Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

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I've been told I have a reading problem. (Learn more about this Cannonballer: lowercasesee's Quick Questions interview.)

lowercasesee's Reviews:

Escobar minus Escobar

Fruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras

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One of the first things this book made me realize was that I had watched Narcos all wrong. I’d thought that the title referred to the DEA agents, I guess I was thinking “narcs” or “narcotics officers”. But the word narcos stands for narcotraficantes – the traffickers. Makes sense. The show was about Pablo Escobar, not the other guys. Fruit of the Drunken Tree is the story not of the agents or the traffickers, but of the Colombian citizens caught in the crossfire. In her debut novel, […]

It had been too long since I read this

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

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I dug my first copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy out of my Christmas stocking when I was probably twelve years old. My dad had been telling me the story (mostly his favorite part, Restaurant at the End of the Universe’s “Meet Your Meat”) for years but finally gifted me a copy. I was sold on the cover copy alone: “The first in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s trilogy”. I loved it then, I love it now, and I loved it when my high school put […]

Well, it didn’t scare me off MY wedding

Strangers and Cousins by Leah Hager Cohen

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I’m calling Strangers and Cousins a “summer read” because it’s largely about a family gathering for a wedding and that feels like a quintessential beach read to me. I’m getting married this fall and am already kind of dreading the unavoidable deluge of distant relatives, so it also felt a little personal, up until the point I started reading it. Cohen may have been better served had she pared things down a bit. There’s a wedding AND the town is in crisis AND the parents may […]

This Cannonballer says read it

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

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This had been on my list and then I saw that a number of Cannonballers had read it before me (namely, lumenatrix and scootsa1000) and then I SUPER wanted to read it. Other reviewers give it kind of a Bridget Jones-y feel but, never having read or watched those, I picked up on some similarities with, of all things, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine. Mostly in its mental health angles, but you might see what I mean. Or I might be totally off base. I also […]

Life is stressful, I want easy books

Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday

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I kind of wanted to claim this one as “The Collection” but it’s only three stories and two of them are connected, so that felt like cheating. Much like I felt cheated out of a good time reading this book. I think I’ve just got too much going on in my life and all I want are engaging, easy reads. Or even just engaging. So, Asymmetry. Makes kind of sense. There are three stories in here but one of them is fifty perfect of the book. […]

I only finished it because I hate giving up

The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

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Insult to injury, I can’t find a bingo category for this one. Anyway. The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt. Apparently first published in 2000, I guess it started popping up again recently because it was put back into print. The gist is that it sent me running for the Cannonball FAQs to see at what point I could throw in the towel, but then it started to be a little less insufferable so I finished it. Not a good enough reason, as it turns out. I […]



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