Litsy

Indian Horse | Richard Wagamese

No surprise that Indian Horse was the best book I read in February and that it topped West with Giraffes. The rest of the books I read in February were just ok and while West with Giraffes is good - Indian Horse is in a class of it's own.

Note: Not my template - off Pinterest.

#ReadingBracket #ReadingBracket2025 #BookBracket2025 #BookBracket

32 likes

BarbaraBB

Road Ends: A Novel | Mary Lawson

pick

Megan wants to leave her home in Canada, where she is responsible for taking care of her many siblings and her parents. She‘s young and London is calling.
This books follows her in her new life, as well as her brother and father. Nothing much happens but it all feels very true and Mary Lawson is a gifted writer.

TrishB Lovely pic too ♥️ 11h

Tamra ❤️ Lawson 10h

JuniperWilde I was just thinking about this book tonight. It‘s on my list and I‘ll pick it up as my next read. 🇨🇦❤️ 3h

Cathythoughts Lovely review ❤️ I remember loving A Town Called Solace. I must get back to her. 57m

59 likes4 comments

LitsyEvents

Rainbow Valley | L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

Repost for @BarbaraJean
Next up in the #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead our #LMMReread of Rainbow Valley & our #LMMAdjacent read of The Last of the Mohicans. @BarbaraJean will post check ins on Saturdays; full discussion of Rainbow Valley will be March 15 & for Last of the Mohicans it will be on April 12.
All are welcome to join in! Please let @BarbaraJean know if you want to be added to or removed from the tag
list.

BarbaraJean Thanks for re-posting! 14h

29 likes1 comment

CarolynM

Indian Horse | Richard Wagamese

#BookReport for February

My favourite this month was Indian Horse.

melissajayne Indian Horse is such a sad, but beautiful story. 17h

52 likes1 comment

merelybookish

Late Nights on Air | Elizabeth Hay

I'm at odds about this book. On one hand it is gently interweaving multiple story threads with patience and care.
On the other hand it includes lines like this:
"His penis was more narrow than wide, more O Henry bar than chocolate slab, more spring rhubarb than autumn gourd, more canoe than motorboat." ?????
Which might be one of THE worst sentences I've ever read in a novel.
So...a real toss-up right now. ?

Aims42 😳😖😳😖😳😖 1d

Soubhiville Well that‘s bizarre. 1d

kspenmoll What?!😳 1d

See All 26 Comments

Leftcoastzen 😵 1d

willaful *boggle* 1d

Ruthiella 🤮🙄😳 1d

Hooked_on_books 😂 1d

BarbaraBB 🤣🤣 love the accompanying photo 🤣🤣 1d

Cathythoughts Yuck 🤮 I‘m staying away from this one. 1d

CSeydel Whoa, that‘s a sentence I can‘t unread 1d

Susanita That‘s pretty bad 🤣🤣 1d

Anna40 Why oh why? 20h

OrangeMooseReads That line gives me the ick lol 20h

youneverarrived 🙈😂😂 20h

sarahbarnes That is…so bad. 😆😆😆 19h

thegirlwiththelibrarybag Thanks for sharing that sentence 🤣 I think I‘d take it as my sign to DNF 18h

merelybookish @aims42 @soubhiville @kspenmoll @leftcoastzen @willaful @ruthiella @hooked_on_books Definitely a sentence that inspires a lot of emojis! And disgust. 😂 17h

merelybookish @barbarabb seemed better than an Oh Henry bar. 😆 17h

merelybookish @cathythoughts A wise decision! 17h

merelybookish @CSeydel Oh, it's bad! Perhaps I should have provided a trigger warning. 17h

merelybookish @susanita @anna40 @youneverarrived @sarahbarnes It's like one of those comparisons would have been more than enough to gross me out... but three???? 17h

merelybookish @thegirlwiththelibrarybag Yeah, this is the dilemma. I'm more than halfway and I'm slightly interested in the storyline. So not sure I'm ready to DNF just yet. (Instead it will probably become a hate read.) 17h

TheLudicReader Dear Lord, I have no memory of that. 🤮 12h

quietlycuriouskate Oh dear God.... and I still haven't forgotten the penis/seahorse image in The English Patient! 12h

merelybookish @TheLudicReader This is one of the downsides of audiobooks. Harder to ignore or not hear terrible prose. 11h

merelybookish @quietlycuriouskate Oh God, I wonder if it's a Canadian thing. 😒 11h

54 likes26 comments

Booksblanketsandahotbeverage

Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood

My BN trip‘s theme today was banned books.

