Welcome to Litsy!

I am so unbelievable disappointed? I felt so safe with Oyeyemi, who was very pro-LBGT+ in the other book I‘ve read by her. And Boy, Snow, Bird was easily a 5 star read…up until the last two chapters. I will not abide by any sort of transphobia, whether Oyeyemi intended for it to be transphobic or not. Impact over intentions, always, and especially in cases like this.

Hate snakes 🐍 but love this cover!!

#TBR
#SummerSpecial
#SnakeDay

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Flew out to Boise to visit a friend a couple of weeks ago, and of course we had to visit a lovely local secondhand book store while I was there. Picked up this little gem along the way; one more item for the ever growing TBR shelf.

#Retellings

#Withaweatherword
#TemptingTitles

❄️💚📚

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. I will provide no description and no reason for wanting to read it. I just do. Some will be old, and some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join in if you want!

Thank you Rachel!! I love these cards and the book looks so good!! Thank you for your friendship ❤️❤️ Happy New Year!! 🎈🎊🎆

#LitsyLove

I'm doing the #AdventCalendarChallenge over on IG and I just wanted to share my pick. 😁

Going to use this for a #Booked2023

@Cinfhen @alisiakae @BarbaraTheBibliophage

#MountTBR

As I'm accustomed to with Oyeyemi's books, I like this one a lot without really understanding it, especially the ending. I appreciate the way the story deals with love, the trade-offs of pursuing what we love and/or need in the face of the culture around us, the difficulty of recognizing and giving honest love when what we've received has been so much different from what love should be, and the challenge of being or even recognizing ourselves.

1. Valuable to have narrative perspectives on historical black/biracial experience of racism, but I think I should read Passing and/or The Vanishing Half for a clearer picture.
2. How does the trans community feel about the representation in this book?!
3. Intergenerational trauma is a tragedy and while there is not a satisfying ending to be found, I hope they're taking the first step to healing internalized and externalized hate.
Warning: SA

Honestly, focusing on food over aging sounds like the better idea. 💁🏼‍♂️

Ah, yes, the standard definition from the Dictionary of Giving Me the Creeps. 😶‍🌫️🙃

This character has my sense of direction. 😩

3/5⭐ I really enjoyed reading this book, especially the stunning poetic writing and the dialogue/relationship between Boy and her boss. If not for the bizarre and gross (non)ending, I would have rated it much higher. #bookspinbingo #booked2022

A snake's head glided out from between her lips, bright as new chainmail; he saw that its golden coils wound down her throat.

“You're wrapped around her heart,“ the magician said.

“I am the heart,“ the snake replied.

Life has changed a lot, you know. You didn't used to get all this food inside food inside food when I was a girl. The other day I was eating a mushroom and found it had been stuffed with prawns. I've got so many misgivings over this craze, Boy. It's flying in the face of nature. A mushroom is a woodland fungus and a prawn comes from the sea. People have got no business stuffing one inside the other.

It isn't magic. It's just that I'm well dressed. You men who try to tell me I'm a scarecrow or try to grab my arm but can't manage it, don't you understand that you're not really addressing me? It's more as if you're talking to a coat I'm wearing.

It turns out that the average annoyed American only needs to pull three terrible faces before she feels better.

What I mean to say is that a whole lot of technically impossible things are always trying to happen to us, appear to us, talk to us, show us pictures, or just say hi, and you can't pay attention to all of it, so I just pick the nearest technically impossible thing and I let it happen.

It was one of those ones they call screwball comedies, where people mislead and ill-treat each other in the most shocking and baffling way possible, then forgive and forget about it because they happen to like the look of each other. Only they call it falling in love.

The first coffee of the morning is never, ever, ready quickly enough. You die before it‘s ready and then your ghost pours the resurrection potion out of the moka pot.

Finished one puzzle, starting another! #audiopuzzling

#fairytalechallenge2022 @Charityann

This is stated as being a Snow White retelling. It has some elements of that story, but this really is its own tale.

I enjoy this author's writing style, but I know she isn't for everyone. I was not a fan of the big reveal at the end or how the author handled it. She could have used it as a platform to say something positive, but instead she just tossed it out there without explanation really.

Didn‘t love this but didn‘t hate it either. It‘s a Snow White retelling - an interesting take that focuses on vanity and race. It‘s told in 3 parts - Boy, Bird, then Boy again. I was disappointed that we didn‘t get a part that was Snow‘s POV, as I was expecting the third part to be hers. Seemed like part 3 was just kinda thrown together with a wild twist thrown in.

#bookspinbingo
#booked2022 - author born in Africa
#pop22 - #ownvoices SFF book

Helen Oyeyemi does it again! This marvelous book is a mixture of magic, whimsy, sorrow, and surprise — the story of a woman named Boy, a white woman who marries Arturo not realizing he‘s Black until their baby is born. Snow is her stepdaughter and utterly adored for her passing-as-white beauty; Bird, the dark-skinned daughter, is fierce and smart but never loved as Snow is. The book‘s end was a letdown but until then. It!s remarkable.

This is my second attempt with Oyeyemi, and I think she may not be for me. I seriously considered bailing on this book, as I was just bored. But when Bird is born (nearly halfway in), things got a bit interesting. And then ultimately it didn‘t end so much as stopped with several odd things seemingly thrown in right before the finish. It didn‘t really work.

