Welcome to Litsy!

"People are lonely, is my point here. Many people can‘t say to those they know well what it is they feel they might want to say."

Oh, I love her quiet books! Due to the vagaries of library stock availability this is the first of the Lucy books I've read: it's fine as a standalone but I look forward to looping back for the others.

The minimal plot and deep dive into the hearts of her characters are a welcome respite from the diet of thrillers the library's book group has me on.

ES's books make me more kindly disposed towards people. That has to be a good thing, surely!

#hyggehour
All the little everyday things have been getting me down this week. I'm thankful, then, that my BorrowBox hold came through. I've had a lovely quiet hour drinking chamomile tea with Elizabeth Strout!
@AllDebooks @TheBookHippie @Chrissyreadit

Aging author on reflects on her past marriage. The main character stays in her head and you are privy to her thoughts and honest assessment of what went wrong. Very well-written.

This was my #bookspin book forApril. I found the characters to be unlikeable and did not enjoy the writing style. By the halfway point I was just skimming through it. ⭐️⭐️

Oh my word! Loving this series so much. Going to start the fourth book that has been chosen for my book club now. What a story teller Elizabeth Strout is. These quiet, short, beautiful books have me hooked. 🥰

Lucy Barton explores her past - with ex-husband William, ex- MIL, children, parents, siblings, recently deceased husband, while at the same time helping William learn about his family (and himself). I liked the way it was written, unfiltered thoughts - I could hear/picture Lucy. This is a woman reflecting back on life and making connections to her present. It was funny, sad, sweet - all the feelings.
#BookSpinBingo
Make a great day everyone😊

Thank heavens for free spaces on #BookSpinBingo - decided to finish Wayward Pines trilogy for #AwesomeApril and then picked a couple of books on my TBR but not on my April reading list 😂

Make a great day everyone 🌞

Here are my #bookspin and #doublespin titles for April!

4.5. I love the Lucy Barton books and pretty much everything Elizabeth Strout writes. She is able to capture the reality of the small moments that make up life is in this way I find really moving. Lucy reflects on her life with William and their continued friendship decades after their marriage has ended. Thanks @BarbaraBB for recommending this from my vacation stack

#12BooksOf2022

I didn‘t read much in June and don‘t remember much of the books I read that month. The tagged one I do remember though and it‘s always comforting to read Strout. Looking forward to Lucy by the Sea!

My 6th from the #booker2022 long list, and the 1st I‘ve read instead of listened to.

So I really enjoyed this. It‘s a quick read, 4.5 hours for me. I adored My Name is Lucy Barton. This is similar. Despite the title, it‘s Lucy again talking about herself, exposing her strengths and weaknesses, but she spends a lot of time with her (philandering) ex-husband William. I like how condensed this is and how powerful Lucy‘s voice can be.

I have mixed feelings about Lucy Barton. Sometimes she has thoughts that feel profound and beautiful. But sometimes she feels petty or mean, and I really don‘t like her.

Really I think that‘s pretty genius of Elizabeth Strout. She has written Lucy in such an honest way, not hiding flaws, letting you feel all of her emotions even if they‘re uncomfortable.

Overall though, I didn‘t enjoy this. I had to push to finish.

#SleepySietje

When does a person actually choose anything? Once every so often—at the very most—I think someone actually chooses something. Otherwise we‘re following something—we don‘t even know what it is but we follow it 🌱

This was well written and still I didn‘t enjoy reading it. Lucy gradually demystifies her ex, William

I've read a lot of Elizabeth Strout recently, and every one of her novels that I read makes me love her writing more. Although I didn't think O William! was quite as strong as Lucy Barton, it was an immersive novel which again demonstrates Strout's insight into the human condition. In this novel, Strout's manipulation of time, examination of ordinary and extraordinary moments, and narrative voice builds flawed, real, authentic characters.

Liked this more than My Name Is Lucy Barton. It‘s a quick and easy read, but the characters are still unlikeable, and the writing style is still really annoying - lots of repetition followed by “is what I‘m saying”/“is what I mean” or vice versa, which just adds volume to an otherwise slim novel. I‘m not sure why it got on to the Booker shortlist, other than because someone thought it was Strout‘s turn.

I love it

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Strout writes with beautiful clarity & a warm tone that make her books comforting even when her characters face dark times. The story of Lucy & her ex William is deceptively simple & the drama turns on small moments, like the shifts in mood from one hour to the next & relief when William laughs, but the themes are big. There‘s much beneath the surface. Her characters feel real & traverse all of human life & emotion.

I think there‘s something sort of Anne Tyler-esque about her characters. The novel is about how the little things shape the big things in our lives. And then there was the Holocaust backstory and the fact that one of the characters we don‘t ever really see is named Trask, and that felt so odd because that was my grandfather‘s false name during the war. There‘s a lot of love and joy tangled into this quietly complicated story of marriage & family.

Ok I‘ve settled on my #bookspin list for September. This month‘s books are either next in a series I‘m partway through, first in a new series, for #AuthorAMonth or my topics bookclub (Short Story or Essay Collections for Sept), or audiobooks I‘ve got on hold from the library that should be coming available.

Looking forward to this month‘s drawing @TheAromaofBooks !📚💕😁

#SeriesRead2022 @TheSpineView

Although I didn't feel this one was as strong I will take any extra time I can get with Lucy. 💚

Learning about Lucy and William's relationship helped fill in some gaps from the previous books, but even Lucy couldn't make me like William. His character just annoys me.

I still enjoyed this book though and I hope Strout gives us more Lucy in the future.

