Welcome to Litsy!

#ItHadToBeYou photo challenge

Day 5: First Love

I read this a few years ago and loved it. I would recommend reading this if it's your cup of tea 😊

@eggs @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

I'm loving all the lilacs that are blooming right now! I pass these every morning on my way to the building where my office is. It's nice to start my day with an audiobook. #audiowalk

I forgot to post this yesterday. I had an extra surprise with a bunny-friend who was also enjoying the lilacs too!

Great book. First time reading this author and I truly enjoyed it.

Love the fact that he didn‘t stereotype blind people and researched specific details about many things first.

Bailed. The sighted author writing a blind protagonist was already making me 🤨 but once we got into “your dad‘s a urologist so like, is he gay?” I couldn‘t. Yes sure that may be realistic. I don‘t want it to be, so I‘m not going to endorse books that reinforce it as such.

Scribd was having server issues so I flipped over to OverDrive and started this one from SYNC. I appreciate that the author is visibly disabled, but I think I want future fiction from a blind POV to be by a blind author: it‘s hard to know how much is speculative, where there might be sighted privilege microaggressions etc. I also generally don‘t want to read YA that‘s painfully straight; cis boy-girl love stories aren‘t my jam.

1. This is my first weekend home since the June 2nd weekend. I'm going to waste the mornings away drinking coffee in my PJs, go for walks on my favorite trails, and if it ever stops raining BBQ and read on the deck.
2. Two audiobooks. We've been roadtripping.
3. Summer because I'm a teacher and that's when I recharge.
4. Elton John.
5. 👍
#friYAYintro @jesshowbooks

4⭐️ Thank you to AudiobookSYNC for a chance to listen to this book. I will be honest, I would never have read this book. I‘m not a fan of YA contemporary. Especially contemporary where the teens have problems that have to be overcome. Cecily has a batgirl esk facial birthmark, and our main character Will was born blind. But even though most of the story was completely expected, I enjoyed the trip.

Full review at GR and LT

I'm embarassed to say I have not really read any books from a blind person's perspective and I think this was probably a good first foray into it. Sweet and light but also really interesting and full of so much perspective from someone blind from birth and how the world is really shaped around having sight and a little against those without it. Equal parts sad and happy, with a little bit of love and an ending that leaves you satisfied.

"Independence and self-reliance sound nice in theory but in reality they are just synonyms for loneliness."

"Lean on others long enough and eventually you will fall."

I can't believe there was a time before I listened to audio books while downloading my work reports in the quiet dark of the early morning. Or during my commute. Or while meal prepping and folding laundry. They've enriched my life so much over these past 6 months!
#audioworking

😍😍😍

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Another free download from audiobooksync.com and to be honest I did NOT expect to like this one; I am not big on love stories & most “overcoming challenges” stories are trite, sappy and overly “preachy” for me. This book however, was very well written with characters who had realistic and believable reaction and responses to events and the sarcasm and humor were spot on as a contrast to the serious issues being raised. LOVED IT!

Oh my goodness you need to listen to this book. There is a quote about personality changes that likens it to a clone taking over your body and the real you forever. I wish I could find the real words. It was so amazing.

Re listened to get the real words.

"...This operation made a clone of you. The clone had functioning eyes but in order for it to live, you have to die".

This book is honestly my favorite book!!! The author does an absolutely beautiful job at detailing and describing everything in this story. It is obvious that this author did tons of research and mapped out every single word in this book. This is far from your average love story and shows that to the right person, beauty doesn‘t matter. Amazing from start to finish!!!♥️

An enjoyable quick read! 📚 #YAfiction
Some really interesting insights into what it is like to be blind.

The Diverse Books Club (on insta and Goodreads) theme this month is differing abilities. The YA pick is Love and First Sight. I‘m loving it so far! Have you read it? What other picks do you love with characters of differing abilities?

Are you on Instagram or Goodreads and want to read more diverse literature?! Join the Diverse Books Club! I am now {as of today} the classroom coordinator...helping teachers bring diverse literature into their classroom! Come join us for a different theme each month with adult, YA, middle grade, and picture book picks! ❤️📚 you can find me on ig at the same name. Hope to see you there!

Just finished this book! Super cute, a little cheesy at parts but I'm glad that at one part specifically they kept it real. Adorable love story! 💕

I needed a palate cleanser after finishing a book that was not for me, and this totally did the trick! It took me less than two hours to read and was delightful and heart-warming. An endearing and at times thought-provoking sweet YA.

