Welcome to Litsy!

I was into this audio at the beginning but I found it to drag on the middle—so much so that I found myself skipping and I NEVER do that. I could have missed something vital, so take this with a grain of salt. I know theater doesn‘t work for me in literature so it‘s my fault. I loved the MC‘s backstory and the set up: Sonia returns to her home to discover so much has changed: grandparents have passed, houses sold. Timely: Palestinian experiences.

A complicated novel about a complex topic - lots of characters and identities in the Middle East. A great reflection on identity and resistance.

I‘m not really enjoying this (not that this is a joyful book). I just find that the background information being presented drags on for longer than necessary and I‘m starting to lose focus.

Trying to get through some library loans and started this last night. I can already tell this is going to be a tough read for me, but I can‘t put it down.

Clark is excellent at characterisation, I really enjoyed her exploration of character and the context of their lives. Being contemporary and dealing with social media was really interesting and handled very well. I was very much immersed in the story for the majority of the book. I didn't enjoy the meta commentary but could ignore it mostly. More literary than mystery. Bright Young Women and Notes on an Execution adjacent.

This is page-turningly unpleasant, depicts perfectly the mundanity and awfulness of school and teen bullying, brilliantly reflects a Leave-voting town and its hierarchy and residents. Yet I also had issues with it. The pages and pages of the minutiae of teen lives was too much, the characters within the town were so obvious it must have been intentional but felt clunky to me. Yet despite those issues, overall this was an intriguing read 👇

This is a book within a book. A true crime non fiction writern by an aging male journalist which gives us the lead up and behind the scenes of the night Joni, a teenager, is burnt alive by her classmates.
We've all read enough true crime books by now to understand that these are long drawn out dry affairs that never get rated well.
She set out to write a terrible true crime book to showcase that true crime novels are full of fabricated truths.

I read this book because I was impressed the author was under 30 when she wrote it. And won a prize for it. I am probably too old an audience for the book.
While the subject (murder of a teenage girl by her classmates) and the format (like a true crime investigation) appealed to me this is mostly a very repetitive story of teenage girls bullying and being bullied. It felt far fetched, especially when the story lost itself in mystical stuff.

I‘m going to be a party pooper. I read it all but either it all went over my head or it just didn‘t resonate at all with me or both. I got a glimpse of the restrictions and omnipresent danger imposed by Israel on the Palestinians, for sure. But the rest of it did not capture any emotion from me other than “when will I finish this damn thing?” Shortlisted on the Women‘s Prize list, I‘m delighted that Brotherless Night won.