Welcome to Litsy!

Read in June
Mixed feelings with this story. I think it was great how the author through the story and characters explained some Jamaican history integrating past and present with emphasis to social themes like: racial blend/integration, traditions, culture and immigration. Some parts were a little confuse but later you could see the connection. However, i was disappointed with the closure of this story. Still I liked her writing style 3.8⭐️

I felt quite mesmerised by this book! There were parts of the stories that I wanted to know more and some that I wasn‘t sure where it was going. Not quite sure what to make of the ending! I think I need to ponder over this book to truly understanding the meaning.

Abel Paisley takes on his friend‘s identity and abandons his family. We follow the lives of family members affected by his actions. Also, the history of his ancestry in colonial Jamaica

This ended up being a low pick for me. Perhaps had I not read it so close to Black Cake I might have felt differently, but the two books share a theme of someone from the Caribbean escaping by using someone else's identity.

Card writes in a unique way with the story told in little segments from different POV's. At times that made it difficult to fully invest in characters.

This book still had some truly beautiful writing and is worth the read.

This was wild! Scary at times and even creepy here and there(the end!)I didn't feel really tied to this book in the beginning, but when I got some longer reading sessions, I found myself eager to think through how each story is connected. I was creeped out and challenged by nearly everything in this book. Loved it!

What an amazingly generous #creepyChristmas! Thank you @ImperfectCJ for every wonderful bit of it - even if Earl won‘t let me near it because clearly if the cat toy you sent is for him so is the rest of the package! Thanks @teebe for organizing- this is one of my favourite holiday traditions!

I liked it, but I didn‘t love it. The story was really well done and I liked moving through the various timelines within the family‘s story. I didn‘t feel much emotional involvement as I anticipated because it felt like we only saw vignettes instead of really digging into who these characters were.

Outside
Beverage
Book
Always my favorite combo

Interesting beginning. Neighbors chose this for Fall book discussion. I have 90 min to read while I literally “refuel” with Iron.

Family saga set mostly in Jamaica. Fans of 100 Yrs of Solitude (so, basically, everyone) will love it.

Can you imagine faking your own death? Who would you be? Where would you go? Well These Ghost Are Family by Maisy Card answers all of these question. Mr. Solomon aka Abel Paisley takes you on a ride you‘ll never forget and this cool weather and rainy day that we‘re experiencing is the perfect time to relax and read. #theseghostsarefamily #bookworm #rainydayreading #rainyvibes

This is an intricately woven generational story that is so captivating and believable that I couldn't do it justice if if I tried to describe it. I immediately felt so much for each new character introduced. This was a beautiful book. I savored it.

I don‘t know if it‘s because I listened to the audiobook, but I really struggled to understand who was even speaking for much of this book and all of the stories didn‘t really seem to come together for me in the end. I‘m picky about magical realism and I‘m not sure if that‘s what the author was going for or if she was trying to make more of a modern fairy tale, but it just didn‘t work for me.

Best impulse buy of the year so far. I'm so glad I picked this up! It's really excellent. There were several moments that punched me right in the gut. I highly recommend it.

Skilfully interconnected stories show us a Jamaican family across 8 generations, on the island as well as in London and New York City. I love Maisy Card‘s polyphonic style and was enraptured by her portrayal of characters, especially as they are seen from different viewpoints. Duppies (ghosts) are a bonus.

Epigraph

Fascinating novel, loosely interconnected chapters set across time from modern day New York to enslaved rebellion in Jamaica.

I really enjoyed this look at the ways our history stays with us and how challenging (impossible?) it is to outrun monsters of our own making. Card seems to suggest that the best we can do is learn to coexist with the dark things that haunt us, both individually and as a culture/society. The dialect was a little challenging for me at times, and I wonder if the audiobook would have been easier.

The cats aren't lap kitties yet, but they did stay in the same room with me while I worked on the tagged book today, which seems like a step in the right direction (at least in my opinion). They also napped in symmetrical cuteness. #catsoflitsy

We adopted two cats this week. I haven't done much reading since they arrived midday Wednesday. They still aren't sure what they think of us and aren't keen on leaving the room where we've set them up, so I'm trying to spend time getting them used to me so maybe they'll be less nervous about exploring the rest of the house. The last time we added cats to our family was a kitten 20 years ago. Three-year-old cats seem to adjust differently.

"Let's say that you are a sixty-nine-year-old Jamaican man called Stanford, or Stan for short, who once faked your own death."

I figured out that today wasn't Friday just before I posted this, but I just let momentum carry me.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

A man steals another man‘s identity & lives a whole new life over decades. Stories like this always make me think about the decisions we make & how they affect others. There are so many paths we could all walk throughout our lives – whose path did we affect & what did it mean? There are some ugly things in this book, but the characters feel real and raw so that you can‘t help but feel their pain, sorrow, and joy. #12BooksOfChristmas #BestOf2020

Started off slow, then the author brought the family drama! The last 90 pages were disconnected from the rest of the book in a way which was disappointing so I gave it three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A good horror story w/ some heart is scary & memorable. 💜”How We are Born” section. Letting the monsters be monstrous but also letting them be little girls. Or kittens! (If they so choose...) Monsters learning their powers.

