Welcome to Litsy!

Spent the last month reading this one on and off and I'll be processing it for a while. I can't decide how I feel about the ending but mostly I feel disheartened. There's a dark humor here for sure but ultimately such a bleak outlook at the crushing weight of systems. Excellent writing throughout though.

My first round of Best of 2023 book videos are up! ⭐ I discuss my top 5 reads from the past year ranging from children's books to adult books! Please give them a watch if you're interested! 😃 💕 Thank you so much!

Best of 2023 - Adult Fiction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mS4n_T2X9q0

Best of 2023 - YA Fiction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J1TEjN3esQ

Best of 2023 - Children's Fiction!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CoGdqljl9c

Book delivery day! Gift cards mean you open presents twice! Definitely starting with Skippy Dies- have never read it and The Bee Sting was my absolute favorite book from this year.

Today started a 3 day weekend for me! I celebrated by reading all day! 🤭💕📚 Can you tell who else was happy I was home? 😻

I just hit the halfway point with this book and I can't believe how much I love it so far! It's equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, and the writing is just so fantastic! I'm really excited to read more of Murray's work in the future! 💕📚

#catsoflitsy #rumpel

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join in if you want!

#ABookADay2023

1. School starts the first Tuesday after Labour Day in Ontario (September 5th this year), so I'm working that day. This year for some reason it is a PD day in our district though, so kids don't start until September 6th.
2. I'm not a huge school setting fan in novels as I spend so much time in one, but I really did like Skippy Dies.
#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Tagging another Canadian to play along @janeycanuck

I'm in Albuquerque visiting my dad and we stumbled on a cute little local bookshop that had used paperback for $1 and hardbacks for $2. So help me I'll figure out how to fit them in my suitcase 😂

(PS: I've already read Razorblade Tears but couldn't resist buying a $2 like-new copy for my dad to read)

#TOBFavorites
This book is TOO LONG and I am not enjoying some of the narration voices. Maybe I can no longer handle chunksters? I just want to be done with it. I don‘t think I am even half way 😧

Will I hit 50,000 points before the end of the month? The suspense is killing me! 😂😂😂

Set in an Irish boys' school, this is a hilarious novel about adolescence and early-adulthood which also manages to be frequently poignant and thought-provoking. It manages to take in string theory and multiple-universe physics, as well as more mundane concerns such as eating disorders, bullying, sexting and porn addiction without ever getting po-faced. Simply superb.

My kids got so sick of me saying bored people are boring. 😂

This is a book I never would have picked up without it showing up in a book box, but I really liked it! Coming of Age as an episode? It doesn't stand out that much. I'll use this opportunity to say that I do not hate Wes - he doesn't always get the best writing but who does?
#startreksummermay

I really enjoyed this story about the death of Skippy (no spoilers, since it's the title of the thing), a student at a boys' boarding school in Ireland, and how it affected everyone around him. The characters were really well drawn, which is how I stayed invested in this tome (661 pages!)- while the plot did drag on at times, I cared enough about all the characters, as highly flawed as they were, to see it through to the end. 4.5⭐

The babysitting gods are currently smiling down on me, as both the 4 year old and six year old have fallen asleep during naptime and I remembered my book!

Took the afternoon off and I'm very excited to have some book time. 📚❤️☕

Hard for a book to be simultaneously hysterically funny and deadly serious - this book was exactly that. The book is set in an Irish boarding school and follows a group of young boys, but the themes are very adult (including drug abuse and allusions to sexual abuse). I'll definitely be reading whatever else Murray puts out.

I loved this book about 14 year olds in a prestigious dublin school. The writer at points had me laughing out loud and he captured that age brilliantly contrasting it with the teachers sense of life having passed by in an instant. The fact that the title and opening chapter gives the rest of the book uncertainty as we grow to love skippy makes it more heartbreaking. A wonderful read with sun and a 🍻.

A nice day in which i found a small window whilst the girls were on a terrifying roller coaster to read the wonderful book. My days of roller coasters are definitely over as i even struggled as they over spinned the tea cup rides. Hope to finish it on the beach tomorrow.

So I read an article on Book Riot about culling your Want To Read list to 100 books only... and I think I'm going to do it! #100TBR Anyone want to join me? I was thinking of posting the books that make (and some of the ones that don't).

This book was on my #tbr list for years, and it did not disappoint! Eminently literary, this novel had a really dark humor to it. It is about childhood, adulthood, parenthood, and all the ways they go wrong. Moving, touching, and thought-provoking, if this book piques your interest, I definitely recommend you give it a try.
#overduereview #cathcup #bookreview #review

Catch up post for #allthebooksof2017 @Annreads
1. Skippy Dies... recommend by @Liberty and loved by me!
2. Mooncop - Darkly funny and melancholy little graphic novel. Literally a 10 minute read....
3. Giant Days Volume 6- I don‘t read many series, but love the Giant Days gals so much! 💕

Reliving my misspent youth with Skippy & co. As adults busy adulting, sometimes it's so hard to remember how it felt to be kids, but this book is transporting me right back to high school like nothing I've read in a long long time. And it's effing hilarious too!

