Welcome to Litsy!

#Scarathlon2022 #TeamMonsterMash
#ScarathlonDailyPrompt #15 secrets ((I haven‘t read this one but it seems the story has many secrets😳)

5 points
Post- 1 point
Total= 6 points

@Staycurious

Woke up this morning and decided I was having none of it. Called out of work and it's a sugary cereal, cartoons and reading on the couch kind of morning.

Sometimes you just need a day.

#MentalHealthDay #ReadTheDayAway #FuckItFriday

What an intriguing start to this book!
#historicalfiction

What I read this week:

Wench: Beautifully moving story of the relationships between enslaved women.

Six of Crows: Oceans 11 with magic and teenagers. Great Dialogue!

The Need: Not my thing, but we'll written if it's yours!

A Madness So Discreet: made me forget dinner and game night. Asylums, serial killers, women's suffrage...it has everything! No romance 🙂

Storied Life of AJ Fikry: Give it to your grandma. She'll love it, but so will you!

It's #creepychristmas time and OMG @ulrichyumiodd you spoil me! Those stickers are amazing! I wish I could get a better picture. And that notebook! 😍 I can't believe you made that. It is soo beautiful. Did you make both the snowman and Jack as well? Jack (who glows in the freaking dark!) is currently hanging out on my tree, judging the world but he will make it to my key ring soon enough . That candle smells so good and I am not a pumpkin 👇👇

4 💫💫💫💫 Grace a woman not mad is stuck in an asylum because of an unexpected pregnancy, hidden because of disgrace. This was a difficult read with the horrific details of how the patients are treated in the asylum but a true historical account. The quick change in plot threw me a few times. But the story itself fascinating read.

#historical #youngadult #bookspinbingo #mystery

@TheAromaofBooks

Really well written young adult historical fiction with a mystery. I fell in love with the cast of characters. Will miss them and think about them for a long time to come. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 Definitely recommend.

#YAApril book 11

#YAApril

Another one I have a #CoverCrush on.

#YAApril

I had one of those beautiful moments of bookish serendipity when I picked up Mindy McGinnis's amazing A Madness So Discreet right after reading Susannah Cahalan's The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission That Changed Our Understanding of Madness (I published my review here on Tuesday). McGinnis is the amazing author of YA dystopian duology Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, ⬇️

"Grace had learned long ago that the true horrors of this world were other people."
⭐⭐⭐⭐

"the insane are simply people who have chosen not to participate in the world in the same manner as the majority,"
⭐⭐⭐⭐

"Emotions had welled close to the surface, and she thought her heart had never felt so full as it did standing next to the defiled grave of a whore while lunatics sang the national anthem."
⭐⭐⭐⭐

I read “Heroine” by this author and loved it so much that I decided to give another of her books a shot. This one was completely different, and not at all what I was expecting. Not bad, just not my ideal cup of tea. There‘s no denying that McGinnis is a talented author, and while I didn‘t love this book, I did enjoy it.

“They all had their terrors.” #firstlinefridays

Just finished the audiobook. Satisfied with the ending though a tiny bit of suspension of disbelief is necessary throughout. I‘d love to see this story carried on in a second volume.

Finished my first Owlcrate backlog title in a week! A Madness So Discreet was an interesting read, much darker in its tones then first realized. I liked how there was no romance, (yay!) but found the last third of the book to be jarring in the plot choices. Overall, a quick read and I look forward to reading more by the author.

Owlcrate Challenge-1/19

In the midst of organizing and decluttering, I realized I have a lot of Owlcrate backlog books. (How many? 37 unread Owlcrate books! 😳) I arranged them from oldest to newest and the goal is to get through 19 of them before 2020, either by finishing or DNF-ing them.

#owlcrate
#backlog

Started off okay and then I quickly lost interest. Finished it all but listening to the audiobook helped.
2⭐⭐😞

Wicked, dark amazing novel!

A few of the ⭐️4+ thrilling reads off of my shelves

Day 15: #thriller #blackcatchallenge

Beginning a reading challenge in a few days.

https://bookriot.com/2017/12/15/book-riots-2018-read-harder-challenge/

Thornhollow said,"To me the insane are simply people who have chosen not to participate in the world in the same manner as the majority, and there are days I wonder if they‘ve got the right of it. I think we‘re all quite mad. Some of us are just more discreet about it."

Simply using the words sane and insane is a way for the population to draw a safe line through humanity, and then place themselves squarely on the side of the healthy.”

