Welcome to Litsy!

Told through alternating voices of the characters throughout, this is a story about found family in Appalachia. This story weaves through so many heavy topics of environmentalism, hate toward the poor and gay folks, racism, and child welfare. It‘s not a breeze through type book, it‘s slow and heavy, but it is compelling and the characters feel so real.

About halfway through, following an incident with a snake, I thought I'm either going to love or hate this book. But in the end, I feel mostly respect for a story unlike any I've read before.
It's about a trio of women survivalists in Applachia who are barely surviving. It's about poverty, and gas pipelines, about trying to resist the system and the systems that still oppress and what it means to build family and community in spite of it all. 👇

My current listen. I can't decide if it's challenging or reenforcing stereotypes about Appalachia. 🤔
Also, who the heck names a boy Perley?

The description states that this book will have us “laughing” but I didn‘t laugh once. To me this book was actually heartbreaking. Overall this was an alright story about family, communal living, being a parent, and challenging societal norms.

#NetGalley #arc

Things I learned from Stay and Fight:
- people are mean
- people are even meaner to you if you're different
- and even more so if you're also poor or any kind of minority
- but it's still alright to be different

Full review: http://bit.ly/2ZYpocG

Currently enjoying the great outdoors while reading and painting my nails.

Enjoyed this ARC. Definitely some thematic similarities to this winter‘s Sugar Run by Mesha Maren, but I was not as stressed out while reading- there‘s a fundamental stubborn optimism in Stay and Fight that appealed to me.

I requested Stay and Fight because it is set in rural Appalachia, a region that I grew up in. I got a definite Hillbilly Elegy vibe from this one, a niggling disappointment that readers might extrapolate from this book that this is the stubborn and meager way that everyone lives and behaves in that part of the country. The blurb suggests that there is humor in this book, but I found it to be quite humorless. #netgalley

This sounds perfect for me a quirky novel great cast of characters 😁