Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About esmemoria

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Eager to get back on the horse this year! In my walking around life, I miss my old, blind pug (the Ancient Mariner), help amazing college students become teachers, and tie an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: esmemoria's Quick Questions interview.)

esmemoria's Reviews:

Bringing Her Back for a Speedy Read

Never Lie by Freida McFadden

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Yes, my friends, I’m back with another Freida McFadden thriller. My strategy to get to a Cannonball is picking books I can get through at a brisk pace. McFadden has never let me down in this department. As I once wrote, her books are like potato chips: compulsively readable and bad for you. McFadden’s newest book (man, she churns them out) Never Lie has a similar set up to many of her other books. The chapters flip-flop point of view, which I enjoy for the […]

Running Joyfully Amok at the Plaza Hotel

Eloise by Kay Thompson

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I haven’t been able to read for a couple of months. I’m so close to a Cannonball, but I’m not sure I’ll make it with how scattered my concentration is. So I decided to pick a short, effervescent book: Kay Thompson’s Eloise. Eloise is a mischievous, imaginative, busy little girl who lives in NYC’s Plaza Hotel with her nanny. There is no mention of her father, but her mother is rich and constantly traveling, leaving Eloise to run charmingly wild. The book is Eloise describing […]

Bingos Among the Bodies

Malice by Keigo Higashino

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CBR Bingo: Body I was very excited a month ago, because I was starting a book that would finally give me a bingo—two, in point of fact. And then…nothing. I couldn’t get started for love or money. “Nooooo” I wailed, tearing my shirt like Stanley Kowalski and screaming, “Bingo! BINGO!” Luckily, narfna’s review of Keigo Higashino’s Malice saved the day. Malice features the brutal murder of a successful writer and the detective, Kyoichiro Kaga, who pursues the case. Like a lot of newer books I’ve […]

Time for Something New

The Family Across the Street by Nicole Trope

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CBR Bingo: Dough. As in “d’oh! This book drags” Nicole Trope’s The Family Across the Street is not a bad thriller, really, but Trope stretches out the plot to a glazed-eye degree. The premise is a family being held hostage by the father, who is enraged his wife wants to leave him. The chapters switch among POVs, including the father’s and his wife. But a lot of the chapters are devoted to others who “have a funny feeling” about what’s going on in the house, […]

A Thriller with Real Weight

I Let You Go by Clare Mackintosh

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CBR Bingo: Question I chose Clare Mackintosh’s I Let You Go for the Question square because I was interested in who the “you” was in the title. The question was answered on several levels in this excellent novel I never want to read again. I Let You Go opens with the tragic death of five-year-old Jacob, who is killed in front of his mother in a hit and run. The narrative alternates between the detectives trying to track down the killer and Jenna, who has […]

“ But I didn’t kill him to teach him a lesson; I killed him to carve him out of this world like a tumor. And I’d do it again.”

They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

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CBR Bingo: Cold Trigger warning: sexual assualt, mild spoilers Layne Fargo’s They Never Learn is the story of a feminist killer. Dr. Scarlett Clark, professor of English, targets all manner of deserving male victims: rapists, predators, abusers. The story opens on her staging the suicide of a young college football player who participated in the gang rape of a fellow student. She adds strychnine to his energy drink, an incredibly painful way to go. Scarlett is an ice cold killer in execution, but driven by […]



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