Welcome to Litsy!

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for #BooksSpinBingo this month, June 2025.

163 pages of words and pain from the deep. What if when enslaved, pregnant Black women who were thrown into the sea by colonizers on the Middle Passage survived, becoming merfolk? The Wajinru are these descendants, and none of them remember their story—except one. Yetu retains each painful memory of trauma and joy, and it is her responsibility to pass their history down. But, the pain of it is too much to bare. When she returns to the human ⬇️

…there are legacies of triumph for every legacy of trauma. Everything is always changing, which means nothing can ever be hopeless. The battering rush of tides shapes and smooth rock, carves out new lands.

3 ⭐️s
Full disclosure, I haven‘t yet taken the time to do the deep dive on the music that inspired this novella. It might change my rating. For now, I‘m feeling a bit “meh”. I think that‘s more my fault for having different expectations of what it was going to be. It‘s a unique story of family, individuality, community, loneliness, needing to belong, the list goes on. It is impressive how many themes Solomon squeezed into such a short story.

I finished this short book early in March and have been thinking about it ever since. It‘s by no means a traditional narrative—it feels more like a mood than a story—but still, it‘s packed full of so many ideas and so many layers. The premise: what if the children of enslaved pregnant women thrown overboard during the Middle Passage survived and adapted to live underwater? The story centers on Yetu, the Historian of that underwater society. ⬇️

My first #auldlangspine read from @IndoorDame was a winner! This has been on my radar for years and I‘m glad for the push to finally get around to listening to the audiobook. I agree with @monalyisha (on an earlier post) the end of the audio describing the work was one of the best parts.
The setting is brilliant and brutal: an imagined underwater world populated by the descendants of African women thrown from ships while pregnant.

#libraryhaul including 2 for #auldlangspine to prep for January!

For March‘s #12Booksof2023 I actually don‘t know know how to pick between this and Sara Teasdale‘s Collected Poems. They were completely different reading experiences, but both hit me to the core in their respective ways, and both are things I‘ll read again. @Andrew65

Next up. I am very curious about that one, the blurb is interesting but i have no clue on the style or anything.

This was a fantastic story about how mermaids came to be. The story itself is tragic. The mermaids came from pregnant slaves who were thrown overboard, and their babies became mermaids or rather the wajinru. One wajinru at a time is chosen to keep all the memories of their people. And it's Yetu's time.
#Booked2023 #Afrofuturism @Cinfhen @alisiakae @BarbaraTheBibliophage
#Patone2023 #blueperennial @Clwojick

Fantasy inspired by a rap song. The wajinru are sea dwelling people whose origins are human — from pregnant enslaved women thrown from ships to die in the ocean. Their past is tragic and traumatic, and the only one who knows it all is the historian, Yetu, but the burden/gift of knowing their history might be killing her. https://cannonballread.com/2023/06/the-deep-elcicco/

I‘ll be honest, I didn‘t love this novella...until I got to the afterward and the companion song by clipping. Then, I was left shouting about how cool this project is from the rooftops! It‘s SO COOL! Solomon‘s writing wasn‘t my favorite. I‘m not sure if their style was intentionally mimicking history/mythology (blunt, declarative statements; often repetitive) or if they write the same way all the time. But conceptually, it‘s *totally* worth it!

The #TransRightsReadathon has motivated me to get through more titles than usual this week, but most of them were novellas, MG, GN, picture books… so not much more reading than usual. Most of it has been fabulous! And the highlight was definitely The Deep by Rivers Solomon which surprised me in the best way and has me thinking about it constantly days after I closed the book. #BookReport #WeeklyForecast @Cinfhen

#TransRightsReadathon Day 3

Rivers Solomon is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors! The Deep is at once devastating and beautiful, as you might expect if you‘ve read anything else of theirs. It is mythic and visceral. Even though it‘s short, it contains a full and rich world. I couldn‘t read this at anything close to my normal reading speed, it demanded and deserved time.

#transrightsmatter #transrightsarehumanrights

#TransRightsReadathon
Author highlight agender storytelling powerhouse #RiversSolomon
This fantasy book is a companion to Daveed Diggs bands song of the same name. The premise is that pregnant people who were thrown overboard from slave ships in the Atlantic gave birth to a community of people who now live on the ocean floor. Our main character is the keeper of memories for the community. Gorgeously written and hopeful. I really enjoyed this one

I really enjoyed this story. I thought it was very well written and it kept me interested and I was upset it ended so soon!!

2.5/5⭐ Excellent concept and deals with issues of memory, loss, and greed poetically, but it would have been better as a short story with the vast repetitiveness removed.

Forgetting was not the same as healing.

Flying through my books at the Gladstone's #readingretreat - book 2 done!

#pop22 #ownvoicessff @Cinfhen @Abailliekaras @Cortg @KarenUK @Laughterhp @Megabooks @squirrelbrain @RaeLovesToRead @Kalalalatja

A smart novella about a group of underwater creatures descended from African slave women tossed overboard focusing on the importance of remembering history and being part of a community. The story is inspired by the song “The Deep” from the rap group Clipping. Daveed Diggs, a member of Clipping, reads the audiobook.

