“Beginning in September of last year, I did nothing else but wait for a man.” And so starts her impassioned account of an affair with a man who consumed her every thought, movement, and desire for months. Living in this suspended reality, in which every second existed for the sole purpose of accelerating time to a moment in the future when she‘d be lost in his presence once more, everything else just faded into the periphery. 5/5⭐️

So what do you do when you‘re already drowning in library books? Go and pick up one more😂🤷🏻‍♀️
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I started this one two nights ago and I‘m loving it. Tommy Orange‘s writing is so lyrical. I could get lost in these pages all day🎶✨ I will say that my first impression is that it reads more like a collection of short stories than a novel, but I‘m hoping all the stories begin to connect soon. Anyone else read this one?🍊🍊🍊

Someone send help. I‘m a library book MONSTER and I need to be stopped😂 I‘m having a hard time deciding which book to read after The Poppy War, which left me with a serious book hangover💀 Do I reach for something similar in genre, sci-fi/fantasy? Or is that just setting myself up for disappointment in the off chance it doesn‘t stack up to The Poppy War? HELP.

Kuang wrote this book as a fantastical retelling of 20th century China to put a spotlight on the gruesome Massacre of Nanjing during the Second Sino-Japanese war. This book is a study on suffering, warfare, and trauma. It is a study on our conception of good versus evil and right versus wrong and at what point these lines become blurred enough that we can‘t separate ourselves from the enemy. 5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I really enjoyed this book. Santa Lora, a small college town, is hit by a mysterious sleeping sickness in which people fall victim to deep, unending sleep. Doctors can‘t figure out the cause or cure and soon the entire town is quarantined. The ending left me with a lot of big questions that I‘d wished she‘d answered to some extent, but overall, I appreciated how she let the story unfold and the existential questions she left burning in my mind.

I loved this book. It‘s a coming of age novel about a young girl trying to navigate middle school, first crushes, new and old friendships, all while the world as she knows it is coming to an end. We‘ve come to rely on perfect 24hr days where sunsets and sunrises are as reliable as the air you breathe, but what if they weren‘t? The Earth‘s rotation is slowing and days are growing longer—but this seemingly small change has catastrophic effects.

Loving this new Faber Stories collection?✨ That infamous Pokémon catchphrase never resonated with me until now because I literally “gotta catch ‘em all” ??? #noshelfcontrol

3.5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
“Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything. You can do anything, but you can‘t fake a thought.”
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Does a thought only translate to reality once we assign action to it? Or are our thoughts the only reality that‘s true? This is a question that is interwoven throughout the book, and takes new forms as the plot evolves. Spine-chilling tension throughout. You have no idea what‘s coming.

Lately I‘ve been reaching for the more understated and unusual books hoping to find a hidden gem in all its dark and twisty glory. Maybe it‘s the winter weather, or maybe it‘s just me. Grad school can do that to a person😂🤷🏻‍♀️ Either way, I‘m hoping to find something deliciously unsettling in this stack👻🖤☠️

This short, searing novella was unlike anything I‘ve ever read. I devoured it in almost one sitting and that‘s really the only way to do it. Let it envelop you. The weirdness, the creepy sense of dread that lurks throughout the novel, the unsettling, and at times disorienting, dialogue between this mysteriously dying woman and a young boy. It all begins with worms and takes a turn from strange to menacing very quickly and unravels from there.

Rooney is the master of capturing the vulnerabilities of love and the terrifying insecurity that follows when opening your heart to somebody; however, I didn‘t feel like I could fully connect with the characters and story-line and felt mostly in the dark regarding any progression the characters were making in the book. Something felt missing, which is hard for me to admit because I was looking forward to this book so much. 3.5/5⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

This book made me question who the real monster in this story was—and even though it‘s been weeks since I finished it, I still find myself thinking about it. If Frankenstein‘s monster was driven to such horrible acts only because of his loneliness brought on by the cruelty and abandonment of man, who is the real monster in this story, Frankenstein‘s creation or man?

This book reminded me of that philosophical question, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”. If one woman‘s loneliness is shielded from the world, and it bears no consequence for anyone but herself, does that mean her sadness doesn‘t exist? This book is a true testament to the crushing weight of unspoken pain and the importance of humanity and kindness—even to those who appear to be completely FINE.

I recently had the pleasure to meet Nana and hear him read an excerpt from his book. When asked what his book was about, he replied:
“Imagine a couch with three people on it. The first person says, ‘man, this is a really comfortable couch.‘ The second person says, ‘yeah, it is.‘ And the third person says, ‘yeah, it is comfortable, but guys, we‘re overlooking that the couch is made of corpses.‘ That‘s what this book is like.”

