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Jennie‘s Boy, by Wayne Johnston (2023 🇨🇦)

Premise: A memoir of the author‘s childhood living with chronic illness in an impoverished Newfoundland community.

Review: This is close to being a perfect memoir: full of humour, insight, and vulnerability. It does a fantastic job of showing the reader the insecurity of growing up in illness, poverty, and as the child of an alcoholic, but also the power of familial love.

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Not nearly as wonderful as Johnston‘s fiction. This was a bit of a slog honestly, and I don‘t have high hopes for it on #CanadaReads. I think it‘ll be voted off first or second.

This is a unique look at poverty and chronic illness through the lens of a young boy in a fiercely stubborn family of survivors. It is a CanadaReads contender this year. I am not sure how applicable it might be to all of Canada. It would have been nice to hear how the rest of the family made out.

I‘m working my way through my last unread book from the Canada Reads shortlist. With about a hundred pages to go, I like it but I‘m not passionate about it. Guess that means WATCH OUT FOR HER is my top pick for this year, and it‘s bound to get voted off either first or second. Hopefully the debates‘ll still offer some interesting discussion fodder, whether or not I have strong feelings about the books on the table.

Canada Reads. First book finished. I was a little excited for this one, because I have seen it compared to Angela‘s Ashes. It is similar. Was it sad? Maybe, but I giggled a lot. Were the kids abused and neglected? Perhaps, but I never once doubted that they were loved. And Wayne Johnson is living proof that love matters the most. 4/5. The writing wasn‘t as good as it could be. I might reassess later, because I went in with very high expectations.

Getting my February #BookSpin list out early for once. 💐💝

ETA: modified to account for last minute buddy reads 🙃

Watched both Christmas episodes of Son of a Critch. #wintergames #christmaschapterchasers @StayCurious

Loved this cold, gothic historical fiction novel set in Newfoundland. The novel tracres the war between siblings in a small coastal village. Great on audio. 4 🌟

I picked up this book from the library having never heard of it, and I quite enjoyed it. Spend the summer in a small fishing village with a group of boys while they try to solve a mystery while growing up before us. A great look into the cod fishing industry on the east coast of Canada and the struggles it and the families that worked it suffered. A quick read and a good coming of age story.

#Readathon #ReadAway2024 #EastCoast #Fishing