3 out of 5

Struggled with this one as I am not big on fantasy! Interesting concept though and some beautiful writing in parts!

What a great find! Daveed Diggs narration is perfect. A mythology with a melancholy undercurrent of a horrific historic reality 😢 🧜🏿‍♀️

I'm listening to The Deep on Scribd. Check it out: https://www.scribd.com/audiobook/390805927

This is like a modern day myth. Originating from an album by Drexciya, ‘Journey of the Deep Sea Dweller‘, it evolved into a song by Clipper, then written in lyrical words into a novella unlike anything I‘ve read before. Extremely creative and quite sorrowful, it‘s the story of mermaid-like sea creatures born from the birth of pregnant slave women thrown overboard during the slave trades and the historian that holds the memories.

I finished this today. It was really interesting. I thought it was a great concept. Parts of the story felt like poetry. It spans generations of the wajinru and humans alike. It is sad, but ultimately the story of family and love. *TW for suicidal ideation.* My tea snack today was homemade biscotti made by my daughter and it was delicious.

Mixed feelings. I liked the story, how the author, inspired by a song, create a story about what happened to some pregnant African slave women who were thrown overboard by their owners due to sickness or overboard. You will feel how painful is to remember through Yetu‘s voice, responsible to remember to transmit the history, to maintain their identity, pertinence in the community but so hard😢Some parts for me were isolated from the story. 3.7⭐️

Visual recap of the books I own that I read in 2021! Happy New Year.

Currently reading.

I found this really fascinating, and the afterward is worth reading about how the project evolved from mostly instruments music to song to novella. It takes one of the horrors of enslavement - pregnant women thrown overboard from slave ships - and imagines a world where the children survive as a sea people. The study of collective trauma and memory and how to handle as an individual and community was really powerful.

I discovered this audio book on a list Modern Mrs Darcy posted and I‘m really enjoying it. Sometimes I‘m confused but it‘s haunting and fantastic

I am posting one book per day from my to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new - don‘t judge me I have a lot of books.
Join the fun if you want. This is day 262.
#bookstoread
#tbrpile
#bookstagram

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The idea behind this story - the creation of a species from the unborn babies of African slaves thrown overboard ships - was immediately intriguing to me. I did love most of this novella, though it was occasionally difficult to follow. Overall it‘s a powerful novel about history, trauma, and remembering.
This was a book riot #gettbr recommendation.

A quick and powerful exploration of generational trauma ,coming of age , and fate v free will. This novella takes a spin on a dark history through a fantastical exploration of blackness through the lens of merpeople. Though the story focuses on a fantastical underwater civilization there are many poignant connects to the collective past of the black diaspora . There‘s a lot of meat in this very short book !

I just know this is going to break my heart.

Fun #twofortuesday! Finding book club books is hard. I really liked Lovecraft Country and Mexican Gothic - my book club had really lively conversations and competing theories for both, + they were both well-written and fun to read.

2. The tagged book is highly recommended. The format and subject matter stretched everyone‘s imagination in such a fun way, plus, the story has such an interesting backstory (the clipping. song, etc.) to delve into.

Yetu is her people's historian and holds the memories of their entire existence inside of herself to protect her people from their painful origins. When these memories combined with her existing sensitivities to sound and movement become too much to bear alone, Yetu faces a difficult choice between dying and running away. I really enjoyed this book. It was intriguing, and dove into shared cultural trauma and the different ways people handle it.

Spending a relaxing day outside finishing my audiobook when suddenly: "the audiobook that you are currently listening to, and are likely upset that you listened to too quickly (were you at double speed? I know you were)..." ? I'm not quite at double speed, just 1.25x, but close enough!

Another new book for my ever growing tbr shelves. I just can't control myself sometimes. #tbrpile

I loved it! I thought it was poetic and visceral and beautiful.

Imagine if the pregnant slaves thrown overboard during the middle passage went on to have children that survived & built a society underwater. That's the premise of the book, inspired by a rap song by Daveed Diggs. The story reminds me of The Giver, with 1 individual carrying the societies painful history. I read this after visiting the National Underground Railroad Center & had that fresh in my mind, which gave the story a deeper impact.

4/5

This novella is fascinating. It's inspired by a song of the same name by The Clippings (and the audiobook is read by member, Daveed Diggs). It's hard to describe beyond that it's about the pain and isolation that living with painful histories can cause.

It's was a great read, and I really enjoyed the audiobook.

#bookspin #doublebookspin #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Super excited for my April #bookspinbingo with The Deep for my #bookspin and First Art Kit as my #doublebookspin

@TheAromaofBooks

Confusing and at times disjointed. For a novella it took me a long time to read. I am fascinated by the premise and the origins of the work. Ultimately it did not work for me. 2 🌟

This was an interesting story but only had one real plot so it lacks complexity. Very fast read but not fulfilling.