Welcome to Litsy!

Very well written, and very much not what I was expecting. Sort of a love story, definitely a time travel story, absolutely an immigrant story. This audiobook was completely engrossing and has left me with some feelings. 🥺

⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

If two books I loved, American War and Station Eleven, had a baby, it would be this novel. But Minutes was definitely more #GoodNotGreat.

A deadly flu pandemic has been unleashed in the US. A shady time travel company is offering help saving your loved ones if you become and indentured servant in the future. Polly agrees to travel to save her boyfriend, Frank, but ends up further in the future that she agreed to. Can she escape and find Frank?

Interesting story. More about class than time travel or pandemics, but a cool narrative to look at class and love

#SciFiSeptember @Klou
#12Monkeys

When Frank catches the virus, his girlfriend Polly will do whatever it takes to save him—even if it means risking everything. When she finds out there‘s a company that has invented time travel, she agrees to a radical contract: if she signs up for a one-way-trip into the future to work as a bonded laborer, the company will pay for the life-saving treatment Frank needs.

I...had a hard time with this one. It‘s set during the aftermath of a flu pandemic, but that‘s only partly why I found it stress-inducing. Injustice fatigue + an extremely frustrating main character made this difficult to get through. What I did find fascinating was the book‘s exploration of how the desperate and marginalized are vulnerable to exploitation in the wake of a disaster, and the vast divide between those privileged and those not.⤵️

A belated #WeeklyForecast:
To Finish: Voices in the Air is poetry I need to finish before the library takes away the ebook. I‘m halfway through Ocean of Minutes and want to be done (so far the main character is annoying me). I‘ll finish my re-read of Life Together over the weekend.
To Start: I saw The Gauntlet on a list of escapist SFF & it sounded like just what I need (eBook from Libby). Same with The Little White Horse, but it‘s from my TBR.

I picked this up off my TBR as I‘m deciding what to read next, and guess what jumped out at me from the flap copy?! 🤒😷😂 This might have to be my next read...

“When someone dies, there‘s no one to share your memories anymore. They become like secrets. A secret life. No one knows you lived it, but you. I didn‘t want it to be that way.”

“She couldn‘t think like this. She was in the grip of the peculiar but popular idea that if she lacked hope, the cosmic powers would shun her. Believing this was more pleasant than realizing that the cosmos has no preference.”

📖 Going to the bookstore later today for a ‘because of Litsy‘ book hunt for An Ocean of Minutes.

🎥 I watched the adaptation of Their Eyes Were Watching God with Halle Berry & Michael Ealy earlier this year. Some books are better served by a mini-series on television rather than a 2-hour movie production to allow for depth of character development.

🎞 Good Omens. I laughed out loud while reading the book. I can‘t wait to see the film version.

#bookwormproblems when you have to work but your book is calling you.

#30JuneBooks @howjessreads

Well guys, I‘m all moved and unpacked in my new home near Nashville TN! Here‘s some eye candy of my new shelf and cart! #ikea #shelfie

In the afternoon, the clouds clear & they go down to see the cherry blossoms. The air is pink-tinted by the invasion of blooms. They are carried along by the crowd, their elbows pinned to their sides by the other long-weekend tourists, nobody able to stop the wash of bodies. A teenager leaps into the air & grabs at a branch. There are gasps of horror as he falls to the ground in a shower of petals.
“Thug!” someone says. “Don‘t you have parents?”

It looks like pink popcorn.

This book ❤️it‘s harrowing and heart breaking and I couldn‘t breathe sometimes and I wanted to shake Polly and I wanted to hug her and I wanted to just sit and cry for her. The CDC makes a horrendous mistake that causes a viral apocalypse and the world changes. Polly makes an enormous sacrifice and this book will haunt you with her story. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This book is filling me with despair 😩 everything is going so wrong 😢😢😢

Starting this today

Spring = reading outside!

What a treat to read such personal and insightful comments #GroupU @CouronneDhiver @Lindy @Jazzper2

If you‘ve been to Galveston, TX so much of this story is familiar. It‘s also kinda heartbreaking.

Me: ooh my white blanket will be a good background for this #bookhaul post
Cat: yes this blanket is mine I sit here.
Cat: why would you put books where I sit?
Cat: fine. I sit here with books.
#catsoflitsy

Suuuper excited about these ones! Can't wait to read them! Yay for fun bookish afternoons ❤️ @Andrea4

Soon as I realized AN OCEAN OF MINUTES is SF marketed to the litfic crowd, I braced myself for disappointment. I needn't have worried; Lim nails the execution. She fully commits to the mechanics of her alternate world, which she builds with such care that it works as its own thing, not just as a reflection of contemporary issues. I was right there inside Polly's horror and desperation as her situation escalated. It's awful but excellent.

Casey's a great patient--except for when he wakes up, can't process his current situation through the painkillers, and freaks the hell out. It's gonna be a long night.

Thank goodness for reading material.

A global pandemic leads a woman to time travel into indentured servitude to pay for her boyfriend‘s medical care. A great concept coupled with a strong feeling of disorientation in the protagonist make this a thought-provoking read. It‘s different but I really enjoyed it.

