Welcome to Litsy!

This is another great historical fiction by Jennifer Nielsen. Set in Poland throughout WWII, it follows Lidia from the initial German invasion through the final days of the German occupation. It‘s a harrowing story of those who joined the Polish resistance. I‘ve read stories of the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, but this was a broader story of resistance throughout the city.

#audiobook #MiddleGrade #WWII #TRS2025

"On my name day it began to rain, so we moved the chairs into the hall to sit it out until the rain stopped. But it never ended; it came streaming down relentlessly, obscuring the horizon. Not in drops, but in stair rods."

I really loved this musing on rain and I am glad I read this in the fall the perfect time to absorb the beauty of her writing.

While I really enjoyed this I do think it is a bit too long. I really ran out of steam the last 50 pages or something.

Something Tokarczuk does so well is weave stories into one book that make you feel like you are sitting on a porch while neighbors drop by and tell you gossip. You have the story of the villager who walked up the mountain to see his childhood home, the story of a saint - and the monk who wrote her story, the story of the man 👇

Reading the new Tokarczuk and she tells the story of Saint Wilgefortis (aka Kummernis or Solicitous) a 14th century nun whose father tries to force her to marry and she is "given" the face of Jesus to show how virtuous she was and how she was called to religion.

She is considered the Patron Saint of Intersex people specifically and the LGBTQ+ community in general.

I am so glad this book landed on my radar. I learned so much. Very emotional read. The amount of determination and courage to research the Home Army women fascinated me. A hero. @OutsmartYourShelf #Research

If I can finish 5 of my current reads, I'll be happy. #TurnthePage @Bookwormjillk Thanks for doing this.

I am glad I read it, and there were definitely parts of the book I thought were glorious in prose and imagination. But at the end I felt I had finished putting together a piece of furniture, and found myself looking at several screws and bolt or two that were “left over.“ #TOB2025 #ToB25

This is set in Poland very close to the border of the Czech Republic, and our main protagonist is a woman in her senior years. She hates her name and disregards most others as inappropriate, is massively into astrology, and flies the flag for animal rights. She is generally perceived as a batty old woman.

On the whole, I did like this. It does require more work from the reader than I'd typically give to the genre, but that's not a bad thing.

4⭐️ Some things just don‘t change. The 19th century Warsaw was all about money, women, greed, and racism. It was bad then, it is worse now. I enjoyed Prus‘ humour - I didn‘t know he could be cheeky and funny 😆