔥

Just reached 24 hours on the #24in48 readathon with 1 minute left on the above book's audiobook. My stats for the #24in48readathon are as follows:

Books read: 7.5 (the .5 is an audiobook I bailed on at the halfway point)
Pages read: 1,996
1 paperback
2.5 audiobooks
4 e-books including 3 graphic novels

Review for the above book will be posted tomorrow, when my reading addled brain is better able to write a review. And now, 😴.

Almost forgot I read this this week. Not that memorable for me. Enough said.

I don't have a 2017 TBR list but here's the stack I have from the library at the moment.... #funfridayphoto

Another great quote from this book: "Wealth squeezes us, the wealthy squeeze us and squeeze us, until we cannot even help one another as we would naturally do, as it is already in our hearts to do. Never let yourself be squeezed in this way."

It is not important to me whether you are at this moment poor or rich. If you have the requisite humanity in your heart, the substance of empathy, then you will leave these classes, the poor, the rich, and join a new class: that is, the class of those who subsist gladly and meagerly. ...We want merely to have that which is necessary and least, and it is our joy to share what is necessary and least with others. #BooksfromSteinbeck

I'm not sure why I didn't know this. I was halfway through this book about a teenage girl just trying to make it through in high school, really enjoying her snarkiness, when I looked at the back of the book and discovered the author is a man. Shook my world for a minute.

This is a rather sad story about a teenager who has lost her parents and then her guardian. Very smart but angry, she plays with the idea of joining an Arson Club. Written as a sort of diary, the author did a great job of being consistent with voice and making this character sympathetic without being sappy.

#currentlyreading Up next from my December TBR library pile.

This quirky little book was beautifully written yet very unsettling. And the end ... get your Kleenex out. Don't say you weren't warned. Lucia is one of the more memorable characters I've had the pleasure to encounter in a book. I will not easily forget this one.

This sounds promising!

Meet Lucia, a badassed teen with a dead dad, an institutionalized mom who doesn't know her, a gobsmackingly bright mind, and attitude for days. A dark but joyous tale of grief, creativity, and arson. I felt bad for Lucia, worried about her, loved her, rooted for her. She cracked me up a hundred times. I finished reading the novel a couple of weeks ago: she continues to stomp around, brilliant and brash, inside me. Like she owns the place.

Even the cover of this book is great. Love the main character and how she deals with all her troubles.

@BookishFeminist OMG, this book! 👍👍👍👍

I'm a judge for the Chicago Review of Books Award and I'm trying to get through all the finalists that I haven't read yet. I finished this one today. It's a quick read and I rather enjoyed it.

I love everything about this story: the style, the prose, dialogue (often monologue); I'll never stop loving Lucia; her wit and candor and perceptiveness and honesty and and and. I think despite her nihilistic tendencies, there's a part of Lucia that is actively engaged in finding meaning in her life. But that's the thing about Lucia: "Each person needs to have his or thing that they must do. Furthermore, they shouldn't tell anyone else about it."

"Something happens, maybe even something small, something no one even notices..."

This entire book. Everything.

It's just that, I'm already in such obsessive adoration of Lucia already, and then I read this.

"Isn't it obvious that the world is a meaningless place where there is a faint impression you can leave on each other by being compassionate, but not more than that?"

"and then I get called to the principal for having skipped detention, and then I am told: you have a week of detention. They don't understand--I can just read a book. It doesn't really matter where I am."

"Or, a few do."