Welcome to Litsy!

In war torn Iraq, a man puts together a creature made of body parts left uncollected after suicide bombings & it goes on a killing spree. It‘s more of a horror story than Shelly‘s novel. The use of Frankenstein in the title is misleading as it‘s thematically totally different. There‘s many interesting characters here but the author doesn‘t know what ones to stay with. It also goes from YA to something very dark. Another book with a naff ending.

The US occupied Iraq from 2003 to 2011 under the pretense that they they were saving the world from weapons of mass destruction. We know now that the US obliged the UN experts to do their dirty work and only when they were certain there was no nuclear weapons in Iraq, they unleashed their military onto the Iraqi population for 8 long years.

With its cast of characters, this examines what drives a man living in a bedouin town into a human bomb.

Alaska Battle of the Books High School list for 2024-2025. I am on maternity leave this semester, but I will help a bit when I‘m back in January before the battles. I am working on Sunrise over Falluja. I‘ve read Old Man and the Sea and Fighter in the Velvet gloves before.

#akbob2425 #battleofthebooks #alaskabattleofthebooks #teachersoflitsy

I am enjoying Robin‘s fresh voice. It‘s almost weird to hear the youth in the voice of an Iraq War soldier since this invasion happened when I was in 5th grade. I think Meyers‘ portrayal of the confusion and lack of knowing even in the soldiers rings true.

#akbob2425 #battleofthebooks #alaskabattleofthebooks

I got the ARC of this from #netgalley, long before it was published in August, but it had mixed reviews so I wasn‘t really tempted. It‘s recently been announced as being one of the BBC Between The Covers books so I picked it up, and absolutely loved it.

It‘s really devastating though so be warned, with some CW. Following 3 different people in different timescales, all linked by water, I loved how it all came together in the end.

This book broke my heart. Brutal and beautiful. A drop of magical realism. Three lives separated in time and place, connected by a drop of water, the Tigris, and the Epic of Gilgamesh. I found it a bit hard to get into the present tense narration, but all three narratives gripped me. (Content warnings, but the most horrific events are off page and there's nothing gratuitous.) I fully expect to see this listed for the Women's Prize next year.

What a book. This is a new to me author and this book is so hard to describe. It's definitely going to be at the top of my favorite books for this year. This is such a good one. One you won't want to put down and you definitely can not just skim through it and understand what is going on.

Full review: https://lsmoore49.blogspot.com/2024/09/there-are-rivers-in-sky-elif-shafak.html

@shafakelif
@aaknopf

When you have the perfect bookmark for a book. 💙

After really enjoying her previous 2 books, I am unsurprised that Shafak‘s latest is terrific. It follows 3 main characters in three different times and thus took me a little time to settle in, but I was absolutely rewarded for doing so. The storylines are all equally compelling and I had so much empathy for each of these characters. And I loved how she used water to show how truly connected we all are. Just superb.

The setting of this Poirot murder mystery is very interesting. I was always thinking that the surrounding of a dig must be eerie sometimes with all the okd artefacts and opening graves. And archeologiats are quite peculiar people. But the some points of the story seemed implausible to me - like the murderer and the weapon that was used.