I should have adored this! Look at the cover! Meta-mysteries are my thing, and this novel of two halves should have been a winner.

Although the concept was excellent, the execution was mediocre.

For some reason, the writing didn't breathe life into the plot. It felt more like a list of stuff that happened and I had to keep re-reading because none of it stuck in my mind.

Excellent ideas, but bland characters and guessable twists.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bit obsessed with the Bridgerton generator.

I tried to Bridgertonify Pickles, but it wouldn't let me 🤣🤣

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii 🥰

1. I make a rather dashing Regency gentleman

2. Italian meringue

3. This ridiculous bookmark that Rare Birds sent me

4. (Which is OBVIOUSLY number 1) Meeting my adorable new nephew Benjamin Simon 💕💕💕💕

5. Mucking around on AI image generator

"I didn't think a lot about death, but I was getting ready to. I understood that death was coming and that all my current preoccupations were kind of naïve; I still operated as if I could win somehow. Not the vast and total winning I had hoped for in the previous decades, but a last chance to get it together before winter came, my final season."

I tried to type this whole passage out but it's too long!

"It was now obvious that H was openly rewarded for each thing he did while I was quietly shamed for the same things...

H couldn't see the haunting and this was the worst part: to be living with someone who fundamentally didn't believe me and was really, really sick of having to pretend to empathise - or else be the bad guy!"

"I had booked a room at the Carlyle and then, on Saturday at four o'clock I had sent naked selfies to all my New York friends. We regularly send these, along with pictures of our kids and pets - it's just part of keeping in touch these days."

Wait. Do people do this?

I have a feeling people don't do this.

IS THIS SOMETHING PEOPLE DO WITH THEIR MATES?! ???

@Oryx

https://youtu.be/SdmECBhLNyY?feature=shared

TOP 10 COUNTDOWN of my SHELF OF SHAME!!!!!!

In this vid I run through the top 10 books on my shelves that make me feel guilty for not having read them 😅😅😇 As you'll see, the reasons are different...

Let me know what's on your shelf of shame and why!

the fact that I'm just chilling out reading some Ducks, Newburyport, and I hear some munching, crunching, lunch, punch, hunch, ba dum bum tsh, and I think oh good Pickles is eating her food for once that's nice when all of a sudden who walks past but MR YOWLY, thieving ass cat, ass hat, pack a mac, ball sack, and I'm like who invited you in for breakfast, breakfast, The Breakfast Club, David Beckham, anyway, anyone want a free cat?

Overall a positive book full of information.

I did, however, have a few issues with it that have left me feeling disproportionately annoyed.

As usual, I've written down my thoughts in a ranty essay in my phone notes that I'll never post anywhere because expressing strong opinions on the internet never usually leads anywhere positive 😅

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a lovely book, but personally I find understated little stories that try too hard to tug at my heartstrings a bit irritating. I'm at my most curmudgeonly with this sort of literary work (Claire Keegan had a similar effect on me.)

Also, there's a LOT of weather talk and scenery description. Tolkien would approve.

Clear was still a concise and moving story, and I was happy to read something sweet and literary for #camplitsy24

⭐️⭐️⭐️

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView 💕

1) Stuart Turton, but you're probably all fed up of me plugging his books by now, so I'm gonna give a shout out to Jeff Vandermeer, Emily St John Mandel, Helen Oyeyemi, Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, Brian K. Vaughan, Patricia Lockwood, Blake Crouch, David Mitchell, Alison Rumfitt, Patrick DeWitt, Stephen King, N.K. Jemison, Claire North, and Bernadine Evaristo.

2) Jeff Vandermeer's fungalpunk Finch was decent.

Still my favourite Salem...

#bookspinbingo @TheAromaofBooks

DOUBLE CONCENTRATE THIS MONTH

I've decided that I need to be more focused this month or I'm not going to do very well with my buddy reads and challenges! So I've just specified 10x books and I'll give myself 2 squares for each.

May be slightly cheaty but seriously have you seen how big Ducks is???

Starting a spooky buddy read with some buddies! (You know who you are 😊💕)

I LOVE the cover of this version.

#5joysfriday @DebinHawaii 💕

1/ Books arriving in enormous boxes
2/ New dress
3/ Dolly mix from the sweet shop
4/ Mucking about with AI image generator (yes, that is Batman's baroque library on a pizza.. you should see the Polly Pocket version...)

and 5/ I'M AN AUNTIE AGAIN!!!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

Tagging @Branwen @DaveGreen7777 @The_Penniless_Author @CBee @Yuki_Onna

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

"If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him."

