Welcome to Litsy!

"Die, My Love crackles & burns with a savage, urgent beauty." Claire Louise-Bennett's blurb sums up the book for me. @vivastory mentioned that he saw this book referred to as Plath meets Lynch, which is accurate. Brutal & impressionistic, set in the French countryside, with the stark life & death urgency of a new mother falling to pieces & yearning for freedom. Wonderfully translated by Sarah Moses & Carolina Orloff: the language is a revelation.

This is the book I've gone with for this month's #TBRtarot @CBee

It's excellent so far, unlike anything I've read recently, but also bleak. I read a bit before bed and had a long, anxiety-inducing dream about wondering through a strange, intensely sunny city all alone, with not a single other person around, not even any animals, just buildings under the glare of the sun.

So, yeah. Looking forward to be totally wrecked by the end of this 👍🏾

This is a dark book: the style and themes reminded me of The Bell Jar a little. Both take place deep in the heads of characters dealing with something between mental illness and existential world weariness. Harwicz's protagonist feels trapped in the lifestyle of a mother and partner, and her bouts of depression and anger felt like authentic expressions of her personality. At times it reminded me of a real person's diary rather than a novel.

"What does it mean for a man to die? What became, what didn‘t become, of his life? It‘s six in the morning, dear. Let it go. Then we stopped answering her questions. There was simply no point."

"Melisa is thirty but looks more like fifty. She has a thin mouth closed tight like a slit, and long ginger locks stuck together in clumps that expose the skin of her skull and make her look like a creepy doll." ?

"Something I always used to hate about living in the countryside, and that I now relish, is that you spend all your time killing things."

"She lived in her body as though it were an infested house, as if she had to tiptoe through it trying not to touch the floor."
Mood.

"She tells the family that her husband squeezed her hand tight just before he died, but that the doctor said it had only been a reflex reaction. It was then that I felt close to her for the first time."

"I lay back in the grass among fallen trees and the sun on my palm felt like a knife I could use to bleed myself dry with one swift cut to the jugular."
Today in notable first sentences.

One of the most intense books I've ever read, almost claustrophobic. Told from the perspective of a woman suffering with at minimum postpartum depression and possibly into full blown psychosis. Not much of a plot here, more of a stream of consciousness from the most unreliable narrator making it difficult to know what is really happening or what she is imagining.

Whoa that's a heck of a first line.

4.5/5👊🏻. Postpartum depression often hits when you think that you are just fine. This was oozing with striking prose and deep emotion.

Maaaaan. So this was a bit confusing at times, always dismally poetic, and absolutely nailed the unreliable inner voice of postpartum depression and rage. A completely raw and visceral look at domesticity.

Here's the thing. I hate seeing the word 'visceral' tossed around so much in reviews. It's literally the only context I ever see it in and generally makes me roll my eyes or at least purse my lips in a very Lucille Bluth sort of way. And yet here we are. There's no better way to describe how I'm reacting to this story than *visceral*. My apologies to all the reviews I've scorned before. It's hitting me like nothing else I've read since motherhood.

#firstlines

I became interested in this title when I saw it on the Booker longlist, first I had heard of it, and just discovered that it's on #kindleunlimited. I'm already glad I found it, it's looking to be an amazingly dark tale new motherhood and domesticity. I'll post a ss of the first paragraph in another post.

Belated April roundup! Not as good a reading month for me as last month as I‘ve been very busy at work and some of these books were long old monsters 😞 best of this month was a tie between Educated and A Brief History of Seven Killings

I couldn't stop thinking about this book and its dark, suffocating feeling it imparts about this woman's experience in motherhood ... If you liked Fever Dream you will like this!

The story that puts the depression on the forefront - a woman who is trapped between motherhood, the role of a wife and her own femininity, is built of short chapters - images that perfectly presented her fast, chaotic flow of thoughts. Excellent prose, interesting structure and unique presentation of a claustrophobic feeling when an individual is a prisoner of his own life. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

2 hours for the first day, but I'm counting on the weekend 😁

#25inFive

I have no idea how to rate this book. The writing and translation was beautiful, the word choice and imagery was so well done, but it was so dark and depressing with so little respite or joy that I just spent most of it wishing I wasn‘t reading it. That‘s probably partly my own shit getting in the way, I have mental health problems and hate imagining them ruining a relationship or having these effects. Just a very difficult read. #litworld2018gb

Happy Easter weekend everybody! I hope everyone who celebrates Easter is enjoying it and everyone who doesn‘t is enjoying the random bank holiday.

This book is dark and intense and not very Easter-y tbh, it reminds me a lot of Sylvia Plath. I‘m glad it‘s short because even tho it‘s well written I definitely couldn‘t do this for long

#litworld2018gb #manbooker #manbooker2018 #manbookerinternational2018

I‘ve never read a book from Argentina before! I downloaded this the day the Man Booker International Longlist was announced - I love their picks and I‘m excited for the countries they‘re taking me to this year.

Loving this

The books I'm most interested in reading from the Man Booker International longlist. Should be totally doable 🤣 #MightBeLuckyToReadOne

#MBI2018

"There are writers whose work suggests that human consciousness beyond their own can be accessed, and through that the categorical unknowableness of others‘ lived experience might be revealed." #freeyourmind

The Republic of Consciousness shortlist was announced on Feb 19th. It's a prize for small UK presses, that both fascinates & bugs me. The blurb above is from their mission statement.

And here's the shortlist from Culture Trip ?