“Don‘t be deceived by a pleasant setting, Doctor,” Grace warned. “Sometimes the loveliest places harbor the worst monsters.”

Currently reading-

It was quick indeed, nothing like the steaming baths at home, where she had taken care to clean under her nails, scrubbing imagined dirt away. She‘d never known what it was like to be truly dirty until she came here, and she washed away the asylum as best she could in the dark with a stranger only a few feet away.

Thornhollow nodded and then glanced about the room. “You should register a complaint about the lodgings.”
　A bubble rose up in Grace‘s throat, erupting in the form of a laugh, and she clasped her hand down on her mouth in astonishment. Thornhollow smiled.

This is what you ask of me, then?” He raised his eyes to hers. “You want me to cut into you, tear away your skin and your brain, and leave you a desolate, incoherent mess that feels no more?”
　“Yes,” she said, the one word heavy in her throat as a tear slid down her cheek. “Yes, I would have that.”

Thornhollow crossed his arms and studied her for a moment before speaking. She stared back, savoring the appearance of a new face after being denied company for so long. The meager light could hardly penetrate the hollows of his eyes, but she could see the muscles of his jaw tensing as they studied each other, the slightest tic beneath his red sideburns giving him away.

“Grace,” Falsteed chided in the dark. “No.”

　“The roses,” she said, sighing. “The smell of the roses, it undid me. How can I call it a life when I curl in the darkness, covered in my own filth? I was once surrounded by light and smelled as lovely as a garden. I‘d rather forget both than remember either.”

But Grace had sat through many sermons by her father‘s side, heard about the perils of hell and the fiery brimstone that surely awaited her if she took her own life. She doubted that hell was hot and sulfuric. Instead, she imagined it was comfortable and smelled like her own bedroom.

They all had their terrors, but at least the spiders that lived in the new girl‘s veins were imaginary. Grace had learned long ago that the true horrors of this world were other people
#terrors #horror

The new girl wasn‘t learning the efficacy of silence, the art of invisibility. Grace had given up speech long ago. Once the words no and stop had done nothing, the others refused to come out, their inadequacy making the effort necessary to voice them an equation too easily solved.
#amadnesssodiscret #YAnovel

I freaking love this book SO MUCH which is kinda weird with it being about an abusive father and an insane asylum but whatever. The characters and their relationship plus the science of the time is so wonderful.

Time for a reread of one of my favourite (though messed up) books.

So much of the time I feel like I'm broken or I have a "glitch". This YA novel continues to restore faith in myself that I am capable of doing many wonderful things. That I must learn to live and appreciate my mind, body, and soul; to not feel like I'm empty or missing something. Sometimes I think certain books call to me just at the time that I need them. Books make me feel more than human beings ever have. #loveyourself #strength #kindness

@TheFunkyBookworm #YAWednesday

The beginning was promising but the story began to drag and felt as if it was going nowhere. Honestly, I skimmed the last few chapters because I just didn't care.

#GetMovin #Ghost https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tA8AfQaUnXM

I love this song and haven‘t heard it on the radio in forever; thanks, @Cinfhen for adding it to your challenge!

This is an interesting story. The mystery is like the third thing going on. It is a story of a woman who was sexually abused by her father, became pregnant by him and was sent to live in an asylum till she gave birth. The asylum is a sad state with terrible care. She is saved from that awful place by events. It leans more to a pick, because there is a good story in there. It‘s not a mystery book.

"They all had their terrors, but at least the spiders that lived in the new girls veins were imaginary. Grace had learned long ago that the true horrors of this world were other people."

I'm already hooked and it's only the first chapter!

Late “lunch” at work, it was just so crazy. I snuck in a little break at work. Starting this book and enjoying it so far. It has already made tear up a little!

My gif for this book. https://instagram.com/p/BfPcHwdnPfv/

And spot number nine goes to...

https://youtu.be/gEsSWmFRIcI

#booktube

Time to head home from my fantastic weekend #Litsypartyofone at the beach.

#noteworthynovember #bookmarks

Took my #litsypartyofone to the beach this morning for some reading time. Finishing up this months YA book club pick. Weather turned out more gorgeous than forecasted.

#spookyoctober

Starting this one for this months YA book club. It's set in an insane asylum which I find inherently #spooky

A historical thriller with a social commentary that's still relevant today. Privileged Grace is committed to an insane asylum but escapes with the help of a doctor studying the early science of criminal psychology. They then investigate a series of murders together. It questions society's treatment of the mentally ill &brings up interesting points about madness in general. Loved the setting &themes, but felt the story stretched credulity at times