Welcome to Litsy!

I do like stories set in faded English seaside towns + this setting of lost glamour perfectly suited this story of 2 very different women confronting their past + current lives. Lydia was part of a one hit pop duo who has been asked to accept an apology from a man who sexually assaulted her and flees to stay with her old friend. Joyce, a woman in her 40s, lives with her mother who treats her as a sister + smothers her life. Very readable, + v sad.

Acute and poignant noticing has always helped her out of herself, escorted her away from pain and the past and coupled her to small, instrumental wonders outside herself.

Look to the beauty.

Stripped of the bleak comforts of such an illusion, she has simply been done to, which makes her a victim.

She doesn't know if she'd give it a lower-case or capital V if.she had to write it down unsure if it's an identity, a predicament or both. All she's certain of is that decades of defying the definition have ended, so that things which used to seem inevitable now feel intolerable.

It hurts so much to realise she deserved better...

Two extremely emotionally stunted women (they are 46-48 and read like an immature and ignorant 20) in a small town barely living their lives. Despite being on the #wp longlist, this is not award-worthy material. The author was effective at creating a character I very much wanted to push out a window, but it wasn‘t one of the central women.

Misleading. At the end one of the women is still unaware that the collision has taken place. So many words saying so little in this book. I didn't connect with the characters at all, as they didn't seem real or realistic. This must be on the #WomensPrize longlist for its #MeToo topic and not for its prose, plot, or characters. The last 3rd had character development and nuance around consent, perception, and self that saved it from the pan.

Lydia has washed up in a forgotten seaside town, reeling from her on-off lover‘s apology for appalling behaviour she‘s not yet recognised as such. Joyce is living a claustrophobic life under the oppressive thumb of her mother. I loved both Joyce and Lydia‘s stories and particularly enjoyed the building tension, the dark humour that almost felt it would merge into horror, and the sense their worlds are about to collide and implode. A great read.

Book 5 of the #wpf25 longlist.

This is one I hadn‘t heard of and I was excited to read it from the blurb, but it didn‘t *quite* live up to my high expectations. The writing was very descriptive and expressive but sometimes a little TOO much. I loved one of the characters and her story arc - the other, not so much.

Another quibble below, that could be slightly spoilerish.

Still a great read, but not likely to make my shortlist. 🤷‍♀️

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https://youtu.be/bmQZYUMLkJk?si=em2Uih4nkUlSLxDR

https://youtu.be/fJmU1cNt3Qc?si=Szxm5zbQSX8SUr-t


Introduction

Mystery guest

Weekly highlights

Birding by Rose Ruane

Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard