Welcome to Litsy!

Whoa!!!! What an emotional roller coaster this book is!Brutal yet beautiful. I spent the majority of the book with a lump in my throat. My heart is hurting! Secrets always have a way of coming back to haunt you. Why did I not pick this book up sooner? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

After years on my tbr, I finally read this one, and what a gem it is. It's a beautiful story of a woman in early 2000s Afghanistan and the strength she finds in the stories of her ancestral aunt who pushed traditional female roles. It is powerful, disturbing, and inspiring. This was September's #Bookspin @TheAromaofBooks

I participated in an author event at The Back Room hosted by Hank Phillipi Ryan and Karen Dionne. Authors Lyn Liao Butler, Lisa Gardner, Eliza Reid, and Francesca Serritella engaged in fascinating conversations. I wrote about my experience on my blog and it‘s loaded with book recommendations.

abookandadog.com/author-events/the-back-room-september-2025

⭐️⭐️⭐️.75

What a powerful first chapter. It was so good I read it twice in the beginning, and returned to it once more when I finished the book. It was intriguing, dramatic, and beautifully worded.
Sadly, the rest of the book didn't quite live up to that first chapter.
Up until the incident with Hassan, the story was interesting and reflective, but then it quickly slid into melodrama and predictable plot directions. ⬇️

Well-written, informative, upsetting, and inspiring. A wonderful memoir.

#ReadtheWorld2025 #Afghanistan

#OffMyShelf “Historical”

Not for the easily offended. Flashman is a terrible, amoral person. He‘s just incredibly lucky. Expelled from Rugby, he joins the army and ends up in Afghanistan, right in time for the first Anglo-Afghan war. I may continue with the series since Zelig-like, he is always at an interesting historical moment. The author is obviously a historian at heart. And I don‘t think the author endorses Flashman‘s behavior. Far from it.

Good Girl was a beautifully written reflection on poverty, identity, xenophobia, youth, shame, and abuse of power.

I'd struggle to name many characters I've hated as vitriolically as Marlowe. He is emblematic of the way people exploit the vulnerability of others.

The romanticisation of recreational drug use is tedious, but makes contextual sense.

This book was poetic and brilliant, but also miserable and devoid of much hope.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️