My sister recommended The Assistant to the Villain series so I picked those up too and my new hot beverage reading buddy was $5 at the checkout.

#withthebanned #letsdothis

TEArificbooks My teenager is reading 1984 for school right now. 2d

Booksblanketsandahotbeverage @TEArificbooks I read that one in HS too along with Brave New World 2d

43 likes2 comments

TreenaReads

The Very Marrow of Our Bones: A Novel | Christine Higdon

pick

This one deserves all of your love, especially if you‘re into awesome Canadian literature. This gorgeously written, compulsively readable family saga, focussing around the disappearance of two women from a working class town, is layered with secrets, masterfully revealed.

#ohcanada #canlit #fiction

TheKidUpstairs Oooh, I've got to read this one. I read one from Higdon last year and LOVED it:

Gin, Turpentine, Pennyroyal, Rue: A Novel

TreenaReads @TheKidUpstairs 🙌🏽Yes! I loved it too! 2d

9 likes2 comments

BarbaraJean

Rainbow Valley | L. M. Montgomery

Next up in the #KindredSpiritsBuddyRead: our #LMMReread of Rainbow Valley, and our #LMMAdjacent read of The Last of the Mohicans.

I‘ll post check-ins on Saturdays; the full discussion of Rainbow Valley will be March 15, and for Last of the Mohicans it will be on April 12.

All are welcome to join in! I‘ll post my tag lists for each book in the comments. Please let me know if you‘re not tagged and you‘d like to be (or vice versa!)

LitsyEvents

BarbaraJean Rainbow Valley:
@julieclair, @TheAromaofBooks, @lauraisntwilder, @CogsOfEncouragement, @rubyslippersreads, @kwmg40, @JenLovesJT47

Rainbow Valley

BarbaraJean Last of the Mohicans:
@Daisey, @TheAromaofBooks, @julieclair, @lauraisntwilder, @rubyslippersreads, @JenLovesJT47

The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757

Daisey Looking forward to Last of the Mohicans! 2d

julieclair Looking forward to both of these! 2d

TheAromaofBooks Yay!! I'm in for both of these - or at least I've kept them from getting packed 😂 2d

34 likes5 comments

Jess861

Indian Horse | Richard Wagamese

This post contains spoilers

show me

Saul is such a strong character. I don't think many would make it through what he goes through at such a young age and then all through childhood. To have such focus on a sport while he is being abused and his culture and way of life have been completely ripped away from him shows a strong will to survive.

Thoughts on Saul?

Pictured is a Birch Bark Canoe - one of the main forms of transportation for the Ojibwe.

Jess861 @lauraisntwilder @KathyWheeler @Ruthiella @CarolynM @LapReader @kwmg40 @Readergrrl @JenlovesJT47 @Tamra @PurpleyPumpkin @Kitta @DogMomIrene @Blueberry @BiblioLitten #OhCanada 3d

Ruthiella My heart broke for him. I did like, however how the book opens with him already on a healing journey because reading the rest and not knowing if he‘d make it through would have been tough. 3d

Jess861 @Ruthiella I agree. I also like how Wagamese subtly hinted at the abuse but didn't confirm it until closer to the end. It really made you think again at the end of the book about everything he'd been through. 3d

See All 9 Comments

Jess861 Birch was critical to the Ojibwe lifestyle. It is interesting to read about if you are interested. Another interesting fact is that Birch Bark Canoes were a great transportation form for the inland waterways. It is thought that the Europeans would not have been able to discover and explore much of the land without this type of transportation. The boats they had weren't made for inland waterways. 3d

Tamra The revelation was startling, even though there were hints, but they were easily dismissed. 😔 Speaks to the survival strategy of victims and craft of Wagamese‘ writing! (edited) 2d

Kitta @Ruthiella agreed, I liked having the certainty that he would pull through. I missed or dismissed quite of few of the hints that abuse was occurring tbh. I even thought partway through the novel that it was strange other kids were being abused but not Saul 😆 2d

DogMomIrene Saul was so real. Agree that the opening pages help me cope with the set up that this character will survive. I had the same thought “strange he‘s not abused” and dismissed it. Makes me think that may be Wagamese‘s point in hinting at abuse. I think people, me included, tend to not see abuse and dismiss the hints, even when we shouldn‘t. I want a sequel, even just a short story, to know that Saul‘s okay. 20h

Jess861 @DogMomIrene Sadly, Wagamese passed away in 2017 so we will never get a sequel. 17h

kwmg40 Saul was a great character. I love how Wagamese makes us care so much about characters who are usually marginalized or disdained by society. I loved his novel Ragged Company about four homeless people. 9h

10 likes9 comments

Jess861

Indian Horse | Richard Wagamese

This post contains spoilers

show me

Another major part of the book is hockey. Saul manages to find an escape through hockey although it only masks the suffering he is going through. It isn't until much later in life that he digs deep into that past so that he can truly heal.

