Welcome to Litsy!

Best book I‘ve ever read. I want to re-read it already. It has inspired me to write and reminded me to observe all the little details that make life magical. Everyone has a story. Everyone has a past. Never judge a book by its cover. Even the most charitable, well spoken, best dressed men have dangerous pasts.

It was a big weekend for readers in Australia. A Countdown of the best books of the 21st century, great fun listening to it.
#top100

I mostly enjoyed Boy Swallows Universe, more than I thought I would, but it goes a bit off the rails in the third act 😕 It‘s definitely a different perspective on Australia – less sun-kissed beaches and beautiful bushland, more suburban noir and seedy underbelly. Full review: https://keepingupwiththepenguins.com/boy-swallows-universe-trent-dalton/

1. Trent Dalton‘s Boy Swallows Universe and All Our Shimmering Skies
2. The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window

3. As a pre-teen Little Women and To Kill A Mockingbird

# wondrousWednesday

Took me a while to get through this one, I enjoyed it but struggled. Maybe the hype gave me high expectations, the ending was the best part so glad that I stuck with it.

I have a hard time reading about neglected kids, kids with drug dealing parents, violence against animals, etc. This had all that in the first 50 pages. I‘m out.

Brilliant! Wonderfully descriptive and magical.prose with the gritty realustic story of children and parents, friends and fear. Very unputdownable!

60% of the way through and I am still bored out of my mind! It‘s a bail for me...
Still counting it! ✅ #booked21 #setinAustralia

I love to read in the morning with my cup of coffee, but these knuckleheads are quite the distracting duo today 🐶😼 They‘re always going at it- wrestling, rolling around, batting each other on the head... it‘s a blossoming friendship 😆

🎧 Well 😆 this isn‘t what I thought it was going to be at all! It‘s set in Australia with an Aussie narrator.

Recommendation so of course I didn‘t check the summary. This is a difficult review because I find literary fiction sometimes a leetle bit boring.

This is mainly about Eli who starts the book very young & ends the book around 18 years old. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2👇🏻

5-26 October 2020
Like others have said, it took a while to find its groove (or perhaps more accurately for me to find its groove) but I really enjoyed this. Particularly Slim, who is apparently based on a real Queenslander. I also appreciated the blurred line between real and imaginary and August‘s clairvoyance, if that is what it was. Looking forward to reading Dalton‘s follow up but waiting for the hard cover release next year.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. Boy with a big heart ♥️
2. A smile 😀 By smiling, I cheer up myself and others, even strangers!
3. I would like to visit the future, not the past! I would like to see how humanity is doing in the year 3020!)

@I.be.Stef , thanks for the tag 💕

@Violetta @JessClark78 @PickwickPlockPlock

This is a touching story about a Brisbane Boy! His brother is a genius... and he hasn't spoken since he was six. Their lives are spent among drug dealers. In an instant, the Boy's life will change, a terrible person will come and take away the only man he loved, his mum will be in prison, and the Boy will lose his lucky finger. This is a book with deep meaning and beautiful text.
Thanks for the wonderful book, @Violetta ! 😘

Wow. That was a hell of a ride! It took me forever to get into, not sure why. It is a good book. There is so much being told in each of the pages at first that I hesitated getting back into it some days. By the ending I was totally engrossed. I really enjoyed the experience..and all the twists and turns. The last 1/4 almost seemed like a different book altogether, but it ties in all these little details from the first 3/4. Makes for a good story.

Finished it in 2 hours! Listened to tagged book and made the time fly by!

This cover is beautiful! 🤩 It inspired me to paint my nails to match. 😁 #currentreads
#selfcare 💅

Lunch break!

So unusual, so enjoyable.

57-2020⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Audiobook 15
A coming of age story set in the Northern Suburbs of Brisbane. (my family grew up in the exact same suburbs mentioned). I know this has won numerous awards and is highly praised but to be honest the first half of the book drags but the second half redeems the whole book.

A wonderfully wacky story of dark humor, bleak lives, and unexplained circumstances. The writing is beautiful and captivating. It felt like an Australian “Peace like a river”.

This took me FOREVER to finish and I don‘t know why, I loved the characters, it was a little dark, it HAD SO MANY Australian references and even more Brisbane references, I should have been obsessed, I also laughed so much, and the writing was beautiful. I just don‘t think it was my usual sort, I think I need to read it again in one hit.

I chose this for the top spot for The #BookTubePrize round 1 group F. I recognized the great writing. It was engaging but violent with drug references. All in all it ISN‘T my kind of book. Others liked it enough so it‘s moving on to round 2.
1. Boy Swallows Universe ✨
2. The Man Who Saw Everything 🚫
3. Dominicana 🚫
4. The Starless Sea 🚫
5. Middle England ✨
6. Patsy ✨

The 3 starred books are moving into the next round of judging.

