Welcome to Litsy!

✨ january ✨

getting a late start, but i had five five-star reads in january this year:

-spells for forgetting
-just like magic
-a flicker in the dark
-on the cliffs of foxglove manor
-the circus train

and the circus train was my favorite of the five.

#12booksof2023

Try or don‘t try. The time will pass anyway.

I think this one started out strong but then kinda fizzled out for me. It was enjoyable, but could have done with maybe one more edit. (Especially when finding a pretty big error that took me out of the story) It read a little like YA which is not a favorite genre for me. A soft pick as I think it has some really good potential and was an interesting background even if the story is similar to ones we‘ve heard.

Your greatest achievements often grow out of the worst circumstances.

Well, I guess The Circus Train is my favorite of the year so far. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Slow pick. This was a sweet story during a hard time with the ending I‘d expect of a sweet story. I think my much younger self old would have enjoyed it quite a bit. Until the last quarter I thought it lacked sophistication and read middle-grade.

#14books14weeks2023 Book 3
@TheHeartlandBookFairy

Delayed leaving Denver.
Are you in the habit of bringing books when you travel?
How many books do you usually bring?
What‘s your current read?

“In Greek we have a saying: Epiméno. It means ‘to persist.‘ If you think about it, life is like one long maze. Sometimes it‘s easy. Sometimes we get stuck. But if you persist, if you can find it within you to endure the hardships, you will reach your goal.”

So I totally forgot I had to read the book for #mummydaughterbookclub until about 5 hours before I had to leave. So I mainlined this one - which was easy cause it was a page turner! It had a slow start and did drag a bit at the end but once I was in, I WAS IN! And I finished it with a half hour to spare so I got to shower before leaving!

I love books about circuses and magic! This story started and ended very good, but got a bit slow in the middle. The story had a lot going on it. War, love, living with disabilities, family conflict, and (of course) the circus and magic. This new author did a great job of pulling it all together. The authors note at the end filled in some loose ends for me.

Just like my last read, the timeline in this story felt too long to allow a proper dive into the characters. I loved Lena and Alexandre, though, and I was happy to spend whatever time with them I could get! Lena especially was a fascinating person, and I was rooting for her happiness all the way. I'll read Parikh's next book for sure. #historicalfiction

“You know, just because someone says you have to be a certain way, or only do certain things, it doesn‘t mean you have to listen.”

It was the pity she hated more than anything else, the feeling she got from others that her life was somehow less because of her physical disability.

Upsides to this book were that it featured a MC who has a disability, which goes against status quo, and that it's the first historical fiction book I've been able to read in a long time. There's the Circus Train, there are Nazis, there are secrets long kept and stories of not just survival, but determination and even a love story. This was a really enjoyable book for me.

I stopped by my library because the book I'm reading is boring.
Picked up
The Circus Train by Amita Parikh
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
The Other Birds by Sarah Addison Allen

Another great book by a new writer. I was sucked in and finished it quickly. Different than silly rom com, deeper but yet still fun to read!

My favorite January read

I gratefully received The Circus Train by Amita Parish from an Instagram giveaway. The giveaway was hosted by the amazing author, Kristina McMorris! I‘m so excited and can‘t wait to dive in!!

https://abookandadog.com

What a wonderful read! An epic magical tale of a young girl who lives on the Circus Train during the 1930s & early 40s. Absolutely enchanting! 2nd favorite read in 2023! So good! 😍 4.5/5.

Finished The Circus Train and Lovelight Farms and started rereading Legendborn. #audiopuzzling #joyousjanuary #backlistreadathon

Next up…

Generally enjoyed this book. It had many great aspects but felt forced with the historical aspects of the book. 3⭐️ #botm

This has all the elements of a great story: high drama, a main character who is an underdog, a touch of romance, and a little magic. Lena is our heroine, afflicted with Polio as a baby, she lives her life in a wheelchair, with no one expecting her to one day walk. When a Jewish boy named Alexander enters her life, he asks why can‘t she walk? Who said she can‘t? Her life changes forever from there, and little Lena learns to walk.

Stayed up tooo late again finishing another great BOTM! A circus of whimsical magic and illusion, WW2 Europe, an orphan apprentice, a motherless girl with infantile paralysis, and Love 💕

Day 4 #JoyousJanuary Readathon @Andrew65
#Pantone2023 @Clwojick

⭐️⭐️⭐️?

A WWII novel with a twist - the circus setting and a hint of magic set this apart. It started slow for me, but once I got into it, I was swept up by the resilience and love of these characters. Epiméno! #BOTM

Lena is a young girl confined to a wheelchair due to polio.

Her dad is an illusionist with a traveling circus.

While Lena often feels left out and different, she excels at academics and makes a true friend in Alexandre, the Jewish boy found beaten and taken onto the circus train.

Disability, determination, war, and a little bit of magic make for a powerful story.

#botm

This started out great, but slowly fizzled as I kept reading. I couldn‘t really connect to any of the characters, and felt like not a whole lot was happening. Such a shame, because I feel like it had some good potential.

This is my last book of 2022…Happy New Year to all and happy reading in the new year! 🥳

Up hours after bedtime finishing up this beauty... great historical fiction spanning decades with themes of war, disability, family, overcoming, and of course the circus. Definitely a top read for me this year.

Maybe I‘ve over done WWII fiction this year, but I didn‘t love my December #BOTM pick as much as I expected! Main character Lena does steal the show in the way that precocious and smart young girls do and her storyline of overcoming a variety of obstacles shines. But the rest of the characters rely on more telling than showing. Head-hopping & modern sensibilities make for distracting editing choices here that are compounded by a predictable plot.

“The Circus Train” is a debut work by Amita Parikh and it was a five star read! It‘s a WWII historical fiction book but had so many other elements in it that it‘s unlike any other WWII historical fiction book I‘ve read. So glad it was in the #BOTM picks 🙌 And I‘m stoked to learn she‘s working on her next book because she‘s an author to take notice of 👏👏👏

Saturday nights in December just hit different 🎄🍷📕🥰

My BOTM pick arrived today with some really cute stickers 🥰📚 I'm excited to read this one once I'm done with all my Christmas reads for the season.

Thankfully the books inside appear in good shape, but I‘m terrified of what‘s going to crawl out of that little hole when it wakes up 😳😬

I honestly wasn‘t that excited by the December options, but I didn‘t want to lose out on my free BOTY, so I picked the book I was the most interested in. I already have a my own copy of Tomorrow x3, so I will be giving this extra copy to a friend.

Whoa! Had no idea they‘d drop the books today for #BOTM 🙌 Thank you to the Littens who posted ♥️ Getting these two and pretty psyched for both

Yay, #botm day!! Wasn‘t expecting to see these available today but I‘m not complaining. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow is my free BFF BOTY and the magnets are for completing the reading challenge (for the 1st time ever 😁)!

4⭐/5⭐

I liked this a lot. It's not like ground breaking or anything. There are SO many books on this topic. But I was definitely engaged and entertained.

My photo is not ok. 😂 But this is how we're going to roll today.

US pub date is 12/6/22
#ARC #Netgalley

Wow...what a wonderful read. This historical fiction spans two decades and while WWII is a large part of it, it has a very different feel than most books in that genre. The character of Lena was fabulous and although not a fantasy, the book felt slightly magical. This is a story about family, drive, sacrifice, greed, romance and believing in yourself. I loved it! 5/5 stars.