What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin
Read as part of cbr13bingo: pandemic This is the second time I’ve tried Alison Gaylin’s work and for the life of me, I don’t know why I can’t connect with it. The first book I couldn’t even finish because I found myself not caring about the lead. This one was a chore, even if I enjoyed parts of it. Again, even with the multiple POVs, I couldn’t bring myself to muster energy for the lead. I have mixed feelings about Gillian Flynn but there’s a […]
Gravesend by William Boyle
Read as part of CBR13Bingo: White Whale And so I circle back to the beginning of William Boyle’s catalog, with his new one Shoot the Moonlight Out already in hand. I tried reading Gravesend multiple times over the years. But it didn’t stick. It reminded me of George Pelecanos’ work, which I admire more than enjoy: character-focused neighborhood-centric stories in which crime just randomly happens and people get drawn in because they can’t escape their circumstances. Those books always sound like fun more than they read like it. At […]
Endless Night by Agatha Christie
Read as part of cbr13bingo: fauna. There’s a raven on the cover. Endless Night is the rare Agatha Christie standalone and I’m finding that between this, A Pale Horse, and And Then There Were None, I’m finding that I may enjoy her standalone works more than those that feature her superstar heroes Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. (A Crooked House may be the exception to this rule. That’s one I liked a lot less than I thought I would.) I think without the need to shoehorn the large personality and abrasive, […]
The Perfect Stranger by Megan Miranda
Read as part of cbr13bingo: landscape on cover When you’re having a long week and/or a rough week, it’s easy to lose focus in what you’re reading. Your attention drifts, your energy weakens, your focus isn’t there. It’s tough to maintain the scope of anything mildly complex. The book I was reading for the landscape challenge of CannonballRead’s Bingo wasn’t holding my attention. Which is a shame because I was hyped to read it. There were weaknesses but the main weakness was how I wasn’t […]
Batman: Ego and Other Tails by Darwyn Cooke, et al.
Read as part of CBR13Bingo: person on the cover. Batman is on the cover! Like many, I rewound and watched the new trailer for The Batman several times since it came out. I’m a big fan of the Caped Crusader; he’s basically the only superhero I roll with on a consistent basis. When looking up reviews for the trailer (go ahead and laugh but I was curious how others would interpret the Easter Eggs), I saw that one of director Matt Reeves’ big inspirations for the movie […]
It's Better To Be Feared: The New England Patriots Dynasty and the Pursuit of Greatness by Seth Wickersham
Read as part of CBR13Bingo: sportsball On February 3, 2002, I sat on my dad’s couch in Maryland to watch the Super Bowl. Usually, we had a party but this year, no one really felt like partying. We had just gotten back from a weekend trip to Columbus, Ohio and we were both tired. We tuned into the game, promising to root for the underdog Patriots against the highly favored, turbocharged St. Louis Rams even though we anticipated it’d be a rout. On February 3, 2019, […]
