Welcome to Litsy!

Finished this #booker2019 winner tonight, pictured here with the adorable bookmark my son was so proud to gift me tonight. I enjoyed the book, which was more a collection of character profiles that loosely tie together, focusing on black British women‘s stories. After a few chapters I got used to the style in which the book is written, with no punctuation or capital letters to start sentences, and ended up enjoying it.

Congratulations Peg and Bernardine! #booker2019

This was a great read, even though it wasn‘t quite what I expected. I had expected to find out more about what happened to Offred than was included here. The only character from the first book that appears regularly in this one is Aunt Lydia, but her chapters gave detail on how Gilead developed. The book was somewhat predictable, but Atwood‘s writing and characters were so engaging that I still read this compulsively. #booker2019 shortlist. 4⭐️

If you enjoy character-driven stories, then you would probably love this. I‘m not a fan of such writing, however, so this is not a pick for me. There were some potentially fascinating characters in this book, but their treatment was very uneven. The narrative was choppy as backstory on various characters was interspersed with the main story in separate chapters. This book has an interesting construction, but overall the execution was bland. 3⭐️

First book from #booker2019 shortlist finished! Unfortunately, I hated it. Verbose and trying way too hard to be tragic and dramatic. Also, the author often seemed more concerned with demonstrating Igbo mythology than creating sympathetic characters. Finally, any comparisons to The Odyssey are really missing the mark. There was some lovely prose in places, but it was often hard to find among the weeds. 2⭐️

The 2019 #booker shortlist was announced today. Sadly, the two I was rooting for, Lost Children Archive and Frankisstein, did not make the cut. #booker2019

Have you read any of these finalists?

📷: CNN.com

This was a very clever book. The often comedic tone belies a more serious look at the question of whether consciousness, or the person, can ever be separated from the physical body. This question is explored in both modern terms (AI, sexbots, transgender, evangelical religion), and less modern times (the life of Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, feminism). Winterson also takes time to get in a few jabs at US, British, and Brazilian leaders, and Brexit.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I am probably about to damn this one with faint praise. It was a perfectly fine read. I enjoyed it. It just didn‘t really nourish me much. A short, sharp, punchy novel about sisters, one of whom is a serial killer. An excellent and solid debut however I remain perplexed ( as I nearly always am ) about why it is on literary prize lists....Braithwaite is good but I think and hope more accomplished novels are in her future.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2

This ended up being ok despite all indicators to the contrary. It might not be a literary prize-winning effort and as a dystopia it takes a fairly minimalist approach to world-building. Take one big wall, add water, baby politicians and some "Others" and that is your backstory. However, I approached this as a type of team-bonding novel; a low-key version of Platoon, set in England with tea and biscuits and as such I enjoyed it

Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019.

This novel has an original structure, as we meet Tequila Leila, Istanbul prostitute, after her death. Her brain continues to function for 10 min 38 sec, and we learn her history from birth to death, how she came to be an Istanbul prostitute, how she met her husband and her 5 best friends. The story then turns into a madcap caper morning of them giving her the sendoff she wanted. #bookerlonglist #booker2019