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Book Mail! Been ages since I ordered books so I treated myself when I have a bit of extra money last month :)

I sometimes loved this book and sometimes found the style tiresome. I did not care for the segments narrated by “cancer” – and eventually ended up skimming those sections.

On the other hand, I loved Lia‘s family story, her past and the characters of her mother, daughter and husband. As much as I wanted to appreciate the non-traditional prose style, I had a difficult time getting through this book because of it.

#12booksof2022 #august

This was a VERY tough read, but so good. I can understand why some people didn‘t like it though, as it takes rather a black look at a mother who is diagnosed with cancer, even using the disease as one of the narrators.

Are you up for a bracing, stylistically inventive, funny and tender novel about a mother in her thirties with terminal illness, with parts of the narrative in the voice of cancer within her? My entire book club loved it and it‘s one of my personal favourites of 2022.

I wore a special hat to talk about my recent reads. Link to the video: https://youtu.be/TFeOuMUmLTI

BookReport: while some of the tagged book was a bit over the top, some of it was quite profound and I was fully invested in the characters and their journeys. Proceed with caution if you or some you love has had a cancer journey. Glad to be back to Maisie Dobbs.

@MaleficentBookDragon I‘m running late with Under Lock. Will have it out to you by week‘s end. Sorry!

My 3rd from the #Booker2022 longlist

Lia is a beautiful character. I was worried this would be too much like Sophia Ward‘s applied philosophy in Love and Other Thought Experiments (another 1st novel from the English screen world). But as Lia, still a young mother, faces uncertainty and terminal illness, revisiting her past, I just found I really enjoyed spending time with her, which disarmed my inner critic. It‘s a sad, but still enjoyable novel.

📚 Tagged and Murder on Sisters Row
🫖 Iced tea with lunch
🎶 Two concerts: MCR and Elton John, a weekend at my dad‘s to celebrate his 84th birthday and a weekend cat sitting for my daughter. All in October. November I‘ll be recovering from all the traveling.😂

My current audiobook, from the #booker2022 longlist. I‘m already 5 hours in, and it‘s very intimate so far, in a variety of ways.

This one really touched a nerve. An astute, commanding narrative.

I mostly liked this, but didn‘t connect the way I was hoping to. Around the halfway mark I was ready for it to be over. There were certainly moments that I found powerful and devastating, but the experimental format here, for me, felt more tiresome than fresh or exciting. Still a strong debut. Just not among my #Booker2022 favorites.

Oof, this was a tough read both for its structure and style and its subject. When I was reading it, I was completely immersed and often moved to tears. When I wasn‘t I was dreading picking it up. I admire Mortimer‘s ambition and audacity but I don‘t know whether I can say that I “enjoyed” this. Still, I expect and want to see this on the shortlist. #BookerPrize #BookerPrizeLonglist

This was a page turner for me. I loved how she structured the physical space of the book and the timing of the story. It‘s a brutal look at a woman dying of cancer and her life story, complimented by the individual experiences her family members are going through. The voice of cancer itself weaves through the story, sneaky and eventually overwhelming. Written by a very young woman whose mother died of cancer, the writing is beautiful and unique.

You‘re due back at the library today, and I‘ve made it 40p in. For the last several days I haven‘t been in the mood to read you. I started before I left for Paris and didn‘t miss you while I was gone. So for now at least, it‘s a DNF.

I took a personal day and hit the rail trail on my new little pony. Just lying up on a hilltop, reading, napping, and moving on to new spots to recline. I haven‘t done this kind of thing in a long time and it feels lovely. So far this book is my kind of book.

The cancer is back. Lia‘s dying. She must come to terms with her past, with this harsh present and she must prepare her teenage daughter for a future without her.
It‘s a heartbreaking story told in a most unusual way. Timelines interweave and the cancer‘s got its own say in the story. It‘d be funny if it weren‘t so tragic.
It took some time for the book to grow on me but when it did I cried for Lia, Harry and Iris. #BookerPrize2022

I cried throughout this book. I couldn‘t read more than 10 pages at a time. Having had a lot of loss in my life in the last 5 years, several as a result of cancer, and a mother in remission, I almost couldn‘t get through it. But it‘s so beautifully written that sometimes the passages made me cry for the beauty of the writing alone.