What a fun book! This is squarely in the YA category, cute love story, a few misfits, and a little drama. Main character Will Porter decides to transfer from his school for the blind to a regular high school. When an experimental surgery to give him sight becomes a possibility, he has to decide if being able to see is worth the risk of changing who he is.

Content notes: mild swear words, and a small amount of kissing. 670 Lexile, Ages 12+

This book was lovely and full of perspective. The characters are funny and nerdy. And the overall love between Will and Cecily is cute and sincere. I recommend for anyone looking for a great, short read.

This was cute. Not spectacular but, it was an okay read. I think what annoyed me the most was Will, the main character. I have never been blind or had a handicap, but I didn't really like him a lot of the time. He could be a bit of a brat. Once again, I've been fortunate in many aspects of my life bit, I found him to be annoying at times. This was insightful on aspects of being blind I never considered. Cute story and characters.

Meh, it was alright. Great premise, but nothing about the main character and his reasoning felt real or fleshed out. I love the description in the first section of the book, just a teen with visual impairment. He is hilarious and a great narrator, but after that I lost interest. It was all the rest that lacked, character development, and even the romance.

While I enjoyed the writing style and the first half of the book, the second half had a lot of problematic moments. Among them was when the main character insists that "ugly" people were responsible for letting blind people know they are ugly-otherwise they're lying, and then the book introduces and fails to dispel the idea that life is not worth living if you can't see. Which. Is a really bad message. ?

Grab your ☀️ sunglasses 😎 and take a book 📚 outside to read! We recommend #LoveandFirstSight by @joshsundquist and while you're at it enter to win a copy in our Spring Fling #giveaway

http://www.teenreads.com/features/spring-fling/spring-fling-2017hickleberrypunch...

This was nice to read 😊

This book was such a fun read! It was definitely from a quite different POV but that's what made me enjoy it the most. I reccommend everyone to read this book because it's so insightful and it truly encourages you to be more open about everything.

Will is blind, he's irritated because of "sightist" comments. My world is not less rich because I'm deaf. There are many audist comments about us Deaf. "My sensory experience isn't less than yours. It's just different."

This was a cute book. But it just missed a pick by a little bit with me. It didn't have that heart and soul like a lot of YA books.

You can always tell when my husband goes to the library with me. Can you guess from this photo? #libraryhaul

Cute, funny, & dare I say it: eye-opening.

I loved this story! Hard to say exactly why...maybe because it introduced me to the world of the blind. Will is a character I would love to meet and I'm pretty sure I would be friends with the academic quiz team. Although, I would need to be partnered up with someone for "Settlers Sunday" ?

So, I'm only three chapters in but I'm liking this one 🙂

I feel like I have been rather harsh in some reviews but here is another one...great illustration of why #ownvoices reads are so important. The character's emotional journey became the focus rather than the "conflict," which is fine, but the author just felt too impressed with his own ideas to actually understand that emotional journey. The end note said he did some research but I am unimpressed with the result.

Well, that explains a lot!

On to my next book.....

#2017Book39
The most impressive writing in this novel happens after the main character decides whether or not to have surgery that will potentially give him eyesight for the first time. The consequences of his decision are portrayed so realistically and it's impossible not to see (or to not see) what he is experiencing. My favorite thing about this book is that no one behaves as though the main character can't have a full life without eyesight.

My book club picked Love and First Sight as our book for next month. I never heard of it, but I love a YA pick for book club! I already borrowed it from the library (so much for trying to read what I own!) so hopefully I'll finish it more than an hour before the next meeting!

Getting a few hours of reading in this morning, before I have to go to work. #24in48 #readathon #todayimreading #yalibrarian

Getting ready to start my next book in the #24in48 #readathon. I loved Josh Sundquist's memoir, We Should Hang Out Sometime, so I am really excited to read his first novel! #readharder2017 #debutnovel #yalibrarian

Youtuber Josh Sundquist has his first YA novel out this month, which is filled with humor, reliability and love. And is definitely a must-read!

On his first day at a new school, blind Will Porter accidentally groped a girl on the stairs, sat on another student in the cafeteria, and somehow drove a classmate to tears. As Will starts to find his footing, he develops a crush on a quiet girl named Cecily.

Then an opportunity arises: an experimental surgery that could give Will eyesight. But learning to see is more difficult than imagined, that the world has been keeping secrets.

#TBR 📚

Although game 7 of the World Series is on, I've been sucked in to Love and First Sight. Enjoying this YA novel and perspective of a blind narrator.