Welcome to Litsy!

I absolutely understand why this might not be everyone‘s cup of tea but I just love the absurdism and trying to figure out what it means. I picked this up because I am enjoying the short stories in What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours and wondered what a novel by this author would be like. Think I want to read a more normal book next but I want to read more Oyeyemi eventually! The scenarios just stick in your mind and don‘t let you go.

Strange but interesting, humorous tale of a train trip for honeymooners Xavier and Otto Shin. Only five people are on the train and they each have unusual pasts and surprising links to each other. A novel about breakups and “unfollowing” people. https://cannonballread.com/2023/08/peaces-elcicco/

So weird!!!

@ncsufoxes I absolutely LOVE my #Blitsy box! Thank you so much! The Changeling is one of my FAVORITE books (yes, I‘ve read it before), but I suggest it to my 12th graders so much that my copies keep walking away! This is perfect timing because I have a student right now who wants to read it but I had no copies to share! I haven‘t read Peaces yet, so I‘m starting that tonight. Everything is perfect: the sleeve, the puzzle, the book marks. I ❤️ it!!

This book made me fall out of love with reading for several months. Absolutely no point to this plot.. read 100 pages and had no clue what was going on. No likable characters, the writing is mediocre.. don‘t waste your time with this

I love her books and this one didn‘t disappoint. Quirky, yet interestingly different. Thought provoking because you are constantly making sense of the symbolism (In my opinion). I enjoyed it.

I'm not entirely sure what exactly happened here, but I mostly liked it. Absurd and ever so horrifying and highly confusing. While the audio was good, I think print would have been better as it would have allowed me to pause and take in sentences, see how the names were spelled, and flip back to check my recollection. On the other hand, I'm not sure that would have made anything clearer. A hell of a train ride. Love the cover.

@MoonWitch94 Here is the beach by my house….I find the calm water very peaceful ❤️🏝 #thoughtfulthursday

Mystifying and nonsensical, and the first novel I‘ve ever read with mongooses. Oyeyemi‘s novels are always just a touch unsettling, but the setting and characters are enjoyable to know even if the work has a whole comes off as absurdist. Clever commentary on being seen or not in relationships.

What a weird fever dream of a novel. I don‘t think I really had a handle on what was happening until about halfway through. Xavier and Otto and their pet mongoose, Arpád, have been given a honeymoon gift by an aunt, a journey on a mysterious train, which appears to have no other passengers and then ultimately some very remarkable ones.

Returned this today because I hadn't picked it up in days and I always hate holding on to something if someone wants to read it. I might pick it back up later, just don't think I was in the mood.

So this is the one book I read in September, and kind of put the nail in my reading coffin ⚰. I really wanted to like this book, but I really did not enjoy reading it.
I was given a subscription of Litterati from my family, and for the first month I chose Kelly McGonigal‘s book club, The Joy Collective, and this was the first book I received. It sounded great to me. And I did enjoy some parts of this story. ⬇️

I started this audio on the weekend. Did anyone who read it also kind of get that feeling that while you're following it you're not really sure what's happening? Haha and not in a bad way, in a trippy, dream-like way.

This was a bit of a challenge until the last quarter or so - I didn‘t quite understand what was happening and I found it hard to get into. I think maybe I should pick up one of the fairy tale retellings from Oyeyemi because I did quite like the writing.

We‘ve finished Peaces. I think not many of us have finished the book or anything else to add to the things we said last week. Definitely not a very popular book among us, nor among the #CampToB people: “The second half of the book never answered questions I had built over time—and while it's not fair to expect answers, necessarily, I couldn't quite get over that.”

Please share your thoughts or insights about the second half of this crazy ride!

This was for CampToB and my #bookspin book for August, but I still bailed!

I just couldn‘t understand what was going on - luckily I had a feeling I might not like it so borrowed it from the library; I‘m so glad I didn‘t buy it.

On the plus side, I‘m definitely improving on the bailing situation! 🤪

#CampToB July‘s official winner is Klara but ours is Whereabouts. Interesting!

Today is all about the first half of Peaces, a book with mixed reviews. “I have yet to make my way through an Oyeyemi narrative that hasn‘t confused the hell out of me. She routinely writes single paragraphs that contain what would be the entire plot of another writer‘s book”, I quote from the discussion.

