Welcome to Litsy!

It was like having to believe, suddenly, in a fourth prime color or a second moon.

Time had seemed to thicken then, the seconfs growing sticky as clay.

...sipping coffee and pretending to be Hercule Poirot.

(An Agatha Christie reference)

Words to look up:

oubliettes
simulacrum
sangfroid

First line: They'd arranged to leave late so as to avoid traffic.

Pretty good book. I never predicted the way things turned out and never saw things coming. My prediction was totally wrong! Quick read.

Book 57 of 2018 #botm

I was hesitant to read this one based on all the reviews I had seen. I‘m very glad I did though. I loved this novel. Not much of a thriller as the blurb states but more of a character study. It was intriguing to watch the three main characters interact with one another and react to each other‘s actions. Surprised to be saying it, but this was five stars for me.

Huh. Not what I expected, and I'm not quite sure what to think, which, yes, is precisely Lasdun's point. [This review may change over time.]

#day5 #augustgrrrl #waterfalls Some 'fall' titles, all with 'water' on the covers.... 2 on the right are TBRs...

I will finish today. I will finish today. I will finish today.

Tonight's plan

Another BOTM choice I added on a whim, this shocked me by being one of my favorite reads of 2016. I loved the dynamic between the three main characters. Set in the Catskills, there is a lot of pool lounging and lazy summer days. Perfect beach read under #mrblueskies. #junetunz

#BookNDinner! For this cold rainy night, I made us a warming meal of tomato-basil-mozzarella pierogis in an eggplant-artichoke sauce. Yum! 😋 This has been another presentation of: #MrBookBookBabeKitchen. Happy reads & happy eats!

One of my pile up from BOTM picks, this was a lackluster book with parts that never really cohere. The writing sparkles the most when Lasdun describes the meals created by Matthew, but his passion dies when trying to build an argument for obsession or tension. #readyourowndamnbooks #thintheherd #bookofthemonth #botm

Sh*t's gonna hit the fan, I'd say.

Having read a few things by Lasdun, I knew unreliable narrators are his thing. I guess they are mine too - I read this novel in a blue streak, starting late last night and continuing from waking this morning. One realization: it's not just that we're all unreliable chroniclers of our own stories. It's that we're never sure where and to what extent we're being dodgy. The machinery of revelation makes for an obsessive reading experience.

"Spotlight effect": a tendency to imagine other people were paying more attention to you than they really were ?⚠️

#2017Book56
When Matthew is invited to spend the summer with his rich cousin's family, he assumes it will be a stress-free vacation. He's wrong. The secrets are revealed with perfect pacing, and the family dynamics are described realistically. The main action of the novel is slightly predictable, but it's there for plot advancement, not shock value, which works in its favor. My only real complaint is that the very end is slightly anticlimactic.

#LetterF for #LitsyAtoZ was a great diversion from my recent reads. The "group vacations together and conflict follows" micro-genre is usually a hit with me and this one hits. Narrated by Matthew, his shared history with his cousin and his cousin's wife unfolds over the summer interspersed with present events. An element of "uncomfortable why is this happening" is present, but not enough to make you want to stop. Engaging, sort of escapist 4.5/5⭐️

As @JackOBotts said, "Meh."

Starting the week off right with some planning, and starting The Fall Guy. Hope it's as good as I've heard!

Is this what happens when a water sign picks her #botm? I sense a theme.

This was a surprisingly smart, stimulating read—right down to the Cioran and Pascal references within. It blurs the lines between victim and perpetrator, right and wrong, via an unreliable narrator so convincing in his certitude that it's genuinely hard to figure him out.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. If you need an absorbing page-turner to keep your brain occupied, it certainly does the trick.

Appreciating the E.M. Cioran references in this book. This has such bad ratings here and on Goodreads but I'm actually liking it a lot more than I thought I would.

I added this to my #BOTM box on a whim two months ago and started to regret it as the horrible reviews kept pouring on in on litsy. I almost skipped it altogether but decided to give it a shot and see for myself. Guys, I loved this book. I just gave it five stars on goodreads. It reminded me a lot of Siracusa, both in the sense that it is unpopular and also just the focus on morality and the character development, which was done in a quieter way.

