Welcome to Litsy!

For a long time I thought I was broken, but what does that actually mean? If you're broken, you can be put back together. I had never been broken. I had just been wandering in the dark, not aware that I was lost.
It's funny. My life only came together after it blew up. It exploded into all these pieces, and after I realized I hadn't died from the impact, I put the pieces back together in a slightly different way.

Now I think real beauty might be in all the small and obvious places I had overlooked. Oh, a rock in Manhattan. Oh, an empty street in Manhattan. Oh, my sister and me watching a movie. Oh, the sky.
Our lives could be beautiful in the quietest ways, and already were.

I was learning that a good relationship included work. It was hard. But we talked about it. That was the simplest and strangest change: actually talking it out. … We had many long conversations about moving—is this house cursed?—and for now we've decided to stay. Here in this house with its red door. We will not run away from the past.

There was no reason to remind her who the father was. There was no reason to cause her more pain. There was no reason even to say, "I forgive you, Mom." The lipstick said that. My being there said that.
She gazed out the window. Maybe she looked lost. Maybe she looked more lost than before. But she also looked kind of peaceful.
"What are you thinking about, Mom?"
"We are here."

"Every event is a choice to give up or to persevere," William said, and I wondered if this was a line he repeated to himself a lot. "The terrible things separate the weak from the strong.”

Denial, I have learned, is not the act of lying to yourself. Denial is not an act, it's a state. It's the state of not knowing you are a liar.
I was fixated on a certain picture of my life, and that picture was reflected on the surface of everything I saw.
We do not choose to be blind, and when we are blind, we don't know that. We see as much as we can bear to see, and we assume that's all there is.

You will hate the main character in this book. Catherine West is a wealthy woman in her early forties. She reminds me of an older Serena van der Woodsen from Gossip Girl - a rich girl from the Upper East Side who has no idea how the rest of us live.

Catherine lives a totally carefree life in NYC until a person from her past reintroduces himself. Despite the annoying protagonist, the story was interesting and I did want to keep reading. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I‘m about 38% into this and I‘m struggling. I am hating the main character, Cat, more and more. Is it worth it to keep going? I very rarely give up on a book, but I don‘t know about this one. 🤷🏻‍♀️😒

It seems like most people didn‘t love this, but I sure did! Definitely characters that I don‘t think we are supposed to love or relate to, but I still enjoyed it so much. I was enthralled.

“Our lives could be beautiful in the quietest ways, and already were.”

The first half of this book did nothing but frustrate me. I hated all of the characters! (except for Herman❤🐶) I kept ranting to my boyfriend about it to the point where he himself was annoyed with the characters lol. But in the end I was very shocked! It turned out to be an okay book. Just had a slow start.

These characters are driving me insane. But I can't stop reading!! 🙄❤🤷‍♀️

SO glad to be done with this, not for me. The character was too inconsistent, vain and then introverted and then involved in a minuscule bit of action ever so slowly implied throughout the first 250 pages and then the end felt so rushed, like it was written to meet a deadline and not to complete a story. Oh well. I also had a bad week so if the author is out there don't take this too personally.

His body was clean and new and streaked with salt. It was a deserted beach filled with fine white sand that stretched to horizons. It suggested we could be better. We could cover the swampy human parts of us, and we could be better. We could be new again, and we could be beautiful.

Feeling iffy about this book but reviews suggest it gets juicy. Carrying on.

My favorite pastime is going to the bar alone and drinking excellent cocktails and interchanging my time spent there reading and writing. I also happen to be in Boston waiting on a college friend for a lovely weekend together. @Rawan_alsaffar

Gotta love an author named Swan 😜 Its only 8:00 in Georgia, so I have time to start a new book, right?????

This story took soooooo long to get through. And just bugged the crap out of me. The main character grows up rich and then is running low on funds so her sister just givers her $10 mil like it's no big and then she spends $3k on shoes. Like.....why? Why even make that a part of the story?

Took me a long while to even get into the story line. Twisty little ending was really the only good part, in my opinion.

#currentlyreading

My favorite pastime. Bubbles and books.

Current situation.

