Welcome to Litsy!

That's a hell of an opening. 10/10.

#Movie2BookRecs @Klou
Movie: Paul

I absolutely adore this book! Douglas Adams meets David Bowie in the best way possible 💖💖💖

@Clwojick #pantone2023

Reading the blurbs, all I got was Eurovision playing in my head because that I know and love but you this book was a great surprise and I loved it. The story starts out heavy in the comedy but then Valente comes in with the world building, the backstory of the characters are eventually revealed and the characterizations come to a good full circle. Miller was instrumental for how much I ended up enjoying this audiobook.

This was a very strange book. Basically it is up to one band to sing at a galactic concert to save the Earth. The writing & humor was kind of reminiscent of Douglas Adams but it fell flat. There were a lot of alien species to keep track of and it jumped around to previous contests & history so it was confusing & hard to follow. None of the characters were really likeable and I only finished to see how the train wreck would pull off the ending.

Read this book a couple months ago, this line really stuck with me

#blameitonlitsy

Omg love this so far!! Very Douglas Adams

Love this book! Got the audiobook from the library to listen to as I fall asleep and it did not disappoint. Fits SFFBC cleanup: no gift for strategy. #bookspinbingo

I stole this from a Facebook group but I need to talk to my wife about making this a tradition of our own!!!

Eurovision on an acid trip played out on an intergalactic stage for humanity's future, all written in a fashion wherein the English language has been placed in a blender, sprinkled with fairy dust, & spat out again to form this story. If at the end of reading this you ask yourself, "What the hell was that?", then you would be right on track. If you want to consume something very different from the norm then punch this ticket & enjoy the ride.

“In space, everyone can hear you sing”. Thought this would be fun diversion. Bummed out this morning hearing about Sean Connery‘s passing so thought I‘d read something fun while listening to records.

I wasn‘t even a little bit prepared for this.

SPACE OPERA obviously isn‘t for everyone, but Valente might as well have written it for me. This is a deeply weird love letter to music and absurdity and the eternal quest to belong on your own terms. It‘s often pretty durned funny, but the thing that really makes it—that sets it apart from so much of the humorous SF out there—is that it‘s also fucking heartbreaking.

MY EMOTIONS. 5 stars

I liked Nigella‘s tomato-bacon hash so much I made it again last night—and put it in tacos, because anything can be a taco if you just believe.

I also listened to a nice chunk of SPACE OPERA while I cooked. I‘ve gotta say, all the Douglas Adams comps left me leery (I once tried very, very hard to like Adams, and I failed very, very badly), but I‘m loving this. It‘s weird-ass shit with real emotions at its core. Very much my thing. #audiocooking

Once upon a time on a small, watery, excitable planet called Earth, in a small, watery, excitable country called Italy, a soft-spoken, rather nice-looking gentleman by the name of Enrico Fermi was born into a family so overprotective that he felt compelled to invent the atomic bomb.

#FirstLineFridays #SpaceOpera #CatherynneMValente

If you know anything about me, you know that Eurovision is my absolute favorite thing in the world. I am obsessed with it. This book should have been perfect for me but I hated it with every bit of my angry heart. I've tried Valente's books before and I hate her writing style, but to squander the idea to set Eurovision in space is unforgivable.

#litsyatoz @BookishMarginalia #readingwomenchallenge #frequentlyrecommendedtoyou @thereadingwomen

Hitchhiker‘s Guide to the Galaxy, but make it queer? Yes please.

I loved this! A great escapist read. I don‘t read much sci-fi but am a huge Douglas Adams fan ❤️ & Valente pays homage to him, & honours the wonderful camp, inclusive, silliness of Eurovision. It‘s very on point. She writes great sentences. Dry satire, me laugh out loud. I preferred the main characters‘ sections to the sci fi bits. A light read but also shows how humans have under-used their intelligence & acted irrationally (eg climate change).

I loved this! A great escapist read. I don‘t read much sci-fi but am a huge Douglas Adams fan ❤️ & Valente pays homage to him, & honours the wonderful camp, inclusive, silliness of Eurovision. It‘s very on point. She writes great sentences. Dry satire, me laugh out loud. I preferred the main characters‘ sections to the sci fi bits. A light read but also shows how humans have under-used their intelligence & acted irrationally (eg climate change).

Quirky and fun 😍🎤 🚀😍

Currently reading and loving (and making a playlist). 🥰 #blameitonlitsy

Not what I expected. So over done! I did a lot of eye rolling. What was supposed to be funny I found was silly and then just became tiresome. It was a slog to get through. ⭐⭐

The writing reminds me of the grouping cats meme that represents the first day of kindergarten. The writing is hyper, spastic, and doesn't follow any rules. As I read, I was getting mentally tired just like the kindergarten teacher. The book is full of idioms, puns, and analogies and every once in a while, I may have laughed at loud.

Life is beautiful and life is stupid. I think the author did a great job portraying the second part.

I‘m not a big sci-fi reader, but I did enjoy these books #setinouterspace! 🪐
#bibliomaynia

I'm having a high anxiety week so it was a great treat to have this guy snuggle up with me for some audio knitting once I was finally able to take a lunch break. #catsoflitsy

DNF around 40%. Audio was sooooo not the way to go on this one (for me). The story detoured all over the freaking place and I was so annoyed at the meandering storyline. I paid full price for the audiobook, which I never ever do, so the compulsion to finish this was strong. Goes to show how frustrated I was to bail! For those who don‘t mind the structure, the story itself is wild!

Wow! What a book haul! Thank you, @Chili! Perfectly selected! I can't wait to dig into these, and all next week is Spring Break for me! Perfect timing. 💗😊📚

Thank you, @LibrarianRyan too for organizing the fun #WhiteRabbitSwap!

Audio knitting. This project makes me so cheerful, and so does this book! #knittersoflitsy

#audiobaking earlier today. I'm rereading Space Opera (read it in print the first time) which is a wonderful pick me up for these stressful times, and baked a lemon pound cake.

I liked the concept of this book. The musical references were really fun and the descriptions were strong and interesting. I felt like it got a little confusing which could have been because I listened to this one. Overall, it was entertaining, but I didn‘t love it.

Cue the music. #SciFiMonth

Liked this one but failed to find it funny. More heartbreaking than funny.

I read the first chapter. She's trying far too hard to be the next Douglas Adams and I couldn't face 300 pages of it.

If you hate to laugh and think humanity is great, do NOT read this #hugo2019 nominated book. If you want a story about Galactic music concert reality show being the only way to save Earth that is full of humanity-depreciating jokes and brilliantly diverse aliens, read this book. The photo is of the Flaming Lips‘ Wayne Coyne. Thank you Catherynne M Valente....Thank you.

"Aquatic species have a notoriously tough time handling the usual technological transition from ruining their own planets to ruining whole solar systems. While mammals, insects, and enlightened lichen can zip about as long as they take along a few houseplants to micromanage the air cycle, the unlucky space whales of this universe have to sort out how to get a ship overburdened with the absurd weight of a personal ocean into high orbit. ⤵️

The #bookfairies all arrived at my house today with surprise litsy love packages from @OriginalCyn620 AND @Soubhiville filed with these gems and I'm so excited! Thank you both!!
#litsylove

I've only been able to read 4 hours and 40 minutes so far for the #24B4Monday readathon, but I did finish my last book from the 2019 Hugo Best Novel shortlist. This one is a lot of fun, in the style of Douglas Adams.

#hugo2019
@jb72 @Andrew65 @TheReadingMermaid

When I read the blurb for this book, I expected a fun, over-the-top, absurd, & silly story. And that‘s what this is. I laughed throughout this book! Simply put, it‘s a wild, fantastical ride! A singing competition held in space determines which species lives or dies. Eurovision meets Hitchhiker‘s Guide To The Galaxy.
#booked2019 #bookgiftedtoyou #popsugarreadingchallenge

Finished. Two more to go so that I can vote for #hugo2019 best novel. I liked this one...but feel like I‘d need to read a few more times to get everything out of it.

I‘m about 100 pages in and I can see how this would not be a lot of people‘s cup of tea. I, however, am laughing my a** off! #saturdaymood

One of my favorite first sentences in a very long time! 4th out of 6 books I need to complete to vote in #hugo2019

? This just wasn‘t my cup of tea at all:
Absurdist comedy á la Douglas Adams that just wore on you; long/boring exposition (hours and hours of rambling on and on about nothing that mattered in the end,) not enough action, and a narrator that sounded so pretentious that he sounded like a *parody* of a British narrator (He just earned a spot on my “NO List!)

🎧 This is an absurdist comedy about an intergalactic Eurovision-type competition in which the prize for not coming in last means that your planet and sentient species gets to live...

A third of the way in, I‘m committed to the audiobook (narrated by Heath Miller,) but the “cleverness” and slow plot drive are wearing on me a bit.

I knew going in that I don‘t enjoy Eurovision and I no longer enjoy Douglas Adams, so this was going to be a tough pitch. Hats off to Valente for imagination and prose powers - but ultimately, not my thing. I enjoyed the first third but by midway the over the top writing and emphasis on glam galaxy building over plot or character exhausted my interest and my patience.

...but if I loved Eurovision and comic SF? Genius, surely.

"Is that really it?" Dess interrupted halfway through. "We just sing better than one beastie and we get to live?"
"Yes. Does it seem barbaric to you? Sixty-seven percent of your population used that word."
"No, it makes sense to me. It's perfect."
"Why?"
Decibel shrugged. "Life is stupid and beautiful in that way."

...I‘m not loving this book, but I could love this philosophy. Shine on, baby.

This book was absurd in the best possible way. I tried to read it twice before getting the audiobook from Libby - that was DEFINITELY the way to go for me. I didn‘t get as caught up in the words and was able to appreciate the feel of the book - a weird, crazy romp from London to the edge of the galaxy, with descriptions of alien biology, home worlds, and artistic proclivities spelled out in funktastic descriptions. My 2nd audiobook for #BFC.🤘🏻

I've been looking forward to this for ages. It was a little too frenetic/insubstantial for me right now. Real life is so crazy-busy at the moment, I don't need that in my entertainment, too. Right now, I just need nice/fluffy/kind/easy/pleasant/light. It reminded me a bit of the frenetic The Everything Box, by Richard Kadrey [maybe also of The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett (but not as good)]. The cover is pretty, though. 😉