Welcome to Litsy!

Life is often complicated, messy, absurd and outrageous. When Edie‘s father is diagnosed with Alzheimers her life turns on it‘s axis, throwing all order & reason out the door. In the months following Edie tries to piece the parts of her life back into place, but grief & loss doesn‘t always comply. Parts of this book were charming & compelling but other parts were frantic & farcical. I actually enjoyed this book but it‘s probably a #BorrowNotBuy

#Pop22 #TitleBeginsWithLastLetterOfPreviousBook Just finished 🎧 Love After Love (LOVED IT) so up next is this #TOBlonglist book / don‘t know too much about it but it looks like a #OneSittingRead

I still had this book from the library pre-TOB shortlist announcement. It was okay. It felt like there were several threads in the story that didn‘t quite come together.

#ToB22

Wow. I loved this short novella. It really nails grief and discontent and all of the feels.

Caveat: For those of u who must have a plot, skip this one. It‘s more of a think/feel piece and the end (such as it is) feels more like a short story, and not really a resolution.

Great crisp prose & wanted to 💜 it whole, but something off in pacing & conclusion. In Edie‘s funny, spare first-person voice, family comes to grips with Dad‘s Alzheimer‘s & decline. This section is so observant & well-written, but detour into Australia & guilt & breakdown feel disconnected. As Edie sez p 137, “There are two kinds of stories. There‘s the kind where someone changes, and there‘s the kind where someone stays exactly the same.” 2021

The cover of the ARC for this book sold me on it and I happen to agree with Andrew Sean Greer. I find novels about grief to be the most compelling diagnosis of the human condition. Many of my all-time favorite books are about grieving. Does that make me weirdly morbid? Other favorites are The Gathering by Ann Enright and What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez.