Welcome to Litsy!

It's been a while since I read a coming of age novel. This had some great characters and I appreciated that they were flawed and still loved. It also made me want cake. 🎂 Oh, and it takes place in Alabama!

Started my #bookspin book today. The clouds keep making me think I'm going to end up running inside to avoid a sudden downpour, but then the sun pops back out.

I liked this in parts, but I‘m hard pressed to recommend - grief is an odd thing. I‘m interested in how people move through the grieving process, and tweens and teens certainly have a different journey than adults. …Tween, Elvis wants discrete details after her mom walks into a river at night - that filter adults build when dealing with grief is unknown to Elvis. At 15, her sister has a still different journey through grief.

Happy National Book Lovers Day to everyone. 💛💖📚

#BigJuneReadathon #BigJuneReadathonPhotoChallenge

The tagged book is a favorite book with #AnyAnimalInTitle 🐰💛and I am hoping to start the authors second, more recent book this weekend (before my library copy is due back).

While I much preferred Unlikely Animals (her second book), there is something charming about RC. I liked Elvis more than many child narrators, but this book fell in an odd spot between MG, YA, and adult. Very hard to categorize.

Elvis‘ mother has died sleep swimming. Or was it a suicide? As her teenage sister Lizzie acts out, Elvis tries to keep the family together while finding out uncomfortable secrets about her mom and her parents‘ marriage.

This came with great reccs. @Cinfhen again! It‘s the story of a quirky kid in an unconventional family dealing with the death of a parent in an unconventional way. Elvis is 10, obsessed with facts about animals, counting down the days on her grief calendar the counsellor gave her & investigating her mothers death. I love a kid that‘s clever & a little weird. This has some dark humour and won‘t be for everyone but I loved it.

Really enjoyed this sweet, darkly humorous story about an eccentric family navigating grief after the loss of their wife/mother. Loved Elvis! Such a great character.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #reread

Original review (2018): https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2393867099

“On my tenth birthday, six months before she sleepwalked into the river, Mom burned the rabbit cake.”

#FirstLineFridays

🎧🐾 Someone‘s happy for this morning‘s extra-long walk! It absolutely poured all day yesterday and more storms are on the way. 😩

#audiowalk #dogsoflitsy #reread

Totally unrelated to books but our bunnies are a week old today and I just can't with all this cuteness 🥰

This was quirky, sad, delightful, and just plain weird at times. I LOVED it. So glad I finally got around to reading it ♥️ @TheAromaofBooks here‘s my December #bookspin!! 😁😁😁

#3books I did not like or finish. @OriginalCyn620 @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

#3Books.....#WithAnAnimalOnTheCover
I went for 🐇🐰🐇
I really liked all of these quirky books

I bailed. Was looking forward to this one, but couldn't get into it. I did get a BINGO though! #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

ManicMonday #LetterR
📚Rabbit Cake
✒️Sally Rooney
🍿Rocky
🎤RHCP 🌶
🎶Rock Your Body https://open.spotify.com/track/1AWQoqb9bSvzTjaLralEkT?si=cHiWJAK8S_CAtFNYt18dAQ

Audio, found on #hoopla. The story of a 10 yr old girl making it through the 18 mos after her mother died. The level of maturity was a little unrealistic, but I always have that issue with child POVs. I really disliked her sister and didn't love how her storyline ended up. The ending was a bit sad. But overall, it wasn't a bad read. ⭐⭐⭐⭐

I‘ve heard so many good reviews of this but I still haven‘t had a chance to read it. I moved it up on my TBR though! #RabbitOnTheCover #BloomingBibliophile

I haven‘t read this one but I have given it as a gift a couple of times! 🐇
#rabbitonthecover #bloomingbibliophiles

I have mixed feelings with this book. I liked the main character, Elvis, she had just lost her mother & had decided to finish a book her mother had been writing on the nocturnal habits of animals, so she was always reading & explaining some new little fact. Unfortunately I really disliked everyone else, especially her father.
#Booked2020 #AnimalOnCover
@Cinfhen @4thhouseontheleft @BarbaraTheBibliophage
#MemoirsAndMysteries #Bookish

#readwithmrbook

This was my pick for #authoronlitsy but my utter lack of concentration during this abnormal month prohibited me from reading beyond a couple pages. I'll get to it one day.

#MarchMadness #YellowCovers

I‘m stuck at work for a while yet so I will do this via collage. All of these titles with yellow covers are on my shelves—print or e-book. Some I‘ve read & some are still in my #TBR. Rabbit Cake, Ayesha At Last, & The Bride Test are my favorites from what I‘ve read so far. 💛💛💛

I had to join in on this one😀#toptenofthedecade #fictionedition
Brutally hard...and I had to add honorable mentions:
All The Light You Cannot See, The Book Thief, Rabbit Cake, Eleanor Oliphant❤️ apologies for being low tech....no pic collage...lol These are in no order...both top 10 and honorable mentions are totally random.