A little predictable, but not bad! I'm more than 5 hours into #24in48 but I forgot to turn my stopwatch back on, so I don't know if I'll actually hit the 24 hour mark now. Oh well!

Starting this one on my day off work

"Mirrors reminded me that it was what was on the outside that counted."

Hmmmmmm, very long to get to the point. And Cathrine stayed insufferable. It was on audio because if it had not been it would have been sailing off into the DNF ocean.

Every time time Kathrine does something naive, I think GIRL! She tosses her trust statements away w/o opening them, GIRL! Move in after two weeks, GIRL! Her poor mother can't remember much but somehow remembers she hates your fiancé, Girl!

I was so intrigued by the plot but I just wasn't a fan of the writing style.

I'm listening to this on audio and it is good. Buuuutttt she described her dates lips as tasting like "mint and sea salt" ? Which, is now what I will be telling Jay every time I kiss him. Emphasis on the sea salt.

I like to have books in different formats going at once. This is one of the rare times when I finished all options- ebook, audio and physical - on the same day. So that's 3 new choices I get to make from my TBR!! Yay! So I'm going to listen to Here Comes the Sun, read my physical ARC for We Could Be Beautiful and start the digital ARC for To the Bright Edge of the World. I live for this moment. ❤️📚❤️

Borrowed all these from my library simply because I was so excited they were available. But now I'm trying to prioritize my TBR - which of these should I read first? (If you can't see the whole cover, the titles are: We Could Be Beautiful, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, Siracusa, and The Fortunes) #Tbr #libraryhaul

I ended up really liking this book! It was a bumpy start. The heroine is a spoiled 1%er. But I found myself rooting for her.

A thoroughly enjoyable read. In less skilled hands, Catherine could have been dismissed as a privileged, spoiled brat. Huntley successfully turns her into that one friend whose vanity and limited world-view occasionally grate on your nerves, but ultimately you want what's best for her.

Even though I'm not liking any of the characters that much, I feel like I could be friends with the narrator--the type you see once a month for brunch and she's fun and easy to talk to except for the snotty comments about money and the debilitating fear of being alone.

Good fast read, at one point I thought I knew where it was going and then it took a slight turn. Money makes people crazy.

I enjoyed reading this book. I wasn't expecting the many twists that take place towards the end. I believe this is Swan Huntley's first book, and I look forward to her next novel.

An intoxicating escape; as smart as it is fun
Kirkus Reviews.

Eerily similar to The Nest in premise, setting, and characters. WCBB's Catherine is more ... Basic than TN's Beatrice but I thought WCBB was better written and had some nice suspense (think a yuppie Patricia Highsmith novel.) Warning: whiny rich characters of both books may drive readers up a wall

It is rare for me to like a book if I don't like the characters, but WE COULD BE BEAUTIFUL is one of those exceptions. Some of the plot twists were a bit gratuitous for me but I still wasn't able to put this thing down. Great follow up to THE NEST.

I think I'm bailing...

Good Morning from Niagara Falls, NY USA. I have 25 minutes before my interview with US Border Patrol agents so I think I'll get some reading done. If all goes well, bye bye bye to long wait times at the bridge. #tsaprecheckforcars 🚗🚦🇺🇸🇨🇦

New #lifegoal: to one day own a coffee shop/bookstore called "Read."

The characters in this book are all horrible people, in my opinion, but it was a quick yet curious read. I felt like I was eavesdropping on the "tragedy" of wealth. It seemed to wrap up a bit quickly, but I was ready to be done with these selfish, greedy a-holes.

All #guiltypleasures are forgiven when it's hotter than hell outside.

Summer Days! Loving my wine glass from my husband and the way this author writes! 🍷📖

Summer Days! Loving my wine glass from my husband and the way this author writes! 🍷📖

Despite the fact that the protagonist in this book is the most frustrating and spoiled character ever and that I guessed the big twist, I actually really liked this book and finished it in just a day. A well written, fast-paced, and compelling read.

Man, this book's protagonist is really ticking me off. Complaining about having to survive on her fiancé's "measly three hundred grand a year" salary!?! Poor baby... ?