Welcome to Litsy!

Gothic thriller or weird girl horror? This story started off unsettling & maintained that atmosphere throughout

It starts with an abrupt move to a dilapidated country house after an unexplained but obviously quite serious incident at the girls school

I really appreciated Stella‘s (mum) chapters as they offered new information & made me look at rest in a different light

Overall this was weird but compelling enough that I had to see it through

I am not sure how I feel about this book. The accolades are numerous, the writing is fabulous but I felt sort of distanced from the story. It‘s about two teenaged sisters, July and September, who have left their home in Oxford to live in a crumbling cottage by the sea after some sort of “incident”. It‘s been called everything from a “gothic mystery” to a “highly disturbing shocker”. Despite those descriptors, it wasn‘t a page turner.

This book was lowkey giving We Have Always Lived in the Castle in the beginning with this sister dynamic. The first half honestly didn‘t interest me super hard even tho the ambiguity was cool. The plot twist was AMAZING! It redeemed the whole book tbh. The ending is super ambiguous too (which lowkey I don‘t like bc like….tell me what to think). Super interesting to read and reflect on your relationship with your sister

This is a weird one so far … but I‘m liking it!

This stack is headed to my sister. #readingbuddy

I have no s(h)elf control - when @Oryx read this book at the #readingretreat I was immediately fascinated by the synopsis (even though I still don‘t like the cover) so I ordered it as soon as we got home. 🙈😊

This was a really riveting story which had me very disorientated never really being sure of time place or the reliability of the narrator July , one of a pair of sisters, the other September having been born 10 months before her. Set in a very run down run down coastal Yorkshire Holiday cottage and with a depressed mother the siblings tale emerges. I can't say any more as it is haunting and unsettling and definitely a book fora cold October night

This book is hard to describe without saying too much. But a family moves after something has happened and it is hinted at throughout the novel. Sister June and September has anything but a healthy sisterly relationship.

I am posting one book per day from my extensive to-be-read collection. No description and providing no reason for wanting to read it, I just do. Some will be old, some will be new. Don‘t judge me - I have a lot of books. Join the fun if you want.
This is day 226
#BooksToRead #TBRPile #TBRMountain

An angry book, full of grief and love — but love resentful and controlling and twisted. The words tumble against each other and make an atmosphere of quiet, shifting ghostliness where nothing is quite real, maybe not even the reader. The twist was relatively obvious, but somehow no less wrenching for it. I‘m honestly not sure if I liked the book or not. Maybe that‘s the real mystery…

This is echoing around my head…

New read for a hot as heck day…hoping for some chills😂

"Grief is a house with no windows or doors and no way of telling the time."

"Something happened we cannot remember." Eerie, absorbing, and in the vein of Shirley Jackson, the story is told in fragmented glimpses of July's anxious narration along with some narrative from her mother Sheela & The Settle House itself. Even seeing the final twist coming didn't undermine its power. (Note: the Shirley Jackson volume just happened to be my other library book. I had no idea I'd find Sisters to be akin when I took the picture.)

DJ can certainly write a good monster, and a claustrophobic familial relationship. July and September put me in mind of the twins from "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield. Sisters is a leaner, brisker book, though, with an off-kilter narrative voice with no interest in lulling the reader. I felt tense each time DJ dropped hints about what happened on "that day" but found myself wishing that the twist, when it came, had been more ambiguous.

🌼Oh so many...Dandelion Wine, Life after Life, Gentleman in Moscow, Nightingale

🌸 The tagged-tough to differentiate POVs and reality v. imagining

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView

10 days into April and I‘ve read... 1 book. This tale of 2 sisters deeply intertwined in each other‘s lives was a slow burn. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Current read influenced by @BarbaraBB 😊 I‘m enjoying the creepy mood so far...

Two sisters, born just 10 months apart (named July and September) are caught in a powerful emotional web and wrestling to understand where one ends and the other begins. Dark, bizarre, gothic. But a great cover! #bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

Great story. Easier to read/understand than her previous novel. Challenging things happen, and an interesting story about grief. I didn‘t realize the sister was dead until well into the novel, which speaks to how well written it is. Story about relationships between mothers and daughters as well

September and July have always been inseparable, but a traumatic event and a move to a strange old house with their grieving mother is causing a troubling rift in their relationship.

Read February 24-26
Rated 2.5/5 ⭐️
Book 14/60

Atmospheric, dark, even felt damp somehow. I listened to the #audiobook along with the print copy and it was great narration. The dual perspectives of a mother and one of her daughters, July, assisted in the (at times) murky narrative for me. It‘s a bit of a puzzle to unwind what‘s going on in this family of three women, especially the titular “Sisters”.

Meh

After something terrible happens sisters September and July retreat to a house in the country with their mother. The girls are minimally supervised and the house is odd. Is it haunted? What happened to make them flee? I guessed the end about halfway through this one and still very much enjoyed the ride.

