This is an excellent conversation starter and a compelling read. I did feel that a lot of problematic ideas were left unchallenged (which is fine if you are aware of the counterarguments already) and that it could have done with a bit more meat.

Still, it's a provocative, shape shifting narrative that spirals out in an exploration of the zeitgeist and capitalist system. Worth reading if you like social commentary in your contemporary fiction.

https://youtu.be/irRbCL-8Jw4?feature=shared

I've started my series of book reviews and discussions on my channel.

This is the first one for Audition 🩷

First part is spoiler-free, then I flag up when I'm going to get into the nitty gritty.

Even though, frustratingly, I confidently predicted the main twist, I still love Ruth Ware's thrillers and can't wait to read absolutely all of them. There was plenty of atmosphere here, but the predictability and unnecessary jumping back and forth in time made me lean towards a 3⭐️ rather than a 4⭐️ rating.

Decent, but not as good as the Woman in Cabin 10.

I love the Indonesian cover (pictured)

Hannah Setzer has so much more zest for life than I do.

Not only is she running her business, leading community projects, bringing up 4 foster sons and influencing folks to work out and move their bodies in an intentional way, but on top of all that, she has put together this book on what it's like to do all this while being constantly challenged by a world that isn't great at accommodating difference.

Fab perspective. Well worth reading.

Too many tabs open in my brain. I'm already reading most of these 😅

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

https://youtu.be/dH_aKtTXxRs?feature=shared

Some more VERY SERIOUS JOURNALISM 🧐

Camp Litsy fans will be chuffed that Audition made it onto the Longlist 🩷

Will this be the month that I do #roll100 successfully?

Or will this be like every other month where I diligently avoid the list and mood read random stuff instead?

These are all high priority reads so maybe I shall do it 👀

https://youtu.be/aBhhwndNOJc?feature=shared

I've seen a few of you guys predicting the Booker Longlist. Here is my contribution!!!! 😁

I need to learn to click bait my videos a bit more...

YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE NUMBER 13 lol

Actually you probably won't believe number 13, but I'm kind of only sort of serious haha.

Excited for the announcement next week 👀

So I've just found out that the HRCYED prompt for reading a book within 60 days of its release is not just one book but one book for EVERY MONTH OF THE YEAR!!!!!!!!

Gaaaaaahhhhhhhh.

Good job I've already started this then, isn't it?

Now to Google "really short books released this year"....

Some passionate art-thusiam 🩷

Overblown similes aside this was a lovely book about appreciating all sorts of different art.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was absolutely crap.

I've just spent an hour explaining why on Goodreads, but I'm contemplating deleting my review because it isn't at all tactful.

Seriously though, it's not often that I get this salty over a book.

⭐️

One star

https://youtu.be/hEzxT-BHNPU?feature=shared

Made an A to Z of fiction!

It took far too long to make because I spent hours editing, the file got corrupted and I had to start ALL OVER AGAIN.

So please enjoy 😅😅😅

This was pretty good.

I can't review it properly because SECRET PROJECT UPCOMING 🔥🔥

I've heard that this will no longer be a trilogy and is now a completed duology.

I can't explain why this enrages me so much??? Why am I bothered? The story is complete, apparently, just in fewer volumes.

It still feels wrong!!!!!!!!

Ooh! Look what else appeared! And can you spot another Rae addition? (The Safekeep was already there haha)

Guess who got to live vicariously and do some ordering for their friends' bookshop 💃💃💃💃💃

NEW EXPANDED CRIME & MYSTERY SECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few of these were already there, but a load of these are Rae Specials 😁😁😁

Great talk today - saw Laura Shepherd-Robinson and Essie Fox talk about their new books!

Can't wait for The Art of a Lie because I LOVED the Square of Sevens (recommended to me by @julesG )

🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍🍍

Went to see the amazing Yael van der Wouden this evening.

She is a huge Miranda July fan for all you All Fours enthusiasts!

The pictures of me are all terribly unflattering, but here we are 😄

I want to thank you all for your messages on my last post about Pickles.

I would like to share a very unpolished poem that I wrote about her. It was written straight out into my notes app on my phone, and it captures how I felt in the moment.

I don't usually post poetry anywhere, but I've shared so many memories with Pickles over the years, so if anyone was going to appreciate this tribute it would be my Litsy family 🩵

(Floors = floofs)

Today we said goodbye to Pickles.

This is a very difficult post to make because I don't feel I can do justice to how much I loved this smol furry menace 🩷

I know so many of you loved her too 🩵

I'll miss you, baby. You were so special.

Kind of like if Donna Tartt had tried to write American Pie.

The Virgin Suicides was a brilliantly written novel about a family of young women who captured the imagination of the boys in their neighbourhood.

Looking back, the boys try to piece together what led to their self destruction.

Definitely fetishises the girls and their sadness, but still a very good book that draws parallels with the rot and decay of their American way of life.

https://youtu.be/f8gQAkA1bho?feature=shared

My haul from London and Tunbridge Wells!!!!

Went to London.
Came back with a few books!
Not as many as @Branwen hehehe, but still a hefty haul 🥰🥰

This is my second Sager and it was a like not a love again. I don't know what is missing, but there's something that stopped this from reaching the next level of compulsive readability.

Having said that, this book DID manage to creep me out better than any other book this year. There's a lot of off-camera stuff that managed to rattle me more than the average thriller.

Good, but not incredible.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

https://youtu.be/UzS1f5gbt60?feature=shared

Anyone else planning to do HRCYED????!!!!!

