Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I'm a special education teacher by day and a reader by most other hours. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Booktrovert's Quick Questions interview.)

booktrovert's Reviews:

You say goodbye, I say hello

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

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CBR Passport – new to me author (which I think makes this my 6th official CBR passport author that I’ve counted, but in reality the 13th or 14th new author I’ve read this year, I might have to go back and do some updated accounting). I will never turn down an homage to Little Women. Although I have 5 sisters, giving us two extra girls to account for, we loved the act of assigning ourselves a character. On TV, there’s Golden Girls, Sex and the City, […]

North Stars

Memphis by Tara M. Stringfellow

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This is an example of a multigenerational story, with many different timelines, done well. For a story of such breadth it’s really quite short, which felt refreshing. The characters in this novel experience some brutal tragedies, and yet the tone is overall quite hopeful. This is the story of the North family. Hazel North married Myron in the 1940s, just before he enlisted to fight in the war. Myron built Hazel a house, brick by brick, in the historic Black suburb of Douglas outside of […]

“The way to stay married is simple – don’t get divorced.”

Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give by Ada Calhoun

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Ada Calhoun has attended many weddings – and like most married people, there’s a feeling of the uncanny in listening to the hopeful speeches given. There are variations, but most boil down to some style of blessing / mission statement that THIS couple is so perfect, all they need is love. Calhoun was moved to write a Modern Love column that gives  a more realistic depiction of marriage – it’s love, sure, but staying married is also about addressing some real dark-night-of-the-soul style moments. In seven […]

“Oh God, Lucy.”

Oh, William! by Elizabeth Strout

Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout

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I’m a big fan of Modern Mrs. Darcy and her end of year best-of list (linked) aligns well with what I have already enjoyed / will be putting on my list for the coming year (she also has a fantastic summer guide, not to mention a podcast entirely about helping people find the right book which is super charming – I highly recommend checking her out). I haven’t read any Elizabeth Strout before this year, but so many people love the world that she has […]

Model seed, model cities

Walk the Vanished Earth by Erin Swan

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I chose this book after reading this review   (thanks, anana!). I have to say I agree with anana’s general perspective that this book is ambitious and mostly successful. What drew me in was the comparison to Station Eleven, which I loved. If you’re interested in literary fiction about climate change and the potential disasters it might bring to Earth as we know it, you’ll likely enjoy this novel. The structure relies on the story of a single family, told across two hundred years – from the […]

Dueling novels

Scary Monsters by Michelle de Kretser

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Michelle de Krester gives the reader a (granted, limited) choice in this duology packaged as a single book – you can read these stories, each essentially a novel in itself, in whichever order you prefer. One is called “Lili”, and set in the early 1980s. The other is called “Lyle” and set in the near future. The stories are, of course, siblings but there’s not a specific through-line. They are connected without really connecting. Both stories are about Australians who had emigrated from nearby Asian […]



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