Welcome to Litsy!

What a weird little book. I never got invested because there was zero world-building, so I had no idea why these people were living in isolation. And I‘m pretty sure these people were not biological family, at least not all of them, so how did they end up together? Basically, IDK WTH I just read. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So many more questions than answers!

#bookspinbingo - this one at least got me a bingo!

I wish there had been a bit more background on this one, but I‘m not too mad about it. This was an interesting read. We‘re never really sure if King is crazy or correct. It reminded me of all the ways we hurt/are hurt in the name of love: “I‘m doing this for your own good,” “I do this because I love you,” etc. It made me think about the power of abuse, the vulnerability of women, and the fact that we can never really *know* anyone.

Interesting enough that I didn‘t want to put it down, but there was just too much going on in too few pages. I felt like I never got a FULL understanding of the family dynamic, the characters themselves, the therapies, the guests, the not quite incestual pregnancy, etc. Enough detail and complexity to keep my attention, but lacking enough detail that I couldn‘t immerse myself in their world.

Description seemed interesting, about women on an island away from harmful men but the book was boring.

Okay, WOW. There are so many layers to this novel, so many echoes of the same questions I've been asking myself for decades, about what it means to be a woman and how/if I could ever tell if that meaning was authentic or just handed to me by a male-dominated culture, about what it means to be both powerful and vulnerable, about how easy it is to be used. I feel like turning it back over and reading it again right away.

Staring wistfully towards my book while working through homeschool math with my kiddo. Once we get through factorials and then study dependent clauses in grammar and I go to the post office...*sigh* It might be a while before I have a chance to read.

3 sisters who are raised by there strict parents whom hide them away from society, on a seperate land that is only accessed by boat to protect them from men because they believe that men only cause women harm, however, this is not only a home to them but also a rehabilitation center for damaged women who were harmed by men. Until one day 2 men and a little boy show up stating they are only there to help and protect them

This book is weird. It follows 3 women (girls?) who are abused and possibly gaslit their entire lives by their parents as they live in isolation at a weird hotel. I think it‘s trying to explore misogyny and abuse, but it‘s just a little too opaque.

This is between a pick and a so-so. I liked the book, but I needed more back story/world building. I found that with another one of her books as well. I get sucked into the worlds she creates, but I always need more information. Culty, post-apocalyptic (maybe), reminded me a bit of Gather the Daughters. I think I need more time to sit with it in my mind & perhaps an audio reread down the line.

All women should read this book about a family of women and the one man in their lives. Each of their journeys is unique as they have been brought up in an unimaginable place. A one of a kind story.

Hi y‘all! These are my preliminary picks for #lmpbc #GroupS

What do we think?

I'm posting one book per day from the ever growing unread stacks in my personal library. No description or explanation, just books I own and plan to read. #tbr

Day 49

Would I recommend this? Maybe, probably not, but I appreciated the writing. Three daughters isolated by their parents in order to protect them from the toxins of the world and especially from men. There were too many unanswered questions at the end and mainly I was left feeling troubled by its bleakness.

"Trauma is a toxin that hooks into our hair and organs and blood and becomes part of us, the way heavy metals do, our bodies nothing more than a layering of flesh around everything ingested and experienced."

#ReadYourSign ♋️ Cancer Prompt 4 ♋️

This book was as beautiful as it was haunting and mysterious. The writing was divine and the story unfolded itself like a dream. The only thing I didn‘t like was that it was slow in the beginning. I‘m a stickler for pacing. Also that cover is gorgeous 😍 I enjoyed this one a lot.

The beginning of my shift was super hectic but it‘s calmed down enough that I was able to get some #LitsyLove done and now I‘m gonna dig in to this weird book some more.

Hope everyone had a good Monday 🌻

I LOVED the first half of this book, but the second half lost the mesmerizing, mysterious quality that drew me in originally. 3⭐️ This is my third book for May‘s #bookspinbonanaza!

Listening to this audiobook while I enjoy the view (my parent's backyard at my childhood home).

Started this audiobook today!

Loving the mental images this book is conjuring for me 🤩🐚⛵️ Plot moves slowly, but it‘s well written and I don‘t mind. The tempo seems to work with the general mysterious-ness of the book. I‘m a little confused about whether or not men actually do emit toxins, or if the parents in the book are just wackos ... hopefully I‘ll find my answer 😂 definitely a unique book!

I bought his book yesterday while picking up my order at my local bookstore. I started after dinner last night and only stopped to sleep. I loved it! Mackintosh isnt breaking new ground in terms of subject matter, but it's her unique voice that makes this book a worthwhile read!

4/5🌟Fiercely Feminine Dystopian. 3 sisters live in seclusion, cult like circumstances, taught that men are toxic. The writing is excellent! Kept me completely captivated. The story was intriguing and mysterious in its own way. Move along slowly, but I was not bored, eager to find out what would happen to these sisters. And the characters were intriguing. The ending felt a bit rushed in my opinion. I wasn't let down, it just felt abrupt. #bookish

One of my goals for 2020 is to post whenever I finish a book, especially ones that I love! This was a gift that I received and am so thankful that I did as it was wonderful! #1of2020

This book was disturbing and compelling. I couldn‘t stop reading it. Sort of a post-apocalyptic, post-feminist setting, a little desert-islandish, that turned out to be not what I expected. I half-guessed what was really going on, but not all the way. The dad was a real piece of work, is all I have to say. I also wanted to know more about how the family ended up on their island in the first place, which never got fully explained.

