Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About Jenny S

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By day (and night really), I teach writing and help run a writing center at a community college in the Chicago suburbs. However, my superpowers include creating towering stacks of to-read books next to my bed.

Jenny S's Reviews:

Coming into the Light

The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake

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I enjoyed this novel both because of its heroine, Nora Beady, but also for all the interesting details about the practice of medicine in the mid 19th century–fascinating and horrifying in equal measures. Nora is the ward of a famous British surgeon, Horace Croft, who saved her from a cholera infection that killed her whole family when she was a child.  Croft is brilliant and eccentric and that may be why he encourages Nora’s interest in biology, anatomy, and medicine, even though in mid 19th […]

All That Glitters

Hotel Magnifique by Emily J. Taylor

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This was a nicely structured fantasy novel with the kind of plucky heroine I enjoy.  Jani and her younger sister, Zosa, are living grimly in a port town called Durc.  They made the trip to Durc after their mother died so that Zosa could pursue a singing career but four years later, Zosa is no closer to becoming a singer than she was when they arrived and Jani is working at a tannery to try to earn their passage back home (a task that looks […]

A Smudge on the Page of History

Better The Blood by Michael Bennett

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Sometimes you start reading a book and you know you’re in good hands.  That’s how I felt as I dove into Michael Bennett’s novel, Better the Blood.  Set in present-day Auckland, the story explores how past colonial trauma echoes on into future generations (a topic that seems timely in so many ways right now). Detective Senior Hana Westerman is on her way into a courtroom when someone sends an anonymous video to her phone.  It isn’t until later in the day (after the judge hands […]

Underwhelmed (or I wanted to like this but . . . )

Red Thread of Fate by Lyn Liao Butler

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I am part of a book club that creates a yearly reading list of interesting titles (we all suggest and then vote on 9) and usually the book is a good choice—even if it is something I might not have picked up otherwise. I wanted to like Lyn Lia Butler’s book, Red Thread of Fate, both because it was picked by one of my book club colleagues and because on paper, the story is an interesting one. New Yorkers, Tam and her husband, Tony, are […]

Not All Books about Books are the Same

The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

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As my semester ended and the break began, I indulged in my usual ritual of checking out lots of books to binge over the holidays.  I hit up both my community college library (which has a stellar YA collection) and my local library. At the library, I ended up grabbing two novels from the New Reads bookshelf that on the surface had a lot in common but ultimately were very different reads. The Keeper of Hidden Books by Madeline Martin is set during World War […]

Hello Darkness, My Old Friend

Dead Man Dancing by John Galligan

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Two years ago, I spent a weekend up near Spring Green, Wisconsin, and discovered Arcadia Books.   It was there that I bought my first Bad Axe County mystery featuring Sheriff Heidi Kick.  It was one of the best books I read that summer, and when I wrote this review, I was eager to track down Books 2 and 3.  However, for some reason, I didn’t. However, two weeks ago, I found myself back up in the area (meeting with the same friends for a long weekend) […]



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