Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Jake

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I love reading! (Learn more about this Cannonballer: Jake's Quick Questions interview.)

Jake's Reviews:

Alchemy

Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis

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I’ve been enjoying the tv show Lodge 49. It’s a very low-stakes but entertaining show about a guy at a dead end in his life who joins a secret society and gets entangled in some things while learning about life. It’s more character-driven than I thought it would be and I think that’s why I’m connecting with it. At any rate, when looking up books to read for fans of the show, this was the top recommendation by far. I can see why. It can accurately […]

Now She’s Just Somebody

A Woman I Know by Mary Haverstick

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: celestial. Admittedly, this is a stretch but my rationale is that Jerrie Cobb participated in a women’s flying program in which they SHOULD HAVE been the first American women in space but were denied because…well, because they were women. So the celestial tag is a nod to their hard work and dedication, despite the sexism they faced. I’ve read plenty of books on the Kennedy assassination, fiction and otherwise. This is a different take. It started out really well. […]

OhWeGone

A History of Wild Places by Shea Ernshaw

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: cult. There is a commune at the center of this book that may-or-may-not be a cult. You’ll have to read to find out! An interesting book that’s tough to rate but I’m glad I read it. Also glad for Book Bingos, Reading and Library Challenges that get me to get stuff off of my shelves that would otherwise sit there for years. Shea Ernshaw has real talent. I was drawn into the world she wrote; being quite impressed with […]

Rolling Heads

Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel

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What you must never forget about this one is that you’re still in Wolf Hall. That’s trite, I know! But I can’t think of what else to say because as I reoriented my perspective on reading this, its power really hit me. I read Wolf Hall five years ago, at a different period in my life and thought it was just ok. Appreciated what it was doing but I didn’t have the focus to engage with it like I should have. Time and age tend to confer […]

The Opposite of Euphoria

Negative Space by B.R. Yeager

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Read as part of CBR 16 Bingo: dreams. One of the main characters consistently has dreams that impact the plot of the story. CN: This book has many references to suicide, sometimes graphically. I won’t go into detail here but it’s impossible to review without mentioning it. If that’s something that makes you uncomfortable, sit this one out. Like many a child of the 80s and 90s, I’m a product of DARE’s Just Say No Culture. I never did drugs, was terrified of them as […]

I Hope It Doesn’t Suck

The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman

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Read as part of CBR16 Bingo: smash. This book is a vampire novel, a historical fiction novel, and a mystery novel all rolled into one.  Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires isn’t the kind of book I’d normally read: gonzo fantasy. But it came highly recommended and — in spite of itself — it worked. The imagery was overpowering and the narrative eventually caught up with it near the end. It made sense for the kind of story it was trying to tell: take the apocalyptic overtones of […]



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