Frankenstein‘s creature is brought into the world alone, a solitary being whose appearance only sparks hatred and disgust, so he is banished to view the beauties of man from the shadows, never to share in the happiness unfolding around him. The painful depths of loneliness depicted in this book are what struck me the most. You can feel his aching desire to connect with another being and his agonizing despair that accompanies his disappointment.

Hey Litsy fam!✨I‘m in the midst of prepping for my conference in Atlanta next week but wanted to jump on here real quick to share my most anticipated read of 2018—Sally Rooney‘s Normal People💫. I adored Rooney‘s Conversations with Friends earlier this year (possibly my favorite read of the year so far) and I‘ve been putting this one off because I already don‘t want it to end😭 (yes, I‘m extra like that 😂🤷🏻‍♀️)...

Today‘s bookstack is brought you by my university‘s library, and this PhD life📚 I reallyyyy wish I could finish up Frankenstein today (more than half way through and I‘m loving it more than I ever thought🖤), but then adulting happened.
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I‘m presenting research from the second chapter of my dissertation at a conference next week in Atlanta, and while I wish I could just present on all the fun books I‘ve read this semester instead, I can‘t😭.

Happy Halloween Litsy fam!🎃Ray Bradbury, Bram Stoker, Washington Irving, and Mary Shelley—all powerhouse authors delivering Halloween thrills of the most delicious kind. First up for me is to finish Frankenstein! What spooky reads are you reaching for today?👻💀🎃

Originally published in the 1970‘s in Italian, this book was translated into English nearly 40 years later. The city of Turin, where the story takes place, has a dark history in which citizens were tormented by twenty sleepless nights filled with gruesome and inexplicable murders. Ten years later, one man sets out to investigate the terror that gripped this city and soon becomes entangled in the horrors that slowly unravel the secrets of the past.

Happy Thursday y‘all! Most people are TGIF peeps, but I‘m definitely in the TGIT category—mostly because my Thursday ritual includes $1 tacos and 2-4-1 drinks at my fave neighborhood bar (and yes, my boyfriend, best friend, and I are regulars and have been dubbed the “Thursday crew”). But that‘s a different story entirely😂 #thetacoaddictionisreal
Do any of y‘all have weekly rituals that just keep you motivated to get through the week?

Twenty-something year old Frances, an aspiring writer, is painfully uncomfortable in her own skin. Constantly obsessing over her image and identity, she‘s desperately trying to navigate the social world in hopes that the world will search back and reveal to her the person she‘s meant to be. She becomes entangled in a mess of relationships that begin to unravel her deepest pains and insecurities about the kind of person she fears herself to be...

Getting into the Halloween spirit by diving into this classic today 🎃 Anybody have any other good Halloween read recommendations? I‘m feelin spooky👻

Congrats to Anna Burns for winning the Man Booker Prize!!! Well deserved!!💕✨🎉

Still swooning over this beautiful book. Can‘t wait for the Man Booker Prize announcement tomorrow. But first, I wanted to share a piece of beauty from this book. It‘s a lengthy quote so I finish it in the comments below. Never had I ever read a quote about chills running down your spine quite as accurate as Burns‘ description: “At the same time I dismissed a strange bodily sensation that had run the lower back half of my body...

This is a story without names; without place-and yet, has an identity of its own. Middle sister is dating maybe-boyfriend for almost a year when her world begins to unravel as Milkman sets his sights on her. Burns is able to illustrate the claustrophobic, mentally asphyxiating atmosphere that rumors can create within a society to effectively isolate and trap an individual within their own paranoid ideations.

Wild Sunday night🥛Took me a little to get into this one, but now I‘m hooked. Not quite used to stream-of-consciousness writing, but it‘s growing on me. My introverted heart is always drawn to a book with lots of inner dialogue.

Shen fever has consumed the world, but Ma doesn‘t twist this into a brain-eating zombie apocalypse story. Instead, it‘s a melancholic narrative on what it‘s like to get sucked into the mundane routine of daily life in pursuit of the American dream, until your once prized routine leaves you isolated and begins to haunt you in the wake of the world‘s collapse. This book captures the haunting feeling of what‘s its truly like to be alone in the world.

Started off my Sunday with some Severance and coffee. I‘m about 50% of the way through and loving it! It‘s like dystopian fiction meets zombie apocalypse meets millennial satire. Exactly what I needed🖤☕️ #severance #firstpost #getlit