I think I liked this better than White is for Witching but I‘m not sure that‘s saying much.
I‘m not sure what that ending twist was...
And to keep from spoiling it but to still address it, calling it a “spell” that needed to be “broken” made it sound even more like JK Rowling.

Finishing up this book and loved this line.

#QuotsyOct20 #potion ☕💕 @TK-421

The first of Oyeyemi's I wasn't wild about. It had a strong start with all the complicated strangeness I love about her other work. The summaries will say it's a version of Snow White, but that's a little misleading - instead of the fairy tale driving the plot, it's the spark leading to all sorts of inventive directions. Unfortunately things fall apart in the third act, but there's enough great stuff in the first two to make this worth reading.

#currentread
I'm reading Boy, Snow, Bird right after finishing The Bloody Chamber because Oyeyemi's work has so many fairy tale elements and right away there's a pretty cool common theme involving mirrors. The top passage is from the last story in Bloody Chamber 'Wolf-Alice' where the title character encounters a mirror, and the second is the opening of BSB introducing one of many mirror references. I love it when consecutive reads overlap.

A retelling of Snow White that focuses on race and vanity.

This book has mixed reviews and I can see why. From my perspective it was finding a fantastic new author (new to me) with a unique voice. It had an intriguing fairytale feel with possibly magical elements, then twisted and grew through a more historical part of the story which examined race and passing in illuminating ways. But somehow all these shining beautiful parts seemed to grind together at the end for me and jam up. It felt incomplete ⬇️

Helen Oyeyemi has a talent for writing books that I fail to fully understand but nonetheless still enjoy. There‘s something about her prose that is effortlessly beautiful and I love the weaving in of magic. This is a story about race and identity with the feel of a fairy tale. Vivid and compelling, if occasionally confounding. This is book 2 of my May #bookspinbonanza list AKA #doublespin

Been a while, but I‘ve been reading!! Just neglecting to post to Litsy, sadly.

Current fiction read!!

Book tagged is one that I want to read.
1. Yes, it snowed where I live this weekend.
2. I love blankets and thick, fluffy socks when I'm getting cozy and ready to read. I prefer psychological thrillers.
3. @julesG @ljuliel
#MoonReflections
@Meaw_catlady

I normally don‘t pan books if they‘re just not my jam. But this book, for all its lovely prose and compelling exploration of race and beauty, has a wildly transphobic twist at the end that felt like a sucker punch. As a trans reader, I expected better from a contemporary author, and I won‘t be seeking out more of Oyeyemi‘s work.

Loved this book! Interesting voice and POV not familiar to me previously. The magical realism elements enhanced the story. Good plot twist at the end, with big emphasis on forgiveness. Of not, this novel works because of its own voices writing.

Hey now, you‘re an all star

I found this to be a very compelling read even though it‘s a bit more ephemeral than I usually go for (the plot and the prose just sort of float along). But it started to go downhill for me after it switched back to Boy‘s point of view in the last section (I‘d really rather hear from Snow at this point). And then that final reveal? Eeeeeesh. This probably still would have been a pick, if not for that.

I‘m not really sure what to make of it, but it‘s still a pick. I think I expected the fairy tales to play a bigger part instead of only getting a glimpse of them now and then. Instead Oyeyemi explores themes like female relationships and race - I would have liked a narrower focus. But I still enjoyed her writing so much.

Reading this for the retelling of a fairy tale by an author of color prompt, since this is allegedly a retelling a Snow White. #readharder2020

1. The Fellowship of the Ring, The Man in the Queue and L'arte di Tolkien
2. Tagged
3. My apartment is basically a jungle

#WeekendsReads @rachelsbrittain

What a beautiful and strange novel about the relationships that form between women, how we adapt to absences and tragedy and of course, the story also explores issues with race. Highly recommended.

If you were ask me to list my favorite hobbies, at this point I would definitely need to add “going to library book sales.” I love them so much!

Needless to say, this is another library book sale haul! We headed out to Clifton Springs Library last night and found some goodies! I was especially excited about the Jennifer Donnelly book, although this now means I need to find the first two in the trilogy!

Have you read any of these?

#7days7covers #covercrush Day 2

Well. That was not what I expecting from a Snow White retelling! But I definitely enjoyed it. It took on a lot of topics like race, class, family & sexuality. I did not necessarily agree with or like the way some of these things were portrayed, but I think these they would make for a very lively book discussion. I'll be thinking on this book for a while.

#friyayintro time!

1. I will never, ever stop being mad at BOY, SNOW, BIRD. It made me love the hell out of it, then destroyed that love with its transphobic ending. Worst literary betrayal EVER.

2. Currently SCHITT‘S CREEK.

3. Usually sour cream scrambled eggs with bleu cheese dressing and hot sauce. It‘s quick, tasty, and filling.

4. CST.

5. Burgundy Jellyfish.

😃

Helen Oyeyemi writes a crazy mix of fairy tale and real with a fluid time line so it seems like an old fashioned present day. She is gifted with words, some images of the rat catcher stayed a bit too long in my mind. I enjoyed all of the characters and the different view points of Boy, Snow and Bird. I‘m even more disappointed about Gingerbread now 🤣

I‘m wearing my Snow White bracelet ( my first princess love ) while I start this