Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Classic

CBR 9
CBR11 participant
CBR14 Participant
CBR14 Bingo Badges
CBR17 Participant
CBR17 Comments
CBR17 Levels

Government drone by day and book lover and geek girl by night! I review on Goodreads, StoryGraph, and NetGalley.

Classic's Reviews:

Almost Perfect Collection of Short Stories

Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman

by Leave a Comment

The only reason why I didn’t give this collection 5 stars is that not all of the stories grabbed me the same way as “The Red Garden.” Also though there is the linkage of the Blackbird House, we have so many loose endings with the people who come and live in that house. I loved “The Red Garden” because many of the people in those stories popped up as young children and then as adults or were referred to in some way so you know […]

Welcome to Blackwell, Massachusetts

The Red Garden by Alice Hoffman

by 2 Comments

So this was a really great book to choose for the Sleepy Hollow square. Taking place in a small town in Massachusetts, Alice Hoffman follows the town founders and descendants of Blackwell, Massachusetts. Mixing in historical incidents as well as some magical realism, the town and the residents feel like a very real place after a few chapters. The flow between chapters is great and sometimes a person you read about as a child appears in a short story later. I do wish that a […]

A Kinsey Installment Looking at Family

M is for Malice by Sue Grafton

by Leave a Comment

I ended up finishing this book last night and found the overall story to work quite well, while also providing us more details into Kinsey’s maternal family as well as her relationship with Dietz. I was surprised by the ending though since I honestly couldn’t figure out who the murderer was, and when we understand what happened and why I felt pity for the character of Guy Malek. Grafton is often able to write a victim of a murder in such a way that you […]

This Book Was Too All Over the Place

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

by 2 Comments

I DNFed this book at page 103 last night. Life is too short for a book that is making your brain seep from your ears. There was too much being thrown at me and none of it made sense. McGuire writes this book with no world building so you are just thrown into a book where alchemy is a thing and so is putting body parts together to make a person. I can’t even get into this split soul thing and what that means and […]

Somewhat Boring Romance

The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin

by Leave a Comment

Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review. So this was just a so-so romance read. I usually am all over Christmas romance books, but this one was pretty lackluster. The heroine (Sarah Smith) is a doormat for a good 3/4 of this book. And it didn’t help that Raisin threw in a side plot dealing with letters that were left behind that added nothing to the story. I think the main problem is that the […]

Wallander Gets Beaten Up…. A Lot

The Pyramid: And Four Other Kurt Wallander Mysteries by Henning Mankell

by Leave a Comment

So I read “Faceless Killers” back in 2016 and never got back to the Kurt Wallander series. I enjoyed the tv show starring Kenneth Branagh and always meant to try to give the series another go when I got a chance. I dithered between 3 and 4 stars and mostly that’s because it seemed this collection showing Kurt through the years prior to the start of the first book in the series doesn’t really give us any more insight into him and at times seems […]



Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo