Welcome to Litsy!

This book was so frustrating. I wanted to know how it was going to end, but I was also so put out with the characters‘ choices. Joe might be an absolute jerk, but nothing he did would have been possible without her enabling him. I‘m not someone who needs likable characters to enjoy the book, but for me, the plotting was slow and the resolution left me cold. Based on Joe‘s actions, I couldn‘t figure out any real motivation for Joan‘s choices.

Checking off another one from the “self-help” list I found. I actually thought this one had some really great information of how to keep love strong after the honeymoon. Focused to married couples, but I saw he has some others focused on singles, for teens and for giving love to kids. My only complaint is it seemed a bit antiquated with a lot of examples of stay-at-home wives ironing, cooking and cleaning for their hard working husbands.

This author can really write! I love her stories, the secrets and surprises seep out of the pages and the meanings are never crystal clear. In this book, the narrator lives her quiet, routine life with her family until she starts receiving pages from her diary of 20 years ago, pages she hasn‘t thought about in all this time. It‘s a mystery and a character study, each of equal importance.

Loved this! For those who havent read this, it‘s a novel told in a series of thoughts. You‘re reading this woman‘s thoughts and figuring out that she is entering a relationship, starting a job, struggling with anxiety etc. Its a format that could lose the reader, if the thoughts and fragments werent so beautifully crafted and sharply insightful. Some of the metaphors Offill came up with felt very new and superbly apt. ⬇️

#ScavengerHunt #HauntedShelf #Boots
@BookwormAHN #BlackCatCrew

An Austrian housewife, estranged from her husband and kids, keeps herself busy by tidying the house. One day, she receives her own diary entries from 20 years earlier, sent anonymously by mail.
These entries transport her back to a time away from her family, and the reader gradually learns more about why. But this is Marlen Haushofer, the author of the enigmatic The Wall—and this book is just as mysterious. Perhaps even more so.

#Gladstones25

I'm not 100% sure I caught everything that was going on there, and yet, it was understood. For the most part. The structure is very unusual, but I was relieved by how short it was.

Safe bet - I‘m either that or reading…sometimes both!

Well, I tried. I had a really hard time relating to the relentless onslaught of the narrative. I felt like I was a therapist, and I was simply reading a transcript of sessions of a woman in an unhappy marriage. As a child of divorced parents, it did make me think a bit, but mostly the book just tired me out. I needed more shape and direction. #TOB2025