Welcome to Litsy!

A folkloric rumination on surveillance and girlhood that evokes the monstrous feminine and lives within the lineage of Shirley Jackson. This slim novel about a family of young, motherless girls who may or may not be transforming into a vicious pack of dogs was easily one of my favorite reads of the year.

I decided to abandon this book at 23%. It is well written and engrossing, I just I‘m not in the right headspace for the sense of impending doom. If you‘re in the mood for a creepy historical, you would probably love this.

I‘m starting to understand why this book is marketed as “The Crucible” meets “The Virgin Suicides”. Both of those storied have isolated girls, whom have their whole lives placed on display for the town–much like the Mansfield sisters in The Hounding.
We never hear directly from the Mansfield sisters themselves, only from those who love them, observe them and hate them.

Wow this book was fantastic one of my favourites of the year & incredibly a debut ! This author will be an auto buy for me now ; I‘d say it‘s more of a tale of misogyny, spite , gossip , rumours and petty mindedness which sadly seems to be prevalent in modern times as well as the 17th century! A delicious twist at the end - loved 🥰 it

This Virgin Suicides retelling of 18th century sisters who the town suspects of turning into dogs is exceeding my expectations. I‘m tearing through it!

Seriously good 😌 reading with my little hound 🐶😆 need to google it to see if this madness ; 17th century misogynistic acquisitions are true …..

These blurbs from Libby perfectly sum up the mood of this book.

"The Hounding considers whether in any age it might be safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl."

This engages with ideas about gossip, group think, belief systems. The writing is absolutely beautiful. The author was inspired by a briefly documented actual event where sisters were accused of becoming dogs. One can only imagine what happened to them. Purvis does that with remarkable skill and creativity. By the end, the reader wonders whether it is better to be a hound rather than a woman who stands on her two feet. A must read.

I annotated the shizz out of this book, and it brought me back to my days of teaching The Crucible, focusing on the harmful power of fear and how quickly people‘s common sense can be swept away and replaced with rumor-fueled hysteria. There‘s a lot to be said about the way the world treats our girls, especially those with grit and courage. The cover is perfection; this reading experience has been perfection. Loved every minute.

This cover and “The Crucible” as the first words on the dust jacket?! Yes, please 🤓🙌

This has a fairy tale feeling to it that I really enjoyed, it also felt like fall even though it was set in an oppressive dry summer. There is a continuous ramp up of hysteria that was done very well.
I liked that there were a few different POVs and that they were all distinct and easy to tell apart.
I really enjoyed this.

Anybody else doing the Goodreads' Challenges? So far I have collected them all. I had planned on reading Everything is Tuberculosis for the Lightning Round challenge, but I discovered The Hounding counted towards two categories once I finished it. It's really satisfying seeing the bookmarks change from blank to illustrated with the achievements.

"Thomas nodded. He saw what she was trying to say: that history was round, that all things pass. But she was wrong to think it about this situation. There had never been anyone like the Mansfield sisters; there would never be anyone like them again. Their spiritedness and singularly, the way rumors about them bred. How people grew preoccupied with them, how they dreaded and pursued them and might eventually ruin them."

I freaking loved this one. I inhaled it. You can feel the cracking, oppressive summer heat from these pages. The narrative choice of multiple POVs encircling these sisters who refuse to bend to patriarchal society. Beautifully unsettling. I always hesitate to compare books and authors to those who came before, but this feels like the heir to Shirley Jackson. Highly recommend.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This is the kind of novel I wish I could take a class on because there are so many layers to unpack. Its atmosphere was suffocating and oppressive in the best way, building a creeping dread that bewitched me. I loved that the story centers on the Mansfield sisters, yet we deliberately never get their point of view. Ahh, the timeless perils of misogyny and mob mentality… I‘ll be thinking about this one for awhile. 🎧

In the mood for something weird. #currentlyreading

"The girls, the infernal heat, a fresh-dead body."

There's nothing like a good book and a cup of tea on a beautiful morning ?

My Aardvark book box! I am trying to buy books I am either extremely excited about or that I already read and enjoyed. I read an ARC of The Buffalo Hunter Hunter and really wanted to read it again so luckily they still had some copies, I have been fascinated by The Hounding. Small Worlds I have not heard a ton about but I loved his first book so here we are!

The dangers of self-righteousness and herd mentality come to a head in this tense historical novel about a community who descend into a fervor over the rumor-turned-belief that 5 odd sisters are turning into dogs. This novel says a lot, including in the things it doesn't explicitly say. It's all too realistic in the ways in which people are quick to turn on others they feel are different. Haunting and evocative.

I won an ARC of this slim, haunting book about five sisters, orphans who live with their nearly blind grandfather. When the local ferryman's resentment of the girls and their silence leads him to start a wild rumor that they transform into dogs, the town quickly turns against them. An unsettling and memorable fable, although readers who prefer clear and definitive resolutions may want to look elsewhere.

A nice little stash of ARCs at work today…. Definitely intrigued by the Hounding…. the blurb says The crucible meets The Virgin Suicides…. 🤔

Five young, parentless girls living with their nearly blind grandfather make the townsfolk uneasy. They don‘t act the way girls should. Are they arrogant? Broken? In need of firmer parenting? Or are they touched by evil and capable of turning into dogs? Told through alternating perspectives of their neighbors, this book is weird and unsettling as every reader knows what happens when girls don‘t conform. Out 8/5