Welcome to Litsy!

Some people doodle in class. I write out quotes I love from books I read 😍

Working my way through my bedside pile of books I need to finish or have been meaning to read (which is, honestly, all books, but those won't fit on my table).

Hour 42: final challenge!! The Mortifications is the best cover I think bc it's both beautiful and so appropriate to many themes in the book. When I Was a Witch is a collection of Charlotte Gilman stories, which are feminist in bent and written in the 1800s!!!! which is why a weird modern stock photo is the most inappropriate choice I can think of. 😣😣😣 I'm glad to have it, but yikes that cover. #24in48

AAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhh!!! 😱😱😱😍😍😍 You guys!!! My friend works at the University of Michigan with Claire Vaye Watkins and her husband Derek Palacio and I told her how much I loved The Mortifications and she wrote back with this!!!!!!!!!!! I'm still jumping around from the adrenaline of receiving this.

Edit to add: Please take this as another plug for The Mortifications, I loved it so much.

Well, I didn't finish my long audiobook tonight, so I'm set at 19 books this month!

🎧Belinda Blinked 3
📚The Mortifications ❤️
📚 Bluets
📚 Chemistry
🎧 Ripper
📚 Persepolis ❤️
🎧 Just Kids ❤️
📚 Illuminae
🎧 Another Brooklyn
🎧 Universal Harvester
📚 Slade House ❤️
📚 Through the Woods
📚 Ms Marvel 3 ❤️
📚 Ms Marvel 4 ❤️
📚 Bite Me
📚 Black Panther 1 ❤️
📚 X vs Y
📚 Vampires in the Lemon Grove ❤️
📚 I'm Thinking of Ending Things

#ibelieveinbookfaeries #hideabookday #goodreadsturns10 this one is in #jerseycity in a new #stem building

I took a huge break from Litsy and from reading while I finished my degree--it was a big final push. But it meant that I started this book in February and finished it in September which makes it difficult to get an accurate picture of. But all told, I thought it was a beautiful and engrossing book.

The heart remembers what the mind forgets

#currentreads excited to dive into these

#junebookbugs day 12
#canteven explain how with this many unread books (and more on my shelves) I still check out library books and library e-books and keep buying books

Rather than animating the characters or the story, the somewhat overly flowery prose just made me drowsy. Bailed at around the 15% mark.

This is starting out engagingly on audio!

I will read the books I own and not borrow more library books
#lies

#maybookflowers

Aftermath of my impromptu #bookface project: I was using my phone camera to check to see if I had managed to get all the paint off and I was greeted by this ridiculous sight.

#riotgrams Day 22: #bookface! Lol am I doing this right? FOUR FACES FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! #whydidIthinkthiswasagoodidea #goingtotakeashowernow @bookriot @Liberty

Starting a new (much awaited) book tonight. This is the best opening quotation I think I've ever read!

I tried. I wanted to like this. I did like parts of it. But ultimately I just kept getting impatient with it. Literary realism is just not my jam.

The cat has been displaced for cake. Because cake. #litsypartyofone @Ambrosnazzy

This is my next up stack and my currently reading stack together. Help me decide what to read first for #LitsyPartyOfOne.

#TBRtemptation post! A fresh Cuban-American voice brings the intensity of the Cuban refugee situation to life. In 1980, a rural Cuban family is torn. The father, Uxbal, refuses to leave, so his wife, Soledad, takes the young Isabel & Ulises to America, Hartford, CT, to be exact. There she starts a relationship with a Dutch farmer, while Isabel becomes spiritually hungry & Ulises is bookish. Then Uxbal calls them back! #blameLitsy #blameMrBook 😎

I'm not sure if it just wasn't the right time to read this or if it was the book, but I couldn't bring myself to keep going after 130 pages. I kept finding I would need to go back and reread whole paragraphs. One of the very few times I've bailed on a book, but I don't foresee it getting better as soon as it needs to to keep my attention.

#currentlyreading
In 1980, a rural Cuban family is torn apart during the Mariel boat lift. Uxbal Encarnación–father, husband, political insurgent–refuses to leave behind the revolutions ideals and lush tomato farms of his sun-soaked homeland. His wife, Soledad, takes young Isabel and Ulises hostage and flees with them to America, leaving behind Uxbal for the promise of a better life.

They came by boat. I'm coming by airplane. (I'm on my way to Wi12 in Minneapolis.)

Palacio's prose is something special- lush and beautiful. (I probably enjoyed the writing more than the actual story.) But that's not to say I didn't enjoy the story because I did. I cared deeply about all these characters. The story follows a Cuban family as the mother and two children immigrate to America while the father stays behind. A seriously beautiful book.

I won this through Goodreads #giveaway and it came today! Which is lovely because I often stare at it longingly at it at the bookstore but never manage to get it. 😬

A story about how strong family ties are and how deep roots to home run as a mother takes her children from Cuba to the US leaving behind her husband who refuses to come. (The audiobook has a fantastic narrator and is great if you want to hear correct pronunciation of certain words/names)

Breathtaking, soulful, and profound, Derek Palacio's The Mortifications is an intoxicating family saga and a timely, urgent expression of longing for one‘s true homeland. #CopperfieldsRecommends #Recommendsday

"Ulises better imagined maps of the fallen empire or vague sketches of the boundaries of the Mediterranean than he did colossal temples attacked above stone or wine-dark water. Olympus itself was more cloud than mountain, and it was the first time in Ulise's short life that he felt truly displaced and uprooted. The language of the ancient world was a field he'd plowed for years, and yet there he was, unwilling to taste the soil in his mouth."

Looking forward to diving into my #MuseMonthly November read!

A dream-like book about family, destiny and home. In The Mortifications the family is the Encarnacions and home is Cuba 🇨🇺 and Hartford, Connecticut.

I'm always drawn to stories and characters that show the complexity of belonging - or not - to a place and how that shapes our identity.

fascinated by mommy's books! #StartEmYoung #kids

I'm starting this today; it came in my first book box.
New teas to try and more importantly, expanding my book picks!
#DerekPalacio #petsoflitsy #dogsoflitsy

Don't you love surprise #bookmail from Penguin Random House?!?! This showed up on my porch today!!! 📚

"The heart sustains when the mind relents; the heart remembers what the mind forgets." #currentlyreading

Currently reading. Cuba. A will she, won't she take her vows and become a nun storyline. Cigars. So far, so good.

This is a crazy-good week for new releases (ahhhh, yet another reason I love fall) and Derek Palacio's debut novel is one of many great ones out this week. If you love a richly-textured family saga, make room for this on your shelf!

I loved the writing in this book. I might have to read it again to really decide how much I liked it or if I really liked it but I like how it was written. You know what I mean?

Today's #bookmail is my #goodreadsgiveaway winners for the month. Not a bad #bookhaul at all. Really excited to read The Mortifications!

picked up this colorful arc today. Imagine the #bookface possibilities...

It's been five days and I can't seem to get past the halfway mark. There's some beautiful writing here but not enough pull to keep me engaged.

The writing in this novel is lyrical and haunting. But, I found that I just didn't care about the characters. The descriptions of Cuba were the best part but there weren't enough scenes on the island. Got this one from #netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I won't even get to this one until late summer, but just knowing its in my queue makes me excited. This could be the story of my family and so many other Cuban relatives. Can't wait to dive in!