I signed up. Because I can't get enough of reading challenges 😅

Still being stripy in the sunshine 💕

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

Hated it. Sorry.

I've posted a long rant on Goodreads, but don't read it if you loved the book.

⭐️⭐️

Sleeping in the sunshine 💕

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

https://youtu.be/za9u6uC3GyE?feature=shared

I've taken part in a COLLABORATION VIDEO on YouTube 🥰🥰🥰

We read this charming little book and vlogged about it together!!!!!!

This video is on my friend Rachel's channel, but we will each be hosting an episode.

Also, CONGRATULATIONS to The Safekeep for winning the Women's Prize for Fiction 2025!

This book is special.

Eerie, erotic, moving, unsettling... it was one of my absolute favourites of last year and I'm thrilled to bits that it won 🥰

When I first started this, I was CONVINCED I would hate it. The patronising, over-explained writing, the first world problems, the incessant weather descriptions, the whole world doting on Lucy Barton...

And yet... I genuinely do think I'm getting into it.

Normally I hate a tacked-on murder mystery, but it's actually nice to be reading something gentle for a change.

Sorry if I've been spamming you all with review videos lately, but if you're interested in a more thorough discussion of Fundamentally, I tried to capture my thoughts in this video:

https://youtu.be/g8UTKTEjYIM?feature=shared

It is spoiler-free and one of those books that I really do think deserves a wide readership.

Expect dark humour.

Pickles thanks you for all the well wishes, and wants you to know that she is still a fierce tabby tiger! 🥰🥰

Pickles update. Unfortunately, Pickles has a large mass up her nose that there's not much the vets can do about. She has been rapidly going downhill. She can't hear very much, she's wobbly and her nose is blocked.

She still enjoys the sunshine and getting fussed, and she's fine with her new diet of gourmet mousse and Lick-e-lix, but it still breaks my heart.

I love her so much and we're just taking each day as it comes.

#picklescat

https://youtu.be/YOYkqdVEbXk?feature=shared

Who will win the Women's Prize today????

I JUST RECORDED FOR 50 MINUTES. THEN WHEN I WATCHED THE VIDEO BACK MY MIC HAD SWITCHED OFF 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

So I had to do it all over again but EVEN MORE TIRED.

And now it's 2am and I need to edit them so can post on time before Women's Prize announcement.

On the plus side I think I was a lot less rude about some of the books the second time 🤣🤣

Incredible.

Fundamentally is a scathing indictment of bureaucracy that tackles some big themes and poses some big questions.

It lampoons both the system and the individuals that make it up. It's Kafkaesque, morally grey, and satirical in a way that's exaggerated enough for it to be funny, but close enough to be horribly heart sinkingly plausible in its characterisations & depictions of corruption.

And yet, the ending... [see comments]

Just a sample of the writing and commentary offered in this book that tackles rehabilitation of women who joined ISIS.

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView 😊

1) No idea! They just seem to keep arriving. Sometimes multiple copies. Someone yeeted the tagged book over my fence the other day. No recollection of ordering it! (Cool cover though)

2) Both. All the books. Probably preorder more standalones... a lot of the series' I'm reading have been completed and I'm working my way through already.

https://youtu.be/vH2yG0gR788?feature=shared

I turned the challenge into a video @liz_m

#14booksin14weeks

I thought this was awesome.

After reading, I went on Goodreads and the reviews made me think I'd read it wrong!

If you've read it and you've got me on GR please read my spoilery thoughts and let me know what you think.

Because I wasn't confused until I read what others had to say!

I'm Vinting again if any UK folks want to check out my Vinted profile.
Plan on uploading more stuff in future too.

https://www.vinted.co.uk/member/220756078-raewatts

This may not be the most popular offering on the Women's Prize shortlist, but I really enjoyed this entertaining family drama.

The Persians tells the stories of three generations of women ranging from the outrageously rich to the determined and revolutionary. We are taken from Iran in the 1940s to New York in the 2000s.

The characters are flawed and it took me a while to warm to them, but in the end I found a lot to like.

Soft pick.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs 😊
Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView 💕

1) Don't say pizza and naps. Don't say pizza and naps. Don't say pizza and naps.
I think the most important thing in the world is connection to others. Reading On the Calculation of Volume really drove this point home.

2) 😅📚🍑

3) It was probably something really juvenile like a fart 🤣🤣

@The_Penniless_Author @CBee Yours?

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

1) No, absolutely not. There is simply too much variety and diversity. It's impossible to encapsulate all the rich perspectives and experiences out there.

That doesn't mean we can't try!

2) The tagged is very Millennial and interestingly is based on a book that set about to encapsulate the 60s through a study of objects and a couple. I've not read it, but I'd be interested to know how much this one reflects it.

Let's make June a perfect reading month!

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Heart Lamp is a worthy winner of the International Booker Prize 2025.

Translated from Kannada, this is a collection of short stories centring the lives of Muslim women in India.

Most of them are splendid and showcase not only a warm writing talent, but also the layers of pain and hardship suffered in a patriarchal society.

There were only two that I felt lacked a point or direction.

Contemplative, human, heart-breaking.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This one was special.

All the stars 😭💕

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I'm conflicted.

The writing is great. Sharp and subversive. Lots of social commentary. Centres trans experiences. Some amusing moments.

But I struggled to root for the characters because they were all so very selfish, and showed such little regard for each others' feelings and needs.

Made me miserable in the same way that All Fours and The Pisces did.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I'm only 2 stories in, but they've both been brilliant so far.