#NamasteNovember a few books featuring my favorite #ChildMCs

#7days7covers #covercrush

Thanks for the tag, @Soubhiville !

Posting covers I love for 7 days, no explanation needed. Tagging someone to play each day.

Want to join us, @IndoorDame ?

#7days7covers #covercrush #day3

If you have time and want to join in, I‘d love to see your fave covers over the next 7 days. 1 cover a day, no explanation, and tag 1 other @BiblioLitten 😘 🧁

New month, new opportunity to speak at a book talk... I‘m always a bit sad that more library staff don‘t want to participate (public speaking can be scary but also very rewarding - sometimes at the same time) and yesterday there was only two speakers - but still a good session I thought.

These are the ones I spoke on. Have you read any or maybe plan to?

A moving portrait of grief - the Babbitt family is floundering after the drowning death of their mother. It‘s told from Elvis‘ perspective & as she‘s only 10 at the start - there is much she doesn‘t understand & with an older sister with anger issues and an escalating sleep walking problem and a Dad who has taken to wearing his wife‘s bathroom around the house - the answers are slow in coming but they do come, as much as they do with sudden loss.

As I tried to fall asleep that night, I listened for a serial killer or burglar, and wished I were afraid of the same things Ms Bernstein was afraid of.

It‘s a drizzly winter day so I‘ve taken myself and all the washing I didn‘t do last week and wouldn‘t dry outside anyway to the laundromat - with my book, obviously 😉

‘So Lizzie was always Lizzie, never Elizabeth, not to anyone. Sometimes Mom would say my sister had Lizzie Borden‘s former spirit and that she and Dad better watch out.‘

LMPBC Round 6 #GroupB @Mynameisacolour @Kaila-ann @suvata Here are some titles I'm considering. What do you think?

Pick ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Elvis, a precocious 5th grader, and her moody teenage sister are dealing with the death of their mother.
A sweet coming-of-age story that explores different ways of coping with grief.
Enjoyed it.

Wow. My 4th Bail this year. That's a record. The older I get the easier it is for me to say nope moving on. Lots of people love this book, I just wasn't in the mood for a mother who died sleep swimming. Since it's for a Book Club that I don't always attend decided to Bail. #imho

I found this book very very depressing and a bit disturbing. I read this for 2019 SWON TRC

Not bad but I found parts to be unrealistic. It is a YA novel about a father and his two daughters as they cope in the aftermath of the mothers death.

#literarylove #februarytbr

This is all I've pulled together for February but I'm sure there will be plenty more to come

1. Rabbit Cake, of course! One of the best MC narrators ever.
2. Waitress. I know, it‘s a movie about pies, not cakes. Psychoanalyze that. 🤨
3. I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow. Here‘s your earworm for the day 😬 https://youtu.be/JoXVYSV4Xcs

@JoScho #manicmonday

📖 Rabbit Cake (though it‘s not about 🍰)
🎥 Father of the Bride
🎶 🤔🤷‍♀️

#manicmonday

Midwinter splurge. Tagged book is for my in person book club. Winter Witch because I have a mad girl crush on Vasya. The Dreamers just because.

‪Read 45 books in 2018-top 5:‬
‪1. Rabbit Cake @annie_hartnett‬
‪2. Beartown and sequel 2.5 Us Against Them @Backmanland ‬
‪3. The Dry @janeharperautho‬
‪4. Need to Know @karecleve ‬
‪5. The Fighter @michaelwsmith
‬
‪And a few more‬:
‪6. Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley @hannahtinti ‬
‪7. The Weight of the World @DavidJoy_Author ‬
8. The Woman in the Window @AJFinnBooks

Insomnia=Reading

Thanks @britt_brooke for the book. I‘m loving it so far!

#fallintoreading #shoptilyoudrop

All these wonderful titles for just $20. I went a lil nuts at the friends of the library book shop this month.

Finally got around to starting this. So far it's dark and odd and absolutely a perfect book for me. #readingglasses

DID SOMEONE SAY CAKE? 😻 Also, not naming names, but someone is making it hard to choose what I‘m going to read next. #damnfinecooper #catsoflitsy

I enjoyed this book narrated by Elvis, a young girl, as she attempts to come to terms with her mother‘s death. Elvis‘s voice is precocious, yet not annoying, and the story is scattered with intriguing factoids about animals, sleepwalking, and the Guinness Book of World Records. While some of the quirky references occasionally strained credibility, I learned you can, indeed, purchase coyote urine on Amazon!

I‘m really enjoying getting to know 10-year old Elvis and her family as she grieves the death of her mother. It starts with a bit of #petsemetary - a burnt rabbit birthday cake 🎂 🐇 - and I‘m sure I‘m going to #howl with both laughter and tears.

It‘s also my first #readwhatyouown, after taking inspiration from @Cinfhen @valeriegeary and not ordering any more library books for the next little while 😳

“Mom said everything was weird if you looked at it closely enough...”

“Dogs have a lot of things about life figured out; they aren‘t afraid to let something go. Their hearts are always open to loving more”