pick4.5/5
This memoir-novel is a slap in the face. The author recounts her childhood and teenage years in Russia. It's not pretty... Quite sad, and aggravating. Sexual violence is omnipresent, the writing style is direct, uncompromising. We feel for the author, but despite it all, she managed to add some humor in her book. The daughter-mother dynamic is also quite interesting. I'm always impressed by authors divulging so much about their trauma.
#KindredSpiritsChristmas buddy read starts today!
“…you can't preach much good into a boy if he‘s got an aching void in his stomach. Fill *that* up with tasty victuals, and then you can do something with his spiritual nature. If a boy is well stuffed with good things and then won‘t listen to advice, you might as well stop wasting your breath on him, because there is something radically wrong with him. Probably his grandfather had dyspepsia.” ⤵️
so-soBookclub pick. I enjoy short stories as a genre but I wasn‘t bowled over by the tagged collection. There is a nice arch to it and there are a couple of stories in the first half I got into. Overall though, the group discussion was more edifying than the actual reading.
In the pictured complete collection of Hemingway stories I reread “A Clean Well Lighted Place” and it is 5⭐️.
This story was kiddo‘s latest school reading, and I read it to her because she struggled with The Purloined Letter‘s dense writing. She‘s been unimpressed with Poe in general, and really disliked the beginning of this one.
Today we finished it, and I wish I had a picture of her face when the solution was revealed! 😤 She was LIVID, absolutely disgusted with the way it worked out.
I spent some time on explaining its importance 👇🏻
I received my #Yuleseasonswap package also today from @BookwormAHN and holy stamps lol.
pickThrough mostly fiction short stories, different authors evoke rurality, mainly growing up in a small town or in the countryside.
I love discovering new voices, and this collection does a great job when it comes to diversity.
At the end, each contributor wrote about their own experiences growing up in small towns. The only thing I would have added is their age, some stories are harder to date than others (relevant for seeing how things change)
We‘re starting the #KindredSpiritsChristmas buddy read on Saturday! I‘ll post daily with quotes or thoughts about each story, and links to read online when applicable. If you‘re not tagged but you‘d like to be, just let me know. 😊
The first story is “The Genesis of the Doughnut Club,” a Thanksgiving tale that‘s actually NOT in the tagged collection. It can be found here: https://www.online-literature.com/lucy_montgomery/1907-1908/17/
Jerdencon, JenlovesJT47, AnneCecilie, Born.A.Reader, lauraisntwilder, monalyisha, sblbooks, TheAromaofBooks, julieclair
roaring good times to
be had by all — sequins, feathers
and little glass balls.
#haikuhive #haikuaday #poetry #flapper #roaringtwenties #Christmas
I'm definitely looking forward to reading my #BookSpin, but with the way my life has been going lately, I'm not sure about my #DoubleSpin, The Darkest Night. I've already finished the first book on my December list, Enid Blyton's Christmas Stories, and I'm hoping to get at least one #BookSpinBingo this month, even if I don't manage to finish both books.