Are you going along for the ride in this crazy train?

I read the first half of this book for #CampToB and to be honest I am not sure if I‘ll read the second half. It‘s so weird. There is a storyline I like but it‘s hidden among so many others. And I do like the concept of a train existing of weird wagons but it‘s just too much. I lost track.

(Pic: Kimolos, Greece)

#WeeklyForecast 31/21

I have these ones lined up for my first week sailing but I do hope to read many more. Plenty of time, that‘s for sure!

Sorry #CampToB21 friends and Helen Oyeyemi! This is a #BAIL for me 😖It‘s also #3StrikesAndYoureOut 😉I just don‘t think Oyeyemi and I are soul mates. I do admire her cover art, though 😍 #SoManyBooksSoLittleTime to read a book that isn‘t connecting/ working

Happy Friday, Litsy family! 💕📚💕 Starting this one today! Anyone else read it yet? What did you think of it? Jazz is excited for me to tell her all about it! 😹 #catsoflitsy #littenkitten #jupiterjazz

What in the actual heck is going on in this book? It‘s like someone narrating their crazy ass dream to you and it‘s hard to really concentrate on it because what is the point?

Reading Oyeyemi, eating Gumbo

I really wanted to like it because I love a good surreal train book but it was a little too much for me.

A quirky novel with a dreamlike quality. Well narrated. But, not much plot, really and not my favorite Oywyemi. #Audiobook

This was not the kind of situation consciousness is in any way equipped to cope with, so my “I” fled over the hills and far away, yodelling as it went.

A gay couple are on a honeymoon trip with their pet mongoose. It‘s a totally surreal journey, confusing and yet compelling. Nobody seems to know where this train is going, perhaps not even the author, but I love her playful prose so much that I just let myself enjoy the ride. To see or not to see. That is the question. #LGBTQ

He said I was a good writer. I advised him not to say such things; I said if he kept it up, I might end up going home with him. His response: Did I say a good writer? I meant a very good writer. Back at his place, a couple of hours later....

“Clocks don‘t actually know the time. They only repeat what they‘ve been told.”

…just like a radioactive rainbow following acid rain, Mamoune‘s star turn: accusing a frail old lady of stealing her pearl necklace, snatching the pearls off the lady‘s neck, then realising, when she put it on and strand clinked against strand, that she was already wearing the necklace she‘d been thinking of.
(Internet photo)

No visible footprints here and no Ms Kapoor, but I had more than half a notion that this tabletop had doubled as her dance floor. Now it was inviting me to dance too. I promised the table I‘d be back just after midnight. “Me, you, my earphones, and a top secret tabletop party playlist …”

(Photo of my youngest niece taken by Prithi Spoeth)

Oyeyemi's Peaces started off a surprising number of literary encounters with mongooses in the past week. Five books, can you believe it? So I added one more on purpose. Find out more on my blog: https://lindypratch.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-mischief-of-mongooses.html

It was quite a violent blue, that lake. A colour that ripped the horizon. Some lakes are calm, and some are tense. This one was a thunderous mass at war with the sky, David shaking a watery fist at Goliath and roaring, “I‘ll drown you!”

(Photo by my friend Gail)

1. Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi - I don‘t know. I haven‘t read much of it, but I‘m honestly not really feeling it. Trying to decide if I should just bail...
2. The Voice in the Night by William Hope Hodgson
3. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir - My friends and I are planning to read it together. 😄
#weekendreads

…the male Paris parent said to Xavier: “This Venice is better than Venice Venice, you know. You have a better time when you‘re not expecting anything real. That‘s why seriously tacky people manage to enjoy themselves wherever they are.”
(Internet photo of a casino in Macao)

Who‘s read this? What did you think?

2🌟 Lovely writing yet a nonsensical plot, and just didn‘t work for me. I loved the beautiful detail and descriptions, the anthropomorphized mongoose companions, even the mysterious journey on the whimsical train, but completely lost interest in the convoluted plot.... which is a shame, as I‘ve enjoyed her books in the past. Not for me I‘m afraid.
#magicalrealism #pop21

Out next April. On #netgalley currently for request.

Evening reading! 💙