Welcome to Litsy!

Delightful! 5 years after the events of the 1st book, Patrick takes his niece and nephew, Maisie and Grant, on a trip abroad. The final destination is Italy, where their father is getting remarried, but the kids want Patrick to stop the wedding. On the trip, Patrick tries to teach the kids about love, much like he taught them about grief in the 1st book, in the hopes that they will accept this new life change.

#bookspinbingo
#serieslove2025

“The writing is graceful, but as you see, it is discolored, and the pages are covered with water-stains. As for the contents, from the little I have seen, they are mannered exercises. You know how they wrote in that century… People with no soul.”

I'm not particularly enjoying the artwork in this graphic memoir so far, but I did spot an Italy!

#WickedWords @AsYouWish

Ilaria Tuti‘s debut thriller (the first in a trilogy and translated from Italian by Ekin Oklap) draws on an actual event as the basis for this uneven story of child cruelty and village secrets. Battaglia held my interest with her health issues, the hints at previous spousal abuse and her attempts to deal with the onset of Alzheimer‘s but the profiling feels very old-fashioned and her relationship with the under-developed Marini doesn‘t convince.

Next up! #ToF

I couldn't finish it. Too many characters to remember. The narration was at times fluid: Dante Alighieri's adventures occasionally stopped for explanations, descriptions of the places, the landscapes that surrounded him, the customs and traditions. After that the story returned to Dante Alighieri and I was so lost with all those useless explanations, that every time I had to go back several pages to understand where I had left off.

Rereading this book.

Enjoying this book from a debut author I met at Adventures By The Book Superbook 6 in San Diego in March.
A Healer & Herbalist trying to protect her people of Avignon, France from the 1437 Black Plague Provence.

I am finding I love books about Female Healers, Herbalists, & Midwives
#14BooksIn14Weeks

This is my favorite book so far this year. There aren't enough characters to expound on my love, but here's a few highlights:
💛 This has been compared to early Didion and Patti Smith (and I would add Erica Jong), and given the late 1970s setting, this appears deliberate & brilliant.
💛 Kushner plays with pacing to accentuate themes of speed and time. It's fascinating.
💛 There were jaw-droppingly exquisite passages that I had to stop & re-read.