😬 This book is bloody terrifying! So brutal in so many ways! I haven‘t been able to stop thinking about it. Who is the monster exactly? The fifth child Ben or the mother, the family or society? It also made me think about motherhood and how you are damned if you do and damned if you don‘t. Someone always suffers. The depictions of the pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding of Ben made me feel really squeamish 🤮
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Another comfort read from Anne Patchett. This was lovely. 🥰

This book rips your heart out! Again and again, and again. I realised as I was reading it that I had read it before, but it must have been when I was a teenager I think. I couldn‘t remember most of it but it seemed familiar. Anyway brilliant book showcasing the best and worst of humanity. It was never going to end well. 😭

Thank you sooooooooo much @Meshell1313 for this thoughtful and gorgeous gift. It made my day brighter! Litsy people are the best people! I‘m excited to use it all ♥️♥️♥️

This was a soft pick and I do think it was a case of me and not the book. I would usually love this kind of book but my life is so crazy busy at the moment that I feel like I just couldn‘t concentrate and give this book the attention it needed. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

We are so blessed to have Litsy in our world! I‘m in Melbourne for my daughter‘s 25th so we decided to meet up, in person! We met at a bar and played ‘Drag Queen bingo!‘ It was a lovely night. ♥️
@CarolynM @thegirlwiththelibrarybag @LeeRHarry

This was excellent! I read and listened to Meryl Streep read it (she is so good!). A family stuck together during the pandemic, looking back at the past. I loved the couple of weeks we were locked down together, my boys with me 24/7. I chose my cloud oodie as the backdrop of this photo as somewhere in the book they are lying on the grass in the cherry orchard looking up at the clouds and deciding if they are ducks or rabbits. ⬇️

Made me snort laugh! 🤣

I want to shout out to everyone to read this book! I hope it gets a wider audience. I really loved it! It‘s a serious book that really makes you feel but oh did it make me laugh! I thought it was perfect. What an achievement for a debut novel! Well done Nadine 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Thanks for putting it on my radar @MrsMalaprop
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#Ozfiction at its best!

This book is like life. So many things at once. Devastatingly sad and messy but so joyous too. I‘m blessed to have friends who are my family. LOVED this book! 💙🩵💛

I listened to this. My latest bookclub book. I haven‘t read a modern crime novel in a while and this was a pleasant surprise! I was reminded of my time as a police officer. The good and the bad. It also made me laugh.
#Ozfiction

Go Jane! Go Jane! Jane was bloody fierce for her time! She was a strong, smart, independent woman. Just how we like them! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book was a surprise. The writing style was very poetic and emotive. It is a beautiful story of love between two young black artists in London. But it is also a story about trauma. I loved all the references to music and found that listening to them on Spotify enhanced my reading experience. Likewise I googled some artists and investigated their work. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was lovely, funny, warm, fuzzy and wholesome and I loved it! Kindness is so underrated! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I did a bad, bad thing! 🤣 Wants, not needs. But I don‘t care! Retail therapy at its best! ♥️

Dalton really knows how to pull on your heart strings, even if most of the plot is far fetched.
I do feel like he romanticises homelessness and the writing is let down by him trying to include too many facts about these issues so therefore it comes across as not genuine conversation. #Ozfiction ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
It will make another great tv series, and I couldn‘t help but think that‘s exactly what he was thinking when he mentions Nicole Kidman etc

I listened to this but I will be buying a physical copy. This book made me move between two emotions. Rage and despair. How is it that it‘s 2024 and we still have such inequality for women. Half the population! This fight is so exhausting! More men reading books like this would be a start! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really enjoyed this. It was refreshing to read something so original. Wren and Lewis have just gotten married when Lewis receives the diagnosis that within a year he will mutate into a great white shark. You would be forgiven for thinking that this is a horror story but It‘s actually a tender story of love and sacrifice. You could also presume to think that this is a silly story but it‘s actually very astute. ♥️ 🦈
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Stories like this one, told by a Goorie author about our colonial history are so important. I was deeply moved by the end. 🖤💛❤️ #Ozfiction
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The main character Lise is batshit crazy! I was curious where this book would end up but sadly I didn‘t become emotionally attached to the characters. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love a good end of the world story and this one didn‘t disappoint. Thoroughly engrossing. I can now watch the tv series adaption ‘Silo‘. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#TLT @dabbe
I would love to re read books but I have too many new ones to discover!
3 books that I have read more than once (actually 4🤣)
Harry Potter series
Are you there god it‘s me Margaret
Goldfinch
Jasper Jones

Thanks for the tag @MrsMalaprop

Want to join in @thegirlwiththelibrarybag ?

👏🏻🎉💛 Congratulations @Meshell1313 you were picked by the randomiser! Thank you for sharing the memory of your friend with me. Please send me your details so I can post you two books from your tbr.
#Missmydad
nerissalee44@gmail.com

I soooooo wanted to LOVE this book! I had such high expectations and I think that was the problem, It just didn‘t live up to all the hype for me. Something just didn‘t quite work. But I did enjoy it more as it went along. ⭐️⭐️⭐️

School book club pick. ⭐️⭐️⭐️ It‘s a pick but only just. This was way too long and I found myself thinking ‘Really?!‘ quite a bit. #Ozfiction

It‘s been almost a year since my Dad passed away and to celebrate his memory I am doing a giveaway!
This was my Dads favourite book. Growing up I remember seeing this book on my parent‘s bookshelf. I loved being able to discuss it with him when I finally read it. To enter just share a book that reminds you of anyone in the world, and why. #MissmyDad ♥️
I will gift 2 books from someone‘s TBR list using a number randomizer. Picked March 22nd.

