Welcome to Litsy!

Huge fan of this world and the characters. A princess I could actually relate to. Odessa isn't super clever or a skilled fighter. She's a normal girl (plus a crown) who likes to read. Yes, the guardian is attractive and rude, but his back story was unique, so still points for breaking the romantasy mold. I will absolutely be reading the next book. I might even go wild and pre-order it.

#gottacatchemall: set somewhere dangerous

I didn't care for James Franco's narration of the audiobook, but otherwise I loved the story. It's hard not to think about today's politics when reading this book, though it was written over 45 years ago.

#52bookclub (more than a million copies sold)
#gottacatchemall (Smeargle: graffiti style font)

That‘s pretty much a wrap on May! How are we all doing? #GottaCatchemAll

I think I‘ve hit all my easy prompts and now I‘m looking for books to fill them 😅

I know a couple of you haven‘t been logging month by month (which is fine) so I‘ll do a mid-year post in June and see how many books have been logged overall

I had mixed feelings about this one. It was super engaging and I could hardly put it down while I was reading it. But the whole explanation/plot twist at the end just didn't really work for me. I don't know what I wanted, but it wasn't what I got 😂 A soft pick. I liked it, but don't see myself rereading it later.

I actually really love the book Bambi and have read it and its sequel (Bambi's Children) several times. So I was excited to randomly come across another reprint of one of Salten's works. I had never heard of this one, although by reading GR reviews I discovered that it was apparently the (incredibly loose) inspiration for DIsney's The Shaggy Dog. Sadly, this book was a huge disappointment. First off, it's plain boring. Set during the Renaissance ⬇

Now that I'm down to only a handful of years to read to complete the #192025 challenge, I've turned to my shelves to see if I can fill any gaps. This slim story by Grace Livingston Hill checked of 1946, plus got an unread book off my shelf!! It's a perfect pleasant little story - Aunt Marilla is adorable - but too short to really build any kind of tension or actual romance between the two main characters. A soft pick, but one I won't reread.

The story of Anne's daughter, this novel describes in realistic detail the lives of Canadians during WWI. Despite the heavy themes, this story still has plenty of charm and humour. I especially liked reading about the 1917 federal election as we were going through the 2025 federal election.

#KindredSpiritsBuddyRead #LMMReread @BarbaraJean
#52bookclub25 (Has a moon on the cover)
#gottacatchemall (Emolga: cute character) @PuddleJumper

Nominated for the 2025 #hugoawards Best Novella, this story is about a scientist whose digitized consciousness is uploaded into a mammoth, brought back from extinction. An indubitably weird but intriguing concept.

#52bookclub25 (climate fiction)
#gottacatchemall (Goodra: character discovers they have powers) @PuddleJumper

This novel, a mix of horror and romance, was nominated for the 2025 #hugoawards Best Novel. This story, despite its creativity, didn't really work for me. I found it hard to relate to the main character, who is so gentle, delicate and understanding with the human she loves but otherwise happily chomps on the body parts of humans she doesn't.

#gottacatchemall (Spinda: character with distinguishing marks) @PuddleJumper

Published in 1980, only four years after Belenko's escape from Russia (and well before the fall of the Berlin Wall), this book was quite fascinating. Belenko actually had more or less the ideal situation in Russia as the MiG-25 pilots were highly valued and treated well (by Soviet standards). Reading about his slow recognition of the cognitive dissonance between what he was being taught about his country vs the west and what he could actually ⬇