When you have 3 hardback copies of a book already, but you get it in paperback because it'll be comfier to read 💁🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

I'm working my way through the Fitz and the Fool 2nd trilogy at the moment. Once I've finished that it's either this or Acotar next....

Feeling feminine and floaty today in my new summer dress and Tatty Devine Whitby Abbey necklace.

SUMMER READING WEAR!!!!!!!!

Now to seek coffee, cake and sunshine...... or perhaps ice cream 🤔

Got overexcited at the prospect of double points.

On the plus side... I'm now ready for #camplitsy24

#two4tuesday @TheSpineView ?

1) Neither my car nor my house are presentable ?

The grass is so long that it could be concealing any number of cats. I suspect the number to be between 1 and 3.

Books in my room cover every available surface and quite a lot of space that could not be described as a "surface". This is a situation that has not been improved by Waterstones' recent double stamps offer.

SEND HELP!!!!

2) Garfield

Local café is shut for Bank Holiday so I'm recreating the experience in the back garden.

I've heard Strange Sally Diamond described as "like a dark Eleanor Oliphant". Fits #pop24 prompt for 42 year old character.

Continuing The Fire Next Time.

@Megabooks @jenniferw88 @BarbaraBB @KarenUK @Kelly_the_Bookish_Sidekick @MissHel @AshleyHoss820 @Ruthiella @OriginalCyn620 @BookBelle84 @graciouswarriorprincess @WJCintron @Branwen @BarkingMadRead

I think I may now be addicted to AI generated art...

Anyone want to come and hang out in my library?

Morning all. Major insomnia last night 😵😵😵

https://youtu.be/DkSgY_G9OJ8?feature=shared

^ Highlight on Franco Fontana (brilliant Italian colour photographer)

Sontag is a fierce intellect. A force to be reckoned with. The kind of intellectual mind that can distract from her own contradictions with sophisticated wordplay & verbal a***-kickery. Convince you that you've got it wrong regardless of reality.

She'll elegantly explain the patriarchy, but then pooh-pooh advances in equal human rights as "reformist" & suggest we should politicise our sexual preferences.

My brain hurts. Send help.

This one flips!

I've only read one other book that does something similar: Ali Smith's How to be both.

I bought it because of the cover. Who could resist that deliciously baroque-looking manor?

Disclaimer: looks baroque to me, but what do I know about architecture?

Arrangements in Blue is intense, raw, poetic prose on the absence of romantic love in the life of a woman who idealises it.

Amy Key writes with a vulnerability that is painful to me. The world is not a place that celebrates the single, whole woman & coming to terms with this is fraught with obstacles.

I have so much to say about this book, but I fear it will turn into an outpouring of personal grief.

Beautiful, fragile, and poetic.

"I summon the defences of romantic lovelessness... [the song] is though, eager to undermine my situation, to designate my life incomplete.

I open the windows above a windowsill on which I have arranged the precious totems of my life. Let the rain & wind disrupt & ruin what I felt content with. A deliberate trashing. Like the lack of another soul that I can touch makes my own soul smaller, insubstantial.

And I so badly want to have a soul."

It goes against my curmudgeon way of life but here we go 😋 #5joysfriday @DebinHawaii

💙 Buttercream
💙 Waterstones Double Stamps this weekend!!!!! (Yes, that's a picture of me in Venice and not at all related... I'm in love still)
💙 Pickles
💙 Franco Fontana's Colore exhibition - I took home the book and I love it
💙 Despite saxophone practice going badly, I'm now finding it MUCH easier to blow the clarinet. Every cloud.

You're all tagged!

My friend sent me this.

Now I'm bummed out 🤣🤣🤣

The Haunted Hotel was OK. I wasn't wowed. I enjoyed that the hotel was in Venice because I went earlier this month and fell in love with the place. Luckily the place I stayed didn't formerly house any of my dead relatives or generate any eerie bad smells.

I would describe the story and writing as quintessentially Victorian through and through. The sort of tale that would probably be scarier read at a time before electric lighting.

Any of my US buddies going to see my favourite Autobuy author this week or next???

Tell him I said Hi 😁

I'm a bit speechless. And emotional. And just... processing.

There is so much to unpick here and I am unequal to the task!

