Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About faintingviolet

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A reader and caffeine addict who consumes all sorts of books, some just more frequently than others. Your CBR Book Club Maven with over a decade of Cannonballing experience I believe in the beauty that comes from a common goal of reading, reviewing, and discussing. Also, Fuck Cancer. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: faintingviolet's Quick Questions interview.)

faintingviolet's Reviews:

I’m with Guy… I like them a bit stern too.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith

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*Note: This review was completed in 2015 before the author’s views towards our trans siblings began to be widely known.  My reading experience was what it was and these reviews will remain up, but it should be noted that I find her TERF values abhorrent, which have only become more clear over time, and her doubling down in Summer 2020 has made the decision to walk away from her as a creative force the only acceptable choice for me. I will no longer be supporting […]

“There is no recovery for anyone without lifting the lid on the pain of the past and letting in the light.”

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“Any time an opportunity scares you that much, you should seriously consider saying yes.” I read Rob Lowe’s first book Stories I Only Tell My Friends back in 2012 for Cannonball Read 4. I remember enjoying it quite a bit, so much so that when I became aware of his second memoir, Love Life I immediately added it to my to read list. Where Stories I Only Tell My Friends had a somewhat linear structure, Love Life does not. Rather, it reflects the things left […]

I am perhaps simply not fabulous enough

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I wanted to like this book more than I did, and if I’m being honest with myself and you I would have DNF’ed this one about half way through if it wasn’t the book I had chosen for Read Harder Task 24: a Self-Improvement book. This is one of the tasks that actually felt like a challenge.  I have read, perhaps, zero books in the past which classify as self-help. Sure, I’ve read lots of memoirs, lots of non-fiction, but really no self-help. That’s not […]

Shaking of the Sheets (and other euphemisms for sex)

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Mary Roach is an author who has been on my radar for a while. I knew about her books, and her particular brand of letting-the-reader-in-on-the-joke writing about non-fiction which I learned when I dove into Packing for Mars earlier this year. So when Audible had a sale of Mary Roach’s books, I looked to see what I wanted to listen to next in her oeuvre (knowing that I already have a library request in for Stiff which is all about the life of cadavers). Bonk: […]

This Book Just Tried to be TOO Much

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In 2008, before my time taking part in the Cannonball Read, I read and loved Mark Harris’s Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. For those that are interested, that book covers the 1967 Best Picture Oscar race, cataloguing how that year’s nominated films – Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, The Graduate, In the Heat of the Night, and Bonnie and Clyde each highlight the changes both in Hollywood and in the culture. I suggest it wholeheartedly. When I […]

An Evening with Betty White

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I have a summertime tradition of reading autobiographies. I tend to stick with ones by comedians of various stripes, but that’s more happenstance than plan. I have had If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t) on my to read list since sometime in the winter of 2012. Well, I finally got my act together and here we are. I’m happy to report that if you love Betty White (and seriously, if you don’t how do you even live with yourself?) and are in […]



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