lumenatrix – Page 4 – Cannonball Read 17

Death and the Maiden

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

July 31, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

I really, really wish I liked this book more than I did. It really has quite a bit going for it, I really enjoyed about 85% of the book a lot, but it didn’t quite stick the landing for me. Set in Nineteenth Century British Malaya, Li Lan is the only child of a Chinese businessman. The family fortunes have dwindled to almost nothing since the family was hit with small pox, disfiguring Li Lan’s father and killing her mother when she was very young. […]

Some Lessons Are Best Not Repeated

The Woman on the Orient Express by Lindsay Jayne Ashford

July 31, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

Ugh, oh man. OK. So, it turns out I reviewed another of Ashford’s books last year, Whisper of the Moon Moth, and I really wish I had realized these books were by the same author before I had started it. It also explains why this stupid book refused to stop popping up in my “Recommended For You” List on my Kindle. A quick recap of why I wasn’t thrilled with Moon Moth: basically I really don’t like novels that try to make suppositions about real […]

What Is Normal?

Eggshells by Caitriona Lally

June 13, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

I’m not really sure where to start with this book. I’m not really even totally sure how I feel about this book at all. This book was just awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, which is given out every year by Trinity College Dublin, which is where Caitriona Lally happens to work… as a janitor. I read an article about her and was intrigued. She got the idea for the book when she was unemployed after being laid off and spent her days roaming […]

Rich People Problems

You Think It, I'll Say It by Curtis Sittenfeld

June 13, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

I needed a bit of a palate cleanser, and short story collections almost always fit that bill nicely. I had already read Prep by the same author years ago. I remember liking it, but not really identifying with the characters very well, they were a little too outside my personal experience. I had kind of the same feeling with some of the stories in this collection. A lot of them are really great, and overall I did like this collection, but Sittenfeld does tend […]

She is Not Bridget, She’s Queenie

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

June 4, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

A lot of the other mentions I have seen for this book compares it to Bridget Jones’s Diary. I can see why the comparison is made, and for about the first quarter I can almost see it, but this book really is something else entirely and the comparison is overall pretty shallow and off base. Queenie is a young black woman in London. She is working for a magazine and trying to find her voice as a writer and work her way off the “Events” […]

When the Deck is Stacked Against You, Switch to Pachinko

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

June 4, 2019 by lumenatrix Leave a Comment

I loved this book so much. I think it’s one of my favorites int he last couple years. It’s kind of a quiet story it’s about normal people living relatively normal lives, or at least normal for their situation, so it’s kind of a quite, slow meander of a book. There is no real climax or resolution to speak of, it’s a bit more circular in it’s plotting. This is the story of four generations in a Korean family that lived during the Japanese occupation […]

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.

About lumenatrix