#ReadingUSA2019 #Texas

Time travel, tragedy, apocalyptic future, love story, what else do you need? Brilliant piece of literature.

Sorry @Pricel101 but this didn‘t really work for me 😔 there were parts that were interesting and I like the concept of the book (time travel, pandemic etc.) but l just wasn‘t invested/connected to either of the main characters at all and I felt the pacing of it could have been better. Maybe it would have worked better in print? ⭐️⭐️ #newyearwhodis

An amazing, lyrical and intellectually stimulating novel. Time travel, dystopia, romance and refugees. It reminds me somewhat of Exit West, in the way science fiction elements are used as a shortcut to get to the real issues of displacement, social inequality, and the human heart. I raced through this in 2 days.

You cannot put life on hold to have a moment of grief, so every second, half the people in the world are split in two. This is what they mean by life goes on, and the worst is that you go on along with it too.

(Author photo from book jacket.)

There was the lathe and the band saw and the sanding station, in whose languages she was familiar. There were the coils of reed spline, fibre rush, and sea grass, as identical to the layperson as homophones to a foreigner.

(I love encountering specialized language in novels. These words are like treats.)

Later, Polly makes the mistake of telling Donna about Frank. “There‘s a dishy bartender who works around the corner.”
“And?”
There isn‘t really anything else to say. She edits the story. “Today I sneezed and he gave me a napkin.”
“He. Likes. You. Quick, go back now. Where‘s your coat?”
“You‘re not serious. I‘m in my Ziggy pyjamas.”

(Internet image)

One car behind them honks. The voice of their driver, made tinny by the intercom, says, “You gotta go.” They squeeze each other‘s hands so hard the skin of his suit bites the web between fingers and there‘s no way they can touch skin to skin and the seat of her heart falls away and so does her resolve. But there is no more time. All the cars honk like the end of days.

“It would be awful to talk to someone who understood how she felt. Only indifferent listeners tighten the seal that keeps sadness inside.” 📖

First snow day of the year ❄️📚 staying warm with coffee & a book!

“All the trapped air in her chest condensed into water and trickled away.” My heart is breaking for Polly right now 💔

Current library swag that I really need to get off my arse & tackle! 😹😹

Not shown: Dead Set by Kadrey, Heavy Vinyl Graphic Novel, & The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Shimada. Those are my current reads & are buried in the my bed somewhere... oopsy. 😽

#libraryloot #litsygram

The time travel aspect of this novel is a metaphor for the immigrant experience so don't come looking here for your fix of sci-fi cos you ain't getting it. The world building of the post-apoc setting is already I suppose but the 'romance' aspect is as dull and depressing as a wet Wednesday in January. It WAS well written and the topics addressed WERE worthy and effectively explored but I just didn't engage with the characters. My bad.🤦🏼‍♀️

Work #shelfie. If you haven‘t yet discovered the book An Ocean of Minutes by Thea Lim, I highly recommend checking it out. First time author and the book was rock solid. It‘s packed full of ideas and the world building was fantastic and I just really really loved it.

#thealim will be at #ottawawritersfest next week! Can‘t wait to hear her read from this exciting dystopian love story. If you enjoyed #stationeleven you‘ll love this book! 🌊📚🕛

Just saw this in an email. Have you read any of these finalists?

This is definitely an interesting story, particularly in what it‘s trying to tell you beneath the surface. The time travel element is just that — an element of a larger story about love and loss and change, about the immigrant experience and how easily we fall into the trap of categorizing people based on where they‘re from, what they can do, etc. It did feel a little distant at times, and I wish there was more to the last 30 pages or so. 3/5 ⭐️

You cannot put life on hold to have a moment of grief, so every second, half the people in the world are split in two. This is what they mean by life goes on, and the worst is that you go on along with it too.

Ummmmmmmm these aren‘t mutually exclusive? I don‘t know if this is meant to show ignorance on the characters‘ part or if it‘s a sign of the author‘s. But PSA, Judaism is a religion, not a race. I am, in fact, Caucasian and Jewish. #themoreyouknow

This is one of the books I got from the @bookriot TBR subscription box! Sounds really interesting and timely (haha no pun intended since it involves time travel). #nowreading

I thoroughly enjoyed this loosely dystopian/sci-fi novel. A pandemic hits in the 80s & a shady corporation offers people a vaccine for their loved one(s) in exchange for traveling forward in time to work for them. Naturally, the shady corporation lies/takes advantage. Polly travels to the 90s to save her boyfriend... ⬇️

This was a solid novel. Dystopian with time travel with just a bit of sadness throughout. Lovely writing and story.

Next up....I am kind of on a dystopian kick.

Synchronicity!

This dystopian love story is both timely and relevant. Polly time travels to become an indentured servant in the future to save her boyfriend's life. When she arrives years later then expected, she is alone&confused by her new time and the never ending bureaucracy. Because of her lack of status in this new world, she is constantly struggling to pay off her debts and to find her place in the unfamiliar world.

Getting the DeLorean prepped for this time travel novel. Time travel has been invented to escape a deadly flu pandemic but not everyone has access to it and the destination is not always what was planned. Started it today and it‘s good...