I didn‘t love this. MC is an older woman whose second husband recently died. Book is a lot of the story and her musings about her relationship with her first husband, who she maintains a friendship with and who she supports through a rough transition. Some of the writing is good, but I just didn‘t really like the characters or care much what happened to them. I read a review that said it‘s a short book that felt long, and I agree. ⭐️⭐️💫

8-20 Aug 22
#Bookerlonglist 2
Third in the Lucy Barton series and I am a Strout convert. This focuses more on Lucy‘s relationship with William. Set in the present day, many years after the end of their marriage, but Lucy‘s many recollections also provide the incite into how they met, wed and then split which the earlier books skipped over. William‘s family story also features heavily.
I would be surprised if it wins, but I really enjoyed it.

I really enjoyed this book, I do like Lucy a lot. It was easy to read and short. This is only the second book from the Booker Prize I have read. Not reading the whole list only what I can get my hands on from the library.

I loved the first 2 books in this series and flew through them. I did not love this one! I felt it was a bit repetitive (having just read the previous novels). For a short novel it dragged for me. I also do not like William! I was all set to love this #booker2022 #bookerPrize2022 novel, and sadly did not. 3 🌟
@MicheleinPhilly @batsy @vivastory @squirrelbrain @Cathythoughts @JamieArc @jlhammar @Ruthiella

#BookReport 26/22

I read three very different books again. I adored Oh William, enjoyed Devil House and was a bit disappointed by Red Island House

All in all, a good week!

I just love Lucy Barton. She might feel invisible herself but to me she is so very present, thinking things I wish I would. How she interacts with her family, how she connects the dots in her life - and in William‘s for that matter. Thank you Elisabeth Strout, for bringing her in my life. I hope there will be more.

🤵👰‍♀️Ｂｏｏｋ░Ｒｅｖｉｅｗ ⚖️⁣
⁣
Lucy Barton makes her 3rd appearance in 𝗢𝗵 𝗪𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗮𝗺! By 𝗘𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝗯𝗲𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘁. Lucy helps her first husband weather life crises & reflects on their relationship. It's a rich & highly relatable narrative about marriage, family, & connectedness. Stout‘s consideration of those topics is engaging, poignant, & emotionally resonant. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⁣

𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸: https://tinyurl.com/mpz9um3y

“Whenever I don‘t know what to do, I watch what I am doing.” (P 161)
It‘s starting to feel like I need to read all her books back-to-back because the characters keep returning and I can‘t remember them. Great story telling.

I really loved this and will follow Lucy‘s journey of self-discovery wherever it goes. I‘m so glad that I just reread My Name Is Lucy Barton bc it made it so fun to revisit Lucy and her family! And I got a kick out of recognizing sentences in this that served as quick summaries of important character development stuff from the first book. Maybe I should indulge in rereading series books more often? (Now whether to reread Anything Is Possible…)

“Grief is such a--oh, it is such a solitary thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you.

Oh William indeed! Strout does such an interesting job of writing as Lucy. I imagine Lucy as a fretful woman who hides her true mind from everyone. This novel reads as her trying to work out her feelings about William (and other parts of her life).

Lucy‘s beloved second husband has died just as her first husband needs more than ever. William has found out he has an older secret half sister who lives in Maine. He and Lucy go to investigate. ⬇️

Not my favorite Elizabeth Strout book - writing felt more of telling versus showing.

Very interesting (and likely distinctive, only book I‘ve read so far) style. It was honest about grief and families. Want to read more Elizabeth Strout

This book is a celebration of family. So much stuff happens in life, and at the end of the day there‘s just a few people in our lives with whom we can be completely who we are in all our messiness. We are fortunate when falling out of love can sometimes circle back to something that is family.

I loved this. In this novel writer Lucy Barton (of My Name is Lucy Barton and Anything is Possible) reflects on her relationship with her ex-husband William. It is so well written and thoughtful. I love the way Elizabeth Strout uses a mixture of current events and past reminiscences to give us these fully developed and memorable characters ❤️

Some serious parallels to my life in this one, especially the relationship between Lucy and her ex-husband. I think this is a perfect rendering of a woman/man examining their past and looking more closely at how they have impacted each other. I thought it was a sweet tale of support and discovery.

Strout can write about the simplest of human interactions & make them fascinating. This one returns us to Lucy Barton‘s life. It‘s told from Lucy‘s point of view about her ex-husband William as he uncovers a secret from his mother‘s past. Every relationship is so nuanced and complicated, just like real life. I find myself completely invested in Lucy‘s world each time I read about it. I love how she explores the ways our past shapes who we become.

I may just be a crankypants, but this redundant style of writing irritates me.

Oh Elizabeth! Why is this so good? Lucy Barton, an introspective 60-something writer reflects on life and particularly on her ex, William. This novel is so honest, intimate and realistic it feels like having a long, deep conversation with a beloved aunt. There were two previous books about Lucy, but I hadn‘t read either and it didn‘t matter. Strout is an incredible creator of characters and wonderful story teller.

Lucy Barton is very reflective character, and in this book the focus is on her relationship with her ex-husband. Complex relations between family members, hunting past, simple - but effective prose are main ingredients in this charming story. Very likeable story.

Books from this longest of months... favourite was definitely the tagged. Struggling with Cilka...

The last page of this book is so on point. I think I enjoyed Lucy Barton a tad bit more than this one, but that shouldn‘t diminish this as an absolute pick. I love Strout; she‘s an autobuy author for me. ❤️🌟🤓