Welcome to Litsy!

#womensprize shortlist readings in Cadogan Hall

Lovely people and talented writers! All extraordinary!

And the woman who read Milkman (and who did the audiobook) was incredible!
#womensprize2019

I liked this just fine & was invested enough to read till the end, but I felt that it could have been better. I appreciated the depiction of a dysfunctional Chinese-American family & their restaurant business, but it did feel aggressively overwritten & workshopped to death, as others have mentioned. I felt the author's presence more strongly than I did the characters. A compelling look at family dynamics & the American Dream, but frustrating.

I'm not sure how to talk about this & it strikes me that it's so out of what I've been taught to be conventional wisdom. I feel compelled to use a list of adjectives: terrifying, exhilarating, devastating, gut-wrenching, & still, at the end, hopeful. Reading interviews with the author helped me to not to read this as a metaphor for anything. Instead, I tried to see the world through the lens of Igbo ontology. It blew my mind open. #womensprize2019

#womensprize2019 Evans does a great job of capturing the discontent that often arises during that period in a couple‘s relationship when they have young children and their careers are starting to pick up. It‘s a challenging time, especially for women who have the added burden of being the ‘perfect‘ mom. Unfortunately, the book is bogged down by some superfluous plot lines and the writing is often of the telling variety and overly wordy. 3⭐️

The structure of this book won me over. It's a narrative sustained through episodic vignettes. Set in communist Romania, the atmosphere is oppressive, dark, & absurd. I was wary of the magical realism, but it's woven in so deftly & naturally. The structure, themes, & writing are very clever. The police state haunts every page; but interpersonal relationships, like between spouses or mothers & daughters, broke my heart. Distinctive & memorable.

This book is batsh*t crazy. I kinda loved it.

If you‘ve ever wondered what (very graphic) sex with a merman would be like, can stomach upsetting animal neglect, and don‘t mind an obsessive, completely unlikeable main character, this may be the book for you. Also, must tolerate weirdness and aforementioned graphic sex that is not at all sexy.

Otherwise, you should probably keep scrolling. Nothing to see here. 😂

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#womensprize2019

#womensprize2019 It took me too long to finish this book! My biggest issue is that there are too many characters in the book and most of them were underdeveloped so that they came across as caricature or stereotypes. The story mainly centers around a family that owns a Chinese restaurant that succumbs to fire. Unfortunately, the author tries a little too hard to jazz it up instead of dealing with the intricate family dynamics more deftly. 3⭐️

This book chronicles the life of Abeo, who lives a life of comfort and happiness in a (fictional) African country until the age of 9, when her father takes her from her bed in the middle of the night and drops her into a life of ritual slavery (unfortunately NOT fictional, even today). While the book takes a lighter approach than it could have and doesn‘t detail the horrible suffering, it still packs a hell of a punch.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

#WomensPrize2019

Backing up book club with book club. Also #readharder2019 a novel by a trans or non binary author.

THIS BOOK #indiebuddyreads #womensprize2019