Loved this book, growing up in Australia in the 70‘s in lower middle class suburbia - really felt authentic. I could really imagine the life described - as unreal as it seems. Perfect.

Great read. Although not usual genre, this book was given to me as a gift for Christmas and after the first few chapters, found myself caught up in it. Aussie readers would definitley enjoy this as there a lot of Australian landmarks mentioned as well as less famous locations.
A very intriguing book that gave me quite a giggle. Well worth the read.

Finished the second of six books due for review at the end of March. Review to follow.

WOWEE!

Reminiscent of other masterful Australian novels like Jasper Jones and Bridge of Clay, this is exceptionally beautiful. I feel like the story swallowed me for a while and allowed me to live inside it‘s words, and what stunning words they were! A must read, all the ⭐️. What took me so long to get to this one?

Yes it does, Trent Dalton.

To be honest I‘m more a fan of Christmas Eve and Boxing Day than the big one in between. Christmas Eve consists of doing a jigsaw together as a family, driving around looking at Christmas lights and swapping books. My husband is not much of a reader but he picked me this magnificent hard-backed signed copy of Boy Swallows Universe, it‘s stunning

10/10

10/10

I will try to sum up my review in three words: Thriller Melts Heart. Also, a remarkable #audiobook performance by #Australian Stig Wemyss.

“Clutch! First gear! Steadily on the pedally.”

(Is it just me, or do Aussies have the most adorable expressions in the world ?)

(Internet photo)

I asked Slim to tell me the whole story, and for two hours, while we washed his land cruiser, he told me that thrilling adventure tale so enthusiastically I wanted Nantucket fish chowder for lunch and white whale steaks for dinner.

I asked Slim if he‘d ever read Moby Dick and he said he‘d read it twice because it‘s worth reading a second time, though he said the second time around, he skipped the bit where the writer goes on about all the different species of whales found all across the world.

[This passage made me think about @KathyR ‘s question: Why did Wu Ming-Yi include all the pages about different models of bicycles within the story of The Stolen Bicycle?]

I struggled so much through this novel especially in the middle. Out of the books I‘ve read this year, this has taken me the longest and it‘s not even the longest book I have read.

The beginning was hard to follow at first, the middle was a struggle and it wasn‘t until I was 82% through the story that the story grasped my attention and I was up until 3.30am last night. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Would have loved to have some closure on a few things.


⭐️⭐️⭐️

SOS!

I‘m really struggling to read this. I like the story, love it, but it‘s not keeping me engaged as others are. I‘m onto my 5th day of reading this full time.

Is it worth it?

When you have finally purchased a bath caddy and reading in the bath will be so much more comfortable from now!

Excited to get started on this!

I‘m not quite sure how I feel about this book. I don‘t love coming of age stories or stories about drugs, and I found the language overly descriptive and out of character for a twelve year old boy, but overall the effect was captivating! I loved this journey and felt compelled the whole way through! I highly recommend!

1. 18 2. Depends upon my mood,but mountains are my go to place. 3. Nigeria. 4. London

I highly recommend to those who love words and writing. The writing is smart, poetic, and playful. The story is dark without feeling dark. It's ultimately a coming-of-age story of a boy growing up in trauma. The story is told in the form of writing to a criminal. There's a magical element of knowing the future, but knowing it out of context. It's really not about the story as much as it's about the writing, which is worth a second read.

#7days7covers #covercrush
Thanks for the tag @MrsMalaprop

Amazing best Australian book I have read in years. Fabulous characters and storytelling. Highly recommended

This was one of those books where at the start, you don‘t know what the hell is going on. The further you read, however, things make sense and the story all knits together beautifully.
Eli and August are wonderful characters.
This author has a really unique writing style and a way of making the ordinary seem lovely.

Some Sunday reading!

Wow! This was not the book I thought I was going to read. Great thriller type but doesn‘t begin in that way. Loved this book! #24B4Monday #SummersEndReadathon.

Second book read and sixteen hours in.

Enjoying this book a lot. #SummersEndReadathon #24B4Monday. Rainy day in Florida.

Utterly gripped by this brutal yet compassionate read. Plans had to be put on hold as I eagerly turned every page. There was so much warmth, poignancy, trepidation and understanding here that I think it will feature as one of my all- time favourites ☺️

Some reviewers gushed about this book. I expected to like it much more than I did. The beginning did not grab me and I would‘ve bailed had it not been for others who raved and gave this 5 stars. I knew it got better after half way but seriously I don‘t want to read a book where I struggle through the whole first half. Good plot, excitement in the ending, not especially well written.