Madness! This book was just bloody good fun! I laughed a lot! So many fantastic quotes. A joy from beginning to end and so clever! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I‘m hearing ya Brian! I totally agree! 🧡

Bookclub book.
Did I like Yasmin? No I didn‘t, but there was a lot to like in this book. I was certainly invested in the story, there was so much going on. ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

This book had me thinking all the way through, run! No stay! No run! No stay! What a moral dilemma Dana faced as a slave. Protect myself or protect others? This book is brutal, some of the themes were so hard to read but it‘s a must read. A time travelling historical novel set in 1815 in the Antebellum South. In an interview Butler said ⬇️

HALLELUJAH! A book this good, that I am only just discovering now! I had to see what all the fuss was about after @MrsMalaprop raved about this and talking with several students at school who have read it for their yr 12 English literature class. It gives me hope for the future when our kids can connect with such a classic.
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This was PERFECT! How can something so short convey so much? I am in awe of Claire Keegan. Her sentences are beautiful but so precise. I am going to gush about her and this book to anyone who will listen. The world needs more foster families like the Kinsella‘s. More humans with heart. Kindness is undervalued in our world but not in this book.
Apparently there is a film adaptation, The quiet girl. Hopefully I can find it to watch.
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My school bookclub book.
The parachute 🪂 says it all!

🩸 🔪 This book is brutal! Not for the squeamish!
1 woman kills her husband, 3 women cut up the body and get rid of it. And from there the fun and games begin. There were some great twists in this book. I loved it except for the ending. I had a huge issue with that! 🤮
Why hasn‘t this been made into a movie?

🎧 Very informative and unbiased ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

This book reminded me of how in nature when there is a bird who is different or injured, so then all the other birds gang up on it and peck it to death. That‘s how I felt poor Sunday was treated by everyone around her, including her daughter Dolly. I had a sense of dread throughout waiting for Sundays heart to be smashed to pieces and mine with it. The hospital scene with her mother made me sob it was so brutal and cruel. It was refreshing to ⬇️

So small yet so mighty! 💪🏼
Loved it!

#top23of23 Top 9 NON-FICTION
@BarbaraBB @Cinfhen

#top23of23 Top 16 FICTION
Yep, I‘m late! @BarbaraBB @Cinfhen
I read 46 books this year and listened to 18. Very happy with that.

A fantastic start to my holidays! Reading by my friends pool (yes I did swim!) and eating fairy bread!
This is my book club book. It‘s a short, quiet, reflective read. It‘s a book about a 6 year old girl and her grandmother over one summer on an island. Not much really happens but it‘s beautiful and atmospheric. I hope to one day have grandchildren of my own who I can ramble around with in nature just enjoying life and each others company.

This book 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I‘m always trying to educate my 2 sons so that they will be good men. Allies to ALL women, not just the women they ‘know‘. Books like this one are so important to this journey.
I took my 2 sons and their 2 friends away for Christmas and gifted them all this book. 🤞🏼Fingers crossed they actually read it!

I‘m going to miss Tom Kettle, what a lovely man. A man who had suffered more brutality, trauma and heartbreak in his life than any man should. Yet despite this he was able to appreciate the joy of his family and was able to love them fiercely. Kettles mind is muddled because of this trauma (PTSD) and possibly dementia so the story goes back and forth between memories, realities and dreams. I liked the fact that this wasn‘t a standard detective ⬇️

Fascinating! This book went down many rabbit holes. “It all would be so ridiculous- if it weren‘t so serious.” I wasn‘t sure if I should laugh or cry over so much of this book. It nailed the world we are living in, where so many of us have no commonsense. I have admiration for Klein who has been mercifully mistaken, mocked and hounded for another‘s ideals, yet she can still show empathy to her doppelgänger. She deals with it all with such grace.

Whoa, this book is so much more than it appears. Like the Tardis! The author‘s descriptions of Elena‘s Parkinsons were harrowing, the anguish of everyday tasks. The dispair of loosing a child. There is so much to say about this book but it‘s too hard without spoilers. I can see why it got so much Litsy love!

@Centique Christmas just keeps on giving!
Thank you for this generous gift! Thank you for your friendship.
I can‘t wait to read these books! I got back from my little trip away to find I had a parcel! Litsy people are the best people! ♥️💚🤩🎄⭐️😘🥰🙏🏻👏🏻

#aussiesecretsanta
@thegirlwiththelibrarybag

Thanks so much @CarolynM for my gifts! The mug with my name on is very cool! The scarf is divine, I can‘t wait to wear it somewhere and show it off! I love the books, all 3 of them! So spoilt! I just love everything. Merry Christmas Aussies, have a fabulous day! ♥️💚

I am a huge Streisand fan so this book didn‘t disappoint! What a phenomenal talent! I systematically worked through her movies (again) when I had Covid. I love that she is committed to various causes like climate change. So sad I never got to see her sing! I read and listened to this. It was a real treat to have her read her own book.

Awwwww @Reggie I must say when I got your card it really made my day. I won‘t go into why but just having someone write to me, to take the time to share their world with me, it really means a lot. Litsy is such a special place. I am so grateful for the friends I have made here. ♥️ The book arrived a few days later, thank you!

Yeah baby! Merry Christmas to meeeeeeee!
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Thanks @CarolynM for my #aussiesecretsanta
I‘m so excited to open it!

@thegirlwiththelibrarybag @LeeRHarry @MrsMalaprop @Freespirit @LapReader @Lizpixie @Teresereading @Jhullie @kathy88

This is my first Didion and I wish that it wasn‘t. I felt like it was all over the place and at times very hard to follow but I‘m thinking that someone suffering with acute grief would probably behave like this. But I think I‘m struggling with this because she is considered such an accomplished writer. I felt that it was quite often too vague where her daughter was concerned, especially when she was an adult. ⬇️