Welcome to Litsy!

DeWitt's debut was grim and grotty.

If you like books where people take lots of drugs and alcohol and poop themselves - and you've already read Trainspotting - then this might be for you, but it wasn't really my cup of tea.

Reasonable writing, but no redeemable characters and written in the second person, which should never be attempted.

Read his other stuff instead.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Rae's number one rule of how not to be pretentious when writing a novel is:

NEVER use the second person!

Someone should probably also tell Rae that referring to oneself in the third person can be just as annoying 🤣🤣

I enjoyed this intimate look at the “peak of the storm“ of a couple's marriage set within the backdrop of an actual winter storm. It definitely has the atmosphere of time stopping a chance to pause and reflect, which they do with multiple flashbacks. I didnt mind the shifting in POV especially because the narrators changed for the audio. I liked and understood most of the subplots but maybe not Tripp's?

Okay, I liked this book overall. I liked the chopping and changing between Jess and Mal, and how it biased whom I had empathy or sympathy with. But the subplots were odd. I'm not sure they were really necessary?
Good ending too.

I missed a full Bingo by about 75 pages. 😬 There's always this month!

This story was so relatable to me. Like Jess, I'm a lawyer in my early 40s. We even have the same maiden name! And though my issue wasn't necessarily infertility, my husband and I wanted kids but it didn't happen for us for other reasons, and we both had to process that and grieve the what could have beens in our own way and time, and that puts a strain on a marriage. Keane writes beautiful novels with such realistically flawed characters.

I‘m posting one book a day from my massive collection. No description, no reason for why I want to read it (some I‘ve had so long I don‘t even remember why!). Feel free to join in!

#ABookADay2024

Oof, this is a tough review to write as it‘s very close to home. Keane writes about the world I grew up in and it‘s almost eerie how familiar it is. My dad has been a Queens bar owner my whole life and she really nabs the challenges of the restaurant industry, down to its shady dealings and side hustles. Even more personally, she captures the desolation of IVF and its impact on relationships in a way I haven‘t read before. Highly recommend. #botm

So torn! I found the writing here compelling but for the first half of the book was just epically frustrated by Jess and Malcolm - a married couple who didn‘t seem to communicate at all - then I realised despite myself I had been drawn in and raced to the end ! Book 4 for #outstandingoctober @Andrew65

This book sat on my shelf for ages. I had the mistaken impression it was a man's grim journey of alcoholism. I could not have been more wrong. This memoir cover his father's abandonment, his mother's courage, his family - a cast of odd and scary characters - and Uncle Charley, a bartender at a very special bar, who takes him under his wing at a very young age and introduces him to men who care for him over the years. (continued...)