Ellesfena – Page 17 – Cannonball Read 17

Full of Highs and Lows

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

April 14, 2020 by Ellesfena 3 Comments

My experience with The Priory of the Orange Tree perfectly illustrates the pitfalls of reading on a tablet. I was happily reading along, thinking how much I was enjoying this book with its refreshingly updated take on fantasy, when all of a sudden, I thought, “Hmm. I’ve been reading this for a long time now and I still don’t know where any of this is going.” It was then that I checked and realized I’d been reading for at least two weeks, and was only […]

Maybe save this one for 2021.

Pandemic by Sonia Shah

April 14, 2020 by Ellesfena 5 Comments

I love reading about infectious diseases, I really do. And I love reading about the history of public health, particularly in relation to infectious diseases and pandemics. But was it wise to read a book about pandemics, and the weaknesses in our public health infrastructure, at this particular moment in time? Perhaps not! It’s impossible to review this book without acknowledging the very weird time we are in, and the fact that Sonia Shah, like so many other infectious disease journalists and experts around the […]

Life is Short, but it is Wide

In Pieces by Sally Field

February 23, 2020 by Ellesfena Leave a Comment

A year or so ago I won a copy of In Pieces during Cannonball Bingo. I was mildly pleased, as I like Sally Field and I like memoirs. I wasn’t excited enough to start reading it immediately, and in fact it took me a long time to read this, as I read it in fits and starts–mostly early in the morning on lazy weekends. Luckily, it’s an easy book to pick up again without forgetting what was happening when you left off. If you read […]

I can see the future, it’s a real dark place

The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

January 2, 2020 by Ellesfena 2 Comments

Oh, how I loved the first book in this trilogy (La Belle Sauvage)! It was one of my favorite books of 2018, and I had such high hopes for The Secret Commonwealth. Maybe, had my expectations been a little lower, I would have enjoyed this more. Sadly, The Secret Commonwealth ended up being rather disappointing. The Secret Commonwealth starts with Lyra Silvertongue, now in her early 20s, as a student St. Sophia’s College in Oxford. We also learn in the first part of the book […]

By the time you receive this, we’ll be gone.

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport

January 2, 2020 by Ellesfena Leave a Comment

For some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, I’ve long been fascinated by the last Tsar of Russia and his family. A few years ago I read Nicholas and Alexandra, which is considered sort of the gold standard of histories about them, and I definitely enjoyed reading it. Historically, the four daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra were much less important than their little brother Alexei, whose hemophilia changed the course of history. In Nicholas and Alexandra, as in real life, the four girls […]

Reads Like a Thriller

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

January 2, 2020 by Ellesfena 2 Comments

I knew going into it that I would enjoy Catch and Kill, because it’s a genre I enjoy, it’s a writer I like, and a topic I was interested in. I just wasn’t sure how much I really needed to read it, considering I’d just finished She Said a month or two earlier and they’re about the same thing. My takeaway is that these are two great books, on the same topic, that read in completely different ways. I’m glad I read both of them. […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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