Tremendous mystery novel with dark academia vibes that is strongly rooted in reality and explores issues of race, class, privilege, exploitation, and power dynamics.

Manages to be both a pulse-raisingly compulsive whodunnit and a nuanced, highly-charged political discussion (think Yellowface / Such a Fun Age).

Wow.

Just in case you haven't had enough of me going on about Italy, here is 20 mins of RAE IN ITALY CONTENT.

https://youtu.be/UYysTjNgmY8?feature=shared

Badly spliced holiday footage? YES
Dreadful holiday apartment audio? YES
Book ranting? YES
Excessively large notebook shopping? YES

This video has it all.

The last 5 mins is me reviewing My Brilliant Friend and The Enchanted April. #booktube

So now that I've read both the bloke and non-bloke versions, you'll be wanting to know who wore it best, right?

Well the art in this one is just as good as in The Story of Art, but I did sometimes find myself wishing for Gombrich's infectious storytelling whilst reading this excellent collection of art-thusiasm.

You can tell which eras Hessel is most interested in because then her writing gleams.

Another wonderful book about art ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I don't think I got the memo about being back from holiday 🤣🤣

Just want to sit in the sunshine and eat cake and scones!!!!!!

Supposed to be sorting out the house, but Pickles has sat on me and started purring and she looks so comfy I don't want to move her 🤣

"In that sudden, temporary darkness, I had one of those moments of bold thought that you feel might change you forever: I would never be loved in the body I am in by someone I could trust with it. I had never felt loved in the body I am in.

How could I enjoy a shell-shaped pool when I didn't know if I would ever feel loved? I was dessicating from the lack of it."

I dunno.

This wasn't without charm, but it also irritated the life out of me with its selfish, infuriating characters, and weird narrative choices.

The men were all shallow, amoral, self-important creeps.

I was hoping it would be a book about freedom, independence, joy, and self actualisation, but the moral of the story seems to be that if your husband is an asshole, it's probably 'cause you're no longer glowing enough to keep things on track.

No kitties to see here... only pile of logs...

(Seriously though, that can't be comfortable...)

#picklescat #catsoflitsy

I don't remember the last time I read a book with such annoying characters 🤣🤣

Waiting for the others to push Mrs Fisher from the battlements 🍿🍿🍿

(I suspect I will be disappointed... this isn't a murder mystery after all... Still, there's 100 pages left... plenty of time for it to end in a shoot-out...)

Side view!!!!!

Other parcels that were awaiting me on my return 🥰🥰

The first book for CampLitsy24 has arrived 😁

When you go on ebay whilst on holiday and make purchases while in "holiday mode"...

This was fantastic, but doesn't stand alone. Finishing it feels only like finishing the end of a chapter.

My Brilliant Friend is about two girls growing up in a neighbourhood in Naples. It rings true in a way that is either very clever, or based largely on the author's own personal experiences. Essentially, it has a biographical feel to it.

I will reserve final judgement until I've completed the quartet, but this book was immensely readable.

Lovely book of watercolour paintings of Venice that come to life even more after experiencing the city in real life.

Wouldn't call it a graphic novel as it's not really a story!

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1) I think y'all know what I'm gonna say here 😁
ONLY 21 WEEKS AND 20 HOURS TO GO!!!!!!

@Oryx @scripturient @CGainor3 @TrishB @squirrelbrain @Leniverse @jhod @Caroline2 @jenniferw88 @julesG @Susanita @rockpools @BarbaraBB @MicheleinPhilly @LeeRHarry #gladstonerds

2) Waterstones, and subscriptions, and Indie stores.

3) I have about 6 on the go at the moment. Need to sort out what I'm doing!

Pickles: "you spent HOW MUCH on macarons???!"

#catsoflitsy #picklescat

Unclear whether she missed me or not...

#two4tuesday
Thanks for the tags @TheSpineView & @Yuki_Onna 😊💕

1) CAKE!!!!!! Maybe a Colin the Caterpillar.

My friend and I always used to have Quiche picnics at Newark Castle back in the day.... we were all about the quiche 😊😁

2) Maybe The Enchanted April. I'm reading it at the moment and it would suit!

It's a toss-up between classic bullying anthem Ugly by Daphne & Celeste and the absolute cringefest No Way No Way by Vanilla.

You guys are naming some absolute bangers though... Ding Dong Song! Barbie Girl! Tubthumping! Y'all aren't invited to my ultimate 90s party haha 😉🙃

Bye bye Italy and friends 🥲💕