Welcome to Litsy!

March wrap-up! I finished 8 books this month, including 3 new releases, 2 #botm picks, and a short story collection.
🥇We Could Be Rats
🥈Tender is the Flesh
🥉Project Hail Mary

I am such an Emily Austin fan. Her books often feature smart, quirky, emotionally wounded, interesting lesbians. While this tackles mental health issues, it never feels too dark or overwhelming. It feels real, compassionate, and even absurdly funny at times. This book is about Sigrid and her sister Margit. They are each struggling in different ways that are discovered as you read their thoughts in the book. Austin treats her characters so kindly.

There is something so refreshing about Emily Austin‘s captivating dissection of life. She breathes a fresh perspective into whatever she is examining and managed to write a book about suicide that felt curiously delightful.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Emily Austin is an absolute must-read for me! Her books are the perfect blend of intellectual stimulation and quirky darkness; my favorite flavor of literally fiction. This is a heavy story told with an often light tone, and utterly thoughtful. I don‘t know how Austin pulled it off. It‘s hard to describe further without spoiling. This short novel says so damned much. #coverlove

https://multitudescontained.substack.com/p/surprise-me

Last book I read in January. I‘ve enjoyed all of her novels, this one maybe a bit less than the others. Austin has a special ability to relate vulnerability and despair with such gentleness and humor. A very special writer! Triggers for suicidal ideation. #BOTM

I didn‘t like the twists and turns tbh. By time I got to the 3rd part of the book I was pretty spent. I wanted to relate to the characters more than I did. There was some endearing parts. This book was just OK to me. #botm

This book brought up some feels. I wish I could write that I never experienced being on the surviving side of someone‘s suicide and those notes, but like so many that would not be my story.

I‘m on a work trip, and I‘ve had this one on my TBR list for so long. Naturally, I had to pick it up on my way back to the hotel room. 📖

I went in with expectations a bit too high because i just gave her last book (tagged below) 5⭐️ in the Fall. This book deals heavily with suicide as about half of it is a woman trying to write the correct suicide note to her friends and family. Some reveals in the second half 🤐 negatively changed the way I saw the characters, and I think that contributed to this being a more mid-range pick. I do want to reread knowing what happens at the end.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

4.25 stars. Another perceptive Emily Austin stunner! This time she offers a different story framework from her previous books, which I think was pulled off beautifully and expanded the dimension of the sisters‘ relationship. Her writing touches my heart and makes it ache in a very particular way. #BOTM

YES! My Book of the Month Box arrived today, which helped with the post holidays depression! 🤭💕 I'm absolutely starting the Austin book first! I love her writing so much! #botm

First #botm picks of 2025!

My January #botm are here already! I'm really excited for all four books. In fact, I'm probably going to have a hard time picking which one to read first. And I got my hammer for finishing the 2024 reading challenge. It's heavy!

I just wrote to @Hooked_on_books that #botm is that good-kisser ex I keep slithering back to and always feel a bit ick about. My main issue with them is the whole main pick versus add-on thing. I thought Rats or Maddy would be a main pick, but I had to rejoin to find out they weren‘t. 😡🙄 But I loved Daniel Black‘s last book, so I rolled with this box. Plus I hate that you have to be a “friend” to get a decent add-on price. Sigh. #botm

I really wanted to love this. I read Interesting Facts About Space earlier this year and thought it was creative and fun while keeping respectful of mental health. This keeps the respectfulness but I felt it missed the mark for me. It is fairly repetitive which got old really fast. The first part is multiple attempts at a suicide note and it could have been half the length. I think there are interesting ideas but I lost steam.
Pub Date Jan 28