Welcome to Litsy!

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers.

19/20
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#20Covers

I am ecstatic for Maud Ventura's new novel translated to English. May is going to be a great reading month with her, Fredrik Backman and Ocean Vuong having new ones (I am sure there will be lots of tears with both!) and I am interested in debut Awake in the Floating City.
June is all about SA Cosby
July I like the idea of The Phoenix Pencil Company- 'Reforging pencils, bringing the memories they contain back to life'
And August is RF Kuang!!

This one is not in the Litsy catalogue yet, but it has shifted all of my most anticipated for 2025!

My Husband was my absolute favorite read of 2023 and I am so so excited I got my hands on a digital ARC of this one.

Has me thinking more and more about my most anticipated for 2025. I am going to do a round up!

I am looking for all the French novels you loved! Last year my favorite book was My Husband. Next year I want to read a bunch of French books. I have and will read all of the Valerie Perrin books that are available in English, I am working my way through Edouard Louis, and Philippe Besson. I need more modern day ladies!
All suggestions appreciated.
Photo from UK Vogue

1. I get dressed in the morning and undressed at night. @Deblovestoread reminded me that I exercise 3/week and wear exercise clothes! Totally forgot this.
2. The wife in the tagged book worries constantly about what she‘s wearing, how her husband will feel about about what she‘s wearing, and how others see her in what she‘s wearing! Yes, she‘s as neurotic as she sounds.

@TheSpineView #TwoforTuesday

You just have to go along for the ride with this one. It‘s first person narrative so you really get that obsessive, full on vibe from her. It reads sort of like a thriller but the drama is all confined to the narrator. Absolutely my sort of read. I did get an inkling about the ending @BarbaraBB @sarahbarnes so I wasn‘t completely surprised but I still thought it was brilliant.

Took myself to a lovely little cafe for dinner ♥️ just started this book and I‘m loving it.

If we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we will never be so 🖤

It‘s intense, it‘s sexy, it‘s obsessive, and it‘s VERY, VERY French. I LOVED it. As excellent on audio as I imagine it would be in print. I was edge of my seat right in the mind of the narrator for 6 hours. Pitch perfect ending. Love, love, love.

My, oh my. The wife is nuts! Her all-consuming obsession for her husband, her insecurities, neuroticism, are intriguing and suspenseful to read in the beginning. But the repetition annoyed me. I know it‘s to stress how obsessed she is, but I was impatient to get to the end. And I didn‘t like the twist at the end (I saw many loved it). Giving it a Pick as I found some parts amusing and entertaining.

I loved having the physical copy of this book. I ate it up in less than a week! I can‘t say too much or I‘ll give something away

I heard about this book when the author appeared at an event at last year‘s Cheltenham Literature Festival, and I had high hopes, but it wasn‘t what I expected and I‘m not entirely sure how I feel about it! The novel takes us inside the head of a 40-year-old neurotic mother who is obsessed with her husband. It‘s a rollercoaster ride through one week of a relationship that‘s perfect from the outside, but deeply flawed within

Books that are described as “psychological thrillers” or like Gone Girl are not normally my wheelhouse but I‘d seen so many good reviews of this and it did not disappoint. It rips along as the interior monologue over the course of a week of a woman obsessed with her husband. While the obsession might be off putting to read there are parts that are genuinely funny ⬇️

4/5 🌟

Dysfunctional but entertaining. At least, it made me feel better about myself and my marriage. Read at your own peril.

Plan for March:

Kindle TBR: Death of an Airman
Physical TBR: My Husband
Online book club: The Forty Rules of Love
IRL book club: The Spinning Heart
New (to me!): You Let Me In

What...an experience! I viscerally felt the narrator's exhaustive anxiety, desperation and neuroticism. While this work is hyperbolic, there is something unmistakably captured that exists in many heterosexual relationships that I have witnessed. I do think women can acceptably get away with losing themselves in a man and hiding from themselves and their real issues.

I enjoyed this one , a woman obsessed with her husband. Well written in a suspenseful way. But , the ending was terrible! It kind of ruined the book for me. Still, I look forward to more by Maud Ventura.

#BookReport 06/24

I had another really good reading week. I enjoyed all my books although I had higher expectations of the Ernaux.

A French woman, in her 40s, obsessed with her husband. She calls it being in love but it‘s more about being in control . She keeps track of everything he says and does and interprets in her very own way. As a reader I was waiting for something to break this cycle of neurosis and control. What happened surprised me! A fun read!

#52BookClub24 - Timeframe spans a week

Hiding from my bf and 2 toddlers so I can read and shovel nachos in my face. Alone. 🙃🤣

This was a fast-paced tale of obsessive love translated from French. We spend a week in the head of a woman who will go to increasing lengths to hold her husband‘s attention — forsaking all else, even their children. While I saw the twist coming a mile away, I still appreciated the tension she expertly built.

Thanks for this gift @BarbaraBB ! 😘😘

I absolutley love this novel.
A woman trying to be absolutly perfect for her husband who she is obsessed over.

My recent favorite genre of books is women slowly falling apart due to an obsession, and this book showed it perfectly. The vibes in this are imaculate.

I will be keeping an eye our for more from Ventura.