Soon it reached that point of miraculous equilibrium where it felt at once as if it had been going on forever and as if it would never end.

Starting my morning off right. Lush bath (the experimenter), Starbucks, and a (hopefully) good book. 👌🏻🛁☕️ 📚

This was a BoTM pick in Oct. I saw the 0% on Litsy and kept putting it off. I went in with low expectations and I have to write it is ok. You will see the ending coming a mile away, it isn't a psychological thriller as advertised, and you will scream when the author write iPad again and again, but it is an ok book about obsession. Not terrible and not horrible, but simply ok. If I read this on a plane, it would be great. Took about 2 hrs to finish

Started this tonight and am entering the read with very low expectations after seeing the negative reviews on Goodreads and here. I figured I made my BoTM choice a month ago, so I gotta live with it. The good news is I am 60 pages in after 20-30 mins of reading and I don't mind it at all. The other good news is, it is only 250 pages, so I will be done by tomorrow. Creepy cover art that so far conveys the story.

This is a character study of a psychopath, and I think the author did a decent job with that. Yeah, there's lots of over-described items like food etc but I felt like that's something our narrator would fixate on. As a thriller, it's kind of slow but I thought the back half picked up well. I listened on audio, and it entertained me well enough. Halfway between a pick and so-so.

I know this book isn't terribly popular around these parts (every time I look, its favorability rating has sunk further!), but I really enjoyed it! I love an unreliable protagonist, and Matthew really did it for me. I thought the pacing was great - I appreciated the slow creep to realizing there was more going on than it initially seemed.

Oh. My. God. The ending of this book was so predictable and boring... What annoys me the most though was that if the author hadn't been so verbose and enjoyed his own prose so much, I think it could have made a really interesting novella. BUT it's not a thriller. Not in any way. Wish I hadn't heard of it.

listening to this on audiobook and I keep pausing to look at the cover because, wow, I want to be swimming in a lovely pool right now. (I'm tired of winter already, which does not bode well for the next four months.)

So I was planning for a fun afternoon at the mechanic's... but it turned out to be an easy fix. And since my mom is already babysitting, Starbucks it is! The snowman cookie is so worth it. Also, I needed this time to actually make some progress in this book. 🙂

Aside from the rather ominous shadow in the pool, this cover has me wanting to have the option to lay out by a pool, not pregnant and with no kids. I've got 3 weeks to go before baby number 2 arrives! #ImSoOverBeingPregnant

If I'm honest I'm glad I'm done with this book so I can move onto something better to read. It did speed up a little about halfway in but all in all it just was not a book I enjoyed reading. 2/5⭐️

This started out slow, the pacing was kind of languorous and it never really picked up as the plot advanced. I found the slowness frustrating, and then abruptly, the story ended. It was just really unsatisfying.

Is anyone else struggling with this one? I feel like I'm just skimming this book the way it's dragging on...😫

I fell I would have liked this more if it hadn't been billed as a thriller. It was very readable, but missing those exciting plot elements that are hallmarks of a good thriller. I've heard it compared to The Great Gatsby which I can see more. The entire book left me very "meh."

⏰ wake up wake up wake up it's the book of the month!!⏰(couldn't help myself) (I AM SO EXCITED)

When your roommate walks in a interrupts you with stories...😒😩

Let's talk theme-y covers for a second! #thefallguy

You know that dropping feeling when you just finished a really great book and have to figure out what to read next? That was the state I was in when I started THE FALL GUY. And thankfully-- it was another solid book. It is a little too pleasurable to be considered "great" (I think "great" implies something important) but I couldn't put it down. Read it, just read it. It is really fun and I promise you'll be entertained.

Meh. This had me turning pages but I never really felt like anything happened. It had potential for a big bang and instead just fizzled out. I also wanted to shake most of the characters, repeatedly.

This one's a struggle...

I couldn't participate in the readathon today, but I did manage to start this month's BOTM selection. And awesome job to the readers today! Remember, it's a marathon not a sprint, pace yourselves!

My phone decided to stop working a couple days ago and I haven't been able to be on Litsy with my old phone. Never thought I would miss an app so much😩 so glad to be back on here!😁📖