Welcome to Litsy!

#TemptingTitles Day 13: #WithHeart - more book haul from the ongoing Big Bad Wolf book sale in Dubai. 📚📚📚

Building my design inventory while listening to the tagged audiobook, and feeling all the feels. My heart hearts for the main character, but I‘m loving this book.

Also loving my new Dracula‘s Castle press on nail set. 🧛🏻‍♂️🏰

So great!! Caletti does an amazing job of describing the experiences Annabelle goes through on her run across the U.S. My one note is that it took so long to reveal what had happened to her. If it had been told earlier on, I would have been able to feel and understand her a lot better. 3.75⭐️

I brought this book years ago during a half price sale at B&N. So I decided to listen to the audiobook not really knowing what it was about. There were parts that were heartbreaking but also parts that were inspiring. Annabelle had some bumps along the road but she made it to her end goal. I also loved all the different facts about hearts. So many things I didn‘t know!

I quite enjoyed this hard hitting YA contemporary, that the lovely @ShelleyBooksie sent me for the #JolabokaflodSwap. Thanks again! 4⭐️

With only a couple of minutes left until midnight, I‘m calling it quits on #24in48. I was aiming for 20 hours, but I‘m still happy with the amount I read! I finished 4 books and I am half way through the tagged book, and a quarter of the way through Moonflower Murders. Some day I will actually read for the 24 hours! 🤞😂

@ShelleyBooksie Thank you so much for my wonderful #JolabokaflodSwap package! The cover of the book is fantastic! I‘ve only ever seen a blue cover, which is nice, but I must say that I like this cover better! I can‘t wait to dig into both the book and the chocolates (and use my new bookmark too)! 🥰😋 Thank you! I hope you have a fantastic holiday season! 🎁🎄💕

@MaleficentBookDragon Thank you for hosting! #Jolabokaflod

If you want a good and ugly 😭😭😭, read this one. It just ripped my heart out 💔
⭐⭐⭐⭐💫

Wow! What a great book! Very pertinent to today's society and issues we all can relate to. I would recommend this to any middle school or high school girl- such a good read that will leave you thinking even after you finish. ❤❤❤

This audiobook was amazing! I spent the last hour or so crying on and off because it was awful, but also fist-pumping-in-the-sky freaking awesome! I‘m going to be thinking of Annabelle‘s story for a long, long time. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wow...just wow.

Starting our Teen Book Club book for Summer Reading on audio. Narrated by Julia Whelan, one of my auto-listens! Loving it so far!

Gave this to one of our voracious 6th grade readers. She came back the next day & said our parent book club should read it. I said we would if she came & led the discussion. She did & it was one of the most raw, honest discussions we‘ve ever had—more than one person said they wished they‘d had this book as a young person. A great book with a powerful message...You are not to blame, are not at fault, are not responsible for someone else‘s actions.

5 stars! I loved this.

The best thing about oral surgery I get to read all day, everyday for a week.

Years ago we started a YA book club for parents so they can read what their kids are reading. Also to showcase the depth & breadth of quality writing available to young people today. Every year we make sure to include students in 1-2 meetings. This spring we‘re adding another—a student told me the book club should read the tagged book. So we are & she is coming to lead the discussion. I love being part of a passionate reading community!

I haven‘t cried reading a book in a long time, but this one was so powerful and moving. It is an all-too-familiar look at how young girls carry so much on their shoulders, and the way boys can be wonderful allies but also so very toxic. I am also partial to a book about long distance running, gun reform, and beautiful scenes set in my two homes: Seattle and Chicago. It‘s like it was made for me, but I think it‘s required reading for EVERYONE.

This book grew on me (in the best way possible!). Annabelle just begins running, fleeing from a tragedy. For the longest time, we don't know what the tragedy was--there's TONS of suspense, and I wasn't sure for a while if I was okay with the gaping hole the mystery of the plot left in the book. Ultimately, though, the power of that absence took over, and I was moved and so, so empathetic with Annabelle's situation. (continued in comments)

9 // A HEART IN A BODY IN THE WORLD // “Oh, every person is a book with chapters. Some are glorious and some are dark and ugly. Every person survives something. We should get a patch for it.” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
#aheartinabodyintheworld #jessicareads2019

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Annabelle is running 2,700 miles cross country to escape something bad that happened. That's all you know when you're starting the book, and that's all I'm telling you now.

This book is about the girl who says yes to a date because she's afraid to say no. This is about the girl caught between always being nice and standing up for herself. This is about the girl who sees the warning signs but doesn't know what to do.

This is about all of us.

...

My first audiobook of the year is finished. This was a great book to start the year off with. I really liked the unique way the author combined facts about the heart with Annabelle's trip and healing as she ran from Washington state to Washington D.C. I also really enjoyed Annabelle's relationships with the other characters especially her grandpa Ed and Luke.

"Books make you feel things hard. They hit the tender spots."

When everything has been taken from you, what else is there to do but run? From Seattle to D.C., from broken to a path of healing.
"She walks to the microphone, which is tilted too high. The faces look at her, and she looks at them, and then she is honest. She remembers that everyone has a story. That the people in the audience have likely felt grief and confusion and powerlessness." 14+

"People plus people plus anger is how things can change."

She has missed books, but she‘s afraid of them, same as music. Books make you feel things hard. They hit the tender spots. . . Books were dangerous.

That. Last. Line. 🔥

Starting this now ❤️