Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
#ManBookerLonglist
review
LadyCait84
All the Little Bird-Hearts | Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
post image
Pickpick

This one wrecked me. It‘s small in scope, but the ache it planted in my chest was big & deep & lingering. Mother/daughter relationships can be hard. So can those with ex-in-laws or new friends. But for Sunday, the novel‘s neurodivergent protagonist, they‘re further complicated by the canyon between who she is & who others want/expect her to be. The hurts & hardships caused by this gully - some accidental, some not - were enough to break my heart.

Graywacke Great review. I‘m not exactly glad you were wrecked 🙂, but glad you were moved! It‘s a terrific book. 2d
44 likes1 comment
blurb
BookNAround
How to Build a Boat | Elaine Feeney
post image

Normally Ozzie won‘t model books for me but he‘s sleepy so I made it happen. 😂

Ruthiella 😻😻😻 3w
dabbe 🖤🐾🖤 3w
AnnCrystal 😘💕😻💝. 3w
57 likes3 comments
review
TheEllieMo
The Spinning Heart | Donal Ryan
post image
Pickpick

I finished this a few days ago, and have been trying to process it since. It‘s another where I don‘t really know what I feel about it. The writing is beautiful, and the way the author creates a that feeling of an undercurrent of tension an Irish town affected by recession is very well done. I recognise that it‘s an excellent book, so it‘s getting a pick. But it‘s not really my “thing” - whatever my “thing” is!🤣

Cathythoughts Great review, I remember loving this one ♥️ (edited) 1mo
27 likes1 comment
review
Tamra
All the Little Bird-Hearts | Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
post image
Pickpick

There is a palpable tension and anxiety that builds in this novel because the MC Sunday seems so vulnerable, though there isn‘t anything explicitly threatening in it. I could feel how Sunday‘s rich inner emotional life conflicted with the flat affect of autism she presented. It was a relief when she quit struggling to conform to social expectations and allowed herself to just be. Worth a reread!

Tamra So interesting that verbal communication is a barrier, but not sign language. Loved that mutually accepting relationship! (edited) 1mo
Aimeesue Verbal communication can be harder, I think, because there are SO many shades of meaning, which change depending on intonation, body language, facial expression, relationships, etc, etc. That takes a lot of processing. ASL can be just as nuanced, but it also isn‘t used as a word-for-word language, so can be easier to grasp the concept/ideas without getting so bogged down on denotative meanings. Often cuts out a lot of the “noise” in communication. 1mo
Tamra @Aimeesue that makes total sense. Thank you! 1mo
Cathythoughts Great review ♥️ I have it stacked. 1mo
59 likes4 comments
review
CarolynM
The Illuminations | Andrew O'Hagan
post image
Pickpick

This has been my handbag book for the past few weeks. Elderly Anne is succumbing to dementia (in a gentle way, so not too confronting) & the truth of her life is on the way to being lost with her memories. Meanwhile her beloved grandson, Luke, is fighting in Afghanistan and losing the last of his illusions about honour & loyalty. The military scenes are far from heroic, but all the more effective for it. Very moving.

BarbaraBB A touching subject 💔 2mo
Cathythoughts Lovely review, stacked. ♥️ 2mo
62 likes2 stack adds2 comments
review
Graywacke
How to Build a Boat | Elaine Feeney
post image
Pickpick

My 10th from the Booker longlist was wonderful! I came in with no expectations and was rewarded with an inspiring story. A novel about an autistic boy who misses the mother he never knew, working out a device for perpetual motion; and a school teacher in a bad marriage exhausted by her dysfunctional all-boys school, yet fully committed to it. A novel of the children of missing parents, some grown, stumbling through life. Recommended! #booker2023

48 likes1 stack add
quote
CarolynM
The Illuminations | Andrew O'Hagan
post image

Too true, I fear ☹️

julesG Guess so. Definitely one of the reasons my son signed up. 3mo
Reggie The guy who does the Talking Scared posits that during the early 2000s every zombie you had to shoot dead in a video game was always a person of color for a reason. 3mo
CarolynM @Reggie I‘m sure he‘s right. It‘s deeply disturbing. 3mo
48 likes3 comments
review
Suet624
post image
Pickpick

This is the second book I‘ve read by Williams & I just can‘t say how much I appreciate his writing. While this novel definitely has a plot and characters I grew to adore, it is the writing, the turn of phrase, the truths that so resonated for me that made this special. There is a brief lull where I wondered where we were going and why, but it didn‘t matter ultimately. It‘s a meandering, extremely Irish, tale - one I was delighted to sit with.

BarbaraBB So glad with this review 🤍 3mo
56 likes1 comment
quote
Suet624
post image

I have lived with this feeling for years!

kspenmoll Ha!!!! 3mo
AmyG I‘m not even Irish and I get it. 😳🤣 3mo
AnnR 😂 3mo
See All 8 Comments
Suet624 @AmyG haha. Yup. 3mo
julesG @AmyG Same! 3mo
batsy @AmyG Yep! 3mo
AnnieMcC “Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy.”
― William Butler Yeats 😏
3mo
Suet624 @AnnieMcC 🤣💕💕 3mo
44 likes8 comments
review
Gleefulreader
The Colony | Audrey Magee
post image
Pickpick

A quiet but challenging book. Two foreigners - a French linguist and an English painter - arrive on a very small Irish-speaking Irish island in the 1970s, each with their own agenda. The story of the island is interspersed with matter of fact paragraphs of incidents from the Troubles. Asks questions about the impact and demands of foreigners on a small community, and how those butt up against the community‘s own needs and desires.