Welcome to Litsy!

This is my March 2020 recap!

Between pick & a so-so for me. The MC becomes a father and a widow within two weeks. The story moves between current day as he grieves & adjusts to father hood, & the past ten years of his relationship with the mother of his child. An exploration of love, grief, loss and hope among several key relationships, it‘s overall an engaging story. However, between unnecessary plot distractions and an inability to connect with the MC, I can only give 3 ⭐️

I stayed with it for about 150 pages and I just couldn‘t do it any longer. The free-form writing, no quotation marks and the way he skips from present to past tense made me feel like I had to work to read it. It became a drag.

Oh! Only on page 7 but the free-form writing and no quotation marks on the dialogue may be way too much for this gal‘s brain. 🧠 Sister the cat agrees!

I generally stick to young adult but I‘ve heard good things about this book and as a huge fan of Swedish author, Fredrik Backman.... I‘m excited for another dose of that Swedish passion.

The frenetic pace of this has me just about out of breath! I can‘t imagine how disorienting it is to have your partner suddenly fighting for her life and delivering your daughter prematurely when less than 48 hours prior, everything was fine.

This autobiographical novel is a bit tough to read due to its subject of grief & loss as well as the free-form writing style--long sentences & paragraphs, abrupt switches between past & present, no quotations for dialogue, etc. -but the story & the emotional tug are real so it's worth the effort to get into the rhythm of the writing. Paired with homemade muesli inspired by the book for my blog book tour review. Link to review & recipe below. 📚👍

1. Max 🐱
2. Going on 14 years-ever since a coworker showed me his pic & told me I needed him.😻
3. He's a quirky cat with a major foot fetish. He's very vocal & will have entire conversations with me or anyone he likes who talks to him & he has a crooked tail-genetic in some Hawaii cats. 😼
4. I don't know who's been tagged so if you haven't & want to play, consider yourself tagged.
Mahalo for tagging me @Annl 😀#petsandpaperbacks

Over-ambitious library haul. They all look so good!

Tonight's dinner--my version of a Yumm! Bowl from Cafe Yumm in Oregon & Washington--wild rice, black beans, avocado, tomatoes, olives, Yumm sauce, green onions & a hardboiled egg. Served in a big bowl so I can mix it all together with the sauce. Really good.😋 Starting this #ARC tonight for a blog book tour next week--it sounds like I will need plenty of tissues. 😢😥😭

#NetGalley ARC: The first third of this book was heart-wrenching. The rest was good but didn't have the same level of emotion and as hard to follow at times due to the formatting and the jumping between memories and the present without clear transitions, which will hopefully be fixed by the time this is released.

I'm excited to read this, but I have a feeling it's going to be a tearful one.

A new translation of an international bestseller by a Swedish poet and musician, called the most powerful work of fiction ever written about grief. I'm in! (Goodreads says it won't be published in English until next year, but it is already available, at least from Book Depository…)

https://www.hodder.co.uk/books/detail.page?isbn=9781473640023

My third book for the #BookishOlympics. This is a sad story, with quite dense writing. Nothing I read these days has normal dialogue! The narrator is somewhat annoying, confrontational and quarrelsome, but all in all this feels like a very Swedish book. Had it been American there would have been encouraging messages and explosions of butterflies and flowers at the end and perhaps a bit of God. But no. This remains Swedish throughout.

Reading on the train part of my commute (the other parts are car and walking...). This book more or less details the successive collapse of a (young) body, providing an overview over how a Swedish hospital works. I'm liking it.

My third book for the #BookishOlympics. This starts very dramatically with a pregnant woman rushed to hospital for breathing problems. I really hope this is not one of those "value the moment/time you have" books.