Johnson does a beautiful job establishing a dreadful, sickening, feverish atmosphere. We don‘t know exactly what has happened to the sisters or their mother to make them flee to the run-down house on the coast, but we know the event has driven the mom into a deep depression, leaving the teenage sisters to cope with their emotions alone. Not exactly light, cheery Christmas reading, but absorbing for those of us who like the dark.

Deliciously creepy novel about two sisters whose lives are completely entwined. Solid narration on the #audiobook

A dark , moody read for a dark, gloomy day.Sisters September & July are 10 months apart, but unnaturally close.Without a father & a distant mother, they move to a house with a dark past already in the family.The writing is lush & interesting, I did have a hunch about the twist.I really enjoyed being submerged in the weirdness .

Rain for the first time in 110 days ! I anticipate a slow roll out this morning with a little extra reading in bed.

This book feels kind of like you‘ve been spinning in circles while chugging red wine and you‘ve just fallen down but the world is still spinning. My head is still spinning a bit.

The book can‘t really be explained in much depth — it‘s a relatively short read with a lot packed inside — but I will mark a major Content Warning in the “spoiler” comment below.

Daisy Johnson really knows how to write a disturbing, creepy, spine-tingling story. This book kept me up reading even later at night than I usually do. I couldn‘t put it down.

Wow wow wow. Fun and suspenseful!

Short novel about a dysfunctional family and, maybe, a haunting. Sisters July and September and their mother have moved in a hurry to a house on the coast because “something happened” at school. We eventually find out what as well as the disturbing relationships within the family. The twist at the end took me a bit by surprise and it is unsettling. Good stuff. https://cannonballread.com/2020/11/sisters-a-novel-elcicco/

A magnetic story of two sisters and the mother that orbits them.

September and July were born less than a year apart and have a toxic, intertwined relationship. Although they are teens in the story, this is no YA novel. Their mother is deep into a depression when they move from Oxford to the Settle House where September was born, and September is acting strangely.

The book didn‘t get exciting to me until 50 pages in but then I was riveted!

A hypnotic dream of a book! About sisters, September and July, who are bonded so tightly they are like one person. Following an ominous incident their depressed mother moves them to a dilapidated beach house. Their bond becames stronger than ever! September is dominating with a mean streak. While July is submissive and quiet, always living in her sisters shadow. But things start to shift within July. A perfectly haunting read for the season!

I didn't realize this book would be so moody and thrilleresque based on previous experience with this author. There are a lot of questions about what has happened, why the family has relocated to this moldy home, but it's clearly something with sisters September and July. The entire novel is a bit circular in storytelling so some pieces are left out and some are repeated. The setting and emotions evoked are good for a #spooktober read!

New #bookspinbingo month!! So excited!
#bookspin is a book from mount TBR
#doublespin is tagged
Already got one space this morning 👍🏻

Thanks @TheAromaofBooks 💖

September is my birthday day month and I see every book I buy as a present to myself. So these are the books I bought.

The two books standing in the middle, was bought on the day.

So far I‘ve only read Summer, but I can‘t wait to read the others

My #bookspin #bookspinbingo list for October!! Excited!! @TheAromaofBooks 👍🏻👍🏻📚🎧

Backlist = a physical book from mount TBR

#3books #iwanttoreadnextmonth
@Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks @OriginalCyn620

Latest ep of Books On The Go is up now! We loved this book. 👌🏼🎧 Have you read it?

This was a short book so I decided to finish it. I found July to be going through a severe stage of grief/denial and for how the author implies this book is dark and sinister it was actually disappointing in that area. It could have gone deeper. And the ending was a bit rushed, jumping through time and with mixed messages so you‘re left wondering is it worth it to be given one ending and then that is stolen from you. Too much and not enough.

“There were months when she told us she was living in a sadness the colour of rust and leather”

This book is a conundrum... and I love it

I did have other reading plans , but this has just arrived & turned my head .... I think I‘ll have a look ....

#bookreport
Loved The Woman in the Woods, great series that gets better and better.
Loved Sisters, the writing and the atmosphere of the book.
Maybe you should.....have bailed! This was just meh for me though I pushed through and finished.
Started Blood Lines yesterday and hopefully finish today.

#bookmail! I think if I had to thank all the Littens whose reviews made me want to buy this, I‘d run out of characters!

I‘ll start it soon. 😊📚

Twisty and atmospheric so far. Narration by Daisy Edgar-Jones (who played Marianne in Normal People) is good! #currentlisten

This was good but not great 😣
It‘s not like the story was completely original, but the prose and slow unraveling of events leaves you captivated. I was hoping for a WOW moment but it never came. I‘m glad I chose audio, as it totally added to the creepy atmosphere. Three ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

#InstantGratification 🧡and it‘s only 4.5 hours
I think I‘ll start it tomorrow morning as I have dinner plans tonight
I‘m totally looking forward @squirrelbrain @TrishB @BarbaraBB

The almost twin sisters July and September live with their mother in a broken down house. The tragedy that caused their move is revealed in fragmentary glimpses.
The dark relationship between the sisters and their depressed, almost absent mother, create a tension that keeps building up in this powerful, quiet, gothic novel. I couldn‘t stop reading, held my breath and finished it with a heavy heart. Wow.