Welcome to Litsy!

The novel was not without its strengths, but I did do a double-take to see it's been nominated for the Canadian Governor-General's Award for fiction, announced just minutes ago. It is not nearly good enough to be receiving that kind of recognition - but still not as outrageous as Mohsin Hamid making the Booker short list, I guess.

http://www.cbc.ca/books/the-water-beetles-1.3976426

In this tale—based on his father's memoir—Kaan chronicles the harrowing experiences of a Hong Kong boy trying to survive the Japanese invasion and WW2. Child narrators present pitfalls, but this point of view is deftly handled here. Too, there are many, many simply written scenes of much power. But the novel needed paring, shaping, and it sputters and stalls almost every time the prose grasps for metaphor, image, or more flowery language.

What with the current, ahem, international tensions, this book is feeling a little too relevant.

#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

“In later years I understood that it was my father alone who straddled the two worlds of the British and the Chinese. Without him, and with his business held in trust and her older sons away at school, my mother felt herself little more than a village girl thrust out among strangers, and the strain of maintaining face in this unbuffered world was slowly wearing away at her confidence.”

The prose has been quite workmanlike, with the occasional sentence that sings. This, however, is the first truly awful sentence I have encountered. Oh my God!

#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

Well, I've now read 50 pages and am enjoying it, so I've come out of hiding on Goodreads because I'm probably not going to bail or do a hateful review. :-) (The author is following me on Twitter and on Goodreads… :-)

#QuoteOfTheDay
#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

"It is easier at times to be a pallid vessel of events and memories, rather than the bearer of a life."

The fog of depression and despair in this book ...

#waterbeetlesbuddyread

Here goes! I just started this for a buddy read with @shawnmooney @DGRachel @Suet624 and @saresmoore .

@saresmoore - I'll be reading it really slowly as I have to get to another one for a book club meeting. You'll have plenty of time to catch up when you have power again!

#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

#QuoteOfTheDay

#QuoteOfTheDay

#WaterBeetlesBuddyRead

Today I retreat from reading about the invasion of Hong Kong by the Japanese and head off to a wedding. My twin sons (now 28) are the best man and the officiant to Charlie, the monkey in the middle. Best friends since they were 4. Here's the problem with not labeling the photos of your identical twins - I can't tell you which one is Max and which one is Louie.

I almost bailed on this #buddyread, but I couldn't settle on another book, so I stuck it out. I was very disappointed, and I feel bad for hating this book. Even though it is fiction, it's based on experiences of the author's father. What sort of monster hates a book based on the suffering of children during war? Apparently, this girl. I'm that monster. #sorrynotsorry

#litsypartyofone day 3 continues with this book (still), jellybeans, and wild cherry Pepsi. This book is killing me. If it wasn't a #buddyread with people I admire, I would bail. I can't put my finger on it, but something about the author's style doesn't work for me. I'm at 33% and b.o.r.e.d. I'm looking for excuses to do anything except read. 😭😭

#litsypartyofone day 2 is ending with this book and jelly beans just like day 1. 😊

"I learned that fear is made worse by thinking, and that survival often requires no thought at all."

My current read has #siblings. #AwesomeAutumnBooks

Fully charged Kindle and a bowl full of jelly beans - lets get this #litsypartyofone started!

Thanks for organizing this @Ambrosnazzy !

I am buddy reading this in September with @saresmoore @LeahBergen @JazzFeathers and @DGRachel - it's a debut by a Winnipeg writer based on his Hong Kongese dad's experiences under the Japanese occupation. The book isn't that easy to purchase outside Canada other than on Kindle but if anyone else wants to join us, the more the merrier!

I stumbled upon a tweet about this new novel by a Winnipeg writer. Then I read this review and may have to find the novel sooner rather than later! "[It] has an ending that throws everything that‘s happened before into a new light, though “light” here is not at all the right word. I‘ve reviewed hundreds of books and read, probably, thousands, and I can think of two others that have managed this high-wire act of literary derring-do." Link below.