#day22 #fallintobooks My go-to for #fallreads are stories that feature boarding schools and colleges as their settings....

Satisfyingly unsatisfying.

This book, by an Irish author, touches on a wide array of topics, including LGBT, Africa, and economic disparity, with wonderful words. Its a favorite! #Diversity #AndItsAugust

What a way to describe a woman... 😂😂😻😻

I know it's the title of the book- but it happens in the first paragraph?! Geez Louise!! It seems funny -- I picked it for some reason and got to my local library in 2 days. Also @Liberty has a hilarious story about it. ( it's in the book reviews) My eyes are heavy and burning from fatigue but alas I shall read on!!! 👍❤️📚😊👁👁

True story. 😬

I found this blast from the past tucked into my book! Any Borders ephemera collectors out there?
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"For where there are Irish there's memory undying,
And when we forget, it is Ireland no more!" ~ Kipling

Almost halfway through! Grateful this book is long because it is so good.

If I were doing #24in48, this book might just be my whole 24!

Nightstand, or hair tie holder? You decide.

After Skippy dies, things get totally out of control at Dublin's College for Boys. While during his life he was a rather average, shy adolescent, his death has an enormous impact on his friends, his teachers, his girl and her dealer.
The Principal does all he can to keep the school's reputation spotless and he seems to get away with it, which is why the book, despite its light and often funny tone of voice, also is quite disturbing. #manbooker

I guess the idea of a #shelfie is for the book titles to be legible but I wanted to get my green glass collection in there too so had to stand back. Haha. #splashintosummerreads

Ireland, where this tale takes place, is #farflung from Portland, Oregon! 🤣Murray is an amazing wordsmith, although I needed to suspend my disbelief in a few areas. 💜 #maybookflowers

Feeling restlessly trapped inside during another torrential downpour. At least I can curl up with my current read, which I am really enjoying! #rainySaturday #lazySaturday

After a morning spent at the gym and grocery shopping followed by an afternoon spent doing yard work, I am pretty excited to curl up with my book. #readingreward

New weekend, new book! This has been on my #tbr list for years. Hope it proves worth the wait! 📚

I found this book at the library bookstore Tuesday. As I was checking out the cashier told me about her dog Skippy who passed away years ago, but was a wonderful dog. Less than an hour later, I was in the writing workshop at the library where a woman shared a story about her dog Skippy who had died. It was a strange night of Skippy deaths. (The book is not about a dog).

'What I don't understand,' Geoff says, 'is why did the first fish, like the one who started land animals, suddenly decide one day to just leave the sea? Like, to leave everything he knew, to go flopping around on land where no one had even evolved yet for him to talk to?' He shakes his head. 'He was a brave fish, definitely, and we owe him a lot, for starting life on land and everything? But I think he must have been very depressed.'

Life makes fools of us all sooner or later. But keep your sense of humour and you'll at least be able to take your humiliation with some measure of grace. In the end, you know, it's our own expectations that crush us. (628)

To believe in explanations is good, because it means you may believe also that beneath the chaotic, mindless jumble of everything, beneath the horrible sis junction you feel at every moment between you and all you are not, there dwells in the universe a secret harmony, a coherence and rightness like a balanced equation that's out of reach for now but some day will reveal itself in its entirety. (521)

#LRC8 #LitsyAtoZ #LetterS I love stories set in schools, and this warts'n'all coming-of-age boarding school tale was no exception. The 14yo boys are captured in all their funny, angsty, and disgusting glory! Laugh out loud funny and at times heartbreaking. But...TW galore! Murray depicts the boys (and teachers) with no holds barred! This was my personal rec from the amazing @Liberty ,saved to to be that special 1st book of 2017! So grateful! 👇

#day2 #readjanuary #thismonthstbr ... next up (possibly 😊)... Finish what I'm reading (Skippy Dies), then on to these... Top row all book club books, The Vegetarian was my secret santa gift from the amazing @SoniaC , 2 comics for my read Harder challenge, a memoir, and 2 #BOTM catch ups.... Should be a great month....

It's actually finally cool enough in South FL today for me to try out my new Christmas reading socks, (it's 64 degrees- Woo hoo!!) so I'm sitting on the patio, reading a new book, hoping the hubby gets the hint.... after all, "the sun is past the yard arm" (as my Dad would say! ) ???

Day off today... so finally diving into this one... it's been on my TBR forever, but I keep avoiding it because of the title.... my reading buddy (see profile pic!) is called Skippy! Luckily this isn't about a dog!

I was envious of Skippy dying as I read this book.

I love books set in schools, but the dark, angtsy, gritty vibe isn't a good fit for me right now. Like everything else wrong in the world, I blame it on the election.

"But things like the world-inside-this-one are too big to hold in your head by yourself. You need someone to remind you, or else you need someone you can tell, and you have to keep telling each other, over and over, throughout your whole life."