Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Carriejay

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Many moons ago I took part in Cannonball Read II, under the name Teabelly. A lot has changed since then, and I now have five year old twin girls. I'm not getting as much reading done, but I'm hoping to make a half Cannonball at least.

Carriejay's Reviews:

Survival is Insufficient

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

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In the present day, an actor is performing as King Lear on stage. He falters, flubs his lines, and stumbles. A man in the audience, a paramedic, runs to his aid, but the actor has had a heart attack and cannot be saved. He is Arthur Leander, a famous actor of stage and screen, the news of his death would be everywhere, except within a few hours the Georgia Flu hits, and the scale of death obliterates his. We follow the paramedic, Jeevan Chaudhary, for […]

Cute but without the patented Rowell gut punch

Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell and Faith Erin Hicks

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Deja and Josiah (Josie) are seasonal best buds, working together at the local pumpkin patch for the last few years. During that time Josie has had a mad crush on the fudge girl, and since it’s their last night working before they go off to college, Deja decides it’s her mission to get Josie to at least talk to the object of his affection. Their quest takes them all around the pumpkin patch, and attractions they haven’t experienced for themselves because they’ve been working. They’re […]

“It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.”

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

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In the early 1900s, January Scaller is a child living a lonely existence. The ward of wealthy Mr Locke, she has only books and a disinterested nursemaid for company. Her father works for Mr Locke and his archaeological society, travelling the world collecting artefacts and rarely coming home. At seven years old January discovers a Door, a crack between worlds, but before she can investigate further it is destroyed. She grows from being a wilful child to a young lady who knows when to keep […]

Might try something a bit cheerier for my next book…

She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey

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In 2017, journalists Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor published an article in The New York Times that was the result of months of painstaking investigative reporting. The subject was Harvey Weinstein, a powerful Hollywood producer known for his eye for a good film and Oscar success. He was also known among certain circles as an abuser, someone who used his power to coerce and threaten young women – either those in his employ just starting their careers or actresses looking for a part. Struggling initially […]

“In the end, the courage of women can’t be stamped out. And stories – the big ones, the true ones – can be caught but never killed.”

Catch and Kill: Lies, Spies, and a Conspiracy to Protect Predators by Ronan Farrow

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In October 2017, The New Yorker magazine published an article by Ronan Farrow detailing the abuse of power of Harvey Weinstein, a major Hollywood producer. Rumours of Weinstein’s behaviour had circulated for years (I’m pretty sure I was aware of it in the early 2000’s, if not before. This just from paying attention to nods in magazines. I may not have known any details, but I knew he could make or break a career). Other journalists had tried and failed to get the story out. […]

“Her pen had a heart inside, and the nib was a wound in a vein”

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar, Max Gladstone

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On a battlefield on a dying world, Red, an agent for the Agency, finds a letter that reads ‘Burn before reading’. So begins a correspondence with Blue, an agent from the Garden, a rival agency. Both factions are fighting a war within and for time, controlling various strands and pulling threads. Undoing what once had been, creating other stories from nothing. That first letter is all boast and bravado, and so is Red’s response, but as the correspondence continues they share more of themselves with […]



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