Welcome to Litsy!

The writing is beautiful. I immediately took to the narrator‘s voice and its unusual detached feel. But maybe because of that detachment I wasn‘t immediately emotionally invested. However as the story moved on I became gripped, and also sad and distressed at the fate of Sashi and those around her. The second half was excellent; the final pages such an angry yet reflective look back on the war, that it fully won me over, as did the author‘s note.

“Brotherless Night” is an emotionally-charged novel that follows a family & their experiences during the civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from 1983 to 2009.

The book offers a very nuanced look at the lives of civilians who are swept into the eye of a war, whose contours & colours start to blur and become unrecognisable as time goes on. It offers insight into women‘s experiences in war.

This was a challenging read in that it was dense and a painful storyline. War is always messy and so much loss, including not having a childhood as is the case of the main character. I learned a lot about Sri Lanka. For anyone who doesn't shy away from challenging historical fiction, this is a good one. Great writing.

The tagged 2024 Women‘s Prize winner is still my favorite of the year.

Enjoy your book shopping!

@BookmarkTavern

Well, shucks. So many promising angles to the premise, the world-building, the messaging, but - I hesitate to call it messy - it just feels like it kept cutting itself off. One plot line would be interrupted by another, in theory a new development, the same characters, but it often felt like the characters were privy to more than the reader was, and not in a way that was purposefully mysterious, and later revealed. 1/?

Points for provoking a WTF upon encountering the unfamiliar phrasing.
Evidently hadal is primarily used in reference to the hadal zone of the ocean, “The region extending from 6,000 to 11,000 meters is called the hadal, or hadalpelagic, zone after Hades, the Greek god of the underworld.“ Which tracks with “so far under the surface that no light penetrates.“
So an extra sinister way to say 'a tone of deep regret'?!
Upon reflection, I LIKE. 😈

I‘m only 25 pages into THE SAINT OF BRIGHT DOORS, but it feels like it‘s gonna be special. Charlie agrees.

Grand simile.

New (to me) word alert!
Horripilate: “undergo horripilation, in which the hairs stand erect from the body due to cold, fear, or excitement.“