Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Sophia

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I love to read, and I love to learn. I wish I were retired so I could spend more time on my random hobbies!

Sophia's Reviews:

One more romance on the spectrum

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion

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I’d first heard of The Rosie Project (2013) quite a while ago but only recently picked it up to read. It is a pretty light, romantic comedy involving Don Tillman and Rosie Jarman. Don Tillman is on the autism spectrum. He’s very smart and methodical but also very awkward in social situations. Don has been successful in many areas of his life and is a tenured professor at a university in Australia. However, always awkward and misunderstanding, he’s never been lucky in love. But wanting love and […]

Not as moving as you’d expect

The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris

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A co-worker of mine, who rarely has the patience for reading entire books, told me that he, his wife, and his mother all raced through a book, reading it in less than a week. I was immediately intrigued and put The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018) by Heather Morris on hold at the library. It’s a New York Times Bestseller with 4.5 stars on Amazon. At heart, Tattooist is a love story between Gita and Lale that occurs between 1942 and 1945 at the German concentration camp located in […]

When all else failed, the mundane remained

Transcription by Kate Atkinson

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I stumbled upon Life After Life by Kate Atkinson after some favorable Cannonball reviews, and I really liked it. So when I saw that Atkinson had a new book out, Transcription (2018), I immediately put a hold on it at the library. Like the other books I’ve read by Atkinson, most of the events of this book take place in and around WWII. This story is split into two time frames. The first is during the war, where our protagonist, Juliet Armstrong, works as a typist for MI5. […]

This one could not have ended soon enough

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

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Many years ago, I stumbled upon a series of books that mixed fantasy with re-imagined history. These were the Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik, and they described what the Napoleonic Wars would have been like if there had been dragons. Temeraire and his pilot create the base for the novels. I did not end up finishing the series, but I found them pretty enjoyable. So when I saw that Novik was getting notice for some new books based on fairy tales, I was intrigued. I […]

History is a merciless judge

Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

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I first saw Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann on NPR’s Best Books of 2017. It is also a National Bestseller, a National Book Award Finalist, and just the kind of non-fiction that I would find interesting. However, with all the books out there, it took me some time to get around to reading it–which I finally did halfway through 2019. The Osage tribe was forced from their lands and confined to a barren part of Oklahoma. […]

Master your mind

The Rock Warrior's Way by Arno Ilgner

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I’ve been climbing (primarily in the gym) for about four years now. I love it, and it is definitely one of my favorite hobbies. However, it’s always challenging and I often find myself fighting mental blocks. Sometimes I’m high up on the bouldering wall and I get scared, or I don’t want to push too hard when I’m lead climbing because I’m afraid of falling. Sometimes I’m just tired and I don’t feel like trying very hard. Someone at my gym saw me fail to […]



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