Thoughts on the hockey portion of the book? Did you know this book was originally only supposed to be about hockey?

Jess861 @lauraisntwilder @KathyWheeler @Ruthiella @CarolynM @LapReader @kwmg40 @Readergrrl @JenlovesJT47 @Tamra @PurpleyPumpkin @Kitta @DogMomIrene @Blueberry @BiblioLitten #OhCanada 3d

Ruthiella I have to say, as beautiful as the writing was, it lost me with hockey ! 😂 I‘m not a sports person at all. 3d

Jess861 I enjoyed the hockey portion of the book as I find Wagamese can write about anything and it's still magical. I think a bit less hockey would have been ok with me though.

The fact that Saul finds an escape through hockey and then manages to bottle away his abuses for years is quite something. Sad that he didn't realize he was using hockey for something else as he did seem to love the sport. 3d

See All 14 Comments

Jess861 @Ruthiella I agree, a bit less hockey would have been ok with me! 3d

Tamra I was surprised at the hockey middle section. I‘d didn‘t mind too much because it was well written and personable. Had it not moved on to post hockey life, I would have been disappointed. 2d

Jess861 @Tamra I agree, the book wouldn't have been as complete if it had ended with hockey. I really felt like we went on the journey of Saul's life in this book. 2d

CarolynM I loved the hockey part of the book, but I wondered how much it would alienate people who weren‘t familiar with the sport. I can imagine some readers outside Canada just switching off from it, which would be a shame as I think the way it makes Saul feel, in both positive and negative ways, is really important to his journey. It‘s a reminder that, although similar in some ways, our countries each have cultures of their own. 2d

Kitta I am not a sports person except for gymnastics and I actually loved the hockey part of this, I am Canadian though and familiar with the rules and gameplay which must have helped. I think the intricate detail spent on discussing the hockey was a way for Saul‘s mind to switch off from the abuse and purposely forget about it or ignore it as much as possible. He had to dive into a passion to distract himself. 2d

lauraisntwilder I loved the hockey parts. My son played hockey for years. We're originally from TN and follow the Nashville Predators. This book made me think about former-Pred Jordin Tootoo, the first Inuk player in the NHL, and how he also played for the Blackhawks. (Imagine wearing that jersey.) I also remember watching a game on TV where Boston fans were yelling the n-word at PK Subban. There are still people who think of it as a white man's game. 2d

Jess861 @CarolynM Agree - I can see how the hockey portion could turn off a reader who isn't into hockey or sports because there are so many chapters that are just hockey. But it was critical to the book so hopefully most aren't turned off by it. 2d

Jess861 @lauraisntwilder I remember Jordin Tootoo as well and got to see him play a time or two in Canada. Even though he was a 'fighter' he was quite skilled at the game. 2d

lauraisntwilder @Jess861 In Nashville, fans loved Tootoo. They would bring train whistles to the games, a play on Tootoo rhyming with "choo choo" that I sincerely hope didn't bug him, and they'd blow them whenever he was on the ice. It was a special cheer, just for him. And they continued to do it after he was traded, but came back to play on opposing teams. 2d

DogMomIrene I‘m not a sports person, but I loved the hockey section because it was serving as his escape. I wondered if Fr. Hockey Coach had been abusing him, but thought “why would he let him go?” But when Saul refused to fight, then blew his chance at a pro-career, I knew. That was the most heart-breaking part for me. This beautiful skater who played the game with skill & grace who should have had every hockey success had that ripped from him bc of abuse. 20h

kwmg40 I loved the hockey part. I grew up in Montreal, and my father, a Chinese immigrant, completely embraced the hockey culture (as a spectator if not a player). I grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada every week. In Quebec, it was really a sport for everybody, rich or poor. 9h

11 likes14 comments

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