Halbs – Page 30 – Cannonball Read 17

Coming of Age with Hurricanes and Ghosts and Jessie’s Girl

Joyland (Hard Case Crime) by Stephen King

December 27, 2019 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Given the book’s pulpy cover with a buxom redhead, I thought Joyland would be some kind of hard-boiled exploitationy romp. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s actually a quiet, classic Stephen King-type coming of age story, albeit one for twenty-somethings instead of kids. The story swirls around events at an independent amusement park in 1970s North Carolina called Joyland. The park has a mysterious old owner, always impeccably dressed (I pictured Atlanta Falcons’ club owner Arthur Blank) with a twinkle in his eye. It […]

You Can’t Hate Yourself Into Health

The F*ck It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner

December 27, 2019 by Halbs Leave a Comment

Earlier this year I’ve reviewed a book about disordered eating and mentioned that eating disorders were common in my profession. After reading that book, I did what any smart person does; I read the comments on the internet! Really! There are some useful subreddits about disordered eating and intuitive eating, and many of those mentioned actor/creative Caroline Dooner’s The F*ck It Diet. I honestly dismissed the book because of its trendy use of f*ck in the title. It felt like it was screaming, “This isn’t your parents’ […]

The Twenty-Six Year Old Virgin

Losing It by Emma Rathbone

December 20, 2019 by Halbs Leave a Comment

I’m a sucker for coming of age stories, and I’ve read and watched a lot of them, but the premise for this one brings an unexpected combination of things: A woman in her mid-twenties, formerly a collegiate swimmer, can’t figure out her life so she moves to SEC-country to live with a plate-painting aunt and to lose her virginity. It goes ok. The protagonist is Julia Greenfield, the kind of character that might live in Stars Hollow or the dorm in Undeclared. She’s drifting through […]

Hallmark After Dark!

Esther: Royal Beauty by Angela Hunt

December 19, 2019 by Halbs Leave a Comment

This book was recently on one of the Amazon daily deals lists, so I bookmarked it for future reading and gave it a go. It seemed like an interesting mix of religious romance (think Hallmark), historical fiction, and a mashup of Jewish and Persian culture. It was pretty much all of those things! If you look up the book on Amazon or Goodreads you can see it’s in the three-part “Dangerous Beauty” series also featuring Delilah (of Samson fame) and Bathsheba (of David killing her […]

“The hunter and the prey.”

Face It: A Memoir by Debbie Harry

December 18, 2019 by Halbs Leave a Comment

It’s hard to stop looking at Debbie Harry. She is gorgeous, yes, and sexy, and a natural performer. What’s the most interesting thing to me, though, is that she’s largely inscrutable. Her Blondie persona is not her, not quite. As she explains, her Blondie character was sort of androgynous, “an artistic, assertive woman in girl drag” not unlike Marilyn Monroe, one of her big influences. To her, Monroe was “a woman playing a man’s idea of a woman.” If Debbie Harry decidedly isn’t the frontwoman […]

Eve Babitz

Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A. by Lili Anolik

December 18, 2019 by Halbs 1 Comment

I had never heard of Eve Babitz until Joan Didion and/or Jia Tolentino wrote about her. If you stand out to those two, you automatically have me on board as an eager learner. They speak of her as an artist and writer with respect and some distance, like a mythological folk hero. She’s somewhere in between Eddie & The Cruisers and Jeff Mangum from Neutral Milk Hotel, I guess? Anyway, I wanted to learn more about this Hollywood aristocrat. Unfortunately, Eve Babitz’ many books are […]

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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