P270
They did not fly across the sky, though they knew they could. ... Instead they washed their skins in the stream and laid them out in the sun to dry. When they put them back on, they found out that they were older.

!!

^^ “We could not let the yard boy mourn our relations harder than us.” What a line! Packing in servant Bernard‘s grief & abandonment vs. family‘s disgust, disdain, coldness, pride, resentment, power structure.

Opening line:
“Let‘s say that you are a sixty-nine-year-old Jamaican man called Stanford, or Stan for short, who once faked your own death.”

Love the playful hypotheticals of this opening section, use of second person—hard to pull off.

GREAT book of short stories. Hate decision to market as a novel. Stories sequenced as a multi-generational novel—characters of Jamaican descent in 1830s Spanish Town, 1960s Kingston, 2000s Brooklyn. Narrative strategies & sensibilities strong but vastly different, don‘t hang together as novel. Love final ghost story of the blood-drinking cat girls. Family, slavery, migration, secrets, tradition, Ol‘Hige, duppies, ghosts, animals, exorcisms. 2020

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What an amazing ride!!!

My #gettbr selections arrived today, and I was so excited I took them to the patio for a little photoshoot. I'm excited to dig into these, but I'm going to try to wait until I finish a few more of my August books.

Wrong time for me on this book about a Jamaican man who faked his own death and abandoned his family. It just didn‘t grab me but maybe would another time.

I‘m on the fence. This was a pick for me through page 180; but beginning around page 202 my interest began to wane. The ancestral backstory of 1831-1832 was weirdly written for me.

I absolutely loved this book! Couldn‘t stop thinking about it. Loved the different time lines and perspectives.
I had never heard about this book, but it was picked for me for my TBR, tailored Book Recommendations subscription. They hit it spot on!!!

I‘m alternating between fiction and nonfiction on my BLM education and coincidentally my last two fiction books travel between Jamaica and NYC. This book is a wild unique ride! It‘s complicated. The timeline jumps around so I revisited chapters after realizing the importance of differing characters to the story. This book is so worth the effort!

Read this one on #Scribd , a membership I am really enjoying but overwhelms me with the amount of content they have. Anyways, this book was good, tracing a Jamaican family from slave era to present day, but skipped around in time, perspective, and style. I don‘t think it ever came together as one cohesive novel, but I enjoyed the individual parts and so this was a pick for me.

My current audiobook. A multigenerational saga that moves back and forth in time and in space between Jamaica and the US. Good so far!

Gah, I hate to be negative about a debut, especially one where the author is clearly talented and is experimenting with her style; but the non-linear narrative along with all of the shifts of perspective and point of view (especially in the earlier chapters) were complications and I could never see the intent of them. It all just felt muddled to me.

This novel covers generations of a Jamaican family and it starts in the middle, when a dying man decides to admit that he faked his death to his adult daughter. This isn't a typical family saga in the sense of a linear story; each chapter features characters related to Abel/Solomon either as offspring or ancestors. It deals with the ghosts of slavery; immigration, and memory. ⤵️

I really enjoyed this book. It contained so much. The magical realism was great but some of it confused me a bit. I‘d like to reread because I know I missed some things.

At times intriguing, historically accurate, tragic, hopeful, & depressing, Card gives readers a little bit of everything. Unfurling the lives of the family members of Abel, living as Stanford, you get a feel for how one man's decisions can so greatly affect those around him. I can definitely see why a lot of people loved this book, but I personally had a tough time staying interested in the narratives taking place in the more current time periods.

An interesting tale of how the effects of trauma trickle down to future generations. Loved the supernatural/magical elements too. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #Netgalley #arc

Full review on Goodreads

This is a multi-generational novel in a similar vain to Yaa Gyasi‘s Homegoing. This book opens when Stanford Solomon hires a home health aide who just happens to be his daughter, Irene. Irene is unaware of the possibility that her father is even alive. Solomon tells an unbelievable story and then sets the tone of what is to come.

Please visit my blog at: http://obsessedbookaholic.com/2020/03/05/these-ghosts-are-family-book-review/

Happy #PubDay !

#ReadSoulLit - 2020 Newbie: New author. Debut book. Maisy Card holds an MFA in Fiction and is a public librarian. She has taken the time to write her first novel. This is some of the buzz:
*An Entertainment Weekly, Millions, and LitHub Most-Anticipated Book of 2020 pick
*A Rumpus and Electric Literature Most-Anticipated Debut of 2020 pick
*A Ms. Magazine Top Feminist Book Coming Out in 2020
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