The first pages show the quality of literature here. Brilliantly written tale of cultist isolation, how easily led we are, until we aren't. No happy endings I'm afraid.

This beauty came in the mail today 🤗 Can‘t wait to get to this one!

#7days7covers #CoverCrush #Day5 💕

I tag @squirrelbrain if you‘d like to play along? Just post 1 cover you love, each day for 7 days, no explanation needed and use the hashtags 😊💕

My usual before errands breakfast 🥑🍞☕️& checking to see if this library e-book is for me. I had it on hold & it finally came in but it has plenty mixed reviews & I have plenty more books waiting in line. 📚📚📚😬📚📚Off to run my Saturday errands & then hopefully a nap & some reading later. Hope everyone is having a good weekend.☀️

So-so on this one. I don‘t feel that an author has to spell out everything in a book, but this one could have used a few more details to help me understand the world of the story.

Billed as “feminist revenge fantasy.” Nope. 3 sisters are raised in seclusion by their sadistic parents and taught to fear men. There‘s some sort of dystopian patriarchal state of the world plus actual toxins (??) but we never learn anything about either - or if they are even real. Also the girls are taught that feelings are toxic, as is love. Dad disappears and three males show up on the island. Chaos ensues. The writing is lovely but meh.

A dark story detailing the life of 3 sisters who lived with their parents away from other people, particularly men and have no experience to draw upon when 2 men and 1 boy arrive one day. I found this to be an uncomfortable read involving abuse of children and women, a story which kept popping into my head for a few days after I finished.

Another casualty of the “feminist dystopian” publishing/marketing trend. It‘s about 3 girls living on an island with their parents, following a dystopian/pollution/men-related catastrophe?? Though supposed to be about men abusing women, the abuse is alluded to but never shown/explained. In fact, the Mother is the most abusive/unredeemable character in this unresolved narrative with numerous loose ends & threads.

Sisters Grace, Lia and Sky have grown up in isolation according to the strict rules and dark lore of their parents, but then strangers come to their shore and they start having to make their own difficult choices.

Read July 1-5
Book 36/55

“Every time I think, ‘I am very lonely,‘ it becomes bleaker and more true. You can think things into being. You can dwell them up from the ground.”

Currently reading

We could walk into the ocean with our hands linked and know it was over, that it was finally over and would always be over.

Sometimes she was my enemy and sometimes she was just my mother, an enemy in a different way.

I pull up a net full of writhing silver fish and let them die in the bottom of the boat, watching them as their breathing grows more desperate. Eventually it stops. I know the feeling, I tell them.

The boy is crying again, his face alien and liquid, and the man mouths a word at me, which I realize is Please. I am not used to being offered this word. It is a spell, a weakness. I am moved; I let them in.

This was a bit of a slow, languid read. The tone matched the seaside setting but it had undercurrents of simmering rage beneath. Three sisters live isolated on an island with their Mother and King, their father. They are told to fear men & undergo various “therapies” which are really exercises in sadomasochism. Until one day King disappears & three men wash ashore. Everything they‘ve been taught is thrown into question & sibling rivalry erupts.

#SpringIntoSpring @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @vkois88
#Water

Hosted another successful book club last night. Love getting together with the ladies!

#AnglophileApril #TheCure 🎸🎵You know that feeling when a book blurb promises you one thing and then you read the novel and think WTF??? That is NOT what I expected. Well this book, was that situation. Three sisters live on an isolated island with their mother and father ( the ONLY man they‘ve ever known). They‘ve been taught boys/men are dangerous. Then their dad disappears and 3 men appear on their island. What‘s a girl to do?? #BoysDontCry

Refrain of the man universal: This is not my fault. See also: I absolve myself of responsibility. And: I never said that. You can‘t take the actions of my body as words.

It took me a while to appreciate this nightmarish #audiobook, told in shifting POV, including choral narration. A couple have raised their 3 daughters in cultish seclusion (from a world poisoned by pollution & the patriarchy) with a sadistic regimen of physical & psychological exercises. It‘s a tale of sisterhood that raises the question: are women in society solely responsible for their own safety? Lyrical language & thought-provoking content.

Part of what made the old world so terrible, so prone to destruction, was a total lack of preparation for the personal energies often called feelings.

I invite the confessionals of men. I am not a stranger to them. Absorbing the guilt and the sorrow is something the world expects of women.

I have mixed feelings about this one.
Three sisters and their mother and father live in an old secluded hotel, seemingly hiding from a dystopian world. But women sometimes arrive, looking for therapy to recover from the wrongs done to them by men.

I think the writing style kept me distant from the characters.

The kitten pictured has moved in under my porch. I‘m trying to find her owners before I try to find her a new home. She‘s sweet.