#FavBook2023 #moodboard

2024 was my year to get into obsessive wives books. I am enthralled!
The Vegetarian is one of my favorite books, and was a reread this year it kicked off this pull to married women who might not be very reliable narrators. Stories that hone in and analyze a wife's life and motivate.
All of these are a bit odd, just shy of reality.

If anyone has any recommendations for more like these I would love to read more. My Husband was a favorite of all

Does anyone really exist like this!?! I found this so bizarre…a French woman obsessed with her husband she‘s been married to for over ten years. Basically the entire book is her anxieties about his opinion of her. She goes to unfathomable lengths to keep him interested. She doesn‘t care about her kids, simply lives for “my husband”. Totally not relatable for me! 😆 The very end is worth the read!

I‘m giving this book a pick rating, mainly due to the twist at the end that I definitely did not see coming. The narrator of this short book is possibly the most neurotic whining woman you‘ve ever met, constantly insecure and worrying about how her husband thinks about her. On every page actually. Multiple times. Great ending though.

September #roundup

5 ⭐
My Husband
4.5 ⭐
Punching the Air
Flights
4 ⭐
Boyfriend Material
10 Things That Never Happened
The Black God's Drum
The Sword and the Shield
How We Disappeared
The Mountains Sing
3.5 ⭐
Glitterland
Nick and Charlie
3 ⭐
Lone Women
All the Beauty in the World
Camp Zero
The Housekeeper and the Professor
2.5 ⭐
One Night in Heartswood

I LOVED this book. What a ride. I have seen people complain about repetition but I honestly think they are missing the point. Our Wife is seriously obsessed with Husband. Husband is all she can think about, every thought, feeling, move she makes revolves around Husband.
The writing was easy to read but not too simplistic, I was flying through the pages. (Normally I get about 10 pages read during lunch here I was doing 30ish)
1 of my '23 favs

Oh. My. God.
This Epilogue!!

I have a terrible habit of skipping prologues and epilogues and I am ecstatic I read this one.

What an ending!

😮😍

#20in4 #readathon @andrew65

I am not prepared for #scarathon I had a ton of non scary books out from the library right now. Hoping to get through some of them these last couple of days.
Finishing - My Husband (LOVING), Camp Zero (possible DNF), and Glitterland (Having a big Alexis Hall moment right now)

And I am hoping to make progress in Jordan Peels anthology Out There Screaming (ARC) and Interior Chinatown (Audio)

I am absolutely loving My Husband, and I am so, so glad I was introduced to The Lover in college. I would highly recommend reading Duras' novella first if you are interested in reading My Husband, knowing the former book gives a lot to understanding the latter. The Lover is mentioned numerous times in My Husband, and if you haven't read it you are in for a treat. It is a fantastic, gorgeously written book.

A wife reflects on her marriage, chronicling the wayward steps she takes to maintain her husband‘s interest.

Possessive✨ Neurotic ✨ Toxic

"I am even more unsettled when Nicolas tells me something I didn't know about my husband. The idea that Nicolas knew him during a time when I hadn't yet met him makes me slightly dizzy. More generally, the idea that my husband existed before meeting me is surreal, even revolting."

Woooow this lady is a trip.

I want to thank my wonderful #CampLitsy23 cohosts for their kind gifts!! I was hoping to pick up an autographed copy of Vaster Wilds with Helen‘s at the Lauren Groff event on Thursday, but I had a terrible migraine and couldn‘t make the 2 hour trip. I‘m in Nashville frequently, and I‘ll enjoy picking out something soon! Really looking forward to My Husband after @Cinfhen ‘s praise! I am excited to read more translated lit! Thank you B!! 😘🫶🏻💜

Ventura did a good job of taking recognizable anxieties in relationships to the extreme, distorting them to an almost horrifying degree. I enjoyed the narrative style that slowly let me in on the extent of the narrator‘s neurosis. I don‘t think the epilogue added much and could‘ve done without it, but I enjoyed this one otherwise.

.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

To take a stab at the narrator‘s existential word game, where she chooses three words that make a person who they are, I would say she is analytical, obsessive, and insecure. Being inside her head was fascinating (and, at times, tiring). This French novel is a truly twisted and clever psychological romance that demands to be discussed!

Pondering ordering a book from Blackwell's because I like the UK edition and then getting forgotten book mail where past me also had the idea to order this book in UK version..

One thing book ban people do get right is not double ordering a book because they forgot! So glad this came while I was still filling my cart 😂

One week of inner dialogue of a woman who is absolutely obsessed with her husband. somehow this feels like a thriller, it‘s so suspenseful, but also really darkly funny.

I‘m not sure I would have cared as much for this book in print, but as an audio- I loved it! I was completely gripped by the unhinged musings of our narrator who‘s CONSUMED with her husband and the privileges her marriage to him extends her. I had My Sister the Serial Killer mixed with My Lovely Wife vibes. Good fun!! Thanks to @Reviewsbylola for putting this on my #ReadersRadar

I‘ve had to seriously consider whether I liked this book or not. Both protagonists- the MC and her titular husband - are awful and there‘s lots of bad behaviour so I wondered if that was clouding my feelings about the book overall.

The MC is obsessed with her husband, and by the fact that, whilst she is still completely in love with him after 15 years, he may not feel the same.

Not for everyone but, for me, it‘s a pick but not a strong one.