Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

About lumenatrix

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My Fifth Cannonball! I'm going full Cannonball this year! Last year was a total mulligan. I read a lot, but I just did not have the spoons for reviews. The plan is to get back in the game this year.

lumenatrix's Reviews:

She Doesn’t Owe Us Her Story, I’m Glad She Chose to Tell It.

Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

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 I heard an interview with the author of this book just before it was published and knew from that interview I wanted to read this book. I am really glad I did. It is extremely raw and brutal but so powerful and real. Mailhot does not give two shits if you like her or not and thank god she doesn’t because the truth of the story is what makes it amazing. The book is basically a stream of consciousness letter to her white boyfriend, the […]

Summer in the Sea Section

Calipso by David Sedaris

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 David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors and this book was just the thing I needed after the more serious books I’ve read recently.   If you know Sedaris’s work then you kind of know what to expect. It’s memoir in short story format. This collection focuses mostly around the beach house he and his partner Hugh purchase on the Carolina coast in the same town his family used to take summer vacations. This gives a lose through line to the book, which mostly […]

The Audacity of the Rich White Lady

Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman

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Oh man. I really wanted to like this book, and I did like the first 1/4 or so. But then it just kept careening into stupider and stupider plot devices and the main character showed all the logic and self control of a baseball bat and I honestly barely finished it, even then it was just to hope against hope that it wouldn’t end the way it was so obviously going to… but no luck for me.   The book is told from the first […]

Into the Woods to Grandmother’s House and Home Before Dark

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

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I was the kid that had the Complete Collection of Grimm’s Tales and The Illustrated Hans Christian Andersen and got really annoyed when Disney didn’t get them right. Cinderella’s sisters are supposed to mutilate their feet to try to get the shoe to fit! The witch needs to kill Snow White THREE TIMES! The Little Mermaid is supposed to die, dammit! That’s the only way the story really makes sense! Basically, I was that kid who wanted her stories dark and gorey. I have a feeling Tales […]

When Chickens Come Home to Roost

A Legacy of Spies by John LeCarre

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John Le Carre (I can never figure out how to consistently get the accent mark to work on here, so I’m just not going to worry about it) is kind of a “warm blanket” writer for me. I love his books, especially the George Smiley ones, and I turn to them when I’m a little blue or distraught or as a palate cleanser from a more challenging book. When I saw he had a new book out I was so excited and it did not […]

The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

The Golden House by Salman Rushdie

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  Hey, so did you know that Salman Rushdie doesn’t like Donald Trump? Because he doesn’t. He really, really hates him, in fact. I know this because I read the Golden House, which is ostensibly about Rene and his relationship with his neighbors, the Golden Family, but it is actually quite a bit about the fact that Donald Trump became president and Rushdie didn’t like it. This is good and bad, in some ways the device works, but in others it was a little too […]



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