#WeeklyForecast 34/22

I am having the two #BookerPrize2022 books in progress and am enjoying both a lot. Afterwards I want to read the weird book about fishes that receives so much praise on Litsy for #ReadingAfrica2022. I also hope to make a start with China Room, a gift by our dear friend @Megabooks

Avoid the #audiobook on this one. Even with two narrators, this brilliant concept was very poorly executed. #BookerLonglist

Lia, a young mother and author, has metastatic breast cancer that she‘s been fighting for years, and it seems cancer may finally have the upper hand. The narrator switches between Lia and her family‘s story and a growing malevolent cancer as it strikes different organs. Huge CW warning if you‘re sensitive about cancer!

3-9 Aug 22 (audiobook)
#Bookerlonglist 1
A soft pick. May have been better to read than listen.
I did appreciate the concept of the cancer having its own increasingly strong voice and the depictions of teenage Agnes and Lia - dealing with emerging independence and grief.
I expect aspects of this book will stay with me for a while but I did not love it.

This book on the other hand…
I am only 20 pages in, but oh my heart. I‘m pretty sure I loved it once I saw the cover and that feeling was cemented by the first paragraph

After saying I was not going to read this novel, I read it. There is some stunning poetic writing but the novel did not hold together for me. 2.5 🌟 not on my personal short list. #booker2022 #Bookerprize2022 @MicheleinPhilly @batsy @charl08 @vivastory @squirrelbrain @Cathythoughts @JamieArc @jlhammar @Ruthiella @Cinfhen @BarbaraBB @Hazel2019

“I, itch of ink, think of thing, plucked open at her start; no bigger than a capillary, no wiser than a cantaloupe, and quite optimistic about what my life would come to look like.”

#FirstLineFridays

The blurb reads “playful and funny” but since breast cancer has directly affected two of my close family members, I‘m finding this book morbid and acidic. I‘m passing - it‘s not for me.

Thanks for the tag @jenniferw88
#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. I rarely re-read books except for this NF which I try to read yearly #NeverForget #WeRemember Night by Elie Wiesel 💔
2. Fiction, Mothers, Daughters, Illness, Reflections, ( I‘m beginning to think this book is going to be a bail - TW: cancer )

Feel like playing @Allylu @Chelsea.Poole @Ruthiella

I hear this is actually fantastic in print, as form is apparently worked into the narrative- however I‘m an audio girl and this was available on #Scribd #Booker2022LongList I‘ve only just started but so far Im sold.

Mixed feelings. Not like anything I can remember reading before, full of interesting plays with words and typographical games. I loved the teenage character, just trying to find her way at a new school.
But the cancer-as-narrator didn't quite work for me. It might for you?

#Booker22
@Cinfhen @squirrelbrain @MicheleinPhilly @batsy @vivastory @rmaclean4 @Cathythoughts @JamieArc @BarbaraBB @jlhammar @Ruthiella @sarahbarnes @Hazel2019 @Brimful

I can‘t resist a good cover, and I love the contour lines on this one. Even more fascinating is the format of this book. I‘m really curious how this plays out on audio. This is one of the first #Booker2022 Longlist titles that intrigued me, and now I‘m looking forward to reading it even more. Top left: endpapers.

I like to imagine the Afterlife full of brain-dead pharaohs stacked like beanpoles really kicking themselves.

I love bench signs, and try and stop and read them when I see them. I'm not sure if my local council would go for this one though!

(Mine would probably be something like "Charlotte, who thought it was nice enough, but sat here wishing she was somewhere else")

Connie would stay and look after Iris. She would order Thai takeaways, put Clueless on, take regular cigarette breaks on the doorstep. Iris would sit next to her smoking a chopstick. They would practise their Urgh! As If!s.

It is ridiculous that oncologists can die of cancer.

She asked the nurses how this could possibly happen when surely he had VIP access to all of the most sought-after, tried and tested, tumour-blitzing drugs, and they raised their eyebrows and said it did not really work like that.

Knowing something inside out does not make you immune to its power.

Lia lay awake with her eyes closed. Feeling death's breath on her face, his probing chubby fingers playing with her eyelashes, she listed off yellow things to keep afloat:

Bananas
The sun
Egg yolk
Cheese
Autumn leaves...

#BookerLonglist22

New book
#BookerLonglist22

Wow, just wow. This was terrible and beautiful at the same time.

Terrible because Lia, one of the narrators, has terminal cancer. The other narrator is the cancer itself, who begins to take over the narrative, until the ‘I‘ at the beginning of the book becomes ‘we‘ towards the end.

Beautiful because of the writing and language. I listened on audio and the narrators were fabulous and I think you‘d miss out on so much by not listening ⬇️

June flew by sandwiched by #hay at the beginning, #glasto at the end. Restrained in my buying at Hay, two hugely anticipated reads and obvs some merch...!